This is exactly why users do not correct their bad habits!
Posted by CLA_1989@reddit | talesfromtechsupport | View on Reddit | 51 comments
Ever since I joined the company the policy is to ask the user to open tickets, no ticket, no service.
They were used to not do tickets, they'd just go to the little IT Cave and be like "Broke, fix it"(yeah, most have that attitude) and that is exactly why they fired the last local tech, because he would not have tickets, would not report anything, and would just do stuff without any control.
It was so common here to have people chat you "Hi, How are you?" and not follow up with their issues, which is why I put as my status in chat the website nohello .net and even then more than half still do that, so as per process, chat not being a support channel, we don't pay attention to them unless they state their issue
The thing got to a point that now we cannot open tickets for the users, they NEED to go open it themselves, the system will not allow us to open in name of X.
TLDR---------------------------------------------------
BUT THERE IS ALWAYS THAT GUY, the guy that don't care about p&p and does a shit job, but as he has people happy, they are happy with him, and I literally just had a double wtf moment
User contacts me, "Hi SOS"
I ignore the chat, as I am currently remoted in to another computer(We are now 100% remote) so 10 minutes after, still no issue mentioned, so I tell him to not do that, as I was busy but I could've seen his message and start thinking on what to do to help
"Oh, no problem, it is just that I wanted to disable the VPN as it slows down my connection, but I contacted X(I hate the person he contacted, with ALL my guts) and he helped me, gave me a log out code and now it is all good"
So:
-No ticket
-Breaking security protocol by giving him a logout code instead of troubleshooting on the slowness issue
And who is going to be contacted by the ITSEC agent to ask me to have him enable the VPN? ME! (I am the only official local support, this dude was only mac support and hates windows, but as he sooks deek very good, he was given charge of intune, but he is NOT tech support per se)
Some times I hate my job(Most times I love it though)
TenaCVols@reddit
I love the sooks deek very good. I am going to have remember that line for the future.
NotYourNanny@reddit
The problem isn't users who won't open tickets. Nor techs who won't make them.
The problem is managers who don't fire users for refusing to open tickets. That is really the only problem.
lucky_ducker@reddit
> The [only] problem is managers. FTFY
My last job had a ticketing system that was hot garbage. I was lead Tier 1 in our region, but often had to interact with higher tiers for certain things like MFA resets, Citrix troubleshooting, etc. Those guys were measured to death, especially on ticket closure times and rates. It wasn't unusual for me to submit a ticket and get a terse reply within minutes, along with a ticket closure notice. 9 times out of 10 the reply was of no help to me at all.
Traveling-Techie@reddit
This is why many ticketing system won’t let the tech close the ticket.
lucky_ducker@reddit
Oh, God, that would be so much worse. Our users couldn't be arsed to even properly describe their issue, let alone voluntarily close a ticket.
AngryCod@reddit
We switched to a process that sends an email to the user with the resolution and says "If you agree, click here to close the ticket. Otherwise, the ticket will auto-close after 5 days."
This has completely stopped the whole "ghost the tech and then scream that the ticket was closed prematurely" thing, while also allowing us to actually get tickets closed.
Strazdas1@reddit
Our system lets tech close ticket, but if you reply to the ticket it repoens automatically. Most people never reply. But also avoids the ghosting issues.
mwenechanga@reddit
We "resolve" the tickets, and the system "closes" the ticket after 3 days. The best part - we cannot re-open a closed ticket, at all. They're dead at that point and our only option is to create a new ticket. Which I am happy to do, and to get credit for - if it went 3 days without a response after I said I fixed it, then clearly I fixed it and this is a new instance anyway.
Elevated_Misanthropy@reddit
No, the system closes the ticket, not the user or the tech.
Tech marks the ticket Resolved, system sends the user an email. No reply, ticket is Closed after n days. User emails back that the issue isn't fixed, too bad, open a new ticket.
lucky_ducker@reddit
That's how a functional ticketing system should work. My original comment referred to ours as "hot garbage" because it was not configured that way. It was configured strictly for the purposes of the higher tier techs, it was an active job impediment for us tier 1 peons.
Rathmun@reddit
A functional ticketing system needs one more thing in order to work. It needs some way for the tech to declare this is not a ticket. At which point the ticket goes to a special locked queue where neither the tech nor the submitter can touch it, so it remains unchanged for dispute resolution.
One place I worked had that, and it was wonderful. User submits a ticket that doesn't contain any actionable information? Not A Ticket. And non-tickets had no SLA, because they weren't tickets. As far as metrics were concerned, non-tickets were never submitted in the first place. They didn't have a resolution time. They didn't contribute toward first-call-resolution. They didn't trigger user satisfaction surveys.
Now, if you marked a valid ticket as a non-ticket, that would ding your metrics, but that's fair enough.
Moneia@reddit
Or maliciously not close it until it's sorted to satisfaction
Phrewfuf@reddit
We had a similar thing going on, until someone finally grasped the issue behind it.
Their solution was to make a KPI of reopened tickets and track whether a given ticket is past its expected maximum resolution time. Needless to say, reopen rates pummeled and most people were more interested in solving issues. Sadly, the new meta is to wait until the ticket is a day or two before escalation time and shove it into another groups queue.
Floresian-Rimor@reddit
Gah!! When will mangalers learn that metrics != targets?
NotYourNanny@reddit
Oh but metrics *are* targets. They're just not the targets you want them to be.
"Be careful what you measure, because that's what you'll get."
Finneus85@reddit
No ticket, no laundry.
LVDave@reddit
Thats actually "no tickee. no washee"
Stryker_One@reddit
No ticket.
