Bad command or filename
Back in the mid-90s I was working as the head tech monkey for a computer store. It was a small operation, but we had a fairly good reputation (our PCs won awards in some local magazines), so we had some fairly sizable customers.
One client was a company that manufactured personal medical monitoring equipment. Their previous support vendor went belly-up, so we took over. Most of my call outs were for minor things like installing a network printer or replacing stolen terminators from the coaxial network. They were generally a good bunch to work with, but I recall one of their senior managers was a difficult customer. Let's call her Mary.
One day I get a call from Mary that one of the brand-new PCs that we supplied "doesn't work". After a bit of back-and-forth, I was able to deduce that she was trying to run some software that wouldn't behave. Alas Mary was more interested in telling me how much of an inconvenience this was to her rather than give me an accurate description of the problem itself. Mary also had a habit of escalating things to the CEO of their company, and wanting to stay in their good graces, I jump in the car and head over to sort things out. Thankfully, they were located just down the highway.
I meet up with Mary, who reiterates how the computer "doesn't work" but I see that it booted up just fine and connected to their network. I ask her to demonstrate the problem. She types something at the DOS prompt.
Bad command or filename
"See?" she says. "The computer is faulty!"
I could see that she was trying to run WordPerfect, but after a quick poke around I could also see that WordPerfect wasn't installed (their network didn't serve software, it was all local installations). I ask her if she has her WordPerfect disks handy and I could set it up for her, but she blows up at me, saying things like "After selling us a computer, you expect us to supply more stuff for it?" and "You're just trying to upsell me more stuff we don't need!".
I try telling her that they already have licensed software, it just needs to be installed, but she instead decides to escalate to the CEO and end up dragging me into his office. She explains to the CEO that the computer is faulty because of "bad command or filename" and that rather than fix the computer, I am trying to upsell some more things that she doesn't need. I explain that the issue is that WordPerfect isn't installed on the new system and that I could fix that if I had access to the disks.
The CEO looks at me for a length of time that makes me feel uncomfortable. I can see a frown cross his forehead. He then opens a cupboard and hands me a box of disks. Yep, WordPerfect disks. I thank him and install WP on Mary's computer, while she lectures me about how much of an inconvenience this is to her and how I am wasting her time. 😒
Epilogue:
Fast-forward a few months. It's Christmas Eve and we get a phone call around midday that this same company has some "issues that need resolving". This is the exact terminology that Mary uses so I feel my Christmas spirit already being crushed. The issues are vague and I'm getting the information second-hand, but my boss tells me to head out and fix things. So off I go.
I arrive at the company and check in at reception. Some of the other managers are hanging around and they come over at say that they have invited me to be part of their office party, and that the call out itself is bogus because they know my boss would never have let me go otherwise. So, I spent the next couple of hours hobnobbing with the staff at the catered party. They even gave me the paperwork I needed ("resolved miscellaneous issues prior to Christmas shutdown") and let my boss bill them for my time! Mary wasn't present either, which was a bonus.
To top it all off, they even told me about an internal IT role they were creating (they wanted to ultimately insource that work) that perhaps I may be interested in. I would have otherwise applied for the role, but I had other irons in the fire at the time, so I let that one slide. A
Back in the mid-90s I was working as the head tech monkey for a computer store. It was a small operation, but we had a fairly good reputation (our PCs won awards in some local magazines), so we had some fairly sizable customers.
One client was a company that manufactured personal medical monitoring equipment. Their previous support vendor went belly-up, so we took over. Most of my call outs were for minor things like installing a network printer or replacing stolen terminators from the coaxial network. They were generally a good bunch to work with, but I recall one of their senior managers was a difficult customer. Let's call her Mary.
One day I get a call from Mary that one of the brand-new PCs that we supplied "doesn't work". After a bit of back-and-forth, I was able to deduce that she was trying to run some software that wouldn't behave. Alas Mary was more interested in telling me how much of an inconvenience this was to her rather than give me an accurate description of the problem itself. Mary also had a habit of escalating things to the CEO of their company, and wanting to stay in their good graces, I jump in the car and head over to sort things out. Thankfully, they were located just down the highway.
I meet up with Mary, who reiterates how the computer "doesn't work" but I see that it booted up just fine and connected to their network. I ask her to demonstrate the problem. She types something at the DOS prompt.
Bad command or filename
"See?" she says. "The computer is faulty!"
I could see that she was trying to run WordPerfect, but after a quick poke around I could also see that WordPerfect wasn't installed (their network didn't serve software, it was all local installations). I ask her if she has her WordPerfect disks handy and I could set it up for her, but she blows up at me, saying things like "After selling us a computer, you expect us to supply more stuff for it?" and "You're just trying to upsell me more stuff we don't need!".
I try telling her that they already have licensed software, it just needs to be installed, but she instead decides to escalate to the CEO and end up dragging me into his office. She explains to the CEO that the computer is faulty because of "bad command or filename" and that rather than fix the computer, I am trying to upsell some more things that she doesn't need. I explain that the issue is that WordPerfect isn't installed on the new system and that I could fix that if I had access to the disks.
The CEO looks at me for a length of time that makes me feel uncomfortable. I can see a frown cross his forehead. He then opens a cupboard and hands me a box of disks. Yep, WordPerfect disks. I thank him and install WP on Mary's computer, while she lectures me about how much of an inconvenience this is to her and how I am wasting her time. 😒
Epilogue:
Fast-forward a few months. It's Christmas Eve and we get a phone call around midday that this same company has some "issues that need resolving". This is the exact terminology that Mary uses so I feel my Christmas spirit already being crushed. The issues are vague and I'm getting the information second-hand, but my boss tells me to head out and fix things. So off I go.
I arrive at the company and check in at reception. Some of the other managers are hanging around and they come over at say that they have invited me to be part of their office party, and that the call out itself is bogus because they know my boss would never have let me go otherwise. So, I spent the next couple of hours hobnobbing with the staff at the catered party. They even gave me the paperwork I needed ("resolved miscellaneous issues prior to Christmas shutdown") and let my boss bill them for my time! Mary wasn't present either, which was a bonus.
To top it all off, they even told me about an internal IT role they were creating (they wanted to ultimately insource that work) that perhaps I may be interested in. I would have otherwise applied for the role, but I had other irons in the fire at the time, so I let that one slide. A
couple of years later they were bought out, and local operations were shut down, so I guess from my perspective it ultimately worked out for the best (I had already jumped ship at that point and was with the next company for 10 years).
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Be sure to write up a Capital Expenditure Request
Late 1990s, I was tech support for a $90M automotive parts subsidiary. I had installed the original 10base2 network, file servers MS Mail server, etc. We had about 100 users in 3 plants and as the network grew, we brought a couple more support people in. BTW: We were a subsidiary of a division of a $15.8B company – worldwide, no idea how many people or locations.
We determined we had to do something with the MS mail system. After due diligence, we decided on moved to MS Exchange and pulled all costs, materials, time into a cost sheet – amounted to about $12 per user per month after taking a year time period. And wrote up a Capital Expenditure Request (CER) because it was a HARD AND FAST RULE that anything over $XXXX was REQUIRED to have a CER.
Then Corporate gave me a call. Because of the company structure, my division was about 5 tiers down from The Main Corporate level. So, they promptly informed me “You will be migrating to Lotus Notes, served off our server at corporate location and you will pay $50 per user month.”
So I went to my division manager, laid out my case/costs/rationale, and he basically said “You’re right, corp. is wrong – go ahead with the CER (because it was a HARD AND FAST RULE that anything over $XXXX was REQUIRED to have a CER). And then HE got a call from Corporate IT -“You will be migrating to Lotus Notes, served off our server at corporate location and we will reduce what you will pay to $35 per user month.”
So my division manager took it to his VP and laid it out as I had done. And VP said “You’re right, corp. is wrong – go ahead with the CER (because it was a HARD AND FAST RULE that anything over $XXXX was REQUIRED to have a CER). And then HE got a call from Corporate IT -“They will be migrating to Lotus Notes, served off our server at corporate location and we will reduce what they will pay to $25 per user month.”
Then the Official Notice to All Divisions came out that the entire corporation will be going to Lotus and Corporate IT will host and support it. End of transmission.
Then I got the back story – this whole thing ended up on the CEO desk (of a $15.8B company) and he discussed this with the CFO and CIO (and everything had my name all over it). The CEO point blank asked the CIO WHY he was shooting this down. And it turned out the CIO had already signed the contracts, bought and already installed the servers WITHOUT Capital Expenditure Request. And, at that point, it was too late to back out …..
So, we migrated to Lotus Notes …..
and Me? I got big black check marks beside my name and my position was eliminated 2 years late – support taken over by corporate location.
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Late 1990s, I was tech support for a $90M automotive parts subsidiary. I had installed the original 10base2 network, file servers MS Mail server, etc. We had about 100 users in 3 plants and as the network grew, we brought a couple more support people in. BTW: We were a subsidiary of a division of a $15.8B company – worldwide, no idea how many people or locations.
We determined we had to do something with the MS mail system. After due diligence, we decided on moved to MS Exchange and pulled all costs, materials, time into a cost sheet – amounted to about $12 per user per month after taking a year time period. And wrote up a Capital Expenditure Request (CER) because it was a HARD AND FAST RULE that anything over $XXXX was REQUIRED to have a CER.
Then Corporate gave me a call. Because of the company structure, my division was about 5 tiers down from The Main Corporate level. So, they promptly informed me “You will be migrating to Lotus Notes, served off our server at corporate location and you will pay $50 per user month.”
