"I already did that" Tech Support |
- "I already did that"
- IT adventures that really butters your muffins
- The Dreaded 301 Error!
- We don't have a purple router in our store, I'm sure of it....
- A regular who just doesn't learn.
- Http 418 Error
- Technologically Impaired
- Uh....pobody's nerfect?
- Day of Enlightenment
- Accidently changed the language the printer used
| Posted: 29 Mar 2021 10:02 PM PDT Received a call from a site today complaining about multiple pieces of equipment offline. Taking a look at the site, I know all of those devices are connected to the same switch. I ask the the caller to do a reboot. So just a simple turn off and back on. She gets livid and swears up and down she already tried that and tells me to actually solve the problem. I assure her that power cycling it is helping in "solving the problem." she again reassures me that she already did this step a couple times and it doesn't need to be done. After convincing her to go do it, she comes back to the phone and says, "I don't see a power switch or button, how do I turn it off?" she needed directions to power cycle this device that she supposedly already did a couple times. [link] [comments]  |
| IT adventures that really butters your muffins Posted: 29 Mar 2021 10:26 AM PDT Takes call: How can I help you Customer: I can't get my screens to work, they are all black. I took my laptop home and the battery died over the weekend. Me: Okay no problem. Are you currently working from home are you are in the office? Customer: I'm in the office today, nothing works, everything is shit (goes on tangent) Me: I'll assist you with all your issues. Are you currently connected to a docking station? Checks VPN - VPN is good runs gpupdate, sfcscannow, checks software updates (Needs a million of them) Informs customer: It does look like there are quite a few updates to install, this will take some time. Is there anything else you can do in the meantime while I work on this in the background? Customer: (Begrudgingly sighs) I suppose I can, I'm working off my iPad, I really need you to get this fixed ASAP. Me: No problem, I'll work on these issues as fast as possible. Informs the customer on the steps I'm taking and how long they will take About 30 minutes goes by, updates are still installing, multiple PC restarts have taken place, and the customer is getting extremely antsy Customer: Any progress, I needed you to fix this like yesterday Me: I'm still working on the issues, we will have to perform a few more restarts for the updates to install properly. Once those are complete we will also have to disassemble the docking station and power cycle it since the other monitors are not displaying properly Customer: Oh my god you are slow, just fix this already Me: ............ "about 50 minutes into the call, technically making progress so it's not an escalation" Okay, I need you to restart your machine, connect it to the docking station, then proceed with plugging the power cord back into the docking station All steps are performed Customer: What the hell, my screens are all still black, you didn't fix it. Oh wait, I see the taskbar on all the screens but they are all still black. Me: Explains that our version of Bomgar blacks out the screen to protect the customer's privacy Customer: Oh..., Okay, that's still dumb though. Also why did my font change, what did you do with those updates, the text looks different I don't like it Me: Verified everything else is running as it should, it is. It could have been due to the software updates, I can take a look into the font settings and change them for you Customer: No it's fine, you took long enough. "hangs up" Me sighing in the background. No problem, glad I fixed all of your problems but now you want to get shitty over how the text looks on your screen. Sounds like some afternoon drinking is in store. Edit for context - First off, thank you for the overwhelming support! I wrote the above post in a bit of a fit of rage to vent. I'm in T1 Help Desk, so there are a lot of things outside of my scope. Unfortunately the phone filtering system is horrendous, and my department is often told to troubleshoot as best as possible regardless then escalate once you've reached a point where you're not making progress. Since I was technically making progress I stuck with the call. I fully understand making the customer sit there was far from ideal, but so was having a customer with an unusable system, as well as escalating something I knew how to fix. I'm told I'm wasting time by fixing it myself, but the issue with sending it up is they are starting from square one. I already have the remote session going, I already have the updates necessary to get them up to speed going, and I'm already the best key to get them going. For those of you who have shown your support, thank you! For those of you who seem to have lost touch with T1 expectations, maybe it wouldn't hurt to revisit that role for a little while. Everyone asks how you want to stand out, well for me, I want to be the guy that knows how to fix the problem and not throw it on someone else's lap. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 29 Mar 2021 10:31 PM PDT A true story from 1987: Mary: "Hi, tech support? This is Mary, from the VP's office, and I have a serious problem." Me: "Hi, Mary! What's your problem? How can I assist you today?" Mary: "Well, I just moved into my newly remodeled office, put the PC back on the desk, plugged it in, and now, when I boot the PC, it says "301!" Me: "Mary, please look closely at the screen. Can you verify it says "301" and not "103" or even the dreaded "013"? Mary: "I tried it again. No, it shows 301. I am so screwed! My boss wants his presentation delivered in an hour, and I hadn't made a backup copy yet. What can I do?" Me: (suppressing the urge for an evil laugh) "I would recommend you start by finding the box which you packed your keyboard in, and then plugging it into the back of your computer." Decorum prevents me from repeating the names she called me. [link] [comments]  |
