Claims made by non IT centric folks?

OK, so I had someone today ask me why his 200 document paper cannot be sent by a digital sender on our network. I advised the user that we have a 10MB limit on attachments and that the 200 document paper once converted to a PDF file might have exceeded that limit. He then proceeded to tell me that he saw someone the previous day send 5 Gigabytes... I told him politely that it would be impossible to send 5GB via e-mail on our network seeing as our mailbox limit is substantially less than that. He then became belligerent claiming he saw it happen and 5GB can easily be sent over the network. I explained just how large 5GB is in relations to pages and he stood his ground. He then told me I wasn't as smart as I thought I was, and that he has personally sent 1TB over e-mail before and I need to go back to school to learn about computers..

So now this guy has become an inside joke around our entire office, so I am curious if anyone else has ever had a confrontation like that or story to share?

BTW, he still hasn't been able to send his 200 page document and claims the digital sender must be broke...

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Paperlantern

motogpman wrote: »

Robert is right. It wasn't the the device wasn't going to fix the issue, the problem is that our WAN bandwidth (1.5 mb), infrastructure hardware, cabling, and PC's need to be upgraded before a device like that is installed. Most of the stuff was WAY past it's intended service life at the time, which is why I was starting at the site level to make improvements first. He fought to get them, even thought the rest of us had protested, but he was able to get one anyways. Our p2p utilization is normally aroung 80+ %. I think upping the bandwidth, at a cost of a few hundred $'s is more cost effective, but my suggestion fell on deaf ears.

As Robert stated, blowing money on equipment/software that wasn't needed is part of the issue. He can't even set up a wifi connection, has caused more outages/problems and then wont confess. I could go on and on about things he purchased, was supposed to test, and then implement. The problem is he never finishes and then **** it on the IT staff to resolve. We are still paying for stuff that isn't even running..... Dedicated video conferencing VPN line and EXPENSIVE equipment ( $35k), that we are still paying support and active line for, and it's been used 3 or 4 times in a year and a half. It is now gathering dust in the server room.

Everything he touches turns to &*&!*. Also, he spent time with the vendor on how to install the RB, had a diagram in his hand, he couldn't even plug the thing in his own. He had to call me down out of a bucket in 100+ degree heat/humidity to plug in 2 wires. He's way over his head in his position, pay, and knowledge base. Being friends with the former VP that hired him had it's perks apparently. Even our end users avoid him at all costs.

Wow, I'm still at the semi bottom of the totem pole when it comes to experience and pay and even I am familiar with installing and administering a RB Steelhead. Our office uses 3 of them.

it_consultant

I regularly work on networks where money was poured in to fix things that weren't problems when the real problems were let to simmer. A common problem that I find is that people are preferential to what they learn and know. For example, one network I worked on simply needed a new exchange server. People were getting RPC delays in outlook. After 70K of networking investment, Foundry switches and dual firewalls, they were having the exact same problems with zero improvement in network reliability. In fact, it got a little less reliable because the complexity of the dual firewalls, the last three network outages were due to the firewall configs, not the WAN connection. Having dual firewalls and only one WAN means you still have a single point of failure AND you have spent a bunch of money. The network admin was a Cisco guy which means VLANs solve all network problems.

Not to rag on Cisco guys, this guy was way over his head.

I can go on forever about poorly spent IT funds. I do a lot of project management so I see people making honest mistakes and I see good people irritated by decisions when they don't have all the right information. For example, the extra dedicated lines may be impractical because it would include a contract extension or a set up fee that ends up being more expensive than the riverbed solution.

RobertKaucher

it_consultant wrote: »

The network admin was a Cisco guy which means VLANs solve all network problems.

When your favorite tool is a hammer, everyhting looks like a nail.

it_consultant wrote: »

I can go on forever about poorly spent IT funds. I do a lot of project management so I see people making honest mistakes and I see good people irritated by decisions when they don't have all the right information. For example, the extra dedicated lines may be impractical because it would include a contract extension or a set up fee that ends up being more expensive than the riverbed solution.

That sure does go both ways. I have been in situations like this myself, but I have also been in situations where even though all the right information was out there, the wrong choice was still made.

