(no subject)

[bornofchaos.livejournal.com]

I've just joined this community, on the recommendation of jrho (cheers!). This entry is crossposted because basically? Same thing all over again today.


So today was my 6 month anniversary in my job.
(Takes a moment to wonder how the hell I managed that. Not that it was hard, I love my job, but I've the attention span of a heroin addicted guppy. I'm amazed I haven't emigrated to Tobago yet. Although end of next year, watch out Canada :)

It's a good thing it was today, 'cos...nnngarrgh.



"Stop using big words when you don't know what they mean." "Stop cutting and pasting from forums and telling me it's an engineers report." "If you have to use the dictionary, stop reading."

Because I'm telling you right now, no stupid, jumped up excuse for a "computer expert" is going to sit there and scream the results of a speed test at me, flinging terms like "noise margin" and "line attenuation" about and expecting me to get on my knees and open wide.

And you know what? Some of those terms..I don't know what they mean. Honestly. I'm first level technical support, not a qualified telecoms engineer. I know a hell of a lot more than I did, because Wikipedia is my friend, and I am Googles bitch. But if I genuinely don't know whats going on, it's off to Faults with you, because guess what? They. Do.

And guess what else? I know my companys settings. Inside out and upside down. I know what indicates a big fucking problem, and whats basically the digital equivalent of a fart. So again, don't sit there and demand to speak to an "expert" because omgwtfbbq, your router isn't signing on. And don't you DARE tell me that I must be mistaken when I tell you that inputting your own IP/DNS settings is going to get you nowhere in one big hurry. Because when I ask you to tell me the difference between dynamic and static IP's and you can't all you're going to be is horribly humiliated and all I'm going to do is snicker. Audibly.

You know what I like? I like people who haven't a fucking clue and admit it. "I know nothing, I am yours to command" is what I got one day and I could have hugged him. Because they know the value of "Sit down, shut up, and do what you're told."
I don't mind stupid questions. I really don't. I will happily sit there and explain the difference between RJ11 and RJ45 to somebody who wouldn't know what an ethernet cable was if it hit them in the face because they know they don't know. I can't do their job, so why should I expect them to know mine?

But Jesus, Mary, Joseph and all the saints in Heaven, if I get one more snotty, arrogant, up himself little bastard who says things like "I've just run a complete diagnostic on my mainframe and the test results show that I am connecting via PPPOA and my friend next door is PPPOE and *everybody* knows that you shouldn't connect PPPOA, and I'm not getting the service I'm paying for, therefore I demand that something be done".

This isn't Star Trek. Next thing you'll tell me the inertial dampeners are offline and thats also my fault. And it's a PC and a laptop, not a shagging "mainframe". And your friend is with a completely different provider. Those are our settings. Learn to love it, or piss off, I'm not that fussed. I'm a technician, not a fucking magician.



Vodka anyone? No? Lovely.

*glug*

Comments

[fuego.livejournal.com]

But Jesus, Mary, Joseph and all the saints in Heaven, if I get one more snotty, arrogant, up himself little bastard who says things like "I've just run a complete diagnostic on my mainframe and the test results show that I am connecting via PPPOA and my friend next door is PPPOE and *everybody* knows that you shouldn't connect PPPOA, and I'm not getting the service I'm paying for, therefore I demand that something be done".

wow, just...wow...

SO glad I'm not in the business anymore, though if school doesn't work out, I mat need to go back. *grumbles*

[gilmoure.livejournal.com]

*golf clap*

Yeah, what you said. Clueless users are much easier on the psych, even if it does take 5 minutes to get them to Internet Options or Network control panel.

[the-s-guy.livejournal.com]

And this is why, on the very few occasions I feel I absolutely *have* to call my ISP's tech support, I will not only wait several hours and then reboot everything and check all my cabling twice (as well as the phone line itself), but when I do get through I will do exactly what they say and shut the hell up, even if I think they're flailing.

Really, I should also start keeping a spare vanilla Win2K box ($50 of parts or so) around purely for testing. Unplug all my Frankensteinian crap from the ADSL kit, shut it off and allow it to cool for a couple of hours, plug in the vanilla box with the default ISP settings and see if I can get any kind of response.

