Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Confession: Being Unsupportable

Collapse
This topic is closed.
X
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Confession: Being Unsupportable

    Now as an excuse in my favour I should point out that with our ISP we generally have three or four internet outages a day, which we've had hell trying to get the company to acknowledge but they do occasionally. On Sunday for example we finally got them to admit that we'd had six outages, which apparently is 'abnormal activity'. Anyway, yesterday when I was trying to access the Open University site I'd finally had enough and called tech support.

    ME - Me
    VT - Victimised Technician

    ME: Hello. Our line number is <blah>, I want to report a problem with the line.
    VT: What's the problem with it?
    ME: I can't access the internet over it. Just getting no connection whatsoever.
    VT: Have you checked your hardware? Are you on a network?
    ME: Yes, and yes, I'm on a network. The hardware diagnostics are feeding back fine, and we've got full network connectivity. The internet's actually picked up again now but I'd like to see if there's a problem on our line.
    VT: Well, our logs show that you've been connected since 2150 last night without a break, so if its working again then it must've been your hardware.

    Side note: I wired up our entire network, carefully. I know every inch of that system. I am extremely protective of it, and more importantly I *know* that it is working.

    ME: Its definitely not our hardware, if you check back in the logs you'll notice that we've had a lot of faults on the line. We've had others which you've denied, but every test I can run shows that everything at our end is working.
    VT: Well, our line tests show no faults on the line. We can send an engineer out, but the phone company'll charge you for it if there's no fault found.
    ME: Well what are the other options, there's no problem at our end, and as far as we can make out the line's fine. I don't want to pay for an engineer if its a fault at your end of the line and I know that you won't pay for it if it is.
    VT: I'm afraid until an engineer's been out we can't check at our end, we need to make sure the line's okay first.
    ME: But I don't want to pay £85 for an engineer to come out if the fault's at your end rather than on the line. I mean, its getting somewhat annoying having unreliable internet, this line is used for business as well as my own personal use and an outage at the wrong time could mean that we lose our backup, or don't receive important communication.

    Side note: Yes, we could lose a backup, the backup runs each night over the internet and gets stored with our nice friends at the backup company. This bit wasn't where I demonstrated suckiness. The next bit is.

    VT: Well I don't think you'd lose a backup.
    ME: Trust me, we could. Now what can you do, or are there any tests I could run?
    VT: You could try resetting your router...
    ME(Interrupting): We've done that before when we've had these outages, never seems to work. I've tried swapping the router out for some of the others we've got.
    VT: Are those ones known good?
    ME: They were when we tested them a few months ago, but I suppose they could've failed in those months.
    VT: Well there you go then. Must be a failed router.
    ME: So how long can we have a router to persuade you its known good? Are we talking days, hours, minutes here? A brand new router could be faulty. What do I need to do to persuade you there's something wrong with the line?
    VT: Well you can get a known good router, and set it up with a single point of failure...
    ME(Interrupting again and starting to lose my temper): We've tried that before, and its failed. Now you're telling me that we can't actually get a known good router, and before when I've tried running that setup and the internet's failed you've told me it must be at my end. You won't give me any way to... (insert long rant about working in IT, knowing what I'm doing, etc)
    VT: Well since you said the internet's working I don't think there's anything I can do. If you call back when your internet fails again then I'll try to help you then. Have a good day.
    ME: And yourself.
    (End call)

    Two minutes later, my girlfriend comes downstairs holding a ferret...the ferret has my desktop's wireless aerial in its mouth and is chewing happily.
    Proactive Karma Engineer

  • #2


    Pet = replacing equipment every 4 months
    I've lost my mind ages ago. If you find it, please hide it.

    Comment


    • #3
      Quoth Mr B Rabbit View Post
      Two minutes later, my girlfriend comes downstairs holding a ferret...the ferret has my desktop's wireless aerial in its mouth and is chewing happily.
      That's hilarious. Small bit of karma for ya?

      Comment


      • #4
        My parrots are obessed with my mouse cords. Mimi has killed at least three mice herself. I hae a wireless Wacom now. Now she's trying to debutton it.
        Do radioactive cats have 18 half-lives?

        Comment


        • #5
          I'm lucky that my Phantom dun touch anything that isn't place in her mouth.

          She once gutted my collection of Unicorn plushes and mom said she was just a puppy...

          TIL she ate her hat.

          Mom poured Tabasco on the piece of leftover hat, put it in Phantom's mouth and held it shut.

          you will think it's cruel, but now Phantom will only chew what we give her.
          Now would be a good time to visit So Very Unofficial!

          "I've had so many nasty customers this week, my bottomless pit is now ankle-deep."-Me.

          Comment

          Working...
          X