Field Technician Horror Stories, post yours!

[gunf1ghter]

OK, here goes.

I have run into lots of bizarre and scary things while working with my field technicians... My favorite one by far:

Customer observes that they have a few problems with the data on this UNIX server... investigation shows that the drive has reported a few bad sectors.. dispatch a technician to assist with replacement of the disk drive.

Technician calls me (the engineer) and says, "This hard drive is fine, I don't need to replace it". I ask him how he knows that the drive is fine. He responds, "I'm sitting here looking at the little platters spinning and it looks like it's working great"

I just about had a heart attack... turns out that this guy styled himself some kind of do it yourself mechanic type and decided to take the drive out of the server (while it was running) put the drive on top of the chassis and proceeded to remove the cover to the drive (for the un-initiated, something that probably should never be done outside of a cleanroom and certainly not on a disk that's running). He then just kind of sat there watching the drive run. Amazingly enough the thing stayed up long enough for me to remotely back all of the data up and replace the disk.

 

[OutHouse]

last week i was walking a customer in Kentucky through a Citrix install so he could connect to our Citrix server to run a app so i asked him to ping our address 63.*.*.*

he couldnt so after 15 min of checking everything (which was fine) i asked him what he typed.

ping sixtythree.....

damn!!

 

[rudder]

Technician calls me (the engineer) and says, "This hard drive is fine, I don't need to replace it". I ask him how he knows that the drive is fine. He responds, "I'm sitting here looking at the little platters spinning and it looks like it's working great"


Whats wrong with a little dust on a drive platter? Just blow it off.

Damn that is the worst story I have heard.

 

[PsychoAndy]

friend asked to fix dad's palm vx. turned on. black screen. adjusted contrast.

 

[thebestMAX]

Old but back in the days of the 5 1/4 and larger floppies, this customer couldnt boot or load files.

They were storing floppies held to side of filing cabinet with magnets.

 

[Pepsei]

yesterday the fags at the helpdesk couldn't figure why a printer couldn't print in Bristol via lexmark print server.

it went to second level and they could figure it out. when the ticket came to me a few hours later, took me just seconds to http into the print server and figure out that the printer cable connecting to the lexmark was loose.

i guess we have bunch of morons at the helpdesk....

 

[gunf1ghter]

rudder... go ahead and open up a few of your hard drives and get back to me.

 

[arod]

<< Old but back in the days of the 5 1/4 and larger floppies, this customer couldnt boot or load files.

They were storing floppies held to side of filing cabinet with magnets. >>



Mines a little different than that but some guy tried to stick a CD in the 5 1/4 drive... the funny thing is he shoved it all the way in w/o realizing it didnt work. That was a pain in the @ss to get out

 

[desy]

Client phones me this morning.
I changed my password yesterday, I forgot it, can I go in and change it again?
No, no you can't here its your new one 'forgetfull'

 

[gunf1ghter]

That's the number one reason we need biometric security... simple 4 digit pin and a thumbprint for everything.

 

[ZaneNBK]

Back in the days when I did cash register repair on site (shortly after high-school), I got a call from the company we contract for on a Sunday to go do an emergency repair. Well I drive TWO HOURS EACH WAY to get to store in question and start looking at their register. Evidentally it wasn't processing CC transactions (although the other register was, so I'm not sure why this warranted a Sunday drive). Well I ask the guy behind the counter where the phone jack it plugs into is, so I can test the line and he follows the cable down to the wall, picks up the DISCONNECTED end and shows it to me. Argh. Plugged the damn thing back in and it worked fine.

The saddest part about the wasted four hours of driving is that the guy went through phone support before I ever heard about it. *rolls eyes*

 

[MooseKnuckle]

Well, I've been doing field service for 15 yrs. and have many stories, but this one is by far the best. My customer calls and states that the printer is "spitting" toner all over her office. I laughed and told my boss "I'm not going there, it's almost lunchtime." He insisted I go and then I could have the rest of the afternoon off. As soon as I get to the customer's location, the woman in the office is ranting and raving about the toner "spitting" all over. I can't help but notice the black substance all over, so I open the printer and all is well inside. I start looking around the office for the source of the mysterious black substance and I tell the old woman that the printer is fine. She immediately disagrees with my diagnosis and says " I'll prove it to you". I said "okay", next thing I know, she reaches in her desk drawer and pulls out her underwear with black spots all over them. I gasped in shock, then she told me it seeped through her pants to her undies and she had to go home and change at lunchtime. Her boss is watching from the next room, his chin hits the floor in disbelief and he rushes to my aid. At this point, he's embarrassed and apologizes to me and told me I could leave if I wasn't comfortable. After uncovering my eyes, I told him it's cool and let's figure out his problem. I wiped the black stuff with my fingers and realized it was "oily". So, I then look up at the A/C duct in the ceiling and see the same stuff on the vent louvers. Now that the source was found, I head for the door.

BTW, the undies were the size of a parachute. :Q

 

[gunf1ghter]

Gahhh!!!!!!!

:Q

 

[Geekbabe]

<< Well, I've been doing field service for 15 yrs. and have many stories, but this one is by far the best. My customer calls and states that the printer is "spitting" toner all over her office. I laughed and told my boss "I'm not going there, it's almost lunchtime." He insisted I go and then I could have the rest of the afternoon off. As soon as I get to the customer's location, the woman in the office is ranting and raving about the toner "spitting" all over. I can't help but notice the black substance all over, so I open the printer and all is well inside. I start looking around the office for the source of the mysterious black substance and I tell the old woman that the printer is fine. She immediately disagrees with my diagnosis and says " I'll prove it to you". I said "okay", next thing I know, she reaches in her desk drawer and pulls out her underwear with black spots all over them. I gasped in shock, then she told me it seeped through her pants to her undies and she had to go home and change at lunchtime. Her boss is watching from the next room, his chin hits the floor in disbelief and he rushes to my aid. At this point, he's embarrassed and apologizes to me and told me I could leave if I wasn't comfortable. After uncovering my eyes, I told him it's cool and let's figure out his problem. I wiped the black stuff with my fingers and realized it was "oily". So, I then look up at the A/C duct in the ceiling and see the same stuff on the vent louvers. Now that the source was found, I head for the door.

BTW, the undies were the size of a parachute. :Q >>




omg !!!!! that is soooo funny



<--laughing so hard I'm almost crying