What you’re describing is actually a direct result of years of dealling with clueless clients that can’t follow directions. It’s become obvious to most support providers that 80% of issues can be resolved with a canned answer. They don’t spend much energy on your emails until they’ve run throught the menu of canned answers, and decide that you’ve either got an unusual problem, or are truly clueless and really persistent. In some cases this process is automated. Likewise, the “plugged in” question is one that’s evolved out of repeated cases when someone has not had their equipment plugged in, even though they’ve stated that it was. It’s hapened to me more times than I can count… Arrive at a deskside, only to find that the user either lied, or was completely ‘inserted’, and was e-mailing from another machine near-by. After a bit of that, you learn to ask all the dumb questions: “Is it plugged in?” “Is the power on?” “Is your monitor plugged in?” “Is it connected to the computer?” “Is it connected to the correct port?” “Is your monitor turned on?”
I run through all the ‘id10t’ & ‘PEBKAC’ questions first, because more than half the time, that solves the problem. It’s not an insult to any one specific person, it’s efficient use of my limited time. Now and again, I (we) get a problem that doesn’t yield to this approach, or a user that’s sufficiently plugged-in to have already tried all the stock fixes, but that’s sufficiently rare that it’s an ‘event’ in it’s own right.
In short: It ain’t personal, and while there are clueless techs, it’s mostly a learned response, intended to maximize efficiency.
This is what I’d like to say:
Dear idiot,
Thank you so much for helping provide me with my daily dose of amusment. Its the idiots like you that make me laugh. If you could just read the fcking owner’s manual, or check to see if the fcking computer is plugged into the dmn wall, then maybe you could use what little intelligence you have to figure out what the problem is. Oh, but wait…is it too much to ask that you get up off your lazy as and try to make those brain cells work…or maybe you killed them off with all that cheap beer. So instead, you decide to waste my precious time while I could be off flirting with that hot guy two cubicles down so I can read the manual to you? Or did you never get past a fucking kindergarten reading level? I don’t even have anymore time to write this sht to you, I have to go help some other idiot.
Best Wishes,
The intelligent person whose time you seem to love wasting
P.S. You might want to look into a brain cell implant.(or maybe several). I’ve heard that they’re still in the early stages of development, and very risky and expensive, but if anyone needs the help, its you.
One day one my fellow co-workers heard this from a customer after asking if they were running our program under Windows:
“No. My desk is by the door–but you know, you make a good point. Tony sits under a window and his program is working fine!”
An executive is taking a helicopter to the airport, when the chopper gets hopelessly lost in the fog. When it lifts, the executive has no idea where he is, but he sees a tall building near by. He directs the chopper to fly over by it and spots a man standing in the window. The executive scribbles out a sign and holds it up to the window of the helicopter: WHERE AM I? The man scribbles his own sign and holds it up in turn: YOU ARE IN A HELICOPTER.
Exasperated, the executive pens and holds up another sign: YOU MUST BE IN TECH SUPPORT. YOU GIVE INFORMATION THAT IS TECHNICALLY CORRECT YET TOTALLY USELESS.
The man in the building holds up another sign in return: YOU MUST BE IN MANAGEMENT. YOU DON’T KNOW WHERE THE HELL YOU ARE OR HOW YOU GOT THERE, BUT SUDDENLY IT’S MY FAULT.
