Worst Explanation From Tech Support? 1907
Disgruntled-with-Tech-Support asks: "Let's face it: At some point or another, we've had to deal with some form of tech support. Quite often, it's a hit-or-miss experience depending on the level of support required. Occasionally, strange, bizarre, or nonsensical explanations result from the problems reported, such as this one: I had just had DSL installed, only to find it much slower than the 56K line I was looking to get rid of. On calling the provider, I was told (by someone who likely reading off cue cards) to visit one of their internal websites for measuring bandwidth. While there, I observed that they had both bytes per second and bits per second listed, and that the number of bytes/sec != bits/sec * 8, rather a factor around 13 or 14. I pointed this out as a possible problem, and the guy's reasoning: 'Uh, it looks like the bytes are getting through to you ok, but the bits are getting stuck someplace.' What was your worst explanation from tech support?"
Worst Explanation? (Score:5, Interesting)
Rinkworks.com brings you... (Score:4, Interesting)
Dude, your hard drive is blown! (Score:5, Interesting)
A bit of the why... (Score:2, Interesting)
Oh that's easy. (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah... sure.
That ranks right up there with their classic first question "do you have a firewall?" Answer "yes," and that IMMEDIATELY becomes the problem (despite the fact that it's been running for months with no change in configuration).
Just FYI: I find that confronting them with a few ethereal packet dumps usually gets you to the second tier at least.
SBC/Yahoo/Prodigy (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:They all start here (Score:1, Interesting)
I've seen this happen when people called saying they couldn't access their email. And, oh yeah, they haven't changed anything recently. Except they're now using a new computer, because their son took the old one to college.
School (Score:1, Interesting)
Dell... (Score:3, Interesting)
Came pre-installed with a bunch of crap, so I formatted and was reinstalling... then I noticed a grinding sound when the HD was reading... so I call them up to get a replacement.
What was the tech's opinion on the problem?
Yeah. Needless to say, I was rather speechless.
Re:CompUSA (Score:2, Interesting)
Wow. One of the advantages of my mom working in administration at CompUSA is knowing that such an employee would be under fire really quickly.
Re:My ISP is retarted (Score:2, Interesting)
You'd be suprised how many times I had this one tech call me and go into a long story about some email issue. My response was "Have you done a modem check to see if their online?", having already pulled up the customer and checked the modem while the tech was yapping. That guy never learned to see if their online first. lol
Dell and Telstra (Score:2, Interesting)
on calling Dell support, they told me that "No DVD ROM Drive will ever read CDR Media without a UDF reader driver"
--
then comes the real classic, also from Dell
Same laptop, started to overheat after about an hour of use, so thinking it was something to do with the Linux install, I restored it back to its windoze, which made no difference
calling Dell, they told me that it will run cooler with windoze than Linux, and just totally ignored the "Its Got WINDOZE" from me.
several calls later they sent a "tech" out to replace the CPU
----
The worse yet, and this time its not from a help desk in India (Yet!)
This time from my ISP (Telstra), who when called about yet more email pain, told me when I mentioned I could not even ping the server let alone connect to it.
At the time I was running pine on a UNIX box
the "tech" told me "If I was running outlook I would be able to ping the server"
----
same help (hell) desk also told me:-
to install windoze on my Powerbook, after I called them about drop outs.
to install the OSX version of IE6, when I could not use their web site from Safari
That the internet was the bottleneck (Score:2, Interesting)
sales tech-"It can't be your modem, it runs at 28.8 and the internet isn't even that fast."
me-"excuse me?"
sales tech-"Yessir, the internet only runs at 300 baud, which is a measurement of how fast the bits can go through the pins in the cable connector. You see, the wires are actually faster, they run at 9600 baud, but the pins can only go 300 because they are hollow and electrons, which is what electricity is made of, won't go through hollow pins, so they have to go around the edges. Since there are hundreds of these pins hooking up the internet the internet is limited to 300 baud, and I apologize for whoever sold you the 28.8 modem."
me-*looks dazed*
sales tech-"as an apology, let me give you $5 off on a soundcard upgrade, and I'll throw in a cable connector with solid pins for your modem so that you will know the speed issues are not at your end." (remember this was in the serial port days)
The guy had little kernels of almost truth in there, but I think it was luck:)
Re:CompUSA (Score:1, Interesting)
My favorite, I'm in the networking aisle picking up a couple switches for a small test cluster I was building... and I overhear the store rep talking to a guy about sharing his broadband internet between 2 computers....
First off, he's got 2 firewalls, a wireless access point, an 8 port switch, and 2 network cards in the guys hands already... and he's explaining to him that he needs to plug one of the firewalls into the cable modem, and then plug that cable into one of the network cards in one of the computer, then from the second nic to the second firewall, from there to the access point, and then to the wireless card in the second computer... ROFL....
I stepped in and said "No, thats a load of crap" picked up a wireless AP/switch/firewall handed it to him and said ok, from cable modem to here, from here to your computer thats close to the cable modem, and keep that wireless nic, from the wireless AP to your computer upstairs. Saved the guy about $250 in crap hardware he didn't need...
Then he asked the store rep what the difference between a hub and a switch was. The store rep said that a 10/100 hub will find the slowest connecting device on the network and then put everything at that speed, while a 10/100 switch will let everyone talk at the maximum speed they support. That was the kicker, I actually called him an idiot right there, explained the actual difference put down the 2 switches I was going to buy and left.
Re:Plenty of them... (Score:2, Interesting)
When I worked tech support I attempted to reduce the required number of steps by removing redundant troubleshooting. Upon hearing that the customer is relatively competent in what they're doing I would skip the bullshit. I always sat at the borderline of getting fired for just not following policy. It was fun knowing that within 1 year the job would not matter.
Even if I tried to follow the guidelines I would change simple questions like:
"Do you have it plugged in?"
to a
"I assume you have it plugged in...." with the customer, when realizing their dumbassedness would reply "Well whatcha' know
It makes them happy when they figure things out on their own without telling them to do anything.
To make things clear, management came down on me even over happy customers. Customers who even had written letters of appreciation!
From an old NetZero tech (Score:3, Interesting)
Every so often you might have gotten one of us real Geeks.
But even we had to deal with internal stupid issues.
I remember a few times through out the 3 years I worked for Netzero when certain accounts would become unavailable for no apparent reason.
The only similarity between the accounts would be what letter they started with.
We'd come into work, and on the white board we'd see something like: "Accounts beginning with A, G and K are not able to connect".
Oh you could ask why, but you'd never get an answer.
The release of Windows XP was no picnic either. I had to wing more then a few calls. I never saw some many people spend time on break for those first few weeks.
Try explaining to people that thier old hardware doesn't work on thier brand new computer because of XP? That made people happy.
