[syadasti]

So the digital operator here tells me that the DocuColor 5000 needs service, but the owner hasn't paid the bills in a few months and our service calls got suspended pending payment.

Yippie!

Awesome. We had a color laser printer here that kept throwing errors for the cyan drum and I looked up instructions on how to fix it. I had to take apart the imaging drum and clean it out but it wasn't too hard. The drums are replaceable and the unit was out of warranty though so it couldn't hurt

 

[H8R]

So the digital operator here tells me that the DocuColor 5000 needs service, but the owner hasn't paid the bills in a few months and our service calls got suspended pending payment.

Yippie!

I think we work for the same owner.

 

[Secret Squirrel]

So the digital operator here tells me that the DocuColor 5000 needs service, but the owner hasn't paid the bills in a few months and our service calls got suspended pending payment.

Yippie!

Nice. That's hawt.

Whenever I service my own machine, I always end up with one extra screw....I figure at some point that'll be a problem....

 

[LordOpie]

Whenever I service my own machine, I always end up with one extra screw....I figure at some point that'll be a problem....

So one of the sales reps JUST asked for my help...

"My email is slow."

Me: can I delete the 3700 emails you have in your delete folder?

"No, I'm saving them."

 

[Quo Fan]

So the digital operator here tells me that the DocuColor 5000 needs service, but the owner hasn't paid the bills in a few months and our service calls got suspended pending payment.

Yippie!

Back when I serviced copiers, we would do the same thing. Someone would place a service call, and they haven't been paying their bill, so I would have to collect a check before I started working on the machine.

We had some customers so bad, they were put on COD for life. I had to make sure I was going to get a check before I started work.

When ever I had screws left over, I just put them inside on top and let them find where they were supposed to go!

 

[LordOpie]

When ever I had screws left over, I just put them inside on top and let them find where they were supposed to go!

lolz!

 

[binary visions]

When ever I had screws left over, I just put them inside on top and let them find where they were supposed to go!

...until one of them falls onto your motherboard just right and you start to smell smoke

 

[PatBranch]

So one of the sales reps JUST asked for my help...

"My email is slow."

Me: can I delete the 3700 emails you have in your delete folder?

"No, I'm saving them."

Macs suck. I can't save my edits to an image while working on it at school on my hdd that I use with a PC.

 

[Arkayne]

...until one of them falls onto your motherboard just right and you start to smell smoke

Yummmm, I love the smell of fried ic's in the morning. It's a smell you'll never forgot.

 

[Quo Fan]

When machines were popping fuses, and we couldn't find a reason, we would take out the fuse, and put a piece of wire in it's place and replace what ever smoked.

 

[Quo Fan]

...until one of them falls onto your motherboard just right and you start to smell smoke

Nah, they usually just found the drum and scratched the heck out of it.

 

[LordOpie]

When machines were popping fuses, and we couldn't find a reason, we would take out the fuse, and put a piece of wire in it's place and replace what ever smoked.

Dude, you are Bizarro MacGyver!

 

[Quo Fan]

Maybe that is why I don't fix sh!t for a living any more, it got too expensive to keep blowing up $1,000 boards.

 

[Barbaton]

Oh. The exec-assistant to the Dean used to do that at my old job with Mozilla. couldn't be a normal folder that we called Trash. Had to be the actual, unprotected trash folder.

Glad I didn't have anything to do with it...

 

[Secret Squirrel]

So I was having this issue with Lotus Notes (take it syadasti ) where when I'd try to reply to an email, it would crash. Then there were numerous other errors that sprang up with the interim "fixes"...

I got "Remote Assisted" a bunch of times and at one point the guy tried the same exact thing 5 times expecting different results... (final result = crash).

Anyway, he calls me up today and says he thinks he might have a final fix for the original problem.

He changed my default printer.

I'll say it again, I couldn't reply to emails for 2 f*ckin' weeks, and he changed my default printer.

The stupidest part of it all: It fixed all the crashes and other minor errors.

I was absolutely dumbfounded. I'm still in shock.

That is all.

