Problems in tech support # ???/??? aka ‘Wow you’re literally incapable of hearing what I’m saying, aren’t you?’
So there’s this caller that I just especially dislike... let’s call her... Kathy. Kathy is just... remember Ben Stein in those Clear Eyes commercials? That extremely slow monotone drawl? Throw in a “UMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM” about every 7 words. That’s how she talks.
Anyway, Kathy is stupid. Like, has no grasp of troubleshooting or basic understanding of how anything technological works, doesn’t understand why she shouldn’t write down passwords on Post-It notes and stick them to her monitor (no, seriously) stupid. And she calls in and asks dumb questions, all the fucking time, and gets pissed when she doesn’t get the answer that she wants. As 90 percent of the time its’ “okay, that’s not how that works’ and not “OMG THIS IS A HUGE ISSUE”
Anyway, Kathy calls in this morning and says that her Outlook is frequently going not responding. Said it’s been doing it since yesterday. Not a huge deal, probably a simple fix, but it takes like 5 minutes for her to get that out, as she talks so drawn out and slow with 8000s UHHHHS thrown in, and always always throws in pointless irrelevant information that she refuses to stop giving. I’ll cut her off with “I don’t actually need to know that” and she’ll just ignore me and keep talking for another few minutes
So Kathy asks what causes Outlook to go not responding. I told her that there’s not one definitive reason, that it’s a symptom of a number of issues, and without taking a look at her computer I can’t say for sure. But said it could be that she hasn’t logged off and restarted in a while (most likely culprit), that she has too much open, her Internet connection, that her mailbox is too large, the server she’s on is having issues, could be a settings issue, etc.
Kathy hears “Internet” and “server” and goes:
Kathy: OH. So I have Internet connection and server connection issues?!
Me: No. That’s not what I said. I said it could be those things. Those are possible issues, but likely not the cause.
Kathy: *point blank ignoring what I just said* Okay okay. So it’s the Internet connection...
Me: No. Most likely not.
Kathy: *again, still ignoring me* AND the server... hm, well I guess I can tell my manager that that’s what’s going on
Me: Kathy. That’s not necessarily the issue
Kathy: *still not listening* It’s just I can’t work like this! *goes on a rant about the ‘Internet and server issues’ (that she probably doesn’t have)
Me: Kathy, it could be other things. I can try and--
Kathy: *cuts me off* I’ve had to deal with this for two days
Me: Okay, so it’s probably not the server. And since no one else is complaining it’s probably not the Internet
Kathy: And the server and internet--
This goes on for a few more minutes. She’s literally ignoring what I’m saying and hearing whatever she wants. I have NO idea why she does this, but she, and other Boomers, and yes I specify Boomers because it’s almost always them, just hear whatever they want when it comes to tech support issues, regardless of what I tell them.
Example: Kathy keeps forgetting her password. Idk if it’s because she’s getting older or what. But she calls in, all the goddamn time, because she’s locked her account from entering in her password incorrectly too many times. Now, I can see that she’s entered in the incorrect password and how many times, and the times she’s done it at. I can’t see her password or what she’s entering of course (which she doesn’t understand, always asks me to tell her what her password is and gets angry when I can’t), but I can tell she’s not entering the right one. We go through this several times a month. She’ll insist that there’s something wrong with the system, and of course, there’s not. She’s just forgotten her password.
So, I have her reset her password, and always tell her to make sure it’s something that she’ll remember. Make it something easy for you to remember or recall. Add an extra symbol to a password you normally use or the title of your favorite song, something.
Kathy hears “make sure you remember it” and writes it down. And sticks it on her monitor
I should note that Kathy is an assistant to some of the shareholders and partners at the firm. As a result, she has access to some HIGHLY secure and classified information.
And this fucking idiot keeps writing her passwords down and putting them on her monitor. We keep telling her not to do this, so she’ll get rid of the post-it. Then forget her password. I’ll tell her to set to something she can remember. She’ll hear “remember” and write it down and put it back up. We’ve been doing this over and over since I’ve been working here, which is over a year now.
To get back on point. It’s like talking to Kellyanne Conway. She’ll take a word or a phrase from what you’ve said and turn it into whatever she wants. She hears ‘make your password something you can remember’ and here’s ‘remember’ and writes it down. She hears ‘Internet’ and ‘server’ and hears “This specific issue is caused by Internet and Server connections”. She’ll hear “the program can’t do that” and she’ll hear “can’t do that” and turn it into “I can’t do that” and shout about me not knowing what I’m doing. I can tell her “no, that’s not what I’m saying” and she doesn’t hear it at all.
