(no subject)

[jarad.livejournal.com]

The Know-It-All
This would be the person who claims to know everything about anything, yet when you say something like "Can you renew your DHCP address please?" they go "Oh, but that shouldn't effect anything because I already have an IP address and blah blah blah". These are the folks that insist they know exactly what they're doing, but don't. The dangerous variation on this user is one that has read a few magazines or some such, and has vague ideas of how something works, but doesn't get the full picture and won't admit it.

The IT Consultant
Morons the lot of them, frankly. I have yet to meet an IT consultant that actually knows anything about IT. I once had an IT consultant who didn't know if their software was to be installed on Windows or a Linux web server. I had another who didn't know that you could reconfigure a router and use it with another ISP. These are the folks who believed the adverts on TV that say you can get 3 weeks training and earn £50,000 a year in the IT industry.

The Linux Zealot
Insists that everything has to run on an obscure and convoluted distribution of Linux ("Yeah, I had to install Apache yesterday. It only took 6 hours, a sacrificed chicken, a 45 minute dance to appease the thunder gods and rebooting half the datacentre, as opposed to just typing a single line of text on any other version of Linux."). These are also usually the root cause of us needing IPv6, as they like to insist that everything they own must have it's own public IP address. Servers, routers, switches, the toilet, the coffee machine, the doorbell....

The Windows Zealot
Almost as bad as the Linux Zealot, but in different ways. They'll ignore the obvious, and always try to blame you. "I don't care that my router is a smoking charred mess, Outlook says the server dropped the connection, so their MUST be something wrong with the server! I demand that you fix it now and get me my email!"

The Solicitor / The Lawyer
Will repeatedly drop mention that they are solicitor over and over to try and scare you. Don't let them! Inevitably, they have not themselves bothered reading their terms of service, and will not have noted that their contract states that fixes can take up to 5 working days. They will attempt to bully you, and offer up such bullshit as having 30 people unable to do any work whatsoever because their Internet is out. I usually end up sending these folks over to Awesome Manager who has no problems with telling them where to put their 30 employees.

The Marketing... Web Design Firm
An ex-marketing firm that has decided to create a synergy of technology and advertising by getting itself integrated with the Interweb. While their websites may turn out very well, the inevitably screw up on the basics. They'll call up and say their server is running very slowly, and it'll turn out that their latest website, images included, has a 1.3MB front page. Or they'll not be able to grasp simple principles of cause and effect, such as deleting an image from the FTP account and it disappearing from the website.

The Great Pretender
Similar to The Know-It-All, but not as arrogant. Usually, they will not make accusations or demands, but will instead attempt to wheedle the information out of you so that they can then go and pretend to their customers/coworkers/staff like they knew what was wrong all along.

The Liar
The best example I can think of a liar comes from a co-worker who usually works on company PBX or VoIP systems. He once got a call from a government office saying that all their phones had gone off. He couldn't dial in remotely, so before he headed over there he asked them the usual questions... had anyone tampered with the system, was there any building work going on etc etc. They answered 'no' to everything. When he got there and went to the room containing the PBX, only to find it gone. Seems a building contractor had been told to gut a number of offices, and had done just that, leaving a bundle of CAT5 hanging from the ceiling, and bundle of ISDN30's poking out of the floor. Everything in between was lying in a dumpster outside, in the pouring rain.

The Underestimator
Buys the cheapest possible service available, and expects it to be up 24/7. If it goes down, he wants it fixed in minutes and compensation. Will scream and threaten to sue at even the slightest hint of no such thing being possible. Often uses the phrase "I'm paying you people all this money [...]", and more often than not, their account has lapsed or they are a frequent late payer. It's wonderful to be able to say "Actually sir, you're not. I'm going to transfer you to the accounts department now."

The Mental Old Biddy
Last, and greatest of all users. Usually a woman in their late-30's, self-important despite low standing in the company and tries to make herself feel superior and important by bossing around the geeks. Will often call or open support tickets for all manner of stupid shit. Like despite how you only provide the company with a broadband connection or the like, insists on opening a case for a stickey caps-lock key. Will actually stoop to causing faults, just so she can have the pleasure of speaking down her nose at you - I had one who had a network, plus network server for a printer, all provided by my company, and she loved unplugging the printer from the server so she could print directly, and would then insist on having us come out to plug it back in because "noone else was able to print any more."

