ARGDHSGHDSG

[taleya.livejournal.com]

Maybe it's this cold/flu whatever fuckingthing I'm suffering. Maybe it's the fact i've not slept for three days thanks to a sick rat. Or maybe I've just finally hit my fucking limit and should get the hell off livechat....

taleya> Hi xxxx, how can I help you?
Flurry> Since two days ago every time I want to check my e-mail it asks me for my password?????
taleya> ok, I'm assuming you're using an email program such as outlook on your computer? (Note: We also offer webmail)
Flurry> I think so.


HOW THE FUCK DO YOU NOT KNOW? *howls*

ETA: To clear up - it wasn't that she didn't know which mail program she was using - but that she wasn't sure if she was using an email program at all or not.

sometimes its not the users

[dudeitsawesome.livejournal.com]

I just watched my idiot co-worker enter a trouble ticket that said "she pushed the power button but nothing is not happening." so something IS happening then??


I tried explaining to her that sometimes users don't know what they're doing and you have to physically walk your fat ass out there and help them, but she didn't want to do it. Its not my day to do it, plus its a short day for me, so fuck it.

(no subject)

[toxico.livejournal.com]

In some post or another within the past few days, mention was made of the fabled off-the-wall tech issues people will occasionally ask about - the old jokes you read about, like "the cupholder is stuck" or "the mouse won't work in the air." That kind of thing.

I've managed to avoid a lot of those stereotypical dumbass questions, but yesterday we got one: a high-priority ESCALATION that stated "Something called System Idle Process is spiking to 99%. This is preventing me from working. Please call ASAP."


...preventing you from working? Hell, I'm going home then!

Where's my LART?

[manuka.livejournal.com]

I and $helpdesk_lead are out of town this week attending a conference, so things are a little crazy back at the ranch - our part-time helpdesk contractor, our SW developer, and the director of IT are all scrambling to deal with the fact that the peasantry decided to go all ticket-happy on us this week while half the department is out of town. Last week, the boss announced to the entire staff that we're undermanned right now and to please be patient with us.

And then there's our biggest frequent flier. She's put in 4 P1 tickets in the last week about her printer being down (ZOMG!!!!1111eleventy! ICANTPRINTTHEWORLDWILLEND! --- when there's an identical printer across the hall from her). The first one was immediately downgraded to a P3 and the rest summarily closed with instructions to update the original one.

The boss and the developer decided to go run a report. In the last 2 years, said user has put in more tickets than anyone else, and it's 40 more than the #2 frequent flier. She averages 1.5 tickets a *week*. The median usage is one ticket every 2.7 *months*.

The boss is having a chat with his boss and will be meeting with her boss. The words "LART" and "Clue-by-four" were uttered by the boss.

Meanwhile, $helpdesk_lead and I are trying to slay tickets from the conference halfway across the country. It's working surprisingly well. We managed to knock down about 20-25% of open tickets last night.

ain't no such thing as a free etc etc

[trayce.livejournal.com]

Here's something I don't understand:

If you're running a business, and you take up a broadband connection with an ISP that comes with a data cap, meaning you will be charged for any excess usage over that cap at a per-megabyte rate, don't you think you would therefore keep a damn close eye on your usage - weekly or even daily - to ensure nothing happens to go over that limit, or upgrade it if patterns show you need to? Especially if we provide the tools to do just that?

Yeah, I thought so too. Which is why I do not understand why we continue to get customers who know damn well they're on a STUPIDLY LOW data cap because they are tightwads (1gb a month* for an OFFICE? come on) and then they ring up and bitch like banshees when they get a $3000 excess charges bill that they would have honestly seen coming weeks in advance if they'd bothered to do their homework.

But no. Its all our fault and they're not paying.

I'd love to see them use that excuse to their electricity company or at the petrol pump.


*Yes, Australian data charges are hideous, we know, we know. We hate it.

For once, I'm the idiot... (partly triggered by dudeitsawesome'

[jcaswell.livejournal.com]

Boss's boss asked me to create a template for him yesterday, which I did this morning. I emailed it to him for approval with the words "can you just take a look at this to make sure I've misunderstood our conversation from yesterday?"

Whoops!

Two little words.

[laptop-mechanic.livejournal.com]

You know those special cases. The ones with very ignorant users. The little old ladies who just want the magic box to work. I had one of those yesterday. Her brand new T61 was running with the speed of a stunned snail. The reason? She was down to around 1GB of free hard drive space and only had 1GB of memory. I copied off 13GB of data off to her external drive for her, upgraded the memory to 2GB, and turned cleartype back on for her. I also set it to stop prompting her for her password every time the screensaver kicked in, since she didnt like that either.

Just now the phone rang. I recognized her voice straight away (never a good sign). I started to get that sinking feeling (OMG, what has she done now!?). She was just calling to say thank you. She says the machine is now much more responsive and she can read her emails better now.

I dont often get honest to $deity thank yous in the course of my work. Its nice when I do.

For Your Attention

[spooforbrains.livejournal.com]

Polite Notice:

While working on this Quantum SNAP Server 2000, please do not leave the power cable connected to provide a ground for the IDE-USB adaptor you are using to read the disks, as 240v across the chest often offends.

Thank you.

(Incidentally, it was set up as a RAID 0, and one of the disks was very dead. They had no backups. They declined my very generous offer of an extra half hour of my time to set up rsync for them. And yes, I still hurt.)

I just called to say......

[archatos.livejournal.com]

Thank you?

Freaky day today.

I work for the complaints and escalations department for a huge computer manufacturer. We get legal, PR and psycho cases from all other departments when they can't handle them, or if the solution has to be something outside the normal process (read: it cost one $ more than usual),

Anyway, yesterday I had a really bitchy customer who was pissed off at the repair center, because they refused his liquid damaged notebook to be repaired as warranty, so he had to use his insurance on it instead. Once they had repaired it, it turned out they never even tested the AC adapter which was also reported in as faulty, so he had gotten the defective one returned with his computer. After listening to the groan and moan, I offered to ship out a new adapter to him as express, just to calm him down a bit. Express usually means 6-8 days delivery, so it wouldn't make him happy, but at least content.

Today I got the tracking number from the company shipping out parts, and thought I'd mail it to him before going home tonight just to show him I care about his case etc. and blablablah. You know the drill.

To my surprise, the guy called in at 11am, and was all chipper. He just wanted to call and say thank you for the wonderful service he had gotten, Turns out UPS had been using their super-rocket-powered airplane to ship his adapter, as it arrived early this morning. And of course everything worked perfectly.

I'm used to being the "arrogant, impolite and aggressive bastard" when it comes to descriptions given by customers. It's my job to be the guy they talk that way about. Having someone call in just to say thank you sort of caught me off guard.