Monty's IT Tickets
Posted by OinkyConfidence@reddit | talesfromtechsupport | View on Reddit | 48 comments
Here's a quick story about our IT interaction with a new factory manager who was clearly hired for the wrong job. These are samples of some service requests and trouble tickets we received from Monty, the new operations manager at a small (think around 50 employee) rural manufacturing shop. This shop makes a very specific widget, and Monty was recruited from the big city several hours away to oversee widget production. Most of the tickets ended up as rejections, which might paint IT in the wrong light as if we are always saying "no," but read on, dear reader, to learn more.
Monty relocates to the area. Of course he needs Internet service at his new house, so Monty's first ticket was to ask IT to set up a wireless bridge to his house from the factory so he can access the company network and Internet from home. IT declines. Leadership says Monty can get his own home Internet service, logically.
Undeterred, Monty then wants a laptop, so Monty requisitions IT to order a custom Razor gaming laptop he spec'd out, because apparently that's what he needs as a manufacturing manager. IT declines, and says he gets a bog standard Lenovo laptop like everyone else.
After some time, Monty makes a ticket for some phone system changes to entirely bypass the IVR menu for some reason. IT declines, and says he needs to speak to leadership about any call routing changes beyond what is already in place. Leadership declines, and begins to wonder what it is that Monty actually does.
Monty soon learns the factory has surveillance cameras. Monty makes a ticket stating IT needs to install more cameras. Leadership says there's no budget for additional cameras yet, so IT declines. Monty then buys and installs his own Hikvision cameras, then makes a ticket for IT to configure them on the network. IT declines, and advises leadership of Monty's attempts at shadow IT.
Eventually Monty's trouble tickets and service requests slowed down, and while I can't say what happened to him I think installing random cameras might have been the last straw.
HurryAcceptable9242@reddit
That's awesome. I've never heard of someone trying to get company IT to arrange their home internet access. I'm guessing he struggles mightily with 2FA.
ctesibius@reddit
I used to work at a very large red mobile phone network company. The biggliest. The HQ was in the UK, and many of the top managers wanted coverage at home. Of course this wasn’t as simple as running out a couple of WiFi APs: you needed a 3G or 4G mast.
In the UK you can look up the masts for any network, so for instance the HQ site in Berkshire was surrounded by about eight of them. But you could equally determine the rough location of the homes of directors just by seeing where some tiny settlement in the Cotswolds had excellent radio coverage.
SeanBZA@reddit
There is a tower up the road from me that is exactly that, installed because one person had poor reception.
SomeGuyInTheUK@reddit
Ha ha. Many many years ago we got a new MD. After a couple of weeks, we all got a memo, It turned out that our HQ would be moving a fair way, to a new location within about 5 miles of new MDs home
Obviously that was purely a coincidence and it was for an excellent list of business reasons stated in the memo.
New MD only lasted a couple of months (I can't even recall his name now)
The move to a new HQ was almost immediately shelved, it seems those excellent business reasons stopped applying.
Starfury_42@reddit
I worked for a law firm - got a call from an attorney that "all the wifi were password protected." Turns out he'd been leeching off of his neighbors and didn't have his own. Told him he had to get his own internet and that I could not help him further.
Old_Man_Withers@reddit
Had a partner demand that we set up a machine at his vacation home. We warned him that doing so (especially since he rented it out) was a wild violation of security policy, but he hammered it through anyway by going to exec, yada yada yada.
About 6 months later, his wife was there alone and logged on as him to snoop (she knew his pass... yes, another wild violation), only to discover his years long affair while reading his company emails.
He lost millions of dollars in the divorce.
rilian4@reddit
Been in k12 IT about 28 years. Had a teacher in the early 2000s bring in her school laptop and ask why she couldn't get internet working at home. After finding nothing wrong and asking a ton of questions, I figured out she had been using some neighbor's open wifi that either went behind a password they moved or something. She proceeded to tell me that she thought the thing "came with internet". I had to explain that's not how it works and tell her she'd been mooching off a neighbor. She was incredibly nice and incredibly embarrassed about it.
DanNeely@reddit
I knew someone who lived across the street from the small isp/hosting company he worked for ~20-25 years ago. He sweet talked his boss into letting him snake a wire between the buildings so he could use the ISPs backup t1 line to host his own servers. Even then a T1 was a bit dated and something else was is employers main net connection; but as a geek a home t1 was still minor bragging rights.
Everything was fine until one of his servers caught a DDOS big enough to knock not just my friend; but his employer offline until their upstream provider was able to block the traffic.
My friend managed - barely - to keep his job; but had to get a normal residential internet connection afterwards.
HurryAcceptable9242@reddit
I remember speaking in hushed tones about how crazy awesome it would be to have a T1 connection.
BluesFan43@reddit
My old company sent people from several plants to Aspen to wire up the CEO's vacation house.
Acrazd@reddit
My boss has gone to the CEOs yacht to set up the network on it….by has gone I mean a month ago
NobleWolf1@reddit
Who was gone?
Great_Hamster@reddit
Their boss.
HurryAcceptable9242@reddit
Besides the inappropriate use of company resources, I would have pointed out the danger of warranty issues and who would be liable down the track if anything needed to be fixed. But that sounds like a typical stupid CEO thing to do.
aaiceman@reddit
100% a knee jerk reaction to "FIX IT NOW". No forethought to the future. Bonus points if you can guess how that CEO handles planning things for the future....
ManagementTiny3800@reddit
i work for an isp. back when we were a regional place, i know a guy who was sent to install a network at the ceo's home in the mountains.
NotYourNanny@reddit
I used to do tech support in the home of our (previous) owner. But it was local, and he wasn't the CEO, he was the owner (and my job included support for multiple locations anyway, this was just one more).
