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beowulf

Help Desk people

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They must not pay them very well. Every time I am forced to have to deal with them I always want to scream. It seems the first tier can only follow written instructions and can't think for themselves. Second tier is not much better. One of my offices called me after they couldn't get their DSL connection issues fixed through the help desk. The office lady spent over 5 hours with the help desk from the DSL provider and Linksys trying to fix the problem and it took me 10 minutes to find and fix the problem. Hmmph I am not impressed. Don't they know that you can't have a broadband router assigning ip addresses that are the same subnet as the address that is assigned to it's internet port??? They should know this stuff! It's very basic networking!:S

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I occasionally sit on the other side of that fence.. When my support staff is busy or I have them working on other projects, I sometimes Pick up the support line when it rings.
I have engineer calling up for support on my application.. These people have graduate degrees, using $100K software package..
They call up.. "Its not working right".:S
What’s not working?
"The system, It isnt giving me the answers I want"
Can you zip up your data and send it to me so I can see what you mean?
"How do I do That?"
Uhhh.. Can you have one of you IT people call me?
"I tried that.. They said to call you.":S

Had a customer this week call me and ask for a minor change to a report (Crystal). I figure no problem, I wont even charge you cause it should take more than 5 minutes to add that calculation to the report. I make the change, Send him back the file and tell him to copy it to the Reports folder and overwrite the existing file.
He calls back.. “How do I do that?”. So two hours later I finally talk him through copying the file to right location.

Beleive me when I say it goes both ways.. Even worse is the guys that think they know it all and will not listen.. To busy trying to impress me with how much they know.:S:D
I finally have to say.. Shut up, and just do what I ask you to do. If you want me to explain it, come to training.

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ha ha
engineers are usually the worst people to work with on computers. They think they know everything. I am a network admin. I deal with all kinds of people. The office that I was refering to is in North Carolina and the office lady there can be very diffucult to deal with. She really does not work well with computers. You have to go very slowly and spell everything out. For this issue her description of what wasn't working pretty much narrowed down where the problem was. I thought it was a routing issue and it pretty much was that.

I love those calls where they say the network is down. hmm what do mean the network is down? Well my lotus notes doesn't work. Oh well what in Note is not working......

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I sit on both sides of the fence all the time. Being in support sucks since you have know it alls that tell you their way is the correct. If it was correct why did they screw up the program in the first place? :D On the other side when I have to call vendors telling them their sever just toasted a drive and I need to RMA one is painful.

"Yes, the drive is blinking a red light and is making grinding noises"
"No, I can't pull it out and put it in another server since I only have one server that takes this type of drive"
"No, 5 day ground delivery is not an acceptible option"

:S
Yesterday is history
And tomorrow is a mystery

Parachutemanuals.com

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engineers are usually the worst people to work with on computers. They think they know everything.

I think you need to add a disclaimer... I usually fare reasonably well with computers.

I think there is a generation of engineers that didn't grow up tinkering with computers all their lives that doesn't know their way around them (my father for example) but most of the younger generations are relatively computer savvy. (mind you I do make mistakes... but I'm human... what can I say... :$)

Now, I "have" to call tech support (the help desk) in my work environment because the government has long since decided that the "users" are not allowed to have administrative privileges... so that we don't "Abuse" them... which means that it can take a week for me to be able to take training that should take me 20 minutes because I don't have the necessary plug-in installed for internet explorer and I can't simply download and install it... :|
Livin' on the Edge... sleeping with my rigger's wife...

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Try calling Dell for server support and have them ask you to try all these diagnostics and tests you just got done trying before you called them.

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"No, I can't pull it out and put it in another server since I only have one server that takes this type of drive"



That one is the best. I get that when they've run out of things to have me "try".:D

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Dell's Gold support generally treats me pretty well. But it can be very frustrating when they make me go through all the trouble shooting that I already did before I called them. It all depends on who I get, some just tell me what they need done and others try to walk me through every little thing. I don't like it when the walk me through every thing. It takes a lot longer then it needs to.

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Yea Not all Engineers are bad It just seems that I have gotten all the older ones that act like the know everything and get very defensive when they make a mistake.


When one of our CSU/DSU's went out their help desk was pretty easy to deal with and that got resolved pretty quickly with a replacement.

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Every one that woks for my company is an Engineer. All of our customers are Engineers.

Sorry Icon.. He is 100% correct. In General they are all (Including Us) the most stubborn, defensive, self justifying, annoying people to deal with (Other than Lawyers of course but you cant really count lawyers as people):S:D:D

Ever tried to tell a P.E. he is wrong?? Good luck with that!;):D

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Ever tried to tell a P.E. he is wrong?? Good luck with that!;):D

that's only because you can't *tell* a Professional Engineer (PE) they are wrong... you have to prove a P.E. is incorrect...

and I've learned this... (I'm a 4th generation engineer) I've dealt with engineers and scientists pretty much all of my life.

A lot of it comes with the responsibility that are put on an engineers shoulders... when designing repairs on C-130s we were very meticulous because when I sign the bottom of the page I am more or less taking responsibility for the assumptions that I've made in designing the repair... if something turns out to be wrong with it then ethically I'm the one that is responsible for any death or damage which occurs as a result...
:|
Livin' on the Edge... sleeping with my rigger's wife...

