A Home For The Technologically Inept 131
Having to had provide tech support to many people over the years (One of my favorites: But how do I double-click the mouse?), I found the Assisted Computer Facility living place to be a wonderful idea. Just think - an environment where people could /safetly/ learn about the difference between a drink coaster and the CD-ROM drive.
click the left button twice in rapid succession (Score:1)
How about establishing a home for geeks? (Score:3)
Sure, it's a joke, but... (Score:5)
- A.P.
--
Forget Napster. Why not really break the law?
Re:Basics. (Score:1)
Hey is Telsa can do it, so can they.
another story (Score:1)
One day we had been doing some major work on thier tiny little network, and my boss and I had been running around to misc machines, using them to test this and that. Logging in to the windows boxes as 'administrator' to handle the old 3.12 novel network wasnt uncommon. So we had pretty much finished up, and as I was cleaning up some of the networking tools while he was talking to the boss, just shootin the breeze. The boss' wife came up to me and my boss (I was right next to them) and mentioned that her computer wasnt working. frustrated, but not showing it (as her machine had been a problem child all day long), I followed her around the corner to figure it out. she sat down to type in her passwd, and lo-and-behold it would not let her log in! I hopped in there, cleared out the 'administrator' username out of the box, put her login name, and told her to try again. amazingly it worked.
She thanked me and we both walked back over to the bosses (her husband and my boss). My boss asked me what the problem was, and I casually (cleverly, thoguht I) said 'Oh, just an I/O error.' knowing my boss was the
I turned about 5 shades of bright red while everyone else laughed. I didnt quite understand that they had that good of a friendship/business relationship, but man I will never forget that feeling, nor my boss telling someones wife "you're an idiot!"
-----
If Bill Gates had a nickel for every time Windows crashed...
Re:E-I-E-I/O (Score:1)
It made sense... true is on false is off...
but I am a geek...
Re:E-I-E-I/O (Score:1)
They are all simpler than those new crazy ATX powerbuttons... the ones that don't show which state they are in... and you have to hold them in to shut them off...
What we need are red levers. One side says "ON"
the other says "NOT ON".
and then a note that says "Do not leave lever in middle position."
I figure if people can remember to start a car, they can figure out how to turn on a machine.
But then again... I may be oversimplifying things...
Re:HMMM.... (Score:2)
For another point of view, here is a quote from William Mossberg's column. Note that I don't personally agree with everything Mossberg writes, but his point of view is an important one to consider:
http://ptech.wsj.com/archive/mailbox-20010412.h
"I have long felt that what we need isn't for users to become "computer literate" but for the techie class, especially those who design and maintain computers, to become "human literate." One reason personal computers are of such poor quality is that too many of their designers believe that, when their customers can't use PCs properly, the fault lies with the customers, not with the machines -- or with themselves."
sPh
Re:HMMM.... (Score:3)
"How do I do a right button click" "
I've done my share of tech support, and received my share of inane questions. But double-clicking a mouse (or using a mouse, for that matter) is by no means an intuitive operation. Like riding a bicycle, once you get it, you get it, but unless someone shows you the odds of figuring it out yourself are about nil.
There is a saying that only one man ever taught himself to fly a helicopter (Igor Sikorski), and that everyone else learned from someone who learned from him. Along those lines, Apple included with the IIgs a tutorial that booted itself up and taught you to use the mouse assuming no prior knowledge. A work of art IMHO; I wish they had transferred it to other platforms.
sPh
Re:E-I-E-I/O (Score:4)
Some of their "winners" over the years:
- You can't turn off most recent Apple monitors without also turning off the Mac it's hooked to.
- The Color Classic had NO power button at all.
- Some Macs have "soft power" and can turn themselves off; others say "It is now safe to turn off your Macintosh." There is no rhyme or reason to which Macs do it which way.
- Some Macs that say "it is now safe to turn off your Mac" have fiddly tiny power switches on the back that ROTATE. Some with soft power have big, easily accessible rocker switches.
And the all-time worst Mac power switch:
- The 610/6100 series cases have a power button about half an inch below the floppy drive. PC users instinctively push it to eject disks. Sadder still was that Apple made TWO PC-compatible Macs with this case style - so even if your brain switches easily from "Mac mode" where you drag disks to the trash to eject them and "PC mode" where you hit a button, you'll STILL hit the power button by mistake.