Not an explanation, but... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:My ISP is retarted (Score:4, Interesting)
I listened for about two minutes, and then said "Well that's odd as I disconnected the cable modem two minutes ago" she became flustered and was clearly caught in a lie -- it was a pretty awkward situation. In other words it's just as probable that they were just bullshitting to make you feel like they've done what they can do, when really they just want you to suck it for a while, or to call back for some other sucker to deal with.
Re:Not to mention the submitter has it backwards (Score:5, Interesting)
Techcomedy.com (Score:1, Interesting)
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Plenty of them... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:My ISP is retarted (Score:2, Interesting)
Great, that site DOESN'T test upstream.
Went to DSL reports and wow seems to be a problem.
Lone story short, I had a cable modem for 7 years, i know when something is flaky like most people who read
Took me an hour to convince them to send someone out, replaced the modem with same model and problem fixed.
Re:Not to mention the submitter has it backwards (Score:5, Interesting)
>>Shouldn't it be bits/sec = bytes/sec * 8?
>no... it's eight bits to a byte.
Yes. Assuming he meant (bits/sec) = (bytes/(sec * 8)). I must assume he did. It's important to me.
1 byte / 1 sec => (8 * 1 bit) / 1 sec = (8 * 1 bit) / 1 sec => 1 byte / sec = 8 bits / sec
And I'd expect more like 9-11 bits to transmit a byte, on average, due to packet overhead and error correction. 8 is optimal, which doesn't happen much. 11-14 wouldn't be shocking if there's a lot of packet loss, as it sounds like there may be.
Worst tech support explanation (Score:5, Interesting)
I've also had good experiences with tech support, especially on other peoples computers cause I'd be calling for warrenty work. I'd call up say "Hey this computer has a problem starting up, so I swapped out a few things like the PSU, RAM, CPU, and motherboard, the motherboard is probably fried since when I tried a different one it worked, so where could I get a new motherboard since the PC is still under warrenty?" The guy went from ultra depressed (thinking "Oh no, not another problem that will probably require 2 hours to finally get to the conclusion that someone has to look at the computer") to really happy and excited like "Wow thanks for testing out all that stuff, so it's deffinitely the motherboard? Just bring it to such and such store and they'll install a new one for you."
PC tech support seems so much easier to deal with since they seem to know more about how the computer works. I guess it's easier for them since the problem is always on the users end and they have to deal with a lot of different situations. With internet tech support all they know how to deal with is configuring e-mail and setting auto detect IP address in Windows 98 and above. They rarely have to deal with a customer calling up telling them there is a problem on their end and even if the customer described exactly what was wrong, they wouldn't be able to do anything.
SBC DSL Tech Support (Score:1, Interesting)
Visual Studio 1.0 Collegiant Edition support (Score:3, Interesting)
We decided it would be terribly cool to create a electronic version of Star Fleet Battles. So, off we went creating our SDI application.
After some blood, sweat and tears we had something which should have worked. It was correct in every way we could figure out but the damned thing kept crashing on us. (imagine that) I finally decided to take one for the team and open a support incident.
After spending hours on the phone on hold while talking to different clueless support weasels I was finally connected with a person with actuall programming experience. I don't know if he was a developer or not but he did try to help. Finally, he asked me if I could send him our source code so he could attempt to debug it because there didn't appear to be anything wrong with it. I emailed him the source package and waited.
And waited.
Waited...
Finally, I called the guy back 3 days later.
Me: "So, have you had a chance to look at our code yet?"
TS: "Yeah, neat little game you've got here - is it SFB?"
Me: "Yes, it's supposed to be - I've never seen it work."
TS: "What? It works fine. We've been playing it here in the office for the last couple of days."
Me: "But, my version doesn't work - what did you change?"
TS: "Where's it breaking again?"
Me: Tells him line number and error message.
TS: "Oh that - you're dealing with a known bug in the debug compiler. Just compile your code in release mode and you're good to go."
I 'politely' explained at this time that I was running the collegiant edition. "oh" he said. "You're screwed."
Eventually, he assisted me with determining a work around. I never did receive the free upgrade I was promised to VS 1.5 which was available at the time (though, I'll admit he started backtracking just as soon as he offered it - somebody probably slapped him).
IIRC, we got a B on the assignment. All the time we spent debugging and on the phone with MS tech support ate seriously into our plan to develop features. We were supposed to have a certain number of menu items and other metrics of functionality which we completely fell short of. Fortunately, I had email evidence of some of my communication with the TS guy so our prof was merciful.
That said, it was an excellent course in how software actually gets developed - spend huge quantities of time on the latest MS bug and fail to meet your feature requirements in the course of debugging and trying to make the stupid thing work.
Re:Best BOFH answer. (Score:2, Interesting)
It is correct that 1 byte/sec = many bits/second. (Score:2, Interesting)
Line speed is measured in bits/second (and often real bits at that).
If ATM is used (often the case), then there is an overhead of 5 bytes per 48 bytes of ATM data.
Add to this a TCP/IP overhead of up to 42 bytes/packet, giving an efficiency of around 95%.
This gives you more than 15% overhead. So a factor 10 is a good bet.
Now, if it is cable, there are many other things actually in there, as many are sharing the same cable etc. So it might eat another 20% - just like 802.11 is only spending half the bandwidth in each direction - and have lots of overhead.
Re:This happens all the time with internal support (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Worst reply i've GIVEN.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Back when my company was an ISP our mac tech support would do that. "My mac is acting funny" "hmm.. give it two bongs... no, make it three.. three bongs"
Suprisingly, most mac users understood what it was to give your machine a bong. (NVRAM fun)
Re:You said it... (Score:2, Interesting)
To: ARMANDO
Date: Thursday - May 6, 2004 7:46 AM
Subject: Re: Request #90210 has been closed.
ARMANDO-
You acutally have 228MB available space you total space is 446MB ? Long live Google I'd be lost without it.
Zed
>>> ARMANDO 05/05/04 05:52PM >>>
Zed, is it true that 228MB is allocated to P:\Albumen and if we have about 210MB stored, there is about 18MB free space?
In other words,
What is the total capacity of P:\Albumen?
How much is stored on P:\Albumen? (that I think I know--currently about 213MB is stored on P:\Albumen)
How much free space do I have on P:\Albumen?
I apologize for being so dense. All this elite technical stuff is so baffling.
BTW: I've checked the Google calculator, and yes, I had my goggles on when I checked the Google calculator so I think I was able to see all the hidden thing is.
>>> HELP DESK 05/05/04 05:13PM >>>
220 799 167 bytes = 210.570495 megabytes
15 608 kilobytes = 15.2421875 megabytes
If you go to Goggle and enter in the search "xxx kb =" it will give you the answer. It's called Goggle Calculator, one of the many hidden thing is Goggle.
