The Loony Bin
(
andrea@bloodaxe.demon.co.uk
)
19 Mar 1998 01:22:10 -0000
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Hiya All...
For those Loonies who regularly visit the archives, and have
been complaining that the search facility has been broken, it
has now been fixed and seems to be working fine now...
Here's a different perspective of those folks at support...
Wishes & Dreams...
- ANDREA
xx
*******************************************************
*******************************************************
*** ***
*** THE LOONY BIN ***
*** loonies@bloodaxe.demon.co.uk ***
*** Archive: http://eleceng.ukc.ac.uk/~pjw/loonies/ ***
*** ***
*******************Internet Goddess********************
**********************ANDROMEDA************************
------- Forwarded foolishness follows -------
A Week at the Computer Helpdesk, the REAL story...
Monday
8:05am
User called to say they forgot password. Told them to use
password retrieval utility called FDISK. Blissfully
ignorant, they thank me and hang up. God, we let the people
vote and drive, too?
8:12am
Accounting called to say they couldn't access expense
reports database. Gave them Standard Sys Admin Answer #112,
Well, it works for me. Let them rant and rave while I
unplugged my coffeemaker from the UPS and plugged their
server back in. Suggested they try it again. One more happy
customer...
8:14am
User from 8:05 call said they received error message Error
accessing Drive 0. Told them it was an OS problem.
Transferred them to microsupport.
11:00am
Relatively quiet for last few hours. Decide to plug support
phone back in so I can call my girlfriend. Says parents are
coming into town this weekend. Put her on hold and
transferred her to janitorial closet down in basement. What
is she thinking? The Myst and Doom nationals are this
weekend!
11:34am
Another user calls (do they ever learn?). Says they want ACL
changed on HR performance review database so that nobody but
HR can access database. Tell them no problem. Hang up.
Change ACL. Add @MailSend so performance reviews are sent to
*/US.
12:00pm
Lunch
3:30pm
Return from lunch.
3:55pm
Wake up from nap. Bad dream makes me cranky. Bounce servers
for no reason. Return to napping.
4:23pm
Yet another user calls. Wants to know how to change fonts on
form. Ask them what chip set they're using. Tell them to
call back when they find out.
4:55pm
Decide to run "Create Save/Replication Conflicts" macro so
next shift has something to do.
Tuesday
8:30am
Finish reading support log from last night. Sounded busy.
Terrible time with Save/Replication conflicts.
9:00am
Support manager arrives. Wants to discuss my attitude. Click
on PhoneNotes SmartIcon. Love to, but kinda busy. Put
something in the calendar database! I yell as I grab for the
support lines, which have (mysteriously) lit up. Walks away
grumbling.
9:35pm
Team leader from R&D needs ID for new employee. Tell them
they need form J-19R=9C9\\DARR\K1. Say they never heard of
such a form. Tell them it's in the SPECIAL FORMS database.
Say they never heard of such a database. Transfer them to
janitorial closet in basement.
10:00am
Perky sounding intern from R&D calls and says she needs new
ID. Tell her I need employee number, department name,
manager name, and marital status. Run @DbLookup against
state parole board database, Centers for Disease Control
database, and my Oprah Winfrey database. No hits. Tell her
ID will be ready tonight.
Drawing from the lessons learned in last week's
Reengineering for Customer Partnership I offer to personally
deliver ID to her apartment.
10:07am
Janitor stops by to say he keeps getting strange calls in
basement. Offer to train him on Notes. Begin now. Let him
watch console while I grab a smoke.
1:00pm
Return from smoking break. Janitor says phones kept ringing,
so he transferred them to cafeteria lady. I like this guy.
1:05pm
Big commotion! Support manager falls in hole left where I
pulled floor tiles outside his office door. Stress to him
importance of not running in computer room, even if I do
yell Omigod -- Fire!
1:15pm
Development Standards Committee calls and complains about
umlauts in form names. Apologizing for the inconvenience, I
tell them I will fix it. Hang up and run global
search/replace using gaks.
1:20pm
Mary Hairnet from cafeteria calls. Says she keeps getting
calls for Notice Loads or NoLoad Goats, she's not sure,
couldn't hear over industrial-grade blender. Tell her it was
probably Lettuce Nodes. Maybe the food distributor with a
new product? She thinks about it and hangs up.
2:00pm
Legal secretary calls and says she lost password. Ask her to
check in her purse, floor of car, and on bathroom counter.
Tell her it probably fell out of back of machine. Suggest
she put duct tape over all the airvents she can find on the
PC. Grudgingly offer to create new ID for her while she does
that.
2:49pm
Janitor comes back. Wants more lessons. I take off rest of
day.
Wednesday
8:30am
Irate user calls to say chipset has nothing to do with fonts
on form. Tell them of course, they should have been checking
Bitset, not chipset. Sheepish user apologizes and hangs up.
9:10am
Support manager, with foot in cast, returns to office.
Schedules 10:00am meeting with me. User calls and wants to
talk to support manager about terrible help at support desk.
Tell them manager about to go into meeting. Sometimes life
hands you material...
10:00am
Call Louie in janitorial services to cover for me. Go to
support manager's office. He says he can't dismiss me but
can suggest several lateral career moves. Most involve farm
implements in third-world countries with moderate to heavy
political turmoil. By and by, I ask if he's aware of new bug
which takes full-text indexed random e-mail databases and
puts all references to furry handcuffs and Bambi Boomer in
Marketing on the corporate Web page. Meeting is adjourned as
he reaches for keyboard, Web browser, and Tums.
10:30am
Tell Louie he's doing great job. Offer to show him mainframe
corporate PBX system sometime.
11:00am
Lunch.
4:55pm
Return from lunch.
5:00pm
Shift change; Going home.
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