Hello, you've reached tech support how....oh no Tech Support |
- Hello, you've reached tech support how....oh no
- French-Fried laptop/ Docking station, The sad Tale of Mr. Bunny Slippers.
- Keeping your head below the parapet! A survival tip from the OLD Retired Tech support Guy.
- DR room + whole building hot water leak = bad
- Sausage roll keyboard
- *Confusion Noises* - ad Infinium.
- "my internet is not working! Video has no sound!"
- If it is too large then why is my computer able to access it?
- X Marks the Spot
| Hello, you've reached tech support how....oh no Posted: 06 Mar 2022 01:56 AM PST I work in a tech support department in a big call center for a phone/internet/tv company. I get a call last week, seems fairly normal; Customer is pretty upset because our shitty ass Sales department (don't get me started on them) messed up the order and it got cancelled and customer was supposed to get the modem today. He sounds like he is 40+ years old, he starts up with asking for a manager, I try to calm him down and I get to that order and then he starts; "My wife of 20 years old was cheating on me, she left me and threw away all of my stuff, told me to move out, she took everything away from me! Everything, the kids too! Kids are visiting me today and they need the wifi for homework" And listen, at this point I did feel bad, I would feel even worse if he aslo wasn't cursing me out and I forgot to mention; He was really really really drunk. I have a feeling not having the modem today for the kids is not as bad as being dead drunk on that day.... Anyway, I feel really bad about all of this so I get to sending the modem out again, I go into ordering, I try to resend equipment, During all this my cx seemed to mellow down, got a little quiet, but I heard some scary gurgling noises here and there...(ignoring this) I finish the order, the gurgling and what seems like snoring get really loud, I tell the customer we're finished and that unfortunately we can't get the modem there today...no response. I am pretty scared at this point, I don't really want him to respond, drunk people freak me out so much, even on the phone, for reasons I won't disclose, but I have to do my job so I try to "hello sir, hello, are you there" him for a couple minutes with intervals of me just being silent and texting my team leader to ask him what to do. I finally give up, this man is 100% asleep, I hang up. I did finish the order for him, even though I shouldn't do it without his verbal approval but I knew he does need the modem in the end and at least he will get a text message confirming the order. ( there is no added cost for resending that) Farewell drunk sad man, hope your kids won't have to stay at your place while you are in this state of being. [link] [comments] |
| French-Fried laptop/ Docking station, The sad Tale of Mr. Bunny Slippers. Posted: 05 Mar 2022 12:38 PM PST I was working late last night, doing the friday night Help Desk shift. Normally it's slow as molasses as 99% of people go home. We didn't have any Friday issues spilling over so I ordered a small pizza and broke out my tablet to watch TV. My computer dings, I got a tech support ticket from the Head of the TPS department, Mr. Bunny slippers. "laptop won't dock.. I think I broke something" Now 99% of the time "i think I broke something" = I just broke something. And this specific ticket means i'm not even going to bother trying to remote in. I get to his office and there's a grown man in bunny slippers and Pjs sitting at his computer and the entire room smells like fast food. (checkers specifically) and his laptop is next to the docking station. I flip it over and there's a french fry squished to the docking station. "Sir.. I think I can get this straightened out, i'll be right back with the right tools" I go back down to the batcave and get the contact cleaner, scrub brush, paper towels ect and come back. 5 minutes of cleaning and I have Mr. Bunny Slippers laptop into the docking station and behold... it powers up and his peripherals connect. "I'm sorry" Mr. Bunny slippers tells me. "At least you didn't try to wash it out in the sink yourself" I tell him. "Yeah I figured that I could just fuck it up worse like my marriage" he tells me. I look around the room and there's pillows/ blankets on his couch. "You OK Sir?" I ask. "Yeah I had another question, where is this computer's CD drive?" he asks. I do a quick check and his laptop doesn't have an optical drive. "Do you need one to access some data?" "nah.. just brought these movies in from home" he replies. he reaches under his desk and pulls out a stack of DVDs. They are all retail disks so I figure they should be safe. "Sir can you put in a ticket to request a USB DVD drive to review training materials for me?" I ask him. He goes to his desk and writes a note. "a UBS DVD drive to review training materials?" he asks as he scribbling. "Close enough sir" I tell him. I watch him start