Being the “IT-guy” at work/family/friends: What has been the most useless incident you have been called for?
Some inspiration:
The one I remember was when I was at the office and an angry person would call, complaining that the external speakers connected to the laptop would not work and why there are always problems with us. So I rushed over only to sed that they had connected the speakers indeed but didn’t turn the power on😅
All of 'em were useless, honestly.
What’s been the last incident then?
My grandmother complaining that her smartphone didn’t show any photos anymore (I put WhatsApp shortcuts on her homescreen so she can tap any of our photo’s to start chatting / video call). Her neighbor booted her phone into safe mode and as a result only system apps were available. Last time her neighbor actually removed WhatsApp and the time before that she wiped the phone to factory reset. Needless to say we put a note on the phone that her neighbor is no longer allowed to touch her phone, it’s her only connection to her grandsons and great grandchildren since she’s pretty isolated and we don’t get to visit her very often (it’s a 2 hour drive).
PowerPoint, please set it to fullscreen…
Oh no
“I dont have cellphone reception and I cant call anyone”
I go there and I pick up the phone… It has reception. The end.
I forced the entire family onto Macs about 5 years ago. Has greatly reduced headaches.
The tech calls I still get are almost always related to printers not working properly, or someone being too cheap to spend $0.99/mo to upgrade their iCloud storage from the free tier.
As the lead administrator of our small dotcom back in the day- when I only had like 60 machines to babysit, I was asked to literally move a printer a foot farther away on a desk.
That was just so astounding that the CEO, who was right there, politely said that it both wasn’t my job, and that their arms were probably capable of moving it themselves if they didn’t like where it was.
I miss Ted.
rip
Cool boss you had there. Everyone needs a Ted.
Well, I called Vodafone, so much cringe.
“We will connect you to a IT specialist”.
The first hit.
“Your sim card may be not fully connected”
Besides, it was logged in with bloody 4G.
Second hit.
“Please turn off your phone, i may get damage while we re-announce it on the cell phone network”.
“Did they put C4 into that it goes JIHAD?”
Third hit.
Thats what you get, when you want a replacement device because the shit gets packetloss and drops DNS requests but no.
These people get a 4 weeks crash course, and get put on the phone for minimum wage.
What should I expect? I did 3 years of bloody education and afterwards I got the title “IT specialist”, but that? no.
Sounds similar to my experience with Cricket.
I literally gave up a phone number I had for 10 years just to finally be rid of them (I paid dual for 6 months trying to get my number ported, and finally had enough).
Nothing will outdo that “please move my printer” in my mind, but I have had various states of stupidity which usually involved the person not bothering to check for themselves that, no, they didn’t do what I just asked them twice, and refuse to do it.
Usually this ended up being that the device did not have supplies.
Replace the bottle of the water dispenser(not me)
Happens to me with Vodafone Cable every time, too. They have no idea what they are doing (at least the agents on the phone and do not seem to have access to the notes other agents have taken).
A family member asked me how to turn off closed captions on a Roku app. She has googled it first and found that you access options with the asterisk button, but all logic had exited the building at that point.
When pressing the button, you get two options, a toggle button for the captions “captions: on” and a button to close the dialogue: “Close”. She was just repeatedly opening the menu, and then clicking on close. Why aren’t captions being disabled?
To be honest that’s bad UX. If the captions are On, it should read Caption: on" however the combo “Enable Captons/Disable Captions” would be friendlier.
I think we all learnt about trial and error at like age 4 though, so still a /facepalm moment.
I once got called by an angry customer the day after Christmas because their optical inspection machine wouldn’t start up. I tried troubleshooting for a bit on the phone, making sure that everything that could go wrong would be okay, then i drove for almost 300km (the factory is at the top of a mountain to get “rural tax bonus”) to see what was happening. It was on warranty, so supposed to be free, even though i was supposed to be on holiday because you know, it’s christmas.
Upon entering the factory, I notice that everybody is wearing very heavy jackets on top of their ESD-safe white coats.
On the top of every machine, a layer of condensed water. A lady is running around cleaning it with microfiber cloth.
I check the thermometer, 9°C, 90% humidity.
“While on vacation we turn off heating because it is expensive and it might catch fire unattended.”
I noped the fuck out and charged him of all the expenses. Fuck him.
I ate very well at a nearby restaurant, though.
