It Shouldn't Happen to a Techie |
Sunday, April 13, 2003
Simple thing - Being asked to implement efficiences whilst your workforce is being cut and the company is in financial downturn.
Every heard of a little thing called morale? Wednesday, October 17, 2001
Gotta blog this: ignoring the warnings...
Went to re-open a single call on our HelpDesk system, to re-close it with some more detail. Problem is, I cannot open a single call, I have to open a range, so I put in the call ID as the from and to (ie, from 13640 to 13640). Only, I don't.... I accidentally put in 13640 to 136740 (or something similar). Message pops up asking me to confirm this, and stupidl I ignore it and just say yes. Every call for the past three weeks re-opened. oops! Fixes - either re-close every call (it does remember closure description), but I'm going to have to guess, or refer to the backup database for who and when the calls were closed.. not fun. Or, the one I did, restore to last nights back up and re-enter all todays calls (printed out before hand). This is did. Ain't fun, but hey, it sorted it. Moral of the story: always read the confirmation messages! Tuesday, July 17, 2001
As I said today: "Number one rule of Tech Support. Never admit you are at fault. ALWAYS blame it on the System'
What is the System? It's a strange mythical beast. It has no form, and just exists in the hearts and minds of whoever speaks it. It grows from being filled with complaints, cursing, and scapegoating. The system is every PC that crashed ("The system went down"), every database that ever went corrupt ("The system lost all your data"), ever button that was incorrectly clicked ("The system changed the wrong setting"), and every techie that goofed ("The system blew up your PC" (OK, maybe thats a stretch)). The great thing about The System, is that because it can be blamed for all wrongs, equally the people who administer it (every techie in the world), can be responsible for its achievements ("The system I designed will increase productivity 100%", "I made the changes in the system to give you network access", "The report I produced from our [HelpDesk] system gives you looks of good data"), and is a great clause for getting-out of a tricky HelpDesk call, or the awful totally stumped deskside situation, ("I'll just check this data on the system", "I need to research this problem on the system", "It's a system fault-just let me go downstairs and correct that") Being held in such high terms means that the (L)users will be amazed at it's power, and never question what it is or how it operates. Besides, even trying to explain the technical details of anything to most users is like getting a young child to eat his greens.
Hard Drive death. No it shouldn't happen to anyone, but today I had one. Long drawn out, it's on it's way out. Now, when you've got a P3 800 that running about the speed of a 386, and refuses to give you network access you better hope to whoever that there isn't much needing backing up. Fortunately it was only two floppys worth - phew. Yes, it's an easy fix. Slap a new HD in and a clean install. It's still annoying though, time-consuming, and booooorrrrinnngggg, I'd much rather be playing with a server. I miss you HelpDesk server already, with your 1Ghz processor and even with your noisy fan. Why does everyone else get the good stuff? Saturday, June 16, 2001
I found a real doozie of a story about 'Dust bunnies' in a PC, that should be cleaned out, but it was in the LangaList Plus (a subscription newsletter), so I can't post it, in case anyones reading this!
Yeh, I haven't posted any of my own stories yet! My lifes been real busy, and this has only just been set-up, so that's OK, right? Besides college is all but over for the moment anyways, so maybe I'll get some in soon. But I have posted some elses, and I guess I might do this as a kind of regular thing as I find them, to share all the goodies I find!
Monday, June 11, 2001
This isn't one of mine, but I couldn't resist posting it.
"Ha! I have a story to tell about screensavers. I was in Alaska, and went to optimize a friend's Packard Bell. I helped them load a screen saver that featured a dog howling at the moon. Well, I get a call several days later, their dog, agitated by the apparent presence of another canine in his territory, urinated on the computer. Destroyed his hard drive, had to clean off the circuitry with rubbing alcohol." Source: The Register Saturday, June 09, 2001
It Shouldn't Happen to a Techie
No, it shouldn't. But it does. Day in, day out techies around the world have to put up with a lot of junk - PCs crashing unexplainably, printers spewing garbage, software worse than a first year VB student puts out, and users that, well you know about the users. But from the outside it can make you smile. After all, comedy is often derrived from the bad luck of others, so I share my bad luck in the hopes it can brighten a few days. Who am I? I am a lowly IT Support Analyst (Trainee) with a year and a half experience working for a typical IT outfit. I put up with the daily grind of the above, and try to get some real work in between it all (plus a bit of Virtual Compensation). |
