You are not stupid! Tech Support |
- You are not stupid!
- Where's my website?
- Things Change After a Buyout...
- The Machine Eternal
- Why no one is allowed in the com closet.
- It's happening again - only your device isn't working!
- In this one I take too long to call, despite the user being unreachable before
- Rescuing a client’s hard drive is the best feeling!
- Just plug it in!
| Posted: 21 May 2021 10:24 PM PDT I am a very emotional and expressive person and most of the time I find it easy to connect with customers during Support tickets. It is a great weapon to defuse angry/anxious customers. We handle chat-support where you are talking in real time with a customer instead of having them waiting for a couple hours to get an answer from a "Normal" ticket. The lady that I got connected with had issues to upload files to our Storage service. She mentioned that she was not-so-tech so I tried to keep a high-level conversation as much as possible. After the first troubleshooting steps didn't work I offered a video-call and we jumped in. She was very polite and had this nice puppy picture as profile photo, a very charming woman. I asked her to share her screen with me and it turns out that she gave the permissions to the wrong account. We went through the documentation together: I read the steps (using that non-tech language), she performed them and I double-checked the actions with our internal tools. We had to repeat some steps because she forgot to click on Save but she was cooperative and very willing to learn. After finishing the process she tried to upload a file and it worked! She said:
I interrupted her:
I could hear her voice breaking, trying to speak. She took that breath when someone is holding their tears and just could say "Th-thanks". I gave her a minute before asking if additional assistance was required but got no answer while I heard her breathing, trying to recover. After a few moments she returned to her normal charming voice, said she was fine and thanked me again. We said goodbye and the call ended. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 21 May 2021 01:20 PM PDT I landed a Help Desk role at a Web Hosting / Domain Name Provider in 2002. This company sold top-level domain names (Like a GoDaddy), and did webhosting, but did not do web development. This was a small family-run Mom & Pop business. Less than 20 employees in the whole company. We had 1 overnight guy, but he didn't do helpdesk. All after-hour calls went to voicemail and we would follow up in the morning. First day on the job, I get a call from an elderly gentleman who just bought a domain name and wanted to know where his website was. Thinking on my feet and trying to think of something he could relate to, I equated buying domain names and web hosting akin to buying property. I told the gentleman that buying a domain name is like buying an empty lot. And Web hosting is akin to running your utilities (Water, Sewer, Power, etc.). I then told him web development is where you design and build the house. Either you can do it yourself, or a hire a web development company (Like you would a building contractor). I continued to use that analogy while working there. [link] [comments]  |
| Things Change After a Buyout... Posted: 21 May 2021 06:17 AM PDT This is a follow-up from 'Taking Over for Bad IT'. After working 8 great years with a medical manufacturing company the news came in...we just got bought by Big Medical Company (BMC). Oh happy day! My stock options were worth money now! It will look great on the resume to work for BMC. The future looks bright! Or so I thought. Day 1: We all celebrate! Lunch is brought in and we do karaoke! (Yes, I sang Billy Joel's Piano Man). Such great fun! Day 2: BMC has individual meeting scheduled. We are to bring our updated resume in order for them to consider reassignment...or so we were told, instead it was a 'end of employment' meeting complete with documents showing us how to apply for unemployment and how to train for a new job. Our celebration quickly turned to sadness as we found out the manufacturing part of our product was heading to a facility in Juarez Mexico. There would be no need for most other office jobs, HR, Accounting, Upper Management, etc. I believe the only people they wanted to keep were our sales/consultants. When it came to IT, they have a standard policy to have NO internal IT employees. All IT functions are hired out to third party consultants. That hit me pretty hard. I went home dejected and not ready to find another job. I did determine to give the last two weeks the best I had to offer. Day 5: I'm called into one of the conference rooms with one of the BMC reps. Rep: Hey bambam67, how are you holding up? Me: Too be honest I'm still in shock. We all worked so hard and I know getting bought was the goal, but how it all went down was a real disappointment. Rep: Are you mad or upset? You can be honest. Me: I'm mostly sad. I worked really hard to make this place run like clockwork and now I have a week left before I have to go find some other job. Rep: What if I asked you to stay on longer? Would you consider it? We need someone to take care of the sales people and the servers you have on site. Me: I'd have to think about it. Rep: Well, think about an extension of employment for another month. We'll meet again Monday. Well, what would you do? I'm at a point in my career that I'd never been paid higher, I know the servers inside and out and my users are quickly going to be cut (but my pay wouldn't)...I would be in charge of the sales people who are all remote. So I stayed. 