feel my pain....

[dirtybunny.livejournal.com]

i rarely, if ever, x-post, but i just had the bestest call i think i'm going to get all year, so i figured this time i just had to....

quickly, my 'dayjob' [actually 12 hour overnights shifts] is as a systems analyst/network admin and it includes taking technical calls from peers who, yes often are end users, but aren't 'the public' or retail or anything like that, however these are the least technical or skilled of all the issues/calls i deal with and even then they aren't usually too bad really...so often it's actually techs and such instead that i end up speaking to anyhow...meaning that in theory i shouldn't have those 'call centre' war stories any longer, right?


Me: helpdesk?
Caller: hey this is X, a tech for _____, and i'm having issues with ____ server...
M: -checks some stuff- Ok have you re-started any services or rebooted it yet?
C: no...no i can't re-boot it; it's one of those new computers, you know? the ones that don't turn off.
M: -pause- i....uh....pardon me?
C: yeah, you know those new computers that you can't turn off? it's one of those.
M: -pause-....-pause-.....uh -pause-....there, uh....there aren't such things; all computers can be turned off; is there an off button or-
C: -interrupts- Listen I'm an ENGINEER for _______ company you know! I....-trails off-
M: there isn't a button? probably lit up or glowing on the front, like green maybe?
C: well yeah there's a light but i think it's like an activity light or something; it definitely doesn't turn anything off.
M: well sometimes you have to hold down the power button if a service or app. has stalled on the server, so if you just hold it down and-
C: -interrupts- LISTEN I already told you, it DOES NOT turn anything off and I KNOW a little about what I'm talking about; THIS IS ONE OF THOSE NEW COMPUTERS THAT DOESN'T TURN OFF; IT ISN'T A BUTTON!
M: -finally giving up on trying to get him to press and hold down 'the light' and not even considering getting him to a dos prompt to type 'boot'- OK well can you just UNPLUG the server then?
C: Oh ok sure yeah, hold on...
M: Ok once it's off can you just plug it back in then?
C: Yeah yeah, doing that now...uh, ok...ok now what? Now it isn't coming back on?!!
M: Yeah. yeah it's, it's ok, we just need to turn it back on by pressing that spot where 'the light' was, that BUTTON...you know, the one you didn't want to press? It won't be green now though...you there?
C: -silence-....uh.....well....-sighs- ok so I just like push where the light is?
M: uh yeah, you just push in until you feel and hear it click kinda and-
C: -CLICK-...-whrrrrr-....-PC loading noises start- Well would you look at THAT?!!
M: so I assume it's coming back up now then?
C: Yeah, oh yeah, wow. Yeah...
M: ok so why don't you let it load up, run your tests and call me back then if you still need me to do anything else, ok?
C: uh yeah, yeah...
M: -hangs up-...wow...I, uh...wow.


for reals....i am so friggin' serious...that was for reals....

Comments

[darkmattr.livejournal.com]

Same thing basically.

I had a 10 minute conversation this week that was right out of "Who's on first"

Can you give me a sign off?

Did you run the OVT?

No, I forgot. Can you run it for me?

Are you on site?

No, I need a sign off.

I can't run the OVT, you know, the ONSITE validation tool for you if your not on site.

But I need a sign off...

On and on for 10 minutes.

[the-s-guy.livejournal.com]

Breaking out of these loops can be a matter of using "Well, where would you suggest we go from here?", followed by "I can't do that until you do Y (or because of Z) - what else would you suggest?"

Puts the ball in their court and makes them actually have to think.

(They hate that.)

[alexanderc.livejournal.com]

What on earth was wrong with the idea of a real power switch? It was so nice to press a switch and hear "click" and the power would turn on or off. Now it's all soft power and hoping the motherboard is paying attention.

On the other hand, he's probably just an engineer on paper. Never touched hardware in his life. :)

[jecook]

Soft power lets you do spiffy things like wake on lan/ring/event, scheduled poweroff/poweron, and other cool things that are neat in the lab, but completely and utterly useless in Real Life.

Except WOL- being able to send a "breath of life" packet to a machine, have it crank up and automatically start in the middle of the night to fetch updates is a nifty idea, and I know a few places that have implemented it (except those that I actually have done major work for, that is...)

[argonel.livejournal.com]

Soft power / ATX is also a good idea it that it puts low voltage at the switch instead of full line voltage. Makes the system slightly safer to work on.

[mattcaron.livejournal.com]

I just flip the power switch in the back of the case.. or yank out the power cord.

[alexanderc.livejournal.com]

That's called being lulled into a false sense of security. If the power supply fails in some way (and you very well know that many of them are not built and tested against rigorous standards) then you are very much at risk.

To this day any machine I build has a hard switch on the front panel. Even if that means I have to crack open the power supply and solder in a pigtail.

[mattcaron.livejournal.com]

It is also nice to have the machine able to turn itself OFF when the UPS batteries are low.

