• zunesis (unregistered) in reply to fubarsnafu
    fubarsnafu:
    zunesis:

    Yeah, with a huge rubber dildo!

    Some restraint here, please? Let's not forget such things may become out of hand.

    And into my ass, hopefully

  • (cs) in reply to Norman D. Landing
    Norman D. Landing:
    Meep:
    Why limit yourself to rectums when there are over 50 sphincters in the human body?

    But most are not accessable from outside the body...

    Nice sharp knife ... where's the problem?

  • Sigivald (unregistered) in reply to hoodaticus

    He should have sent a 500 page print job to that printer - of bestial porn - with the bitch's name on it. Get her fired.

    You mean get himself fired, and set up for a juicy civil lawsuit for harassment (at least)?

    Yes. Plainly that is what he should have done.

  • Henning Makholm (unregistered) in reply to Hortical
    Hortical:
    Henning Makholm:
    Would that be anything like a lien, I wonder?

    (Brogrammer's response, attempting to point out the mistake by bolding it and adding additional misspellings in his own text, might well be too subtle for this illustrious readership, though).

    More likely, you agree with his implied political views and so want to think of him as smart (to also think of yourself as smart and bolster the legitimacy of those views)

    Sorry -- I have too little knowledge to identify which political views he implies, much less decide whether I agree with them or not. I supposed they are either aligned with or contrary to the views of the person whose name he misspelled, which I don't know either?

  • (cs) in reply to hoodaticus
    hoodaticus:
    In my company, we make users fix their own damn printers. Or call someone who is paid to pretend to care - like a contractor.

    FTFY.

  • (cs) in reply to Herby
    Herby:
    Anon:
    hoodaticus:
    He should have sent a 500 page print job to that printer - of bestial porn - with the bitch's name on it. Get her fired.

    Never used a Zebra printer I take it?

    I have a nice Zebra printer, with its nice glowing green button (it sometimes goes orange when I trip on the power cord). Yes, you can print 500 [b}labels[/b] on it, but you WILL rapidly deplete the label stock. They do setup nicely under Linux, and will print porn, but you need to do a bunch of work.

    My feeling: If they have enough time to call you, they can press a button.

    As for being "on call" with WTF users, I would record my "service calls", and tell those that call that I'm doing it. It will probably elicit a better attitude.

    Why would telling the caller that you're engaging in coitus elicit a better attitude?

  • Dave (unregistered) in reply to frits
    frits:
    I'm pretty sure your actions could cause you to be reprimanded for you're complete lack of professionalism. Your not too smart, are you?

    I'm pretty sure your comment would cause you to be reprimanded for your complete lack of grammar and spelling ability. You're not too smart, are you?

  • John_R (unregistered) in reply to hoodaticus

    Why filter urine through a sock?

    AFAIK urine is sterile. Not tasty, just sterile.

    Ever been licking on a split and tasted a little acrid something-or-other? That was urine.

  • Jeff Dege (unregistered)

    I got called out on a Saturday, once. The software was a Bingo system. The keyboard on which the operators of the game would enter the winning numbers had gone bad - the "enter" key on the number pad had stopped working. And the users were tired of reaching all the way over to the "enter" key on the alphabetic pad.

    Keep in mind, this wasn't a data entry system. The users weren't typing in thousands of numbers an hour. They typed in one number, followed by "enter", at the end of every game. Maybe twice in an hour.

    Still, they refused to listen to suggestions over the phone, and insisted on an onsite visit.

    So 45 minutes later, I showed up, swapped the keyboard with one from a manager's office, and went home. And billed them the four-hour minimum.

    Monday we had someone pull a new keyboard out of stock, and put it in place during a routine visit.

  • Alex Heartnet (unregistered)

    TRWTF is why someone would put a square floppy disk in a round drive. Seriously. They teach this stuff in preschool.

  • (cs) in reply to Eric
    Eric:
    Heh...a lot of comments about my story. A couple points: [ ... ] - I'm the one the sent the letter to my managers about her unprofessional-ism.
    the article as posted:
    The next day, someone received a strongly worded letter about their complete lack of professionalism. Sadly, that person was me.
    Clarification needed?
  • Kang (unregistered)

    The nurse was right to call out Nick Burns. Learn to read the user and understand that--in pretty much all cases of IT support--their job is the reason you are working, not the other way around.

    Sure some people are insensitive and some are pricks and some are c*nts. But sometimes maybe they're busy and they expect the person who's paid to be on call to actually do their job, and frankly, 30 seconds of a nurses time is often more critical than 30 minutes of a hardware monkey's time.

