I do hotel software support and there are 2 types of users that I avoid:
the tinkerers
They have some experience with the software (may even have worked for us at a time or participated in a supervisor course). A bit of knowledge is dangerous, as it leads them to try out and change some settings here and there… “I wonder what happens if I turn THIS on” soon turns to “I wonder why none of my statistics is correct anymore”.
Then they call us to fix this and of course “forget” to mention that they in fact caused the problem themselves.
the lusers who won’t listen
I have no problem with computer illiterate people. I am trained to talk them through all necessary procedures. However, I hate it when they just don’t listen to me and won’t do what I tell them to do.
Me: Are you familiar with how to establish a modem connection with me so I can look at your problem?
Luser: Yes.
Me: Please start the PCanywhere software so I can connect to your PC.
Luser: [silence]
Me: have you started PCanywhere?
Luser: I am in Netscape Navigator right now, what do I have to do?
Me: [groan]
here there’s the “annoying bitch who rules her family”.
A neighbor of ours, she’s like 12 but she rules her family. She turns up the volume on her crappy music when her parents turn it down, then her parents apologize. She is given money daily because she “needs” to go on a shopping spree at old navy. She treats others like they’re there to serve her. One of the few people I truly do hate.
And carnivorousplant, how can it be a hijack when your OP doesn’t say anything specific about what operating systems those Personal Computers are using?
It just makes sense to me – if you don’t want users bugging you with idiot problems, give them an idiot-proof computer…
I do support also (those who remember my being in HR, I left that behind a while back) and can totally identify with the “tinkerers,” the “password forgetters,” and so on.
But y’all forgot to mention one of the worst offenders: the “don’t take no for an answer” type. Y’know, the user who calls the person at the desk next to me, describes the problem and works through it with the technician, and at the end gets an undesirable answer (e.g., “you’ll have to do that yourself,” or “computers don’t do that,” or whatever) – and then, after hanging up, immediately calls me and starts over at zero, pretending not to have had the previous conversation.
There’s the Sweet Old Lady[sup]tm[/sup], an earnest, desperately grateful person whom wants so much to handle modern technology, and can kinda glimpse it, but can’t quite grasp it. She asks the same questions over and over again, and never quite knows how she screwed-up. I’d love to help her, save that I know that no matter how I help, I know that I’ll be back for exactly the same issue next week.
There’s the Angry Confused Woman[sup]tm[/sup], who can never follow procedure, and always blames the resultant chaos on the system. Unfortunately, she processes some very important protocals and study plans, and she knows those very well. She just can’t seem to understand why she has to use the Document Management software in the correct fashion.
Lastly, there’s the Relentless Obsolescent Bludgeon[sup]tm[/sup], who is a slightly out-of-date, technically speaking, manager. This one is relentless, has no sense of humor, and will hammer at you for a half hour past the point where you’ve gotten a grasp of her issue. Fortunately, she only approaches the techs when she has an issue, but a quarter of the time the issue is beacuse she’s not dealling with mainframes, and we’re using XML, not machine language.
Note: I named all women because a vast percentage of the regulatory and publishing systems people I support are women, from the Director to the the lowest Information Speciallist. It feels a little odd to be one of the dozen or so men among a couple hundred women. Most of them are superior examples of the Regulatory Affairs type, but a few… :mad:
I am not in tech support, but I can relate with some of the scenarios described here. (And yes, I know, I am probably an irritating “user” myself sometimes. But I don’t think I’m that bad. Well, not anymore, anyway.)
I am the resident “Computer whiz” among coworkers, and my circle of friends. It doesn’t matter that I’m not really a “whiz”, I just know more than the people around me.
A few times, I’ve witnessed or encountered the “I am really clueless but I don’t know it, so I’ll spout off my mouth and act as if I know what I’m talking about.” One lady (sweet lady she was, too) was having a problem printing with her new laptop. But she KNEW about computers, mind. She told me all about how she knew about computers. And she’d been working with computers for a lot longer than me, remember?
Her problem? She couldn’t print from the files she’d made on her new laptop. She was talking about having it returned. It sounded to me (though I didn’t see her computer so I don’t know for sure) that she had Works on the laptop, and Word on the PC, and she needed to create files in a different file format. But she didn’t know you could do that. Weird.
I also asked her what operating system she was running on the laptop, and she said “Windows 97”. But, you know, she KNOWS about her computer. Oh yeah.
And as far as the Mac PC thing - hey! Macs are computers too, OK? There is NO hijack when the topic is computers, and someone has the audacity to mention Macs. Give me a break.
I work in the development dep’t of a company that makes phone systems. One the stupid fucked-up things I had to do when I was transferred last Sept from my cool job to the shit-eating-burn-in-hell position I’m in now is be in charge of the in-house field trial of the phone system project I now worked for.
Holy fuck, what a bunch of whining shits. And worse were the goddam assholes in my own group, engineers who had years of experience on the system (where I had a few weeks), and THEY couldn’t describe what was wrong with their phones.