Proper cooling in the "server room" for my previous company is a perfect example. Rather than actually consolidate things into a properly cooled area stuff was left in a room where the temp regularly exceeded 80F and never went under 70F. I and the admin before me tried hard to get management to listen but it was all about playing Russian roulette with the company's data - until the sh*t finally hit the CPU fan after I left and a third admin had to deal with it. I literally had a portable AC unit up against the SQL and Exchange servers with cardboard directing the cool air.

And then as business picked up in late summer 2010. Combined with a hot summer - BOOOOOOM. Good bye SQL Server.

RESTORE DATABASE FROM DISK = '\\PleaseGod\LetMe\KeepMyJob.bak'

mikej412

it_consultant wrote: »

The network admin was a Cisco guy which means VLANs solve all network problems.

Not to rag on Cisco guys, this guy was way over his head.

If the network admin was a REAL Cisco guy he would have blamed the problem on the server(s) without a moments hesitation (or even bothering to look).

When you're a server guy, it's always the network.
When you're a network guy, it's always the servers.
When you're a software guy it's always the hardware.
When you're a hardware guy it's always the software.
And when you're a sales guy "sure it will work -- and we can deliver it tomorrow."

Chris:/*

Rep for that.

it_consultant

mikej412 wrote: »

If the network admin was a REAL Cisco guy he would have blamed the problem on the server(s) without a moments hesitation (or even bothering to look).

When you're a server guy, it's always the network.
When you're a network guy, it's always the servers.
When you're a software guy it's always the hardware.
When you're a hardware guy it's always the software.
And when you're a sales guy "sure it will work -- and we can deliver it tomorrow."

It would have been a lot better if he had done that! Especially considering that he would have been absolutely correct. I think, in my conspiracy theory world, that he wanted experience on Foundry hardware to pad his resume.

rsutton

Client: "Please fix my laptop, it has a virus"
Me: "Sure, do you need a loaner while I fix it?"
Client: "No, I will use the other computer in my office"
Me: "Alrighty, I will drop the laptop off once it is fixed"
Client comes back in 5 minutes: "My other computer isn't working now!!!!!!"
Me looking at the "computer" in her office: "Oh, that's actually a docking station for the laptop, it doesn't work without the laptop here. /diplomacy at it's finest"

She turned red and walked away, I felt really bad for her.

I've had other situations where the client has gotten upset due to their ignorances; I'm not as nice in those scenarios. It's OK not to know stuff, as long as you admit that.

Reseven

I worked in the back of a mom-n-pop computer shop a few years ago. We offered custom builds. Pick out your own parts and OS - we'll put it all together for you.

We got an order one day from a guy who wanted us to do all the hardware but he wanted to install XP. I built the system and sent it up front for the guy to pick. The salesmen sold him and XP disc and home he went.

About 30 minutes later I get a call from him, he was having trouble with installing the OS. He said that every time he starts the install, he gets a BSOD. He just wanted to bring it back in and have us install the OS.

I got the computer back on the bench and XP installed just fine. We all had a good laugh, he obviously thought the install screen was a BSOD.

motogpman

LOL, you guys are not going to believe this, BUT.....

Riverbeds are being quoted again. Found out yesterday. Maybe i jinxed myself by posting, but this is being done by our guru NE ( BTW, this guy is super squared away) and agreed with my recommendations to the group. We will follow my suggestions first and then put in the RBs. VENDICATION is sweet, no matter how long it takes. He is from a top level business unit, so things are shaping up for me.

erpadmin

mikej412 wrote: »

If the network admin was a REAL Cisco guy he would have blamed the problem on the server(s) without a moments hesitation (or even bothering to look).

When you're a server guy, it's always the network.
When you're a network guy, it's always the servers.

Even I had to rep this...lmao!

I try not to say "it's the network" because people don't want to cry like little girls, which is often what happens. I always say what it isn't and let others draw conclusions....

When you have servers at an accepted baseline, and those same servers have not deviated from it....well, you be the judge. Of course, the network guys will come up with their own baselines for their stuff. I'm fortunate that I work with professionals and that none of us take our work so personally that we have to take it outside and settle it with a duel to the death...

erpadmin

motogpman wrote: »

LOL, you guys are not going to believe this, BUT.....

