I love helping people but come on...
Posted by TechieJay23@reddit | talesfromtechsupport | View on Reddit | 86 comments
Alright I got something funny that had me cracking up today. So I’m working on this printer ticket, super easy setup. Activated the drop, added it to our DHCP server. Easy, easy. And the staff member it was for? A computer teacher.
I activate the drop, confirm connectivity, everything looks good. Then I test the patch cable and it comes up inconclusive… not properly terminated. so I mention that to her and she goes, “Oh well it worked for me earlier.” Well… sorry to say, but did you actually test it? 😅
Then I ask if she wants me to add the printer to her PC. She hits me with, “Oh no, I got it.” Hmm… okay, we’ll see. So I’m standing there watching her the whole time. She finally gets to the driver part, it’s an HP printer, and she selects the Generic PostScript driver. At this point I’m laughing inside because I know it’s not gonna work.
She runs a test print and the printer starts shooting out paper like a machine gun 🤣🤣. I stop her real quick and tell her she needs to select the correct driver. Like… you’re supposed to be this great computer teacher, right? 🤷♂️ Apparently not.
I’m like, step aside 😂. Added the right driver and boom, all is good in the world again. Smh… amateurs.
AdreKiseque@reddit
Printers are an arcane system not known to the usual class of computer wizards
NotYourNanny@reddit
And usually require the ritual sacrifice of a farm animal to get working correctly.
CorpFillip@reddit
We are not allowed to use the students for this purpose.
Nor any pets.
Around here, the students respond if we destroy Takis as a snackrifice.
kaelthasw3@reddit
They sacrifice the sanity of tech support ppl.
NotYourNanny@reddit
And that's the problem. The gods get angry over such meaningless, paltry sacrifices.
Naclox@reddit
In my experience, it's usually technician blood that serves as the sacrifice.
NotYourNanny@reddit
Like I said, farm animals. :)
syntaxerror53@reddit
Essential Requirement for Hell Printers.
Xeni966@reddit
I cut myself of some metal while swapping out a printer part and that printer worked fine after. Maybe it was the part, but more than likely it's my blood that remains in the printer
UsablePizza@reddit
Blood sacrifices are the only thing known to quell the beast.
daemocaf@reddit
Blood for the Blood God
KelemvorSparkyfox@reddit
Going by the price of printer ink, I would imagine that it's unicorn blood, too.
Cassie0peia@reddit
It was definitely the blood sacrifice.
blind_ninja_guy@reddit
Is your red inc HP approved? Does it pass drm?
TechieJay23@reddit (OP)
🤣🤣
CaptainIcy3433@reddit
Damnit. Been sacrificing the wrong thing.
ww11gunny@reddit
For 1 maybe 2 days
Ich_mag_Kartoffeln@reddit
A suitably intimidating resume can coerce them into working....
A former colleague once encountered a printer issue. It wouldn't print a certain document. Didn't matter who tried to print it, or from which computer -- it would not print this particular document. It would print anything and everything else, but not this one document. This one, critical document.
So Brian grabbed a spanner (the sort of spanner you need two hands to lift) and vented ALL his frustrations upon said printer. And since then, he has NEVER had a printer issue.
It is said that printers will refill their own paper trays in terror at the sounds of Brian's approaching footsteps....
GeekGurl2000@reddit
Wewease Bwian!
I wish my brain worked for more than Monty Python quotes.
Ich_mag_Kartoffeln@reddit
Ahhh, see my brain is far more developed and sophisticated than that.
It can also recall quotes from Blackadder, Red Dwarf, Yes (Prime) Minister, Fawlty Towers, and many, many more.
GeekGurl2000@reddit
Most of my wetware disk space is consumed by Hitchhikers' Guide references.
Ich_mag_Kartoffeln@reddit
Them too. And Discworld. And LoTR. And....
psychopompadour@reddit
I read your story, smiled at the ending, and then immediately my brain was like, "Was it a PDF? I have a list of reasons that could happen, and what to do to resolve them"........ oh my god, I can't turn it off
GeekGurl2000@reddit
ha, yup.... i supported Acrobat for 2 years via their outsourcer, the now defunct Stream, Inc.
Ich_mag_Kartoffeln@reddit
If I ever knew what file type it was, I certainly don't remember.
Clearly you have caught the Tech Support bug 🤒. Looks like quite a serious case 😷.
soyverde@reddit
Yeah, in my head while reading it: had one of those not that long ago…wasn’t even the printer’s fault (this time).
