I may have caused the problem, but it isn’t my fault Tech Support |
- I may have caused the problem, but it isn’t my fault
- Protocol is whatever you say it is
- Threatened to be fired....for asking customer to download free software
- Computers need to be plugged in. Whodathunkit!
- We didn't pay for the flux capacitor AKA liar, liar, pants on fire
- Solidworks and a Company's Shared Drive
- Excelling in Communication
- And, a waste of time
| I may have caused the problem, but it isn’t my fault Posted: 22 Mar 2021 02:22 PM PDT TL;DR at the end, and a note for this story. I am an Industrial Engineer by both education and trade. In other words, servers are new to me, and everything I have learned about them, I have learned on site. This isn't relative to the story, but I wanted to get that out of the way in case any of my terminology was wrong. An additional note is that this isn't a "dumb user" sort of story to laugh at, but instead of a dumb me/service story that is hopefully entertaining in its own way. At work, we have a service, henceforth known as Service, that allows us to automatically send emails, create workflows, the works. Tt even used to let us tweet, even though we never used it. Basically, it is a reporting Service that reads our database, determines if the info is ready to send, and sends it away. We also have an external report outside this Service that makes sure nothing is "hung up" in the Service. It looks at what events are firing, and if an event stays there for more than one minute, it alerts us that there is an error. Well we now have a satellite location and have ~10 machines that are being looked at, so the report that caused this fiasco is taking a bit longer to execute and fire. Precisely one minute and one second. This means that during peak hours, the IT department, me, and the VP get an email that there is an error every 30 minutes, and it looks like we aren't monitoring the logs well enough. This machine error report is defined in the Service to run every n minutes, where n = 1. So I have the wise idea to change it to 1.25. During the exact same week, we move over to Office 365, so reports are failing front, back, and side to side as we are migrating everyone over. Then the errors subside, and the three groups above feel good about our accomplishments. We go home for the weekend, and all is good. Until Monday morning, where everyone claims to have not gotten reports. We scramble to check all of the emails work, and... they do? The external error email isn't bugging me, so no errors are detected. I manually send some reports, even creating reports from scratch to try, and they all work with the new email. What gives? I submit an urgent ticket to the Service's parent company and pray for prompt relief. The next morning, I get the email of "can you get on NOW?" from the Service rep. YES, I can, thank you, my hero. Looking into it, there doesn't seem to be problems. Everything sends correctly when manually sending them. I offer the really bad advice that "maybe it just isn't checking these reports?". After more investigation, Service is sending reports that are "every Sunday" or "at the first of each month"; it seems only "every n minutes" reports are busted. The Service rep looks into the admin logs, and there it is. "Cannot divide by zero". What? ...OH. I KNOW WHAT IT IS. So apparently, despite Service allowing me to enter the number and not giving me an error, Service cannot actually read decimal numbers, only integers. Service freaks out, and treats the 1.25 as zero. The Service rep, who was fantastic, laughs and says that it shouldn't have let me do that. It is more or less a defect that he will make sure is fixed in a future update. This just happened to line up exactly with the same day we upgraded to O365 to complicate things further. In my defense, I may have caused the problem, but it isn't my fault. The rep laughed and agreed. I thanked the rep, gave him a good dad joke, and we went our separate ways. TL;DR The email alert service we use cannot read decimals. It tried to read a decimal, failed, and instead tried to divide by zero, breaking everything. [link] [comments]  |
| Protocol is whatever you say it is Posted: 22 Mar 2021 01:48 PM PDT Network cabling for an international bank. Monday, 7am, woken up by ringing cellphone. It's the project manager. "Are you in the datacenter?" "What?" "Are you in the datacenter?" Roll over in bed, fire up laptop, VPN to the bank. No emails about any emergency. No missed projects I drank through. Work doesn't start for an hour the very least. "What's this about?" "Call me when you're in the datacenter." Oh, there's the hangover. One subway ride later where those in scrubs are about equal in number to those that need scrubbing, I'm sitting in the datacenter alone. Get called by a turret guy. "Are you in the office?" "Yeah." "So, they closed the sixth floor." "They closed