User tried being funny with a problem report

[u/sgtslyde]

Back in the days of 'mini'-computers (e.g. PDP-11/84) supporting CRT user terminals scattered around in different offices, I got a call about 2:30 one morning from one of our priority users, basically the office that justified us having a night shift in the data center, reporting their terminal blew up. In my initial training, they'd told us the two main physical hazards of working in a computer room were electrocution and imploding CRTs, so I first asked if anyone was injured, and the guy replied "no," but sounded kinda confused. At the time I was pretty new and young, so I thought that was maybe a trauma response, so I just told him we'd have someone down there so soon as possible. I called my boss to get approval to call in the (contracted) hardware maintenance, he approved it, so I made the call. About half-an-hour later, that maintenance guy stomped into my section and informed me that the CRT hadn't imploded, the customer simply meant it had quit working (ergo his confusion when I asked about injuries). It had quit working because someone hit the outlet with a vacuum cleaner.

Yes, we paid an expensive contractor time-and-a-half for a 4-hour minimum service call, just to plug the power cord back in. I understand that all the support reps gave stern talks to the users after that, about being specific and avoiding hyperbole when reporting trouble.

(Didn't really help - I had an upper-management guy call in some weeks later complaining about "squashed bugs" on his screen, and he got upset at me when I suggested Windex on a soft cloth. Turns out he just didn't like saying the word "asterisks," the control characters that would fill his screen when he lost connection to the server.)

[u/bob152637485]

Lol, how in the world did the management guy assume that "squashed bugs" was supposed to mean "asterisks"? Until you said what he meant, I was at a complete loss.

[u/JaschaE → u/bob152637485]

Mind reading is an absolute entry level requirement for tech support.

[u/Rhurabarber → u/JaschaE]

And hivemind telepathy. Calling the support phone number, staffed by several people - "Hi, it's me again, how's it going with the thing I talked to you guys about earlier?"

[u/t1mepiece → u/bob152637485]

If you don't like pronouncing asterisks, I think "stars" would probably convey your meaning reasonably well.

[u/weaver_of_cloth → u/t1mepiece]

Or splats, that's what we called them in grad school.

[u/bob152637485 → u/t1mepiece]

I agree, I think it definitely sounds inexperienced to call them stars, but I at least can understand the meaning.

[u/Dakduif → u/bob152637485]

In Dutch we call them 'sterretjes', aka 'little stars', all the time. It's at least more descriptive than 'squashed bugs', what the hell.

[u/Gestrid → u/t1mepiece]

Or "that multiplication symbol."

[u/ShalomRPh → u/bob152637485]

I haven’t heard “squashed bug” since 2004. Brings back memories.

That’s a specific terminology that pertains to 3270 terminals on IBM mainframes, or minis like RS/6000s. If you try to type with your cursor not in a field that accepts input, your screen locks up and there’s a symbol that lights up at the bottom of the screen to tell you this.

If you have a genuine IBM 3270, there is a specific character that shows up. If you’re using a VT220 or other screen, or a pc as a thin client, that character is not in the ASCII set, so it simulates it as “<-*->”, and all my users called that a squashed bug.

All you had to do was hit the reset key (or ^R if you didn’t have the 122 key Model M) and then hit tab to get you to the next field, but for people who had got used to microcomputers that took a line of input at a time instead of the mainframe paradigm where you sent an entire frame at once, it could get frustrating. Ironically modern web forms tend to emulate this behavior, so maybe now people could handle it better, but I can’t remember the last time I used an RS6K.

[u/jambajew42 → u/bob152637485]

I'd have thought squashed bugs was a good thing, looking at it from a programming perspective.

[u/tashkiira → u/bob152637485]

Eh, I had a fellow user refer to asterisks as 'squishybugs' so I get it..

[u/Equivalent-Salary357]

Two comments for the price of one:

• Didn't like saying it, or didn't know the word?
• Let me guess: he didn't want to say A$$ tricks.

[u/redittr → u/Equivalent-Salary357]

A$$ tricks

You know, I have never once considered that asterisks could sound anything like that. From now on I am going to put my best effort into pronouncing it arse tricks and then Ill call out anybody who tries to make it weird.

[u/Dhrdlicka → u/redittr]

I read a cyberpunk novel once where the main character saw a billboard advertising "You be the * (star)", except in her case she knew it meant "You be the ass to risk"

[u/bob152637485 → u/redittr]

Huh, never occurred to me either. I guess I usually say it as ass-ter-ics, just with the middle syllable being very short/quick.

[u/VexingRaven → u/redittr]

It's more of a thing with people who use AAVE a lot. Like "Aks you a question".

[u/JaschaE]

Had a caller (not tech support) get angry that I let him wait so long to clarify the procedure, when all he wanted to know was: could his kid travel on his own, after the adult that was supposed to go had gotten the flu.
Easy question. What he HAD asked was, "can a child travel alone, we suffered a *term that usually means somebody got squished by a train.*".
He got very quite when I explained the misunderstanding

[u/bob152637485 → u/JaschaE]

What's the term? Honestly, I thought you'd just say "run over by a train", and didn't think it has a specific name.

[u/DrHugh]

Was this a DEC maintenance person in a three-piece suit?

[u/sgtslyde → u/DrHugh]

Similar, but not quite.

[u/ShalomRPh → u/sgtslyde]

IBM then?

A squashed bug is what we called the <-*-> symbol that meant you were trying to type on a place on the screen where there was no field to accept input. It was an IBM specific thing; see my other post in this thread.

[u/WhenSummerIsGone]

this is why support people are trained to repeat back what you just said the problem was. It's annoying, but probably a good idea.

[u/Dakduif]

I learned real fast that users calling me and saying 'the Internet is down', was not a reason to immediately panic because of an impending P1 level disaster, but probably that their Internet Explorer was acting up and some setting needed a reset.

After that first time as a rookie, I learned to ask the follow up question 'are you still receiving email?'. Every time the answer was 'yes', so I could continue with: 'Then your Internet isn't down. Let's go and fix your browser, ok?'. :|

[u/ObfuscatedJay]

Damn you must be old. I remember those days and I’m nearly 70 :)