how to piss off the IT guy
Nov. 30th, 2007 02:44 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
jimbojones.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
techrecoveryDear lusers, when dumping your problem on me and bailing please first:
1. make goddamn sure I know your username and password
2. make goddamn sure I actually know what your problem IS and how to replicate it
3. make goddamn sure I know the username and password for the application you're having the problem WITH
4. take your goddamn cell phone with you
5. turn your shitty little Milton-esque constantly burbling talk radio OFF!
I just spent half an hour manually hacking registry keys for $oldversion of $random_industry_niche_app out so that $newversion could be installed (not only did the old version not uninstall cleanly, the "fix" application errored out on running) and the user in question both left her cell phone behind to chirp non stop shitty MIDI at me while her son frantically tried to get hold of her (as it turns out, to make sure she added pellets for his BB gun to the shopping list: btw, this kid is 19) AND left her clockradio tuned into some creepy jesus talk radio shit. Even better, the clock radio was one of those bizarre melty half-sphere/half-cube monstrosities with buttons sprayed randomly across the front of it "artistically". I could tell at a glance how to set alarm one, set alarm two, change either alarm to weather / radio / buzzer / CD, set the time, change the time ZONE, snooze the alarm if it was going off, turn the clock to sleep mode, or change the color of the display. But it took me five minutes to figure out that the only way to turn the radio OFF once the motherfucker was ON is to, I shit you not, press "play" on the CD player.
I. Hate. People.
1. make goddamn sure I know your username and password
2. make goddamn sure I actually know what your problem IS and how to replicate it
3. make goddamn sure I know the username and password for the application you're having the problem WITH
4. take your goddamn cell phone with you
5. turn your shitty little Milton-esque constantly burbling talk radio OFF!
I just spent half an hour manually hacking registry keys for $oldversion of $random_industry_niche_app out so that $newversion could be installed (not only did the old version not uninstall cleanly, the "fix" application errored out on running) and the user in question both left her cell phone behind to chirp non stop shitty MIDI at me while her son frantically tried to get hold of her (as it turns out, to make sure she added pellets for his BB gun to the shopping list: btw, this kid is 19) AND left her clockradio tuned into some creepy jesus talk radio shit. Even better, the clock radio was one of those bizarre melty half-sphere/half-cube monstrosities with buttons sprayed randomly across the front of it "artistically". I could tell at a glance how to set alarm one, set alarm two, change either alarm to weather / radio / buzzer / CD, set the time, change the time ZONE, snooze the alarm if it was going off, turn the clock to sleep mode, or change the color of the display. But it took me five minutes to figure out that the only way to turn the radio OFF once the motherfucker was ON is to, I shit you not, press "play" on the CD player.
I. Hate. People.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-11-30 08:39 pm (UTC)With that 10-lb sledge mentioned in here yesterday...
no subject
Date: 2007-11-30 10:06 pm (UTC)Could you not find the plug?
no subject
Date: 2007-12-01 09:12 am (UTC)"Oh, sorry, I seem to have accidentally kicked the plug out of the socket with my feet. And then accidentally hacked the end off with my pliers. Sorry about that."