Evolving issues and why come alone when you can bring a friend to "help"?
So this is a twofold because two people came by at the same time. They were having a conversation and casually strolled into my (still open) work area to sit down.
Person 1 ($P1) is just a user, Person 2 ($P2) is one of the few (loud) problem users at my site. $P1 starts talking so I'm like, sweet, this will be done fast. I ignore their positioning and realize that they're positioned in a way to corner me and gang up on me.
$P1 says they've put in a ticket and want to talk about it. I quickly open up ticketing system and email, no new tickets assigned to me, but I check the general pool/group tickets. Nothing. Let's start off with a lie. Nice.
$P1 can't connect to a website and it's not working properly on 2 browsers. Okay, pretty standard issue, especially on older OS. I check OS and it's the latest. Hmm. Ask user how they connect to the website, and they click on a bookmark. That's a big no-no. It "works" but it opens you up to issues. We have an SSO setup utilizing a tool/page/extension. I follow their steps and the site gets stuck loading.
$P1 says that the internet has been slow, but I'm already looking at the machine being connected to the guest network. Before $P1 has finished, I've switched to the staff network and I'm at the network page checking priority. Guest network has lower priority than the normal network. Weird, but ok. Turn off auto-join to the guest network.
Back to the site, it's working now, everything is peachy. Cool. $P1 is worried that things are still busted. "It looks fine here, but when I connect to... here... it doesn't work." It worked. "Oh huh, that's weird."
Proceed to give $P1 the SSO spiel about how to use it and best practices. Proceed to show $P1 3 different ways of accessing the SSO to ensure things don't go awry. Not entirely sure why the login would work but one of the pages wouldn't, but let's say that was due to the guest network although I explicitly said it wasn't. Better to have the user use the SSO in case of failure than to forget about it.
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$P2's turn. $P2 immediately pipes up. "I have an issue, too." Cool. "I'm worried about the computers in my care." Nice. "I'm just wondering what's going to happen with them since they're all having so many issues." Great. "Can you let me know what we should do with them?" What? Excuse me? Where in all of that was an issue. "Oh, sorry, I meant that I'm still not sure if I'm going to be here next year and the deciding factor is based on the machines in my care. If we don't upgrade them, then there's no point in me being here..."
Some context: $P2 informed me that they plan on retiring at the end of this year. I have thus given their machines extremely low priority. Immediately after that, $P2 has decided that they MIGHT want to work another year, but only one more year. I have not changed my decision because there's no point in dropping >$40,000 to make things easier for someone wants to work for one more year. That >$40,000 could instead replace 5 other users machines or supplement the rest of the site's machines to get us on the ball in technology again. In case you're wondering how that math checks out: Desktops vs Chromebooks.
Going to paraphrase because the conversation hurts my soul. $P2 at this point (finally) starts listing out issues on the devices. They occasionally "system update" and it stalls and they have to restart to get them working again. Upon informing $P2 that this is not a system update but, in fact, called booting or starting up a machine, $P2 decides that that's not at all what's happening. The machines do that in between users, so it can't be starting up. I let $P2 know that users may accidentally shut down or restart instead of locking off. $P2 says they definitely aren't for sure because they log out and leave the area. (I don't think those things correlate but ignore that for now.) $P2 decides that sometimes this happens in the middle of a user working on things, causing them to lose progress. Hold up, that's a new issue. First it's they boot up, then it's they boot up in between users, now it's they boot up on users. $P2 asks for advice.
$P1 decides that they have the same issue and pipe up that sometimes users will lose progress and get shunted to the login screen, which causes the machine to boot up, too. I respectfully put $P1 back in place by informing them both that Chromebooks typically do not restart automatically and that a user getting shunted back to the login screen is not, in fact, a machine booting up. $P1 realizes that they are just getting logged out, but says that's in the middle of users typing. With that cue, I inform $P1 that it's most likely the users hitting a key combination (in this case Ctrl + Shift + Q) causing them to automatically log out.
Back to $P2, I let them know that those are separate issues and that each one, individually, is hard to resolve as there isn't enough information without dump/info logs and anything but hearsay which is constantly evolving, apparently. $P2 is worried about the machines as they may be there next year and if not them, then someone else. Okay, but those machines are -- hold off, I don't know how old those machines are... quick mental math -- at least 4 years old. $P2 starts doing some mental math, checks with $P1 for admin changes... around 7-8 years old. Yeah, that's well past their EOL, which explains the issues. Can't do anything on my end unless we decide to purchase more. $P2 wants to know if we can/will. That's not a conversation for me in my work area. That's a conversation with $P2, me, and the site admin nearer to the end of the year when we get funding for this stuff. But $P2 wants to know what I can do to make sure that the machines are going to be ok. Nothing. $P1 unhelpfully suggests that $P2 talk to the site admin. $P2 has already talked to the site admin who referred them to me (because I can "fix" their issues).
I reiterate that this isn't a conversation for me in my work area in the middle of the year. This is a conversation for the end of the year when we decide what to do with the budget (funding comes in all at once to last for the year). I include that replacing the machines in the ONE lab would take up a majority of our budget, and that replacing the machines in BOTH (note: one completely unused) labs would take up most, if not all, of our budget. I also relay that the site admin is more interested in filling up rooms that are missing devices and updating older devices that AREN'T desktops, as it's cheaper and they get a lot more usage.
$P2 gets the hint and says maybe they'll just email site admin. I inwardly cry and say, sure, but that won't change that it needs to be a sit down talk with all of us. You also need to know what you're doing with your future. If you're going to stay, we can figure something out, but if you're going to play schrodinger's employee, I'm going to advise against updating the machines.
They get up, thank me ($P2 grumbles it, $P1 is happy to have their issue fixed) and leave. A few moments later the lights turn off because my work area is just beyond the sensor's range (ironically I'm the only person in this area) and there's a 30 minute timeout.
Double check the tickets, no new tickets and nothing related to $P1's issue. Going to have to enforce the no ticket no help policy harder now.