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Tech Stories Archives - August 2001
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1.
Beckles now knows DLL!!!!!!
Come on guys! I feel terrible for starting such an attack on someone I don't even now. Look she didn't know what a .dll was but shit I garauntee she'll never make that slip again. She'll be haveing nightmares until 2010. Let's move on to some real fun-lets bash Gates! Maybe our lazy ass bosses! Or piss ourselves over some of our nutcase customers like the dyslexic I had tonight who insisted on giving me a sob story about how she could only read her serial number- phone number and full address to me backwards in order to get it right! Which she did! Go figure... 2001-08-01 By:aliek@t[By: aliek@t / 2001-08-01]
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2.
My bad..
Obviously I didn't know what DLL files were, but you can't really expect someone to know something they were never taught. Since I was never taught about them, I took my own advice and looked online and asked around about DLL files. I now realize my mistake over something I had said. An ISP can screw up the OS, and an ISP can get into the DLL files to mess with them, but that's usually just with AOL. So I realize I did make a mistake, but I learned something from it atleast. 2001-08-01 By:Beckles[By: Beckles / 2001-08-01]
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3.
Cruelty to Computers
This guy called from a city about 120 miles from my call center, and I was ready to drive down there and take it away from him. To summarize, he had intermittent trouble with illegal operations online, and the system runs slower than it did when he bought it "about two or five years ago." I told him to log on so we could recreate the error he complained about. I am typing furiosly, documenting that he didn't have the errors written down, so I'm going to make him get a few and call back, hopefully when his wife or kids are home, when he says, "OK, I'm clicking and nothing happened. That's what I mean! This computer is too slow!" I can hear clickaclickaclicka in the background for two seconds as he pumps the mouse, then a clattering sound and the fan winding down.
ME: What did you just do?
HIM: I unplugged it. That's how you have to deal with it when it goes so slow. This last month I always have to shut this computer off. And if I try to turn it on, it always takes forever to come back on. Sometimes it can take a whole hour!
ME: Turn it back on and DON'T TOUCH ANYTHING UNLESS I TELL YOU TO!!!! Tell me what you see on each screen as it comes on.
Yep, that would be a surface scandisk on boot. There were bad clusters everywhere, and even though I told him not to touch it, he unplugged it again! I yelled at him to leave it alone and took great pleasure in explaining that he broke the computer all by himself and furthermore, that since he can't follow simple instructions he could wait until his wife comes home and she can help us try to fix it. Some people! If the tech tells you not to touch anything, DON'T!!!!! 2001-08-01 By:ladysethos[By: ladysethos / 2001-08-01]
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4.
Life at home
Okay, this isn't directly related to a call, but it's still scary. Last week I was helping a guy reseat a card, and he had some kind of corrosion on the contacts. It sounded like all his cards had this scummy coating on the pins. We got it cleaned off, but I mentioned this to my husband when I got home because it was strange. He immediately starts sniggering and says ha! a SCSI (scuzzy) card! I don't know what's scarier, that he knew this, or that I laughed. 2001-08-01 By:ladysethos[By: ladysethos / 2001-08-01]
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5.
Stop crying in my ear!!
I can't understand how people can call tech support when there is obviously some kind of personnal crisis going on in the backgroud. I got a call a while back and this guys baby was SCREAMING at the top of it's little lungs. And I could hear every blood curtling decible of it through the line. Normally the issue we were dealing with should have taken 15 minutes to fix, but this call lasted 45 minutes!! I kept having to recollect my thoughts every time the kid started screeching. I would litterally forget what we were doing. Needless to say I took and nice long relaxing break after that one. 2001-08-01 By:Chadius[By: Chadius / 2001-08-01]
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6.
Code Red Dummy
I heard this call awhile ago. EU called worried about the Code Red worm/virus and wanted to know if it was in her system. (Thank God for th MUTE button!!) After asking iif she had opened an infected email, the usual tblshoot b.s., user said she didn't have it she heard about it on the radio this morning!! Then her very next question was "Is it safe to work offline?" Tech: Umm, YES! and she hung up. After that we all had a good laugh. If it was that easy to get a virus just by hearing it on the radio...our phones would NEVER stop ringin'. ::Shaking head at the stupidity of some people:: 2001-08-01 By:techienewbie[By: techienewbie / 2001-08-01]
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7.
