Some support calls go wrong because no one knows what’s actually needed.

So, what would you do if a user called in for help, but couldn’t explain the problem, even after getting their manager on the phone?

Would you cut them off quickly? Or would you bear with it and help them the best you can?

In the following story, one IT worker finds himself in this situation and gets to the bottom of the call.

Here’s what happened.

Multiple access to one account.

I am currently in an IT Service Desk company, and my account and department handle account issues for the company’s client employees, like Active Directory, and all issues and requests for accounts.

The department of the caller is newly created in the client company.

I received a call, but I’m confused about what is needed. The caller is also unsure what is needed or what he is requesting.

It took a few minutes to figure out what they wanted.

At first, the request was to get a password reset for a shared account to get into a Citrix, then it became a request for a virtual desktop for the shared account, but I informed them that there are no virtual desktops for shared accounts.

Then he mentioned that he does not know what he is calling in now for, since he was only instructed by his manager to call in to get assistance on logging into the shared account through Citrix.

I was then passed on to his manager, who was also confused about what was needed. After some time on the call, we were able to get the main issue and request.

At this point, he got really confused.

The reason for the call was that they have a company laptop, and the shared account is set up only to be able to log in to that specific laptop, and the manager is the only one who knows the password to the shared account.

Since the manager is not always able to be around to log in, they are requesting a Citrix virtual desktop for the account.

This is where I got really puzzled: how is it possible that he wants his team to all have different passwords and still log in to the same account?

Luckily, the guy agreed to close the ticket.

Not like different profiles inside the account, but just that one account to have multiple permanent passwords since he does not want to share the password with his team, so they can log in without his help.

I inform him that it is not possible and that an account can only have one password.

Seems he just gave up and does not believe me, and just said that he’ll speak to the local IT in their location to see if they can do it, but good news to me, he agreed to close the call ticket.

Wow! That was a long phone call for that to happen.

Let’s see how the readers over at Reddit feel about it.

This basically sums it up.

Here’s someone who’s done this thing before.

It sure does.

That’s what they said.

This sounds complicated!

So much so that they don’t even know how to explain it. How funny!

If you liked that story, check out this post about an oblivious CEO who tells a web developer to “act his wage”… and it results in 30% of the workforce being laid off.