Feel free to add your own in the comments.

Comments

[taiki.livejournal.com]

Uhm.

We are running out of IP addresses, and no, despite being a stop gap solution, NAT is not a solution.

[rorted.livejournal.com]

+alot

What's so bad about IPv6 anyway?

[jarad.livejournal.com]

It depends on who you ask. Some people say we have only 5 years left, some say we have 20. Then you need to take into consideration some of the companies that have huge old /8 allocations that the refuse to give up (although some are making the effort).

On top of that you have the complete lack of support from a lot of vendors for full IPv6 implementation, it's usually only the high-end ones that have any support for it. Then there's all those little embedded devices and legacy devices that someone else mentioned that don't support IPv6.

I was not talking about IPv4 pool exhaustian however. I was talking about wankers who think everything they own should have a public IP. I'm sorry but your electric ketchup bottle meter does not need a public IP.

The Guy Who Does Jack

[azurelunatic]

He knows what the problem is, the one that five people around him are screaming about, has worked out his own little work-around or simply does without, he probably knows the cause or caused it himself, he never fills out a trouble ticket, and only if directly questioned will he admit that there's even a problem, much less that he's familiar with what to do about it.

[ravan.livejournal.com]

Usually a woman in their late-30's,

Ummm... Hate to tell you, but late 30's is not an "old biddy". I'm 45, and my hair gets dyed... purple!

I would call her a mommy-track never-was. You know the type: took twelve years off to raise her kids, is out of date and out of touch, but thinks she's the cat's meow because she made the "right" choices that no one will reward her for. They hate geeks like me, who even through long bouts of unemployment and multiple career changes never stopped keeping up and staying current.

[trixtah.livejournal.com]

Word.

[matgb]

So you are old then. Poem. Jenny Joseph. One of my favourites.

I'm 32, so I don't think late 30s is old biddy, I think it just reflects upon the poor quality of young IT types these days...

[taiki.livejournal.com]

can I marry you?

[tothwolf.livejournal.com]

When he got there and went to the room containing the PBX, only to find it gone. Seems a building contractor had been told to gut a number of offices, and had done just that, leaving a bundle of CAT5 hanging from the ceiling, and bundle of ISDN30's poking out of the floor. Everything in between was lying in a dumpster outside, in the pouring rain.

Are there any photos of the empty phone room? Those would be great to show some of the guys I work with :)

[mouser.livejournal.com]

Pictures of empty rooms anyone can do. I want pictures of the guys face when he walked in the room!

[jarad.livejournal.com]

I wish there was. Alas, the poor bloke was in more of a hurry to reconnect everything and get it working again to even think of taking pictures.

[nem0.livejournal.com]

The Blind
You tell them to click on the Start button, or My Computer, or anything that should be obvious, and they say they can't find it. Even worse when they can't find something in an alphabetized list.

The Clueless Parent
"Well, my son fixed it last time, but he's in school right now. He's 8 years old, but he's really advanced for his age!"

Thinks You're Miss Cleo
Apparently, that whole bit about sufficiently advanced technology being indistinguishable from magic is making them confused, because they're certain you can fix everything without knowing what's wrong. They don't know what OS they're running, they didn't write down the error message, and god forbid you need to tell them to plug something in. But when you get exasperated and tell them you can't do anything, they blame you for not being clairvoyant. Look, if I'm gonna need ESP for this job, I'd better damn well get a raise.

<b>Looking for Merlin</b>

[gilmoure.livejournal.com]

Along with the folks who expect us to have ESP there's the ones who assume we're Harry Potter with a magic wand up our asses, just waiting to pull out and make their shit all shiny and rose smelling.

The fact that they're still running a pIII/256MB means nothing to them; they want Vista installed on it ASAP, while calling in at 4:55PM on a Friday before winter holidays. They usually seem to be some kind of assistant to some low level manager but they have an invented important title.

The my husband/wife/etc. is in I.T.

