r/TalesFromTechSupport | HE GOT STUPID. I GOT RICH.

this video was brought to you by - Lane welcome back guys - voic-- here and another are slash tales from tech support is it possible to earn an entire month's wage in one day well apparently it is this guy's job takes him on a long adventure and gets his biggest payday ever don't forget voice II veterans to LIKE subscribe and hit that Bell - never miss an episode this story was called you need to come in we have a huge problem and that was only the beginning a bit of background information beforehand back in the 1990s the dinosaurs here will remember the days when everything was so much simpler I had a nice job with a branch of a big banking real estate company in Hamburg Germany 70 kilometers from where I studied at university basically I was required to come in one afternoon a week to take care of any problems the users all 20 of them might have encountered in the meantime check the backup tapes etc and most of the time there was really nothing difficult to do as they didn't do any cash transactions while the usual banking stuff but only long-term investment and real estate deals transactions were usually not time critical but involved huge numbers what made this job special were three advantages I never encountered again anywhere else number one the clock started when I left my apartment to travel to work and stopped when I returned there unless I decided not to go directly and was allowed to put in a hypothetical amount of travel time on the timesheet they then covered the cost of public transport to and from work apparently my predecessor had had that deal with them and they never changed it so without lifting a single finger doing anything productive I always earned at least four hours wage plus travel expenses again not for business travel but just commuting just by deciding to show up nice but then again to them it was peanuts usually this worked out to my advantage I tailored my working days to fit my University lecture schedule so it was more or less a paid trip to town work as long as I wanted although wallet or bank account needed and then leave in time to enjoy the evening I got paid a ridiculous amount of money for stupid tasks although I did study Computer Sciences at the University at the time and even gone the extra mile to get my MCSE this didn't have much to do with the day-to-day work in Novell software 3.1 to Windows NT 4.0 environment dealing with everything from printer stoppages missing paper stuck tapes in the Windows profile setup to scanner issues I got paid $40 mark per hour which translated exchange rate from 1997 to 27 US dollars per hour and taking 20 plus years of inflation into account maybe double that in today's value no degree yet no formal training some self-taught skills and plenty of trust in my abilities and honesty 3 I was all though nerdy and shy the most popular guy in the local branch for the secretaries by the way back then they were picked more for looks than for ability which made my work both fun and frustrating I was the only male who was not openly superior in the company hierarchy and rubbing their noses in it and I didn't expect them to go to bed with me to celebrate especially successful business deals for the sales department I was the guy who could with a bit of witchcraft create fantastic presentation folders and slideshows for their real estate projects for the legal department their hunt look and mine were closely aligned visa vie data confidentiality and the importance of reliable backups and the branch manager somehow had the impression they were exploiting me so he got me to tag along when they went out to celebrate blowing just 1% of a real estate deal bonus payment on food & Liquor can take surprisingly long during all my time there I never had to get my own cup of tea it always appeared mysteriously at my elbow white one sugar usually accompanied by the secretary with subjectively the most urgent problems something the girls flat-out refused to do for anybody else never had trouble accessing any computer even if the really important people in charge were usually reluctant to let anybody interrupt their work and once even got the branch managers Bheema a really nice BMW 840 or 850 to take home over the weekend because I had missed the last direct train and he didn't want me to have to wait for a connection all in all people there was strange friendly earned ridiculous amounts of money and usually we got along splendidly but there are some tales that are too good not to tell in the cast me obviously me the part-time IT guy esse one of our hotshot sales reps in his 40s one of the guys who can sell water to a fish and make them feel like they got a better end of the deal unless you got to know him think used-car salesman but on a huge scale with business deals in the millions and usually a good guy homeless under pressure be em branch manager with a keen sense of self-preservation remember it's the 90s so internet email etc were rather basic compared to today and vaguely frightening to the older colleagues it was a Saturday which is not considered to be a normal working day in Germany so nearly all shops were closed back then retail shops were usually open only before noon on Saturdays not at all on Sundays enter SR calling me at home from his mobile phone by the way hugely expensive back then like a dollar fifty per minute to tell me he needed support pronto because obviously I had not fixed his problem the week before and he needed to prepare a slide show for an investor's meeting that very evening I racked my brain about any unfinished business but couldn't remember