Right now you have 228 544 kilobits = 27.8984375 megabytes or almost 30MB's
>>> ARMANDO 05/05/04 03:16PM >>>
Currently, P:\Albumen properties shows 210MB (220,799,167 bytes), so I guess that means my current storage in Kilobytes is 215,624, right?
That means I have about 15,608 Kilobytes of free space, which is about 15.24MB, right?
I must not be figuring this right, because you just gave us 30MB more disk space and I just deleted a whole bunch of files, but by my reckoning we've ended up with only half as much free space as you just gave us.
Please tell me how much free space we have in Kilobytes.
Thank you.
>>> HELP DESK 05/05/04 02:19PM >>>
Right now it's at 231232KB's per Novell
>>> ARMANDO 05/05/04 10:16AM >>>
I've archived a bunch of old files and have gotten our file storage down to 209 MB in
Could you let me know how much disk space is currently allocated to this directory?
I'll try to keep the amount of files we have stored there under the allocated amount.
Thank you.
>>> <HELP DESK> 05/04/04 04:16PM >>>
Dear LOUISE,
Your request has been closed. The following is the resolution.
Added 30MB more space
For details or to reopen it, go to
http://helpdesk/hd/index.ssp?ticket_id=90210&
IT - Acme Carnival Help Desk
Re:Dude, your hard drive is blown! (Score:5, Interesting)
Recently, I spent 96 minutes on the phone "troubleshooting" an integrated NIC that would not illuminate it's link lights.
After escalating twice, the supervisor wanted to check the Windows drivers again, even though the PXE boot in BIOS reported that it wasn't seeing a network connection.
I angrily asked what the connection between Windows drivers and BIOS was. He said it does affect the BIOS if your drivers aren't set properly in Windows! WTF?
I asked him, what about Linux? He said, "We don't support Linux."
It frustrates me to no end to deal with a technician who wasn't even born when I took my first computer class, and have him (or her) treat me like I don't know the first thing about computers or troubleshooting.
My Macintosh can beat up your Windows PC!
Verizon DSL (Score:4, Interesting)
When I moved into my house, the DSL wouldn't work, using the modem that I'd brought with me from my apartment. So, I took the modem out to the point where the phone line comes into the house and tested it there. Still didn't work. Neither did the other modem I had from a previous apartment. So, it seemed pretty obvious that the problem was outside my house.
Armed with this information, I called Verizon.
Call #1 I made the mistake of telling the guy that I had a Mac. So, I get transferred to their Macintosh help department, and get some guy in India who can barely speak English and assumes I have a bad modem. Of course, he can't solve the problem and has to give me a different number to call the next day (not that I'm going to, because I know it's not the modem -- I've tried it at my office and it worked fine).
Call #2 The first call didn't work, so I call back again. This time, though, I'm smart enough to forget to mention that I have a Mac. After a suitable period spent listening to soothing jazz (and the occasional assurance that my call is important), I get a nice enough women on the phone. I patiently explain to her what the problem is and what steps I've gone through to track the cause. After listening to me, she responds by asking which modem I have. I describe it, and she immediately tells me that I have the wrong modem. I need the other model of modem. Unlikely, but I'm no expert in DSL technologies, so I'm willing to give her the benefit of the doubt ... which means waiting half a week for a new modem to show up.
Call #3 The new modem shows up, and I try it. Much to my lack of surprise, it also fails to work. Back to the phones, I call Verizon for a third time. Finally, I get someone sounds like he has a clue. Still wary, though, I decide not to mention that I have a Mac. Only problem is that he wants me to run through some diagnostic steps, which means I have to pretend to follow what he's telling me, and then do the equivalent under OS X. Simple enough, until he asks me to read him some number with a weird title. I think he's talking about the MAC address, but I'm not positive. Busted? Thinking quickly, I acted like I'd been interrupted, and asked him to hold on for a second. Then, I sat there for a few seconds, and when I came back said something to the effect of, "ok, so you wanted the MAC address, right?" Bingo, got it right. I gave that to him, and within' a minute or two, he'd run his diagnostics and determined that the problem must in fact be outside my house (just as I'd suspected at first). He told me he'd send someone out to fix it, and bid me good day.
Epilogue Within a few days, someone apparently fixed the problem, and I got a call saying everything was good to go. I plugged the modem in, and SUCCESS it worked! Only took 2 1/2 weeks, and three phone calls to reach the solution that I'd already determined when I made the first call.
my most recent.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Oh that's easy. (Score:4, Interesting)
I've got a cable modem through Comcast. There are two lights on it that show whether the modem has locked onto a signal from the Coax cable. One night (as often happens) the signal disappeared, the lights went out, and I called Comcast. Took me 45 minutes to get the guy to stop having me check through network settings on my computer and check the damn local circuits for a problem.
I'm sorry, but if those lights are out, its not a problem with my computer.... its narrowed down to the modem, my coax, or their local network. Some techs, not all, but many.....are absolutely clueless if they don't follow their pre-determined question line.
Re:CompUSA (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:My ISP is retarted (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Worst Explanation? (Score:3, Interesting)
There's a self-defeating statment if I've ever seen one. Regardless, a quick search [google.com] reveals that many mechanic services do indeed bill for diagnostics. Those who don't either pay their technicians less or charge you a higher hourly rate. The general reason why diagnositc fees are either all or nothing is because it is common to spend differing amounts of time diagnosing the same symptoms. Even a doctor will tell you that (who do, in fact, charge for s/office visits/diagnostic fees/).
Asking for the card up front is just a scare tatic to try to get consumers to not call in.
Seeing that technical support (the type in question) is fee-based, call centers are paid by customers. So, it's only logical that if a customer is unwilling to pay, they will be deterred from speaking to a CSR. Additionally, more supervisor-escalations are generated by asking for billing information at the beginning of a call when compared to in the middle of the call. The customer has already invested x amount of time into an issue, and then finding out they need to pay for a fix is not what they want to hear.
The system might not be perfect, but it is set up for a reason. Most companies strive to break-even in their customer service departments, so cost-cutting through tactics like this is merely a way of life. Otherwise, you'd get more outsourcing, crappier customer service, and a buttload of other problems associated with under-funded agencies. Just look at the PTO.
Oh hell, I forgot about this episode... (Score:3, Interesting)
They insisted that the smyrnacable.net mail servers did not belong to them, and told me to contact Smyrna Cable. I patiently explained that Smyrna Cable no longer existed because they had devoured it. Apparently it was escalated to somebody with a clue, because a few days later my account was closed.
