5 ms·

I can fix this PC, boss, but I'll need to play games for hours to do it

100 points by sohkamyung 2y ago

Aeolun 2y ago
I like hearing that. Hope more bosses are like that.
- gigatexal 2y ago
  Came here to say the same. What a nice story!
kotaKat 2y ago
I've logged tickets in an ISP testing performance issues by using GeForce NOW before. Peak-hours troubleshooting sitting alongside users while playing Fortnite over streaming to figure out where we were getting the latency spikes. "Remember, kids -- the only difference between screwing around and science is writing it down." --Adam Savage
foobarkey 2y ago
Heartwarming boss
xwowsersx 2y ago
apparently > The Register itself uses the term Regomiser as a user name generator for its registration. If this contributor is a "reader Regomized as 'Felix,'" it would mean a reader registered and was reassigned that random name. - https://english.stackexchange.com/a/546162 https://english.stackexchange.com/a/546162
goda90 2y ago
I recall there being a post on bash-dot-org (RIP) from an IT guy who needed high network traffic to diagnose some issue on the LAN. So his boss had everyone in the building start playing some old FPS(Unreal tournament?) to generate it.
- mywacaday 2y ago
  Late 90s in a college computer lab about 20 people playing unreal tournament when lab tech storms in giving out about incorrect use of resources when one of the guys stood up and said we're the gaming society holding trials to form a team to play against another college, that was news to me, good times!
probably_wrong 2y ago
I don't know if this is location-specific, but I miss the times when PC technicians would actually try and diagnose problems. Whenever a family member sends their PC to a "repair shop" (usually because "it was too slow") they get back a freshly-reinstalled PC and most of their files dumped inside a folder called "Backup". It then falls to me to reinstall all of their software while praying that their tax software has a "restore from copy" function or, failing that, at least a clearly-marked "database.db" file that I can overwrite.
- exe34 2y ago
  It's possible, but it'll cost you a lot more. It's cheaper to make backups and learn to restore from them, because your software is going to crash anyway, and your disk will die and take your most recent copy with it. Backups are your friends. My friend recently had his 3090 die, and somebody was able to diagnose the problem and replace the dead components - but it cost something like £100. That makes sense for an item he bought for £600, but if it cost £10 for something, it makes more sense to replace it.
  - slipheen 2y ago
    I would like that sort of service but often am unable to find it. Do you have any suggestions? Perhaps you just have particularly good local shops?
    - exe34 2y ago
      I'll have to ask my friend, he sent his GPU to Wales for the repair. Personally I'll happily spend a week fixing something purely out of spite, against all economic incentives, but I wouldn't want to do it for a job. I have in the past replaced a friend's SSD and recovered his data from the older one that he somehow reformatted by accident. But it's a lot of effort.
    - ChoGGi 2y ago
      North West repair on YouTube is one. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SdymB1vLdF8 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SdymB1vLdF8
karmakaze 2y ago
Great story and conclusion that the problem got fixed. > Have you had to play games as part of your tech support duties? Well sort-of. My first co-op job was at the Ministry of Transportation. They had a Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet that had planning costs for highway construction projects. All I had to do was add or fix up some of the formulas on them. All quite rudimentary, but it seemed at the time there really wasn't many in the office with 1-2-3 experience as the PC and software was new to the office. So the rest of the time I chatted with folks and waited for the coffee+snack trolley to come around twice a day and otherwise take breaks. I got bored fast as there was no other work to do. One day I brought in my Atari 400 and just started writing games. The others seemed to enjoy seeing them too. Got a good work term review. They asked me if I knew any other smart candidates and I mentioned a friend of mine who was hired for the next term (after an initial mixup with another person with the same first/last, co-incidentally a classmate but not the friend I meant).
- glonq 2y ago
  My buddy did his co-op at the ministry of transportation, and had a great time. My co-op was two floors down at the ministry of finance; a strictly no-fun zone.
archi42 2y ago
Previous job: "We need some more real & complex test code for that compiler, but it doesn't support all language features" - "okay, Linux is too huge, we already did a few real life libs like compression, encryption and sqlite... I'll port ioquake3 to it". I had to resort to GCC for some parts that could not be ported without disproportionate effort (graphics code iirc?); but once it built, it ran without error and I could play a few matches. At least that's what nostalgia tells me ;-)
bingobango239 2y ago
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100 points by sohkamyung 2y ago