Vektor0@reddit
No soup for you!
craftycommando@reddit
I really wish this sub allowed gif comments now
TheFluffiestRedditor@reddit
You can access resources outside the VPN? That sounds bad. Maybe it's time for some conditional access policies, so users can only access services from pre-defined network ranges.
zeus204013@reddit
Send proof to HR (and manager if needed).
Moneia@reddit
On the bright side, at least you have a full, written confession.
thewizzard1@reddit
Your flair gave me wartime flashbacks.
I've been out of end-user IT for 2 years now, working as in-house IT with smart folks who don't need to be reminded the difference between "Click" and "Right Click" each time I say it in a single session.
CLA_1989@reddit (OP)
Well, you are lucky, the company I work for is a software dev company that is supposed to have smart people... I still get a lot of dumb ones lol
wubbalab@reddit
Just because people are smart and use a computer for their work does not mean that they are good with computers.
In the same way, someone good with computers is not necessarily good with networking or programming.
I do all kinds of support and all my work around computers. Recently got asked if i can write a program for X. I said i could, but it would take x time (to learn, but didn't say that) and y money to accomodate for x. Got asked why and i said that i have "some" programming knowledge, but not enough for that. Final response was " i thought you were good with computers".
zeus204013@reddit
Some people thinks that if you do some job it related, you aldo know how to program in X language...
Like pretending that a doctor working in ophthalmology also can do surgery to remove a bullet...
Really, a lot of people doesn't understand it issues and are irrespectful with it people.
UristImiknorris@reddit
I keep writing click but it's not doing anything and now my pencil's almost gone.
coming2grips@reddit
I keep clicking but it's not doing anything and now my mechanical pencil has run out of the little sticks
carycartter@reddit
I'm clicking my pen, but it's not doing anything.
6890@reddit
I attended some training for some sorta corporate software thing (forgive me, it was like 15 years ago) and the trainer on the training kept talking about using "Two-Click" to do things. The training was online so we had our own lab session and the trainer would go through things in a voice call while we worked. I was confused as fuck what a Two-click was for like the first hour, thinking you had to push left & right simultaneously.
No, its just a double-click.
Moneia@reddit
I learned in the heady days of supporting Win 98.
The guy who trained us was focussed hard on saving clicks so got to the floor and tried it... Yikes.
AdreKiseque@reddit
Saving clicks?
Moneia@reddit
How efficiently you can start a process,
Many useful features can be accessed quickly from the R-Click context menu rather than via the Start menu or CMD box. It is often the quickest way to do something but only if you understand what Right Clicking is and when it's useful, otherwise you're spending the rest of a call with them asking "Is that the left or right mouse button?"
CLA_1989@reddit (OP)
Exactly, I learned a long time ago, when I was still a call center help desk agent, that I need to cover my behind and keep all these types of convos screenshoted just in case.
SecretlyCrayon@reddit
Throw that other guy under the bus. Is there a procedure to report violations?
CLA_1989@reddit (OP)
He's the manager's pet.
alf666@reddit
Is there any way to go above the manager?
Maybe there's a compliance officer or a lawyer with ass-kicking authority on-staff who would be very interested to know someone is violating cybersecurity insurance requirements?
CLA_1989@reddit (OP)
Maybe, I will try him if this nonsense continues.
SecretlyCrayon@reddit
I know you're worried about the office politics of it but this a the lines been crossed and response needs to match.
Find the person you need to report it to and do so. Be factual and don't throw shade but be clear. Security policy has been violated and xyz data has been point at risk. This is the chain of events as I understand them.
A smoking needs to come down from on high if your leadership doesn't want to address it.
alf666@reddit
Do it now, otherwise you might get caught in the fallout radius if things go wrong before you can fix it.
Rathmun@reddit
I expect the cybersecurity insurance company would be very interested.
NotTheOnlyGamer@reddit
Log the incident (with screenshots) with ITSEC. Don't tag the user or the mac guy, let them handle it. If there's a problem with management, go around them. If there's a big enough problem that you can't go around them, get your resume polished up and a fresh suit.
CLA_1989@reddit (OP)
Yup, already working on my resume indeed.
Dont-PM-me-nudes@reddit
Is there an app to translate this to English?
CLA_1989@reddit (OP)
Perdon por hablar 3 idiomas y tener errores gramaticales
Sorry for speaking 3 languages and having gramattical errors
извини за гаварить три язык и ошибку делают
coming2grips@reddit
The place I'm dying in currently took the hard first half step. Now users log tickets then call and say "broken, fix, now". ...usually before the system has replicated the ticket into a viewable state.
SLA ? 10 day to close on average. Client expectations? Now
Can I explain to management that this is a user education issue and we aren't staffed for "now" response times? Not a chance
CLA_1989@reddit (OP)
IK, same feeling here, we used to be 7 people taking care of namer and lamer, 5 in emea, 10 in apac, we went 100% wfh, then we were bought, and they started RIFing people... we are currently 1 in namer/lamer(me), 2 in emea, 3 in apac, and they expect us to manage miracles lol
that_one_wierd_guy@reddit
make a note in the log, user x disabled vpn with code given by person y(who is not tech support). then make your manager aware of it
LordMoos3@reddit
And ITSec.
Starfury_42@reddit
I do helpdesk and was working with someone who does support for a different area of the hospital. He was mentioning how busy he was with all the random "can you do X for me?" people. I gave him a solution that completely surprised him.
Ask: Do you have a ticket?
If the answer is no - then tell them they need to submit one and stop taking walkups since the process is to submit tickets. If they have one let them know you'll check on it - because those are the people that put it in 5 min ago and wanted it fixed 10 min ago.