Id10 T Error

[phreak]

Not all of us techs can stick it to em like you Rufus (go on, even if it wasn't you I know a small part of you wishes it could have been.)
but we still have ways and means of keeping ourselves amused.
I have told people before they have an I D 10 T error, or and I/O error (Idiot Operator).
What other way have you managed to stave off the bordem while talking to plebs on the phone and sticking it to them at the same time?

[swoop]

Layer 8 issue.

[alkatraz]

I would just keep this open:

bofh.d00t.org/

[Mat]

I still like this one...
The problem is between the keyboard and chair.

[drunkenmessiah]

Waffle valve... the waffle valve is causing excess heat on the handling grid.

[John]

If you have a few contact numbers for support...

Wait until they have poured their heart out detailing the problem. Then tell them that this line cannot help with the query and they need to call 'x' number. Extra points if the call comes back to you and using a different accent tell them to go back to the original number.

I love the frustration from them at the end of it. ;D

[swoop]

Thats just evil.

My fav reason for outage is "Sunspots".

[Rufus]

Hi my names Rufus, not the Rufus who started this forum but another random Rufus who keeps getting sent emails about this guy because we have the same f$^%^ng awsome name.



Peace

[paull]

Mat said:

I still like this one...
The problem is between the keyboard and chair.

PEBKAC Problem Exists Between Keyboard And Chair

[Triox]

I was internal and one of three who had access to the phone system. When ever I began getting hasseled by management or cow-orkers i would say that I'm really busy and ask them to call back... In the mean time, log into phone system, set a redirect up on their number and send it into a 15 layer, multiple recursive IVR... That always bought me lots of peace and quiet

[Rufuswannabe]

Following is an excerpt from a conversation with a vendor we rep for the call center group I work for. the names have been changed to protect the innocent....
Namely ME

the setup:
daily conference calls are held to discuss the current Queue status and any issues that might be leading to longer than normal Handle Time.

Vendor: Hello..have a question regarding BYOP
ops-desk: yes

Vendor: can anyone tell me the reason why BYOP's AHT was higher yesterday than compared to last week...were there particular kind of calls the reps got?

Vendor: trying to provide a summary
ops-desk: I will need to research that since i was not here yesterday.

Vendor: OK. thanks for your help...just trying to find out if there was a particular issue that the customers kept calling with or something

Ops-Desk: the unresearched answer would be intermittent service interruption errors caused by unreplicatable logic subsystem invalidation warnings. ;-) (gosh I love the BOFH excuse generator)

Vendor: awesome...thanks for your help
Ops-Desk: how soon do you need the real answer, cause Daniel left for lunch and will not return for another 45 Min's
Ops-Desk: I think he ran the the Vendor DPR yesterday

Vendor: I'm good with what you gave me ...but in lamins terms what does it mean

Ops-Desk: basically there were some occasional troubles that were difficult for the agents to replicate.

Vendor:OK thanks


This example just goes to show.
Just give them an answer....

Also I thought ID10T was the most popular password reset delivered by an AOL tech support rep in the year 2006.

My all time favorite tech support routine though by far was ....
Yes mam, Compaq sent this lil red cd. Will you please place that in the cd rom for us" ( Please note the careful use of partnering verbiage, good sign of quality tech support on the way)

OK you put the CD in ? , Great thanks.
Now go ahead and turn the PC off then back on again.
....
let the process start....
about 5 minutes into the process after you have them talking about how their kids research paper is on here and the Hawaii vacation trip's pictures....

let them know....
" this process will take approximately 45 Minutes to an hour, please call us back once it has finished", oh by the way you did back up your data before you called right?

Thanks for calling Tech Support.

[hazclan13]

We have had someone come in and said (while we are knee deep in computer parts) do you fix vacuums cleaners?
Man this world has allot of strange people in.

[phreak]

Lol. We used to do that. Except we would blatently lie to them about the restore cd. When asked "Will this wipe my data?" some of us used to just say "No, it only re-installs windows." or some crap excuse like that. And when they called back complaining we would always come back with something like "Did you choose option X or option Y like my colleague told you to?" and as soon as you heard that first "Ummmm" you could just turn it around and make it like they pushed a wrong button.

We also used to have a script that we had to read for the premium rate number (basically the same as the normal support but a little easier to get to, and you paid £0.60 per minute for that privilage) and there was the odd occassion when one of the guys would take the piss with it. Because if the customer started to interrupt while we were reading it then we could just say "I'm sorry Sir/madam, I have to read this by law..... now I am going to have to start over again." Much to the amusement of us other guys on the callcenter. Once one of the guys really took the piss and read the script slower than a slug crawling across flypaper. I think he managed to stretch the script which should have only take 20-30 seconds to read to a couple of minutes.

Ahh, good times.

[headcase]

Not funny. Losing data accreted in a PC over several years can be very traumatic. Even though I had partial backups, some personal files were lost when I switched from Win98SE to WinXPSP2 a few years ago. My own damn fault for not pulling a disk image first, but still not fun.

As for helldesk calls, I used to do 2nd level support for a mission critical product of a multinational telecom kit supplier. I would have to deal with people from the telcos calling in panic when their whole mobile network went catatonic and all one could call would be the emergency number (911, 112, whatever). You'd be amazed how clueless some supposedly technical people can be (although if you know that MCSE means Must Call Somebody Experienced, you might have an idea of what I'm talking about).
I quickly took to conducting support calls over IM - after having to dictate a long unix command line over the phone to somebody with the unix skills of a cucumber and a bloody thick accent, being misunderstood half a dozen times, and him trying to shift blame on me after the inevitable fsckup. I think I can dig up some of the chatlogs for entertainment value later

[facepalm]

swoop said:

Thats just evil.

My fav reason for outage is "Sunspots".

Dont even joke about that. When I was in support, a co worker would regularly claim that any of the following were a reason for a pc not running correctly :

Sunspots.
Background Radiation (I wish I was joking).
Installation of a high voltage unshielded cable at the customers site that they didnt know about.
Too cold.
Too hot.
Vibrations from people walking past the desk had forced the heads on the hard disk to skip.
Declaring at the top of his voice, "Well its crappy Windows, you should use Linux instead" (Now dont start an argument on me here, I like Linux, I use Linux, I just dont think its the be all and end all - corporate people generally use Windows, insulting them about it doesnt help)

He regularly came into the office, put his laptop in his waist-coat and wandered round for about 10 mins to help "warm it up to operating temperature".

On top of this he had a teddy-bear that he took to site installations. He called it his "technical advisor" and asked it a lot of questions as to why the server wasnt working properly.

There are some complete freaks in support sometimes. Thankfully hes been unemployed for a couple of years.