Oh, so there's nothing wrong from your side!

ME: ********* resident technical support, Rand_4 is speaking, how may I help?
Customer: Yes, I've been trying to connect for the last few days, it doesn't log in at all! Something wrong from your side?
ME: I can't tell without checking...

***Took the customer's account details, turned out that his line have been up for 2 weeks without a single drop. and his line can hold up to 8Mbps (He subscribed for 1Mbps)***

ME: Sir, the line is connected for 2 weeks without a single drop.
Customer: How can that be? I've been trying to connect for the last few days and nothing work; no MSN Messenger, no SKYPE, no WoW, no nothing! Is there a new cut in the submarine cables again?
ME: We haven't been informed about any though I doubt. But from what I see in my sys... (interrupted)
Customer: Then why it doesn't work?
ME: I don't know, probably something from your side, let's check few stuff in your computer. If nothing worked, I'll write a request to send you a technician to check things out.
Customer: OK.

***Checked the IP configurations. Long story short, I kinda figured that his workplace doesn't have DHCP enabled so he HAVE to set things manually. The guy forgot to switch his settings to (Obtain from server) for both IP Addresses and DNS settings***

ME: So there you go. Problem solved. Anything else I can help you with?
Customer: What was the problem?
ME: Just to make sure, you take your laptop to your work, right?
Customer: Yes, why?
ME: Well, your work uses specific IP Addresses that only works in their sy... (interrupted)
Customer: Arabic please.
ME: OK, Your work place has specific set of configuration that they applied on your laptop that doesn't work on your router. So basically, you weren't able to connect because you kept the work's settings you just didn't reconfigured things.
Customer: Oh, so there's nothing from your side!
ME: Yes, you had configuration issues and we just solved it.
Customer: No submarine cables issues?
ME: No, we haven't been informed about it. And I doubt that will happen.
Customer: Oh ok, bye.
ME: Anythi... (Customer hung up)

Now, this isn't the first customer that acts this rude and ill-mannered. So I kinda got used to it.

But seriously, did people get used to the "Submarine cable issues" incidents that, they assume instantly it's the problem?

And what's with the interrupting attitude? I'd understand if he was a teenager or an old-fashioned old man (Don't get me wrong, they're well mannered [few exceptions with teenagers], but they usually snap when they sense something wrong). But he was a FUCKING DOCTOR!!!

How did I know? There's "Dr. " before his name... Well, whatever...



Next story will be titled: "IT DOESN'T WORK!"

I'm 4 months leech old!

To give you a brief about my work, I work in ********* ISP in the resident helpdesk department. We're operational 24/7 and the guys here work really hard regardless what people usually say...

I wont be mentioning real names since I consider'em company's secrets... So here we go:

ME: ********* resident technical support, Rand_4 is speaking, how may I help?
Customer: I can't connect to my wireless. Can you help me?

***We provide wireless support if (And only if) they bought our router because we configure the remote access so we could fix things remotely***

ME: Ofcourse, what's your DSL phone number?
Customer: It's 2*******.

***Few keystrokes and mouse clicks to check our system***

ME: Sir, do you remember your wireless key?
Customer: Wireless key? My wireless was open the whole time! It just got locked today for some reason.
ME: Are you the only use in the house?
Customer: Yes, I've been using it for 4 months without password or wireless key or whatever.

***Few more keystrokes and mouse clicks to access his router and check things out***

ME: Sir, your wireless network's name is *********?
Customer: No, it's XXXX.

***Note that (*********) is the ISP's name, we usually set the router to the ISP's name, while (XXXX) is the router's brand name which is the same brand that we sell***

ME: Sir, your router is ********* and the password is ##########... You probably have been using the neighbor's wireless for the last four months!
Customer: What? You mean, I've been paying for 4 months without using my DSL connection at all!?
ME: Seems like it. In any event, your wireless name is ********* and the password is XXXXXXXXXX... Do you want me to guide you through connecting to yours?
Customer: Yes, please.

***Guiding the customer through connecting the laptop to his wireless router... And luckily, he's using Windows Vista, way easy to guide over the phone: Just click on the wireless icon, choose your connection, put password and you're in***

ME: So, are you online now? Can you access any website?
Customer: Yes, but how can I make sure it's not slow?
ME: Go to download.com, download any big file and tell me the download speed.

***Guided the customer to download AVG Antivirus just to see if it's actually slow or not***

Customer: I didn't get that number before!
ME: Well, that's your internet speed. The connection you've been using is probably the neighbor's and they seem to be subscribed for something slower than your connection.
Customer: I knew there's something wrong. Thank you so much for helping me.
ME: Anything else I can help you with?
Customer: Kidding me? I'll download the whole internet now! Thank you so much!!
ME: Thank you for calling *********. Have a nice day.

So I hung up the phone, went to my supervisor and told him about the incident, he sprayed his coffee laughing...



