Me: <troubleshooting an issue and then see a dialog box with a major error>
Me: How long has this been happening? It's probably related.
Client: That's a click-through error, don't worry about that.
Me: A what?
Client: A click through. It's nothing.
Me: OK.....
Thursday, April 30, 2015
Saturday, April 25, 2015
Overheard at the Office #14
We received a phone call from an on again/off again client. They were having a new switch installed to replace one that was the victim of a power surge. First they need passwords. Then they call back because they guy has been there for 5 hours now and they're still down. So I head out.
Me: How's it going, I'm Alan from $COMPANY. What seems to be the problem?
Contractor: We're having trouble turning on PoE on this switch. I'm not really a network guy so I've got my guy remoted in from the office and we cant figure it out.
Me: Are you sure this is a PoE switch?
Contractor: Sure it is, aren't they all now days?
Me: <Looks at the part number written on the box and shaking my head>
Contractor: What?
Me: You brought the wrong switch.....
So I go to talk this over with the client, and when I come back, the contractor is gone (he packed up his stuff and bolted). I'm able to cable up everything that needs PoE to the half of the blown switch that still works, and everything else to the new non-PoE switch, and then connected the new switch to the rest of the network (yeah buddy, that's why there was no connectivity for the devices plugged into it) so they're at least back up for now. Maybe this is why the other company charges so much less?
A few days later, the vendor ships out the switch that the client paid for, and I'm called back out to finish the job. Client is happy and I'm a hero for a few minutes until I bring up how they should do something to protect their infrastructure from surges. A good surge protector is a lot cheaper than a new 2960 every year. Cisco switches should't blow out this often, look at all these dead ones in the rack because you're too lazy/cheap to have them pulled out. Aaaaaaaaand now they're not talking to us again because all we want is to constantly try to sell them stuff. See you in another year or two when this one blows.
Me: How's it going, I'm Alan from $COMPANY. What seems to be the problem?
Contractor: We're having trouble turning on PoE on this switch. I'm not really a network guy so I've got my guy remoted in from the office and we cant figure it out.
Me: Are you sure this is a PoE switch?
Contractor: Sure it is, aren't they all now days?
Me: <Looks at the part number written on the box and shaking my head>
Contractor: What?
Me: You brought the wrong switch.....
So I go to talk this over with the client, and when I come back, the contractor is gone (he packed up his stuff and bolted). I'm able to cable up everything that needs PoE to the half of the blown switch that still works, and everything else to the new non-PoE switch, and then connected the new switch to the rest of the network (yeah buddy, that's why there was no connectivity for the devices plugged into it) so they're at least back up for now. Maybe this is why the other company charges so much less?
A few days later, the vendor ships out the switch that the client paid for, and I'm called back out to finish the job. Client is happy and I'm a hero for a few minutes until I bring up how they should do something to protect their infrastructure from surges. A good surge protector is a lot cheaper than a new 2960 every year. Cisco switches should't blow out this often, look at all these dead ones in the rack because you're too lazy/cheap to have them pulled out. Aaaaaaaaand now they're not talking to us again because all we want is to constantly try to sell them stuff. See you in another year or two when this one blows.
Thursday, April 23, 2015
Overheard at the Office #13
My coworker was on a call with Cisco troubleshooting a completely nonfunctional setup of Cisco Smart CallConnector, and it wasn't very productive this far. Then all of a sudden the Cisco technician had an aha! moment.
Cisco: I've found the problem!
Us: Great, what is it?
Cisco: You guys haven't set up your email server yet. This needs a working email server.
Us: That's odd, this client has been receiving mail on this server for years......
Cisco: Impossible, the mail server isn't up. I can see that it's not working!
Us: Ok, I'll play along..... How can you tell that?
Cisco: I can't telnet into it on port 25.
Cisco: I can't telnet into it on port 25.
Us: Yep, that's by design.
Cisco: Huh?
Us: The server only accepts external traffic from the spam filter on port 25.
Cisco: <silence on the line>
Me: Presses mute and lets out a loud sigh.
Me: Presses mute and lets out a loud sigh.
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