|
Had a user complaining about some email not getting through to her, and so of course we were charged with fixing it as we obviously have some magical filter that specifically blocks that email address. I get down to her office, and attempt my hand at "fixing" the problem, when I know perfectly well that all of our mail servers and networks are functioning, so it's probably the person on the other end's fault.  - Opens thunderbird, scrolls down to an email. "See, it won't load. I called him and he confirmed he sent it and it's in his outbox". - "Okay no problem, let's have a look"...I sift through some information and discover that this is not her work email, but a university email account she has. Hmm... - "Well, this isn't your normal work email, I can't support it." - "But I do work with that email address! Everyone knows it, not my normal email! That one is too long!" - "I understand, but we have specific policies barring users from using non-work email accounts to perform their jobs as it opens us up to all sorts of liability and support issues..." (Tactfully left out "Like this one") - (getting huffy now) "Oh, well how would your supervisor like it if I told him you came all the way down here and didn't even do anything!!" - "Here's his blackberry. He's probably at lunch, so you might want to wait a bit he hates getting lunch cal-" - "Oh no you don't! I want you right here so you don't get out of your responsibility to the mission!" - "Right on" I then take a seat, listen to my supervisor verbally abuse this poor person and still feel a small bit of sympathy. - "Try calling the university helpdesk, they may be able to solve your email issue. Then send out a mass email to all of the people who don't know your real email address and tell them what it is, so we don't have to do this again  "Moments like this remind me of why I still do this job. Even so, I do feel bad for people using our email addresses. They are long and very difficult to explain over the phone, so I can understand where she was coming from. I feel like a good email length is under 15 characters.
|
#
¿
Nov 15, 2010 23:28
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 28, 2024 16:11 |
|
|
Working with the government has it's ups and downs. Ups like everyone being pretty relaxed in general even when poo poo hits the fan, and downs like...well...everything else. Anyone who has worked with Lotus Notes will understand where I'm coming from out here, but JESUS CHRIST that software is garbage! It's the most bloated, buggy, piece of crap email client I have ever seen. And we have to use it. Once upon a time last year our CIO at the time told us via webex that we would be moving forward with our migration to Microsoft Exchange. There was light at the end of the tunnel at last  !! Then Google sued the federal government for not evaluating THEIR email solution fairly.  Now, until today I had been told that the lawsuit would not be delaying deployment of our Microsoft solution, and while I didn't really buy that there was some hope at least. My boss cheerfully informed me that the federal judge presiding over the lawsuit saw enough merit in the case to order a cease and desist of proceeding. ARGHSDHI love you Google, but can't we please just live in peace and get the gently caress off of lotus? HAVE MERCY GOOGLE, PLEASE!!
|
|
#
¿
Jan 14, 2011 17:07
|
|
|
A TICKET CAME IN! VIP User cannot login to workstation, keyboard not working I head over, she's on the verge of total-freak-out-mode, deadlines, etc. So I sit down (she's on a newer iMac - I am not a mac guy, he's out of office). Sit down, keyboard doesn't work as advertised, I figure it's a bluetooth setting so I head back to grab a USB keyboard. I'm trying to get this working as she is a very important person in our organization and has a habit of complaining to upper management about trivial poo poo. While I'm fetching this I google mac keyboards to see if there's anything relevant on a quick search, and right before I get up from my desk to head back over she comes in to my office, a triumphant look on her face.  : *rummaging around getting keyboard, do not notice her come in*:bigtran: : "Hey Spud, I fixed it by replacing the batteries, so no worries, thanks so much for everything!" *leaves before I can respond with my jaw dropping to the floor*  "Holy poo poo a user was proactive? Is the sky falling?!"5 minutes later emails start flying about how much of a rockstar I am. The science center director comes in and personally thanks me. I get a gift card to a brewery as a non-monetary award. Queue boss coming in to see what the gently caress is happening:  : "So what the hell did you do for all this hubbub Spud?" : "Umm, nothing, she replaced her own batteries?" : "...wow" *leaves*Now I don't want to complain about this because quite frankly it's awesome and I love it when users take the initiative to try some basic troubleshooting, but I've never so much as received a thank you from most of my users and now when I barely do anything I get all of this praise. How come when I fix a site-wide issue with a complicated group policy and help hundreds of people this never happens?