  • Jockamo (unregistered)

    Women and old people... amirite?

  • iusto (unregistered) in reply to V
    V:
    Wouldn't not giving the guy his computer back until he pays be the smarter thing? What if you jamming the floppy back in there broke it worse than it was originally, or at least he claimed it did?
    I'd charge him more second time around - that service has become so popular that the demand for the expertise has gone up, and so has the price (in fact this is the second time I've had to deal with such an issue myself).

    As I'm sure hundreds have said, you can't keep his property simply because he is unwilling to pay for the fix. Unfixing it is really the only option

  • foo (unregistered) in reply to caper
    caper:
    I know marketing employees who would have changed the filename to .jpg

    Seems that's what they've learned about doing file conversions.

    I suddenly become glad Windows hides file extensions by default.

  • The Poop... of DOOM (unregistered) in reply to C-Octothorpe
    C-Octothorpe:
    somechick:
    We weren't allowed to be as unprofessional as the submitter, as it was drilled into us that IT is a Customer Service department, and wouldn't exist without the users, who weren't as technically savvy as the people in the IT department.
    Although I do mostly agree with you, it's not 100% accurate. I'd say in this situation it's a coworker-to-coworker relationship, not a client-to-customer service relationship. Even if it were a 100% "customer service" role, there is still common decency that should shape your behavior, no?

    If I berate my ISP customer service rep, he'll hang up on me because I'm not allowed to abuse him despite me being a paying customer. Hell, I could even get charged if it goes far enough.

    I'm not defending his reaction because it was wrong, but if it was a one-off, let it slide. If it becomes habbit that I'm waking up at 3am to wipe her ass (fuck off zunesis) because she refuses to learn how to do it herself plus the attitude, file the complaint.

    ISP customer service reps aren't allowed to hang up before the customer, so... you actually can abuse them all you want. All they'll do, is give you shitty support in return, or refuse to help you "until you've calmed down". If they hang up on you, they can be reprimanded by their "superiors", though.

    As far as the guy in the hospital story goes, the moment he had to punch his mattrass before leaving already was over the top. Guy's got some serious issues. If you're on call at night, you know so. There're laws preventing you from doing 24h shifts, so his schedule should've been according to his on-call duty. In the end, that nurse IS a customer, even if she is a colleague (internal business unit to business unit customers, with lots of imaginary money being passed around). As a customer, if she refuses to push the button, and there're no ToS restrictions saying you yourself can't go to the spot (can say that you have to send a technician), then you just got to get your ass over there. If my boss tells me during my hours to do this or that, I shouldn't whine, bitch and punch things just because it gets me out of my comfort zone. I should just do my job. This guy's no different from that.

    That said, that nurse had a shitty attitude, but at least she wasn't one of those cryers. You really have two (generalized) categories in support: god-complex and cryers. The second one're even worse to deal with.

  • A Gould (unregistered) in reply to Stevie D

    I've spent a few years working with Zebras, and while they're not the friendliest of machines, it takes real effort to use one daily and not learn the basic care and feeding of them.

    Stevie D:
    No-one was expecting the nurse to know that she had to press the "online" button.

    On a Zebra, the printer goes offline any time you touch it (change the ribbon, change the labels, etc.). Pressing "online" is SOP. And it's not a "hidden on the back of the machine" button - it's front and center. If she doesn't know this, she's either deliberately obtuse or very poorly trained.

    WC:
    I'd have had stern words with anyone who reprimanded me in that situation. She was clearly out of line and preferred waiting 30 minutes for a fix than doing a simple check. There's no way I would have taken that. And if they still thought that she shouldn't be required to push a button rather than waste 2 people's time, then I'd have gone somewhere else that didn't have so many HR problems.

    This would be my tack - I get a reprimand for this, I'd be in the boss' office pointing out that if she doesn't have time to push a button because she'd rather wake someone up at 3am to kill an hour driving across town, she obviously doesn't have time for pleasantries. And since it's three in the freakin' morning, I think I can be excused for not being my usual bright-eyed-and-bushy-tailed self.

    (I've actually gotten this call, although it's usually for something that's "easier to do than explain". I would filet my staff if I heard them pulling this stunt on IT.)

    As for the nurse, I don't know if I'd blame it on the profession or the time slot - graveyard shifts do tend to attract the folks who like their own fiefdoms...

  • nibh (unregistered) in reply to Eric
    Eric:
    Heh...a lot of comments about my story. A couple points:

    • The nurse was a known curmudgeon unwilling to do anything herself when IT was concerned, and was NOT busy or in a critical care area.

