The Empty Mailbox

It's the umpteenth attempt at calling her; I have been trying to get in touch with a user for over a fortnight after a fault was passed on to me from our helpdesk:

"A huge chunk of my emails are missing". It had claimed in big bold capital letters; providing lots of useful information to go on as usual.

The problem is urgent, and absolutely must be fixed immediately (apparently). As urgent as is may be, all attempts to contact the person who reported the fault have been in vain.

I hang up the phone again after the about the twelfth ring, and with everlasting regret, I send the user another email explaining that I was looking into their fault, and needed to speak with them about it. Finally a few hours later I get the returning phone call:

The Server Upgrade Uncertainty

I am often asked what it is like to work in IT Support. Most people assume that it is a geeky and uncool job. Others believe it to be never ending fun; playing with gadgets all day long and never doing any "real work". The rest are usually amazed at the flashing lights, and the unidentifiable, yet intriguing components that lay about the office, and believe it to be a glamorous, and trouble free profession. Most never see what we do in the background, unable to appreciate the hard work we do: The early mornings, the late nights, the endless progression bars. Failures and down time are fixed in their memories like the 1966 world cup, but our successes are usually forgotten almost instantaneously.

Occasionally, but not very often, the frustrations of the IT world come not from the users, but from the systems themselves.

The Problem with being an IT Specialist

After being in the business of IT Support for so many years, I have learnt never to admit to it to people outside of work: Sometimes, not even then.

"Why?" You may ask me.

Well, despite the obvious lull on your social life, once somebody knows that you have superhuman IT skills, you're screwed. Doomed forever to be plagued by never ending computer questions from people who have no idea what they are asking in the first place.

Even worse, when these people discover what you do, they tell others, and before you know it you have an even larger posse contacting you, expecting computer advice, and fixes for free. People you have never even met.

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.

The Phone Scam

For months I have had numerous reports from colleagues, friends and family members about a guy with an Indian accent, phoning them up at home and claiming to work for Microsoft. Or more specifically 'Microsoft Windows'.

First of all, before I go on, any idiot knows that Microsoft is the company and Microsoft Windows is the product. But not this one. This is a special kind of idiot, he is twice as stupid and says he works for  'Microsoft Windows'.

This 2x idiot, this Fonejacker rip-off, this stinking piece of garbage, is nothing more than a scammer, a con artist and a thief. Do not mistake him for a hacker either. Hacking requires skill and intelligence.This is nothing more than a petty criminal, who wants your hard earned cash.

The World's Worst Software Engineer - Part 6

Bright and early, The World's Worst Software Engineer arrives ready for battle. He's a warrior; fully armored, loaded with dangerous software; fresh back from his holiday, he is raring to go and just as clueless as when he left.

Even though I have sent him through the logon credentials he still can't connect to the server. Even though they are exactly the same as last time. I reset the password for him. No luck. I test the account myself and it works perfectly. Still he can't get past the bad user name or password error screen. It takes me ten minutes to talk him through how to get on to the server. Great start, that holiday has done him a world of good; his brain is completely relaxed. I'm impressed already!

The World's Worst Software Engineer - Part 5

One Week Later:

We are on high alert, the system isn't running correctly after the upgrade, and of course it's all our fault. Our database server is not working correctly because the software can't connect to it. Regardless of the fact that every other server that connects to it are having no problems whatsoever and there have been no other complaints.

The World's Worst Software Engineer isn't complaining to us directly though, but going through a proxy, namely, the person who wanted the software in the first place. We are eventually informed that he is on his way down to see us, to see if we can help. What this really means is, he is on his way down so he can moan about the local database account, and stand around looking dumb while we struggle to fix the problems he has caused, with no helpful input from him. To top it all off, we still know nothing about the software, how it is setup, how it works or even how to log in to it. Much the same as him really.