When recycling goes too far. Tech Support |
- When recycling goes too far.
- My entire work files are stored in this Desktop shortcut
- guess what day it is!
- Who needs password protection, right?
- We don't do that.
- The World seems different today...
- Our Standby Server Is Missing
- When Voicemail Fails
- Actually had a good experience with someone else's Help Desk
| Posted: Short but sweet. Not my first post, but the first time I encountered this "printer problem". $Me: 1st level tech support guy for parliament. Can't say which. Okay, it's the German parliament. Doesn't really matter as no sensitive info is being disclosed. $C: Caller, nice office lady. $Me: "XYZ Helldesk, Chakkoty. How can I help you?" $C: "Hello! This is OfficeLady from the ABC department. My printer prints, but with every document it also prints an old, out of date one that I haven't printed." $Me: "That's odd. Lemme remote in and check." I do so, print a test page. I hear the infernal hellspawn that is her printer spit out a page. $Me: "Is that the test page? Or something else?" $C: paper rustling "Well no, now it's just a page of that old document again, just one page. Oh wait-" more paper rustling "It DOES have the test page, but on the other side. But it's still with the old document from a while ago." I would like you to imagine the following lines with increasing echo for dramatic purposes. Old document from a while ago Old document from a while ago OLD DOCUMENT FROM A WHILE AGO It dawns upon me and I carefully ask: $Me: "...is it possible someone put old documents in the paper tray so they could be...reused?" $C: "Oh wow I hope not, I would feel like an absolute idiot...you're right. Someone put old documents in the paper tray. Ashes on my head." A whole lot of "i feel stupid"s followed $Me: "No, no, no need to feel stupid. You didn't put them in there. It's fine. Have a nice day!" click This was a nice call. [link] [comments]  |
| My entire work files are stored in this Desktop shortcut Posted: This occurred in the days of 486 processor based desktop computers and Windows NT - I remember this vividly because this would have easily cost that admin person her job at the very worst. Consequently the IT file and folder infrastructure was mapped accordingly when the independent network services merged under a single container/entity/collective. One fine day, I get a frantic phone call from an admin staffer not from the original department I worked in whose computer stopped working and the tell tale signs of a dead HDD was apparent when I visited the person's desk - the sound the computer was making or rather the HDD itself was evident. I told the person that the computer was truly dead and all of the blood drained from her face but I assured her that I could have it back up in a few minutes after replacing the whole desktop computer with another one. Once the replacement was installed, the admin person logged in with some relief however that quickly turned to anger when the desktop shortcut on her login did not reveal any files or folders that she had meticulously built, organised and arranged in the years she worked there according to her. I had simply assumed that her electronically managed filing cabinet was stored in the network's file servers which is the primary reason of our existence and the services it provides. A thorough investigation yielded no evidence of the setup in the file servers plus examining the tape backups where the latter consumed a fair amount of time and again yielding nothing. By this time I was hauled up for incompetency before both the department head and IT manager after many a tearful complaint made against me by you-now-who. In the office of the department head I was asked to explain myself and I did as per the above and then to defend myself further I asked you-know-who as she was present as well to explain her modus operandi with file and folder management. As she could not explain it in words properly, the four of us adjourned at her desk to witness her demonstration on how she managed her files and folders. "Everything is saved into this shortcut" she says "Each and every file since the day you started?" I ask "Yes, I discovered that you can do this for convenience" she says "So, I never helped you out with this discovery at all? " I ask "No" she says "Do you see this P:\ drive and F:\ drive in your window " I ask pointing to Windows Explorer on the screen. "Yes, but I don't use it" she says "How do you obtain files you know exist but they don't reside in the shortcut?" I ask "I get one of the other admin staff to e-mail it to me" she says "Did you ever try looking for it in the F:\ drive?" I ask "It's all their stuff which I have no business in looking at" she says, now getting flustered. "Uh-huh, so can you please show me the property of this shortcut because I would like to know where it is pointing to" I say. "OK, here it is" she says executing the the request promptly " Hmmm, Cee, colon, back slash, windows, back slash, Files and Folders " (aka C:\Windows\Files and Folders) I read out aloud from the label displayed "Do you know the actual location of this 'Files and Folders' folder?" I ask "No! that's your job!" she replies in a mix of anger and anxiety. "Yes, that's my job and I have just completed it, you have a pleasant day" and I walked out of the office leaving the dept. head and IT Manager to deal with the fallout. Epilogue [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: my work is spread across two locations. the main office has 3 floors with 4 suites. the branch office has two buildings next to each other. each suite/building in the branch office has at least 2 printer/photocopiers which can be accessed with a code individual to each user. you log in via a touchpad. yesterday i amended an old email trail between myself, my manager and the photocopy support people to suggest that updates had been installed on the copiers to make it voice activated (it took me my entire lunch break), then forwarded that email late afternoon yesterday before COB with my own message that said Afternoon all Our photocopier engineers have installed an update to all of our copiers which will allow voice activation of printing and scanning (to reduce covid risk). This is based on the same technology that is used with Alexa/alexa clones. To print:
To scan
This is still in the test phase, so the usual method of signing in (using the touchpad) still works. If you are in the office though, please help us by using the new method and send any feedback to I.T. Those of you that own an alexa/alexa clone will know that sometimes it won't do what you want, so you need to talk slowly and clearly when following the instructions above. note that it is not uncommon for me to send out emails like this with updates. half an hour ago (midday) i sent an update with an attachment; the email body said many people had experienced problems with my instructions and to open the attachment for updated instructions. the attachment actually had a gif of homer saying 'and thats the story of april fools'. this morning i've had a few people catch me to say the instructions weren't working. keeping a straight face in these situations was the most difficult thing i've done in a long time. the highlight of my day is when the office junior attempted to follow the instructions above 4 times in a row, getting more irate each time. my co-worker and i were sat behind a screen 3 feet away with our fists in our mouths trying not to howl with laughter. after the fourth attempt she came to my desk and said 'it wasn't working'. i threw up my hands and was like 'does NOTHING work in this bloody place!? i'll look into it, thanks'. i deserve an oscar happy april fools everyone! [link] [comments]  |
| Who needs password protection, right? Posted: This happened recently. Disclaimer, I'm not IT but simply the most knowledgeable person in my department when it comes to any tech stuff. So they tend to ask me first before bothering IT with unnecessary stuff. Also not a native english speaker. This involved me and a coworker who I'll call Paul.
At that moment I was worried because our boss doesnt like to get his docs late and tends to get pissed off easily. So we went back to his computer (his still unlocked computer, that he apparently just stood up from and left unlocked. Just like his office door that was still open)
While I was internally facepalming I was looking for backups. I didnt find any. The folder where usually all the automatic saves go was empty, I couldnt restore the previous versions and there was no other save file either.
As far as I know he did get his file back somehow, but only after 4 hours past the deadline. Thankfully I was not the one who had to deal with our pissed off boss that day. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: This story belongs to a friend of mine. He work for a satellite tv service company (STSC for short) in tech support. A woman who doesn't use the company's service called to complain that the she just bought a house and wants someone from the satellite tv service to come out and remove the dish from the house. Here is the conversation. Tech: Hello and thank you for calling STSC. My name is Shep in Tech support how can I help you today? Karen: My name is Karen and I just bought a house and I want to know if I can have a tech come out to my house and remove the satellite on my house. Tech: I am sorry but we do not send out techs to remove satellites from house. If you want it removed than you have to do it yourself or hire someone else to remove. Karen: I didn't install it and I didn't want it on my house Tech: I am sorry, unfortunately we do not send out our techs to remove satellites. We only send them out to install or fix equipments that can't be fixed over the phone. Karen: Well I want you to send out a tech anyway and remove this eye sore. Tech: Sorry. Like I explain we cannot send tech out to remove the dish. You can remove it yourself or hire someone to do it for you. Karen: How am I suppose to remove it myself. It's up on the roof of my two story house. Tech: With a ladder Karen: Are you being serious? Tech: Unless you want rent a lift than you can use that instead Karen: I want to talk to your supervisor Tech: Sure I will be happy to transfer you. It will take some time as it is busy. So the Tech put her on hold and normally when a customer calls in and they pull up the account and on the account it give them an option to request a supervisor. Since this Karen didn't have an account. He had to try and call his supervisor from his cell phone and if the supervisor is busy he won't look at his phone. So it only took 5 minute for the Tech to reach the supervisor but by the time he got his extension the karen hung up. [link] [comments]  |
| The World seems different today... Posted: So today we had a problem in our management system. A bug that had to be solved fast as the program could not be used by many coworkers (who could not work for about 1.5 hours) So I called support (again). S: I found the problem and had to restart the licensing service but now you have to restart the mainprocess! Me: Is restarting the mainprocess dangerous if there are people workin with the program right now? S: Yes it is dangerous! Everything you do is dangerous! Me: Well yes it is, it is IT. But My question was - is it dangerous to restart the process while people are working with it? Could we loose data? S: Yes you could loose data, but you could have also lost data today in the morning. That was also dangerous. Me: Yes I know, but that was a bug in your software, not a restart of a process. I will restart the process later, when nobody is working in that program. S: No you have to restart it now, it is dangerous to not restart! Me; How so? Will we loose data if I don't restart? S: No! But you can't use the program X and program Y! Me: That is not a big problem. They can't use it right now, only 3 people not being able to use 5% of their daily work routine instead of a high possibility of loosing data of 100 people working in the mainprogram... S: But that is dangerous! Me: How so? S: (long silence) ... If you don't restart it, I will log onto the server and restart it myself! Me: Wait... What?! After that I managed to e-mail my colleagues to log out of the system so I can restart it (also again, yay...) and did a restart of that process... but how ignorant can an IT-Support be?! Did he read too many stories from BOFH? TLDR: Support