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**Lilosh** · 02-04-2003, 01:32 PM

Ack, please move this to Primal Scream....

-Lilosh

**Iannyen** · 02-04-2003, 02:22 PM

NOOOOOOOOO! Leave it here! I like it here! It makes me happieeeeeest here.

**Quinner Sparrowhawk** · 02-05-2003, 08:19 AM

Lilosh, it could be worse, you could be a teacher trying to explain to 12 year olds with raging hormones the difference between transitive verbs and intransitive verbs. I do feel your pain.

**burnttoastv** · 02-05-2003, 08:36 AM

I like reading your posts Lilosh, it reminds me that I'm not even desktop support internally for my company and have to work with VP's. Just a tech analyst who helps our sites with specefic hardware. Person who first began our department was the master of the screaming fit over the phone, and people never repeated the same mistake twice with him. Course now we don't do that anymore, just advise strongly and train or advise the sites on what not to do; and warn them when they make certain mistakes they could have avoided if they were touching things they weren't supposed to it comes out of thier site's money.

I feel your pain, I've been in your position before supporting purchased software, only on a first tier lvl. I have deep respect for people who do what you do, it's very hard and you have learn fast (but oh the knowledge you pick up!). When I deal with tech support I always try to let the tech on the other end lead the conversation whether I know more or not unless I realize they are just reading directly from a knowledge tree and could lead me on a never ending loop as they choose thier own adventure through the tree.

**Aoladari Raveynfyre** · 02-05-2003, 01:26 PM

I had one guy ask yesterday; "Can I get an AMd 1800+ cpu with Windows XP installed on it?"

I tried my best not to laugh until he left the store, after doing my best to explain the cpu chip isn't what holds the operating system.

02-05-2003, 01:43 PM

"Can I get an AMd 1800+ cpu with Windows XP installed on it?"

I sold computers for a while... customers often confused CPU with PC, and meant the whole darn computer.

/rude AMD for copping out and giving up the race.

**Nhin Impious** · 02-05-2003, 03:31 PM

Lilosh, is it a bad sign that my first thought was "is the customer using plain white paper"? I just knew there was gonna be something there about using lined or ridged paper...oh well. My second thought was print quality. And your cow-orkers thoughts....well, who knows what they were thinking?

ehh, I had an EIGHT-tech problem once...I was number eight that fixed it. This was back when I worked as a software tech for an online service company that I won't name here... anyways, here's the reported problem: "I open a new email form, type who it's to, type the subject, and start typing the email. Sometimes, when I get about halfway through the email, I look up and the text of the email is all gone but a few words."

While she was telling me this, I was reading the previous history...reinstalls, graphics purges, different versions, scandisk, defrag, yadda yadda... then the words "look up" started ringing in my head. "You look down when you type?" Sheepishly, she says "Yes, I do."

Took the leap of faith. If she feels sheepish, then she's got that whole "must type correctly" idea from somewhere....and there's a typing mistake I make sometimes, except that I look at the screen more. "So, when you make a capital A, do you hold down the shift with your left pinky and hit the A key with your left ring finger?"

"Yes?" she says....and I strike for the kill. "OK, I do this too....sometimes you're missing the shift key and pressing CTRL. If you press CTRL+A, it highlights all the text in that area. Then, when you type something else, it's typing over all that text. That's why sometimes you have only a few words left."

"Ohhh!!!" she says (boy, do I love the sweet sound of enlightenment) "So how do I fix it?"

Bear in mind I'm a software tech here...the next three words that came from my mouth made every tech on the row snap their heads around like cats at the can opener. "Get a screwdriver..." :shock:

"OK, and?" "This is a desktop, right? Right. Pop that CTRL key off the keyboard, just pry it right off. Put it in the drawer in case you ever want it back...in the meantime, there's another CTRL key on the right side, and you will NEVER hit CTRL+A by accident again." "Thank you, thank you..."

So...how come it took eight people to spot a typo and a common Windows shortcut? I guess we'll never know...

**Ngreth Thergn** · 02-05-2003, 08:03 PM

Slick Connection

Here is someone elses tech tale

Slick Connection

About a year ago, I was working for a Telecommunications company, in the DATA service network management center. Our primary job function was to test the T1 to the customer prem when needed, design, and build circuits to custoemr locations from the core of our network to their phone room wherever they may be. We only troubleshot from our core, to the router that we would supply at contract signing, anything past our router on the LAN side, wasn't our job.

Anyway, To make along story short, I get a trouble ticket send\t to me to work stating that a customer of ours in Kentucky was completely down, voice lines and DATA service. I begin my process for resolve. After checking everything I can think of, I decide to call the customer to let him know I will be dispatching a field technician out to take a look at our equipment. I get on the phone, and the first thing he says is:

him: "We are going to need another router"
me : "What makes you so sure?"
him: "There was smoke coming out of the back of it"
me : "Did you notice anything else before this happend?"
him: "Well, I noticed the dern thing was runnin a little slow today so I decided to speed it up a bit"

me : "Sir, what do you mean by that?"
him: "well, I went to ma toolbox in the back of ma pickup and got a can of WD40 and sprayed a bunch into the back of your internet thingy on our wall there."

me : ".....pardon?"
him: "Well, I figured it ws slow, so I greased up the inside of your router purtty good to speed it up. worked fine for few then it kinda caught fire, I think it's defective"

At that point, I was just stunned, I wanted to laugh at the stupidity, but felt awful and sad that there were actually people out there like this. Needless to say, customer paid for a 2000 dollar channel bank and was never allowed to troubleshoot anything by his boss again.