Riverbeds are being quoted again. Found out yesterday. Maybe i jinxed myself by posting, but this is being done by our guru NE ( BTW, this guy is super squared away) and agreed with my recommendations to the group. We will follow my suggestions first and then put in the RBs. VENDICATION is sweet, no matter how long it takes. He is from a top level business unit, so things are shaping up for me.

I do like vindication...that is effing awesome and hence time for another real-life story.....this one involving millions of dollars.

User calls my boss in a panic. I had just finished applying delivered bundles [system patches from Oracle for our student administration module] the previous weekend. The install went without a hitch. Of course, these bundles are applied to a development and test environment first which are supposedly tested by the users. All of a sudden, we have a problem when our production environment gets updated. So this user calls and blames the delivered patch. My boss gets me on the horn and instructs me to drop what I'm doing to investigate.

The first thing I do is go straight to Oracle and research this particular issue. If this was an epidemic, this would have been posted there (Oracle is real good at addressing known issues quickly...got to give them that). When I saw that nothing was reported that was close to my issue, I then address the user. Long story short, after running the same process with two different files (a bad one and a good one) I was able to show that it was actually her f-up and not the delivered patch that was at issue. However what was horrible was that she had actually done this before and her boss really lashed out at her. Our development team was able to get her a new file with the required data, and millions of dollars were able to be disbursed to students. This was actually a big deal, and my boss made it a point to commend me on finding out the cause of this issue so that it could be resolved properly, which is more functional than technical. I had no functional knowledge of financial aid, which made it even more impressive. The exact issues and resolutions (and commendations) were all noted in e-mail, and I made it a point to save copies of them and add them to the portfolio. The user (after receiving some disciplinary action) even apologized to the IT department.

It really felt good to be properly vindicated. All I did was just standard troubleshooting. Didn't let panic rule the day....you can't in those situations otherwise you won't be effective in your job.

Ahriakin

Trying to convince the 'techies' at a partner company that no our Firewall wasn't re-writing the packet payload and changing their command strings...over and over and over again....And if I had a dime for every time one of our own programmers walked past my office muttering to someone else about Firewall this/Firewall that. It doesn't matter there are quite a lot of them and they have absolutely no idea of their capabilities or whether there is one actually in the path of their data (god forbid they might ask before trying to create new network based servers, that would ruin the surprise of finding out that no the traffic isn't magically allowed just because it's them) "THE" Firewall is in fact a great black hole responsible for crashing servers 5 hops away, powering them down, eating babies etc.

Bl8ckr0uter

Ahriakin wrote: »

Trying to convince the 'techies' at a partner company that no our Firewall wasn't re-writing the packet payload and changing their command strings...over and over and over again....And if I had a dime for every time one of our own programmers walked past my office muttering to someone else about Firewall this/Firewall that. It doesn't matter there are quite a lot of them and they have absolutely no idea of their capabilities or whether there is one actually in the path of their data (god forbid they might ask before trying to create new network based servers, that would ruin the surprise of finding out that no the traffic isn't magically allowed just because it's them) "THE" Firewall is in fact a great black hole responsible for crashing servers 5 hops away, powering them down, eating babies etc.

^^^THIS

You must spread some rep around before blah blah

VAHokie56

Great thread..

When I was doing support for an ISP i got this call..

Customer : "my internet is not working"
Me: "OK lets run threw some physicals, can you please find the power cord on the back of the (this was one of our wifi DSL box's) box"
Customer: "ummm this is a wireless modem, it doesn't have cords.DUH!"

She said that like I was the moron in the situation, lol

We also had an angry customer call in one time because she claimed our field tech uprooted and stole her Marijuana plants...we where like " uh ya please file a police report" that shut her up

Devilsbane

rsutton wrote: »

Client: "Please fix my laptop, it has a virus"
Me: "Sure, do you need a loaner while I fix it?"
Client: "No, I will use the other computer in my office"
Me: "Alrighty, I will drop the laptop off once it is fixed"
Client comes back in 5 minutes: "My other computer isn't working now!!!!!!"
Me looking at the "computer" in her office: "Oh, that's actually a docking station for the laptop, it doesn't work without the laptop here. /diplomacy at it's finest"

She turned red and walked away, I felt really bad for her.

