Also, at that same job:
Me: Hi, this is Ethilrist, from Headquarters.
User: Headquarters? What is it?
Me: It’s a big brown building with a lot of windows, but that’s not important right now.
The guy in the cube next to me fell out of his chair.
Problem Exists in Meatware. How I love it.
The fact that the company has sent out a modem/Cd package for DSL that doesn’t always install the USB drivers successfully (and yet encourages users to prefer USB over ETH despite that), doesn’t surprise me at all. I’m used to rubbish like that from higher-up. What this means, though, is sometimes we need to get into the firmware and update the username and password manually. Through the browser.
What surprises me are customers who’ve had the internet on (with dialup) with us for several years. Sometimes they’ve even had ADSL on for a few months and just need some firmware settings checked. These are people who you’d think would have a basic grasp of the parts of the screen in front of them. Ooooh no.
Me: Open Internet Explorer, and just let it load whatever it’s going to load.
(IE is the main browser we support, but if they’re using Mozilla [which a surprising amount of them call MoNzilla as well, why?], then I’m just like “whatever you use to open the internet”)
Them: Okay, it’s open. But it’s saying <blah blah, whatever’s on screen>"
Me: That’s okay. Now I need you to click into the address bar.
Them: It’s telling me to type in my userword and passname. Do I click there?
Me: No, the address bar. At the top of the screen.
Them: It says “Internet Explorer, provided by <Company>”
Me: No, below that blue bar, where you’d normally type a web address.
Them: What address?
Me: <head on desk> When you want to go to a webpage, where do you type the address you want to go to?
Them: OOOOH, the address bar! It’s got <blahblahblahaddress.com> written in it.
Me: Okay, just click in the box and delete what’s there
Them: How do I delete it?
Me: <crying, slits wrist with broken shard of company DSL setup CD>
One of my major pet peeves du jour is customers who will not read exactly what’s written in front of them. For mail server names, for example, it’s important they have the dots and words and @ symbols in the right place, as we all know. So you’re trying to troubleshoot a mail fault, and ask the customer to read out their POP3 server name. They respond with “mail<companyname>comau”.
Me: Okay, well that’s not quite correct then, it needs to say mail dot <companyname> dot com dot au, or it’s not going to work properly
Them: Uhh, but there’s dots in there already…
Me: <wishing massive brain clots down the phone line at them> Okay, well if you’d told me that then I would have known you actually had the right information in there.
I’m the extended family’s de facto software support, and my dad’s the de facto hardware and networking support. Fun, eh?
Let’s just say I have a few doozies. Including the ones about someone who, although she is Brilliant in other ways, is Extremely Clue-Impaired. No clue how to check the FRIGGIN’ WINDOWS VERSION ON HER MACHINE! And thinks it’s cute to go, “Buh?”
I weep. And next time I hear “Buh?” I will commit bloody, horrific, goresome murder. Or at least be really tempted.
I mean, I can understand having to explain what Visual Studio, say, is in very general terms. Or that C# is NOT a musical thing in this context.
But this is a bit much.
I realized early on that having computer skills was a bit like having a pickup truck. I made it a practice that whenever friends or family would ask for assistance I’d give it to them, without hesitation, but limit the time spent to less than one hour. Anything still broken after that either stayed broken, or had to wait till next time.
And, then there’s “Oh, you want to help?” “I should do what?” “OK. Well, then, it sounds like you know what to do. I’m gonna go have a beer.” This last uttered to my brother-in-law, who asked me for help, but wouldn’t get out of the damned way and let me work. :rolleyes:
You’ve hit upon a pet peeve of mine; no one ever seems to know the version of Windows. Maybe Microsoft should do something like – I don’t know, maybe display it every fricken time you start it up! :rolleyes:
The best thing about Windows XP is that you don’t have to ask any more.
I love my father. Truly, I do. But sometimes I realize he’s just not as computer-savvy as he should be.
They were visiting last weekend, and I asked him if he wanted to check his e-mail.
“I can’t,” he says.
“Why not?” I ask
“I don’t have my e-mail set up on your computer.”
:smack:
Darling, darling father. So I sit him down, tell him to type in juno.com, and showed him how to sign in.
“Wow! Look at that! Now, if I delete this e-mail, will it still be gone when I check my e-mail from home?”
:eek:
Yes, Daddy. Bless his heart, the man spent an hour on the phone with my son getting instructions on how to hook up the printer. He does know how to e-mail photos, but I think he’s a bit afraid of the internet.
Why not? (I’ve never used XP.)
I’m guessing it has to do with the Jolly Rancher sized buttons and colors.
I just had something similar happen to me. New user. Took her laptop home for the first time. Plugged in the phone line, but couldn’t understand why she didn’t have internet access from home on her company laptop.
me: what dial up software are you using?
her: what?
me: I know that I didn’t install dialup software on your computer so I’m wondering what you’re using to get on the internet from home.
her “Oh, I have Sprint at home”.
me: ok, did you load the sprint software on your laptop?
her: what?
me: just plugging in the phone cable doesn’t do anything if you never dial anything
her: but I have sprint
me: Well, do you have a high speed, always on type of connection?
her: No, I just have dial up
me: well, if you don’t dial you’ll never connect
her: So I can’t log on from home
me: not without an internet connection
her: But I have Sprint
We played this game for a while. It’s really not my job to make her company laptop work with her personal ISP but I’m willing to help if I can even begin to fathom where the problem is. In this case I just gave up.
You can see them over the phone? Wow, they must be REALLY bright! 
You’d think that, but then there’s the people who’ve either managed to figure out how to set the windows theme back to “classic” or had someone do it for them. Then it becomes a game in guessing, or trying to walk them through to the system properties to check everything.
I ran accross this article in my past email. I think that anyone that has to keep fixing peoples computers will enjoy this.