Yeah, we (IT) figure out who has their shit together and who doesn’t. Every place I’ve worked there are usually a few non-tech people that if they’re calling me, something is actually wrong.
I had to call my ISP when the connection was glitchy, and after a while they paused and asked “how many bits are in a byte?” and I said eight and then they were like “ok, let’s troubleshoot this, first do this…” etc. Turns out, someone had hammered a nail straight through the cat5 cable to fasten it to the wall.
My “favorite” customer was a small business owner who we set up with an on-premise exchange server (by his request). He was adamant he didn’t want his e-mail hosted anywhere off-site.
He called in the next Monday, complaining about issues with his e-mails.
Turns out he switches off the power to his office building every Friday when he leaves for the weekend, to save money on electricity.
We got the exchange server running again and explained to him in detail what a server is and that it needs power to run.
He kept calling in every Monday, for months.
Eventually he started to complain about all the bills we sent him, saying he won’t pay anymore until we can finally fix his e-mail issue.
So we cut him loose. Half a year later, his business domain was up for sale.
I used to live in an apartment complex where my internet would routinely go out because their installation guy didn’t want to do his job, so when someone new signed up he’d just unplug my shit and give it to someone else.
Eventually my phonecalls started with, “Nope, I’m not restarting it. We’re skipping all the troubleshooting steps, and you’re sending someone out right now to plug me back in.”
At my last job I was part IT. I never took their word for it when they said they restarted it. I always opened task manager to check. Believe it or not they weren’t lying there, they did know to restart, at least before the aquisition.
At my old job I helped the IT guy out when he came across some really ridiculous Excel problems. After that he’d give my calls special attention and always hooked me up when we got new hardware.
He told me more than once that it was because he knew I knew what I was doing.
Yeah, we (IT) figure out who has their shit together and who doesn’t. Every place I’ve worked there are usually a few non-tech people that if they’re calling me, something is actually wrong.
I had to call my ISP when the connection was glitchy, and after a while they paused and asked “how many bits are in a byte?” and I said eight and then they were like “ok, let’s troubleshoot this, first do this…” etc. Turns out, someone had hammered a nail straight through the cat5 cable to fasten it to the wall.
I wish that were the dumbest thing I had ever seen someone do.
The dumbest thing I encountered was someone who claimed their CD drive was broken.
I came by, flipped the CD and then it started working.
My “favorite” customer was a small business owner who we set up with an on-premise exchange server (by his request). He was adamant he didn’t want his e-mail hosted anywhere off-site.
He called in the next Monday, complaining about issues with his e-mails.
Turns out he switches off the power to his office building every Friday when he leaves for the weekend, to save money on electricity.
We got the exchange server running again and explained to him in detail what a server is and that it needs power to run.
He kept calling in every Monday, for months.
Eventually he started to complain about all the bills we sent him, saying he won’t pay anymore until we can finally fix his e-mail issue.
So we cut him loose. Half a year later, his business domain was up for sale.
I used to live in an apartment complex where my internet would routinely go out because their installation guy didn’t want to do his job, so when someone new signed up he’d just unplug my shit and give it to someone else.
Eventually my phonecalls started with, “Nope, I’m not restarting it. We’re skipping all the troubleshooting steps, and you’re sending someone out right now to plug me back in.”
At my last job I was part IT. I never took their word for it when they said they restarted it. I always opened task manager to check. Believe it or not they weren’t lying there, they did know to restart, at least before the aquisition.
At my old job I helped the IT guy out when he came across some really ridiculous Excel problems. After that he’d give my calls special attention and always hooked me up when we got new hardware.
He told me more than once that it was because he knew I knew what I was doing.
You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours. Such a simple concept that is somehow lost on a lot of people.