|
|
#
¿
Jun 9, 2011 18:41
|
|
|
This probably is the wrong thread but since year of the joerb I figured I'd ask anyway: What do you guys in senior IT positions feel about new employees coming from fed gov positions? I'm a student career employee for the fed but the doom and gloom at the office is telling me that budget cuts are coming in for all science based positions (mine). Is my experience here going to do me any good?
|
|
#
¿
Jun 9, 2011 19:44
|
|
|
One of my star users at a satellite office called in saying his external display for his macbook was dead. This guy is usually pretty good about plugging poo poo in/basic things, even takes time to google stuff before calling because he understands the inconvenience of us driving down to fix something trivial that for some reason bomgar can't do. : "Hey Spud, my external display isn't working again, and I made sure my macbook is plugged in like last time" : "Alright, lets do some basic troubleshooting..." (I ask if everything is plugged in, sho enough, I bomgar in and try messing with settings, nothing works). Sigh, have to go down there. (my supervisor): "I'll bet it's not plugged in" : "Yeah, this guy is usually really good about that stuff and I had him double check" : "20 bucks" : "...you're on"So I take the car, head down to the site, monitor light isn't coming on... "The light was on when we were talking I don't know blah blah blah" : "Yeah, typically need to plug these guys in..." "Well sorry for wasting your time, I always feel bad for you guys" : "No worries...just part of the job" AND 20 loving DOLLARS YOU JACKHOLE, I HAD FAITH IN YOU!!  As soon as I get to liking a user, it seems they always manage to destroy any credibility I lend them. 
|
|
#
¿
Jun 23, 2011 18:22
|
|
|
Today is a total shitfuck of a day, for our organization we typically have three people on helpdesk with two sysadmins around doing various things. Two of our techs are taking care of medical emergencies and one sysadmin is out to a conference. I'm alone on the helpdesk, with two meetings I am supposed to set up and monitor video teleconferencing for (our users are clueless when it comes to anything). I just had one of our top scientists call in from the field with a dead dell laptop (Caps lock light flashing - dead memory according to service manual). I finished an hour phone call of walking him through reseating the memory and testing each one individually while taking care of our premier problem user who was super pissed that his password expired without him being notified. So anyway, I have this disassembled laptop in front of me with a phone to my ear and this guy is saying how upsetting it is that he wasn't notified of his password expiring and how he doesn't understand why it doesn't work blah blah blah. CANT HE SEE I'M ON THE PHONE AND SOLOING THE ENTIRE ORGANIZATION!!!! poo poo I have to go a meeting. AHHHHH 
|
|
#
¿
Jul 14, 2011 18:58
|
|
|
couldcareless posted:I would lock his account and go to the meeting. Let him stew in it for awhile. Well given the extreme amount of poo poo this guy is capable of bringing down on my head it's best not to make him any angrier. This is the fellow (and I'm sure you all have them somewhere at work) who will come in to the helpdesk, explain to everyone there that the situation is unacceptable for whatever reason, then turn around and leave with a slamming of the door while someone attempts to explain why things are the way they are. He also is one of two Mac users we have (out of ~200), who has absolutely no reason to be on a mac except that he likes them better. Of course we have nobody who is really that good on Mac (I have about a year of unix-only experience from a previous position so I'm pretty much the best person around for them, and I suck horribly) so when he comes in bitching about parallels not working all of us immediately are like "well then switch to a PC you fuckface!" Instead I opened ADUC and just let him set his password there since I was on the phone and didn't feel like trying to explain that our system doesn't notify Mac users that their AD passwords are going to expire for whatever reason. God tomorrow cannot come soon enough.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 14, 2011 19:39
|
|
|
New girl-tech at our helpdesk has reassigned service request ##9999## to you: "Please water the plants. If you have time give them some sunlight too". Trying to figure out the best way to respond in a hilarious manner without violating any HR policies. Granted she was nice and brought some plants in for our office which, being a bunch of computer nerds, we had not ever done as we hate the living. Any ideas?
