No, I Can't Help – You Called The Wrong Helpdesk, In The Wrong Place, For The Wrong Platform

On Call Welcome once again to On Call, The Register's reader-contributed column in which each Friday we share your tales of fun and frolics at the frontline of tech support.

This week, meet a reader we'll Regomize as "Warren" who worked for an US-based organization that operated several sites scattered across London, UK.

Warren's job was support for Windows desktops and servers across those sites. His Yankee colleagues, however, had him listed as a Unix support specialist – even though the firm had a Unix team, and Warren wasn't on it.

Yet Warren's mobile phone was on file, and it rang disconcertingly often when the US team needed Unix support. Many of those calls asked him to travel across London at great speed: the stateside folks had zero knowledge of London's sprawl and congestion.

They also didn't understand time zones very well.

"This resulted in frequent calls in the middle of the night requiring me to be in certain offices in an unrealistic time frame," Warren told On Call.

He therefore developed a standard response to these calls:

• I support Windows, not Unix;
• Call the Unix team;
• Please delete my phone number;
• It's an ungodly hour here, and it isn't my turn to be supporting anything;
• If you'd looked at the support roster, which you can access, you could have figured this out;
• Yes, I am a tad grumpy now.

After each call, Warren would try to get some more sleep. But the calls kept coming – and even became more frequent.

Warren eventually escalated the matter to his manager – who did nothing to stop them.

• Tech support chap showed boss how to use a browser for a year – he still didn't get it
• Techie left 'For support, contact me' sign on a server. Twenty years later, someone did
• That hardware will be more reliable if you stop stabbing it all day
• Tech support world record? 8.5 seconds from seeing to fixing

"He thought the situation was hilarious and did nothing to stem the calls," Warren told On Call, and even had a laugh when he saw our hero stumbling into the office displaying obvious signs of broken sleep and fatigue.

Warren soon decided he could do better, and found another job.

And then one night, in the wee small hours, his phone rang.

"Is this the UK Unix support team?" the caller asked.

"No, it is not," Warren replied, explaining that he had changed jobs but had the number of someone who could help.

At which point he read out his former manager's personal mobile number.

Have you been asked to fix someone else's problems? If so, click here to send On Call an email and we might make your story a problem for other Reg readers on a future Friday. ®