If computer companies - Apple and everyone else - would just agree to dispense with the symbols, tricky stuff, and I and O, and settle on a big rocker switch on the front that says "on" and "off", we'd be a lot better off. Obviously I have no problem making the master switch "lockable" by key, and I have no problem with making it a soft-switch, so when you press "off" the computer does a soft shutdown. But damn, for companies that pride themselves on easy-to-use computers, "I can't figure out how to turn the damn thing on" is a surprisingly common complaint.
Note that I'm not addressing the question of whether we WANT people too dumb to figure out the power switch to actually use the computer. I'm talking about purity of design: if you intend the computer to be easy for a CEO to use, the power switch should not be the bottleneck. Either design the machine to be easy to turn on, or design it so only a trained technician can turn it on, either way be honest about your design goals.
Re:Double click (Score:2)
Incidentally, the mouse tails _did_ originally point towards the user. It was probably inconvenient or something b/c a few years later the modern position of the tail at the front had been pretty much established. A picture of the original mouse (1 button no less
And man, you don't want to know about some of the other alternatives devised for pointing on the screen.... Be grateful that they never got out of the lab.
Coasters (Score:4)
Umm, the CDs are the coasters. The CD-ROM drive is the drink holder. Two completely different tech support issues.
Very Funny (Score:1)
Once again, we get some great satire from a great bunch of people over at SatireWire.
Re:Thank Goodness! (Score:1)
Not that I feel strongly about this.
--
Re:Sure, it's a joke, but... (Score:2)
1) Never provide support to anyone you're related to or love. The stakes are just too high, mainly because of your need for them to do well, lest they fall off their pedestal.
2) The users are always doing what makes logical sense to them. It's just that their logic is flawed, or based on faulty assumptions. The story in a message below, about the "I"nput and "O"utput switch is a perfect example.
3) For some people, fear will utterly destroy their ability to learn the new paradigms needed to work with the computer.
Now, my theory: Using a GUI is learning a new language, one that uses physical movement to communicate. And for many people it's just as difficult to learn GUI as it is to learn a French, Russian, or Japanese. If they're not immersed in it every day, they'll never be any good at it...
--
Re:Could be a problem (Score:1)
But there is always a superset as long as there is a subset. The market is based on the stupidity, but that doesn't mean that one can't evolve. I am sure that you would agree that people do get with the program eventually and hence must be replaced by new "less knowledgeble" people.
So yes, you are right but I doubt that you read my incomprehensible and ambiguous English for what I meant it to be. =)
Could be a problem (Score:4)
If we are to de-layer society a little, it is because of the technically inept that I have a job. And all of you that work with technology. If everybody knew how to use nmh/vi/cal (in that order) there wouldn't be a need for Outlook, in which case lots of Responce Center technicians would be out of work. This of course, would apply to several sectors.
Somebody made a complaint that users are a bit too stupid. Well, yes they are. But remove that stupidity, or just simply raise the bar a little and all of the sudden we would have a myriad of people fairely knowledgeble and a technical elite. This isn't good either, because of market saturation. We need those dummies! Think about that next time you help somebody locate a file in a DOS shell.
"Knowledge is always good - in moderation." - von Stauffen
Re:3rd Warning Sign (Score:1)
If so, you ARE technologically impaired.
--weenie NT4 user: bite me!
Re:It's not just the users who need this camp (Score:1)
Well, I didn't know about that one... Amazing link...
I did a bit of support myself about 10 years ago... But if I'd had to work with that George character, I would either have quit within the first week, or spattered the walls with his blood, or..., or something... something nasty anyway.
It's painful just to imagine having to go through this daily. I'm amazed he hasn't gone postal yet.
Re:finally (Score:1)
Re:3rd Warning Sign (Score:2)
--
There is no 'intuitive' (Score:2)
In the first class, the intructor asked everyone to double-click on some icon to load up the tutorial program.
The girl beside Dan clicked BOTH mouse buttons once, simultaneously. That's a "double-click," right?
