Please don't literally punch in... Tech Support |
| Please don't literally punch in... Posted: 27 Jun 2021 12:59 PM PDT Short background: I work a non-IT office position in a retail chain where I am relegated tech issues which I either resolve on my own with basic troubleshooting (definition varies) or enlist support from the help desk. This is a tale from my old store last year. Our time clock was scheduled for an upgrade in the coming months, and it was needed because one button had partially sunken into the casing and had to be pressed 'just right' to actuate, and this number happened to be part of everyone's ID. Because of the scheduled upgrade and a shortage of replacements at the time due to worldwide things, we had to make do with this until the new one arrived. I came in to work one Sunday morning, an hour before everyone else to help with the overnight transition, and went to punch in, except... The button was completely sunken in and wouldn't activate. Of course this happened on a Sunday, and of course it also happens to be the end of a biweekly pay period! There is another way for associates to punch in and out but it involves a computer (gasp) and it would take an entire day to both train associates to do it and convince them that it's in their best interest instead of filling out a paper that I have to come back that night to key in manually. I've done that before after a system outage (also on a Sunday at the end of a biweekly pay period hahaHAhA) and it takes about an hour to do 50. There was one hour before associates started arriving for work, 45 minutes for the earlybirds, and I decided to try to fix it myself. It's already working zero percent so I can't really make it any worse, although in hindsight maybe we could have escalated a ticket for replacement in this condition; I would just have to deal with one day's worth of papers. What can I say, I was young and reckless and panicked instead of considering all my options. I took the thing off the wall (unplug and lift up) and took it back to my office to open it up on the counter (grab socket screw with fingers and pull). I can see where the real button and plastic are supposed to be, and where they actually are, and they are not the same. I also know that helpful mechanical engineer's flowchart about what to do when things move when they aren't supposed to, and grabbed a roll of electrical tape from a nearby drawer. The circuit board was screwed down pretty intricately and I couldn't completely remove it; best I could do was lift one side and try to get some rolled up electrical tape in position with a screwdriver and press it back down. While doing this, I'm also repeatedly stepping away to touch a large metal object just in case some staticky shenanigans happen. My office shocked me, a lot, enough that I developed a fear response and had to will myself through it in years prior. Thankfully a new manager had recently transferred and whatever poltergeist I had on me jumped to him, and the shocks stopped. He needs therapy, though. I don't know if static discharge would damage this time clock but I didn't want to find out the hard way so I kept touching largemetalobject just in case. The surgery was a success and the timeclock went back up on the wall before anyone else had even arrived, with a note for associates to press the buttons gently. My workmanship must have been pretty good because it stayed functional until the new model came in a month later! [link] [comments]  |
| Let me teach you about a little thing called “the alphabet” Posted: 21 Jun 2021 11:29 PM PDT Hi TFTS, long time lurker, first time poster. Obligatory disclaimer: on mobile, so formatting. I don't work in tech support per se. I program industrial machines and SCADA systems, but of course, I have to support the systems my company installs. With one particular customer, this has led to a great many tales worth telling. To give a little context to this customer, they have an in-house IT department of about three people. Early on in the project, they openly admitted to having no idea about OT and told me to just let them know what I needed from them to do my job. I wasn't entirely sure, so, they just gave me domain administrator privileges for their entire company, which I still have to this day. Anyway, on to the story! Back in around 2014, my company designed and installed an automated production line for the customer, including a basic historian and reporting feature. Once it's all up and running, the French project manager (who we'll call Pierre, because he's about the most stereotypically French person I've ever met, and Pierre is the most stereotypical French name I can think of) decides that he and several other people want four reports emailed to them every morning, showing trend data from the previous 24 hours' production. OK, no problem. I open up the reporting software and create trends showing the required data, then create a job to print this report to a folder at 5am each day. Test it out, everything works fine. Every morning at 5am, four files appear in the folder, looking something like: Doofenshmirtz_Machine_yyyy-mm-dd_05-00-00.pdf Skyhook_Machine_yyyy-mm-dd_05-00-00.pdf SomeOther_Machine_yyyy-mm-dd_00-05-00.pdf Widget_Machine_yyyy-mm-dd_05-00-00.pdf Then, the customer's IT department took care of automatically emailing them out to the relevant people. Unfortunately, a few months later, Pierre needs a couple more reports added, and this breaks the email script. Also, the person who wrote the email script has moved on, and the remaining IT department have no idea where to even find this script, and when they do find it, all they manage to succeed in doing is breaking it even further and then losing it again. After weeks of back-and-forth, during which I try to make it clear that I'm working on it, but that the hold-up is with their own IT department, while at the same time trying not to throw their IT guys under the bus, I decide to just map a shortcut to the reports folder onto Pierre's desktop, to at least get him off my case for a while. I remote into his machine and set up the shortcut, open it up, and show him how all the reports are in the folder, and he can just grab whichever one he needs, whenever he wants. I assure him that I will eventually get his emailed reports happening again, but in the meantime, this should work just fine. Pierre is happy. Until the next morning, when I receive a phone call from a very irate Frenchman. As soon as I answer, Pierre immediately launches into a tirade about how all his reports are missing. Me: "What do you mean? You remember we set up a folder on your desktop so you can access them directly?" Pierre: "Yes and there's nothing there! All my Widget Machine reports are gone! All that's left are the Doofenshmirtz machine reports! What's going on with this useless crap of yours?" Me: "Hang on, let me take a look." I log into the reporting server and open up the reports folder. All the reports are there. Me: "I'm looking at the folder now Pierre, I can see all four reports from this morning right now. You didn't copy the reports to somewhere else or anything?" Pierre: "No, I just clicked on the folder you put on my desktop and there's nothing there! Only the Doofenshmirtz machine! No Skyhook machine, no SomeOther machine, no Widget machine! They're all missing!" Me: "Can I remote into your machine and take a look? I don't understand why they wouldn't be showing up." I remote into his machine, open up the folder, and immediately see the problem. Me: "Pierre…Pierre…the reports…they're in alphabetical order. Scroll down." TL;DR: User sorts files by name and then has to be reminded that files sorted by name will appear in alphabetical order. P.S. It was at this point that I decided to write a new email script myself, which led to one of the most satisfying moments of my career, but that's a story for another time. [link] [comments]  |
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