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

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Darat said:
It’s on a computer, you are the computer guy, therefore anything to do with a computer is your problem that you need to fix it!
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I'm sure a notification "we cannot guarantee the functionality of your work computer for non-work tasks." will solve that problem. Because users pay attention to that sort of thing consistently.
 
Wudang said:
Look away those of a nervous disposition. I'm going to speak ITIL. Raise an Incident ticket. As it's recurred ask for a Problem record to be raised and ask for the Change records for those updates to be marked as failed changes.
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ITIL is pretty much my native language. I speak ITIL like others speak Python or C++.
 
gnome said:
I'm sure a notification "we cannot guarantee the functionality of your work computer for non-work tasks." will solve that problem. Because users pay attention to that sort of thing consistently.
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It will solve it, but not quite in the way you think.

arthwollipot said:
Oh you sweet summer child. No they don't.
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Absolutely 110% true.

But this IS a solution, in that when they do ask to help with their lost recipe database or Brad Pitt Fanclub roster, you can ask them to read out loud that sign on the computer. And I do mean to read it out loud over the phone back to you. Because that has two outcomes: They will THEN notice what it says, and you can tell them that you are ever so sorry but Brad will have to go without their delicious raspberry trifle this time.
 
arthwollipot said:
gnome said:
I'm sure a notification "we cannot guarantee the functionality of your work computer for non-work tasks." will solve that problem. Because users pay attention to that sort of thing consistently.
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Oh you sweet summer child. No they don't.
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I may be mistaken, but I think your Sarcasm Detector™ is hiccupping.
 
Clever users will figure out how to cause the same error in a theoretical work context, and leverage the helpdesk that way. I admit I've gone down that road before.

As a tech if I sensed a user doing that, my reaction would probably be something like "well played".
 
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gnome said:
Clever users will figure out how to cause the same error in a theoretical work context, and leverage the helpdesk that way. I admit I've gone down that road before.
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Actually that's exactly what's been happening. I've gotten 4 or 5 trouble calls in the last 2 or so weeks for "My computer can't open a document" and the document in question is a password protected PDF from their tax guy.
 
JoeMorgue said:
Actually that's exactly what's been happening. I've gotten 4 or 5 trouble calls in the last 2 or so weeks for "My computer can't open a document" and the document in question is a password protected PDF from their tax guy.
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Kudos to tax guy for using some basic security?
 
...and then you find out that they don't know the password and want you to tell them how to "break" it.
 
Without putting too many details out into the quasi-public the biggest issue that usually triggers the call for assistance is that printing Password Protected PDFs is... complicated.

Again none of this is actually my problem since it's not work related, but we don't all work in magically perfect IT/User relationships where that line is kept perfectly clear so "LOL not in my SLA, later" and then peacing out isn't the solution for me it is for some of you.
 
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I had to share this. It's just so Chronicles of George.

Software - Install issues - Windows 10 (Sercive manager)

Brief description of what is happening: user was attemptong to hopen Service manager from home and got an error for the firsttime and after that is just a white screen opens now. issues pursist after a shutdown
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ETA: Service Manager has an inbuilt spellchecker.
 
Here's one that annoys me. A little. Not much, but a little.

"This is very much a non-urgent request, but..."

Okay, sure. I get that it's not urgent for you. But we still have to treat it like we treat every other enquiry. It gets logged and it is subject to our Service Level Agreement which says that we have to resolve it within three working days. If we reply seeking additional information from you, and you don't bother answering because it's "non-urgent" and you're busy doing other, more urgent things, we will follow up with a second request. And if you don't reply to that because it's "non-urgent", we will close your incident and you won't get your issue solved even non-urgently.

ETA: Though I do love going through the queue and resolving all the non-responsive incidents. :)
 
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gnome said:
...and then you find out that they don't know the password and want you to tell them how to "break" it.
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And it is the computer that is wrong, they know they are putting in the right password. And if you get to security questions they will swear blue that they never answered that question!
 
Darat said:
And it is the computer that is wrong, they know they are putting in the right password. And if you get to security questions they will swear blue that they never answered that question!
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I don't even have a favorite porn star!

Besides, it doesn't specify genre so how could I have possibly chosen just one . . .
 
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