Silly Clients

Danger Phoenix said:
In my company we also have to log some issues with IT so that the issue can be recorded and escalated. I am helping test our XenDesktop system and had determined with the development and testing teams that the issue was with the firewall rules. Once the ticket was logged with all the necessary information I kept getting calls from the IT teams asking for the IP address of my Wyse terminal, and every time I refused to give it to them stating that they did not need it and that the ticket should be passed to the networks team. This went on for 2 weeks before I lost my patience and demanded that they either assign the ticket as it is or that I want their managers details so I can explain how they have broken all the SLAs we have by not following my instructions. Got resolved fairly quickly after that.
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So you were just being an unhelpful ass for no reason?

Are we supposed to sympathize?
 
Guru said:
Please can a passing mod change the title of the thread to "Silly Clients" instead of "Retard Clients" so people don't get their knickers in a twist about the title?

I've already said it was meant in jest.

Sick of it.

Thanks,

G
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Some people have retarded family members, its a bit insensitive. Same with fagit, some people have fagit's in their families.
 
A mate told me about this one client he had who was trying to print some documents off of a floppy disk.

He said he couldn't get anywhere with him over the phone because he kept saying it's printing out with a black circle in the middle of the page.

He visited the client only to find out that the guy had torn open the Floppy disk and took out the actual disk part and tried scanning it, expecting the scanner to find the file and print it.

----

A colleague once asked a very attractive client over the phone "what version of adobe are you wearing?"
 
I like it best when I ask for a screenshot of something and the users send me tiny screenshots embedded in a word document attached to an email, for some people its the only way it can be done, which is fine, except maybe when its your colleages in the IT department, and they dont know any other way to do it :(.

I had a good one the other day where i was trying to get a person who is outside my jurisdiction onto one of our terminal servers, their domain is a child of ours and so they just needed to prefix their domain name before the userid to get on, but she literally told me to shush when i tried to explain this, "I know what i'm doing" she said, i'm not sure what she ended up typing in, but she said no that didnt work, then told me she was going to try a username and password for a different system and when i said thats not going to work i was shushed again. Well i ummed and ahhed whilst trying to think of something to say that wasnt "look you idiot, listen to what i'm saying instead of assuming and talking over me" but i couldnt so i lied and said i'd need to check the backend lol. So i emailed her local IT guys, who popped round, and logged her in exactly the way i had told her to without a problem, to top it all off she replied to an email chain proclaming it was now sorted and she could login by doing it, you guess it, exactly the way i had told her to when she shushed me.. all the while this was happening my boss asked me a million times why it wasnt working, and didnt know what i meant when i said it was a picnic issue lol.
 
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bignev72 said:
So you were just being an unhelpful ass for no reason?

Are we supposed to sympathize?
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Actually I had done most of their work for them, and asked them to pass it onto third level to action. For some strange reason they wouldn't do it until I escalated. If anything they were making more work for themselves and delaying the resolution for absolutely no reason.

Providing the IP address for the Wyse wouldn't have helped anyone as that was nothing to do with the issue and would have confused third level even more.
 
Zuban said:
I like it best when I ask for a screenshot of something and the users send me tiny screenshots embedded in a word document attached to an email, for some people its the only way it can be done, which is fine, except maybe when its your colleages in the IT department, and they dont know any other way to do it :(.

I had a good one the other day where i was trying to get a person who is outside my jurisdiction onto one of our terminal servers, their domain is a child of ours and so they just needed to prefix their domain name before the userid to get on, but she literally told me to shush when i tried to explain this, "I know what i'm doing" she said, i'm not sure what she ended up typing in, but she said no that didnt work, then told me she was going to try a username and password for a different system and when i said thats not going to work i was shushed again. Well i ummed and ahhed whilst trying to think of something to say that wasnt "look you idiot, listen to what i'm saying instead of assuming and talking over me" but i couldnt so i lied and said i'd need to check the backend lol. So i emailed her local IT guys, who popped round, and logged her in exactly the way i had told her to without a problem, to top it all off she replied to an email chain proclaming it was now sorted and she could login by doing it, you guess it, exactly the way i had told her to when she shushed me.. all the while this was happening my boss asked me a million times why it wasnt working, and didnt know what i meant when i said it was a picnic issue lol.
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I can empathise with most of the issues the users mentioned in this thread have encountered. But users like the one mentioned above are pathetic.

Calling someone for help and then insulting them is not the way to get things done.


--


In IT, you often get issues reported to you that make you smile to yourself, but that's what your job is.
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Caged said:
Run it up the chain to your manager, it's what they are for. Frivolous complaints / outright lies will come back to bite your department even if it's just someone with some clout overhearing the complaints from the group in question. If your line manager knows then they can stamp that out.
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Nobody cares until someone dies and even then its hushed up by an assembly minister.

To be fair, the manager is as frustrated as I am, but being a 15 year veteran, hes given up trying to be the one who makes a difference, and who can blame him. If anyone blows the whistle, they can expect to be hung out to dry despite all the assurances under the sun.
 