Even the brightest ones amaze me!!
I am a student tech at a university vet hospital. I got a call today from a Doctor who couldn't get his cd burner to work. This doctor has three U.S. patents and is an intelligent person. So I was rather surprised to find a clear plastic cd spindle cover in the drive upon my inspection! I couldn't break his confidence by informing him of the blunder. But the moment I left his office I got a good laugh from it! 2001-08-03 By:techstudent[By: techstudent / 2001-08-03]
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I had to do a Network job out at a local Doctor's office another supposed medical genius. One of things I did out at his office was help the idiot setup his new Dell Laptop (He paid 3500 for this thing) and he could barely turn it on. On top of that he bought a 1500 Digital camera, scanner, PDA, wireless and cellular LAN equipment. That job was actually fun; because all I did was play with all his toys @ 99.00 per hour. I'm sure he probably still hasn't figured everything out yet. -Viper
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8.
Brilliant Network Engineer
Just last week I get this guy "claiming to be a network engineer" who decides right away he "Knows more than I do" about his internet conection and that my ISP is blocking him, becuase he spent a toatl of 18 hours with tech support and he has personally done registry fixes for page cannot be displayed errors, he says he performed a ping test and is able to ping everything fine, so he assumes his browser is all goofed up, so of course he re-installs it. Keeps balming us for him not being able to get online, but the one thing this genuis never checked was that his homepage was set to www.exitw.com instead of www.exicte.com and never attempted another website do to the fact he "Knows" We are blocing him. briliant guy, spend 18 hours on the issue. my call with him was 20 minutes long. 19 of which were him rambling. 2001-08-03 By:clownorg[By: clownorg / 2001-08-03]
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I've often wondered - some of the people know so much more than us, then why are they calling for the help that we are getting paid for providing... -derangedlunatech
Thw thing that always got me...is if you are such a "Super Admin" why are you calling support. And if I was so incompetent as an administrator, I definitely wouldn't call up tech support and brag about my skills. What bugs me is that those people for the most part made 15-20K more a year than I did. -Viper
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9.
Ironic
It's pretty amusing the number of people who call in worried that their Windows 95 machine has contracted CodeRed [snicker] when what's in their email right now is Magistr and Sircam, and what's infected their machine without them realizing it is KAK. More amusing was the tech who told a customer that the reason her Win95 computer was moving slowly was because of CodeRed -- not the BonziBuddy (see BBSpot.com's latest Horoscope, the one about your mother setting the world's record for having 216 Tray icons). 2001-08-04 By:mushroom[By: mushroom / 2001-08-04]
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10.
The Traveler
<me>: thank you for calling ... <traveler>: how can I get this flashing light on my DSL modem to stop flashing? <me>: well, I hear a buzzing tone in the background, so I believe that there might be filters missing from the telephones. <traveler>: so, because I left the filters at home, do you think I can connect if I unplug all the phones in my hotel room? <me>: ergh. 2001-08-06 By:error650[By: error650 / 2001-08-06]
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11.
How screwed can you get?
Woman is getting 630 - Hardware Failure error. Okay, after rebooting, we go to the Modem control panel. I'm glad I was sitting down. FROM NOTES: [ PCMCIA (and) IBM PS1 Internal Faxmodem (two, and) LT WinModem (4 times), Standard 300 (several), Standard 1200 (one dozen), Standard 9600 (several), Standard standard (a couple). ] No less than two dozen modems listed. First, remove all the Standards. Diagnostics tab now -- COM1 - LTWin; COM2 - IBM, PCMCIA, LTWin2/3/4; LPT1 - IBM#2. Yeah, I'd like to see you connect on your printer port... COM1 was the only one gave any response at all, so that one LTWinModem was it. Now, how did all that shite get there?! 2001-08-07 By:mushroom[By: mushroom / 2001-08-07]
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Good question, I always wonder how a user can get so many modems that they don't even have! -Hawk
from my experiences, multiple installations of generic drivers usually come from someone trying to fix the problem themselves, and trying various drivers.....Although sometimes it can come from glitches in Windows (I know that it's hard to believe Windows has any glitches...) -derangedlunatech
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12.
Not speaking to everyone, just to certain people who know who they are....
