The "Hacker"

A long time ago in an IT Office not too far away...

"We've been hacked." Our IT Manager tell us one morning as he stands on a chair to change the bulb in the alert light from green to red.

With the red bulb flashing and the alarm wailing, we all pluck up our ears and our then Senior Server Analyst frowns slightly and calmly asks. "Why? What's been hacked?"

"Oh, everything. Our entire network is compromised" our Manager panics, his glasses slipping down his nose. His thick grey hair seemed bigger than ever and he was clearly in a tizz.

I can't log on and other sign language

"Can't log on." A woman says quietly as she balances the door on the end of her shoe and leans into the room waving her ID at us.

I try to ignore her bobbing about as she tries to hold the door open with her foot and pass her ID to me at the same time. She wobbles slightly, realises that the door can support itself and gives it up. She steps into the room and looks at me expectantly as the door slams.

I check her account out and all seems ok, I reset the password for good measure. I tell her what I have changed it to and that she can setup a new password when she logs in.

Arrrrghhh, My Ears!

The worst type of caller is when someone rings with a simple request, and they have to complicate it, make a drama out of it. They have to complain about everything, tell you their life's woes and make out they are hard done by.

Generally I usually ignore the rants and carry on. But it makes me wonder what I have done to deserve the onslaught.

The phone rings late one morning and I answer.

"IT Support" I say, ready to be helpful.

New Laptop

"I have an appointment" a rather rude woman tells us as she barges through the door, laptop bag hugged to her chest.

There were three of us in the room and that's the first we had heard of it. Still, ever eager to satisfy the masses we all smile and offer our assistance.

"My laptop has loads of viruses" she says. "I spoke to someone yesterday."

We all have blank looks on our faces and we are all thinking the same thing about the "loads of viruses," format c:, die, viruses die!

Personal Security

This is not exactly IT related, but it did happen to a former member of my department. He told me about it many times over the years and I have always found it amusing.

This story involves a woman (mentioned before in previous editions) that I have had many dealings with in the past.

She is one of the worst users of IT equipment in the entire company... ever. Many times we have laughed or groaned over her stupidities and lack of sense. Especially amusing were some of the things she said.

It's a Server!

A few years ago the technology layout of this company was very different. Instead of just having a server room, we had servers doing the hard work scattered in various places.

One such place was a room was in a remote building, where myself and one or another of my colleagues had to cover once a week in case anybody down there needed technical support. We used to call this place "the black hole." It was small, dark, dingy and out of the way.

In this room we had a PC for our use and a huge, tower server that at that time was used for running online exams software. Not an ideal place to keep it, but it did the job well enough for a long time, until...

For several weeks we kept have very strange problems with it. For instance, sometimes we would find that the server had been powered down or would be running mind-numbingly slow due to lack of resources.

The Early Morning Phone Call

Early one morning, I have been in office about five minutes and the phone rings. It's early and I am still slowly waking up. My colleague takes pity on the caller and picks up the phone.

As far as I can gather, the person on the other end has had an email stopped by the firewall. My colleague gives them my number, and asks them to phone me as he hasn't dealt with that problem before. He hangs up and leaves the office for this morning caffeine intake.

Five minutes later and my phone rings. I am finally waking up and answer with as much enthusiasm as I can muster.

"IT support" I say politely and introduce myself.

Little Miss Know It All

Knock Knock!

A woman walked into our office one afternoon with a laptop bag in her hand. She had a smile on her face and seemed friendly enough.

"I have come for my new loan." She exclaimed excitedly, assuming we were psychic. You know what they say about assumption being the mother of all.... Enough said!

It's amazing how many people walk into our office like that, making announcements and believing we automatically know all the details of what they are talking about.

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.

What is RAM?

"I am applying for a new job." A guy from another department announced to me one day. "It's for a 'Technical Computer Job' and I was wondering if you would help me with a couple of the questions on the application form?"

"Ok, I'll help you if I can." I agree somewhat taken aback by the new 'Job Title.'

"This is the main question I am having a problem answering." He says pointing to a large box on the application.

"Describe any technical IT experience that you have had?" I read out loud.

"Yes" he says. "What shall I put?"

Customer Service Hell

A colleague of mine was telling me about an incident a while ago with a user.

It was a Monday morning and the department was extremely low on staff for various reasons. Ofcourse when you are short of man power, as Murphy's Law states "Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong."

With only a few people to solve the IT mysteries of the workplace, several crisises hit at once with not enough people to cover them all. It ended with only one person in the office dealing with the telephone complaints and the queue of requests coming through the door.

Just as my colleague was wishing he had never turned up for work that morning, things got a whole lot worse. It started with a phone call.

Which brand?

Here's a short one, but one to be noted as it is so ridiculous.

Early one morning we have a lady walk through our door, bringing back a laptop we had lent her. My colleague signed it back in as he usually would and the lady enquired if we had any other brand laptops.