So I went to my division manager, laid out my case/costs/rationale, and he basically said “You’re right, corp. is wrong – go ahead with the CER (because it was a HARD AND FAST RULE that anything over $XXXX was REQUIRED to have a CER). And then HE got a call from Corporate IT -“You will be migrating to Lotus Notes, served off our server at corporate location and we will reduce what you will pay to $35 per user month.”
So my division manager took it to his VP and laid it out as I had done. And VP said “You’re right, corp. is wrong – go ahead with the CER (because it was a HARD AND FAST RULE that anything over $XXXX was REQUIRED to have a CER). And then HE got a call from Corporate IT -“They will be migrating to Lotus Notes, served off our server at corporate location and we will reduce what they will pay to $25 per user month.”
Then the Official Notice to All Divisions came out that the entire corporation will be going to Lotus and Corporate IT will host and support it. End of transmission.
Then I got the back story – this whole thing ended up on the CEO desk (of a $15.8B company) and he discussed this with the CFO and CIO (and everything had my name all over it). The CEO point blank asked the CIO WHY he was shooting this down. And it turned out the CIO had already signed the contracts, bought and already installed the servers WITHOUT Capital Expenditure Request. And, at that point, it was too late to back out …..
So, we migrated to Lotus Notes …..
and Me? I got big black check marks beside my name and my position was eliminated 2 years late – support taken over by corporate location.
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Setup for the new guy
Couple of years ago, I was tech support for a company with several locations. I received notice of a new head of maintenance at one of the plants, with about a 2 week window to prep. I happened to be on site & confirmed the desk, phone, laptop, etc. A junior team member had crap spread over the desk and around the office, though. I told Him, the Plant Manager and the local HR person what I had planned for the new guy and confirmed that it was all correct. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
To give him a running start, they asked I go ahead a ship him a laptop so he’d have it. I had him a domain login, email, group access, phone setup, VPN, remote access, etc, etc etc. Not too sure it was a good idea, but I had it in writing….
Two weeks later, I happened again to be on-site the first day of "the new guy". And there he was, on a folding chair, sitting in the middle of the copy room. Because NO ONE CLEARED A PLACE FOR HIM!! A new upper tier employee and the existing people didn't even bother to clear a desk. What does that tell the guy about how the company views him? You get ONE Chance for a first impression, and Boy, did they blow it....
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Couple of years ago, I was tech support for a company with several locations. I received notice of a new head of maintenance at one of the plants, with about a 2 week window to prep. I happened to be on site & confirmed the desk, phone, laptop, etc. A junior team member had crap spread over the desk and around the office, though. I told Him, the Plant Manager and the local HR person what I had planned for the new guy and confirmed that it was all correct. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
To give him a running start, they asked I go ahead a ship him a laptop so he’d have it. I had him a domain login, email, group access, phone setup, VPN, remote access, etc, etc etc. Not too sure it was a good idea, but I had it in writing….
Two weeks later, I happened again to be on-site the first day of "the new guy". And there he was, on a folding chair, sitting in the middle of the copy room. Because NO ONE CLEARED A PLACE FOR HIM!! A new upper tier employee and the existing people didn't even bother to clear a desk. What does that tell the guy about how the company views him? You get ONE Chance for a first impression, and Boy, did they blow it....
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Fun with File Names
A few years ago, I was tech support for a food manufacturer with several manufacturing facilities and one of the banes in my life was dealing the QA department. They kind of just did whatever the current QA director's current Idea of The Month was. (And the company seemed to burn through QA directors – something 4 of them in about 7 years, couple good, couple ….not so good). Anyway, each had their own file structure to store the documentation on the server. And being Quality, the previous structure of the day was kept & the new structure duplicated it all with different paths & file names. But it was their circus and their monkeys.
One day I got a call that a file was missing. Guy said he saved it on the server and now he can’t find it. I remoted into his machine and asked Hmm, ok, what the name? He said “I can show you” and opened Word, then Recent File – “1.1.1 Documented Policy to produce safe, legal and authentic products.docx” OK, kinda weird, but where did you save it? “Out on the QA Drive.” OK, show me. And he tried to file it as
“Q:\\{facility}\\Quality Control Plan\\HACCP\\ BRCGS Global Standard for Food Safety\\Issue 9 Compliant Food Safety Management System\\ Senior management commitment and continual improvement\\ 1.1.1 Documented Policy to produce safe, legal and authentic products.docx”
I explained the default maximum file path per MS is 256 characters and this was 270 – I shortened the name to “DocPolicy.docx” Bingo! There it was…Told them they need to use some common sense for this and not just copy the chapter heading in it’s entirety. And wrote it up as “WHAT NOT TO DO” and copied the QA Director, all the QA supervisors and that facility’s plant manager
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A few years ago, I was tech support for a food manufacturer with several manufacturing facilities and one of the banes in my life was dealing the QA department. They kind of just did whatever the current QA director's current Idea of The Month was. (And the company seemed to burn through QA directors – something 4 of them in about 7 years, couple good, couple ….not so good). Anyway, each had their own file structure to store the documentation on the server. And being Quality, the previous structure of the day was kept & the new structure duplicated it all with different paths & file names. But it was their circus and their monkeys.
One day I got a call that a file was missing. Guy said he saved it on the server and now he can’t find it. I remoted into his machine and asked Hmm, ok, what the name? He said “I can show you” and opened Word, then Recent File – “1.1.1 Documented Policy to produce safe, legal and authentic products.docx” OK, kinda weird, but where did you save it? “Out on the QA Drive.” OK, show me. And he tried to file it as
“Q:\\{facility}\\Quality Control Plan\\HACCP\\ BRCGS Global Standard for Food Safety\\Issue 9 Compliant Food Safety Management System\\ Senior management commitment and continual improvement\\ 1.1.1 Documented Policy to produce safe, legal and authentic products.docx”
I explained the default maximum file path per MS is 256 characters and this was 270 – I shortened the name to “DocPolicy.docx” Bingo! There it was…Told them they need to use some common sense for this and not just copy the chapter heading in it’s entirety. And wrote it up as “WHAT NOT TO DO” and copied the QA Director, all the QA supervisors and that facility’s plant manager
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The reports are all wiggly
# Prologue
When I was in college I worked as a helpdesk consultant at the
Computer Center. This was so long ago that it was routine for a
student to come into the office and announce, "I have never used a
computer. I wouldn't even know how to turn one on. But my professor
says we have to do our papers with word processing.
Please help me get started."
They always said that: I wouldn't even know how to turn one on.
Also, they were almost always taking the lower-level writing-emphasis
class, Rhetoric 101, and I swear every single one of them had named
their floppy disk "RHET SHIT".
A common complaint we'd get is, "The laser printer messed up my
columns."
The cause was always that they were using MacWrite, and printing
drafts on the dot-matrix ImageWriters hooked up to each of the Macs in
the main room. Apple had realized that, the original Macs being sold
to an audience entirely unfamiliar with graphical user interfaces, it
was vital that they produce pixel-perfect output. So on the early
Macs, the Mac screen and the ImageWriter have the same exact dot
pitch, and the dots printed on the paper match exactly the pixels on
the screen.
So the students, trying to produce some kind of table, would line up
the columns by typing spaces with the space bar between the fields,
and the printout on the ImageWriter would be perfectly aligned, and
then when they took it over to the Mac connected to the LaserWriter
behind the print room window where they had to pay $0.25 a page with
these stickers sold at the campus bookstore, they would be irate
because the proportional font and the spaces had conspired to make the
columns all jagged and out of alignment.
We'd have to explain how to use tabs, and sometimes we'd give them a
break and let them re-print for free, but usually only if they were
female and cute.
# The Reports Are All Wiggly
So here I am six years later at my first fulltime sysadmin job at a
company down in Florida. We use a strange computer from a company
you've never heard of, that runs a database system called Pick. The
computer has dual-mirrored hot-swappable you think I'm going to say
"disks" here memory. Among many other things that this computer
does, reports are generated from Pick and sent to a laser printer in
the Finance department.
The first trouble ticket I get has been passed around from the
computer operators to the software developers back to the operators,
over to the PC techs and back to the operators, and finally it lands
in my lap, and the complaint is from the Finance department, "Our
reports are all wiggly on the new LaserJet 4."
On their first bite at the ticket, the operators say "nothing has changed".
The developers say, "The reports are normal on our end."
The operators, on their second bite, said basically the same thing.
The PC techs said "The LaserJet 4 is hooked up correctly; we followed
the instructions exactly. The test page looks completely normal".
I think the ticket may have bounced by the Windows Admin group as well
at some point.
Nobody wants anything to do with this ticket and they've handed it to
me partly because I'm the new guy and won't be able to push back.
I examine the report-printing system and the print manager setup. I
figure out how to capture one of the reports in mid-stream from the
printer queue. It's a plain-ASCII textfile, with columns aligned with
plain spaces. It prints out normally in Courier on the (LaserJet 3)
printer in my department.
I explain to my manager that I can't see anything wrong, and I think
the only way to debug the issue is for me to get direct access to a
LaserJet 4. My manager goes above and beyond and is able to divert a
new LaserJet 4 slated to be installed in some other department,
straight from the loading dock to my desk. I plug it into the network
and get it online with DHCP. I send a report to port 9100 on it; it
prints normally in fixed-width Courier and the report looks normal.
I'm at my wits' end, so I send the same report to the Finance printer,
and go over to Finance
# Prologue
When I was in college I worked as a helpdesk consultant at the
Computer Center. This was so long ago that it was routine for a
student to come into the office and announce, "I have never used a
computer. I wouldn't even know how to turn one on. But my professor
says we have to do our papers with word processing.
