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ZanderZ
Apr 7, 2011

by T. Mascis

madmaan posted:

Why exactly? Do you have that much ink/toner stored up for it? Is it the only kind of printer that will work for a specific type of printing you do? A printer is one of those things that cost you more if you attempt to keep an old one working than buying new in almost every case.

NOPE! Just an old printer she found in the ally behind the building! We work for a non-profit organization that's funded by donations, but still, we could just go without buying the whole company lunch for one Friday and that would give us more than enough to pay for a new printer. It's still sitting on a table in the conference room next to an old non-digital TV.

Boss posted:

"We might need it some time"

Salt Fish posted:

Should have asked him to stop being so lazy and bring his computer to you. If he resists offer to meet halfway; you know, somewhere in the hallway.

I wish I could do this. Sadly, it's a desktop.

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Sickening
Jul 16, 2007

Black summer was the best summer.

ZanderZ posted:

NOPE! Just an old printer she found in the ally behind the building! We work for a non-profit organization that's funded by donations, but still, we could just go without buying the whole company lunch for one Friday and that would give us more than enough to pay for a new printer. It's still sitting on a table in the conference room next to an old non-digital TV.

What a loving moron.

RadicalR
Jan 20, 2008

"Businessmen are the symbol of a free society
---
the symbol of America."

ZanderZ posted:

NOPE! Just an old printer she found in the ally behind the building! We work for a non-profit organization that's funded by donations, but still, we could just go without buying the whole company lunch for one Friday and that would give us more than enough to pay for a new printer. It's still sitting on a table in the conference room next to an old non-digital TV.

:goink: Who knows where the hell that thing's been? Hazardous material!

ZanderZ
Apr 7, 2011

by T. Mascis

madmaan posted:

What a loving moron.

And people are asking me how to print non-stop. It's driving me crazy.

Them: "How do I print?"
Me: "I don't know."
Them: "How do YOU print?"
Me: "I don't"
Them: "THEN WHAT DO YOU DO!"
Me: "I dunno, I just save everything."

Seriously, why do people even print anything out anymore? What are you gonna do with your printout? Either shove it in a file cabinet with a thousand other papers to be long forgotten, or use it as a buffer zone between hot coffee and your desk? Nobody has a bag full of 3 ring binders they use to keep things organized.

Salt Fish
Sep 11, 2003

Cybernetic Crumb

ZanderZ posted:

I wish I could do this. Sadly, it's a desktop.

Thats why its effective :)

Brut
Aug 21, 2007

Salt Fish posted:

Thats why its effective :)

Yeah until he brings you a monitor still attached to the power strip still attached to the socket that's been ripped out of the wall.

Scikar
Nov 20, 2005

5? Seriously?

A ticket came in...

...then it got forwarded to me again with no additional text...

...then the user printed it out (in full colour!) and brought it through to me directly...

...then went back to their desk and called me about it.

Telex
Feb 11, 2003

So we're a ShoreTel beta site and that means we get odd problems on a regular basis, no biggie.

This morning (sometime, who the gently caress knows when) we stopped being able to recieve or send calls on certain area codes. Zero tickets, nobody knew there was a problem until previously mentioned guy is all "fix it, now".

Meanwhile, I take a quick look, call our support vendor to get a ticket going with them and reboot the switches. New "boss" who is not my boss comes over and tells me there's a problem (duh), I tell him I'm rebooting the phone switch and clearly this just swirls around the brain and doesn't register because he picks up a phone (they're all VOIP) and declares he isn't getting a dialtone. Duh genius, I rebooted the loving switch. Why are you in charge of technology if you don't even know how VOIP is going to work? Meanwhile he won't stop asking me stupid questions over my shoulder while I'm trying to troubleshoot these things.

While rebooting the switch he comes around and says "this is getting worse, now ALL the phones aren't working, can we do something about this?" and I'm like I took down all the phones because that's what happens when you reboot the switch since they're all software based phones connected to a switch that is currently not working. I'll let you know when things are fixed and our support vendor has given us the all clear.