I've had other situations where the client has gotten upset due to their ignorances; I'm not as nice in those scenarios. It's OK not to know stuff, as long as you admit that.

Haha, that just made my day.

chopsticks

VAHokie56 wrote: »

We also had an angry customer call in one time because she claimed our field tech uprooted and stole her Marijuana plants...we where like " uh ya please file a police report" that shut her up

haha ... this is so funny ...

mikej412

Ahriakin wrote: »

"THE" Firewall is in fact a great black hole responsible for crashing servers 5 hops away, powering them down, eating babies etc.

These firewalls cost the BIG BUCK$ -- but they're worth it.

motogpman

erpadmin wrote: »

I do like vindication....

LOL, thanks for the correction. I was so happy about the situation, I didn't use spell check before submitting. All in all, after what feels like a battle of wits for the last 3+ years, it was nice to be around a professional who could sit at a table, throw out ideas, not credit "whore," and also not take anything personal.

Is it just me or does it seem that people are so afraid to debate or communicate without taking things personal or be combative if they didn't come up with a better solution? The same things that I had been saying or pushing towards in our group , this new set of "eyes" made me smile when he stated the same things, almost word for word at times.

I like the non IT end users who, no matter what, will argue that they know what the issue is and what the fix should be, but they have you on the phone to fix it.... I guess they should, when most of the issues are caused by them to begin with. "I don't know, it just did that all on it's own."

uhtrinity

Here are a few:

I do computer work on the side and have a few people who call me regularly. Well, there is one lady who is stuck in the 90's. Every time she calls about any issue, she always insists that I defrag her Windows 7 Laptop. I have explained to her that it isn't needed especially considering it is a modern OS and she doesn't install anything on it?? Btw, most of her issues are not actually issues, it is more that she just doesn't know what she is doing. She even had me uninstall Firefox because she didn't use it and it would slow down her computer by taking up too much room.

From the educational side:

My students use Mavis Beacon for typing among other programs. It is common for them to hit the windows key which causes the loader to swap positions with the typing games. When this happens you can press "start Mavis" and nothing happens. After explaining this over and over I decided to have fun with it. I redirect with one hand and say something like abracadabra while hitting alt tab with the other. The amazement is hilarious, then I remind them about alt-tab and explain how windows layer.

Had a situation a few years ago with a teacher and a possessed instance of MS Word. I went in her class and sure enough the cursor was skipping across the screen and down. It was up to something like page 50. I did the redirect thing that I sometimes do with students and said something like, "Demons I cast thee out." while sublety moving a notebook (paper kind) off the tab key. She actually responded with, "How did you do that?" After a little teasing I told her about the notebook.

This one seems to come up about once a month. I'll get called into a classroom due to an LCD monitor that won't turn on. It is always a loose power cord. Funny how it's always the same people and they how they always apologize for, "wasting my time." :P

Had another instance about a year ago with a teacher and a projector remote that wouldn't work. Well, it turned out that she had replaced the batteries, but put them in backwards. After fixing the problem she insisted I tell her what the problem was ........ In front of her whole class!!! I was going to let her save face. The whole class got a laugh at that.

Luckily I have most of our staff and students trained, so these don't happen as much as I would like. I like a good laugh too

Slowhand

I was talking to a former co-worker about this thread, and he reminded me of a time when he and I both worked at a datacenter and we had an outage that affected all our customers. The outage lasted about 2 minutes, 30 seconds, as our two outward-facing Catalyst 6505-E switches both decided to reload at the same time.

Naturally, we got a lot of calls from our clients, wondering what had happened, and we sent out an email blast as soon as we were back up explaining the situation and what had caused it. Most customers, even the REALLY BIG ones, understood and were just happy we recovered and came back up within a short amount of time. There was one customer, though, that wasn't so happy.