What kills me about this, and Boomers in general is that this isn’t an isolated incident. Or a rare one. They literally hear whatever they want to hear, and get angry when it’s not the case. Or just ignore it not being the case. They hear “I can’t do that for you because it’s against store policy” and hear “I can’t do that” and nothing else. It’s almost amazing
Anyway. I go back and forth with “Kathy” for several minutes, and she’s literally not processing that her issue is likely not an internet or server issue. I’m saying “No, that’s not it” And she (literally, verbatim) goes “Oh, okay okay okay, I got it. So it’s the Internet and Server connections” (hand to God that happened). I go “no” and we repeat.
After about 10 minutes (mind you, I’ve not been able to do anything to actually assist her) I finally decide “fuck it, the local techs can do it” and put in a ticket and send it over to them because I can only take so much stupidity in a day.
Problems in tech support #???/??? aka ‘Sometimes Tier 3 sucks too’
So we’re having some issues with some of the virtual servers at work. Waaaay above my head, so I have to send it up to tier 3. Now, there’s 3 servers that users have been having severe slowness and freezing on. I’ve been on 2 of the 3 servers and can personally attest that that’s what’s going on. So, I reach out to tier 2 (because we’re supposed to go to them first), like 5 times before someone finally get’s back to me and says send it up to tier 3 and have them reboot the servers. No shit, but whatever.
So I call it into tier 3, tell them to reboot the servers. Conversation goes like this:
Me: Users on servers [insert server names 1-3] are having some extreme slowness and freezing. I’ve been on [insert 2 server names] myself, and can attest that this is an actual issue. Just sending a 5 word IM took me 2 minutes, and everything keeps freezing.
Tier 3 tech: Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Me: .... so anyway, I spoke to the local techs (tier 2) who asked me to have you guys reboot the servers (because they have the fucking servers).
Tier 3: Uhhhhhhhhhhhhh.... well fuck
literally, says ‘well fuck’
Okay. W/E
Tier 3: Do you know if there’s people logged into those servers currently?
Me: Well, I can’t say for certain, as I can’t check that (BUT THEY CAN), but probably?
Tier 3: Can you check?
Literally just said I can’t, bro
Me: No. I don’t have that type of access. But-
Tier 3: *sighs* Ugh fine I guess I’ll just log in
... wait you weren’t logged into your computer??
So I hear typing for a minute or two, and the guy goes:
Tier 3: Well... normally we’d have to get everyone off of those servers...
Me: I can’t see who’s on them, so I can’t call them or email them to notify them. But you can do that.
Tier 3: Yeah... uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
*silence for a few moments* *long sigh*
Tier 3: Look, I’ll see what we can do about it.
Me: ??????????
Tier 3: Thanks. *hangs up*
WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU MEAN YOU’LL SEE WHAT WE CAN DO?? YOU ARE THE ONLY ONES WHO CAN DO THIS
And before you ask, no, Tier 3 guys was not new. He’s been working for tier 3 longer than I’ve been working here and I’ve spoken to him several times before. Normally he’s much more helpful, but I’m guessing tech support just broke him like it inevitably breaks all of us
Problems in tech support # ???/??? aka “Fuck me for being good at my job, I guess”
Not a specific interaction but this happens frequently enough to be annoying
I literally get people who will complain about me solving their issue “too quickly”. Literally. They’ll call in with a simple problem they thing is a big issue. It’s not. I solve it in a few moments and go about my day. A while later we get a complaint that I solved the problem too quickly and often “made them feel stupid” aka “It was a dumb problem and by you fixing it you made me feel dumb”.
Had a lady a little bit ago with just some minor Outlook settings she needed changed. About a 2 minute issue tops. Remoted in with her, fixed everything, and she proceeded to get increasingly agitated that ‘that was it’. “That’s it? That’s all you did? Just change this and click that?” “Yep” “So you didn’t do anything else on your end?” “No.” “So you fixed this issue that quickly???”
Or “I need you to remote in with me immediatly!! BLAH BLAH BLAH EVERYTHING IS BROKEN AND BLAH BLAH BLAH” *remotes in* “Oh, this isn’t an issue. It’s just a message letting you know that XYZ (some minor pointless thing).” *Hits OK* “You’re all set?” “WHAT DO YOU MEAN I’M ALL SET MY COMPUTER IS BROKEN?” “No it’s not.” “SO YOU FIXED IT THAT QUICKLY??”
