(no subject)

[inahandbasket]

What is a "telephone chord" and where can I get one of my users a longer one?

I'm thinking I take a handset into her cube and hold down 1,3,7 for a good 2 minutes or so...

If IT Support was call-in radio...

[dragonbofh.livejournal.com]

Adapted from a call this morning:

Phone: *Ring Ring*
Me: Good morning and thank you for calling the competition hotline, if you can follow my instructions to solve your problem without deviation, repetition or hesitation you win the prize of not being mocked, are you ready to play?
User: I sure am Bob!
Me: Alrighty then, please tell me your tech support query.
User: Well Bob, I can't log into my email this morning, it's popping up a box asking me for my username and password.
Me: No problem Jim, just enter your username and password to log in!
User: Okay... When I try that it says my password has expired.
Me: No problem Jim, just press CTRL+ALT+DEL and choose "Change Password" from the options.
User: It's not doing anything?
Me: CTRL+ALT+DEL Jim, and you'll see the-
User: CTRL+ALT+DEL?
Me: That's right Jim, press those buttons and-
User: OH, CTRL+ALT+DEL! I thought you meant CTRL+DEL.... Okay it's working now! Thanks!
Me: You're welcome Jim, but unfortunately you didn't win the grand prize today, try calling back when your IQ reaches double figures! Goodbye, and thanks for playing!

it's 1:45 in the afternoon.

[heinousbitca.livejournal.com]

nothing has compiled all day. the call flow has been what i would politely call "thick and heavy."

i've been helping this very nice gentleman in ohio diagnose some horrible font problems that honestly have nothing to do with our software but are BADLY impeding everyone's overall happiness. we've been back and forth all day and finally i manage to whip Suitcase into submission and make it all magically work right.

he hasn't copied my boss on an email once so far, but the one where he sends me the comment of "you're the best!" (on top of a 20-message cascade of email) is cc-ed to said boss (who used to be our support contact) and to his company's IT dude, who said that there was no way he could do what we needed.

the end-users that get it are pretty damn awesome. the ones who can socially engineer praise, they make me hate the day a little less.

i hit "compile" after making one stupid little dumb change (gotta close your pointers, moron)...and it goes.

now i just gotta get out of here with no more calls for an hour and ten minutes. *grin*

(no subject)

[darkmoonsinger.livejournal.com]

I've been lurking for a little while, but I've decided to poke my head out a bit to share a stupid, yet slightly amusing story:

In addition to being a psycho tech mentor, I am a computer science TA at my university.

Luser = acquaintance of mine who happens to be a student in our intro class, CS1.

So I get up this morning at 6am and hop in the shower. So far, so good. I walk back in my room and am chugging an energy drink (late night of assignments) and picking out my clothes when I hear the IM ding. Out of curiosity, I bring the screen up and see an IM from Luser, asking for help with something. I figure, since it's 6:30am and this girl has had life issues before, that something might be actually wrong.

WRONG.

She wants help with the CS1 assignment due today at 11am. I figure, again wrongly, that it's a simple question or a "what does this compiler error mean?" question. No, she can't figure out what the professor wants in the assignment (print out n numbers of the Fibonacci sequence), though the professor has spelled it out pretty clearly, more or less given the algorithm, and even given output examples. (Just for reference, my away message clearly indicates that I was in the shower.)

So I take a small amount of pity on her (my mistake) and lead her to figuring out how to derive the Fibonacci sequence. She manages this, but can't get it through her head that the order of variable assignment matters. At this point, I tell her to hang on a second, that I have to get dressed (I've been standing here in a towel the whole time). Luser does not take the hint.

Eventually, almost an hour later, I tell Luser that I have to go get breakfast before my 8am class and she pouts a bit, finally asking me if anyone/any TAs will be in the [CS department] lab to help her. This is ludicrous for three reasons: (1) CS TAs are not allowed to have office hours before 11am. (2) We have a small department. Of the 5 TAs, 4 of us are in the 8am Networking class. The other one is smart enough to still be in bed. (3) It's a small department... everyone knows (1) and (2).

*headdesk*

-(-*

Somedays...

[siliconshaman.livejournal.com]

There are users, lusers and then there are those kind of users!
The ones that are like the verbal equivalent of one's first goatse.
[and if you don't know what that is, for the love of all you hold dear, Do. Not. Google. It !! and where have you been hiding?]

This is the over-heard transcript of one of those kinds. [from memory]
Two things you need to know first;
1] we were not allowed to hang up on a customer EVAH! [unless it was clear they were DUI, ie drunk as a skunk or stoned out of their heads.]
2] The Boss was Always Listening...which meant we had to be polite, always!
( cut for length )

Rackspace employees!

[ihateemo.livejournal.com]

Is it true, as is claimed, that there are hot people working there?

Bonus question! Is this really something HR signed off on being in a recruiting video?

(no subject)

[mtupyro.livejournal.com]

What's that? The document you put on your web page can't be accessed by anyone? I see. Did you change the permissions like how I showed you? No? You couldn't remember that many steps? Ok then luser with less memory retention than a goldfish, did you run the fixwebpages script that we wrote for special users just like you? Yes, the one written down on the sheet of paper in your hand, did you run that? No? You thought it would be better to tell us it doesn't work just in case something is wrong? You sir are an idiot, run the script, don't bug me again, good day. I said good day!

note: This is the fifth time in two days he's come in saying no one can access the file he just posted. The first two I was understanding about, this is getting to be a bit much.

I weep for the future of this country

[mathsnerd]

A note: I work for my uni's library computer help desk. Most people manage to at least do their assignments on their own without bothering me.

This lady had some raw data typed up and printed out that she needed to turn into three Excel charts. She couldn't type, spell, capitalize, punctuate, think, or follow directions. She did all her calculations with pencil and paper and just typed in the final results into Excel. She would not follow any of my directions, causing a hopeless muddle, and then she blamed me for the "oopsies". In short, she was a disaster and an utter waste and ruin of my first hour at work.

The kicker? She's a grad student in Elementary Education, about to earn her certification to go teach American public elementary school.

RUN AND HIDE. LOCK THE DOORS. HIDE YOUR CHILDREN.