Please help me get started."
They always said that: I wouldn't even know how to turn one on.
Also, they were almost always taking the lower-level writing-emphasis
class, Rhetoric 101, and I swear every single one of them had named
their floppy disk "RHET SHIT".
A common complaint we'd get is, "The laser printer messed up my
columns."
The cause was always that they were using MacWrite, and printing
drafts on the dot-matrix ImageWriters hooked up to each of the Macs in
the main room. Apple had realized that, the original Macs being sold
to an audience entirely unfamiliar with graphical user interfaces, it
was vital that they produce pixel-perfect output. So on the early
Macs, the Mac screen and the ImageWriter have the same exact dot
pitch, and the dots printed on the paper match exactly the pixels on
the screen.
So the students, trying to produce some kind of table, would line up
the columns by typing spaces with the space bar between the fields,
and the printout on the ImageWriter would be perfectly aligned, and
then when they took it over to the Mac connected to the LaserWriter
behind the print room window where they had to pay $0.25 a page with
these stickers sold at the campus bookstore, they would be irate
because the proportional font and the spaces had conspired to make the
columns all jagged and out of alignment.
We'd have to explain how to use tabs, and sometimes we'd give them a
break and let them re-print for free, but usually only if they were
female and cute.
# The Reports Are All Wiggly
So here I am six years later at my first fulltime sysadmin job at a
company down in Florida. We use a strange computer from a company
you've never heard of, that runs a database system called Pick. The
computer has dual-mirrored hot-swappable you think I'm going to say
"disks" here memory. Among many other things that this computer
does, reports are generated from Pick and sent to a laser printer in
the Finance department.
The first trouble ticket I get has been passed around from the
computer operators to the software developers back to the operators,
over to the PC techs and back to the operators, and finally it lands
in my lap, and the complaint is from the Finance department, "Our
reports are all wiggly on the new LaserJet 4."
On their first bite at the ticket, the operators say "nothing has changed".
The developers say, "The reports are normal on our end."
The operators, on their second bite, said basically the same thing.
The PC techs said "The LaserJet 4 is hooked up correctly; we followed
the instructions exactly. The test page looks completely normal".
I think the ticket may have bounced by the Windows Admin group as well
at some point.
Nobody wants anything to do with this ticket and they've handed it to
me partly because I'm the new guy and won't be able to push back.
I examine the report-printing system and the print manager setup. I
figure out how to capture one of the reports in mid-stream from the
printer queue. It's a plain-ASCII textfile, with columns aligned with
plain spaces. It prints out normally in Courier on the (LaserJet 3)
printer in my department.
I explain to my manager that I can't see anything wrong, and I think
the only way to debug the issue is for me to get direct access to a
LaserJet 4. My manager goes above and beyond and is able to divert a
new LaserJet 4 slated to be installed in some other department,
straight from the loading dock to my desk. I plug it into the network
and get it online with DHCP. I send a report to port 9100 on it; it
prints normally in fixed-width Courier and the report looks normal.
I'm at my wits' end, so I send the same report to the Finance printer,
and go over to Finance
to take a look at it. Finance says, "You're
the first person from Information Resources to come look at the
reports. We really hope you can help us!"
It's printed out in Times Roman and the columns are all misaligned
because of the proportional font. I check the front panel, and the PC
Techs' installation instructions happen to be there, and they say,
"After installing the printer, go in the front panel and set the
default font to Font #1".
On a LaserJet 3, font 1 is Courier.
On a LaserJet 4, font 1 is Times Roman.
Four groups of techs at a multinational corporation, and they trip
over the same thing as a clueless freshman in Rhetoric 101.
Epilogue: I went away for a week's vacation, and when I came back one
of the PC techs, the guy whose secret nickname among the other techs
was "Jerry Moron", had gone in my office, appropriated the printer,
and now had himself his very own personal LaserJet 4. So I informed
my manager, who swooped in and confiscated it.
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the first person from Information Resources to come look at the
reports. We really hope you can help us!"
It's printed out in Times Roman and the columns are all misaligned
because of the proportional font. I check the front panel, and the PC
Techs' installation instructions happen to be there, and they say,
"After installing the printer, go in the front panel and set the
default font to Font #1".
On a LaserJet 3, font 1 is Courier.
On a LaserJet 4, font 1 is Times Roman.
Four groups of techs at a multinational corporation, and they trip
over the same thing as a clueless freshman in Rhetoric 101.
Epilogue: I went away for a week's vacation, and when I came back one
of the PC techs, the guy whose secret nickname among the other techs
was "Jerry Moron", had gone in my office, appropriated the printer,
and now had himself his very own personal LaserJet 4. So I informed
my manager, who swooped in and confiscated it.
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Big wig has major ego
I get a ticket from a big wig asking me to assist a user who is working from home and their laptop wont turn on. There is no cell number provided in the ticket so I look at the users contact info in my ticketing system and there is a number provided. I call that number a few times but no response. So I then respond to that ticket and say hey is there another number that I can call because the so and so number I called did not work. Big wig responds back yelling in all caps how she said it was clearly written this user is working from home and call cell phone and then provides me with the cell number...I email back saying we do not have users cell contacts provided and thank you for providing it. Big Wig loses her shit and emails back very aggressively about me wanting to open pandoras box. I cant respond anymore otherwise I'm definitely getting to the point where I wont give a F. So I'm ranting here to save me from being written up or worse! The nerve of some fucking people man!
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I get a ticket from a big wig asking me to assist a user who is working from home and their laptop wont turn on. There is no cell number provided in the ticket so I look at the users contact info in my ticketing system and there is a number provided. I call that number a few times but no response. So I then respond to that ticket and say hey is there another number that I can call because the so and so number I called did not work. Big wig responds back yelling in all caps how she said it was clearly written this user is working from home and call cell phone and then provides me with the cell number...I email back saying we do not have users cell contacts provided and thank you for providing it. Big Wig loses her shit and emails back very aggressively about me wanting to open pandoras box. I cant respond anymore otherwise I'm definitely getting to the point where I wont give a F. So I'm ranting here to save me from being written up or worse! The nerve of some fucking people man!
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Shush! I know, what I'm doing!
So this just happened. I'll keep it short.
We had an external consultant on-site to install some very specialized (and very expensive) software. I, your humble sysadmin, was only there to enter a few admin passwords. That was literally all I was supposed to do.
As the expert started trying a few... creative... things, I offered some advice.
"Shush, I know what I'm doing."
Alright. If that's how you want to play it...
A little later, he asked for a USB flash drive to transfer "some" data. "Some" turned out to be over 130,000 tiny 1 KB files in a single folder.
I genuinely tried to warn him that FAT32 really doesn't like that many small files.
I was shushed again.
So I leaned back and watched the progress bar crawl forward. After about 45 minutes and roughly 20,000 files, the inevitable happened.
The file transfer crashed.
I honestly tried to help.
I was shushed again.
So he tried exactly the same thing a second time.
Forty-five minutes later. Around 20,000 files again.
Crash.
At that point I refused to be shushed again. (I was hungry and wanted to go to lunch.)
I zipped the folder (4 minutes), copied the ZIP file to the USB drive (another 3 minutes), and handed it back to him.
The look on the expert's face was absolutely priceless.
https://redd.it/1usimkd
@r_talesfromtechsupport
So this just happened. I'll keep it short.
We had an external consultant on-site to install some very specialized (and very expensive) software. I, your humble sysadmin, was only there to enter a few admin passwords. That was literally all I was supposed to do.
As the expert started trying a few... creative... things, I offered some advice.
"Shush, I know what I'm doing."
Alright. If that's how you want to play it...
A little later, he asked for a USB flash drive to transfer "some" data. "Some" turned out to be over 130,000 tiny 1 KB files in a single folder.
I genuinely tried to warn him that FAT32 really doesn't like that many small files.
I was shushed again.
So I leaned back and watched the progress bar crawl forward. After about 45 minutes and roughly 20,000 files, the inevitable happened.
The file transfer crashed.
I honestly tried to help.
I was shushed again.
So he tried exactly the same thing a second time.
Forty-five minutes later. Around 20,000 files again.
Crash.
At that point I refused to be shushed again. (I was hungry and wanted to go to lunch.)
I zipped the folder (4 minutes), copied the ZIP file to the USB drive (another 3 minutes), and handed it back to him.
The look on the expert's face was absolutely priceless.
https://redd.it/1usimkd
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I'm telling you, you don't need a file server
Not really tech support since I was helping my Aunt with her home business, but whatever.
Aunt runs a home business and really wants a file server but has no idea what she will use it for. I asked her the most simple questions and she cannot even give me a straight answer for most of them:
* Is it supposed to be a file server or a backup server? Ans: I dunno, can it be both?
* Do you want your files to be always available, be it on your iPad, iPhone or Mac? Ans: Yes \*this already makes a file server pointless\*
* Are you using it purely to store your files or do you intend to work on your files in the server? Ans: What's the difference?
I told her that she absolutely doesn't need a file server and her current M365 subscription for MS Office is plenty. If it's automated two-way syncing she wants, I can set up Onedrive on the iPhone, iPad and Mac so that any changes are immediately saved and reflected across all her i-Stuff and the Mac. But no, she insists she needs a file server. and asks me to recommend her a enterprise-class workstation to use as the 'file server'.
Honestly, I wonder who gave her that idea. Some people really got too much money to spend.
https://redd.it/1utd55y
@r_talesfromtechsupport
Not really tech support since I was helping my Aunt with her home business, but whatever.
