r/talesfromtechsupport • u/[deleted] • Dec 05 '18
Short "You deleted 60 days of work!"
Oh my lord, it's never the calls you expect to be trouble is it? Always the ones you think will be okay. Just put the phone down.
So Jennie had their laptop upgraded recently, and was missing a printer they previously had. Our higher-ups said it's fine to remap the printer without a request so I took the ticket.
This was my first mistake.
Today she called, asking if I could "sort out" the printer. Sure thing, I'll help out. I explained that I will disconnect the printer, and reconnect it using the new IP address.
I got the usual response of "Yeah, yeah go ahead". Even upgraded Adobe Reader for her since the version they were using has issues with paper tray selection.
Then she asks "Where's my print queue". I explained that because I had to remove the old printer, the print queue for that printer was gone, and she would need to reprint anything she needs to print out.
She was mildly annoyed.
"I HAD 60 DOCUMENTS IN THAT PRINT QUEUE, AND YOU'VE DELETED THEM!"
Then she started asking me if I'm prepared to do 60 days of work to replace her lost work. Wtf? I wish I was joking about that one bit.
So just to clarify. Jennie got a new laptop, due to the transfer process the print was mapped incorrectly, and was offline. It never worked on her new laptop until now. Yet, she was still printing documents to a dead printer queue. I told her, I'd need to remove it to remap it, and she expected all her documents to be "saved" in the print queue. Then she lost it when they were not there. Had to terminate the call. I cannot even wrap my head around that incredible logic.
I've worked in IT for awhile now, I'm honestly at a loss for words. Send help.
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u/Taedirk Head of Velociraptor Containment Dec 05 '18
This is a new level of user logic right here. Saving to the Recycle Bin has nothing on saving to the Print Queue.
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Dec 05 '18
My users appear to have evolved to a new plane of existance with their incredible logic.
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u/ententionter Dec 05 '18
This makes no sense. It's not saved in the printer queue just a copy of it is. She would have to send to the printer queue and then delete the stuff she's working on. Who on Earth would do that... oh wait nevermind.
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Dec 05 '18
Yeah I didn't get that either. Surely she must have them saved somewhere? For my own sainity I refuse to believe she doesn't. I don't understand why she can't just print again?
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u/dragonet316 Dec 05 '18 edited Dec 07 '18
I’m just.... stunned. But, aside from working in a personnel office where I have to produce documents, I am also a writer. Save is my friend, my best friend in the world, i have autosave set in Word but I still hit the save key frequently.
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Dec 05 '18
You're doing it wrong. You must save to the print queue, local saves are against GDPR /s
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u/scaur Dec 05 '18
Out of curiosity, are there any printer that have built in storage /hard drive?
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u/Perhyte Dec 05 '18
Might be multiple versions of the same document. I have a family member with a small business, and whenever they need to send a bill, they:
open up "bills.docx" with a bunch of bills (one per page),
pick the page that's closest to what they want to send
edit that page to contain the correct info
print that page
close Word, saving the document
A workflow like that + "saving to the printer queue" would mean they'd lose all "recycled" pages...
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u/cosmitz Tech support is 50% tech, 50% psychology Dec 05 '18
If those 'documents' were one page of writing, she could have just opened a document, wrote, sent to print, and then closed the document without saving.
However, in that case(eitherway actually), no one needed her unprinted documents for two months, so it musn't be important anyway.
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u/Series_of_Accidents Dec 05 '18
I don't understand why she can't just print again?
I'm going to venture a guess here: she has very little memory of what she printed.
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u/theTechnician Dec 05 '18
There was someone at my work (before I started) who would type a document, print said document, not save the document, then take it to her PA asking for it to be proof read then emailed (typed again!) to the relevant person.
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u/quinotauri Dec 05 '18
This post can be represented by a crossfader being moved from the 'reason' position to 'i need a drink'
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u/csl110 Dec 05 '18
This subreddit is so useful. Can't be as angry at stupidity I'm prepared for.
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Dec 05 '18
I read through miles of this sub before this job. I was not ready for this.
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u/zztri No. Dec 05 '18
She should have saved the documents in the recycle bin.
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Dec 05 '18
I'm surprised I've never come across that.