3lm1Ster@reddit
The worst part about printers is that there are so many varieties. Even if you only work with HP printers, every different model has some setting that has to be different from every other HP printer in existence.
Firedcylinder@reddit
Printers have been around for a VERY long time, and they've never just worked.
Gadgetman_1@reddit
I know of TWO printers that worked out of the box and never gave me issues...
The ZX Printer for the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, about 1984 vintage, thermal printer. Print quality was pretty crap, but it worked...
The Psion Organiser II Printer. It's more than just a printer, it's a cradle you place the organiser into. Press the ON button on the organiser twice, and it loaded the driver.
Other than those two... Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrgh!!!!!!
tuscaloser@reddit
As someone who supports very niche software with specialized printers... It's always fun to watch my customers struggle when they're certain they can "install some software and a printer, how hard could it be?"
Playful-Resource-894@reddit
"The computer does not recognize the printer."
Cannon bubblejet, meet Pentium. Pentium, meet Cannon bubblejet.
Okay, NOW do you recognize each other?!? You spent the whole trip back from the store in the back of the car, you should recognize each other!🤪
This was a skit from a humorist here, it stays rent free in my mind and comes out every time I have printer problems!
Roguefem-76@reddit
It's one thing to be able to teach kids the basics of using a comp, quite another to make a recalcitrant printer behave.
Printers are a special level of evil. And I say that as someone who fixes printers as part of my job.
GeekGurl2000@reddit
indeed... i supported Xerox about 10 years ago...Printers from Hell ....
Roguefem-76@reddit
Haha, so accurate! 🤣
Agret@reddit
It's sometimes quite arcane when you go to download the drivers for the new printer and it gives you the choice of PCL5, PCL6, PCL XL, PS, PS Universal and you gotta find out which out which one works best
RayEd29@reddit
You have to remember the age old adage - Those who can't do, teach.
And for anyone that wants jump my case for slagging on teachers - I'M a teacher myself.
GeekGurl2000@reddit
I share this with every teacher I encounter online What Teachers Make ... ...
Taylor Mali : What Teachers Make
Olivinism@reddit
I'll always remember bugging my teacher until he straight up said he didn't know how to do what I was trying to set up
I was wanting to have persistent data for an assignment. He emailed the question onto a developer friend of his who came back with localStorage as a solution, I heard he ended up including that as part of his material in future years and I got my canvas snake game to keep a high score
No idea where he is now, hope I can bump into him someday, he was a great teacher
resonantfate@reddit
It's ok not to know. Gotta go find out. That's where the real magic is.
Filosifee@reddit
Those who can’t teach, teach Gym!
3lm1Ster@reddit
I have an HP printer at home that CAN be connected to my home WIFI, and from phone (WIFI on, on the phone) but everytime we lose power, or the WIFI goes down for some reason, I have to reset the blasted thing.
I finally gave up and hard wired it. No more problems.
GeekGurl2000@reddit
i have a Brother printer with a collection of odd issues... turns out when it loses power, the clock resets to i guess its date of manufacture...
configuring it for a time server fixed that.
TechieJay23@reddit (OP)
Yeah and in homes. Ethernet is the way to go. Its just most just use wireless as it can be easier to setup
psychopompadour@reddit
The giant corporation i work for leases Ricoh printers for its various locations across the country. The printers are set up, maintained, etc by whatever random local IT company Ricoh works with in that area. Today some girl called me to say she is replacing an old printer with a newer model at one of our locations. I asked for the current IP address, logged in, retrieved the MAC addr, set the correct IP, added all the settings the device needs so users can email themselves scanned documents, imported the old addr book, etc. Told her to reboot it. Came back up on the right IP, and all the tests worked. All this took... I dunno, 10 min (including waiting for the printer to reboot)?
She was like "omg can I call you for every job, this was so fast!!" and seemed totally blown away that I set up a printer on our network so quickly. I asked if she delivers printers to our specific company often (since all my teammates are equally competent at this particular task, which is one of the easiest things we do) and she said no, just to random companies all around the region... Apparently, some IT people take a REALLY long time to do all that stuff. I try to be charitable and think "well maybe some of these folks are at smaller companies and hardly ever set up a printer" but it's really not that difficult...
Agret@reddit
Going to be honest and say sometimes it takes me 10 minutes just to find the button to export the email address book, some of those Web UIs are a nightmare to navigate and keep taking me to the fax address book.
psychopompadour@reddit
Let me introduce you to the joy of telling users that you don't support random-ass printers they bought at Office Depot and we have specific brands/models that Procurement will order for them if they need one! It's so great to be familiar with the damn things. Although we keep acquiring other companies and we usually let them keep their legacy printers if they're fairly new (new plotters cost like $10k!) so I definitely run into weird brands I've never heard of now and then!