As for the previous comment about whether or not double-clicking is some evil Mac invention or not, it makes perfect friggin' sense: once to select, twice to activate.
OTOH, if you're a complete newbie, then NOTHING is intuitive. These really is no such thing. It has to be learned from somewhere.
Pope
Freedom is Slavery! Ignorance is Strength! Monopolies offer Choice!
Re:E-I-E-I/O (Score:1)
-B
Re:Sure, it's a joke, but... (Score:1)
Usually not a grammar Nazi, but (Score:1)
Having to had communicate with many people over the years, I found the High School living place to be a wonderful idea. Just think - an environment where 'journalist' could
If you are not functionally stupid yet... (Score:2)
When I started out in this business just over 20 years ago, you could walk into any technology organization and get up to speed in no time. If you understood a few basic principles, had a little horse sense (or maybe horse shit) and the ability to use man and info, that was all you needed.
It isn't the same anymore.
Take my recent attempts to get my feet wet with XML. I'm prety experienced, and I can sort of see the value of XML especially when combined with technologies like XSL and Java servlets.
So I started in to gin up a few examples. OK, this sort of feels manageable. I can draw to some degree on my past experiences -- grammars, productions, parsers -- it's familiar territory. But I start running into a few problems. Exactly what is the difference between XSL and XSLT? How do I get those "fo" namespace tags to work? No problem, I'll just go the w3c web site and skim through the specs, right? Wrong. You can't just skim through the specs. What you need to know is dispersed through a number of related and tedious documents that you have to read in detail: XSL, XPATH, XML, DOM etc. etc. If you want to function in this environment, you must drink the cool aid.
This is not a critique of XML or W3C; for me, this experience has become all too common over the years. In part, I'm older and less clever than I used to be. I'm also a responsible adult who cannot disappear for a few weeks to immerse myself in a technology unless I have a really immediate need for it.
Apart from my personal shortcomings, I think the nature of competence has changed. There are just so many different people churning out so many different technologies, each with its own idiosynracies and conventions. You have to settle for real expertise a few areas and at best a rough understanding of what most of the popular technologies are good for. Unless you stick to what you know, eventually you're going to be reduced to the cargo-cult method of aping working examples to get by.
Take my Mother... Please! (Score:2)
She called me over for help when the mouse had reached the edge of the mouse pad. I said, "Pick it up and move it over" so she picked up the mouse pad in her other hand and started moving them together.
Incidentally, this was on a machine running Linux, proving wrong anyone who says Linux isn't ready for the unwashed masses.
Re:tech support (Score:1)
"The stars on my screensaver aren't moving fast enough"....
Basics. (Score:2)
These are the people who are teaching the managers and directors of the country's largest companies, but don't yet grasp the concept of POWER and ON.
<rant mode off>
My other favorites are;
- "my disk won't come out of the floppy drive" because it's already out
- "my e-mail won't go to my friend" "do you know their e-mail address?" "their what?"
- "my floppy drive is broken, it's really stiff inserting a disk" - walk across building to see user inserting disk upside-down, but pushing real hard anyway
- "my computer can't see my CDROM" "are you sure you've put the CDROM in the computer?" "yes of course I am. I can see it right here sitting on this tray thingy"
- "my mouse has run out of space on the mouse mat and my hand keeps banging against the filing cabinet" "have you tried picking up the mouse?" user picks up mouse and puts down again in same place.
All above true, but I've only been in tech support for three years - the next thirty are going to be a hoot!
It's not just the users who need this camp (Score:5)
Re:PEBKAC (Score:2)
That's OK, but "ID-10-T error" (or a variation thereof) is better.
Re:What would techs do for humor? (Score:2)
All right... Who among us didn't play with mom's sewing machine when we were children? And of course, we busted a few needles and sewed any nearby garments together in the process
Re:What would techs do for humor? (Score:2)
But of course! I have changed many oil filters on many cars, and have had the pleasure of washing the oil out of freshly cut skin, too.
Some years back, I had a Datsun roadster (SPL311) that I would drive from time to time. If it had been sitting for too long, I had to pull the master cylinder and rough up the O-rings to get them to seal again (need those brakes!)
