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Techs Discover End Users Aren't So Bright
hkypipe writes "In response to a CNN story slamming tech support, a former tech fired back. He correctly points out that much of the trouble end users have with their PCs can be traced to their skillset, which in many if not most cases would make them more qualified to operate an Etch-A-Sketch." Not everyone who calls support is clueless though. How many of us have had to sit on hold for hours and reformat a hard drive as DOS just to convince the tech support lackey on the other end that a hard drive really is bad? The article also covers other factors like scripted support, and per-customer time limits, which can make for a poor tech support experience.
Well I never! Here I was thinking people always read the manual, always took the time to understand what they were trying to do, always listened to instructions and never tried to do something stupid.
Who'd have thought?!
From THIS???
"why doesn't my cupholder work"
My personal favorite is when the RoadRunner tech support drone refuses to believe that some computers don't need to be rebooted to change network settings. But no matter what you tell them, they refuse to put down their precious script and accept that maybe, just maybe, I'm not running windows.
Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?
Our users would not seem so stupid if we had better software. A lot of software is particularly bad.
This is my sig.
In other news, it was discovered that everyone looks like an idiot when they require the services of a domain expert. What's next, neurosurgeons complaining that patients don't know as much as them? Of course end users don't know much about tech - that's what they're paying support workers for! Just like drivers pay auto mechanics, and anyone who has a bathroom pays a plumber.
Just because someone doesn't happen to have some specialized piece of knowledge you have, that doesn't make them "not so bright". I know plenty of PhDs who are extremely competent in their fields, which aren't computing, who need to call helpdesks from time to time. You see, and this will sound harsh to a Slashbot, most people have better things to do than learn the minutae of their PCs.
Most of the people who call for help don't even know what operating system they're using -- even though they've spent their money buying the machine.
How many drivers know what OS runs their engine control computer? Even tho' they spent their money buying the machine. You see, techies are into operating systems are care a lot about them. End users care about getting their jobs done, and the computer is just a tool. One version of Windows looks a lot like another - can you tell the difference between '95, '98 and ME with just a glance? You can? Can you tell the difference between Red Hat, Debian and SuSE at a glance? You think so? I didn't tell you they're all in console mode at a $ prompt.
Tech support needs to stop thinking of end users as the enemy and start thinking of them as what they really are, its bread and butter.
They get shafted, yelled at by end users, frustrated by their bosses.... at least the competent ones.
However, there are some people who should not be allowed near a computer that do tech support, and they should be rounded up, stuck in a phone booth together with a rabid wolverine, and be forced to listen to Barry Manilow sing Mandy in Helium Breath! (Sorry, just got off hold with Compaq for their lovely networking products). Jim
'Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?'
Tech guy and salesperson at local computer store told customer on phone that ".. Well, now I know why it doesn't work. You must have a wrong version of Windows XP.". Yeah, like there would be different versions of Windows XP! He just wanted to get rid of that annoying customer.
Before tech support people rant about the lack of knowledge of their users, remember that it isn't the user's job to be an expert in use of the software or hardware - but it is their job, and it is one they often fail at.
I work for a computer science department at a well known university and our Chairmen doesn't know anything about computers. Numerous times we have to go to his office and show him how to do things such as find the size of a folder in windows. Ever since I graduated high school I vowed to never do tech support again, but here I am (along with my coworkers) helping the chairman (that makes 10 times what we do) operate his computer.
It's really quite simple.
There is no common base of knowledge between the two individuals, and therefore no common basis for communication.
Until the education level is equalized for both ends (and I doubt this means the tech needs to learn less), this barrier will continue to exist.
The coolest voice ever.
I refer worst support cases to Silicon Pines ACF.
although, i do work for a mac only shop, ...
the people are really bad, when i switched from doing face to face support to phones, i realised people are alot more daring, and quicker to snap, or scream when there on the phone. it's like there less inhibited when there's that barrier between you.
the big problem is that less and less people do the research and read the manuals (and read me's) and more and more, just want instant answers and walk throughs. they don't want to learn how to fish, aka learn the basic consepts of computing.
this makes my job basically impossible.
every yuppie with a digital camera thinks he's a director, and cause he's spent 4 grand with you, wow you owe him.
After going over things with them on the phone I decided to drop by and see for myself. Back then hard drives (even in RAID arrays) weren't awfully reliable compared to nowadays. So I prepared myself for the standard fare.
When I got there I saw that the bookkeeper had placed their telephone right on top of the external drive array. It was one of those old rotary telephones that had a magnetic bell clapper. I supposed the magnet might have had something to do with their mysterious data loss.
I immediately told them I had the answer to their problems, promptly walked over and moved the phone to down on the desk, and handed them a bill for a flat one hour fee plus windshield time (they were in B.F.E.). Never got a call from them for almost a year. I wish all of my fires were that easy to fight!
I didn't follow the advice. But my beloved mother would.
Yep.. end users seem to be getting worse IMO.
:-|
There is no excuse not to be learning how to use a computer in this day and age, yet the majority of support calls I get are for people with most basic problems.
"Oh, my start menu has moved up to the top of the screen! No, I never did anything to it, it just went by itself!"
"Everything in my Inbox has vanished! No I never pressed delete! I think I know how to use the email thankyou!!" - "Funny, but our records show that it was you who deleted the email.."
And so on.. most end users think tech support guys just came down with the last shower, and think they can lie about how they have just broken the machine.
Can be frustrating sometimes
"Hey! Unless this is a nude love-in, get the hell off my property!!"
Delivering Clue to Users An o'reilly book never written
I do a little bit of support in addition to my primary duties as a developer (so I can keep in touch with the customers and their requests/etc). We have commercial products that we sell, but we also have a limited, free service accessible from our web page to serve as a demo of the product. I find it interesting that the customers that call in who have purchased our products are generally friendly and respectful. The customers that call in about the free service are almost always rude and demanding. They ask for more features and complain about the limitations. Sometimes you just want to tell them: IT'S A ~FREE~ SERVICE!!! You can always buy our products.
That aside, I have also noticed a serious lack of knowledge in many customers, some of whom are the only "IT" person in the company (I put IT in quotes since their knowledge expressed during the support bring this claim into serious question). I find it really sad how many people I have to walk through the basics (saving a CSV file in Excel, for example) especially when these are people who are supposed to know what they are doing (IT, programmers). Sometimes the web developers are the worst. I have run into so many who know how to use Dreamweaver, but they have no concept of how to actually modify an HTML page by hand. (Another example of where learning the basics before learning the fancy tools is vital... please keep calculators out of schools until at least High School... but I digress...) It is so refreshing when you find someone who actually seems to know what they are doing!
I believe in de-evolution. God made the world perfect, man fell, and its been going downhill ever since!
"How many of us have had to sit on hold for hours and reformat a hard drive as DOS just to convince the tech support lackey on the other end that a hard drive really is bad?"
I for one haven't, and my etch-a-sketch skills are far worse than my use of a computer.
The Political Programmer
i'm a tech, and I have to treat the customers as dumb, otherwise I find us getting out of synch, or assume the customer knows what an icon is or something.
The problem being if you treat a user as intelligent, they'll catch you out by not bothering to tell you about something i would regard as blindingly obvious.
For example:
I was talking to a user who was trying to set up one of our mail accounts. When i tried to talk him through outlook expres setup, he irately pointed out that he'd be and engineer for 5 years and knew what he was doing. He tried to tell me that there was a problem with his mail account, despite the fact that I logged int it fine.
It turns out he'd broken his DNS somehow, and my standard debug procedure, had he acted like a dumb user would have been far faster....
can you send mail? no?
can you see our web page? no? your problem.
wahey, a early post!
Just to convince them that their QA had utterly failed in its task and allowed the x200 bios (HDR/EXE versions) to become unusable (a04-a07 had a terminal checksum error).
Oh, and that doesn't even begin to tell the take of five departments, 3 levels of tech support, and a level 2 technician who REFUSED to accept that anything could be wrong with the Bios file.
Oh, and did I mention the auto-sensing routine of the 3com driver for the x200 NIC freezes the PC for a split second every five seconds?
-rt
Back when I started consulting in the late 80's, I could pick up a telephone and call an 800 number and usually talk to a REAL LIVE ENGINEER (in many cases, the guys and gals that actually designed the software or hardware in question) because a lot of companies rotated through their engineers through the tech support department as part of their dudies. Nowadays, they get way too large a volume of calls for that to be prectical.
Most of the time, I don't even bother calling tech support anymore becuase it's not worth my time unless I have a specific question. I wish I had an ID card I could swipe on my phone that would ID me as compenent to stand trial by direct-escalation-to-third-level-support.
Odds are, if I'm bothering to call, it's not a loose plug.
"Lawyers are for sucks."
- Doug McKenzie
I am currently using Comcast cable internet, formally ATT&T internet....formally @home.
We have outtages in our area from time to time, not as bad as it used to be, but they do pop up. Every time I try to call the 800 number to tell them an outtage is in the area, I get the same canned response.
They always say, "sir, we can't see your computer, are you hooked up to a router"?
I say "well, yes, but that's not the point. The connection is out in this area...I'm just reporting it to you as you don't have it on your outtage board."
"I'm sorry, we don't support routers, please plug your computer directly into you cable modem."
At this point, I'm getting a little irritated..."no, I'm not, I'm reporting a outtage...there is NOTHING wrong with my equipment. Nothing has changed on my settings. I'm not going to sit here, re-route my cables and change settings just so you can finally know there is an outtage in my area. Trust me, the problem is on your end."
"Sir, I can't help you unless you follow my directions".
Ok, so the first time through this, I go with everything they tell me, and finally after 45 minutes of trying everything under the sun short of putting all my computer parts in a paper bag, going out on my lawn, waving it over my head and screaming like a chicken...they finally figure out that it's a problem on their end.
Now I don't even mess with it, I call them up when an outtage happens, and get all my neighbors that are out to call them also. I cut them off right away, and tell them they'll be getting 5 other calls from the neighborhood telling them the same thing and hang up.
"Music is everybody's possession. It's only publishers who think that people own it." - John Lennon.
I kind of laughed with my co-workers at the topic when I saw It..
:D
OK.. maybe I put the customer on hold and told the guy next to me, but while this is somewhat true....
From a more serious standpoint, some tech's exagerate the inabilities of users, and tend to be not as patient as they could be.
So, Joe Smoe forgot to plug his power cord in? Well why not just have him plug it in and see if he can connect? Why make a big deal?
There are a ton of similar issues which seem to be downplayed as stupid things the users do, but thats why we are here.
I personally believe that the reason that such actions are taken with such a bofh'ish attitude is the quality of the workplace, and the stress with dealing with someone over the phone that doesn't think exactly as you would like them to.
Perhaps there should be a study on how tech's often talk down to the customer because of the simple things, which the tech's themseleves are responsible for.
I do however, figure I'm set with my job, because there will always be users who need help
Mod me down im a newf (wiki)
For the most part, my experiences with Tech Support have been very positive. Being slightly, addled I tend to conjure up all sorts of malfunctions within my computer and various other devices and guidance from various points in the tech set.
