Helldesk Experiences

Credits: calle%lysator.liu.se (Calle Dybedahl)

Another department of VBC wanted someone who actually knows about Unix in their helpdesk, so they offered to pay more per hour for me to do that than the previous place did for me as a sysadmin, and as a good little conslutant I went...

"Helldesk, Calle, what can I do for you? Uhu. How long have you been waiting? Wait another few hours. Yes, the Exchange servers really are that slow. Yes, that sucks. If you give me your userid I'll log a complaint to the mailteam."

"Helldesk, Calle, what can I do for you? Uhu. Let me check here... Yep, your NT password has expired. I'll fix it for you. 60 days. No, I can't change that, it's company policy. You do get a warning -- if and only if you're running Outlook. Yes, that sucks for the Unix users. Yes, 60% of our users are Unix users. If you give me your userid I'll log a complaint for you."

"Helldesk, Calle, what can I do for you? Uhu. Anywhere between five minutes and three days, with an average of about half an hour. Yes, *days*. Yes, that's slower than paper mail. Yes, it used to take a few seconds, but that was before the Exchange servers. Certainly I can log a complaint for you. If I can just have your userid."

"Helldesk, Calle, what can I do for you? Your Netscape crashed when you tried to use the web publishing thingy? Try again. Good. If it crashes again, try a couple of times before calling. Yes, that sucks. Netscape is like that, and there's nothing we can do about it."

"Helldesk, Calle, what can I do for you? I see. Was it anything important? You were just testing? Actually, it's more like one mail in twenty that vanishes, so I guess you were a little less lucky than most. Yes, that sucks. Let me log a complaint..."

"Helldesk, Calle, what can I do for you? Ah, I see. It's a filedescriptor leak in fooware. It'll clear up if you log out and in again. What? *How* long? Let me guess, you won the bet but now you want to see if you can break 200 days before logging out? You could try restarting the bar process. No, I'm not sure it'll work. Yes, it might log you out hard. What? Yes, I guess it's nice weather for golf. Have a nice day."

"Helldesk, Calle, what can I do to you? Uhu. That's because the Exchange server is down. Sometime later today, hopefully. You could try to leave a message on his voicemail. It's full? I guess you lose, then. Yes, it sucks. Have a nice day."

"Helldesk, Calle, what can I do to you? No menus? Ah, yes, they upgraded a couple of servers to $NEW_OS_VERSION this weekend, and someone forgot to migrate the old config files. It'll be fixed by this afternoon. You have to work, yes, I understand. I can tell you how to start the application from the command line, it's just a single command. What? You're a manager and shouldn't have to do that? Er... I guess you'll just have to wait, then. Yes, feel free to call our boss. Have a day."

"Helldesk, Calle, whatcanIdotoyou? Uhu. No, you can't bypass the Exchange system. The corporate board of directors has ordered that all mail shall be handled by it. Yes, that sucks. I can log a complaint, if you want. Ok. What's your userid?"

"Helldesk, Calle, whatcanIdotoyou? Uhu. Are you running Windows NT or Unix? Does it have a 'Start' button? In the lower left corner of the screen. No, on the glass part of the screen. That's NT, then. What's the problem? Reboot. It works now? Good. Have a day."

"Helldesk, Calle, whatcanIdotoyou? Yes, the Exchange servers are down. No, we don't know when they'll be back up. You mean the ExploreZip worm? I've been ordered not to comment on that. I've been ordered not to comment on that. I've been ordered not to comment on that. I can log a complaint, if you wish. I see. Have a *nice* day."

"Helldesk, Calle, whatcanIdotoyou? Uhu. So what's the problem? *What*? So what did you expect it to look like? Uhu. Look, I'll log a case saying that you feel that your laptop is too ugly and pass it on to the Windows people. Maybe they can help you. Have a day."

"Helldesk, Calle, whatcanIdotoyou? Uhu. The Exchange servers are down, so you can't... Oh. Aha. Uhu. You tried to mail *what*? A CD-ROM image? What's your userid? Is that it, in your home directory? The one with the long, ugly name starting with 'quake2cracked'. A favour to your brother-in-law, you say? Oh look, you're not even over your quota limit. That means you have about 650 megs more quota than you need for your job, doesn't it? Sure you can have your quota back, just ask your boss to send us an application for it. There's a convenient web page he can use to do it, only takes a minute or so. What? Not that important? Well, if you say so. Have a nice day."

And the really sick thing about all this is that it feels like recovery compared to the previous place.