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techrecoveryHello. :) So, I just joined about 2 mins ago because I had a story which prompted me to do so. Background, I do second level internal support for the business (former MCI) side of "giant telco that rhymes with Horizon". I do phone support, and a company that's been hired does local support (and they get paid way too much money per ticket in their queue, even if they don't actually do any work.). I get sent tickets by the first level "techs", which I pick up out of a queue and call the customer back. All this said, .
For computers to be on our domain they must be named. Sometimes exsisting computers will, for whatever reason, fall off the domain. This is fairly common, the error message is really consistent, it's easy to see when it has happened. Only my dept (there's about 10 of us) and our local guys have the credentials to re-join something to the domain. Name admin issues the computer names and activates it on the domain. So, first of all, this ticket is written by a huge whiner. We get 24 hours to answer the tickets (cept on fridays, then it goes till monday.) before t1 is allowed to page us on a ticket. This guy started bitching like right after it was opened. It only took a few hours to get to me as an escalation from a supervisor. I call back, and I go through the process of re-naming this computer and re-joining it to the domain after he had had his mobo replaced. This takes like an hour (if you've never done it, it's a 15 min process, 20 if your computer is slow.) because this jackass first can't figure out if he has a local login and second is continuing to take calls and won't take me off hold. I had literally 15 mins of conversation with him in this 1:20 call. I can VNC in and do my work, but he needs to say yes to the damned popup, and he just isn't paying attention. So I go through this process and it's getting to be time for me to go home and he's STILL got me on hold, even tho I'm done with re-joining it. Finally he takes me off hold, and this is what comes out of his mouth:
"My desk top was different, so I know the machine had the wrong harddrive in it. I just walked over and put the right harddrive back in."
Exscuse me, you did _*WHAT*_?? You, idiot boy, just walked over to the desk of an outside hired local technician and took a harddrive off it (that just happened to be his) and did his work after he went home? Yeah, we'll be lucky if we don't get frakkin' SUED for that. Not only did you do this, but because you didn't figure this out sooner, I've now renamed some other guy's machine and I'm fairly sure local techs can't look up that info like we can to retrieve his old computer name. In addition, hey look, your cached credentials logged you in just fine oh, and hey, so did your network login when you hooked it up to the LAN. You didn't even NEED this ticket in the first place, nor did you need that hour and 20 mins of my time. TYVM, I'm going home now like I should have a half hour ago. ;P~~~
Other oddity from today. I call a customer on a fairly straitforward "I can't get a connection" call, and it turns into a WTF moment. He tells me "So, I know exactly why it won't work. I looked some stuff up on the net and followed the instructions and the local tech says it disabled the LAN drop." At this point I make a O.o face in my head.
Long explination short, he'd gotten a word doc from a "tech" at another helpdesk (one that supports a specific application) and had followed the instructions on it. He'd hard set his speed to 100mps inside his LAN connection in windows. And while we, as makers and providors of bandwidth, certainly _HAVE_ that sort of bandwidth, we don't let one person use it. So, changing the setting physically disables the LAN drop at his desk and so a local tech has to come out and switch it back.
Second problem with this situation is more fun, for me, anyway. Obviously, if there's a helpdesk out there sending out a doc that gives instructions on how to do this we want to put an end to it. It costs us like $250 every time someone does this, and it's nothing but a waste of money. I ask for the customer to forward me the email and, being the helpful chap he was, he forwards it on. It really was from another support desk (and the person who wrote it origonally was kind enough to have a detailed signature that included what helpdesk he worked for.), which suprised me. On opening the word doc attatched I discover many things. First, it's titled "second level support help". Not a good sign for something that's being sent to end users.
Turns out the document contains instructions and screenshots to do the following things: Delete objects in IE, Install and run awaware (No mention of liscencing it, and their free version doesn't cover business machines.), a registry cleaner found somewhere random on the 'net, instructions on how to increase the size of your page file, and the all-important how to set your desired connection speed. All being sent to end users to do as a first-touch resolution to a problem with a specific app, to do on their own with no help or guidance.
So I fowarded it on to my boss who, I'm sure, will have a field day with it when she gets back from vacation.
