The network's down! The network's down!

[mrkamikaze.livejournal.com]

I work in the IT department for a large software company. We just had to hire 30+ new customer support people. So we have a ton of new "techs" running around. I am sure I don't have to tell you that there is nothing more irritating and difficult to deal with than someone who thinks they are more technical than they really are.

This morning one of the more arrogant new guys rang my phone. He was being real pissy and informed me that the network was down and wanted to let us know so we could fix it and he could get back to his important work supporting customers.

I informed him that the network was just fine and suggested he check his setup (network cables, hubs, whatever). He said he did not have time to troubleshoot and that the IT department needed to fix this problem ASAP and hung up.

Since his cubicle was near the kitchen I headed down to get some coffee and went to his cube. He was sitting there yakkin on the phone. Not even to a customer.

I asked if it was working now and he glared at me. As he was getting off the phone I noticed the tell tale icon of Zone Alarm in the system tray. I told him that the policy he had recently signed off on prohibitted the installation of non-approved software including Zone Alarm. I also suggested that this might be his problem and asked him to shut it down. He was very reluctant but he knew I had him on policy so he capitulated. I said try it now.

You can guess what happened. Yup, one arrogant, too big for his britches technical asshat was able to check his email. I let him know that he needed to remove the software ASAP and that he needed to refrain from installing anything else.

About that time his manager and my good friend walked up. He said hi and asked if there was a problem. I said "nope"...all is well. Just wanted to make sure your new guy was settling in ok.

At this point I made my exit. I got a nice apology in my email shortly there after.

Comments

[inahandbasket]

ah, noobs.

and oh how I fucking hate Zone Alarm

[greeklady.livejournal.com]

A-Fucking-Men. Zone alarm sucks serious ass. We had to tell our telecomuters to just turn it off because it wouldn't let them into the network remotely at all. Oh and the words of the infamous cert lab who is supposed to test everything,

"Gee well it worked for us and we can't recreate the problem so it is with your image, you better just reimage the machine and to fix that."

This after we had just reimaged the machine with an image they sent us. Jerks.

[terata.livejournal.com]

I to hate it when that happens. Buuuut, I also hate when "IT" people have lots of little peices of paper saying they "know" how to do somthing. I'll take my 16 years of experience over a dumbass A+ or MCSE cert anyday.

[residentgeek.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I hear ya. They hired a guy about two pay levels above me mostly because he told them he had an A+. They must have been pretty impressed. Anyway, he comes into the lab one day and we asked for his opinion on a machine issue we were having, and he flat out said he didn't know how to troubleshoot computers. All he did was memorize the answers to the test. And he seemed to be pretty comfortable with that.

I studied for two years before finally taking my A+ test. I passed with a 76 and was extrememly happy. But it hasn't gotten me anywhere since.

Aye!

[loosechanj.livejournal.com]

I resemble that remark. I was young and foolish, and all the pretty letters looked sooooo shiny.

[mrkamikaze.livejournal.com]

My point is that the tech support person in this case was acting like the asshat customer we all gripe about. Cooperation goes along way and if he hadn't been such a butt he would have gotten his problem resolved quicker.

[ozdeadmeat.livejournal.com]

Slick exit dude. Alot of guys would of squashed him to make yourself look better. We got alot of IT ppl like that here in australia. Total wankers. Very slick and way to earn respect from a noob. He wont bug u with BS again. And no white anting either.

[mrkamikaze.livejournal.com]

Fortunatel the noobs have no pull with anyone to be able to undermine me or my department. But yes, it is a better thing to demonstrate the power of cooperation.

[valiskeogh.livejournal.com]

good show!

zone alarm is a lil ho...

[saintrigger.livejournal.com]

Like the Devo reference of your username.

[dmsalem00.livejournal.com]

Gosh all this bad talk of zonealarm..

I should add that to the list of incomprehensible things that I run that somehow work..

Hewlett Packard Pavilion(bottom of the line, from 2000)
Windows ME
America Online 9.0
ZoneAlarm

Probably, if you consider it a pain in the ass, I use it, and it behaves for me. What can I say, it's a gift..