As for my experience with some other end users (somehow my lack of real skillset is still better than most people's) has led me to believe that this topic is absolutely true. I've had people go on for ten minutes about how their scanner wouldn't work even though they had plugged it in, and they kept getting an error message (saying that the driver wasn't installed) and had no idea what to do.
Also, if this ignorance wasn't a fact. Then a lot of those internet accelerator or, memory leak preventer pop-ups that you see cruising about wouldn't be that effective. After all, to the lay user they look like system messages (because they aren't really colorful advertisements, they look like highly technical things telling them that their computer is leaking memory like a sieve).[end topic on tangent]
Over night, one of my hard disks had developed about 10,000 bad sectors. I called Gateway support.
"Sir, do you know how many sectors are on that hard disk?"
"500,000 or so," I said. This was 1994, and it was a 1G disk.
"So you've got a lot of GOOD sectors left, right?"
Uh . . . BWING! Head hurts! Owwww!
After an additional 20 minutes of idiocy, they finally decided to replace the disk under warranty. After which, I decided the best course of action if I ever had to call back with the same (or similar) problem would be -
"Hello, Gateway support? My hard disk is on FIRE."
"What??"
"My disk is on fire and Windows won't boot any more. What should I do?"
Any sufficiently advanced technology is insufficiently documented.
Most computer users are utterly and completely retarded concerning anything related to computers. They know that the power buttons turns on the damn thing, that clicking twice on OE or MS Word starts a program and that Steven McGregor likes to send funny mails with .exe files attached. Even the most basic questions about computers to these people will be answered with a "Huh?".
Now, comparing it to a car is a good thing, though one should remember that one should not known the complete design of the engine to be able to drive a car. There are two other things that are more important; being able to properly handle the car AND being able to conform to a set of rules and regulations set up to protect you and others from yourself. The thing is, knowledge of these rules are enforced (or at least around here) and violating them will cost you money. But the difference between a car and a computer, damage wise, is the fact you can kill someone with a car accident. No one gets hurt if you run "anna kournikova.jpg.vbs".
Eventually, the worst problems will solve themselves; the most error prone people are those who haven't grown up with computers. Kids nowadays grown up with computers all around, so it's going to be easier to solve stuff later on as the general population slowly becomes more tech-savvy. Still, a few good regulations regarding the teaching about computer usage might be nice, especially in the modern world where nearly anything is somehow related to computers. Teach kids the basics, some more advanced things later on, like basic component knowledge (what's an HD, what's a CD/DVD-ROM, what's a processor, how to recognize them, etc) and explanation into the use of various office applications and what to do and what not to do with them. (to prevent people from writing essays in powerpoint and making a database in excel while recording financial data in a word document)
Hate me!
Am I the only one who's wondering why this 400 word blurb made it to CNN.com? Not only is there little to no information supporting his point (albeit valid), it's also completely uninteresting. Good thing I'm not in charge there, otherwise I would fire the person who let that slip by so hard, he'd be picking up his unemployment check with a pair of tongs gently held between his lips.
Send them over to http://www.internet2.edu. Have her tie up their tech support lines.
Frankly, the problem is that many of my supposed "tech support" people don't know what the job actually entails. They somehow believe that the person who needs help has a reasonably high level of computer skill, but they don't. Many of us here consider computers a cool gadget, a fun toy, a nifty gizmo, and a tool. Most people consider their computers to be a tool, period, and they want a tool to "just work". How would YOU feel if you called your auto-shop with a problem and they told you that "all you have to do is "super-granulate your seventh posterior neonatal left-handed reverse sprag gear" and then "realign your cam shaft with your fuel gauge". That's the type of absolute nonsense that many "average" computer users hear if you try to explain the problem to them at your own level.
:-)
The trick is to;
1) Figure out what their level of knowledge is (without talking down to them)
2) Give them an answer they will understand, and if their isn't any way to give the answer non-technically, make a parallel to something they *will* understand (again, do this without talking down to them)
3) While doing this, don't talk down to them (get it?)
It really makes me angry that so many bad supposed "tech support" personnel give those of us who take our job seriously and DO IT WELL a bad reputation. I do a damn fine job of Tech Support for my clients, people honestly and deeply like me and give me excellent feedback and word-of-mouth. All it takes is some patience and an understanding that while the person on the other end of the line might not know "screen resolution" means, they might well be able to perform open-heart-surgery.
Now, I'll quit ranting....
Working on the front lines and dealing with end-users or customers is not something new that tech support people had to invent. Instead of - once again - placing all the blame elsewhere (users, management, poorly written and tested software, etc.) this could have been a good chance to look and say "Yes. We could deal with people better."
As the author pointed out: when people are calling tech support they are usually frustrated already. Most people just want to be reassured that it will be alright and given the best way to solve the problem.
In essence, really, that should be the job of tech support. Obviously they are not all computes wizards - that is why you have to read from a script, afterall - so maybe a bit more empathy would be in order. It would make the caller "feel" better and thus help IT support have a better image, even if it doesn't directly fix the problem.
My cable ISP, Adelphia, possibly has the worst tech support ever.
I've called before, and literally said "I'm losing packets past the third hop, [router name] in Albany. I have a link, I just can't get out onto the backbone."
She had me reboot my modem. Unsurprisgly, still didn't work. Then she wanted my IP to try to ping. After what seemed like a few hours, she concluded "Hmm... I can't get to you." Really?
Better yet, my dad somehow ended up having to explain how to the tech how she used ping.
(I'm not mentioning the 30 minute wait times, the horrible on-hold music that cuts out, or that ads for phone service that play while you're calling to report that your cable modem's down -- rather a bad time to try to sell me stuff... And the ads interrupt each other if you wait long enough, too.)
________________________________________________
suwain_2
I think the main problem is expectation management. Users occasionally encounter the tech support person who is everything that they could hope for - within 5 minutes, they've figured out that the hard drive cable was plugged in upside-down, and they're back in business thanks to Harold Sharpstuff. However, the next time that the user calls in, they draw Neville Newbie, and after Neville fumbles around and finally helps them get their system running after 2 hours of tests, the user comes up with fodder for a new customer support horror story.
Meanwhile, Harold Sharpstuff has quit because after the tenth "coffee-mug-holder-is-broken" call in 2 hours, and after the third "I'm-paying-your-salary-so-you-should-help-me- adjust-my-screen-contrast" call (which is particularly ironic from users calling a toll-free support line), he's decided that his not-so-great paycheck isn't worth the headache.
There's lots of aggravation to spread around, folks. The users who piss and moan about clueless phone support (but who could never do that job themselves!) and the tech support personnel who complain about the 10th "the Internet is down!" call (but forget that these are 10 different people, NOT 1 single person calling 10 times!) both need to modify their expectations a bit.
Strike while the irony is hot! -- The Freethinker
The user is scared shitless 'cause his system is saying "invalid boot disk" or "no operating system found".
Tech support: did you reboot?
Enduser: yeah you idiot six times already!
Tech support: When the user is not looking, pops the non-bootable diskette out of their drive and reboots.
Enduser: Hey what the heck did you do to get it working?
Tech Support: Magic!! and oh by the way you owe me a beer.
From excellent karma to terible karma with a single +5 funny post...
Someone noticed.
It does annoy me though when people who are meant to know what they're doing don't, and continue not to know what they're doing. I work at computer training centre as the Sysadmin, which comes with support for the clients from "you've got your mouse upside down" (try saying that to someone without lauging), to "WTF? How did you manage to start a recalibration of the smart board, it's not even plugged into the machine." and the clients will learn.
The staff (the ones meant to do the teaching) don't - two or three times a week I'll show one member of staff how to do something, and everytime I have to explain that a menu is the bit at the top of the window (which is what the program is in). The first couple of times I thought they just needed some time to let it sink in. I'm bored of explaining it now, they simply aren't listening to me, and I have better things to do with my time than walk them through Windows 101. Such as getting the Exchange server back online again.
The helpdesk is a great place to pick up a little experience before moving somewhere else, but it's the burger flipping job of the IT world. Most people don't stay on the lines for long and you really don't want to talk to the ones who have made a career out of it.
Despite the fact that these positions are the lowest-paid in the industry, they seem to be the ones that are also most frequently "best shored" to other countries. That's because the company doesn't really care what happens to you after you buy their product. If they could get away with no support line at all, they'd do that. If they "best shore" developers, they might not be able to get all of the shiny features that make you buy the product in the first place. See how it works?
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Statistically speaking 50% of computer users are morons right?
I don't know about you people but I always believed that using a computer requires a certain skill set that is not available to anyone, I mean I have non-tech friends some are doing fine and learning quickly (a natural born geek) while others are truly dumb yet they are smart enough to succeed in their careers, I think the current state of software is responsible for this, because we failed to make software abstract enough to hide the complexity, I never forget the look of people when presented with a mail client configuration dialog.... HORROR !
People are actually afraid to use computers for many reasons among them is that they will look stupid, or that they will ruin the computer if they did something wrong, kinda like the blinking VCR clock syndrome but amplified many times.
Still I think it is a software failure not a user problem, take driving a car as an analogy you can switch to car from a different manufacture and continue driving without re-learning anything, lack of standard user interfaces is another software problem not found in driving because all over the world green means go and red means stop...
I work in tech support. I actually don't mind helping old people learn to use computers, because I am fortunate enough to work without a time limit. Most people are friendly if you are patient and don't talk down to them.
Know what is 100 times more annoying than the computer illiterate? Computer experts. That's right, slashdot readers are the bane of my existence.
That fact that you can write software/build a network from paperclips and phone line/replace a hard drive does not mean you haven't forgotten your password. I have talked to hundreds of computer geniuses who wanted to go "Off script" only to realize that their password was l33thax0r3, not l33thax0r4. How about you just take two seconds and clear your browser cache instead of giveing me your resume?
Web designers are worse. Apparently, being a web designer means you don't have to read the most basic instructions on any website. If you can't login with your eyes closed, then they could have done a much better job with the site.
Keep in mind, no matter how many times you TELL me what a smart guy you are, I have no way of telling if you really know how to diagnose a bad hard drive, or if you're one of the many people who thinks "surge protector turned off" and "bad hard drive are the same thing. Save some time and answer a few simple questions.
Of course, if you really are the the genius you would have me beleive, do us both a favor and don't call. I'm sure you'll get it figured out.
I think ISPs should keep a record. When I tell them exactly what's wrong, and turn out to be right, they should put a star next to my name or something, designating that I have a clue. Until you've experienced it, you don't know how irritating it is to have to reconfigure your network so you're not behind a firewall/router just so they can see you were right in the first place.
There are some people who definitely need to be asked routine questions, but I'd be unbelievably happy if they'd pick up the phone and see, "Hey, this guy must know what he's talking about" and believe me when I tell them what router on their network is down.
________________________________________________
suwain_2
Ding ding, thank you! And why is that? Because companies just expect people to know how to use computers. So, every time someone's printer "doesn't print", does the user stop and think/look around/check anything? No. They pick up the phone and pester IT.
Users a)get set in certain ways and become highly resistant to change because they are too lazy to try and learn, and b)don't know how to do anything except type in their login password in the morning, reply to emails, etc.
