Service Dog experiences
Jul. 2nd, 2009 08:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stormdogThis is the first time I've been primary (rather than back-up) on call for my company. My first call was about half an hour ago. Let me tell you about it so you know how confused my company is.
I woke up to my cell phone ringing. Missed it, and of course there's no voice mail because the automatic outcall doesn't leave a message. Called the after hours message box from my VOIP line and picked up the message there. A user is locked out of her computer.
My first thought on this is that our out of country first level people continue to be amazingly ill-informed. Accounts on our domain cannot be locked out at this time. (Yes that's stupid in itself, but moving one...) So I looked up the account just to make sure the lockout hadn't been randomly enabled again (like it was a week or so ago, and we've still never heard who did it or why), and the user was not locked. On either account (we still have tons of people with two accounts due to one of our mergers and it's anybody's guess which one they're using 'till you talk to them.)
On top of that, there were two different names listed in this ticket. Same first name with two different last names. Fortunately, when I did a search for one of those last names, it doesn't exist in our company at all, much less with that same first name. At least I know who the hell to call. More first level confusion. These people are next to useless. (And I know it's not really their fault; it's the astoundingly half-ass training [and that's when we actually get training] that this company provides us.)
Called her up. As I said, her local account is not locked out, but it sounds like she locked herself out locally. Ok, I had her log in via dial-up connection through our VPN. That's fixed and she's now in to the system. However, she needs to get access to some of our company's external clients and can't. Typically she does this by RDPing to another computer that has the connections that she needs, but that computer is not running.
She says that she asked her coworkers about that computer being down two days ago, and they told her that it had been decomissioned and that she needed to have the service desk set her up with a different VPN connection (one that is used to connect to our corporate network from remote sites). That makes no sense whatsoever since she already had VPN access to our network (she works remotely) and just needs RDP access to a computer that has the VPN access to our clients. I'm thinking her coworkers must have misunderstood her, or she them. Most likely the former, since she got the name of the other VPN from somewhere and called service desk to get it set up on her computer.
So, as I said, she called to get set up on the other VPN connection. Our first level people have her try logging into it as the wrong username. They have her use the account name format that belongs to legacy Company 1 (my original company) to connect to a legacy company 3 (where the first level service desk came from, so they keep trying to get everyone to use those resources even when they shouldn't) VPN, when the user is actually from legacy company 2. Not that any of that should be a problem; it should all work. If she's using the right login name. Which she told the first level people that she wasn't, but she says they didn't understand or believe her. I know they can see active directory; is it that hard to look someone up and see what their account name is? She says that it was in this mess of trying to connect to a VPN she didn't need with a username that wasn't her own, is where her account got locked out. Ok, I can see that. And then, they got off the phone and didn't call her back. Awesome.
So I got her logged in via dial-up connection. She then asked about the VPN that she was told she needs to connect to clients. I explained the difference between a VPN connection to our network, and got the name of the computer she's been RDPing too. I can't connect to it either and it's not responding to pings; sounds like she heard right and that it's been decommisioned. I explained that I really can't know what computer it is that she needs to connect to since I'm not familiar with her group and what they do. She'll need to talk to her co-workers and find out from them what they're using. And not let them tell her she needs a new VPN because she doesn't.
They're all on vacation, she told me. But she dug around her computer and found another VPN connection to another computer that she thought might do what she needs. But she tried to connect and couldn't get to it. I tried with the same name and got in just fine. Checking with her, it turned out her RDP shortcut pointed at the wrong IP address.
I created a new shortcut for her on her desktop that points to the right computer with the right IP address and had her try it out. Amazingly, she got in, looked around, and said that it looks like it'll do the job. Awesome.
One call down. This being only a Thursday (when though the service desk has the day off, some client facing parts of the company do not), and my on-shift lasting through next week Sunday, X to go. X being a variable defined, in this case, as clearly far too many.
I'm gonna go shower now. Please; hold all my calls.
I woke up to my cell phone ringing. Missed it, and of course there's no voice mail because the automatic outcall doesn't leave a message. Called the after hours message box from my VOIP line and picked up the message there. A user is locked out of her computer.
My first thought on this is that our out of country first level people continue to be amazingly ill-informed. Accounts on our domain cannot be locked out at this time. (Yes that's stupid in itself, but moving one...) So I looked up the account just to make sure the lockout hadn't been randomly enabled again (like it was a week or so ago, and we've still never heard who did it or why), and the user was not locked. On either account (we still have tons of people with two accounts due to one of our mergers and it's anybody's guess which one they're using 'till you talk to them.)
On top of that, there were two different names listed in this ticket. Same first name with two different last names. Fortunately, when I did a search for one of those last names, it doesn't exist in our company at all, much less with that same first name. At least I know who the hell to call. More first level confusion. These people are next to useless. (And I know it's not really their fault; it's the astoundingly half-ass training [and that's when we actually get training] that this company provides us.)
Called her up. As I said, her local account is not locked out, but it sounds like she locked herself out locally. Ok, I had her log in via dial-up connection through our VPN. That's fixed and she's now in to the system. However, she needs to get access to some of our company's external clients and can't. Typically she does this by RDPing to another computer that has the connections that she needs, but that computer is not running.
She says that she asked her coworkers about that computer being down two days ago, and they told her that it had been decomissioned and that she needed to have the service desk set her up with a different VPN connection (one that is used to connect to our corporate network from remote sites). That makes no sense whatsoever since she already had VPN access to our network (she works remotely) and just needs RDP access to a computer that has the VPN access to our clients. I'm thinking her coworkers must have misunderstood her, or she them. Most likely the former, since she got the name of the other VPN from somewhere and called service desk to get it set up on her computer.
So, as I said, she called to get set up on the other VPN connection. Our first level people have her try logging into it as the wrong username. They have her use the account name format that belongs to legacy Company 1 (my original company) to connect to a legacy company 3 (where the first level service desk came from, so they keep trying to get everyone to use those resources even when they shouldn't) VPN, when the user is actually from legacy company 2. Not that any of that should be a problem; it should all work. If she's using the right login name. Which she told the first level people that she wasn't, but she says they didn't understand or believe her. I know they can see active directory; is it that hard to look someone up and see what their account name is? She says that it was in this mess of trying to connect to a VPN she didn't need with a username that wasn't her own, is where her account got locked out. Ok, I can see that. And then, they got off the phone and didn't call her back. Awesome.
So I got her logged in via dial-up connection. She then asked about the VPN that she was told she needs to connect to clients. I explained the difference between a VPN connection to our network, and got the name of the computer she's been RDPing too. I can't connect to it either and it's not responding to pings; sounds like she heard right and that it's been decommisioned. I explained that I really can't know what computer it is that she needs to connect to since I'm not familiar with her group and what they do. She'll need to talk to her co-workers and find out from them what they're using. And not let them tell her she needs a new VPN because she doesn't.
They're all on vacation, she told me. But she dug around her computer and found another VPN connection to another computer that she thought might do what she needs. But she tried to connect and couldn't get to it. I tried with the same name and got in just fine. Checking with her, it turned out her RDP shortcut pointed at the wrong IP address.
I created a new shortcut for her on her desktop that points to the right computer with the right IP address and had her try it out. Amazingly, she got in, looked around, and said that it looks like it'll do the job. Awesome.
One call down. This being only a Thursday (when though the service desk has the day off, some client facing parts of the company do not), and my on-shift lasting through next week Sunday, X to go. X being a variable defined, in this case, as clearly far too many.
I'm gonna go shower now. Please; hold all my calls.
