20 or so years ago. I accidentally broke a schools brand new chat email server. Tech Support |
- 20 or so years ago. I accidentally broke a schools brand new chat email server.
- "You remind me of my son - He passed away last year"
- Attempt at Ticket Stat Padding Leads to Egg on Face
- The definition of insanity
- When the user is smart enough to configure a firewall but not smart enough to know how it works
| 20 or so years ago. I accidentally broke a schools brand new chat email server. Posted: 31 Jul 2021 03:19 AM PDT In the year 2001, my high school started using a new email and chat server. It was an online-only school. I was playing around with the new program. While poking around. I found that normally. you can only send a chat or email request. to one person at a time. That's how it was supposed to work. But I found that you could select all with CTRL + A in the program. So I selected all and it worked. It then asked if I wanted to send it. Either an email or a chat request. The same thing happened CTRL + A worked, both options selected. I hit enter... Then it happened. it sent a chat request and an email request to everyone. all teachers staff and students. Then when people started adding to the chat. When that person hit OK. It sent another email to everyone. A few minutes later. the chat program stopped and crashed. My parent got a call from the school. Apparently what I did. started a tidal wave of email. that bounced around never stopping. They had to reboot the server and reset everyone's email from backup. They later called my parent again. asking us to come into the admin building. I thought I was going to be In so much trouble. But there was no trouble at all. they just asked me to show exactly what and how I did it. after I showed it a few times. they were satisfied and said I can go home. On the way out the principal said please don't ever do it again. They did eventually get it patched. That's how I broke a school's email /chat server. [link] [comments]  |
| "You remind me of my son - He passed away last year" Posted: 30 Jul 2021 05:29 AM PDT This happened yesterday. Just want to showcase that sometimes we can really impact people in a positive way and it isn't all "restarts and plug-ins". I was working with a lady, troubleshooting Citrix Desktop on a personal computer while at home. I was a little hamstringed going into things because our workplace tends to use company computers that I can always remote into, ping, troubleshoot much more accurately. But we also dig the whole "work from anywhere with any device" model. That said, I did my best and we eventually got her squared away. Toward the end of our conversation she mentioned that I sounded like her son and asked for my age. I told her that I'm 24 and she paused for a moment, apologized, and said that he was 25 and passed away last year due to aggressive leukemia. He was her personal at-home IT guy, moreover he was her son. She felt like, for one last time, he was helping her figure things out and talking her through the steps. Afterward I cried and texted my mom that I love her Hold your loved ones close, life is fast and brutal. And the next time you "Auto In" just remember you may just make someone's day Best [link] [comments]  |
| Attempt at Ticket Stat Padding Leads to Egg on Face Posted: 30 Jul 2021 10:22 AM PDT This story is from several years ago, back in my IT help desk days. I was reminded of this by an unrelated thread in another subreddit and thought I would share it here. I used to work in an IT help desk job with someone who was a bit of a bully. He'd do petty stuff like take my keyboard and either replace it with his dirty one (keyboards he used over time always became disgusting) or he'd just leave me with no keyboard. This guy was also the lowest performing member of our office, by far. Everything we did for users was documented in our ticketing system; our boss (who was awesome) said it was important to document our usefulness. So, when you looked up our stats, it was obvious who was performing and who wasn't. In our ticketing system, we had a bunch of old tickets that had been self-resolved by users that were still flagged as "open" but we all knew they were no longer in need of attention. Whenever we, the help desk workers, would resolve an issue we'd close the ticket as "resolved" after having first assigned it to ourselves. If a user ended up not needing help anymore, we could just cancel the ticket without assigning it first. I'm not sure why the tickets in question in this story were never cancelled out, but our boss asked us to go through them and cancel them if they no longer required our attention. We all knew that we were to CANCEL them, not assign them to ourselves and mark them as RESOLVED. We all knew the difference between the two. This guy decided to assign dozens of these tickets to himself in one day, assign them to himself, and mark them as resolved. I saw this happening from within our ticketing program. He later made a comment about how his resolved tickets for the week were above the office average, as if he had been helping a ton of users. Sun Tzu wrote that, when an adversary is making a mistake, you should be careful not to interrupt them. The bully apparently didn't know something that I did know: Each RESOLVED ticket has a 1/3 chance of sending the user a survey. So, dozens of users were sent surveys asking them about the job this guy did helping them with an issue he never actually helped them with. Our boss then received dozens of emails from confused users. This all played out just as I knew it would the moment he started bullshitting all of those tickets. This is how the office bully got egg on his face. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 30 Jul 2021 09:40 PM PDT I actually have a tech repair shop role so I no longer am tech adjacent like I have been in my previous posts. *insert level up graphic and sound effect here* So the place I now work at repairs mostly phones but we also do a bit of everything. Enter the customer who is the literal definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. I'll call him PicNick or PN for short(In this case replace the traditional chair with customer and computer with cell). So PN comes in on a busy morning about two weeks ago when I'm working on checking people in. Anyway, he explains he is getting popups/adware on his phone(Which, in my opinion takes skill. Its not a particularly useful or helpful skill but it is a talent and mildly impressive). I am new(I will officially have worked here for a month on this upcoming Monday), so I forget to get the unlock passcode, and this particular type of phone doesn't prompt me for that in the check in process. Anyway I tell him it will be a couple hours, and we will call back when we have news/a quote. Two things to know about Nick.
