Brace yourselves! A new OS is coming.

I haven't shared anything for a little while and this post is one that I feel goes back to why I originally started this blog. I, like many others, reserved Windows 10 so I can get my Win10 Pro (because I currently have a copy of Win 7 Pro) when it releases the 29th (Just 6 more days from today.). I did a fresh install just a few days ago and have been running Windows Updates to keep everything prepped for when the big upgrade occurs. Today when I went to update I got this instead.

The reality of what is about to happen has sunk in. No more updates to Windows 7. Soon I shall have a whole new OS to play with. Personally I am excited for it. I enjoyed Windows 10 in the tech preview. I even have the most recent build installed on a pc where I work so I can continue to test it to see if any of our more specialized programs will face any problems with it.

I feel like it is a stable OS that offers some nice new features in a way that isn't overwhelming coming from windows 7, or even XP if you haven't made the jump from there yet. So far I also haven't seen any major compatibility issues with my games that couldn't be easily overcome with minor fixes I am already used to. That is a huge plus right there since I have an intense love of gaming.

Then again I see Windows 10 being like Windows 7 in more ways than the similar appearance. Windows 10 is a blend of Windows 7 and Windows 8. Windows 7 was a blend of Windows XP and Windows Vista. Both Windows 10 and 7 were Microsoft's attempt at redemption after fucking up big time.

Windows XP was a nice, stable OS that everyone had gotten used to and liked for the most part. Then Windows threw out Vista and people wanted to see Windows burn for it because they made a bunch of ridiculous changes meant to give Windows a fresher look and be more secure. Instead Vista just pissed us off with its ridiculous User Account Control settings and instability. Then came Windows 7 to save us from Vista. Microsoft bothered to beta test it and took what people liked about Vista and XP and meld them together into a nice cohesive blend.

Now they are repeating that process. They tried to shove a unified OS down everyone's throat that was also meant to shove touchscreens down everyone's throats simultaneously. Windows 8 was ridiculously changed in unnecessary ways that added a huge learning curve for everyone because it was so overwhelmingly different. It blew like Windows Vista and in some ways even worse than Vista. Now here comes Windows 10. The question now is if it will save the day like Windows 7, or if they wills crew things up and end up with another OS everyone wants to burn them down over.

Dirty PCs

This is so much more common than anyone in IT ever wants to admit. When a user brings you a device saying it is messed up or you get old equipment and you're cleaning it up before taking it back to a new user. You bust out the cleaners and get to work. Sometimes you wish you had busted out a hazmat suit after what you see. 

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Track Ball Issue

Working for a mobile company a woman comes in with a Blackberry 8330 (I think that was the model...) She says the track ball is broken. So, take it out back, do remove the ball, and there is something some yucky debris under the ball.

After removing the detritus with tweezers, give it a spray, the ball went back in and everything worked great. When she comes in to pick up the phone I tell her something was under the ball.

A light clicked in her head.

Oh. Last night I threw up on my phone.

- User evanthesquirrel on Reddit

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/talesfromtechsupport/comments/3avy66/track_ball_issue/

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Avoid making this same mistake.

Source: https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/keyboards_are_disgusting.png

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Everything on this article: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/11/13/ventblockers/.

The dreaded nasty keyboard.

This is what happens when a smoker smokes around a pc. I have seen it be particularly bad when the pc was in a small, enclosed room. The tar, and gunk that comes off the cigarette, cigar, or what not that does not get into your lungs gets into the insides of your pc.

I could take him.

They wondered why it crapped out on them.

Warning: The pics above are some of the less disgusting ones you can find.

Feel free to surf the web for more.  You will be amazed what horrors can be found inside a computer case or even in a mouse or keyboard.

Encyclopædia Moronica: O is for Omnipresent; Users May Think They Are

I wish I could say I had never met anyone like the guy in this Reddit user's, Gambatte, story. Sadly I would be lying if I said that.  I have met plenty of people like this.  You really hope Karma takes a nice chunk out of them at some point in time.

_________________________________________

It was a long, long time ago: when we waited a whole week for a brand new episode of Friends; when Ricky Martin would only make vague statements about his gender preferences; back when the dust was still settling after the whole Napster debacle; when I was but a shadow of the jaded husk that I am today.

I'd worked with an unruly School Administrator (SA) previously, but fortunately, he was transferred out to parts unknown. And there was much rejoicing.
A few months later, I was working an overnight shift, which mainly involved playing PlayStation, watching DVDs, and partaking of a single mandatory training exercise to prove that we were maintaining our operational readiness should things go horribly wrong during our shift.

