Users will complain about anything...

My manager just pulled me in to his office saying people are complaining about hearing another tone when they dial externally.

First of all it was configured this way before I got here... on stuff I have never touched... but apparently it "just started to happen".

When you dial a number, you here it for the time between you pressing the first digit after "9" and the second digit. Split second. That concerned people enough to make a ticket and call my manager.

What the heck do these people do for a living? Watch for insignificant changes... that didn't even change?

My god... anyone else have similar stories XD

PS:

Also its a simple configuration fix in the partition that I knew about... so its an easy fix. But the fact that I had to change because people notice and complain about such stupid things baffles me XD

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Jollycork

chmorin wrote: »

My manager just pulled me in to his office saying people are complaining about hearing another tone when they dial externally.

First of all it was configured this way before I got here... on stuff I have never touched... but apparently it "just started to happen".

When you dial a number, you here it for the time between you pressing the first digit after "9" and the second digit. Split second. That concerned people enough to make a ticket and call my manager.

What the heck do these people do for a living? Watch for insignificant changes... that didn't even change?

My god... anyone else have similar stories XD

PS:

Also its a simple configuration fix in the partition that I knew about... so its an easy fix. But the fact that I had to change because people notice and complain about such stupid things baffles me XD

wait until you get the user that's been with the company ages and thinks they ought to get the latest and greatest simply because of the amount of time they have worked there. I had one where department managers got new comps with Windows 7 and they didn't and called the help desk on a daily basis with computer complaints hoping they would get a new comp with Windows 7.

Paul Boz

That tone is there for a reason. It's to let you know you're about to dial outside of the organization. Your boss is retarded for not telling the user to stop sending up stupid tickets.

Forsaken_GA

we get our fair share of stupid tickets and calls.

Indeed, we recently upgraded our phone systems, and the VoIP engineer put Network Engineering as the first choice in the after-hours oncall escalation phone tree, just because the network is the first thing the users blame.

I suggested that maybe we should move it to the last entry to make the user suffer a little more, but I think he might still be upset that I compared his role to that of an Exchange admin. Snarky bastard.

pitviper

Hehehe, hear things like this all of the time. I had a complaint about the conference join and leave tones once - so I made them REAL annoying and everyone was happy when I switched back to the way they were

pitviper

Forsaken_GA wrote: »

but I think he might still be upset that I compared his role to that of an Exchange admin. Snarky bastard.

Wait, don't the help desk guys fix the M$ stuff?

...1/2 kidding of course

rwmidl

Let's see...

At a job many moons ago, had quite a few users in the office complaining about network speed/performance. Come to find out 99% of the people in the office were streaming coverage of some event that was in town that day.

At the same company, before we fully implemented VPN we used RAS dial-up connections for sales/virtual users. It was suggested by a sales manager, as a "cost cutting idea" to give everyone (ie sales) an AOL account so they could connect from home, etc.

chmorin

Paul Boz wrote: »

That tone is there for a reason. It's to let you know you're about to dial outside of the organization. Your boss is retarded for not telling the user to stop sending up stupid tickets.

I explained that to him... "You get dial tone when you pick up the phone, and outside dialtone from the PSTN after you hit 9. It's supposed to work that way."

Regardless, still wanted it changed. I do like my manager though.

At a job many moons ago, had quite a few users in the office complaining about network speed/performance. Come to find out 99% of the people in the office were streaming coverage of some event that was in town that day.

Haha I have seen similar things. It is amazing how the user will never think that the issue has something to do with what they are doing, and that it is instantly the network/computers fault.

rwmidl

chmorin wrote: »

Haha I have seen similar things. It is amazing how the user will never think that the issue has something to do with what they are doing, and that it is instantly the network/computers fault.

Another of one of my favorites (same company), we implemented some WAP's around the office, that required another userid/password to access the wireless network. One sales rep didn't understand why we didn't just open up the entire wireless network to anyone (no authentication, etc).

tiersten

This is a double edged sword. Users generally don't have any idea about the relative importance of things as they don't and won't need to understand the technology to the level you do. At least they're telling you about potential issues though. Do you want the alternative where your users to sit on a problem which is actually important but they don't want to tell you because you've told them not to bother you with unimportant things? :P

If you're being overwhelmed with trivial support tickets then you need to talk to your manager about somebody weeding out the pointless tickets for you.

chmorin

It is more of a matter of nesesity. If they observe something that has changed something they work in a fashon that affects them, I expect them to report it. If something changes and in no way affects them at all, I don't expect them to report it.

