techrecovery | Random Techie Moments in My Life

I have not actually been in the tech support field for over 2 years. I left after my first trimester of pregnancy and never looked back. Problem is, once a techie, always a techie... Side note here: My husband is now the trainer (one of the positions I held prior to leaving) at the company I used to work for. I am currently a co-manager of a retail store in a mall (where all the POS units are run on Win2K).
Here are a few random moments that have come across my path since leaving the field...

I bring home a new MP3 player that my company is selling (note: we are not in the business of electronics. We are beauty and fucking lotion as my manager puts it.) I give it to my husband who unwraps it, puts in the earbuds and proceeds to push buttons for a while before telling me that it's broken. I glare at him and say, "Did you RTFM?!" He glares back and mutters, "Shut up." Of course, he then reads the manual and figures out how to use it.

One POS unit is consistently running slow and having problems with signature capture. I often reboot it for the other girls there. Still, doesn't fix the problem completely, but does temporarily. A new signature capture machine comes in for installation. We're supposed to call to walk through the install. Nobody will touch it until I come in. I call the guy and tell him I worked for tech support before to which he thanks God. He simply tells me, "Power it down, unplug the ethernet. Plug in the ethernet into the new unit and power it back on." I dubiously say, "Um, THAT'S IT?!?!" He laughed and said, "Yep. But at least I could use the term ethernet with you and you'd understand what I meant."

We often have the scanners go down on our POS machines. All the girls (including the management team) will simply place a note on the terminal stating, "DO NO USE. SCANNER BROKEN." I always groan, unplug the scanner, replug it and all works again.

One of my associates had a run in with Linksys tech support recently. She was bitching about how all she wanted to know was if she could set up the router using a wireless connection. I immediately told her no. She continued her story and apparently after 4 transfers and about an hour on the phone she was told no. ARGH!!! I told her to call me next time.

I come into work one day at the main computer in the backroom is vibrating and humming like a helicopter ready to take off. Knowing how filthy the floor in the backroom is (especially near the case) I know that the unit simply needs to be powered down and the fan cleaned of all the filth...er dust. But, knowing that would take down the entire register system, I call into our support line to have them send a tech to officially do it. Now, I know this guy was doing his job. Hell, I've had to jump through all the hoops before setting up a trouble ticket. I don't blame him, but explain that to the girls and sales leads on the floor when the system goes down... Dude tells me to reboot the system to see if that fixes it. I laughed at him and told him that it won't. He knows, but he tells me to do it anyway. I ask what exactly this will do to the registers. He says that it will only take down credit/debit transactions but not the actual registers. Now, mind you, it's a Saturday 2 weeks before Christmas. It's swamped on the sales floor. I radio the girls telling them the system is going to be down for 5 mins max. I reboot and it doesn't just take down credit/debit. It takes down the entire system. The girls on the floor are in a panic with mad customers. Luckily, it did all come back up after 4 mins, but can you imagine what that tech has to go through with complete neophytes on computers when they have the same problem. It's not a wonder we techies hate our jobs sometimes...