My colleague said that no, we didn't.

"Oh" replied the woman. "I was told you had loads of brands."

"No, sorry these are all we have."

"Well, that's not very good." She said "Other brands give you a much faster internet connection."

The Corrupted Hard Drive

So one morning we have a chap (widely known for his giant lack of common sense) come through the door to our office carrying his laptop. He explains that the laptop was not booting and asked if we could take a look at it.

I asked what was happening and I got a vague explanation that the Windows XP installation was cycling at boot up. At least thats what he said.

I switched on the laptop, but instead of watching the laptop attempt to start up XP I got a "NTLDR is Missing" error and nothing else.

The guy mentioned that there were several "important files" on the c: drive (a big no-no in our company, everything should be saved to a network drive and/or USB, making hard drive failure a doddle.)

The Disappearing Emails

Knock! Knock!

A lady walks in to our office, for some reason knocking after she has entered and holds up her laptop for all to see.

"Can anyone help me?" She asks.

"I am sure we can." I reply (Just don't ask us to perform a medical procedure.) "What's the problem?" (You'd think I'd have learned NOT to ask this question by now, wouldn't you.)

"All my emails have disappeared." She tells me.

Somewhat sceptical I get her to boot up her laptop. After three attempts and a password reset I finally get her logged in.

The Faulty Laptop Screen

One morning we had a rather upset gentleman come in to our office, nursing his laptop. He had been in to several other departments along the way, complaining loudly to anyone that would listen to his problem, searching for someone to help him. They in turn had redirected him to us. So kind of them...

"My laptop's broken, my laptop's broken. Please you have to do something." He pleads as he rushes in.

"What's the problem?" My colleague asked, taking pity on the poor man, who was obviously distressed.

"The Screen. I think it's broken." He says.

My colleague takes the laptop from the man, who was cradling it like a new born baby, and sets it down on to the work bench.

Switch it ON!

A colleague of mine told me about an incident the other day, where a guy in his department couldn't switch a PC on. The computer was connected up correctly and plugged in. Infact it was in the same state that it was in everyday at that time. Everyday that guy came in, switched it on in the same way and all was well.

This particular day he just couldn't get it to power on. My colleague took a quick glance at the plug socket and informed the man that it wasn't switched on at the plug.

Ten minutes later my colleague came back in to the room and the man was still staring confused at the dead computer.

"What's wrong?" My colleague asked.

"The computer won't switch on." He replied.

Software User Error

We have a few people that are self taught "experts" in certain software packages. These people have learnt from a book rather than from experience. So when something goes wrong they automatically blame the software and do not consider the age old lesson that books are never the same as real life.

For instance we have a guy here that considers himself a "Pro" in Adobe Flash. Now from what we have seen of his work, he is pretty good. Until something goes wrong...

"Flash isn't working on this Computer. I can't be installed properly." He reports one day. So off I go to take a look. Along the way I meet one of my colleagues coming from the other direction.

"Where you off too?" He asks.

How does it "Logon?"

It's that time of year again when we recall staff laptops and re-issue with new ones, with new more up to date software installed.

Today two of my colleagues had to go and swap out a few dozen laptops at one of our sites. About halfway through the morning they were dealing with a Gentleman and had just finished the transaction when he asked "How does this laptop log on?"

One of my colleagues explained that it was exactly the same as before where as the man replied with condescending superiority. "Don't be stupid, how on earth is it going to work like the old one?"

My colleague, a little taken aback by this tried to explain that all he had to do was log on the same as he did on his old laptop. The man shook his head again, refusing to believe him.

"It's a different Laptop, it won't logon the same as before, now tell me how I get on to it."

Software "Install"

One morning we get a knock on the door and a man comes in with his laptop.

"I have brought my laptop up as I was told if I did, you guys would install some software for me." He tells us.

"No problem" we say. "Which software would you like installed?"

"Oh, anything you have got." He says "Throw it all on."

"We have dozens of pieces of software" we tell him. "Is there anything in particular that you needed?"

"No not really. I was just told to come up and get it installed. Just install it all and it'll be there if I need it."

Multiple User Access

The most annoying users that report faults are the ones that don't believe the explanation you give them. They call us up asking for technical help, because they don't understand, but end up telling us we are wrong and then asking the same question elsewhere: Only to get the same answer.
One day our helpdesk took a call from a woman over in another building. She and two of her colleagues had an Excel spreadsheet that they all had access to and modified on a regular basis. On this particular day, all three had the file open, but only the first could edit it and then save the file. The other two had the file in "Read Only" mode.

Internet Security

Although not overly strict, we have considerably tight filters on our firewall that scans and filters websites and applications from the internet. Protection from unwanted "nasties" such as malware and viruses. These days it is essential to any business and home use alike.