If only companies would sit their employees down for honest-to-go "here is how to use ____" training, productivity would be so much better(because they'd be able to take advantage of all the features their software offers, and they'd know how to handle little bumps in the road), and IT departments would get more infrastructure work done, instead of constantly answering "my printer won't print because it's out of paper" problems.
Oh, and did I mention that in internet/sofware/etc companies, you should be given a basic computer skills proficiency test?
Please help metamoderate.
I have turned off The computer several times and every time I turn it back on it says "You may safely turn off your computer"
"What does it say next to the power button?"
"NEC MultiSync"
This
Let's face it - it's never fair to generalize about either end users or tech support people. Just like the population at large, there are those who have the knowledge and smarts and those who don't on both sides of the phone. I would find in favor of the end user, since in fairness, they're being sold a product that should be pulled out of the box, and work as advertised. It's their job to learn how to use the hardware and apps competently, and that's it. Remember, their life extends way beyond their computing setup at home. An end user, in a sense, is a generalist. It's the organizations job who sold the hardware and/or software to recognize, catalog and rectify the problems the end users face. This is, in a sense, a specialty which they should be good at and always getting better at. Good troubleshooting is a combination of cognitive reasoning and knowledge of the problems and solutions. Finding people that combine both traits and using them effectively is the companies' concern.
MOD PARENT UP, PLEASE
People are stupid. Story at 10, because you're watching fox news, why wait an extra hour for your left-wing extremist fluff!
of course the patient doesn't know as much as the neuro-surgent. that's why i want to become ONE so i can stick little pieces of frozen nitrogen in pretty girls heads or stick a rod of surgical steel up other peoples brains
:)
WAHAHAHA!
if i have a piece of paper that tells every one that i'm a legal certified doctor i can butcher as many brains as i want!
on the other hand if i dont have a piece of paper and i start sawing off other peoples heads i eventually end up in prison and the elec.chair!
so get your diploma and you can destroy brains (brain surgery), ruin the economy, help destroy the planetary gen pool (cloning and DNS modifications, say GenManipulatedFood), of even blow up the universe (atomic scienticts) all complitely LEGAL!
if you're a hacker/cracker what better place to be then tech-support!
1)
hacker: "oh you're scanner is not working properly?"
user: "yes!"
hacker: "please visit www.cracker.net and download "lohphat.exe" please. then visit "www.canon.com" and look for the file installer matching your scanner. thank you. please call again if any problem araise!"
user: "oh, thank you so much. i will do this at once."
2)
hacker: "oh your modems not working?"
user: "yes!"
hacker: "please open a shell, just click start then run and typ "format c:" this will resolve ALL your problems. please call again if you have any problem. have a nice day!"
3)
hacker:"oh your grafic card is not working proparly?"
user:"yes!"
hacker:"please call the following number first: (here goes the number of the local phone company). please tell the other person to terminate follwoing phone number (number of user calling). this is necesery because the phone in your house is interferening with the install procedure of the grafic card. once you have downloaded the new driver from our web-site (www.ati.com) call following number (phony number that doesn't exist) and tell the person you would like your phone reactivated. thank you for calling tech-support and have a nice day!"
Often it is not the individual techs that are at fault but the fact that the organization they are working in is basically dysfunctional.
I used to have Verizon DSL. It was out for five days as I went through three separate trouble tickets and a progression of first-line techs who were friendly and helpful but basically constrained to go through a check list of items that I knew very well were not the problem. On the fifth day I got to speak to a slightly more senior tech. Unfortunately I let it slip that I was running Windows 2000 Server and was told that I was on my own because they didn't support that OS. I finally went off on the guy and told him that the problem was absolutely on their side because the software PPPOE client and my DSL router both stopped working at the same time. He put me on hold and a minute later a new voice (the network guy) came on the line:
"Try it now."
It worked.
"What did you do?", I asked.
"I reset your port on the switch. We knew we had problems with that switch but we were waiting for people to call in so we would know which ports to reset."
So my experience was basically a bunch of friendly and helpful techs, each with appropriate competence for their level, working inside a totally broken organization.
As a consultant I get stuck doing alot of this. I've heard most every story and seen most everything that there is to see. The best analogy that I've seen on this discussion is that tech support is like a mechanic trying to fix a car while you're driving it. It is, however, worse than that.
It's like a mechanic trying to fix a car while it is moving and the owner is pulling parts out from under the hood with a "hey!, what's this do? everytime he gets another piece off. Oh, and he's pissed off because the car hasn't worked for two weeks - but he just now brought it in to be fixed.
This is an example from last week of how it usually goes:
User: "hey, we're under a severe time crunch right now and Word won't run and I'm really frustrated as I've had to use other people's computers for the last week."
Me: "why have you been using other copmuters for the last week? Did you call and I missed the message or something?"
User: "No"
Me: "OK, go to the Microsoft Office directory"
User: "I can't find it, all I see is yadda yadda and one called "MSO. Actually, that used to be called something else but I renamed it"
No, I didn't just dream this up.
If you call tech support and almost immediately ask to speak to second level support, will they escalate the call, or do they force you to go through their nonsense first?
Someone at my ISP cautioned me that, when I restarted my cable modem, I had to crawl under my desk and unplug it from the wall; I couldn't unplug the end of the cable going into the cable modem. (?!)
When I get a particularly clueless tech, can I ask to be elevated, or do I have to put up with them until I stump them?
________________________________________________
suwain_2
A few years back I had the VP of a department call because his laptop suddenly shut down. I went to look and found that the power supply wasn't plugged in. He turned red, looked at em and said "I should have known better". I replied by telling him not to worry about it, as long as he did his job of keeping the company running, I'd do mine of making sure his laptop worked.
Point is, end users aren't stupid, they simply have other things they do, and what we find intuitive, they may not. It's tech supports job to help them, and make them feel better about it when you walk off into the sunset.
End Users Aren't So Bright
This is a dangerious misconception...one which everyone who wishes to remain in tech support should avoid entertaining at all costs. That attitude of smug superiority and thinly veiled contempt with which you treat your users will come back to bite you one day, and you'll find yourself cut in favour of someone a little more diplomatic and understanding.
I do tech support for a growing rehab/physiotherapy clinic, staffed with a great many physiotherapists, occupational therapists, psychologists, and doctors. These people manage to do the wildest things to their computers sometimes, and the doctors seem to be the worst offenders. Are they dim-witted? Far from it! The truth is they have a skill set that is different from mine and they don't have time to learn a new one, and why should they? That's what I'm there for...to fix their screw-ups and to find the ones that aren't actually their fault, it's really the hardware or M$ mal-ware that's gone south. To develop routines for them so that they can get through their assigned tasks quickly and efficiently.
As techs, we help them to do their jobs. We shouldn't expect them to know how to do ours as well.
You're using her as bait, Master!
I used to have a computer from a big high street store, before I was good enough to build my own. Every time I phoned the support I had to go through 'Plugs/Reformat/Power Outage'. But once you can get past that and put through to a real engineer, they are friendly and helpful. Someone just needs to work out a way of sidestepping the script, like on a touchtone system repeatedly dialing '0' gets you to a human operator.
Years ago, I had a Sun Enterprise 150 as my "home box" -- it's basically an Ultra-1 with a bunch of disk; looks a lot like an E450.
Anyhow, my cable modem stopped working one day. So, I called tech support, and told them. Long story short, I was a student at the time, and since the University had a deal with Cogeco, they felt obligated to at least not tell me to fuck off because I wasn't running Windows... but they weren't much help, either. After consulting with his boss, my telephone lacky got back to me -- "I'm sorry sir; Suns don't work on the internet".
I felt like reaching right through my phone and choking the living daylights out of him!
It turns out the local cable installer had put a one-way filter on line.
Assholes.
Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?
I have been a network administrator for over five years. It has been said that administration is hours of boredom interrupted by moments of sheer panic. Through the highs and lows of this existence, there is one constant: answering user requests.
Help Me Help You
Accounting for a large part of my day, users requests can be both rewarding and frustrating. Users, I know your computer can infuriate you at times. I feel for you. I want to help you. I want you to learn how the computer can make your day-to-day work easier. Unfortunately, I cannot help you unless you are willing to help yourselves.
By far, the most valuable commodity in the business world is time. You want your computer to save you time. As I sit at your desk, I tell you, "Outlook would run much better for you if you would delete all your unwanted mail. Your pst file is too large."
"I don't have time to read them all, and I may need one later. I have to keep them all, just in case."
You tell me that you cannot afford to spend time performing preventive maintenance on your computer. Instead, you spend time waiting for me to repair your computer.
Let me put it to you this way:
You will spend a finite amount of time each month either maintaining your computer or waiting for me to repair it.
Many think I'm ranting, and tend to ignore me. Ask other computer support personnel. They will tell you the same thing. I want to help you. I can show you how to prevent many problems from occurring. Heed me, and I guarantee you will have more time to do your work.
Information is at least as valuable as time, for without information, how will you know how to spend your time? Information is as important to me as it is to you. Too often, my inbox is filled with vague support requests with little or no information. Because of them, I have to waste your time asking you for the information I need. I have to ask you to repeat your problem and write down the error. Give me all the information in the first request. Tell me exactly what you would like to accomplish. Often, your goal is more important than the steps you have followed. Given your goal, I may be able to show you how to cut steps and save time in ways you would have never imagined. Regularly, I supply you with information. I write FAQs and HowTos on the company support site. I send email offering advice to those who may need it.
"My disk is full, and now Windows has stopped working," you say.
"Did you read the section on the support site about keeping your computer running smoothly?" I ask. "There is a section at the end about keeping empty space on your hard drive."
"No," is the usual reply, in my experience.
Read the documents I provide for you, I beg you. If you had read them and followed my advice, quite often you would not have had to contact me in the first place. You would not have had to waste your time. I do not wish to hide knowledge from you. I will tell you all that I know. Just ask!
I know I seem harsh and borderline abusive. I do not wish to be. Indeed, some of you are a joy to work for. Yes, I meant work for. Part of my job is to work for you. Some of you come to me and ask questions. You question why things on your computer seem so difficult. Sometimes, I'm able to show you a better way. You smile with joy. Your work day is suddenly easier. Those are the times I enjoy my job the most. When I see you take to heart and fully embrace my advice, that is the most rewarding part of my day. Thank you.
I know your jobs are busy. I know spare time is hard to find, but that computer on your desk is expensive. You owe it to yourself to learn how and why it works, in order to get a good return on your investment. Do not make learning about your computer a side project. Make it part of your everyday duties. To the best of my abilities, I swear I will give you the knowledge you need. You will be happier in the end. I promise.
UNIX/Linux Consulting
I would say at least 50% of the calls and problems were user error, this is probably higher but this was 10 years ago so I am not sure. The real joy was trying to troubleshoot what the person did, this was made even more exciting by doing it over the phone (now click on the Icon that looks like a Computer, long pause... where?, try the top left corner, under breath (Moron)) AND the user not being honest about what they did to screw it up! I do remember thinking how much time I could save if the user would just fess up to what they did.
