rSlash - r/Talesfromtechsupport How The Office Karen MELTED 3 Computers

Episode Date: February 26, 2021

r/Talesfromtechsupport In today's episode, OP keeps having encounters with an incredibly stupid Karen in the office. Karen has a space heater, and she keeps pointing the thing DIRECTLY at her computer. She manages to melt 3 separate computers this way, and she also gets annoyed at OP when he shows up to fix it. Is she so stupid that she doesn't realize that she's melting the computers, or is she actually devious because she's doing it on purpose as an excuse to avoid work? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

To support sustainable food production, BHP is building one of the world's most sustainable cottage mines in Canada. Essential resources responsibly produced. It's happening now at BHP, a future resources company. Welcome to R-Slash, a podcast where I read the best posts from across Reddit. Today's subreddit is R-Slash Chails from TechSupp support where a user melts for computers. Our next Reddit post is from Macross. For context on this next post, the office was not at all cold.

No way or near cold enough to need a space heater, but there's always one lady that has to have one. This is the first ticket from the insane lady. My desktop keeps overheating and shutting down. I'm behind on work and missing deadlines because of this repeating issue that's resulted in lost work. This lady has a space heater under her desk pointing directly at her desktop, because my feet get too cold in the air conditioned office.

I removed the unapproved heater, ran tests, and the desktop was fine. I checked the event logs, and it had only ever shut down our crashed once from overheating. I explained that I only found one shut down from overheating. I explained that you can't expect a PC to not overheat when it's heated. I made notes in the ticket and delivered the space here to the facilities manager. She raised a big sting with her manager who talked with the facilities manager and had the heater returned. They didn't involve me at all and the unit was placed in exactly the same spot. I got my second ticket from the insane lady the very next day. Desktop is overheating again. I can't continue to work like this.

Fix it or replace my desktop with a laptop. I show up and see the heater right back where it was before. Her desktop was off, but the actual hardware damage was done to the motherboard this time. I replaced her computer with a spare desktop of the same makin' model. I rerout all the cabling and place her desktop on top of her desk so it won't mill from the space heater. She complains about how her small desktop takes up too much room on her double size cubicle desk space, and she should have a laptop. I explained that I didn't have a laptop available, and it actually takes up less space in

a laptop anyhow when she factor in the docking station. I explained, again, that the space heater killed the previous machine, and it shouldn't be placed next to a heat source. I see Cier manager on the ticket. I also let my manager know about what's going on at this point because both cases were totally avoidable. I get my third ticket from the insane lady two days later on a Friday. The new desktop is overheating and shutting down just like the last one. I'm weeks behind on my project at this point. Please give me a laptop so I won't have this type of problem. I show up right after her ticket was created.

She was packing up her stuff to leave for the day, and she looked put out that I even showed up so soon to deal with her issue. Her desktop was on the floor next to her space heater. I ask her why she moved it back there after killing the previous desktop and after clearly explaining that it caused the problem. She wasn't having it, said it took up too much room and she should have a laptop anyhow. This time when I fired up her desktop, it wouldn't even go to post. I noticed the heater was on the highest possible setting and was aimed directly at the PC this time. There was just something about how

visibly annoyed she was that I was gonna fix it. Like, she was ready to take an early weekends and she couldn't work anyway. I explained that I would have a replacement ready within 30 minutes, more to gauge her reaction than anything, and she looked even matter. Is it going to be a laptop? I don't see a replacement being worth it if it's just gonna melt under my desk again. I agreed, a computer under your desk is probably a bad idea. But if she wanted a laptop, she would have to get her boss to approve the purchase of one.

I took her dead desktop and brought back a replacement desktop within 20 minutes. She was gone. Her cutemate said that she left for the day since IT wouldn't have a replacement ready anyhow. I documented everything in the ticket and called my manager. My manager didn't seem to care at all. He did stress that I was not to give her a laptop replacement unless her department approved and paid for it. I was busy enough that this pissed me off. So, I walked over to HR and explained the situation so far to the HR rep. She said she would talk to the user's manager about it and I didn't expect much. Sure enough, the following Monday, I had

to take it to deploy a brand new laptop to the user. Since the space heater was under the desk and the way the cubicle desk were built, there was a space behind the top for cable routing. This meant the majority of hot air from the heater would vent right up through that space, which would feed directly into the air intake on the docking stations. So I'd deployed the docking station in laptop to the right of her monitor instead of the left where we get hit by the heat. Once again, she complained, it's taking up too much room there. Can we put it on the other side? I once again explain that the heat will kill a laptop twice as fast as the two desktops she's already killed. After closing out the ticket, I sent her an email and Ccedar, manager, my manager, and

the HR lady. I explained the problems of space Ccedar had caused, and that it was her refusal to listen that it caused damage to multiple pieces of company property. I let her know that moving the laptop to the other side of her desk would very likely damage the brand new laptop, and it should not be done, and it would result in even further delays in her ability to finish projects. Two days later, I got my fourth ticket from this insane lady. Her laptop won't turn on. She's leaving for the day, so please fix a replace.