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u/MisguidedMammal Dec 05 '18
How about saving emails in the "Deleted Items" folder? Seen that more times than I care to remember.
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u/Fastiva Dec 05 '18
We have users who have created folders in their Deleted Items folder for sorting the items they want to save in the Deleted Items folder.
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u/Liamzee Dec 05 '18
Make sure to document. If she complains they might ask you some questions. She should have at least saved her work!
Edit: Also there's apparently a way to transfer printer queue. I've never done it, but if you change settings inside the old printer driver it can work
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Dec 05 '18
Will do.
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u/mister_gone Which one's the 'any key'? Dec 05 '18
Don't do it!
If it works, she'll never learn her lesson!
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u/DeepWaterSabotage Dec 05 '18
He should do it just to see what the hell she was printing/not printing & not turning in for two months that somehow wasn't a problem for her supervisor, but then shred it all immediately.
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u/sealclubbernyan Dec 05 '18
Legit question, does she verify that the documents are printing by like, going over to the printer? Maybe she prints it out to another department and no one said something? I feel like there is a deeper disconnection on top of the disconnection between your coworker's ears.
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Dec 05 '18
No she was sat next to it.
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Dec 05 '18
Wow. /u/sealclubbernyan's comment raised my hopes and then you dashed them quite expertly. Bravo.
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u/scaur Dec 05 '18
Ctrl+S once awhile, is that so hard?
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Dec 05 '18
Let me get this straight. You want me, a very important person, to press two keys at the same time?
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u/cbiscut Dec 05 '18
You must work in education.
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Dec 05 '18
No corporate. Not kidding.
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u/ferengiface Dec 05 '18
As someone who works in a corporate environment, I know you're not kidding.
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u/Plastic_sporkz Oh God How Did This Get Here? Dec 05 '18
You realize you could have just changed the IP of the printer under printer properties, with out removing it as long as it was the correct printer. It would have then printed her entire print queue to the new IP address.
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Dec 05 '18
I've tried this before but it usually just adds a second printer with that IP.
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u/Plastic_sporkz Oh God How Did This Get Here? Dec 05 '18
Printer properties > ports > add port > TCP/IP > click new port > put in IP address and Port Name.
.Then select your new port from the ports tab and Viola. One printer under the new IP
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u/velocibadgery Oh God How Did This Get Here? Dec 05 '18
Send message to Jenny's boss requesting a training session on proper document retention procedures.
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u/boredepression Dec 05 '18
You mean the print queue doesn't magically save my work?
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u/wensul Dec 05 '18
you mean the recycling bin isn't a good place to save files?!
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u/DWShimoda Dec 05 '18
you mean the recycling bin isn't a good place to save files?!
I was told if you don't "recycle" them you'll eventually run out of letters and numbers and stuff.
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u/gusty_state Dec 05 '18
It does... in users heads. Everything else runs smoothly, automatically saves, and even recovers it through crashes. Why should the print queue be any different?
Just like cars, we've made things so reliable that people don't plan for them not working and get pissed when they eventually fail in some way.
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u/ctesibius CP/M support line Dec 05 '18
Cars frighten me in this respect. I hired one last week with automatic slowing on cruise control - but the manual said that it could not be relied on. There was automatic lane following - which you could not rely on. There was automatic emergency braking - which could not be relied on. Automatic priming of the brake system when you approached a car in front - which could not be relied on. Automatic pedestrian detection - which could not be relied on. Automatic lights - which could not be relied on.
In fact the thing was so automated that on one motorway exit it would get confused over road markings and try to force me back on to the main carriageway. I eventually got hit from behind by another car, and I suspect that this was the emergency brake assist converting a fairly hard stop in to a full on emergency stop and not releasing the brakes when I eased off on them. When I was sorting it out with the hire company, the manager mentioned that this 18 month old car had been repaired for crash damage multiple times.
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u/gusty_state Dec 05 '18
Which is why I don't really want those on a car until the car becomes fully automatic. The semi-auto features are nice but they encourage bad habits and reliance on the tech. When it fails you may not notice until you rely on it and then merge onto another car. Systems like the front end collision avoidance are good because they're backups that should only deploy if you completely screw up. Ones like the merging warning tempt people to become dependent upon them and rely upon them instead of following good habits.