Aunt runs a home business and really wants a file server but has no idea what she will use it for. I asked her the most simple questions and she cannot even give me a straight answer for most of them:
* Is it supposed to be a file server or a backup server? Ans: I dunno, can it be both?
* Do you want your files to be always available, be it on your iPad, iPhone or Mac? Ans: Yes \*this already makes a file server pointless\*
* Are you using it purely to store your files or do you intend to work on your files in the server? Ans: What's the difference?
I told her that she absolutely doesn't need a file server and her current M365 subscription for MS Office is plenty. If it's automated two-way syncing she wants, I can set up Onedrive on the iPhone, iPad and Mac so that any changes are immediately saved and reflected across all her i-Stuff and the Mac. But no, she insists she needs a file server. and asks me to recommend her a enterprise-class workstation to use as the 'file server'.
Honestly, I wonder who gave her that idea. Some people really got too much money to spend.
https://redd.it/1utd55y
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"Huh, that's a new one..." Genuine terror with our POS support
On the outset, I will apologize for not being tech support; rather, I work in retail as both front and back of house duties for a butcher shop, with the occasional dash of "fix computer pls" because no one here can do basic troubleshooting (fixes I have done include "just flicking a touch keyboard" and "fitting a loose wire with some scotch tape"). This story feels more fitting here rather than on Tales from Retail, however, due to it being actual tech support and me hearing the most frightening (to me) sentence in tech I've ever heard in my life.
So, here we are in the butcher shop, having a grand ol time, selling stuff and taking card paymentsssswait why's it not taking card payments anymore? Specifically, our Point of Sale (POS, or EFTPOS) card reader is throwing up a weird error. How it's supposed to go is I scan stuff with the scanner attached to a simple all in one computer unit (with windows 10, currently), and then input whether the user is paying via card or cash. In cars cases, it'll tell the POS machine the price, and then it does it's money magic to take people's hard earned money in exchange for our meat and candy (we sell so much sweets I have no idea why).
I'm used to it being weird, sometimes it disconnects randomly (loose wire usually) or it throws a fit and tries to double charge someone. The occasional hang, we do a restart, good ol turn it off and on again, but this was a new one
\> ERROR, T6
Not recognizing the error code, I go onto the attached computer and bring up the diagnostics tool. Quick glance gives me the relevant info; system online, port open, device recognized, no connection. That's the odd bit, normally since both computer and whatever server these devices use recognize each other, they *should* be able to talk to one another and do the payment thing.
Restart don't do nothin, turn off and on does nothing, the little scan tool gleefully tells me something weirder
\> LOGON, PLEASE WAI-
\> DECLINED, SYSTEM ERROR, T6
"Declined" is not a common one for errors, but it DOES tell me that the issue is probably on the *bank's* side, and not ours! So easy solution; give up and contact the POS tech support line to see what this error is, and confirm that the bank is receiving money or not.
Thus, a nice phone call and six or seven minutes on hold later, and a very nice tech support dude I'll call Befuddled answers.
Befuddled: "Good afternoon, this is [POS tech support\], how can I help you?"
Me: "Yeah the POS machine isn't taking payments, keeps saying Error Code T6, and I can't seem to figure it out on my end."
And the tech pauses for a solid ten seconds, before saying words that filled me with dread.
Befuddled: "... [naughty word\], that's a new one, never heard of that error code before, gimme a minute."
Dear readers, I understand many of you are IT specialists. Y'all are way smarter than me. So I don't know if you'll share my feeling here, but hearing the words "that's a new one!" Filled me with fear beyond fear. I do not want to be the reason an *entirely unknown problem occurs*.
And I can tell this is unknown, because after ten minutes of us troubleshooting (mostly him walking me through solutions), he takes a moment to leaf through what sounds like a handwritten notebook?
Befuddled: "Sorry. Just never heard of this issue, going through the notes our last supervisor had made years ago, and it's not on here either- WAIT THERE IT IS!"
We learn that T6 is a communication error. Which just makes the tech more confused;
Befuddled: "okay but that doesn't make sense... I can see your requests from my side, the bank *does* have the money, it can clearly take transactions! It shouldn't be doing this, nothing is blocking the connection..."
After a half hour, he decided we should try standalone mode; this puts the POS unit into a setting that forces us to input all transactions on the keypad rather than the computer, and then we'd have to manually confirm each transaction at the end of the shift. But it *should*
On the outset, I will apologize for not being tech support; rather, I work in retail as both front and back of house duties for a butcher shop, with the occasional dash of "fix computer pls" because no one here can do basic troubleshooting (fixes I have done include "just flicking a touch keyboard" and "fitting a loose wire with some scotch tape"). This story feels more fitting here rather than on Tales from Retail, however, due to it being actual tech support and me hearing the most frightening (to me) sentence in tech I've ever heard in my life.
So, here we are in the butcher shop, having a grand ol time, selling stuff and taking card paymentsssswait why's it not taking card payments anymore? Specifically, our Point of Sale (POS, or EFTPOS) card reader is throwing up a weird error. How it's supposed to go is I scan stuff with the scanner attached to a simple all in one computer unit (with windows 10, currently), and then input whether the user is paying via card or cash. In cars cases, it'll tell the POS machine the price, and then it does it's money magic to take people's hard earned money in exchange for our meat and candy (we sell so much sweets I have no idea why).
I'm used to it being weird, sometimes it disconnects randomly (loose wire usually) or it throws a fit and tries to double charge someone. The occasional hang, we do a restart, good ol turn it off and on again, but this was a new one
\> ERROR, T6
Not recognizing the error code, I go onto the attached computer and bring up the diagnostics tool. Quick glance gives me the relevant info; system online, port open, device recognized, no connection. That's the odd bit, normally since both computer and whatever server these devices use recognize each other, they *should* be able to talk to one another and do the payment thing.
Restart don't do nothin, turn off and on does nothing, the little scan tool gleefully tells me something weirder
\> LOGON, PLEASE WAI-
\> DECLINED, SYSTEM ERROR, T6
"Declined" is not a common one for errors, but it DOES tell me that the issue is probably on the *bank's* side, and not ours! So easy solution; give up and contact the POS tech support line to see what this error is, and confirm that the bank is receiving money or not.
Thus, a nice phone call and six or seven minutes on hold later, and a very nice tech support dude I'll call Befuddled answers.
Befuddled: "Good afternoon, this is [POS tech support\], how can I help you?"
Me: "Yeah the POS machine isn't taking payments, keeps saying Error Code T6, and I can't seem to figure it out on my end."
And the tech pauses for a solid ten seconds, before saying words that filled me with dread.
Befuddled: "... [naughty word\], that's a new one, never heard of that error code before, gimme a minute."
Dear readers, I understand many of you are IT specialists. Y'all are way smarter than me. So I don't know if you'll share my feeling here, but hearing the words "that's a new one!" Filled me with fear beyond fear. I do not want to be the reason an *entirely unknown problem occurs*.
And I can tell this is unknown, because after ten minutes of us troubleshooting (mostly him walking me through solutions), he takes a moment to leaf through what sounds like a handwritten notebook?
Befuddled: "Sorry. Just never heard of this issue, going through the notes our last supervisor had made years ago, and it's not on here either- WAIT THERE IT IS!"
We learn that T6 is a communication error. Which just makes the tech more confused;
Befuddled: "okay but that doesn't make sense... I can see your requests from my side, the bank *does* have the money, it can clearly take transactions! It shouldn't be doing this, nothing is blocking the connection..."
After a half hour, he decided we should try standalone mode; this puts the POS unit into a setting that forces us to input all transactions on the keypad rather than the computer, and then we'd have to manually confirm each transaction at the end of the shift. But it *should*
work at least! Hurrah for solutions! We put it in standalone mode, set up a test transaction, and
\> LOGON FAILED, SYSTEM ERROR, T6
Befuddled: *muffled in the background* "what the @#$& do you MEAN?!"
Ultimately, he thanked me for the new experience, jotted down some notes, comped us a new POS unit and states the explanation as follows;
Befuddled: "It's either corrupted internal software (despite our reinstalls), or wizards. Sorry your computer is haunted."
The new unit worked perfectly with no issues. I'm told the nonfunctioning one was kept for "research"/possibly exorcism.
https://redd.it/1utg2ln
@r_talesfromtechsupport
\> LOGON FAILED, SYSTEM ERROR, T6
Befuddled: *muffled in the background* "what the @#$& do you MEAN?!"
Ultimately, he thanked me for the new experience, jotted down some notes, comped us a new POS unit and states the explanation as follows;
Befuddled: "It's either corrupted internal software (despite our reinstalls), or wizards. Sorry your computer is haunted."
The new unit worked perfectly with no issues. I'm told the nonfunctioning one was kept for "research"/possibly exorcism.
https://redd.it/1utg2ln
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The pendulum swings for the clean
This is a story that I heard from my dad years ago. However, I don’t remember if he was talking about himself or his dad. My dad was born in the 1940s, so please make your own judgement of when this might have been. Perhaps a historian could figure it out.
So with me not knowing whether it was my dad or granddad that experienced this, but with how the technology is described, I would make a guess that it was my grandad.
However, to make note, it was my grandad that was the technician but rather a standard worker that heard about it through the gossip mill as everyone was close-nit community in the workplace in a way. Not to mention this wasn’t a big factory.
Now onto the story.
This was a factory. What they made, I don’t remember. However, it had some delicate machinery that had some specific timings for work flow.
To keep various these machines and the clock in and out times as accurate as possible, there was this single, massive grandfather type clock in the office area which fed into the work area and other places.
