BF2S Forums IT Dept banter OR stupid people breed too much

I feel ya man.

I have had quite a few bad expiriences, and im not even a paid yet. I worked for my school, and went around and fixed (mainly reimaged lol) teacher and student PCs.

The thing that got me was when people couldnt even explain the problem.

"The modem was making noise"
"Ma'am, there is not a modem in this PC, where was the sound coming from?"
"THE MODEM"

After a couple minutes of bantering, and her getting quite mad.
Turns out she ment the PC itself.

Ive learned you just have to nod and say ok, and then find out whats wrong yourself.

"My PC doesn't work - what did YOU do to it?????"

Real story:  I was working in the Dep.t of the Navy Headquarters in The Pentagon.  We were installing new color printers in the various deprtments (Navy calls them "N Codes").  Our last stop was at about 4:30 PM.  Installed the printer, tested it, got the install signed off and away we went.  The next morning we got a call from that office complaining that the coffeee pot was no longer working.  Obviously it was our fault since we installed the printer last night.  The only good thing was that the call came from a civilian, not a uniformed.

Kaosdad008 wrote:

"My PC doesn't work - what did YOU do to it?????"

Real story:  I was working in the Dep.t of the Navy Headquarters in The Pentagon.  We were installing new color printers in the various deprtments (Navy calls them "N Codes").  Our last stop was at about 4:30 PM.  Installed the printer, tested it, got the install signed off and away we went.  The next morning we got a call from that office complaining that the coffeee pot was no longer working.  Obviously it was our fault since we installed the printer last night.  The only good thing was that the call came from a civilian, not a uniformed.

I love this one... You try to help family friends, people at work and the first thing they say...

"It worked before you messed with it..."

Right... Usually I sit down to a spyware infested machine because these users usually click on every Free pop-up that jumps at them...

You ARE INFECTED CLICK HERE TO REMOVE SPYWARE...
You ARE AT RISK CLICK HERE
You JUST WON $5,000 and a free trip to North Korea CLICK HERE NOW BEFORE IT's TO LATE!!!


ARG!

Last edited by splixx (2006-06-19 07:40:35)

I used to work in IT support and although it was nice getting to walk about the office all day chatting to people it did get really annoying when people didnt know what i was talking about. Most of the time people would phone me or email me to say that their computer was not working properly, so i would pay them a visit to find that the computer had just frozen because it was an old computer and they were using MS. So i would just restart the computer and tell them that everything is fixed.

The worst thing though is that you notice how many people lye when they dont know what you are talking about. You ask them if they had done something before the computer stopped working and they tell you "no", but because we are the IT geeks, we know how to check to see if they are telling the truth or not.

Snipedya14 wrote:

Yeah I get the "Hard Drive" thing all the time as well.

I think it should be mandatory for all people in school to take a PC Hardware/Software 101 Class.

Learn about basic functions of Hardware and Software.

Unrealistic I know, but it would make the IT field alot Less annoying.

I don't think that's an unrealistic idea at all.  For better or worse (better for me since it means job security, remo) computers are an integrated and vital part of society.  If you're so phobic that you are afraid to turn it on or so inept that you lock yourself out daily, how does that really help yourself?  It's gotten to the point now that my first question is, "Did you reboot?"  Which still works because they haven't figured out to lie about it yet.  Again, not that I couldn't find out.  But ya know what?  9 times out of 10, rebooting it will fix every damn thing... +1 for sharing my idea

Last edited by puckmercury (2006-06-19 07:58:55)

I'd like to show the reverse side.  I don't work in IT but I am computer savvy and I often get to see how piss poor the IT departments of some companies can be.

The company I used to work for was shocking.  They regulary lied about what could and couldn't be done and it reached a point where my colleagues would come to me first.  For example, one guy had a problem with his PC and after letting the IT department work on it, he discovered that they had deleted a year's worth of his E-mails and when he rang them they just fobbed him off saying the couldn't do anything once they'd been wiped.  So I installed a data recovery programme and got them back but it did take me the best part of an hour.

The security was also poor as I managed, with no hacking experience, to get into the E-mail server (so I had complete admin control over all accounts) and to print of a list detailing the salary of every employee. 

It's quite funny when you know about PCs but don't work in IT because you know when the IT dept is making stuff up because they can't be arsed with the hassle of sorting something out properly.

I got this one last week.

User - "I need a new video card"
Me - "why"
User - "Microsoft Word is running slow and does not refresh quickly"
Me - "try accrepting the 2000 tracked changes in your 5 page document"

And litterally there were about 2000 changes in the right hand margin.  But he insisted it was a video issue.

=OBS= EstebanRey wrote:

I'd like to show the reverse side.  I don't work in IT but I am computer savvy and I often get to see how piss poor the IT departments of some companies can be.