No problem. After all, we are talking about MACHINES here
I can't speak but I know Kumputers! (Score:1)
I can overhear them now:
Voice 1 : "My personal favorite has to be 'Having to had provide'"
Voice 2 : "Safetly"
Voice 1 : "HA HA HA"
Voice 2 : "HA HA HA I love this site!"
Tab vs. Space (Score:3)
Unless you know that everyone uses the same email program. But even then it's a bad habit to get in. How many times have you gotten an email with an extra "html version" of the email included, with special font formatting information?
-Ted
Tech Support Woes (Score:5)
This woman once called him up for help finding a file. My friend was telling her to change directories in a dos prompt:
"Type this in at the prompt: C - D
*click* *click*
"Space"
*click* *click* *click* *click* *click*
"Did you just type in S-P-A-C-E?"
"Space, just like you told me"
"No, you're supposed to hit the spacebar"
*click*
"But you have to delete the old letters first. Hit backspace" *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click*
I believe things went downhill from there. She never found her file, needless to say.
-Ted
Re:E-I-E-I/O (Score:1)
Silly Germans!
Re:Double click (Score:1)
Sounds pretty stupid now, but you can bet somebody did a little research on the correct way to make the mouse so that users who held it incorrectly were uncomfortable. And if you think about it, why on earth does the mouse's 'tail' not face you? Isn't it more intuitive that moving the mouse's 'head' forward would move the pointer forward? There's the issue of the cord being in the way, but it's in the way no matter how you position it.
Andrew.
Re:HMMM.... (Score:1)
Along those lines, Apple included with the IIgs a tutorial that booted itself up and taught you to use the mouse assuming no prior knowledge.
I never saw the IIgs version, but Apple had an animated introduction to fundemental computer use, including how to use the mouse, in some Mac System 7.x versions. It started automatically the first time you booted a freshly installed machine machine.
Re:support horror stories (Score:1)
I used to do tech support on Macs several years ago.
Once a customer brought in an SE/30 complaining that he couldn't eject the diskette. It turned out that he also had managed to cram three in there. These _were_ 3.5" though...
Re:Coasters (Score:1)
Re:HMMM.... (Score:1)
Liked the Woman who called... (Score:4)
And other life classics...
Re:This is a joke.. (Score:1)
How about.... some of us have just finished (yes, not everyone lives in the US) a long day, and want something to make us smile? Viz a joke. Something to make one laugh.
or how about the fact that it wasnt posted as Satire it was posted as joys of tech support eh?
Now, that little line in bold after the posting date underneath the "posted by" line is the subject. It is generally a witty one-line quip on the subject of the article (this is not often the case on Slashdot. But that's the theory). Now, move your mouse cursor to the right a few hundred pixels. You will find a picture of a foot (oh, very Monty Python). Hover your mouse over the foot, and, by God! a small rectangle appears with...what's this? Words on it! What does it say?
It's funny. Laugh
-Russ
Re:Double click (Score:2)
Aw, double click is nothing. You should try the spring loaded folders [google.com] feature in MacOS -- it requires one and a half clicks. It's actually a handy tool, although totally outclassed by FinderPop [finderpop.com].
Unix avoids double clicks in favor of binding events to different mouse buttons.And what a mess that can become if different apps use them differently. Two buttons (plus a scroll wheel) is probably optimal for usability, but we'll always get calls like:me: "Right click on the 'My Computer' icon [long explanation deleted], then click on 'Properties'." them: "I don't have Properties. I see 3 1/2 Floppy ..."
Re:Double click (Score:1)
Yeah.. I knew a girl who _absolutely_ refused to handle the mouse the right way. It did not strike her in the least that it would be more convienient to have her fingers on the buttons and the cord out from under her wrist.
I get the 'right click'=='double left click' thing all the time. What the hell are they thinking? We specify for a reason, dammit!
Re:Thank Goodness! (Score:1)
I once had someone hold up a 3.5" floppy, point to it and say "there's something wrong with my disk drive."
Re:click the left button twice in rapid succession (Score:1)
Yeah for someone who has started using their first computer for their first time, it would be perfectly logical to assume that double-click meant to use both buttons. As for the idiocy of taking a job at Dell Tech Support -- What do they pay? Do they have a dental plan? If Dell is good to their employees then I don't see the idiocy for working tech support for them either. Whatever pays for the cable modem and puts food in the microwave, eh?