At this point none of us know what a saga this will be. Unfortunately it turns out we need to factory reset his phone but if we get his passcode we may be able to help transfer his data first. PN refuses to give us the passcode and comes to pick it up we we can not do anything. Usually after some patient explaining most folks understand and either leave to go get a new phone, take it to get the data and bring it back to reset, or just leave empty handed. Not this guy. Over the next day or so PN calls: The company that makes his phone, his carrier, I think the store that rhymes with west guy or something like that(I was off for those two days), and basically shouts and is a belligerent, unfriendly, pushy delight to all three. The big box store actually resets and then restores the phone but whatever caused the adware to appear in the first place is reinstalled so same issue. Nick calls again the next day I am in and my boss, very patiently, explains that the phone needs to be factory reset, and cannot have all the apps restored for the above mentioned reason. Rinse and repeat the above for the next week and a half. With varying reiterations of you need to factory reset it, different coworkers either saying they will stay late or come in on their days off to help him reset it, and others listening to at least half an hour tirades about the issues and what to do. I think a couple of the calls were like two hours of this guy rambling. Basically we are pretty much done with Nick because he will not do what we told him to do, and we are done with him at all three area locations. BUT WONDER OF ALL WONDERS: he actually brought it in Thursday evening to one of the other locations to get it factory reset. Normally this is where the story would end; said other local location even blacklisted him after they reset it. But oh no. Between the saga of phone calls in which he continues to ask what to do, gets the same answer, and not do it, he had changed carriers. Which now results in his phone no longer connecting to the network. It sometimes happens that way and there is legit nothing anyone can do. Particularly with the carrier he switched to. I am too new to know why this particular carrier is special but it's something I've been warned about. So cue this gem of a conversation I overheard today while I was in the back repairing a screen under the watchful eye of the aforementioned boss(Still learning so he answers questions/gives me help and tips as I work on said phone).
And rinse and repeat for about 5-10 minutes in which Nick basically says the exact same thing in different phrasing. Meanwhile, all of us are attempting not to laugh because ye gods he keeps going on and on and we have been dealing with him for two weeks now. Eventually the boss gets DONE and falls completely silent and eventually the guy says okay bye and hangs up. PN would have continued forever if he hadn't done that. Cue everyone laughing at his ridiculous mannerisms and praising said boss's clever way of hanging up/"dropping" the call. AND we still aren't done for:
So yeah, this is where the saga ends for now. Will edit if it develops further, but I think he's blacklisted in all three locations so he would have to come in physically to continue to complain and ramble our ears off. TLDR: The living breathing definition of insanity will not follow directions and expects different results. [link] [comments]  |
| When the user is smart enough to configure a firewall but not smart enough to know how it works Posted: 30 Jul 2021 04:44 AM PDT The company I do desktop support for has two VPN connections. One is for a work supplied device which gives them full functionality and the other is a split system tunnel connection on their own personal device that allows them to RDP to a device on the LAN Recently due to COVID and the influx of people working from home, we have started doing support for personal devices and connecting to them to the VPN and RDP 99% of them have been due to their firewall blocking the RDP port. I get that most people have no idea and need help allowing it through I had one caller who was a nice lady and put me on to her partner as he is my computer literate Me: Hi, what issue are you having? Him: we are able to connect to the VPN but cannot RDP or connect to the PC at her office I checked and the work device is online, ping able etc Me: no problem, I can connect in with logmein to see your device and see what is happening Him: nope that won't work. My router will block it Me: are you sure? I can at least try and see if it works Him: no it won't work! I have set up and configured my VIP reception firewall so I know what is allowed in and out. My firewall will block it. thinking to myself logmein uses port 443 so I am very sure he hasn't blocked that! Me: OK so in my experience it's most often a firewall issue. Cam you disable your firewall for just a minute and test it? Him: no I am not doing that. It's not a firewall issue. I can connect to other devices fine Me: other devices? You're able to connect with the remote desktop app? Him: no team viewer. I can use teamviewer fine so it can't be a firewall problem! Me: OK well teamviewer uses a different port than remote desktop so it's possible that it is just blocked. All you have to do is disable it for a minute and tell me if it connects! This went on for a few minutes and before I gave up Me: if you don't want to do any testing I am afraid I can't help you any further. We provide limited support for your own devices. Him: OK fine I have just turned it off and will show you that it still doesnt work A few seconds pass... Him: OK that is weird it connects now. What have you done? Me: nothing from my end, it was just your network blocking the connection I gave him the default RDP number port and he added the rule in his firewall. no issues once he turned it back on Him: great thanks for your help. TLDR: a user configured a locked down perimeter firewall on their own network and didn't think it would stop RDP working [link] [comments]  |
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