Gadgetman_1@reddit
A networked printer?
And the user needs to install drivers on their PC?
Why isn't it set up with a queue on a print server?
Agret@reddit
Sounds like he is the printer install guy and not their tech, he just installs the driver on the closest workstation to verify the printer works and then it's up to the tech to configure it on the server how he wants to. You don't generally give domain credentials to the delivery guy.
PoniardBlade@reddit
Hey, I welcome these types of people, willing to give it a try. They weren't way off, but they did most of the setup. Now, I wouldn't let them rewire a drop or set up a switch, but little simple things are ok to let them play with; both of you can get some satisfaction in shared knowledge. Maybe it's just in my environment and my users are willing to try a few things before they set up a ticket but I consider myself lucky.
TechieJay23@reddit (OP)
Agreed. But when their attitude is questionable throughout the whole process. That ticks me off a bit.
MisfitHula@reddit
Just wait until you get Senior Network Solutions Architects asking you how to change their local pc'S IPV4 address
psychopompadour@reddit
We had some trouble with the Jabber softphone system the service desk uses (kept cutting out during calls). They all work from home and it was felt that the vpn was causing the issue. The network guys were like "hey anyone with the problem, please comment in this Teams channel with the time you had the issue and your home IP address" and when I glanced in there later, fully half the comments were from people reporting that their home IP address is 192.168.0.34 or similar. And this is the TECHNICAL people. Sigh.
MisfitHula@reddit
As an IT person supporting IT people, I feel your pain.
blind_ninja_guy@reddit
I want a different loopback!
dorukayhan@reddit
127.69.67.27.
Pingstery@reddit
One such guy asked me for customer's router's ip address so he can put it in bridge mode. From his office.
Ezekilla7@reddit
Just because she's a computer teacher doesn't mean she's going to know about drivers and printers. That's your job, that's what you're there for. Unless she was being shitty about it and acting superior I don't get the point of this story. It sounds like you just took great pleasure in knowing something that someone else didn't?
abz_eng@reddit
She reminds me of the one that tried to teach a course for the European Computer Driving Licence to my mother a good number of years ago - utterly clueless
The worst bit was when the class had Word open, but no document, not even a blank one, she called the big grey area in the middle the desktop.
WTF? it's the word background
I had to insist Mum corrected her and the class as if these people were let loose in business, god the support calls....
honeyfixit@reddit
"Printer" and "easy setup" dont belong in the same sentence together
Fit_External7524@reddit
There's the joke that you're in a room with two horrible humans and a printer. You have a gun with two bullets. What do you do? You shoot the printer twice.
KelemvorSparkyfox@reddit
And then pistol-whip it.
gargravarr2112@reddit
gargravarr2112@reddit
The Three Unteachables in Computing:
lugasamom@reddit
Funny, I’m a computer teacher and sometimes the unofficial IT support for my coworkers, especially when the IT guy for our school is out.
udsd007@reddit
That’s what happens when you reveal IT competency. You’re it — and IT — for your remaining career.
lugasamom@reddit
Sooo true!! I try to keep it a closely guarded secret but there were a few incidents early this year where I had to out myself to save the sanity of multiple teachers who had their trusty Epson projectors replaced with smart board TVs with no notice (not even Admin knew they were coming).
No one connected them properly NOR did they install the software that was necessary. And our building IT guy was out for 10 days. When he returned, he actually thanked me. Quite the honor from a super grumpy guy.
I sent out step-by-step instructions that walked them through what had to be done (after I had helped a whole department get up on running).
TechieJay23@reddit (OP)
Ahaha. We got the same. Former Teachers are now which they call TTL or Tech Leaders. Interesting title but hey. They do try and some are actually pretty smart and intrigued by what they can learn
lucky_ducker@reddit
Many HP printers designed for business use can indeed use a Postscript driver, but it needs to be the HP provided Universal PS driver. Where I used to work, headquarters had a handful of people generating PDF using Adobe Acrobat Pro, which files simply could not be printed through the standard HP Universal Print Driver (which uses PCL instead of Postscript). Staff who needed to print those files were set up with the HP Universal PS driver as their default.
KelemvorSparkyfox@reddit
User: *Selects universal PS driver*
Printer: "No, the other universal PS driver."
Relevant XKCD is relevant.
Geminii27@reddit
Computer science has nothing to do with actually making computers stop being broken, any more than astronomy knows anything about repairing telescopes.
sori_at@reddit
In a Windows setting, establish a Linux printer server and you are good to go to hell and back.
