Tales From Technical Support Content
Got an email from one of my users yesterday. All it asked was, "Can you tell me how to open this attached file?"
I checked the attachment and it was a basic PNG file. I could open it in our email program (written by a certain monopoly) with no issue. I figured if she couldn't open it, there was probably a problem with her setup, but I'd have to know what it was.
To get her to tell me the error, I told her what should happen: "You should be able to just click the icon. If you click it once, you’ll be able to preview it. If you double-click it, it will open in a graphics program."
Her response: "Thanks!"
Yep, 'tis true. She hadn't even tried to click on the icon to open the attachment.
I worked for a very large IT services company that did everything computer related EXCEPT build the hardware. My Dell laptop @ work started acting wonky, and as I tried to figure out a common thread among the symptoms, a tiny whistling sound gradually made itself known. Prowling around my desk area like a blind campground raccoon looking for marshmallows, I found the whistle was coming from the power brick... which, incidentally, was hot to the touch. Not warm, hot, as in a few more degrees and it might just melt. I called our tinternal tech support line, which had recently been outsourced to the low bidder in a hot sandy country, and explained what I'd found.
Him: So you are saying the problem is that the power supply is making a noise?
Me: Yes, AND it is too hot to touch.
Him: Oh, I see, thank you for that, so you are saying that the problem is the power supply is warm?
Me: No, not warm, HOT. I'm saying the power supply is making a whistling noise AND it is too hot to touch.
Him: Oh, I see, thank you for that, so you are saying the problem is the power supply is making a noise?
Round and round we went, us some irrelevant questions about my Windows installation and network settings. After 25 minutes of circles, he figures out there may be a problem with my power supply, and transfers me to Dell tech support.
I explain the symptoms to Dell - exactly once - and Dell concludes (gasp)/that my power supply is failing. She took down my name & address and said she'd send out a warranty replacement overnight, with a prepaid label inside the box to return the bad one. We were done and off the phone in < 5 mins. I wish I could have just called Dell in the first place!
Epilogue: The next day, the DHL guy dropped off my new power supply. It worked perfectly, of course, and 20 mins later I call DHL to schedule a pickup. The DHL guy who had just delivered my package was on his lunch break at a fast food place half a mile away; he dropped off my package, had lunch, then came back to the house to pick up my return. 8-)
Repurposed a Windows XP-licensed computer for a friend's children. Explained to both parents that it runs Uubuntu, and would not run Word, etc. -- no Windows programs.
First thing they asked after they'd got it home and fired up? "I downloaded programs from [popular children's site] and they didn't work."
I was teaching a basic computer class in a halfway house. User was, oh so c-a-r-e-f-u-l-l-y, attempting to maneuver the arrow into position in order to click. Things worked a lot better when I had her reverse the unit so the cord pointed away from her hand.
When the system was being repositioned, the user wanted "the computer on the desk." I accordingly placed it on the desk, next to the (dual) monitors. I was corrected upon the user's return. "No," she said, "I want the computer" (indicating one of the monitors) on the desk, and the hard drive (pointing to...guess what?) on the floor." Upon venturing to mention that the computer was--yes--the big box, I was further instructed to remember that she was a non-technical and could not remember these things.
Recently peeked inside the case as a favor to a friend. I have never seen such enormous clumps. "You don't have dust bunnies," I told him. "You have dust LIONS."
A certain email/calendar client (which shall remain unnamed in this tale) frequently used in enterprise environments has a delegate feature. Basically this feature allows someone else access to your email and appointments by, in very simplistic terms, forwarding them. It's a client side feature and so can only be controlled from the email client. As useful as this feature is, it is also a frequent offender for those of us in the IT department.
When someone leaves we delete their email account from the system. Where the problem comes in is that this doesn't remove that person from any delegate lists they may be on. This in turn causes bounced emails from the now non-existant account whenever an email is sent to the person who had them as a delegate.
Which is all a long winded backdrop to the real horror story. We have 23 locations and sysop at each site who answers to the site manager first and the IT department second (stupid, I know). That's our entry level IT position, so it's mostly staffed by inexperienced techs, either smart kids fresh out of college (sometimes even high school) or office drones looking to change up their careers. Either way they generally lack exposure to enterprise networks.
At one site someone had a delegate set that had left and had her account deleted. The site manager started getting the bounced emails, which only tell which address bounced, not why. At first she was confused because the person in question wasn't in her distribution list, but we knew exactly what was going on when the similarly confused sysop. When this happens there's only one solution: You have to go to each and every person on the distribution list and check their delegates. This, of course, means they have to be at their computer, and catching some people in their offices is an exercise in frustration.
The site manager nagged that sysop so much about it over the next couple weeks while she was trying to figure out who had the delegate set that she requested a transfer to another building. Then her replacement quit within a month, siting the same thing. This manager lost two promising techs (one of whom has gone on to be one of our best sysops and will likely move up through the department when there's an opening) by being a jerk about a few bounced emails! Talk about shooting yourself in the foot.
Got a call from a user, their computer didn't work "right". After an exhaustive phone call, I drove to the customer location.
Only to find the computer wasn't turned on.
