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[kizayaen.livejournal.com]

Dear christ almighty.

Hot on the heels of the "Top Ten Ways to Get Fired for Breach of Security" article, one of our client companies tries DAMN hard to beat the raw idiocy level of the day.  This may be perhaps the most rampant example of corporate stupidity I've ever heard of, and that takes some doing.

One of our client companies is setting us up with FTP to send them PGP-encrypted files.  No big deal; industry standard. 

Their system is set up as ANONYMOUS FTP.  They renamed "anonymous" to something else, and then based on the PASSWORD you enter... which is your company's name... they make assumptions as to who you are, and direct your file to a potentially appropriate directory.

Why the HELL would you use ANONYMOUS FTP for a business application?

So now I have login credentials for every single company they do business with.  Anybody who knows the renamed Anonymous account name can log in, though, since every combination of letters is acccepted as a valid password.  Actually, I don't know every company's login info...  I don't know OURS.  Our directions were "Your username is XXXXXXX and your password is your company name."  If I log in using "$CompanyName" as a password, I can't LS or PUT.  Same with "$Companyname", same with "$companyname.".  Could be that they want some permutation of "$CompanyName, Inc." but I refuse to stay up all night playing  guessing games,

I have difficulty putting into words how amazingly flabbergasted I am at this colossal monument of stupidity.

Most Appreeshuhfer!

[ohmyhead.livejournal.com]

This is the highest-maintenance user in my company, Don.



Ok, it's obviously Homer, but I don't have any pics of Don.

Don calls me for help with computer issues. A LOT. Like sick amounts.

THIS is a voicemail I got from Don just today.
Seriously. Give a listen. (Names and numbers have been distorted.) (28 secs)

0_o

Translation? His Outlook 2003 is stuck in Recovery Mode and he'd like that remedied. He's in an office with a firewall that prevents me from accessing his machine remotely. So I refuse to walk him through anything, and if you listened to that voicemail, you understand. So he said he'd go home so I could connect and do it for him. He lives two blocks from the office. Two hours later...and no Don. So we'll get to go through this aaaall over again. And the best part is that even after I fix his Recovery Mode issue, he won't get to see "his back emails". He just won't get strange popups in Outlook any more.

This is my first post here, also x-posted at nmfp (Not My Fucking Problem).

I think I just hit the wall.

[reynardo.livejournal.com]

Follow the smegging instructions or I can't help you set up your f&*#(ing email account and if you keep f&*#(ing trying pages I haven't f&*#(ing well given you then I can't f&*#(ing bloody well direct you to the correct portal and if you keep letting your f&*#(ing kids scream in the phone while I'm trying to help you then I WILL f&*#(ing WELL HANG UP ON YOU YOU MORON!!!!!!

I think maybe I've had enough of this job.

[ethereal-dusk.livejournal.com]

Benjamin Franklin once defined insanity as "doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results". Today, insanity actually worked out for me.

All day today we've received hundreds of phone calls in regards to HP LJ 4345 network printers because a "push" last night messed-up printing just to this particular model, but not for all of the workstations-- so network and printer issues were obviously ruled out. All day we were coming up with different methods to fix them, and each workstation was different. For some it was as easy as deleting the printer, turning the print spooler off and back on, deleting the driver, and remapping. Those were the easy ones. Then the whacky ones started coming in. It got to the point where we were having to delete cookies and temp files out of IE to be able to print to the network printer. There wasn't any correlation, it was like cats and dogs living together-- mass hysteria!

I just worked on one of these monsters for over an hour. I started off with the basic delete mapped printer, stop and start print spooler, delete driver, remap the printer. Nope. Reboot (it was running really slow, probably hadn't rebooted since 2003). Synchronized the box. Nope. Deleted temp files, cookies, history, reset defaults in IE. Nope. Deleted all unused printer drivers. Deleted all used printer drivers. Reboot. Remap. Still cannot print. Ran gpupdate. Reboot. Nothing. In frustration I actually said outloud "I just don't know what else to do." The guy started laughing and stopped abruptly. "Sorry, I didn't mean to laugh. You must be very frustrated after an hour." I said "Ya... let me try one more thing." So... I deleted the mapped printer, stopped and started the print spooler, deleted the driver, and remapped the printer. It then printed a test page without an error. These steps are *exactly* the same steps I started all of this off with.

So I wonder what word would define "doing the same thing over and over and actually getting different results".

Fur is gonna fly...

[fuego.livejournal.com]

My coworker just spent 20 minutes on the phone with a customer trying to determine their support eligibility and finally told them that they weren't elligible but he would have to cal and try to get permission to provide after-hours support.

Then he gets off the line and tells me that the call was from someone from one of our newest "elite contracts"...this small handful of contracts is the reason that we're employed. They pay millions of dollars for us to sit here overnight, on weekends and holidays on the off chance that one of them calls (It's rare for us to actually get a call from one of the contracts, we might get two or three a week if that.

*facepalm*

The reason he denied them? Because it wasn't showing up on the individual serial number. (Which the company is very adamant that you don't look for support on the unit, if someone calls and says they're from one of those companies, they have support no matter what.

And my idiot of a coworker just royally ticked on of their employees off...

edit: Oh, great...now he calls back, processes their request and is talking to them like he's doing them some huge favor or something, and is going to "take their word for it this time" and is treating it as a customer satisfaction issue....