Fine. As long as you don’t get huffy when I tell you that if you bothered to read the ticket I submitted, I’ve already done that. Oh yeah, and I’ve already verified my internet connection is working. Oh yeah, and that I’ve already verified that this problem is not occurring under my login on other computers, on this computer at other locations, or with other people’s logins on this machine at this location.
In general, don’t tell me to do the exact same shit that I already told you I have done, especially when I’ve gone into explicit detail. But please do blow me off with a “I’ll look into this and get back to you” and then disappear for weeks.
Fuck it. I’ll pretend to have sympathy for IT goons’ whining after a single fucking IT goon shows me that they can competently fix a, IT problem beyond “computer plug go in wall.”
I mean in real life, we shouldn’t totally discourage stupid questions. Some people limp by for months with something an expert could fix in five seconds. “The battery is dead, dumbass!” So, just smile and then rant about them to us. That’s my philosophy.
I think he’s talking about thos ecalls you make where you can talk it through over the phone, and all you have to do is reboot and you’re back to normal. It is annoying, but not nearly as much as finding out it’s something serious that will have you offline for an hour.
You would not believe the number of people who have lied to me about that. They tell me they reboot every day. They swear it. Then I connect to them and see that it has been 30, 60, 90 days since the last reboot. Then I ask ‘just what is it that you have been doing every day?’
Me: Please do ‘X’
Customer: I have already done that. That didn’t work.
Me: Let’s do it once more.
Customer: This is a waste of time.
Me: Humor me.
Customer:…hey! It worked!
You’ve complained to your cube-mate that your computer has issues.
You’ve complained to the guy walking past your cube that your computer has issues.
You’ve complained to your wife and children that your computer has issues.
You’ve gently inferred to your boss that your computer has issues.
You know what?
I can’t do A GODDAMN THING about your computer issues, until you GODDAMN WELL TELL ME ABOUT IT! I’m fracking PAID TO FIX YOUR ISSUES. That’s WHY I’M HERE! I LIKE Fixing your issues!
Tell ME about YOUR PROBLEMS, and then I CAN FIX THEM. Stewing about it for three weeks until you’re frothing at the mouth, livid, and happen to wander by your cube carrying two other desktops DOESN’T HELP EITHER OF US.
We get a lot of cases like that too. “The printer has been down 4 days and no one has done anything about it.” Did anyone think of telling us? I guess not.
True story: I’m a designer. I was designing a bathroom for a client a few years ago. His wife loved long luxurious baths. Their current bathroom had a 5 foot tub in because… the bathroom was only 5 feet wide. He asked me if I could put a 6 foot tub in the same space. Um… what!? I had to explain to him that a 6’ tub wouldn’t fit into a 5’ foot space. After some thought he offered this solution - cut a space out under the faucet and slide it under the wall (into the adjacent bedroom I presume).
The world is full of nice, smart people would don’t have the same skill set and experience you have. That does not make them monkeyboys, dipshits or dumbasses. IT guys think they have some privileged POV when it comes to dealing with the rest of the world. You don’t.
There’s nothing wrong with stupid questions. What’s wrong is when the customer/client/end user insists you answer the question with your mouth closed because that’s how the last tech/friend/clever relative fixed it the last time.
I’ve been doing tech support for almost 35 years. The OP is dead on. The problem isn’t the stupid mistakes people make, like leaving a book on the keyboard and and keeping the tab key depressed, it’s when they insist that you you have to fix it the way they think it should be fixed.
Asking for help is never stupid. Insisting that you know what form the help MUST take IS. The biggest problem with technical support is that most “computer” problems are in fact people problems and the techs are trained to deal with technical issues.
That’s why when I come to the deskside to assist with correcting a problem, I demonstrate the correct process and ask the end user to show me they can execute and why what we did achieved the desired result.
One trick I’ve learned over the years is never say no. Smile and describe the process and chain of command they need to go through to get something done that doesn’t fall within my scope of work.
The OP’s rant is a bit over the top, but these two items* are golden. You wouldn’t think people would do either of these things, right? Yet I run into both situations daily.
Yes, I know that the second one was not posted by the OP. It’s still good.
Exactly the point I was going to make. People LIE. All the time. They think it couldn’t possibly be fixed by doing something simple on their end so they lie. If anyone wants to be pissed off because we ask them to do something again don’t be pissed at us - be pissed at your idiot brethren who LIE Unless I’ve worked with you enough to observe your word can be trusted in troubleshooting scenarios I assume you’re lying.
this is chronic where I work. I write up notes and even screen cap the error I’m ticketing, and yet the dope at the other end inevitably says “now what error are you getting?”
Unless I’ve worked with you enough to observe your word can be trusted in troubleshooting scenarios I assume you’re lying.