the sixth floor early last year." "Yeah but now they shut off the switches." "Okay." "And the turrets that we use to test the recorded lines went down." "And these turrets; are they on the sixth floor?" "Yeah." "Sounds like a you problem." "We didn't expect NOC to shut down the switches!" Check my email. Oh, now I'm included in an email chain that spans four departments in three countries that date to late Saturday. Well, at least I wasn't called on Saturday. "So let me get this straight: Did NOC not inform you that they were doing this?" "No, they didn't!" Ooh, a scream test! And apparently there was lots of screaming indeed. Mostly in my head. "So what do you want me to do?" "Can you put the switches back?" "I'm network cabling, not network operations. If you want, I can throw 'em on a different switch in a different telecom room on a floor that wasn't shut off... December of 2019. But you're carrying them for me." "Let me call my boss... yeah, that'll work. Just one thing: They can't rest on the floor." "Why not?" "It's unprofessional." "Why start being professional now?" Get a text from the straw boss. "We have an idea for a solution as to the turrets." Text back. "Is it moving them to another floor?" "Yeah; can you do that?" "Do you know where I can get some rack shelves for the turrets?" "Just steal them." "Thanks for putting this in text. I'd hate to think protocol wasn't being followed." [link] [comments]  |
| Threatened to be fired....for asking customer to download free software Posted: 22 Mar 2021 02:36 AM PDT Recently stumbled upon this place, I wanted to share my experience that turned me into the bitter jaded engineer I am today. Names have been changed to protect the innocent. I was a newbie, 6 months into the job, I'd been handed a case, fairly simple by the looks of things, should be a simple re-setup of their configuration files so I call up the chap. Customer: Ahhhhh Hello Herr KodaanUnstoppable, I have been expecting your call Me: Good Morning Mr Customer, how are you today? Customer: I am most relaxed, I went snow boarding over the weekend you see. Anyhoo, I'll save you the whole story but we were getting on like a house on fire, he asked me to call him by his first name which was very uncommon at the time. However, things took a dark turn. Me: Okay, so if you download this piece of software I can gain access to your system with you now and we can get the resolution implemented. Customer: WHY DO I NEED TO ALWAYS BE DOWNLOADING SOFTWARE?! Me: If you just download it, it's free and we can get this issue resolved. Customer (doesn't want to hear any of this): WHY?! WHY?! You think all I can do is afford to download this expensive software? You are the worst, this is how you make your money, you should be fired. etc etc. I lost track of how long this went on for, my manager claims that I just sat there apologizing over and over until I finally snapped. Me: Right, listen to me, I will send over a guide as you're unwilling to download free software. click I begin working on the guide, it's got screenshots, helpful tips, took me 3 hours to write it all up, all the while I'm getting pings from our Customer Facing teams saying that I've really upset this customer and they're trying to get through to my manager. Eventually I hear my manager get called and he says "Ahhh yes, this customer threatened my engineer so he's doing things differently this time" whilst giving me a PM to call up the customer. Customer: Ahhhh good, finally, I trust you have my solution? Me: I most certainly do, I'm set to email it to you now and this'll be the last time we speak. Customer: Wait one moment please I hear him move into a second room I want you to know, I know people in your company, I can get you fired if this solution doesn't work, I will ensure you never work again. Me (By this time I've had enough): Okay, please feel free to raise any concerns you may have with my manager as you know him so well. Customer: Oh believe me, I will do. Anyhoo, I send over the document, should take around 4-5 hours to implement the changes, within 25 minutes I get a call. Customer: IT ISN'T WORKING. I DEMAND TO SPEAK TO YOUR MANAGER NOW! Me: Okay. (At this stage I transferred the call to my manager, I'm not entirely sure what happened but my manager then called me into one of our training rooms) Manager: Okay, so, tomorrow we've agreed to one big call, you, me, your mentor, the customer and his manager. How certain are you about your solution? Me: 100%, I'll implement it if I have too. Manager: Good chap. The next morning, I get to work super early, double and triple check my solution, air tight. We all gather for the call, I'm quite literally s****** myself at this stage, he joins after his manager. Customer: So, KodaanUnstoppable, show me this masterful solution. Me: Happy to do so. And so begins what I expect to be the longest 4-5 hours of my life, but imagine