(no subject)

[ianhess.livejournal.com]

Customer calls in, encryption to a target domain is failing. It has been working perfectly for 2 years.

Check all the certs, no problems.

Call the encryption partner.

"We haven't made any changes. Your customer needs a Thawte standard root cert. They must have deleted root certs or something."

Check the customers server. Thawte Premium cert, in place for 2 years.

Import the needed cert, everything begins working.


Do not lie to tech support. In the process of fixing the problem, we will find the lie.

I don't ask for much...

[ebtb.livejournal.com]

...but today I've had nothing but people who can't A.) complete a sentence and/or B.) can give me a straight answer.

Me: Which program are you using?
User: It's um... the uh... I bought the uh.... uh... oh, I purchased the.... uh.... oh, what is it called... um.... the....uh.... I am using the.... uh.....how should I put this? A  few days ago, I uh.... oh, geez... what's it called.....

HOW SHOULD YOU PUT WHAT? YOU HAVEN'T TOLD ME ANYTHING! Seriously, I've had at least 10 calls where they uh me to death for the first 3 minutes of the call.  My other gem today...

Me: Which operating system are you using?
User: The latest.
Me: Well, Vista is the latest. Are you using that?
User: No, I don't have the Vista.  I'm using the XP.
Me: ...

I can't possibly come up with a subject that does this justice

[moopet.livejournal.com]

So some of our customers are a little slow. So are lots of people, right?

Yesterday, a woman came in with a broken laptop. We told her it was uneconomical to fix, put her hard disk into an external USB caddy so she could get data off, and sent her on her way.
She came in today saying it didn't work (we always test these things before they go out, if for no other reason than you often have to remove the owner's permissions from the user's Windows account before they can access their documents, so we knew it worked)
With her, she had a carrier bag. I could see her other laptop poking out of it with a bunch of wires still connected, and before she said anything I told her how that was a bad idea, just as a matter of courtesy. If she snaps a connection, well, we can fix it but we'd charge her more money, right?
So out comes the laptop. I wait for her to bring out the hard drive caddy.
Out comes a loaf of bread.
She looks at me expectantly.
"Sorry, ma'am, but that's a loaf of bread. I need the hard drive you are having problems with."
"You mean I have to go home?"
"Yes."
"You can't just see what's wrong with it now?"
"No."
I couldn't figure out how to explain using extra words without appearing to mock. When she did eventually bring in the hard drive, it turns out she'd been plugging the cable in the wrong way round (it's a Y-shaped one, one from the host for data, one for power, one to the drive)