99% is not 100% Tech Support |
- 99% is not 100%
- Medical practice operating like well-oiled machine
- A short "Choose Your Own Adventure" story
- Spellcraft
| Posted: 16 Jul 2021 10:03 AM PDT This story takes place at a time when I was relatively new to my job. The organization I work at has a public computer lab, for which I am responsible. We were about to undertake a building remodel, and the computer lab had to be moved to a new space while this occurred. Several staff workstations also had to be moved. This normally wouldn't be anything technically difficult, just a fair amount of physical labor. Unfortunately, there were constraints... The building closes to staff just 15 minutes after it closes to the public. Staff can arrive an hour before it opens to the public. The computer lab had to be fully operational in its original location at closing time the night before the move, and in place and running when we opened the next day. In short, I had an hour to get the move completely done. I did as much prep work as possible ahead of time, but that wasn't much. Move day came and I was there the minute the door was open to staff. Computers were unplugged, moved, and plugged back in. Networking and power were run to the equipment. Cables were managed. Peripherals were attached. Everything was powered on as staff took to their stations and the public started coming in. I looked around... everything came up as expected! Staff were able to do everything they needed. I was a sweaty, disheveled mess, but I'd pulled it off! All around the new space, people we happily checking email, playing games, scanning documents and doing whatever else they do. Then came the complaint. Someone had sent a print job, and was at the print release station trying to get their printout. We charge for printing. They had deposited their quarter in the coin acceptor, but the release station wasn't seeing the payment. I took a quick look, and didn't immediately see anything out of place. It was maybe a minute or two of troubleshooting, but they stood there, vocally expressing their disapproval of my incompetence. Rather than keep them waiting any longer, I did an override to release their print and even refunded their quarter. They thanked me for helping and left happy. Wait, no, that's not how it went. No, they took their printout, threw the quarter on the ground and said, "Keep it... I don't know why you even bothered opening today if you can't have things working" and stormed out. Ah, the rewards of hard work. If you're curious, it turned out that the print release looks for the payment device on a specific USB port. I had plugged it into the wrong port. [link] [comments]  |
| Medical practice operating like well-oiled machine Posted: 16 Jul 2021 12:52 PM PDT Inspired by u/Arbitrary_Pseudonym and IT guy ran off to Malaysia, I decided to share my experience onboarding a large medical practice. I support a large medical practice that is part of a multi-state network of standardized practices. They have no in-state IT resources, so I often go onboard practices that have joined. Most of the time, these are simple jobs that can be done in a day. This is even true with most large practices, as they tend to have internal IT managing an organized environment. I get the briefing from the project manager on this clinic. Large, established practice, 200-250 workstations, and they have internal IT. I am thinking "cool, the usual cakewalk..." Since they close at noon on Fridays, we schedule the job. A few days before the job, I reach out to their IT guy, just to ask a few questions and see if he will go ahead and roll out the RMM software that makes my onboarding life easier. When I ask him to create a GPO to deploy the .msi that I will share, he responds "sure". However, it was "sure" in that way that actually means "sure, I do not know what you are talking about, but I will Google it until I do." Then I get onsite. Turns out they are replacing 100+ workstations, so there are a few pallets of Dell desktops currently sitting in the conference room. The IT guy has not rolled out RMM, and is genuinely perplexed by the concept of group policy. It turns out that IT guy at this practice, for the past several, were interns that were students at the local university. The current IT guy had actually been hired from that intern pool. He spends so much time doing break/fix that he has no time to address any of the core issues, and he asks for some guidance. Already knowing that this is beyond a one day job, I tell the project manager that we need to reschedule, and I need some of my colleagues that do the same thing in other areas of the state. I plan to spend the day doing the site survey, that should have already been done. We start with the domain controller. There is no OU structure, all 200+ users are just sitting in the default Users OU. None of them actually login to Windows with those accounts though, they exist only for Exchange. Everyone logs in to Windows with the user/password of med/med. Turns out Med is also a domain admin. All file shares (also on domain controller), are everyone has full control. I do not even want to get into the annoyance of seeing Exchange 2003, in 2017. Those replacement desktops? They are replacing desktops running XP, including the entire billing department. Every desktop is also being upgraded to dual monitors. The new Dells only have DP and HDMI ports. There is not a single monitor in the building with a DP, including the brand new ones they ordered. Now I am ready to pull out my laptop and start looking at the network. I see an available jack, and ask him if it is active. He says "give