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Helpdesk Calls

  • S

    We all know, we've all experienced one and, unfortunately, some actually have to deal with them:

    Stupid users.

    (Come to think of it, this could be a nice new category for the front page)





    Share your funny, wtf-worthy or plain saddening stories here...



    I'll kick off with a few calls I recently (second one was actually a digital ticket, making it a bit more of a wtf)


    • "I was working in this Word document and it asked me to save, but I clicked No. Can I get it back?"


    • "The system is working really slow till now today[sic]" (We have multiple systems. These non-descript tickets are the best [/sarcasm])



      Me - "I'm sorry, seems my computer is a bit slow today". Employee - "That's okay. It's probably enjoying the great weather outside" (It was 20°C outside after a long and cold winter (about 68°F for the silly people))



      Probably not the best/funniest calls, but I've only worked here for a mere month.
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  • R

    I work in our application support unit so we're the next step up when Help Desk can't ... help. About a year or so ago one of my colleagues took a call from someone who was very upset. As a government agency, we issue what are called "Swipe" cards for clients of our Employment Services. The clients swipe their cards at kiosks when they come in looking for services (hence the name "Swipe" cards ... yeah, someone was up late thinking of that one). The cards have the mag strips with client ID's and such.The caller was the location supervisor, upset that their numbers from the latest report were so low. My colleague started checking databases and got techs to go check out the kiosks and nothing could be found. No errors or issues but also no data.

    Finally, it came down to inspecting the Swipe cards. Well, people kept losing their cards until this one office was down to their last card. Instead of ordering more cards, they copied the last one and started issuing paper cards. This was the supervisor's idea. It seems paper cards don't "swipe" so well. She was even more upset when it was explained to her that, "no, we can't recover the lost data."

    Back then my colleague and I shared a cubicle so I was listening to this call as it unfolded and I was loling. When others came to find out what was so funny I would tell them (very quietly) what the issue was. Soon more and more people found out until the whole office was loling. All this happened while the supervisor was still on the phone arguing about how she couldn't have "lost" all that swipe data. I mean, she went on for a good 20 minutes or more!

    I don't know whatever happened to that supervisor but I do know upper management did not find it funny. Well, at least not until after they were done laughing, too.

    [fixed your wall of text -bs]

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  • P

    @rudraigh said:

    I work in our application support unit so we're the next step up when Help Desk can't ... help. About a year or so ago one of my colleagues took a call from someone who was very upset. As a government agency, we issue what are called "Swipe" cards for clients of our Employment Services. The clients swipe their cards at kiosks when they come in looking for services (hence the name "Swipe" cards ... yeah, someone was up late thinking of that one). The cards have the mag strips with client ID's and such.The caller was the location supervisor, upset that their numbers from the latest report were so low. My colleague started checking databases and got techs to go check out the kiosks and nothing could be found. No errors or issues but also no data.

    Finally, it came down to inspecting the Swipe cards. Well, people kept losing their cards until this one office was down to their last card. Instead of ordering more cards, they copied the last one and started issuing paper cards. This was the supervisor's idea. It seems paper cards don't "swipe" so well. She was even more upset when it was explained to her that, "no, we can't recover the lost data."

    Back then my colleague and I shared a cubicle so I was listening to this call as it unfolded and I was loling. When others came to find out what was so funny I would tell them (very quietly) what the issue was. Soon more and more people found out until the whole office was loling. All this happened while the supervisor was still on the phone arguing about how she couldn't have "lost" all that swipe data. I mean, she went on for a good 20 minutes or more!

    I don't know whatever happened to that supervisor but I do know upper management did not find it funny. Well, at least not until after they were done laughing, too.

     

    Looks like your 'enter' key is broken.

    You might want to contact support.

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  • B

    @Shondoit said:

    We all know, we've all experienced one and, unfortunately, some actually have to deal with them:
    Stupid users.
    (Come to think of it, this could be a nice new category for the front page)


    Share your funny, wtf-worthy or plain saddening stories here...

    I'll kick off with a few calls I recently (second one was actually a digital ticket, making it a bit more of a wtf)
      This is a general suggestion to everyone: please do not attempt clever hooks or embellished writing if you lack the literary skill to pull them off.  Just give us your WTF and be done with it.

    Also, I don't know if this is a general opinion, or just me, but ongoing threads of "post your best X" are dumb.  I favor discrete threads.  If an ongoing thread does develop naturally, that's fine, but there's no need to force it.

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  • PJH
    Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @bstorer said:

    Also, I don't know if this is a general opinion, or just me, but ongoing threads
    of "post your best X" are dumb.
    Ditto. There are whole websites dedicated to 'dumb helpdesk queries.' And the OP is a newbie (on here at least.)

    @bstorer said:
    I favor discrete threads.  If an ongoing thread does develop naturally,
    that's fine, but there's no need to force it.
    SSDS (or whatever acronym it's going by these days. I only skim those mails, having told gmail to 'mark as read and archive' anything coming from swampy. Replies to his get skimmed.)