another ticket and I go down to the batcave. Ticket number 2 is in by the time I get there and I pull a USB blueray/DVD drive off the shelf and take it up to Mr. Bunny Slippers to get it set up for him. I also toss in a movie to check it for him. The audio sucks pretty bad on the laptop. "Sir can you put in one more request for better speakers and I get you fixed up good?" I ask him. "Oh.. yeah I can do that.. What do I put in?" he asks. "Better speakers to go with the DVD drive" I explain. "OK he tells me". I go down and pull the best speakers we have for him and come back and get them set up. "This should put you in good shape" I tell him. "How long can I keep the drive and Speakers?" he asks. "I issued them to you seeing as how the head of your department says you need them for reviewing training materials" I explain. "Oh... well thank you" he tells me. I go back down to the batcave and count my lucky blessings that I'm not sleeping in my office in Stupid Industries. [link] [comments] |
| Keeping your head below the parapet! A survival tip from the OLD Retired Tech support Guy. Posted: 06 Mar 2022 05:33 AM PST This is only my second post on here, but following that I had a few requests for more stories. It seemed from my last post that a lot of you work in fairly high pressure environments. For myself I was On IT Support for a large London trading Bank, moving on later to become the IT manager of said bank answerable only to the IT Director who shall remain nameless. During my 9+ years at this Bank, it was a woman IT Director for the around the first 6 years until she was replaced. Now this lady it must be said was feared by ALL the IT staff, myself included. When she was not happy about something, the whole floor could hear her. Her shouts from behind her closed office door made most people freeze with an "Uh Oh... who's getting a new one torn now?" expression. It must be said that I only experienced her wrath on maybe 4 or 5 occasions during my 6 year acquaintance with her, and she did after all give me the job at the bank in the first place, so I will not speak too badly of her. This lady was a highly intelligent woman who spoke 3 languages fluently Italian, French and English. The bank I worked for was not an English bank, though being based in London, everyone spoke English. The first time I got called to her office was because an important overnight report never got printed because of a glitch in one of the servers. I stood in her office and stood looking at her in amazement as she looked me in the eye and shouted something like "What the bloody hell ...French french,,, expect to ..Italian italian... french... Right now! and don't you ... Italian...french...italian.....swahili!???... Report...." Well, you get the picture. She could not stick to one language when she lost the plot, and anyone of the IT staff she happened to be having a go at could only pray they said the right thing at the end of it.... "So what have you got to say!?" Pheew I understood that bit! You then hoped your next reply would fit... "Sorry, It won't happen again" or "Sorry. I Will look into it right away" usually sufficed, and you then left and tried to figure out what she was going on about by gleaning information from others. I quickly found that by adopting an old tactic I had learnt from previous jobs, I avoided being stopped and called into her office. Basically, get yourself a 'Clipboard' and have some p[apers on it! If you leave your office to go from A to B for ANY reason grab that clipboard. Always walk with purpose, glancing at it occasionally. Most peoples IT problems are fairly minor. Seeing you purposefully striding past, clipboard in hand. A lot of users will think "Hmmm maybe I can check the power lead myself?" etc. Even if it is a pretty serious problem it will give you a few seconds breathing space because although they may stop you to quickly tell you the problem they won't expect you to fix it there and then because hey, you obviously have bigger fish to fry :-) I do not see any of this as being a cop out, but it was a coping strategy for me. It allowed me to decide if I wanted to say "Sure let's take a look." or, glancing worriedly at my clip board, and saying "Sorry I am on my way to a meeting." This later one, more so, when I became IT Manager. I even used it when called into the Director's Office. I only had to quickly glance at the clipboard while she ranted in tongues for her to say, "Do you have a problem?". I could then reply with something along the lines of "One of the servers is showing an imminent hard drive failure". "Well, what the hell are you doing standing there talking to me for, then?! Go and sort it." Ok so some of you may look at me in a bad light. But remember, IT support people get a lot of unnecessary crap, and very little thanks. Everyone thinks their issue should be sorted first. If this takes the heat off or gives you a little breathing space