And then he finally left me alone.

At least we got a haloween party lunch with red velvet cupcakes?

Migishu
Oct 22, 2005

I'll eat your fucking eyeballs if you're not careful

Grimey Drawer

Telex posted:

Oh, his words: "I'm not doing any loving tickets" and that's really all about that.

:mad: : DID YOU DO MY IT REQUEST!?!?!?!?!?!?!??!!?
:) : What IT request? Did you create a ticket?
:mad: : NO I'M NOT MAKING TICKETS gently caress YOU
:) : ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Yaos
Feb 22, 2003

She is a cat of significant gravy.
I never got your email/I never got your call/nobody told me about it.

couldcareless
Feb 8, 2009

Spheal used Swagger!
My personal favorite is this guy that I walk by every day on my way out. I fix things for him and tell him to let me know if that works for him. Never get a call back. Walking out the office at the end of the day "Hey, this thing still isn't working you know"

:commissar:

Dilbert As FUCK
Sep 8, 2007

by Cowcaster
Pillbug
"The adapter keyboard power thingy got pushed back and I dunno how to un-push it back."

I wish I knew

Partycat
Oct 25, 2004

Telex posted:

So we're a ShoreTel beta site and that means we get odd problems on a regular

I'd be in your poo poo too if you decided to randomly take all business phones down in the middle of the day without telling anyone but ShoreTel support.

bird food bathtub
Aug 9, 2003

College Slice
...the UPS is beeping and all the systems are shut down. I need a new UPS.

Well first off I'm not loving supply, I'm IT, if you really need new poo poo supplied to you go to supply. See how that works? It's right there, in the title. Supply. The only way for you to possibly miss that is to be illiterate. So. loving. Tired. Of people putting in tickets for me to replace stuff, or get them a new tower, or a new phone, or toner or paper or a rubber god drat duckie.

Whatever, people are stupid and 99% of the time they don't actually need a UPS the things last for years so let's go take a look at it shall we? At this point I want to pause for a moment to let you in on a secret. The network policy here forces every single system in the building to flash a variety of messages like 'don't piss on an electric fence' as screen savers. Fully one third of those pictures relate to one specific part of electronics safety. Underwriter's Laboratory stickers, don't use space heaters unattended, pictures of horrendous power-strip daisy chains and the fires that they cause. 'How Not To gently caress Up Electricity 101' type poo poo. With this in mind we return to my trouble ticket. Three complete desks powerstrip daisy-chained to one UPS, and the kicker? A loving coffee maker on the UPS too.

I wanted to make an example out of this so I did some really technical sounding, serious type questioning. 'When did this start happening, how long has it been going on, what time of the day does it normally happen' type questions. I eventually led them to concede that it usually happens first thing in the morning when they arrive, though sometimes during the day 'at random times'.

If I had an ounce of pity left for them I'd have felt bad about the broken look on their faces when I told them the loving coffee maker had to go to the next room.

Volmarias
Dec 31, 2002

EMAIL... THE INTERNET... SEARCH ENGINES...

SumYungGui posted:

...the UPS is beeping and all the systems are shut down. I need a new UPS.

Well first off I'm not loving supply, I'm IT, if you really need new poo poo supplied to you go to supply. See how that works? It's right there, in the title. Supply. The only way for you to possibly miss that is to be illiterate. So. loving. Tired. Of people putting in tickets for me to replace stuff, or get them a new tower, or a new phone, or toner or paper or a rubber god drat duckie.

Whatever, people are stupid and 99% of the time they don't actually need a UPS the things last for years so let's go take a look at it shall we? At this point I want to pause for a moment to let you in on a secret. The network policy here forces every single system in the building to flash a variety of messages like 'don't piss on an electric fence' as screen savers. Fully one third of those pictures relate to one specific part of electronics safety. Underwriter's Laboratory stickers, don't use space heaters unattended, pictures of horrendous power-strip daisy chains and the fires that they cause. 'How Not To gently caress Up Electricity 101' type poo poo. With this in mind we return to my trouble ticket. Three complete desks powerstrip daisy-chained to one UPS, and the kicker? A loving coffee maker on the UPS too.