... yes. What the fuck are you mad about??? Would you have preferred I spent hours and hours working on your computer? I will never understand this. Why get angry at someone for helping you out too efficiently? I guess if you wanted to have an excuse to waste time and not work, maybe? But most calls start off with “I CAN’T WORK AND I’M GONNA GET IN TROUBLE AND ... oh wait... you fixed it already? WELL THAT’S NOT POSSIBLE YOU HAD TO HAVE DONE SOMETHING ELSE BECAUSE YOU CAN’T HAVE FIXED IT THAT QUICKLY!!!”
Problems in tech support # ???/??? aka “Fuck you Marie pt 2: Electric Boogaloo”
So, Marie (from this and this) calls back in. I guess she’s feeling embarrassed about her litany of stupid calls because she gets super awkward when she realizes it’s me.
Anyway, call goes something like this
Me: *generic greeting*
Marie: I’m trying to print these labels, but when I go to options there’s no labels
??????
Me: ...trying to print them from where?
Marie: What?
Me: Where are you trying to print the labels from?
Marie: I’m trying to print filing labels.
Me: Okay, I got that. Where are you trying to print them from? What program? Word, Outlook? Are they PDFs..?
Marie: *Not listening* I”m trying to print filing labels and when I go to options there’s no labels
FFS
So I remote in with her. She’s in Word. SHE’S ON THE MENU TO PRINT LABELS IT SAYS “LABELS” ON IT YOU FUCKING TWAT
Me: ... so you’re trying to print labels.
Marie: Yeah, and there’s no option for labels.
Me: *circles my mouse around the big “LABELS” tab she’s currently clicked on* You’re on the option to select labels
Marie; Well, it normally says like... Avery 5266 or--
Me: *notices Marie is clicked on the “Microsoft” labels list, not the Avery ones*
Me: *clicks on “Avery”*
Marie: *clearly not listening or looking at her screen* *continues rambling* Everything is different and now the option to print labels is gone..
Me: No, it’s--
Marie: *cutting me off* *continues bitching*
Me: MARIE. It’s right here.
Marie: Oh... it looks different.
Me: Do you know the size of the label you’re trying to print?
Marie: No.
Me:... can you look at the labels? It should say on the box, maybe on the back of the labels
Marie: ....
Marie: *CLICKS AWAY FROM THE AVERY LIST TO A TOTALLY DIFFERENT LIST* See!! This normally says AVERY!
Me: ... you literally clicked away from the Avery list
Marie: ... well... it normally says Avery
Me: It did. There’s numerous Avery sizes. *clicks back on Avery* Which one are you trying to print on?
Marie: *again, not listening, continues bitching*
At this point, I just take my headset off for a little bit, click around in flight rising, so I have no idea what she actually says
Me: *repeats myself*
Marie: ... I guess I can try... but there’s normally a 5266
Me: *clicks on 5266. IT’S RIGHT THERE. RIGHT IN HER FUCKING FACE* This one?
Marie: *Let me see* *SCROLLS PAST 5266, GETS DOWN INTO THE LIKE 5400S* I’m not sure...
Me: You scrolled away from 5266. What size label--
Marie: *not listening* I guess I’ll just have to try these...
There’s like 500 different sizes
Me: If you look at the labels themselves, it should have a size on ...
Marie: *starts bitching again*
Problems in tech support # ???/??? aka “No, I can’t find the changes to a document you worked on a month ago and didn’t save because you didn’t fucking save them”
So there’s this guy that always calls in because he never fucking saves or closes out of his documents. He’ll work on a document for days and just leave it open the entire time, without actually saving it once. Then, he’ll shut down or log off, or Word crashes or whatever, and of course the document closes.
Now, often we’re able to find auto recoveries or auto saves of the files if he calls in soon enough. But today, he called in about a document he’d worked on a fucking month ago, and admitted he hadn’t saved when he’d closed out of it, and asked me if I could find it for him. Call goes kinda like this.
Him: So I need help recovering some changes I made to a document.
Me: Ok. Is--
Him: Like, a month ago.
Me: ...
Me: A month ago? You haven’t opened it or anything sense?
Him: No. I’m pretty sure I didn’t save it when I closed out of it. Can you recover the changes
Me: To be frank, it’s a long shot, but I’ll look
For some reason, he’s super reluctant to tell me any info about the document, the document number, title, etc. So I have to drag it out of him by reminding him “I can’t find a document if I don’t know what it is”. And I do find a record of the document on his computer, along with dozens and dozens of auto recovery files (aka he’s been crashing Word without closing out of docs), buuuut it doesn’t have any of his changes.
