The Chronicles of Tier I

[draggar]

Yes. Our Tier I department must be trained monkeys.

No, wait, I think trained monkeys would do better. The limit if Tier I's support is reboot, if it didn't fix the problem, dispatch. Next call!

These are the people who sent me tickets because a light bulb was out or the AC is out.

This week we've had two winners.

First:
"Dataport (location)-D2 does not have a dial tone".

OK, the techies already see a problem. See, when a port is labeled "D2" it means it is DATA port #2. Last time I checked DATA didn't need a dial tone.

Second with this is that with our standard, rarely is D2 active. D1 is always active and D2 is only active if the person is approved for two data ports.

Second:
"Monitor displays "unmountable boot volume". Monitor must be bad - replace monitor".

Yep. replace the monitor because it is DISPLAYING an error message. (BTW - this error means either the OS is completely shot or the hard drive is bad - most likely the latter).

[Ironclad Alibi]

I hope that you are professional enough to read beyond the stated problems and also fix the unreported problems inherent in those trouble tickets. To wit, the users need to be replaced.

[draggar]

Yes I am, don't worry. I've gotten used to just contacting the user without really reading what Tier I did. Most of the time the problem isn't even close to what they had in the ticket.

D2 - yeah, D2 was not hot. The user just plugged it into the wrong port.

Monitor - had a PC loaded and out to the user in a couple of hours.

[Bandit]

My sympathies.

You must use the same Tier 1 Help(less) Desk as my outfit does.

It's usually easier to call the (l)user after I get a ticket than it is to try to figure out what the problem is from the ticket write-up.

B

[teh_blumchenkinder]

sheesh. Even I know that the monitor was not the problem there. (I feel dangerous.)

[draggar]

My sympathies.

You must use the same Tier 1 Help(less) Desk as my outfit does.

It's usually easier to call the (l)user after I get a ticket than it is to try to figure out what the problem is from the ticket write-up.

B

Most of my users just email me or knock on my door when there is an issue. When we close tickets we close them as a "walk in" (as in they came to me), remote resoltion (I resolved it without going to the PC (remote connection, talk-though etc..), or "dispatch" (I went to the PC.

I was actually put on a report because my walk in percentage was too high (over 95%) - you'd think they'd want that over dispatching?

[Teskeria]

I hope you fought that write up, pointing out that if Tier 1 actually did something resembling their job, users would not bypass them looking for someone competent?

Our tier 1 is just as bad. Sadly tier 2 can occasionally be the same. Once after an hour with tier 1. reboot. turn off system for 2 minutes. turn off system and unplug modem/router for 5 minutes. reboot. repeat. they told me they were escalating to tier 2. I would get a call from that area. So I sit by my phone the rest of my shift. no call. next morning I get an email they are shipping me a new system (I work at home currently). A couple months later my TL mentions they hadn't been able to recreate the issue from the old system I returned. At which point I told her exactly what they did to try 'resolving' it. And pointed out that if tier 2 had bothered to contact me, they may have been able to fix it without me waiting 3 days on company pay. (Tier 2 can log in and shadow or do remote stuff.)

[Difdi]

I can just imagine calling in for a burned out lightbulb, and being told to reboot it to see if that fixes the issue...

[draggar]

I hope you fought that write up, pointing out that if Tier 1 actually did something resembling their job, users would not bypass them looking for someone competent?

I wasn't written up, just put on a report because my "walk in" numbers were too high - they flagged and it looked like I was faking the numbers. My boss asked about it, I explained that yes the users did bring their equipment to me and it was dropped.

My walk-in numbers are still very high but no one is questioning it anymore.

[Jay 2K Winger]

Speaking as a Tier I helpdesk person, I can safely say that not all of us are like that. (Then again, the client I work for doesn't tend to hire complete lusers.)

There are, however, limits to what I can do. I do, however, try everything I have access to do. I also document it before sending it on to 1.5 or Tier 2.

I have had my 1.5 people (my supervisors, basically) bounce it back and tell me, basically, "Do this to fix it," and I have told them, "I did. It's in the worklog." And they just send it on without apologizing to me for not reading what I wrote.

And then there's the close-support folks, who aren't quite Tier 1, aren't quite Tier 2, and aren't 1.5, but have more access than I do. They hate getting tickets from us, apparently, and some of them actually try to find any excuse they can to make us look bad.

[draggar]

Jay, at least you (or your company's tier I) does something. Day in and day out I see "had the user reboot their computer, dispatching to local tech" almost word for word. I've seen tickets dispatched for things we can't even do (air conditioning, etc..) - these tickets went though Tier I!

I've done the tier I phone support thing for a computer company and we were good, we took care of most of the issues so that the tier II people could concentrate on the doozies. It just seems that my company has hired a group of people (or outsourced to a company) who aren't good at troubleshooting.

[Moon]

Your description of your Tech support reminded me of this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nn2FB1P_Mn8

Really funny show for those who live in England or US Residents with a Netflix subscription.

[lordlundar]

I can just imagine calling in for a burned out lightbulb, and being told to reboot it to see if that fixes the issue...

You laugh, but with the install work I've been doing, The staff phone the helpdesk to see if they can peel off the plastic protective film on the machines if we accidentally forget to. No lie.

[EricKei]

Off and on? What, no "is it plugged in?" ^_^ The scary thing is, I know that's no joke; that has been the solution to more enduser problems than I care to admit >_>

[draggar]

Off and on? What, no "is it plugged in?" ^_^ The scary thing is, I know that's no joke; that has been the solution to more enduser problems than I care to admit >_>

I used to do tech (phone) support for a computer company that primarily had two types of customers:

Military (we sold though AFX etc. *a lot*) and people who would purchase though home shopping networks. Mind you, at the time the home shopping network people were usually like the types you'd see on People of Walmart.

Can you guess which of the two gave us far fewer problems? Yep, military. You could always tell them, short and to the point.

The others would give you their lives stories at how all electronics hate them and how they can never get them to work. Commonly, something was unplugged.

Our AC was broken in the office again this morning (at one point it was 90 in my office and 87 in the LAN room). I had people knocking on my door asking when I would have it fixed.

We had a ticket come in from Tier I - a user wanted Adobe's creative suite. Now, for this, we need to get approval for such a high priced software that we pay per license (and we're looking at $150 MINIMUM). Of course, Tier I said to just install it even though the user hasn't been approved for it. How could it get worse?

It was noted that they wanted it for their home computer. When I spoke to the user I told them I could not install it on their home computer and they'd have to purchase it. Their response? "Tier I said you could download it from (drive) and burn it onto a DVD for me".

Since they knew the drive name I knew that they just didn't make it up. (Also, we've had a very strict policy that NO software from our licenses are to be installed on home computers).