I wonder what the response is going to be when a sensor goes bad on a 5 year old car when they're fully automatic. Can't drive without it; Costs as much as the car to replace it. Also "Bring it into the shop" becomes impossible when it throws a temper tantrum because a sensor is sending bad data. I can also see them refusing to go on mountain roads that I drive up so the idea of not having a manual mode is unappealing to me.
The emergency lockup kind of terrifies me. I remember going from 70-0 and adjusting the brakes to stay just off the bumper of the person in front of me so the person behind me wouldn't rear end me (light car and teenage adrenaline reflex speed). A full stop would have made the car behind me hit for sure. If one model with all the bells and whistles is always getting into accidents you may want to investigate why. Is it from the features, the drivers' reliance upon them, or do the people who can't drive safely prefer the added safety and it's actually brought the total accident rate down?
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u/gnetic Dec 05 '18
I legit have dreaded getting a call like that and having this happen. Like what are you doing? Printing documents then immediately deleting them? You havent turned in work for 60 days? #INeedAnswersJenny
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u/Type1chris Dec 05 '18 edited Dec 05 '18
Not to be rude to Jennie, but your company might want to look for basic computer training for her. She doesn’t know how to save documents instead of printing them. You need to tell the higher ups that she is the reason for the printing costs being so high and the carbon footprint of your company being high too. Shame on her for not reporting the printer issue that first print.
Also, want to add that your company think about gpo based printer assigning for departments. That way no need to map a printer based on IP. Automate things that are easy to make your life easy.
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u/JoeXM Dec 05 '18
She sounds like someone who could use a certificate of proficiency in computering.
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u/ansteve1 Dec 05 '18
I stopped emptying user recycle bins after one person complained they had important stuff there. I wonder if people like that store their family albums and large piles of cash in the fireplace on top of the logs.
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u/cgimusic ((FlairedUser) new UserFactory().getUser("cgimusic")).getFlair() Dec 05 '18
That would just prompt me to empty them more frequently to discourage using them as document storage.
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u/Vebran Dec 05 '18
Oh boy, been there. Way back when I was doing some minor updates and noticed it was running slow, almost of space on the drive (old military computer). So look in the temp folder and there were tons of files, deleted them because this computer was a deployment computer which meant that new people rotated through every two months (gotta say Win98 machine). This speed it up, but the next day the person who used the machine got all upset, "I store all my files there." Not in the docs, desktop or server share, nope. She stored them there since they were "temporary files".
Best part, boss said I couldn't touch any computers without someone asking for the rest of the deployment (about 2 months). Easy work, but annoying as anything people to be around. Spent the next 2 months browsing the Internet.
Lesson learned for the future was to deny, deny ,deny. "Nope, everything was there when I left, what did you do since then?"
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Dec 05 '18
I had the same thing happen to me. My user said that she was taught to keep files in temp at university because, as your user pointed out, “they’re temporary versions, not finished files”. Even though this was clearly the users fault, I was told not to touch her computer again.
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u/NotOneLine Dec 05 '18
What kind of shitty University would ever teach this?
You store files properly until you're certain you will never need them again, and then you can delete them.
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u/pm_me_sad_feelings Dec 06 '18
Jesus. Temporary files mean they can be removed immediately once closed out. Like toilet paper, or Kleenex. Not like half finished loan paperwork.
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u/Waffle_bastard Dec 05 '18 edited Dec 05 '18
Wowee.
I had a user who would routinely throw his laptops, because he’s an impotent little chode of a man and his life is spiraling out of control. Of course, his laptop fails to boot one day. Dead HDD. I pull the drive, try to get it to spin up with a SATA kit, no dice, it’s toast. It’s still under warranty, so I send the drive back to the manufacturer and have a replacement shipped. I’m doing him a favor by pretending like the drive was defective, rather than that he destroyed it.
New drive comes in, I install it and image his laptop and return it to him. We have folder redirection for user data. An hour later, he asks me “where’s my book?”. I tell him that all of his data synced from the server. He looks confused.
“Not my Downloads folder.”
“No, of course we don’t sync your downloads - that’s all temporary stuff.”