**Maevenniia** · 02-05-2003, 10:41 PM

Oh god, I'm surprised he didn't duct tape it too..

{wheeze}{chortle}{giggle}{wheeze}

can't breathe...laughing too hard...

**Aoladari Raveynfyre** · 02-06-2003, 06:19 AM

Delftones AMD 2800+ is faster than the P4 3.06ghz for "most" things. = FYI

**Arakni Spellweaver** · 02-06-2003, 09:11 AM

Oh Ngreth, thank you! You brought back such memories with that story ...

I used to work in a similar DATA center, doing similar work.... you just reminded me of what used to happen every spring.

Every spring, about mid-March or so, the techs who had been around for awhile would start placing bets about when "IT" would start.

"A doughnut says we are OK until April"
"I'll see your doughnut and raise you a twinkie. I'm telling you, around March 20th or so, we're doomed"
"I'll see that doughnut and twinkie and raise you a soda. It won't happen until May"

Finally curious, I asked what "IT" was.

Come to find out, every spring, we would lose T1 lines (or in a few really dramatic cases, an OC-12 or OC-48 ) to customers digging them up, usually to install decks, inground pools, or jacuzzis. :roll:

That year we lost a whole city in Kentucky to a guy with a do-it-yourself inground pool kit! :P

I hated the company I worked for, but oh did I love that job, and the stories that I have from it are priceless......

And to answer Lilosh and Nihn's question, the simplest solutions are the ones you are the least likely to think of.

**Mileron** · 02-06-2003, 05:19 PM

My father's sight-impaired, and he uses AOL for email.

He does the CTRL+A thing -all the time-!
He knows that as soon as he sees his text disappear, he should hit CTRL+Z.

Why do I not remove the key? I've had people (*cough*familymembers*cough*) jam stuff into the open hole and fry -two- keyboards.

**UbercyrusForbeis** · 02-10-2003, 06:52 AM

I worked for a small ISP in Texas. I was the Tech manager and listened in on calls for our new techs. 2 of the best calls I ever listened to were:

User: Hi, I'm having a little problem with the name that goes out on all my emails.
Tech: Ok, what's the name?
User: Well, I've tried looking in all my settings, but I just can't seem to correct it.
Tech: Ok sir, I need to know what email program you're using and what the name is so we can identify the source of the problem.
User: Well, it's Outlook Express and it's the name everyone see when I send out an email.
Tech: Well, there are two possibilities for the name showing up.
User: Well, it seems that, whenever I send out a message, it comes from, well... it comes from Mr. Stupid.

I burst out laughing and my tech could hardly keep from dong the same.

The other problem was a guy that had a fried modem after a lighting storm. After a bit of investigation, we figured it was a goner and were going to have him bring it in. One of the things we always tried to do was get the make/model of the modem so our Computer Services guys knew what drivers to have on hand just in case.

After asking the guy what brand/model modem he had and if it was internal or external he said:

Hey now, I don't know all that technical stuff. All I know is my brother-in-law welded the fax to the mainframe!

I went slack-jawed...

**Niami DenMother** · 02-16-2003, 04:49 PM

Come to find out, every spring, we would lose T1 lines (or in a few really dramatic cases, an OC-12 or OC-48 ) to customers digging them up, usually to install decks, inground pools, or jacuzzis

Picture being in the Network Operations Center for a rather large US-based internet company that shall remain nameless. Picture being in the NOC at 1 am, local time, and watching the links to our new German site go beet red. Everything from the T1s, to the RMGs and a zillion and one other silly synonyms that basically mean Germany's gone totally, 100 percent unreachable.

Took half an hour for Sprint to call us back with the response as to what happened, and to find out that the ETA was going to be a day or so.

It also took me a couple minutes to sort out what the actual problem was, given that the rep who called me back had the thickest twangy drawl I'd ever heard.

"Tell 'em it was baaaaakoe fayyyt"

"Um, what?"

"Bahhhhhko fayyyt"

"And what is that?"

"Wayyyll, they were digging for those new lahns you folks wanted. And th' e bahhhko was diggin' and cuts in to them lahhns right nayxt to th' buildin'"

"Oh! A backhoe cut the lines! Got it."

Had two very exhausted redheaded NOC operators wandering around the NOC and the computer rooms for the rest of thier shift going "Bahhhhko fayyyyt"

Guess you had to be there to properly appreciate it, but our shift report on what broke overnight, and who got woken up to fix what, etc. was definitely filled with creative commentary that night!

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Hahahahahaha.... 6 techs, 1 problem.

Hahahahahaha.... 6 techs, 1 problem.

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