Aeolun 2y ago

I like hearing that. Hope more bosses are like that.

gigatexal 2y ago
Came here to say the same. What a nice story!

kotaKat 2y ago

I've logged tickets in an ISP testing performance issues by using GeForce NOW before. Peak-hours troubleshooting sitting alongside users while playing Fortnite over streaming to figure out where we were getting the latency spikes. "Remember, kids -- the only difference between screwing around and science is writing it down." --Adam Savage

foobarkey 2y ago

Heartwarming boss

xwowsersx 2y ago

apparently > The Register itself uses the term Regomiser as a user name generator for its registration. If this contributor is a "reader Regomized as 'Felix,'" it would mean a reader registered and was reassigned that random name. - https://english.stackexchange.com/a/546162 https://english.stackexchange.com/a/546162

goda90 2y ago

I recall there being a post on bash-dot-org (RIP) from an IT guy who needed high network traffic to diagnose some issue on the LAN. So his boss had everyone in the building start playing some old FPS(Unreal tournament?) to generate it.

mywacaday 2y ago
Late 90s in a college computer lab about 20 people playing unreal tournament when lab tech storms in giving out about incorrect use of resources when one of the guys stood up and said we're the gaming society holding trials to form a team to play against another college, that was news to me, good times!

probably_wrong 2y ago

I don't know if this is location-specific, but I miss the times when PC technicians would actually try and diagnose problems. Whenever a family member sends their PC to a "repair shop" (usually because "it was too slow") they get back a freshly-reinstalled PC and most of their files dumped inside a folder called "Backup". It then falls to me to reinstall all of their software while praying that their tax software has a "restore from copy" function or, failing that, at least a clearly-marked "database.db" file that I can overwrite.

exe34 2y ago
It's possible, but it'll cost you a lot more. It's cheaper to make backups and learn to restore from them, because your software is going to crash anyway, and your disk will die and take your most recent copy with it. Backups are your friends. My friend recently had his 3090 die, and somebody was able to diagnose the problem and replace the dead components - but it cost something like £100. That makes sense for an item he bought for £600, but if it cost £10 for something, it makes more sense to replace it.
- slipheen 2y ago
  I would like that sort of service but often am unable to find it. Do you have any suggestions? Perhaps you just have particularly good local shops?
  - exe34 2y ago
    I'll have to ask my friend, he sent his GPU to Wales for the repair. Personally I'll happily spend a week fixing something purely out of spite, against all economic incentives, but I wouldn't want to do it for a job. I have in the past replaced a friend's SSD and recovered his data from the older one that he somehow reformatted by accident. But it's a lot of effort.
  - ChoGGi 2y ago
    North West repair on YouTube is one. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SdymB1vLdF8 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SdymB1vLdF8

karmakaze 2y ago

Great story and conclusion that the problem got fixed. > Have you had to play games as part of your tech support duties? Well sort-of. My first co-op job was at the Ministry of Transportation. They had a Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet that had planning costs for highway construction projects. All I had to do was add or fix up some of the formulas on them. All quite rudimentary, but it seemed at the time there really wasn't many in the office with 1-2-3 experience as the PC and software was new to the office. So the rest of the time I chatted with folks and waited for the coffee+snack trolley to come around twice a day and otherwise take breaks. I got bored fast as there was no other work to do. One day I brought in my Atari 400 and just started writing games. The others seemed to enjoy seeing them too. Got a good work term review. They asked me if I knew any other smart candidates and I mentioned a friend of mine who was hired for the next term (after an initial mixup with another person with the same first/last, co-incidentally a classmate but not the friend I meant).

glonq 2y ago
My buddy did his co-op at the ministry of transportation, and had a great time. My co-op was two floors down at the ministry of finance; a strictly no-fun zone.

archi42 2y ago

Previous job: "We need some more real & complex test code for that compiler, but it doesn't support all language features" - "okay, Linux is too huge, we already did a few real life libs like compression, encryption and sqlite... I'll port ioquake3 to it". I had to resort to GCC for some parts that could not be ported without disproportionate effort (graphics code iirc?); but once it built, it ran without error and I could play a few matches. At least that's what nostalgia tells me ;-)

bingobango239 2y ago