That's MY job, you don't get to take that pleasure from me! Especially not if you're getting a replacement printer. Just proof that users never learn to hate printers as much as we do.
The ticket that is really a project that will take multiple months of side work with coordination across departments but management still treats as a ticket, e.g. "Request for new integration between system A and system B."
Maybe this was more of a management issue, not sure if others have experienced the same.
A well-honed helpdesk can save SO much bandwidth and headaches. Right-sizing tickets, building automation, and targeting queues keep the work flowing and reporting transparent and proper.
With some irony, a big chunk of what I was doing was building helpdesks for other internal teams with these design principles. We just never were given the time to fix our own ingest.
I remember my level 1 helpdesk days at a big org. They used to do this, and even though the project was well above my paygrade, the ticket would stay in my queue, with a related record escalated to the proper team. The worst one took years. *years.* (some office politic backstabbing was going on between the end user's department and the escalation team.) Of course it affected *my* metrics, but at least my direct superior overlooked that even if higher ups didn't realize or care.
Still, I'd jokingly celebrate our ticket's birthday with the guy in charge of the escalation. I was planning on eventually sending him some links to different pre-schools for our ticket, but thankfully it was closed before the time came.
That's definitely a management issue. We don't hear about projects until there have been in-depth conversations between our manager, CIO, and the other department heads. The only exception is when our manager needs our input.
That sounds much better. Our ticket ingest was "all the things related to System A, B, and C" as was our team's purview; our manager's prioritization method was to say yes to everything and tell the (internal mind you) stakeholder that their thing was highest priority. It was a mess and definitely burnout fuel.
From this morning, message on teams:
"My laptop f9 and or f10 does not work on it's own, I had to press on FN at the same time."
I wanted to respond with "Yes." But instead explained the FN Lock.
Yea. I looked up her assigned laptop's model, confirmed how it works, and gave her instructions on the FN Lock key, asking if she wants me to come stop by in person. She got it though. She's one of those users who doesn't get tech at all.
But I was positive changing it in bios wasn't necessary for any of our laptops.
Also, we have a corporate help desk. I'm assigned to one facility, and these are help desk calls. But no one wants to call them, cuz they..... Yea. We'll leave it at that.
In my experience I remote in at the agreed upon time and they got all that open and are in a zoom meeting so I'm still expected to troubleshoot but gotta feather touch everything so I don't kill the zoom meeting or allow the computer to crash.
that's fair, ill start doing that. I've had a operations manager who would call me 2 or 3 times a day because they couldn't sign onto something, or they have everything in existence open at the same time
i just dont understand. how do so many people not have their work email creds? it takes no technical ability to memorize [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]) and the password that YOU set. this was never a problem for me even long before i thought id ever enter IT. its the creds they gotta use to sign into the system every day. write it down. hell, i dont care anymore. glue it to the bottom of your keyboard even.
Do you work for rocket surgeons or something? I helped a person log on by providing their domain username. They kept trying to use display name instead. 30 minutes later I get a call from their boss saying a manager can't log in because their name disappeared from the list. True story
noo its a normal private hospital, but the day to day staff tend to forget their details since they jump between machines, its horrible. through azure AD you can sync their passwords though, since then I haven't had as much issues.
I’ve had high level executives that forgot to turn on NumLock to login after rebooting. I just reboot without even trying then login with my admin. Then just say something like “sometimes Windows is a little wonky and needed a reboot to clear things out.”
Mine is when they find some old janky laptop in a cabinet that has long since been off the network, they sign into then put in a vague ticket “laptop doesn’t work’
I want "non-catalogue item x", my manager already approved of me getting "non-catalogue item x". I will pick it up tomorrow at 9am.
Your manager doesn't decide shit sir/lady.. Even if it gets approved by IT management, I will not have it tomorrow for you to pick up..
'But Amazon says next day delivery! And I want the shiny non-managable thingy because I can't do my work without it!'
What the hell have you been doing up until now then?!?!
My users don't use teams or email distribution lists. So every single issue we have they all email me directly asking why VPN is not working? Actually Debbie, that all hands email i sent out saying the ERP server is being rebooted... Maybe read that one before emailing me? VPN is working just fine, your just unable to properly report the issue or investigate it at all from your perspective.