There is no reason why any sane/intelligent person would work in support for any length of time. It is the worst IT job and surely competing for worst job period. Therefore what is the typical support person going to be like? I'll let you figure that one out.
Scripts are used to deal with dumb customers and dumb tech employees. I hate 'em, I understand why they use them but it drives me nuts.
I think the typical Slashdot reader is frustrated with support because we usually know more about the problem, and software than the tech support person we talk too! This is frustrating! It is also frustrating when you can only understand about 50% of what the support person is saying, I will not identify any ethnicity but I think many people know what I am talking about. I can't tell you how many times I have wanted to say, "listen I know what the hell I am doing can you put someone on the phone who knows what the hell they are doing too!". I call support as my last option, and when I do I expect the person to not understand or care.
When I did tech support it was always a pleasure to deal with an intelligent user, being intelligent myself it was usually a quick or easy process to help. Dealing with average users was difficult and dumb users was simply an exercise in frustration. I can only imagine what a dumb user, dumb tech interchange must be like... oh yea...
Paradise!
I was working for RMh Teleservices a while back (doing TS for MSN IA), and the problem is both stupid customers and stupid techs. Some techs come into the place computer illiterate. You can tell: they are bad with their mouse, they have to search for notepad, they type slow.
Then, they get put through a joke of a two week tech class, where they learn scripted responses to scripted problems, based on ideal computer systems.
We have support bounds. I cant count how many time the problem could have been fixed by me redoing the Windows XP user tiles. But no, that is out of my support bounds. Or how many times it could have been fixed by removing tens of extra protocols from their network stack, but I cant do that.
And, we are on a time limit. They want you to have calls no longer than 15 minutes (they get paid by MS per call). If we are going to go over, we are encouraged to tell users it is a hardware problem, and have them phone their OEM. I didn't follow this rule too well, my average talktime for a day was usually 30 minutes or so.
Users are stupid too. They dont know how to reset, type, the difference between the space bar and typing "s p a c e". They ask what IPs are, why I cant come to their house, if DNS is some word I made up to confuse them, why they are fixing the TCPIP stack (if they want to try it again later, by themselves), why AOL works so much better, if I am from Canada, how they hate getting East Indian techs, why the last person made it worse. The list of stupid things they ask, and wont let you avoid telling them so you can get on fixing their problem is long enough to double the length of this comments page.
There's no way to fix it short of requiring people to pass a course before buying a computer, and ten courses before being aloowed to be tech support for on.
I am a viral sig. Please copy me and help me spread. Thank you.
Worst ISP.. ever
The problem is that most people don't know how to find information on the Internet relating to computer problems. Here are the top tips for Windows-based machines:
E NI NDEX.HTM (most complete)
t up _full.htm
s oft.com (don't laugh, sometimes this has answers!)
If you want a firewall, don't get ZoneAlarm or many other flavors, get a hardware based firewall. ZoneAlarm is great until you have software conflicts. Basically, Don't use Software to diagnose possible software problems, too many dependencies.
Run AdAware, it works for many malware issues one might have. Back up your Registry first, if you know how.
Run a thorough Scandisk/Checkdisk every now and then looking for Bad Sectors. Any amount of troubleshooting could be pointless if your hard drive is going bad.
For possible hardware problems, try to use those devices on another computer to determine whether it's actually a hardware problem.
Don't bother troubleshooting problems on an Upgrade version of Windows unless you are educated enough to determine that's not the problem. Instead, get a new version of Windows, no excuses now.
Start > Run > msconfig > Ok, then click the Startup tab. Go through the list here and identify what these programs are from the following sites:
http://www.lafn.org/webconnect/mentor/startup/P
http://www.pacs-portal.co.uk/startup_pages/star
http://www.greatis.com/regrun3atyouroption.htm
Disable everything you don't need. Most software problems are caused by conflicts. If you go through all of them and only load what you want, right down that configuration, and then disable EVERYTHING. If you don't have the problem afterwards, identify which program causes the problem and disable it, then uninstall/reinstall.
If you're in 2000 or XP, try creating a new profile and see if software still spits out the same error. Many times a corrupt profile is the cause of strange Windows errors.
Windows 2000 Repair from the CD can hose your machine, don't use it.
Windows ME Restore can hose your machine, don't use it.
Internet Explorer Repair from Add/Remove programs can hose your machine, don't use it.
Windows XP Restore is good stuff, use it, it won't hose your machine, but that's not a guarantee it will work.
Windows XP Repair from the CD is good stuff also.
Go to the manufacturer's website and see if there is an update for your hardware/software -- even if it just stopped magically working when it worked previously.
Learn to FORUMULATE (no spelling error) your searches. Throw "forum" on the front of your searches for troubleshooting problems. Learn to disseminate the B.S. from the real deal when reading people's solutions to your problem.
Search for the solution to your problem @
http://www.computing.net
http://support.micro
There is no requirement for users to know a great amount about how their computer works. It is not their JOB, it is not what they get PAID for! Their computer is usually a tool, and they need to know enough about it to do their work--period.
Tech support are PAID to know how to fix things with the computer when they go wrong. It is their JOB, and if they don't like it, then they can leave, rather than blame the end user. Yeah, we all roll our eyes about being called out to turn off someone's caps lock key (same person two days in a row), but can I do the company accounting? No. Can I do the geophysical mapping/modelling for oil development? No.
So to the author of the rebuttal: don't blame the users for not knowing stuff they don't HAVE to know. Just do your job.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
ever used Google before ?
|-)
iF yOu WAnT to C YOUr iP agaIn gAThEr tWO MilLIon dOLLArS IN Non - cONsEcuTivE TweNtY's AnD AWaiT FuRThER iNstrUctIoN
Change youre IRQ or disable automatic IRQ assignment (impossible on windows 2000 wifout a REINSTALL to reset them to automatic).
Thats the normal reply from Creative Labs, i never buy them again, peice of shit.
For example, we have Dell servers where I work, that have RAID arrays. Sometimes a disk fails, so we grab our spare (we keep one spare for each type of RAID so that we can quickly rebuild in case of a failure) and pop it in, and it rebuilds and all is happy.
Then comes the hard part; convincing Dell support to send us a replacement disk, under warranty. Even though their own hardware reported the disk was bad, and the spare disk formatted and rebuilt fine, they insist that we run diagnostics on the disk. Running them, of course, would require that we down a production server! I once spent a good deal of time explaining this simple concept of not being able to down a production server to verify a disk is bad, when we already know it is.
Eventually we manage to convince them to give us an RMA and cross ship us a replacement disk, but not after a lot of hair-pulling and grinding. Speaking of grinding, sometimes we fib and tell them the disk was grinding to speed the process.
Tech support people: Stop ASSUMING your customers are idiots. Especially system administrators at your customer sites. We know when a disk is bad!
the best advice i can give when calling tech support is not to act/point out/pretend to be smarter than the tech. when you do, it immediately puts them into a defensive mode and they may not want to solve your problem in the easiest fashion.
regardless if you know exactly what the problem is (misconfigured router, etc), telling the tech will not convince him/her to act on your diagnosis. at all.
i remember being able to call Pacbell Internet (SBC) and say, "hey, this router is misconfigured.. what engineer handles that particular router?"
a minute later i would hear... "ya, this is dave, what's up?"
usually after telling him the problem, they would be like, "wow, thanks for pointing out this problem. i'll take care of it right away."
never, ever tell your ISP tech you're running linux. if they run you thru some script to look at your Network Neighborhood settings or whatever, fake it.
i have also discovered that if you're talking with a female tech, talk a little slower and sweeter and they will help you at all costs, or even better, direct you to someone that really knows their stuff.
At the two extremes, there are idiot users and idiot tech support staff. However, the majority of support calls fall somewhere in between where the hurdle to overcome is not knowledge but being able to communicate using the same language. I find that being able to "talk da lingo" is immeasurably helpful.
For example, I have successfully been able to get routed directly to technicians in the CO merely because I have been able to convince the Bell Canada staff that I know what I am talking about.
This leads me to believe that end-users have a certain responsibility to acquire a modicum of background understanding. There will always be incompetent support staff but if an end-user can accurately describe their problem, their chances of getting satisfactory help increase dramatically.
that is, not in terms of how much you paid, but how much you know. for instance, i've been using the program "matlab" for 10 years. i have an id card - i enter its number when i contact tech support. therefore, when i ask a question, i get directed to the journal papers supporting this or that algorithmic decision. my coworkers with less experience are directed to the step-by-step faqs. judging from the speed of their response, i'm escalated to "third-tier" immediately. of course, i'm suitably appalled when it turns out my question is simple (which does, rarely, happen). in general the kind of support is reflective of the kind of user i am.
so, i don't know how other tech support would qualify your expertise without running you through a script, but it seems reasonable to expect that an individual user would only have to ever do that once, to establish the appropriate level of support.
I work for a large technical services company in the USA, and a large part of our internal phone support is in India. The difference in service is blaringly apparent when you spend half of the phone call overcoming communication issues. Its also more obvious when you are connected to an offshore tech that they're reading a script.
Also, I've witnessed how the management gages service in many a meeting, and its ALL ABOUT NUMBERS. While lately customer satisfaction has come up, they have no way to acurately judge it. They think if a call ends in under 10 minutes that its representative of a customer being satisfied. I work in deskside services and we are the only group that faces the costomer in person. I can tell you that people say a lot when they have a living body in front of them, and while management is patting themselves on the back for reaching their number goals and reducing costs, the customer is looking for a way out of their contract!
Sound waves should be free!
Once upon a time if you owned a computer you were a programmer. Want to balance your checkbook? Write the code yourself. Everybody was an expert. Everybody did their own tech support.
Today computers are mass-market products. Most computer owners cannot be expected to know how to troubleshoot their computer, just as most car owners do not know how to troubleshoot their car. Mom can't rebuild her car's engine, why would you expect her to fix a broken software configuration?
The mass-market computer industry has failed to setup an appropriate tech support structure. Microsoft tries to weasle their way around it at http://www.microsoft.com/security/home/ by saying "Cars need maintenance from time to time, and so do computers. Use these tools and tips to help keep your computer running smoothly."
OK, Microsoft, so you're telling me I need to maintain my computer just like I maintain my car. True story: I bought a new car last year. I've been faithfully taking it to the dealer for an oil change every 3000 miles. A few months ago it started having acceleration problems. I took it to the dealer, and they fixed it for me under warranty in 1.5 hours. I waited in the service lobby drinking free coffee. Cost me nothing but the inconvenience. It's worked perfectly ever since.
Let's say I bought a new computer last year. I've been faithfully applying the almost-weekly XP security updates. A few months ago it started launching programs slowly. The dealer I bought it from won't help, tells me to call the manufacturer. This isn't covered by any kind of warranty. The manufacturer tech support wants me to reinstall everything which will lose all my customized settings, maybe some data, and isn't guaranteed to fix the problem. Microsoft has me spend countless hours of my own time troubleshooting the startup programs through emails. This takes several days of trying things and exchanging emails with a low-level Microsoft tech support person who's copy/pasting from a script. If it does happen to isolate the problem to a particular program I installed, all they helped me do was to isolate the problem. What's the fix? Don't install that program!