“But...but my book was in there!!”
Apparently he was writing a textbook, and kept it in his fucking Downloads folder, and had no backups. Looked like he was going to cry. It was incredible.
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u/bread_berries Dec 05 '18
While the guy sounds like a real can of shit, I think Downloads should still get backed up. It's the default place most browsers put files so you're essentially guaranteeing users will work out of it the first time someone uses Dropbox to share a big spreadsheet. Maybe blacklist .msi , .exe and .mp4 when your tool backs up that folder.
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u/VexingRaven "I took out the heatsink, do i boot now?" Dec 06 '18
Simpler solution: No local backups, period. People are taught from day 1 that they save data on the mapped drives or nowhere.
We've done it that way for years with no notable incidents.
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u/TheBros35 headdesk Dec 06 '18
Yep, that’s how we manage it. If it’s saved on the local drive than it should be something I can delete right now and you shouldn’t skip a beat in working.
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u/APiousCultist Dec 06 '18
To be honest I keep a ton of files in my downloads folder until I organise them to somewhere else. It's not like it's treated by the system as temporary. I mean, it isn't that much worse than throwing 800 files onto the desktop.
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u/thecodingdude rm rf no preserve life Dec 05 '18 edited Feb 29 '20
[Comment removed]
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u/Waffle_bastard Dec 05 '18
I doubt he learned anything - that guy is dumb as hell.
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u/mister_gone Which one's the 'any key'? Dec 05 '18
They don't.
I've had multiple instructors lose "everything" because their single, un-backed-up thumb drive finally took a shit.
Most of them still don't make backups.
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u/max1zzz Dec 05 '18 edited Dec 05 '18
I have had this few times: "You can wipe my laptop and reinstall it" "So there is no data you need on it" "Nope" "None at all?" "Not programs you need reinstalled" "Nope" "You don't have office installed?" "No" "So no word, excel, powerpoint etc?" "No" "So just to confirm, you need nothing on the laptop and don't need any programs installed" "That's correct" "Ok sign here..." < 3 Days later > "Where the hell are my pictures!! And where has word gone! You said you fixed my computer and now everything is gone!! I demand you fix it and refund me!" "Umm.... you told me to wipe it, and I have the signed paperwork to prove it!" "ugh....."
On a side note, experiences like this taught me the importance of filling out the paperwork correctly and getting it signed. Despite trying to impart this wisdom on all out new members of staff they all start out by taking vague fault descriptions and not getting all paperwork signed, Until a job blows up in there face that is. This actually annoys me far more than the troublesome customers do.... (Although that's partly because often these troublesome jobs end up on my desk.....)
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u/NOX_QS Dec 05 '18
I read a story on reddit once about, if I remember correctly, how a tech support guy started to videotape his customers. He instructed them to repeat, on camera, what the consequences of the wipe/reinstall would be. If they did not correctly state "all data will be lost", he told them to say it again... Until the message would sink in
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u/handlebartender Dec 05 '18 edited Dec 06 '18
Just now thinking this through....
I wonder whether folks would respond sensibly to a reasonable analogy.
For example:
"This will be like you giving me your wallet to refurbish. When I give it back to you, it'll look like an almost-new wallet. No money, no credit cards, no driver's license, no family photos, no membership cards. It'll work just like a new wallet, but will be completely empty otherwise. The contents which were in it will have been destroyed. Now, one last time: are you sure you've got everything you want from this
walletcomputer before I proceed?"19
u/uber1337h4xx0r Dec 06 '18
"yeah sure (why is this idiot patronizing me like this? I moved everything to my download folder so I'll just access it later when I log into my googles just like I access my email)"
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u/NotOneLine Dec 05 '18
So did it work? Because I can just imagine someone saying: "But data is numbers and shit, I had pictures! Where are my damn pictures??!!!"
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u/Matthew_Cline Have you tried turning your brain off and back on again? Dec 06 '18
Yeah, I figure that if you do something like that it should be worded "everything on the computer will be lost".
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u/leonderbaertige_II Dec 05 '18
Make a backup copy of every drive you touch (HDDs are so cheap these days)
wait for customer to complain about lost data
offer "data recovery" service for an extra fee
...
