Shark Tank: Spoilsport!

Help desk pilot fish gets a trouble ticket: A support tech is having a problem with asset management software that isn't reporting properly on a user's PC in a remote office.

"After checking several routine system settings remotely, I determined that I needed to log into the user's PC myself," fish says.

"In order not to interfere with productivity on this minor issue, I ran a script to check if anyone was logged in to this PC. There was, so I resolved to wait till the next morning to try again."

So at just past 8 a.m. the next morning, fish checks again. Sure enough, no one is logged in -- the user probably doesn't start work until 8:30 or 9:00, fish figures.

He quickly logs in remotely and sets up exclusive control so the user won't accidentally interfere if she shows up. After about three minutes of quick work, fish restarts the PC, ends the session and logs out.

Then fish confirms that the PC came back up, closes the ticket and figures he's done with it.

But later that day, fish gets an e-mail forwarded by his boss. It's a harshly worded report from the IT manager in that remote office, who says a user complained that fish "shut down her application without warning, logged her off, logged in himself and restarted her computer, causing her to lose some of her hard work."

Says fish, "I immediately recognized this as a user who either was late for work or missed some deadline, and either way decided to blame the computer guy.

"Acting fast, I gathered workstation and network logs and quickly formed a response. I explained my actions, and attached the logs showing no previous log-ins for the day -- and another late log-in from the day before."

Sharky figures there's plenty of blame to go around -- for users, bosses, consultants and even IT people. Whoever it's about, send me your true tale of IT life at sharky@computerworld.com. I'll send you a sharp Shark shirt if I use it. You can also add comments by using the form at the bottom of this page.

See more Shark Tank stories at the Sharkives.

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