(Entry: 1) Original Call - 17/03/2014 11:52:54
Max called because he can't get any excel documents to open on his machine at the moment.

(Entry: 2) Close - 17/03/2014 11:53:56
Max had two monitors plugged in and the Excel documents were showing up on the one he hadn't turned on.

Closing.

LOL
 
I was asked to go and sort somebody's WiFi out yesterday.
I asked where the Modem/router was and they pointed to a cupboard so I opened it up and saw a tower unit that just fitted inside with about 1/4" either side but still no Modem.
So I asked where it was and they had hid it behind the PC :D
Anyway I pulled it forward and asked them to try their WiFi upstairs and it was all now working.
HOWEVER, the woman wouldn't let me put the SuperHub on top of the 'computer desk' because it looked messy and said they would continue with awful WiFi.
 
Me: “Please can you disconnect the network cable from the machine for me”

Client “You don’t mean turn off the machine do you?”

Me: *facepalm*
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Then to make matters work she tried to make some small talk to change the subject....
Client: “So, did you watch any of the games over the last few days?”

Me (thinking): What the **** games do you mean...??

Client: “Like football or whatever other games there might have been on over the last few days or the weekend?”

Me: “No”

Client: “Me neither”

Me (thinking): “Cool story Ho”
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So me, being a silly client, calls our IT helpdesk. One of my PCs has a removable hard disk and the caddy is locked away overnight. I plug it in one morning and get POST beeps and error messages.

Me: I switch on the machine and get dumped at a BIOS screen reporting "IDE device failed"
IT helpdesk: Is this occurring after you log into windows?
Me: No, it's reported from the BIOS straight after power on.
IT: So it happens while windows is loading?
Me: No, it doesn't even try to load windows, it doesn't get that far. I think the disk has failed.
IT: Can I put you on hold?
<waits>
IT: OK, I've logged your call and someone will be in touch shortly.

We have an online system to track and update calls, so I go to look at that. It has been entered as "Windows reports 'IDE device failed'". She also managed to assign it to central IT for L2 support (which is no use on this particular network as it is isolated and only accessible on site). An "updated information" comment from me and the L2 guy correctly assigned it to local L2 support as "probably hardware failure."


Reminded me of a time a few years ago when another PC was failing POST. Beep beep beep and nothing on screen. The L1 (telephone) solution was to schedule my PC for a windows reinstall. Fortunately, I got the local L2 to have a look before that was done and they found a dodgy RAM stick.
 
Sheesh. Was the 1st Line in that company outsourced, per chance?

Even if it isn't/wasn't, it's what happens when larger companies end up with sprawling ICT departments. First line support filled with people as clueless (or even more clueless) than the people calling them.

*shudder*
 
I got told by our IT helpdesk that I needed to call my ISP as they think they'd blocked VPNs on the line. I was like, no, you're wrong. I connect to VPNs all the time it's just this machine, on this work vpn. Definitely your ISP... No. It's not. You are wrong.

They were wrong.
 
Pestilence said:
Sheesh. Was the 1st Line in that company outsourced, per chance?

Even if it isn't/wasn't, it's what happens when larger companies end up with sprawling ICT departments. First line support filled with people as clueless (or even more clueless) than the people calling them.

*shudder*
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I have no idea why we even have a 1st line (outsourced). No matter how much education we provide these people (they are not on site so we give them a rather lengthy rope because they don't have site knowledge) simply cannot seem to log a call without 2nd line intervention.

"Marks computer is not working, please can you have a look".

Who is Mark, what department is he in and what does "computer is not working" mean? Basic 1st line triage that they simply cannot ever get right.
 
IT departments have staff just as bad. Like the fact I was asked to provide a screen shot of a problem I had with a back office system I have NO access to holding my incorrect email address, despite the fact I told them twice I had no access to be able to provide a screenshot, so they said they were going to close the case because I hadn't provided a screen shot......

Or the one who kept telling me that because I am on a certain domain that I work for a certain division of the business which I do not and never have worked for and them asking me if I was sure I didn't work for it because only people from that part are on that domain (which is not true). I think I know where I work.....
 
Dimple said:
I like how this thread has turned into having a go at the IT Departments
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Some of them deserve it :p

I don't have clients as such, nor do we have an IT department (I'm the IT guy pretty much in the business)

I remember one time, the kettle leads have little labels on them (So monitor was on the kettle lead).

We were moving some PC's over, and my supervisor said he could do his himself.

Anyway, he calls me in to the back office and says his monitor isn't turning on.

I asked if he's plugged it in, he pointed to the kettle lead which said monitor on it. (This kettle lead was in the PC's PSU, the monitor I don't think think was plugged into anything :p)

I walked out to collect myself.
 
What I've garnered from this thread is that my NHS trust are backward-compatibility whores!

Every machine I've ever used (including new Dell laptops) have Windows XP. Even when the OEM badge clearly shows the machine shipped with 7/8.... Windows XP is there.

I don't know how much longer I can take IE 6 running in compatibility mode :mad:
 
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