you know the computer thing is it plugged in?
I once had to drive 3 hours to basically reseat a power cable of a tv. Also once I had to troubleshoot the private printer of the boss of the company at one of his apartments because his mistress couldn't print anymore. It was set to letter size, the fix took 10 seconds.
"my computer won't turn on!!"
"is it plugged in?"
"hold on let me check...it's hard to tell, the power's out"
"..."
I spent over an hour on a support call trying to walk an asshole lady through fixing her Adobe Illustrator, for her to stop mid-instructions to say she couldn’t tell me what the status was because her power was out due to a fucking hurricane in her area! 🤦♂️
Side note: that was one of the two times my bosses didn’t get upset at me for telling off a customer.
I once helped my parents with a few minor things on one of their computers. Two weeks later I get a call... They have no internet on any of their devices. Obviously since I was the last one to work on their stuff I was the cause of the internet issue. While on the phone I hear my dad's weather radio go off and my phone dings with a severe weather warning for their area.
I ask if they are currently experiencing any bad weather... And they confirm that they have a very nasty thunderstorm and a confirmed tornado on the ground a few miles outside of the town... And they have no power.
I just hung up...
About a decade ago I had to fly across the country to peel a piece of tape off a sensor. At least I got crab cakes
I had a site that was going down multiple days a week for a hour or two. Turns out a employee was unplugging the small rack surge strip to plug in their coffee maker. They also happened to be the person complaining the loudest about how incompetent IT was. For some reason what she did was understandable and not worthy of a write up. But me telling her not to touch anything connected to server rack was going over the line. She was gone within the year having finally made someone with more suction mad.
Hot take; if IT had important gear running on a single power outlet with no UPS where it's easily accessible and any schmuck could pull the power, she made a pretty compelling point about incompetence.
You don't often get to choose a racks location in a small office and the UPS only ran the router and switch for a hour. You sound like you have never worked in the field.
I once replaced an entire power strip because the user said that it would turn off at random. So I took it back to the IT room and plugged in all the things and watched it, thinking it would short out or blow a circuit breaker or something.
Then the user called me again saying the new strip was doing the same thing and I should replace it. So I schlepped up to their office and replaced it with a third one.
Then they called me again saying it keeps happening. So finally I looked at where they had put it and it was right where they'd put it when they pushed to back their chair up from the desk.
And they didn't realize it.
It amazes me that people don't make even a small effort to debug stuff themselves before calling for help. There is a youtube channel for clips from car mechanics and people bring in cars for things like "There is a knocking sound coming from the back seat" and there is a gallon jug of liquid rolling on the floor back there.
A coworker sent me a pic of a user trying to charge a wired mouse with a surge protector. The user is a doctor. A surgeon.
I also see health care professionals break HIPAA rules CONSTANTLY despite everyone in my office telling them they're breaking rules.
Well my mom is a doctor. She can do surgeries, clinic work, the whole thing. Sge does not know anything about computers. Electricity goes in and magic happens.
Me, an IT person, am also this way but about cars. It's also a machine with inputs and outputs but it's just "fuel goes in and magical propulsion happens"
Idk, trying to charge a wired mouse sounds more like sleep deprivation than incompetence. Especially if it happened in a hospital.
"Are you sure all the wires are connected, USB and power?" (Relating to a scanner.)
"Yes, I've checked several times."
get there, USB is firmly connected but the power connector was hanging like 2cm belown the desk, clearly visible when you looked at the back of the scanner.
At that same trip dropped in to check a complaint about a broken DVD-drive. Turns out it didn't read DVDs because it was a CD-drive.
At that same trip dropped in to check a complaint about a broken DVD-drive. Turns out it didn't read DVDs because it was a CD-drive.
"No you're wrong, it worked before!"
"Mam, it's very clearly labeled 'CD' right here."
It wasn't really any help talking back to 40-something office Karens as a teenager. The amount of excuses people will go to avoid saying essentially "Oh I see now, that was a silly mistake I've made, thank you helping."
The people who swallowed their pride and admitted they screwed up made me want to help them more in the future. Especially if they wanted to learn how to fix it themselves in the future. Same for people who had a legit problem but were calm about it. The people who treated you like the cause of everything or just liked to bitch, well I made sure I took a long trip to the bathroom before getting to them.
"Wait, that (completely needless, umpteenth) ticket we have open on your keyboard 'making weird noises' hasn't been dealt with yet? Oh I'm sorry, sir, I did label it 'urgent' like you asked. Yes, sir, right away sir. Well, there's a few things I have to get to before, but I'm confident I'll make it there today, tomorrow at the latest."
hang up, lift feet on the desk, delete ticket, make a new one set to lowest priority
