Tales of Frustration in Tech Support - What are your stories?

I have a semi good one. FOr a month now we have sent out emails to our firm telling everyone that the weekend of the 6th of June, we would be turning off the servers while we re-cable the server room. That means no email, no connectivity to databases, nothing. It's off.

So there I am on Saturday and one of our remote employees calls from Waco and I'm thinking, "If she says I cannot get email, I'm going to scream." Well it wasn't that. It was better!

She decided to tell me the first thing that people love to do when you are working on a Saturday for maintenance reasons. "Hi! I know you are really busy, but I have a question." Translation: "I know you are busy, but my problem is more important than anything you could possibly be doing, though at the end of it all, it will likely pan out that it's not that big of an issue."

Well, this didn't disappoint. She wanted help with getting rid of Vundo off her computer. Not her work computer, her home computer.

Again, she knew we were working on basically the nerve center of the firm, and decided to call up and get free tech support on her personal computer.


Honestly, the lack of consideration of people these days is astounding. I work in an accounting firm so already I'm surrounded by OCD folks already, but it's like if it were the middle of tax season and I ask them to borrow a pen they go nuts and say they are busy, yet when we are trying to work on the nerve center of the whole organization, they don't think we are too busy working in the server room to help you out with your itty bitty malware problem.

There is a time and a place people and that wasn't one of them.


So what are your stories?

 

Any virus story you can come up with, i went through. Damn email blacklists man, i hate them so much. Trying to deal with it during business hours! ahhhh!


On a lighter note, i once had a student with a laptop unplug the cat5 from a network printer and try to get something printed. I was called down because "this should work. you need to fix this." silly human.

 

In moments like this, Vulcan Arrogance is perfect to employ.

 

my best one was at a "think tank" organisation in Austin, I mean literally rocket scientist types. This lady calls me for some issue she was having (don't even remember the issue after all these years) & since everything on my support stuff was sorted by laptops & desktops, I asked what she had. She replied she had a desktop, so I'm looking thru all the PCs on my remoting program & can't find it.....finally I see it IS a laptop, I calmly relplied to her; "oh, I see it's a laptop you actually have"...she replies back screaming; "I'M A GD F****** PHD!!!!!!!! IT'S SITTING ON MY DESK, IT'S A GD DESKTOP" then hangs up

ran into her in the cafeteria a couple of weeks later, she apopologized & bought me lunch

 

Ouch, sounds pretty rough, for sure! I will think long and hard before I call my ISP for trivial questions... :-D It will have to be very important, for sure:-D

 

You can be sure they might have a little laugh over the trivial questions! But thats what keeps us employed.

 

Mine come from the other side of the coin. Whenever I call my ISP, I've already cleared my cache and cookies, rebooted my machine, power-cycled the cable modem, and often I've done a hard reset on the modem. If I hadn't done all that, I would not have called them, because 90% of the time one or more of those things will have fixed the problem.

They never believe me.

The last time I called, I explained that I had no lights on the modem except power and PC, and that ipconfig showed I did not have an IP address. Not only did the person I was talking to not know what ipconfig was, he made me start at the beginning of the flow chart rather than bumping me up to a senior tech who had perhaps seen a computer before.

Twenty minutes later, after jumping through all the hoops, I finally get transferred. It takes the senior tech approximately twelve seconds to tell me there was a major storm to my South and their lines got taken out.

 

Thats similar to my story :-D

We had a bad lightening storm and the power went out, when it came back on I couldn’t connect to the internet.. tried everything I knew and still no luck, so I decided to call my ISP.

This is basically how the conversation went:

Tech: hello, blah blah what can I help you with today?
Me: hi, I cant connect to the internet, we had a power surge and I think my modem is broken, I just want to see if its connected on your side.
Tech: Have you tried resetting your modem?
Me: Yes, I’ve (lists the things I tried). I think the modem is broken.
Tech: well, lets try it again anyway.
Me: *sighs* Fine (I tried it)
Tech: Does it work now?
Me: No, listen, I think me modem is broken. I just want to see if its connected on your side because if its not they it might not be the modem.
Tech: (completely ignoring me) Well lets try this. Unplug the modem and switch the cable around with another cable.
Me: I’ve tried that already.
Tech: We’ll lets try it again.
(after spending like 15 minutes on the phone doing things I already did.. we run out of options)
Tech: Are you connected yet?
Me: No.
Tech: Well… you are connected on this side, so I think.. I think your modem is broken.

 

We have an HP plotter here at the office that went on a tangent a few months ago, time and again it was the same problem, but when you call support, they want you to do everything they tell you to..

Finally I wrote down everything they asked me to do one day, and the next time I called them I listed everything I had already done, and told them this was an ongoing problem, if they wanted this stuff done for sure, they'd have to send a tech to make sure I was doing it right, obviously there was a problem.

They did end up sending someone the next day, and while they were setting up the call, they asked if there was a pass phrase at the front desk to use (they must deal with some interesting companies.) so I told them to ask for me, and tell the secretary that a one legged hippo never hatched an egg.. Oh My Gosh, I left the secretary in the dark, and it was stupid funny.

They came back a time or two after that, but never bought the pass phrase thing again. Oh well. LOL

 

It would seem that tech support has a number of levels from idiot to super geek.

I have not had cause to call my ISP for a while now (about a year,touches wood) but i think the first line of support techs have a list of things that must first be done before you get to the next level and they are blinkered to the fact you tell them "i have already done these things" you would be led to think they are not allowed to let you speak to a real tech untill you complete the test.
I have been very lucky that my problems have been small and only once in 5 years has the engineer had to call and that was because their installation was at fault.
I can normally stumble through with help from MGs.

I have a great deal of respect for the people who listen to some of the silly thing customer must say and still remain calm.

 

I win

 

that one is good.

Mine is a special kind of hell mixed with motc7's wonderful tale.

I came into work on a Saturday to do some personal items and to rewire the rat's nest that is the switch panel for the server room. Soon I get a phone call complaining about a lack of email service and since I expected it, I said that the email would be back up in a few minutes.

Said person then decides to DEMAND that I come over to their house to fix their personal computer which has become infested with viruses and malware. I said that there was pretty much no way I was going to comply with said demand and if they brought the personal computer in, I would, should the mood strike me, look at the computer during off hours and try to fix it. The caller begins a tirade about how this is totally unacceptable and restates the demand for me to fix the email immediately then do onsite tech support at their house. Now since this is happening on my personal cell phone, I pretty much tell the person to pound sand and hang up on them.

2 days later I am reprimanded for not being responsive to tech support requests and was given a line itemized list of things that I needed to address.



When people ask me how I am at work, I tell them I am living the dream.









I leave off the fact that the dream has become a nightmare that I wish I could wake up from :-D

 

dude you give users your cell phone number!?:eek

I would have been like, ok ill come over. my going rate is $70/hour + $25 flat for travel + another $30 flat since its on a Saturday. make some cash out of the deal.

 

I did not give out my cell phone number at all.

My boss did.

And I am not allowed to charge employees of the company for fixing their computers. It is considered a conflict of interest.

 

there is some real winners in there

 

Oh, Tim! I don't think I would have the patients for malware, for sure! :banghead
I read your link, and must ask: how do you do it, and keep your mind? :eek

Noooo, none of that for me!

 

Your computer wont do what you want, it will only do what you tell it

 

I was always told a computer is only as good as the operator.

If you put :crap in :crap comes out.

 

Tech support Ha! once long aga i had the flip virus, sent for the techie, he grinned dont know turned the monitor over and advised me to buy a big mirror