The mind boggles...

[medusa-nw.livejournal.com]

Our department deals with all telephony requirements as well as IT. I just received this e-mail:

'Hello

Please could we have some of our faulty handsets returned as we have none at the moment.

Thanks

S'

:-D

(no subject)

[poggs.livejournal.com]

Upon checking my team's open trouble tickets, I come across a facepalm-inducing one:

"XXX is having trouble getting on the Internet. His phone is not working."

Translation: He's unplugged his VoIP phone which his laptop is connected to.
Solution: Plug phone back in, magically his Internet connectivity is restored.

Further down the list:

"Hi, I've been told that Network Operations is the wrong place to send this ticket and that I should contact the NOC"

A second facepalm ensues. Network Operations is the NOC.

(no subject)

[onyxrising.livejournal.com]

A computer we sent in for a bench repair had an unfortunate incident. It happened to be an unfortunate incident involving an industrial grinder located in the same service center, and a good deal of the computer being reduced to a fine powder. Those parts which didn't get ground up were sent to the recycling center, and the service center decided it was way beyond repair.

I got to be the one to call the customer back and let them know they were receiving a complimentary valued customer upgrade on their computer instead of getting the old one back. The customer was thrilled.

I filled out the paperwork we have for such an occasion, and submitted the request to finance stating, with all the appropriate reference numbers, that the service center reduced the customer's computer to a fine powder using an industrial grinder.

Finance returned my forms to me, with a note on them that I had not adequately explained why our service center couldn't simply repair it and send it back to the customer. Isn't this fixable?

I'm used to the bean counters asking me if cracked parts can be put back together repaired. I'm used to them asking me what a motherboard is, and why can't a little solder make it all better. In this case, I think they have far too much faith in the miraculous abilities of our service center technicians.

The scary thing is that some of the guys in financial used to work tech support for our company.

Why even bother giving us the option?

[superbus.livejournal.com]

We handle a lot of tickets at my job, and we place an emphasis on customer relations, where they really do care that we fix the issue and make the customer feel good more than just keeping our MTTR down; it handles quality over quanity, and I do appreciate that. That said, we have a lot of customers calling for us, and for the people higher up in the department (basically, myself - a Tier 2.5 tech - and our Tier 3), sometimes, we get issues that only we can work on. Therefore, people call for us, and we end up calling them back, and it evolves into a game of phone tag. Oh well, shit happens, right?

Well, it turns out upper management - who don't work tickets, are NOT technical, and are interfering with our way of doing things much more than they should be - decided that it was OK, if someone takes a call and we're not available, to ask the customer "when can we call you back". That's OK, right? But here's the thing: if the customer says "2PM", that other technician is expected to log into our online calenders (put this in perspective: I've logged into mine a total of twice, and I've been at this company for 11 months), and put it down as an event that we're REQUIRED to attend!

Naturally, when our manager broached this, she asked for questions. We all - all four of us - kinda looked around, I breathed, she asked what was wrong, and I said "well, whatever I have to say is moot and will be ignored, but...", and she pressed, and then all four of us - this is rare, because the Tier 3 guy usually backs management, if for no other reason than peace-keeping - expressed our concerns; concerns about "what if we're on a big call", or have something going on, or flat-out forget, or something happens at like 1:58, or it interferes with lunch, etc..

Our manager then ends the conversation with an abrupt "this isn't a suggestion - we're doing it".

Then... why the fuck did you ask if we had questions? And what are you going to do when this blows up in our face?

Oh, I know what you'll do! The same thing you did today, when I closed a ticket quicker than you would have liked, because you took our ability to put them in Resolved Pending Followup status (basically a safety net, where it gives the customers three days to respond to an issue, gives them a warning, and then closes the ticket automatically after the third day): you'll yell at me, chide me for not thinking of the customer (after I went above and beyond for them, at that), and then ignore me when I point this out.

My Utopian ideal of a job is a place where a company gives me a computer, fast network connectivity, and SSH authentication to the boxes I need (I don't need SecureCRT, guys; Putty does the trick, thanks), and then stays the fuck out of my way and lets me work.