my surprise, within 5 minutes the system starts working again. Step 2 was to engage the config file, turns out he hadn't done that at all. Me: And we're back (I honestly wished I'd said something funnier but I was really tired) Customer: THIS IS A CONSPIRACY! YOU'RE TRYING TO GET ME FIRED. Me (To this day my finest moment): You mean like you tried to get me fired? Customer Manager: Okay, okay, I think there is some bad blood here, we shall end the call now. Call ends, my manager comes up to me, smile from ear to ear. Manager: I'm proud of you, chap. (he called everyone chap) Long story short, I stayed at this company for going on 6 years, I'm now actively involved in training our new recruits. Every 6 months I retell this story as an example of no matter how much they shout, you can't get fired. As for the customer? He still works for the company, I know this as our system won't assign tickets from him to me following this, apparently I'm still trying to get him fired. Thank you for reading, if you want more let me know, I have many many more. TL:DR - Customer and I get on great, ask them to download free software, he goes bananas, threatens to fire me. I spend 3 hours crafting them a solution guide, ask customer to implement it. Customer says it doesn't work, threatens again to have me fired. Enter a massive joint call between managers, I implement the solution, turns out the customer didn't do basic stuff. He accuses me of trying to get him fired. Edit - So this blew up! The joys of having to work, I wanna thank everyone for the awards, super kind and generous of you all. Also to all the comments, I hope I hit them all, if I missed you, I'm sorry! I'll bring you cake! [link] [comments]  |
| Computers need to be plugged in. Whodathunkit! Posted: 22 Mar 2021 12:03 PM PDT In the previous night's second shift, one of the production employees unplugged one computer in order to charge his personal cellphone (which they're not allowed to have on the floor anyway). Third shift complained that they couldn't work and instead of using the other computer that's located less than 10 steps away, they chose not to report any production. Mind you, the unplugged computer was not intended for the line they were running, but they "like using it better" (they're all the same image and hardware, so I don't know what that means). At around 5:30AM (an hour before their shift ended), they emailed their manager and our manager that they couldn't report production since second shift. They didn't bother telling anyone else, like, say, IT. 7AM, we get an email from our manager. "None of the computers on the floor work!!!" It continues to say that this is "unacceptable" and that we "must always have working computers". He ended it with "I don't care what you need to do to get the computers working do it!! Install bigger hard drives or whatever makes the computers faster!!" We replied back with a picture of the single computer that was unplugged, explained that it was one computer that they unplugged to charge their personal phone, that the other 20-something computers were all working perfectly fine, that there is no IT restriction that can be placed to prevent someone from unplugging the computer, and that we can't be 24-hour babysitters to a bunch of adults (nicely, of course). Well... I guess, as long as we install bigger hard drives or whatever makes the computers faster, we'll be set.... TL;DR (kind of): Sometimes, the solution is for a manager to be a manager. There's not always an IT solution. Oh, and computers don't turn on when they're unplugged, because they require electricity to work (which, apparently, is a hard concept). [link] [comments]  |
| We didn't pay for the flux capacitor AKA liar, liar, pants on fire Posted: 21 Mar 2021 09:39 AM PDT I supported a sales system where sales reps would work up their quotes and then submit for approval and processing. The orders the reps did were "bulk" orders usually over $100K and frequently over $300K so you'd think they would take time to double check the details. The business model was to list all items on the order at MSRP and have any negotiated discount rolled up in a "sale discount" line with the amount for the discount on the entire sale. I received a ticket one day that "the system" had failed to copy the discount amount on the sales discount line on one of the quotes to the resulting order. This was the first and only report we had of this type of system error so I suspected the rep was lying. Without going into all the details, between the audit trail and timing of the test environment data refresh I was able to prove conclusively that the rep had left the discount amount at zero dollars on the quote until after the order had been invoiced. He had changed the quote after the resulting order had been completed and closed. (We should have locked the quotes down once they had been submitted, approved and pushed