Months passed and the matter was forgotten. Until one day, some company in Smyrna emailed me. They'd found my old resume on my old site and wanted to know if I was interested in a job. Sure enough, my old site was back! Maybe somebody restored a backup or something. I went through the whole process again, only this time Charter's tech support denied even more vehemently that smyrnacable.net does not belong to them (despite the fact that it's among the choices on their Webmail page [chartercom.com]!)
I finally gave up on the. I meditated until I remembered my old FTP password, and replaced my personal Web site with the above story (suitably embellished) and a challenge to Charter Cable to permanently remove it. I then emailed the URL to tech support. Needless to say, the page came down most ricky-tick.
Emachines (Score:5, Interesting)
Hold shift at the EMachines logo to see the ram.
This is an AthlonXP 2400+, it goes to fast to read.
Your ram is defective.
I don't think it is. What about my heat problem? Is that red light supposed to be on?
Your ram is defective.
What about my heat issue?!
Your ram is defective.
I took it back to Best Buy:
This computer has heat problems.
You opened the case. The warrenty is void.
It says right here in this E-Mail(waves paper) that I can do that.
The warrenty is void. All we can do is exchange it for a new one.
Well, the ram still doesn't work, but the inside of this one looks different. It hasn't overheated yet. Same model, different motherboard and cpu-fan...
Re:Excuses I used to give as a tech (Score:3, Interesting)
While they weren't shaking the line, squirls HAD managed to get into a local wiring box for the lines (last time a tech did anything they didn't close it up properly) and proceeded to strip alot of insulation off the wires and everytime it rained we'd get 60hz buzz and other noise on the phone and it just kept getting worse untill about the third time we called someone out.
It took them three tries because everytime we reported the problem a guy wouldn't show for a day or two, and of course by then the lines had dried and he didn't hear anything wrong and say we must have an issue with the phone itself.
Finally we called it in and since it rained on and off for the next four days someone showed up while it was drizzling ouside and the noise was REALLY bad.
Mycroft
Was asked to install a program... (Score:3, Interesting)
@Home (Score:3, Interesting)
The cable guy did his thing as the tech hooked the cable modem and plugged it into my brand new NT box with a network cable.
Tech hooks it up, sets the network settings, and reboots. No connection.
Tech begins looking at the hardware profile, and I notice a big "X" over my NIC, indicating it is disabled.
I told the tech that it appeared the machine shipped with the NIC disabled (I hadn't used the NIC before) and to try enabling it.
Instead the tech ignores me, dicks around with the TCP/IP settings some more and then makes some incoherant rambling about Windows NT not being a "plug and play" operating system. He tells me that he thinks that my NIC is not compatible with the cable modem and offers to sell me one from @Home for $70.
I told the tech that I would pass on his offer for the time being, and that I would call my OEM to see if perhaps they had an updated driver. The tech agrees and gives me the number to call for support.
As soon as the tech leaves, I go into my hardware profile and enable my NIC. Not surprisingly, I'm now online.
I actually called the number the tech gave me to let them know that either the guy was an idiot (or at best too arrogant to listen to the suggestion of a high schooler).
Contrast this with my most recent setup with Comcast. The guy basically dropped the cable modem off, took one look at all the machines I had sitting at the side of the room, and said, "I'm not touching anything. Here is the setup information." I'm not quite fond of Comcast (I actually preferred the Road Runner connection I had when I lived in San Diego), but at least their cable guy was smart enough not to prentend to know what he was doing.
Re:Worst Explanation? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Not to mention the submitter has it backwards (Score:1, Interesting)
Umm... Ethernet frames don't get send over dialup lines.
Where do they get these people? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:CD-R wouldn't play... (Score:4, Interesting)
As far as I know, though, CDs don't have this restriction.
cd burner == hot!! (Score:3, Interesting)
Salesman: This HP model is really popular. It even comes with a cd burner.
Friend: That's one of the things I really wanted for my new computer.
Salesman: Great...but if you decide to purchase a model with a cd burner, you should also pick up this surge protector.
Salesman hands her a $99 APC surge protector.
Salesman: This surge protector is even on sale, so you lucked out.
Friend: That's ok, I already have a regular surge protector from my old computer.
Salesman: Ohhhh...that's not going to work if you get a model with a cd burner. You know they don't call them "burners" for nothing. These things reach over 500 degrees. If you don't have a high quality surge protector, there's a high chance that your computer will catch on fire and burn your house down.
Friend: Are you serious? I don't want that to happen.
Salesman: Hey...I'm just trying to look out for you and your family's safety.
Me: I think it's time to go.
Later that day.
Friend: That guy wasn't that bad.
Me: Too bad Best Buy doesn't sell fire extinguishers, he could have sold you one of those while he was at it.
Nothing against Best Buy or computer salesmen in general...I just thought it was a funny story.
Re:Worst reply i've GIVEN.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Not to mention the submitter has it backwards (Score:3, Interesting)
For exmaple, the PDP-10 had 9 bits per byte and 4 bytes per word (36 bits).
I've also seen 7 bits per byte on some old 9-track tapes that came from, I think, a Honeywell computer.
Re:Earthlink... (Score:3, Interesting)
True story (Score:5, Interesting)
Called Microsoft.
After a 45 minute call to setup an account, then a wait to get a callback, then another 45 minute conversation with a very nice Indian gentleman, we fixed the problem.
Microsoft Visio and Microsoft Windows are incompatible. This is a known issue. The fix is to drill down to some obscure registry key and add a 1 to it. Then everything works fine.
And somehow Linux is the OS with the reputation for obscure configuration and software conflicts. Go figure.
Re:Worst Explanation? (Score:4, Interesting)
She uses that to her advantage when she calls other companies. Help lines, just like support lines, are motivated to get off the line as fast as possible. If you don't hang up, just keep repeating your question letting them answer it over and over. It makes the person answering the phone look bad because their call time increases. Usually, but not always, they'll go out of their way to get you off the phone.
Re:You said it... (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:CompUSA (Score:2, Interesting)
Gateway Sucks (Score:5, Interesting)
Thus began an odyssey that I hope never to repeat with any company, and certainly will never repeat with Gateway. They're never getting another dime out of me or my family for as long as I'm alive.
Below is why. The first two logs detail a chat session between Gateway and myself, conducted using a particularly nasty piece of customer service software called eGain. You can see how it made the live person on the other end of the chat session sound like a robot.
After that follows a series of e-mail correspondence. This log has been edited both to cover my tracks a bit, and to get around the slashdot filters, as the characters per line ratio of the post is otherwise too low.
Chat Session 1
Question: I updated my BIOS and the system boots, displays gateway logo, but does not POST.
A Chat Agent will be with you shortly.