As luck would have it, I happened to recognize one of the guys pulling front desk duty - essentially, all he had to do was answer the phones and check your emails for up to eight hours at a stretch. He'd been one of the users I'd been supporting a year or two previously, so in order to break up the mutual tedium of our assigned shifts, the Friendly User (FU) and I had a friendly discussion, which dragged on for a while - as there was no pressing business for either of us to attend to, we had little else to do.

Suddenly, SA showed up - from where, I honestly don't know. I think he'd been lurking in one of the nearby offices; I suspect that was where he'd been transferred to.

SA: FU! I need your computer!

FU: Uh... Sure, I guess. Let me just log off...

SA: No! Just let me use it now!

SA was sufficiently senior that FU hesitated to refuse.

ME: Hi SA, long time no see... What's going on?

SA: I've been locked out of my office, and I need to finish some work before I go home for the night.

ME: How did you get locked out of your office?

SA: I don't know, I stepped out for a minute and the cleaners must have shut the door with my stuff still inside. I guess the door locked automatically, so now I can't get back in until someone else arrives with a key tomorrow.

During this data dump, FU had got up from his desk, and SA dived into the freshly vacated seat. He turned his attention to the screen.

SA: What? This shouldn't be here!

As it turned out, FU had a number of personal photos on his profile, which he rotated through as the Windows background. This was permitted at the time; it wasn't until later on that a mandatory company-wide background would be enforced. These photos were stored (perhaps unwisely) in a folder on the Desktop.

SA promptly opened up the folder, and started opening the pictures.

FU: What are you doing?

SA: These shouldn't be here!

And he deleted them.

ME: What... Why are you doing that?

SA: They shouldn't be here! I'm getting rid of them!

I was just as dumbfounded as FU.

ME: You realize that...

SA: Where's my stuff? It's gone! It's all gone!!!

ME: Your stuff isn't gone, it's...

SA: What! More stuff that shouldn't be here! (delete delete delete)

ME: STOP THAT!

SA was sufficiently senior to me that I theoretically should have been more respectful to him, but he was in full-blownDELETE ALL THE THINGS mode. I had to snap him out of it, and politeness wasn't working.

SA: But... All of my work is gone; all this other rubbish shouldn't be here.

ME: You realize that you intimidated FU into allowing you to access the computer using his login credentials, right? You can't do that - it's a breach of security!

SA: No, I'M using the computer!

ME: The computer doesn't know that - you need to let FU log off so you can log in! Then you'll be able to access your files, and open your applications and whatnot.

SA: Well, what am I meant to do?

ME: Go find someone to unlock your office, or find another unoccupied computer to log on to. Just leave FU to do his job on the only computer he can.

SA turned an amazing shade of red, and for a moment I was sure he was going to start screaming, explode, or have a heart attack - none of which I actually wanted to deal with.
Somehow, the moment passed without any of those things happening.

SA: Fine. I'll deal with you two later.

SA stalked off; I assume to terrorize a small village somewhere.

FU: Thanks, man. Oh God, he deleted so many photos...

ME: Let me show you some magic...

I opened the Recycle Bin, selected the recently deleted files, and hit 'Restore'.

FU: Sweeeeeet! They're all back!

As it turned out, some of those restored photos were the last pictures taken of FU with his cousin before he died, and he was very pleased to get them back. Naturally, I advised him to make sure he had a backup, even if it was just emailing the pictures to himself, one at a time.

---

It wasn't until much later that I realized that SA must have believed that somehow, any computer would "know" it was him, and present his profile. The only way I could see that belief developing is if he NEVER logged off from his office computer - so the idea of credentials, authentication, sessions... All meant nothing to him. This man regularly dealt with budgets running into millions of dollars, and yet anyone who sat at his desk while he was out to lunch or off sick would have had full access to everything.

Some days, I wonder if SA had a brother who would one day become my current CEO. I would not be surprised.

Source: http://www.reddit.com/r/talesfromtechsupport/comments/3b589h/encyclop%C3%A6dia_moronica_o_is_for_omnipresent_users/

Totally Not Tech But Still Awesome

This is totally not tech related, but it was posted by the Reddit user Wranglingmonkies (Whose stories I have have shared before). It is a really neat Imgur gallery of utility boxes he was given permission to paint in New Zealand.

http://imgur.com/a/WTJvw

Below is my personal fave from his paintings.

Complaining to the ticket guy won't make your tickets get resolved any faster...