through but the business said we needed to keep the quotes editable for "reasons".) The sales rep had just flat out forgotten to fill in the discount amount he had agreed upon with the customer and then tried to blame the system. I took all the information to my boss. He told me to summarize my findings in an email to two levels of rep's hierarchy and himself (my boss) and close the ticket with "No system defect found". I made sure to keep a backup copy of all my screenshots etc buried in my "CYA" folder. I can't say that I recall for sure what happened but I don't think he was with the company for too long after that. Word actually got around pretty quick amongst the reps that blaming their mistakes on "the system" was not going to work. [link] [comments]  |
| Solidworks and a Company's Shared Drive Posted: 21 Mar 2021 11:30 AM PDT I'm not sure if this story would qualify as tech support but might as well. Recently I interned at an electronics production company where I was assigned to the engineering department (mechanical design, wiring, jig maintenance, etc.). Around the same time I got into the company, a woman about my age (we'll call her Tiffany) also started interning there. Tiffany was a pretty capable and diligent worker and our coworkers there were really fond of her. (like, REALLY fond) The story starts a month into our internship when our supervisor, Carl, handed us separate design tasks using Solidworks. This task was put on top of our regular jig and machine maintenance at the production line so we were quite busy that day. I got, presumably, one of the easier out of the 2 design tasks. Carl gave us instructions on how he wanted the structures to be and told us of design elements we could use that were already in the company's shared drive for parts that the company readily had. So the both us went to work on the projects in the morning while still helping out the engineers in the production line. Granted that the projects were fairly simple we were told to have the designs available by tomorrow morning to show to the project manager. Around lunchtime I noticed Tiffany had started to take a few available parts from the workshop as reference. At the time I merely thought nothing of it because I knew she was competent enough to do her work and continued with my own work. At around 5 my work was nearly done and I was stretching myself when I turned around to see a frustrated Tiffany massaging her head facing her monitor. I decided to initiate some small chat and ask if her work was ok. Me: 'You doing okay there?' Tiff: ' I would be if there weren't so many goddamn parts in this project.' Puzzled, I decided to look at her monitor to see how her progress was going. There staring blankly at me in the face was a custom screw cap that was a usual sighting in the company. Me: ' What about the parts? ' Tiff: 'I wished Carl just gave us the 3d models for these parts.' That's when I realised what she had been doing for the past working day. She had been making the 3d models for each and every part that was going into the project. INCLUDING THE ONES THAT WERE ALREADY AVAILABLE IN THE COMPANY DRIVE. Me: 'He did give them.' Tiff: 'What do you mean?' Me: 'They're in the company drive.' Tiff: 'What company drive?' She seemed bewildered when I started to navigate to the company drive on her pc. When I clicked on the file with the 3d models she stared blankly at them for a good minute before putting her face in her hands. For her project there were around 15 parts that she could have gotten from the company drive like screws, caps, nozzles, etc. For every minute of the working day she had worked on EVERY SINGLE ONE of them FROM SCRATCH and had barely started on the main structure. Tiffany then continued her work with a sullen face (using the available 3d models) while I finished up on my work when it was nearing the end of the shift. Tiffany had no choice but to work overtime to finish her task. I initially decided to leave on time to meet with some friends but later thought to cancel my plans and also work overtime to help her out. Later went out for a late dinner with her and she explained how she had no idea what the company drive was, ignored it and merely continued with work. So that's basically the whole story and how I got my first girlfriend. Sorry for the medium-to-long post. This is my first time posting here. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 21 Mar 2021 07:04 PM PDT Hi guys, long time reader first time poster. I've worked as a tech for a small MSP for a few years now and I experience my fair share of Reddit worthy moments. You tend to get a feel for a users technical abilities over the years but sometimes it just hits you like a sack of bricks. The lovely $adminlady of this particular office spends all day using Microsoft Office, especially Excel. She often has her head in a spreadsheet each day. Today her usual routine was thrown off as she was using a temporary computer assigned to her after leaving her laptop at home. No worries though, I connect through TeamViewer and sign her into OneDrive and Microsoft Office having all her files synced in a matter of seconds. I open Microsoft Word to check that her Office365 has been activated, everything looks happy so I disconnect my TeamViewer and say my goodbyes... $adminlady: Wait I need to check Excel will open $me: Oh sure, just open it up then $adminlady: I can't see the shortcut $me: Just type it in the start menu and you'll see it there $adminlady: ... It says Network Discovery is turned Off? $me: \Oh good she has opened file explorer and not the start menu** $me: Okay so you'll need to click on the start menu down the bottom left hand corner and type it into the search box there $adminlady: Oh! The start menu okay.... and I type Excel? $me: Yes, Excel, then you should see the icon appear. $adminlady: It's asking me to register Excel I dont understand, didn't we just do this? Surely it can't be that hard, I just signed her into Office365. There shouldn't be any possible issues with her opening Excel, maybe she has an old version on there that isn't working. I fire up my TeamViewer once more and reconnect. $me: Ahh I see the issue. You'll need to type in E X C E L Bless her heart, the lovely $adminlady has typed in the letters "xl" and Windows first search result was an .xlsx file named "Register" $me: Here you go, I'll just pin this shortcut to the taskbar so you don't have to worry about that anymore $adminlady: Is it definitely registered??? $Me: Yes, yes it is definitely registered.. Have a lovely day $adminlady, and please don't forget your laptop tomorrow. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 21 Mar 2021 12:02 PM PDT So one evening, recently, I get a text from a customer who I had helped before. He basically said he wanted to get a new laptop for his wife but he really knew nothing about computers and knew I did, so he really wanted my help. He informed me that the system she has is only a year old but it is running like garbage and he thinks it needs replaced. He told me that he had a $1,000.00 budget. He said he trusts my recommendation and has the money in hand. He informed me of what she will use the system for etc etc. Now I should let you guys know, that I had prior knowledge of his wife's system as I have worked on it recently. It has a intel i3 with 4gb RAM and a mechanical hard drive. So anyway, now I did tell him at the time that my recommendation would include at least an i7 CPU, a solid state hard drive as well as a minimum of 16GB RAM. He responds with, "Yes, whatever you suggest, as long as it is better than what she has now and as long as it dont exceed $1,000.00. So I told him to give me a few hours and I would just email him a few links to some systems (On amazon) that I would recommend. So about an hour later, I find a little bit of time. I sit down and get to work on searching out some systems that would fit his budget and what his wife will be using it for. Of course, this does not take a lot of time. when you know what you are looking for and know how to use the search filters, it goes pretty quick. All in all, after comparing 3 different laptops, I sent him the links in an email in the order that I would recommend each system and included an explanation of why I suggested each one in the order that did. By this time, it is late and I knew I would not get a reply, so I went on to bed. Well this morning, I wake up, get my day started and around mid morning I get a text from the guy. The text includes a link, to Wal-Mart, and it shows a Laptop. The text reads, "I got your email, thank you. We decided to order this one last night. What do you think?" I asked, "You already ordered it?" He says replies, "Yes" I open the link, look at the system, and could almost not contain my laughter. The system he ordered was the same exact model as the one he had and so of course it had the same exact specs. LOL...It took me a good 10 minutes to reply because I was laughing and then of course I had the confusion, and then of course that turned to anger because again, I had gone out of my way to help someone that was not going to listen to someone who knows what they are talking about. Now yeah I could have replied called the guy an idiot, could have told him he ordered the same exact system, but I took the high road. I simply replied and said, "Great man, hope it works out for ya guys. Talk to you later." So I hope you guys find this comical, amusing, educational, etc. Have a great night everyone! TL;DR; Person asks for help getting an up to date usable laptop to replace their current. They end up ignoring the recommendation by a pro and buys the same model system (Same Specs) they were trying to replace. [link] [comments]  |
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