Wendell: Hello Fahr, welcome to the Gateway Chat Support Service. I am Wendell here to help you with your issue.
Fahr Vergnugen: Hi. Have a system here that's not terribly happy.
Wendell: Can you please tell me the exact problem you are facing with your Computer?
Fahr Vergnugen: Need S/N?
Wendell: Fahr, please provide me your Serial number.
Fahr Vergnugen: Okay, older PII-233Mhz / LX chipset board. tried to slap in a newer celeron, it didn't take, decided to update the bios.
Wendell: Okay , Fahr.
Fahr Vergnugen: sure 0009589521
Wendell: Thanks , Fahr.
Wendell: Can you please tell me the problem you are facing with your System?
Fahr Vergnugen: grabbed BIOS 4A4LL0X0.15A.0023.P18 from the gateway support site (was running P11) and flashed the board.
Wendell: When this issue happens is there an error message? If so, could you please tell me the exact error message?
Fahr Vergnugen: now, the system fires up, displays a gateway logo, and a small progress bar in the top left fills from grey to white, and the system acts like it's going to POST normally, but it never happens.
Fahr Vergnugen: the bar takes between 3 and 4 minutes to reach 100%.
Wendell: When this issue happens is there an error message? If so, could you please tell me the exact error message?
Fahr Vergnugen: and from there it just sits. If I hit TAB to view system messages, it acts normally, but again, no POST. Nothing happens.
Fahr Vergnugen: no error message. Just doesn't beep and post.
Fahr Vergnugen: I think it's probably pretty shafted, but I thought I'd check with you guys.
Wendell: Fahr, please hold on while I search for your resolution.
Fahr Vergnugen: np, holdin' on.
Wendell: Thank you for waiting. Please review the following information, which I think will help you.
Wendell: [Item sent - Astro and Profile 2 - Computer stops responding after power-on self-test (POST)] http://www.gateway.com/support/techdocs/astro/trsh oot/1106.shtml
Wendell: Did you get the page , Fahr?
Fahr Vergnugen: yep, but no help I can tell already, since it assumes I can get to Windows, which is not the case.
Wendell: I realize your time is valuable, please wait one minute while I research this further.
Fahr Vergnugen: np
Wendell: Fahr, I apologize for the delay
Sun Server (Score:3, Interesting)
Apparently, one of their production sun server reset itself suddenly one day (this is in the late 80's/early 90's). They got some people from Sun in to have a look at it and they spent days looking over the machine and checkig logs. In the end, the explaination given was "A gamma particle from space". I shit you not. According to them, one flew through space, straight though the processor and caused the machine to reboot.
Re:My ISP is retarted (Score:5, Interesting)
Now this all seems like a pain in the ass. And it is. But in the end, you'll have a badass story about how you battled a multi billion dollar telecommunications giant, and made them kiss your ass. That's right, I'd file for a new hub and to have them write formal letters of apology. Now *that's* being a dick. I would bet at least a memo would go out to not touch other people's things.
Re:Worst reply i've GIVEN.... (Score:2, Interesting)
That anecdote was on http://www.rinkworks.com/stupid/cs_stuptech.shtml
Bah. Stealing anecdotes to get Slashdot "karma". It doesn't get much lamer than that.
Re:CompUSA (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:My ISP is retarted (Score:2, Interesting)
I worked in the field forever and I saw so many funny things that the thing to do after work was sit around and crack up about the days events, the stupid customers, and the morons in the dispatching office.
"...ok then I think the problem is between the keyboard and the chair."
Working for the cable company and having service with their competitor was a laugh. They sent out a tech to troubleshoot the aerial line because my cable modem was losing synch more and more every day since the install, which I was unavailable for. Tech support continued to try to get me to clear my browser cache and reboot my computer and right click on my computer and all that crap. After a few rounds of supressed laughter I finally admitted that I wasnt using windows, I wasnt on a Mac... anyway
I could have replaced the line myself, but why do that when I'm paying for the service? Besides, theres a few beers left over from last night, and I could sure use some entertainment...
Now its clear that the person who originally installed this line had no idea what he was doing. Its going through trees, crossing power, and is zip-tied to a telephone pole hook, rather than properly secured. Near a large tree branch the line is worn down through the shielding to the stinger, and is very visible as the bare spot is next to the house.
They have a rule about testing the lines imepedance first. He gets out the little Ohm-meter and terminates one end, goes to the pole and tests it, and returns with a puzzled look on his face. He has to explain that he can't replace the line because its impedence is within bounds and the line must be fine.
Channel 3, also a local station, is coming in loud and clear with the local news due to the exposed wire, and this guy is arguing with me about policy?
We had the policy too, but it was because our techs, as contractors, were lighting up every corner of the house with a cable jack for the money. When this policy hit us, our re-wiring hit rock bottom and we lost alot of good technicians. It didnt take much more than a few phone calls to scratch this obviously moronic policy from their books. If picture=crappy then replace(wires);
Re:no, not in this decade. (Score:1, Interesting)
Nitpick: nybble is spelled with a y. It was originally defined as half a
byte, IIRC, but these days we usually call a nybble a "hex digit", because
it holds the same amount of information as one digit in a hexadecimal number.
Also, you forgot to mention doublewords and quadwords
I've talked to you before, haven't I? (Score:3, Interesting)
Seagate Support (Score:1, Interesting)
No luck. Everything I tried left me with an unbootable system.
So I called Seagate, not expecting much. But the guy on the phone (first time luck, perhaps), after ascertaining that I had *some* clue took me through his debugging steps and we eventually isolated the problem in some very slight damage to the SCSI cable. Disks to one side of the connector were perfectly usable, disks on the other side of a miniscule crack just wouldn't work but the debugging attempts would suggest some type of system conflict.
How, from somewhere on the other side of the US, this guy managed to figure out that it was a tiny break in the cable is still beyond me. But I wrote to his employer to say that he should be getting awards for his service level. No doubt, his call times were poor so he was fired shortly thereafter.
Re:My ISP is retarted (Score:3, Interesting)
This was apparently all fine and we should have service within an hour. A few hours later, I became frustrated and called back and got transferred to the tech support people. The first wall of support folks seems to have the function of asking what OS you use and transferring you to a "real" tech. We have a box running linux doing routing/NAT for our network, but I figured saying that would just cause me grief so I said "Windows 2000".
This turned out to be a big mistake. It turns out that the previous tennents of the house had been disconnected for having some stupid worm, so they wanted me to prove I'd patched my Windows 2000 box with Windows Update before they'd help me further. I just insisted I had, thinking it'd be easy, but they wanted the patch identification numbers from the Windows Update installation!