The company I used to work for was shocking.  They regulary lied about what could and couldn't be done and it reached a point where my colleagues would come to me first.  For example, one guy had a problem with his PC and after letting the IT department work on it, he discovered that they had deleted a year's worth of his E-mails and when he rang them they just fobbed him off saying the couldn't do anything once they'd been wiped.  So I installed a data recovery programme and got them back but it did take me the best part of an hour.

The security was also poor as I managed, with no hacking experience, to get into the E-mail server (so I had complete admin control over all accounts) and to print of a list detailing the salary of every employee. 

It's quite funny when you know about PCs but don't work in IT because you know when the IT dept is making stuff up because they can't be arsed with the hassle of sorting something out properly.

Just a thought, maybe you shouldn't be undermining the IT depatment, or you would take it up with their boss.  People that are not part of IT that try to fix problems usually complicate the matter furthur.  Take the problem up with the right people and get it fixed properly.  Don't try to fix it your self and let the root of the problem fester.

Well it has to be said that my experience of people who work in IT is that they are a bunch of elitist nob heads who really struggle to communicate on a human level because they spend so much time talking to their PCs. I'm not saying that all IT are like this, just the one's I've met.

Lighten up, we aren't all experts. Some people know nothing about PCs and are intimidated by them. When something does go wrong they will try to distance themselves from it as much as possible in case they are responsible.

It's a human thing, you wouldn't understand.

I hate it when users lie or they are not descriptive about their issue.  I have had some people tell me that it just keeps spinning around.  I asked what, and they said I don't know, it just keeps spinning.  What they were talking about was the loading icon in IE 7.


This is a little bit different but still fits. 

At my old job, our IT department was stupid.  I had a video card issue, and I reinstalled the driver, and rebooted.  This did not solve the issue, so I called our IT group.  He asked me to do something like reconfigure the driver.  I asked him what he was speaking about, because being in IT myself what he said did not make sense.  He told me to reinstall the driver.  I told him I did, and then I told him that I would fix it.

KnowMeByTrailOfDead wrote:

Just a thought, maybe you shouldn't be undermining the IT depatment, or you would take it up with their boss.  People that are not part of IT that try to fix problems usually complicate the matter furthur.  Take the problem up with the right people and get it fixed properly.  Don't try to fix it your self and let the root of the problem fester.

With all due respect, not all IT departments are the well-oiled machines that some of us enjoy.  The company I was working for were as tight as a duck's rectum and would rather employ a school leaver with a minimal qualifacation than get someone who actually knows what they're doing in.  Why pay an expert high wages when you can pay an amatuer low wages kind of business.

At risk of blowing my own trumpet, I can confidently say that I knew more about IT than the majority of the people in the IT department and after an afternoon of browsing the company's server structure I would say I knew the network as well as many of them too.

For an example of the bullshit they used to spout I can cite a conversation I had with the, and get this, head of IT.  We were outside on a cigarette break and I overhead him boasting of how the E-mail system needed a clear out and how he'd be checking our E-mails to see who's sleeping with who etc.  So I went into the E-mail server and the looked at the programmes used to run it and noticed that all the settings indicated that E-mails were only stored locally, thus he would have to have each machine in front of him to look at old E-mails.

=OBS= EstebanRey wrote:

KnowMeByTrailOfDead wrote:

Just a thought, maybe you shouldn't be undermining the IT depatment, or you would take it up with their boss.  People that are not part of IT that try to fix problems usually complicate the matter furthur.  Take the problem up with the right people and get it fixed properly.  Don't try to fix it your self and let the root of the problem fester.

With all due respect, not all IT departments are the well-oiled machines that some of us enjoy.  The company I was working for were as tight as a duck's rectum and would rather employ a school leaver with a minimal qualifacation than get someone who actually knows what they're doing in.  Why pay an expert high wages when you can pay an amatuer low wages kind of business.

At risk of blowing my own trumpet, I can confidently say that I knew more about IT than the majority of the people in the IT department and after an afternoon of browsing the company's server structure I would say I knew the network as well as many of them too.

For an example of the bullshit they used to spout I can cite a conversation I had with the, and get this, head of IT.  We were outside on a cigarette break and I overhead him boasting of how the E-mail system needed a clear out and how he'd be checking our E-mails to see who's sleeping with who etc.  So I went into the E-mail server and the looked at the programmes used to run it and noticed that all the settings indicated that E-mails were only stored locally, thus he would have to have each machine in front of him to look at old E-mails.

I may have worked with that guy once.  Sounds very familiar.  I got him fired for being an idiot.

Sorry, I have worked at a few companies and seen several people (software developers) that thought they could and would solve everyone elses problems.  It alwasy led to pain and suffering for everyone involved.  The poor schmuck who had the problem, the guy who thought he could fix the problem and me - the one who had to fix the old problem and the new problem(s).  Not trying to bash you directly, just a general statement.

Last edited by KnowMeByTrailOfDead (2006-06-19 13:37:47)