[rev-thumper.livejournal.com]

The person who thinks that because their bedroom partner works "in the industry" they should run everything you say past him or her for confirmation. In the interest of domestic bliss these people will be sympathetic and paint the I.T. staff as morons despite knowing nothing about our environment or company policies.

e.g.

"My husband says you're wrong and you should be able to install this software on my computer."

"You don't have a license for the software and even if you did, it requires an operating system we don't use or support."

The Dilettante (Good or Evil flavour)

[jahbulon.livejournal.com]

The Dilettante has taken an interest in certain facets of IT. He knows his stuff about certain topics, and they may be as particular as configuring ips/spx for a specific RTS game from the 90s or as general as ADSL modems. The Dilettante can be good or evil, depending on the original personality. A good Dilettante knows his limits and will help to a point - when he gets out of his depth he will happily stay schtum while you direct him. The Evil flavour will assume his own superiority and jump ahead of you "Because he knows where you want to go". When you ask him why he has opened Microsoft Access instead of the Control Panel, he may construe this as an attack and will then sulk for the next ten minutes, making things just a little more difficult for you.

[harry-whodunnit.livejournal.com]

I've been collecting 'em for a while:

http://www.evilgenius.org.nz/glossary.html (http://www.evilgenius.org.nz/glossary.html)

The Accuser

[neferde.livejournal.com]

"It was working perfectly until you broke it" is the first thing out of these people's mouths. Nevermind that they (and I'll use an actual customer for an example) are still using 98SE with Norton's active protection disabled, Outlook Express, and no firewalls (all set up that way by themselves because they have insisted the computer must be in that configuration to physically function at all), any and all problems which affect their precious computer will automatically be the fault of the nearest IT person. These can include such problems as city wide power outages, hardware breakage, "printer is out of ink" error messages, 3 feet of standing water in the office, or even remote hackers setting the computer up as an FTP porn host. It doesn't matter; it will always be the fault of the IT person and nothing can ever change The Accuser's mind.

Just thought of another

[neferde.livejournal.com]

The Gremlin

When the Gremlin is around laws of physics get broken. These come in two types; Miraculous and Malicious. Miraculous Gremlins can heal computers through nothing more than their presence. However the kind most encountered by techs is the Malicious variety. These can be found wherever something goes horribly wrong and there is no logical physical, physiological, or spiritual explanation. The Gremlin is the user who makes physics go boom, the one who can walk into a room and cause complete and total electronic chaos without touching anything. May also be known as the Serial Computer Killer, however this is misleading as they rarely collect trophies from their kills.

[taleya.livejournal.com]

The Conspiracy Theorist

Is convinced that every piece of spam and every advertisment they see on the net is the result of someone HACKING THEIR COMPUTER. Bonus points if they waffle on about them tapping their phone lines. May also intersect with the Suspicious Bastard who is convinced that every piece of spam sent to commwords@myisp.com is an attempt by the company to drive them to pay for their optional spam filter.

[jahbulon.livejournal.com]

This one is not limited to email however. Noticeable offshoots are the 45 year old men in rural areas on a dial-up connection with drop-out issues. While you are attempting to add a 16 digit long string to their modem, they are accusing your company of 'doing this deliberately so I'll go on to broadband'.

Never mind that the legacy plan they're on, $34.95 a month for unlimited time and downloads, is about 80% more profitable than the $29.95 broadband plan they'd sign up for.

The Sexist

[duality.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure I even need to describe this person.

Re: The Sexist

[jahbulon.livejournal.com]

You mean someone who is really really sexy, right? So sexy that they are The Sexist.

another few...

[yndy.livejournal.com]

The VIP

Uses phrases like "do you know who I am?!?" and "I could have your job!" because he or she had to wait in a queue for more than 10 seconds. Expects to be prioritized above all other users, no matter what the issue or it's severity.

The Customer Service Rep

Doesn't understand that there's a difference in skill level between "help desk" and "entry level customer service" - tends to think that since s/he also works on the phone, s/he knows the procedures where you are - including the ticketing system, response times, and processes. Uses phrases like "I work for company X - so I know you could fix it faster if you wanted to - just put it under a higher priority."

