Let it never be said I don't post my own screwups

[syberghost.livejournal.com]

Yesterday I had a Sun Microsystems FE onsite to replace the backplane and a drive in a T-2000 that had decided data = NOT YOURS. This particular server has some wiring "issues" where you can't just slide it forward without disconnecting some of the cables, so we had stopped with it partway out to clear snags, then pulled lightly again to see if it was clear. Feeling resistance, we stopped, and I went back around the back to see if there was another cable tugging.

At first, I couldn't see one, and I said so, so the FE said "it's probably just a tight fit in the rack then", and as I said "no wait" he pulled.

We don't build our own fiber optic cables here, we order them to custom lengths and don't maintain a very great supply of different lengths. Also, the connectors hold into the cards really well, so the weak point is where the fiber itself is attached to the connector. This is pretty much the only cable that can break that I can't fix and can't guarantee I have another of comparable length onsite.

Fortunately I had one two feet longer, which not only fixed the oopsie, but now that cable has enough slack not to need unplugging in the future. The users will never even know, unless they read this community...

dear end-user:

[heinousbitca.livejournal.com]

i am sorry you're not getting any. please do not take it out on me.

no love, no kisses, no way,
heinousbitca, who wants to go home today already.

The Speculator

[azleaneo.livejournal.com]

I have a user "J", who isn't dumb, so he takes his little bit of knowledge and uses it to suggest *why* things are broken. If he was close to being right, I wouldn't be posting here.

I went on a week long training course last week. Before I left, I did a general clean up on a csr's computer (deleted temp files, checked for spyware, etc) I come back on Monday and said csr was having network issues (websites slow to load/not loading) I had just sat down and J comes over to me and tells me that what I did to csr's computer is causing issues... Rebooting fixed the issue, but I can not comprehend how he would think something I did more than a week ago that worked while I was gone would suddenly be broken by my clean up last week.

J was working on updating a page on our intranet, and for some reason the link text was about a centimeter to the left from where the link actually was. ( You would hover over the link text, nothing, hover over the white space and the link was there.) He ran over to my desk saying he has a virus and the intranet was broken. I go over and see what it was doing, and we navagate to a different page on the intranet, same issue. Huh. Close IE and open it again, issue fixed.

Today I had a csr who's phone was having terrible static. I come over and they told me they changed the headset, the base, the little box the headset goes into and still static. J suggests that maybe the csr kicked the panel at the bottom. This may have been a good suggestion, if the csr wasn't a little 5ft tall girl who's legs couldn't reach if they tried. I checked the panel anyway, changed out the phone line, went in the back checked the 66 block. Still static. Finally went back and switched the base back to the old one, switching the little cord the connects the handset box to the base. TADA. It was a stupid little cord that should have been switched out when they were switching stuff. GAH

Teh stupid, it burns.

[dragonbofh.livejournal.com]

Wow, there's a lot already today and it's not even half-way over yet:

( Look ma' no wires! )

 

( Phone is not to be used as bolas... )

 

( My phonez, you cans fix it naow? )

 

( Magical fairy dust did it! )

 

Still plenty of work hours to go! Goodee!

I'm gonna go buy a clue-by-4 in my lunch hour.

*headdesk*

[mtupyro.livejournal.com]

1. I apologize for my errant post earlier (for the few of those who saw it). Posted to the wrong community. I haven't had nearly enough caffeine today.

2. A story to make up for it.

I work for a university and currently two professors in our department are in a war over who has the biggest monitor. It started with one of them getting a widescreen 22" or so, then the next one went a few inches bigger and so on until one of them was sitting with a 30" monitor on his desk feeling all proud of himself. These monitors are both connected to tiny tablets by the way. Yesterday we got an email from the guy with the 30" titled "What do I do?" and attached was a picture of the other professor standing next to what I judge to be about a 40" LCD tv hooked up to his tiny little tablet. I'm curious to see what happens next. I'm also tempted to ask if I can have the 30".

On Dell Tech Support.

[mynameisnotreal.livejournal.com]

I've been trying to get help from these wahoos for some time now. I am discovering it is an exercise in frustration. What follows is my Nth letter to Dell tech support. This is the only time I have abandoned the purely business attitude. Needs of frustration demand it.

They keep sending me a link to a driver which failed on the FIRST motherboard I was using.

Gawd... Why do people buy Dells?

"This has taken FAR too long to resolve! It has almost been two weeks since I started going to Dell for help. You have had me online in chat for many, many hours, over the course of three days, with three representatives who keep repeating the same failed steps (is it plugged in? Yes. Did you install such and such driver? Yes.) without even bothering to find out what the three techs before him/her did. You even went so far as to send me a new bloody motherboard, which I installed, and the same bloody problem still occurs! Now, you won't even bloody well answer my emails more than once a day, nor call. In all my years of repairing computers, I have never seen such a slap-dash operation as this. This is awful, incompetent and back woods operation I've seen short of a Hollywood comedy.

You guys suck. And not in a good way either."

(no subject)

[random-c.livejournal.com]

Dear manager-who-isn't-here-today,
Oh how I enjoyed spending several minutes listening to your complaining over the phone that nobody tells you the things you need to know! And Yes! It DOES matter if half the systems I'm building a rollout image for have a different motherboard in them. I should not have had to find this out when I just *happened* to pick a different machine to test on as one of the testers had left some stuff in front of the usual one. Telling me that you knew this and it 'slipped your mind' is, frankly, the sort of thing that leads to your entrails hanging from the aircon ducts.
As an aside, that stuff you said nobody told you? M sent you emails about it in NOVEMBER.

(no subject)

[treehopr.livejournal.com]

I'm having some troubles with connecting a Toshiba laptop to a netgear router wirelessly.
It was working earlier today, I didn't setup the network, so I'm pretty clueless about it.
I'm not good with computers to begin with.

The network settings were tampered with on the laptop and now it wont establish the connection anymore.

It constantly says that it is "setting up an access key." The signal strength is excellent and it says it is connected, but it just keeps trying for the access key.

The router works when I connect it with an Ethernet cable.
I've tried unplugging the router.
No avail.

Please help
:(

THANKS.


Afternote: Big sorry on this. I was on my way out the door and in a panic. This was the first community I saw and I judged by the title only and neglected to read the userinfo. Sorry. =/

Awesome - I am it.

[wxgeek.livejournal.com]

This customer was a pain in the arse, and rude to boot. Email failing to function, internets are fine, customer running Norton. Obviously, it's time to uninstall Norton. Customer: "I'M NOT uninstalling Norton."

Ooookay, we'll reboot in safe mode. "Reboot, and start tapping F8." Customer: *taptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptap...*

Computer freezes on POST. Customer powers down PC, and PC refuses to power back up again. Refer to local consultant.

email problem solved. =)

A Note I Just Wrote To My Supervisor

[fuego.livejournal.com]

*customer information*

This customer would like a call back around 10am. Can't get the software installed.
He says his job depends on it.

but then, he also says he's drunk.

Beautiful.