    • I wasn't surly when I silently fixed the problem and quickly left.

    • I'm the one the sent the letter to my managers about her unprofessional-ism. I left that job shortly after to eventually become an IT manager at another company.

    Oh, and I was salaried and didn't receive any additional pay for the after-hours call. Not a great salary either. At least the on-call weeks were several months apart.

    I see some others have experience with the Zebra printers. What a PITA they were!

    dick. why are you changing your story, or why didn't you add all that to it?

  • Jay (unregistered)

    Repairman's Lien. See, for example, http://www.buteralaw.com/newsletters.asp?c=19&id=212

  • Jay (unregistered) in reply to Hah
    Hah:
    Welcome to the wonderful world of Working With Nurses. Nothing is EVER important as what they are doing RIGHT NOW because they're a NURSE and patients DEPEND ON THEM. ...

    -- formally disgruntled hospital tech

    Is a "formally disgruntled hospital tech" one who wears a tuxedo? As opposed to the "informally disgruntled" techs who wear blue jeans?

  • Jay (unregistered) in reply to hmm
    hmm:
    StinkyLinky:
    V:
    Wouldn't not giving the guy his computer back until he pays be the smarter thing?

    That's pretty much what every other shop I know of would do. Try getting back your car, your dry cleaning or your pet from any of the appropriate places where you'd drop them off and refuse to pay for service rendered. It will be a long lonely night for Fido I assure you.

    You named your dry cleaning 'Fido'?

    What, don't everybody give cute names to their laundry?

  • Jay (unregistered)

    Hey, this just got me to thinking: I wonder what stories people in other professions tell about THEIR dumb customers? I'm sure auto mechanics have plenty of stories about the guy who put motor oil in his radiator and that sort of thing. A friend of mine whose an accountant laughed about a customer who called on April 14 to ask her to prepare his income taxes. (Or should I say 14 April? Or 2011-04-14?) I wonder if lawyers make fun of clients who don't know the difference between "stare decisis" and "ex post facto". (I would have picked legal terms that sounded similar but I don't know that many legal terms. You get the idea.)

    Oh, now suddenly I wonder if I'm the subject of funny stories at the hardware store or the phone company.

  • Henning Makholm (unregistered) in reply to Jay
    Jay:
    Hey, this just got me to thinking: I wonder what stories people in other professions tell about THEIR dumb customers?
    Spend a day reading through notalwaysright.com? The bulk of what they have are retail stories (plus of course all of the IT support classics), but there are also some other professions peeking through.
    Jay:
    I wonder if lawyers make fun of clients who don't know the difference between "stare decisis" and "ex post facto". (I would have picked legal terms that sounded similar but I don't know that many legal terms. You get the idea.)
    Well, do we make fun of users just because they don't know the difference between while loops and foreign key constraints? They're not supposed to.

    At most we'll make fun of the client who throws a fit because you added a foreign key constraint to his database; he wants American key constraints or none at all! And lawyers probably tell stories about the client who insisted that "stare decisis" means that opposing counsel have a blinking contest to determine who wins.

  • (cs) in reply to Henning Makholm
    Henning Makholm:
    And lawyers probably tell stories about the client who insisted that "stare decisis" means that opposing counsel have a blinking contest to determine who wins.
    Lawyers don't tell jokes about their clients - they're still too busy laughing at SCOTUS judges who don't know that the due process clause deals with, well, process, rather than substance.
  • Omnipotent Brave (unregistered)

    Surprisingly, he knows the answer to "What's the image format?"

    Captcha: Pecus - merging mucus to something awkward...

  • quant_dev (unregistered)
    The next day, someone received a strongly worded letter about their complete lack of professionalism. Sadly, that person was me.

    Deservedly.

  • Johan (unregistered)

    I once had a similar printer episode.

    We sold and supported Canon bubble jet faxes. A particular model had a minor design glitch in that the exchangable printer head could be inserted slightly tilted, causing a distinct error message to be printed on the display.

    So, when a customer phoned in and complained I was pretty sure of the cause and told them to "lift the green handle and jiggle the printer head a little - it should sit parallel to the floor".

    Despite several explainations they couldn't figure it out and demanded that we camed in person to fix it. I told them that if there was no real error I had to bill them. They insisted.

    So I drove down (not far), walked in, opened the machine, lifted the green handle, jiggled, close, close, and the machine started printing cached contents. I billed them half an hour and left. They looked a little ashamed, but what could they say. :-)

  • Anjan Bhowmik (unregistered)

    "Un-Fix" - I really love this term :D

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