[the-reda.livejournal.com]

word. Even more annoying with laptops. Especially the ones that do not have a 'click in/out' accu.

[simoncion.livejournal.com]

Mmm.
Have you ever run into a "soft power" system that wouldn't power off after you held the power switch down for a while? If so, man... that sucks! If not, surely you can see that the benefit of all of the fancy remote wakeup capabilities that soft power systems give you is far greater than the certainty lost from the removal of the hard power switch.

[jecook]

Then there are also power supplies with a hard on/off switch as well.

[alexanderc.livejournal.com]

Yeah, there are those thankfully. But the switch is harder to reach. :)

[simoncion.livejournal.com]

If a PSU doesn't have an on/off switch, I'm not gonna buy it! *folds arms*

[mattcaron.livejournal.com]

A good rule of thumb, actually. Most of the ones without them are complete shite.

[alexanderc.livejournal.com]

Yeah, actually I have run into one...it's in my living room. When it locks up, nothing recovers the system other than flipping the hard switch on the back of the supply.

I'm mainly hardware. I like the idea of deciding when a device has power or does not when I actuate a switch. :) I do understand the benefits of soft power for certain interesting features but sometimes you just want the switch that says "OFF NOW, I COMMAND THEE!" that only a true, hard switch can give you.

[simoncion.livejournal.com]

Yeah, actually I have run into one...it's in my living room.

Man. What motherboard is in that thing? I'd like to know so that I can NEVER BUY IT, EVER!

sometimes you just want the switch that says "OFF NOW, I COMMAND THEE!"


Aye aye. I do understand the benefits of a "REALLY, TOTALLY OFF!" switch. That's why I never buy a power supply without one.

[alexanderc.livejournal.com]

I'd have to open the machine up and look. I don't really remember because it's been so long.

[jimbojones.livejournal.com]

Forget remote wakeup: the best thing about soft-off switches is that when the thrice-be-goddamned users insist on pushing the power button instead of clicking start->shut down->shut down, the operating system shuts down safely instead of. You know. The power dropping on a live filesystem.

[jimbojones.livejournal.com]

Are you smoking crack? What was wrong with a real power switch is that users USED IT.

DAILY.

Instead of, you know, SHUTTING DOWN THE MACHINE SAFELY.

Which is what most modern operating systems do when the user presses the soft-off switch. And if that doesn't work, then hold it down for three seconds, and you get a hard power-off.

[alexanderc.livejournal.com]

Nope, no crack. I just prefer when the switch flips to "OFF" and means it. Not "OFF er um Standby", not "Let me hold this down while it thinks about doing what I just told it to do." If I want it off, I want it OFF.

[coyoteden.livejournal.com]

Dude, you can't power cycle a Dell?

Ugh...

And yes, WOL is cool because:

a) My home theater wakes up my PC.

b) "ipmitool blah blah power reset" saves me from having to drive the fsck in at 2 AM.

c) using the same to change the LCD to "Insert Coin" is a great way to screw with interns.

[dirtybunny.livejournal.com]

lmao OMG c) just about had me shooting gingerale out my nose, thank you! heheh

[jecook]

I did a similar gag with one of the laser printers at work. Boss found it amusing, then asked me to restore it to normal. :)

[doublefelix.livejournal.com]

So, you decided that an unsafe shutdown which would likely lead to file corruption is the best way to go because they didn't know what they were doing?

[fnordx.livejournal.com]

Stupidity, while not painful, is expensive.

And the inability to follow directions is stupidity.

[simoncion.livejournal.com]

So, you decided that an unsafe shutdown which would likely lead to file corruption...

Likely?
Unlikely, in my experience.

[doublefelix.livejournal.com]

Depends on the operating system, etc. I (possibly falsely) assumed he was using windows, in which case it would indeed be likely, but he may have well been using something with Journaling.

[simoncion.livejournal.com]

NTFS *is* journaled.

[doublefelix.livejournal.com]

Oh, really? I've always used FAT32.
I guess I don't really know what I'm talking about then. Carry on.

[dirtybunny.livejournal.com]

that server doesn't even run Windows of any kind.

[dirtybunny.livejournal.com]

no, i decided to do my job, and while if you had ASKED why it was necessary to risk [SMALL risk at that, considering you have ZERO idea what is on that server OR why time was of the essence OR even what the risks were in NOT forcing a restart at that time] i would have happily explained, but hell why would i since you seem to know more about my job than i do...and besides i've always been told don't feed the trolls endusers.

[kuangning]

Only after they resisted the attempts to get them through it the nice way. "Those that can't hear will feel," my parents used to say, as a precursor/warning that a spanking was imminent.

+1

[silece.livejournal.com]

i am so stealing that line

[lintilla.livejournal.com]

I can do better...

A user at my girlfriend's work tried to turn his computer on by flipping the voltage switch.

And then he wondered where all the smoke was coming from.

[dirtybunny.livejournal.com]

ohes noes, don't they know that smoke runs the whole thing and if you let that precious smoke out the computer will never work! ;)