any critical issues or any issues at all related to SRS computer as I presumed it was more of a layer 8 issue he was good at selling but not at dealing with technology I tried to get more information than just my computer won't start until finally he admitted he had moved the computer around in his office and as the cable wasn't long enough from the new location he had exchanged the network port for the similar looking telephone port both rj45 but one-ways hooked up in the data switch and the other one to the telephone system and vice-versa which nicely explained the conversation we had using his mobile phone running up a decent bill and when asked to undo his changes he flat-out refused to do it because he was not in his words a janitor and no he needed his normal computer to do the work using another one was absolutely impossible he had had the situation since the previous Monday but had worked externally for a few days without telling anybody about his problem and a problem we don't know about we can't fix which would have been really easy so he wanted me to come in extra which was not covered in my contract and told me that he would square it with BM knowing s are his promises are only worth anything as long as he needs you I insisted on getting authorization from BM who was not amused at all to be called away from whatever he was doing that day to authorize overtime a short description of the situation was needed BM was seething and muttered something about deducting the additional expenses from SRS bonus so it wouldn't cost him or the company a penny and since we didn't have anything in the contract he went full hog and authorized me coming in to work by taxi two hundred dollars each way quadruple overtime yay and if I needed more than three hours to fix the problem a full meal in the really excellent restaurant next door and if more than six hours overnight hotel accommodation nearby I didn't feel particularly exploited that day arriving at the office was a bit anticlimactic it fast I expected SR to be frantic because of the approaching deadline but this genius had to finally understood what a network means so he had been working on another person's computer all the time and was nearly done preparing his slides even apologized for being so rude on the phone in the first place repairing his computer took me only a short trip to the server room to grab a slightly longer cable but then the problems really began back then slides were slides as in physical slides not PowerPoint etc and for presentation we were able to transfer data directly from the computer to 35 millimeter film using a special and really expensive film recorder with a breathtaking resolution of 640 by 480 first off he hadn't announced his intention to create slides to anybody so the stocks of film were basically empty and Saturday afternoon in Germany he wasn't able to get any from the photo store he usually went to being more open-minded I suggested getting some from one of the kiosks catering to tourists nearby as they sold film as well it never occurred to him that you could get it there as well but even with film where would he get that film developed without any businesses being open the normal 1 hour rush job photo labs were closed SR started to get nervous to the point of screaming incoherently at the wall until it occurred to him that in the red-light district there are photo artists who will not trust their photographs to be handled by a commercial lab so they certainly will develop their own films and might be persuaded somehow to do it for us as well how we came across that particular bit of knowledge we'll never know imagine 20 year old me the prototypical nerd a big wad of cash in hand first of all going to the red-light district which I only knew by reputation and some of those look but don't touch trips teenagers do with their friends to prove their masculinity asking around for photographers apparently the ladies of the night thought I wanted to be photographed in the act and started quoting prices for their services finally finding one guy agreeing to develop the film and create the slides and coming back with the receipt stating example taxi from branch location to most notorious strip club at the time this being Germany you have to have proper receipts to be reimbursed we got ripped off paying more than 70 US dollars for developing that film but in an emergency in the end we did it finished everything in time for the presentation and even had a good laugh about it before SR went to do his presentation no idea whether he sold anything that day on that one day I earned more money than in a whole month otherwise and got to learn a lot about life and the economy as such a few weeks later for some reason or other SR and I had some explaining to do to some guys from headquarters about the funny receipts took some months but BM got it cleared up in the end imagine being audited by the taxman and it's looking at all these receipts yeah yeah those were totally business expenses what were you doing there I was getting film developed of course I can't help but think every time I hear one of these stories where somebody's really lucky and I get these ridiculous overtime jobs quadruple overtime pay pay for the commute just to work like probably many of you my first job was just a fast-food the greatest book I had was like making myself a free burger every now and then but you know what ain't nothing wrong with the free burger - Lane makes the internet way faster and more fun how often are you ready to buy something but you don't have your credit card handy - Lane means you never have to have your