rather than have a nervous breakdown, then why not. It also helped me remain calm when everyone else was running around like headless chickens. Especially if you have an IT Director running out of her office shouting 'Servers down, Servers Down!" I used to calmly ask myself what the issue really was. Was a Server down or had a power breaker tripped on a row of traders desks? If it was a server, which one? Which floor. Think about causes, effects, solutions, then apply said. Getting caught up in other people's madness does not help you or others. I dare say some at the time would look at me and think, "He acts like he does not care." I did care, I just did not panic. Never underestimate the power of an important looking clipboard... [link] [comments] |
| DR room + whole building hot water leak = bad Posted: 06 Mar 2022 03:46 AM PST So, I worked in local gov in the UK and where I worked had 2 main buildings. Building 2 had a nuclear bunker under it which also had some other rooms all around it. Oh, and the whole buildings heating / hot water system. Some of these extra rooms were doing nothing so got chosen as the DR for the I.T stuff that was all in building 1. £100k is roughly the cost to get it done including the fibre links etc. Anyway, one day I got in to be told the heating system had ruptured and please could we all run down there as it was flooding. So me and 6 colleagues using nothing but brooms, had to stand in a few centimetres of close to boiling water and sweep said water away from the server room for an hour or two? I think we managed to keep all the kit safe though and they did buy us all new shoes as ours were boiled to death. Who exactly did the risk assessment, that's what I want to know. £100k of kit next to an ageing hot water system? Really? Fun fact about the nuclear bunker, if a nuke hit the nearest very big city, the idea is that someone starts filling the water reserve with fresh water for the people to have whilst in there. But, we were told with authority, that there was nowhere near enough time for that to be done before the shockwave/fallout hit, so basically, utterly pointless room that they keep stocked with food, just in case! [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 05 Mar 2022 03:34 PM PST I used to work for local government in the UK and was 3rd line support/network engineer but you know, you get drawn into all sorts of support not just the high end stuff. So, I saw this ticket from some woman in a dept downstairs saying her keyboard wasn't working right. I go down there and ask her what gives and I check the keyboard over and lo and behold, there is loads of food leftovers in there and I quietly empty the detritus and mention to her that she should maybe push it out the way at lunch time. A few months later I see a ticket for the same thing from the same woman. I go down there, walk in and just pick up her keyboard, turn it upside down and shake the contents onto her desk. "You could make a whole sausage roll out of that" I exclaimed loudly, so everyone in her department could hear. I told her if she didn't stop eating over it, no more keyboard for her, and left with her red faced. It was disgusting, literally pieces of sausage meat under her key caps. I have so many worse, much much worse stories than this from my time there. Working for local gov sucks. [link] [comments] |
| *Confusion Noises* - ad Infinium. Posted: 05 Mar 2022 08:35 AM PST (DMS is Dealer Management Software) It's been a longstanding theory of mine that perfectly intelligent people regress into a toddler the moment they call the IT line. Here is one such example. (This is more of a rant btw). Me: 8:00am on a Saturday coverage shift, I work for a large automotive company doing internal support. Me: ____ IT Support, this is Dano speaking, how can I help you? User: I'm at home, and I can't log in to [DMS Portal] at home! pretty commonplace, most businesses have a VPN software they use for WFH employees, in our case the [DMS Software] works only through our network. It sounds like her management sent her to work from home without telling us at all as she has no idea what she's doing. Me: Okay, did you connect to the VPN, [VPN Name] before trying to sign in to [DMS Software]? User: Wait what? Umm Huh various confusion noises (This is a trend.) Me: Sounds like nobody trained you on this or told us you were working from home, your laptop should have it installed already. Can you go down to your Start Menu in the bottom left and search for [VPN Software Name]. User: confusion noises (gasp imagine having to use your brain a little when calling IT) Wait where? Me: repeats instructions x2 *confusion noises x2 but she finally gets it. * User: Okay I got it up now. Me: Okay click connect and sign in with your Windows username and password (managed through AD security groups), same logins you use to unlock the computer. User: What's my [VPN software password?] Me: facepalm