Posted: 11/4/2002 4:04:55 AM EDT
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1. When you call us to have your computer moved, be sure to leave it buried under half a ton of postcards, baby pictures, stuffed animals, dried flowers, bowling trophies, and children's art. We don't have a life, and we find it deeply moving to catch a fleeting glimpse of yours. 2. Don't write anything down. Ever. We can play back the error messages from here. 3. When an IS person says he's coming right over, go for coffee. That way you won't be there when he needs your password. It's nothing for us to remember 300 screen saver passwords. 4. When you call the help desk, state what you want, not what's keeping you from getting it. We don't need to know that you can't get into your mail because your computer won't power on at all. 5. When IS support sends you an e-mail with high importance, delete it at once. We're just testing. 6. When an IS person is eating lunch at his desk, walk right in and spill your guts right out. We exist only to serve. 7. Send urgent e-mail all in uppercase. The mail server picks it up and flags it as a rush delivery. 8. When the photocopier doesn't work, call computer Support. There's electronics in it. 9. When you're getting a NO DIAL TONE message at home, call computer support. We can fix your telephone line from here. 10. When you have a dozen old computer screens to get rid of, call computer support. We're collectors. 11. When something's wrong with your home PC, dump it on an IS person's chair with no name, no phone number and no description of the problem. We love a puzzle. 12. When an IS person tells you that computer screens don't have cartridges in them, argue. We love a good argument. 13. When an IS person tells you that he'll be there shortly, reply in a scathing tone of voice, "And just how many weeks do you mean by shortly?" That motivates us. 14. When the printer won't print, re-send the job at least 20 times. Print jobs frequently get sucked into black holes. 15. When the printer still won't print after 20 tries, send the job to all 68 printers in the company. One of them is bound to work. 16. Don't learn the proper name for anything technical. We know exactly what you mean by "my thingy blew up". 17. Don't use on-line help. On-line help is for wimps. 18. If the mouse cable keeps knocking down the framed picture of your dog, lift the computer and stuff the cable under it. Mouse cables were designed to have 20 kilograms of computer sitting on top of them. 19. If the space bar on your keyboard doesn't work, blame it on the mail upgrade. 20. Keyboards are actually very happy with half a pound of muffin crumbs and nail clippings in them. 21. When you get a message saying "Are you sure?", click on that Yes button as fast as you can. Heck, if you weren't sure, you wouldn't be doing it, would you? 22. When you find an IS person on the phone with his bank, sit uninvited on the corner of his desk and stare at him until he hangs up. We don't have any money to speak of anyway. 23. Feel perfectly free to say things like "I don't know nothing about that computer crap". We don't mind at all hearing our area of professional expertise referred to as crap. 24. When you need to change the toner cartridge in a printer, call IS support. Changing a toner cartridge is an extremely complex task, and Hewlett-Packard recommends that it be performed only by a professional engineer with a master's degree in nuclear physics. 25. When you can't find someone in the company directory, call IS Support. 26. When you have a lock to pick on an old file cabinet, call IS Support. We love to hack. 27. When something's the matter with your computer, ask your secretary to call the help desk. We enjoy the challenge of having to deal with a third party who doesn't know anything about the problem. 28. When you receive a 30 MB (huge) movie file, send it to everyone as a mail attachment. We've got lots of disk space on that mail server. 29. Don't even think of breaking large print jobs down into smaller chunks. Somebody else might get a chance to squeeze a memo into the queue. |
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I always thought "tech support" is some sort of support group, you know, like AA, where you just call to bitch and swear at the minions at the phone banks. "Hello, I'm Tim, can I help you?" "Hi, I'm Kar98, I doubt you can help me, but feel free to give it a try anyway [rolleyes]...OK, now let me talk to the Keeper of the Clues, mmm-kay?" "Yes, all my network cables are plugged in, and they all _do_ work, I can see the LINK and ACT LEDs on the hubs and routers blinking away merrily. Nope, the COLLISION lights are not blinking. No, I can't try another cable to make sure. Yes, I /could/ make another 75 foot LAN cable and crawl through the walls to put it where it's needed, but you know what? I somehow don't feel like it." "Re-install Windows you say? Hmm, OK, hang on [wait 0.4 seconds] OK, done. What? Yes, duh! You're shitting me, and I am shitting you back. Fair enough?" |
