Wed Morning Snicker

[honig.livejournal.com]

We do not have a decent e-submission system for support request so we get emails from users from time to time about whatever problems they are having. This morning I got this one from one of our nursing instructors:

$Honig, I hope you are the person that I need to address this computer problem. If not please direct me to the correct MIT person.

Computer problem: When I use my junk drive on this computer, the computer will "shut-down" without warning or power surge while my junk drive (e-drive) is in the computer. This problem began before Christmas break. It has consistently gotten worst. I am concern that I will loose all of my power-points. I work at home as well at work. So, I constanly upgrade from home-to-work then back again. Frequently I loose internet access well on this computer. (This is unrelated to the weather.) Please help so that I can safely use my junk drive. Someone suggested that since I have a lot of powerpoints that I do not have enough memory on this computer.
I do not have this problem on my home lap top.

For reference we are the MIS department. MIT is that school up north where all the people who have more sense than to get stuck working at a helpdesk for a community college in Alabama.

These are the types of people who are teaching the future nurses of the world. Well at least the future nurses that can actually pass their boards.

I am also surprised she did not work the word synergy in there somewhere.

Soul sucking support

[pinuppink.livejournal.com]

"Thank you for contacting $company Support. This is Leslie. Can I get your account number or your user ID please"

These words suck a little life out of me every time I say them. The customers.. they suck a little of my soul away with every stupid question.

Grin inducing.

[wignersfriend.livejournal.com]

Having done tech support for only the last few year and at a lot of different companies, I've realized that there are a lot of people who don't know the first thing about the technology they are using. These people can be very frustrating.

Every once in a while, you get one of these people who manages to go about asking for help in such a way that just endears them to you. It could be a polite preface to whatever their problem may be or just a token act that sets that person apart for you.

Currently, I'm working on an internal helpdesk for a company that makes most of your favorite frozen treats (and other things as well). I'm still in training to learn about all of the custom Unix and AS/400 based apps that we use. Most of the time, when a user is having a problem, they take a screen shot and send it in an e-mail. We attach the e-mail or the image to the ticket and pass it on to the appropriate support group.

Then one woman, bless her heart, recreated the entire screen, verbatim, with ASCII.

Augh, it burns!

[manuka.livejournal.com]

For the last few weeks, we've been attempting to resolve a couple of phone problems that have been driving us insane.

The first problem is that phone calls placed on hold at the front desk were randomly disappearing.

The second is that one of our staff kept getting calls meant for the front desk, but they weren't ringing.

We've spent the last couple of weeks watching call traces and going back and forth with the vendor.

After some e-mail exchanges with the user who was getting the calls, it all became clear.

Every time one of the buttons (labeled "PARK") on her phone lit up, she thought it was a call coming in for her and would answer it.

*headdesk*

At least the fix was easy... "STOP DOING THAT!"

Screwy terminology

[lihan161051.livejournal.com]

I wish there was a course somewhere in basic terminology of technology that I could make people go through before calling tech support. Much less *working* in tech support ..

1) There's a difference between "EM" and "RF", and between "EMI" and "RFI". Granted, it's kind of a hairsplitting difference -- EM is that part of the EM spectrum that would actually make an audible noise if you sent it directly to a speaker, and lies somewhere below the ELF portion of the radio spectrum, or at least that's the usage I've heard most consistently -- but the two terms are not interchangeable.

2) The process that a signal goes through when it passes through a passively absorbing material, like a metal lath or steel stud wall, isn't "interference", it's "attenuation" or "absorption". Given that using the correct terminology can actually make it considerably easier to figure out what the fsck is going on when a wireless router's signal disappears somewhere between the router and the screaming person's computer, I find it incredibly frustrating when people use "interference" to refer to everything. My employer's technical writers are also guilty of this one. >:(

3) Modems are modems, routers are routers, switches are switches, WAP's are WAP's, and while a modem may *contain* a router and a WAP, and a "wireless router" may *contain* a router, a WAP, and possibly a print server and file sharing host, that doesn't make them all instances of the same thing. (Granted, the *correct* usage of the terminology isn't helping here as it's a little confusing to the uninitiated, but all the more reason to study and get it right.)