I wanted to make an example out of this so I did some really technical sounding, serious type questioning. 'When did this start happening, how long has it been going on, what time of the day does it normally happen' type questions. I eventually led them to concede that it usually happens first thing in the morning when they arrive, though sometimes during the day 'at random times'.

If I had an ounce of pity left for them I'd have felt bad about the broken look on their faces when I told them the loving coffee maker had to go to the next room.

Did you take a picture, and send it around the office as "An anonymous example of how to put the office at risk for burning down and putting everyone out of a job"?

Jonny Nox
Apr 26, 2008




Migishu posted:

:) : ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

You owe me a new monitor, my brain just exploded all over this one.

Best use of katakana ever.

Telex
Feb 11, 2003

Partycat posted:

I'd be in your poo poo too if you decided to randomly take all business phones down in the middle of the day without telling anyone but ShoreTel support.

No, we told everyone. Not sure where I said I ninja rebooted things. I just have a "boss" that isn't in IT that comes around to say useless poo poo and act important and never reads or listens to anything we say or write and then has inappropriate reactions.

Also, ShoreTel reboots in around 45 seconds and does it when phones are idle. Which means I didn't "take down" anything except the ability to make a new call for 45 seconds. Also this is an office of 35 people so it ain't the end of the world even when it does happen. On top of everything else our primary internet circuit took a dive on us today for the combo package of hosed "FIX IT NOW" problems. Not sure what else can go wrong, but I'm having a fantastic day so far!

Toady
Jan 12, 2009

At my first small office job, the building was shared with a lawyer, who was a very strange, slow-spoken man with a limp. One day, he called me into his office and asked me if there was a way to trick SETI with fake signals to make it think it had received extraterrestrial contact.

My "favorite" tech support, though, is when I was called to someone's desk because her Word document had disappeared. The issue was solved by scrolling the document back into view.

Duct Tape Engineer
Feb 16, 2005

Look at you, hacker: a pathetic creature of meat and bone, panting and sweating as you run through my corridors. How can you challenge a perfect, immortal machine?
I am now a tutor at my local community college for the intro to computers class. Basically the class is for learning how to use Microsoft office 2010's word, excel, and powerpoint. I figure it's decent practice for learning how to deal with useless end users.

Phone
Jul 30, 2005

親子丼をほしい。
Let me guess... all of the students have a crippling fear of technology and freak the gently caress out when anything happens/changes.

Content: we moved from Communicator 2007 R2 to Lync. The contacts couldn't be saved server-side so I looked up what TechNet had to say about exporting contact lists. This is what I found: http://blogs.technet.com/b/markbarr/archive/2010/04/21/how-to-export-your-communicator-2007-contacts.aspx

technet posted:

1. In Communicator, right click on any contact and select copy
2. Open NOTEPAD, paste (you will get the address of the user)
3. Rinse and repeat for all desired contacts to export

capitalcomma
Sep 9, 2001

A grim bloody fable, with an unhappy bloody end.

Phone posted:

Let me guess... all of the students have a crippling fear of technology and freak the gently caress out when anything happens/changes.

Content: we moved from Communicator 2007 R2 to Lync. The contacts couldn't be saved server-side so I looked up what TechNet had to say about exporting contact lists. This is what I found: http://blogs.technet.com/b/markbarr/archive/2010/04/21/how-to-export-your-communicator-2007-contacts.aspx

Yeah I think we'll be staying on OCS2007 for a while.

Asmodai_00
Nov 26, 2007

TomBosleyExp posted:

I am now a tutor at my local community college for the intro to computers class. Basically the class is for learning how to use Microsoft office 2010's word, excel, and powerpoint. I figure it's decent practice for learning how to deal with useless end users.

:hurr:

WRONG.

