Users for sale! Take two, their brains are small!

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Take my users…PLEASE!

This is more for MPSIMS, rather than a Pit-worthy rant.

User A:
Last week, they needed assistance with installing some updated software that couldn’t be “packaged” for a distributed install when users log in. Some people get lost winding their way through Next, Next, OK, Accept, Next, Next, Finish, OK. Fair enough - that’s what helps keep me employed. :cool:

What’s not fair is that this user’s workstation looked like it was all labeled Kleenex as it was just gross. Fingerprints and smudges and specks all over the monitor, the mouse was greasy and grimy and the keyboard was plain ol’ nasty. Even though the install only took me five minutes, I wanted a shower after I was done.

User B:
I just love the words my users come up with. There’s a general enterprise-wide discouragement against using terms like “broken” or “down” lest someone accidentally tell customers that the ATMs are broken. Preferred doubletalk terms are “impaired” “unavailable” and such. In other words, the ATMs are temporarily unavailable. Sounds much nicer, eh?

This user implores me to go have a look at their laptop in a meeting room as the screen was “woojy.” At least I’m assuming that’s how they’d spell it. Sure enough, the display was impaired. It looked like some sort of solarized image with flickering patches of odd colors and the size was all wrong. “When’s the last time it was OK?” “Well, it was OK at my desk ten minutes ago.” Just trying to gather info and guide my troubleshooting: “Have you dropped it recently?” <user traces circles on the carpet with their toe> “Hmmm… no…” Uh-oh. User continues: “Well…I didn’t drop it, but it did fall off the desk.” Me: :smack: "Well, let me have it and I’ll see if it can be fixed.

Happy ending: After disassembling the laptop, I found the LCD panel’s plug was halfway unplugged. Push it back in, fire it up and all is well until the next time they grab their bag and knock the computer to the floor.

User C:
Another impaired laptop. In this case, the “eraser head” mouse thing was missing. Err… Unavailable.

Not a problem. I have a baggie full of the little darlings for exactly this reason. I ask the user to bring it by my desk so I can put a new one on. When they do, it appears that the cap fled from the laptop in utter dusgust. Like User A above, this person’s computer was just foul. As in “Did you open the screen all the way back and serve pizza rolls on it?”

Poor computers…they don’t deserve their users!

2

What on earth are you talking about? you sound like a human on a P>C>

3

I’m with ya gotpasswords, you should try doing support in a hospital. I’ve actually found keyboards with vomit in them. I didn’t even try to fix that one.

4

Vomit? Eew. (Not that fallen hairs, cookie crumbs and sticky spots from Coke are much fun either)

I’ve got an update on the laptop-dropping User B!

I walked by their cube a few minutes ago and saw something on her laptop while it was closed and docked on a port replicator.

Coffee cups.

I ask if there’s anything in them. “Yes” I do a fine imitation of “The Scream” and say “It’s not a hotplate! Loose plugs, I can fix. I can’t fix wet!” The user sheepishly removes the cups.

5

I don’t usually have to go out and see the users any more, but I do work the Helpdesk. Most of our users are OK (if a little dim sometimes), but there are a few who need to be shot.

I just had several calls over the last two days from an instructor who insisted he was in one of our “electronic classrooms” (with a PC and VCR hooked to a projector in the ceiling, and a switch to pick which device drives the projector). He went on about how the VCR didn’t display, so the wires must be messed up. He said he was in room 2510, which is not an electronic classroom, so the tech I called went to room 2150, which is. Everything there worked fine, so we put it down to the instructor being brain-dead, as usual.

He called again, and I finally found out he’s in a room with a TV and VCR on a cart. The tech went up and found that somebody had set the TV to channel 12, instead of 3 as it should be. It might have been another instructor. Or not.

(BTW, orange juice is even better for keyboards than coffee.)

6

Really. Blame Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. They’re the ones who made computers accessible to people who haven’t a clue how they work. Prior to that, only bona fide nerds were allowed access to anything closer to the mainframe than the “terminal” (which sounded dire enough to scare most people away). I vote all non-nerds go back to typewriters. You guys could always get jobs as ribbon-changers. :slight_smile:

  • PW
    a user who doesn’t even WANT to know how the bloody things work
7

rjk, that’s not as bad as one of my high school teachers who could not figure out the VCR no matter what. One time she couldn’t get it to work, so the whole class was busy trouble-shooting the thing. Eventually someone noticed it wasn’t even plugged in. Another time she tried putting the tape in upside-down and backwards. We just managed to stop her from attempting to pound it in.

8

So many mixed emotions. If only there were some way to combine my hatred of Arrogant PC Help Desk Dorks and with my utter contempt for People Too Lazy or Stupid to Grasp Technology.

9

Become the field tech that takes the unresolved Helpdesk tickets and goes to customer premises. :smiley:

10

A co-worker of mine asked me to fix her computer. She was unable to get online because it said her firewall/virus program was missing. It appears the boss deleted the program entirely from her computer. He said they had this program for 2 years, and this is how they did it, when something was messed up. He told her to keep going to the update page and it would update the program. I explained to her the logic of that was akin to buying an amplifier for a car with no speakers.
I offered to help fix it, but because I am a lowly employee that knows nothing, he said " do NOT mess with the files. This is how it’s done"
They called the computer tech two weeks ago. Probably paid him a nice chunk of change to tell them that you couldn’t update a program that wasn’t there.
It’s still not fixed. Even though 30 plus others in the office have the same exact program files. sigh

11

Hey gotpasswords, do you use the ‘other’ name for the eraser head mouse thingies? When in acceptable company I always call them the ‘keyboard clitoris’.

12

Keyboard clitoris? Hmmm… Think I’ll stick to calling them “those little red eraser thingies” lest I’m overheard and summarily shipped off to HR to explain myself.

Or, I could be a total geek and call them IBM FRU 84G6537. :smiley:

13

I refer to it as a “titmouse” or, occasionally, a “mipple”.