h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Why do I get nothing but *ssholes on Friday?

They seem to think I have some sort of magic wand. If they can't get through to a number, what makes them think I can?

I have been on both sides of the Tech Support fence.

I have worked on an IT helpdesk and got the "my computer isn't working call". You then play 20 questions with someone who treats you like sh*t until I work out that it is a laptop with a flat battery! (honestly!)

I have also been the person with a little bit too much knowledge fly by the seat of his pants - which is sometimes also know as technical pre-sales. I was installing some demo software on a customer site while logged on as a superuser sucsceded in killing their production system. Luckily I had the number of an expert in support who helped me fix it before the customer twigged! Ironically the company I was working at the time has re-orginised its supprt network (for the benefit of its customers of course!) so that these experts all got put onto general calls, got bored and left.

I have also had nightmares when trying to get a system ready for a big customer demo getting help for internal IT support. I would have to call them up at least once a week to get my Windows account sorted and each time we had to go through this list of stupid questions (mostly because the people that answered the phones were graduates with no experience who hadn't got a clue what I was talking about).

I get really hacked off when I get jerked around by IT support and get patronised. I completely relate to a lot of the earlier messages. I try and make it a rule never to snear or patronise if somebody asks me for help. In fact I still get a kick out of it and have only just stopped contributing to a couple of usenet groups.

Theworst thing about the IT guys here is they have no idea about password security.

It kicks you out after thrre wrong attempts and locks the account. All very well you say, but this is three attempts with any length of tieme between them. So if I login worng once in Jan, once in Apr, then once in June, it will lock out my account.

There is a line between secure and paranoid, but it's as wide as the Pacific.

Also they force us to have number and letters. Again, all very well. Except they MUST be in a certain format:

AA1AAA, AAA1AA, or AA11AA. I did the maths. A free style entry of numbers and letters on a six digit password give several BILLION combinations, forcing this rubbish on us limits it to only a few hundred thousand.

Then they have the gaul to say we can't reuse the same password in any given 6 months?!?

If I ever find the git who came up with this, I'll rip him a new *rse!

You're lucky. I'm not allowed to reuse a password. Ever. And that's actually a good thing. The paranoia here is well justified. We've had a few hacks in the last couple of years. Two of them were high-profile, garnering coverage in all the local newspapers, and a couple of national ones, plus tv coverage. One of them was an international incident, as the investigation led to arrests in the UK.

Are you saying your system locks up the account if you have three wrong attempts total, or consecutively? Systems are supposed to lock you out after consecutive failed attempts, and the fail counter is supposed to be reset every time you log in successfully. If you logged an attempt in January and failed, ignored it until April, then tried again in June, and never got in that whole time... it doesn't sound like you need access in the first place.

If you've used the system all that time, but your fail counter never got reset back to zero, then someone who set up your system is an idiot.

I think the worst customer I ever had was was one who said "Why can't I have an engineer now?"

Now, there were lots of reasons. She's only just reported the fault, I couldn't guarantee it wasn't her own telephone (which would make her liable for the call out charge), but the main one was IT WAS DARK. I told her that one.

She said "So?"

I told her engineers cannot climb telegraph poles in the dark, it's too dangerous. She said "Rubbish" I said, "No, an engineer fell off one in the dark and broke his neck." She said "Boo hoo." very sarcastically. I said "Yes, it was and for two months after we couldn't climb ANY poles. Anywhere. Until the HSE completed its safety checks on the proceedures for safety."

She asked for a supervisor.

I was delighted when he told her the exact same think.

I think the worst customer I ever had was was one who said "Why can't I have an engineer now?"

Now, there were lots of reasons. She's only just reported the fault, I couldn't guarantee it wasn't her own telephone (which would make her liable for the call out charge), but the main one was IT WAS DARK. I told her that one.

She said "So?"

I told her engineers cannot climb telegraph poles in the dark, it's too dangerous. She said "Rubbish" I said, "No, an engineer fell off one in the dark and broke his neck." She said "Boo hoo." very sarcastically. I said "Yes, it was and for two months after we couldn't climb ANY poles. Anywhere. Until the HSE completed its safety checks on the proceedures for safety."

She asked for a supervisor.

I was delighted when he told her the exact same thing.

Not that I want to get overly personal or anything, but you sound like you're having a really bad day, Cable.

You okay?


Geggs

Whay do you think I subscribe to H2g2? I just vent my anger into my journal.

I'm fine. It's just working for a telecomms company is worse than working for a government department. (If you don't know what I mean, take my word for it, you're lucky. )

Example: We have this thing through 100 (UK operator, sorry I don't know where you are) called check a line, where we, you guessed it, check a line for people.

