Guess you don't want it fixed that bad, eh?

[technical.angel]

Student put in a work order about her email disappearing out of her inbox. Then she called twice a day every day about it. The server admin finally looked into it, and gave us some suggestions on what to do, and what to look for.

I got her password, and couldn't re-create it here. So we were figuring she's just got her view changed to only show unread messages or something. I had her account open in webmail and outlook on my two machines, and sure enough, the second she checked her email in her room, everything disappeared from her inbox.

So I call her and tell her to quit checking her email on her computer, and get it to us asap.

THAT was two weeks ago.

So, it went from "FIX IT! FIX IT! FIX IT! FIX IT! FIX IT!" to, "Eh."

Anyone else with stories of people who's issue was deathly important, until THEY had to do something about it?

[trunks2k]

I'm guessing she's using POP and removing the messages from the server when she downloads them?

[technical.angel]

Nope, she claims she doesn't have anything like that set up. Also, she didn't sound savvy enough to set it up, and we don't like to release the POP settings. She says she's using web access from IE7 and occasionally from Opera. Whenever she refreshes the inbox everything dissappears from it. The server admin suspects some kind of bot.

Of course, we can't figure any of that out until she brings in her friggin' computer!

[Jacen]

She's not clicking "delete all" thinking it'll refresh, is she?

[Geek King]

Remove her permissions to use the network until her computer is brought in. If she does have a bot, you don't want it to spread to other users. Once she gets "access denied, I bet you see the computer post haste.

[technical.angel]

*I* can't do that, well, I could... but, I would probably get in trouble. The server admin said they can't see if she's polluting the network, and our ISP hasn't sent any nastograms, so we pretty much have to let it go.

I'll probably call her today and remind her to bring it in.

[IT Grunt]

Oh, I had lots of these when I worked for the bank. People would call over to the help desk yelling that their computer was down, they NEEEEEEED it to do their work, get over here and FIX IT, FIX IT! So I grab my 'go bag' (filled with software CD's, extra cables, tools, etc) and rush over to the main bank and get up to their office. I get there, I knock, and they're either A) on the phone or B) in the middle of something on their 'broken' computer. So what do they do? They tell me to wait. Most of the time, I'd have to wait outside their office up to 10-15 minutes or more before they would let me fix their oh-so-important computer error. When I could get away with it, I would tell them I would be back later and put their ticket on the bottom of the list.

[sld72382]

I have a good one:

Woman calls up with a typical Emachines "no post no video" issue. She got through plugging the tower into the wall (where the problem persisted) but then that's where the suck came in. This customer was NOT elderly, BTW.

Me: OK, now that we did that I want you to turn off the machine and unplug everything except for the monitor and power cord, this will tell us if it's a true hardware issue or something possibly holding the system down from booting up...
SC: Okay, at this point I want you to send a tech out.
Me: Ma'am, this step is only going to take less than a minute and....
SC: I don't care, I paid for inhome service I want inhome service!
Me: Ma'am, it says right in the service plan brochure that we need to troubleshoot before replacing any parts.
SC: You're just not honoring what I paid for, I'm going to complain to the manager of the local store. *click*

Two more minutes and her PC would either be working again, or I would be replacing the motherboard for her.

[Jacen]

SC: You're just not honoring what I paid for, I'm going to complain to the manager of the local store. *click*

Two more minutes and her PC would either be working again, or I would be replacing the motherboard for her.

Patience is a virtue, but only for those of us with it.

[anasmartypants]

Patience is a virtue, but only for those of us with it.

Amen to that Jacen!

suggestion: can you try changing her email password? although it sounds ridiculous, we had a customer here who had the same issue, we changed her email password and problem has been resolved. we also found out that her ex-husband has been secretly downloading her emails. scalawag!

[BravoOrig]

Yeah I get those customers. Their issue is so important and when you goto schedule a technician, they'll be gone on vacation for 2 weeks. Same with customers who you spend so much time with, get to almost the last step, and then they give up. One more freaking minute and you'd be fixed, but now it will just stay the way it was before you called.

[technical.angel]

The network admin had suggested that same thing, ASM, so I called the student, and she fessed up to having something setup that was forwarding her mail to some random account. She fixed it.