I don't expect much from users. If there is a problem that does not effect them, I wouldn't expect them to tell me about it. That is MY job to see what little things need tweaking behind the scenes.

tiersten

chmorin wrote: »

It is more of a matter of nesesity. If they observe something that has changed something they work in a fashon that affects them, I expect them to report it. If something changes and in no way affects them at all, I don't expect them to report it.

I don't expect much from users. If there is a problem that does not effect them, I wouldn't expect them to tell me about it. That is MY job to see what little things need tweaking behind the scenes.

How do they know whether it is an important problem or not? Or do you just classify it as whether it is affecting their daily work?

I'm surprised that you've never been in a situation where something has been broken for a long time but nobody in IT knows about it because the users didn't bother to report it or they implemented their own hacky workaround.

chmorin

tiersten wrote: »

I'm surprised that you've never been in a situation where something has been broken for a long time but nobody in IT knows about it because the users didn't bother to report it or they implemented their own hacky workaround.

I have been in those situations. But they have nothing to do with what I am complaining about.

tiersten wrote: »

How do they know whether it is an important problem or not? Or do you just classify it as whether it is affecting their daily work?

Let's try this again. If facilities had a barrage of tickets come in every time someone put something else in a trash can, what good does that do them? They check the cans and empty them when they are full. Now when the can is full and you can no longer put trash in it, that is when they want you to tell them about it.

So in my case, we have phones that are working. 100% working. And we get a barrage of tickets when something that does not affect them changes. It just seems pointless.

My point is there was no problem, they were simply complaining of a change that didn't actually affect them. It would be one thing if they ASKED if said change is a bad thing. Instead, they called the manager of the department and SAID it was a bad thing. I call bull$h!t, that is not the way to handle anything.

earweed

Paul Boz wrote: »

That tone is there for a reason. It's to let you know you're about to dial outside of the organization. Your boss is retarded for not telling the user to stop sending up stupid tickets.

It probably should have been handled with a company wide memo explaining why the tone was there instead of the tone being "fixed"

chmorin

earweed wrote: »

It probably should have been handled with a company wide memo explaining why the tone was there instead of the tone being "fixed"

To me it just seemed easier to get rid of it... but you are right. Just because a user does not 'get' something shouldn't make it need to go away when it has a purpose.

networker050184

chmorin wrote: »

I have been in those situations. But they have nothing to do with what I am complaining about.

Let's try this again. If facilities had a barrage of tickets come in every time someone put something else in a trash can, what good does that do them? They check the cans and empty them when they are full. Now when the can is full and you can no longer put trash in it, that is when they want you to tell them about it.

So in my case, we have phones that are working. 100% working. And we get a barrage of tickets when something that does not affect them changes. It just seems pointless.

My point is there was no problem, they were simply complaining of a change that didn't actually affect them. It would be one thing if they ASKED if said change is a bad thing. Instead, they called the manager of the department and SAID it was a bad thing. I call bull$h!t, that is not the way to handle anything.

Personally I'd rather them call in for things even if its not affecting them directly. So many times we get an issue that has been hanging around for a while and no one reports it to us. Then its on us to why hasn't this been fixed. Well, ****, no one said anything!

chmorin

networker050184 wrote: »

Personally I'd rather them call in for things even if its not affecting them directly. So many times we get an issue that has been hanging around for a while and no one reports it to us. Then its on us to why hasn't this been fixed. Well, ****, no one said anything!

Fair enough. I guess we have the lesser of the two evils.

pitviper

chmorin wrote: »

So in my case, we have phones that are working. 100% working. And we get a barrage of tickets when something that does not affect them changes. It just seems pointless.

My point is there was no problem, they were simply complaining of a change that didn't actually affect them. It would be one thing if they ASKED if said change is a bad thing. Instead, they called the manager of the department and SAID it was a bad thing. I call bull$h!t, that is not the way to handle anything.

In all honesty, you should really expect the end users to freak out at the first sight of change - That's what they do, good or bad. I would have been happy that it was an easy fix, and not an actual find a needle in a haystack while everyone is screaming type of a problem. People are EXTRA flaky when it comes to phone changes since they have been using analog service for their entire lives and have pre-programmed expectations.

hypnotoad

Them: Can you install a phone in this office?
Me: Ok (spends a couple days pondering running a cable a rather long distance, and loading the truck up with ladders and tools, only to discover it already has a phone in plain sight).

Same person...