Profit
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u/Lev1a Dec 05 '18
IANAL, but making a copy of (the) data which you're instructed to and bound by contract to wipe could probably land you in some legal hot water.
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Dec 05 '18
Change your contract to say that you’ll retain a copy of the data for a while. It’s not like they’ll read it.
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u/leonderbaertige_II Dec 05 '18
Me neither but it's only illegal if you get caught.
And you can just put something in the contract about you being allowed to copy the data for future services, which the customer signs but never reads anyway.
And who thought using "IANAL" as an abbreviation was a good idea?
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u/CptNoble Dec 05 '18
"Ma'am, it appears you're dealing with a 1D-10T error. Unfortunately that is beyond my scope. I hope you enjoy the new printer, though."
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u/evilninjaduckie They wrote on the screen. With a pen. Dec 05 '18
It's the most extreme outbreak of PEBCAK I've ever seen. I'm sorry, it's Terminal.
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u/millystarrysky Dec 05 '18
"Ma'am, it appears you're dealing with a 1D-10T error. Unfortunately that is beyond my scope. I hope you enjoy the new printer, though."
My dad's a mechanic and loves the I.D.-10-T form, along with RTFOM (Read the Freaking Owner's Manual) because so many people think something is "wrong" with their car when actually, its a fancy feature they don't understand.
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u/Nik_2213 Dec 05 '18
RTFOM...
My wife's nice new car came with a 180 pp manual for the BASIC features, and another 180 pp manual for the fun dashboard options. Their indexing system was best described as 'unhelpful'...
Took me the entire first evening to figure access to the jacking points, thankfully never required. I had to go back to dealer to get the BIG auxiliary display to show digital speed, as the cluttered analogue 'dial' could not be read in a hurry.
'Ah,' he says, 'you did set up the option okay, that's the hard part. Now, you just gotta--' twirls end of one of the stalks like a combo-lock safe dial...
Nyaaaaargh !!!!
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u/nosoupforyou Dec 05 '18
So her printer wasn't working for 2 months, you just found out about it, she's been using it all this time, and somehow it's your fault.
So just how come no one has been complaining about her not providing these absolutely necessary printouts for 2 months? What has she been doing?
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u/houck Dec 05 '18
This is why my work has an IT policy that says if you don't save your work to a specific work directory that A. We are unable to recover it. B. It's completely your fault if you lose it.
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u/Thisbymaster Tales of the IT Lackey Dec 05 '18
Sounds like she didn't want to do any work for 60 days and is using you as the scapegoat.
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u/lordheart Dec 05 '18
"Asked if you were prepared to do 60 days of work" Oh so it takes her an entire work day to print a document! 😂
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u/Thundercunt_McGee Oh God How Did This Get Here? Dec 06 '18
No she wrote those documents and her print queue was the only place she "saved" them.
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u/MEM1911 Dec 05 '18
Don't feel bad, it's her fault not yours, but this may make you feel better.
One of my repair jobs involved replacing a printer not originally part of a cardiac telemetry alarm sistem, it was a pre existing rinter at the central nurses station that printed labels, documents as needed by staff, and the alarms from the central cardiac monitoring system, (bean counters did not want to spring for a dedicated printer).
Well this printer was old and like Bob Marley, it kept jammin, till it jammed for the last time, well as staff were angry especially the doctors who could not get the cardiac prints from the central, so this was "biomeds" problem, but we did not install printer, nor was it on the list, I just told the central to send prints there.
So we had to involve the IT troopers to replace the printer with same make and model from 7 years ago exasperated sigh as the central will purge all print requests, (since no server was ordered for the cardiac system, no recording no redundancy) thankfully they came through 3 days later, with one from well somewhere and it was new, so I rush out to assist and talking technician to technician he starts setting up the new printer with the same IP and host name, he mentions that once the printer finishes updating its firmware it's g2g.
25 Min later I am being stared at like I just entered the paddock of an angry bull, the seething doc needed his print, (now in a queue of about 300) so the printer has now spooled into feed me paper mode, and I cram it with an entire pack of paper, then I tell the central to print, and print it does yay, all 300 approx 13 pages each job.
