Can I help you? NO!

Its been a while since I have posted here. I am still working in the same office but I switched from Basic Support to the Web Development Team last December so things have been less customer oriented for me since then, but here's a couple stories from the good old days.

Last summer I was working with a student employee who was working on some research in one of the labs. He needed me to upgrade some of his software and install a new program they had just purchase a license for and also just do some general house-keeping on the computer such as making sure the network printers had the right drivers etc. So he calls our office to ask if we can come do this for him asap. I tell him that I am currently working on another task and that I will be able to help him in about 15 to 20 minutes. He says that is perfect. I enter a new task with the list of everything he wants done and the computer's network name so I can connect to it remotely once I'm ready.

Now our office uses a network management service called Altiris which allows us to track all the inventory information on our computers and also allows adds some features to the RDC feature already included in Windows, such as being able to chat with anyone currently using the computer.

So I open up a screen to see if anyone is currently using the computer and the student who called me is logged in. I initiate a chat and start to type a message to him but he closes the chat window before I finish typing. So I open notepad and type the message and open the chat again and paste the message in and hit enter. A few seconds pass and he closes the window again. I call the lab and no one answers. I send him another message and he finally responds with simply, "I am busy, you'll have to wait." I closed the task as Resolved and I never heard from him again.

Another annoying incident occurred when one of our dept chairs put in a request to have some software installed on his MacBook. Such an easy task right? WRONG! First of all the task was put in as URGENT! priority. Which it is not. And then when we called, two minutes after he put the request in, he was not in the office. Left a message for him and he didn't call back that day. Next day left another message for him. He finally calls back and says to come at a certain time say 10 am. So I go over at 10 and he's not there. I wait for 20 minutes, no show. I go back to the office. 11:30 and he calls finally. Now for such an urgent matter on a MacBook laptop that will take 4 minutes to complete you'd think that not only would he at least BE THERE for the appointment that HE SET, but that aside he might be able to walk 20 feet down the hall with his PORTABLE LAPTOP and knock on the door and get it done in 5 minutes instead of 2 days. (by the way, this is all typical of just about every task we get from this guy)

So I'm finally in his office with his laptop. Now all of our software installers are located on a server on our network rather than on CDs because it is faster and easier to manage that way. So I need to connect to our server in order to get this done. As I am working on the network I notice that his laptop is not on our domain. We have a policy that all of our computers that we support are supposed to be on the domain. In fact that is the first thing we are supposed to check when doing ANYTHING on someone's computer so that we know it is a computer we are in charge of. So I double check some things and find out the computer is in our inventory, it just wasn't ever added to the Active Directory. So I add it. I install his software. Everything is happy doody. Wrong.

Him: "How come on my login screen there's this 'Other' option now?"
Me: "That is there because I had to add your computer to the domain. The 'Other' option is for domain accounts."
Him: "But I don't want other accounts on my computer!"
Me: "They aren't on your computer, the domain is handled through a server. Everyone has an access level and an account which they use to logon to any computer in the college. I assure you no one has access to your files or account unless you give it to them."
Him: "It was never on the domain before. I want you to take it off."
Me: "I can't do that. It is our policy that all the computers in our inventory be on the domain. If that is a problem you need to take it up with my boss."
Him: "I will! I'm important! Me me me!"
Little voice in my head: "Something about a broom stick and his anus..."

Anyway. Life is better where I'm at now. I've only dealt with one customer outside of the office. That was a pleasant tale in which I stupidly thought I could introduce the concept of XML to a little old British lady who is supposedly familiar with HTML. Stupid me.