1 month was extended to 3, 3 to 6 and 6 to 1 full year. It was bitter sweet overall...I'd spend an entire week of every month getting the SOX (Sarbanes Oxley) reports done, send out usb dongles to our sales people (who would constantly lose or break them), and I would help our lone accounting person get things packed up and shipped out of the office. It was good work until it just became me and him only in the office during our last month. When I had to pack up my servers I admit I shed a tear or two. We closed the doors to the office and I separated myself from BMC. A month later I get a call from the IT temp agency. They want me to help this other medical company because they just got bought by, yep, you know who, BMC. The pay was good and they needed help swapping out their computers to the BMC computers and I new all the ins and outs. I took the job and met the 3 guys doing IT. They were all very nice and all positive about their future with BMC. I couldn't tell them wait awaited them day 1. They didn't know me or trust me...after working with them for 2 weeks and working long days replacing desktop after desktop I was accepted into their group. I knew I was accepted when I was invited to attend a meeting with them and the VP of IT from BMC. VP was someone I had heard of and saw his name but we never met or spoke. We go to the meeting and VP basically tells us that the deployment of desktops needs to move faster and that an outside IT person was coming in to "help." My new IT team looked at each other a bit confused but if they needed to go faster okay. And then, as the stars aligned, as we left the meeting I take it upon myself to introduce myself to VP of IT...the quick conversation went line this: Me: Excuse me VP, I was the IT Manager at (put my old company name here). We never got to meet each other and I just appreciate the extra time you gave me so we could shut the office down. VP: (rudely) Oh, you're the one. He sees my outstretched hand to shake (believe it or not, in the 'before time' people actually shook hands as a sign of acknowledgement and respect) and just walks away. I could hear him mumbling: VP: (talking to his other BMC ppl) ...that guy cost us a lot of our IT budget... I stood shocked at how incredibly rude a person could be. My blood started to boil. My new IT members (again I was just a temp) saw the entire interaction and were surprised. We all went back to our IT area and had a quick conversation. IT Guys: bambam67, what was that with VP? Me: Unfortunately, that is what you can expect from BMC. IT Guys: What do you mean? Me: Okay, I've only been here a couple weeks, you know I worked with BMC before after being bought out. Can I tell you what's really happening right now? IT Guys: What do you think is happening? I'm happy to do this job for BMC. Me: You mean taking out every Dell computer that you deployed and switching them with a special BMC IBM? IT Guys: Yeah, sure, it's for security and standardization. Me: It's for them to take control of your network and your systems so they can remote in to support. IT Guys: But someone has to support the users on site, right? Me: Yes, someone does. Who do you think is coming in to 'help' with deployment? I believe the VP said he was a certified IBM Support Specialist. IT Guys: So? Me: Are any of you IBM certified? IT Guys: No. Me: That guy coming in is going to replace you all, I have no doubt about it. And after working with you guys I couldn't stay silent any longer. Update your resume and start looking for a new job now. As soon as the computers are swapped out, they won't need you anymore. You are just overhead. A number on a report. You all saw how VP treated me after the meeting. I shouldn't have to say much more. We all found new jobs within a month by helping each other by reformatting our resumes, giving each other contact info, references, advice and more. The IBM support guy did take over all desktop support for the company. He would come in while I still worked my contract. All tickets that weren't emergencies were pointed to him. I was not allowed to help, just allowed to answer the phone. I would field calls asking when support was coming and all I could do is tell them to wait. Sometimes IBM support guy would come in late 9-10am if he came in at all. He would take an hour lunch and then leave by 2pm. After I left I kept in touch with people on the inside and was told he would take days to support the most simplest requests. When users are viewed as just 'users' and not people, that's a big step towards bad IT support. When IT is viewed as just overhead, that plants the seed for creating bitter IT personnel, poor support, etc. BMC probably saves a ton of money by hiring 3rd party support, but they probably lose just as much in productivity from workers who have to wait or receive subpar support. Okay, I'm stepping down from my soapbox. I think I was there a total of 6-8 weeks before I found a new job as an IT Director. I was excited about being hired at a Beer Distributor, what could go wrong, sounds like fun right?! My time at Beer distr (Repost in case you haven't read it) [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 21 May 2021 02:24 PM PDT This gem just came across our desk, right before closing for the weekend. For context, we are updating Windows 10 on all of our end-user computers, doing so in batches, and people are receiving emails warning them to save their work and sign out of their system if their computer is going to be one that is updated over the weekend. Also to note: $User is in another branch of the IT department. $User: Don't restart my system! $TeamLead: ...so you're asking us to not upgrade your computer? [link] [comments]  |
