Topic: Please install white toner cartridge

Support is fun at times

Especially when you receive a "call" like the one above (support request, as we name them).
And you get to wonder what the hell is a white toner cartridge, and what would she want to do with that?

Well, at least I knew the guy from the helpdesk was drunk the night before, for I was paying the drinks, but... anyway, one of my colleagues goes there to check the white toner.

He happened to be daltonian

....

At this point, I had been laughing my behind off for a good five minutes already, when a new support request pops up for the same user, "blue toner" this time.
*burst of laughters in the office*.... it's getting there, but still, there is no BLUE toner in printers, only cyan, magenta, yellow and black. Try again.
A few minutes later, my colleague comes back, seemingly nervously exhausted, the white toner had been a hard time.

"
M: So, what did she want in the end?
H: Well, you know those printers, the display?
M: Yeah.
H: When it's low on toner, you get a representation of the cartridges with black dots to show the toner level for each one.
M: Yeah.
H: For the black toner, if the display was black, the little dots could not be read.
M: Oh my, so the white toner basically was black?
H: Yeah.
M: How many prints were left btw?
H: 2000.
M: Oh. And she'll need to print 2000 color copies? Before?
H: Tomorrow.
M: Go figure...
"

I really do love my job

quote:

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_Mauro said:

but still, there is no BLUE toner in printers, only cyan, magenta, yellow and black

---

actually there are *some* printers that have "blue" toner. We have an Oce 700 that has a seven color process. R-G-B and C-M-Y-K
but yeah,*most* printers don't have it.

We had a customer call in once that her printer was "spilling out black water". We thought "what the hell is she talking about". Drove out there and someone had took the black toner bottle out of the machine and put water in it! Just to loosen up the toner in the bottom of bottle!!

Working with people and their printers can be some fun. I had an IT admin call me the other with some printing problems. Asked him what the IP of his printer was and he said "I don't know, you all set it up!" So, I had to walk him through how to get the printer IP from the control panel -> printers and faxes -> ports.

Sometimes I wonder how these sys admins get their freakin jobs!

Later,

C:\

I was going to jump on the blue toner bit, but CPrompt already did it...
_____

In my line of work, when there is a particularly large job on with trunk-loads of kit going out, I dread the support role.

One way has me stuck on a job potentially a thousand miles from home, bored out of my skull and just praying for something to go wrong just so that I have a problem to solve.

The other way has me sitting on the other end of the phone for ages, just trying to get the client's choice of on-site crew to achieve things that I'd be doing without thinking. I feel like a therapist sometimes with the distraught support calls that roll in during the busiest times...
_____

There's an advert on the radio at the moment with two blokes talking on the phone. One assures the other that computers are easy, then proceeds to ask him what's on his computer. He repeats the question a couple of times, met with a dumb silence...

Then the answer comes.

"Uh... a cactus?"


I haven't a clue what they're advertising, but the conversation definitely rings a few bells!

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzz.....

Yeah, the support classics. You know, I *love* users, if they knew what they were doing,
I'd have no job, and the world would be full of Einsteins because information science probably is very difficult to a 60 years old guy.

And as any job that puts you in contact with plenty of people, you start observing behavioral patterns.

Without unveiling too much about the white toner person, typical behavioral patterns include:
- when furious people call to discover the issue is general and affecting loads of people, the fact other people are impacted makes them... almost... happy. It goes from "It's a scandal!" to "ok, cool", almost instantly. They "love it" when everybody shares theyre pain

- people have an anger peak when they call, but as long as you listen and do not argue, displaying empathy (active listening without agreeing all the time, statements like "I understand your point of view"), the anger peek fades away... as they get tired and adrenaline shot wears out Much easier to handle after that.

- Just as in real life, ladies get wild when in group, and many of them know how to behave when "driven". Eg. as in shopping, avoid
asking a lady what she wants exactly at all costs, avoid her driving you, for it won't lead you anywhere. At least not during this millenium.

Once spent two hours stuck with two ladies making very audacious sex jokes, and all I was supposed to do was show them VPN access.
They "loved" trying to throw the new shi support boy off.

quote:

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_Mauro said:
Once spent two hours stuck with two ladies making very audacious sex jokes, and all I was supposed to do was show them VPN access.
They "loved" trying to throw the new shi support boy off.

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I went out to a clients location once to install their new big huge copier/printer/fax/scanner on their network. I was working on the mfp itself putting in some settings and the receptionist came in the room to get some envelopes. All of a sudden I felt her grab my ass. She said she was "falling"

And I know what you mean about people getting irate and then all of a sudden calming down when you show empathy. In the business that I'm in, customers are important to we have to sometimes "baby" them. Have to pretty much hold their hand for them. Eigh, makes for good conversation I guess

Later,

C:\

And then some are just plain dumb. When I was installing TV cable I had put a digital receiver in a ladies house and was explaining how to use the remote and receiver. I was there explaining for about two hours. Lucky for me I was on call that night and got called out to a problem at their residence. Everything was working okay but I had to explain it to her husband for a hour or so.

Back to being a lineman, I pulled up to a pole where we were going to be doing some work and a dude rushed up to us almost slobbering he was so angry. When I didn't get all pissed off at him and calmly explained what was going on it seemed like a switch turned on or off and he was super nice.

Of course this isn't the case with all people. I had one lady threaten me with a shotgun if I turned her cable off. And some people are going to be butt holes just because they are butt holes. My own wife called me a butt hole last night. Can you believe it? Me either. A few minutes later she asked me to hand her something. I handed it to her and said "Here you go in a nice non-butt hole way." After a few minutes I thought about it and came to the conclusion that my reply was the butt hole part.