The difference between end users and students is the students (most of the time, anyway) want to learn. End users want you to just do it for them.

ex. I spent a half hour on the phone day working on a spreadsheet for someone because they can't grasp sorting.

CommanderApaul
Aug 30, 2003

It's amazing their hands can support such awesome.
Harmless Halloween office prank day today.

I bought some cupcakes last week to take up to my wife's hospital as a little surprise for her and her staff on our anniversary. Took my son with me, and these things had some seriously rich colored icing that was almost as big as the cupcake itself. He had a blue one. Next day, he came out of the bathroom before bedtime laughing his head off and telling me his poop was blue.

:D

Ticket came in. Secretary for one of our more pushy MDs called. She put in an "Urgent" ticket last Wednesday because her bosses Android phone wasn't calendar syncing to our Exchange Server, and noone has gotten to it yet (he needed to check his email while he was at a conference over the weekend and the first part of this week). I was a bit confused why the other helpdesk person even put it in because policy, from the CIO, is that while we'll provide the domain and server information for setup, but anything further than that is not IT's problem. Our support documentation for phones is "if it's a problem, uninstall it and use Webmail." I got to conference her into the IT Manager and the CIO after I explained why it wasn't listed as a high priority, and the IT Manager told me to pull the ticket back from onsite support and close it out, and he'd take care of any fallout.

I really love my job.

I went back and got to listen to the call with our Coordinator (I'm putting in for her job at her insistance, she's going to desktop support mid-month), and the secretary pretty much browbeat one of our female HD people.

T.K.
Dec 25, 2009

shenanigans upon 1000 equally unprecedented shenanigans
A (series of automatically generated) ticket(s) came in...

Zenoss is freaking out because some of our systems get under such heavy load that apparently the SNMP daemons stop responding and Zenoss is all gently caress gently caress THIS SYSTEM IS DOWN SEND OUT *ALL* THE ALERTS *PAGE PAGE EMAIL EMAIL* :supaburn:

And then 5 minutes later:

Okay whew all clear LET EVERYONE KNOW *page page email email* :supaburn:

Stuck on zenoss 2.5, working on migrating to 3. Is there a way short of nice-ing the SNMP daemon up to stop this crap from happening? Reducing the load on these boxes is not an option.

Gwaihir
Dec 8, 2009
Hair Elf

Asmodai_00 posted:


ex. I spent a half hour on the phone day working on a spreadsheet for someone because they can't grasp sorting.

You must have been working with the fine people of our fiscal department! (If there was just ONE group that you would expect could at least deal with basic excel usage you would think it would be finance and accounting... but noooooooo).

Ridge_Runner_5
May 26, 2011

by Y Kant Ozma Post

RadicalR posted:

:goink: Who knows where the hell that thing's been? Hazardous material!

It's MY turn with the sex box, and her name's Hewlett Packard!

Dartanion
Apr 22, 2010

T.K. posted:

Zen "EVERYTHING IS DOWN, wait, nvermind OSS

I wish. Nagios has the ability to confirm that something isn't responding, I'm sure that scripting could be integrated into ZenOSS. I hate the fact that because something didn't respond fast enough that it just assumes it is down, and that every service on the machine is down. I'd love to have it confirm that something isn't responding before freaking out.

ZanderZ
Apr 7, 2011

by T. Mascis

Migishu posted:

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Thank you for this. Sometimes, I'll be browsing the forums and I'll come across something that makes this account worth the $10 I payed. This is one of those things.


"Put everything you wish to save on the server in the folder with your name on it."
"Put everything you wish to save on the server in the folder with your name on it."
"Put everything you wish to save on the server in the folder with your name on it."
"Put everything you wish to save on the server in the folder with your name on it."
"Put everything you wish to save on the server in the folder with your name on it."
"Put everything you wish to save on the server in the folder with your name on it."
"Put everything you wish to save on the server in the folder with your name on it."
"Put everything you wish to save on the server in the folder with your name on it."
"Put everything you wish to save on the server in the folder with your name on it."