|
|
#
¿
Jul 25, 2011 22:22
|
|
|
I sent it back with "Supervisor authorization required to modify office environment. Please forward to your supervisor and have them sign electronically". I hope my boss finds it funny
|
|
#
¿
Jul 25, 2011 22:54
|
|
|
A ticket called in: "Help I was writing an email in LOTUS NOTES and now all of a sudden nothing is working!!!!  "My first inclination is "No poo poo, lotus notes is one of the worst email clients ever invented and has so many problems that there's an emotional web support group therapy for the people who have to deal with it" (reference https://www.ihatelotusnotes.com) I head over to the office expecting to hard-reboot the computer because holy gently caress, if lotus crashes it takes as much poo poo down with it as it can.  So, sounds like you're having some trouble, do you mind if I take a look? I DONT UNDERSTAND LOTUS IS ALWAYS GREAT WHY DID IT CRASH Uhm, so this has never happened to you before? (un-loving-believable) NO AND WHEN THE EMAIL SAID WE WERE SWITCHING TO OUTLOOK I WAS OUTRAGED!!! Right, well I've seen this issue pop up quite a bit, and we have an entire team of engineers that hasn't been able to come up with a fix for some time now. I'll have to reboot your machine... WELL YOU GUYS BROKE IT WHEN YOU INSTALLED THE FIXPACK LAST WEEK Why do we bother to inform users when we fix things. I'm going to recommend that our site gets put on the exchange beta RIGHT NOW, gently caress IBM.edit: EoRaptor posted:2008R2. Everything is so much better...except installing 32-bit XP drivers for a printer. The only way I've found to make it work is to install 64 bit drivers and all, then when you try to add the shared printer on the XP box it will ask you for drivers, you can select them and it will upload to the server for future XP machines. I have no idea why they didn't just allow you to add it on the server in the first place.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 28, 2011 18:14
|
|
|
fluppet posted:As a peon working first line support, I've been asked to setup a Nagios server to monitor the 12 new MFP that are being installed this week. Play dumb, demand a professional training bootcamp. Forge food receipts (if necessary to collect per diem) and use the per diem you get from you trip as a "bonus". Then fail to set it up and demand more training. Hopefully you can squeeze them for a few MCITP courses Once you have your certs, use them as leverage for a promotion or just jump ship. Hell that's what everyone at my roommate's office did after they got their ITIL certs.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 29, 2011 15:19
|
|
|
A ticket came in: I'm going to go on a rant here so here's the tl;dr: DO HR'S JOBS FOR THEM BECAUSE THEY ARE ALL IDIOTS WHO CANNOT FILL OUT PAPERWORK! So we have a Fellow who's status in the organization was going from FTE to cooperator. This is a very simple process that involves (for IT's purposes) a single piece of paper with a very clearly labeled and emphasized checkbox that states "IF EMPLOYEE WILL BE RETURNING IN ANY FASHION TO CONTINUE WORK, CHECK THIS BOX TO ENSURE THE EMPLOYEE'S EMAIL WILL REMAIN IN SERVICE" Fellow fails to fill out this form. He fails to inform anyone except HR of what he is doing and HR fails to inform anyone about it either. This is a giant ball of failure that will end up being my fault, I just know it. 90 days after his stealth-org status change he complains that he cannot access his email to me (this is about 3 MONTHS ago). I troubleshoot and forward to our local mail administrator, who states that his account was deleted from an automated process that removes email accounts for people who have left the organization. Woohoo, problem solved, restore mail account. Right? WRONG! Due to Fellow's complete failure to inform anyone of anything, all of his security clearance/IT rules of behavior etc have fallen out of scope so he will have to be entered in to the org as a completely new person! Holy poo poo! I inform him of this, and due to his EXTREME IMPORTANCE AND VIP STATUS he goes on a tirade to HR (after yelling at me of course, because even though I have absolutely nothing to do with any of this status bullshit it involves him not able to get his technology) , where he gets bitchslapped by the senior HR administrator for not telling anyone anything. He proceeds to get his supervisors help in filling out all of his paperwork again. Finally, some resolution. All will be well once he gets processed (usually takes about 2 weeks for everything). WRONG AGAIN SPUDDYBUDDY! Dickmunch in HR who is a complete FNG gets upset at something, and "loses" all of Fellow's paperwork. Insert 2 weeks of me playing messenger boy between these two complete fuckwads and attempting to get them to cooperate and call each other on the phone to discuss what papers need to be signed like adults. Cue both of them pointing fingers at each other with me stuck in the middle just trying to get Fellow back on his email so I can never loving speak to him again. This goes on for TWO MONTHS. After the first two ridiculous weeks I sent an email to both Dickmunch and Fellow and their supervisors, my supervisor, and the Center Director (CEO pretty much). I tell them that I don't have time to be running paperwork around like a paperboy and that we have systems in place to deal with this, and I will no longer be doing anything for either of them until they get the drat paperwork done. I have washed my hands of this clusterfuck and I can get back to doing IT. So they do nothing for the next two months because they are loving children and neither of their supervisors have the stones to make them do anything. Today I get a call from senior HR administrator asking me if I can please get his email paperwork filled out and send it back to her. I cannot loving believe this place.  