RE: A ticket came in: Did they take the printer into the shitters with them?

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ponzicar: Mar 17, 2008

BaseballPCHiker posted:

So many tickets come in from our idiot sales force. Why these people cant be responsible adults and remember their passwords is beyond me. Seriously so many password reset calls. We've implemented Okta for single sign on so for %90 of their logins they only have to remember ONE password but that's to much for them. I'm at a complete loss of what to do now but I know looking at our metrics that our helpdesk team spends way to much time on piddily crap like this.

Has anyone used or heard of some sort of forgot password type service that would work for AD accounts or is this a totally bad idea on my part? I'd love it if I could setup some kind of portal to have them answer their security questions and get a password reset link mailed to them or something similar to that. It'd be great to just tell the user go here and fix it yourself. Although I'm sure we'd have a couple idiots who manage to forget their security answers too.

"I forgot the answers to my security questions: please reset!"

I don't mind resetting passwords, but the people who can't understand making a new one that meets the complexity requirements I am baffled by. Uppercase, lowercase, and numbers should not be difficult for a literate adult to type in.

ponzicar fucked around with this message at 17:06 on Mar 11, 2015

# ¿ Mar 11, 2015 17:03

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# ¿ May 21, 2024 04:44

ponzicar: Mar 17, 2008

I used to think people responding "yes" to questions involving the word "or" were just using corny dad humor. Surely no functional literate adult could misunderstand something so simple, I told myself.

# ¿ Mar 30, 2015 22:36

ponzicar: Mar 17, 2008

ZetsurinPower posted:

Its pretty much a miracle.

We are stumped, I think I'm going to have our Exchange admin open a case with Microsoft because gently caress this witchcraft

Was it just a duplicate, or did the mystery pdf contain unholy incantations, or perhaps the rantings of the souls of the damned?

# ¿ Mar 31, 2015 15:47

ponzicar: Mar 17, 2008

Heners_UK posted:

"Sorry can't go in there because that workplace has wasps in it and no reasonable non-insect-removal-person would do it"

Everyone say it out loud and eventually it will become true

"You have been issued a flyswatter and a printout of the Wikipedia page on wasps. Please do the needful."

# ¿ Apr 9, 2015 20:45

ponzicar: Mar 17, 2008

Well, it's called the "Helpdesk" and not the "Computer Helpdesk" so technically you have to help with whatever they want until you change the name.

# ¿ Apr 9, 2015 22:46

ponzicar: Mar 17, 2008

metavisual posted:

Sometimes I'm a little alarmed at how little people know...
(Understand, lest I come off like a lunatic, that I always have a happy face on, and I try to be extremely helpful and understanding. I don't berate people...I just come here to commiserate!).

When someone comes in with a Director of XYZ title and I am having them enter their temporary password on their computer to get started and they say "Where is the exclamation point?" while looking at the keyboard, that I get a little nervous...

Password complexity requirements have made me realize just how many people are barely literate.

# ¿ Apr 30, 2015 15:12

ponzicar: Mar 17, 2008

Wilford Cutlery posted:

A ticket came in:

Ticket closed: In Europe they are called biscuits.

# ¿ May 6, 2015 17:47

ponzicar: Mar 17, 2008

kensei posted:

I was working with dial up today. On a Windows 2000 Professional machine. Whee.

Hello time traveler. While I don't want to spoil too much of the future for you, you should probably buy a bunch of Apple stock.

# ¿ May 6, 2015 23:43

ponzicar: Mar 17, 2008

Orcs and Ostriches posted:

Nothing good comes from secretaries and printers.

We have someone in our main office who has a specific role, but is more or less a glorified secretary for no one in general. Well her printer ran out of toner and it didn't auto order more like the rest of ours do, so I had to look into it.

It wasn't part of our maintenance contract (we paid for it, but it never happened on their end) so it took a few days to resolve. Got updated, toner got ordered, and in a couple days I put the cartridge in but the printer wouldn't accept it. Tried another one - same deal.

Called tech support, but they helpfully didn't know what was happening or have days worth of stupid things to try, so they just dispatched a tech (who happened to be on holidays for a few weeks which could have made this all worse). Coincidently I had to put in another support ticket the next day, so the tech that came looked at both.

He had no idea what was happening, so escalated it internally. The printer got shipped to us with some wrong regional settings in the firmware and would have to be flashed, which requires special hardware to do. For whatever reason this firmware wouldn't allow our metered toner carts to work, so it locked up the printer when we tried to use one. After a couple more days the tech comes back, plugs in the update cartridge, and everything works. Yay.

Ultimately the printer is down for a couple of weeks, no big deal since there are more printers than staff members here. Also no big deal because I hooked her up and defaulted her to the printer on the desk beside her - 6 feet away. I kept her up to date on each step we were doing, so she knew exactly what we were waiting on and the ETA for the next step.

Still didn't stop daily (sometimes twice daily) passive aggressive emails from her saying her printer still wasn't working. Then a few times a week she had to ask for a new printer. And every time I saw her in the office she had to bring them up again.