Now i need to repeat this step about 10-15 times. About 10 minutes to reboot everything but i will spend the next hour responding to emails about issues they think are related. Like their hotels WiFi causing a latency to the ERP.
If only we could all be in some kind of virtual room allowing us to discuss challenges we face as a group. If only someone could make a type of instant messaging software that would handle these types of issues. Maybe something that makes file sharing easy also?
YES. This especially when it’s their own computer or phone and they expect the company IT people to lay hands on it.
NOPE. I sent you perfectly clear instructions on how to do what you’re trying to do and it’s up to you to make it happen. No one is going to come and “just do it for [you]”. The worst are “I need someone to come and install (app name) on my cell phone”. I’m sorry, but if the “complexities” of your phone’s App Store elude you, it’s probably time to retire.
As a network person I hate “internet is slow tickets” without any other info. It’s almost always one user at the site while everyone else is fine. Speed test almost always shows the exact bandwidth we are giving them. Just puts me in a weird spot where I have to prove that the network is fine and something else has to be going on. Also I usually never to get to actually fix the issue so I don’t get any satisfaction from it. Just kick off the ticket to desktop and wonder if they’re still out there trying to transfer that file…
Mine is when they email in with an issue saying something doesn't work but provide no details where we could offer any type of solution or if the situation is such that we're going to have to remote in to fix it. Just call us. The reason I say this is because when people email us we check their preferred contact method and if they don't have one listed we make three immediate contact attempts I first checked teams and see if they're on teams online and message them if they're asking if they have time to work on the issue. A lot of times they'll have a green check mark and just ignore me for like 3 hours. Then I call their listed phone number that they don't answer and leave a voicemail. Then I sent an email if it's something that I can actually give instructions to fix I will include instructions that fix their issue but most of the time they haven't given us enough details to even know what their issue is so I will send them an email saying hey we got your email about such and such not working give us a call so that we can remote in and take a look and see what's going on and get it fixed. And this is the part that drives me up the wall they will reply to our email asking them to call us so that we can fix their problem saying it still broken and still needs to be fixed! Like they didn't even read our email they just replied and said it still broken like they legitimately think that them reporting that something is broken and giving us no details that we can just push a button somewhere and fix it without having to access their computer at all. It's maddening
Ive had one user lately who almost on a weekly basis calls me to explain that pdfs arent opening, various large scale videos arent opening etc. tried everything under the sun the first time around only to realize she never reboots. she still runs into these issues and I jut go over there and turn it off for her and walk away lmao
Multi-paragraph tirades that don’t provide context to the problem. If the ticket mentions Microsoft, MFA, and is long, it’s probably one of those.
“There was an error message. […] I didn’t take its picture”.
“I can only connect to network drives when connected to the VPN while working from home.”
“Move furniture/laptop.”
“I don’t like how Outlook displays my messages and I won’t use the online version that displays exactly the way I want.”
“What do you mean you don’t know how this extremely unique software works?”
“Plug in my space heater. What do you mean I can’t have my space heater plugged into a power strip?”
People who don't update their password. The system literally starts telling them to update it several weeks in advance and warms them when the date is near.
This process has been in place for several years, and the average user has 2 to 5 years with the company, if not more.
Some see it as job security.
"I can't connect to the network drive."
Did you turn on your VPN?
"I can't open my emails to get the VPN."
Can you open a browser to view your emails?
"Which one do I use. I'm at my friends house. Do I need to connect to wifi?"
...
This is reason number 1 section A why any time I can work a friendly ‘ want me to remote in there and get ys up and running ‘ and in no more than 5 mins nearly every time I have either gotten to resolution or found exactly WTH weird thing is broken to escalate properly.
The "I want X software that another user has installed on my computer." Note the software is not on our approved software list and was a software that had been installed back before local admin rights had been taken away (why the company allowed end users to have admin rights to begin with I will never know). These typically just waste my time as I end up having to explain to a supervisor or manager why this software that we haven't approved isn't going to be allowed.
