what constitutes a "high priority"?

[momentarygenius.livejournal.com]

Preface: We define high priority as "A problem affecting one or more users that affects their primary job function and for which there is no work around".
Our normal priority turn around time is 12 business hours, so it's not like normal requests sit around for weeks at a time.

__________________________________________________________________
So this luser is trying to burn some files to a dvd and it's not working.
I ask him the normal troubleshooting stuff...
"Do you have a DVD Read and Write drive?" "yes"
"Are the discs really DVDs?" "yes"
"Are you able to burn normal CDs?" "yes"
"Do you have a different brand of DVDs you can try?" "yes, they don't work either"

ok. At this point I'm almost certain its a bad drive, bad software or luser error. So I remote in and watch him try.

he's using Roxio's Drag and Drop utility. Tried to bypass that and add files to copy directly, but every time he puts in a blank dvd roxio tries to format it and it fails. Made sure DLA is enabled, no effect.

I advised him I'd send a desktop tech up to his workstation and he says "This is urgent, its crucial I write to dvds today".

Really???? Show me the file that is larger than 700MB that you want to copy and I'll think about making it high priority.

What things do your callers think is high priority that really isn't?

Comments

[red-scully.livejournal.com]

Our lusers think EVERYTHING is high priority. And the further they are up the management chain, the smaller the problem and the more urgent. *dramatic rolling of eyes* THe worst thing of all is that the managers in our department always bow down to the big wigs. So enormous office of 30 people who can't access the network at all is less of a problem than important boss wants access to blocked websites for personal reasons. Seriously.

[momentarygenius.livejournal.com]

we have special priorities just for our execs, and this guy wasn't one.

[blkrabbitofinle.livejournal.com]

Do you dread those calls as much as I used to? Ick. Execs (and especially their EAs) are awful to deal with.

[momentarygenius.livejournal.com]

everytime i see the caller id show that whoever is on my line pushed the exec option ... i cry a little.


mostly cause its usually some idiot that hit the wrong button.

[http://users.livejournal.com/hub_/]

was he trying to burn some porn or some bootlegged movie?

[momentarygenius.livejournal.com]

it was a couple SMALL excel files.

don't ask why he couldn't just put them on his network drive, apparantly he doesn't trust those either.

[falnfenix]

my favorite: "i brought in my personal laptop and i want to use it on the wireless, can you just give me the WEP key?"
"no, sir, i can't"
"but i need it NOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWW"

1 - there are two thousand workstations in our department alone. find one.
2 - if it were a departmental laptop, it would have some priority. yours, however, is personal. that immediately puts it at the bottom of the list. you need to get your lazy ass OUT of that cushy chair and walk to our hardware office, where they will get to it when they can.

[momentarygenius.livejournal.com]

fortunately we have a public wireless network available so i don't get those calls. thank god.

[falnfenix]

ours is totally locked down so we can track usage.

[notthebuddha.livejournal.com]

Why do you need to track usage?

[falnfenix]

we deal with patient care, and the main helpdesk feels the need to track who's going where.

[mtupyro.livejournal.com]

I've been called on multiple times to remove spyware from a certain professor's computer that he gets because he likes to frequent porn sites. This is the same professor who called in and demanded that we change his network cable because it was a tacky color.

[falnfenix]

oh, and? nice icon. ;)

[gilmoure.livejournal.com]

Is someone (or something) on fire?

No.

Is there an eminent danger of a chemical or radiological incident?

No.

Is Superman going to die?

No.

Well, sir, it looks like this does in fact not rate High Priority. This will be handled as a low priority ticket. You can expect contact from support tech within 30 minutes. No, getting that dancing hamster page to work right, before you leave for lunch does not meet our criteria of "Mission Critical." Good day.

Stupid git!

[egearman.livejournal.com]

Has Timmy fallen down the well?

Yes

Well, it's the twelfth time this quarter. And he's been shown how to climb out, so it's Low priority.


The coffee machine is broken?

High priority!

[gilmoure.livejournal.com]

Finneas (http://pbfcomics.com/?cid=PBF234-Finneas.jpg#200)?

[egearman.livejournal.com]

Well, I had read that, but not the association I was going for. More the Lassie/Timmy thing. I was more thinking of a clueless boss I used to have and an sftp server we had set up.

[momentarygenius.livejournal.com]

one we generally abide by is "will we as a company lose more than $500,000 if this is not resolved in 12 hours?".


