Dear Users… (A thread for Sysadmin, Technical Support, and Help Desk people) Part 10

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Norman Alexander said:
"mypasswordismorethan20characterslong!"
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Sorry, must contain at least one upper case and one lower case letter.

"MyPasswordIsMoreThan20CharactersLong!"
Sorry, breaking up the password on uppercase characters reveals common English words. Please try again. (I've never seen this in real life.)

"mYpassworDiSmorEthaN20characterSlong!"
Sorry, you have only one special character and it's at the end of the password. Please try again. (I've never seen this in real life, either.)

"correct2horse@batterY!staple"
Sorry, but we read XKCD too. Please try again.

"mY@#$!passw0rDiSnorEthan20characterslong"
Accepted. Thank you.

(Did you notice I misspelled "morE" as "norE"? If that was an actual typo, I'd wouldn't be able to get in when I tried the password.)
 
JesseCuster said:
I used to work in PC hardware repairs for a small computer manufacturing company. I'm used to people using computer jargon wrong or not knowing what it means, but it always astonished me how badly some of the tech support guys mangled computer terminology and opened up tickets that were less than helpful.

I remember one PC which was RTM'd and the ticket simply read "replace modem".

Usually there should just be a description of the problem so we can try and replicate it and then figure out what's wrong so we could fix it. In this case there was no model in the PC, so not only did I not know what the actual problem was that needed fixing, the suggested fix didn't make any sense.

So I got onto the tech support guy who'd taken the call and opened the ticket. Turns out that the customer was very unhappy about something so they'd agreed to replace his PC with a brand new one so he had arranged to return the "base unit" (as we called it) and have a brand new one sent out. Base unit was what we called the PC case and the guts inside it, is there an actual standard term for it?
This was a common problem. Tickets that discussed the processor, the hard drive, the memory, the modem, the CPU, etc. when they meant the base unit. "power button on CPU is broken" "DVD stuck in hard drive" "USB ports on front of modem don't work" etc.

One dude used to put just "replace motherboard" on most of his tickets before we had a word with his supervisor and had it explained to him that that's no use to us, we need an actual description of what's wrong.
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System Unit was the preferred term in my day.
 
HansMustermann said:
Conversely: dear admins: there's a fine line between "security" and "dumb covering your ass at the user's expense." Asking that I must have a 20 character password*, including two large prime numbers, characters from old elvish script or demonic runes, and the entrails of a sacrificial goat, has nothing to do with security. In fact, it's the polar opposite of security. About 99% of humans, when asked to remember something like that, will do one or more of the following:
- reuse the hell out of it, because <bleep> remembering three dozen of THOSE abominations
- make it something trivial like their name and birthday
- tape it onto the monitor

That's not enforcing security. It's just so some dumbass in the IT department can say "not my fault" when (not if) something happens.


* Not even hyperbole. I literally just got complained at by a machine because my password wasn't 20 characters long. Literally.
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Take a line of poetry at cetera and use that.
 
My go-to password method is, after 2 tries at making a realistic password, if the site still doesn't want to take a sensible password, I'll use "F***YouF***UF***ewe2!" and so far, never had a site reject that as a password.
 
Garhhhh... Trying to get something done today, I opened an app I hadn't used for several days. For some reason it just. wasn't. working. I finally left it alone in disgust, only to come back later and found that Updates were ready for my computer.

Yes, I forgot it was Update Tuesday, and every laptop I've ever had (not Macs, never mind) has done this.
 
JesseCuster said:
So I got onto the tech support guy who'd taken the call and opened the ticket. Turns out that the customer was very unhappy about something so they'd agreed to replace his PC with a brand new one so he had arranged to return the "base unit" (as we called it) and have a brand new one sent out. Base unit was what we called the PC case and the guts inside it, is there an actual standard term for it?
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According to my clients it's the "hard drive". :rolleyes:

They all have laptops now, so this doesn't come up as much.
 
Blue Mountain said:
Sorry, must contain at least one upper case and one lower case letter.

"MyPasswordIsMoreThan20CharactersLong!"
Sorry, breaking up the password on uppercase characters reveals common English words. Please try again. (I've never seen this in real life.)

"mYpassworDiSmorEthaN20characterSlong!"
Sorry, you have only one special character and it's at the end of the password. Please try again. (I've never seen this in real life, either.)

"correct2horse@batterY!staple"
Sorry, but we read XKCD too. Please try again.

"mY@#$!passw0rDiSnorEthan20characterslong"
Accepted. Thank you.

(Did you notice I misspelled "morE" as "norE"? If that was an actual typo, I'd wouldn't be able to get in when I tried the password.)
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"Pasuwaadoga20mojiokoeteimasu,bitches"
 
catsmate said:
Take a line of poetry at cetera and use that.
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Right, because it's well known that classic poetry used mixed case, numbers, and random symbols :p

But that still illustrates one of my problems with that. If I'm going to have to remember a whole line, and which letters I replaced with numbers and symbols and whatnot, and let's assume I can even type that much text blind, then <bleep!> remembering one for every login screen I'm put through.