Plus, he was a hell of a good cook.
aaiceman@reddit
I've 100% heard of it and been involved in it. Bonus points if it's a ranch in bum fuck nowhere and you only have Hughesnet available. Then they complain their VoIP phone is unreliable/has delay.
krennvonsalzburg@reddit
I've seen it, but it was for C suite people. The one I particularly loved was the CEO's farmhouse where we had to replace the (managed) modem every couple months because his wife didn't like the look of it and kept shoving it into a drawer with no ventilation, and they'd cook themselves after a month or two.
But since that was part of the contract we just ate the cost. Over and over and over.
Mr_ToDo@reddit
I've seen it a lot in rural areas, and it's generally the owners.
But often it's just a matter of practicality. Sometimes the internet is good here but sucks a mile down the road. Because of that a good number of those jumps have been the other way, starting at the house and going to the business. Most of the non crap ISP's out there even support it. Shoot, while they sold out now one of the primary ISP's until a year or so ago made part of their hustle in installing towers and setting up the point to points for people(the towers were shockingly cheap too)
KelemvorSparkyfox@reddit
But since that was part of the contract we factored it into the renewal prices each time, yes?
neblozin@reddit
I've had the pleasure of setting up company CEO's home Internet, including AP installations and also his audio system and wife's and son's laptops. He owned the company anyway so who am I the question his decisions as long as I'm paid...
Loko8765@reddit
Oh my Internet was definitely arranged for by the company… but I worked for an ISP.
Inside-Finish-2128@reddit
I used to work for a telco that understood the rates game. HR to every new employee: “what’s your home address? We’d like to install an ISDN line to your house. You get free internet and two phone lines (just expect your speed to drop from 128k to 64k if one line is in use, and for it to stop if both lines are in use).”
They would pay Bell $65/month for the ISDN line. As soon as it was installed, the router immediately “dialed” into the company modem banks, which earned them $900/month in “reciprocal compensation” payments from Bell.
CISS-REDDIT@reddit
Wait until he installs a switch in his office and plugs it into 2 live ethernet ports and brings a segment down. Seen it before... LOL
Intelligent_Law_5614@reddit
Or, just as bad... plugs in a "server in a box" which immediately begins running a DHCP server. Over the next few hours, roughly half of the systems that try to acquire or review their DHCP lease end up with 192.168.0.*/24 addresses with no default gateway rather than their properly-assigned address, lose connectivity to everything, and the phones start lighting up.
We had one guy who did this twice - the sternly-worded note left on his desk after the first incident wasn't strongly-worded enough. Need to send him down the hall to Mr. Cleese in Abuse, I guess...
the123king-reddit@reddit
"Two cables must be faster than one!"
"Well yes, but actually, no."
__wildwing__@reddit
Or he does some remodeling to his office and now there’s a cable running through the wall to… something.
ThunderDwn@reddit
Was Monty's last name "Python" by any chance?
SoundsProfessional@reddit
I had similar in a school. When we were all virtual one teacher submitted multiple requests for a hotspot. After the school had paid everyone a stipend to offset internet service costs. Our hotspots were all grant funded fr student use only. She ended up coming in and working from a building instead. I think she kept submitting tickets hoping to get someone else!
crimson_broom@reddit
Ngl financing his own hik vision cameras shows a dedication to the company that I’m not sure most people would put in, I would think if someone would do that they would get some cheap crap from Amazon or AliExpress, even the cheapest hik vision is still quite pricy. Still an insane thing to do
OinkyConfidence@reddit (OP)
For sure! I think leadership freaked out when they found out Hik is a Chinese company. If I had to guess.
__wildwing__@reddit
How unsecured can we make this security?!
rilian4@reddit
Probably so insecure it's already got a backdoor that phones home the minute it comes online allowing someone in instantly...
lildobe@reddit
My home camera system is a bunch of $30 and $40 1080p and 4k IP cams from Amazon.
They are on an isolated network, connected only to the NVR machine via a 2nd ethernet card, and have zero internet access.
I even run an NTP server on the NVR machine so that they can keep their clocks synced.
Throwaway_Old_Guy@reddit
In Canada, our three Telcos were planning on using Huawei equipment in their infrastructure upgrades until they were advised against that.
https://www.telecoms.com/5g-6g/samsung-is-the-final-beneficiary-of-canada-s-huawei-snub
Eichmil@reddit
Hikvision is banned at most secure sites as an insertion vector for Chinese code.
aaiceman@reddit
It's amazing how many companies think they can go get their security system cameras from Costco on the weekends, then be surprised when it's Chinese made and a gaping security hole.
rilian4@reddit
laptops too... I get that question constantly...
aaiceman@reddit
Oh yes. You do your research and recommend a nice Dell or Lenovo. They come back on Monday with the Acer special with a coupon and are confused why it’s not enough.
crimson_broom@reddit
Well, a lot of companies I did security installs for are looking at expensive new fit outs
K1yco@reddit
That or he wanted to use the camera's for his own nefarious reasons. Also, him wanting IT to set up his own internet and bridge it from the company doesn't seem very dedicated.
rilian4@reddit
Please tell me someone told him he should have tried door #2... 😜
K-o-R@reddit
"I am IT. It is my JOB to say 'no.' "
Jabo2531@reddit
Monty sounds shady asf or an idiot
dreaminginteal@reddit
Porque no los dos?
OinkyConfidence@reddit (OP)
Not wanting to insult him, but that was our assessment at the time as well.
Large-Meat-Feast@reddit
When WFH started to get big, a former employer offered the option. IT received a ticket stating that one employee couldn’t access her network drives after she logged on. We couldn’t remotely connect to the machine so we sent the field tech, who reported that she didn’t have an internet connection