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superbus.livejournal.comI had one last week that had me getting so loud with an AT+T technician that people around me were gathering to see if I'd gone loopy.
Our monitoring team had sent a customer letting them know that they had gone down in SNMPc, meaning that we'd lost communication with the firewall device; my team manages the device (a Fortigate 60). The customer called us back to let us know that they'd changed ISPs, and needed the host changed. Well, golly gee! Thanks for the heads up on such a minor fucking change! So in order to do this, we had to switch over to his old ISP just so I could get into the box, but before we did, I had him take down the public IP of the box just by going to whatismyip.com; something stunk, so I decided we'd have him call AT+T to confirm that IP was the one they gave him. After going through all of the bullshit of account verification, the woman on the other end - a regular script money with no intelligence who did a fabulous double-whammy of not only shaming other tech support technicians but also shaming women in the field as well - had to have me explain to her what a "public" IP was versus a "private" IP (hint: 10.10.10.*/24 is not a public range, lassie), and then she finally gave me what they had down for a public IP... with a 24 bit subnet mask.
"Wait a minute... you mean to tell me this customer has a whole 24 bit subnet mask available to them?"
"The subnet mask is 255 dot 255 dot 255 dot zero"
"Hold on, something is fishy here... this is static?"
"The subnet mask is 255 dot 255 dot 255 dot zero"
"Your salesperson sold this guy 255 IPs? Unless my customer is completely and utterly daft, I find it hard to believe your salesperson could have sold him an ENTIRE BLOCK of IPs..." (Mind, this was a conference call and said customer was on the line. He laughed. More on him in a bit)
"... The subnet mask is 255 dot 255 do--"
"255 dot zero. Yes, congratulations, you can read a script. Do you have a specialist I can talk to?"
"No, sir, I am the only person available to service your account"
"... *sigh* Fine. I'm done with you".
"Is there anything further we can do to--"
"No, for God's sake, just get off the phone..."
So I tried the IP that she gave me - against better judgement, but the customer insisted on sticking with AT+T (they sold him higher speed for less money. As soon as he told me they sold him a DSL line that had higher speed than his T1, I almost did a spit-take; this guy really was daft because he fell for it) - and... nothing. I was completely and utterly unable to scan any other IP in that range, and wasn't able to connect to the Fortigate with any IP (other than the router, for obvious reasons). At this point, we had to have his network vendor get in so they could get into the box locally with an account we gave them, and set things back.
Once he got there, things started to look worse: the customer was using DHCP, despite the fact that they had a static 10. range, and the wiring didn't look right, either; they were bypassing the vendor's switch. "Did they hook this guy up like a home line?" was the first thing that came out of my mouth. We decided to call AT+T back and basically piss and moan until we got at least a Lv. 2 technician. Thankfully, we got a different level 1 on the phone, and once I explained to her exactly what was going on, she escalated right to a Lv. 2, and after about 25 minutes, we got someone who was only marginally more competent. She explained that the IP range we had was correct. "So this guy has multiple IP ranges?" "No, he only bought one IP!" "So how the heck does he have a 24 bit range?" "Sir, we gave him one IP in that range!" "Then that's not his range, that's a static IP!" "Sorry, that's all he has!" Furthermore, she didn't see him on any of her scanning tools. I had him go to whatismyip.com - bypassing our device - and he came up with a public IP completely different than anything else we'd seen.
We came to find out that the technician that he ordered on July 1st - and showed up on the 28th - went in there, and the first thing he had the customer do was go DHCP, and bypass the vendor switch to do this (strike one), and once he did that, he couldn't get out through the Fortinet (as DHCP had him going 192.168.X.X), so he bypassed the Fortinet (strike two and three). "Lady, how can you explain your technician bypassing two security vendors' outside devices without so much as calling us up for help?" "You'll have to ask the technician" "Where is he?" "I can't call him" "Find a way" "Sir, we cannot do that"
At that point, I recommended to my customer that he drop AT+T like a hot rock, go back to his old ISP, and make his connection work. And in the future, to call both vendors to plan things like this ahead of time.
The kicker? After all of this, the local tech from the other vendor told us - the guy at the main office, and myself - that the customer was convinced this was all MY fault (despite not knowing my company's name). The guy in the office laughed his ass off, and just said "I'll set him straight".