It was 10 a.m. on a Wednesday. When I showed up, she wasn't there. Her laptop was moved to the left side of her desk, and her space heater was still on full blast, pointing backwards. Without touching anything, I call the facilities guy. He agreed this heater shouldn't have even been turned on. He agreed that this woman could have burned down the whole freaking building. Her brand new laptop was toast. We took photos of everything, emailed her boss, CCD HR and my manager.

Apparently, her manager didn't even know that she left for the day. She was two weeks behind on a big project and kept blaming IT for messing up her schedule with PCs that didn't work. I pulled her hard drive, dumped all the data and was able to easily show that she hadn't done any work for this project in the last month. I never saw that lady again

after that. Much stricter rules were put in place for space heaters after that, so at least I didn't have to deal with so many overheating issues. It's just frustrating that I could tell pretty quick that she was full of garbage, but I couldn't really do anything about it. And beneath that, we have a silmer story from Inbombo. In my office, a woman complained that it was cold in the office, so she brought in a space heater. Soon after, the office got real cold.

The thermostat was inside a plastic box, so we couldn't mess with it. The cold or it got, the more she cranked up the space heater. Eventually, we noticed her space heater was pointed directly at the thermostat, blowing hot air on it, and kicking on the AC and winter. As the world's population grows, so does the need for resources like potash to support sustainable food production. This is why BHP is building

one of the world's most sustainable potash mines in Canada, essential resources responsibly produced. This is what BHP has mines in Canada. Essential resources responsibly produced. This is what BHP has committed to Canada. The future is clear. It's happening now at BHP, a future resources company. To discover how, visit BHP.com slash better future. Looking for bright even glowing skin? Then harness the brightening power of vitamin C and get your glow on with Garnier Vitamin C

Brightening Serum, a highly concentrated serum formulated with German gradients such as Vitamin C, niacinamide, and salicylic acid, visibly smooth skin texture, even out the look of skin tone and boost glow. All in just two weeks with Garnier Vitamin C brightening serum, like Garnier, naturally. Shut Now on Amazon.ca Our next reply is from Kevin Rain. So this happened almost eight years ago, but it's something I routinely bring up to new

hires when training or nesting because it's highly effective. Backstory, our company had an issue with the product, and we were aware of it, but we still had to do damage control. I was on the phones at the Supervisor level and had been handling upset customers who didn't think our appeasement was efficient and I thought I'd heard everything. Q. Queen Karen. When a customer requests an escalation, someone in my role has to take it after the advisor briefs us on the case.

This advisor warned me that I had quite the handful here and I said no worries I got this. I joined the advisor when the customer was taken off hold and we were immediately greeted with it having took you long enough. Due to the issue overwhelming us and management only approving over time that day we had a 45 minute escalation queue and our 5 minute briefing time had been reduced to 3 minutes. So this customer had been waiting about 48 minutes to speak with me. I was introducing the advisor left the call. This is where the fun begins.

Hello customer, I'm... I know the CEO and I'm a shareholder. I know my right, and if you don't give me what I want right now, I'll hang up this phone and you will be fired! Okay, I apologize if you feel our appeasement offers insufficient. I can ask late your case to see if we can grant an additional appeasement, but I will need at least 48 hours to see what can be done. I know the f'ing CEO.

I can call him right now and have you fired, so do it now. In this moment, all my frustration en and rage boiled over, and instead of calling her stupid, I decided to call her bluff. Ma'am, I can clearly see that you're very important, and since you've clearly stated twice that you have a far more effective path of escalation than anything I can provide, I feel it's best that you follow that path of escalation. There was silence for a good 30 seconds followed by... What? You said twice during our conversation that you can directly speak with our CEO. There was silence for a good 30 seconds followed by, what?

You said twice during our conversation that you can directly speak with our CEO. My escalation path ends far below the CEO or any other senior officer in the company, so I think especially follow your escalation path. Realizing she screwed up, she tries to walk it back. No, you see. No, no. I simply can't allow you to continue down this path when you have a far more effective way to resolve this issue.

I'll make sure to note this on your account, so you don't have to bother with our less effective escalation path in the future. I hope you have a great day. Click. In case you're wondering what happened, she filed a formal complaint when she called another advisor who saw my notes and complied with her request.