I mean, just at this company, it's literally:
- my computer password
- the admin password so I can even <bleep>ing start task manager when some program gets stuck
- encrypted drive password
- client intranet password
- password for the proxy when I'm in the client's intranet
- client password for the "single sign on" for the production site
- client password for the "single sign on" for the QA site
- client password for the automated deployment site
- client password for the database
- password for the cloud
And I probably missed a couple more.

(Note the irony in having 5 different "single sign on" accounts in the same organization:p)

<bleep!> remembering a mangled line of poetry for each of those, it's gonna get reused :p
 
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JesseCuster said:
This was a common problem. Tickets that discussed the processor, the hard drive, the memory, the modem, the CPU, etc. when they meant the base unit. "power button on CPU is broken" "DVD stuck in hard drive" "USB ports on front of modem don't work" etc.
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A good example of synecdoche.

Base unit seems to be the consensus now, or perhaps, tower.

I do recall furniture makers selling computer desks generally referring to the base unit as CPU or hard drive.
 
I once had a coworker who referred to her desktop computer as her "system". So she'd say things like "my system is all messed up" and "my system doesn't work" and "I hate my system, it's always so slow" and without context listeners sometimes didn't know what she was talking about and somehow the impression got around that she was suffering from a recurrent UTI and all her complaints about her "system" were related to that. It certainly made listening to her complaints much funnier. "Are you having trouble with your system today?" she'd ask and people would burst into laughter or feel insulted. "Does it look like I am?" or "You can listen at the door and find out!"
 
TragicMonkey said:
I once had a coworker who referred to her desktop computer as her "system". So she'd say things like "my system is all messed up" and "my system doesn't work" and "I hate my system, it's always so slow" and without context listeners sometimes didn't know what she was talking about and somehow the impression got around that she was suffering from a recurrent UTI and all her complaints about her "system" were related to that. It certainly made listening to her complaints much funnier. "Are you having trouble with your system today?" she'd ask and people would burst into laughter or feel insulted. "Does it look like I am?" or "You can listen at the door and find out!"
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Cistern, not system.
 
Dear Executive: we get it, you need X. Unfortunately, X is complex. Very complex. As in it's been a project in progress across five teams for two years, including going back to the company who created the software. It's complex. So you shooting an email to me asking if I could "figure out a way" in a week is a) very flattering but also b) delusional to the point that your peer executives might consider having you removed from your position as mentally unfit. It's like you just asked your usual car mechanic if he can get a manned spaceflight to Mars going because NASA is taking too long at it. This project has already consumed at least half a million dollars in research and work, from experts with decades of experience and a lot more credentials than I. You are not merely overly-demanding, you are crazy to even think of asking me for this. (On a week when I've decided to really just phone it in because I worked extra last week, too.)

Love always, and I spilled all the beans to my own boss and your two strongest rivals at your level,
TragicMonkey
 
TragicMonkey said:
Dear Executive: we get it, you need X. Unfortunately, X is complex. Very complex. As in it's been a project in progress across five teams for two years, including going back to the company who created the software. It's complex. So you shooting an email to me asking if I could "figure out a way" in a week is a) very flattering but also b) delusional to the point that your peer executives might consider having you removed from your position as mentally unfit. It's like you just asked your usual car mechanic if he can get a manned spaceflight to Mars going because NASA is taking too long at it. This project has already consumed at least half a million dollars in research and work, from experts with decades of experience and a lot more credentials than I. You are not merely overly-demanding, you are crazy to even think of asking me for this. (On a week when I've decided to really just phone it in because I worked extra last week, too.)

Love always, and I spilled all the beans to my own boss and your two strongest rivals at your level,
TragicMonkey
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OK, so will it be ready in TWO weeks...?
 
I am such a mfing diplomat.

Once again I get the call from someone who is so annoyed that they can't understand what our procedures are, did something wrong, and it's our communication skills that are at fault, and I turn the call around, get them what they want, and they thank me and end the call happy.

FIGJAM.
 
arthwollipot said:
I am such a mfing diplomat.

Once again I get the call from someone who is so annoyed that they can't understand what our procedures are, did something wrong, and it's our communication skills that are at fault, and I turn the call around, get them what they want, and they thank me and end the call happy.

FIGJAM.
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Here you are boasting of helping people while some of us are trying to get executives fired. Sometimes I question your devotion to real IT support.
 
My ticket about my timesheet problem has been updated to state that they "suspect I am hovering over the wrong application."

I am not hovering over the wrong application, and have said so
 
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