Id10t_techsupport@reddit
Student at the time - Try teaching a writing class on PCs with office 95/97 when the college instructor has never touched a pc and all of her hand outs and syllabu have been typed on a typewriter
Fo0ker@reddit
Any decent network printer in the last 15 years that doesnt handle postscript should be burnt.
And you still configured it on a non terminated drop.
And dhcp for printers? Even on a permanant lease is just asking for trouble.
Maybe she didn't know how your old school way worked, but maybe you'd need a few lessons in how it works now. If any of this is true of course.
TechieJay23@reddit (OP)
I would never fully set up anything on a drop that didn’t pass a test lol. Who would haha. But the moment that the patch cable came back inconclusive, that was the end of the line for that part. I only confirmed the wall drop was active, the patch cable was her personal one, and we don’t supply those. If it doesn’t pass, it doesn’t get used. Simple as that.
Second, as for wireless printing, yeah, for home setups it’s fine. But in a school district environment? Absolutely not. We stopped putting printers on Wi-Fi a long time ago because it caused way too many issues across the network.
And look, the point of my story wasn’t about burning PostScript printers or debating modern vs “old school” setups, it was just a funny moment where someone with a big “I know everything” attitude got humbled a bit. Nothing more, nothing less 🤣
Fo0ker@reddit
Sorry man, i just reread my comment and my reply was shaded by a harsh day for me, was agressive and i apologise for that. My bad.
By network i meant more of a network attached, not wifi. (God knows that's a bad idea. If had many a job where getting a vlan for printers was like pulling teeth.) Even if I still suggest fixed IPs for printers, but your network, you know how it works.
Apologies again, my friend. I took my day out on you and it wasn't cool on my part. That'll teach me to post just after work I hope.
I hope your network flows well and by some miracle your printers do what they're told to.
TechieJay23@reddit (OP)
It's all good. Just here to vent. And trust me. We all got those days and weeks. Totally understandable 👌
No-Drop924@reddit
The amount of times I've needed to install printer drivers in my life I can count on my hands. Would I have selected generic the first time around? Absolutely. After seeing the error, I would look for the correct drivers.
Just because they installed the wrong drivers doesn't mean they're inept.
TechieJay23@reddit (OP)
If she had just been like, “Hey, which one should I use?” I would’ve helped immediately. It was never about the mistake, it was the attitude that led up to it.
Donisto@reddit
As someone who works in a MSP that primarily deals with schools, I can feel your pain oh so well. Computer teachers, usually, stoped theire knowledge in the age they left the uni, but have the attitude of a senior engineer at Cisco/Microsoft/google
Olivinism@reddit
They absolutely can be a good computing teacher, but that doesn't mean they have to know every last thing about their equipment
I wouldn't be this dismissive and frankly rude of someone just because they clicked a wrong option, something you chose to watch happen instead of giving them a "Hey, you don't need to default to a generic option, it'll be X driver"
At most this is a funny moment of overconfidence, there's no need to drag it through the dirt
TechieJay23@reddit (OP)
I get what you’re saying, and trust me, I’m never expecting anyone to know everything about their equipment. That’s literally why we’re there. But the part I didn’t mention was the attitude behind it. She wasn’t just confidently trying to do it herself, she was giving off this whole “I know what I’m doing, I don’t need help from you” vibe the entire time.
So yeah, I let her run with it for a moment, because sometimes people have to see for themselves. And when that printer started spitting out paper like crazy, she felt pretty damn stupid, her words, not mine.
It wasn’t about dragging her, it was just a funny moment of overconfidence that backfired.
Olivinism@reddit
Ahh yeah that extra context does help to have included lol
Obviously if they're dismissive of you and think they're top shit it's a bit of a comeuppance when they're not. Glad she could have a laugh about it in the end though
TechieJay23@reddit (OP)
Yeah. I didnt mind helping at all. Thats what we are there for but when people act that way. Im like. Ill get the last laugh
SnooRegrets8068@reddit
Again on a drop for a printer I had someone complain it had been causing problems for weeks. Which was interesting as it was only active about 5 minutes ago. The printer was on for some reason and they had been blaming it existing nearby for 2 weeks.
Then had another say that now Id actually attached it. was messing with their text on the computer and it wont type anymore. Go and have a look and find they have set the font to white on white background.
They still blamed the printer for it.
Eckx@reddit
Those who can't, teach.
TechieJay23@reddit (OP)
I tried.lol. she denied my first attempt 🤷♂️