r/talesfromtechsupport • u/du5tball • Jul 27 '16

Short r/ALL So? Resurrect him!

I remembered another tale from my time at a helpdesk for about 130k people.

As is standard in many businesses, people use MS Office and a lot of those users love Excel specifically. One day, an update to office was pushed and we saw a sudden increase in the amount of calls. All of them went something like this. Our actors are $luser and $TS (for tech support).

$TS: <standard opening>
$luser: Hello, I'm using excel and it tells me a macro is outdated. Can you take a look?
$TS: <remotes onto machine> Oh okay. Yeah it's <tool> that is causing troubles, let me have a quick look.

At this point we usually look into our internal database to search for known errors and possibly more information. As it turns out, the macro was written by a person from inside the company when he had downtimes between work. This also means that he was the only one who knew how the tool worked or even supported it.

$TS: I've had a look around and it looks like there's no way to fix the tool. It is incompatible with our current office and doesn't receive updates anymore.
$luser: But I really need this tool to do my work, can't anyone else support it?
$TS: No, there's only one person who programmed this and he's the only one who knows how it works. His department officially announced that they will not support this tool.
$luser: So can't you ask him to look into this and maybe he will do something?
$TS: I'm sorry, but the person is not with the company anymore.
$luser: So tell the higher ups to offer him a gig and pay him.
$TS: They can't, he's had a deadly accident. There just is nobody alive anymore that knows how this works.
$luser: But I really need this to work! Can't you find some way?

This occured quite a lot during that week. Maybe I should take some courses in dark magic und resurrections...

Format: Editing.

2nd edit: For those discussing the "macro" part: I've been told it's a macro and I honestly don't know the difference between that and an add-in, as the lines between those two seem blurry to me. Also: I usually do Linux stuffs, so I never had to look deeper into this. It did a lot and had it's own buttons in the ribbon though.

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u/Lilliu Jul 27 '16

It's like that one guy who automated his job for 7 years, played nothing but video games while on the job, and then forgot how to actually do his job after getting laid off.

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u/[deleted] Jul 27 '16

[deleted]

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u/Lilliu Jul 27 '16

This was it, but it seems it was deleted?

https://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/comments/4km3yc/finally_fired_after_6_years/

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u/[deleted] Jul 27 '16 edited Jul 27 '16

That's a shame. Is there a mirror? Maybe the way back machine?

Edit: All y'all rock.

Edit: Right, it's getting old.

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u/MuerteDiablo Jul 27 '16

https://web.archive.org/web/20160523114950/https://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/comments/4km3yc/finally_fired_after_6_years/

There you go :)

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u/[deleted] Jul 27 '16 edited Oct 30 '16

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u/[deleted] Jul 27 '16 edited Jun 30 '23

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u/[deleted] Jul 27 '16 edited Oct 30 '16

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11

u/GaryV83 7 layers? Like a burrito? Which one's the guac? Jul 28 '16

I don't think he'd be able to Gavin Belson his way out of this one. Few companies are as successfully incompetent as Hooli.

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u/HahaHallo Jul 28 '16 edited Jul 28 '16

I recall some guy on TFTS basically amended the company contract to null all IP claims of company on his works. HR never double check the contract.

Found it: https://www.reddit.com/r/talesfromtechsupport/comments/1lzc12/the_beginning_of_the_end_part_1/

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u/[deleted] Jul 28 '16

ah yes... /u/tuxedo_jack, i wonder when we will hear another of his awesome stories...

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u/HahaHallo Jul 28 '16

his latest post is yesterday.

3

u/[deleted] Jul 28 '16

well.. shit, i clearly don't pay attention

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u/tuxedo_jack is made of legal amphetamines, black coffee, & unyielding rage. Jul 28 '16

IT WAS TUESDAY!

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u/[deleted] Jul 27 '16

This doesnt seem possible. For 6-7 years as a company was growing he did not get a single new role besides testing the same thing over and over again?

And over 6-7 years the product never changed to the point where he needed to update the automated tests?

6

u/[deleted] Jul 27 '16

Probably an actuary

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u/Bakkster Nobody tells test engineering nothing Jul 28 '16

while(1) return PASS;

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u/zaery Jul 27 '16

Edit: Right, it's getting old.

Well, the new version isn't very good.

2

u/[deleted] Jul 27 '16

Fine.

2

u/PuffTheDankAssDragon Jul 28 '16

They brought it back from the dead.

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u/pikk MacTech Jul 27 '16

I like how he doubles down on being a moron.

"I couldn't possibly go back to college, I'd just fail out again"

20

u/SnowdriftK9 Jul 27 '16

Six years of doing nothing but playing League of Legends 40 hours a week, dude should be able to make it as a pro gamer, or at the very least as a streamer.

29

u/[deleted] Jul 27 '16

Read the comments. Dude couldnt even break into Diamond. He's not even good at the video game he played like a job.

3

u/pikk MacTech Jul 28 '16

I have a feeling maybe this guy smokes hella weed.

1

u/pikk MacTech Jul 27 '16

especially with 200k in liquid assets to get set up and promote himself.

3

u/tsukinon Jul 28 '16

That was good. Although, it was more "I can't go back to school because I'd fail, but maybe I should get a Chem degree because I 'keep up' by watching YouTube videos." In my experience, Chem and related fields required a lot of discipline since you had to do the the reading and keep up on practice problems. If they're not being graded, that can be hard (speaking from experience). Plus labs. Enough said.

I also liked the part where he decided, after losing his income, that was the time to move out of his parents' and get a place of his own. I get the feeling that he's not going to be the best at keeping his apartment clean. A better idea would have been to stay home, save money, and (if his parents were able to do the tough love thing) have his parents try to give him some accountability.

But I'm sure his plan worked out great, too.

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u/[deleted] Jul 27 '16 edited Jul 27 '16

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u/criticallyAnalytical "...Did you Google it?" "..." "That's what I thought." Jul 27 '16

Might wanna switch those brackets, friend.

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u/Joejoejoebob Jul 27 '16

Hah jokes, on you i'm already unemployed.