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Professional Engineer..

Basically a Licensed Asshole. A particularly arrogant breed of engineer that absolutely cannot possibly ever be wrong. If in doubt.. Just look on his card.. If it says P.E. at the end of his name, Clearly you are wrong and he is right.:P:D:D:D

:D:D:D

good one... and to think I've considered getting my P.E. certificate one of these days...

of course I'm wrong all the time... so that may not be a possibility... :D:D
Livin' on the Edge... sleeping with my rigger's wife...

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Professional Engineer..

Basically a Licensed Asshole. A particularly arrogant breed of engineer that absolutely cannot possibly ever be wrong. If in doubt.. Just look on his card.. If it says P.E. at the end of his name, Clearly you are wrong and he is right.:P:D:D:D



:D I was just kidding, I work in the support proffesion as well. Used to work with engineers. Doing what I'm doing now, I often get to instruct that rebooting a computer begins with ... Click Start and not turn off the power strip.


(no it's not all like that but I'm anywhere from the network guy, sys-admin, help desk, etc... )
My grammar sometimes resembles that of magnetic refrigerator poetry... Ghetto

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Well, the people who know about basic networking are generally more expensive to hire than the people who don't know about networking.

So they get people who don't have a clue, give them a set of recipes and and set them to work answering questions.

People who didn't have a clue about sending the right kind of bill for the ADSL I was getting, did all kinds of funny stuff with my subscription before they finally got it right. And when I call Dell support, I just collect all the information that I know they are going to need before I call them. "Here's the problem, fix it!", that saves me for a lot of frustration.

I do IT support in a mediium sized office environment (150 users), and I sometimes have to resolve issues over the phone. I know how frustrating that can be, so I can imagine how it must be to do telephone support all the time. Issues that take me 5 minutes to fix in person, can take half an hour to fix on the phone. Sometimes the user even gives up, or just fails to follow my instructions because they "feel stupid" or whatever.

It's surprising that they get it right mostly.
Relax, you can die if you mess up, but it will probably not be by bullet.

I'm a BIG, TOUGH BIGWAY FORMATION SKYDIVER! What are you?

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Please don't even go there. New mobilephone on contract look at manual follow instructions. Inactive sim nothing on the website to help :S so phone vodaphone cutomer service. telling them it needs to be activated so put on hold, then told after 10 minute wait we will phone you back:| the phone back 10 minutes later saying we can't activate it you have to take it to your nearest vodaphone shop (which i passed when shopping a hour earlier ) anyway i hobble my ass down there making it just before they closed. Guy behind the counter takes the phone starts the activation process asks what plan i am on and then it all goes to shit. i took it out vai the website on a web only deal he can't do the activation he phones contact centre which he said i have to wait till tomorrow morning to call as they should have activated it. i am told that the call centre guy probably panic'd when he couldn't activate it that's why i was told to got the store >:(>:(>:(>:(>:(

what should have been a fun experience is turning into a nightmare it does not fill me with confidence in their customer service if they can't get this shit sorted tomorrow i will Just cancel my contract and go elsewhere but its really pissed me off as a new customer >:(>:(>:(>:(

Billy-Sonic Haggis Flickr-Fun


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My nephew's first job out of high school was on the help desk for Apple Computer and dealing with Macintosh issues. He had never used a Mac prior to working for Apple in the call center, and yes he was very low paid.
"Where troubles melt like lemon drops, away above the chimney tops, that's where you'll find me" Dorothy

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They must not pay them very well. Every time I am forced to have to deal with them I always want to scream. It seems the first tier can only follow written instructions and can't think for themselves. Second tier is not much better. One of my offices called me after they couldn't get their DSL connection issues fixed through the help desk. The office lady spent over 5 hours with the help desk from the DSL provider and Linksys trying to fix the problem and it took me 10 minutes to find and fix the problem. Hmmph I am not impressed. Don't they know that you can't have a broadband router assigning ip addresses that are the same subnet as the address that is assigned to it's internet port??? They should know this stuff! It's very basic networking!:S



Shure you can mine is and I don't have any issues my ISP assings 255.255.255.o as thier subnet and my internal network with DHCP from my Linksys is also set to the same. If the linksys is not set as NAT you will have issues. This only has to be disable if router in question is not the gateway
SO this one time at band camp.....

"Of all the things I've lost I miss my mind the most."

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Now, I "have" to call tech support (the help desk) in my work environment because the government has long since decided that the "users" are not allowed to have administrative privileges... so that we don't "Abuse" them... which means that it can take a week for me to be able to take training that should take me 20 minutes because I don't have the necessary plug-in installed for internet explorer and I can't simply download and install it... :|



Local administrative privileges for the users is a ticket to trouble. The users can't figure out how to install Adobe reader or update their flash plug in, but they have no problems installing malware, spyware and trojans from the internet.
Relax, you can die if you mess up, but it will probably not be by bullet.

I'm a BIG, TOUGH BIGWAY FORMATION SKYDIVER! What are you?

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