edit: notwithoutmyanus posted:our outlook migration stuff is starting (from lotus and domino where we have a shitload of customer databases). I'm humored (and happy) to be wearing a lanyard with a big metal thing at the end that says "ASK ME" in big letters. It should be fun to put into practice having to explain the "what's next/what's happening/why this is good/etc". If you have to explain to someone why going from lotus to outlook is a good thing, they need a motherfucking lobotomy.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 4, 2011 19:51
|
|
|
couldcareless posted:I don't know how or why you didn't wash your hands of this in the first place. It's basic protocol. If they don't follow it, then you can't do anything. Simple as that. I know it sounds as if I should have told them to gently caress off, but in my workplace I am a lowly peon and our IT department is already on edge due to GOV budget nonsense. Basically there's a failure in management here where any scientist who does any sort of publications is treated as a minor deity, all support personnel are treated like dirt and most people feel like we just suck money away from the project funds (we do, but without us there would be no projects of course). It's something I've thought on quite a bit, and I do my best to accommodate any technology needs, but yeah this was beyond tech and very much an HR issue. I probably could have handled it better by not allowing myself to be caught up in any paperwork whatsoever, but sometimes I feel like as long as everyone at least thinks I'm trying to help, I get treated a lot better and it's worth it in the long run. I'm just a student worker and although I've been around a bit I'm still learning the details of office politics and how this whole place runs behind the scenes. edit: I asked this a while back and didn't see any response, so I will give it another go. What do you guys in senior IT positions feel about new employees coming from fed gov positions? I'm a student career employee for the fed but the doom and gloom at the office is telling me that budget cuts are coming in for all science based positions (mine). Is my experience here going to do me any good?
|
|
#
¿
Aug 4, 2011 20:45
|
|
|
I just had a user bring a laptop by without warning: "Hey Spudalicious, I was working for like 4 hours yesterday on this excel spreadsheet, and then the super-old out of warranty laptop I was using bluescreened and now I can't find it!! Help me!" Me:"Well the laptop is old, and you're still running a not-recently-updated copy of excel 2003, so odds are it's toast. Did you save it anywhere else?" "Well I saved it in one spot but I know I saved it! And now when I open it it's back to before I worked on it at all yesterday. FOUR HOURS BLAARGH" Me: *smile* "I understand, sometimes computers suck. There's a small chance I might be able to pull something out of the temporary documents folder, but odds are against you here. Really sorry about that, losing time sucks!" "Just get the spreadsheet back ok?" Me: "I'll see what I can do". What's the best way to handle these? I often want to just tell the user "Look, it's obvious that the last date modified on this file you claimed to have worked on is super old, so either you are mistaken as to where the file was located or you are lying". I know that date stamps in windows shouldn't really be treated as gospel but I'm pretty sure this person DID work on something, she just didn't realize what file it was or was in another folder somewhere. It just pisses me off that they immediately blame IT for pretty much any issue when really they could claim a little responsibility and immediately have my full attention and support. Now I have to pretend to work on this laptop so this person feels like I am trying to help, even though I've already done a scan of all files/folders and the drat thing just aint here.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 28, 2011 22:53
|
|
|
...It's full of stars! That would scare me shitless. Today I was tasked with deploying a GPO from our 2008 schema domain to a remote site running 2003. When I asked them if I could update their schema and take things down for about an hour after business closes, the answer was a resounding no. The logical thing would be to get this updated to at least the 2008 schema, since eventually their DCs will need to be upgraded to 2008 and this is like step 1. It would also allow me to import my GPO! Instead they had me print out the settings (it's our standard security template that sets like 2000 things) and I'm recreating it as best I can. 
