The New User Influxation

The place is in chaos, the servers are maxed out, everybody is stressed, tensions are high and no one can remember their password, date of birth or even their name. The same time every year we get a huge influx of new users: More users to report problems, more users to create them. Each one has to be registered on the system to get their vital computer user accounts, and then have to go through a long, gruelling induction by our highly trained specialists.

I say gruelling, as it is more taxing for the inductors than for the inductees. From the stories they have told me it resembles a cross between the London riots, and the Krypton Factor for the technologically afraid.

Look, Listen and Take Heed

As the phone rings for the umpteenth time one morning, all hell has broken loose as someone upstairs is having 'issues' printing. As expected it is our fault and not the fact that the printer in question is out of paper.

It all started when we sent out an email notification a few days ago, informing our users clearly and as simply as we dare, that our company's website and intranet would be down for half an hour, as some updates were being applied to the homepage. No other services would be affected.

Of course what the users read was: "We are turning every server off for the rest of the day, so that none of our computer services will be available. Once back on every problem you get will be related to this issue."

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.

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 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.

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."