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Quoted: What do you mean I have to call another 800 number. This is the 17th number I have called and you are the 48th "help"less person I have spoken to. All I need is to have my network password reset. Translation: My password is the same as my first name, and I'm too dumb to remember how to spell it. |
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Quoted: Quoted: What do you mean I have to call another 800 number. This is the 17th number I have called and you are the 48th "help"less person I have spoken to. All I need is to have my network password reset. Translation: My password is the same as my first name, and I'm too dumb to remember how to spell it. Re-translation: I have 30 different passwords with 30 different criteria and it is a code of conduct violation to write the passwords down. Oh, and I only log onto your shitty server twice a year. If you didn't require upper case, lower case, at least two numerics, three alphanumerics, one "special" character and no duplicate characters between passwords that have to be reset every 14 days, maybe I wouldn't have to call to get my password reset. [flag] Oh, yeah, and you understand that there is a problem in my PCs registry and it locks up three times a day. But you don't have the necessary time to fix the registry and make my computer sound. Sounds like to me that you don't know what the hell to do to fix the registry. |
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Quoted: Re-translation: I have 30 different passwords with 30 different criteria and it is a code of conduct violation to write the passwords down. Oh, and I only log onto your shitty server twice a year. If you didn't require upper case, lower case, at least two numerics, three alphanumerics, one "special" character and no duplicate characters between passwords that have to be reset every 14 days, maybe I wouldn't have to call to get my password reset. [flag] LOL...yeah, I know! Although most of the places I've worked don't implement many of those rules because no one can remember their password from 1 minute to the next. I usually deal with those like I mentioned. Oh, yeah, and you understand that there is a problem in my PCs registry and it locks up three times a day. But you don't have the necessary time to fix the registry and make my computer sound. Sounds like to me that you don't know what the hell to do to fix the registry. Translation: I installed AOL, KAZAA and a few other games and stuff that my buddy gave me, and now nothing works. |
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Quoted: Quoted: Oh, yeah, and you understand that there is a problem in my PCs registry and it locks up three times a day. But you don't have the necessary time to fix the registry and make my computer sound. Sounds like to me that you don't know what the hell to do to fix the registry. Translation: I installed AOL, KAZAA and a few other games and stuff that my buddy gave me, and now nothing works. Re-translation: My laptop locked up so often, I got a "temporary" replacement. They dumped my old hard drive onto the new "temporary" laptop and it came up with a registry problem. However, the new "temporary" laptop works better than the old one. I told them to just keep the old one. BTW: I did load Starcraft on the new PC. [:)] |
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Here was always my favorite: "Brian, my computer is not working." "Yeah" "I don't know what's wrong. I got some error message." "And?" "I don't know, it's not working." "What do you want me to do?" "Can you fix it?" Keep in mind, I was only a computer teacher. Not tech support. Therefore, I must crave chances to debug and troubleshoot everyone's computer in my spare time. I must just wait with abated breath for a chance to fix the English teacher's computer! Or, when they called me at home to ask me to troubleshoot thier problems over the phone (as opposed to calling an 800 number for tech support) I've got nothing better to do right? True story: The librarian had a hard time getting the school's tech support people over to fix her machines. I volunteered to help her and spent several hours per week working on her systems. While in the library with my class one day, a student of mine stole a book. The librarian, at the end of the school year, wanted to make ME pay for the book. My response, "Fine, I'll pay for the book, but I won't ever be back here to fix another machine, and that 15.00 book is cheap compared to fixing your computers next year." Mysteriously, she seemed to realize that the STUDENT was responsible for the book, not Yours Truly. |