Since the printer was eventually fixed, she will associate her annoying emails with the problem being resolved, and will tell everyone else in the office that that's how you get what you want from the I.T. department.

# ¿ May 27, 2015 16:07

ponzicar: Mar 17, 2008

bitterandtwisted posted:

One of my jobs is managing the clients' backups. One client has had problems with incremental backups failing regularly, but working when you re-run them manually. I'd been trying to figure out the cause for a couple weeks with no success.
Anyway, I took a long weekend just now and a colleague took over the backups. He tried to do a chkdsk on it but somehow formatted the drive instead. The one with all the company data. With the dodgy backup record.

The previous day's backup was fine, thank gently caress, but it took all day to restore the server and the account manager for that client was not a happy bunny. Still, maybe this will sort the backup errors.

Chkdsk, fdisk, what's the difference?! :shrug:

# ¿ Jun 2, 2015 19:39

ponzicar: Mar 17, 2008

Merijn posted:

Watching that physically hurt. I'm not cut out for support I guess.

Imagine that it's an ancient piece of garbage that you need to spend hours fixing every other week, that your boss is too cheap to replace.

# ¿ Jun 30, 2015 15:52

ponzicar: Mar 17, 2008

larchesdanrew posted:

Jesus Christ this dumb son of a bitch I work for doesn't even know what version of office we're using. I finally wrest from him the login info for the 365 account and we're using business premium, not home. He's been telling me since he set it up that it's a home version. Now I look like an rear end in a top hat and he'll just say "I told you we were using a business account"

I can't, guys. I can't do this anymore. I can't even try to make this work while I look for another job. I'm going to have a stroke at 30 if this keeps up.

Happy Birthday to me

Are you sure he didn't secretly switch to business premium after you called him out?

# ¿ Aug 25, 2015 18:40

ponzicar: Mar 17, 2008

Make a big sign that says "ON LUNCH BREAK" and pin it to the outside of your cubicle.

# ¿ Sep 15, 2015 21:16

ponzicar: Mar 17, 2008

Gilok posted:

So, if you used guerillamail or something and anonymously blasted a detailed expose on everything your CE does to everyone in authority over him with photos and document proof, as well as, lets say, other competing tv stations and some people in your affiliate network, would it even accomplish anything? I imagine there must be enough other people who hate him that they couldn't definitely blame you right?

That level of detail would make it very obvious that he wrote it.

# ¿ Sep 15, 2015 23:52

ponzicar: Mar 17, 2008

Rhymenoserous posted:

Back when I was in webhosting I got yelled at because I walked down to the datacenter instead of running at a dead sprint when "Major issues were happening".

My response is that I got there a grand total of 30 seconds after your idiot rear end, I came up with a plan of action/list of things I wanted to look at on my way down, and your sitting there huffing for breath doing nothing while I'm ready to work. I don't see the use of throwing a big pile of mindless panic into the mix. I already know it doesn't help anything.

I'd also point out that plowing into someone/something while you're running to the datacenter in a blind panic is a great way to cause injuries and break things.

# ¿ Sep 16, 2015 18:05

ponzicar: Mar 17, 2008

tomapot posted:

A ticket came in: my headrest entertainment system is not working. Can you send someone to 30,000 feet ASAP, this is affecting (movie viewing) production.

Please tell me you at least work for that airline.

# ¿ Oct 5, 2015 18:36

ponzicar: Mar 17, 2008

tomapot posted:

No, just a traveler. After the reboot it never came back up. It did play the safety video though.

Ah, I thought you meant that someone else was on the plane, and expected you to fix it. Maybe I've been reading this thread too much.

# ¿ Oct 5, 2015 19:54

ponzicar: Mar 17, 2008

Do it as quickly as possible, smile, say "have a nice day", and then quickly leave. You shouldn't care what she thinks, and since you provided quick and excellent service, you aren't at fault.

# ¿ Oct 14, 2015 20:21

ponzicar: Mar 17, 2008

The CE gets a new haircut. On the back of his head you can faintly see the word "Buffalo".

# ¿ Oct 27, 2015 21:08

ponzicar: Mar 17, 2008

Does this church also do snake handling?

# ¿ Nov 2, 2015 17:55

ponzicar: Mar 17, 2008

J posted:

Maybe this guy just understands that "people don't want effective troubleshooting they want theater" thing you mentioned in another post. Blow away all the documentation and then run around in full view of everyone taking down information on printers as frantically as possible to impress a stupid boss.

If it was theater, he'd just pretend to do that, then use the documentation that already exists.

Maybe he was afraid that the documents would provide hard evidence that he's not as good as his predecessor?

# ¿ Nov 17, 2015 00:16

ponzicar: Mar 17, 2008

quote:

I know what station it is but I'm not telling (unless larches says it's OK).

It would probably be a bad idea, if there are still terrible goons who would harass the people mentioned in his stories or send the chief engineer a link to this thread, or do other bullshit like that.

# ¿ Nov 23, 2015 00:31

ponzicar: Mar 17, 2008

Segmentation Fault posted:

someone with the knowledge please write up Larches' saga

Hit the ? button below his avatar; you'll see just his posts in this thread.

