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

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Doing a Scream Test. First one in recent memory. We joke about it a lot, but management almost never authorizes one.

Well, I got the authorization. The screams are revealing, so I'm calling the test a success so far.
 
Trebuchet said:
The other big fax holdout seems to be Real Estate. When you buy or sell a house you have to learn where all the public fax machines are.
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There are actually some computer-document-to-fax sites that will manage this through the Internet for you. I checked a couple out a year or two ago using free previews and the seemed to work just fine. (Just in case anyone is truly interested.)
 
JoeMorgue said:
That's why at this point I just don't tell many of my users that capitalization doesn't matter on their username, because there's just too much chance it will just confuse them in regards to their password.

But I will say that the IT Industry sort of passed the point of diminishing returns on traditional typed in passwords a while back and didn't properly address it. Biometric, token based, or other alternatives forms should, maybe not be the norm, but at least be more viable then they currently are.
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While I think biometrics can be used for authentication (that is, it shows you are who you say you are), in my opinion it should never be used for authorization (giving you access to stuff.) There are many ways to fool biometric systems. If they get compromised, what are you going to do? Not everyone can afford a face transplant when the face recognition system gets hacked and will accept a photograph wrapped around a ball.
 
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Darat said:
And you wondered if threatening people with a spoon would work!
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Funny thing is that the guy in the next desk over got a literal wooden spoon for getting the lowest score. There was much amusement in the Teams chat.

Dr. Keith said:
So, were you going to share those with the class or what?
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Absolutely! I have already offered them to everyone. We are, after all, a team, and I couldn't have done it without all of them. Also, there's no way I'll make a dent in this thing. I would eat maybe one a day. They'll be there for months if I keep them to myself.

This actually means a lot to me, though I am being pretty low-key about it in person. I have always suffered from really bad impostor syndrome with regards to my ability to do this job. I cope with it by essentially pretending to be competent. This trophy, cheap and plastic though it is, is pretty darn validating, and it feels good.
 
arthwollipot said:
This actually means a lot to me, though I am being pretty low-key about it in person. I have always suffered from really bad impostor syndrome with regards to my ability to do this job. I cope with it by essentially pretending to be competent. This trophy, cheap and plastic though it is, is pretty darn validating, and it feels good.
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This reminds me of George Hrab who says he was chubby as a kid so he always sees himself as fat even though he is fit AF.

I'll pm you my address and you can send my chocolate on. I'm not George Hrab.
 
Gord_in_Toronto said:
:thumbsup:

Trophy = management mind manipulation.

Box of chocolates = nice.
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I could see the trophy as a good conversation starter. You put it on your mantle and when a visitor asks what it was for you tell them and they respond with "You got it for what?".

Okay. Maybe a good conversation stopper, too. I guess it would depend on the target audience.

On second thought, put it on a closet shelf. Way in the back.

In a shoebox.

Under your collection of socks that don't match any other socks..
 
quadraginta said:
I could see the trophy as a good conversation starter. You put it on your mantle and when a visitor asks what it was for you tell them and they respond with "You got it for what?".

Okay. Maybe a good conversation stopper, too. I guess it would depend on the target audience.

On second thought, put it on a closet shelf. Way in the back.

In a shoebox.

Under your collection of socks that don't match any other socks..
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Unfortunately it's one of those that is passed along to the next person to win it.

What - you don't think they'd shell out for multiple trophies, do you?
 
I am looking at a change and the "pre and post test plans" is [sic] "Manual compare with original program"

I feel sick
 
Taking the short heli ride and enjoying the view was thinking how much I love my job. Pinch myself just looking at the sea around me and being on the rIg.
 
arthwollipot said:
According to my back-of-the-envelope calculation just now, approximately 15% of all calls to the Service Desk are password related. In my experience about 95% of password issues are the result of user error. They mess up typing their password and get their account locked, misremember what they changed it to, or flat out forget what it was.

We have self-service password reset facilities in place, and these are regularly communicated to the users. It makes no difference. We didn't get a significant drop in password calls when it was implemented (though I would fact-check that), and hardly anyone seems to use it.

We now have a new secure system where the only way to get a password reset is to use the self-service facility, so maybe the idea will start permeating through the user base. But not all staff use this new secure system.

What is it about people and their passwords? I haven't had to have my password reset more than twice in my 25-year career in IT. About the same rate as I forget my security pass.
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I've had to have a few passwords reset over the years, but I have never insisted that it was the computer that forgot a password, not me.

I remember one occasion when I messed up a password reset. Apparently I managed to type something other than what I thought I'd typed exactly the same way twice.
 
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alfaniner said:
I once had to provide some medical information to a facility from home before an appointment, and they would only accept a fax. I don't think many people have faxes at home. It was actually the first time I'd had to use that feature on my printer and it took a hell of a lot longer to configure than a secure email or even putting it in an envelope and mailing it.
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It used to be fairly easy to fax from home. Most modems would also function as a fax, and most versions of Windows had a "print to fax" option. If you had a scanner you could also fax documents with handwritten signatures. But, who actually owns a modem any more?
 
CORed said:
It used to be fairly easy to fax from home. Most modems would also function as a fax, and most versions of Windows had a "print to fax" option. If you had a scanner you could also fax documents with handwritten signatures. But, who actually owns a modem any more?
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My Brother printer/scanner has an RJ-45 jack to plug a phone line into and will scan directly to send a fax and also receive faxes. I've never tried it but I have faith (instructions in the manual).
 
arthwollipot said:
Well that was a surprise. I was just given an award for having the highest QA scores on Tier 2 for the month of September. I got a trophy and a big box of chocolates.

:eye-poppi:cool::eye-poppi
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Congratulations!

emporers_cup_sumo_wrestling_56279404.jpg
 
Gord_in_Toronto said:
My Brother printer/scanner has an RJ-45 jack to plug a phone line into and will scan directly to send a fax and also receive faxes. I've never tried it but I have faith (instructions in the manual).
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Did you mean RJ-11?

My (somewhat long-in-the-tooth) printer has one as well. Two, actually. A Line In and an Extension Out. (Also an RJ-45 ethernet connection for hardwired hook-up to LAN)

It is a bit less than useful these days since even though I have two phone lines (well ... three, counting Google Voice) they are both cell phones, and although I'm sure there is probably some way to get an RJ-11 hook-up to them, I am also sure I won't bother.

As has been mentioned up-thread, there are other ways to get a fax sent via computer, or even cell phone which is, of course, also a computer.
 
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