 

[LordOpie]

Changing the default printer almost sounds like a seriously corrupted print driver?

 

[Arkayne]

I've ran into that problem a few times. If deleting the printer and then recreating it didn't work, reinstalling the driver would. Glad to hear you can reply again!

 

[LordOpie]

Salesguy: Can you help me?

me: sure, sup?

him: I have a contact list that (our boss) sent to me, but I want to email it to my home so I can work from there, but I got home last night and didn't get the email?

me: ok, let's see what's up and try it again.

him: okay... so I forward the email to my home address... "mgp9@..."

me: that's not a "9".

 

[LordOpie]

So my wife and I are at the hospital yesterday for six hours so the doctors could try to turn our baby that's in breech position. It's 3pm by the time we get home and my boss wants me to come into work. I tell him no, not coming in for two hours, whatever it is can wait.

Turns out that he somehow changed the font in his email to the color white (on a white background). That's why he wanted me to come into work yesterday.

 

[Secret Squirrel]

So my wife and I are at the hospital yesterday for six hours so the doctors could try to turn our baby that's in breech position. It's 3pm by the time we get home and my boss wants me to come into work. I tell him no, not coming in for two hours, whatever it is can wait.

Turns out that he somehow changed the font in his email to the color white (on a white background). That's why he wanted me to come into work yesterday.

Dude...

 

[binary visions]

I created a spreadsheet for a woman I work with to help extract some information out of a database file, and set it up in a usable format for when they go to court. It's a fairly complex spreadsheet behind-the-scenes, but I know how handicapped these women are, so I've set it up to be very easy to use.

You open the spreadsheet. At the top of the file is a set of instructions on how to use it, and a single button. You click the button. Then you select the file to import. Then everything is done. It's that easy.

She insisted yesterday that the button was missing from the spreadsheet. I was lazy and didn't feel like going to her desk, so I tried to troubleshoot over the phone. I looked at the file, it looked fine. I clicked the button, it worked fine. I asked her if she was getting error messages, or ANYTHING out of the ordinary. No, no, she insisted, it all looked normal.

I finally went to her desk, and found out that she thought the button was missing because she had not opened the file yet. "Oh, I always forget I'm supposed to open the spreadsheet to use it!"

:huh:

 

[Secret Squirrel]

So our company recently co-located with our sister company in a brand new office. The logistics of this were off the charts retah-ded. Sh*t is still FUBAR.

Anyway, in order to maintain some resemblance of order and continuity, my department (Let's call it Company X, which is larger and more advanced than our counterparts at Company Y) decided to operate "business as usual" and make things work.

A short time later, a process was called into question by Company Y's people. Long meetings ensued and the process was completely changed. Basically, the one knock on the current system was that calls after a certain time would go to a national number and not be dealt with until the morning. So they decided on a central "home-office" number.

The new person heading this process (not me anymore) came to me and asked if there should be a voicemail box attached to the number.....

I blankly stared at her for a few moments....just to see if she was indeed being serious. Then I said, "If there's no voicemail, it would be worse than if it was left with national..." And I walked away.

I just know I'm going to be the one dealing with the nuclear sh*tstorm that's going to be dropped back in my lap in 6 months when everyone decideds that she can't hack it.

Fortunately, I'm not worried about burning bridges with my Company Y counterparts. I'm gonna see how badly I can screw with them...

Yes, I'm quoting myself. I quote myself.

Person Referenced in Previous Quote: "Sara"
Process Mentioned Above: Printers and Copiers for the entire office. Sara's in charge of making them continually function so our office doesn't freak out.

So, Monday of this week rolled around and "Sara" doesn't show up for work. Numerous frantic phone calls and emails circulate the office because Sara never set-up a back-up procedure for when she was gone and sh*t's breaking.

I'm contacted 4 times in 10 minutes to "fix it" by our head IT guy. I repeatedly tell him that it is no longer my responsibility and it was made very clear to me in the previous meetings that my involvement was unwelcome. Not 3 minutes later, one of the IT underlings appears in my office (where I had already set-up the central supply for these machines...it was decided that the supply would stay in my area... ) and starts grabbing random parts to go "fix" the machines.

