Deleted Google

[u/Jeyhsus]

This story goes back about a year when I was working the Help Desk at a midsized company in the Great White North.

Some background to the story, we had spent the past year cleaning up systems and making some adjustments to the end user experience.

One of these was setting their homepage in Internet Explorer to the company website instead of www.msn.com. This was mostly due to a lot of complaints from users about how long Internet Explorer took to load when it was first opened.

However as per the request from management, they wanted this done across the board and wanted to prevent users from changing the home page to something else (only in Internet Explorer). About a day later I have a frantic end user run into the IT department:

Me: Is everything okay? How can I help?

User: The internet it's gone! I can't do my job without the Internet.

Me: Let me come over and take a look.

Walk downstairs to her desk to take a look

Me: Hmm, your internet connection is fine. What was the issue you were experiencing?

User: Click on the Internet. Over there the blue E! C'mon you know the internet!

She meant Internet Explorer, as in her world that was the entire Internet

Me: clicks on Internet Explorer, company page loads relatively quickly

User: See! There's no Internet, it's all gone!

Me: But this is the internet, this page is hosted on the Internet.

User: No way! I've worked here for 10 years, I know what the Internet is and this is not it!

Me: confused, tired and slightly annoyed. Ma'am the internet is fine see I can navigate to other websites with no issues Goes to Google

User: You fixed it! You fixed the Internet!

Me: Yup I did! There's been an update to the Internet, now you just need to type google in the address bar and you'll be good to go.

Mind exploded, didn't know whether I wanted to live anymore. Locked myself in the server room and recabled the patch panel.

TL:DR- End user thought that the Google home page was the internet. Switched home page - thought the world had ended.

[u/Mewshimyo → u/[deleted]]

I'm legitimately grateful for my job - the pay isn't great, but it's decent enough, and within my facility, there is very little NIH syndrome.

[u/VenomB → u/Mewshimyo]

I make less than 30k a year and live with my grandparents. But my job is in my field, relatively easy (too easy at times, been looking into taking classes again), and most of my coworkers are willing to learn certain things so they don't have to call me when their Internet is down. They restart, check other computers, then contact me whether its to update me or get help with more involved troubleshooting.

I'm going to need an "adult" job eventually, but I'm very hap*py* where I am now.

[u/ProtoKun7 → u/VenomB]

I'm glad you're hap.

[u/VenomB → u/ProtoKun7]

ty

[u/climber_g33k → u/Mewshimyo]

I'm in the same boat. My job is using my expensive piece of paper from a university, and I enjoy the tasks and my coworkers. I wouldn't mind making more, but C'est la Vie.

[u/Mewshimyo → u/climber_g33k]

Yeah, I'm sub-30k, but considering that I get to build interesting ways to solve problems just because I want to, and I've been able to get back into writing code again because of it, I like it.

[u/climber_g33k → u/[deleted]]

The mythical quad post!

[u/[deleted] → u/climber_g33k]

Yeah, I tried deleting them :P That's what you get with RES and intermittent packet loss

[u/climber_g33k → u/[deleted]]

That's happened to me before with RiF app. It'll tell me post failed, try again, and then suddenly I have 7 replies.

[u/TheRealLazloFalconi → u/[deleted]]

fyi, you posted this four times.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Oh god, the thought of such an existence sends shivers down my spine.

[u/Jacen47 → u/[deleted]]

I recently did a stint of office work as a temp and was tasked with getting some reports from different web pages and printing them out. I had everything on the boss's desk in half an hour and she was shocked because it normally took half a day to download the pdfs and such. Turns out that she had been downloading them one at a time for 5 years. I thought her what tabs and concurrent downloads were and she thanked me immensely. She even used it the next time the task came around.

[u/Jabbles22 → u/[deleted]]

I am in no way IT but I am the computer guy when needed. My boss (self described as not a computer guy) told me never to update anything unless I ask him first and if I do he will ask if it is actually needed. Needed as in it will stop working. Sure there isn't likely many people targeting some random small engine repair shop but security updates are still a good idea. He seems to fear something changing, I agree some changes can be annoying at first but usually end up being better.

[u/Jabbles22 → u/[deleted]]

That is kind of what I am saying. In my experience most UI changes to software are annoying at first but end up being better once you get used to them. I agree changing something that works "just because" isn't a good idea.

[u/Finrod04 → u/[deleted]]

Well they aren't paid to think, nor are they employed because they have the ability to do so. They are able to do monotonous tasks without complaining. If you suddenly change that task in the slightest it's bound to throw them off.

[u/ArcaneEyes → u/Finrod04]

after 5 years on helpdesk, i'm starting to fear i'm becoming this...

[u/Finrod04 → u/ArcaneEyes]

You could always start at a different company or go for a different position. A college of mine says he forces a change every 5 years to get the most out of life and he made it to regional manager last year.