Seriously, The customer subscribed in *********, wouldn't it be so obvious that the ********* wireless connection is his noting that the signal was SO POWERFUL (Almost full) compared to the other XXXX with almost no signal?





Next story will be titled: "Oh, so there's nothing wrong from your side!"

Working in helpdesk; Good'n'Ugly!!

OK, I didn't write anything for decades because, well, life got busy and shit... So I thought of starting some series of writings: Working in helpdesk...

I finally got a crappy job in some ISP's helpdesk... And because I face many weird\lame\funny calls, I thought of sharing them here without mentioning real names ofcourse...

Stay tuned, first story will be named "I'm 4 months leech old!"

Waaaaw... You have a Porsche and you still think I'll beat you... Waaaaaaaaw!!

I received a call from mom telling me that my brother is having a surgery which freeked me out... Even though it's a minor surgery, it still freeks me out...

Anyway, she wanted me to stay over at the hospital and sleep there in case he needed anything...

And to make things worst, I had to drop one of his friends because he's depending on me to drive him back home from Salwa to somewhere beyond infinity :P

So, on my way from Salmiya to Salwa, I had to pass through Ta3awun Street stepping on the peddle at max...

I passed by this Porsche and had to shift my gear up when I reached him since my RPM reached 6000... And he was really driving slowly...

Next thing I know he stepped on it and literally became 5 meters ahead of me in a second or two... Woah!! That's fast...

But really, why would a Porsche want to race a slowpoke Mitsubishi Lancer!? He could beat me driving in reverse for fuck sake!!

I swear I'm not trying to race or anything... I'm just in a hurry to drop my friend to his house and go back to my brother and spend the night there hearing his snores (He's actually snoring right now next to me... I'm writing this while he's asleep)...

Why did he had to sink as low as my car's level just to beat me? He could've U-turned and had fun with other cars in his level (Or maybe A level [My car is few levels lower than his])...



Well, I couldn't help but hav my own fun...

I turned my right signal as if I wanted to take right... And because he was ahead of me, he took right... Then I turned off my right signal and went on straight driving as slow as 40kmph, honking on the horn, laughing at him and enjoying his angry face and expressions :P



I LOVE DOING THAT TO SUCH IDIOTS!!! YOU MIGHT BEAT ME IN A RACE BECAUSE YOU HAVE A DRAMATICALLY BETTER\FASTER CAR, BUT YOU CAN'T BEAT MY PRANKS :P

Signs where Kuwait started to turn bad: KINDERGARTEN

So I was getting outta my room heading out to literally run away from home and meet up with a friend that I haven't seen for months...

On my way out, I heard my niece asking my sister (her mom) this cute little question (I'll write it in Arabic to show my point):
"ماما ... صج هوت دوج بالانجليزي يعني نقينقة*؟"

*Nuqainuqa since the marks aren't properly shown in Arabic...

I literally kept on laughing for 5 minutes maybe... Not that much of a laughter, but when I came to my senses, I realized how WRONG that was...



My niece is still in kindergarten... I asked my sister where did she learn that and she said it was her teacher who taught my niece that...

Now seriously, this incident explained and clarified several things for me:

ONE - YOU THINK IT'S CUTE, BUT IT'S WRONG:

Hearing funny stuff coming from children is fun and cute...
My niece used to call me "Walaal" and her sister calls me "Dalaal" now (Thanks to her, my friends are calling me "Dalaal" as well)...
My youngest brother used to call me "Thalaal" because he had hard time saying "R" which was kinda cute
I used to say "مايطافي" as in "مطافي"... I didn't know back then...
My niece calls the computer "Oh My God" since her mom always yells "OH MY GOD" every time she get's close to the computer...

Cute children, cute names, but things will be ugly if they grew up keeping these names without knowing (Or teaching them) the real and true names...

Let's go back to the hot dog event...

There's two reason (I came up with) to tell the little child that wrong "Nuqainuqa" name:

1) The teacher don't know the English name for it.
If that's the case, I have several questions:
a. WHY THE HELL DID SHE OPEN HER MOUTH AND SPOKE WITH SOMETHING SHE KNEW NOTHING ABOUT!?
b. HOW THE HELL DID SHE BECOME A TEACHER NOT KNOWING SUCH A SIMPLE, EASY AND COMMON WORD?
c. WHO THE HELL DID QUALIFY YOU TO BECOME A TEACHER?
d. WHO THE HELL WOULD HIRE SUCH TEACHER THAT LACKS SUCH ENGLISH SKILLS!?

If that wasn't the case (Which is probably is not), I have this question:
WHY THE HELL DIDN'T YOU CORRECT THE CHILD'S DEFINITION AND WRONGNESS!?

2) The teacher didn't know that feeding them wrong definitions and words in early years is like writing on cement; easily written when wet, almost impossible (Or let's just say hard) to erase when dry (As in, they get old).

