Tech Support

[Jessweeee♪]

Actually I am the company secretary with an average understanding of computers, but being the only employee under fifty I am the IT person by default. We gave an employee working in a town an hour away from here some internet USB stick thing. He can't get on the internet. He came from Thailand a couple of weeks ago and doesn't speak a word of English. I am having to help him over the phone, except I can't because we are unable to communicate:

"Mr. I understand your internet is not working?"
"Hello? Yes."
"Can you see any web pages?"
"Yes sir."
"Everything is okay then?"
"No."
"Please click on --"
*disconnected*

:confused:

There is simply no way this is happening over the phone. Someone there has to help him or I have to make the drive out there. And probably fix the problem with two clicks :confused:

Anyway tell me your tech support stories. Or a time you helped your grandma fight through toolbar hell.

[Psychotic]

Actually I am the company secretary with an average understanding of computers, but being the only employee under fifty I am the IT person by default. Hi-five. My workplace has paid employees, who are middle-aged women, and volunteers, who are nearly all retired. I'm the only paid employee who is male and the only one younger than 40. Therefore I am a systems administrator. I am the systems administrator. I have a server to play with and do whatever I want with. Quite how this has happened I don't know but I am basically viewed as some sort of magical wizard and it's great.

[CimminyCricket]

Actually I am the company secretary with an average understanding of computers, but being the only employee under fifty I am the IT person by default. Hi-five. My workplace has paid employees, who are middle-aged women, and volunteers, who are nearly all retired. I'm the only paid employee who is male and the only one younger than 40. Therefore I am a systems administrator. I am the systems administrator. I have a server to play with and do whatever I want with. Quite how this has happened I don't know but I am basically viewed as some sort of magical wizard and it's great.

Basically how I was viewed before I got out of the military. There was only one other person who knew that a mouse can only work if it is plugged in. And my story is that I had to show someone how to plug their mouse into their computer so they could use it. :\

[sharkythesharkdogg]

I'm suddenly feeling much better about my marginal computer skills.

[Sephex]

Older people are amazed at my "skills" to quickly google something if we need a visual example of what is being discussed at work.

As for a tech support story? Nothing amazing, just solved a few minor problems here and there like minor network connection issues.

[G13]

I installed Mozilla Firefox on my friend's wife's computer and they are just beside themselves with awe.

[Pike]

Mostly people just make me type everything for them because I guess no one has seen 100wpm before, and being able to type as such makes me some sort of wizard.

[Jiro]

I know a couple people who are actually much better with computers than I am so I can only pretend to be a wizard when they aren't around.

[Old Manus]

During my first year at University, living in a long corridor with 21 other blokes, as soon as they twigged that I was doing a degree with the word 'computer' in it, I instantly became OFFICIAL BLOCK 4G TECH SUPPORT OFFICER, and was privy to all manner of callouts ranging from 'I can't torrent the latest episode of $TVSHOW' (the port was blocked, try explaining that to a liberal arts major who tried to cook a pizza in a George Foreman grill), to being roughly awoken at 3am to help Greg (names changed to protect the guilty) load up PornHub.

I remember one of my favourites because I was partly to blame. It was when Llyr (names changed to annoy foreigners), after ten minutes of assorted bangs and curse words reverbrating along the corridor, poked his head in my doorway. I knew what was coming. Imagine the following in the broadest valleys' accent you can. If you cannot imagine a broad valleys accent, picture how you would talk if you had been gargling broken glass for an hour.

"Oh James, my laptop's totally fucked, come and have a look at it or wa'? Piece of shit won't even connect to the internet"

I went to have a look. I thought about wiping away the carpet of smudges and dust from the screen so that I could properly see what I was doing, but saw the telltale yellowish blastmarks of what was certainly dried semen, and thought better of it. I would go through the usual questions.

"Are you sure you're connecting to the right network?"
"Useless hunk of junk can't connect to any of them mate"
"Have you tried restarting the network car - Never mind, I'll do it now."
"No point even bothering son, It's a piece of absolute shite. I've been bashing it and everything to try and get it to work I tell 'ew. It's always been total dog shit, dunno why I bought it like. How much will a new one cost? I'll go down the library and look them up in a minute now. Fucking Dell, wouldn't know a good computer if I sodomised their mothers with one..."*repeat to fade*

Restarting the network card didn't achieve anything. I moved to temporarily turn off the firewall, but quickly found he didn't have one. I went into the Control Panel to check the device was turned on. I unblocked ports. I tried to connect via proxies. I tried to ping the router at the end of the hall. It had been around half an hour. This problem was about to beat me. Llyr was starting to lose faith in my abilities. THIS COULD NOT HAPPEN. I was about to burn my cards, to fall onto the IT Consultant's Last Resort(tm): Idk, it was a virus. Then I realised the problem. It crashed upon my head like a hooker passing out during oral.