It's not just that the ISP shouldn't have to deal with my gateway settings, wireless rig, and half a dozen network filters. It's that when I call, I want to be able to say "I have one single vanilla Win2K box with no third-party software or firewalls or anything plugged straight into a standard [ADSL kit model-type] with the following settings," so they only have the absolute minimum number of things they can ask me to fiddle with before having to check if it's a fault on their end.

And to be fair, I've only had to call my ISP tech support twice in the last two years - once for a network-wide outage, and once when I first set everything up and discovered the salesweasels had given me the completely wrong settings in my startup kit.

Besides, it's just embarrasing to call techsupport and have it turn out to be something on my end. Much better to walk away for an hour, then sit down and have a really solid think about it.

[adamjaskie.livejournal.com]

The last time I called tech support at Comcast, I knew exactly what the problem was, and what had to be done to fix it, but the L1 insisted on following his script.

me> Hello, I was digging in the garden and accidentally cut my cable line. My cable is now not working.
L1> Do you have a picture on your TV?
me> No... of course not. The cable is cut. I'm holding the cut ends right here.
L1> What do the signal lights on your cable modem say?
me> I'm not going to go upstairs to the cable modem, I know that the cable is cut. It's my fault, I'll pay for it to be fixed, but it needs to be spliced. Could I get a tech out here please?
L1> It sounds like your cable is out somewhere outside of your house. We'll send someone to take a look.
me> Thank you.

Apparently, they covered it being fixed since it was outside the house. Even though it was my fault, and I admitted it. That was nice.

[the-s-guy.livejournal.com]

Heh. We had our procedures tampered with by the execs. Once. After they started receiving my not-particularly-complimentary writeups, they didn't screw with us directly again. Of course, indirectly there are all kinds of problems. But I'm outta there, not my problem any more.

[mouser.livejournal.com]

My record on that one is Dell with two hours.

My opening words: "My hard-drive is failing. I need a new one."
(two hours of diagnostics, and fix programs which he denies I have a clue)
My closing words: "So, when can you send me that new hard-drive."

I never got snotty, but MAN, you'd think the drive was coming out of the guys salary!

[gilmoure.livejournal.com]

Exactly. I always ignore my home network and go at it as if it's a single computer on the cable modem. So far, the only cable access internet problems I've had has been faulty modems, going back to '97 (test market days).

[jecook]

+ infinity.

I've had a grand total of 5 failures with the two DSL lines I've had over the past 4(?) years. three of those were due to my DSL bridge crapping it's pants and needing a reboot. two of those were due to covad having issues (first one was the rack in test mode, which I found to be screamingly funny), and the second was an honest to dog outage in the CO.

[mouse-from-marz.livejournal.com]

or at least users who are knowledgeable enuff to know they're clueless.

[ghostdandp.livejournal.com]

is that Steve Mcqueen in your icon?

[mouse-from-marz.livejournal.com]

haha, no. it's just a plain old lab rat I google'd... I should look him up tho.

[entropic.livejournal.com]

Gratutious Steve icon comment. :)

[jecook]

Welcome to the insanity.

and keep the vodka out. Your moderator team runs on caffine and alcohol. :wrygrin:

[susano-otter.livejournal.com]

Heh.

My problem as an end-user is that I'm actually a sysadmin. I get paid serious money to troubleshoot and resolve hardware, OS, and networking issues on a daily basis.

But when I'm having trouble with my home DSL connection, and I've already figured out that there's a problem either with the modem or the network, I still have to spend another twenty minutes going through the checklist over the phone with some guy who's sounding the words out of a big binder written in what is, to him, a foreign language.

I totally understand that the CSR has no way to tell me apart from all the asshats who claim to know about computers but are just lying. But damn, it's annoying.

[ghostdandp.livejournal.com]

I'll generally try to give them a clue in that I know what I'm talking about. "I've checked the IP and DNS connection, everythings set to be done by DHCP, and I'm unable to ping or tracert on anything other than a IP address. I've tried releasing and renewing my dhcp lease a few times" At which point if it's actually a tech I'm talking to, and not some high school kid or foreigner reading out of a script, I'm all set.

[ace-brickman.livejournal.com]

if some asshat gets ahold of your script there, you're fucked