Him: Well, this doesn’t have my changes
Because you didn’t fucking save them you twit
Me: Well, unfortunately this is the only copy of the document on your system. Since you closed out of the document, and it didn’t crash, Word didn’t generate any auto recoveries, and it’s been a month, so your temp folders have cleared.
Him: Well, can’t you just get it from my auto saves
Me: It’s not there.
Him: Well... this one doesn’t have my changes! Normally when I call in the person I speak to (me, it’s always fucking me) can find my changes!!
BECAUSE NORMALLY YOU DON’T WAIT A FUCKING MONTH AND KNOWINGLY CLOSE OUT OF A DOCUMENT WITHOUT SAVING IT
Me: I get that. But, it’s been a month, and you didn’t save it.
Him: Well, where else can you look?
Me: No where. I literally did a search of your entire system, there’s no copies of it anywhere, except for this one
Him: BUT IT DOESN’T HAVE MY CHANGES!!!
Me: Uh huh.
Him: Well. Can you escalate this and have someone do a more thorough search?
Me: Sure. I’m not sure where else they could search, since I did a search of your entire system, but I can absolutely send it up. But, frankly, the odds of them finding anything, since you didn’t save the document or check it back in, and waited a month, are pretty nil
Him: *angry huffing*
Me to me: Yeaaaah, this is a whole lotta not my fucking problem at this point.
Me: Sure. I’ll send it up.
Him: I just don’t understand why you can’t find it
BECAUSE YOU CLOSED OUT OF IT A FUCKING MONTH AGO AND DIDN’T SAVE IT AND YOU KNOW YOU DIDN’T SAVE IT.
Me: K. Have a great day.
I sent up a note about him to the local techs to ask someone to please sit down with this fucking ass clown and teach him how to save and close out of documents, because he calls in all the fucking time for this. 9/10 when he calls in, it’s because he needs a document recovered. And it’s not like his system is crashing or something, he just won’t fucking save documents and close out of them, even if he’s put days worth of work into them.
Problems in Tech support number ???/??? aka “I’m not a fucking mind reader”
Long post.
Okay, so we use Outlook and a document management system called Filesite at my job, right? And both are fairly customizable view wise. There’s the base/default way it comes, but virtually everybody adjusts it; changes font size, color, column/row placement reading pane, etc. So, no two people’s are necessarily alike, and there’s no set way to arrange the view.
But people seem to have a MASSIVE amount of difficulty understanding this. On occasion, since we’re virtual, something will change on the server side, causing users to lose their customized Outlook settings. We have no way of retrieving this, and no way of knowing exactly how things were previously set up.
So, I get a mind numbing amount of frustrating calls that are virtually me explaining “No, I’m not aware of how you personally customized your Outlook, the Outlook that I don’t have any access to unless I’m remoted in with you.”
Example:
Caller: My outlook is broken
Me: What’s wrong with it
Caller: It doesn’t look right
Me: Okay, what doesn’t look right about it?
Caller: It doesn’t look how it normally looks
Me: How does it normally look?
Customer: *angry confused ranting*
So, I get a call from this woman named Barbara. Barbara is old and the embodiment of “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks”. She can’t adapt to any sort of change, if something isn’t 100% exactly where it was, she can’t figure out how to do it. She’s also “If I don’t understand it, it must be wrong” (I once spent 45 minutes explaining Outlook’s recall feature to her, which she didn’t seem to grasp that once an email left our servers, we cannot go into another company’s servers and retrieve it, especially if they aren’t using Outlook. I even pulled up the Microsoft KB that point blank explains this, but she was still insistent that I didn’t know what I was talking about).
Anyway, Barbara’s office recently did some server upgrades, and they were notified, several times, that this will likely change their Filesite/Outlook settings, and that they might want to take screenshots of how things are set up, just in case. Barbara of course ignored this. Barbara calls in, hangs up on the first person she gets for reasons she refused to explain, gets me, and asks me to remote in with her. Which I do. Call goes like this:
Barbara: My Filesite looks wrong.
Me: Okay, what’s wrong with it?
Barbara: *spends about 3 minutes ranting about how much she hates when things are changed blah blah blah*
Me: *repeats myself*
Barbara: *rants some more*
Me: *lets there be awkward silence*
Me: *repeats myself*
Barbara: It.. just doesn’t look right. This isn’t how it looked before.