Sorry to piss off the all knowing tech support people who never make mistakes. Obviously, I don't know it all, frankly I don't care! I'm going to school to get my career taken care of and this is just a job. Actually I wish all of you the best of luck and hope you have a little more patience for the people who don't know it all, because someday you will have to get help from someone who knows more than you, and won't it make you feel stupid and rejected to know everyone thinks you are a moron when you don't know something *SO* simple. *smooch* 2001-08-07 By:Beckles[By: Beckles / 2001-08-07]
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It's just funny. Don't take it so serious. I laugh at myself when I pull a boner. -Rabbit
what is this highschool?? -Thelazer
Lazer - Never been in a call center? :) -Mushroom
More to the point, Rabbit, I should just warn you that pulling a 'boner' has a totally different meaning in the UK, and as such laughing when you do this is not a good idea......:D -DaBean
People who think they know it all really irritate those of who do. -atomicbill
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13.
Reply to Cedric-
Cedric- Please check out Beckles message board. I diserve the rant but I fear you may not know the whole story because many of Becks' message boards have been cleared. Yeah- the fun is gone. 2001-08-08 By:aliek@t[By: aliek@t / 2001-08-08]
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14.
E-mail, what is it with e-mail?
You know, e-mail is great, don't get me wrong. But some people... ME: <speal for ISP> Cust: My e-mail isn't working, and hasn't been for two whole days, and I've talked to YOU PEOPLE 3 times now(like it matters to me). ME: How's your connection right now? Are you surfing? Cust: On right now, but no e-mail. ME: What error message are you getting? Cust: 2001-08-10[By: computerdoc / 2001-08-10]
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The error was...? -Mushroom
If your story got cut off because of the double quote bug, just e-mail me the complete story and I will fix it. Thanks -Hawk
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15.
Where not to work
Let me just warn you guys.. DO NOT.. DO NOT work for Adelphia support there cable modem service.. You will regert it.. big time.. I do, heck I want to go drinking right now and I am still at work.. I want to start drinking BEFORE I come to work.. Hell, I don't even want to work, just drink! It's that bad.
Here is why.
Me: 2001-08-10[By: Thelazer / 2001-08-10]
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Why? (Do I detect a bug in the wares?) -Mushroom
Well, you could always ask them if they are using a motorola 4100 then refer them to Motorola. 9 out of 10 cable providers do that now, and it gives us the chance to listen to the tech war stories from the customer perspective. -Parracomb
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16.
To all ISP techies...
Look guys - many of you are good. Many unfortunately aren't. If a customer can't connect to your service, thier UART # is NOT the cause of he problem - especially when they are running a winmodem...So please quit sending them to me to upgrade thier UART chip..... 2001-08-10[By: derangedlunatech / 2001-08-10]
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I don't know anyone who suggests a new UART, though have seen some people screw with the buffers in Windows for some unknown reason. It's the folks who toss random init strings that get my goat. -Mushroom
Well Mushroom - as a guy working for a *major* modem manufacturer - I would say we get about 10 calls per day for UARTS. Mostly from large and known to be poorly supported ISP's *cough*AOL*cough* -derangedlunatech
Considering that pretty much every modem made since 1998 is using the same spiffy UART then what's the deal? Unless someone says they're on a 9600, they shouldn't be saying that. -Mushroom
Well, it seems that some winmodems (ours included) report a lower UART in the modem properties - so we have ISP techs that see an 8520 UART and say "Oh, you need to get an upgraded UART chip" - not realizing (or caring?) that it is a winmodem, and the UART is emulated... -derangedlunatech
Just so you know, derangedlunatech, I only ever take issue with the UART if there is nothing else that I can see - including checking the ports for signs of damage, telling them to call back when they have a cable they know works, reinstalling the modem, reinstalling DUN/Networks, etc.
UARTs tend to be a lst resort for me, adn even then I dont like to do it without trying at least five init$.
Just so you know :D -DaBean
Fair enough, Bean - and I guess I should say that it's NEVER a problem - but I've never seen an honest case where it was. But again - I see it alot on WinModems, where there isn't a UART - and like mushroom said, anything sold in the last 5 or 6 years is either a winmodem, or has a 16550 (or better) UART... As for our end - we just test them in Hyperterminal to a known reliable BBS, and if they connect and exchange data, we send them right back to you guys, with firm instructions that "We showed you the modem works, make them make their service work..." -derangedlunatech
WTF is a UART? -dylan
This is obviously a typo: The word begins with an "F" - not a "U" - and can often be found in call centers after the dinner break. -deltree/y -deltree/y
That just wasn't right....lol -derangedlunatech
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17.
