Good afternoon all! Hope your Tuesday treats you well. I'm busy working, and just to prove it, a quick #PSA:

When someone you're calling says "sorry, it's a bad line, you keep breaking up" the answer is *not* shouting down the line. Chances are, you've just rendered that person deaf in one ear with a staccato "I... want ... My ...ass... ...lease" which just confuses and annoys them.

Try moving to an area with better signal and repeat at normal volume. 👍🏻
#TalesFromTechSupport

My earliest jobs in tech were doing phone support for dial-up internet customers. Phone lines not being plugged in correctly were a common cause of connection issues.

If you ask a customer to double check the phone plug, they often would not bother looking. I guess they felt sure about it?

The fix? Tell them to swap the ends on their phone line. In the process of doing it they would end up plugging it in correctly. Fixed quite a few bad connections with that trick. #talesfromtechsupport

User at work:
"What do you mean you can't suggest a password to me?! You can change it afterwards!"

🤦🏻‍♂️
#talesfromtechsupport

I guarantee that the built-in web browser on your fancy new TV/toaster/other is absolute dogshit and will struggle to render your slick real estate web site properly, if at all. Go get a real computer. #talesfromtechsupport

Don't you love it when all you get for a support ticket is "won't work"?

Yeah, me neither.
#talesfromtechsupport

"everything we do regarding this job is all written down."
"What about a command's output that is different on every screen."
"Except that, we just have to memorize that."
🤦‍♀️​

#TalesFromTechSupport #why #logically

server: *ded*
server users: "Quickly! Call the help desk! It's an emergency!"
me: "It's been down for 2 minutes (based on SolarWinds dashboard). Have some patience."
server users: "IT'S AN EMERGENCY!"
me: "It's nearly midnight, is it really an emergency or did you procrastinate on this until the last second?"
users: "....... uh..... oh hey, it's back up, thanks bye!"

I love it when servers do their monthly maintenance and we get to see how many people wait until the very last minute to renew their certifications and other documents and then panic when there's a blip. PS: real transcript i just had with a caller.

#techsupport #TalesFromTechSupport

Gotta love working in IT Support.
"Please click on the windows button on your keyboard, then type software centre"
"Ok, I'm in settings, where do I type this?"
[Where did settings come from?!] "Just hit the windows key on your keyboard"
"Where's that?"
"Between control and alt at the bottom left"
"Ok, control, alt and what else do I press?"
"No, just hit the windows key"
"What about control and alt?"
"No, just the windows key"
"Where's that?"
[Murderous rage increases]
#talesfromtechsupport

User:"I can't access the system"
Me: resets password, walk them through changing it.
User: still can't access system
Me: puzzled, trying all sorts then, finally, "silly question, you were able to access it before?"
User: "no, never used it"
Me: ...

Must be Friday
#talesfromtechsupport

I'm monitoring the work inbox today. We got an email from someone at a completely different company reporting what looked like spam.

Being new, I wondered if they were a contractor or maybe using a private email (they weren't).

I've never seen such specifically targeted spam before! Usually it's "here's your invoice" or "please help me unlock my money", not "I've got spam".

(And no, it wasn't a typo. Ambulance trust not equals mobile operator)
#talesfromtechsupport #phishing #emailspam

First day back at the office for 2023.

User: "my inbox says it's full, but I've deleted everything".

Me: "have you emptied the deleted folder?"

User:"yes, it still says it's full"

:Looks at inbox, 2gb of 2gb used, deleted folder 1gb:

SMH
#ITSupport #talesfromtechsupport

When I worked in tech support and got on a fully patched system with best practices in place, I’d often get very wary. Most of the customers were small shops and I knew the IT “staff” lacked the urgency to keep all of that up to date.
Explaining why I was pretty sure they were owned was always a fun conversation. “Sooo uhh yeah, what’s your patch schedule and what GPOs you using?”
Cue confused questions.
“Yeah, you’re haxxored. Tho they’re maintaining the hell out of your systems…. Do with that what you will”
Using “lolpwned” as the note on the account was vetoed by management.

#ramble
#cybersecurity
#story
#shitpost
#techsupport
#talesfromtechsupport

Just had my work email blow up with forwards of a fake email from a vendor with a "document to sign." Hover over the image in the email that you're supposed to click... url is completely wrong. Best thing about it is the person's signature is in the email with the company's actual website... but not everyone knows about hovering over an image/link to see the actual address it takes you to.

#infosec #talesfromtechsupport