With no way to find these out, I just decided to be honest with the man. I explained that there was not a Windows machine connected to the cable modem and that I had just said that thinking they'd balk at the idea of a linux system. He seemed to ignore what I was saying and demanded I read out five numbers starting with Q from some dialog box in Windows 2000.
Becoming more than a little frustrated, I said that I had no way to do that and that there was no way the worms could be on my system. He was having none of it, so remembering that the worm he was trying to patch me for was Windows 2000 only I asked him what would happen if I phoned back and told them I was using Windows 98. He offered to transfer me to the "Windows 98" tech, and I agreed figuring that I wouldn't get any further here.
After waiting in the queue for 20 minutes, I got a connection to the Windows 98 tech who was the same guy I was talking to before! Both he and I knew he'd just put me back in the pool to try to get rid of me but by chance I'd ended up back on his line again. I very politely explained that my Windows 98 system would not connect to the Internet and he, with an appropriate amount of smarm, started going through the Windows 98 procedure he had laid out, which did not include patch installations.
I just played along with the little game, answering the questions correctly and pretending I was going through the motions. He knew I wasn't as well as I wasn't even trying to make it sound like I was.
Once we got through all that, he finally helped me. Apparently they have a special version of their online signup page which you must go through before Internet service is enabled at a new address. I wish they could have just told me that in the first place, as the first thing I said was "I have moved to a new address and transferred my cable service".
Re:no, not in this decade. (Score:5, Interesting)
If you are a C or C++ programmer however, you will/should be using the definition in the ISO standard (1996 for C++, 1999 for C) in which a byte is the unit returned by sizeof and used by memcpy, memset etc.
On the hardware I am programming today, which sells millions of units, a byte is 16 bits. A char is 16 bits. A short is 16 bits. An int is 16 bits. A pointer is 16 bits but that ain't enough so we have to using segment registers from inline assembler (argh). If they could get away with it they would have probably have made a float 16 bits.
Believe it or not, there are processors that are not Intel 8086 compatible!
People who are not pedantic generate buggy code when arriving on wierdo systems, since computers tend to be pedantic themselves. But I admit that the association of byte with octet is very common, and in my opinion it was a mistake for the C and C++ committees to use the word byte for that unit of storage.
My computer was afraid of the dark... (Score:5, Interesting)
We had a lot of Digital DECstation workstations. One of them stopped working, so I called Field Service, and our usual guy comes out. Although it is a straight-up motherboard swap, he needs to do some diagnosis to put on the tag to engineering.
As is, the system wouldn't POST. He took the cover off, tested it again, and it POSTed fine. Figuring something was loose, he tightened all the connections. Put the cover on, system wouldn't POST. Took the cover off, system would POST. Lather, rinse, repeat.
We decide NOT to put hte cover completely on, but just lay it down on top, upside down so the internals were covered, but nothing scresed in or possibly shorting. Won't work. Take it off, works fine.
New theory - took a piece of cardboard laying nearby, and covered the case. Wouldn't work. Took it off, and it worked. Took a piece of paper, covered parts of the motherboard at a time, and slowly narrowed down the location.
The DECstation 5000s had a pair of large EPROMS with labels on them. The labels covered small round windows which I assume was for "flashing" the EPROM to wipe it out and reprogram. Apparently, they had somehow developed a sensitivity to light. A single sheet of paper was enough to block the light to prevent them from working.
I'm no electrical engineer, but this was bizarre.
The field service engineer put "afraid of the dark" on the tag, and left it at that.
Try and debug that one on a help desk phone...
Re:Some of my best lines : (Score:4, Interesting)
Why do I have to hold my mouse button down and move it to highlight a block of text, and why do I have to hold down the CTRL key before I hit the C key to copy the text to the buffer, and why do I have to click the Start button when I want to shut down?
If you know a more effective answer than 'Because you fucking have to.'
Re:It's the OTHER company (Score:2, Interesting)
Unfortunately, there's no codified enforcement, and there's no quality requirements - in theory, they could send a "." every five minutes and be completely legal. Smacktards.
I'm hard of hearing, so I need captions in order to be able to follow a TV show without straining to hear. Still, though, the best part is probably when you're watching a cartoon, and the captions have one joke, and the audio has another.
Re:Worst excuse I've heard.. (Score:1, Interesting)
I won't use US based hosts anymore. Too damn cavalier in dealing with LOSER customers like me.
May make sense (Score:3, Interesting)
(What happens is that in the Autumn, the leaves pile up on the line, getting ground onto the rails by passing trains. They form a slippery laquer, causing the trains to loose traction - on slopes this can result in inability to make the climb without a run at it or extra locomotion. It's like ice for railways!)
But it still sounds hilarious. "We apologise for the delay, this was due to leaves on the line".
Worst explanation I've heard (Score:2, Interesting)
The PC tech support "guru" insisted that it was a f@*#ing software problem. Smoke comes out of my computer and this imbecile comes up with the lamest excuse on Earth. Software !?!?!?!?!?! I was so pissed, I was fuming and talked to his immediate supervisor and bitched her out. I then threatened the regional sales manager not to buy any more machines, which is an effective threat when you end up buying Onyx 2000 and Origin 3000 from them.
In all fairness the workstation and server SGI tech support is really good. Its the best I've seen compared to Apple, Dell, HP ....you name it. You do pay a pretty price for their tech support, but when SGI entered the PC market they had to subcontract the
manufacturing and support out to other American companies. Which resulted in a significant problem with the quality of their tech support (which I may add was all done in the U.S.) My experience with tech support from Bangalore has been pretty
good so far. Which goes to show its not which country you subcontract or outsource to, but to whom.
The fog (FUD) technique, or howto change subject (Score:2, Interesting)
First thing the tech support said when those win file server had a problem:
"It's Linux's fault".
Well, what a convincing explanation, a nice big cloudy fog, sorry, FUD.... :-)
Dell HD didn't work (Score:2, Interesting)
policies (Score:1, Interesting)
The answer I was given was that Mr. Smith (who?) called to report that he was moving into my apartment in a week, and therefore they took upon themselves to turn off my service. No notice to me whatsoever. I was dumbfounded at this policy.
So when I bought a house 3 years ago, I called all the utilities a week or so before possession, and was again amazed that I was able to turn off the seller's service...with just a phone call; no proof or id required.
Nice way to mess someone up, eh?
Re:My computer was afraid of the dark... (Score:3, Interesting)
E-mail problems... (Score:1, Interesting)
I press "Get Mail". Up comes the error message and the tilted red cross, with the message "You have no new mail."
To be perfectly honest, I couldn't even laugh. I was just blown away. I just switched a client and went back to my office, he never called again. I'm sort of glad because I like to be nice to my idiot users, but I couldn't figure out how to tell him what was wrong without letting him know he's a retard as well.
