Work: Narratives

[andygates]

It's entertaining watching the story emerge from the (garbled) details of a helpdesk call.  "Mai printer is borken!", for example, becomes: Dr Moustache decides that the default password on a device is silly, and changes it; he also changes the default accounting code, thinking they're the same. He goes skiing in Whistler before telling anyone (it won't matter, after all, only he needs to know).  The accounting code, having changed, now causes all prints to be dropped as from a mismatched account - hence the user's call - and we check the server-side accounting widgets before attending, only to discover this admin password change.  To reset the password requires a suppliers' engineer to visit, which is covered on our support contract -- except that the contract hasn't been paid, and the person who can pay it off, he's waxing his skis and 'tache up on the Big Red Express in the lovely fresh powder until the new year.

Users.  Love 'em.

Comments

[despaer.livejournal.com]

If he's that dumb, he might have used his personal login password for the printer. Can you copy it out of the password DB? I don't know how locked down those things are to sysadmins.

Failing that, change his password for him and then explain to him at length the error of his ways when he comes back?

[andygates.livejournal.com]

No, passwords are scrambled ("hashed") on the way in. This gadget's password is unrelated to anything else, so I'm going to cut my losses and let the engineer visit. These sort of problems can be a hellish time-sink.

[teahisme.livejournal.com]

I'm not techy and that sounds like a giant time/energy-sink to me.

[teahisme.livejournal.com]

Any chance of setting Dr. Moustache's moustache on fire in some sort of freak accident? Or just shaving off half of it one day when he has fallen asleep at work? >.>

[andygates.livejournal.com]

You just described my career!