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  • dhromed

    @bstorer said:

    but there's no need to force it.
     

    You could, but then you'd have to take that perk if you fail and wanted to attempt again.

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  • B

    @dhromed said:

    @bstorer said:

    but there's no need to force it.
     

    You could, but then you'd have to take that perk if you fail and wanted to attempt again.

    Bah, lockpicking is overrated.  I rarely, if ever, have wished I had more lockpick skill.  And the one to try hacking a terminal a second time?  Completely useless because you can just quit the minigame before failing and start over again.
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  • dhromed

    @bstorer said:

    I rarely, if ever, have wished I had more lockpick skill. 
     

    Well, except where it says you need X skill. 

    And don't you agree that you get disproportionately high XP for locks and hacks? What's up with that!

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  • S

    @bstorer said:

    @dhromed said:

    @bstorer said:

    but there's no need to force it.
     

    You could, but then you'd have to take that perk if you fail and wanted to attempt again.

    Bah, lockpicking is overrated.  I rarely, if ever, have wished I had more lockpick skill.  And the one to try hacking a terminal a second time?  Completely useless because you can just quit the minigame before failing and start over again.
     

    If I recall correctly, it's always possible to win the hacking minigame, regardless of your skill level, because there's always a perfect strategy for completing it, and there's no time pressure. I can't remember if the same is true for the lockpicking minigame, but I think this is why there are computers that require a minimum level of Science skill to even attempt.

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  • ?

    @bstorer said:

    Also, I don't know if this is a general opinion, or just me, but ongoing threads of "post your best X" are dumb.
    Specially when it takes so few posts to derail a thread.

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  • B

    @dhromed said:

    @bstorer said:

    I rarely, if ever, have wished I had more lockpick skill. 
     

    Well, except where it says you need X skill. 

    Even with that requirement, I still never really had to put much into lockpicking.  Between the bobblehead, the Tumblers Today, and the general lack of locks to pick, it just wasn't a big deal.  I focused more on the hacking, because it seems to be more frequent (and I hate being shot by turrets or bothered by sentry bots).
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  • L

    @bstorer said:

    the general lack of locks to pick, it just wasn't a big deal.  I focused more on the hacking, because it seems to be more frequent
    Odd. I can't even find 50 terminals for that one achievement with my level 30 character, yet I completed the lockpick one (find and beat the same number of lockpicks) with my first character before reaching level 15.

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  • L

    @Someone You Know said:

    If I recall correctly, it's always possible to win the hacking minigame, regardless of your skill level, because there's always a perfect strategy for completing it, and there's no time pressure. I can't remember if the same is true for the lockpicking minigame, but I think this is why there are computers that require a minimum level of Science skill to even attempt.
    Both are abortable, when aborted they reset. As such you can always try the lockpick without turning the bobbypin, if that doesn't work abort-retry (3 failures will break a pin unless reset). Then with terminals just chose the first 3, if those don't work retry. Also, with the terminal the higher your science the less words you have to chose from, meaning the chance any indivitual word is correct goes up (Science 100 with a very easy terminal should show only 5 words).



    As for the notion that lockpicking and terminals give a disproportionate amount of XP I'd have to say XP rewards are pretty bad in Fallout 3, brutes are a pain for low-level players but give the same XP as raiders, which are far easier. Then the XP curve sort of maxes out around 75 (Very Hard Mode + 2 Swift Learner, Aliens from MZ).

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  • B

    @Lingerance said:

    @bstorer said:
    the general lack of locks to pick, it just wasn't a big deal.  I focused more on the hacking, because it seems to be more frequent
    Odd. I can't even find 50 terminals for that one achievement with my level 30 character, yet I completed the lockpick one (find and beat the same number of lockpicks) with my first character before reaching level 15.
    Really?  It's not hard.  There are bunch in Rivet City, Germantown police station, Museum of Technology, Tenpenny Tower, Megaton, the underworld, Arlington Library, Fort Bannister, the vault with Fawkes, and the Citadel.  I'd bet they average 4 each, so that's like 40 right there.  And it's so easy because you simply cannot fail them unless you're an idiot.

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  • dhromed

    @bstorer said:

    Really?  It's not hard.  There are bunch in [locations]
     

    Same goes for locks. Neither are "rare".

    In other news, I went to Jury Street for the Xuanlong (disappointing rifle!), then decided to take out that teddybear Behemoth west of that -- an excellent test drive of the fat man: my big guns skill just isn't high enough for other big guns to really make an impact as brutal as a mini nuke -- and then went on to Evergreen Mills and played a fun sniping game of "I'm In Ur Base, Killing Ur Mans", using Lincoln's Repeater: an excellent, excellent rifle.

    Man, Evergeen Mills! What incredible quantities of loot lie there! I went back to my room twice to store all the sellable stuff because I was all packed up, and I'm still going back for all the fags cigarettes. (I keep a lot of weaponry in my pockets because I want to pick 'n choose. I can probably carry less shit than others who are more tactical about their guns).

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