So far, everyday since Monday, I've seen a technician onsite tinkering with one or more machines for the majority of the day.

Item #2 (Referenced Bold Part Above):
The "Home Office" phone number for all printing issues that was specifically set-up to be answered by someone in our office at all times for immediate response is....wait for it....wait for it....NOW FORWARDED TO OUR LOCAL HELPDESK. WHICH IS FORWARDED TO A NATIONAL CALL CENTER AFTER 4:30 ANYWAY. WTF?!?!?

This is going to be awesome when Sara gets back. (E-mail circulated Tuesday that she was out for the entire week.)

 

[syadasti]

We implemented a new trouble ticket system at our company after being acquired. I'm hoping to avoid technical support for accessing the trouble ticket system itself Before the parent company documentation wanted end users to access a super long ass random URL.

That didn't seem very good so I used IIS and DNS to make it so all they have to do is type "help" or "http://help" in their browser and they get autoforwarded to the non-userfriendly URL for the trouble ticket system.

You can also use a similar trick on IIS for custom error pages on secure websites. Instead of the server throwing an error that you need SSL to access it autoforwards people to the correct https URL.

 

[LordOpie]

...

Your company sounds like my dog chasing his tail. Rarely works well and is shocked when he succeeds to the point of letting go and having to start all over again

 

[Secret Squirrel]

We implemented a new trouble ticket system at our company after being acquired. I'm hoping to avoid technical support for accessing the trouble ticket system itself Before the parent company documentation wanted end users to access a super long ass random URL.

That didn't seem very good so I used IIS and DNS to make it so all they have to do is type "help" or "http://help" in their browser and they get autoforwarded to the non-userfriendly URL for the trouble ticket system.

You can also use a similar trick on IIS for custom error pages on secure websites. Instead of the server throwing an error that you need SSL to access it autoforwards people to the correct https URL.

Interesting. If I ever get back on board to salvage what's left of this nuked bullsh*t, I'll bring this up.

 

[Secret Squirrel]

Your company sounds like my dog chasing his tail. Rarely works well and is shocked when he succeeds to the point of letting go and having to start all over again

Yep. It's gotten to the point where I'm not even surprised when something goes so far south, people are ready to quit.

 

[syadasti]

Interesting. If I ever get back on board to salvage what's left of this nuked bullsh*t, I'll bring this up.

Its really easy. For the URL trick you just need a free IP on your network for the web application (troubleticket, email, financial, whatever). Add that IP to a site running at your location on IIS (any IIS server will work, doesn't have to be running the web app on the same server). Create a simple asp page as one of the default site documents:

<%
Response.Redirect "http://superbigass/giant/huge/complex/url.asp"
%>

Make sure the default document you create has the correct permissions other wise you might get IIS errors.

Make an A record on your DNS for a simple name (help in my case) that points to the IP you setup for that asp page in IIS.

If it has to be accessible externally you'll need to make sure the URL will work both internally and externally - maybe make it help.domainname.com and you'll need to update your external DNS too.

For the HTTPS trick you need to create a custom error message and set the file permission so SSL on that file alone isn't required for access. The custom error asp page is this:

<%
If Request.ServerVariables("SERVER_PORT")=80 Then

Dim strSecureURL
strSecureURL = "https://" & Request.ServerVariables("SERVER_NAME")
Response.Redirect strSecureURL

End If
%>

 

[Secret Squirrel]

Its really easy. For the URL trick you just need a free IP on your network for the web application (troubleticket, email, financial, whatever). Add that IP to a site running at your location on IIS (any IIS server will work, doesn't have to be running the web app on the same server). Create a simple asp page as one of the default site documents:



Make sure the default document you create has the correct permissions other wise you might get IIS errors.

Make an A record on your DNS for a simple name (help in my case) that points to the IP you setup for that asp page in IIS.

If it has to be accessible externally you'll need to make sure the URL will work both internally and externally - maybe make it help.domainname.com and you'll need to update your external DNS too.