I have been in this guy's shoes. I worked at a telecommunications company call center. People are often straight up a**holes.  They often think you just refuse to do something because you don't want to work, or you don't give them information because you just don't want to. They don't realize that often you are held to a particular script and not allowed to give out some info if it isn't something that the other call reps would know, or because it just isn't information you are given access to. Heck sometimes it is information that even your supervisor doesn't have access to.  All they think is that you have nothing better to do that sit there and deny them access to the information they need. I even had a woman once that got upset that I couldn't tell her how to change the parental control settings on her kid's iPhones that her ex-husband had given them. I worked for an internet company, but that doesn't make a person an all around tech-support person for you.

A couple of other incidents that grind my gears so to speak is when people wait until the last second to put in a ticket for something and then complain when it isn't done on time, or when someone complains that they have been experiencing a problem for weeks, months or years but they just put in a ticket an hour ago for it.  They bitch and you are just sitting there thinking, "If this was such a problem, why did you only just now complain about it?"

___________________________________

It's been a while since I've posted anything about my time at the "Brisby" Company but there was a post recently that knocked a good one loose from memory.

The Call Center was open 24/7. Occasionally I'd be asked to cover a 3rd shift because they were short. It would get me time and a half, and I liked the money, plus I could really spend the time reading a book or something (looking back, I should have spent more time studying for certs then - c'est la vie.)

It was usually pretty quiet. For the first half of a 3rd shift, mostly your calls were going to come from restaurants over the park areas that were closing and were having issues with the cash register system, and maybe a few from West Coast people staying in the office late. But between 0030 and 0500, it was pretty dead. But one call would come in a couple of times a week.

A call about Maximo. That's IBM's asset management platform. It was used by technicians who keep the rides running to know where the parts are that they need to fix them. You know, so people don't keep going straight into a wall when the roller coaster was supposed to turn. Maximo was not known for its stability (at least not around where I was). From my experience, it went down at least twice a week, and the response team was...not the best.

The ride maintenance guys are fairly nice but also not exactly the brightest bulbs. Most of them had been there 15 years plus and didn't need to keep on things like "them newfangled computers".

It had been a bad week. I forget what was going on exactly; I'm fairly certain I was starting to burn out from being on the phones, and while I was being told I was going to be hired on by the new contracting company, they were for some reason dragging their feet, and I was getting really frustrated, because moving over to the new company from my current subcontractor company meant more money and benefits. But no one knew anything, and between the new contracting company and the subcontractor, they were just pointing fingers at each other.

It's about 1 in the morning and the phone rings. "Brisby Customer Call Center, this is MickCollins, how can I help you."

RideTech: "Yeah this is RideTech over in Sorcery Caliphate. Maximo is down again." Me: "Ok, let me get your info and I'll submit a ticket to the Maximo team." I do this, generate the ticket, fire it off to the team and hang up.

An hour later, same guy calls back. RT: "Maximo's still down." I look up the ticket info. Looks like no one from their team has even looked at it yet. I pass this on to the caller. RT: "Awright."

Half hour later, phone rings again. Same guy. RT: "Maximo's still down! When are you going to fix this shit?" I look up the ticket. Still unacknowledged. I don't have the power to call anyone (I don't have a number for them, it's just an internal team." In the meantime.... RT: "I can't believe this. We can't get anything done half the time because we can't find our shit to fix anything! You guys don't know what the fuck you're..." I finally lose it. Me: "LISTEN! I am NOT in charge of this piece of shit system! I just have to take tickets from everyone and pass them on and hope they get fixed eventually! If it was up to me, I'd take a suitcase nuke and blow that fucking thing away, because it's shit! I get calls about it at least twice a week! You think I like that??!?!!"

Dead silence. I get the feeling the guy's looking at the phone.

I let silence reign for about 20 seconds.

Me: "I'll add a note in here that you contacted us multiple times and that their service level lately is crap. That's all I can do here. Call back in an hour and I'll let you know if they're working on it or not."

RT: "....alright." He hangs up.

The 3rd shift lead is just laughing his ass off hearing this exchange. He's a guy on the happy pills, because he was an Apache pilot over in the Middle East during the first Gulf War and was running late when he was subway three stops away from the WTC on 9/11 and has some....we'll call them issues.

The guy never called back (much to the Lead's dismay, because he wanted to listen on speakerphone). I looked at 0400 and someone had finally acknowledged the ticket and was working on it.

I didn't get written up, but I knew I wasn't going to be able to stick around there much longer...it wasn't worth the cost to my soul.

- User MickCollins from Reddit

Source: http://www.reddit.com/r/talesfromtechsupport/comments/3b3lke/complaining_to_the_ticket_guy_wont_make_your/

"Hey my map isn't loading" or the tale of the failing switchover

So I'm just going about my normal business as IT (Reddit, "Have you reloaded?", "You didn't reload.") when a user complains of her mapping system not loading. I go over and see that it is in fact not loading and a refresh is certainly not fixing it. I get it to finally load and then head back to my desk.