| We don't have a purple router in our store, I'm sure of it.... Posted: 30 Mar 2021 03:39 AM PDT Years back when I worked graveyard I got a call from a location whose credit cards stopped processing. It's a secure system so it has its own router within the client network which has all the CC systems connected to it. That router was known to lock up occasionally and a reboot fixes it most of the time. It's a purple faced router. I asked the girl on the phone to find the purple router and reboot it. Her: 'we don't have a purple router.' Me: 'well the system actually needs that router to function, you couldn't process cards without it. It's a black box with a purple face on the front, name says XYZ.' Proceeds to look for 30 seconds then argues that they don't have one and she doesn't want to move equipment to follow cables (unmounted shelf equipment). Me: 'alright well we will need to schedule a tech which will take a few days or if you can have a manager or someone who can follow the cabling to find the router.' Her: sighs.....'okay thank you' disconnect Couple hours later, manager from the location calls, happens to route to me as we were pretty dead (pun intended), and she's yelling about the previous rep telling her employee about a purple router they don't have. Me: 'well ma'am that was me and unfortunately you have to have a purple router there with XYZ name on the front, otherwise your card system couldn't possibly work. I can guide you to finding it by following a certain cable.' Manager: 'I'm telling you we don't have this purple router! Fix my card system!' Me: 'Ma'am I would love to help get you back online, could we just try following some cables?' Manager: 'ugh fine whatever, you're just wasting time, I had to drive 2 hours to come here for this crap' I proceed to tell her which cable to follow from which piece of equipment...I hear her moving stuff out of the way to keep following the cable....more moving....couple minutes later..... Manager(her voice completely quiet now): 'okay I've come to this box......' Me: 'okay does it have a purple face on the front that says XYZ on it?' Manager: '.........yes it does' Me(laughing like a hyena internally): 'okay perfect! So let's go ahead and unplug the power cord from the back of the purple router and wait 30 seconds' 30 seconds later.... Me: 'okay let's plug the power back into the purple router' Plugged back in, lights start coming up, sync to the network complete. Asked manager to try a card, card goes through just fine. Me: 'great! So we were able to get you back online after rebooting the XYZ purple router. For future reference you can try rebooting the purple router if it happens again, it could possibly save you a lot of time. Otherwise I would have had to send a technician out to reboot the purple router in your store which would have cost you a fee and a few days.' Manager(quietly): '........okay thanks bye' click All that anger and frustration gone after 6 minutes of following instructions. [link] [comments]  |
| A regular who just doesn't learn. Posted: 29 Mar 2021 10:03 AM PDT Hi So, today's story is a bit of an odd one as it isn't finished yet. So I work for an estate agency company. Not gonna say which. But. There is 1 user who repeatedly calls. Let's call her RV for sale of her identity. But anyway. Each day. Without fail, we receive a call from her. Within the last year. She has 316 records logged. That is more than the number of days we have worked in the past year due to weekends and times off. And she calls more times than that to chase them. It has gotten to the point where me and the Boi's on the help desk have started to joke about the things she calls for. For instance on one occasion RV called us to ask us how to put a property on our system. NEED I REMIND YOU she is an estate agent who should be putting properties on pretty much daily. Another example of a stupid call from her. Was her asking how to access her emails. You know a simple fix. I ask her what she has done so I know not to repeat any of the troubleshooting as it just wastes time. She said she restarted and she did this that the other. I connect to her machine. And well. You guessed it. She hadn't clicked the Icon. Dear lord. She had expected the app to open it self. Now for her most recent escipade. She called up to ask us to call a member of the public who was selling a property through us to help him with accessing his emails. "We aren't calling a member of the public to fix