|
|
#
¿
Nov 22, 2011 17:48
|
|
|
Walter_Sobchak posted:
It's so funny when they still have the shine of positivity and hope in their eyes.  Prepare for nobody ever believing anything you say, constantly lying to your face about everything in a BS attempt to look good/cover their rear end, and management constantly blaming you for every problem from the power going out to the coffee not being made in the morning!
|
|
#
¿
Dec 1, 2011 17:56
|
|
Hey, I know I have to put a ticket in for this, but could you help me out? I need a power cord for my laptop for remote use.
|
nexus6 posted:I had a user come in today and, without saying a word, unplug and take the power strip that the file server was plugged into. Good thing nobody uses it and still passes file between desks with a usb stick/carries laptops everywhere nexus6 posted:the power strip that the file server was plugged into
|
|
#
¿
Dec 1, 2011 18:34
|
|
|
blackmanjew posted:Multiple tickets may come in. We just finished our deployment of SCCM. Using it for patch deployment and optional software is amazing! No longer do we just have every possible application on every computer image! Now the user gets a handy popup saying "There is software available to install", then they can choose to install from a list of apps. It also does some reporting stuff but I don't really care about that. Best of luck.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 10, 2011 00:25
|
|
|
GWBBQ posted:
I get these here and there, it is a true bummer. I'm sorry man, I don't have the slightest clue where the gently caress you put your file, it's probably lost in a 40 folder deep path that nobody but you even knows exists. All you can do is a search of the common places, then tell them the evil computer trolls stole it 
|
|
#
¿
Dec 14, 2011 21:28
|
|
|
I just got tasked with a last minute wall-to-wall inventory data call. We have an entire room absolutely full of poo poo that nobody has a clue about, and I have to take down serial numbers... This:  Back there in that dark corner? 5 boxes full of loving whatever cards in static bags. Also I have to do all our cables. TGIF? 
|
|
#
¿
Jan 6, 2012 23:17
|
|
|
I just got tasked to migrate our DHCP services to a box running in OUR server room instead of across campus. I'm supposed to research whether running DHCP from a virtual machine is ok or not. Personally I can't see any problems as long as networking is set up to not block the inbound requests, anyone have any horror stories or problems using Hyper-V for this?
