» IT Support

Error Messages
Working as an IT tech in a school I got a support call from the woodwork teacher teaching a group of 6th formers how to use Pro Desktop. The call was rather interesting.

Teach: Hello, some of the students are getting an error message.
Me: What does the message say?
Teach: Bananas
Me: ...sorry?
Teach: Bananas
Me: I got it the first time. What?
Teach: All the machines say bananas

So I walked over to see that indeed a class of 30 students were staring and an error box saying "Bananas". This seemed to be a quirk of this software, someone had forgotten to write in all the error messages in properly.

Others included:
"please write error statement here"
"Hello World"
"Coconuts"
" "
"Please ignore this error"
"Rubber Ducks"

It was always a joy to try and fix them as no one at their support line had a clue about what I was talking about and several time I got called a nutter and had the phone put down on me.

Oh you crazy developers.

Length? Bigger than a bunch of bananas!
(Wed 30th Sep 2009, 14:04, More)

» IT Support

I work in IT...
...it's a bit dull.
(Thu 24th Sep 2009, 15:04, More)

» IT Support

I hate computers!
I have worked in IT support for the past six years and it has done nothing but erode my faith in the rest of humanity.

I used to work for a large broadband supplier answering the phones as first line support. This was my first real paying IT job and was the first and only time I will work on a telephone help desk.

The people I worked with were mostly idiots who were split into two catagories:
1. The smart arse tossers that thought they knew everything about computers but were actually thick as shit.
And
2. The people who are just thick as shit.

I spent most of my day fielding calls from pissed off members of the public because they got hung up on or they were told to call back with the excuse "it will fix itself, just wait 24 hours".

I have had to deal with all sorts of crap sent my way. Examples include:

1. Posh lady who bought a Mac purely on the grounds that it looks "adorable". She doesn't use Macs at work but that didn't stop her. She said she needed a bit of help as she was stuck. She had managed to switch it on and then got lost... it took four long hours to get her on the interwebs and to show her around the machine where to find office how to load itunes, add music to itunes. On a side note she didn't even own a fucking ipod as they were "gahstly". I nearly cried.

2. Bloke can play CounterStrike because when he wanted to play, at 6pm!, the like slowed down to a crawl. Three hours of being called every name under the sun he hit upon a good solution. He asked me to phone all the other people on the street who were using our service and ask them to kindly switch off their modems so he could play CS. Seriously, wtff!!! I had to grit my teeth on this one. Retard.

3. A gentleman who was complaining about being sent a letter that he was in breach of the companies fair use policy. Normally this was nothing, every so often one gets sent out and nothing else is done about it. He had a few, so he called me up to see if I could help him. He swore blind he was just running one pc, just one, ok a couple of machines, ok five machines, and a server, actually two servers, two web servers, hosting porn, lots and lots and lots of porn!!! After convincing him to move to a business line he asked me to help him setup his new ftp server so he could stream more porn.

There are more cases but most are of the "My internet ain't workin' wot ya gunna do about it?" These people were treated like crap and thoroughly deserved it.

I also remember one of the trainees getting fired on his first "live" call. He asked a lady to reboot her machine, whilst waiting he thought it appropriate to ask what she was wearing because she had a nice husky voice and if she liked lace underwear!

I still work in IT support, now in education.

Sorry for rantyness and lack of funny but I'm sitting in a class of year one students and it's like a fucking oven in the IT Suite.

Length? Fucking huge.
(Tue 29th Sep 2009, 14:25, More)

» Awesome Sickies

Another good excuse
I have used is "Family Emergency". It works every time.

I have also run out of excuses one time and so i told work that I woke up blind!!! strangly it worked a treat with no questions asked.
(Sun 11th Jun 2006, 20:02, More)

» Ignoring Instructions

Machinery is fun
I remember being at school in the technology room, now this was a room full of metal working equipment and safety notices everywhere.

At the time we were making penholders out of steel and so we needed to machine various parts.

Lesson starts and we get a safety lecture on using a lathe, specifically leaving the chuck key in.

Two seconds later not very cleaver kid steps up to the machine.. you guessed it he leaves the chuck key in, turns lathe on and WHACK!!! right in the groin!!! I chuckled with amusement. Now that might have tought most people a lesson, no. Kid picks up chuck key retightens the metal he is working on. Turns on lathe WHACK!!! AGAIN chuck key right in the groin again.... Twunt!

The bloody thing even had a warning sign on it about leaving the chuck keys in!!!

Length? Girth? You dirty bitches love it!
(Sun 7th May 2006, 22:06, More)