You know what really pisses me off today?

[ranting-asshole.livejournal.com]

Fucking helpdesk techs.

Not us, of course. I'm talking about the other techs your clients consult. Let me explain.

I had a rep call today complaining that he couldn't access the VPN from his hotel. He was aware that you have to load a hotel website, fill out their form agreeing with their use policies, and then submit it before you could get on their network. His problem is that when he clicked on the 'submit' button, it'd loop him back to the first page of the agreement. He called the hotel helpdesk to see if he was doing something wrong and was told that the issue is because of either a hardware issue on his end, or that he has a firewall installed.

WTF?

If he had a firewall blocking shit, he wouldn't have been able to access the website at all. Never mind the fact that these laptops have standardized builds and the reps do not have the access permissions to install a firewall. Short of reinstalling the OS from scratch, he could not possibly have a firewall on his machine.

Hardware failure? If it was hardware failure he wouldn't be able to connect to shit at all.

So the guy calls me, and what can I tell him? "Sorry dude, the first guy you talked to was just a lazy little shit who didn't want to perform proper troubleshooting. Your end is perfectly fine."

I walked him through some basic troubleshooting anyway to make sure he had everything configured correctly... which he did. Pulling an IP from his in-room modem just fine. Connectivity seemed to work great, if the only site he wanted to visit was the hotel's signup page.

Fucking helpdesk techs.

(x-post: ranting_asshole, techsupport

Comments

[mouser.livejournal.com]

Possible that the page they wanted to get to didn't exist, like an intranet site. That confuses the crappy front our former ISP used. (I'm tech support in a hotel).

My joy is laptops from the office where they have a static IP, no administrator access so they can change it, and they keep insisting that it works EVERYWHERE else.

Yea, I could break the admin password. No, not gonna do it.

[tecie.livejournal.com]

If the script is written crappily then it might loop around like that. I've seen it a couple of times, specifically when I try to register with something at does an unsafe or intrusive measure and it hits something that isn't an unpatched version of IE running on an unpatched version of windows with no firewall.
Basically let's say it's trying to download an unsigned activeX component, or worse it's trying to install some Gator-esque spyware. Now before you say "That wouldn't happen!" I'll have you know that I've seen it already because hotel management says "hey, let's get that interweb thingy for our guests and charge them for it!"
But yeah, lazy helpdesk people piss me off. Actually anyone who isn't doing their job for no apparent reason.
If it's your F$#$%ubg job to help people to get online, then do it. It would be a different thing if he was asking for your help registering for a porn site or something...

[ranting-asshole.livejournal.com]

They're not even running XP. No firewall there. It's 2000.

[duality.livejournal.com]

had one similar today. the routers that our clients use are supplied by a third company with their own tech support BS. client had smoke come out of his router, and they refused to send him another one. they just kept transferring him to their own 2nd level who *gasp* wouldn't answer the phone.

[jcaswell.livejournal.com]

Dodgy proxy settings maybe? The proxy server at my work is set up in such a way that you can access the WindowsUpdate site, but not install any updates until the proxy is off. There's nothing to tell you that the proxy is the problem, it just sits there pretending to download things. As soon as we turn the proxy off though, it's fine. Don't ask me why that works, but it does :)

[ranting-asshole.livejournal.com]

That was among the basic troubleshooting steps I performed.

We actually don't even use a proxy server, but I had him check it anyway just because I had no idea what the lazy fuck on the other end had had him screw up.

[tnjade.livejournal.com]

The hotel tech could authenticate him (VPN plan or standard plan) and all should be well, provided he didn't have wacky settings on his PC and was blocked from making changes. :(

Can you tell me where he was? I wonder if the hotel transferred him to the support line or if they just tried to "fix" it themselves.

[jcaswell.livejournal.com]

Heh, fair point :)

[projectgator.livejournal.com]

Well i run into that from time to time here in my hotel, I only handle their connection to the net. After that poof your own your own buddy. Usually their MAC address needs to be cleared from the firewall

[ranting-asshole.livejournal.com]

He was in a Hyatt. I don't recall the city.

[billysapphire.livejournal.com]

Working in one of these centers myself...
I know how the customer feels. I am one of a few techs that actually work for the customer. I get yelled at constantly about call times because I don't stay under the required 8-10 mins per call. Well, sometimes it takes longer than that to figure out what the issue is. Especially with hotel guests because most of them only know to turn it on and it works 99% of the time.

There are a few reps that I could see doing this because they want to keep their numbers low and I actually witnessed a tech lie to a customer over the phone telling them that the site was fine but he couldn't hit the damn server. If we can't hit the server, it usually means it's fudged up and needs a reboot to clear itself up. Lied right to her. I was annoyed because this same guy runs around bragging about how good he is.
I know how it is though, most places only care about the number. Nevermind what serves the customer/user best.

[tnjade.livejournal.com]

Phew. Not my techs. :)