I'm unsuportable!

[jerkface11]

I work in a fast food restaurant a couple of days ago the screen that shows our drink orders stopped letting us bump orders off of it. The only way to clear it is to turn off one of our registers and turn it back on. I called our tech support for it Saturday night. The tech had me unplug cables, turn things off, plug cables back in ,turn other things on, switch out cables, change keypads, and so on for an hour. At which point it still wasn't fixed so he tried reprogramming the system which also failed. When I told him it still wasn't working he just told me it was impossible for it to not be fixed! and that there was no way I could still be having this problem. Do you think he's telling his buddies how stupid I was and that it must be a problem I caused?

[Bright_Star]

Wouldn't it have been easier for them to send somebody out & trouble-shoot it on-site?

[jerkface11]

They don't do that. They just remote access the computers and do phone support.

[LostMyMind]

I think there is a "meeting of the mind" problem here. Either the problem not being explain very well, or the tech isn't understanding the problem very well.

Also it might be hardware, equipment do break down. Which means it's not something that can be fix over the phone.

[Crazeyal]

Uh...

I've had people who could NOT follow directions. But you could TELL from the first response, that they were clueless and doing things wrong. The response of " It's IMPOSSIBLE for it not to be fixed!!" is moronic. This sounds like you have bad cables for the data lines. As the computers are used, they lose random information due to grounds, shorts or other flaws, and finally the computers lock up due to bad info.

You need a REAL tech to look at your equipment. Phone support assumes there wil NEVER be any problems hardware related. There HAVE to be techs available from somewhere (unless some suit decided to save money.. which is possible)

Also, I'd go to this idiot's supervisor and have a word with him. Even if you ARE doing something wrong, being rude and unhelpful solves nothing.

[jerkface11]

I dunno he had me trouble shooting hardware while he checked software. When none of that worked he declared it impossible. Hopefully it will be fixed when I get back to work tomorrow. Oh the support company we have just does phone support and they aren't that great at it long hold times, confusing phone menus that sort of thing. We have a guy who works out of the main office who takes care of the hardware but this wasn't really worth bothering him over at 9pm on a saturday. Plus he's a longwinded jackass.

[Crazeyal]

Yah..

So you had an ohm-meter and/or a cable tester, inspected the ends for broken/bent prongs, looked in the ceiling for signs of rodent damage to the wires...?

[jerkface11]

No I switched out cables and keypads. The wires never go into the ceiling. According to the tech his programming fix should have bypassed any hardware faults. Leading my boss and I to think we are the first ones to have this problem.

[LostMyMind]

programming work around may get around some hardware "flakes" but not all of em. You can't program around a faulty capacitor or semi-fried connections

[jerkface11]

I talked to my boss a little while ago he said they got it fixed today. Some relay box or other needed to be reset and that fixed it. Oddly enough I reset it Saturday night and it didn't help.

[crashhelmet]

What it sounds like is either you had a "tech" that either thinks he's (insert Deity's name here)'s Gift or has no clue what he's doing and reading off of a checklist.

CH