This clock didn’t feed into everything, just fed into a few things. The way I heard it, it was just a few machines and the time clock. They probably saved money by using one clock instead of individual clocks.
One day, when the factory opened, the head staff noticed that the clock times in the factory were off by roughly half an hour. They frantically went round to find out what caused it but couldn’t find the cause. The main clock was working fine, but the time was wrong.
So they reset the time.
The factory did their work, closed up for the night and then in the morning, it was off by about half an hour again.
They checked everything yet again and couldn’t find anything wrong. There were no broken cogs, rods, pins and wires etc. Just that the time was not accurate. So they reset the time and continued for the day.
After a third morning of the same thing happening, the factory owner and the main staff decided that they will stay in the factory all night to watch and see what is happening.
So that night after the workers had left they started walking around the factory while observing the machinery.
They noted that the clocks were fine and the machinery were turned off and then they noticed that a group of women entered the factory. They basically dismissed the women as the cause of the problem as they were just the cleaning ladies that come in each night to give the factory a thorough clean.
They watched as the clocks continued ticking away and the cleaning ladies barely touched any of the important mechanisms. Then all of a sudden, one of the men noticed that the clocks had stopped.
They ran up to the office where the main clock was and saw a cleaning lady sat at one of the desks with her feet up on the desk, a cleaning cloth in hand and the main clock’s pendulum across her lap.
She was so focused on cleaning the pendulum that she didn’t notice the men walk in.
After talking to the cleaning lady it came to light that she was new to working at the factory and didn’t know how the machinery worked. She was so focused on doing a good job, that when she noticed that the pendulum was dirty, she just opened the cabinet door, unhooked the pendulum and give it a good clean.
Even the factory owner couldn’t be angry. Here was a worker, albeit a cleaning lady, was trying to do a good job for the factory, but she was never told not to touch the clock.
They set the clock going again and told all of the cleaning ladies not to touch the main clock.
The next morning when the workers arrived and saw that the clocks weren’t broken, one worker asked his boss what happened. The boss told him the story and in turn he told some other works and it spread around the entire factory.
A few days later, there was a padlock on the cabinet housing the pendulum.
https://redd.it/1uxwkf8
@r_talesfromtechsupport
This is a story that I heard from my dad years ago. However, I don’t remember if he was talking about himself or his dad. My dad was born in the 1940s, so please make your own judgement of when this might have been. Perhaps a historian could figure it out.
So with me not knowing whether it was my dad or granddad that experienced this, but with how the technology is described, I would make a guess that it was my grandad.
However, to make note, it was my grandad that was the technician but rather a standard worker that heard about it through the gossip mill as everyone was close-nit community in the workplace in a way. Not to mention this wasn’t a big factory.
Now onto the story.
This was a factory. What they made, I don’t remember. However, it had some delicate machinery that had some specific timings for work flow.
To keep various these machines and the clock in and out times as accurate as possible, there was this single, massive grandfather type clock in the office area which fed into the work area and other places.
This clock didn’t feed into everything, just fed into a few things. The way I heard it, it was just a few machines and the time clock. They probably saved money by using one clock instead of individual clocks.
One day, when the factory opened, the head staff noticed that the clock times in the factory were off by roughly half an hour. They frantically went round to find out what caused it but couldn’t find the cause. The main clock was working fine, but the time was wrong.
So they reset the time.
The factory did their work, closed up for the night and then in the morning, it was off by about half an hour again.
They checked everything yet again and couldn’t find anything wrong. There were no broken cogs, rods, pins and wires etc. Just that the time was not accurate. So they reset the time and continued for the day.
After a third morning of the same thing happening, the factory owner and the main staff decided that they will stay in the factory all night to watch and see what is happening.
So that night after the workers had left they started walking around the factory while observing the machinery.
They noted that the clocks were fine and the machinery were turned off and then they noticed that a group of women entered the factory. They basically dismissed the women as the cause of the problem as they were just the cleaning ladies that come in each night to give the factory a thorough clean.
They watched as the clocks continued ticking away and the cleaning ladies barely touched any of the important mechanisms. Then all of a sudden, one of the men noticed that the clocks had stopped.
They ran up to the office where the main clock was and saw a cleaning lady sat at one of the desks with her feet up on the desk, a cleaning cloth in hand and the main clock’s pendulum across her lap.
She was so focused on cleaning the pendulum that she didn’t notice the men walk in.
After talking to the cleaning lady it came to light that she was new to working at the factory and didn’t know how the machinery worked. She was so focused on doing a good job, that when she noticed that the pendulum was dirty, she just opened the cabinet door, unhooked the pendulum and give it a good clean.
Even the factory owner couldn’t be angry. Here was a worker, albeit a cleaning lady, was trying to do a good job for the factory, but she was never told not to touch the clock.
They set the clock going again and told all of the cleaning ladies not to touch the main clock.
The next morning when the workers arrived and saw that the clocks weren’t broken, one worker asked his boss what happened. The boss told him the story and in turn he told some other works and it spread around the entire factory.
A few days later, there was a padlock on the cabinet housing the pendulum.
https://redd.it/1uxwkf8
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Repost - 36 Hours and Counting or How To Earn Your Sea Legs. Part 1 and now Part 2 with it's Conclusion.
Back again, again. Finally got to finishing this post from MANY years ago. I have reposted Part 1 because it's been so long. Just never got around to finishing it until now.
Part 1 (Part 2 is below. Don't worry)
Many MANY years ago, I worked for an MSP that negotiated a contract with an Australian based management firm to upgrade and replace their servers in their remote locations…..very remote locations……very remote locations that moved. ……Constantly.
These servers where used to keep track of things like maintenance, how much of something was moved from one point to another, employee rosters, time sheets, time tables etc and they had to send this information back to head office in as close to real time as possible due to some Government regulations specific to the industry.
Basically, they kept track of everything that was needed to be recorded on a day to day basis in order to effectively run ….. a bulk cargo ship.
Yup. A cargo ship.
After consulting with the client and the salesbot in charge of the account, I developed a solution to their problem that used Windows 2008 Server Advanced, an IBM X3400 server, a small unmanaged switch to connect all the onboard PCs (6 in total) all connected to a Sony Ericsson W25 modem that it self was connected to a signal booster and mast attached to the top of the ship’s bridge. The effective range was between 35 to 90 kilometres off-shore (because of cell tower placements along the coast line, height and Helstra)…. when it HAD coverage. When out of 3G coverage (no such thing as 4G back then), it fell back to Inmarsat-B for data transfer but they wanted to use that as little as possible.
Why as little as possible? Anyone that has used satellite comms can tell you how much fun it is trying to use the thing for data transfer because of little things like cloud cover, bird poop (not kidding), etc. and not to mention HOW FREAKING EXPENSIVE IT IS!
Medium speed fax/data services are at about 9.6kbit/s and it’s charged at AU$0.53/256bit
No, that is not a spelling mistake. 9.6kbit/s and 53 cents PER 256bit!
To put it another way, normally there is about 32 letters for every 256 bits. If you send or receive letters at 5 bits per letter on a vessel side, then it is possible to have 51 letters for every 256 bits. Do the maths and pick your jaw up off the desk.
Back to the story.
Understandably, I was quite proud that I developed a solution that worked in the lab but now came time to actually field test the set-up in the real world. This involved various state and federal police checks in order to get the security clearances dockside and on board a cargo ship, etc. (It’s the same process you need to go through in order to get airside at an airport and yes, I have gone through THAT pooshower as well in an earlier job working with the IT department of my national carrier and a place called Jet Base. A tale for another day).
I had organised and scheduled an install date with the Shipping management firm to perform a test install on board a ship that was docked in a local port for a week and, after enduring the affectionate attention of the state and federal police (they never even called me back the next morning like they promised. I feel so used) and in possession of said security clearances, I was ready to head to the port to swap out the existing infrastructure on board.
Little did I know, this was going to be that start of something……interesting?
…..fast forward 36 frantic hours later, in the middle of Singapore Strait……..
>“You need to finish in the next 2 hours. I have to leave port by then and if you’re not done, you’re with us until Caracas”
Part 2
There are moments in your career when time seems to stop.
Your mind becomes crystal clear. Every risk, every decision and every poor life choice that brought you to that exact point flashes before your eyes.
This was not one of those moments.
My first thought was:
“Where the hell is Caracas?”
My second thought
Back again, again. Finally got to finishing this post from MANY years ago. I have reposted Part 1 because it's been so long. Just never got around to finishing it until now.
Part 1 (Part 2 is below. Don't worry)
Many MANY years ago, I worked for an MSP that negotiated a contract with an Australian based management firm to upgrade and replace their servers in their remote locations…..very remote locations……very remote locations that moved. ……Constantly.
These servers where used to keep track of things like maintenance, how much of something was moved from one point to another, employee rosters, time sheets, time tables etc and they had to send this information back to head office in as close to real time as possible due to some Government regulations specific to the industry.
Basically, they kept track of everything that was needed to be recorded on a day to day basis in order to effectively run ….. a bulk cargo ship.
Yup. A cargo ship.
After consulting with the client and the salesbot in charge of the account, I developed a solution to their problem that used Windows 2008 Server Advanced, an IBM X3400 server, a small unmanaged switch to connect all the onboard PCs (6 in total) all connected to a Sony Ericsson W25 modem that it self was connected to a signal booster and mast attached to the top of the ship’s bridge. The effective range was between 35 to 90 kilometres off-shore (because of cell tower placements along the coast line, height and Helstra)…. when it HAD coverage. When out of 3G coverage (no such thing as 4G back then), it fell back to Inmarsat-B for data transfer but they wanted to use that as little as possible.