his emails he would need to speak to his own IT support" "YEAH BUT HE NEEDS TO ACCESS THE EMAIL I JUST SENT HIM!!" "Look, we are support for internal IT. He can't access his emails? Cool good for him we do not support him. He would need to speak to his own company." "I asked you to call him." "Lemme put you on hold to speak to my manager" Manager said that I was in the right. "As I said. I can't speak to him he has to sort it himself. It's his problem not yours or mine. I can't call him." "YOU HAVE GOT TO BE SERIOUS!!" hangs up Me: checks call queue to see she immediately called back Also me: requests her call to tell her the same thing Also also me: repeats the the last 2 steps till she stopped calling about a member of the public not being able to access his emails [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 30 Mar 2021 03:33 AM PDT I had a user years back who was being "challenging" - she was difficult, obstructive and generally nasty. One of the things I needed to do when she (and others) had a problem with a statistics program was to reset something on the web server (was quicker and easier than a reboot) - I'd always be within the SLA, but I'd be sure to adjust my speed based on the "attitude test" The user base knew that we'd have to do something on the server and accepted this (it was a flaky POS anyway) - Almost always, she'd get slow service and if her attitude was crappy, I'd tell her that I'm getting a http 418 error and to hang on a while until I called her back This was in the days before easy (and stable) web searching and definitely pre smartphone so she never cottoned on. Happy days 😀 Nowadays I use http 418 at every given opportunity 😀😀 [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 29 Mar 2021 10:12 AM PDT This was on the late 90s. The company was working on ISO-9000 certification. A lot of documents are being generated for the certification. The head of the Quality Department was a government bureaucrat in his old job. He is a computer problem magnet. He says he is going to "die virgin in computing" meaning he is never going to learn to use a computer. And he's proud of it. Anyway. He starts complaining about his computer being very slow. (Probably Windows 95). He got his computer checked, fragmented, etc. Besides, he complains not using official channels. He keeps complaining. A memory upgrade was approved/ordered for his computer by management. Memory was very expensive those days. At that point, his computer had more memory than any other non server computer at the company, even engineering workstations. (Solaris) The problem goes away like for six months. My friend is assigned to tackle with the problem. Remember we're certificating for ISO-9000 an this problem is now "delaying" the certification. (I's always good to have an IT department to blame). All the tests done on the computer reveal it's not slow. The user explains his work process. He reveals that the computer feels the slowest when printing his word file. My friend gets suspicious, and asks the user to show him "his Word file". Turns out the he did't know you can have multiple word files on your drive. He had only one file, about 8,000 pages long. Anytime he needed to write a new procedure, he would put some returns to force a page change, and start a new one. When printing he would print from page 7,983 to 7,993. Support joked about this person having a curse on him. Over the years he had several hard disks replaced, more than anyone of the company. He cannot print... turns out he was printing to the wrong printer on a different floor. Like 30 copies wasted. Because "if it does not work the first time, you have keep trying". Edit: Some spelling. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 28 Mar 2021 06:51 PM PDT I worked for a large local computer company in the early 90s. I originally worked in their configuration department, then when I had orthopedic surgery, I was moved to the tech support phones while I recovered. Turns out I was pretty good at that, so I was put there full time. I took a lot of pride in my work; a lot of customers liked me and I liked them. One day, at about 2:30 or 3 on a Friday afternoon, I was on the phones when I felt my team leader hovering over my shoulder. I was just wrapping up the call so he waited for me to finish, and as soon as I hung up he told me our boss, needed me in his office. The look on my face must've been great because he told me I wasn't in trouble, but I needed to get there ASAP. When I arrived I found our boss with his boss (a VP), and the phone was on speaker. They introduced me to the voice on the speakerphone: It was the Regional VP for a Big Computer Manufacturer, and Mr. Regional VP said to me, "Boss and VP tell me you're the best at dealing with difficult customers." It seems my bosses had gotten good feedback from the people I had been dealing with on the phones, so I was picked for this special job, which was: My company had just sold about 250 computers, monitors, and NICs to another company--let's call them EX. The Regional VP of Big Computer Manufacturer had just been called out of a meeting to endure the CIO of EX yelling at him, saying the computers they had bought were crap, the NICs they bought were crap, nothing was