Category: Today at work

At work, I’m on the Action Committee (can’t you just hear the capital letters?) One of the more pleasant duties is organizing events. One of them was a ‘fun stuff day’, and it fell today. Main feature was a bungee run – Great fun! Free cotton candy, free hot dogs, a food drive, karaoke and prize draws. No major hitches thanks to myself and a dozen volunteers. We all done gooood. (Yes! 4 ‘o’ good!) – This committee stuff is fun. I likey organizee thingees.

I also liked supervising the bungee run, though my head and butt would disagree. So would my scraped back and elbows, whiplash neck and banged up knees. The further you go, the faster you snap back. Ouch.

Between photographing the runners and laughing my man-boobs off, I encouraged people to jump on and have fun by demonstrating it myself. Think Karaoke, right? So as well as making sure people strap into their harnesses properly and have no sharp objects on them, you run the gauntlet yourself. This demonstrates how much fun it is (and it really is). After a couple hours, though, it can start to hurt! 🙂

Anyhoo, the highlight of this particular event was the guy that informed me I was wearing my padded helmet the wrong way around. It should, he informed me to the great amusement of his laughing buddies, cover my face and cheeks, I should see a ‘T’ when wearing it. Not a big hole where my face was, because that would hurt if someone punched me. Instead of punching HIM, I agreed and laughed along. I checked his harness, and we raced. ran forward then flew backward, which is, after all, the main point of this exercise.

My friends’ correctly positioned helmet protected his face and cheeks from a punch exceedingly well. However. Bungee runs pull you back. Very, very fast. The gentleman in question had the good grace to agree with me that wearing padding at the back of your head makes much more sense under these circumstances. We smiled, shook hands and he went away clutching his head, much to my amusement and that of his buddies and the assembled crowd.

I might wear a padded helmet, but I’m no idiot.

Guy calls in today. He spoke with my buddy an hour earlier. Said he didn’t quite understand things, so I happily went through everything again from the beginning. The case notes were quite clear, buddy had already done this, and emailed step-by-step instructions. With diagrams. It became clear this guy was not having trouble following the instructions. He just didn’t bother listening or reading the email.

He confirmed he received it, but said “Oh, I haven’t opened it yet.” He was still running the wrong disc, the computer was hooked up wrong, he had not set a restore point or done any prep work. He had done nothing. Nada. Niente. Just called back in.

If only he had opened that email, I was thinking.

I know this guy could read OK, because he read from his screen to me without difficulty, and he was not deaf, judging by our conversation. This sometimes is the case so naturally we are sensitive to it. Not this guy. My buddy before me did everything possible to make this easy. And I repeat everything. Again. He still didn’t get it, and I quickly realise, he is not listening to me either. I know this, because when you ask someone to open a command prompt and they restart the computer instead, it’s a bit of a give away. When you ask why they did it and he replies “Didn’t you ask me to?” it kind of confirms it.

Buddy and I are good at what we do. Neither had any success. Now, colour me crazy but I figure if you spend a morning talking to tech support, you may as well listen. Or open the email. Or listen. Or open the email. Or listen.

I guess it was a personal pilgrimage for him. I checked the notes a couple hours later. He had called in again. Four times now. The notes showed another buddy jumped through the same hoops. He still had not opened the bloody email. It saddened me. I wonder how many times this caller stuck a fork in his eye before he learned how to eat without pain.

Or did his wife just say ‘Screw it’ and stick a cork on the end for him?

“I can see my server from 6 other computers but not from this one. What’s wrong with the server?”
“Nothing. It’s your PC. Get the hell off my phone.”

“I set up a web site on this server. What do I type into Internet Explorer to get there?”
“The name of the web site you registered. Get the hell off my phone.”

“My PC won’t backup to the server. What’s wrong with it?”
“Is your PC running OK?”
“No, I lost this and the TV when we got hit by lightning. It won’t start, that’s why I want to back it up.”
“Just get the hell off my phone.”

These are some of the things I wanted to say today. But didn’t.

Girl calls in today, very pleasant, obviously intelligent and a pleasure to talk to. After the preliminaries, got down to business.
“How can I help?”
“I can’t connect to my server anymore. Was alright yesterday.”
“Let’s see if we can fix this for you. Let me get some details.” Checked the basics, power, fans, lights: Server and PC both OK.
“Maybe it’s just a network problem. Is the server connected straight to the router or do you have switches and stuff?”
“Er…to the router…?”
“OK, what about the PC? Is that connected to the router as well?”
“Oh, no. That’s connected straight to the Internet.”
“OK.” I didn’t bat an eyelid, just went with it. “Does the Internet have any flashing lights right now?”
“No. Should it?”
“Yes. Can you check the power cable?”
“Oh! Wait. Yes! The cable was out. Wait…there are all kinds of flashing lights now. It’s not going to blow up is it?” – nervous laughter.
“Haha, I don’t think so, you should be safe enough. Give it 30 seconds and try to get into the server…can you?”
“I got right in! That’s great!”
“Glad to help! Anything else I can do for you while I have you on the phone?”
“Well now you mention it yes. I haven’t been able to get my email all morning. I think it’s broken.”
“……….”

If you are going to clean the office, don’t unplug the Internet so you can use the outlet for the vacuum. Or if you do…plug it back in when you’re done. Always check the basics 😉

I provide IT tech support for an unnamed Fortune 500 company. Don’t ask who, I won’t say. If you know me then you already know and if you don’t it doesn’t matter. More important are confidentiality and professionalism and all that good stuff, plus weird as it may seem I kinda like working there: I can only comment obliquely about work matters. I’m going to showcase actual events in here under the “Today at work” heading as they arrive, with the above considerations. Irregularly, but frequently, every one the honest truth so help me Santa. Just to vent and highlight the often ridiculous. It may get a little geeky so if you see the above tag line you can choose to skip it. Or not, if you’re a geek too.

Sample one:

Client:     This go$^%mm mother*$&ki#g sonofabi*@ is a total piece of shit! Why the hell did I buy it?

Me:           I have no idea sir, and by the way, Good morning.