Users are awesome.

Discussion in 'The Lounge - Off Topic' started by Qs, Aug 12, 2009.

  1. Qs

    Qs Semi-Honorary Member Gold Member

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    This morning, a user comes down saying that their laptop isn't working.

    User: My laptop just stopped working all of a sudden.
    Me: Ok...

    [I try to turn on the laptop, but get nothing]
    [I take out the battery and notice a brown liquid inside]
    [I wipe off the battery, and switch the laptop back on]
    [Laptop has power but nothing displays on the screen]


    User: Oh, it's got power now!
    Me: Yep, but no display.
    Me: ...Any idea what the liquid was on the battery.
    User: Oh, I've just spilt a cup of tea on it.
    Me: :blink

    [Momentary pause]

    Me: I'll have to take it away and see if I can dry it off properly, but I don't know if it's fixable.
    User: Any idea how long it will take to resolve? I have important work to do.
    Me: ...:dry

    [Silence]

    Me: ...No.
    User: Oh, ok.

    I then proceeded to spend twenty minutes in the disabled loos drying off the laptop with the hand-dryer until it worked again.


    Ugh. I hope this day gets better soon.

    Qs
     
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  2. JK2447
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    JK2447 Petabyte Poster Administrator Premium Member

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    Users, you gotta love em. One evening I had to tell this guy over the phone, seriously somthing like 8 times, that he had to put his pin in then the number on his secure ID fob to remote in from home. I'm pretty sure he's a smart guy too, one of our solicitors I think. Insane :eek:
     
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  3. Kitkatninja
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    Kitkatninja aka me, myself & I Moderator

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    We've had laptops back to us that has, we assume, fallen in the bath (due to the amount of water in the battery compartment, laptops that have been run over by the same persons car, screens cracked down teh middle because they left a pen on the laptop and shut the lid hard... etc, etc, etc...

    I just love them to death :twisted::devilflam

    -Ken
     
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  4. UKDarkstar
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    UKDarkstar Terabyte Poster

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    Yep, used to get stuff like that regularly. I remember one that went :

    Customer : Can you come in please or send an engineer - we can't print

    Me :Ok, who can't print ?

    Customer :No-one can print

    Me :Oh, is the network still working ? You have access to the internet, email files etc ?

    Customer :Oh yes, we just can't print

    Me :You have about 40 network printers there. Are you telling me that none of them work ?

    Customer :Yes, hold on - the MD wants a word with you

    Me (apprenhensively) :err, OK

    Customer (MD) :Can you just come in now please and sort this printer mess

    Me :Sure, it's no problem. I was just trying to establish what had happened

    Customer (MD) :It's me. I logged on to the server and deleted all the printer drivers so now we can't print. Never mind the cost, just get here pronto. Can you try not to let the staff know it was my fault ?

    Me (grinning inside) :Sure, be happy to help. Be there in 10 minutes and we'll invoice today too :biggrin


    Aah, those were the days ! :p
     
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  5. zebulebu

    zebulebu Terabyte Poster

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    I once project managed a chip & pin rollout for a UK supermarket. Got promoted from leading an engineering team to managing them so knew the horror stories about till points first hand. Best one I came across personally was backfilling a team leader one night in a store in Central London. this store had only been open eighteen months but was - by far - the filthiest store I'd ever set foot in. Whilst I was unpacking the gear for the installs the duty manager asked me to take a look at one of the POS systems - which had suddenly stopped working that afternoon.

    I pulled the case of this thing apart and - lo and behold - discovered what I can only describe as about 250ml of sticky, hot, stinking pink plasticky goo all over the motherboard. Looking around I noticed a suspicious-looking bottle of Pepto-Bismol sitting half empty on the shelf under the till. Turns out, after speaking to some of the night shift workers, that the idiot checkout bod on that till had wanted to go home an hour early that day so had poured the gunk in through an open PCI slot at the back of the case, then told her supervisor that her 'till wasn't working'...
     
