(no subject)

[red-scully.livejournal.com]

Back from a week in the sun and straight back into the stupidity.  Oh man, it burns.

Fool #1.

Me, via email:  "I will come up later to do the work whilst you're in your meeting; can you make sure you log off of the machine so that I can log in with admin rights to make the changes."
User, visiting me later on way to meeting: "Hi, I've left my computer locked for you."
Me: Um, ok... have you logged off?"
User: "Logged off?  No, I'm logged in... is that a problem?"
Me:  "I asked you to log off, as I need to do the work logged in myself."
User: "Oh, I didn't realise you meant I should log off."

GRR.

Fool #2:
(Problem:  Machine keeps spontaneously rebooting; suspected problem with the DIMM slots)

Me, verbally AND on phone: "I am going to ring Dell to arrange for an engineer to come out and replace your motherboard tomorrow, or later in the week.  In the meantime, I suggest you use a different machine, as yours is clearly not working properly."
User:  "Ok, thank you."

Twenty minutes later...

User on phone: "Hello, it's me.  It's just done it again!!eleventy!"
Me:  "Yes... it will keep doing it, because it's broken, and we haven't had it fixed yet..."
User: "Oh, it'll keep doing it?"

HEAD DESK, FACE PALM, ETC.

I need another holiday...

Comments

[polarbee.livejournal.com]

That first one I had happen two weeks straight. The guy left at 3:30 every day and I needed him to log off so I could work on it because he couldn't interrupt his work for me. And every day he would leave it locked. For two weeks.

I finally sent him an email saying I was done trying and he could let ME know whenever he logged off. CCed his boss. Got called the next day that he had logged off. *sigh*

[cirobi.livejournal.com]

We get that a lot too, except it's usually "Please log off at the end of the day. We'll be remoting into your machine to do the work overnight." or something like that. But instead of "log off" they choose "shut down". I'm still not sure how those are the same. The only thing they have in common is a single 'o'. *sigh*

[firon.livejournal.com]

It's better to say to close all programs and lock the machine, then you can remote on as admin and force their account to remote log off. As long as they've done what you've told them everything is fine. If they haven't you can still do your work and it's their problem! :)

[cirobi.livejournal.com]

We did that once during a massive anti-virus upgrade and I had a couple of our developers whine to me about it. I got a lot of joy out of telling them that it wasn't our fault they couldn't follow instructions. :D

[the-s-guy.livejournal.com]

This is why every multisite installation needs remote hardware booting, wake-on-LAN, and policies which include mandatory reboots every night unless specifically exempted.

[occamshairbrush.livejournal.com]

This.

[notthebuddha.livejournal.com]

Me, verbally AND on phone:

Say what?

[goose-entity.livejournal.com]

I assumed the OP meant 'verbally' = face to face....?

[notthebuddha.livejournal.com]

Maybe. This makes me wonder if it is entirely the luser's fault for confusing "locked" with "logged".

[red-scully.livejournal.com]

Alas, I clearly fail as much as my users do. I meant 'in writing and on the phone'. I lose ten points and am hanging my head in shame...