Why as little as possible? Anyone that has used satellite comms can tell you how much fun it is trying to use the thing for data transfer because of little things like cloud cover, bird poop (not kidding), etc. and not to mention HOW FREAKING EXPENSIVE IT IS!
Medium speed fax/data services are at about 9.6kbit/s and it’s charged at AU$0.53/256bit
No, that is not a spelling mistake. 9.6kbit/s and 53 cents PER 256bit!
To put it another way, normally there is about 32 letters for every 256 bits. If you send or receive letters at 5 bits per letter on a vessel side, then it is possible to have 51 letters for every 256 bits. Do the maths and pick your jaw up off the desk.
Back to the story.
Understandably, I was quite proud that I developed a solution that worked in the lab but now came time to actually field test the set-up in the real world. This involved various state and federal police checks in order to get the security clearances dockside and on board a cargo ship, etc. (It’s the same process you need to go through in order to get airside at an airport and yes, I have gone through THAT pooshower as well in an earlier job working with the IT department of my national carrier and a place called Jet Base. A tale for another day).
I had organised and scheduled an install date with the Shipping management firm to perform a test install on board a ship that was docked in a local port for a week and, after enduring the affectionate attention of the state and federal police (they never even called me back the next morning like they promised. I feel so used) and in possession of said security clearances, I was ready to head to the port to swap out the existing infrastructure on board.
Little did I know, this was going to be that start of something……interesting?
…..fast forward 36 frantic hours later, in the middle of Singapore Strait……..
>“You need to finish in the next 2 hours. I have to leave port by then and if you’re not done, you’re with us until Caracas”
Part 2
There are moments in your career when time seems to stop.
Your mind becomes crystal clear. Every risk, every decision and every poor life choice that brought you to that exact point flashes before your eyes.
This was not one of those moments.
My first thought was:
“Where the hell is Caracas?”
My second thought
was:
“Do I need a visa?”
My third, slightly more useful thought, was:
“I am going to murder the salesbot.”
Let us rewind about 36 hours while I was still in Australia.
Apparently, ships have schedules and apparently, these schedules change.
Also apparently, nobody had thought this was information the person installing the ship’s entire new server and communications infrastructure might need.
By the time all the equipment had arrived, the security clearances had been completed and everyone had finally agreed on what day the install was, the ship had already sailed.
Not far, mind you. Just to Singapore. Because that was obviously convenient.
The shipping company still wanted the installation completed before the vessel began its next major voyage, so I was hurriedly booked onto the next flight and sent to Singapore with enough computer equipment to make airport security deeply interested in my life choices.
The server itself had been shipped separately, along with the UPS, modem, switch, signal booster and the assorted bits and pieces that had worked perfectly in the lab.
This is an important distinction. They had worked perfectly in the lab. The lab did not move.
The lab did not smell. The lab did not require me to climb a rope ladder while carrying a backpack full of tools above several metres of moving ocean.
The lab also did not contain racehorses.
Yes, racehorses.
The “bulk cargo” being transported by this particular vessel was alive, extremely valuable and apparently capable of producing its own body weight in manure every fifteen minutes.
The smell hit me before I reached the ship.
It was not merely a smell. It was a physical presence. It climbed inside your nose, unpacked its bags and began redecorating.
Even after returning home, washing everything I owned and showering several times, I could still smell that ship. For several days I would occasionally stop, sniff the air and wonder whether a horse had somehow followed me home.
Getting aboard was also an adventure.
The vessel was sitting in international waters in the Singapore Strait, so I could not simply walk up a gangway carrying my equipment like a normal person.
I had to pass through Singapore Customs, board a small launch, travel out to the ship and transfer from the launch onto the vessel.
The transfer involved pulling alongside a moving wall of steel and climbing a ladder hanging down the side.
While wearing a backpack full of equipment.
In ocean swell.
The launch would rise with a wave, I would grab the ladder, and then the boat would drop away beneath me.
Nobody mentioned this during the project planning meeting.
There had been diagrams. There had been timelines. There had been spreadsheets.
There had NOT been a single box labelled:
>Engineer may need to leap from small boat onto moving cargo vessel and climb for his life while carrying several thousand dollars’ worth of equipment.
Once on board, I was shown to the server location and I use the word “location” generously.
The space on the Bridge had been selected because it was reasonably central, accessible to the existing PCs and, most importantly, not currently occupied by a horse.
The new IBM X3400 was not a small machine. It was a proper tower server built like a filing cabinet and with roughly the same portability.
The UPS was also substantial because graceful shutdowns are generally preferable to having a server abruptly lose power every time a ship’s electrical system coughs.
Unfortunately, the nearest suitable power source was on the other side of a steel bulkhead.
I raised this issue with the CHENG, the Chief Engineer.
He inspected the server.
He inspected the UPS.
He inspected the bulkhead.
Then he disappeared.
A few minutes later, he returned carrying a gas axe.
For anyone unfamiliar with the term, a gas axe is not a precision IT tool. It is an oxy-acetylene cutting torch.
There are carefully planned cable penetrations involving engineers, approved drawings, fire seals and proper conduits.
Then there is a ship’s Chief Engineer looking at a steel
“Do I need a visa?”
My third, slightly more useful thought, was:
“I am going to murder the salesbot.”
Let us rewind about 36 hours while I was still in Australia.
Apparently, ships have schedules and apparently, these schedules change.
Also apparently, nobody had thought this was information the person installing the ship’s entire new server and communications infrastructure might need.
By the time all the equipment had arrived, the security clearances had been completed and everyone had finally agreed on what day the install was, the ship had already sailed.
Not far, mind you. Just to Singapore. Because that was obviously convenient.
The shipping company still wanted the installation completed before the vessel began its next major voyage, so I was hurriedly booked onto the next flight and sent to Singapore with enough computer equipment to make airport security deeply interested in my life choices.
The server itself had been shipped separately, along with the UPS, modem, switch, signal booster and the assorted bits and pieces that had worked perfectly in the lab.
This is an important distinction. They had worked perfectly in the lab. The lab did not move.
The lab did not smell. The lab did not require me to climb a rope ladder while carrying a backpack full of tools above several metres of moving ocean.
The lab also did not contain racehorses.
Yes, racehorses.
The “bulk cargo” being transported by this particular vessel was alive, extremely valuable and apparently capable of producing its own body weight in manure every fifteen minutes.
The smell hit me before I reached the ship.
It was not merely a smell. It was a physical presence. It climbed inside your nose, unpacked its bags and began redecorating.
Even after returning home, washing everything I owned and showering several times, I could still smell that ship. For several days I would occasionally stop, sniff the air and wonder whether a horse had somehow followed me home.
Getting aboard was also an adventure.
The vessel was sitting in international waters in the Singapore Strait, so I could not simply walk up a gangway carrying my equipment like a normal person.
I had to pass through Singapore Customs, board a small launch, travel out to the ship and transfer from the launch onto the vessel.
The transfer involved pulling alongside a moving wall of steel and climbing a ladder hanging down the side.
While wearing a backpack full of equipment.
In ocean swell.
The launch would rise with a wave, I would grab the ladder, and then the boat would drop away beneath me.
Nobody mentioned this during the project planning meeting.
There had been diagrams. There had been timelines. There had been spreadsheets.
There had NOT been a single box labelled:
>Engineer may need to leap from small boat onto moving cargo vessel and climb for his life while carrying several thousand dollars’ worth of equipment.
Once on board, I was shown to the server location and I use the word “location” generously.
The space on the Bridge had been selected because it was reasonably central, accessible to the existing PCs and, most importantly, not currently occupied by a horse.
The new IBM X3400 was not a small machine. It was a proper tower server built like a filing cabinet and with roughly the same portability.
The UPS was also substantial because graceful shutdowns are generally preferable to having a server abruptly lose power every time a ship’s electrical system coughs.
Unfortunately, the nearest suitable power source was on the other side of a steel bulkhead.
I raised this issue with the CHENG, the Chief Engineer.
He inspected the server.
He inspected the UPS.
He inspected the bulkhead.
Then he disappeared.
A few minutes later, he returned carrying a gas axe.
For anyone unfamiliar with the term, a gas axe is not a precision IT tool. It is an oxy-acetylene cutting torch.
There are carefully planned cable penetrations involving engineers, approved drawings, fire seals and proper conduits.
Then there is a ship’s Chief Engineer looking at a steel
wall and saying, essentially:
“I can make hole.”
I briefly considered explaining concepts such as cable management, electrical compliance and fire-rated penetrations and then he lit the torch.
A short time later, we had power.
We ALSO had a newly created opening in the back wall of the Bridge that was still warm around the edges.
The CHENG looked extremely pleased with himself.....I chose not to argue with the man holding the fire sword.
With power available, I began installing the server, switch, UPS, modem and communications equipment. Cabling had to be routed to six onboard workstations spread across areas that had clearly never been designed with Ethernet in mind.
Naturally, several of the cables and power accessories that were supposed to be waiting for me were either missing, unsuitable or had vanished into whatever dimension collects socks, ten-millimetre sockets and project documentation.
This began a long sequence of phone calls to computer stores around Singapore.
“Hello. Do you have filtered powerboards?”
“No, not surge boards. Filtered.”
“Yes, Australian-style plugs.”
“No, not British.”
“Yes, today.”
“No, I cannot come to the store. I am on a ship.”
“No, the ship is not at the dock.”
“Yes, I am serious.”
Network cables were another problem.
The ones supplied were either too short, the wrong type or nowhere near the ship at all. More phone calls followed, along with arrangements involving couriers, port security, Customs and another trip out on the launch.
