Another, um, satisfied customer

Tech quits his job in this IT
department, so someone has
to pick up his support duties
-- and this pilot fish draws the
assignment.
"There was not much to do,"
fish admits. "I did that for a
year and got one phone call in
all that time.
"About 12 months in, the task
was moved to someone else.
Six months after that I got a
call from a supervisor who
couldn't find the help-desk
person but found me and
would like to chase the
progress on an open ticket one
of his staff has pending."
Fish is ready to grumble, but
instead he pulls up the
ticketing system and checks
the supervisor's ticket number.
Turns out the problem
description on the ticket is
pretty vague, but it can't be all
that dire -- it was assigned
nearly two years ago to the
guy who quit, and the user
never followed up with fish
during the year he was in the
crosshairs.
Still, fish says he's happy to
follow up with the user and
see what can be done. The
supervisor gives fish the user's
phone number, which wasn't
on the trouble ticket, and a
few minutes later the user is
telling fish that he can't make
his mainframe terminal work.
Fish: "Do you get anything on
the screen at all?"
User: "I don't know."
Fish: "Any messages? Splash
screens? Legal disclaimers?"
User: "I don't know."
Fish: "Where is the terminal
compared to where you are
sitting? Can you see it?"
User: "Yes. It's in front of me."
Fish: "Is it switched on?"
User: "I don't know."
Fish: "Can you see any lights
on the terminal? Blinking
lights?"
User: "Yes."
Fish: "OK, press the XMIT key."
User: "OK. Done."
Fish: "Is there a message on
the screen now?"
User: "I don't know."
Fish: "You can see the
screen?"
User: "Yes."
Fish: "Well, is there anything
written on it?"
User: "I don't know."
Fish: "You are looking directly
at the screen right now and
you don't know what's written
on it?"
User: "Yes."
Fish: "What color is it?"
User: "I don't know."
"I was aware we had a couple
of blind field workers on staff,
but this one told me more
than once he could see the
screen so that couldn't be an
issue," says baffled fish. "I
suddenly realized what it was
that our former support guy
forgot to do before he left.
"I told the user to leave it with
us, hung up and marked the
ticket 'resolved.' Then I passed
a note to the new help-desk
guy, because I didn't hate him.
"But to my knowledge, years
later, no one has followed up
on the follow-up."