Quality of Service

I get an email one morning from a friend who works at another site. She was having issues retrieving an archived email. This was a common problem at the time and just required a quick install of an updated client. We arranged a time when she would have a few minutes to phone and let me connect remotely to the computer.

It's 12:10pm and my friend phones. All I needed to do was connect to her laptop, install the update and check that she could open the archived email. Simples...

I ask her what her "pc name" is. Now we run a program called BGInfo. This pulls information from the computer; including the pc name, ip address, RAM, disk space etc. This updates every time a user logs on and displays it on the desktop beneath our corporate logo.

Yearly Upgrade Gripes

Working in an educational environment I have to occasionally work in teaching rooms. Many of these are populated with a couple of dozen or so computer workstations and a printer.

Every year we spend a couple of months replacing older equipment and upgrading the newer. All have to have their software replaced with a fresh image and usually several other tasks have to be carried out afterwards.

One year we were running a week or two behind schedule and classes were coming in to the rooms on  introductory tours.

Oi You!

A few years ago we had a woman working for our company who was almost "allergic" to IT to say the least. It was ironic really as she was a tutor and taught IT for a living.

She could also be one of the rudest people you could meet, epecially if she had a technical problem.

One evening I was working a late shift and had the pleasure of two run-ins with her in less than an hour.

During the start of my shift I had to sort out an important meeting room, making sure everything was working and that the users could log on. This resulted in me going back and forth, if I needed parts or to reset users passwords etc.

Helpdesk Hell

We have a hardware vendor that we have to phone on a regular basis for replacement parts. Most of the time when we phone it takes a while, but the person on the other end usually accepts we know what we are talking about and arranges for the part to be delivered.

I say most of the time...

One day I have a laptop that had ceased to function. It was a common problem, one fixed by replacing the motherboard that luckily is under warranty.

I phoned the hardware vendor support line as usual, hoping to get the part for the next day.