Technological Elitism (Score:1)
How about an ASGF? (Score:4)
Oh wait, we already have them, they're called spelling and grammar check on the word processor...
The only "intuitive" interface is the nipple. After that, it's all learned.
Re:HMMM.... (Score:1)
Grab.
this link appeared on SatireWire a day before (Score:1)
More tech support funniness (Score:1)
Shortly after I didn't graduate from college, I took a job at a tech support company providing phone support for, amongst other things, monitors. Now monitors are simple devices from a tech support point of view, as they're either broken or not. I had this one customer who I'd been dealing with for ages. I'd already shipped any number of monitors out to her. Initially, she had a problem with focus or some other aesthetic problem, but since then, she was having a problem with the monitor not displaying any video. Now, as with every customer who called about a monitor that wouldn't turn on or had a blank screen, I'd asked her (multiple times, actually) if it was plugged in and if she'd turned it on, if she'd plugged the cables in properly, if the pins on the connector were straight, etc. She responded affirmatively to those questions, so we went on with troubleshooting. After I'd shipped her the fifth monitor or so, she asked me, out of the blue, ``What's the button at the lower right of the monitor do?'' ``You mean the the rectangular one that sits at the bottom of the monitor?'' ``Yes, that one.'' ``That's the power button.'' Apparently the first one that she had recieved had been turned on for her by whoever installed it. I say ``apparently'' because someone else got to take care of the rest of that case.
Re:Thank Goodness! (Score:2)
What do you mean by hard drive? Are you talkin' about the CPU? ; )
Re:tech support (Score:2)
They have a story about that same subject too. I remember the exact same discussion. It's very funny.
http://bbspot.com/News/2000/8/hour_lost.html
Re:My Internet Woes (Score:1)
Oh, man. I had to do this, honestly, about ten times when I worked tech support for an ISP.
I also liked the ones where it was the caller himself (usually a guy) who had put them there, and wanted desperately to remove them before someone saw them. This was before Netscape had an option to clear those, and editing prefs.js was outside out feeble support boundaries.
Re:I can't speak but I know Kumputers! (Score:1)
Voice 2 : "Would you like some fries with that?"
Re:How about an ASGF? (Score:2)
Re:Tech Support Woes (Score:2)
Me: "Type 'dir a:'"
lUser: "Ok...D-I-R-S-P-A-C-E-A...what's a colon?"
Once I heard "S" I knew what was coming, and soon found there was no way to get them to stop typing until they got to "what's a colon?"
Re:It's not just the users who need this camp (Score:2)
Also, I called Microsoft's paid tech support line to solve a fairly common Win98 problem - the "solution" given was to format the whole drive (nuking 2GB of stuff) and reinstall, when the real solution was to copy one file.
Re:My Internet Woes (Score:4)
Some wife called tech support complaining that her web browser was getting pornographic: the "location" drop-down menu was full of porn-site addresses. The tech guy explained that those only appear if the user has typed them in before. Having a clue, she figured it out and very politely hung up...
Re:HMMM.... (Score:1)
Re:HMMM.... (Score:2)
Re:PEBKAC (Score:1)
That's classic! I'm going to use that on my mother.
Re:Thank Goodness! (Score:2)
BLEH.
one of my primary responsibilities is to be on call to support a point of sale system. every once in a while, the system goes down and the computers need to be rebooted. not too tough, right? sure. YOU explain to the manager of a pizza store that pushing the button on the monitor is NOT the same as pushing the power on the computer.
I usually resort to their language- "hit the power button on the hard drive".... but man oh man, do i feel like a gimp when i do that.
Did you know that. Re:Basics. (Score:1)
PEBKAC (Score:2)
For the dumbest of them all.... (Score:2)
For the goatsex weary, http://www.rinkworks.com/stupid/
Re:Thank Goodness! (Score:1)
Oh, and the Enter key is good for spacing down to the start of the next page, too.