| Why no one is allowed in the com closet. Posted: 21 May 2021 05:00 PM PDT This little tale takes place a few years ago. I was a support tech for a large for my area company with multiple locations. One of the locations had a General Manager who shall we say was the personification of a cloaca. GM was the type of person who thought he was in charge of everything and everyone. He treated everyone that wasn't a customer like his employees and he treated them terribly. I am very glad I was not one. He is the reason that years later a lot of local businesses will not work with our company at all. One of the things we were constantly fighting him over was controlling access to the communications closet at the location. In his mind it was not only a place for switches and other networking equipment, as well as their print server, but also cleaning supplies and coffee accouterments. We moved everything not related to I.T. out. One day I was checking on why the location had no network. When I arrived the com closet was unlocked. Everything we had taken out had been moved back in. After checking the equipment I found that a cable had been ripped out, and two cover panels for cable management had been taken off and leaned against the wall. Why you might ask? To hide two containers of snowcone syrup. Someone tampered with and damaged thousands of dollars worth of equipment, and caused the location to lose quite a few sales to hide tens of dollars of liquid candy. I took pictures of it all and thankfully before the new switch arrived the room had a new lock and GM had no key. [link] [comments]  |
| It's happening again - only your device isn't working! Posted: 21 May 2021 04:35 AM PDT I work as a service engineer in the medical field - I do technical things with medical things. I got a job where the site was having connectivity issues on a system. Occasionally the system would hang, requiring a reboot which would remedy the issue, or pressing certain keys to refresh the connection. The site advised it was getting worse. Please fix. Basically it's a PC that connects to some equipment with a data cable in the next room, which is an operating theatre. We drop a spare just in case the initial one dies. After that, were running more cables through conduits in the ceiling or under the floor. I go to site, chuck some theatre scrubs on a d go to the room with the PC, boot the PC and head into the theatre to check the connection to the unit. Other than the original data cable looking a little battered, but OK (they're pretty tough) everything checks out. I bend the cable while testing to make sure there's no intermittent issue - nope. Run all my checks etc - all G. I check logs to see if there's some issue before these issues - nothing looks weird to me, but I send a copy to the god-level techs, and await a reply. Might take a while, maybe they'll see something I don't. I advised the site to use the backup cable and see if the problem still happens - it's never been used... It's still coiled up from the initial install a few months ago. I coil up the old cable and connect the spare. Fast forward a few weeks and I get a call advising it's still happening. Just less intermittent, but still annoying. Please fix. I think - Maybe I'll need to reload software, replace connectors, etc. I make sure I have what I need for my next visit. My next visit happens to be when the site is using the unit in the morning and I asked to sit in to see if the issue comes up. OK, no worries... Lucky for me, a clinical specialist for the unit is also there. I get some scrubs on and sit in the room with the PC, not in the theatre. All the equipment is setup, multiple nurses, surgeon, patient on the table. About to start. Equipment testing is done, all good. I look at my unit in the theatre, all good, connected correctly plenty of slack. Then I see it. Not sure how anyone missed it. A nurse moves my unit to the side to stand next to the surgeon. The data cable that goes into the unit in the theatre is connected, but it now it goes from the hole in the floor to the unit, and it's really taut, and straining to be connected... And the connection to the unit is definitely iffy at best. There's no slack in the cable, and we give 3-5 metres so they can setup easily. They've just got a really weird setup of all the equipment, with my unit off to the side so that the cables almost don't reach at all. Surgeon asks nurse to connect a medical instrument to my unit, and this will need to be verified by the staff in the room I'm in that it's connected before they start. Instrument is connected, no verification. Medical procedure can't proceed. They try another instrument - same. Medical staff are checking connections, resetting software, surgeon is annoyed. I ask the clinical specialist that is in the room with me if this setup is usual for the procedure - yes. I ask if we can move my unit a little closer so that cable isn't straining so much. Clinical specialist says sure, walks in, moves the unit so the data cable has slack. I ask to have that cable reseated, and the connection reset - clinical specialist says that's ok. It's also done. I need to ask because I'm a technical employee, and this is during a real medical procedure. I will not change anything without clinical personnel on my side giving the OK. Instrument is checked again for verification - ok. Procedure can go ahead, surgeon is less annoyed. Nurse next to surgeon is a little annoyed that they have less space to work with. Procedure goes off without any issues. Clinical specialist and I check first instrument after the procedure is done to make sure it was good. It was also good. I advised of the issue, and recommended personnel watch that cable. If it's not long enough, we can run another set of cables if need be. Or maybe just have the nurse stand on the other side of the surgeon. No issues since. Thank goodness. [link] [comments]  |
| In this one I take too long to call, despite the user being unreachable before Posted: 21 May 2021 05:56 AM PDT So there's me, and there's the user, I believe you know the drill. My company does tech support for small businesses that don't have their own IT department. Today I'm calling a small shop.