Yep, that's a great comparision you make, Microsoft. Maintain my computer just like I maintain my car. I spend lots of time and do all the work, and you don't even help me fix the problem in your operating system! If my car service were like that, I guess I wouldn't be able to accelerate anymore because it's incompatible with my last oil change or something.
This is not a jab only at Microsoft. The entire industry gets an F.
You know, end users would really know how we felt about them if they just read User Friendly a couple times a week. I think it would really enlighten the users ;)
Later,
Phil
Sure, there are plenty of stupid users out there. But there also plenty of stupid techs, and a bounty of totally stupid managers running the tech support departments.
My favorite was years ago when calling my first internet provider, Netcom. The problem I was reporting was a ring-no-answer on one of their modem banks. After waiting 25 minutes for someone to talk to, they insisted that I first reboot my computer. I was running Linux, so I had no need to do that, of course. But even if I were to have been running Windows, I would have had no need to reboot, since I manually dialed the phone and verified I was reaching the correct number and that it was not answering. But the tech refused to do anything about the problem since I was unwilling to reboot my computer. I should have played the dumb users, and pretended to be rebooting Windows.
But, I've also done the other side of things, too, where rebooting Windows really does make a difference in so many cases (and in some, re-formatting before re-installing is required). And among the stupid users I've dealt with while in a tech support role were several MCSEs. I also dealt with someone who held a CCIE, but he was not one of the stupid ones.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Go here. Follow links. Watch video. Laugh your ass off.
- -
Are you an SF Fan? Are you a Tru-Fan?
RPM: command not found
you're not a real man.
Real men build their own shit from scratch and troubleshoot/repair it themselves.
Tech support?? I *AM* tech support!
Techs Discover End Users Aren't So Bright
We're only now figuring this out after how many Slashdot articles on the topic??? Pot calling Kettle, come in Kettle...
Sigh.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
Tech support has been useless to me since I was in middle school. I've actually been told to *reinstall Windows* by a couple of techs! How is that possibly a solution to anything?* And I'm sure half the people here have had to pretend to go to "My Network Places" while running ifconfig from their Linux box.** Techs are so completely clueless these days. I remember back in the day (early '90s :) techs would be able to sit and debug IRQ conflicts with you. These days, its IR-Qwho? Now, if I have a problem with hardware, I usually just get an RMA on the POS and ship it back to them. Some places have online RMA forms, which makes it so you never have to deal with a tech.
*> And on top of that, how do they know I'm running Linux?
**> MS is trying to trip me up, those bastards. I made the mistake of saying I was running XP, but unfortunately, they changed enough stuff from 2k that I couldn't remember where everything was...
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
*meow*
1) You know what version of your operating system you're running, and you know how to operate it.
2) You know what mail client/browser you're running.
3) If you got an error messages, you remember what it was.
You know what make and model your car is, if it has 2 or 4 doors, automatic or manual transmission, etc. There's no reason you shouldn't know basic things about your computer too. That's all I expect from an client - that and the ability to follow directions. I don't expect any further training and I certainly don't expect them to come on the line talking like they've been in front of a pc their whole life.
Now techs who don't know what they're doing - of which I've seen more than my fair share
First of all, there is often confusion on both ends due to the fact that a. The technician cannot see what is going on b. Often, the customer assumes that critical information should be readily apparent when it is unfortunately not. Hardware problems are easy once the tech realizes what to look for. I know many people that have had problems getting defective hardware replaced, but in my experience that has never been the case. In fact, it has often seemed that many times techs will send out sperfluous hardware to either appease the customer or get them off the phone when they realize they can't fix the problem. nine of ten tech calls I handled during my tenure in the pits were simple three minute fixes once the actual problem was diagnosed, it was the diagnostic part that was the real time killer. Much of this is, unfortunately, the fault of the end user. Use of terms like "dealie" and "blue box that has "file, edit, view and help" at the top aren't exactly descriptive, not to mention the uncountable numer of times where "I can't log on to the internet" really meant "I can't get into windows", and the power user who knows all about windows but changed a couple of "unimportant" entires in the registry, and the whole picture starts to emerge. Usually, the "script" that served as a troubleshooting flowchart was poorly designed and didn't include a lot of problems that occured, and the knowledge bases used either weren't up to date or were not user friendly. Many of the supervisors I served under (and in several cases watched as they were sent away) took the "voodoo" approach to tech support, insisting on fixes that wouldn't work because that's simply "what had to be done", and if a fix works once, then it's obviously going to work every single time. Combine that with the fact that many of the techs I worked with weren't trained very well, and that combination is deadly. Of course, since all of the "sweatshop" style tech support is moving offshore, I imagine that the quality of American support will increase.
I do have sympathy for this techie, but by and large I think it's his holy duty to bend over and take that crap, educate the masses and help them to find the equipment that will disappoint them the least.
... All very exciting, I think. As long as it lives up to the expectations. And tech support is a verrrrry important part of this.
The level of knowledge that's required to do stuff with a computer is mindboggling. If it weren't for those annoying companies that try to dumb things down, we'd never get "the rest of us" behind a computer.
"To shut down the cumputer, just click "Start", don't you get that? How difficult is that?"
"Simply remove the disk by dragging it over the trashcan."
These are old - and more or less dated - examples from two fairly known and popular systems just to get the following point across:
Us -ahem- experts know every inconsistency by heart and may even think they're funny, we "dig" our machines.
But today computers are being sold to people who need to be told what a window is. Not Windows, no, a window. Try to explain it, and then - with a straight face - defend that metaphore (which I think is one of the better ones).
I've had to explain that to some remarkably intelligent people.
Now I know this audience largely thinks Linux Desktops are a good idea, but the fact is this industry is finally getting a toehold in the lives of normal people - the kind that don't cream like you and I over the number of fans that gorgeous machine has - who want their computers to behave like intelligent DVD players. And imo that's A Good Thing(tm).
"Where do you want to go today", "Digital hub",
Until the day that our computer can take over tech support it's the techie's duty to indeed do its very best for the people that bought into that illusion. Amen.
I think, therefore I am...I think.
What is this 'manual' of which you speak? Is that the same as The Microsoft Press?
One of the things I've run into is that there is so much ignorance (and in some cases outright stupidity) Out There that it makes it extremely difficult for those of us that really do know something about our stuff to get support.
In other words, if you're a good tech yourself, finding someone on the other end of the support line who speaks the same language can be a challenge at best. Companies like DirecTV are among the worst offenders; no matter how much you obviously know, their support people have their flip-chart to follow, and By God they are going to follow it no matter what! You could have multiple degrees in Electronics and Computer Science, you could even have designed the stupid receiver, and they'll still treat you like Joe or Jane Six-Pack in their trailer park.
Then again, it is a bit of a quandary. How do you keep someone who really does have good tech experience in a tech support job? Those who really know their stuff, the ones who like to build things or fix things, are going to move on to other jobs where they get to do just that. It's like finding a Really Experienced Techie working at somewhere like Radio Shack or Fry's. If they really know what they're doing, they're not going to be working there (or are going to be on their way out ASAP) in the first place.
Bruce Lane, KC7GR,
Blue Feather Technologies
I will usually just simlink the web folder to their account. I'll explain the whole mess, and 2 weeks later they forget again.
Sisyphous at least had the satisfaction of pushing the rock up the hill.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
I waited over 1/2 hour (onsite at a customer) to get an online chat support session, and ask them to release a driver for download. The tech would not release the driver until he had gone through his 'script' which included rebooting into safe mode.
Kind of hard to keep the java chat window open while rebooting into safe mode... He refused to continue the support on the phone, and told me I'd had to wait in line again for chat support after the reboot. His best line to me was "Well if you're not going to follow the instructions, I can't help you."
After much argument and consternation, I magically discovered another computer next to me that I could reboot into safe mode, and attach the device to... After that, I just listened and faked the proper resposes to his script until his script agreed I needed the driver I'd asked for initially.
I've called tech support and gotten great tech support (friendly and understanding), and I've called tech support and gotten bad (condescending or incompetent) tech support.
;-)
I've provided tech support and gotten users who are friendly and understanding, and I've provided tech support and gotten users who are irritated, frustrated, and aren't open to listening to the idea that they've done something wrong.
You could argue which side the problem's at until the cows come home, because it's at BOTH ends. I think it's silly to take the article as a personal affront towards tech support personnel. The CNN article is pointing out that with companies cutting costs in tech support that the industry (as a whole) is becoming so bad that people just aren't calling. They are talking about trends, not saying that all tech support is bad and that all people requesting support are good. I'm personally glad that CNN is bringing the problem to light, because someone needs to tell the companies that tech support *is* an issue that people care about, and anything that could cause tech support overall to be improved is a good thing.
At the same time, people going to friends and neighbors for support isn't a completely bad thing either. They're probably more receptive to the help, and as another poster mentioned it is sometimes more teaching the user how to use their computer than providing 'support' with a problem.
In 10 years, I think this whole issue will not be so bad. A majority of people will know their way around the computer and hopefully the companies will have come to their senses and decided to provide a better support infrastructure for their products. I see this as sort of a 'growing pain' of the tech industry, as a glut of not-so-knowledgable users have started using these tools and we have now started the slow and painful process of teaching these millions upon millions of people computer basics.
It definately has to be the most annoying thing for any tech to have an end user that knows 'enough to be dangerous.' Its got to be even infinitely more annoying and berating to have a user that knows just as much as they do, if not more. It is the service industry though. And that comes with the territory. You get to see every personality type in action for better or for worse. I recently had to bring a laptop into the apple store for a warranty replacement (for the second time mind you) on the logic board. Each time I spent there during this process I saw end user hell. The genius bar looked no better than the taco bell drive through... complete with a fight between two "geniuses" over their half hour lunch. And then there was the token angry white man wanting his ipod replaced. In their defense, someone has some stock line to berate you into getting quicker service in any industry... In my case, working at an art school... the stock line is "I pay too much for this school" In computer store or Denny's... its your standard "I want to speak to the manager." The ISP its "Put me into second tier support." If you call the bank its "I want my money back." If you are resorting to tech support or any support of any kind, you obviously have a problem... one that is making you some degree of angry. Possibly angry because you spent money on something that now does not work. And the tech dealing with it is angry because he doesn't get paid enough to deal with your attitude. So the bottom line is money and expectations. Which means the answer for both parties is to take a deep breath and deal with it. It could be a whole hell of a lot worse for both of you. You can tell when someone is having a bad day... you can also tell when someone is just a straight up asshole... use your best unbiased judgment (which is extremely hard to do if you think you are teh on3)
Let's have a new national holiday
Slap the shit out of stupid tech support people day!
br
iF yOu WAnT to C YOUr iP agaIn gAThEr tWO MilLIon dOLLArS IN Non - cONsEcuTivE TweNtY's AnD AWaiT FuRThER iNstrUctIoN
I work at a computer store, and we offer free tech support to our customers. We've got a half dozen techs in the back doing computer repairs and system buiilds, and the front desk transfers the support calls to us randomly. We don't have a hard-set time limit, but we try to keep support calls to five minutes for random people that call, although we are ok with spending more time with someone that bought the computer from us. Today I got a call from someone having some random problem with their system, and I knew immediately it was going to be an interesting call when I asked what model of computer she had and she answered "ViewSoniq".
