You Just Can't Help Some People

[Jay 2K Winger]

I got told about this luser from my CW, Bow Tie.

Apparently, the luser in question was someone I'd assisted with a password reset earlier. BT comes up to me and asks me if I remembered doing a password reset for <low network>. I just stared at him flatly. About half of my calls that day had been for <low network> password resets.

BT explains that the luser had called back because he couldn't get his password to reset. That the password I gave him wasn't working.

Now-- per regulations, I don't verbally give the passwords out, I send a secure email to the user when doing it. As the temporary password I tend to use has a zero in it, I even make sure to note in the email "that's a zero, not an O."

BT was doing everything he could, asking him to confirm that the Caps Lock wasn't on (it wasn't) and that the Num Lock WAS on (luser said it was). No, the luser wasn't using an international character keyboard setting.

Eventually the luser got the temp password to work... but he couldn't get it to accept his reset password. And around they went some more before it was finally discovered why luser was having so much trouble.

The Num Lock was OFF. And he'd been trying to enter a zero and entering no character at all.

Poor BT was on the phone with this guy for over 30 minutes trying to help him get the password reset.

Sigh.

[wraiths_crono]

Semi jack: Reminds me of the last pass reset I hated at work, the person said it was hard to type in my temp pass I gave her because there were missing letters on her keyboard...


back: wow, I love how some people say "i checked that" but never do.. annoying as hell.

[Ironclad Alibi]

Semi jack: Reminds me of the last pass reset I hated at work, the person said it was hard to type in my temp pass I gave her because there were missing letters on her keyboard...

That reminds me of a website I frequently visit that has the screwy letters code thing that has to be passed to enter the site. A lot of time they will have Greek letters in the words, which are not on my keyboard. I just refresh the page until it has all letters and numbers I can read.

[Gizmo]

That reminds me of a websiteI frequently visit that has the screwy letters code thing that has to be passed to enter the site. A lot of time they will have Greek letters in the words, which are not on my keyboard. I just refresh the page until it has all letters and numbers I can read.

I had one with Chinese or Japanese writing in it once!

[DeltaSierra]

I've occasionally accidentally hit CAPS LOCk unknowingly after entering my login, on places where the PW is case sensitive and then not realizing it until 3 times and I get the "maximum logins" error. Pisses me off that I'm that unattentive (usually its in the morning before the coffee's brewed) and that either requires waiting, or making a phone call to get a pw reset.

[Jay 2K Winger]

A new story in this vein...

Luser calls in with a problem. A link in an email he got isn't working. This sometimes happens. It's usually a matter of his system doesn't have a web browser set as the default. So I walk him through the steps to get that taken care of. But the link still isn't working.

So I remote in to help out.

What do I find?

The link he's trying to click? Is in a screenshot.



The screenshot is part of a series of them, showing him how to sign up for/launch a web course The Client offers. I help him launch the course, following the instructions in the screenshots, and am about to hang up when he asks me "Hey, could you type up what you just did so I can send this out to the rest of my office?"

J2K: "...what do you mean? How to get a browser set as default, or how to launch that course?"
Luser: "How to launch the course."



J2K: "Sir, you already have instructions, these are pictures, visual aids, if you will, for how to do it."

He seemed to get this, seemed apologetic about being so clueless, and went on his way.

[Jay 2K Winger]

Oh GOD.

The luser from the OP called back.

Scratch that. He called ME back.

If you'll recall, I'd assisted this luser last week. Due to the luser's lack of skill with realizing the difference between the Num Lock being ON as opposed to being OFF, he'd called us back and gotten Bow Tie, who spend about 45 minutes trying to get Luser into the system. Eventually he did, and all was well.

Until today.

I'm logged OFF of my phone for lunch. I've finished and am just using up the last of my break to read posts here-- when my phone rings. I don't think anything of this, exactly, and was expecting perhaps someone calling re: my account extension request. (My accounts at The Client are due to expire soon, so I submitted a request to renew/extend them.)

Oh, no. It's not them. It's Luser. Saying that the password I gave him doesn't work.



Now, I knew that he'd spoken with BT and should have been able to get into the system. But he called, I can't say "I can't help you" and so I help him out. I do confirm that he'd gotten into the system-- Luser says he didn't-- by reading off BT's ticket stating that he had.

I explain to Luser that this is why the password I gave him doesn't work. "You already reset your password last week when you spoke with BT. Neither the password I gave you nor the one he gave you will work now."

But I reset it again. I stay on to make sure it takes. It prompts him to change his password. Yay! But it throws up an error when he tries to reset it-- using a strong password longer than the minimum 12 characters-- because this is longer than most older Windows systems can handle. Instead of telling this warning "OK," Luser clicks 'Cancel' to go back and try again.

Sigh.

So I tell him to try again, only this time, it keeps rejecting his passwords. "The passwords do not match." Odd. He takes his time to type in the password, but it still throws up that error-- until Luser realizes he'd forgotten to put in the "old" (temp) password, and had input the new password in there instead.

Sigh.

He gets it right this time, and gets a NEW error. "You do not have permission to change your password."



This is an error that sometimes occurs at The Client. I tell Luser what to do: go to another workstation and log in from there, using the temp password I gave him, and he should be able to log in and change it there. If it still doesn't work, call back.

Please GOD let this work.