The First Year College Student Majoring in Comp Sci/CIS

Is 'taking classes' and therefore wants to impress you with his/her knowledge - but doesn't get that you just want to resolve the issue and don't care if s/he wants to sound impressive, so won't answer any question without a long, drawn-out attempt to show off his/her 'mad skillz.'

The Cell Phone User

Not sitting in front of the hardware in question - calls you from the car and doesn't understand that s/he is on a crappy connection - expects you to 'theorize' what's wrong with the system s/he is calling about so s/he can 'try that when I get home/back to the office' - and requires constant repetition a la the "can you hear me now?" variety.

Re: another few...

[taiki.livejournal.com]

All CS majors need a shirt that says, "I am a CS Major, I have no idea how to fix your computer."

[ihateemo.livejournal.com]

The Has-Been

This person was the man...20 years ago. And they'll remind you of this every so often while you're on the phone, recalling their glory days of being on the bleeding edge of technology and trying desperately to ignore the fact that their knowledge is now obsolete. And boy, are they bitter.

Sample quote: "You know, e-mail is a lot like the telegram..."

The Clicker

Completely ignores every single fucking direction. You ask them to right-click on My Computer, they restart the computer. You ask them to open the Control Panel, they unplug the ethernet cable. Requires a firm hand and, if possible, a strong drink afterward.

Sample quote: "OK, so I'm rebooting the computer...wait, did you want me to do that? What did you say?"

Johnny Foreigner

These poor guys have two strikes against them - they're both clueless about technology AND they don't speak the language. Average call time can be an hour. To reboot the machine. And they'll probably call back. And ask for you.

Sample quote: "I am not good with the computers! You help, yes?"

[ihateemo.livejournal.com]

Also:

Mr or Ms No Entiendo

You have fixed their (legitimate) problem that was caused on your side by either user error or hardware failure. Now you have to give them a RFO. They don't understand the RFO. They may not even know what RFO stands for. You have to explain in to them, possibly with the aid of colourful pictures and large Sesame Street style letters. Three times. My personal motto: those that do not understand RFOs should never ask for an official RFO.

Sample quoute: "So...I got this document...but what exactly was the problem?"

[ihateemo.livejournal.com]

This is a really fun post, by the way. I nominate this one for the memories.

ooh! more...

[yndy.livejournal.com]

the silent clicking fiend

You say "please take action X" and hear over the line nothing but the sound of mad clicking and typing... you say "sir/ma'am? did you take action X?" and get back a partial reply of "just a sec... I was... oh..." clickclickclick typity-typity-type.
"Sir/ma'am? are you there?"
"Just a second. I was... oh... huh..." clickclickclick typity-typity-type.

By the time you can manage to get the user to tell you what s/he's doing - more damage has been done - and the likelihood that Action X was taken is slim.

Turrette's Syndrome Poster Child

It doesn't take long for this one to devolve into obscenities and threats... because s/he knows that if s/he insults you enough and threatens you enough - you'll suddenly want to help him/her even more!!

[kerberos.livejournal.com]

The Chauvinist:

Calls in and won't talk to the female reps cause ONLY MEN KNOW TECHNOLOGY!
Totalt clueless asshole.

Quote : That's cute honey but get me a technician!

Addendums

[meandean.livejournal.com]

A factor missed in the description of the Web Design Firm:

The Sales-sharks for said firm use the expressions/words "Web 2.0", "a new paradigm of online activity", and "AJAX" so often it begins to sound like a mantra.

A sub-member of Web Design Firms:

The Flashturbator

The Flashturbator feels that if everything on the web page does not bounce, swirl, boing, change color, or otherwise move around, the page ain't done.  (They are the ones responsible for the 1.3mb splash page.)  The Flashturbator awaits new builds of Flash the same way Star Wars geeks await new pap from G. Lucas, often camping out in front of Adobe's offices down in San Jose.  Never mind that these newest builds force everyone to download the latest damn Flash viewer before they can continue on to, y'know, look at the website...
Their dream: the total eradication of all web page files that do not end in either '.swf' or '.cfm'.