Tales From Tech Support - I'm out of here!

hey everyone welcome to r tales from tech support where we get to have a little chuckle at the technologically disadvantaged like me i'm uncle reddit and have i got a story for you hey guys recording in a different space today so pardon the room echo hopefully it's not too awful bad we should be able to adjust a little bit over the next couple weeks though on to the stories don't bother hey everyone obligatory apologies for formatting because i'm on mobile i work for a large organization as a member of the help desk team one of about 50 people we basically function as a call center i have plenty of memorable calls but i wanted to share this one because it still makes me laugh at the tail end of 2020 i was assisting a user who was reporting that their computer was running slower and slower and slower as the day wore on i gathered the basic information and remoted to the user's pc i checked all the normal culprits like looking in task manager for extra instances of programs running clearing out old files etc nothing was working i shifted to running repairs from the command prompt like dism online slash repair image slash check health and sfc slash scan now when those yielded nothing we turn to a group policy update as you may or may not know a group policy update will have you log out and log back in for any policy changes to take effect i had the user sign out and try to sign back in an important note my organization requires everyone to be connected to their vpn to even so much as sign in to the desktop at least while we're rotella working i say to try to log back in because the vpn connection failed a quick fix for this is to just restart the pc i have the user turn the pc off and then try to turn it back on no lights no sounds just a very very dead computer the following exchange occurs me i'll be honest i'm not really sure why your computer is fighting us this hard but if the computer is just completely unresponsive then we'll put you on the list for a new one another note our organization was in the middle of replacing the older computers anyway so they didn't need much of an excuse to just replace them user starts laughing hysterically if you're being honest then i'll be honest i don't understand any of this nerd crap so eff it my original retirement date was tomorrow anyway so don't bother replacing it i guess i'm done today i'm gonna go eat some cake have a great day my hero me unsure of what the technical protocol is for this situation well okay then enjoy your retirement that is awesome op uh i'm nowhere near retirement age yet but uh i hope i've got the nuts to do just that wait you're not alone hey y'all whilst working on the help desk in my current company i came across a lazy manager who lied to me you don't lie to me one quiet night shift me and my colleague tp were waiting for calls because it was such a quiet night we could hear each other clearly as we sat together this is how it started lazy manager help my keyboard isn't working tp have you tried a different usb port lazy manager yes tp try to reboot confirmed by checking log lazy manager yes tp is there a spare keyboard knocking about is there another keyboard around lazy manager no tp are you able to nip out and purchase a usb 2.0 keyboard it has to say usb 2.0 on the box shop staff can take cash out of the drawer for supplies etc lazy manager no i'm single manning tonight working on his own and there isn't anywhere i can buy one right now tp we'll send an engineer to replace it first thing just log on to the other tilt for the night lazy manager thank you after he hung up i asked tp for the address of the shop after a quick google earth search i noticed right next door is a computer repair shop with keyboards in the window after checking it's still open i call the shop back and tell the manager if he locks up he can get a replacement next door for his staff for the morning rush you see by the time the engineer arrived it'd be near 1200 this is how my call went me is this shop x it's me from help desk oh hi yes this shop x what's up me i know you're single manning but if you want a replacement keyboard next door is open until 2200. i'm not single manning this female employee says back to me me oh the manager said he was alone fe i heard he's hiding upstairs in the office like he always does when we're busy you can call him on x me are you busy tonight fe very we need two on tills tonight i have to go click goes the phone shocked by the laziness of the store manager i decided not to call the manager but call his boss knowing it's friday night and the last thing he wants is a call on a friday night and how many times i've been done over by lazy managers i fill in the area manager who is livid that she's been left alone the manager would not lift a finger to help and that i called him out of hours on a friday i forgot he said leave it with me after a couple hours i get a call from effie again she's laughing when i pick up me company x help desk me speaking how can i help fe is me there clearly didn't hear me through the laughter me me speaking fe i owe you big time the area manager just came down unannounced and found the manager asleep in his chair he was told to go home after purchasing that keyboard and i've been put in charge for the weekend me no worries i hate lazy lying managers you still busy fe yeah but we've got coverage for till 2 now a few weeks later shopex calls again on an unrelated manner and it turns female employees now female manager and the old manager was fired for multiple things the sleeping on shift was the last straw op that is fantastic i'm so glad you were able to catch this guy being lazy and not doing his job there's a certain amount of satisfaction you get from being able to set somebody like that straight staying one step ahead of the user having returned from our road trip the previous week buddy says that i shall accompany him on the next site visit as there were a number of systems to be installed and he needs a hand work went well and i sat and waited while he went off to talk to the office manager while he's away another user approaches me to ask some questions do you guys support this database program they ask holding up a manual no we don't we only support word processor systems i replied well it's installed on the computer but no one knows how to use it in that case