Not two minutes later, "Hey my phone isn't loading" "Help! Nothing is loading". Cue panic mode. Nothing was keeping a constant connection, calls were dropping left and right, and overall a loud hum of users all thinking they were the first to have an issue. I sit down at a few machines to try and diagnose what was going on but nothing seemed apparent.

I'm back at my desk still churning away at solutions when I hear somebody say, "Hey I can't clock out"... Then it hits me. Our time card system is IP locked so it can only be used when coming from a certain IP. We had been failing over to our secondary Internet connection which in most circumstances would be fine. Well this time it wasn't. I pop open a shell and constantly poll my current external IP

168.xx
168.xx
168.xx
75.xx
75.xx
75.xx
75.xx
75.xx
168.xx
168.xx
168.xx
168.xx

About every ten seconds we had a new external IP. Obviously bad for VOIP communication. We setup most of our users on a backup wifi connection/a couple hotspots just to get them by while we sorted out what to do.

Forty minutes talking to our NOC (network operations center) and emailing back and forth and we still didn't really have an answer. My boss comes over and says, "Why don't we just unplug the primary?" OHMYGODWHYDIDNTWEDOTHIS30MINUTESAGO Secondary became the only connection and although a slower circuit we had a constant connection.

What caused all this? Primary ISP had a fiber line cut in the area. Our routers saw those issues and started falling over to secondary (mapping not really loading/VOIP being dropped). 10 seconds goes by and the routers think that the main connection is back up (which it was intermittently) and switch back over. Rinse lather repeat for forty minutes.

And now I'm back home and have 30 second delays on IRC :| (Same ISP)

TL;DR Internet connections issues, routers can't handle the truth

EDIT: Grammar

- User parkerlreed on Reddit

Source: http://www.reddit.com/r/talesfromtechsupport/comments/3b17dt/hey_my_map_isnt_loading_or_the_tale_of_the/

I found this story very interesting. It is funny how simple a solution, how ever temporary a solution, can be sometimes. 

No, the url goes up there

I had to share this one because as a result of reading this post and its comments afterwards I learned something new. I already knew that in most browsers you can press the F6 key and it will highlight the web address bar. This helps when you get that person that keeps trying to type a web address in a search bar instead of in the actual web address bar of their browser. In the comments of the post below I learned that ctrl+L (It doesn't have to be capital. I just did that to make it stand out as the letter L instead of a 1 or an I.) also works to do this. Another helpful shortcut I would like to share is that in most browsers you can press ctrl+d to auto add a page to your bookmarks. Most pages will give you options of where to put the bookmark in your favorites when you do this in case you want it on the favorite bar, in your regular favorites menu or under a specific folder in your favorites. Anyhow, onto the post.

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I'm not actually in IT but around my small office I am the one who helps out with people not knowing how to use software. Like seriously they don't know how to use some of the simplest of software.

I asked front desk lady (FDL) to try some instructions that I created to see if the general population could figure them out.

FDL: Sure no problem

Monkey: Great! Thanks for helping me. Ok go to x.com

FDL: types in x.com into Bing

Now i know that not everyone gets they can just type it into the top bar so I sigh and let it continue.

FDL: looks around the screen I don't see "start here" (the next step)

Monkey: Go to x.com

FDL: looks around the screen again What do I do now?

Monkey: sighs heavily You searched for x.com the URL goes up here points to URL You are still at Bing a search engine. You need to actually go to x.com

FDL: O ok... continues with task

This women has been using a computer here for years but can't figure out how to go to a website. I just don't get it. O this person also saves her files by emailing them to her self. Yes she actually emails her files to herself to save them.

- User wranglingmonkies on Reddit

Source: http://www.reddit.com/r/talesfromtechsupport/comments/2esth0/no_the_url_goes_up_there/

The phones are on fire

Today the phones didn't work very well. Which reminded me of a story from a previous employer. I was responsible for the phone system which spanned a couple of office buildings in different towns. It was a beast of a system that was forever developing minor faults and gremlins, often which went away as soon as you got to the affected phone. I still have nightmares about that phone system.

(phone rings)
Me: Hi, ErrantX here, how can I help?
Panicked User (PU): The phone system isn't working, it's completely dead

The smart reader will immediately pick out the problem with that statement, but I am a tech support professional so of course I took a deep breath before answering...