The fucking network cable was unplugged.

[Jiro]

you had to touch his dirty laptop for half an hour before you forgot to check if it was ​plugged in?

[Old Manus]

I know, I'm a horrible tech supporter.

[Quindiana Jones]

"HelloITHaveyoutriedturningitoffandonagain? Is it plugged in?" Rookie error, Manus, but I've gotta respect your perseverance.

Um, I made my nan a computer, put her online and taught her how to use word processors and the internet. That's pretty damn impressive, I reckon. Only took two months.

[Sephex]

I know, I'm a horrible tech supporter.

It was still a well told and entertaining story!

[Jiro]

At the end of the day you solved his problem and I'm sure he said thank you in whatever crazy dialect he speaks, so good job man.

[Agent Proto]

Relevant to the thread.

https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/398641_10150673021184973_729999972_10978307_1120440922_n.jpg

[fire_of_avalon]

Mostly people just make me type everything for them because I guess no one has seen 100wpm before, and being able to type as such makes me some sort of wizard.
My average typing speed hovers right around 85 wpm and my coworkers think I have seven fingers per hand.

You'd given me something to which I may aspire, madam.

[Sephex]

One of my biggest pet peeves when I was younger was when my dad used the family computer. He barely went on, but when he did it was for fantasy sports. When I asked when he would be off, he usually told me it would be after he typed a message to the league.

20 minutes later, he had a short paragraph typed. This post would have taken him around the same time back then. To be fair, he is a lot better now.

[Iceglow]

I'm the only person in my family who has any understanding of computers. I am also the only person in my household who truly understands what a computer/network is doing or attempting to do. Therefore I am automatically at home the tech guy which means I run the household network. I'm also by default the tech call out guy for my family and most of my friends in London too (seriously, I get phone calls from friends who barely see me anymore "Dude, hows it going? Yeah what days off you got coming up?" and I know what the next sentence will be automatically) I once had to teach my sister how to utilize Android safely. Considering she had owned an iPhone 3GS for the past year it took a fair while. I also had to talk my sister through the control panel on Windows 7 via the phone whilst simultaneously trying to cook lunch and eat it and read my news paper. A friend of mine was like "my computers busted" and so I ended up over his after college beer in one hand, screwdrivers and other tools on the table going through his computers guts looking for a problem. Turned out he did genuinely have one, his fan had died. 1 Donor part later from an old computer and an order placed for a proper replacement and it was sorted.

In work as I had an android phone and had studied ICT in college and thus know computers I was automatically nominated to be "tablet guy" in my department. I will point out here, I don't use my phone for much other than texting or making calls. I also dislike tablets on principle of the functionality just isn't anywhere near what I'd expect of the lowest laptop. I still don't know half the things they think I do. I also get repeatedly asked to go do minor maintenance. "Oh Steve, the track label printer is messing up again, can you take a look at it?" or even better "Steve, till 55 won't scan properly, can you investigate it for me?" the fact that we have a group of tech support guys who are paid to come in and look at these things doesn't matter. My boss will always ask me first, if I can't do it within 30 mins he'll then consider calling the tech support guys. The biggest irony is that working on a technology department you'd believe I wasn't the only one with some actual technical know-how.

[rubah]

I had a customer who didn't know what a url or address bar was a while back. He was pretty funny and kept calling me 'young lady'. Adorable old people!

[Loony BoB]

Well, I work in IT, so I guess I am IT. xD

My favourite 'pebkac' moment would almost certainly be when we got a call in for a computer which had lost power. The engineer arrived at the desk, moved the mouse, and the screen (which had gone into sleep mode while the user was on the phone) blinked into life and asked for the user to unlock the PC. Some people.

My favourite moments of all generally come from other things, though. Like logins. In one company, there was a Thomas Watt, and the userid was the first initial of your first name and then your surname. But the best one was Michael Cockburn, who worked in a company that took the first six letters of your surname and then the first initial of your first name as your ID. Unfortunate.

[Jiro]

Those are golden man.

[rubah]

That's when a good and sensitive IT department will offer to manually adjust a user name.

[Old Manus]

Pebkac is probably my favourite IT acronym of all.

[Loony BoB]

That's when a good and sensitive IT department will offer to manually adjust a user name.
We didn't control that side of things. =] But it allowed for a good giggle.

[Rantz]

I was about to burn my cards, to fall onto the IT Consultant's Last Resort(tm): Idk, it was a virus.

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