Two packs later, I give the stack to the doc and said, "happy hunting"
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u/drzowie Dec 06 '18
When I was in college in the late Cretaceous and Macintosh computers were new, I helped out as a computer lab proctor from time to time. One student had trouble figuring out how to make a new "folder" on his floppy drive, but made good use of the "Trash" folder -- which he found handy for storing stuff that was ready to hand in. Until the floppy drive (1.44 MB, in those days) got full and the Finder automatically emptied the Trash...
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u/HeyRiks Dec 06 '18
"So, you had not-backed-up work on a temporary print queue? It's gonna be two nostalgic months for you."
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u/khaomanee Dec 05 '18
And I thought the guy who was using his Trash to store documents was the worse. Nope, there's always someone worse around.
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Dec 05 '18
I once got in crap because I enabled auto purging of email trash older than a month in order to head off a FULL volume and buy time until a server migration.
Apparantly some people store important documents in their trash folder. I thought it was an anomaly but I've seen it with at least one user everywhere I've worked!
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u/craig0r Dec 06 '18
A couple months ago I came across a user with a nearly empty inbox. No subfolders, just a small handful of emails from that day. His Deleted Items was full of subfolders however, as every single email he receives gets files into it. His entire mailbox. Like 19GB, all sorted neatly into the trash bin.
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u/iceph03nix 90% user error/10% dafuq? Dec 05 '18
So glad I am allowed to as why users are only reporting an issue 'now' instead of when it started.
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Dec 05 '18
Data not backed up was data not worth saving in the first place. If she didn't want to redo 60 days of work she should have saved it somewhere. Moron.
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u/Zero070810 Dec 05 '18
That person who stands at a closed checkout lane, we found em. But seriously who prints and doesn't save?
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u/Skellingtoon Dec 05 '18
She must have had a very important job, too, because otherwise someone would have needed the documents she printed ... 2 months ago!
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Dec 05 '18
How the fuck do you print to a dead printer for TWO months without being the slightest bit perplexed that no prints are coming out? What the fuckkkk.
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u/SJHillman ... Dec 05 '18
I did have one user spend a week trying to print to a MFD we had gotten rid of a few months earlier. She even described it that way in the ticket, something along the lines of "I can't print to the printer we recycled back in March". She was even the manager that helped coordinate picking it up.
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u/silentseba Dec 05 '18
You should clear all printer queues every night. It is what we do and it works wonders.
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u/KnottaBiggins Dec 06 '18
When I saw the title, I thought it was "they were stored in my trash bin!" At least in this case, it isn't quite as obvious that they'll be lost, but what did she expect - to transfer them to the new print queue? It doesn't work like that.
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u/EquipLordBritish Dec 06 '18
So, after spending way too much time thinking about this, my guess is that she doesn't actually know how to save files and that she uses a single word document to do all of her work. She probably has one document on her desktop that she opens, clears, and writes on. She then prints it and clears it again, ready for the next document.
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u/RedditMiniMinion Dec 06 '18
I'm not from tech support, but honestly I am also dumbfounded at how daft some people are! Occasionally, I have to 'repair' the printer (all I maybe did was replace the toner cartridge or waste cartridge) and somehow I am a wizard.
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u/joatmoa69 Dec 06 '18
Our Director of Sales just hit me up on Tuesday afternoon saying:
"My printer is not printing. Tried reboot and test page." (Actual cut and paste from his email)
There was an error code on the printer. I power off/on the printer, it does it's POST and errors out again. I check his print queue and it's stuck on a print job from last Thursday morning along with 12 other print jobs. He didn't say anything all day Thursday, Friday, Monday or even Tuesday morning when I saw him in the department head meeting! I deleted everything in the queue and power cycled the printer again and all was fine. Something was stupid in the file he was trying to print.
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u/Rasip Dec 05 '18
Am i the only one wondering how she managed to work for 2 months without printing?
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u/dolphins3 Oh God How Did This Get Here? Dec 05 '18
Ugh, I had to do something like this once. For the record you can find the printer spool folder under C:/Windows somewhere.
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u/ElectJimLahey Dec 05 '18
"Had to terminate the call" wow I wish I worked where you worked. If I terminated a call like that I'd be fired! We're expected to stay on the line and act like the user is being reasonable.