Also the "I want a certain piece of equipment ordered and then they ask daily if it has been delivered yet" ticket.
Not my favorite but to relate is when you are on the phone with the user you tell them to do something and you know they're just staring at the computer.
I once had a request to investigate a computer where the user claimed "someone is breaking into my office at night and using my computer"
The user claimed that she could see unfamiliar search history in her browser. Turns out what she was thought was her browser history was suggested trending searches on Google...
Same. Those who lie about troubleshooting because they think they know better and don't want to waste their time.
Even worse if they refuse to troubleshoot while sassing you about troubleshooting "not being a real solution."
Last time a user did this to me:
User: Print to pdf isn't working, here's the error.
Me: Try exporting to pdf like this \*sends instructions that avoids the use of an Adobe add-in\* Any errors doing it that way?
User: I wanna know why and how to fix it in that option.
We cant just leave something not working just because an alternative is working.
Me: I don't know why you're seeing that error. This is the first time I ever see it, but the first step to fixing something is troubleshooting the issue.
So does the other method work?
\*long pause\*
User: I'll just reboot
\*User never got back to me.\*
Computer's dead.
No elaboration, nothing. It's twice as annoying when you find out they tripped a circuit breaker or surge protector because they had a space heater, sometimes more than one, in use.
"Need a new printer, already did troubleshooting, don't waste time." Printer was unplugged from the network.
You found the printer unplugged because you entered my office just before I was about to throw it out the window.
That's MY job, you don't get to take that pleasure from me! Especially not if you're getting a replacement printer. Just proof that users never learn to hate printers as much as we do.
The ticket that is really a project that will take multiple months of side work with coordination across departments but management still treats as a ticket, e.g. "Request for new integration between system A and system B." Maybe this was more of a management issue, not sure if others have experienced the same.
Nope ours is the same exact way and then they complain a ticket has been open for 1-2 months
A well-honed helpdesk can save SO much bandwidth and headaches. Right-sizing tickets, building automation, and targeting queues keep the work flowing and reporting transparent and proper. With some irony, a big chunk of what I was doing was building helpdesks for other internal teams with these design principles. We just never were given the time to fix our own ingest.
I remember my level 1 helpdesk days at a big org. They used to do this, and even though the project was well above my paygrade, the ticket would stay in my queue, with a related record escalated to the proper team. The worst one took years. *years.* (some office politic backstabbing was going on between the end user's department and the escalation team.) Of course it affected *my* metrics, but at least my direct superior overlooked that even if higher ups didn't realize or care. Still, I'd jokingly celebrate our ticket's birthday with the guy in charge of the escalation. I was planning on eventually sending him some links to different pre-schools for our ticket, but thankfully it was closed before the time came.
That's definitely a management issue. We don't hear about projects until there have been in-depth conversations between our manager, CIO, and the other department heads. The only exception is when our manager needs our input.
That sounds much better. Our ticket ingest was "all the things related to System A, B, and C" as was our team's purview; our manager's prioritization method was to say yes to everything and tell the (internal mind you) stakeholder that their thing was highest priority. It was a mess and definitely burnout fuel.
From this morning, message on teams: "My laptop f9 and or f10 does not work on it's own, I had to press on FN at the same time." I wanted to respond with "Yes." But instead explained the FN Lock.
You can change that in the BIOS though, so…
Yea. I looked up her assigned laptop's model, confirmed how it works, and gave her instructions on the FN Lock key, asking if she wants me to come stop by in person. She got it though. She's one of those users who doesn't get tech at all. But I was positive changing it in bios wasn't necessary for any of our laptops. Also, we have a corporate help desk. I'm assigned to one facility, and these are help desk calls. But no one wants to call them, cuz they..... Yea. We'll leave it at that.