One customer I heard of years ago was having a problem with diskettes becoming unreadable every night. Turns out the swing shift was leaving them for the night shift stuck to the side of a file cabinet with a refrigerator magnet.
Even some of us professionals who should know better screw up at times. I heard one tale about an operator on a big IBM mainframe at a company I worked for, who had a problem with a disk pack (one of those stacks of 14" platters with a handle on top that you mounted in washing-machine sized drives). Turns out that the pack was damaged, and the disks were colliding with the heads, thereby trashing the drive (with quite a bit of noise). Well, when the first drive failed to read the disk pack, he proceeded to try the pack in five other drives one after the other -- giving the support techs a lot of overtime pay the next few days.
Re:tech support (Score:1)
"I am not making this up!"
Re:favorite call (Score:1)
-----------
Being pregnant (Score:1)
Yes, I majored in English, but HTML got me my job.
Re:E-I-E-I/O (Score:1)
E-I-E-I/O (Score:3)
Re:The scary part is... (Score:1)
how to disconnect? (Score:1)
When working on the support desk for an ISP I once had a dial-up customer who said they were very pleased that they had received our CD but had now been connected to the internet for 3 days and wanted to know how to disconnect!
Double click (Score:4)
The question about double click is valid and logical. Don't make fools from those who ask it.
Computer Stupidities and George (Score:1)
My vote for "First Luser Sent to the Home" is George [md-sites.com].
Re:3rd Warning Sign (Score:1)
3rd Warning Sign (Score:5)
If so, you may be technologically impaired.
Fun site (Score:3)
--
That's nothing (Score:1)
----------
I/O Mode (Score:5)
Many years, ago when a 4.7Mhz IBM XT PC was state of the art, I was told to call new customer who had a problem printing, a hardware engineer had already called and the XT & Epson were fine. It must be a problem with the software, so I called the customer.
The first thing he did was claim the system is not working in 'output mode' " when I ask him to elaborate, he explains he was entering his customer details into the system & it was was working fine in 'I' mode, but as soon as tried 'O' mode to print the details out the system stopped working.
He kept refering to I and O modes, in relation to entering and printing details. I talked him through some tests of entering some details and trying to print them out. I explored every thing I could think of, he repeatedly reported there was no output, there did seem to be a problem printing. Unusual as we supplied a standardised system of software, XT and epson printer.
I decide to visit him in person, after all it was time out of the office, when I'm shown the PC, he's in a meeting and can't be with me. I start checking out the PC, quickly print some console output,its fine; I print a report from the application, it rattles out on the printer; it's all fine. I leave the report on his desk and head back. Now firstly remember at this time mobile phones are something out of science fiction movies. So when I get back to the office to find a message, it is still not working, he's been calling every 10 min's for the last hour demanding I return immediately, I do so without even stopping for a coffee.
On arrival, I'm certain every thing is OK, and it's user error, however he's livid, indeed purple with rage. I'm on tenderhooks, even though I know the system is fine, I need to find out what it is and diplomatically correct it, fat chance in his current mood. I ask me to demonstrate what he's doing. He enters some details, displays them on screen, everything is fine, so far. He then reaches round the right hand side of the PC, and flicks the bright orange button marked 'I' and 'O', I'm stunned for a moment, "NO!! DONT DO THAT!"I shout, but it's too late it's off.
It's the On/Off switch! instantly it all makes horrifying sense!
Moral: Take NOTHING for granted when doing end user support!
I could also tell you about the time I asked an end user to send me copies of their apparently corrupt back-up disks, and I received it by fax, but you simply wouldn't believe it :)
Re:ppl are getting better (Score:4)
Bright users (Score:2)
The sunlight coming in through the window next to her workstation was too bright, and she couldn't see through the glare. His reply?
"Lady, I can do a lot of things, but I can't move the sun for you".
Re:Thank Goodness! (Score:2)
"Can you blow me where the pampers are?"
I usually resort to their language- "hit the power button on the hard drive".... but man oh man, do i feel like a gimp when i do that.
I can't do it. I absolutely cannot bring myself to use their butchered language. Of course, I'm the kind of guy that gets upset when people say that they're "feeling nauseous." (For those outside the loop, the correct word there is "nauseated." Something that is "nauseous" is what makes you feel "nauseated.")
