Some conversations go in circles because one person refuses to hear what the other person is actually saying.

This support worker tried helping a hardware technician troubleshoot a webpage access problem tied to company software. Almost immediately, the support worker suspected the customer probably forgot to apply the correct webpage permissions, which apparently happens pretty often during setup.

But instead of checking that, the engineer became completely obsessed with the SQL server.

He kept insisting SQL might not be installed because there was “nothing on the desktop,” even though the software literally could not install or run without SQL already working.

The support worker explained this over and over.

Still, he kept asking questions about SQL while completely ignoring the webpage permissions issue.

Read on to see how the conversation ended.

Won’t somebody please think of the SQL server!

I had a conversation with a hardware technician about an error on our software related to our local webpage.

Our software won’t install unless there is a SQL database it connects to. It will not run if there is not a database.

In this case, the webpage and SQL are not related. The hardware techs don’t work with this part of the software often.

The engineer immediately started talking about SQL.

Me: Looks like you’re having problems with webpage access. Did the customer apply the correct permissions on the web server? That frequently gets missed during implementations.

Engineer: I don’t know, but look, their SQL server doesn’t have anything on the desktop!

Me: …Okay? SQL doesn’t need anything on the desktop. That’s normal. That’s an entirely different server than the web server. So have they applied webpage permissions?

E: I don’t think SQL is running.

He tried to explain that the software couldn’t run without it, so it must be fine.

Me: Our software literally can’t install or run without SQL. It’s fine. As long as SQL is installed, it’s running. There is no “window” or “software” that has to be up. It’s a back-end process. Now, the webpage permissions…?

E: How can I see if SQL is installed?

Me (sigh): Check add/remove programs or the start menu.

E: It only has [sends screenshot of five different SQL tools that indicates that SQL is installed] but no “SQL” program.

Frustrated, he tried to ask again.

Me: That is SQL. SQL is installed. It is running. We literally wouldn’t be able to install and run the software and see the webpage error if SQL wasn’t there.

E: Ok.

Me: So, do they have the correct permissions set for the webpage?

E: They have SQL 2019 installed, is that a problem?

Forty minutes later, the guy decided to finally answer the question.

Me (heavy sigh): That’s literally the recommended version we support. Please log off of the SQL server. We don’t need to be on it.

E: Ok.

Me: Please, just tell me, has the customer applied permissions to the webpage?

E: I don’t know, I’ll ask.

This took over 40mins of back-and-forth, and I still don’t know if they’ve applied permissions yet. 🫠

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Yikes! That conversation sounds like a nightmare.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a warehouse worker who noticed some fellow employees were always sneaking out early for the same strange reason.

Let’s see how the readers over at Reddit handle situations like this.

Here’s someone who knows about SQL.

This person would’ve added this.

According to this comment, Sqlite works well for projects.

How frustrating!

Calls like this get annoying fast.

The support worker probably knew within the first few minutes what the actual problem was, but instead spent almost an hour stuck answering the same SQL questions over and over.

At a certain point, you can almost feel the frustration through the screen.

And the fact that the technician still never checked the webpage permissions after all that somehow makes the whole conversation even worse.