He called about a minute after we came back online, already livid. I spoke to him for no longer than a minute before my boss, the VP of the company, came walking by and saw that I was having trouble keeping a straight face. He asked me who I was talking to, and I muted the customer mid-rant long enough to tell him it was one of our smaller clients, and he was angry because of the unplanned outage that had occurred. The boss asked me to transfer the customer to his phone, then walked over and picked up the receiver. Seconds later, I hear uproarious laughter and the VP talking:

"Absolutely, we will definitely make sure to inform you ahead of time, the next time we have an UNPLANNED outage. Of course-- are you completely out of your mind?!? It was an unplanned outage, and I'm not going to refund your money for this month, you can read your contract and see that the amount of time we were down for is well under the amount of down-time you agreed to. The next time you call up and verbally abuse me or any of my employees, I'm not only going to cancel your account and throw your servers out in our trash-compactor, I'm going to file charges for harassment and for the threats you made to me and presumably to [Slowhand]."

He hung up, looked over at me and laughed. I had barely been able to keep a straight face when the guy had started ranting and saying, "the next time you idiots are going to have an unplanned outage, I want to be informed ahead of time so I can pack up and move all my servers and not let you steal my money!!!" It was so very satisfying to watch my boss tear him a new one. The guy never did move his servers. Funny how he couldn't find any other datacenters to meet his, err. . . "oh so reasonable" demands of zero down-time with a money-back guarantee. . .

And oh yes, there was beer involved during that day's lunch break.

motogpman

In such a politically correct environment now adays, it is refreshing to see bosses or people in power actually call out customers or other employees when they clearly have the head up their a$$.

When doing field service, I hated having to go in and play cleanup for my peers (when they were the ones who broke or made the situation worse), so I would let more verbal abuse slide.

Had a guy throw a small box with a server part in it at me once. I had merely walked in the office, I wasn't even late. It was a 4 hour SLA and I was there well within the alotted time. He said something along the lines of, "Oh, you ^&%&*% finally here, here fix that &^%&^% p.o.s.," then threw the box at me. Apparently he had a history with techs coming out. I promptly smiled, left the box where it landed, and walk out leaving him standing there screaming like a 5 year old with crap in his diapers. Yep, bet his employees were real impressed with that one.

It's a small world and you never know who you are going to run into. I saw him out on the town one night and made sure he got the point, that if he was willing to try that again, now was the time and I wasn't on the clock. He apologized, face red, and his lady friend saw how much of a puss he really was. Ah, how sweet life can be at times.

Everyone is entitled to have a bad day or make mistakes, but taking things out on someone who hasn't caused the issue and is merely trying to help is never the best approach. I have found that in IT, you are a counselor, doctor, psychologist, teacher, and friend...all balled into one. Now, if we could only get into the same pay scales, eh?

erpadmin

motogpman wrote: »

It's a small world and you never know who you are going to run into. I saw him out on the town one night and made sure he got the point, that if he was willing to try that again, now was the time and I wasn't on the clock. He apologized, face red, and his lady friend saw how much of a puss he really was. Ah, how sweet life can be at times.

Priceless! I have to rep this....lol.

Unfortunately, in the PRNJ, such actions would have involved police and/or HR visits. No such thing as a "fair one" anymore...people have become little schoolgirls.

The best I could hope for in that scenario is to allow him the first punch and let it land. At least then after I give the proper treatment, I can claim self-defense.

Computadora

I am glad I do not have to deal directly with the customer/client anymore. While it was stressful to deal with them, it did teach me valuable people skills in hearing and patience.

I remember when I was working tier 1 for a large SP on my first day on the phones I happen to get one of the known smart-a$$ customers who like to ask you every little detail even though they already know the answer themselves, and I happened to be still in training but anyhow i had to sit there horrified while i was getting chewed out on the other side of the line, only replying back with ah yes, maybe, no. Anyways, after he was done with his tirade, he told me to hang up the phone, so I did. And all along this time the the guy training me sitting next to me had this puzzled look on his face like wtf happened?

