I also work largely as a sys-admin, but I do some desktop support as well.
I get a lot of vague emails. "My internet is down," is a favorite of mine, as it could be a network outage, a local computer misconfiguration, a page being inaccessible, or simply the user getting an error page from the site because the URL they bookmarked doesn't exist anymore. If it's an email problem, it's probably because they didn't read the error message.
I also loathe when people walk over to my desk and say, "I hope I'm not interrupting you. {insert problem}". Now I've already been interrupted, so my train of thought has been derailed (worst when programming). I then have two choices, help the person because I am now not so busy with something else that I can't help but reward their behavior by doing so, or brush them off and try to get back on track with my previous task and risk being a bit of a jerk in the process.
Either way, I've already lost out. I'd gladly take a vague email over a confused user walking over to my desk.
My favorite "I'm locked up" is when somebody else logs on to the workstation that the user normally uses. "Locked up" means "there is a different user name in the user name field that mine!".
Another favorite is when a user types their password wrong enough times on our iSeries system. It does something called "varying off" (disabling the terminal until I re-enable it)...so they keep trying...at all the rest of the terminals. Pretty effective denial of service attack if you ask me!
I remember one user who was furious with me because he had worked for the company for over a year, and WHY THE HELL HADN'T I SET HIM UP WITH AN EMAIL!!!?!?!
I had...the trouble was that he had to click the icon (which is on his desktop, and on his start menu) labeled "email". Oh joy!
Also, don't get me wrong, I love my job :), sometimes the users screw up, but it's generally pretty low-impact :).
Comments
I also work largely as a sys-admin, but I do some desktop support as well.
I get a lot of vague emails. "My internet is down," is a favorite of mine, as it could be a network outage, a local computer misconfiguration, a page being inaccessible, or simply the user getting an error page from the site because the URL they bookmarked doesn't exist anymore. If it's an email problem, it's probably because they didn't read the error message.
I also loathe when people walk over to my desk and say, "I hope I'm not interrupting you. {insert problem}". Now I've already been interrupted, so my train of thought has been derailed (worst when programming). I then have two choices, help the person because I am now not so busy with something else that I can't help but reward their behavior by doing so, or brush them off and try to get back on track with my previous task and risk being a bit of a jerk in the process.
Either way, I've already lost out. I'd gladly take a vague email over a confused user walking over to my desk.
At least you get the descriptive "internet".
Lots of times I just get "I'm locked up"...
My favorite "I'm locked up" is when somebody else logs on to the workstation that the user normally uses. "Locked up" means "there is a different user name in the user name field that mine!".
Another favorite is when a user types their password wrong enough times on our iSeries system. It does something called "varying off" (disabling the terminal until I re-enable it)...so they keep trying...at all the rest of the terminals. Pretty effective denial of service attack if you ask me!
I remember one user who was furious with me because he had worked for the company for over a year, and WHY THE HELL HADN'T I SET HIM UP WITH AN EMAIL!!!?!?!
I had...the trouble was that he had to click the icon (which is on his desktop, and on his start menu) labeled "email". Oh joy!
Also, don't get me wrong, I love my job :), sometimes the users screw up, but it's generally pretty low-impact :).