The next several minutes of the call were spent explaining what the basic parts of her system were. (she was also calling the computer "the hard drive") This was not a stupid person, just someone that hadn't learned what things were, what each of them were for, and what their names were. Contrary to popular belief, you don't have to know the difference between a computer, a hard drive, and a monitor to effectively compose a spreadsheet - but it does make receiving effective tech support tricky...
Probably the biggest barrier to effective tech support for us is when the customer's telephone and computer are not in the same room. Waiting sometimes several minutes between asking them a question and getting an answer (or having to have them make several trips back and forth to get the answer) can be frustrating to the tech.
On the other end of the problem, cable modem companies are the worst for tech support. One lesson we all eventually learn, never ever ever tell them you're using a "cable router" to break out connections for multiple computers - this throws the drone into "whatever it is, you caused the problem, we don't support it, and we're not going to help you fix it" mode.
Favorite phonecall to cable modem company tech support: "Hello, my service is down." "ok, have you tried resetting your modem?" "Yep. didn't help, it's not synching up. By the way, there's a blackout in this part of town." "Um... but sir.... your computer..." "Is on a UPS. It's doing fine." "Oh. But the cable modem-" "Is also on the UPS. Both are running just fine." "Oh....(long pause)" "Is your system fully protected by UPS's?" "Of course our servers are all protected, but the distribution system on the poles probably isn't." "So will I be receiving a credit for this service failure?" There was some more discussion after that, but what we finally agreed on is I was probably one of the only customers in the blackout area that was actually experiencing a tangible "service failure" because I was one of the only ones still able to use their service which was down. That month's service was free.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
Telocity tech: OK, what version of Windows are you running?
Me: I'm not running Windows.
Telocity: OK, click the Start button.
Me: I'm not running Windows.
Telocity: Ok, then try right clicking "Internet Explorer" then going to properties.
Me: I'm not running Windows.
Situations are reversed:
Me: OK, click on the Start button.
User: OK
Me: Now go the "Run" menu.
User: OK
Me: When the box comes up, please type in cmd -- see emm dee.
(Long story short -- the User's "way ahead" of me and has typed in "command" -- which works differently that "cmd" on Win2K. None of the tools will work properly, things will act differently. Took another five minutes to diagnose this because the user couldn't follow directions).
Just ask George he'll let you know the state of front line support.
STFU.
Look, people in general are dumb. I think George Carlin said it best - Think of someone of average intelligence: HALF of the people in the world are stupider than that!.
On the flip side, a lot of big companies are farming their tech support out to foreign countries - with very bad results.
Sometimes this works out ok (i.e. an Irish techie helping me get a new recovery cd for my Aptiva at 2 in the monring) but most of the time it doesn't - you get some doof who can barely speak english and follows a script not because of corporate liability concerns - but because they don't know anything else!
As someone who works this beat, let me tell you that most of the problems that tech support hear, the typical /. would never have. Over 99.9% of the problems, to be honest.
/. is a fairly libertarian community. Think of all the problems you have with government. How big and cumbersome and expensive it is. That is just as relevent for corporate beauacracy as well. There are always rules and guidelines that have to be followed. It's not just that it's because of bad companies. It can't be avoided. It just can't.
/. crowd. It is aimed at the LCD. It's good that at least here we have enough intelligent people who are willing to share information (that's the kicker. It's more fun than flipping burgers, to be honest..stupid economy) that we can handle the more advanced issues that would normally fall through the cracks. I'm lucky to work for a company that allows that. Not all are that lucky. (and if you are signed up with one, run away fast IMO). As well, there is just too much demand for TS to have all tech agents be technically aware. You just need to have a good ratio..say 1:5 or 1:10. The information will filter down..fast.
Network Outages and Hardware Failure. That is the two problems that technically adapt people have.
Both of these are the same problem, just in different ways.
For every time you have difficulty reporting an outage, at least 100 times are saved where a customer convinces him/herself it's an outage when it is a simple fix.
For every time you have difficulty replacing a piece of hardware, it can be fixed about 20 times with a simple fix.
Tech support, unfortunately is not aimed at the
A couple of more common complaints:
"They made me unplug the modem". Modems, both DSL and cable have an annoying habit of locking up. Trust me on this. We can see it from our end and it happens more than you think. Especially if there was some maintenence done in the area overnight.
Uninstalling anti-virus for e-mail issues. It's simple, Anti-virus for e-mail frankly is trying at best, and downright russian roulette at worst. It will mess up your e-mail transimission. It's not a matter of if, but when.
Routing issues are a pain for everybody, but I don't want to think about the alternative.
That's about it. I hope that makes you think a bit differently about what you're dealing with in TS.
RTFM?? You're a kidder, dweez. Get that thumb outa your azzwhole, byteboyz and use that pigdon_Woglish manual to replace it.
I recently had an employer that didn't know about the "find and replace" function in their word processor. Apparently before I showed them this they had been replacing the stuff manually (looks, finds and selects it, Ctrl-v, looks, finds and selects it, Ctrl-v, etc).
What gets me about this is that he expects his kids to teach him these kinds of "neat" things, but doesn't have the time to read a book, take a class, or experiment with word processing features on his own time. Then there is the fact that he knows the basics, and that their grade school PC class might not even touch these features.
What we really would benefit from is having more end users stop using time and superiority as an excuse for not reading the manual, not taking a class, not reading a book, etc.
It may seem insulting to do these things, but as with the above example you are likely to get something that you will greatly benefit from.
How many competent users, who are tech- and computer-savvy, have had to call a support line simply because the documentation either sucked or was non-existent?
I've had a wireless setup for less than two months, and have had to call tech support (which I'm convinced is routed overseas to India) twice simply because the documentation has no help for troubleshooting. Both times, the steps were simple and straight-forward enough, and given time, I'd have probably stumbled across them by experiment, but the documentation doesn't tell you what some default settings should look like, where the hardware-reset is, etc. Nor did I see anything in their online docs that would have helped me.
I'm sure I can't be the only one who's had to call just because the manual blew chunks.
Karma: Excellent, but still won't get you laid.
Ironically, it was Dell's DOMESTIC tech support that almost led a friend of mine (not real tech savvy but willing to learn) down the primrose path to video driver hell. He was doing some hardware updates and was told to just pile the stuff in and let Windows XP find all the drivers.
I told him "whoa, slow down Cowboy!" and had him reinstall the old video card. I then told him pretty much the procedure to uninstall the ATI crap before installing the new spiffy NVidia GeForce Ti4200 I advised him to get from NewEgg.
While he did this, he was on the phone with Dell's tech support night crew in Bangalore. Guess what? The Indian tech support people were way more clueful than the domestic ones on the day shift! They knew that he got bad info from the day shift and made very sure that he did the uninstall before trying to install the card.
They held his hand up until the point where he was to reboot with the new video card in for the first time. Then they told him "I'm sorry, but this isn't a Dell upgrade so you'll have to follow the manual that came with your video card to finish up." However, at that point the rest was cake.
He now has a hot-rod Dell with a GeForce 4Ti4200, a DVD+-RW drive, a DVD-ROM drive, a GB of RAM and a Hauppauge MPEG2 vidcap card. And he did the hardware upgrades with his own two hands. He feels empowered, I am spared picking up the pieces of the disaster that would have ensued had he gone with the original advice.
Yes, sometimes the Hindi accents get thick. But a lot of those guys in tech support in India are actual computer enthusiasts. The enthusiast market is almost as big in India as it is here. That guy in tech support in India is also going to be more likely to be able to walk you through a Linux issue because there are a lot more people actually USING Linux there than just dinking around with it on another partition because "it's supposed to be cool."
The clueless level-1 tech support guy exists on both hemispheres of the Planet. It is not a geographical thing at all.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
How about this -- we'll do our "job": learn to follow your suggestions patiently -- if you do your "job": learn what the fuck Linux is, so when we call with things like cable modem problems we don't need to hear bullshit like "Oh, Linux doesn't work with the Internet."
Why not have some sort of "accelerated script" that you can switch to when you realize the caller isn't a friggin retard?
Yeah, yeah. The folks answering the phones typically are minimum-wage drones following their scripts. What I want to know is the magic phrase to get them to forward me to 2nd level support, who presumably know more about computers & networking.
Could it be something as simple as "Free pizza if you forward me to someone smart" ??
Chip H.
I work for a hotel chain. We are entirely a resort hotel company, the people staying at our facilities are people on vacation.
Customer service is a big, giant issue for us. We aren't going to hassle our vacationers with grief over losing their room key while they had a drunken walk down the beach. We aren't going to berate someone for being so stupid as to allow their kids to ride the elevators just for fun while unsupervised.
The company exists to support these folks, make them happy and make them want to come back to us again and again. Some of them are clueless, some of them are mean, some of them are thieves. Then again, most of them are nice folks.
At the end of the day they have a choice on if they want to stay with us or not.
IT support departments have the luxury of having a captive audience. However in a business like ours, we work very hard to spread a customer focused culture throughout the organization.
If you can imagine what it's like to be an immigrant housekeeper working for a bit over minimum wage and having to do manual labor to clean up after folks who earn vast sums more than you and act like you don't exist, and do your job with a smile, then you can see that maybe working at the IT help desk isn't the most difficult thing in the company, talking people through how to get Word to print in landscape or something equally as silly.
The IT folks that I work with are fantastic, and just like the housekeepers, and the front desk staff, and the food & beverage folks, they realize that they too have customers to serve and the purpose of our company isn't to support the IT staff, to buy many l33t Sun boxen or to provide a rationale for a data center, it's to serve customers. And as far as we go in my firm, there's no difference between an internal and external customer.
I'm in the training department for my company. Mostly I develop multimedia CBTs to train reservation agents and front desk staff on how to use their systems. So my PC isn't the standard MS Office/Outlook setup. I have all kinds of weird multimedia programs and development tools that sometimes don't play nice together. Needless to say, I have to get IT help from time to time. (Even as a power user, some installs don't run and so on. Plus we have a training room with multimedia laptops set up as a CBT learning lab and the dongles break, the laptops are old and lousy and require lots of help since they get constant use and abuse.) When I told an IT staffer that I hate to submit lots of tickets he jumped up and down and got mad. "You should submit as many tickets as you need! We have some people that routinely put in 15 tickets every day! The more tickets I can close the more justification I have for IT staff and those are people's jobs! If you need something to get your job done or the laptops aren't working right or whatever it is, don't even hesitate to call us. If i catch you not submitting tickets, I will beat you up."
All I could think was "Wow!" Here is an IT help desk guy that has a customer focus, which is what the whole damn company is about!
So maybe the end users aren't so bright sometimes, or they don't know what OS they are using. Look on the upside. If they don't know what OS they have, it will be easier to transition them to Linux.
Never confuse feeling with thinking.
Our users would not seem so stupid if we had better software. A lot of software is particularly bad.