Me: What seems to be the problem?
PU: I keep phoning Head of Department Y, and his secretary, but the phones just ring and ring and no one answers
Me: Right okay (starting to bring up the call logs) Department Y is in the other office if I remember right?
PU: Yes. None of the phones work there.
Me: None of them? (by this time I can see PU's call log, and there are a LOT of calls in the last 20 minutes) Who have you tried calling?
PU: Oh, lots of people. I tried all of Department Y then went through some of the company directory to see if it was just that room. But phoning within this building works fine. It must be the connection to the other office!
Me: Right, I'm on this I'll get back to you.

It's very impressive when a User tries to do fault finding on their own, so I always hope and pray that they've got the right answer - it always pays to encourage good Users.

First step, call one of the techs in the other building to get them to do on-the-ground debugging. Naturally, if the phone system is as broken as PU says, then trying to call isn't much use... but it's always worth double-checking the fault (to be honest with you, I half expected the call to go through). Placing the call it rings and rings and rings. Very suspicious! Luckily techs have the luxury of a company mobile phone, and so I try his number - which answers on the first ring. A quick conversation and I have gotten to the root of the problem. Time to inform the user.

Me: Hi PU, I've found the problem with the phone system.
PU: Great! What was it?
Me: I just spoke to Other Tech, they had a fire alarm and they've been waiting for a fire engine to come and clear the building.
PU: (sadly) Oh.

I actually felt very sorry for her. Especially as once the other office got back to their desks, about 30 people had a missed call which it would be common courteous to return....

TLDR: Users are inexperienced at fault finding

- User errantx on Reddit

Source: http://www.reddit.com/r/talesfromtechsupport/comments/3aqh00/the_phones_are_on_fire/

I do feel sorry for her. She did make an honest attempt to do proper fact finding, but I would have stopped after trying just a couple of numbers. I wouldn't have tried most of the directory for the very reason suggested at the end of the story.

IT is like having a warranty...

A user on Reddit by the name of cacotechny put into words some simple points that I believe every user who works in a business that has its own IT department needs to understand. It is also useful for home users, but in a business it can save the user having their paycheck garnished, being fined for destruction of private property (Because if your work provides a pc for you to do your work on it belongs to the company, NOT you.), or being fired.

"Sure I'm no genius, but I don't dismantle my entire car because it rattled."

"To continue the reference, having IT support is like having a warranty. It did something weird? Call the people responsible. Just, do not tinker, do not tinker under any circumstance."

His/her comments were a response to a story shared on the Tales from Tech Support subreddit, which I included below because it further illustrates why it is best to let IT take a look at something when it stops working or making funny noises and not try to fix it yourself.

________________________________

I give up - by FoldingUserFerrariic on Reddit

Short story, long and painful memories

Back when I was an intern, I heard that there was a specific user that caused a lot of trouble to our IT department. Normally simple things such as plugging in certain peripherals such as keyboards. However in this case, something remarkable happened.

It was akin to jesus coming down from heaven and making it rain hundred dollar bills

The user submitted a ticket.

Now you might be asking yourself: Isn't this standard procedure? What makes this so special? Well in this case our user submitted the ticket in the correct category. Before she would submit tickets under: URGENT, IMPORTANT, THE WORLD IS ENDING, however, this time she submitted a ticket under the happy term of REQUEST ASSISTANCE.

Our happiness was short lived. It seems she did not need assistance from us, but from a literal God of IT. When my leader and I approached her cubical we looked down at the ground in shame.

There, on the table, lay an open HDD, and a slightly upset user.

We asked her what caused her to open up her computer and rip out the storage of her PC. She took a good long look at us, shook her head, and looked back at the HDD and said: 'It was rattling'.

She didn't understand why we couldn't fix it.

__________________________________

Now, that being said, this generally just applies to if you think something may be wrong with the hardware. I generally am more lenient with users trying to fix software issues as long as they aren't going through deleting files or trying to change system settings.  If your Word document starts not formatting something right and you go in and change a setting in Word. I probably won't care. If your tower starts to randomly shut down and turn back on over and over again. The most I would suggest a user doing is unplugging it and plugging it back in. Other than that, don't go opening the case and trying to mess with your pc's innards.

Please wait, an operator will be with you.... ...eventually

Phone systems seem to have plagued my career, sadly this story is not about the beast in my previous tale. It is, however, about a similar evil system that was finally being replaced with a new and shiny model.

Because senior management enjoy bikeshedding, it was decided that the menu recordings should be recreated as part of the project. My Helpful Junior (HJ) had been assigned the task of writing down the existing ancient prose (via the only means possible, ringing the company support number), making a set of modifications (namely; different menu order) and presenting the resulting verbiage at a high-level project meeting between myself (the project lead) and the heads of sales and support. HJ arrived at the appointed time and placed a surprisingly meaty tome before each of us...