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Quoted: Re-translation: My laptop locked up so often, I got a "temporary" replacement. They dumped my old hard drive onto the new "temporary" laptop and it came up with a registry problem. However, the new "temporary" laptop works better than the old one. I told them to just keep the old one. I hope they know what they were doing when they did that. You can't 'just' do that with Windows, like you could with DOS. All the device drivers from the old laptop are loading and are probably interfering with the drivers that should be loaded on the new laptop. This in itself could explain your registry problems. If this is all they did, I'm surprised it even works at all! |
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Quoted: Quoted: Re-translation: My laptop locked up so often, I got a "temporary" replacement. They dumped my old hard drive onto the new "temporary" laptop and it came up with a registry problem. However, the new "temporary" laptop works better than the old one. I told them to just keep the old one. I hope they know what they were doing when they did that. You can't 'just' do that with Windows, like you could with DOS. All the device drivers from the old laptop are loading and are probably interfering with the drivers that should be loaded on the new laptop. This in itself could explain your registry problems. If this is all they did, I'm surprised it even works at all! Frankly I am surprised that it works every time I turn it on. I do have to be very nice to it. I never yell at it or call it names. A computer hanging by a thread is better than no computer at all. I used to have a friend at work. He was a consultant. His PC died and it took the help-less-desk people 6 weeks to get him a working one. One week later they "let him go" for being behind schedule. [whacko] |
| One time I had a tech call saying that there network connection didnt work. I went and found the guy had the plate unscrewed from the wall and a 5' length of cable in his hands with a RJ-45 jack on one side a cut end on the other. The guy had pulled the cable until it stopped, and then cut it off, assuming that length was bad (It had a kink in it) After running a new drop, we discovered that his computer still wasent pulling a IP. On closer inspection we found that his NIC card wasent working, geez...... |
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It seems some folks here are confusing at least three different jobs. Help Desk: Internal 1st (and sometimes 2nd) Level support for your company. Tech Support: External 1st (and sometimes 2nd) Level support for customers of your company. PC Tech: The guys that work on PCs when the problem is beyond the basics, or when there's a hardware failure. I've been all three, and I currently manage a Help Desk that provides 24x7 support for 8,000 employees in the financial sector. And, yes, it's finally occured to people that having 35 different logins and passwords is insane, and we're moving to consolidate accounts into an Enterprise-level directory. ETA: at least two years. Joy. -Troy |
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To the IT dudes out there "by golly your right, bathing is NOT a requirement listed in the employee handbook" No, I am really not interested in the Easter eggs in the Special Edition Lord of the Rings. Wow, that Trek convention sure sounds like a swell time Why no, I would have never guessed your D&D name was Lord Valdoor. But I can sure see why. Really? I would have never thought that an Imperial Battle Cruiser could beat Battlestar Galactica. I honestly did not know that in episode 17 Starbase 9 was 300 parsecs from earth, yet in episode 32, Spock said it was 400 parsecs. WTF? I thought the chick in Space:1999 was hot too. |
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My favorite: ME: Okay, go ahead and reboot. Them: ME: Did you just push the monitor power button? Them: No, I powered it off. ME: The monitor? Them: No, the computer. ME: Sounded like the monitor. Them: OOOOH, okay, wheres the power button. ME: On, the case unit. Them: ME: Where the floppy disks and CDs go...the case, look for the green light. Them: On the monitor? ME: No, the case, listen for the 'humming' - thats the fan, in the case, push the button. Them: Okay............ ME: You've got a floppy in the drive, eject it and.... Them: Push it back in and hit any key? ME: No, wait..... Them: I did. ME: But...... THem: It still says the same thing..... GOD HELP ME! |
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Quoted: Perhaps you would be happier in your position if everyone was technically competant then the company would not need your job position anymore. When in the service industry be glad there are incompetant people they are the ones you are supposed to help. Really. FYI- I'm not a service industry worker. I am A highly trained technical professional with 20 years of experience, certifications, and dedicated and intense specialized knowledge that you would not grasp for 1 second on your best day. I have more education than a Doctor, and continue to advance myself on a daily basis. If you think for a minute you would be able to keep up with my industry and do your petty little job at the same time you should see a physician for help with your substance abuse problem... |