Tech Support Annoyance

Thursday, November 22nd, 2007 | Tech Help

Yesterday was a nightmare. Nothing worked as it should. Nothing. Not one thing. Then to top things off I received my call back from tech support for my SSL VPN connection issue. I could connect the SSL VPN without a problem, I just couldn’t connect using VNC to an internal PC that I needed to get access to an outside contractor. The tech went over my SSL VPN settings and made one minor change to the order of my firewall rules. He made himself a user name to test the SSL VPN connection, and he attempted to connect the my site. He said couldn’t connect and said there was nothing he could do. I stated that I could connect and that my vendor could connect to the SSL VPN. I also said he could walk me through testing a few things on my end. To which he said something about being a break-fix tech and not actual tech support, where you know, you help customers with their issues so they don’t call back on the same issue. This guy said that since he was unable to connect to the SSL VPN he couldn’t do anything for me. SNAP! I lost it on him. I asked him to connect me with his manager. He balked. I asked again, and once again he stalled. I finally let him know my displeasure and he went to check if his manager was in. I wasn’t surprising when he came back on the line a few moments later and said he was gone for the day and that he left a message. I said I will be waiting on the call back and hung up.

I have yet to receive a call from the “manager”. I think I’m going to have to yell at somebody who does not deserve it. I fixed my issue on my own today. It was an issue with the documentation not the hardware, but a few simple questions by the tech could have avoided the whole situation.

To cap off the day with something positive I called the company who makes our tape autoloader to help on an issue. The problem turned out to be with the SCSI card and not the autoloader, but, the tech was very pleasant and once I gave him the error code I was seeing he diagnosed the problem right away and gave me some ideas on what to try next. Just like a support tech is supposed to. The call lasted 10 minutes tops, way shorter than the nightmare call just before.

And now for something somewhat related!

Tags: Tech Support, VPN