Re:Not to mention the submitter has it backwards (Score:3, Interesting)
Good old CompUSA support (Score:4, Interesting)
I had the misfortune to buy an HP Vectra from them for my brother , and the Windows install was in one huge monolithic blob on a CD: you had to install all the crap at once, even if you only wanted Windows or a certain driver. That would have been fine if they had shipped a stable build that actually worked. But the config for the Zip drive was both wrong and out-of-date, and downloading latest Zip drivers from Iomega didn't seem to help the persistent crashes and freezes.
So I rang up their "Tech support", to ask about their recommended fix. She walked me through the script, starting with "is the computer switched on Mr. (my surname)?", and suffixing every single question in the script with "Mr. (my surname)". This was clearly their attempt at personalizing "Customer Care", and make me feel like a Valued Individual(tm), but all it did was make me want to smack the "Customer Care" out of her with a blunt axe.
Eventually we came to the end of the script, and no closer to a solution. She now advised me to re-install from the massive blob CD, which would fdisk all my data to oblivion. I explained that I'd done that already, and it hadn't worked.
"It looks like the installation CD as shipped has a problem."
"No that's not possible Mr. (my surname). They're thoroughly tested."
"Well sure it is. Maybe it worked before, but doesn't work on the latest hardware."
"No that's not possible Mr. (my surname)"
"Why not?
"What do you think could be wrong with it Mr. (my surname)?"
"How about the out-of-date drivers?"
"How would that crash the machine Mr. (my surname)?"
"If there's a bug that didn't show up before, but shows up under a new revision of BIOS, or a new ethernet card, or new firmware in the Zip drive, and so on."
"I don't see how that's possible Mr. (my surname)."
"Well it says on the Iomega site that there's a known memory leak issue with the version of drivers that you've shipped, for a start."
"I'm sorry, what was that you said Mr. (my surname)? A memory LEAK?"
"Memory leak, yes. I can give you the address of the bug report on the Iomega site."
(muffled laughter) "There's no thing as a 'memory LEAK', Mr. (my surname)." (more muffled laughter, now joined by her colleagues, phone covered up and uncovered as she talks)
At this point I was starting to get irritated. Paying for incompetence and ignorance is one thing, but getting laughed at for politely explaining to someone what I paid them to already know is quite another.
So I told her to put her supervisor on the phone, right now. She sighed, and said "OK, Mr. (my surname), I'll put him on right away!" (more muffled laughter).
The supervisor was no better informed than his idiot underlings, but at least he was willing to listen and learn when I explained to him how poor allocation and deallocation management can cause a failure to reclaim discarded memory, and he accepted that there really was something called a memory leak, and that the computing world outside of CompUSA had known about it for years, and that Iomega had reported the bug exactly as I'd described it.
But CompUSA never did fix my problem. So I backed up my brother's data, and rebuilt his PC from scratch with a borrowed Windows CD, figuring it was worth losing out on the "free" Norton AV etc. that came on HP's monolithic blob-CD, if that's what it took to get a PC that didn't freeze randomly a dozen times a day.
Now, whenever one of us runs into a "professional" who wouldn't know his own job if it jumped up and bit his dick off, we usually look at each other and say in unison "there's no such thing as a 'memory LEAK', Mr. (my surname)".
Re:My ISP is retarted - Must be Catching (Score:5, Interesting)
The cable guy came to hook up my future mother-in-law's computer. I had recommended an eMac, since I know I'll be the one maintaining it and I know Macs better.
He rings the doorbell. At 8:30 in the morning. My mother-in-law opened the door (in her bedclothes) and asked him to wait a minute while she woke me up. He sighed and tapped his foot. I dragged myself out of bed and threw a shirt on.
Immediately upon entering the house, he says he's having a bad morning. Oh great. Then he asks what operating system the computer's running. "Mac OS X 10.2," I say.
"It won't work," he says. At this point, I'm feeling two things. First, I feel like I screwed over my future mother-in-law for recommending a computer that wouldn't work, and second, I want to know why this guy thinks an eMac won't work. So I ask.
"Well, uh, our software, uh, hasn't been upgraded, so, uh, I can, uh, get your name and number and we can, uh, call you when it gets upgraded. It works in OS 9, though."
"This computer has OS 9, too. Will it work if I boot into OS 9?"
"Uh, no," he says, "it's something about being upgrade to OS 10. It doesn't work anymore. It also doesn't work in Windows 95, or on computers that were upgraded from Windows 95 to 98, and people have problems using the service on HPs that have Windows XP installed"
At this point I knew he was lying out of his ass, because there's no difference in booting into OS 9 from an eMac and running OS 9 on a computer where it's the default OS. At least to the applications. And my parents have an HP with Windows XP installed, and haven't had a problem. This got me angry. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry. So I tell him to install the line, and I will set it up myself.
He walks out in a huff because (I think) he was hoping to get out of this job and get a doughnut or something. At this point, he's woken everyone in the house up by talking too loudly, and he returns with a HUGE drill bit. (Like an inch in diameter. Way bigger than you'll ever need to run a cable wire. I know, I helped my dad run cable in my house and we did it with a 3/8" bit and a coat hanger.) My future mother-in-law asks him what he's going to do with it.
"I have to drill a hole in the floor."
"Wait a minute, I'm paying $89 to have in installed in an outlet on the wall."
"Well, that's a different team, you'll have to get someone else to come out, and that computer's not internet ready, so it might not work anyway."
At this point, she's starting to cry because she just bought this house and he wants to put a 1" hole in the floor, and she thinks she just wasted $800 on a computer that won't work.
"Why isn't it Internet ready?" I ask.
"It doesn't have ethernet" the idiot says.
"Yes it does"
"But it's not the same on a Macintosh." (Yes, he's that dumb.)
"My friend's got four Macs running OS X hooked up to Comcast hi-speed in the same township."
"Well, maybe he figured it out how to do it," he says. "I don't know how."
Not knowing how is a lot different than "it won't work."
Under my breath I say "Maybe I should call Comcast and get a friggin' job."
"FINE!" says he. "YOU DO MY F*%ING JOB." Then he grabs his stuff and slams the door as my future mother-in-law is holding me back from rushing the asshole.
So now we have my future mother-in-law and fiancée in hysterics, kids scared in the other room, and my future brother-in-law and myself ready to hunt this guy down. All in the space of fifteen minutes of this guy ringing the doorbell.
We all calm down, and my mother-in-law calls Comcast and asks what computers aren't supported. As it turns out, there shouldn't be any problems using Comcast broadband, and they "don't know why any of their repairmen would say that." Then she got transferred to this guy's supervisor.
"Well, I'm getting a different story from him," he says. No shite sherlock, he wants to keep his job.