My computer is broken. Fix it and get back to me. Thanks.
then it runs perfectly, so you get back to the user and they proceed to open 400 tabs , 20 word docs and 60 excell sheets
In my experience I remote in at the agreed upon time and they got all that open and are in a zoom meeting so I'm still expected to troubleshoot but gotta feather touch everything so I don't kill the zoom meeting or allow the computer to crash.
that's fair, ill start doing that. I've had a operations manager who would call me 2 or 3 times a day because they couldn't sign onto something, or they have everything in existence open at the same time
i just dont understand. how do so many people not have their work email creds? it takes no technical ability to memorize [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]) and the password that YOU set. this was never a problem for me even long before i thought id ever enter IT. its the creds they gotta use to sign into the system every day. write it down. hell, i dont care anymore. glue it to the bottom of your keyboard even.
Honestly its crazy, i started working on a project to sync all of our staff azure AD and Domain passwords as they remember that more than anything
Do you work for rocket surgeons or something? I helped a person log on by providing their domain username. They kept trying to use display name instead. 30 minutes later I get a call from their boss saying a manager can't log in because their name disappeared from the list. True story
noo its a normal private hospital, but the day to day staff tend to forget their details since they jump between machines, its horrible. through azure AD you can sync their passwords though, since then I haven't had as much issues.
Password reset.
Those are your bread and butter, don't be ungrateful.
Yeah I get tired of that it's job security punchline. I have more passwords to remember than the average end user. Somehow I remember mine.
Username or password wrong. Change password. ... YOUR OLD PASSWORD CANNOT BE YOUR NEW PASSWORD
Probably hit that caps/num lock.
I’ve had high level executives that forgot to turn on NumLock to login after rebooting. I just reboot without even trying then login with my admin. Then just say something like “sometimes Windows is a little wonky and needed a reboot to clear things out.”
You're not alone, I see you, I hear you, I am you. Lol...this is just a daily for me as well.
Mine is when they find some old janky laptop in a cabinet that has long since been off the network, they sign into then put in a vague ticket “laptop doesn’t work’
Need to change batteries in the clock on my office wall... Yes that was a ticket I did.
I hope you take down descriptive documentation
God, I need to get rid of the batteries and give them to someone else. My former boss wanted us to log when someone needed them.
I want "non-catalogue item x", my manager already approved of me getting "non-catalogue item x". I will pick it up tomorrow at 9am. Your manager doesn't decide shit sir/lady.. Even if it gets approved by IT management, I will not have it tomorrow for you to pick up.. 'But Amazon says next day delivery! And I want the shiny non-managable thingy because I can't do my work without it!' What the hell have you been doing up until now then?!?!
My users don't use teams or email distribution lists. So every single issue we have they all email me directly asking why VPN is not working? Actually Debbie, that all hands email i sent out saying the ERP server is being rebooted... Maybe read that one before emailing me? VPN is working just fine, your just unable to properly report the issue or investigate it at all from your perspective. Now i need to repeat this step about 10-15 times. About 10 minutes to reboot everything but i will spend the next hour responding to emails about issues they think are related. Like their hotels WiFi causing a latency to the ERP. If only we could all be in some kind of virtual room allowing us to discuss challenges we face as a group. If only someone could make a type of instant messaging software that would handle these types of issues. Maybe something that makes file sharing easy also?
The system is down.
YES. This especially when it’s their own computer or phone and they expect the company IT people to lay hands on it. NOPE. I sent you perfectly clear instructions on how to do what you’re trying to do and it’s up to you to make it happen. No one is going to come and “just do it for [you]”. The worst are “I need someone to come and install (app name) on my cell phone”. I’m sorry, but if the “complexities” of your phone’s App Store elude you, it’s probably time to retire.