I explained to him, and he said right away, oh you got one of those engineers rotten luck for first phone call, don't sweat it.

sidsanders

geez.. i used to think i had it rough with oddball calls. i dont think i have anything close to some of these.

closest i could come was with responses to the outlook security test we would send out back in the "old days" (2000/2001). this was when outlook didnt protect against vbs and other worms very well from using the gal. so we wrote detailed info for folks to follow to check that the patches we had for outlook 2000 were installed (basically, send a test email with a file that should be blocked on the users outlook client) and... wow.

had folks who simply didnt read the directions, or worse, wrote back and asked questions on the color of the "outlook blocked access to ..." area. or didnt understand top of email meant... top of email. the worst was getting a response saying they were able to click the link in the test email -- my sig at the time included a link to freebsd. some how they translated mail.vbs ATTACHEMENT to The FreeBSD Project. rather than go through more explanations i simply removed my sig...

RobertKaucher

Slowhand wrote: »

"Absolutely, we will definitely make sure to inform you ahead of time, the next time we have an UNPLANNED outage. Of course-- are you completely out of your mind?!? ...

One of my buddies was working as a contractor once and when he handed over the project to the production sys admin the guy asked him if he could provide him with a list of all unforeseen potential issues that might arise. The guy was being completely serious.

The two had been working together for a few weeks and had a good relationship. My friend looked him in the face and said I'll have to email them to you. I keep those next to list of future lottery numbers and winners of the World Series. The guy laughed and apologized once he realized what he had said.

americanpie3

I have hundreds of these and this thread can go on foever.

Here's a short on.

A customer of mine was convinced that everytime he 2x clicked a picture to open it, the image degrades in quality. So convinced of this he even told us to test it out.

motogpman

Thanks ERP. I think that people are so afraid nowadays to speak up for themselves, guys like this are the typical jerks who monopolize on that fear. For his sake, I hope that lesson learned was to show a little more respect for people. And there wasn't any physical contact, people like him are easy to figure out. The look on a person's face when they realize that it's judgement day is always priceless.

I love Texas, you can still defend yourself, your family/friends, and your property without being sent to the cleaners. That's why my motto is, " I am as professional as people allow me to be." I have relatives in NJ, would like to get up that way soon. BTW, hope ya'll up in those areas area safe with all the bad weather that's hitting.

RobertKaucher

americanpie3 wrote: »

I have hundreds of these and this thread can go on foever.

Here's a short on.

A customer of mine was convinced that everytime he 2x clicked a picture to open it, the image degrades in quality. So convinced of this he even told us to test it out.

You should have written an app that "simulated clicks" and each time the image was displayed removed a group of pixels until it spelled out "YOU ARE STUPID."

it_consultant

Ahriakin wrote: »

Trying to convince the 'techies' at a partner company that no our Firewall wasn't re-writing the packet payload and changing their command strings...over and over and over again....And if I had a dime for every time one of our own programmers walked past my office muttering to someone else about Firewall this/Firewall that. It doesn't matter there are quite a lot of them and they have absolutely no idea of their capabilities or whether there is one actually in the path of their data (god forbid they might ask before trying to create new network based servers, that would ruin the surprise of finding out that no the traffic isn't magically allowed just because it's them) "THE" Firewall is in fact a great black hole responsible for crashing servers 5 hops away, powering them down, eating babies etc.

Re-writing packet payload? See what very little technical information can do to active imaginations?

erpadmin

motogpman wrote: »

Thanks ERP. I think that people are so afraid nowadays to speak up for themselves, guys like this are the typical jerks who monopolize on that fear. For his sake, I hope that lesson learned was to show a little more respect for people. And there wasn't any physical contact, people like him are easy to figure out. The look on a person's face when they realize that it's judgement day is always priceless.

I love Texas, you can still defend yourself, your family/friends, and your property without being sent to the cleaners. That's why my motto is, " I am as professional as people allow me to be." I have relatives in NJ, would like to get up that way soon. BTW, hope ya'll up in those areas area safe with all the bad weather that's hitting.

Thanks man, roads are clear right now. With the MLK holiday upon us, I'm just staying home and getting schoolwork done, as soon as I click send. But yeah, a little psychology, part testicular fortitude, and a willingness to properly teach someone a lesson as a last resort really does go a long way on dealing with jerks like that.

I've been to Texas twice. First time was to Houston, Austin and Galveston and Austin is a place I would one day want as my future home (whether I'm working or retired). Second time was San Antonio and man I liked that place, especially the Alamo and Riverwalk. I can't wait to go back there.