UART we art
was reminded by the UART gripe: One tech here insists every problem can be solved with an init string. He once jumped my shit for not giving this woman one since he was the second tech to talk to her, to the point of accusing me of shit-teching. Turns out the POP was discontinued, so we were both wrong. He smiled, I gave him the finger. 2001-08-13[By: Mushroom / 2001-08-13]
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Mmmmm - init strings are a favorite too - if you're gonna send someone to me for a string, at least tell the customer what the modem needs to do. Not much I can do when they call and say "My ISP says I need an init string" - but my custoemr can't tell me what you guys need the string to do.... -derangedlunatech
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18.
All changes but stays the same....
Well, since june I have not been doing ISP support - I've been on BT Answer helldesk duty. But the legend of ISP support lives on...BTA stutters the dial tone on occasion, which can sod up a connection as we all know. So accasionally, if one of these comes thru adn sounds like a decent enough charactyer, I'll set it up for them, cos I'm so damned nice. But the levels of stupidity are immense. Alas my manager has also changed...no longer the lovely laydee it once was...boo!2001-08-13[By: DaBean / 2001-08-13]
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Nice to see you again DaBean, your one funny dude! -Hawk
I prefer to think its the sociopathic tendenies returning. :D -DaBean
Dabean, did you work for BTI in manchester? -gorf99
I had some painful experiences with the CallMinder helpdesk... every time I phoned to report a fault, they spotted that I'd reported the same fault 5 days in a row and every time someone had marked it as 'resolved'. Told the friendly tech to try phoning the number and see what happened. Got problem fixed and a nice £50 rebate within 12 hours :) -smellystudent
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19.
Straight Outta CompUSA
MUSH: Thank you for calling [isp], this is Mushy, may I have your email address please? . . . CUST: Hi, I'm in the Control Panel, clicking on System. Now I'm clicking on the Device Manager tab, and the plus sign in front of Ports. There's a mouse listed here, so I'm clicking on that then clicking the Properties button. [MUSH thinks, `oh my gawd, what are you wearing? take it off, you are making me so wet!`] I'm going to Resources. I have 12, what should it say here? . . . MUSH: Uh, it depends upon the computer's setup. Why are you looking at the resources anyway? CUST: So now I'm going into the Modem listing and I have [model], I hit Properties and go to resources and it says 10. What should it say? . . . MUSH: Again, it depends upon the computer. Why are you looking this stuff up, are you able to get online? . . . CUST: Yes, I can connect okay, but once I'm connected my mouse stops working. I asked a guy at CompUSA what causes that, and he said something about my IRQ's [you know this EU hasn't any idea what that means, though giving credit the CompUSA guy was correct]... what should they be and how can I change them? [MUSH thinks, `Let's not go there.`] 2001-08-13[By: Mushroom / 2001-08-13]
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I found the error: It doesn't like double-quotes. Now we know! -Mushroom
Yeah I think it did not like double quotes anywhere, I screwed up on the 3rd submission page when I was passing variable, I did a stripslashes, but did not do an htmlspecialchars encode, thanks Mush -Hawk
Double quotes have sod all to do with the IRQ boys ;).
I'm playing, but IRQs are always fun. I say shoot all the tubes who cant set a computer up correctly, apart form us techies of course :D -DaBean
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20.
Install the internet
Sub got a new PC and sez she "put the internet into it, but now it won't work." I tried to resist, but had to ask "Did it fit?" She said, "Yeah, I got it all in there, but it won't work." We configured her PC and rebooted, but still showed no connection. About this time she stated that she hadn't really connected ALL of the cables and wanted to know "Do we need this thingy thing at the modem?" I explained that the only way she could get the internet to really work was to connect the thingy thing so that the other parts of the internet could visit her computer instead of being trapped in her old computer. Connected the cable from the modem to the PC and all was fine in dummy land.2001-08-13[By: deltree/y / 2001-08-13]
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She must have been owned a D*ll -Grembo
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