"Why can't I find my work?"
"Did you put everything you wish to save on the server in the folder with your name on it."
"No"
" ¯\_(ツ)_/¯"

TomBosleyExp posted:

I am now a tutor at my local community college for the intro to computers class. Basically the class is for learning how to use Microsoft office 2010's word, excel, and powerpoint. I figure it's decent practice for learning how to deal with useless end users.

Make sure you tell them a thousand times to "Put everything you wish to save on the server in the folder with your name on it." Then once you've told them a thousand times, watch as they leave right when the bell rings, without backing up any of their work.

The next day...
"WHAT THE FECK HAPPENED TO MUH WORK!"

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I like turtles
Aug 6, 2009

Semi technical users are miles worse than completely technically inept workers at times.

:j: Hi, my VPN connection isn't working
:v: Ok, I've just tested it and the system is up, what error are you getting?
:j: It says the VPN subsystem is unavailable
:v: Alright, that happens sometimes, please reboot
:j: That didn't help. I'm rebuilding the vpn connection, what is the server address of my computer?
:v: .....
:v: .....
:v: Our VPN doesn't work that way - if you've made any changes at all to the profile please delete it and reimport the attached connection definition

couldcareless
Feb 8, 2009

Spheal used Swagger!

I like turtles posted:

Semi technical users are miles worse than completely technically inept workers at times.

:j: Hi, my VPN connection isn't working
:v: Ok, I've just tested it and the system is up, what error are you getting?
:j: It says the VPN subsystem is unavailable
:v: Alright, that happens sometimes, please reboot
:j: That didn't help. I'm rebuilding the vpn connection, what is the server address of my computer?
:v: .....
:v: .....
:v: Our VPN doesn't work that way - if you've made any changes at all to the profile please delete it and reimport the attached connection definition

What's even worse is when they get their kid that "knows a few things about computers" to start "fixing" the problem.
Heh...yeah.

Cpt.Wacky
Apr 17, 2005

A ticket posted:

Laptop consistently no longer requiring password entrance.

:psyduck:

Asmodai_00
Nov 26, 2007

couldcareless posted:

What's even worse is when they get their kid that "knows a few things about computers" to start "fixing" the problem.
Heh...yeah.

Every time I hear a user say "Well I had my $family member / friend look at it for me..." I want to slap them with their computer and take it away forever.

ZanderZ
Apr 7, 2011

by T. Mascis
/\ The reverse situation of that is far worse.

"I'll just bring your computer to my office and have the I.T guy fix it!"

*Tries to sneak a MacBook Pro into a pile of black Think Pads*

Daylen Drazzi
Mar 10, 2007

Why do I root for Notre Dame? Because I like pain, and disappointment, and anguish. Notre Dame Football has destroyed more dreams than the Irish Potato Famine, and that is the kind of suffering I can get behind.

couldcareless posted:

What's even worse is when they get their kid that "knows a few things about computers" to start "fixing" the problem.
Heh...yeah.

A few months ago I had a user who was working at a customer's site when his computer started "acting funny". He did some Googling and figured he found the problem. Rather than contact us he talked with the customer's IT guy and had him break the laptop drive encryption. After that other weird things started happening - gee, I wonder why.

I ended up spending 6 hours on his laptop recovering a boat load of "business critical" files while he went on and on about crappy Dell laptops and how XP needed to be replaced by the company RIGHT NOW! Finally recovered his files and wiped the drive and reinstalled XP. Ended the day by telling him to call us before he has someone who is not authorized to work on our computers mess around with anything. The funny thing is he refused for over two weeks to let us do anything because we might "make it worse". He finally relented when we told him we were not going to try and troubleshoot a laptop that did not have a company-approved installation on it, and was last worked on by someone who was not employed by us.