I actually snapped on somebody once. We use Compaq PC's here at work with the easy, snap in, screwless cases and mounting kits for drives. Someone kept calling their computer the "hard drive," and I took the cover off the case and pulled out the actual hard drive and said, "No, this is the hard drive, and it's coming with me!"
They were not amused, but they did learn to call it by the correct name.
Re:Sure, it's a joke, but... (Score:2)
The problem is, most people don't realize just how computer illiterate they really are, so they don't even know to ask for help. I find it odd that at most companies you have to be trained or licensed in order to be allowed to operate any kind of machinery, but that they set you loose with a PC and proprietary company data without even so much as a skill assessment. I know that upper management likes to scream about TCO, but if you made the effort or spent the money to ensure that employees were properly trained to begin with then you could probably eliminate a couple of support positions. There's some real cost savings.
Re:PEBKAC (Score:2)
Nope...can't do that. It's become a very common term now, even to the point that I've heard mainstream radio DJ's talking about it. If you pull that one out, you're bound to get busted.
My personal favorite (and I'm swearing you guys to secrecy on this because I don't want it to get out) is to tell the user that it is a "pre-input processor error." Then you show them the correct way to do whatever it was and say, "That's the work-around for the pre-input processor error." Most users aren't smart enough to know what you're saying, so they'll just nod their head and do what you tell them. Sooner or later they'll be calling you to say, "Hey, I'm having trouble with my computer again. I think that it's another pre-input processor error."
And the laughs just keep on coming...
Re:Sure, it's a joke, but... (Score:2)
Regarding the recycling bin and temp directory, that's just sad on the part of the "help desk." I know that finding qualified help is tough, but those are some of the basics. In a similar vein though, I do try to write up a monthly article for my users explaining how to use some neat "new" (aka, previously undiscovered by them) feature of their programs, and even include lots of screenshots. Common topics are freeing up disk space, archiving old messages in Outlook, sharing message folders with other users in Outlook, etc. I've finally caved in and admitted that if I don't try to teach these people something then they'll never learn it...
a couple o' stories (Score:3)
2. Back when my dad started surfing (3.x browsers) he claimed that sometimes using Netscape was faster and sometimes using IE was faster. He thought that when you use a browser you are using them as some sort of additional ISP and were 'going through their systems.'
tech support (Score:4)
My grandmother and cars (Score:3)
Forget computers, how about cars. A few years ago, my mother and aunt took turns driving my grandmother to miami from orlando. My mother drove a smaller car and drove rather fast. My aunt had a land-yacht station wagon and drove like an old lady. After a few trips, the three of them were together with my aunt driving to miami when my grandmother had an epiphany. She declared that the reason it took longer to get to miami when my aunt drives is because big cars go slower. You see, there's more wind resistance... so they're slower...
This is the same woman who said that the instruments in her ford tempo look just like an airplane.
My Internet Woes (Score:2)
Kenny
(the above is a joke)
Re:Sure, it's a joke, but... (Score:2)
Re:Sure, it's a joke, but... (Score:2)
Thank Goodness! (Score:5)
Finding a file, windows style (Score:5)
Switch to the File Manager (this was Windows 3.1). OK, now on the menu bar...the MENU bar. Right under the title bar. The title bar is at the top of the screen--it's probably blue, with words in it. Right, there. The menu bar is right under that. No, that's the file list--above that. No, it's not the same as the title bar. It's *below* the title bar. No, that's the file list--look a little higher, but not as high as the title bar.
This went on for several minutes while we both switched to the File Manager ourselves to see if the menu bar could be hidden or something....
--
Re:What would techs do for humor? (Score:3)
The scary part is... (Score:5)
HMMM.... (Score:2)
"How do I do a right button click"
you tell them to put in there user name and password...
"I have a user name?"
then you have the total technophobes who get beligerant when they don't know how to do somthing, and you try to show them step by step and they say
"damn-it! I don't care about how to start the program(even though they don't know how), Just show me how to do ______(fill in the blank)
it threw me aback and I started to think that these people were all idiots.
the I realized that not everyone is comfortable with computer, and if they were, my boss would find more crap to throw on me