credit card on you how often do you forget or reset your password you'll never forget or reset a password again with - Lane for anything that requires filling out forms online from checkouts to taxes from buying airline tickets to applying for a job - Lane has you covered with one-click autofill it also works across all devices and browsers so wherever you go your passwords go with you click on the link in the description below to get your 30 day free trial of - Lane premium and use the coupon code Boise here at - Lane comm slash voic-- here to get 10% off - Lane premium but only for the first 200 people this story was called subject email isn't working hmmm as the only system administrator for a small programming firm I usually have to deal with rather stupid requests and issues we also still use exchange 2010 and are in the process of migrating since I took over however everyone has been a bit hesitant to move since they don't like the look of Outlook 2016 one morning I walk in and everything is business as usual but I receive a gmail notification with the subject line in all caps email isn't working as I begin walking to my office the VP of Sales frantically signals for my attention and knowing her habit as a user I grimace and brace myself for her usual ineptitude she immediately starts yelling at me the email server is down I just think you an email to let you know about this I can't do any of my work without email this is so frustrating that you guys don't react immediately to this at my last company those IT guys knew when the service went down before anyone else noticed you sent me an email telling me the email servers down from your company mail account yeah of course I did how else could I tell you guys it isn't working why don't you take these things seriously she states while rolling her eyes and throwing her hands in year for added effect at this point I can feel my frustration in my face and try to compose myself you sent the email to my personal account I received your email are you seeing any errors when sending emails just fixed it don't email cheveux at this point I was speaking through clenched teeth and typed out a quick test email on my company account to send to her VP I understand your frustration but I can't fix a problem that doesn't exist I just sent you an email on my company account did you receive it of course it works if you send it you're the IT guy I'm going to call the CEO about this I decided to just saunter over to my office and await the confused and frantic call of my CIO instead I receive an email from him stating don't worry I know it's working just ignore her she blew a huge deal because she forgot to send an email and wanted to blame it on IT I checked the mail server and didn't see anything stuck in the outbox we're all clear as I slowly chuckled to myself she bursts into my office which also happens to be the server room you need to hit me up with wit mail you're already set up with webmail everyone is I've already sent out several emails with instructions on how to access it you literally replied back to me telling me you refused to use it because you didn't like how it looked well I want to access to it again in case your server goes down again and the email doesn't work if the mail server goes down and email doesn't work webmail won't work it's the same thing we're in the process of moving to a hybrid solution to prepare for situations like that but for right now there's nothing we can do other than troubleshoot the issues that arise then whine tease my gmail and yahoo mail work you don't know what you're talking about we don't have a gmail or yahoo mail server we don't even manage those that's completely different from our email I'm going to tell the CIO that is unable to help me after she storms out I go about my day letting the soothing white noise of Server fans and constant AC relax me at the end of the day I receive a text from the CIO it turns out that she had sent too many emails to a potential client had gotten it blocked but chose to delete the error message she was receiving because she thought it was spam unfortunately this was normal behavior and since she is so close to the CEO I still have to deal with our own occasion I imagined tech support gets the blame a lot more than they probably deserve hmm I forgot to send this email to a really important client to close the deal yeah the email server wasn't working it's all your guys fault fortunately with these sorts of things there's usually logs that record when there's errors so you would know if the service went down you'd know if your email didn't go out and you would need to as well you don't want to get blamed for really important deals not happening and it was not your fault whatsoever just because you know the CEO personally doesn't mean you can abuse your position and blame everyone else for your problems post your stories memes and fair not @r / Boise here don't forget to Like subscribe and hit that Bell to never miss an episode alright boys even our ends I'll see you in the next one [Music]

Channel: VoiceyHere

Views: 62,396

Keywords: reddit, reddit top posts, VoiceyHere, VoiceyHere Stories, reddit cringe, reddit stories, r/entitledparents, r/entitled parents giofilms, r/entitled parents stories, entitled parents, entitled parents fresh, entitled parents reddit, entitled parents stories, entitled parents video, r/entitled, top posts of all time, rSlash, r/entitledparents rSlash, funny, funny reddit posts, r/talesfromtechsupport, r/talesfromtechsupport 6

Id: xS-FZ-Dr3vA

Length: 16min 42sec (1002 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 05 2019