If you want an eye-opening experience, try reading software documentation from, say, 10-20 years ago. One of the real problems has been that one of the things to get cut in the name of being competitive is really accessible, good documentation.
I have an old SCO UNIX Administration manual from that time period. On Page 3, it tells you that before you begin you should know how to turn on and off your computer, and that if you can't figure this out, you should consult your hardware documentation. By page 300, they are talking about system security, and running a secure server. The thing that struck me is that although the software sucks, the documentation was really good-- it was accessible even to people who have no system knowledge and don't care to. But it was also extremely informative.
In the mean time software has become more complex and the documentation has become less accessible.
This does not mean that every computer user should HAVE to RTFM to get anything done, but they should have the option without either being talked down to or being flooded with too much technical jargon, especially for the more advanced features of any software package.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Ok, I've asked this before but not really gotten any answer. Everytime I've had to call tech support there inevitably comes a time when when the tech support person says, ok turn off the computer and wait ten seconds (or some other ammount of time) before you turn it back on. Now whenever I've had problems, I've never found a reason to do this. I've never seen any web site recommend doing this. Is this, as I suspect, tech support voodoo, or is there any real reason why one should have to do this?
http://www.popularculturegaming.com -- my blog about the culture of videogame players
The problem with tech support is their default attitude is that the customer is an idiot. You think that anyone calling up who seems to know what they are doing is putting on a show. How fucking hard is it for you to believe that there are people out there who are as proficient as you are (which isn't difficult to pull off)? How hard is it to believe that there are people who are unbelievably more proficient than you are, and they're only calling because the stupid fucking cable connection is down?
Do you always have such a big chip on your shoulder?
If you can't login with your eyes closed, then they could have done a much better job with the site.
Is T for any website???? The Login process is *The Thing* that should be absolutely user friendly. Anyway, sue me but I say you're a troll. You're trying to judge a group of people by the few bad experiences which you have with them. At the same time, you CAN'T know how much of the guys you've talked on the hotline are really techies. Yes, when you got a frustrated geeky l33t dude, he makes you understand what he is(an asshole???), but a normal guy won't bother to explain you his resume, he'll just say his problem and let you deal with it. So : -1 Troll.
1. No sig. 2. ???? 3. Profit!!!
I work at a small software company that writes medical billing software (along with office management, appointment book, etc). Along with all the other piddly tasks I do, I mainly go out and do tech-support, or do it on the phone.
Boy do I have some interesting experiences. The main problem that I have is people thinking they know what they're doing, and then they try to tell me what they're doing but use the WRONG WORDS. (One humerous one is a lady that insists on calling Floppy Disks "Tapes"). It's basically like getting on the phone with someone who speaks computer gibberish.
Because most of our program runs in DOS, we often have to tell people what to put in the DOS prompt. It easily gets frusterating when people don't know the difference between a foreward and a back slash.
Most people, though, can't tell the difference between the Windows Desktop and the main menu of our program. Some don't know how to restart their computer. And when we told one to turn her computer off and then on again (because it froze), all she did was turn the MONITOR off and on. That wasted a good 10 minutes trying to figure out what the hell she was doing.
But our problems don't end with our customers. Many times they get computer upgrades from their local computer dealer. Usually we have to talk to them on the phone to re-configure our program, and most of the ones I've talked to are completely helpless too! Not knowing what a DOS Prompt is or any commands in it like "copy" or "cd".
Recently one of our customers shipped a computer to us so we could fix it. Their problem was that they recently got a computer upgrade from a local place and now they're running out of disk space on their C drive... the problem, and the most screwed-up computer setup I've ever seen:
- 4 Partitions -
1) 2.5gig FAT (no... not FAT32 or even FAT16... FAT!) with the original WinXP Pro install on it (I didn't think that was even possible to do on anything less than FAT32). This has the pagefile, and our program on it with 0 bytes of free space!
2) A 1.5gig NTFS partition with only a couple things on it
3) Another 4.0gig FAT partition that was a copy of the 1st partition, but was the bootable partition with XP.
4) A 33gig NTFS partition with ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ON IT.
I'd write more, but seeing as how I'm at work right now and the phone is ringing, I guess I'll just go shoot myself.
Principal: I have to turn my computer on every morning.
My Friend: And?
P: Well I never had to do that before.
M: What do you mean?
P: Well usually I just go to shutdown at night and in the morning I just log back on.
M: And? What's different now?
P: Now I have to press the power button. I never had to do that before.
M: Well let me come down there and see what you mean because I don't see the problem.
My friend then leaves to go to this particular school to see what the problem is. He gets there a few minutes later and goes with the Principal to the computer in question. She shows him exactly what she does at night. Then she explains again that she used to do the same thing but she never had to press the power button in the morning.
What happened was that someone had changed the default setting from "logoff" to "shutdown". The dialog box for this pops up everytime you shutdown but she never once read it. A principal, with a PhD, couldn't read a pop up dialog box. This is either pure laziness or pure stupidity, either of which is a constant source of headache for people doing tech support. I had a roomate once who had similar stories about working tech support for a University.
On the other hand, some tech support is totally worthless. It seems that most technical people in general are more knowledgable than tech support. My sysadmin friend also has many other stories about tech support for the servers they buy. Most of the time the support is of no help at all. It's come to the point that they'll end up figuring the problem out by themselves when tech support can't fix it, then they turn around and tell the tech support how to fix it. How rediculous!
Time makes more converts than reason
To be fair, there are multiple problems here:
1) The users -- they range from completely helpless with computers to grand masters, and there isn't a system yet by which helpdesk can sort them out quickly. This is compounded by people who think that just because they can install a new mouse, they're expert level and expect to be treated so.
2) Tech support personnel -- Ummm, putting this gently, tech support is a stepping stone on the career path. Support personnel either rise out of it to developers, admins, etc; sink below it to cashier at the fast food joint; or find a new job. It's a big hole in the company into which you shovel people. So, you may get a good tech support person, who eventually might be a very good developer or sysadmin; or you might get a loser whose next job will be reading "this end towards burger" in his training manual.
3) The companies. They're half the reason tech support is a big hole in the company, into which you shovel people. They see it as a giant cost center, and continously attempt to minimize it by hiring cheaply and getting rid of more expensive people. Eventually, they're at the bottom of the barrell, and in order to use their front line people, they create scripts for them to use before escalating them to 2nd tier. Which annoys the end users and annoys the tech support personnel. Then the companies decide on ticket quotas or time limits, in which the tech's job is dependant on how many tickets they close, not how well -- which annoys customers and tech support, further contributing to the problem.
I've had hororible experiences, including one company that insisted I reinstall windows 98 on their laptop, as obviously I was too clueless to install win2k and linux -- because the onboard mouse had died! (I called back after downloading their diagnostic utils and gave them the error output)
I've also had tolerable experiences, where the tech asked a basic question, and I responded with "no, I did not try $VENDOR diag utility, but I did do $X, $Y and $Z, which if the device was working, should have given me $A, $B and $C. Instead I got $SOS". One notable one, the tech shouted over the cube wall "Anyone know what ping and tcpdump are?" and a reply came back "The router's broken".
> Most computer owners cannot be expected to know
> how to troubleshoot their computer, just as most
> car owners do not know how to troubleshoot their
> car.
While this point is entirely valid and I agree with it whole heartedly, the main issue with tech support and people who complain abuot it being shitty is not that the techs expect all users to be computer experts (which, unfortunately, many of them do) but the users expect techs to be complete technical wizards with limitless powers.
People have some to learn over the years that:
A) I car try to fix my car, but if I fuck it up i suddenly have two or three thousand pounds of inert metal in my driveway that I cannot move
B) It would be much safer if I went to a mechanic and let them rake me over the coals to do whatever because I need my goddamn car to get shit done.
(of course, many of us have avoided the situation entirely by living in a Urban area and getting a bus pass, which costs about a third of what insurance alone will cost you, but I digress...)
People have been been conditioned to know what to expect in the user-machine-technician experience when it comes to cars. Similarly with Furnaces, plumbing, Electrical wiring, and a million other tasks that are considered "skilled trades"
Personal Computers for Everybody Even if You Don't Need One
are still a pretty new thing, (a market expanded by heavy hitting marketing and the need greedy suit bastards have to make all the money before the other greedy suit does) and noone knows what to expect from it, much less be conditioned to consider what a PC tech does as skilled.
"Why should we consider these people skilled?" users think. "My fucking neighbors 12 year old does this shit all the time, gettin up there on that internet thing and downloading the emails and click, click, clicking his homework to his teachers!"
The automotive repair industry does have the edge there, in that people expect to be bringing their cars to a guy who's typically a little dirty, kinda scrungy, and looks like he wouldn't mind putting that pneumatic wrench up against the side of your head if you give him any lip. This commands a little respect. Merge this with the inherent need people have for their cars and you got a user group that will do ANYTHING to not make waves.
Compare this to the stereotypical vision of the computer tech: nerd, glasses (probably taped somewhere), pasty and out of shape. Never had a date in his life.
Not the most fearsome opponent, and on top of that you're on the phone with him, so you're safe in your house - safe enough to pretend youre a big man. Plus, "What the fuck do I care, I got along for years without one of these fucking dookickey box things and godDAMNIT I just wanna get my webcam working so I can netmeeting some two-way porn with Shav3dPuzzie69, and this stupid little TV with adn EXTRA BOX that just makes noise on my DESK that the manufacturers are pretty much GIVING AWAY to me just doesn't know what to do!"
The ability to dail 11 digits on your phone and instantly have someone there for free to help you is VASTLY different from having to leave your house and go someplace else and hope this guy can take care of you so you don't miss the reruns of Friends ar 5.30 and 6.30 nightly on your local UPN affiliate. It is very empowering and gives otherwise meek people large, brass, balls.
[ One thing to remember here: while people LOVE the car-computer analogy because they understand cars are complex and mysterious, its actually a bad thing to do because it gives the sense that like a car, a computer can be used only to do one thing.
Of course not true. When cars can not only transport stuff from point A to point B, but do many other tasks, often at the same time, then that may make sense. People would have to get used to taking their car to different people depending on whats wrong with their car.]
Over time, people will come around to the fac
s'wut i sed.
End Users Discover Techs Aren't So Bright
I read the original article...and then the follow-up one posted today... And I'm underwhelmed, to say the least. I was expecting a READ MORE link at the bottom, or something. That's it...just 5 paragraphs of "remember that the techs are people, too."
Bah!
We sincerely need to educate end-users. The level of illiteracy I see on a day-to-day basis is absolutely frightening. We wouldn't let people drive cars with that level of ignorance...why let them operate a computer?
yrs,
Ephemeriis
"Work is the curse of the drinking classes." -Oscar Wilde
Windows XP, Mac OS X, examples where a humble and simple interface has been morphed into a complex flashy system that no one can find basic stuff. I will grant you that Seniors tend to do a little better with the Fisher-Price interface of XP, but I hate playing seek and find to do basic maintenance.