“Tim, my phone isn’t working”
So I go check it out. It has dial tone, and I’m able to make calls. “Looks like it’s working now Marcel.”
He goes to the phone and dials 4,000 digits. “No it isn’t! When I try to call Austria, the call is rejected!”
Asshole, don’t say “My phone isn’t working”, say “I can’t call Austria”!!! You are a goddam ENGINEER, who has worked on this system FAR longer than me, you KNOW that this type of problem isn’t the PHONE, but the PROGRAMMING OF THE SYSTEM or the TRUNK!!! Rotting sack of anally-raped-camel-sphincter-meat Taco Bell burritos with Osama-spooge dipping sauce!
:mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:
I love this. People will say “My computer isn’t working” when what they really mean is “When I try some incredibly obscure feature of a certain application that I’m not really sure of the exact function of, it doesn’t do what I expected it to do.”
I’ve developed a list of questions to ask when people say “My computer isn’t working.”
So you try to turn it on and nothing happens, right?
So you try to start up the application and nothing happens, right?
So you try to open your document in the application and nothing happens, right?
Etc. It’s actually kind of fun to bludgeon these people into defining their terms precisely.
Well, I’m glad someone finally noticed I have a “Y” in my name.
The correct spelling anagrams to “nabs key err” which is suitable for a nitpicker, and “err sneak by”, which is good for a wise-ass who glosses over his own mistakes. “Nay bersek” is okay for a calm guy, while “bran yerkes” makes no sense at all.
The version of this that I encounter all the time is: “(Name of Application) has been removed from my machine - can you re-install it” which actually means “Someone had deleted the shortcut to this application from my desktop, and I now no longer know how to start it.”
The other thing that gets to me is when people try and find files (for other applications) by opening Word and looking there!! When the klez virus was doing the rounds, we put an application on the share drive for people to run and check their own machines. The number of people who “couldn’t find” the application because they were using Excel (or whatever) to look for it!! Now I start any conversation like this with “Open Windows Explorer…”
Quick rant on my wife’s behalf. She wrote an Access database for a small company. It works. But every now and again, they have a problem with their system. This company employs a self described technical guy who is clueless. He cannot solve the problems with their system, so he instead tells the users that the problem is being caused by my wife’s database. (“The absent are always to blame”)
My wife says no it isn’t. He says, yes it is. The users are technically clueless so they don’t know who to believe and so I suppose it is only natural that they support their internal technical guy. So then my wife has to solve their problem, just to prove that her database is not at fault.
So far this has happened three times. Each time it has turned out that the problem has been entirely unrelated to my wife’s database. Last week they rang again, AGAIN saying that they had a problem, and it must be my wife’s database. You’d have thought they’d have learned their lesson by now, but nooooo…
So my wife’s been paid. They’re a small company and we really don’t care if they don’t like her any more. So she is now unavailable. Permanently. Losers.
IAN Tech Support, but I might as well be, as I’m the person in the office who orders all of the computer equipment and reconfigures old stuff so that it can be used by new people. I’m also the unofficial “I don’t want to call the help desk - can you set this up for me?” person, since I have global admin rights on our Win2000 setup (the REAL techies trust me not to screw up).
I play dumb when people tell me they’re running “Office 98” - “I’m sorry, you’re running a MAC?! How did you get it on the network?” “Huh? No.” “Well, Office 98 is a Mac product.” Someday, I’m hoping people will figure out which damn operating system and office suite they’re running.
The worst one is the one I’m dreading. I live my life in Photoshop - I’m working on getting my ACE certification this year. A coworker, after a year of begging and pleading with our director, finally convinced him to let her get it. Thank goodness the company standard is still V6.0. Her problem - she knows nothing really about computers, does not really use the software she has (Three years ago, she begged for Illustrator because I had it. She got it. The application, as far as I can tell, has never been opened, even to play with), and she’s paranoid. “Well, I NEED this! What if you’re out of the office and the VP needs something?” “He’s in trouble, because all of my stuff is on the laptop hard drive and backed up on Jaz.” (Yes, I’m the only one with Jaz. SCSI Jaz - no SCSI cards in the office except mine!) “I need a new ZIP drive - this one changed my list.” Ah - rewriting the FAT. Yep - been there, done that. Learned a lesson. But it ain’t the drive. Download the new driver - yeah, the one that is designed for Win2000, not the release you have, designed for Win95. I’m dreading my life when she has Photoshop. She stole Version 5.0 briefly a couple of years ago and called me when she had a problem (turns out she was in Bitmap mode and couldn’t figure out why she couldn’t color her images - do you know how hard that one is to figure out over the phone with someone who doesn’t understand the software?) I helped her, but my first question was, “I order all of the software for the department. We have a grand total of ONE license for Photoshop, and it belongs to me. What’s it doing on your machine?” I made her remove it. What’s my life going to be like when she has it LEGALLY?!
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