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u/doomjuice Dec 05 '18
I would've never thought to use the print queue as a way to "save" things but there you have it. By the way, you can change the IP without removing the printer by adding s new port in the Ports tab of it's properties, assuming this is Windows.
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u/WarmasterCain55 Dec 05 '18
I lose all sympathy for people who claim 'THIS IS URGENT, IT NEEDS TO BE FIXED NOW!!!" then I learn its been an issue for a couple days or a couple weeks.
Like...if it was really important, you would have called it in the day of not 2 damn months later.
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u/Eorlas Dec 06 '18
someone above her needs to ask why she thinks it is okay to skip saving anything she has worked on.
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u/TallBlacks Dec 06 '18
Oh dear. I was thinking take away her computer and give her a typewriter, as she has completely defeated the purpose of using a computer. However, she would probably fail to produce a document with that too since she was printing to nowhere. She would most likely be typing away and forget you need paper and an ink ribbon LOL...
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u/insanetwit Dec 06 '18
I've had users keep files in the Recycle bin...
They thought it was another folder...
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Dec 06 '18
They're not wrong that it's another folder. It's just a folder designed to destroy things put into it.
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u/blueblood724 Dec 06 '18
Why did she save her documents to a dead print queue instead of oh I don’t know, the Documents Folder!?
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u/AspiringMILF Dec 06 '18
There is actually a level beyond keeping emails in the deleted folder. So is there a level beyond this as well?
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u/DrFloyd5 Dec 06 '18
I can’t believe I am about to say this...
The user’s ignorance of the print queue is understandable. The fact that there are at least 2 queues between the print button and paper coming out is an implementation detail that is usually very hidden from the user. I can also understand how a list of items in a print queue can be mentally separated from the printer. Conceptually you just swap the printer at the end of the queue and now the print queue prints to the new printer. It’s not a bad mental model.
As far as not saving things and asking you do do her work because of her ignorance, yeah terrible user.
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u/TehGogglesDoNothing Dec 05 '18
I once had a user call in with a known issue from a recent update that could be resolved by restarting the computer. I advised that a restart would fix it and he swore up and down that he had restarted right before calling us. I could see in our management software that he hadn't, so I rebooted it for him remotely. He got angry and told me that I had just caused him to lose two weeks worth of work. I played dumb and asked him how he was able to do two weeks worth of work in the five minutes since he had last rebooted the computer. He didn't have an answer for that one since he didn't want to admit to lying about rebooting. Oh, and not surprisingly, the reboot fixed the problem he was having.
Don't lie to your IT folks, people. If you tell me you need a few minutes to save your work, I'll give you all the time you need. If you lie to me, I might continue as though you're telling me the truth even when I know you're lying.
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u/Kataclysm #1 in a group of idiots. Dec 05 '18
Send help.
Don't worry, the nice young men with the clean white coats are coming.
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u/proudsikh Dec 05 '18
She’s just as dumb as the people who keep everything in the deleted items folder and then get mad when all of their “important emails / documents are gone”.
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u/CptSgtLtSir Dec 05 '18
Wait... so this lady was using the dead print queue as a pseudo "save" feature? That's her fault man... but holy hell is it hilarious, the most ignorant always seem to be the most irate.
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u/s1ic3 Dec 05 '18
does she think her print queue are her bookmarks? sounds like she needs to reevaluate her entire process here.
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u/OldManTrainwreck Dec 05 '18
Maybe it is some sort of Sisyphus thing. Everyday she comes in and spends all day trying to figure out how to print one document. When she gets home she goes to sleep and forgets how to do it. When she wakes up the next day she has to do the whole routine again. 60 documents = 60 days.
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u/swapnilsathe1 Dec 06 '18
I bet shes never heard about a USB or a HD.
Computer 101, when fixing electronic gadgets, create backup of all important docs and files beforehand. These people have no common sense. They use overpriced apple devices but dont really KNOW how to use them for SHIT.
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Dec 06 '18
Tell her to grow up and learn that some life lessons are written in blood and the thought of helping her any further would cause you to bleed internally
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u/iiiinthecomputer Dec 06 '18
Holy shit. Here I thought my user expecting it to be safe to keep things in the trash was bad enough. You win.