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  6. Boycie
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    Boycie Senior Beer Tester

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    Speaking with a "lady" earlier on this morning. "the e-mails on the blackberry were not working since her computer had updated and the world was about to end". Remote session later, discovered it was actually her hotmail account was locked out. This is the same person who sent her laptop in because it had stopped working. She sent her personal laptop in for repair. She is one cheeky b1*ch :-)
     
    Certifications: MCSA 2003, MCDST, A+, N+, CTT+, MCT
  7. BosonMichael
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    BosonMichael Yottabyte Poster

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    They keep you employed! :thumbleft
     
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  8. Qs

    Qs Semi-Honorary Member Gold Member

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    Oh, I know. I wasn't being sarcastic! (no tounge smilies :wink:)

    Qs
     
    Certifications: MCT, MCSE: Private Cloud, MCSA (2008), MCITP: EA, MCITP: SA, MCSE: 2003, MCSA: 2003, MCITP: EDA7, MCITP: EDST7, MCITP: EST Vista, MCTS: Exh 2010, MCTS:ServerVirt, MCTS: SCCM07 & SCCM2012, MCTS: SCOM07, MCTS: Win7Conf, MCTS: VistaConf, MCDST, MCP, MBCS, HND: Applied IT, ITIL v3: Foundation, CCA
  9. Boycie
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    Boycie Senior Beer Tester

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    ...blood pressure raised and beer flowing :biggrin
     
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  10. zebulebu

    zebulebu Terabyte Poster

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    P45inthepostalongwithalettertellinghershesbeingtakentocourtformisuseofcompanyresources...

    aaaaaand relax :)
     
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  11. Qs

    Qs Semi-Honorary Member Gold Member

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    lmfao.
     
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  12. Theprof

    Theprof Petabyte Poster

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    It's all good.... I had a user call me 5 times in 30 min asking me how to copy and paste from word document to an email message body... after I asked her to write the steps down.
     
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  13. Mr.Cheeks

    Mr.Cheeks 1st ever Gold Member! Gold Member

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    I just love users!
    Best thing since sliced bread! especially when they shout at you on the phone telling you how to fix their problem!
     
  14. LukeP

    LukeP Gigabyte Poster

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    When that happens (and it does sometimes) I tell the user: "Awesome, you fix it then and I'll do other bits in the meantime"
     
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  15. Sparky
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    Sparky Zettabyte Poster Moderator

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    Yup, its the users that say. “Surely its just a case of doing blah blah to fix the problem?”

    Me: “Ok, you do it then, bye!” :biggrin
     
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  16. Theprof

    Theprof Petabyte Poster

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    I get that pretty frequently... but I just ask say "show me" then they're like well I rather you do it and that's where it stops.
     
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  17. Arroryn

    Arroryn we're all dooooooomed Moderator

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    We have a few...... keen...... eggs.

    JK - never underestimate the technical inabilities of Solicitors. Nevertheless, they're paid to be awesome at law; I'm paid to support them being awesome at law. I do hold the same kind of ethos as BM.

    That being said, we have had a bright one recently. Not.

    We've had some massive latency issues (don't even know where to start describing them) between our head office site, and one of our remote offices in the UK. At his peak, this one guy called me complaining (again) about how slow the network was (again). In the same day... his first call was "Is it because the company only has one server? If you buy more servers, then everything should run much quicker. I've looked online, and they're not expensive, why don't we buy more?"

    No. No, you (lovely person). We do not only have one server.

    The next call was "well I'm using the wireless network on my personal laptop..." (we provide wireless ADSL on some floors for client use... normally) "... and the internet on here is much faster than the internet on my computer. Can we put everyone (there are 35 / 40 users on this floor) on the wireless network?"

    So I explained to him that no, we couldn't put everyone on our Corporate network onto our unfiltered ADSL connection. I didn't even bother with trying to explain how idiotic that particular idea was.

    Ah well. Two days off now. *sigh*
     
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  18. rax

    rax Megabyte Poster

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    This made me laugh out loud in work. :D
     
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  19. Boycie
    Honorary Member

    Boycie Senior Beer Tester

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    this person has more cheek than a thousand @rses! She recently took it upon herself to reset the SDSL device when someone couldn't log on to the domain recently. :twisted:
     
    Certifications: MCSA 2003, MCDST, A+, N+, CTT+, MCT
  20. Josiahb

    Josiahb Gigabyte Poster

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    Our users are fairly harmless, at the moment my most regular query is 'how do I put a link in an email again?'

    Sometimes wish I hadn't discovered that the marketing department were emailling 100+ MB files backwards and forwards when they are all stored on the bloody network...

    That and having to provide training to one user on the ins and outs of paint.....
     
    Certifications: A+, Network+, MCDST, ACA – Mac Integration 10.10

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