r/Talesfromtechsupport Clueless Coworker Throws Out $3,000 Computer

welcome to our slash tales from tech support where have you tried turning it off and turning it back on again I worked on a technical support help desk for an ISP that did broadband we used to send these rubbish modems with a single Ethernet socket designed to be connected to a switch we had a problem customer who kept reporting theirs had died and we sent out new ones they were cheap and we didn't really care about sending new ones out so the customers IT guy calls in saying the modem isn't working correctly it turns out he had connected into the modem using the rj11 modem cable and thought he could run his business network office trying not to laugh I told him the hardware it doesn't work like this and told him what to buy the guy thanks me and hangs up but doesn't hang him correctly so the call is still connected I hear him walk away from the phone and say to his boss they made a mistake and they're going to fix it this annoyed me because I was proud of my work I rang back and asked her reception to talk to his boss I said I just spoke to your employee regarding her network problems he didn't hang up the phone properly so I heard his conversation with you I want to clarify we have made no mistake your employee is trying to use the hardware incorrectly and he lied to you the guy thanked me for telling him and we ended the call a few weeks later their new IT guy called the old guy had been fired our next reddit post is from bill row as I had mentioned before I work tech support for a medium-sized restaurant chain my duties included installing new registers back office computers fixing whatever broke down in the field and in the home office our home office had about a hundred and ten employees each with their own PC nothing was standardized whatever was on sale at the time is what was installed in the cubicle this was a logistical nightmare but made for some interesting and creative solutions the CEO secretary was named Madge she looked and spoke just like Elizabeth Warren she was kind of stuck up but usually Pleasant she was completely computer illiterate except for her publishing software that she used to make little pamphlets and flyers needless to say she was calling me constantly with silly problems but since she was fairly nice I always did my best to help her I had noticed that she had the because monitoring the company that she is for her publishing software it was a 20 inch Sony Trinitron CRT the thing weighed 75 pounds this was circa 1996 since I was a gamer this monitor was a big deal at the time Maj called me and said her monitor was flickering I figured it was a loose VGA cable so I grabbed this bear and hit it to our little closet office I saw right off the bat that the bottom of her monitor had a pinkish hue and was a little wavy I opened her computer case check to make sure her SVG a graphics card was fully seated and checked the cables all was good then I noticed that Maj had her Bo's clock radio turned to NPR but it right up to the front of her monitor mad now agitated and angry that I had spent 10 minutes on this problem enough of this I want a new monitor you have the nicest most expensive monitor in the company and I just found your problem I don't care give me a new monitor and throw this hunk of garbage in the trash but no buts new manager now I was a little taken aback on how quickly match it escalated and would not listen when I tried to tell her that her bose radio speakers were disrupting her CRT as they were right up against the screen I wasn't allowed to buy $3,000 monitors and our department budget definitely wouldn't cover it so I grabbed up the behemoth Sony's CRT and lugged it back to my office I grabbed a piece of garbage viewsonic 17-inch new in the box from the supply closet and took it to Majan plugged it in this monitor was nowhere near as nice as the one she had but it was smaller and her foes radio didn't sit so close to it on the desk so hedge was happy as a pig in slop and I gave up arguing with her I got back to my office and my boss was sitting there in my chair looking at the 20 inch sony he said Maj called my office to complain about you I sighed and said yeah she wasn't happy that I wasn't fast enough for her my boss said she's a royal pain in the butt I asked my boss what I should do with the monitor he asked what was wrong with it I told him that it was discolored from a speaker magnet being pressed up against it he said throw it in the dumpster so that's how I got a $3,000 monitor for free I used that thing for another 10 years before the screen turned totally pink and I moved to the new flat-screens thanks Madge you silly old bit our next reddit post is from Ross madness I work a nightie for education this story is from the last district I worked at I've waited a while to tell it and I'm not sure if the teacher even teaches there anymore so here I go to tell the world about it I was working as the lead technician / junior systems admin I manage the day-to-day activities of our campus technicians and acted as the next level of support if they needed some extra help this story comes from a strange phone call to our help desk the help desk technician walked over to my desk with his headset on and muted hey I've got teacher on the line she's having problems with the NA s for their class this teacher was one of our frequent callers she taught a class that had a small iMac lab and she wasn't even slightly technically inclined her department had purchased a small buffalo na s that our students would store their projects on what's the problem with the NA s she says that students are changing the names of files to crazy things like I want to die okay what does she want us to do she wants us to remove all student access from the NA s have you explained to her that if we do that her students will not be able to edit their projects yes I have okay just double-check for me he unmutes the headset relays the information and confirms that she wants us to remove all student access to the NA s so I do I pop over to the user group permission and remove the student group not five minutes later helpdesk walks back over with a confused look on his face she's back on the line she wants to know why her so she wants to know why her students can't edit their projects I'm dumbfounded she's given us a lot of headaches in the past but we can usually work through it this seemed particularly strange so I instructed him to forward the call to my desk yes teacher this is Opie as our helpdesk explained when we removed all student access like you requested that means student can accessing the information stored on the NA s yes I understand that but why can't they access their projects because you told us to remove their access well they need to do their projects okay okay then I'll restore their access no don't do that they'll start changing things again what would you like me to do then pick out specific folders to give them access to I can make a new folder called projects and they can have access to that no that won't work just give first period access ma'am we don't have any way to see what students are in your class I would need the list of student names and IDs okay also add third period ma'am again I don't have access to your class rosters please send me an email with the complete list of student names and ID's that you need to have access okay she hangs up and there's no email two weeks later help desk walks over to my desk with the teacher on hold teacher wants to know why her students can't access the project on their na s she says it's been down all week and she wants to know why I sigh heavily down half of my rock star and tell him