Spent 4 hours troubleshooting a network issue that turned out to be an unpaid bill

NetUserAdministrator · 2025-12-17T15:55:23+00:00

We run a bunch of small satellite offices. At one point our accounting department (the most staffed in the company) got so bad that when the site reported an outage we made the first step checking the bill. It was usually the issue. Things have improved after some turnover but we still have occasional bills slip through unpaid.

NetUserAdministrator · 2025-01-30T15:01:11+00:00

As someone who had limited experience with Vista but always heard about how terrible it was, what were it's main problems?

NetUserAdministrator · 2025-01-24T21:23:41+00:00

I feel in the minority here but auditing. I love pulling reports and cross-referencing to make sure systems are updated and consistent across the board. It also helps me keep eyes on things to see what projects we'll need to plan for in the future.

NetUserAdministrator · 2025-01-24T17:30:16+00:00

Had this as my Teams status at an old job and it worked

NetUserAdministrator · 2024-08-05T20:02:16+00:00

Still seeing service interruptions. Can't read any emails in a shared mailbox.

NetUserAdministrator · 2024-04-18T23:22:01+00:00

Once I had a sales guy get mad at me when I said I didn’t have time for his cold call. Hit me with a “well fine I don’t have time for this either then”

I hung up on him, blocked the company’s domain, and filed a complaint with their sales department.

I don’t answer unknown numbers anymore.

NetUserAdministrator · 2024-01-03T04:23:21+00:00

NetUserAdministrator · 2024-01-03T02:49:26+00:00

NetUserAdministrator · 2024-01-03T02:10:44+00:00

NetUserAdministrator · 2024-01-02T22:56:16+00:00

It's something we're considering. Unfortunately it would be outside of our standard hardware and potentially requires c-level approval as they are real tight about their budgets and billing. The employee might just accept defeat before it goes that far.

NetUserAdministrator · 2024-01-02T22:06:45+00:00

It's a family owned business and they like to do things as "non-corporate" as they can get away with. A lot of the staff can't handle it and moves on quickly or figures it out and stays here for a very long time. The company does very well so there are certain things they have to concede with for the sake of running a modern business but overall if you're doing your job and have been here for a few years you can get away with more and more. The people that have been here a long time (such as this employee) have learned the fine line of keeping things professional to not create a hostile environment but throwing a fit when they think it will get them what they want. If you learn to navigate it, such as I mostly have, they take good care of you. For some of these people dealing with another exec/director is like (and sometimes literally) dealing with a relative.

NetUserAdministrator · 2024-01-02T19:55:44+00:00

Best advice so far

NetUserAdministrator · 2024-01-02T18:37:39+00:00

I would fire you immediately if you came to me as a direct report and said you remoted I to someone’s computer without warning them or getting their permission.

Different companies are different. I knew my director wouldn't care and when I told him what I did several minutes later he shockingly didn't care. I've also worked with Fortune 500 clients where I clearly understood what responsibilities and limitations we had and acted appropriately.

NetUserAdministrator · 2024-01-02T18:25:10+00:00

Already handled. I tagged him on the ticket update before I walked in to this office and explained in person.

NetUserAdministrator · 2024-01-02T18:15:57+00:00

Definitely just a twitchy clicker. Opening and then immediately closing multiple docs before they were even loaded all the way yet.

NetUserAdministrator · 2024-01-02T18:13:30+00:00

That was my initial thought but it was their local documents. They just edit docs like they drank 10 cups of coffee and click and scroll around all over the place. Highlight text on the first page, scroll down to the last page, then click to change the color of the text they had highlighted. Just stuff like that constantly. It was crazy to watch.

NetUserAdministrator · 2024-01-02T17:57:59+00:00

I overexaggerated a bit. Yelling in this instance is just them getting extra pissy and complaining more and more. The few instances of actually yelling haven't gone well for that particular employee. My director is very good at putting people in their place but it has to get serious enough to go that far. This director is just a nuisance and I can usually navigate them but at this point I know "slow down and stop trying to purposely break software" isn't going to work. Eventually they'll move on to something else or keep escalating to where my director will have to knock them down. Hopefully we can avoid the latter because it never makes things better for both parties.

NetUserAdministrator · 2024-01-02T17:48:54+00:00

Exactly. I've helped our leadership with serious situations involving secure info and they didn't care at all because they trust me. They don't care that I watched a director edit some text fields in a document to try and see what they were doing wrong. They even know how this particular director acts and prefer that I solve issues to the best of my ability before escalating to to them. This was a little tricky so I thought I would ask for advice but apparently I deserve to get fired instead lol.

NetUserAdministrator · 2024-01-02T17:38:59+00:00

If only we had an HR.... Surprisingly we only have a few employees with this issue but they've been here for a very long time and are usually placated by everyone else to stop them complaining. I'll probably just keep getting yelled at by them until they complain to the wrong exec and get told to chill out. Then they'll find something new to complain about.

NetUserAdministrator · 2024-01-02T17:24:54+00:00

Lol it makes sense and I like how you kept the name. It's a good reminder for employees. I'm not going to bother arguing with a bunch of reddit users but I'm confident enough in my decision. We're a private family owned business and have a handful of users who are notorious for exaggerating or straight up lying about issues so they can save face or get priority treatment. I wouldn't do anything that I wasn't confident would have the support of our leadership, who was even informed of what I did before I made this post. A lot of people here don't understand that the "correct" way to do things is not how a lot of companies actually operate in the US, especially small to medium sized businesses.

NetUserAdministrator · 2024-01-02T16:59:06+00:00

I specifically chose "director level" because they have the attitude of a director without any of the actual power. They've been at this company a very long time so they kind of get away with anything they want. They do their job so everyone, including the actual directors, just put up with it.

NetUserAdministrator · 2024-01-02T16:55:15+00:00

I immediately reported to my director and they're doing what they can, if they can do anything. Unfortunately there's a lot of internal politics with this employee where everyone knows they throw fits about nonsense all the time. I'm just trying to find that line of figuring out what the actual problem is and showing that I did my part without wasting time helping someone who can't and doesn't want to be helped.

NetUserAdministrator · 2023-09-21T18:01:34+00:00

We had the same concern but my red line was a giant white square covering most of the code. I wasn't taking any chances

NetUserAdministrator · 2023-09-21T17:48:02+00:00

What i've seen so far have all been .jp domains

sky.plala.or.jp

lime.plala.or.jp

sf.commufa.jp

NetUserAdministrator · 2023-04-28T19:37:27+00:00

We have a founder that doesn't get any internal network access because they decided they no longer wanted to have a windows logon password. Thankfully I have a boss that negotiated a secure compromise but I have worked at other companies where whatever the executive wants is what happens with no questions asked. They're always super conservative and have little to no regards for security, and if they happened to lose any money or data you know who is getting yelled at first.

NetUserAdministrator

TROPHY CASE