working, everything was going to be sent back to my company, and everybody was going to be sued. Honest. This is not hyperbole. My company had sold these computers to EX but they didn't ask for anything to be done to them: No configuration and not only that, they were installing the NICs and putting the CPUs on the desks themselves. They were moving offices, you see, and their moving gift to their employees was new computers for the new office. I think everybody except for the CIO of EX could see 250 computers not working had to be due to something EX had done, but....customers, you know? Also, no pressure on me. I was authorized for any and all OT needed and Regional VP gave me the personal phone numbers for about a dozen of their top tier tech support people who would be able to help me with any issue I might have. My bosses gave me their home phone numbers as well as the personal phone numbers for our best Netware guys....and my Friday night drinking plans were put on hold. Also, this site was in another state, about an hour drive on a good day and two (or more) hours during rush hour, but at least I was on the clock. I headed to the customer site. I arrived at just about the time I would normally be sipping my first beer at the bar and I called the number I had been given for CIO's right-hand man, Tim, who opened the door and greeted me. He was a guy who looked like he had just graduated from the local community college which was exactly what he was, as I later found out. He explained the situation to me, and it was that none of the computers were connecting to the network. Not a one. The printers, however, were, as far as they could tell, as they could send stuff to them from the servers. The NICs all had a heartbeat, so I thought cabling and everything was OK. My concern was the server configuration itself, as I was NOT a Netware guy. I was good on DOS but if I had to go server side....at least I had a ton of phone numbers to call. Then I realized I didn't have a login prompt. Back in the DOS 5/Windows 3.1 days, there were two really useful, really important files that pretty much set up your computer to work. One of them was CONFIG.SYS but that wasn't an issue. The other was AUTOEXEC.BAT and that was what I concentrated on. For those of you who don't know, AUTOEXEC.BAT is a BATch file, and all it does is run a batch of commands, one after the other, and the damn-near universal first line in an AUTOEXEC was ECHO OFF. This line meant that you wouldn't see the commands being run in the AUTOEXEC.BAT until you got to the last line, and that last line was a damn-near universal LOGIN command, which we weren't seeing. So I read thru the AUTOEXEC, then read it again, and I realized the AUTOEXEC.BAT had a line that referred to a second batch file. The AUTOEXEC did just what it was told: It ran a few commands, then ran the second batch file, then everything stopped when the second batch file finished what it had to do. Tim was looking over my shoulder. "Tim," I asked. "Who gave you this AUTOEXEC?" "The CIO," he answered. Yep, the person who had called up Big Computer Manufacturer and pulled a Karen on them. I copied the AUTOEXEC.BAT to AUTOEXEC.OLD (just a good practice) and edited the original, adding "CALL (space)" in front of the second batch file. Saved it, rebooted, and was rewarded with a login prompt. I moved over and asked Tim to logon. He logged on successfully, and I explained what had happened while he made sure he could access the network & its resources. On the second machine I showed Tim the edit to make; it checked out. He tried it on a third and after logging on, he leaned back in his chair and said, "We need to tell the CIO." We headed toward her office and when we arrived, we saw she was in her office with someone else. Tim stopped short. "Can you wait out here? That's the President of the company." No problem, bro, just point me to a phone so I can give my boss a sit-rep. While Tim talked to his bosses, I talked to mine, who just sighed and told me he'd call everyone else to let them know and I should let him know when I was leaving. I stepped back into the hall and Tim waved me inside, where I gave the President & CIO the story. He was interested and asked some good questions, while the CIO looked mortified. His final question was, "Is this the only thing needed?" I answered that from what Tim tells me, this is it. Tim knows this network better than I and if he thinks that's it, then I think that's it. The President looked a silent question at Tim, who just nodded, then asked me how long it would take to edit the remaining workstations. I thought for a minute, then realized I could make a boot diskette that we could use in the machines: Pop it in and let the disk do the work. "How long will this disk take to create?" he asked. Honest, the longest part was formatting the bootable diskette and making multiple copies. Back then, you could edit any new text file with the command COPY CON (FILENAME.EXT) on the fly. The AUTOEXEC.BAT on the diskette would delete the bad AUTOEXEC from the workstation, then copy the working AUTOEXEC.NEW on the diskette to AUTOEXEC.BAT on the workstation. Pop the diskette out, reboot, and watch your beautiful new LOGIN prompt on the workstations: del c:\autoexec.bat