let me have the manual and i'll get back to you next week great buddy came out and we set off back to base i asked buddy however he had never used the program either on returning to base the support manager admits to having never used it but can get me the program in 24 hours as for a dealership i spend the next three days reading the manual and trying the program then i phone the client we can now offer training and support of the database program excellent can you come over tuesday yeah i'll see you then i went to site and gave a full day's one-to-one customized support training on the program and also sold a support contract so they could phone up with any further queries the best was yet to come the support manager got a call later in the week from the site manager saying that he wanted to extend the contract for all the remaining word processor systems as well yeah sometimes it pays to go above and beyond uh you know it shows goodwill and usually gets you extra work and i'm glad to see that there's one company out there that didn't expect you to just do it because you were there for free the waitress ain't the tech department hello everyone first time posting a bit of a longer one this one happened back in 2017 whilst working a summer job granted restaurant waitress doesn't exactly scream tech support you'd be surprised how difficult it is for some people to grasp the basic concept of a cash register and soon enough one gets used to the fact that some people think that rebuilding somehow erases the mucked up bill which still somehow ended up being my fault despite the fact that i was told to just stand back so as not to screw up but nothing had prepared me for what i was in for next the first day on the new job i found out that the owner hadn't even gotten a cash register aka no tax big fines and being the computer girl as evidenced by my ownership of a laptop and finishing high school for graphic design the responsibility of setting up the cash register once it came fell to me alongside working on and mending any issues with the card terminals sometimes i'd get asked to literally burn the boss a cd yes an actual cd with music for his car in 2017 and or putting said music from that cd to the boss's iphone 7. other times it was making the menus or correcting the same but hey at least i got to literally play scrim on the job all the usual till the italian bike club arrived note i don't live on an english-speaking country if you want to work the season you have to know english german and italian at least this will be important later fast forward to the bike club arriving standard warning thousand plus euro bill for the bunch after a while the club's guide decides that he'll pay with his credit card and just then the card machine runs out of paper i see the card's been approved on the screen and he shows me a text from his bank that it did go through fast forward to the next morning when last night's total does not include said bill my boss goes ballistic on me and decided to sort the matter once they came back as they checked into the hotel attached to the restaurant soon enough the day finally comes remember what i said about languages well he only spoke german and claimed to speak italian from that list no english despite that he insisted that the guide talks to me in italian and that i translate it back i tried the machine as usual rejected he pushes me aside calling me an idiot tries it himself with the same result again and again and again now by this point i'm getting tired and the conversation had turned to bank calling and he said she said until at one point i'd had enough and just told the guide ilcapo parlo italiano the boss speaks italian and i know i just mangled that i could see the guy crack the widest grin i've ever seen meanwhile the boss sitting at the reception desk shot a i'm gonna kill you look at me as the entire murder club like 12 or so people opened up on him yeah i don't know what european bike clubs are like but you don't want to screw with people like that here in a club in the u.s that's just a bad way to go end user is confused by usb this is a story from my time in retail i.t where we handle both credit card readers signature pads but also barcode scanners i worked for a medium sized 150 employee 27 location retail company specializing in cellular resales thank authorized retailers for carriers i was called in as the director of it to take over it for a company without well i.t prior to my entry it was actually just disjointed computers without any management even ad towards the start of my work we had a store manager from a small ish store who it was always apparent she didn't know tons about electronics but i figured she had to know some stuff about electronics to be the store manager at a cell phone store boy was i wrong we generally deployed one wireless scanner for inventory and the rest were wired for cost reduction and this store had one wireless scanner before i got there cheaper lower quality scanners were purchased from amazon that regularly broke and had zero literally no documentation available this store manager somehow kept putting the scanner into inventory mood but no one had any idea how apparently a certain series of button presses on the base which she kept doing would send it into this mood after months of it tickets regarding this and telling her to stop pressing those buttons repeatedly we made the decision to remove the wireless scanners as they were clearly too difficult for this store to understand how to use properly we sent a symbol wired scanner more expensive but far better to the branch which plugged in via usb and was plug and play as it emulated an hid keyboard i put instructions in the box and i thought that would be it until it wasn't i get an email forwarded from one of our inventory operations employees saying they've received an email seemingly to avoid i.t asking how to set the scanner up the email read along the lines of hello i'm not a fan of me so i'm hoping you can help me i need someone to drive out to my branch to set up this scanner it's very confusing i've asked everyone and nobody knows how to do it thanks store manager i reached out to the employee and the conversation went something like this me hi sm i understand you were having issues with setting up the scanner sm oh god yes i followed the instructions and it's very confusing me