A Week at the Computer Helpdesk, the REAL story...
Got sent this by e-mail yesterday.
Quite funny
Monday
8:05am
User called to say they forgot password. Told them to use password
retrieval utility called FDISK. They thank me and hang up. God, we let the
people vote and drive, too?
8:12am
Accounting called to say they couldn't access reports database. Gave them
Standard Sys Admin Answer #112, Well, it works for me. Let them rant while
I unplugged my coffeemaker from the UPS and plugged their server back in.
Suggested they try it again. One more happy customer...
11:00am
Quiet for last few hours. Decide to plug phone back in so I can call my
girlfriend. Says parents are coming into town this weekend. Put her on
hold and transferred her to janitorial closet.
12:00pm
Lunch
3:30pm
Return from lunch.
4:23pm
Yet another user calls. Wants to know how to change fonts. Ask them what
chip set they're using. Tell them to call back when they find out.
Tuesday
9:00am
Support manager arrives. Wants to discuss my attitude. Click on PhoneNotes
SmartIcon. Love to, but kinda busy. I yell as I grab for the support
lines, which have(mysteriously) lit up. Walks away grumbling.
9:35pm
Team leader from R&D needs ID for new employee. Tell them to hang on.
Transfer them to janitorial closet in basement.
10:00am
Perky sounding intern from R&D calls and says she needs new ID. Tell her I
need employee number, and marital status. Run @DbLookup against parole
board database, CDC database, and my Oprah database. No hits. Tell her ID
will be ready tonight, I offer to personally deliver ID to her apartment.
10:07am
Janitor stops by to say he keeps getting strange calls in basement. Offer
to train him on Notes. Begin now. Let him watch console while I grab a
smoke.
1:00pm
Return from smoking break. Janitor says phones kept ringing, so he
transferred them to cafeteria lady. I like this guy.
1:05pm
Big commotion! Support manager falls in hole left where I pulled floor
tiles outside his office door. Stress to him importance of not running in
computer room, even if I do yell Omigod -- Fire!
2:00pm
Legal secretary calls and says she lost password. Ask her to check in her
purse, floor of car, and on bathroom counter. Tell her it probably fell
out of back of machine. Suggest she put duct tape over all the airvents
she can find on the PC. Grudgingly offer to create new ID for her while
she does that.
2:49pm
Janitor comes back. Wants more lessons. I take off rest of day.
Wednesday
8:30am
Irate user calls to say chipset has nothing to do with fonts on form. Tell
them of course, they should have been checking Bitset, not chipset.
Sheepish user apologizes and hangs up.
9:10am
Support manager, with foot in cast, returns to office. Schedules 10:00am
meeting with me.
10:00am
Call Louie in janitorial services to cover for me. Go to support manager's
office. He says he can't dismiss me but can suggest several lateral career
moves. Most involve farm implements in third-world countries. I ask if
he's aware of new bug which takes full-text indexed random e-mail
databases and puts all references to handcuffs and Bambi in Marketing on
the corporate Web page. Meeting is adjourned as he reaches for keyboard,
Web browser, and Tums.
10:30am
Tell Louie he's doing great job. Offer to show him mainframe corporate PBX
system sometime.
11:00am
Lunch.
4:55pm
Return from lunch.
5:00pm
Shift change; Going home.
Thursday
8:00am
New guy (Marvin) started today. "Nice plaids" I offer. Set him up with IBM
PC-XT. Tell him to quit whining, Notes runs the same in both monochrome
and color.
8:45am
New guy's PC finishes booting up. Tell him I'll create new ID for him. Set
minimum password length to 64. Go grab smoke.
9:30am
Introduce Louie the custodian to Marvin. Nice plaids Louie comments. Is
this guy great or what?!
11:00am
Beat Louie in dominos game. Louie leaves. Fish spare dominos out of
sleeves (Always have backups).
5:00pm
Shift change. Flick HR's server off and on several times (just testing the
On/Off button...). See ya tomorrow.
Friday
8:00am
Night shift still trying to replace power supply in HR server. Told them
it worked fine before I left.
9:00am
Marvin still not here. Decide I might start answering these calls myself.
Unforward phones from Mailroom.
9:02am
Yep. A user call. Users in Des Moines can't replicate. Me and the Oiuji
board determine it's sunspots. Tell them to call telecommunications.
9:30am
Good God, another user! They're like ants. Says he's in San Diego and
can't replicate with Des Moines. Tell him it's sunspots, but with a
two-hour difference. Suggest he reset the time on the server back two
hours.
11:00am
E-mail from corporate says for everybody to quit resetting the time on
their servers. I change the date stamp and forward it to Milwaukee.
11:23am
Milwaukee calls, asks what day it is.
11:25am
Support manager stops by to say Marvin called in to quit. So hard to get
good help... I respond. Support manager says he has appointment with
orthopedic doctor this afternoon, and asks if I mind sitting in on the
weekly department head meeting for him. No problem!
11:30am
Call Louie and tell him opportunity knocks and he's invited to a meeting
this afternoon. Yeah, sure. You can bring your snuff I tell him.
12:00am
Lunch.
2:39pm
New user calls. Says want to learn how to create a connection document.
Tell them to run connection document utility CTRL-ALT-DEL. Says PC
rebooted. Tell them to call microsupport.
4:00pm
Finish changing foreground color in all documents to white. Also set point
size to 2 in help databases.
4:30pm
User calls to say they can't see anything in documents. Tell them to go to
view, do a Edit -- Select All, hit delete key, and then refresh. Promise
to send them document addendum which says so.
4:45pm
Another user calls. Says they can't read help documents. Tell them I'll
fix it. Hang up. Change font to Wingdings.
4:58pm
Plug coffee maker into Ethernet hub to see what happens. Not (too) much.
5:00pm
Night shift shows up. Tell that the hub is acting funny and to have a good
weekend.
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