My manager thought it was hilarious, and she took the extraordinary step to cholera and asked her why the customer was bothering her staff when she could have dealt with the CEO directly and gotten her preferred resolution. The customer was dumbfounded that we actually believed her and whined about getting the appeasement. My manager held the line on denying her the appeasement. My manager held the line on denying her the appeasement and advised the customer to choose her words more carefully moving forward. So, yeah, if you call techsupport and say that you personally know the CEO of the company,

you may get a customer service rep who will call you on your bluff. Our next reddit post is from Andrew Knox. This story happened when I first joined my current company and while I wasn't the one that actually had to deal with this problem, I was standing by and heard the juicy parts from my mentor himself. Exactly two days before a major festive celebration, we got a call from a user who's panicking because one of his equipment failed, and production has come to a screeching halt. Now, I work in a company that services critical process equipment in a country with a distinct West half and East half separated by the sea. This is

important because we're based in the Western half. The client was a major refining plan for the petroleum industry. As we normally do, we go through the usual troubleshooting steps. Did you turn this on? Is the connection active? Yada yada yada. But the only answer coming from the user was, yes, yes, yes, with nothing seemingly wrong. This went on for about half an hour when suddenly our boss comes in. The client's head of production had just called him and he was apparently livid. It turns out the machine stopped working for more than an hour and production was severely

interrupted until the problem got fixed. Now everyone was in a panic because every hour the production was interrupted, the client was losing money in the tens of thousands of dollars. And the client had the right to sue us for any damages that occur as a result of equipment downtime. The hit of production was not happy that their internal team wasn't able to fix the problem. And the user wasn't making any headway in fixing the problem by a phone. To resolve the issue, the head of production demanded the support be performed immediately on-site. Coming back to my earlier points, I should point out that, one, it's the

festive season. Two, they're across the sea. Traveling was a bit of a problem, but the head of production said money wasn't an issue and they would pay anything for immediate on-site support. Q. My mentor, who was handed the unsavory task of handling this emergency. Immediately he grabbed his tools and sped off to the airport to grab the next available flight. At the same time, his wife had to pack clothes for him and rushed to meet him at the airports we would have close to change in too. Due to the festive season, my mentor didn't have choices for flights, so in the end he had to take a $1,000 business class flight. Normally, flights to where

the client is located cost 80 bucks. We're a developing country, so yeah. Upon arriving, my mentor was whisked away from the airport with a driver and sent immediately to the refinery and granted immediate security clearance to enter the plant. Anyone working in petroleum would know how big of a deal this is. By this time, a good six hours or so had passed since we received the call and we were well into the night. Greetings him in front of the equipment was the head of production, the user, and various other senior management personnel all anxious to see what the problem was. My mentor is a guy with no chill, and he was also the one originally speaking to the user on the phone.

According to him, this is what went down. The hit of production said, so what's the problem? My mentor said, wait let me take a look. He starts to go through the normal troubleshooting checklist, but stops almost immediately. User, are you sure you checked everything that I asked you to? Yeah, everything. Word for word. Are you absolutely sure?

Yes. Do you remember what the third thing I asked you to check for over the phone was? Why does that matter? Just fix the God dang problem. The first thing we normally check is to make sure the PC is turned on. He points to the CPU LED indicator. The second thing we check is to make sure the equipment is turned on. He points to the machine LED.

The third thing is to make sure the gas is on. He brings his hand to the gas control valve, rotates it, and allowed his to hurt as the gas line pressurizes in the equipment beeps. Everyone standing in the room is silent. My mentor just says, I would like to go have dinner now. After more awkward silence, the head of production thanks my mentor for his effort and asked the driver to bring mentor somewhere for dinner. You would think the story ends here, but there's more. By the time my mentor finishes dinner, it was well-passed midnight, so he checked

himself into a hotel for the night. The next day he went back to the airport and found out that all flights were completely sold out for the next four days due to holiday traveling. He called my boss to inform him that he was basically stranded and my boss just coolly said to him, well just consider this a free holiday paid for by the client. So my mentor checked into the most luxurious hotel in the area, and spent the next four days basically on vacation before coming back to work. In total, we build the client for over $10,000 for flights, hotel, emergency arrangements, allowances, etc. All for just 10 seconds of troubleshooting to check two LEDs and turn a valve.

That's not even including the losses from halting their production. It's still one of the most memorable stories that we tell to new hires or clients in our industry. Sometimes we wonder what happened to the user, but he was transferred out of his role not too long after the incident. Beneath that, we have a similar story from own cupcake. I had a nearly identical experience, except it was in the US, and it was on a nuclear power plant. All I did was travel halfway across the country, waste a day in training, and then turn on a breaker. Literally, it was a 5 second job.

That was our slash-chails from TechSupport, and if you liked this content, check out my Patreon where I publish extra episodes. Also, be sure to follow this podcast, because I put out new Reddit podcast episodes every single day.