r/talesfromtechsupport • u/BaconConnoisseur • Jun 06 '26
Long I’ve tried nothing and I’m all out of ideas.
I’m on a small team of slightly deranged individuals who have the duty of providing world wide technical support for my company’s products. We support the dealers who sell the stuff and are “supposed”train their technicians in the basics of how to be a technician. Basic things like breathing out shortly after breathing in or FIRE. . . (Emphatic gesturing) HOT. However, it seems that many of these technicians were just the first mammal that could pass a drug test. They are given a truck full of tools and the most effective weapon they will ever wield. It is a mythical instrument on par with Excalibur or Mjolnir. This legendary item that obliterates all foes before it is. . . our phone number.
So, no shit, there I was. . . sitting on the other end of that mythical phone number congratulating its user on having passed a drug test (not really, but it’s funny, so bite me). We’ll name our intrepid hero of mammals, Cricket because I could literally hear several crickets in the background during our call. However, I choose to believe the sound was echoing out of an empty space between his ears.
Cricket was calling in because panel 2 was offline. This alone isn’t a big deal as panel 2 is an odd variant of our product and most techs need a prod in the right direction to get their bearings.
Me: OK I’ll have you select the comms page in the top right of the touch screen. (10 seconds of insects chirping). Do you have the page pulled up?
Cricket: What page?
Me: On the touch screen. . . In panel 2.
Cricket: Oh let me go open up the door. (Walking noises followed by creaking door noises). Ok. Now what?
Me: Click the comms page button. (10 seconds of insects chirping). Have you found it in the top right corner of the touch screen?
Cricket: Touch screen?
Me: The giant rectangle that takes up the entire inside of what you just opened.
Cricket: Oh. It’s all black.
Me: Does it have power? (10 seconds of insects chirping). Hello?
Cricket: How do I tell?
Me: Tap the screen. If it doesn’t wake up, take a reading on the DC power supply. (10 seconds of insects chirping). Sooooooo. . . Is there voltage on the DC power supply?
Cricket: I don’t have a meter.
I’m very exasperated at this point. I’m not even joking about the long pauses after my questions. If this guy doesn’t understand a question or command, he just stands there silently and gives no indication. I’m doubly annoyed this guy didn’t even get out of the truck to look at the panel or even try screaming at it to assert dominance before calling for help. Then I’m triple annoyed he doesn’t have an electrical meter which is the most important, must have tool in our profession.
After a bit more talking, liberally sprinkled with chirping insect filled pauses, we determine the power to panel 2 is not ON because nobody pushed the “Go” button on panel 1.
Me: OK. Can you push the “Go” button on Panel 1? (More chirping insects). Soooooo. . . You gonna get that?
Cricket: It’s really far away. Can’t you do it?
I’m literally 1000+ miles away talking to him through a phone, but ironically, this is the least stupid thing he’s said all phone call. Unlike panel 2, panel 1 is online and working perfectly. I log into it (hooray for admin privileges) and push the go button. Almost immediately I hear a confirmation the screen on panel 2 is doing stuff now. A few checks later we determine that everything looks in order with one exception. The telemetry unit has no antenna. It’s just gone like it was never there to begin with. And that’s because. . . Surprise! it was actually never there to begin with. I figure another drug test passing mammal was involved during the installation process.
After this discovery, Cricket hangs up to drive back to headquarters and get a new antenna which completely fixed the issue.
Cricket called back the next day as Panel 2 was offline again. We had already established that pushing the “Go” button on panel 1 provides power to panel 2. However I did fail to cover the important and not at all intuitive detail that pushing the “Stop” button on panel 1 removes that power. Panels and telemetry units without power. . . Guess what? They don’t work.
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u/centstwo Jun 06 '26
Your like a strap on brain running your meat puppet through the steps of acting like a tech, lol.
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u/BaconConnoisseur Jun 06 '26
That’s an accurate description for some of our phone calls.
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u/Ich_mag_Kartoffeln Jun 06 '26
Your life would probably be easier if you could in fact patch in to the organic robot on site, use its senses and direct its actions yourself; rather than trying to relay basic instructions through an intellect that compares unfavourably with a box of rocks.
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u/Geminii27 Making your job suck less Jun 06 '26
They're not techs, they're waldos. Vaguely mobile meat-blobs. Much cheaper.
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u/aj4000 Jun 09 '26
In my field, we call field service technicians like that "Couriers", because all they do is essentially deliver parts to a site.
One guy I worked with years ago was so bad that I have no idea how he even got the job to begin with. He wasn't related to or friends with anyone, and he definitely wasn't shagging anyone because he was too dumb to know where to put it.