wants to restart a program while people are still logged in instead of waiting for an hour. Because his brainfart is more important than loosing data... [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: As a contractor it is usually a god-send not to get involved in boardroom politics but I wish I was in the meeting as common sense had seriously gone out of the window <sheesh>. So I'm on this contract as system administrator and I've been there for about 3 months. We have a couple of print servers and a file server as well as other bits and bobs and a mainframe so a fairly small setup. A hardware engineer usually comes in on a Friday and fixes what he can, but on the whole everything is ticking along. A couple of weeks go by and I dont see the engineer. "Wheres Mr Fix IT" I ask. "He is no longer coming as we have renegotiated the contract" was the reply. Then the incident happens. Friday afternoon the file server goes down. I go and have a look and 2 drives have failed so lots of users cannot access their network share. Not a problem as we have a backup server next to Mr Fix IT's desk, or so I thought. I'm straight on the phone to the hardware company. "Where's our standby server?" I ask. "Your company did not want it on the new contract, so we took it back." "I need it now or at least some HDs!" "We can get you one on Monday or Tuesday" they reply at which point my jaw hits the ground. I gather myself up and tell the boss. "Oh. I guess we should not have changed the contract. Do what you can to fix it while I talk to the director." was his response. "Fine I'll figure something out" I replied while rolling my eyes. Time for Plan B. So on Saturday I came in and removed HDs from the print servers and placed them in the file server. Restored all the data from tapes which seems to take forever, and checked the shares and permissions. All done, sweet as a nut. The boss was in also but stayed out of my hair. I suspect he got a right roasting, but I did not rub it in as bosses go he was a decent chap. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: TL;DR - At the end In the late 1990s I was consulting at an Investment Bank as a Network Engineer. One of the V.P.s complains to my Manager (an employee of the Investment Bank) that I have been ignoring his voice mail requests for help for 3-4 weeks, and now my voice mailbox is full so the V.P. cant even leave a new message! That was apparently the last straw that made the V.P. contact my boss directly. I show my boss that I have no voice mail messages waiting on my desk phone. We then dial my phone from a different number and confirm that it goes to voicemail after 5 rings and allows us to leave a message. My boss is now as bewildered as I am, but he promises to handle the V.P. The next day, the V.P. has the same complaint. We repeat the steps above. My boss goes to The head of the Telephone support team to investigate. They are stumped too, so they send someone to the V.P., and ask him to try calling me. He doesn't phone me, he goes dirrectly into the Voicemail system to try to leave me a message, and he gets the "mailbox full" message. It was later determined that Somehow there was a different mailbox for my phone IF YOU TRIED TO LEAVE A MESSAGE DIRECTLY vs. what happens if no one picks up after 5 rings. Yes, he was trying to avoid talking to me by going directly to voice mail. That V.P. could have saved himself a month of waiting if he wasn't above talking directly to us peons in IT. TL;DR ~ V.P. adds a 1 month delay to a support request by refusing to talk directly to IT staff. [link] [comments]  |
| Actually had a good experience with someone else's Help Desk Posted: Some context, I work as a tech at a school. So late 2019, a teacher won a key for a teacher version of a program called Reflector, made for streaming a mobile device's screen to a computer. That was before I started working here, but from what seems to be a mix of not having a streamlined means of app approval, Covid, and maternity leave, we just got the go ahead to actually install the program recently. All that questionable decision making aside, I grabbed the ticket and went to install the program. I show up to their room, chat with them for a bit, sit down at their computer and they email me the key. I go to Reflector's site and look for downloads. Anything referencing "Reflector Teacher" says that it was rolled into Reflector 4 on the update from 3. From what I could see, there were no downloads for the Teacher version of the software, so I download 4. Unsurprisingly, the key doesn't work, it just tells me the version is wrong. So, uninstall that and resort to possibly more dubious means. I'm browsing what I can find for a third party download, just looking for the exe someone might have hosted, but no dice. I relay all this information to the teacher, that I can't actually install the right version because the right version is no longer available. Teacher is upset over the situation but understanding with me, they know it wasn't my decision to delay installing this long, the works. At the end of the day, they didn't have the software beforehand, they don't now, they'll live. So, I head back to my little cave of broken laptops and get and idea, why not put in a ticket with Reflector, see if anyone on their helpdesk can hook me up. So I put in a ticket and explain the situation, much more short form than I have here, but the point is made, and I go back to what I had been working on before hand. Within about 5 minutes, I get an email back from the savior of the situation, let's call him C. C sends me an email with 3 download links, the Mac version and win 32/64 versions. Turns out the download links for older versions are kept alive but are completely removed from their site, at least that's what it looks like. Regardless of which it is, I was able to head back to the teacher's room, once they got back from subbing for another teacher who had to step out, and tell them the good news. They were absolutely ecstatic over the turn of good news and I got the program installed. C, if you're somehow reading this, I don't want to respond and re-open your ticket, but it was a big help. [link] [comments]  |
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