---

Head of Sales (HoS): What's this?
HJ: the phone transcript
Head of Support (SUP): Seems a little, umm, long...

She was not kidding, the first two pages were full of introductory text before, finally, presenting some phone options. It did seem a little lengthy.

HoS: (slightly aggressively) Why have you made it so long? That's not good customer experience
HJ: (quiver)
Me: Hold on (Having listened to HJ prepare his work, I'd already got a head start on this) it's not HJ's fault he has actually transcribed the current dialogue almost exactly. If anything he's reduced it in length

That resulted in the comical sight of us crowded around an iPhone whilst HOS called our own support number....

iPhone: Hello and you have reached $companyName....
(2 minutes 30 seconds later)
iPhone: ... Please press 1 for...

Yep, not kidding folks. Whoever had originally commissioned the system had recorded over 2 minutes of introduction for the support phone line. It got even worse as you dug through the menus; on average there were several minutes of (rather pointless) talking before you could get into a queue to talk to someone. In one example, you received a very outdated sales spiel before being dumped into the support queue (??).

Of course it was a premium rate number, I'll let you connect those dots.

After quite a bit more bikeshedding and an internal competition a new phone dialogue was finished. Which weighed in at a much more lightweight 10 seconds before giving the caller some options. Unsurprisingly it was a hit with the customers...

TLDR: Premium rate phone lines only work if you hold customers up for 2 minutes first

- User errantx on Reddit

Source: http://www.reddit.com/r/talesfromtechsupport/comments/3b04oi/please_wait_an_operator_will_be_with_you/

Been there and done that. You have experienced nothing until you have dealt with Blizzard Entertainment Tech Support hold times. Back during World of Warcraft's (aka WoW) vanilla days (pre-Burning Crusade expansion) wait times blew. I haven't had to call them in years, mostly because I stopped playing the game back in 2010, but at one time I was on hold for 2 and a half hours waiting for someone after previously being on hold for over 40 minutes and hanging up. I was waiting so long because I needed my account unlocked. They screwed up my billing stuff and long story short I had to call in to get it fixed so my account would be unfrozen and I would be allowed to play the time I had paid for. I just stuck the phone on speaker phone and sat playing board games with my at the time boyfriend. 

I am glad for speaker phone options on cell phones. I usually just stick the phone on speaker from the get go while going through any introductory dialogue and only pick up the phone and turn off speaker phone when I actually get someone on the line. Even then, if they take forever I stick them on speaker phone because it sucks holding a phone to the side of your head for 30 minutes.

How NOT to clean a laser printer

As previously mentioned, I did on site warranty support for a major computer company and a major printer company for a few years. My stories are culled from that time.

Call to a lawyer's office (always a treat) about a printer. I was sent a basic maintenance kit (pickup rollers, etc). The stuff that would get worn out, and the printer would warn that maintenance was required soon, then balk completely once a certain page count was reached. I would perform said work, reset the page count, and all was right with the world. Maybe a 10 minute job.

This particular one turned out not to be a typical maintenance call. It would go through the motions of printing, but blank pages would come out. Changed cartridges, same results. Off come the covers and I start poking around.

In one corner I noticed a dried up spot of what used to be a brown liquid. I asked the secretary about it, and then she finally remembered that,

Oh, yes, last Friday I spilled half a cup of coffee in there. But I took the covers off and cleaned everything with Pledge.

For the uninitiated, laser printers use static electricity to hold the toner on the paper until it passes through a heater to melt the plastic/metal mixture onto the paper. The presence of spray-on furniture wax would affect it's ability to do this.

My next steps, call printer manufacturer to see if the warranty is going to cover this. They say no, I remind them that this is a lawyer's office. They still say no. I tell them that they get to break the news to the attorney about his $2200 printer getting gurked by his secretary, and they should call him at his office number, because I'm on my cell, give me 5 minutes and I'm hauling out of there.

I told the guy that I had to call the printer company about some more parts (like the whole printer) and they should be in touch, and I bailed. I think he finally hassled them enough to get a refurb printer sent to him.

TL;DR You don't clean a printer with anything that leaves a residue like Pledge, and if you don't know what you are doing, you don't open the thing at all.

- User Galoots on Reddit

Source: http://www.reddit.com/r/talesfromtechsupport/comments/3aym7b/how_not_to_clean_a_laser_printer/

I hate when non-IT staff start trying to take apart and mess with equipment. It rarely ends well. Something usually ends up screwed up. There would be one secretary without a job the next day.

