Technical revenge

[omg-teh-funnay.livejournal.com]

One of my guys now has this on his desk:

Stanly 21" Wonder Bar

He calls it his "User Removal Tool." It has an IBM Thinkpad sticker on the end.

And here I thought that Cube Weaponry was passe. Gotta be careful with it, though, or my management team might just ALL trip and fall on it. Eleventy billion times

Idiot Instructors......

[patgund.livejournal.com]

At various points duirng the medical school year, we have so-called "triple jump" exams. Due to security, IT gets involved because we have to prepare an exam image, (stripped down version of OS X that only has MS Office and printing, no save or web functions, and has preloaded the files needed for the exam.)

It takes us usually 1-2 days to prepare the exam, and each image is taylored for the printer in each room. Each room has six G5's. Radmind is used to insure that only the machines in that room get that image. One hour before the exam, all the machines are imaged with the test image, and printing is checked. Machines that fail are pulled and a new one put in it's place. If everything works out right, it can be done in 15 minutes. If not, we need every second of that hour.

So, bright and early today, exam instructors come into IT. And tell us that the exam has been moved to 8:30am, and and oh, we're using three rooms instead of one, because they didn't realize that 18 students can't use six machines

They tell us that at 8:05am.

Quickly build an image for the other two rooms, and pull a all hands on deck to image the machines. Thank all the Gods at once we didn't have a hardware failure. Get the whole thing done at 8:27am, with an IT staff member (myself) on babysitting duty in case of a failure mid-exam.

Just in time to catch merry hell from the exam coordinator for IT "not being prepared" for this exam.

EXCUSE ME???? You gave us an incorrect number of rooms and students needed, (and they're damn lucky the other two rooms didn't have classes scheduled for them), changed the time with NO notice to IT until 25 minutes before the exam. They know damn well it takes an hour to set up those rooms, and that we're supposed to be notified 24 hours ahread of the exam in case of changes. Where the hell do they get off blaming IT for their screwups???

Oh, that's right, they're doctors and medical school instructors. They're infalible on everything, aren't they???

*Facedesk*

(On Edit - the interm CIO just caught hell about it too, and his response? To chew us out for "not being prepared", and had no interest in hearing any "excuses" from his IT staff. Typical reaction from him, he bends over backwards for faculty and staff, and will not back his own staff up or give us the tools needed to properly do our jobs. Grumble)

I'm in hell

[bynkii.livejournal.com]

(background: P, is the manager of both the internal help desk and the support for agents in the field. She runs all the help desk stuff for the people who actually make the money for our company. This is an important concept to keep in mind. Lifenet is the name for our intranet. It is the home page for IE on Windows via system policy. If you are on our network, and can spell "lifenet", you can get to it.)

Phone: Beep! Beep!

Me: CIS, This is John

P: Hi John, this is P. Hey, how do you get to LifeNet from IE?

( Yes, it was that stupid )

I think my brain just imploded. I was right. There is a limit to how much cynicism, anger, and disdain a job can generate in you, and once you cross it, it's an event horizon. Your brain implodes, and all you can think about are butterflies. Pretty butterflies.

Words cannot describe the magnitude of the despair such a call brings me.

(no subject)

[fearrett.livejournal.com]

This lady called in today for support, and her name was misty. Right there I knew I was in trouble. Here's how the call went.

Misty: Hi, I'm getting a... "Write failure on hard disk" error when I turn on my computer.

Me: Okay, how long have you had this problem, and have you made any hardware changes to your system recently?

Misty: About a week, and nope, no changes.

Me: Anything unusual happen? You know, storms or something like that.

Misty: Well, the computer was smoking, and then it stopped working.

Me's Brain: Fuck you guys, I'm going for beer.

Me: buh..buh.....buh

Misty: Does this mean I've lost my thesis? I don't have it backed up.

Me: *click*BANG

Learning to Hate

[hisamishness.livejournal.com]

I don't like to admit it.... but I think I'm learning to hate our end users. Not all, and I'm still friends with a few, but overall and in general, I think I hate them. Part of this is likely just mis-routed tickets, but hey..

Tickets like this come into Deskside.

"My Adobe file on the server is corrupted"
Hmm... Sorry - Deskside Support cannot resurrect your corrupt layers multi-megabyte photoshop document. Offline Storage might be able to roll you back to a previously good copy.... but we, us, here... can't do a thing for you - go away now.

"My computer is not booting because my powerstrip is not working"
OK... You've identified the problem as a bit of defective gear that your department is responsible for providing... so you call us. Congratulations - step to the left for remedial "Remembering to Breath" classes.

And, while not an end user at work, the neighbor stepped up to the Stupid PLate yesterday too... "Beeell? Can you get my medicine out of your mothers refirgerator?" Sorry - will not be home till 9pm or such. I can get it then, OK? "OK" Where is it in the fridge? "It's in the panel. Just open the door and look in the tray. Do you see it?" Um... I'm at work. I can't see squat iside my Mom's fridge right now.... ".....??"

I shouldn't be surprised though... this is also the woman I've had to tell that if she can't figure out how to attach the wires to charge her Palm Pilot, then maybe she really didn't need to own the thing.

Argh!

(no subject)

[harmer.livejournal.com]

I work for an ISP.

Me: Hi thanks for calling $COMPANY, how can I help you?
Guy: Yeah, the activity light on my modem is blinking.
Me: It's supposed to.
Guy: Ohhhh...
**later in the call**
Guy: [worried] The activity light on my modem is still flashing, should it be?
Me: Yes, it lets you know your modem is transmitting data properly.
Guy: Ohhh...

And just because I can, I often check up on my tickets to see if a customer I've spoken with has called back.

This guy did. And guess what his "problem" was?

I think you know. His activity light was flashing. The notes the agent wrote were "Informational: Informed customer the light is supposed to blink. Customer would like a technician out anyway. Transferred to [department that sends techs out]."

I just don't get it.

*sigh*

[gotica.livejournal.com]

Dear Vendor,

Naming your legitimate application msworm.exe causes much stress for our poor server team.

In future think of a better name which does not cause hernias and mass heart attacks in our much needed personel.

Thank you.

Nita

EDIT:
msworm.exe is a crawler which is being used to categorise a company intranet for a sitemap.

Argh...

[kizayaen.livejournal.com]

Nothing specific to complain about today, but I have the strongest, most overwhelming desire to be anywhere but here today. It's the last day of work before getting married this weekend. Ten consecutive days off once I get out of here tonight, for that and honeymoon.

Clueless end-users factor absolutely nowhere into my plans for the next 240 hours. Guild Wars: Factions, World of Warcraft, and maybe a road trip or two on the other hand...

I suppose it's needless to point out exactly how much I don't want to be here, and just how little I feel like doing; it should be rather self-evident.

[update] I've installed Guild Wars onto my client laptop. Shhh. Don't tell anyone. It's our little secret.

semi-xposted to kizayaen

(no subject)

[network-nerd.livejournal.com]

User files ticket: Need all network jacks enabled in room XXXX.

I request additional details: We need to know how those jacks are intended to be used.

User clarifies: To connect computers to the network.

I clarify request: Are these *our* computers, or vistors'? What resources do they need to be able to reach? We need to know what services they need to have enabled....

heh...

[duality.livejournal.com]

i hope that call i had is one of the ones that get monitored. that way they too can be amused that when asking for a user's password so we can save a client's data, said client had to spell out "horseass" to me.