I love dem "IT Proffessionels"

[darkrose.livejournal.com]

Let me set this up.

Customer installs one of our discontinued products. Wants help. Level 1 support tells him to fark off. He biatches to supervisor. Supervisor biatches to President of company. President of company tells me to "handle it"--mostly because President of company has pissed off everybody who knows something about this product to the point where they have quit..but I was stupid enough to actually need this job back then.. bleh.

So he makes the customer pay a bunch of money for an incident and they open a ticket in our ticket system. Now keep in mind, the ticket system asks them for a bunch of information that is formatted and spit out in the ticket. This info is blank except for the required contact information and the description..


..The description is:

"Well we're upgrading from server 2000 to XP pro. We need help in reinstalling the $PRODUCT system."

So of course, I respond with basic troubleshooting BS like..oh, "What kind of help do you need with $PRODUCT", "What is the error message or failing condition you get.." that kind of thing..

So LUSER responds with:

"I need help configuring the "web server" clients could access datas form the net. I don't get the CGI and IIS. pls help
I'm just the IT proffessionel. And yes I followed the instruction carefully but when it's all done and I tried it it gives me "page under construction" Is there a setting such as IP, DNS,...I need to check on? And does the Computer needs to be "static IP"?"

..see, the software requires a web server to function, we recommend and support IIS with the product but it will pretty much work with IIS, Apache (because of my constant biatching about IIS), and pretty much anything that can run pre-compiled CGI in Windoze.

So, I figured out his problem when I told him to go to http://127.0.0.1/$PRODUCT-install-dir and it magically worked...I told him that "There are a great many variables that come into play with this such as firewall access, port forwarding/routing and quite a few other considerations. Someone familiar with your networking hardware and topology can probably help you with this, we do not provide any kind of networking consulting services or support for hardware."

To which he responded "Oh. I thought as long as you could access the internet from the server i just created it will do just fine."

For those who didn't get what was just said.. this "IT proffessionel" just said that he thought that if the server could access a web page from the server (eg: Open the browser, go to Google), that the web server would be accessible from the Internet.



The sad part about this is this idiot probably makes 4x as much as I do. Absolutely amazing.

EDIT:
The guy is trying to access his web server from a separate internet connection using http://10.2.x.x/

What's wrong with this picture? hehe.. I told him to call his ISP to get his public IP address (mostly because I want him to do some hoop movement..I could have sent him to ipchicken or whatismyip but that wouldn't be fun, huh)..Him using that IP tells me he won't follow directions. I sent him the IPWHOIS output and pointed out that it's a protected/private network address and that while it will work on his private network, it won't work over the internet (the software requires a public IP be entered into the config if it's to be accessed over the 'net).

so yeah.. idiot city.

Comments

[ravan.livejournal.com]

That person sounds like the former IT idiot from one of our sister companies - right down to the bad grammar, stupid assumptions (in spite of being told differently), and expectation that someone else will provide all the answers.

[jimbojones.livejournal.com]

Not that I don't agree with you that this guy's been eating off the lead-base-painted NASCAR commemorative plates since childhood, but... I doubt he makes 4x as much as you. Unless you make like, I dunno, $8K a year or something?

CEOs and managers (and, god help us, programmers) that mindnumbingly stupid can still end up making a ton of money, but "IT professionels" THAT ignorant rarely break 40K. There's just too much that they can't do, and too little "team" to distribute the weight of their ignorance upon to camouflage the lack.

[darkrose.livejournal.com]

I make about 20k less than I should with my job function, experience, certifications and tenure in this job market. My official title is Sr. Unix Administrator, although I do so much crap around here it's unbelievable.

BUT.. I will be looking for another job in April when I come back from my week-long family vacation that will involve mass quantities of frosty adult beverages being sipped on a white Caribbean sand beach...

[kathygnome.livejournal.com]

Unless he works for government. I'm shocked and horrified at what my peers don't know.

[falnfenix]

ah, that's a lovely tour of fail. i see similar failtours on the daily.

[jasoncrowley.livejournal.com]

That "IT proffessionel" sounds like a glorified entry level tech. That and/or they are placing more weight behind their function than they actually posses.

You prolly wouldn't be surprised to hear what passed as an 'Administrator' position at my former job. Thankfully such positions did not pay well at said company.

As a result of their staffing decisions I moved on last January. (No, I was not an admin :P)

If you can create a good resume and talk a good line of B.S. you can weasel your way into many tech jobs you shouldn't have.

[berkeleyfarm.livejournal.com]

Actually this sounds like typical "project manager" jive. Most "IT project managers" couldn't install it if it's anything more than "stick the cd in" and some of htem

The 10. web address is BONUS LULZ, to be sure.

(And if it had been on the intertoobz, it would have been PWN3D in about a New York second.)

I worked with so-called sysadmins who pulled some stupid crap like this, but at least I had the satisfaction of knowing they were being paid half what I was (good news) even as I had to fish their chestnuts out of the fire while they were bitching about IT (bad news).

[berkeleyfarm.livejournal.com]

whoops, I fail at finishing sentences. "And some of them are that clueless about how the technology really works."

[therealdrhyde.livejournal.com]

Next time this fuckwit calls, tell him that he sounds like just the sort of highly-skilled technician that your company needs, and would he be good enough to send you a copy of his CV.

I'm sure it'll be good for a laugh.