Every time I left the vessel and returned, I had to go through Singapore Customs again because the ship was sitting in international waters.
I became very familiar with the process.
Passport.
Documentation.
Explanation.
Bag inspection.
Questions about why I was carrying network cables.
Launch.
Ladder.
Try not to fall into one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world.
Repeat.
At some point during this circus, another vessel nearby reported an engine-room fire.
This was not a small fishing boat producing a bit of smoke. This was a significant incident involving alarms, emergency traffic and nearby vessels paying very close attention to what was happening.
From the deck, we could see smoke rising from the other ship while emergency responses were coordinated across the Strait.
It was fascinating in the same way that watching a building burn down is fascinating when you are standing close enough to feel the heat.
The crew on our vessel remained remarkably calm.
I suppose when your workplace is a floating steel city carrying hundreds of horses through one of the world’s busiest waterways, your threshold for an “interesting day” is somewhat higher than mine.
While all this was happening, another engineering team was replacing the ship’s helm.
Not the steering wheel.
The actual control system used to steer the vessel.
The old controls were being replaced with an upgraded automated system at the same time I was replacing the onboard IT infrastructure. So, on one side of the bridge, technicians were dismantling the systems that controlled the direction of the ship. On the other side, I was trying to work out why one of the captain’s computers would not join the domain.
The captain’s PC had not been mentioned as a problem.
I had been told all six computers were operational and simply needed to be connected to the new server and the Captain watched me troubleshoot it for some time before casually mentioning:
“Oh, that computer has not worked properly for months.”
Of course it had not.
Why would anyone mention that before the engineer flew to another country?
The machine was in poor condition, unstable and filled with the accumulated digital sediment that gathers on any important computer nobody is willing to replace.
It needed to be rebuilt.
There was no spare machine, no prepared image and no convenient high-speed connection to download everything I might need.
So, alongside the server installation, communications testing, network cabling and frantic procurement of missing accessories, I rebuilt the captain’s PC.
The
“I can make hole.”
I briefly considered explaining concepts such as cable management, electrical compliance and fire-rated penetrations and then he lit the torch.
A short time later, we had power.
We ALSO had a newly created opening in the back wall of the Bridge that was still warm around the edges.
The CHENG looked extremely pleased with himself.....I chose not to argue with the man holding the fire sword.
With power available, I began installing the server, switch, UPS, modem and communications equipment. Cabling had to be routed to six onboard workstations spread across areas that had clearly never been designed with Ethernet in mind.
Naturally, several of the cables and power accessories that were supposed to be waiting for me were either missing, unsuitable or had vanished into whatever dimension collects socks, ten-millimetre sockets and project documentation.
This began a long sequence of phone calls to computer stores around Singapore.
“Hello. Do you have filtered powerboards?”
“No, not surge boards. Filtered.”
“Yes, Australian-style plugs.”
“No, not British.”
“Yes, today.”
“No, I cannot come to the store. I am on a ship.”
“No, the ship is not at the dock.”
“Yes, I am serious.”
Network cables were another problem.
The ones supplied were either too short, the wrong type or nowhere near the ship at all. More phone calls followed, along with arrangements involving couriers, port security, Customs and another trip out on the launch.
Every time I left the vessel and returned, I had to go through Singapore Customs again because the ship was sitting in international waters.
I became very familiar with the process.
Passport.
Documentation.
Explanation.
Bag inspection.
Questions about why I was carrying network cables.
Launch.
Ladder.
Try not to fall into one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world.
Repeat.
At some point during this circus, another vessel nearby reported an engine-room fire.
This was not a small fishing boat producing a bit of smoke. This was a significant incident involving alarms, emergency traffic and nearby vessels paying very close attention to what was happening.
From the deck, we could see smoke rising from the other ship while emergency responses were coordinated across the Strait.
It was fascinating in the same way that watching a building burn down is fascinating when you are standing close enough to feel the heat.
The crew on our vessel remained remarkably calm.
I suppose when your workplace is a floating steel city carrying hundreds of horses through one of the world’s busiest waterways, your threshold for an “interesting day” is somewhat higher than mine.
While all this was happening, another engineering team was replacing the ship’s helm.
Not the steering wheel.
The actual control system used to steer the vessel.
The old controls were being replaced with an upgraded automated system at the same time I was replacing the onboard IT infrastructure. So, on one side of the bridge, technicians were dismantling the systems that controlled the direction of the ship. On the other side, I was trying to work out why one of the captain’s computers would not join the domain.
The captain’s PC had not been mentioned as a problem.
I had been told all six computers were operational and simply needed to be connected to the new server and the Captain watched me troubleshoot it for some time before casually mentioning:
“Oh, that computer has not worked properly for months.”
Of course it had not.
Why would anyone mention that before the engineer flew to another country?
The machine was in poor condition, unstable and filled with the accumulated digital sediment that gathers on any important computer nobody is willing to replace.
It needed to be rebuilt.
There was no spare machine, no prepared image and no convenient high-speed connection to download everything I might need.
So, alongside the server installation, communications testing, network cabling and frantic procurement of missing accessories, I rebuilt the captain’s PC.
The
captain’s computer naturally contained several applications that were essential to the vessel’s operation.
Naturally, nobody had installation media.
Naturally, nobody had written down the configuration.
Naturally, the person who knew the passwords was asleep, ashore or possibly fictional.
Bit by bit, everything came together.
The local network worked.
The onboard PCs connected.
The server was operational.
The management applications were restored.
The Sony Ericsson W25 connected through the booster and mast antenna.
When the ship was within range of the coastal network, data flowed over 3G.
When it moved beyond coverage, the connection could fall back to Inmarsat-B without accidentally transmitting the GDP of a small country in unnecessary Windows updates.
I had disabled, restricted or scheduled anything that might consume bandwidth without permission.
Antivirus updates, Windows updates, synchronisation jobs and remote-management traffic all had to be carefully controlled.
On an ordinary network, an unexpected 100 MB transfer is annoying.
On that satellite service, an unexpected 100 MB transfer was a meeting with senior management.....possibly also a meeting with their bank.
After approximately 34 hours of travel, climbing, cutting, cabling, rebuilding, configuring and inhaling Eau de Racehorse, the captain delivered the news.
The ship had to leave.
I had two hours.
If I was not finished, I would be sailing with them to Caracas.
I still did not know exactly where Caracas was, but I was reasonably certain it was not near my hotel.
At that point, failure stopped being an option and became a travel itinerary and the final two hours were a blur.
I completed the remaining workstation tests, forced a final data synchronisation, confirmed the application records had reached head office and tested both primary and fallback communications.
The captain’s rebuilt PC worked.
The server restarted cleanly.
The UPS held the load.
The switch survived.
The modem connected.
The application opened on all six computers.
Most importantly, the system did not attempt to download several gigabytes of Windows patches over satellite.
I packed my tools, gathered the leftover cables and completed the documentation with the level of detail possible when every clock around you is counting down to involuntary international travel and with very little time remaining, I was escorted back to the side of the ship....where I had to climb down the same ladder onto the launch.....again.
Climbing up had been unpleasant.
Climbing down while exhausted, with the ship preparing to depart and the ocean moving beneath you, was worse.
The launch rose.
I stepped off the ladder.
The launch dropped
For one brief and VERY exciting moment, I was connected to neither vessel before, finally, gravity, momentum and sheer blind luck deposited me unceremoniously onto the bow of the launch rather than into the Singapore Strait and we pulled away as the crew prepared the ship for departure.
From the launch, I watched the vessel begin moving, carrying its horses, its newly automated helm and my freshly installed server towards its next destination.
I had finished with minutes to spare.
I had also been awake for most of 36 hours, smelled like the lower deck of a floating stable and had developed an entirely new appreciation for office-based server installations.
The system remained in service and the concept was later rolled out to other vessels.
Future installations included better preparation, more spare equipment and significantly more detailed questions about where the ship would actually be when the engineer arrived.
I also added several items to my personal project checklist:
1. Confirm that “docked” means physically attached to land.
2. Never trust a statement that all existing computers are working.
3. Bring twice as many cables as the project requires.
4. A Chief Engineer with a gas axe will solve the problem, although perhaps not in the way anticipated by the design document.
5. Always know where the vessel is going next.
6.
Naturally, nobody had installation media.
Naturally, nobody had written down the configuration.
Naturally, the person who knew the passwords was asleep, ashore or possibly fictional.
Bit by bit, everything came together.
The local network worked.
The onboard PCs connected.
The server was operational.
The management applications were restored.
The Sony Ericsson W25 connected through the booster and mast antenna.
When the ship was within range of the coastal network, data flowed over 3G.
When it moved beyond coverage, the connection could fall back to Inmarsat-B without accidentally transmitting the GDP of a small country in unnecessary Windows updates.
I had disabled, restricted or scheduled anything that might consume bandwidth without permission.
Antivirus updates, Windows updates, synchronisation jobs and remote-management traffic all had to be carefully controlled.
On an ordinary network, an unexpected 100 MB transfer is annoying.
On that satellite service, an unexpected 100 MB transfer was a meeting with senior management.....possibly also a meeting with their bank.
After approximately 34 hours of travel, climbing, cutting, cabling, rebuilding, configuring and inhaling Eau de Racehorse, the captain delivered the news.
The ship had to leave.
I had two hours.
If I was not finished, I would be sailing with them to Caracas.
I still did not know exactly where Caracas was, but I was reasonably certain it was not near my hotel.
At that point, failure stopped being an option and became a travel itinerary and the final two hours were a blur.