Windows username, and windows password. User: confusion noises but figures it out eventually Me: Okay you're signed in now? The VPN is connected? User: I think, what now? Me: Open up [DMS Software] and try to sign in. User: I click it it doesn't do anything. Me: Double-click? (She would have used this software every day with this company, I onboarded her myself about 6 months ago.) User: oh, right right, yeah I can log I now. Me: Awesome have a nice da- User: But I need [other server for DMS software] Me: (Of course you do), a little exasperated, Okay easy fix , I just need to get you the shortcut. Let me find your workstation quick. I can't find her device listed, likely a new take away, or our remoting software is not reporting on her system. Me: Okay having trouble finding you, we'll have to go an alternate route. User: confusion noises Me: Can you open Chrome and go to [our website] User: confusion noises where is that? (You also use Chrome literally every day, dimwit.) Me: repeats, monotone, any cheerfulness gone User: confusion noises Sorry [partial website address] and then what? Me: repeats monotone Me: Once you're there, you won't need to sign in, there should be a link to TeamViewer below the password field, otherwise it's in the upper right. User: confusion noises Me: Is it asking you to sign in, yes or no? User: Yes, what's my password? Me: (Slamming face against wall.) Click the Teamviewer link below the password field. User: confusion noises x2 (Eventually gets it.) Me: Okay once it's done downloading it, double click it. User: confusion noises Where? Me: Bottom of the screen, downloads. User: I clicked it, nothing happened. Me: DOU-BLE click it. (This is also something she would do every single day, multiple times a day.) Me: Double click it to run it, say yes to everything (EULA and legal bullshit), and let me know the ID when it comes up. Her: confusion noises Do I accept the EULA? Me: Say yes to everything. Her: I don't have an ID just dashes. Me: Wait a moment it'll come up, I don't need the password as well. Her: Oh there is is (rattles off number faster than I've heard he talk all call) Me: Sorry, i missed that, repeat please. Her: confusion noises It didn't work? Me: re-peat the num-ber please. Her: (Finally saying it at a decent pace, at this point we're over 15 minutes into the call.) Me: Enters it (her rattle off her password I told her I don't need in the background because why actually listen to anything I say), okay say yes to any more prompts, you'll see it restart and give another ID, don't worry about that just give it a few seconds, should connect me anyways, just looks like it's not doing anything. (I hate you QuickSupport) Her: okay my new ID is- Me: Wait, a moment. VPN fails, because of course it does, either way I'm done Me: Okay, this isn't working, I have a workaround. Me: Can you access your email still? I'm going to send you something. Her: confusion noises Her: Oh yeah I can get my email. Me: Go to your email please. Her: What's my email password? Me: (Oh for fuck sakes lady, can you even tie your own shoes in the morning, oh my fucking god.) stays silent Her: Oh I figured it out, I'm in. Me: Okay I'm going to send you a Drive link, you can download the shortcut and put it on your desktop yourself. Her: predictable confusion noises Me: Just a sec gotta grab the link... working working Her: I didn't get an email. Me: Haven't sent it yet, just wait a moment please. typing up email with step by step instructions Me: Okay, jsut sent it now, should hit you soon, give it a minute. Her: (0.5 seconds after this sentence) I don't have it yet. Me: Give it a minute. Her: oh got it." Me: Okay follow the instructions in the email. repeats instructions (10 more minutes of faffing about as she repeatably forgets how double click and copy/past works, eventually after fucking around she figures it out.) Her: I clicked on the link nothing happens. Me: very exasperated, audibly sighing now DOU-BLE CLICK Her: (software comes up) What's my [DMS] password. Me: Same one as the other server, have a nice day click. [link] [comments] |
| "my internet is not working! Video has no sound!" Posted: 05 Mar 2022 04:42 AM PST So I work in a tech support for an internet/tv/phone provider. A couple days ago I get the seemingly typical call, older lady starts with "my internet is not working blah blah". I think, ok, lets check. I look at the settings on the modem, I see three devices connected, I tell her that I see that wifi is in fact working but with the benefit of the doubt I ask "What device are you using? Can you check if it's says "connected no wifi?" Lady is confused, she does not know what I'm talking about, after 10 minutes of talking it turns out the sound on her laptop or on the youtube video she is watching is off... But I am a kind hearted kinda gal and decided that even though it's not my problem I will help, it's going to be easy! ~that's where I f'd