Yeah, Nah.

Just had an opportunity to come in and work for what sounds like an absolutely wonderful client that I regretfully declined.

The phone call ended like this: "So, you want me to come in and fix your 20+ seat environment that you are not entirely sure exactly what's wrong with, you have zero documentation for and you are not going to pay me but you want me to bill your previous IT guy that you fired and hope that he pays ?"

An additional comment from the writer later on in the feed:

"After a little careful social engineering I manged to find the previous tech they had. Apparently it is an entirely (pirated) XP environment with a cheap ass nas box doing simple file shares and a consumer grade router.

She was fired for insisting that they should at least attempt to become legal and was apparently getting paid minimum wage.

Apparently this guy is going through the phone book trying to find someone to take this on and is bad mouthing everyone who says no to the next person he calls.

I am seriously happy I noped the fuck out of that."

- User tactical_bacon on Reddit (This guy was smart to nope the hell away from that one.)

Source: http://www.reddit.com/r/talesfromtechsupport/comments/3b02vd/yeah_nah/

Okay I know I have been posting a lot from Reddit lately, but Reddit is nicknamed the Front Page of the Internet for a reason. It is awesome. I highly recommend getting on this bandwagon and heading over there.

Inbox rules = drama indicator.

blah blah, not tech support, adept in technology, becomes go-to tech person. This story comes prior to the start of my current job - during my training, actually. It's for a student government position at the at-the-time educational institution I was attending.

As a new student government officer, the training was to cover some of the do's-and-don't's of over-the-summer work. However, there wasn't really a lot of stuff to cover. One of the important things that my current/future/whatever boss mentioned, simply because I was a tech guy, was the relationship between the Student Life department (the student government organization fell into that department) and the IT department. Apparently, in the past, this relationship had been not-too-great, for one reason or another.

Prior to this job, I worked another on-campus (tech-oriented) job, where I worked closely with our IT department for a variety of things - therefore, I had dealt with them in the past. Hearing about the relationship between SL and IT was a bit odd, and something I wouldn't have expected. In particular, the conflict seemed to be coming from one particular member of the IT team, our sysadmin. The campus-wide opinion of Sysadmin varied highly, spanning from BOfH-level hatred, to the second Isidore of Seville. I was pretty middle of the road on him - nice guy, could be rough, but was great at what he does.

Now, with this knowledge of discontent in mind, I set out on my configuring of new accounts, writing emails, setting up phone messages, and everything else that comes with getting a new job. I had been given the login to my staff account, and everything else that comes along with it, so I was ready to go. One of the first things I did was set up my email signature (petty, I know, but whatever). Finished setting that up, and saved it.

Because my institution uses Exchange 2010, and I was away from my desk (actually at home), I was on the Outlook Web App, configuring my account. As you may know, right next to the option for setting the signature, are the options for inbox rules. I figured I'd head there next, as I wanted to filter down some of my mail.

Anyhow, I open up the rules panel, and lo-and-behold, there's a few rules there. Lo-and-behold, I find one pretty generic one:

After the message arrives and...
the message was received from 'Sysadmin'

Do the following...
delete the message
And stop processing more rules on this message.

If that's not an indicator of drama, I don't know what is.

I deleted the rule, and informed the sysadmin about it. His response was "I knew it was there. Good on you for fixing it."

He's been a much nicer admin to us from then on.

TL;DR: when in doubt, sort it out

- User a_p3rson on Reddit

Source: http://www.reddit.com/r/talesfromtechsupport/comments/3b1hpc/inbox_rules_drama_indicator/

Yea I would be slightly annoyed to if someone set it up a rule in the email system so that every time an email was received from me it was automatically deleted.

Reading and Comprehension obviously aren't in the job requirements for sales and marketing people

I want to go on the record as saying I hate salesmen. Not just external ones - internal ones as well. Marketing people are worse. Sales & Marketing people are the absolute worst of the bunch.

I work for $COMPANY which does a fair bit of functionality with audio and video - anything from web clips to broadcast grade. We take clients content, do some magic on it, and send results back to them (yeah, I know that is a vague description, but putting in details could possibly identify $COMPANY).

$COMPANY runs an SFTP server for clients to deliver certain content to us. Said SFTP server is only accessible with a 2048 bit key paid - no interactive logins, no usernames and passwords, as tight as I can possibly make it. I generate and maintain the key pairs, including a pretty aggressive lockout policy.

Every new client $COMPANY picks up needs an account on said SFTP server to provide their content to us. Pretty simply - $S&M_Guy sends a helpdesk request, ticket gets auto-generated, I create key pair and send reply saying "Have someone from $CLIENT contact me to arrange for delivery of their half of the key".