Me; How did I look before?
Barbara: Well, I can’t see the attorney name
Me: You mean the author?
Barbara: Yeah
So there’s a preview pane on the side, that’s causing it to display in compact view, so I moved it to the bottom so the author column was showing, verified this was the column she was looking for, but she still said it didn’t look right
Me: Okay, so what else is wrong with it?
Barabra: Well, it looks very smushed
Me: Is it that the columns aren’t wide enough?
Barbara: No. They look all skinny
Me: ... so they’re not wide enough?
Barbara: Yeah
Me: *drags some of the columns to resize* Does that look any better?
Barbra: No. It’s all small
Me: Is it the font? Would increasing the font and spacing help?
Barbara: No.
Barbara: *again rants about change*
Me: OK. So what else is wrong? Are you missing any columns or fields?
Barbara: No
Me: is the preview pane in the wrong spot?
Barbara: No
Me: Is the order of the columns wrong?
Barbara: No
Annnd that’s about the only way things can be adjusted, outside of like, font type and color
Me: Okay, well can you remember how it looked before?
Barbara: No.
Me: Can you tell me what’s wrong with how it looks now
Barbara: *hems and haws for a bit*
Me: *repeats*
Barbara: No.
SO WHAT THE FUCK WOULD YOU LIKE ME TO DO?
Barbara: What are the view options
Me: There aren’t any ‘views’ like there are for Outlook. You can customize the columns, their size and font, the preview pane positioning, etc, but that’s about it because that’s all Filesite displays.
Barbara: So you can’t tell me what the views are?
Me: There aren’t any.
Barbara: That doesn’t make any sense
Here we fucking go.
Me: Barbara, Filesite and Outlook have different views. There aren’t any preset ones you can click through to see what looks appealing like you can in Outlook. You actually have to adjust them on your own
Barbara: *clearly not at all listening* Well, you guys fixed it once before
Wrong. The issue last time was that it was glitching, so we just relaunched it. Before that, it was the preview pane was in the wrong spot, so we moved it to the side where she wanted it
Barbara: So you’re telling me you don’t know how to fix it
Me: Barbara, there’s nothing broken. This is a customizable view. If you want to me to change it, you have to tell me what you want changed.
Barbara: *again, still not listening* So you don’t know how to do this?
Me: That’s not at all what I’m saying. I know how to adjust Outlook and Filesite every which way. I just don’t know how you had it set up before, no one can know that but you, because you would be the one who either set it up, or told someone to set it up that way.
Barbara: *again, clearly ignoring me and hearing what she wants* Okay, well you guys fixed it last time *she starts clicking around* Was it under properties...?
Me: Barbara, there is not a single option or button that will just make your Filesite look how it was. You have to adjust the layout yourself
Barbara: No. That’s not right.
We go back and forth on this for a while. Eventually, I circle back:
Me: So, you don’t know how your Filesite used to look?
Barbara: ... right.
Me: And you aren’t sure what you don’t like about how it looks now?
Barbara: ... right.
Me: And you can’t tell me what’s missing, or if there’s anything that will prevent you from working?
Barbara: ... yeah.
Me: *waits*
Batbara: *still not getting it*
Me: Barbara, You have to tell us how it used to look, or how you want it to look. Those are the only options.
At this point, Barbara starts getting angry, ranting about how things change without notice (she’s been getting daily notices for a week, at least) and how I should know how to do my job (I do) and be able to fix her Filesite (It’s not broken). I again explain that she has to know how she wants it to look, because I am not a fucking mind reader and that concept seems to go over her head.
Barbara: Okay, well clearly you can’t do your job and you don’t know how to fix it. Bye. *slams down phone*
Soo, does anybody else’s job prohibit them from participating in fire drills?
Like, the office building I’m in does regular fire drills and testing, but we’re not allowed to get off the phones and participate. In fact, we’ve never done a fire drill, so, tbh if there is an actual fire, I have no idea where we’re supposed to go or meet up. One time, there wasn’t a drill, the actual alarm was going off (turned out to not be an actual fire, just something was malfunctioning, but we didn’t know that at the time) and we still weren’t allowed to get off the phones and evacuate.
Doubt this is illegal, but just curious if anyone else ever has this issue
I just think your company's IT dept should know what programs and apps are on your company's computers. And that asking a third party vender for that info is weird.
(especially if that third party is not actually an IT/Tech support company)
