Dear Users... (A thread for Sysadmin, Technical Support, and Help Desk people)

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Let's check. Open a new document in Word [or Notepad, or whatever] and type it there.


If it looks correct, copy it and paste it into the password box.


(Yes, I know that some systems won't accept paste, but at least you and Luser would know that they can actually type it correctly.)
 
How can I tell whether NumLock is on on my laptop when I can't see the password I'm typing?

Type some letters into the User ID field and see if they come out as numbers.

Oh yeah, what a great idea! Never thought of that. (proceeds to type their entire password into the User ID field)
 
arthwollipot said:
How can I tell whether NumLock is on on my laptop when I can't see the password I'm typing?

Type some letters into the User ID field and see if they come out as numbers.

Oh yeah, what a great idea! Never thought of that. (proceeds to type their entire password into the User ID field)
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You remember that apocryphal story I posted a few pages back about a frustrated Helpdesk guy telling a user to return their PC because they are too dumb to use it?
 
arthwollipot said:
I wish people were better at saying what they actually need us to do.

"Oh hi, I was told that I should call you."

"For what?"

"Um... I think I have a code number."

"Okay... so you're a new starter and you need me to issue you a password, is that right?"

"I think so."

:bwall
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I suspect it's their boss who is the problem. After all a new starter could have just been given a code number and told to ring the helpline.

If it were me, I'd guess that the code number contains all the information, which would have to include username and password, but possibly software and other accounts.
 
We have this outage notification tool. It's ancient and pretty poorly written but it works and it's been used for years. It knows the distribution lists of people who care when you have an outage and we are required to use it when we have an outage.

Except that it's broken. My ops guy can't login. So I had him open a ticket only to find out that absolutely nobody supports this tool anymore. The one we're required to use.

Sigh.
 
jimbob said:
I suspect it's their boss who is the problem. After all a new starter could have just been given a code number and told to ring the helpline.
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Yes, possibly.

jimbob said:
If it were me, I'd guess that the code number contains all the information, which would have to include username and password, but possibly software and other accounts.
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We actually use an identity verification system - a form that a colleague submits on the Intranet which provides a 4-digit code on their screen, and emails the same code to us. They read the code out, we check it against our email, and that's how we determine that they're not someone pretending to be them. It can still be gamed, but the risk is small and I don't actually think anyone's ever actually tried to use it fraudulently. If they did, that'd be escort-from-the-building territory.
 
Okay, I probably shouldn't find this funny, because I've spoken with this caller before and I'm pretty sure he's on the autism spectrum. But still.

Him: Hi, which form do I use to request a workstation assessment?

Me: That would be the "Workstation Assessment" form.
 
Him: This used to work. Now it's not working. We've always done it this way. We haven't changed anything. Please figure out why it stopped working. Thanks in advance.

Me: This never worked. You never did it this way. If you had, it wouldn't have worked. The way you're actually doing it won't work either. Follow these instructions to make it actually work.

Him: But why did it used to work then?!

Me: I don't know, and I don't care. I'm certainly not going to spend any time at all down that rabbit hole. Follow these instructions to make it actually work. Thanks in advance.
 
Called out to fix the crappiest, most convoluted batch job I've ever seen. There's so much, "**** it, that'll do" development that's gone on in this job, it's unbelievable, then they whine when you suggest making things easy to support is actually kind to your colleagues.....:mad:
 
Also, environment team made a change that's screwed us over completely. Dozens of critical jobs failing daily and they refused to back out the change. It's unbelievable
 
Filippo Lippi said:
Called out to fix the crappiest, most convoluted batch job I've ever seen. There's so much, "**** it, that'll do" development that's gone on in this job, it's unbelievable, then they whine when you suggest making things easy to support is actually kind to your colleagues.....:mad:
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I see this so much. Contractors who don't care who/what/how that job is going to be supported so long as it somehow miraculously works in this moment, their job is done and they move on.
 
We have much of that, but, alas, not the case here.

To your point, we have contractors here* who think unit testing a batch program means taking fifty (50) million records from live and running them through the code and then moaning because they've been told off for using all of the development disc space. One is trying to pass off my suggested performance improvements as their own. :mad:



*mainframe shop
 
Okay seriously.

If you don't want to use computers and "everything worked fine back before we used computers for everything" then... just don't. Just don't.

Open up "Dr. Wally's Analogue Old Fashioned Medical Center" with steampunk equipment and paper records and be done with it.

Don't do everything on computers, refuse to learn anything about them, and complain it about it constantly.
 
Filippo Lippi said:
Also, environment team made a change that's screwed us over completely. Dozens of critical jobs failing daily and they refused to back out the change. It's unbelievable
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You have a problem and change management system? Keep raising problem tickets against the CR. It should then be marked as a failed change. Assuming you have something vaguely ITIL-shaped there.
 
Filippo Lippi said:
Called out to fix the crappiest, most convoluted batch job I've ever seen. There's so much, "**** it, that'll do" development that's gone on in this job, it's unbelievable, then they whine when you suggest making things easy to support is actually kind to your colleagues.....:mad:
Click to expand...

The worst I ever saw was at IBM Poughkeepsie when I was working on the first sysplexes. The build job for the OS took 4 hours to run and you had a 8 hour test slot which included 3 hours to clean down. Everyone was terrified to touch the beast and nearly fainted when I offered to rip it apart and rebuild it properly.
 
Wudang said:
You have a problem and change management system? Keep raising problem tickets against the CR. It should then be marked as a failed change. Assuming you have something vaguely ITIL-shaped there.
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We do, and I have suggested that we keep dropping calls on offending teams, but people seem scared to take such "aggressive" action.
 
arthwollipot said:
How can I tell whether NumLock is on on my laptop when I can't see the password I'm typing?

Type some letters into the User ID field and see if they come out as numbers.

Oh yeah, what a great idea! Never thought of that. (proceeds to type their entire password into the User ID field)
Click to expand...
I was once giving a presentation to a large team, part of of it required me to login live to the company's network. I was typing away and realised people were rather amused, yep on the large screen behind me I was typing my password into the user name field!
 
That used to be (might still be) a big security hole in some operating systems. If you could get to view the failed login attempts, which often required normal or only slightly elevated access in some systems, you could make a reasonable stab at getting someone's password. Just scan the failed logins for something that looked like a password and not a login name, then match that with whatever user logged in 10 seconds later.
 
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