But I like the superman one better myself.

[jecook]

Oh hell, that's a priority *2* call at my place.

a Priority 1 call is the "mission cricital system that makes us $500k in 30 minutes is broken", which is understandably a bit more... urgent

Interestingly enough, password resets are also classed a priority one call, but the people usually call those in and they get resolved while they are one the phone with us...

[brothersterno.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry, you canceled your phone service. This affects the DSL circuit piggy-backing on the DSL line. I know it worked for a month after you canceled your phone service: This means that the phone company does the minimum amount of work needed instead of a thorough job. You will need to order a new circuit, which takes a week. No, we can't expedite that, because it's a NEW order. Sorry, you will have to pay the disconnect fee if you choose to not re-order. No, we didn't cancel your phone service, you did. Sorry dude.

[momentarygenius.livejournal.com]

a cancellation doesn't guarantee a disconnect date, just that it WILL happen at SOME TIME in the future ;)

[harry-whodunnit.livejournal.com]

Actual issues that users have demanded an urgent solution to:

* Move my printer, so I don't have to stand up to get a print-out. Because if I have to stand up all the time I could be injured and it will be your fault.

* Fix the noisy fan in my PC, because it's causing me stress and I'll need to take time off from work to recover.

* Change the colour of the text in my spreadsheet, otherwise the board of directors won't read my report and thousands of people will be affected.

* Divert the emergency tech to my office immediately to fix my computer. It's far too inconvenient to move to the other desk.

[egearman.livejournal.com]

* Light them on fire.
* Light them on fire.
* Light them on fire.
* Light them on fire.

In all cases above, make sure you have the appropriate fire control and extinguishing materials (i.e. a bat, baseball or cricket) on hand.

[momentarygenius.livejournal.com]

1)actually it'll be the fault of the person who put the printer there in the first place.

2)i'm sure there are other aspects of your job that cause you more stress than a noisy fan.

3)change it your damn self - if it isn't black you changed it.

4)ill dispatch him, but he is about 16 hours from your location.


problems solved!

[pat-barron.livejournal.com]

See, as much as people hate them sometimes, this is where formal service level agreements win mightily. "I'm sorry, sir/madam, the SLA simply doesn't permit me to assign an urgent priority rating to a problem of this type, anything that gets an urgent priority automatically gets reviewed by a supervisor, who will automatically knock the priority down when it becomes bloody obvious that this problem doesn't meet the approved definition of 'urgent priority'. And on top of that, I'll get in trouble with my supervisor for assigning an incorrect priority to this issue..."

[mathsnerd]

Ooh, yes. Bury them in bureaucracy!

[the-s-guy.livejournal.com]

The trick there is making sure that the SLA setup AND the responsibility for maintaining, adjusting and revamping said SLAs is firmly in the hands of the technical department, not clueless upper management. Otherwise you get problems like the one I ran into, where a simultaneous nuclear strike on the corporate mainframes and their backups has the same priority as a board member wanting their desktop background color changed to a slightly different shade.

On the other hand, if you have clever, sneaky middle tech management, they can often take advantage of the upper meddling by having the messy details of the SLAs handled downstream, with a couple of oversimplified and heavily interpretable puppet strings available for the CIO. That way, all requests for SLA changes have to go to the CIO, who then asks IT what it would cost to implement, makes a yea/nay decision based on that, and allows IT to make the arrangements. Sure, you end up with the CEO and a couple of their buddies having slightly overinflated personal priorities, but in a large organisation with good IT that shouldn't take up too much extra time or resources.

A good line of patter to use back to the CIO when they ask if CEO-buddy can have 'special' priority is "Sure - once-off or ongoing? And if the latter, how much budget do they want to spend? Here's a list of executive support options along with their costs, including the free ones they're already getting simply because they're an exec. Show them the brochure, tell them to keep it handy in case they need extra support in future."

[255-255-255-0.livejournal.com]

EVERYTHING !

[arabwel.livejournal.com]

Everything!

Especially authorizations. when they fark up and don;t send in those lovely signed by suprvisor requests by snail mail that they HAVE to and then neep when they lose access - and expect us to wave a magic wand to fix it.

[therealdrhyde.livejournal.com]

Anything that affects someone who wears a tie is high priority. Anything that affects the annoying sales girl with a horrible voice is also high priority, but that's just because we can't stand to hear her whine.