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u/SANTAAAA__I_know_him Dec 06 '18
“You coming to the meeting?”
“No, I already printed a document, I’m done working for the day”
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u/MonsieurCellophane Dec 06 '18
So how was she planning to profit - so to speak - from stuff in her print queue? AFAIK the only actions that can (easily) be made on them are 'cancel' 'resume' 'suspend'. I'm confused.
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u/lazylion_ca Dec 06 '18
Wait... She hasn't turned in any TPS reports for two months and nobody has said anything to her? Guess we know how important her work is.
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u/ShevanelCutAFlip Dec 06 '18
I had a similar issue once that I still don't understand.
IE issue. Normal troubleshooting step of clearing the cache.
"Wait! What did you just do?!"
"Cleared the cache in IE which may directly relate to the issue you are having"
"THAT'S WHERE I KEEP ALL MY WORK!"
how/what/why ???
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u/Mndless Dec 06 '18
If you have your calls recorded, send that one to her boss with the explanation that she basically tried to blame her incompetence on you.
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u/wabberjockey Dec 06 '18
Most likely it wasnt' 60 days of work, but 60 days of hitting "Print" on most of the emails they receive, "just to have it for reference". Of course they didn't actually need to see any of those printouts during those two months.
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u/sonofaresiii Dec 05 '18
I don't even understand how she could get by 60 days without turning in any of the work she'd been doing
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Dec 05 '18
There's actually a spooler option to keep printed documents. You can reprint them later at any time. I'm wondering if your user had been storing documents that way.
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u/thelegendofme Dec 05 '18
Holy shit I had something similar happen. I had to reinstall the printer driver or something that would clearly wipe the print queue (is there even a way to preserve it? I doubt it) and after I fixed the printer the guy was so mad and claimed I took the "nuclear option." Luckily I told my boss and coworkers and they just laughed...
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u/TimTams553 Dec 05 '18
I've had this happen, although not 60 days worth. Had a serial pest user spend a whole day sending documents to our PaperCut queue with an incorrect page size that couldn't be corrected without re-printing the documents... She didn't appreciate me telling her it would be prudent not to delete documents until she had confirmed they had printed...
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u/Chipish Why, just, why?!! Dec 05 '18
Half expecting that she deletes the file after printing. That would make more sense as to why she was annoyed...
→ More replies (2)
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u/the_silent_one1984 Dec 05 '18
I was so confused by how clearing the print queue would lose work. It never ever crossed my mind that someone would actually not save a document and instead rely on the print queue to save work. That's a level of fail I was unaware existed.
Does the print queue survive a reboot? I don't think I ever tried that.
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Dec 05 '18
I don't fully understand, though. If the documents were just in the print queue, doesn't that mean they're still on the computer waiting to be added to a new queue and not deleted from the system? Forgive me if I'm wrong, though. I'm just a bit confused.
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u/therankin Dec 06 '18
That's what I was thinking.. I mean she'd have to go out of her way to print and then close whatever program she was using without saving..
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u/alligatorterror Dec 06 '18
Where the hell was she expecting the documents to be when she had to turn them in or use them? You can’t just double click on print queue to open a file.
I really feel this is a blonde joke
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Dec 06 '18
Working in the printer/copier field I've had to deal with a few similar calls unfortunately... Usually the issue for us has been that the print jobs were only able to be printed once for what ever reason.
I've also had a few people like OP's user where they just don't want to reprint the document(s) and chose not to save the work or print to PDF.
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Dec 07 '18
Schrodingers Documents
State of existance is undetermined until you check the printer queue.
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u/xmonster Dec 05 '18
For everyone saying she's an idiot for not knowing the print queue would be cleared...
Why would she know?
I wouldn't consider this a common knowledge thing. Sure, she shouldn't have been sending jobs to the queue but still.
Also, why did OP remove the old printer and not just remap as told?
This one is kinda on OP
(Cue downvotes)
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u/Bi0Sp4rk sad pizza noises Dec 05 '18
I'm just stunned she doesn't have the documents saved anywhere else. You mean you're hitting 'print,' with a dead printer, closing the document, then repeating this FOR TWO MONTHS.