Chris Walker's Blog

Not all of you may know that I'm a system admin and support service member for a web hosting company. However, I'm sure most of you by now have figured out that I, hate stupidity, and will consequently, make phun of it, when it comes around.

Follow up:

As a web hosting admin, there are many things that go on, you handle some customers, deal with some requests, take and make phone calls, and amidst all of this... you get to answer some of the DUMBEST client questions and hear some of the greatest answers EVER.

Today... however, I think this goes in the cliche` column, but its still worth the reminder of how much crap most support members deal with. I'll admit, that even I have asked and said some pretty dumb things to a support rep for an ISP or other place before, but please folks, remember to consider your administrator and support rep before opening your mouth, be it mean or dumb.

We are moving domains from one server to another, during this mail server names and IP's change, most people were using mail.oldprovider.com instead of mail.theirdomain.com, so the move happens, and the old provider no longer has their mail. Notifications are always sent out before and after. This client called us about 2 weeks after we did their migration, and everything was fine. Now, today, almost a month later, I get this call:

Client: My email client is telling me that it cant find the server, I think this has something to do with the upgrade that you just did recently.

Client and I speak about name, domain, etc for verification

Me: Can you get to google or any other website on the internet?

Client: no.

Me: I believe that your internet connection is down, have you rebooted?

Client: Yes, I have been working on this for 2 days, it says there is a connection, but I cant get anything

Me: Unfortunately, it sounds like your internet connection is having problems, we cant support this, since we only host your email and web, we can help you verify email settings however

Client: Well, its just that It seems like it happened when this upgrade happened, so I think its your fault

"Every time you say 'uh' or 'um' an IT Admin hits their face on a desk" - Me