The Chronicles of Tier I

[Merriweather]

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).

Sounds logical to me. And I'll throw out my TV if the show is bad too.

[draggar]

Another one came though - the user could not log into their computer. Not uncommon and not easy for people to handle remotely but some things caught me as odd.

First and foremost - it had Windows Vista. The closest we've ever come to having Vista on our PCs was for a few IT people to test it - that's it. It was too unstable and by the time the company considered having the whole IT department WIndows 7 was out and it was a lot easier to work with.

The person had an HP laptop. That's not odd since we have HPs but his model# was a little off. Hmm..

The applications he's mentioning aren't ours.

So I'm emailing back and fourth and trying to figure out things. I'm trying to narrow down how he got this PC but he's always avoiding the question. It has Vista so I need to upgrade it to Win7, etc.. He agrees to bring it in.

As soon as I saw it all the questions were answered - this is his personal laptop.

Um, you need to go though them, not me.

[draggar]

Here's an example of them leaving out some important factors.

Ticket says: User cannot connect to the network. I had them unplug the network cable and plug it back in. It is still not working dispatching.

First, this shows how well they go into troubleshooting. Talk about thorough.

So, I called the user and this was his issue:

He needed admin rights on his PC because the site he was at has a quirky firewall and he needed to give it a static IP address (not automatic). Our systems are set up so you can't do this w/o admin rights.

I can't get into the PC remotely (because he can't get there) but I had him do an ipconfig /release, then /flushdns, then /renew - unfortunately it didn't help.

He was able to go to a non-firewalled site and was able to get on but we can't do static IPs on this network because it can cause conflicts.

He had another ticket for the admin rights so unfortunately I had to close the ticket unresolved (I can't do anything with admin rights or else I'll get fired).

[Geek King]

He was able to go to a non-firewalled site and was able to get on but we can't do static IPs on this network because it can cause conflicts.

All you should have to do is mark the IP addy as reserved in the DHCP server IP address list, then hard set it on the user's PC. Just make sure the address you choose isn't already leased out (I like to use the current leased IP for the user, then you know it's not leased to another computer). If you instead have a networking team at your workplace, they should be able to give you a static IP to use.

We have to do this at my place for remote access to the state records database.

[draggar]

Much easier said than done.

I don't have access to the IP address list.
The server admins won't do it.
The user is a contractor and technically not an employee.
The need is for an "outside" site - since the contracted company owns it.
Even if he has a specific IP address if the equipment where he is at doesn't have it in its range then he won't have any connectivity.

[draggar]

I wonder if we hired George (google the chronicles of George).

Ticket says:

"User called in and cannot open any .ORA files. I had them try to open it with Reader and it would not open. Only .ORA files give this error. Dispatching."

First, I'm assuming "Reader' = Adobe Acrobat Reader?

Second, WTF? What next? "Caller cannot open a JPG - had them attempt it in xcel and it didn't work. Dispatching".

(.ORA files are commonly Oracle database files. Since we don't have (that I know of0 an Oracle based database program, the preferable choice would be MS Access and even if not that, MS Excel).

[draggar]

"User needs admin rights to install home printer. I had them reboot and they still cannot install the printer - dispatching".

Seriously???????

[draggar]

Two more tickets came in this morning:

1 - User cannot access a forbidden site. I had them reboot the computer and they still could not access the forbidden site. Dispatching.

Clearly Tier I does not know the meaning of "forbidden".

2 - Keyboard and mouse are unplugged. Dispatching.

I would LOVE to have heard this troubleshooting.

T1: OK, can you reboot the computer?
User: OK (pause), OK, it's rebooted.
T1: Are the keyboard and mouse still unplugged?
User: Yes.
T1: Let me remote in. (pause) Are they still unplugged?
User: Yes.
T1: OK, I can't seem to solve this, let me dispatch it to your local tech.

I swear this person works for my company, too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yTe6yEhgBw

[RottenFruit]

I experienced today something funny as well: I got a blind transfer and noticed that the Tier 1 actually did good work: S/He did understand the issue of the customer and find a support document from our internal area regarding this specific issue. S/He wrote that in the case, including the link. So, what does he do now? Transfers the customer to Tier 2...

[EricKei]

So, what does he do now? Transfers the customer to Tier 2...

Maybe the customer demanded to escalate for no good reason...?

[RottenFruit]

Maybe the customer demanded to escalate for no good reason...?

In such a case, write something like "customer makes supervisor request, transferring" into the case notes.