Lessons in tech support

[linguafranca.livejournal.com]

A call that begins with "I don't know what I did, but..." is never good.

Comments

[loosechanj.livejournal.com]

"Yes you do. And it was so incredibly stupid even you know that. Just fess up. I'd say 'and let that be a lesson' but if there were any hope of you learning anything you probably wouldn't have called and said that."

[jacobine.livejournal.com]

The only time I believe that line is when they call and say 'I don't know what I did. I think I hit something on my keyboard, and I don't know what!'

I can believe that one, because we won't discuss the number of times I've accidentally changed my keymapping by being fumble-fingered.

[jdotmi.livejournal.com]

The only thing better than that is "I think I did something wrong..." calls.

You think? Are you sure about this, because I'm having my doubts.

[jazzmasterson.livejournal.com]

Ah, yes. I feel your pain.

At that point, you can generally discount whatever the hell they say from then on, because it will either be wrongheaded self-justification, or an unwelcome window into their busted-ass mental model of whatever the hell is going on in the scary evil box on their desk.

The only sign worse than that is when you get a call on your cell phone at six in the morning and your boss says, in a small voice: "...you're gonna be mad."

[gravito.livejournal.com]

2 Voicemails seperated by 5 minutes.

Message 1:
"Hey, I just thought I'd let you know that I [Insert horrible action] and now my [Insert unrelated item] doesn't work. Could you take a look at this?"

Message 2:
"Hey, nevermind. I fixed it!"

Here's a sample of things to insert for Message 1: (All true, I swear)

Horrible action: "dropped my laptop" (happens way more often than you'd think)
Unrelated item: "Word"

Horrible action: "saw the phone book fall on my keyboard" (saw?)
Unrelated item: "monitor"

Horrible action: "deleted that Novell spyware" (egads!)
Unrelated item: "Outlook"

Horrible action: "formatted the hard disk drive" (hard disk = floppy)
Unrelated item: "database software" (never mind the fact that he's got three different ones installed)

Horrible action: "installed the LAN software" (to this day, I still don't know)
Unrelated item: "screensaver" (you know, the cute little Finding Nemo one?)

About half the time I end up having to fix what they broke, and then fix what was originally wrong. The other half I just have to fix what they broke. Either way, I know when I see two voicemails from the same number spaced five to ten minutes apart that I'm guaranteed to be fixing at least *one* issue.

[warsawpact.livejournal.com]

“The only sign worse than that is when you get a call on your cell phone at six in the morning and your boss says, in a small voice: "...you're gonna be mad."”

That is brilliant.

[jazzmasterson.livejournal.com]

I so feel your pain.

A fun variant on message 2 is: "Hey, it's okay! I {$thingied} the {$frobnitz} and it works fine! ...well, except for {$missioncriticalfunction} but we don't need that today, right?"

And the first law of tech support is that $thingied and $frobnitz will bear no relation to what they actually did, yes?

[jazzmasterson.livejournal.com]

I so feel your pain.

And, apparently, I repeat myself more than I thought. Bah.

[prozacnation.livejournal.com]

This call also includes "you don't need to talk down to me. I'm a computer person. I work for [insert whatever computer company here]."

"Okay let's shut down your modem, reboot and then I'm going to ping your modem."

"you're going to do WHAT?!"

*hits stress ball on desk picturing the customers head*

[gravito.livejournal.com]

while($_) {
$thingied = "encrypted";
$frobnitz = "web database folder";
$missioncriticalfunction = "attendance reports";
print parent_function();
}

[jazzmasterson.livejournal.com]

You are now my hero. :)

[skinglist.livejournal.com]

thanks for the laugh on a day that was very much along those lines!

[wookie-cd.livejournal.com]

Personally, I'm just glad to hear them acknowledge the possibility they caused the problem.