up~ I'm not going to describe the conversation but it was basically me, telling her to find the speaker icon on the bottom of the screen (she has the yt video on fullscreen), her whispering the word "speaker" for 5 minutes, me asking if she found it and her now again being utterly confused at the instruction I gave. This goes on for about 20 minutes in total, so I finally tell her to close the yt video and look for a speaker icon on the bar on the bottom on the screen....another 20 minutes pass and nothing, she says she doesn't have that. So I instruct her to go to the Control Panel, the process is the same, she whispers "control panel" for 5 minutes, I keep giving her different instructions, changing ways we can get to the volume settings then she goes into the whispering again, not talking much, not asking me any questions just whispering. In the meantime her husband yells "Ya off the phone already?" periodically. It now turned into 1hr long call and we are nowhere close finding volume settings. I am patient but I am getting more and more worried that we will never find it, I tried every trick in the book to make it easier for her to find the volume setting. I'm sweating, the old lady is not giving up, it's been 1 hour and 40 minutes, we didn't reach the volume setting and, I don't believe it, after spending all this time on this woman, the call drops.. Can't reach cx back... I never felt so relieved and so defeated at the same time. I hope she found a way to turn the volume on... [link] [comments] |
| If it is too large then why is my computer able to access it? Posted: 04 Mar 2022 10:19 AM PST I recently received a phone call from a user experiencing low disk space. I ended up having to explain why storing 4K video on a low end Chromebook does not make sense.
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| Posted: 04 Mar 2022 04:53 PM PST This is my first post on this sub! ...is what I would say, if my brain hadn't dredged up the memory of my time as a sound tech for my local church...6 years ago... I was inspired to write up this tale after binge reading all posts by u/Gambatte in about two weeks, seeing myself in these stories of woe and sorrow. No, not in the shoes of the protagonist. Lord knows my experience is not even worthy to be called a peon. This story follows the daring heroics of the lowly Level 1 technician. Did I say daring heroics? I meant belly flopping decision making. Its kinda long, so you've been warned! I work for a school district of decent size as a freshly minted level 1 technician. When I say freshly minted, I mean my experience in this position is fairly new at less than five months, as I just graduated with my degree this previous May. While I'm new to the position of having a "big boy" job, I've worked freelance tech support for around a decade now. I've just not really had a real world experience with it yet. The majority of the job is what you would expect from a tech, (what with the managing and repairing of hardware, changing passwords, troubleshooting tickets, etc.) but the major difference is 90% of my day is spent either fixing Chromebooks for children who have used it as a seat cushion/dinner plate and blowing out projectors. One day, I'm greeted in a daze by a ticket in my queue about a new classroom setup happening. One of the schools I oversee is old (old enough that I used to go there...when I was in the 4th grade...) and as such, not all of the planned placements for rooms have remained the way as originally intended. In this case, the room that was previously used for in-school suspension was being converted into a new classroom for kinder/1st grade (I honestly cannot recall which) and needed a standard setup which consisted of a Chromebox, monitor, VoIP phone, projector, and keyboard + mouse combo. Easy. Or... The first problem I came across was in the form of the Chromebox not powering on. Swapped the power cord for another and it worked just fine. No big deal. Once it was on, it was as simple as Powerwashing the system so that it grabs the configuration from our network, clears all past user data, and updates the device. Thankfully, the phone was already in place so I didn't have to touch it, but I made sure all was well there too. All that left was the projector. Which, after a quick glance at the ceiling, revealed that there was no mount in place. Only a sea of ceiling tiles. Crap. Seeing as I couldn't mount it, I notified the principal who requested this change and then reached out to one of my fellow techs for help. They informed me that, if power is present in the room, it should be as simple as grabbing one of the mounts we have at admin. Oh joy, an easy fix! Except, its never an easy fix, is it? I grabbed my ladder and climbed up to see into the ceiling, removing a tile to reveal...a lot of insulation rolls that had been unused and just stored there for...some reason...followed by a whole lot of nothing save