# ¿ Nov 23, 2015 19:14

ponzicar: Mar 17, 2008

Deuce posted:

Tell them their buildings fire system is BROADCASTING AN IP ADDRESS.

I'd say a "hacker" triggering a few fire alarms would do the trick.

# ¿ Dec 1, 2015 02:47

ponzicar: Mar 17, 2008

Ozz81 posted:

You nuts? Electrical tape or shrink wrap will work just fine, no need for them fancy tools

Equipment like that costs money! Just have the intern wet his fingers, then hold one end of the cable in each hand.

# ¿ Dec 7, 2015 23:54

ponzicar: Mar 17, 2008

Buy him donuts, and share some CE stories with him. Well, do the donuts at least. If his resentment festers for too long, there will be nothing you can do.

# ¿ Jan 5, 2016 21:50

ponzicar: Mar 17, 2008

Call it "VoIP over IP" and piss everyone off at once.

# ¿ Jan 18, 2016 21:01

ponzicar: Mar 17, 2008

Was the stolen jewelry a gem encrusted skull by any chance?

# ¿ Jan 19, 2016 23:49

ponzicar: Mar 17, 2008

KillHour posted:

Why is someone with the title "Lead IT Solutions Delivery Architect" calling into the level 1 helpdesk asking for help connecting his iPhone to VPN? We don't even allow VPN for mobile devices.

Maybe that title is just a fancy way of saying that he drives a delivery truck?

# ¿ Feb 16, 2016 23:13

ponzicar: Mar 17, 2008

Agrikk posted:

"Returned or destroyed all copies..."

You should forward the email back to them, saying "here is your email back".

Then send it again saying, "hey! This appeared in my sent messages, so here is that copy as well."

Keep doing this.

Print out the email, put it through a paper shredder, then mail it back to them?

# ¿ Feb 20, 2016 23:18

ponzicar: Mar 17, 2008

To give him credit, I'm sure that signing up to be a secret agent, only to find yourself working as a junkyard's security guard would be a very funny movie or tv show plot.

# ¿ Mar 1, 2016 20:40

ponzicar: Mar 17, 2008

uPen posted:

He unplugged everything at his desk, setup his new laptop, plugged everything back in and couldn't figure out where the monitor's power cable went, traced it back to the monitor and called us.

My guess was component or composite, and that he was trying to connect it to a TV, but that's even better.

# ¿ Jul 21, 2016 23:02

ponzicar: Mar 17, 2008

nitrogen posted:

I'm in a fuckin' pod at this company, I really am.

I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop, but hope it doesn't drop for at least 8 years or so. (cuz then i get a sabbatical)

More pod evidence:
Vendor took most of the team out whale watching today.

Wrong kind of pod.

# ¿ Aug 19, 2016 03:29

ponzicar: Mar 17, 2008

larchesdanrew posted:

I'll set it for the director's cell phone and just never show up again

Don't you still have the Chief Engineer's cell number?

# ¿ Sep 2, 2016 03:15

ponzicar: Mar 17, 2008

Are you sure it's not a rare antique?

Also the words "used computer store" fill me with an unexplainable dread.

# ¿ Sep 23, 2016 02:01

ponzicar: Mar 17, 2008

Jaco posted:

Due to a series of terrible business decisions, I'm currently in the process of handing over the largest and most complicated system the company (~1500 people) has to a single person who's more than a bit simple, refuses to read either my or the vendor's documentation, and doesn't want to learn it.

The system is very niche, so you can't just google your problems; and heavily customised, so the vendor is often not particularly useful.

I leave in a week, and there will then be no-one there who knows how it works.

I see charging exorbitant consulting fees in your future.

# ¿ Oct 8, 2016 05:08

ponzicar: Mar 17, 2008

MF_James posted:

Same reason people do other dumb poo poo, they are dumb and don't think before acting.

Also possible that they have lovely managers who never communicate with them when legitimate visitors come to the office, and get mad at them when they ask questions.

# ¿ Nov 18, 2016 00:33

ponzicar: Mar 17, 2008

QuiteEasilyDone posted:

A Grenade rolled in under my desk...

Edit: Part owner of my company thought it would be funny to roll a decommissioned grenade under my desk.

That would be a seriously hosed up thing to do to a combat veteran.

# ¿ Dec 1, 2016 21:44

ponzicar: Mar 17, 2008

Nerdrock posted:

ask the director to go to the bathroom. when you return, proudly display a photo of your poo poo to them on your phone, to assure that you weren't just wasting time in there. hold a handwritten sign next to it with date / time.

Photos can be faked. Bring it to him in person in a ziplock bag.

# ¿ Feb 9, 2017 01:23

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# ¿ May 21, 2024 04:44

ponzicar: Mar 17, 2008

So that means you could narrow down the characters in the password if you look at enough keypad images?

# ¿ Aug 22, 2017 01:10

The Something Awful Forums > Archives > Comedy Goldmine > RE: A ticket came in: Did they take the printer into the shitters with them?

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