copy a:\autoexec.new c:\autoexec.bat He nodded. "OK, let's do this: Can you come back tomorrow?" I nodded. "Do you mind if I call your boss? Tim, get him some disks and we'll test them on a couple of workstations. If it works, we'll come back tomorrow and finish up. It's been a long f'ing day." He called my boss while I made some diskettes; Tim tested them. I called my boss before leaving and told him the plan and he told me I could spend all weekend there if I wanted to. I was onsite the next morning at 9AM as agreed; in the meantime Tim, the President, and the CIO had already fixed about a fourth of the machines with my diskettes. They asked me to stick around to help out with some busy work, which really consisted of me and Tim chatting while breaking down the boxes for all of the stuff they bought. This is where I also learned the CIO had pretty much been working for 3 days straight on no sleep, so I can't really fault her for missing those five characters. Finally, the busy work was to give the pizza & beer time to arrive. In the end: I got nice thank-you notes from the President & CIO of EX and the VP of Big Computer Manufacturer placed in my file, EX signed a nice support contract with my company, Tim turned into a pretty good friend, and I was Employee of the Month, for a $100 bonus. TL;DR: CIO calls up manufacturer, threatens lawsuit, learns no sleep makes you forget how DOS works. EDIT: Thanks for 1.8K upvotes in under 20 hours! I'd like to clarify a couple of things. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 29 Mar 2021 04:37 AM PDT So early in my career as an IT contractor I had signed up for a certification by a big name company (lets call them Soso) which requires a few exams. After 3 exams I got a pick of jobs so I did not complete the full cert. Anyway I got a call from Soso that they were running a free motivation day with free food near me so I went along. As the key to a mans heart is through his stomach they had me hooked on the word 'food'. Quite a few of us were there and the leader was a sort of church evangelical preacher for software, to get us motivated to complete the certs. It got me all fired up and so I phoned the boss to say I'm taking two weeks off to study. He was good about it, as anything I studied may be implemented at work. Couple of days later I get a call from a friend of a friend. "Hi I hear that you have some time off." "Yes I'm studying for my cert, so I'm fully focussed." "Well as your not working, can you take a look at our problem. None of our computers are working. We had a consultant in and he was not able to fix it." The words 'fully focussed' seen to have fallen on deaf ears, so I pitched up the next day with BNC cable and screwdriver in hand. I login to the first PC and it looks fine, then the 2nd and the 3rd and they all look identical hmm. "Has anyone else been trying to fix these Pcs?" say I. "Yes the boss tried to fix them before calling in the consultant." was the reply. Thats when the penny dropped. The boss had copied the config from 1 PC to all the others so every PC had the same name. So I rename the Pcs and got 8 working but 2 were not playing ball. Turns out that there was a faulty cable behind the wall and 1 faulty nic. I billed them and the boss was well chuffed and offered me a job which I kindly refused. [link] [comments]  |
| Accidently changed the language the printer used Posted: 28 Mar 2021 09:43 PM PDT So this story isn't about a client not understanding computers, but actually about how I made a slight accident that extended a job from by an extra hour. When I was an intern in a companies IT department, I was tasked with setting up a new printer for one of the divisional offices, a very simple and easy task. The printer was even already at the office so I didn't have to lug it around town. When I got to the office I started setting unpacking the printer and put it where the office people wanted it, on top of a 4 foot filing cabinet. When I get it up there I start plugging it in. The power first then the network cable. After I turn on the printer, I'm asked to move it over just a little more. While doing this, my fat fingers accidentally press some buttons.... With only a couple button presses I managed to unknowingly set the printers language to Russian. I don't speak Russian. As an IT guy, I figure I can fix this pretty easily. I try (and fail) to find the language menu again. Then I try all the usual way to factory reset a machine. Then I try researching how to factory reset the printer. I then try reaching out to my coworkers. No cigar. Finally I have to call tech support for the printer. After being on hold for luckily not very long, maybe 15 minutes. I explain my situation and ask how to factory reset the printer. There is no way to do this. The man puts me on hold as he heads to the printer in their test lab. He ended up having to walk me through getting to the language menu from the main menu, and it was just him telling me to press different buttons different amounts of times. Finally the printer was set back to English and I could finish the Job. So this post is proof that sometimes even tech support needs to call tech support. [link] [comments]  |
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