Wait, which one of us has the IT qualifications again?

Just-Legal

Goth Flufflet
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Feb 24, 2001
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4,075
Been reading through Computer Stupidities today and it reminded me of an incident a few weeks ago.

A little background - my mum does IT for the NHS Blood and Tissues Service (BTS). She helps code and debug the donor database and other things, along with the program company (who shall remain nameless). She does a lot of work from home, where our story begins.

I have therapy group on Tuesdays, and if mum is working from home I always pop over for a cuppa and a chat. This particular week, she rings and says she can't meet me, she's having to take the laptop in to the NHS IT office, because she can get into Citrix, then the connection craps out and kicks her out.

Thinking nothing of it, I go about my day as normal. Thursday rolls around, and mum calls me in a flat panic. She's taken her laptop in to NHS IT another two times, and it just will NOT stop kicking her out of Citrix, but only at home. She's starting to worry she's missing something obvious. So, I agree to go over and have a poke around - bear in mind I have no formal IT qualifications, only that I've picked up along the way.

Get to my mothers, do the usual checks - laptop's charged, has access to the network, internet's working etc. Ask her to try and access Citrix through Firefox as it might be an IE issue, it still kicks her off. By this point, IT helpdesk has called back and I agree to take the call. Have a chat with a woman I've met a few times before who jokingly reminds me I'm not supposed to have access to the system I'm trying to fix. We both run through some troubleshooting steps, nothing works. I tell her I'll call back later, I'm gonna have something to eat and have a think.

Nip upstairs to check if the router is in a stupid place which would cause low signal strength or something. As I pick it up, I drop it in shock - its STUPIDLY hot. A thought occurs to me.

"Mum, when was the last time you restarted the router?"

"Uhm, I haven't, why?"

*lightbulb*

"Did IT reccomend restarting it?"

"No?"

I restart the router, trot back downstairs and tell her to retry connecting. It works! Much rejoicing. By this point, the Helpdesk calls back, unfortunately its a rather shitty superior I've had dealings with before. I sit quietly while he reams me out for even TOUCHING NHS property (which is actually not true - the laptop they gave my mother to work with was so knackered she now uses her own and everyone in IT knows this), how I'll never fix the problem because I'm just some silly girl who doesn't know what she's talking about.

"Okay," I say politely, "Can you think of anything we haven't tried yet?"

He starts listing long and stupid proceudres that even I know have NOTHING to do with Citrix. Eventually, I lose my patience with his rambling.

"So you wouldn't reccomend restarting the router then?"

"Well no," He snaps, "If her internet works, why would she need to do that?"

"Because that was the problem. I fixed it. Have a nice day!"

Couple of hours later the original woman I was speaking to calls back in a fit of giggles because word has got out the unqualified 24 year old managed to outfox the head of NHS IT at the helpdesk centre.
 
High five, my dear! :D Very well done.

My poor mum had worked herself up so much she felt really bad about it being something simple. It didn't help my dad had got it into his head that you should NEVER turn a router off. I told her to reset it once a week - Sunday night and leave it off til Monday if she could - and stuff him.

I think the thing that got me most riled was his attitude. He valued qualifications above all else. My mum also has no formal IT qualifications, yet she has a uni begging her to do their Masters in Bioinformatics because of her sheer experience.
 
Isn't that just a wonderful feeling? A giant GOTCHA to the NHS.

Its not so much the NHS itself, its the middle management morons they have in there. If they stripped out a layer of management, their budget defecits wouldn't be so bad.

But lets not turn this into a NHS hole-poking thread eh? I have a lot to thank some of em for.
 
My poor mum had worked herself up so much she felt really bad about it being something simple. It didn't help my dad had got it into his head that you should NEVER turn a router off. I told her to reset it once a week - Sunday night and leave it off til Monday if she could - and stuff him.

I think the thing that got me most riled was his attitude. He valued qualifications above all else. My mum also has no formal IT qualifications, yet she has a uni begging her to do their Masters in Bioinformatics because of her sheer experience.

I like the fact that your mom asked for help and had no problem admitting that it might be something obvious. Makes her seem like the polar opposite of that "qualifications" guy.

This sort of thing isn't limited to IT - I never counted how many times, in one of my math classes, something hugely complicated came out wrong and all the work was double and triple-checked, and all because someone decided that 2 minus 2 was 4 instead of 0. Simple things... :rolleyes:
 
I like the fact that your mom asked for help and had no problem admitting that it might be something obvious. Makes her seem like the polar opposite of that "qualifications" guy.

This sort of thing isn't limited to IT - I never counted how many times, in one of my math classes, something hugely complicated came out wrong and all the work was double and triple-checked, and all because someone decided that 2 minus 2 was 4 instead of 0. Simple things... :rolleyes:

Yeah. Like 4 squared is 8. That one always gets ya! :rolleyes:

I remember 4 pages of of a complex problem that was all right except for that ONE teensy weensy error... which exponentially made the problem a mess!
 
Good one, JL.

People like that jerk were the main reason I got out of the computer business. I was too close to doing violence to them.
 
Duh!

Helen,

as a bona-fide IT degree holder, as a part-time OU tutor, as a 40-year computing professional, can I just say this?

Long live common sense!

Good on yer, kidda.

Alex
 
That was fun! :) But yeah, it helps to always start simple - is it plugged in, is it turned on, try restarting and all that.
 
The bit about it that made me laugh most (out of earshot of my mother) was that she a) had to take it into Leeds TWICE that they had to pay for, parking and all and b) they did a support call over the phone where they made her switch it off and back on again (the laptop) and did checks of her connection etc - they assumed that because she could get on the net through FireFox, that it worked.

How did I guess the router wasn't happy, other than it being really hot? My latency in WoW was crap when I've always had really good latency from her machine ;)

(There was some confusion in IT when mum took the laptop in and one of the bods found WoW on it... she still comes home saying they've been asking why she has it if she doesn't play it!)
 
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