for the wires for the fire alarm and the embedded lights. Joy. This ticket just became a maintenance ticket didn't it... I notated the ticket and informed the principal who was less than enthused to hear that this issue would require another contact through maintenance, as she now had to put in a separate ticket through a different system. Not only that, maintenance is known for working on the Soontm time frame and she really didn't want this to take months. Reluctantly she slumped off to send in that maintenance ticket and I carried on with my duties of cleaning out milk spills and replacing Chromebooks that have had their hinges broken off. Again. A few weeks later, I'm doing my rounds and the teacher (T) of the classroom pulls me to the side saying they spoke to maintenance about the power for the projector and had information for me. That's strange. The principal never informed me of this, nor anyone else. Did they really just talk to the teacher and not inform anyone else of this? Here's my first mistake: Assuming. T: Hey! Maintenance came by and told me they can put the power in! Huh? Why would they require a mark on a tile for them to do this when they're on site, in the room, talking to the teacher who is going to be using it? Couldn't she just tell them where she wanted it? Me: Couldn't you just tell them where it needs to go? Wha I have never spoken with any of the maintenance team, either from this job or any other. To me they were the boogeymen that existed to haunt my young tech nightmares in fear of cables being rotted out or power just once plug away from sparking a fire. I'm not always on campus as I have multiple campuses to manage, but still I've never seen them nor have I received any messages from them about really anything. Which means they probably didn't reach out to me at all or the principal who put in the ticket. Needless to say, given the past reputation of maintenance I was rather peeved. So I decided to give them what they wanted as instructed. Me: Well...alright then. I'll be right back I then proceeded to make my way to the art room, grabbed a permanent marker, returned to the classroom in question, stood up on a desk, and drew a big X right across the tile the teacher wanted the projector at. All was right in the world and maintenance would return to put power at that panel and then I could hook up the mount. Right? Fast forward a few more weeks, I have a chat message from my supervisor (SU) SU: Maintenance isn't very happy with you right now. You've ruined a tile by marking on it. From now on please make sure to mark the tile with a piece of paper taped to it. I'll write up some documentation for our meeting so this procedure is better known for the team Excuse me, what? Me: I was given no other instructions other than to mark the tile with an X. Maintenance said they would contact me about this but have never done so. I've never even seen them here on campus and there's been no attempt to get in touch with me. I'll remember to use paper next time so this doesn't happen again. SU doesn't respond and I continue with my work, rather simmering at the situation. They've given me no instructions, no context, or any mention of marking with paper. How do they expect me to do what they want from me when they don't specify and don't contact me as they said they would! Part of me felt I didn't fully explain the situation good enough, so to give myself closure I decided to call SU directly and talk it over. Me: Hey SU, just wanted to check up on this to make sure all was good. Things weren't really clear through communication with the maintenance team as they said they'd contact me, but I never really heard from them this whole time.SU: Uh...yeah... Something about the way he said that was...defeated. SU: It sounds like there was a communication issue here. Its my mistake for not being more clear, so don't worry about it. Like I said, i'm working on the document so everyone else is clear about procedure. That's...weird. Why is he taking the blame for this? Its not like he was invo- Oh god, he was the tech that they were talking about. They must have mistakenly thought he was a tech even though he's the direct supervisor for all the techs. He was in contact with them through the whole situation and I wasn't even included in the circle. No wonder this all seemed like I was being cut out. I wasn't even part of the equation! The moral of this story is to always ask questions when you're unsure of procedure for something. Check on things before you act. Otherwise maintenance yells! As a follow up to this, during one of our meetings the document in question was brought up and the scenario vaguely was explained. Afterwards, I was speaking with one of the other techs before heading to campus and they asked the golden question: TECH: So...who marked on a ceiling tile? Was it {Other Tech}? [link] [comments] |
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