So th
Re:Emachines - BEST BUY! (Score:4, Interesting)
we'd tell people to return dead on arrival products to best buy, and 4 weeks later that same product is sold to somebody else, as new, not working. since we track serial numbers and retailers - we KNOW best buy sometimes puts returned merchandise back on the shelf without testing it first.
i never buy anything there.
Re:Earthlink... (Score:3, Interesting)
Laptop + Lap = "You voided your warranty." (Score:2, Interesting)
Not only was it within Apple's one year warranty, I had also forked over $350 for the AppleCare extension, so I could have the privilege of calling and telling them about the defect. The Phone Technician I spoke with was slightly infuriating. It eventually got fixed, but I had to deal with a local tech instead of direclty through Apple.
Tech: Under what conditions do you use your PowerBook?
Me: Mostly, it's on my desk at work. At home, I sit down with it for a few hours.
Tech: Do you use it on your lap at home?
Me: *blink* Um, yes...
Tech: Using it on your lap probably caused overheating, and that won't be covered under Apple's warranty.
Me: *fuming* But it's a laptop...
Tech: Actually, sir, it's a portable...
Apple never calls it a "laptop" on the site; I guess most computer manufacturers have moved away from that term because the systems just keep getting faster and hotter.
There are, however, many promotional pictures of people using iBooks and PowerBooks on their lap. *shakes fist*
Cable support and xbox! wow! (Score:1, Interesting)
You MUST be a competitor! (Score:3, Interesting)
I spent an entire day on the phone calling back and forth between the computer company and printer company. Finally, the printer company swore that their printer was fine, and told me to force the computer company to accept the blame.
I stuck to my guns and told the computer company the printer was absolutely fine, and that something had to be wrong with the computer itself. I was then told to go through a whole bunch of steps, a few of which included DOS prompts. Since my very first computer was run completely through DOS, I had no problem with these steps. This mystified the tech support guy.
The mysticism then turned into cynicism. He asks me:
"Are you a competitor?"
*laugh* "No."
"I don't believe you. I think you are a competitor testing our tech support."
"What? No, I'm not a competitor!"
"By law you are required to tell me if you are a competitor if I ask you. So I'm asking you, are you a competitor?"
"No! I am not a competitor!"
"Then how do you know DOS?"
"My first computer ran off of DOS!"
"Right.."
"Look, I just want my friggen printer to work, ok?"
After many more tests, his superior came to the conclusion that my printer port just must be broken. A few days later, a repairman showed up and swapped in a new motherboard, and voila! It worked.
Re:May make sense (Score:3, Interesting)
Or, for the train: "We apologize for the delay. We will be underway shortly."
Re:Not as good as this one... (Score:3, Interesting)
Unfortunately I had no idea where his widget was located and so I responded, "I have no idea." He actually flinched. Then he made a horrible looking face and began to berate me, telling me I should know this stuff. It finally occured to me that he thought I was a store employee. How, I have no damn idea. I said, "You know, I don't actually work here." He rolled his eyes and said, "Yeah, right." I just walked away. What a moron. I can imagine the conversation he had with the store manager about the terrible attitude of "his employees."
Re:Worst Explanation? (Score:2, Interesting)
Then, for about 10 minutes just prior to takeoff, the pilot informed us that he would be "checking something on the engines" for a few minutes. We then heard the engines spool up as he brought the plane to high power until he had burned enough fuel to take off safely. We used the whole runway on that takeoff....
My GTE story... (Score:3, Interesting)
About a month later, we were experiencing a problem that prevented us from having a connection.
I called GTE and spoke to someone about the problem. They kept giving me a bunch of BS. When they asked which operating system I was using, I said Linux, and they said that wasn't supported. So on the third or fourth phone call, I said Windows, and when they told me which networking window to go into, I typed the commands into the CLI that would yield the same result. But all of this was to no avail.
Finally, after spending some time checking my settings and the network, I came to the conclusion that our side of the connection was fine and that GTE's DHCP server was down or otherwise not responding to us. We weren't being assigned an IP address, and therefore our connection appeared to be down. I called their number again and told their tech support people that they need to check the status of their server. Of course, they were all some minimum wage folks reading off some screen, so I begged and pleaded to be put through to someone technical, which was finally, after countless arguments, granted. I told their tech guy what I thought about their DHCP server. He checked, and sure enough, I was right. He punched something in, and we were back in business. Oh, and I got their direct phone number, in case of future bullshit.
The clueless tech support people are just there to help equally clueless users set up simple stuff in Windows. From that moment forth, I always figured out and solved my own problems. (Increasingly, it's this way with my cars and other equipment... Most people just don't know what they're doing.)
APC (Score:2, Interesting)
to buy or recommend *anything*. We had an ongoing issue for *months* with the
software for one of their UPS units. I'm home ATM and don't recall the exact
model number. The issue was an annoying intermittent one, wherein from time
to time the software would decide for no particular reason that the UPS was
operating on battery power (when in fact it was not) and activate five-minute
automatic shutdown sequence. This was happening at night, causing many of
our overnight backups to fail, and it was happening first thing in the morning
when I (the only IT person on staff) am not normally there, causing a lot of
panic among the staff (this system is *the* computer, the *one* that matters,
the single mission-critical point of failure that CANNOT be down during the
day), and I was told in no uncertain terms this had to be fixed *NOW*, but
APC was totally unhelpful. I must have spent a hundred hours on the phone
with them. Every *single* time I called, I had to wait while the tech
support rep did a web search to find out what VMS was. On more than one
occasion I was told that the product we were using (PowerChute for OpenVMS)
did not exist, and that VMS was not supported. Also, despite that the
trouble ticket CLEARLY stated the problem was with PowerChute for OpenVMS,
were were told that we would have to purchase PowerChute for OpenVMS, since
the problem we were having was due to having the Windows version of
PowerChute installed on VMS, which was not supported. I was given Windows
instructions and on one occasion Unix commands to follow. I was told that
the problem was with the city's power grid. I was told that the problem
was with our application software. Various people told me that they would
research the issue and get back to me, but the only one who ever did told
me that the problem must be the PC's serial port, despite that I had already
explained numerous times to numerous people that the cable from the UPS plugs
into LTA16, an RJ45 port on a DECServer terminal server. I called and I
called and I called and I got *nowhere* every single time. I asked on one
occasion to please speak to someone who knows VMS, but it never happened.
We ran for weeks at a time on several occasions with the PowerChute software
disabled, meaning that if the power went out at night we'd have an unclean
shutdown -- unacceptable, but far less likely than the problems we were
having with PowerChute enabled. The problem was never properly resolved.
Needless to say, I will never buy an APC product again, and neither will
the library as long as I work there.