Now, bear in mind, I'm a pretty paranoid bastard, and I will not - I absolutely, flat out refuse - to send half an SSH key pair attached to an email as plain text. No way, No how. My usual method it to put it in a password protected ZIP file - with the client picking the password and telling me.

So yesterday, $S&M_Guy sends in a helpdesk ticket "Please create SFTP site for XXX". I do the needful and send the usual ticket note saying "Please have someone from XXX contact me so I can arrange delivery of the key"

Nothing. Nada. Zip.

This morning, I get another helpdesk ticket (because, of course, actually just adding a note to the existing one is too hard" which reads

Please let me know when the SFTP account for XXX will be ready

I delete the duplicate ticket (What's the point of being the SysGod if you can't break a few rules now and again?") and re-notate the existing ticket saying "Site ready, please have someone from XXX contact me to arrange delivery of the key". I even go to the trouble of sending a direct email to $S&M_Guy saying the same thing in case Jira is, you know, dyslexic or something and isn't delivering ticket updates.

Come back from lunch to find another helpdesk ticket reading

Please let me know when SFTP site for XXX will be ready. This is now urgent

My reply isn't going to be pretty.

'Dis gon be gud!

Edit:

So, $S&M_Guy finally got a clue and forwarded my details to $CLIENT, I got a reply from the client which basically said "We haven't even signed the contract yet, we'll get back to you once the agreement is finalised".

Rip, shit and bust to get this "urgent" config setup, and the other end isn't even ready.

Every. Fucking. Time. FML.

-User HeadacheCentral on Reddit

Source: http://www.reddit.com/r/talesfromtechsupport/comments/3b1avn/reading_and_comprehension_obviously_arent_in_the/

OMG I cannot begin to count how many times I have had incidents to this. Our ticket system is set up so that all you have to do is reply to the last email you got from the system about your ticket (Depending on settings, you get one when it is created and anytime someone comments on the ticket by default.) and it automatically adds the comment to the ticket so IT sees it and can read it. This allows us to properly track what has happened with the ticket as it goes along all in one spot.

Cables work when they're not plugged in, right?

I don't work in tech support, but I can plug in a cable and get things working, so that pretty much makes me the tech support for my entire family.

$GreatGreatAunt (henceforth referred to as $A) asks me to look at a problem with "The Facebook" when I come to her house for the holidays. She says that "The Facebook" and her Email will not load. That's basically all she uses her old Windows 2000 (Maybe XP, this happened a while ago so I don't remember) PC for. This happened fairly recently after my previous story about her. This is how the troubleshooting transpired.

//wikimikipiki: Looks At PC There's no ethernet cable plugged in.

$A: You mean that big yellow cable? I unplugged that because the nice cable man said that he got me wireless internet.

//searches for location to facedesk//

//no location found//

//facepalm//

//wikimikipiki// Your computer dosen't support WiFi.

$A: I don't want a wire anymore! takes wire He said it would work with any modern computer!

//wikimikipiki// Your computer is ancient. It simply does not work with WiFi.

$A: getting mad, thinking I'm trying to get her to buy a new computer My fridge is not ancient, and it's also 11 years old! It works fine!

//wikimikipiki// Here, just give me back the wire and I can make it work again.

$A: gives wire

//wikimikipiki// plugs in wire Now try it.

$A: Thank you.

TL;DR: Cable guy tells 90-something year old aunt that her computer can work without a wire, even though one could assume it couldn't just by looking at it, she beleves him and tries to convince me that it supports WiFi.

-User wikimikipiki on Reddit

Source: http://www.reddit.com/r/talesfromtechsupport/comments/3ayld8/cables_work_when_theyre_not_plugged_in_right/

I have seen stuff like this happen all the time. Sometimes it is impossible to explain something to an older individual, or even a younger person, if they are not tech savvy. What is always terrible is when their family member calls in to make a change on the account, but by certain federal regulations, and to prevent lawsuits, changes often can't be made to an account and certain information cannot be given out unless the person is the account holder and can verify as such even if they are put on the account as an authorized user.  With most companies an authorized user just means a rep can work a little more with them, but can't make account changes (This is especially true of phone services due to various FCC regulations).

I worked in tech support for a telecommunications company for a short while. I do not miss it. I miss some of the people I worked with, but not the customers who got ticked when they couldn't make a change to their account because they couldn't verify the information. You know those same people would go on just as bad or worse a tirade if suddenly they had 5 more channels subscribed to and multiple other services because the rep on the phone just took a person's word that they were the account holder.