I completed the remaining workstation tests, forced a final data synchronisation, confirmed the application records had reached head office and tested both primary and fallback communications.
The captain’s rebuilt PC worked.
The server restarted cleanly.
The UPS held the load.
The switch survived.
The modem connected.
The application opened on all six computers.
Most importantly, the system did not attempt to download several gigabytes of Windows patches over satellite.
I packed my tools, gathered the leftover cables and completed the documentation with the level of detail possible when every clock around you is counting down to involuntary international travel and with very little time remaining, I was escorted back to the side of the ship....where I had to climb down the same ladder onto the launch.....again.
Climbing up had been unpleasant.
Climbing down while exhausted, with the ship preparing to depart and the ocean moving beneath you, was worse.
The launch rose.
I stepped off the ladder.
The launch dropped
For one brief and VERY exciting moment, I was connected to neither vessel before, finally, gravity, momentum and sheer blind luck deposited me unceremoniously onto the bow of the launch rather than into the Singapore Strait and we pulled away as the crew prepared the ship for departure.
From the launch, I watched the vessel begin moving, carrying its horses, its newly automated helm and my freshly installed server towards its next destination.
I had finished with minutes to spare.
I had also been awake for most of 36 hours, smelled like the lower deck of a floating stable and had developed an entirely new appreciation for office-based server installations.
The system remained in service and the concept was later rolled out to other vessels.
Future installations included better preparation, more spare equipment and significantly more detailed questions about where the ship would actually be when the engineer arrived.
I also added several items to my personal project checklist:
1. Confirm that “docked” means physically attached to land.
2. Never trust a statement that all existing computers are working.
3. Bring twice as many cables as the project requires.
4. A Chief Engineer with a gas axe will solve the problem, although perhaps not in the way anticipated by the design document.
5. Always know where the vessel is going next.
6.
Look up Caracas before boarding.
And that is how I earned my sea legs, installed a Windows domain on a floating horse transporter and narrowly avoided becoming the world’s least-prepared passenger to Venezuela.
The salesbot, incidentally, described the installation as:
“A successful overseas deployment with minor logistical challenges.”
Clue-by-four applications were considered.....repeatedly.
https://redd.it/1uysfrt
@r_talesfromtechsupport
And that is how I earned my sea legs, installed a Windows domain on a floating horse transporter and narrowly avoided becoming the world’s least-prepared passenger to Venezuela.
The salesbot, incidentally, described the installation as:
“A successful overseas deployment with minor logistical challenges.”
Clue-by-four applications were considered.....repeatedly.
https://redd.it/1uysfrt
@r_talesfromtechsupport
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Send Us The Serial Numbers
Show you how stupid our helpless desk is. A couple of weeks ago we were requested to find 7 specific switches, by serial number, and ship them to Boston MA. Due to their size and weight, they were sent by freight company. They arrived at their destination and were signed for by the warehouse manager up there. Somehow, they lost them. They've been bugging us ever since about finding these switches.
Tuesday, they asked me describe how they were shipped. I said they were shipped in 3 large boxes that had your address on it, with the switches bubble wrapped inside them.
Wednesday morning, the idiots actually had the nerve to ask me to send them a list of the serial numbers.
They wanted me to send them a list of the serial numbers of the switches they requested by serial numbers.
The best part was when I asked my manager if I could just ignore them for now on. It hadn't hit him how stupid the request was until I said it to him.
Yesterday: I sent them a picture of the original list I was sent waybackwhen, complete with headers showing the list came from them. One of the other managers stepped in and asked helpless desk why they were asking us for the serial numbers that they had already been sent three times.
https://redd.it/1uzz6ve
@r_talesfromtechsupport
Show you how stupid our helpless desk is. A couple of weeks ago we were requested to find 7 specific switches, by serial number, and ship them to Boston MA. Due to their size and weight, they were sent by freight company. They arrived at their destination and were signed for by the warehouse manager up there. Somehow, they lost them. They've been bugging us ever since about finding these switches.
Tuesday, they asked me describe how they were shipped. I said they were shipped in 3 large boxes that had your address on it, with the switches bubble wrapped inside them.
Wednesday morning, the idiots actually had the nerve to ask me to send them a list of the serial numbers.
They wanted me to send them a list of the serial numbers of the switches they requested by serial numbers.
The best part was when I asked my manager if I could just ignore them for now on. It hadn't hit him how stupid the request was until I said it to him.
Yesterday: I sent them a picture of the original list I was sent waybackwhen, complete with headers showing the list came from them. One of the other managers stepped in and asked helpless desk why they were asking us for the serial numbers that they had already been sent three times.
https://redd.it/1uzz6ve
@r_talesfromtechsupport
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Why Can't You Setup My Computer Anymore
This one is a two parter:
Part 1: Back in March we had a new executive come to the lab to pickup their laptop and get their software setup. The guy who was handling her ticket took a look at what needed to be done and told her it was going to take a while. When he really got into the process, he realized it was going to take longer than he expected. So he walked over to her and told her that and gave her the option to either stay or go somewhere else. She opted to stay. So he got a second chair, brought it over to her, and told her she might as well put her legs up while she was waiting.
Take that as you want. She apparently took it the bad way. She waited until he was finished setting up her computer, went down to HR, and demanded he be fired. The following Monday, midday, he was escorted out.
We were thrown for a loop, because between him getting fired, and one of the other techs getting promoted, we were now down two senior techs. It also didn't help that the guy managed our backup server. We had to immediately change how we did things. Including shutting down the backup server and relying only on Microsoft OneDrive, and not allowing malingerers stay in the lab while we were working on their stuff.
Part 2: Yesterday I get a ticket for a lady to come pickup her new laptop at 1:00pm. I responded back that we had it available and it was ready for pickup.
My manager contacts me telling me to treat her with white gloves and to watch what I am saying to her.
I'm like okaaaaaaay.
An hour or two later she contacts me back on an email to the entire IT team asking if an accounting program and a bunch of other software was installed on her computer.
I respond back. "No. Your computer was setup using the standard Autopilot protocol. The only software it comes with is a standard Office suite. You have to install any other software."
My manager, messages me back, almost losing his mind. "I have to remind you to treat her with kid gloves."
I'm like what the heck dude? I am not saying anything that isn't standard procedure.
I go to lunch, and when I get back, one of new guys tells me he overheard manager teamsing the other senior tech and told him she is the chick that got the other tech fired. Which was critical information that wasn't passed on to me.
So when she messaged me back complaining about how she put in a ticket to have all this software installed, and she previously was able to have it installed for her, it took everything in my body not to respond back, "Yeah. The reason we can't do it anymore is because you got the last guy who did it for you fired."
What i did say was, "Due to changes in corporate security policies after March (which is when he was fired), we are no longer allowed to setup end user computers. They must be setup using the Autopilot process by the end user." I then sent her a link to the Autopilot process webpage.
The kicker is, she never showed up. She finally messaged me around 2:30 and told me that she wouldn't be able to come in and that she is only available after 1pm. I just responded back that we are there every weekday until 4:30pm and she is welcome to come in any day she is available to sign into her computer so we can do any additional setup work.
https://redd.it/1uzzqkr
@r_talesfromtechsupport
This one is a two parter:
Part 1: Back in March we had a new executive come to the lab to pickup their laptop and get their software setup. The guy who was handling her ticket took a look at what needed to be done and told her it was going to take a while. When he really got into the process, he realized it was going to take longer than he expected. So he walked over to her and told her that and gave her the option to either stay or go somewhere else. She opted to stay. So he got a second chair, brought it over to her, and told her she might as well put her legs up while she was waiting.
Take that as you want. She apparently took it the bad way. She waited until he was finished setting up her computer, went down to HR, and demanded he be fired. The following Monday, midday, he was escorted out.
We were thrown for a loop, because between him getting fired, and one of the other techs getting promoted, we were now down two senior techs. It also didn't help that the guy managed our backup server. We had to immediately change how we did things. Including shutting down the backup server and relying only on Microsoft OneDrive, and not allowing malingerers stay in the lab while we were working on their stuff.
Part 2: Yesterday I get a ticket for a lady to come pickup her new laptop at 1:00pm. I responded back that we had it available and it was ready for pickup.
My manager contacts me telling me to treat her with white gloves and to watch what I am saying to her.
I'm like okaaaaaaay.
An hour or two later she contacts me back on an email to the entire IT team asking if an accounting program and a bunch of other software was installed on her computer.
I respond back. "No. Your computer was setup using the standard Autopilot protocol. The only software it comes with is a standard Office suite. You have to install any other software."
My manager, messages me back, almost losing his mind. "I have to remind you to treat her with kid gloves."
I'm like what the heck dude? I am not saying anything that isn't standard procedure.
I go to lunch, and when I get back, one of new guys tells me he overheard manager teamsing the other senior tech and told him she is the chick that got the other tech fired. Which was critical information that wasn't passed on to me.
So when she messaged me back complaining about how she put in a ticket to have all this software installed, and she previously was able to have it installed for her, it took everything in my body not to respond back, "Yeah. The reason we can't do it anymore is because you got the last guy who did it for you fired."
What i did say was, "Due to changes in corporate security policies after March (which is when he was fired), we are no longer allowed to setup end user computers. They must be setup using the Autopilot process by the end user." I then sent her a link to the Autopilot process webpage.
The kicker is, she never showed up. She finally messaged me around 2:30 and told me that she wouldn't be able to come in and that she is only available after 1pm. I just responded back that we are there every weekday until 4:30pm and she is welcome to come in any day she is available to sign into her computer so we can do any additional setup work.
https://redd.it/1uzzqkr
@r_talesfromtechsupport
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