Teachers shouldn't do that... They should at least say "I don't know" if they literally DON'T KNOW!!

There's a total difference between "Someone who knows stuff and can teach" and a "Teacher"...

Teacher (Specially kindergarten teachers) has other responsibilities than just "Deliver information to students"... They have to EDUCATE them... Teach them manners... Teach them true from false... Right from wrong... Do from Don't... They have to correct whatever wrong behavior they aquired even if it means contacting their parents to tell them about it...

I know it's not easy to handle kids and children because of their innocent and pure souls and minds... But if you're not up to handling them properly, you're better off not dealing with'em at all because, without knowing it, you'll create a generation that's built on false facts and wrong ideas...

I remember my Arabic teacher back when I was 7 years old... I asked him a question that my dad knew the answer for it but he didn't... I was really shocked like "You're a teacher!! How can you not know that!?"... He simply replied with "No one is born knowing everything... We all keep on learning... I know some stuff that you don't know, and you probably know some stuff that I don't know... I know more Arabic stuff, you probably know more Science and math stuff than me"... I was stunned because he didn't lie and he gave me the flawless reply... I had to respect him more than ANY other teacher in the world...

In general, When it comes to teaching, you don't feed your students with wrong info and answers... You whether say "I don't know" or "I don't know, I'll look it up in my own books and give you a good answer tomorrow (Or later)"...



That concludes my first part of the "Signs where Kuwait started to turn bad"...


NOTES:
My sister went to that fake teacher and gave her a headache for feeding her daughter wrong stuff... I wouldn't surprised if she spat on her face... She'd get that aggressive :P

Killer pigeons...

Enough weird dreams already!!!

What the HELL is wrong with me and the weird dreams that pop in my head!?

OK enough freaking out... Here's how the idea was:



I went to my friend's apartment (Some fictional person that, his face looks totally unfamiliar)... And when I opened his apartment's door, I saw him laying on the ground with 7 pigeons eating up his body...

I freaked out and called "11271" (Which is, "777" in real life... WHY DOES IT HAVE TO BE THREE NUMBERS!?) and later on they came and took care of everything...

On my way back home, I keep seeing pigeons flying over covered in blood with some meat remaining on their pecks\face...



Then I woke up and literally thought that was real for the next few hours that, I was actually going to call one of my friends to confirm that the killer pigeons doesn't exist (or atleast, not in Kuwait)...



Now, I can assume I'm having THIS weird dream because I ate too much "Papa Jones" Pizza... But that doesn't explain why I had the weird previous dreams...

Can anyone recommend a good shrink!? :P

Ow... My back...

I'm not an active sport guy...

I do sports whenever I really need to... Like, when I run away from my friends wanting to beat the crap out of me because I said a lame joke (Which stalled them for few seconds giving me some time to run while they think about the joke) or my college class...

Anyway, for some reason, my back hurts which that it wasn't any of a big deal...

But I went to the doctor just to check it up... After all, it was in the middle of my backbone...

The doctor almost literally said "Tsk... You just pulled a muscle... Grow up kiddo"...

He said to come by if nothing changed in 3 days... In my own mind, I was like "Such a lazy ass... But it's ok, I'll play along with'em"...


After a week from that day, my back pain actually grew, let's say, a double and half times the pain it actually caused back then... It's not that I can't bear with it... It's just annoying and I'm starting to worry because, hey, it's my back and the middle of the backbone... If it's something, I might lose an important part...

So I went to the doc again (Another doc though) and explained the whole thing... He asked me to take an X-ray image of my back and the guy who took the image made me pose like a model laying on some flat plastic bed :P

He looked at the image and all and was like "You need to rest... It's only the muscle that you pulled"...

I thought "Bullshit!! A muscle pull wouldn't last this long"... He resumed "You need to stay in bed for atleast 2 days... As in, the only time you get off the bad is to answer the nature's call"...

Ofcourse his answer didn't satisfy me... So I just played along and was like "Hopefully the time to sleep that amount of time would come..."



Well, alot of things happened and all... I have flu now thanks to my nieces and all... So I decided to relax and stay home yesterday... Which I did...

I played Call of Duty 5 and HAWX... Went to bed by 18:00... Woke up by 10:00...

To me, it's a big accomplishment since I haven't been able to sleep for more than 5 hours in the last few months...



I woke up to check my back, and the pain is 3/4 gone... I can't really believe it... The docs were right...

Now I feel like going out and pull that muscle again to have an excuse to stay home and be treated :P

Come to think of it, How the hell did I pull that muscle? By STANDING OFF MY COMPUTER CHAIR!?



Lessons to be learned:
* Public Hospital aren't that bad... Yes, we see slacky docs every now'n'then, but there's good ones as well
* Must keep my nieces away from me... They made me sick :P
* I should buy more chocolate to entertain me while I'm in bed :P