me a minute", and leaves the room. I thought he was going to enable the port, or maybe patch it to the switch. No. He returns, says "I unplugged the workstation in the next office, you should be good." Why did he unplug a workstation to activate that jack? "We are out of IPs". I start looking at the firewall/switches and discover a nightmare. It looks like several people have clearly been practicing for their CCNP with a production network. Servers are on 10.10.1.x, but it is broken up into a bunch of /28-30. Workstations are on a range of 192.168.1-10, all also broken up into a bunch of /28-30. DHCP is only serving one /28, and almost all workstations are static. That all of this was a problem he did not need to have, had not dawned on him. He just said a networking guy set it all up, and he thought everything was normal. He did say he frequently encountered issues with sharing where a workstations could see the servers, and had internet access, but they could not see half of the other workstations, or the printer on the desk next to them. I decided the network was where we needed to start. I stepped out to call the project manager, to tell him what I found, and get approval for all this out of scope work. When he finally stops laughing, he tells me to take as long as I need, help is on the way, and everything is on multi-state network's dime. I stayed the weekend, since it was a fun town, and the next week. Help showed up, and we turned it into what a network of that size should like. IT guy ultimately proved useful for running around switching workstations from static to DHCP, or anything else that required running around. That was about all he could be trusted with. [link] [comments]  |
| A short "Choose Your Own Adventure" story Posted: 16 Jul 2021 09:11 AM PDT A couple, working from home full time. Wife: "You're in IT, fix the internet. I can't work with it dropping out every day like this." Cynical: "I have called support and was very polite. Onsite tech will be here in an 8 hour window in 2 weeks" [ Skip to paragraph: "present day" ] Cynical: "The tech will be here today between 8 and 5" Wife: "I have important calls, don't let them disconnect the internet." Cynical: "They may need to, for testing and repairs." Wife: "Not today - tell them to come back later." If you let the tech disconnect the line for testing: Turn to page "Damned if you do". If you reschedule the tech for another 8 hour window in several weeks: pay the service fee and turn to page "Damned if you don't." You look down and realize you're already on page "Damned if you don't." Go to paragraph 1. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 16 Jul 2021 08:30 AM PDT It was an early morning and I had just settled down by my pentagram to continue forging the spell I started yesterday. No more had I sat down and sipped my energizing potion when my speaking crystal glowed and vibrated it's way across my desk. Briefly I thought about ignoring it, but I finally decided to answer, "Hello, this is $Infomancer." "This is $Client over at $Clientguild. I need help with my scrying mirror. It's not working." "I see. In what way does your scrying mirror not work? Do you get an image at all?" "Yes, yes, I see the… image whatever you call it. But I can't reach the scrolls! They are all wrong!" So nice when they are clear in their descriptions. Well, peasants will be peasants, that's why they pay us wizards. "Very well, I can have a look. Can you please initiate the farviewing spell on your scrying mirror?" "How do I do that?" I gave the simple instructions on how to activate the farviewing spell on her mirror, it only took fifteen or so minutes for her to manage it, but finally I was able to view her mirror. "You say your scrolls aren't right?" I asked as I checked the scroll synchronization spell. Everything looked good except it did not indeed sync. "Yes! Look, they are old!" "It seems like your synchronization spell has lost connection, let's re-enchant it and then have you confirm your identity once more." A few minutes later, scrolls started to pop up for her, marching into her mirror, one by one. "There we go, everything seems to be working now. Anything else I can assist you with?" "Wait, I want to see that I can open them," she said and opened the first scroll before jabbing at the rune of the scribe. "My scribe golem doesn't work now! What did you do!?" "Have you woken your scribe golem?" I asked, sipping my energizing potion. "No, it always just works!" If that's the case, you can likely sell it for a lot of money. I never encountered a scribe golem that just works. Finicky bastards. I'm not even convinced they are golems instead of imps summoned from the infernal abyss. I check the ritual interface of the scrying mirror. Golem looked asleep. "Try waking it with a touch on the waking rune. It should be somewhere on the head. It looks like a circle with an arrow sticking into it." "It's working now." My crystal stopped glowing and I put it down, watching her reach out and open the book of faces on her scrying mirror. Not wanting to see anymore, I canceled the remove viewing spell and sipped my potion before writing down what had occurred so that the wizards tower can bill the guild for work completed before going back to crafting my spell. Yes, not the most exciting story. Happens to us every day, but we are described as wizards at times, so I figured why not! [link] [comments]  |
| You are subscribed to email updates from Tales From Tech Support. To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google, 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, United States | |
No comments:
Post a Comment