4) Memory refers to RAM, not hard drives, and RAM and hard drives are two totally different things that serve two totally different functions. Installing more RAM won't let you store more files on your computer, and installing a bigger hard drive usually won't have a dramatic effect on how efficiently your computer runs. (Unless it's crammed totally full and has a serious fragmentation problem. :)

5) The visible manifestations of a power surge are almost always secondary symptoms, if they appear at all. Same goes, for the most part, with viruses. (My rant on whether "it must be a virus" is tangential and offtopic for this post.)

I can probably think of more, but that's for starters. I can't even begin to scratch the surface of how much extra work sloppy usage of terminology creates .. just got off an almost hour long call where most of that hour was spent on a tangential troubleshooting path caused by the previous tech not being aware the customer was actually spouting tech-gibberish trying to sound smart, and once I figured out what was actually going on, it was perfectly simple to fix in about a minute ..

Wait, what?

[momentarygenius.livejournal.com]

Call of the day...


"I copied all the icons from my desktop on my old computer to the desktop on the new computer; but now none of my applications work! What did I do wrong?"


sigh. there goes my call time for the day....

Oh really....

[ezerick.livejournal.com]

"Nothin happens when I put my stick thingy in her slot"

(His USB memory stick wasn't being recognized by his coworker's computer)

It took him about 10 seconds before he realized how it sounded.

Weeping for Our Future: Part 2

[shadowfairy.livejournal.com]

At my school we don't have an official trouble ticket system for the teachers to report issues. They just email me. Today I received this little number.

My computer at the end of the table is not working. I have to unplug it before we can get it to work. Today we couldn't get connected to the internet.

i love Queen of Wands...

[falnfenix]

This is an accurate recreation of the majority of my day today.

it also occurs at least once a week, and drives me even more batty than i was before i started this job. 2 years...one would think i'd have gone postal on some of these people by now.

A quick break from the tech supporting madness.

[valiskeogh.livejournal.com]

i'll go ahead and preface this with an actual work order that we got from the helpdesk. this , plus the location, is all of the information we received. all of it. we got a location, a hospital unit (i work in a large hospital) and this:
PC's blew circuit breaker in red outlets.

seriously. okay helpdesk, there is a SUBJECT LINE that holds a sentance. and then way below that in the ticketing software, there's an absolutely HUGE area where you can type a few novels into if you feel so inclined, designated for the DESCRIPTION or MORE INFORMATION which usually would reinforce the subject of the ticket. such an area can include such things as... oh... if the unit is functioning... how many pc's... whether or not the pc's are currently functioning... WHICH pc's are affected... how you came to the conclusion that it was the computers that actually did this and not the 50 other things in that unit.... whether or not we should drop the 20 or so other high priority things and run to this unit... oh... like... you know... anything HELPFUL...

with that said, here is your break from the madness. i'm positive this guy is re-couperating from a long hard day of techsupport.

Valis

(no subject)

[superbus.livejournal.com]

This one's actually about a co-worker. We have one customer at one of our banks, he's a good guy to talk to, somewhat understanding of issues as long as he's got no one beating his door down, and generally a good customer, even if he asks a bit too often if we can bend our rules a bit to help him out. Historically, if it was possible, and wouldn't hurt anyone else, I would try to do it if I could; customer advocacy and all that.

Yesterday, he called in and stated that he was responding to a ticket that my co-worker had called him about. He got transferred right to her, and she asked for the ticket...

There was no ticket. He admitted that much to her, saying that he intentionally lied to get the ball rolling and cut through red tape. A more experienced Triage person would have caught it, but he got a rookie.

Wrong fucking answer.

No wonder he can't understand why I can't do something that's against our web content filtering policy; after he pulled that stunt, I think it's time to clamp down on him and show him what the rules are, and why they're there.

It's like training a puppy; he made a mess on the rug, and now we have to rub his nose in it.