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| Rescuing a client’s hard drive is the best feeling! Posted: 21 May 2021 04:51 AM PDT I'm not officially in the IT field but I know a moderate amount about Windows products, troubleshooting hardware & software, how computers are built, and networking. I also did Facebook tech support as part of my old graphic design job. It was very tedious but I didn't mind as long as I wasn't being screamed at. Now I work for myself as an assistant to a few real estate agents. Some of the people I work with are older folks. They are all great to work with but have varying ranges of computer skills. Some know a decent amount and others know next to nothing. All are way smarter than me in real estate lol. A few days ago my client $U came to me wanting an important file redone. I asked her why it needed to be redone and she explained the computer was broken. She had spilled something on it and it wouldn't turn on, so she thought everything was gone forever. I was so happy I got to tell her that her hard drive was very likely undamaged and that all her files are probably recoverable. Redoing the file would have taken at least 10 hours and I'm sure there's other important stuff on that hard drive. I took it out yesterday and it looks completely undamaged. I'm putting it in a hard drive bay this weekend so I'll find out for sure soon. But I'm 95% sure it's going to work fine. I'm won't even need to bill her because the whole thing will take next to no time. Compared to a 10+ hour file recreation it's infinitely easier. I'm honestly just happy to help. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 20 May 2021 11:08 PM PDT This happened a few days ago. I work for a company that provides tech support for grocery/retail/restaurant POS systems. In the location I work there are 5-7 techs for 1000+ stores so it can get pretty busy and keeping call times low helps. Its not a hard job most of the time we are just remoting into a register or having them reboot things. Got a call from Jess that their 2nd register wouldn't turn on. Did the usual troubleshooting, is it plugged in, led light on the power brick, battery back up is on? Etc, etc... Its taking her ages to do anything and I tell right off the bat she is none too bright. So trying to rule out a broken battery backup i ask her to plug the register directly into the wall. All the cables are zip tied so I tell her to go ahead and cut the zip ties. 5 minutes later she's getting angry with me because she can't figure out how to plug the register into the wall. She keeps telling me its plugged into a black box that is plugged into the wall so that can't be the problem. I have repeated myself over and over, I need to see if the battery backup is bad, plug the register directly into the wall, I think I said that phrase atleast 10 times. All of a sudden I hear people in the back ground freaking out cause the system is offline. She unplugged the main register, which all the other registers use as the server. Another 10 minutes and we get it plugged back in again and she still CANT FIGURE OUT HOW TO PLUG SOMETHING INTO THE GD WALL. I am getting a bit frustrated, been on this call for 30 minutes literally just telling her to plug the damn thing in and she continues to be a moron. She keeps telling me that she doesn't understand, it's already plugged in, there is no way the cord will reach the wall cause the zip ties, which I told her to cut 5 mins into the call. 45 minutes into this call she calls me an asshole and drops the phone. Someone gets on the line and I can hear her screaming about how stupid I am and she's going to get me fired. I tell the new person to plug the register into the wall and turn it on. It fired right up, took less than a minute. In the back ground she's freaking out about how my company is a waste of money and we can't fix anything. This person is too stupid to even work in fast food. Boss was listening to the last half of the call and we had a good laugh about it later. But I sure as shit muted my phone stood up and kicked my chair a few times when the other person got the damn thing up and running. One ticket to replace the UPS and I went outside to walk that one off. I hate my job. [link] [comments]  |
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