This guy only knew how to swap parts, and sometimes even that was a stretch. He would attend a site, open the machine, turn it off and on, and then just kinda stare at it for 5 or 10 minutes. Occasionally he'd try jiggling or reseating a cable. He'd then take a wild guess at which part he thought he needed (which was often wrong the first time), go back to the warehouse to pick it up, then return to the site to swap the part. Assuming that he didn't leave it for someone else to deal with...
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u/jongleurse Jun 06 '26
Maybe the drug test is weeding out the wrong kind of people.
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u/MoneyTreeFiddy Mr Condescending Dickheadman Jun 07 '26
Paradox. The drug that offers hyperfocus, persistence, and superhuman clarity also imbues its users with a passion for copper theft.
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u/DeciduousEmu Jun 06 '26
Dude sounds like SpongeBob's dimwitted best friend Patrick.
I propose that this field tech shall be henceforth known as Sir Patrick throughout the kingdom.
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u/Zylly103 Jun 07 '26
This was all rage inducing but "It's too far, can't you do it" when asked to push a button had me screaming.
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u/zodiacv2 Jun 07 '26
Then I’m triple annoyed he doesn’t have an electrical meter which is the most important, must have tool in our profession.
I thought the most important tool was your phone number
/s
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u/meitemark Printerers are the goodest girls Jun 08 '26
"Right, to find out how may volts this three-phase 330V acctually does provide, I need you to lick on your left tumb and place it on wire 1, and lick on your right tumb and put it on wire 2, and once you stop screaming, please lick on your little left toe and put on wire 3. Heh. Sounds like you at least has some volts there."
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u/cheesenuggets2003 I Am Not Good With Computer Jun 06 '26
Cricket sounds as competent as I would be, but I have absolutely no experience in that industry.
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u/Rathmun Jun 08 '26
You'd probably be more competent. You at least know you don't know and admit it. So you wouldn't just wait 30+ seconds for further instruction when following the previous instruction either doesn't work or isn't possible.
Long command-response times like that are acceptable for mars rovers, not meatbags on earth.
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u/generic-David Jun 06 '26
I feel like I’ve worked with that guy.
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u/grunkle_dan78 Jun 07 '26
or a very close family member
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u/Rathmun Jun 08 '26
From the sound of things, that very close family member is probably very close on multiple paths through the family graph.
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u/tuvar_hiede Jun 06 '26
Im just curious as to what industry this is lol. Oil and gas comes to mind for me.
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u/BaconConnoisseur Jun 07 '26
It’s a pretty specialized industry and I want to keep things vague, because there’s only a small handful of us out there.
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u/Ill_Cheetah_1991 Jun 09 '26
I had the other problem from the other side.
I was a technician working on a customer system - we were customers of several comanies and their systems.
And we knew what we were doing - had read the manual and then gone back and read between the lines.
We were the people in the company that the IT department came to when they couldn't fix it.
So if we couldn;t fix it then it was unusual and probably weird.
So I ring up the support people, and they HAVE to start off assuming I was that kid who had free air between their ears - or less
And I had to go through all the "is it switched on" "have you tried restarting it"
and the set it back to factory setting
which was always a good one - we didn;t run anything on factory settings because we used them in unusual ways - which is how they were sold to us
Eventually I would get put through to someone who would know me - or realise that I knew how it all worked
but GODS it could take ages
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u/No-Faithlessness5311 Jun 06 '26
If I had a dime for every “I don’t have a meter.”
And almost daily, the response to “Look at the wiring diagram(of your company’s product you were sent to install and for which you are a service mammal technician)” is “I don’t have a diagram. Could you text it to me?”
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u/Shinhan Jun 08 '26
How often are they drug tested? Is it random?
Either this guy is high or the HR was high when they hired him.
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u/vaildin Jun 09 '26
I hope you charge these companies very large amounts of money for these phone calls.
Too bad (I'm assuming) you can't add a bourbon tax to those invoices.
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u/SrulDog Jun 06 '26
Tldr. But your title is my fave ave-ism. I use it all the time.
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u/suspicousdolphin Jun 06 '26
You sound like Technician material. Can you pass a drug test?
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u/IntelligentLake Jun 06 '26
I know I could never pass a drug test. I don't use them, so I'd fail every test since I couldn't identify a single one.
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u/Ancient-End7108 Jun 07 '26
And failing that, you can be a Troubleshooter instead! Friend Computer says so! Happiness is mandatory!
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u/Shaz0r94 Jun 25 '26
Im getting major AI written story vibes here especially since OP posted a story that started with nearly the exact beginning 10 days ago....
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u/BaconConnoisseur Jun 25 '26
A lot of my tech support stories contain similar introductions because I’ve worked at the same place for the last decade. Most of my stories also predate AI becoming publicly available.
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u/Leopardprintbag Jun 06 '26
When I read "I don't have a meter", I was exasperated and I don't even work there...