Think before you call

Livemeeting.....what the fuck is wrong with the assholes that created this piece of shit?

Some time ago, the parent company started holding certain training meetings, and would send out these livemeeting requests.  By doing so, certain assumptions were made on both sides.  The person sending these requests seems to have assumed that everyone is automatically setup or knows how to use livemeeting.

Now, to be fair to the person sending these requests, these requests come with links to the installer for livemeeting, which means in theory the request sends one all they need in order to join the meeting, so long as the recipient reads the thing, and runs the install well in advance of the meeting.

Of course, there are 2 problems here. 

1 - Everyone runs this installer as the meeting is starting, and then calls me in a panic
2 - The installer isn't all that is needed


So, we kept getting these panicked calls, and by the time we got the install completed, the meeting was done, cancelled, or rescheduled, leaving us going "well, if you had called us in advance, like you're supposed to do.....but, you should be all set for the next one"

But then we kept getting repeat calls from people with vague messages about not connecting.

At this point, I became a middle man in all of this, because I don't know how this thing works, I don't know how this system was all setup and configured by the parent company, and all I can do is tell the end user to follow the damn instructions on the webpage, which I found people weren't following.  And, for some people it worked, so I figure, "just follow the damn instructions, like so and so did, and it'll work.  Stop calling me now"

This then resulted in a bunch of people going around in circles.  A problem would be reported.  We'd look into it, find instructions, send it back.  They'd report that they'll try that.  We hear nothing for weeks and assume it is fixed.  Then, just as everything would calm down and we think we have it solved, the calls would come back in.

After months of going around in circles over these livemeetings, I was at a point where I was ready to grab the nearest heavy object and throw it through a window if I heard the word livemeeting uttered, hoping that would get people to just shut the fuck up about this stupid livemeeting crap that, I just plain and simple don't know what the fuck is going on about.  At this point, I told them, don't call me, I don't know, talk to the parent company, it's their damn system, so it's their damn problem.

So, next thing I know, helpdesk tickets opened about this on the parent company's helpdesk system start getting assigned to me. 

WHAT

THE

FUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

THIS ISN'T MY FUCKING SYSTEM, THIS ISN'T MY FUCKING THING, WHY ARE YOU ASSIGNING THEM TO ME!!!!!!!!!!!

And, it turns out, while the parent company's helpdesk can assign tickets to our helpdesk, we can't assign them back to them.

Way to go, assholes!

So, after weeks of going around in circles calling various different people at the parent company to try and find the person that actually is responsible for all this stuff, we find out a few key pieces of information:

A. In order for a user to be able to join a live meeting, their network account must be configured for it.  this is not done by default.

B. There is a document with configuration settings that must be filled in after installing livemeeting in order for it to work.

Well, that's just great.....WHEN IN THE FUCK WAS ANYONE PLANNING ON PASSING ALONG THIS INFORMATION TO US? 

DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW LONG AND HOW MUCH WE'VE BEEN GOING AROUND IN CIRCLES BECAUSE WE DIDN'T HAVE THIS NECESSARY AND VALUABLE INFORMATION?

So, alright, we requested this be enabled on all network accounts, and now we have the configuration information. 

And now, the parent company has been sending out massive invites to just about everyone, flooding me with confused people calling since they can't get into the livemeeting, since they don't have their livemeeting properly configured.  Well, at least now I know how to fix it, but still....requests are getting sent out to people, and people expect it to just work.  Why isn't this configuration able to be automated with the install, or at least the instructions sent with the requests?  These requests come with a link to install, as if it has all you need to join the meeting.  But, without this info, you don't, you won't get in without a call to the helpdesk if you haven't already been setup.

But, ok....I can work with that.

But I have to ask one question......

WHY IN THE FUCK WOULD YOU CALL ME WHEN YOUR COMPUTER ISN'T EVEN STARTED UP YET?

I get a call this morning, I try to shadow the session to set it up, and I can't......oh, my session is still loading up. 

Now I get to spend 2-3 minutes sitting on the phone with nothing to talk about while we wait for a computer to load up.

So, people, for the love of god, don't call your helpdesk until you're ready to be helped. 

Thank you.