Them: The printer doesnt work!!!
Me: ummm (looks down at the printer sitting in the middle of the floor with no cables at all attached to it). Ok. Yeah...I think I can figure this one out for you.

Flyingput

When users move their lips, they are lying.

We have to treat them as used car dealers, lawyers, politicians.....

tha_dub

I've had the same complaints about 2nd dial tone. ALl phone systems have the option for it on digital and voip trunking. With analog trunking you get the outside dial tone like it or not when you dial 9. When you turn it off someone will complain their phone is dead after dialing 9

chmorin

tha_dub wrote: »

I've had the same complaints about 2nd dial tone. ALl phone systems have the option for it on digital and voip trunking. With analog trunking you get the outside dial tone like it or not when you dial 9. When you turn it off someone will complain their phone is dead after dialing 9

That is how I figured it worked, weird that we have reverse issues XD

wolverene13

Oh, wow, this reminds me of a really funny one. There's a guy that used to work with me in a NOC (his username is phantasm, he's actually pretty active on these boards) who got a call one day from some lady who wasn't even a customer of ours. She wanted to know why we were "in her server." When he asked her what she meant, she said she kept seeing log entries for some IP address that belonged to us. After looking into it a little bit, phantasm found out that the IP belonged to a DHCP pool allocated for use by some of our DSL customers in a particular market. She insisted we were "hacking into her server" because she kept seeing a particular "username" logging into her server or something to that effect. When phantasm asked her to read what she was seeing to him, she said she kept seeing entries for "NET-69-68-0-0-1" or something similar. He explained to her that this was just the ARIN Net Handle for that particular pool. After that she flipped out and started screaming "Who is Aaron!? I want Aaron on the phone right now!! I want to speak to him because he's in my server, hacking it and messing everything up!! You guys are a bunch of hackers!!!" We all were cracking up and phantasm had to put his phone on mute because he could barely talk without laughing after that. She was obviously an idiot and had no business administering a server for any reason, being that she doesn't even know what ARIN is; apparently she thought "Aaron" was someone who worked with us and that was his user name or something.

phantasm

wolverene13 wrote: »

Oh, wow, this reminds me of a really funny one. There's a guy that used to work with me in a NOC (his username is phantasm, he's actually pretty active on these boards) who got a call one day from some lady who wasn't even a customer of ours. She wanted to know why we were "in her server." When he asked her what she meant, she said she kept seeing log entries for some IP address that belonged to us. After looking into it a little bit, phantasm found out that the IP belonged to a DHCP pool allocated for use by some of our DSL customers in a particular market. She insisted we were "hacking into her server" because she kept seeing a particular "username" logging into her server or something to that effect. When phantasm asked her to read what she was seeing to him, she said she kept seeing entries for "NET-69-68-0-0-1" or something similar. He explained to her that this was just the ARIN Net Handle for that particular pool. After that she flipped out and started screaming "Who is Aaron!? I want Aaron on the phone right now!! I want to speak to him because he's in my server, hacking it and messing everything up!! You guys are a bunch of hackers!!!" We all were cracking up and phantasm had to put his phone on mute because he could barely talk without laughing after that. She was obviously an idiot and had no business administering a server for any reason, being that she doesn't even know what ARIN is; apparently she thought "Aaron" was someone who worked with us and that was his user name or something.

Yea... I remember that call. Her website sold $5k dollar lighting fixtures. lol. Man I miss the crazies. lol. However I had a Tier II Network Tech today try and configure an IP on a switchport (3550) before issuing the "no switchport" command. I let him sweat for 20 minutes and then asked if he needed help. His response was simple, he said to me "no no no, I have the book around here somewhere". At that point I knew all help was lost. lol.

chmorin

phantasm wrote: »

Yea... I remember that call. Her website sold $5k dollar lighting fixtures. lol. Man I miss the crazies. lol. However I had a Tier II Network Tech today try and configure an IP on a switchport (3550) before issuing the "no switchport" command. I let him sweat for 20 minutes and then asked if he needed help. His response was simple, he said to me "no no no, I have the book around here somewhere". At that point I knew all help was lost. lol.

Hahah that is to funny. I wonder how long it took him looking through the book at switch configurations before he realized it should of been in the L3 switch section.

hermeszdata

networker050184 wrote: »

Personally I'd rather them call in for things even if its not affecting them directly. So many times we get an issue that has been hanging around for a while and no one reports it to us. Then its on us to why hasn't this been fixed. Well, ****, no one said anything!

Besides, these types of calls almost always give us material to use later for comedic relief!!!