BUT, the data protection act now says we cannot give out any info about people to 3rd parties who aren't entitled to see it and that (strangely) includes LINE TEST RESULTS. Net result; check a line has become a useless service that serves no point other than to p*ss off our own customers.

The customers know this.

The operators know this.

The managers know this.

No-one seems to be doing anything about it.

Absurd, isn't it?

Never mind, I'm going home soon. Think calm thought, think calm thoughts.....must control fist of death.

Fridays are like that - I hate working a Friday shift. It's been the same wherever I've worked. There are more dipsticks and a***holes in the store on Friday. The people who came into the pub where I worked were always more of a problem on Friday. Must be something to do with either getting your paypacket or knocking off for the weekend. It fries peoples brains. Add a full moon to the equation and you might as well give up and run for the hills

I work on a 9/80 schedule, which means I work a 9-hour day, 80 hours per 2 weeks. This means I work an 8-hour shift one Friday, and have the next one off.

This also means we work at half staff on Fridays. And since my job is to support other staff members, I have half the people around to cause problems. And they don't want to cause problems, because they feel lazy on Fridays, and their managers probably aren't around to make them cause problems.

There are worse days to be here than Fridays.

50 minutes to go! 50 minutes to go! 50 minutes to go! 50 minutes to go! 50 minutes to go!

I've got 50 minutes to go!

Do you have 50 minutes to go?

Stop it people, you are scaring me. I'm trying to get a job in IT-hepline thingy.

There are worse jobs than helldesk. You could always do telemarketing.

I have decided not to apply for any jobs that involve calling up and annoying people.

There are jobs even worse than telemarketing - phoning up people and trying to persuade them to cough up money they owe for bills, speeding/parking tickets, court-imposed fines, etc.

Well, don't you get to threathen them then?

Many years ago I was told at the doctor's office that my OHIP (Provincial hospital insurance) had been refused and I needed to straighten it out otherwise I was looking at a $400 bill... As a starving art student, I simply couldn't afford it.

So I went home and called OHIP to find out what the problem was...

I explained everything to the snippy woman with a Caribbean accent (you will see why this tidbit of info is important, later on) on the other end of the phone. I was covered under my father, so why was I cut off?

"When you turned 18, you should have applied."

I asked how I was supposed to know this.

"You should have known when you didn't get any bills... " said she.

This didn't make any sense, and I said so. I said I had NEVER gotten any bills....

"Nonsense" said she.

"As soon as you didn't get any bills, you should have known."

Okay, so that is like saying you should know you had chicken pox because you didn't get any spots....

So I asked what I should do. Rather than tell me how someone signs up, what one does, this woman simply said "Pay the bill..."

I said I didn't have any money, so what should I do?

"Well, you'll have to come up with the money somehow."

I said "I don't HAVE any money, what the hell am I going to do?"

"DON'T USE THAT KIND OF LANGUAGE WITH ME! I'M A GOD FEARIN' WOMAN!" and she slammed the phone down on me.

So I fired off a letter to the Minister of Health pointing out that it was the clerk's job to inform me what I was supposed to do, not criticising me for not doing something I didn't know I had to do... I also pointed out that hospital insurance was something I had a right to. It wasn't a handout (at that time you paid premuims geared to income) just because I was a poverty-struck student didn't mean that I deserved to be treated as if I was cheating welfare.

I got a letter back from the Minister (himself, no less!. Not some flunkey) telling me what I needed to do, telling me that I could apply for my coverage to be retroactive, and attaching a letter to whoever I dealt with at the OHIP office that I had the Minister's personal approval to fast-track my application.

I toddled off to OHIP, and found myself in a very large waiting room with about 700 other people, took a ticket and sat down for about 4 hours to wait. When my number was called, I went up to the counter (which was like a prop for a Dickens play.... very high with the clerk sitting well above you and looking down on you}.

I explained my situation and before I got to the part about the Minister's letter, I hear Caribbean accented words "Well, you should have known you were cut off when you didn't get a bill...."! It was the self-same clerk!

She launched into this speech about how "some people" don't like to follow the rules... but I cut her off and said "If you let me finish, I think you will find that the Minister of Health has a very different opinion than you and if you read his letter to your office, you will find that."

She didn't say another word to me.... slapped my paperwork around a bit, shoved my new card at me, and slammed the "Closed" sign down in front of me and walked away.... At least I felt vindicated and I had my health coverage.

I had simular thing with health insurance. I had NHS like health insurance, but because had I live different income for while I had to private health insurance, but no one told me that I had change within 10 days. the health insurance compant fined me. the private version is about 3 times more expensive. when I got switch back I had do nothing.

you need to be freaking walking social law book in the Netherlands. oh! I know may be we can give kids another subject at school "law". we get all little laywers.

Now there's a scary thought.