For the HTTPS trick you need to create a custom error message and set the file permission so SSL on that file alone isn't required for access. The custom error asp page is this:

Either that or we could just toss it in our Corporate Favorites menu in the browser... irate2:

Kidding.

 

[syadasti]

Either that or we could just toss it in our Corporate Favorites menu in the browser... irate2:

Kidding.

Yes, you could put it on your Intranet site homepage also and there are ways you can autoload load it into bookmarks but its good to make things accessible in many ways as easily as possible.

What could be more simple then telling them you just have to type help to get help?

 

[binary visions]

What could be more simple then telling them you just have to type help to get help?

You know they'll still find some way to screw it up.

You're going to have to go look at their computer and find something like this:

 

[LordOpie]

or you'll find desktop icons renamed, "help"

 

[syadasti]

You know they'll still find some way to screw it up.

Well my other idea was to implement a computer operating license system. After enough infractions they lose their computing privilege and are demoted to manual tasks or face termination. Can't convince anyone to add that feature to the trouble ticket system - it would be easy and save IT money

Seriously though that would be a great feature for a trouble ticket system. If you get repeat calls for a certain issue the user is required to take the appropriate training classes instead of waste IT time/dollars on people who lack the training they should have as part of their position in the company.

 

[LordOpie]

So I got one of the incompetent focks to quit and I'm happy that he's been replaced by someone who is better -and- motivated!

Also, we hired a guy as pressman. He's in a half-way house on a prison leave. He's served five years of 12 for manufacturing and distributing meth. He learned how to run a press and do some graphic design in prison.

He's very smart and motivated and learning my dept so when I'm not here, the shop doesn't shut down. He's a fast learner. Also, he just busted me...

I was teaching him, a rush project came in, and I said, "let me just rip this project out and we can get back to learning."

A few minutes later, I finished and he said, "Dang, you're really good at this and very fast!"

me: thanks.

him: So, uhh, if the shop is as slow as we are and you're that fast... what do you do most of the day?

 

[LordOpie]

CSR: Can you help?
me: sure.
C: I'm trying to print that page, but I get this one.
m: Can I see your file? ... Ok, print it ... yeah, you want page two, but you're choosing page one. You have to put page "2" in the page range. You're printing the page range of 1-to-1.

CSR: Yeah, I only want one copy.


...

 

[Atomic Dog]

Haha, L'Opie, you need to write a book about this stuff, a la David Sedaris. The graphic design version of Santaland Diaries.

 

[SK6]

My fasvorite is the one:

"Oh?....My computer has a burner on it?"

Next day:

"What can I use to burn CD's"


two weeks later:

"I'm getting ready for trial and I can't my deposition to sync. And Mcafee keeps popping up and says....."





Then you go look at there desktop image and there is LimeWire and a folder of "questionable" software.

 

[H8R]

Customer to our sales person the other day...


Customer: "I'm planting the new vines, I know i need to mound soil up to the graft union. I don't understand what that is...how high up on the vine is it?"

Sales: "Well the graft union should be about 4" above the soil line. If you hold the bare root vine before you plant, the graft union is about a foot above the roots or so. The bulbous part. Mound the soil about an inch above the top of the vine after it's planted."

Customer: "Oh....oh.......um. Um........I got it wrong. I think I planted it upside down. The roots are showing.....I guess the graft union...uh....yeah."

Sales: *blink...blink blink* (jaw dropped)

 

[H8R]

him: So, uhh, if the shop is as slow as we are and you're that fast... what do you do most of the day?

Get rid of him.

 

[pixelninja]

Haha, L'Opie, you need to write a book about this stuff, a la David Sedaris. The graphic design version of Santaland Diaries.

http://www.clientcopia.com/

 

[LordOpie]

This one isn't dumb as much as just wrong...

A client has a three color logo -- blue, green and black -- where the black is used in part of the green for shading. It's subtle, but it's there and intentional. Well, my shop didn't want to have the expense and trouble of running the black each time a business card or whatever came through, so they removed the shading and ran a darker green ink.

I'm so fockin' pissed and they did it while I was on leave. Told the new guy to edit the logo cuz they knew I wouldn't do it.