(no subject)

[axessdenyd.livejournal.com]

What's one of the easier problems you've had to fix repeatedly, for multiple people?

My favorite was back in the college computer lab days.  I would often get called over to a computer to fix it, when the problem was they'd clicked the mousewheel and it just kept scrolling everywhere.  This was usually in Excel.

I also had to fix a few where they had hit Insert and it was typing over everything they had already entered, but that was less common.

Comments

[axessdenyd.livejournal.com]

SP2, I take it?

We didn't have that one when I were in school.

[redqueenmeg.livejournal.com]

Aside from the ones already mentioned, that thing where Microsoft Photo Editor "doesn't open"--actually, it opens, but stays minimized in the taskbar and you have to right-click on it there and maximize it.

[cirobi.livejournal.com]

wow. yea, i just had to add a work related site to my allowed list yesterday afternoon. as much as i hated pop-ups... i really think i hate pop-up blockers more just because they block everything including all the crap you need to use on a regular basis.

[axessdenyd.livejournal.com]

That doesn't make me hate pop up blockers.

That makes me hate web designers.

[the-paco.livejournal.com]

Restarting.
It truly is a catch-all

[axessdenyd.livejournal.com]

OK, but that's a given.

[kalidor.livejournal.com]

One location I worked at, Montior issues. Building had bad electric interference. Montiors would go all shakey unless they were put at 75 Hz. People kept setting them back to 60 and then complained it was being shakey again.

That's what happens when you buy crappy fluorescent fixtures from Osram.

[axessdenyd.livejournal.com]

...they actually knew how to change it?

I'm trying to figure out how they could actually know how, and then change it to a low number. Hmmm.

We had one in the repair shop where I used to work that would make a loud squealing at lower refresh rates. Everyone complained about it, but even though I told them how to fix it, they just...wouldn't. Even though they all knew how.

[fragbert.livejournal.com]

No contest.

User: "I can't log in to my account!"
Me: "Turn off your caps lock."
User: "Oh."
*logon.wav plays*

[axessdenyd.livejournal.com]

I thought of caps lock, but that seems less silly than the scroll wheel for some reason.

[compwizrd.livejournal.com]

i get the feeling i'm about the only person here at work that sees flicker at 60hz. somedays i can see flicker at 72, luckily my 20" trinitrons work just fine at 75 :)

[axessdenyd.livejournal.com]

Headaches bad.

[kalidor.livejournal.com]

Well you know how it goes. People find the most annoying path, and follow it....

[xdownfornowx.livejournal.com]

the caps lock maybe the winner, but turning the monitor on for the user is always a good one. Mostly because it is impossible at that point for them to not feel like a complete idiot.

[kalidor.livejournal.com]

There's a reason all the fluorescent fixtures I have are T5's. They refresh at several kilohertz, not the 60Hz that drives you batty in a cheap office.

[axessdenyd.livejournal.com]

Ooooh, I've had people sit down at a monitor with no keyboard, mouse, or computer, and ask how to use it.

[the-paco.livejournal.com]

tell that to my customers.

[taii.livejournal.com]

for where I work, when the workstation is locked and it's not accepting their password.
Change the 'From' from 'NDS' to 'Windows'.

Admittedly, it's no intuitive as you'd think the system would set it correctly for the user when it auto-locks the system.
But then, Novell and Windows aren't exactly intuitive half the time

[jecook]

For me, it's always the site visits for "Can't get email" that works fine when I show up... I can't complain, it gets me out of the office and I get mileage money.

[redqueenmeg.livejournal.com]

I hate that flicker! I go around changing all the resolutions on the monitors in the training room and everyone looks at me like I'm insane!

[ravenshrinkery.livejournal.com]

My most common "duh" is people who somehow got themselves into safe mode. Rebooting pretty much always works for these people, but it leaves me wondering just how the hell they got there in the first place. It leaves me wondering more why they didn't try this, but I'll take the fast call.

[krease.livejournal.com]

"My computer won't boot up!"
"*sigh* Take the floppy disk out and try again"
"Oh, I wonder who put that there - it's working now"

The first time it happened was my first day on the job - I went to their office to find out what was the matter. The second time was two days later and a different person - went there too. I learned quickly that unless I felt like getting more exercise that the above conversation usually worked the best.

[residentgeek.livejournal.com]

Yesterday I had a user come into my office bitchy because her computer "wouldn't turn on at all". And it was all my fault.

Follow her back to her desk, pull up the sticky note hanging over her monitor's power button, and push the button. Monitor comes on and computer now suddenly "works".

But it was all my fault.

[dysan27.livejournal.com]

Worked on an interal help desk for the city.

Someone who dealt with the city got a virus that would spoof the from field of the e-mails it sent, and set it to people in the persons address book. At least that was our theory.

The result to us was users keep geting "You have sent an infected email to this address" messages from the recipiants firewalls.

So we spent a week telling them:
"Yes, we are aware of the problem."
"No, your machine is not infected, someone with you address in infected."
"No, there is nothing we can do."
"Yes, you can run a virus scan if you want, here how you do it... Call us if it finds any thing." They never called back.

End of the week they were not getting them any more.

[katyism.livejournal.com]

Brand new freshman: "I can't log into my email!!! I can log into everything else!!! But not email!11!!11!!1"
Me: "You didn't create an email account when you created your other accounts."
Freshman: "But I did, they said I created them all."
Me: "They were wrong, you only did the first step. Click where it says My Accounts on the account manager. Do you see email?"
Freshman: "No..."
Me: "Now click Create More Accounts. Do you see email?"
Freshman: "Yeah, and also file storage, and webserver accounts, and and and..."
Me: "Check off all those accounts and submit. Now you have an email account, among other things you'll need later, and can log in to the webmail page now."
Freshman: *pause* "WOW! It worked, WTF." *click*
Me: "...you're welcome..."

[bamatone.livejournal.com]

This is easy...

-- "I haven't gotten any email for two days!"

++ "Look in the bottom right-hand corner of Outlook. Click the icon and then uncheck 'work offline.'"

-- "Omg, look at all of this mail!"

[tjernobyl.livejournal.com]

Disabled local area connection in XP-SP2. Tell-tale error code, simple to fix, user thinks you're psychic.

[guinevere33.livejournal.com]

I once did on-site service for someone who had a tower sitting in the middle of her office - no input devices, no monitor, no POWER CABLE, nothing - and asked me why her computer wasn't working.

Adding paper to printers and faxes

[jayrtfm.livejournal.com]

Amazing how a printer or fax works so much better when it has paper.
With printers like the HP 1200 which has an external paper feed tray, I tape a sign to the bottom of the tray (normally covered by the paper) which says "If you would just add some paper, you wouldn't be standing here like an idiot waiting for your print to come out"
Great fun when I'm called over to fix the broken printer and I ask them to read the sign out loud.

[ace-brickman.livejournal.com]

You work for UITS, don't you...

[katyism.livejournal.com]

Yep... there are more of us on this community every day, it seems.

[pixeltwist.livejournal.com]

Modem in standby.

Fuck you Motorola.

[ace-brickman.livejournal.com]

well, I'm not officially UITS, but I am familiar with the account management/maintainence(sp?) site, and helping our less-knowledgeable students sign on to CFS, change passwords, and the like.

[katyism.livejournal.com]

at least you're not faculty...

Re: Adding paper to printers and faxes

[bekscilla.livejournal.com]

Heheheh, that's a great idea. Pity they can't work it out themselves, but it's great that they have to read that to you :)