I am a Moron.
Posted by Mysterious_Peas@reddit | talesfromtechsupport | View on Reddit | 29 comments
Y’all. Once again I have proven myself to be a moron in front of our absolutely lovely tech support folks. Full disclosure: I do not work in IT, I am the executive over the IT Director. This 100% makes it worse.
First- I don’t get into business I don’t understand. I know just enough to be dangerous, so I let IT do IT and make sure they have the funding they need. I’m saying this so you know that while I’m a dumbass, I’m not a jerk. I remain, humbly, a dumbass.
My keyboard and mouse stopped working. What the…? I tried everything. Plugged the dongle into a different port, even changed out my port hub to see if that was it. Nothing.
Poor “Zach” from IT is finally assigned the ticket I have to put in. I explain what I did. He tries several things, then asks if I’m totally sure it’s the right dongle. Fair. I know it is, and explain that I have two dongles for accessories, by two different brands, and they’re labeled.
Fam.
I put the batteries in backwards. Let me say that again: I put the batteries in backwards. When Zach sees this, he is so kind. Asks when I replaced them. I told him it was right before a really important meeting and I had just spilled iced tea all over myself and… he stops me.
“Was it a Thursday afternoon?” We work Monday-Thursday.
“Yes?”
“Yeah, Peas, you were tired, frustrated and panicked. It happens.” Then my dude records some nonsense about “resetting accessories” as the fix and closes out my ticket.
I told him he was a god among men.
How do y’all put up with us?
SCPaddlePirate@reddit
When I worked in IT (I recently retired after 30+ years), I never had a problem with users not knowing something or making mistakes. A user not knowing something does not make them stupid. A mistake like batteries the wrong direction does not make the user stupid. But refusing to accept responsibility or making the same mistake over and over and over is where I believe stupidity comes into play.
Also, I have trouble believing this is a legit post. You claim to be the exec above IT. Fine. Believable. But you get IT the budget they need? And you let IT do IT? You don’t try to manage IT without knowing what it takes to do IT work? That is where I draw the line!!
Just kidding! But I would have LOVED to have the exec over IT where I worked to do those things.
Mysterious_Peas@reddit (OP)
Thanks. I try to know my own limitations and educate myself. I’ll never have the level of knowledge that an IT professional does, so I can’t “manage” their jobs. Heaven save us from people in my role who micromanage.
It may sound like I’m some kind of fabulous exec, but reality? IDK. All I can do is my best and be accountable when I hose it up. Honestly, if I were worried about people knowing that I can be as human as the next guy, I’d be a crappy fit for my job.
ThisIsAdamB@reddit
I once got a call from one of my users, an account exec. “Adam, I changed the batteries in my keyboard and now it doesn’t work. Can you help?” Short walk over to his desk, and when I pop out the batteries, I see they’re in backwards. I show him the battery orientation diagram printed on the bottom of the keyboard and he says, “That’s so small! How am I supposed to see that?” He doesn’t wear glasses. I do. I say, “Well, I can see it…”
The batteries go in the right way, the keyboard is working and I go back to my desk. Another satisfied customer. /s
TheResistanceVoter@reddit
Uou admit you're old and either get reading glasses or a magnifying glass. Or, in my case, both. Lol, I am really old.
RexCanisFL@reddit
You are someone I would love to get tickets from. All that’s missing is you didn’t file the ticket saying “Likely a PEBKAC error” 🤣
Mysterious_Peas@reddit (OP)
I had to look that up and I’m cackling! It was 100% PEBKAC!!! lol. 😂
TheResistanceVoter@reddit
Lol, I asked Alexa what that was, and cracked up at her explanation. Her last comment was "Sometimes the real bug was sitting right in front of the computer."
Mysterious_Peas@reddit (OP)
You guys are the best. I haven’t laughed this hard in months!
HoochieKoochieMan@reddit
You may be a Dumbass, but you’re in good company. Working full time in IT doesn’t mean we don’t make those mistakes too - it means we’ve made more of them, with greater variation and impact. The good techs accept the mistakes of others with humility for this reason.
Also, you never embarrass the boss’s boss. That’s IT rule #1.
Mysterious_Peas@reddit (OP)
Dude is welcome to embarrass me. For real. Like, I put the batteries in backwards. I feel like you can’t come back from that, so I’ll own it.
grenade71822@reddit
Hey you tried. That gets big points from me. You just didn’t blindly say it didn’t work and then sat on your hands and complained that it took so long for the tech to show up.
MasterClown@reddit
I've got a guy in my office whose emails are always one of the following:
And that's it. I've told him several times in the past to offer more detail upfront to gets things going in the right direction, rather than me emailing him each time for specifics.
So one day I decided I had had enough and completely ignored an email from him. That caused him to come to my office and ask if I got an earlier email about a problem. Rather than say Yes or No, I just answered with "What's wrong?" ... and then he gave me detail.
After a couple of more episodes like that, he learned his lesson and provided more detail at the start.
RubberBootsInMotion@reddit
Many never learn this lesson...
hache-moncour@reddit
Lol.
But really, everyone makes mistakes, they're fine. The people who refuse to accept they may have made a mistake, and/or refuse to listen when you try to fix it for them are the aggravating ones.
Tr1pla@reddit
One time I had a person see me open Google to look up an error code that I couldn't remember the dos command to fix and they said, "I could have done that".
I immediately stopped what I was about to do and started to walk away. Slightly panicked they said something along the lines of "wait, where are you going"
I turned around and said to them, "but you didn't google it and I'm here now so let me fix your problem in 30 seconds so you can get back to work"
I wasn't too happy
StuBidasol@reddit
I called myself out to an amazingly patient Amazon support rep when I signed up for Prime with a second account for some reason I can't figure out. He asked me repeatedly if it was possible there was a second email I may have used while I strenuously denied the possibility. It finally clicked for me and got everything straightened out. At least he got a good story to share.
iamicanseeformiles@reddit
No longer in IT (sorta).
Just one thing in the tech's onboard knowledge base. Next time someone else has that issue, first thing they'll look at is batteries.
KelemvorSparkyfox@reddit
Putting up with users like you?
Mu dude, you know the limits of what you know. That alone makes you a unicorn. You trust IT to do IT, and fund them. That makes you precious among leadership.
I'd rather deal with honest mistakes than self-entitled idiots who don't realise that they're trying to make two plus two equal to a vat of Henderson's Relish.
oddball667@reddit
I get payed to fill out my timecard
a ticket like this is an easy no stress 30 minute entry
SpongeJake@reddit
*paid
oddball667@reddit
yup clearly I don't get paid for my ability to spell
SpongeJake@reddit
Heh. Same. Our value is getting the job done.
happylittlemexican@reddit
I would pick up any future tickets from you in a heartbeat. Not because they're likely to be easy, but because you seem easy to work with.
tamolleh@reddit
I work in IT as well. I NEVER make people feel bad about the tickets they put in, even if it was something like your situation.
Vektor0@reddit
We deal with it because you are grateful and respectful. That and money are all anyone needs.
PM_ME_YOUR_BOOGER@reddit
You remind me of an old boss of mine who I absolutely adored.
da_peda@reddit
Managing done right.
No_Wear295@reddit
This is the easy stuff and you sound reasonable. Also, the boss's boss's boss is definitely going to get the white glove treatment.
rUnThEoN@reddit
Any easy fix that is not 100% dumb is just another puzzle solved no stress. Any dumb request stresses us 1000 times more then this.