|
|
#
¿
Jan 9, 2012 18:06
|
|
|
User comes in claming that her Excel is broken and not operating correctly. She is usually pretty great about fixing her own stuff, but this one was funny. : See, when I open this spreadsheet it opens twice! Excel is broken! : ...you are double clicking a quicklaunch shortcut. If you double click it it will register each click and open twice. This is expected behavior. : No! This never happened before! : Well, I have to say the solution is to click once. I'm not sure how you could change the settings of those shortcuts and not realize it. : It's broken! Can't you reinstall it? :
|
|
#
¿
Jan 13, 2012 23:35
|
|
|
A ticket came in! "There is a mouse in my mousetrap. Please dispose of it ASAP, I am allergic to mice." This lady is usually difficult and I feel bad that she might actually have an allergy to mice, but my gut instinct is that she does not, in fact, have an allergy to mice.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 13, 2012 16:39
|
|
|
Ticket: User needs to log on to system with cached credentials to a remote domain, but no cached credentials exist on the new system! What to do? So of course this is CRISIS PRIME DIRECTIVE AHHHH And just to illustrate how important it is, they sent me, a student, to solve this issue. Let it be known that my knowledge of networking is weak, but I gave it a shot anyway.Solution? Double VPN! Tunnel through RDP on another system to this one while it's on the VPN, preserving the network connection and allowing a simultaneous login. Who knew switch user is so accommodating! Thanks Windows 7, and thank baby Jesus for making this crazy rear end jerry-rigged networking cluster work! After returning from the remote site, I walk in to find pretty much everybody gone for the day except IT, and futuristic sex robotz was blasting from the office. I got to walk in to "LOLOLOLOL Bitch, I came in your face!" I love fridays.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 3, 2012 00:01
|
|
|
Nebulis01 posted:So I'm not a linux person at all and had to look this up. Is he essentially trying to enable Local Adminstrator access on the machine with this command? It's bypassing all of the security that sudo implements because he's trying to change to a root user shell. It's pretty much a giant no-no in every possible situation, as if you really need to run something as root you can sudo it, rather than opening a full root shell. Sudo for life!
|
|
#
¿
Mar 23, 2012 17:32
|
|
|
Rhymenoserous posted:I think anyone who worked in a LAMP shop at some point knows someone who did this, and that person served as an object lesson for the rest of the shop. I mounted a windows drive in linux once to recover some corrupted data. I chmodded everything to 777, except I realized what I had done about halfway through and ctrl-c'd it. Whoops.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 23, 2012 22:46
|
|
|
A user came in to the helpdesk: : Hey Jim, how can we help you today? : Well I have my computer here (shows laptop). I think I need help. : Okay, what's wrong with it? : She's all hosed up. : ... (oh boy) well what's going on with it...her? : She's so hot all the time and now my start menu is gone. (Shows me) : Yikes. : Yeah, can you guys just put her up on the lift and take a look around to make sure she's got no leaks and maybe a quick tune up? Thanks! Coolest guy ever. Didn't need any explanation of why or how, just wanted me to do my loving job and fix this poo poo. I like these ones. I just hit it with some compressed air and a cloud of dust flew out so I'm pretty sure it's overheating. I'll give an honest effort to fix this one though.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 30, 2012 22:24
|
|
|
GnarlyCharlie4u posted:well this is really loving embarrassing: I wonder why you are receiving different 404's? Isn't that controlled in httpd.conf? Could they have a cached version? Seems weird to me. Also, that isn't even that funny. I would CYA as much as possible for your whole company here. Point blame anywhere but yourself, it's the American way! 
|
|
#
¿
Apr 4, 2012 17:05
|
|
|
Moey posted:An email came in! All I had to do was add someone to a distribution group. You are the superman for that, but when you spend two sleepless nights attempting to recover mission-critical databases that were ruined by another department, guess how many people give a drat. I'll give you two guesses Hint: Nobody
|
|
#
¿
Aug 21, 2012 00:20
|
|
|
An email came in:IT Management posted:The NOSC reports their techs are currently working the issue. It appears the VBNS OC-12 circuit into the main office is down hard. Sounds like a good pseudo-hacker movie.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 30, 2013 17:30
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 28, 2024 16:11 |
|
|
A ticket was escalated: USER is still having issues connecting to aol "inbox" link. I've tested other browsers and even testing a temp account on their to see if it worked for me. They same issues occur to me as it will only load 3/4 of the way on the loading bar and doesn't progress. Does anyone have any tips to move this along? *ORIGINAL TEXT* Hi, I'm having trouble accessing my AOL email from work again. I frequently email files I work on at home to my work email acct. It won't allow me to sign in and this has happened before. AOL works fine from my home computer. Thanks.  I know how to fix this!Resolution posted:Advised user to exit 20th century and enter 21st. Just for kicks I went and made an aol email account. Sure enough our filters at work don't like something to do with their email system, so I tried the basic version. Why did people ever stop using AOL?!! 
|
|
#
¿
May 16, 2013 17:40
|
|