It would be so much better if IT was considered something less than a carpet to be walked on in this company, but as far as the business is concerned IT is a cost that must be kept minimized (which is why they cut out $4m from our computer replacement budget - the whole year's budgeted amount). And they wonder why we have over 500 computers that are over 6 years old...

capitalcomma
Sep 9, 2001

A grim bloody fable, with an unhappy bloody end.

Daylen Drazzi posted:

A few months ago I had a user who was working at a customer's site when his computer started "acting funny". He did some Googling and figured he found the problem. Rather than contact us he talked with the customer's IT guy and had him break the laptop drive encryption. After that other weird things started happening - gee, I wonder why.

I ended up spending 6 hours on his laptop recovering a boat load of "business critical" files while he went on and on about crappy Dell laptops and how XP needed to be replaced by the company RIGHT NOW! Finally recovered his files and wiped the drive and reinstalled XP. Ended the day by telling him to call us before he has someone who is not authorized to work on our computers mess around with anything. The funny thing is he refused for over two weeks to let us do anything because we might "make it worse". He finally relented when we told him we were not going to try and troubleshoot a laptop that did not have a company-approved installation on it, and was last worked on by someone who was not employed by us.

It would be so much better if IT was considered something less than a carpet to be walked on in this company, but as far as the business is concerned IT is a cost that must be kept minimized (which is why they cut out $4m from our computer replacement budget - the whole year's budgeted amount). And they wonder why we have over 500 computers that are over 6 years old...

Oh god, how did they break hard drive encryption? What are you guys using?

SoftNum
Mar 31, 2011

ZanderZ posted:

/\ The reverse situation of that is far worse.

"I'll just bring your computer to my office and have the I.T guy fix it!"

*Tries to sneak a MacBook Pro into a pile of black Think Pads*

Why do people do this? Why do people think that the company is paying us to fix their mom's computer? What is the thought process that most people go through to say 'Oh sure, I will bring my personal thing in for the computer guys to do.' The company doesn't change your oil. Company accountant doesn't prepare your taxes.

WHY!

Icesler
Jul 7, 2005
I came into work the other day to find 4 missed calls from the same person. This person knows my start time is 7:30am yet decides to repeatedly call me at 7:00am.

I clock in, start reading my emails and ring ring. He is calling me again. I decide to ignore it since there isn't a ticket in the system and he seems intent on not leaving me a voicemail. I start working on an urgent issue for my boss and my phone rings again. It is now 7:36am.

My phone rings 3 more times from the same person. Then I get an email from him, subject line is: "call me." He calls 4 more times while I am helping one of the execs and he leaves blank voicemails.

I email the guy and say "Robert, I am busy at the moment. Please stop calling me and emailing me over and over. If you have an issue, please place a ticket explaining the issue and I will get to it as soon as I am available. Thanks"

Woohoo! Now I am in sensitivity training because I am "rude" and unprofessional to other employees. All this over opening pdf attachments.

AlexDeGruven
Jun 29, 2007

Watch me pull my dongle out of this tiny box


You're not in sensitivity training because you were actually rude. You're there because that's the only way Robert could get back at you for not attending to his special flower of an issue on HIS timeline.

HR gets leveraged as a means for revenge far more than they actually get leveraged to solve a real problem.

Kuros
Sep 13, 2010

Oh look, the consequences of my prior actions are finally catching up to me.

TenjouUtena posted:

Why do people do this? Why do people think that the company is paying us to fix their mom's computer? What is the thought process that most people go through to say 'Oh sure, I will bring my personal thing in for the computer guys to do.' The company doesn't change your oil. Company accountant doesn't prepare your taxes.

WHY!

poo poo like this is why it's nice to have a policy in place that states that IT is not responsible for anyone's personal computers.

If a user would like to have their computer fixed by someone in the IT group, they can negotiate it on their own time and terms.

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rolleyes
Nov 16, 2006

Sometimes you have to roll the hard... two?
Depending on who instigated the training and in what way you were consulted first I'd be tempted to make your own complaint to HR so your side is on record.

For starters, have they even followed their own disciplinary policy? I'm not aware of many companies where the first stage is straight to 'training'.