Every once in a while a site that is required may be found to be blocked; we review it and unblocked it if we deem it suitable.

One day a guy comes in with his laptop complaining that it is "running slow" and the software he had installed was reporting hundreds of viruses. He also took the time to tell us how vulnerable our network was and that we should be protecting against such things. He even took the liberty of telling all about viruses and how dangerous they could be. He also complained that he could pick up malware but couldn't get to sites he wanted or certain applications.

Obviously we are always open to being told our jobs by someone with a laptop in the condition it was in and remained in a silent loathing while we checked it out.

Internet Problems (An ID10T Error!)

One day I get a phone call from a rather flustered lady from our upper management.

"Hello, I am having problems getting on to the internet with my laptop." She tells me.

"How far are you getting? Are you getting an error?" I ask.

"Its says 'Page cannot be displayed." She reads. So far so good.

"Sounds like you are not connected to the network. Where abouts are you?" I ask.

"I am at home." She says alarm bells starting to ring.

"I see so you are trying to connect your laptop to your home internet."

Pulling the Plug

It's that time of year again when our computer rooms have to be completely wiped and reconfigured. We do this by imaging all the computers in bulk, one room at a time from a preconfigured image on our server.

All we have to do is boot each computer in to WinPE, select the image and away they go. They take anywhere from 50 minutes to 2 hours depending on how big the image is. Once they are done we name them, add the printer and move on to the next room. Sounds easy...

One particular year we had been having a few problems with the imaging freezing and "bombing" out halfway through. It took us several days to sort the problems out, including many late evenings and early mornings. Needless to say we were running out of time and we still had over 1000 computers to be imaged.

Now our "temporary fix" was to have a portable server in the room we were imaging. This was considerably slower, but it did the job.

The "Broken" Hard Drive

So our favourite amateur computer technician is "on the scrounge" looking for computer parts. It was a standing joke within our department; that whenever we tried to dispose of old scrap computer parts. Old, broken parts that will probably never work again and are about to be scrapped. This guy would turn up looking for handouts. Sometimes we had to almost "fend him off with a big stick" to prevent him from taking new equipment by mistake. Even worse once our scrape had been taken away, all of the stuff he couldn't use or fix miraculously turned up again.

We show him the pile and let him help himself.

On this particular day myself and a colleague had been working on a broken PC. We had discovered the hard drive was faulty and had replaced it. When the guy walked in to ask about the parts my colleague had a idea to have a little fun.

Software Licence

Every year we have the same problem. The licence on a particular piece of software runs out and we have to wait for the new one to be emailed through. This can't be ordered in advance, you have to wait until the old one has expired. This normally takes a few days, but during that time no one can use the software.

One year we were on the second day of waiting for the email. An email alert had been sent out a few days before explaining the situation. However a guy rings up demanding he be allowed to use the software.

We explain to him the situation. That the licence has expired, we have ordered a new one and that we are waiting for it to be sent. Until it arrives there is nothing we can do to get the software working.

The Great Laptop Rebuild Disaster

The worst kind of person to report IT problems has to be those that "think" they know what they are talking about. These are computer enthusiasts that have played about with an old 486 over the weekend, installed Windows and immediately believe they are IT Professionals.

One such person contacts us on a regular basis and is the subject of many humorous and frustrating stories. A lot of our guys do their very best to avoid having to deal with him.

On one particular day I was very unfortunate to receive a phone call from him.

"Did you know your wireless system is faulty?" He tells me.

"What makes you say that?" I ask.

"The laptop I have here will NOT connect." He explains.

Scheduled Shutdown?

In an attempt to "go green," save energy, and reduce the companies electricity bill, it was decided to create a Group policy to create a scheduled shutdown. This would power off ALL workstations at 10pm everyday.

This worked well. It ensured that no computers were left running over night.

One day we were discussing the shutdown schedule with an employee who insisted that it didn't work on his computer.

We decided to check this out. Examining his computer we found the scheduled task was there and running upon it manually it succeeded in shutting down the PC. However...

"It's not that computer that I am having the problem with." He tells us. "It's my old one under my desk."

Exchange Server Down

The other week our Exchange Server had a serious issue that prevented about 2 to 3 hundred of our 3500 users not being able to get to their email. Due to the type of problem it was going to take around 24 to 48 hours to fix the problem. We put up an alert up on our website and got to work. During that time we received numerous phone calls from different users:

1. "Hi there is the email down?"
   We explain the situation...
   "Well please can you just get it going again now just for me?"
   

Data Restore

"Some of my files have disappeared" announces a lady on the phone.

"Disappeared?" I ask.

"Yes they are just gone" she tells me.

"Are you sure they haven't been deleted or moved to another folder?"

"Well I was doing a little 'housekeeping' yesterday" she confesses. "Can you get them back?"

"Where were they saved to?" I ask.

"On the server" she says.

"Which one?"