I came in to work this morning and found my computer down. The power was on, and the monitor power was on, but there was no image on my screen. I tried reconnecting the monitor cable, then the other cables. I tried turning the computer on again. No luck.
So I called our IT Help and left two messages – one on the recording and one with a human being, explaining my problem.
by lunchtime no one had come or returned my call, so I sat in my chair and listened to phones ringing and random music until someone picked up, and I explained the problem. we worked it through, and my computer monitor started. Yay.
The first thing I did was check my e-mail, of course, and…
You know what’s coming, don’t you?
There were four messages from IT Help. One asked if the problem was with my desktop or my laptop computer. Anoher asked if I still had a problem. The other two were results of my successful session that restored my monitor.
WHY WOULD THEY E-MAIL ME A RESPONSE WHEN I TOLD THEM THAT MY PROBLEM WAS THAT MY MONITOR WASN’T WORKING??
There’s no way I can read their e-mails!!!
I KNOW they knew this – it was in their responses. Wouldn’t it make sense to PHONE if my monitor is down? Or even send someone?
If they’re anything like the script monkeys you get whenever you call any tech support department, it’s probably because they are unthinking automatons who do things exclusively by the playbook.
It’s like when I would call tech support for my ISP when there’s no connectivity and I tell them, “…and I’ve already rebooted the modem, the router, and my computer.” Then they helpfully offer, “Okay, what I’m going to get you to do is turn off the modem for 30 seconds…”
They don’t believe you. Most folks lie to me, or have difficulty understanding me.
“Reboot” doesn’t mean log off and log back on, it means turn the damn thing off and turn it back on again. The local area network is not the internet.
I once asked a user, “did you try and install something?” and he responded, “I never touch that computer!”
Now, I go over to the guy and try and fix it rather than calling, (since they will most likely lie or misunderstand me.) but maybe your guys have more folks to take care of, or they are busy watching TV.
Not all technical support departments are like this. Deal with some smaller companies instead of giant megacorps and you’re likely to experience better luck in this regard.
To answer the OP, I’d wager the likely reasons are:
They’re given the discretion to answer by email, and do so in all cases, even when impractical, because it’s easier and faster than actually talking to somebody. Someone needs to get that in check for cases when it’s obviously unhelpful.
2.) The first person seemed to believe you had multiple computers so you could probably check email.
3.) If they’re asking if the problem is still ongoing, depending on the timestamp involved, they probably see that you’ve called before and are responding out of courtesy, or see that the problem has been resolved. Responding to an email with a brief status check is one way of handling someone whose problem you know is fixed without just closing the ticket – this way, you show your boss that you actually responded to the person. I do this from time to time, because some people do stupid things like email us then immediately pick up the phone and call about the issue. We receive the email about two minutes after it comes in (since it gets filtered into a ticket database, etc.) so I usually see these after the call’s over. I respond with something like “I spoke on the phone with you a few minutes ago, so I believe your problem has been resolved. If you need additional assistance, blah blah blah…”
One place I worked made it easy to tell when the phone system was working again after an outage. You could access the mass voice mail they sent out saying that the phones were down.
As an IT guy, I have three monitors and two computers on my desk (I’m not helpdesk). At home, I have more, and I can check my email from my phone as well. So, yeah, unless you specify that you can not work because your only monitor is down, and all responces need to be either on the phone or in person, it probably won’t occur to IT that you can’t see your email.
Also, depending on company size, helpdesk and local IT may be seperate organizations.
I’m trying to avoid snark, especially as my ire has abated, but shouldn’t this be the sort of thing that IT and Help Desk ought to do as a matter of course – putting themselves in the metaphorical shoes of the people they’re trying to help? It shouldn’t be a Nice Extra, it ought to be an Essential Part of the Job.
If the company is big enough, IT will be in another continent, have no idea what is it the company does, what does people in the company do, what kind of computer setup people have…
Recently, I was chatting with an accountant who told me how one of her first jobs had been for a company which does roadwork. One of the foremen kept badgering her to some day go out on the field and meet-and-greet some folk, “look at the holes in the ground” as he put it. She didn’t think it was important but finally one day she did go.
And a few days later she realized it had changed her vision of the business completely. It had made “the holes in the ground” real. After that visit, instead of getting the list of hours and work done at the end of the month and going “why the heck did they get so little done in the second week?”, she would open her umbrella to run from her car to the office in the second week and think “man, there sure won’t be a lot of work done this week!” That visit had made it possible for her to put herself into the worker’s steel-toed boots.
The IT people you’re dealing with have no idea what your shoes are like, so they can’t put themselves in them.
In college, before everybody had a laptop, when there was a massive power outage (I believe they called it, no joke, Ice Jam 2000 - it was also the weekend of the Super Bowl) they sent a TON of e-mails out about how there was no power.
That reminds me of the e-mail we all got some months ago about the mail server malfunctioning. I’m sure they also call people to inform them that their telephones aren’t working.
We were told recently that we can no longer phone the IT helpdesk, we have to email them instead. So when my computer won’t work, I have to get a colleague to email the helpdesk and log a call for me. Problem is, the replies always come back to the person who logged the call, and they seem utterly incapable of understanding the message accompanying the logged call. That’s the message that says “it’s not my computer that’s broken, it’s hers”.
I’m at a hotel right now for work and I could not get onto the internet when I first arrived. I called the help desk and I’m nearly positive that I was this guy’s first call ever. He kept saying, “Geeeeee. I just don’t know what the problem could be.” Then he said, “Maybe it’s…” and paused for so long that I actually had to ask if he was still there.
He finally asked me enough questions that he could diagnose the problem, then told me that it couldn’t be fixed. I ended up fixing it on my own, and I am no tech guru.
