Another Friday, just gotta get through some hours, and then freedom for a few days.
Of course, this Friday I have the duty of monitoring the helpdesk ticket queue and phone line, which is guaranteed to keep me busy. But, it gives me a good excuse to close myself off from civilization in the "bunker" (storage closet filled with crap, that has a desk setup with docking station, and a stereo receiver with bluetooth adapter). So, I have my tunes running, working the tickets, when suddenly, the door opens. In comes another co-worker on the team, a co-worker from another department, and a guy I had never met before.
And they start right in the middle of something that I have no idea what in the fuck is going on, without so much as briefing me on what this is all about, or who in the fuck this stranger is. They indicate they are looking for a server that has to do with the light system in the building. Yes.....such a box exists, and it is in here, there's a screen, keyboard, and mouse all hooked up to it. I figure, that should be the extent of my involvement, I've only ever touched this machine once to install a windows patch, I know nothing about maintaining it, have no access to this system.....this stranger, he's here to support it, right? That's what it seemed to me, he's support for the system, our end user is having problems using it, so he needs to fix it.
And yet, he's bumbling like some kind of idiot that walked in off the street, indicating he doesn't know why it isn't working, looking at me like I have some knowledge about it, and hands me a piece of paper with an ip address on it, suggesting it may be significant.
I tell him I don't know, but we can try to reset the server. That doesn't fix it.
At this point, I feel like saying something to the effect of, look, I got a job to do here, you're the support person for this system, right? Get to it, I have nothing to do with it. But....I can't seem to find a diplomatic way to do that. I was a bit snippy, kind of hinting at the whole him being the person that should be doing something....but he seemed to continue to stammer and struggle to even come up with anything he needed to do or needed from us.
Ugh....fine......lets see what I can do, about a system I've never touched, have no access to, and know nothing about....
.....ok, so you installed something on her computer, and it isn't working? Here....here's a test machine, install it here, then we'll know if it's a problem with her machine, or a system problem.
Surprise, surprise, it doesn't work on my test machine either. Ok then.....what do we do next?
I look at the guy expecting him to have something, anything, that a support person for this system should do in the event the system isn't working.
The end user is starting to be like "well, if it works from the server, at least I have a way to get into it, we don't need to deal with this now."
Which I know means, this idiot will leave having fixed nothing, he will never follow up on this since he doesn't know what in the fuck to do, and anytime something needs to be done with the lights, I'm going to have people storming into our closet to play with the server.
No, man, you need to stay right here, and DO YOUR FUCKING JOB!!!!!!!
I'm not kidding, this guy was an absolute idiot. How he got this job, I'll never know. I was actually wondering, am I misreading the situation, is he not a tech for this system? I actually ask at some point, you're here as support to this system? And he's like, yes, we're a 3rd party, but yes. Ok....seems we have a contract with a 3rd party that setup and maintain this system. So, I get to the point where once again our end user is trying to wrap this up suggesting this is good enough, but I'm not having this, this is bullshit. So I go, well no, we need to have some sort of plan of attack here, lets not wrap this up until we at least know what needs to happen next, or nothing is going to happen. So I look at the tech....what's our next step? Blank look back. Continue staring at him with my own blank like. This is all you, buddy, you were called out here to fix this. Now, fix it.
......uhh.....well......we could call support.......
Ok, yes, you do that.
He calls up the manufacturer's support number, and the guy there starts walking him through some troubleshooting steps, which takes them out of the room, to which I say, ok, I have work to do here so you have fun, but if you need to get back into the server just knock on the door.
Never heard back.
But, seriously, what was up with that guy? Who works as a tech for a system, and then acts like he has no clue how to do basic troubleshooting for said system, and continues to stare at basically the customers, expecting them to somehow come up with a plan to fix it?
Ugh......fucking idiot. Maybe I need to find another closet to setup a stereo in.
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