When dealing with three different companies, it's really bad if two of them don't know what the hell they're doing.
Our monitoring team had sent a customer letting them know that they had gone down in SNMPc, meaning that we'd lost communication with the firewall device; my team manages the device (a Fortigate 60). The customer called us back to let us know that they'd changed ISPs, and needed the host changed. Well, golly gee! Thanks for the heads up on such a minor fucking change! So in order to do this, we had to switch over to his old ISP just so I could get into the box, but before we did, I had him take down the public IP of the box just by going to whatismyip.com; something stunk, so I decided we'd have him call AT+T to confirm that IP was the one they gave him. After going through all of the bullshit of account verification, the woman on the other end - a regular script money with no intelligence who did a fabulous double-whammy of not only shaming other tech support technicians but also shaming women in the field as well - had to have me explain to her what a "public" IP was versus a "private" IP (hint: 10.10.10.*/24 is not a public range, lassie), and then she finally gave me what they had down for a public IP... with a 24 bit subnet mask.
"Wait a minute... you mean to tell me this customer has a whole 24 bit subnet mask available to them?"
"The subnet mask is 255 dot 255 dot 255 dot zero"
"Hold on, something is fishy here... this is static?"
"The subnet mask is 255 dot 255 dot 255 dot zero"
"Your salesperson sold this guy 255 IPs? Unless my customer is completely and utterly daft, I find it hard to believe your salesperson could have sold him an ENTIRE BLOCK of IPs..." (Mind, this was a conference call and said customer was on the line. He laughed. More on him in a bit)
"... The subnet mask is 255 dot 255 do--"
"255 dot zero. Yes, congratulations, you can read a script. Do you have a specialist I can talk to?"
"No, sir, I am the only person available to service your account"
"... *sigh* Fine. I'm done with you".
"Is there anything further we can do to--"
"No, for God's sake, just get off the phone..."
So I tried the IP that she gave me - against better judgement, but the customer insisted on sticking with AT+T (they sold him higher speed for less money. As soon as he told me they sold him a DSL line that had higher speed than his T1, I almost did a spit-take; this guy really was daft because he fell for it) - and... nothing. I was completely and utterly unable to scan any other IP in that range, and wasn't able to connect to the Fortigate with any IP (other than the router, for obvious reasons). At this point, we had to have his network vendor get in so they could get into the box locally with an account we gave them, and set things back.
Once he got there, things started to look worse: the customer was using DHCP, despite the fact that they had a static 10. range, and the wiring didn't look right, either; they were bypassing the vendor's switch. "Did they hook this guy up like a home line?" was the first thing that came out of my mouth. We decided to call AT+T back and basically piss and moan until we got at least a Lv. 2 technician. Thankfully, we got a different level 1 on the phone, and once I explained to her exactly what was going on, she escalated right to a Lv. 2, and after about 25 minutes, we got someone who was only marginally more competent. She explained that the IP range we had was correct. "So this guy has multiple IP ranges?" "No, he only bought one IP!" "So how the heck does he have a 24 bit range?" "Sir, we gave him one IP in that range!" "Then that's not his range, that's a static IP!" "Sorry, that's all he has!" Furthermore, she didn't see him on any of her scanning tools. I had him go to whatismyip.com - bypassing our device - and he came up with a public IP completely different than anything else we'd seen.
We came to find out that the technician that he ordered on July 1st - and showed up on the 28th - went in there, and the first thing he had the customer do was go DHCP, and bypass the vendor switch to do this (strike one), and once he did that, he couldn't get out through the Fortinet (as DHCP had him going 192.168.X.X), so he bypassed the Fortinet (strike two and three). "Lady, how can you explain your technician bypassing two security vendors' outside devices without so much as calling us up for help?" "You'll have to ask the technician" "Where is he?" "I can't call him" "Find a way" "Sir, we cannot do that"
At that point, I recommended to my customer that he drop AT+T like a hot rock, go back to his old ISP, and make his connection work. And in the future, to call both vendors to plan things like this ahead of time.
The kicker? After all of this, the local tech from the other vendor told us - the guy at the main office, and myself - that the customer was convinced this was all MY fault (despite not knowing my company's name). The guy in the office laughed his ass off, and just said "I'll set him straight".
When dealing with three different companies, it's really bad if two of them don't know what the hell they're doing.
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