That's it, that's my story for today, and my hello. :)
For computers to be on our domain they must be named. Sometimes exsisting computers will, for whatever reason, fall off the domain. This is fairly common, the error message is really consistent, it's easy to see when it has happened. Only my dept (there's about 10 of us) and our local guys have the credentials to re-join something to the domain. Name admin issues the computer names and activates it on the domain. So, first of all, this ticket is written by a huge whiner. We get 24 hours to answer the tickets (cept on fridays, then it goes till monday.) before t1 is allowed to page us on a ticket. This guy started bitching like right after it was opened. It only took a few hours to get to me as an escalation from a supervisor. I call back, and I go through the process of re-naming this computer and re-joining it to the domain after he had had his mobo replaced. This takes like an hour (if you've never done it, it's a 15 min process, 20 if your computer is slow.) because this jackass first can't figure out if he has a local login and second is continuing to take calls and won't take me off hold. I had literally 15 mins of conversation with him in this 1:20 call. I can VNC in and do my work, but he needs to say yes to the damned popup, and he just isn't paying attention. So I go through this process and it's getting to be time for me to go home and he's STILL got me on hold, even tho I'm done with re-joining it. Finally he takes me off hold, and this is what comes out of his mouth:
"My desk top was different, so I know the machine had the wrong harddrive in it. I just walked over and put the right harddrive back in."
Exscuse me, you did _*WHAT*_?? You, idiot boy, just walked over to the desk of an outside hired local technician and took a harddrive off it (that just happened to be his) and did his work after he went home? Yeah, we'll be lucky if we don't get frakkin' SUED for that. Not only did you do this, but because you didn't figure this out sooner, I've now renamed some other guy's machine and I'm fairly sure local techs can't look up that info like we can to retrieve his old computer name. In addition, hey look, your cached credentials logged you in just fine oh, and hey, so did your network login when you hooked it up to the LAN. You didn't even NEED this ticket in the first place, nor did you need that hour and 20 mins of my time. TYVM, I'm going home now like I should have a half hour ago. ;P~~~
Other oddity from today. I call a customer on a fairly straitforward "I can't get a connection" call, and it turns into a WTF moment. He tells me "So, I know exactly why it won't work. I looked some stuff up on the net and followed the instructions and the local tech says it disabled the LAN drop." At this point I make a O.o face in my head.
Long explination short, he'd gotten a word doc from a "tech" at another helpdesk (one that supports a specific application) and had followed the instructions on it. He'd hard set his speed to 100mps inside his LAN connection in windows. And while we, as makers and providors of bandwidth, certainly _HAVE_ that sort of bandwidth, we don't let one person use it. So, changing the setting physically disables the LAN drop at his desk and so a local tech has to come out and switch it back.
Second problem with this situation is more fun, for me, anyway. Obviously, if there's a helpdesk out there sending out a doc that gives instructions on how to do this we want to put an end to it. It costs us like $250 every time someone does this, and it's nothing but a waste of money. I ask for the customer to forward me the email and, being the helpful chap he was, he forwards it on. It really was from another support desk (and the person who wrote it origonally was kind enough to have a detailed signature that included what helpdesk he worked for.), which suprised me. On opening the word doc attatched I discover many things. First, it's titled "second level support help". Not a good sign for something that's being sent to end users.
Turns out the document contains instructions and screenshots to do the following things: Delete objects in IE, Install and run awaware (No mention of liscencing it, and their free version doesn't cover business machines.), a registry cleaner found somewhere random on the 'net, instructions on how to increase the size of your page file, and the all-important how to set your desired connection speed. All being sent to end users to do as a first-touch resolution to a problem with a specific app, to do on their own with no help or guidance.
So I fowarded it on to my boss who, I'm sure, will have a field day with it when she gets back from vacation.
That's it, that's my story for today, and my hello. :)
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no subject
Date: 2007-05-26 03:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-26 02:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-26 04:49 am (UTC)Welcome!...
Welcome!
Date: 2007-05-26 08:49 am (UTC)Which IMHO they are more than welcome to try. I rather enjoy getting to tell lusers what I really want to say at work but am not allowed to.
Re: Welcome!
Date: 2007-05-26 02:43 pm (UTC)I'll help people outside of work, but with everyone except my mom & family (my friends all know how to use their computers.) I help them how _I_ want to. None of the "click on the little green button that says start" type hand-holding, just "you need to do this in here". Usually confuses the hell out of them. It is also, it turns out, the best way to humble someone who doesn't want to work with you because they think the know more then you (I used to work at AOL and this happened all the damned time.). Just say what needs to be done in technical terms...they'll studder and go "refresh my memory?" and you'll have 'em. That sort of stuff was all I gained from AOL...observance on human nature and the ability to manipulate people over the phone. ;)
no subject
Date: 2007-05-26 03:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-26 03:20 pm (UTC)