so it should just be a usb cable have you tried plugging it into the computer sm there's no open ports me have you unplugged the old one sm it has two cables going straight into the ground turns out it just had a bit of slack tucked into the desk so easy fix however she continued to be utterly confused by the usb cable then refused to troubleshoot further asked for another employee who said they had tried to help but she refused to let them plug the cable in and it worked fine astonishing how some people have the jobs they do isn't it it really is amazing how some people get to the positions they're in i don't know if it's just butt kissing if they had the right degree um you know maybe they knew the right person it still blows me away how many people are in positions that they're clearly not qualified for fun and good times with sales taxes today's sales tax day i work for a slow book subcontractor and unfortunately i started right in tax season so sadly i've been too busy keeping up with my work to write much the tax season not just looming overhead but breathing down our necks at the time of writing we're in mandatory half lunch mood and i'm on my half lunch but i'm not hungry so i'm writing here instead as one would expect though i have a few tails this one is about an ultimately nice customer so i'm not going to bad mouth them at all but what they did is certainly the story worth telling i even tell my other customers this story since it's just so memorable at slow books we have a reports function and on this customer's reports they were showing sales tax twice on different amounts so naturally they called at this time i was fresh out of training so i messaged the t2 immediately and we eventually dug up what was happening this customer claimed he was moving from the old tax system to the new tax system and it was screwing things up because tax was being collected twice knowing this isn't normal i first decided to actually look at his tax custom rates the taxes displaying twice didn't correspond to the ones with the custom rates so that was out next i looked at an invoice and this is where things got weird now at the time i didn't notice anything wrong because i wasn't actually trained on how our sales tax system works since we're typically expected to get the tax team involved via our t2 but what i did notice was that he had a line item for his sales taxes and also that our automated system took sales tax on his subtotal including his manually input sales tax this will come back into play later but i dismissed this as a relic of the old system now in his defense we did migrate from a hybrid manual automatic rate system to full automatic with user editable custom rates i wasn't educated on either tax system so i was just going by what my t2 suggested so i decided to look at his products to see if we could disable sales tax on an item for testing purposes and there i saw it hundreds and i mean hundreds over 200 manually input sales taxes as products turns out he never actually used our tax system until now and thought he was supposed to manually enter every tax as a line item and when he set up the new tax system after being notified the old one was being discontinued he thought it would remove his line items my t2 responded in slack with the pick of the captain from star trek never watched it been meaning to face palming so i carried on not letting the absurdity of what i just saw get to me and told him to just stop adding line items for taxes and let us handle it unless he needs to fix rates in which case he can make a custom rate in the news system and to mark his old system as either tax exempt or remove the line items and that sadly we can't do this automatically after the call i felt like taking a cold shower too long didn't read customer inputted hundreds of tax rates as line items and didn't realize this was intended until our auto sales tax kicked in edit just for clarification's sake there isn't actually a way to turn off sales tax collection on the particular version of slow books yup this is why training for your software is important kids don't ever assume every bit of software that i get if i don't pay for training i'll at least spend hours if not days online researching doesn't mean i always get it right but i try airline boarding pass printer not working years ago i was a field service engineer for data equipment in the halcyon days before the internet anyway one time i was checking in at the airport to travel to a country job when the check-in assistant suddenly couldn't print my boarding pass she tried everything removed and replaced the blank tickets opened and shut covers turned it off and on again but nothing was working for her so i asked her to try one last thing please close her fist and thump the machine up the back on the top left corner she looked strangely at me looked to check no one else was watching and then did as i asked the printer immediately sprang to life and produced my passes she was so grateful because the waiting lines were pretty long by then and asked her how did i know i told her it's a standard application of professional percussion maintenance yup gotta love percussive maintenance i learned that as a kid with our old tv set my dad knew just where to hit that thing to make it just straighten right out it didn't matter what channel you're on how good or bad the signal was you could knock it in and out a signal just with a little thump on the side well thanks for hanging out with me today guys if you've enjoyed this content would you consider giving this video a like maybe subscribe to the channel and click that little bell icon so you don't miss the fat guy with the beard telling you stories see ya

Channel: Story Time with Uncle Reddit

Views: 7,498

Rating: 4.9648094 out of 5

Keywords: uncle reddit, reddit, reddit stories, funny reddit stories, r/idontworkherelady, r/prorevenge, r/entitledparents, funny reddit stories 2020, rslash, best of reddit, reddit top posts, top posts, top posts of all times, comedy, funny reddit posts, funny reddit, fails, cringe, entitledparents, entitledparents fails, entitled parents fail, malicious compliance reddit, malicious compliance, tech support, tales from tech support reddit, funny reddit posts clean, tales from tech support

Id: mLw3MvvfXMw

Length: 18min 48sec (1128 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 12 2021