When vendors attack

[yanni85.livejournal.com]

Here is the ticket we received today:
$user called last night to say that the printer was down due to an IP address problem. The $company printer rep will call this morning to speak to an available tech.

And the background:
The company that $user is from moved offices yesterday. Just picked up the network and moved it to a new office. Note that this does not involve changing anything on the network, especially IPs. A printer tech was out there yesterday to hook their printer back up and very likely did something stupid... like change ANYTHING!

UPDATE: Finally got a call from the printer tech. Different tech, guessed that the tech from yesterday had reset the device (smart move there, would have worked as it was). Apparently he asked $user for the IP address he should set the printer to and was handed the ISP's sheet of IP information because the user doesn't know any better. Printer tech actually tried setting this IP on the printer. *facepalm* At least it couldn't actually break anything from inside the network.

UPDATE2: Turns out that the printer has an xp computer for some functions. This XP computer has a PCI hub card in it, the printer portion has a network connection and the computer portion has a network connection, both of these plug into the hub and then from the hub to the wall. Well, the hub had a cable plugged back into itself so it was taking down the whole network when it was plugged in. According to the tech it was like that when he got there. I do take some pleasure from fixing other vendors' issues for them.

And, a non-vendor related ticket we received today:
External emails are not working. Internet is also down. effects everyone. no changes, no error message. rebooted computers not server.

Well, yes, I would expect external e-mail is down because your connection to the external world is down. Also, why would you reboot users' computers when the whole company's internet is down? Right, common sense is a bit much to ask of people, that's why.

Comments

[twfarlan.livejournal.com]

Oh, I have a pretty good guess as to why the guy rebooted every computer in the office, or at least claimed to have done so. People are becoming trained by lazy hell-desk operators and the routine, no-deviation scripts they use, to try rebooting before doing anything else. "Oh, you say you've already rebooted? Well, we'll need you to do it again while we're talking to you in case you either lied or you did it wrong. After all, rebooting = difficult."

[yanni85.livejournal.com]

It's true. Yet more reasons scripts are evil.

At least rebooting workstations generally doesn't hurt anything.

[notthebuddha.livejournal.com]

Also, why would you reboot users' computers when the whole company's internet is down?

Because verifying the various PCs still have no internet access despite rebooting is *how* they determined the whole company's internet is down. This is a detailed, clearly worded trouble ticket and you should thank the person who submitted it for doing you such a service.

The last time I got a message "Company X's internet is down", I ran across town only to discover that ONE person could not pull up ONE website, and could not try any other PCs in the empty office because they had password protected their screensavers.

[mattcaron.livejournal.com]

Just my uptime...

(mattimt@case) ~$ uptime
13:36:39 up 17 days, 20:30, 12 users, load average: 2.50, 2.30, 1.94

Kernel upgrade a couple of weeks ago..

(Yes, that is my workstation. Yes, it does run that heavily loaded. Yes, I need a quad core CPU as opposed to the Dual Athlon MP's I'm running now)

[yanni85.livejournal.com]

Always a good time. I've definitely had movers do it but at least they aren't expected to know what they're doing. It's bad when a technician makes the same mistake.

[yanni85.livejournal.com]

Ah, uptime. The nerd's version of a fancy sports car.