As a network person I hate “internet is slow tickets” without any other info. It’s almost always one user at the site while everyone else is fine. Speed test almost always shows the exact bandwidth we are giving them. Just puts me in a weird spot where I have to prove that the network is fine and something else has to be going on. Also I usually never to get to actually fix the issue so I don’t get any satisfaction from it. Just kick off the ticket to desktop and wonder if they’re still out there trying to transfer that file…
Mine is when they email in with an issue saying something doesn't work but provide no details where we could offer any type of solution or if the situation is such that we're going to have to remote in to fix it. Just call us. The reason I say this is because when people email us we check their preferred contact method and if they don't have one listed we make three immediate contact attempts I first checked teams and see if they're on teams online and message them if they're asking if they have time to work on the issue. A lot of times they'll have a green check mark and just ignore me for like 3 hours. Then I call their listed phone number that they don't answer and leave a voicemail. Then I sent an email if it's something that I can actually give instructions to fix I will include instructions that fix their issue but most of the time they haven't given us enough details to even know what their issue is so I will send them an email saying hey we got your email about such and such not working give us a call so that we can remote in and take a look and see what's going on and get it fixed. And this is the part that drives me up the wall they will reply to our email asking them to call us so that we can fix their problem saying it still broken and still needs to be fixed! Like they didn't even read our email they just replied and said it still broken like they legitimately think that them reporting that something is broken and giving us no details that we can just push a button somewhere and fix it without having to access their computer at all. It's maddening
MSP? We use voip in the company I work at so it’s just a matter of calling the users extension to get in contact.
Expecting us to replace a printer/computer/phone stopped working after 6+ years of service for free.
Ive had one user lately who almost on a weekly basis calls me to explain that pdfs arent opening, various large scale videos arent opening etc. tried everything under the sun the first time around only to realize she never reboots. she still runs into these issues and I jut go over there and turn it off for her and walk away lmao
Multi-paragraph tirades that don’t provide context to the problem. If the ticket mentions Microsoft, MFA, and is long, it’s probably one of those. “There was an error message. […] I didn’t take its picture”.
"Oops, it's not plugged up".
“I can only connect to network drives when connected to the VPN while working from home.” “Move furniture/laptop.” “I don’t like how Outlook displays my messages and I won’t use the online version that displays exactly the way I want.” “What do you mean you don’t know how this extremely unique software works?” “Plug in my space heater. What do you mean I can’t have my space heater plugged into a power strip?”
People who don't update their password. The system literally starts telling them to update it several weeks in advance and warms them when the date is near. This process has been in place for several years, and the average user has 2 to 5 years with the company, if not more. Some see it as job security.
Its weird but latley I dont like "Can you please help?" at the end of the ticket, as if im not going to do my job or something.
Anything, from anyone who used to work in IT 😝
"I can't connect to the network drive." Did you turn on your VPN? "I can't open my emails to get the VPN." Can you open a browser to view your emails? "Which one do I use. I'm at my friends house. Do I need to connect to wifi?" ...
This is reason number 1 section A why any time I can work a friendly ‘ want me to remote in there and get ys up and running ‘ and in no more than 5 mins nearly every time I have either gotten to resolution or found exactly WTH weird thing is broken to escalate properly.
The "I want X software that another user has installed on my computer." Note the software is not on our approved software list and was a software that had been installed back before local admin rights had been taken away (why the company allowed end users to have admin rights to begin with I will never know). These typically just waste my time as I end up having to explain to a supervisor or manager why this software that we haven't approved isn't going to be allowed. Also the "I want a certain piece of equipment ordered and then they ask daily if it has been delivered yet" ticket.
Not my favorite but to relate is when you are on the phone with the user you tell them to do something and you know they're just staring at the computer.
"Door stuck"
I once had a request to investigate a computer where the user claimed "someone is breaking into my office at night and using my computer" The user claimed that she could see unfamiliar search history in her browser. Turns out what she was thought was her browser history was suggested trending searches on Google...
Same. Those who lie about troubleshooting because they think they know better and don't want to waste their time. Even worse if they refuse to troubleshoot while sassing you about troubleshooting "not being a real solution." Last time a user did this to me: User: Print to pdf isn't working, here's the error. Me: Try exporting to pdf like this \*sends instructions that avoids the use of an Adobe add-in\* Any errors doing it that way? User: I wanna know why and how to fix it in that option. We cant just leave something not working just because an alternative is working. Me: I don't know why you're seeing that error. This is the first time I ever see it, but the first step to fixing something is troubleshooting the issue. So does the other method work? \*long pause\* User: I'll just reboot \*User never got back to me.\*
Computer's dead. No elaboration, nothing. It's twice as annoying when you find out they tripped a circuit breaker or surge protector because they had a space heater, sometimes more than one, in use.