to transfer the call to my desk mrs. teacher good afternoon how can I help you well I can't my students access their projects on the network because you told me to remove their access two weeks ago I did yes you did oh right something about names or something anyway can you give first period access teacher like I told you before I don't have access to your class roster I need you to send me an email with all the student names and ID's that need access okay hey while you're at it can you add second period hmm probably third and fourth periods too I mute the phone smack the receiver against my head a few times and unmute ma'am I cannot do that I don't have access to your class roster I need you to send me a complete list of all student names and ID's that need need access okay I'll do that she hangs up and I die slightly inside three hours later I receive an email from her that reads exactly as follows please come please grant first second third and fourth period access to the projects on the network drive I go to the NA s permissions had the entire student group unchanged so now it's exactly the same as two weeks earlier and had save I didn't hear from her about this again so I think I have a pretty good idea of why her students were naming their folders things like I want to die our next reddit post is from sin ditch pics there was a young motivated and inexperienced computer engineer working at a small company that built inspection machines for a niche market these inspection machines consisted of Wintel computers along with some specialized hardware for interfacing with the inspection sensors and general control enclosed in a nice air-conditioned cabinet for all the electrical bits the software was developed in-house as well and ran on top of Windows if you've ever worked in manufacturing before you've probably run across this kind of setup now this company built the computers in house from off-the-shelf parts Intel CPUs Samsung SSDs crucial Ram Supermicro mobos you get the drift each developer got an exact copy of the currently shipping hardware and the machine components so it would be easy to develop and test locally the hardware was always on the mid to high end so this worked out well for everyone there was a soul IT professional that handled the company's IT needs obviously and did the purchasing and inventory for the Wintel components the antagonist of our story mentioned above was a fresh college graduate with a degree in computer engineering with a focus on embedded systems so when a small project came up for a small embedded peripheral to this peripheral the CPE volunteered to take it and management approved this was set in nighties office there's a knock at the door IT looks up to see the engineer standing me kishle in the doorway looking as guilty as a young puppy who peed on the carpet after a house training I need to pull a new motherboard keyboard and USB hub from the stock I not sure if I'm going to need more components the IT professional says ok we have the parts in stock what's this about usually stock poles are for complete machines is there something wrong with the machine on the shop floor nothing wrong with the production as far as I know I just well it's the engineer is staring at issues and moving in a clearly uncomfortable fashion something is clearly wrong and all the evidence points to engineer as the guilty party sit down and tell me what happened I I blew up my computer what tears are welling up in the engineers eyes I blew up my computer I didn't mean to I was working on the new embedded peripheral prototype and and go on I was rearranging the hardware on my desk when I heard this loud pop I looked up at my monitors and they were all black I heard all the fans running at a hundred percent and there was smoke pouring out of my keyboard and computer case I cut power to everything the embedded peripheral PC monitors everything in my cubicle I tried bringing my PC back up but nothing happened when I press the power button I open the side of the case and there was black charring around the USB ports on the motherboard so what happened I think I put 24 volts on the five volt USB rail by accident how I left some wires hanging loose off the prototype and must have bumped them I had a USB adapter that I was using to communicate with the prototype and the loose wires touch something they shouldn't have the main power supply on their prototype is 24 volts and one of the loose wires was on the 24 volt supply it touched the 5 volt USB rail on the USB adapter am I going to get fired how much equipment in dollars do you think you destroyed um answer honestly 500 dollars the engineer grabs a tissue from the Box on the eyeties desk $500 ok assuming ever company owned in your cubicle got fried that's probably what three grand worth of equipment rights the engineer gasps and start sobbing wait I haven't finished the engineer looks up in horror have you ever brought in a bit of control system to market before the engineer slowly shakes his head no this was a prototype you were working on he not yes something went wrong and the magic white smoke came out he nod yes remind me again what went wrong I love some power wires loose and they touch the adapter I see you left some wires loose they got bummed and some electronics got destroyed yes grab another tissue here's what's going to happen I'm going to pull the components to another complete system for you from stock you're going to go back to your cubicle and rebuild your PC I know you can handle this since you built your PC on your first day here you're going to return all the old components to me for proper disposal keep the original SSD if it still works no point in reinstalling the operating system since the replacement hardware is identical and the SSD probably survived you're gonna be back up and running in an hour the engineer gives a puzzled look what did you learn he gives an even more puzzled look it's not a trick question what did you learn never leave wires flying in the breeze bingo five ten twenty years from now you will never make this mistake again the company just spent at most three grand training you I don't know what you make salary wise but my guess is the equipment you destroyed worst case is the equivalent of five days of what this company spends on you it probably cost over $20,000 to hire you considering the recruiter fees HR time interview time and so on you did something that cost the company a pittance compared to what it took to hire you never mind your salary and benefit cost you obviously know what you did wrong and you'll never make this mistake again if the company fired you over this they'd be spending another 20 grand minimum to replace you stuff happens it's happened to me it's happened to you it happens to everyone you're young you're inexperienced college should teach you how to learn you've learned from this now take these parts rebuild your PC and let me know if you need anything else the Thank You this isn't the first time I've dealt with the destroyed parts and this won't be the last just don't leave wires loose again absolutely this happened about five years ago I was the engineer and I'll never forget that lesson that was our 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Channel: rSlash

Views: 772,849

Rating: 4.9431777 out of 5

Keywords: reddit, r/, rslash, r\, sub, subreddit, best of reddit, reddit top posts, top posts, top posts of all times, funniest posts, funny, comedy, funniest reddit posts, funny reddit posts, funny reddit, fails, cringe, talesfromtechsupport, r/talesfromtechsupport, tales from tech support

Id: GGwTb5MQVtY

Length: 15min 51sec (951 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 16 2020