OS X is an abomination to God. It's pretty and fun to watch, but it solves none of the problems of the old interface. That and can someone PLEASE tell me how to open a unix console without having to pull up the help screen first. For god's sake, I've been using Macs for years, but I feel like a complete idiot using X.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
I used to work for the professional services department of a major database vendor and liased a lot with major customers as well as with customer support.
Major customers usually take out an alliance support contract (up from 500k). Even though they usually run complex environments with dozens of database servers and hundreds of databases those are not the ones that cause support a headache. Their staff is usually knowledgeable and they are realists; even when things go dreadfully wrong. What they wont accept are trained monkeys going through a script.
Then there are those who took out a odbc license for 79.90$ and those are exactly the ones that went apeshit on our support guys. Besides that they are idiots, they're doing themselves a disservice. A knowledgeable techie can hang you out to dry and you'll never even know it.
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
Kids nowadays grown up with computers all around, so it's going to be easier to solve stuff later on as the general population slowly becomes more tech-savvy.
Are they really more savvy, or just accostomed to executing a different set of tasks than the previous generation? As computers get more complex over time, is your average computer user today really equipped to handle learning the new tech?
I might actually propose that the opposite may be the case. As computers become more "appliance-like" for average users, all the scary configuration stuff will be even more mysterious to an average user than they are today.
Look at the history. It used to be that computers were very difficult to use: you had to be a qualified expert to use one. Typically, if you were dedicated enough to learn to use the thing, you also learned enough along the way to be able to fix it as well, or at least be helpful to someone supporting him/her. Today, the average user uses Windows, which is somewhat easy enough for non-savvy people to use, but the expectation is there that things will break and they will have to change some stuff around to "make it work" again. In the future, I would wager that the average user will be completely incapable of (or not permitted to) making any changes to a computer's workings.
The analogy is, once again, the automobile. Early on, old timers refused to have anything to do with cars, and if they tried they'd fail, while the early adopters had a steep learing curve on how to drive and maintain the car. Later (30's-40's), anyone who owned a car had a neighbour who was an expert on maintaining it, while the rest relied on just learning to drive. Now, it is very rare indeed that you can find anyone outside of the "customer service" ranks (a garage) who has any inkling on what to do if something breaks, or for that matter on what some of the technology under the hood is doing in the first place!
Look at the tomato! Isn't it sad? He can't dance! Poor tomato!
Where's the "Forgotten Passwords" section? I have to deal with 3-4 users a day that have forgotten their password but are steadfast that they put in the "right" one and that their computer is "broken." 99 times out of 100, they had their caps lock key on (and, no, the XP feature that detects caps lock keys during password entries has not helped reduce this - users inexplicably ignore it). I guess that one's not very funny - just irritating.
Then there are the greedy users - you know who I'm talking about: the ones that run Excel, Word, Acrobat Reader, AIM, MSN Msgr and several IE windows all at once. They call me complaining that their computer keeps "crashing" and inevitably demand a "better" computer.
(Fun detail - all of them use the phrase "this is COMPLETELY unacceptable" after they finish describing their problem).
Of course, the problem isn't that their computer is crashing - no, it's that they are using W98 with 64MB ram while running their dozen apps at once. The "crash" is actually their OS struggling to keep up, constantly writing to the swap file. It was hanging so long that they figured it had crashed and would hit the reset button.
Now, granted, they could get a "better" computer (well, if not for our budget anyway) - but for the purposes of their job they could as well be using a 400mghz Win95 box with 32MB RAM and a 500MB hard drive. But NO they want a 1.4Ghz Dell with a flat panel and 80 gig hard drive so they can surf the web and write word documents. o_0 Dey is jus' greedy.
If users suddenly started understanding the technology, 1/2 of the people on slashdot would be out of a job
That is probably true, but many slashdotters are probably the types who would rather be put to the task of finding some complex problem that takes Sherlock Homes-like brilliants. Instead they get people who don't know the difference between an icon and a file, and end up being a teacher or babysitter instead of a techie. Sure, a job is better than no job, but most slashdotters are just expressing frustration about how reality keeps them doing what they really want to do.
You could compare it to a rock band who has to play top-40 at weddings to make a buck instead of their own songs in front of a croud of screaming fans, or at least appreciative fans.
Yes, that is life, but at least let us grumble every now and then.
Table-ized A.I.
"That said, companies need to stop slitting their own throats by trying to undercut the competition. We are in a real Marxian race for the bottom with no end in sight."
Read this book and realize it's worse than you imagine.
Finally someone has stood up and stated the obvious truth! User error nearly always prevails in tech issues!!
There are 10 types of people in the world:
Those who understand binary, and those who don't.
We had a hilarious one a few weeks ago, a computer programmer was on a walking holiday and staying in a bed and breakfast farmhouse on our side of the vally.
He would go for walks in the fields at the bottom of the vally, even though it was obvious from their erratic behaviour that the sheep there were suffering from ticks!
We just left him to it, Lymes disease is pretty horrible, but if you can't tell when a sheep is suffering from ticks, you shouldn't be in the countryside!
Group 1 users aren't too bad - they can usually be handled with the troubleshooting script. They will generally do what you tell them to do (within the limits of their understanding of your instructions). As long as you treat them reasonably well they will treat you reasonably well.
Group 2 users are a bit worse simply because their problems are NOT going to be handled by the script - if they were they wouldn't be calling you. However, once you identify them as being in group 2, you can "kick it up a notch" and use "the big words" to quickly find the problem (assuming the problem can quickly be found). However, the problem arises if they user is in Group 2 and the tech support person your standard Tier-1 meatware text-to-speech unit - the user will want to skip over the script (because he's already run it) and that leaves the meatpuppet floundering.
The group that causes the problems for ALL of us is group 3 - the luser who thinks he is a tech:god. Look at this guy from the tech support person's perspective:
In other words, to the tech support person Group 3 looks just like Group 2.
If a Tier-1 person passes one of these jokers on to Tier-2, when it comes out that the moron didn't have something plugged in (as step 4 of the script checks), the Tier-1 guy gets dinged for it. Now, if you were the Tier-1 guy, would you be really willing to transfer somebody like this to Tier-2?
Of course, these Group 3's make it harder for us Group 2's to get anything done. So how do we Group 2's work around this?
If you have a tech support group you need to work with on a regular basis, try to get to know them by name, and be known to them by name. IF you prove to the Tier-2 guys that you really are Group 2, they MAY give you a direct number to them. Example: I have just such a relationship with my ISP - they know that when I call them and say "router 3 is down", they need to fix it, not ask me to reboot Windows.
However, this is not always an option - if the organization is large, or you contact them infrequently you won't be able to do this, so:
Let Mr. Tier-1 drive the conversation. Play dumb. If he says to reboot Windows and you are running Linux, just say "OK, give me a minute" and lie. Follow his script. Remember, Group 2 and Group 3 look alike to him, so the only way to not be taken for a Group 3 blowhard is to look like a Group 1.
Accept the fact that you are going to have to run the rat's maze of Tier-1 support, take a deep breath, and get over it. Eventually, when you hit the end of the script you will be transferred to a Tier-2 support, and can start to "use the big words".
Them: "Did you reboot your modem?"
You: "Yes, I rebooted the modem, and tried to ping the gateway, and got no response."
That way, the guy on the other end slowly comes to the realization that you actually know what you are doing, and are NOT simply trying to impress him.
Yes, this is time consuming, even time wasting. But in the long run you are more likely to get your problem fixed this way then by coming across all arrogant.
Final story: I've been on both sides of the phone - I frequently have to do Tier-3 type support on my projects (and sometimes Tier-1, before I cracked the whip over the service manager and told him in no uncertain terms that I would NOT accept his people dropping calls on me cold
www.eFax.com are spammers
If tech-support people are so smart why are they doing tech-support? Fact is tech-support is the janitorial work of the 21st century.
Half the users on /. are out of a job.
Back in my phone monkey days, the statistic came down that it cost our company $60 every time one of us picked up the phone. If a customer called in just once there went all our profits for that customer and then some. A company can't stay in business long like that.
The first thing that should be asked when a new feature is up for discussion is "Will this feature result in more support calls and if so, does the value the feature provides offset the additional call volume?" If the feature is going to generate more confusion than it's worth, adding it really doesn't make sense.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
How many drivers know what OS runs their engine control computer? Even tho' they spent their money buying the machine.
If you want to relate a car to a computer, the best analogy is this:
Steering Wheel, Accelerator, & Brake -- Keyboard & Mouse
Transmission & Serpentine Belt -- Operating System
(I would argue that the Engine relates to the processor, since both do the work for the machine, but the transmission transfers the energy to the spinning of the wheels, as does the serpentine belt deliver the work to operate the AC, alternator, etc.)
Dashboard -- GUI
I would expect no one except specific embedded-device programmers to know what kind of firmware an air-intake computers run on. That's like expecting computer techs to know x86 hexadecimal op codes.
But even so, what scares me the most are everyday joes who are so afraid of asking for help that they automatically assume that they can figure out how to operate a computer on their own. It's like sticking a twelve-year-old in the drivers seat and thinking that driving a car is that simple. How do you know that your kid's not going to mistake your spedometer for the odometer or the tachometer? Or perhaps they think that the turning signal is supposed to turn the wheels, since it looks so much like a joystick...
You'd be amazed at how many people I've seen understand how to operate a touch-screen, but are clueless when it comes to what the little arrow on the desktop is supposed to do. I expect, when I sit down to help people, that they know how to operate their machine. I don't expect them to know what goes on inside the white box, but I expect them to be able to use the controls & understand the layout of the GUI.
A response of "Thomaston" would pretty much always get a response from the walker of some sarcastic remark like "Aww, crap...'Howda ah turn on mah compooter?'" and then the walker would go help somebody else.
I had callers trying to put compact disks into floppy drives, people who would type the entire phone number under area code, people who didn't know if they needed to dial the area code to make local calls, people who called from work to get help with their computer at home, some people trying to control the mouse with their foot, et cetera. And they all seemed to have cell phones for some reason!
I thought those calls were myths!
Albuquerque PC
This is one of the reasons I think that remote managment would work. I suggested about a year ago that all computers should have this capability. You say your computer is doing this? Well I'll log in and see what the problem is. It will not fix all problems naturally, but it will fix a lot of them.
Of course as one cynic pointed out. It makes too much sense therefore it will not be implimented.
I do both development, and customer support. The support I do is not computer support, but we take payments for various cable companies around the nation. I've ran into alot of very arrogant support people, particularly in the IT end. I try my hardest to be patient and respect the customer, but sometimes people, being people, just dont realize there is another person on the other end of the phone, and just let loose. Its extreamly hard, but as support, the only thing they can really do is be patient.
I will admit there are alot of lackeys out there that have no clue what they are doing, and just got the support job because they know how to determine what their IP address is, but thats life. If you dont like your tech, hang up, call back, 9 times out of 10 you'll get someone else.
What about the fact that users lie? I have had many many cases where a user calling in would not tell me what they had done to crash their computer / download the file / whatever.
Me: What were you doing when it crashed
Usr: Nothing, I was just typing a letter and it crashed.
[after I go to the user's desk on a different floor]
Me: ok, I it looks like there is a "printing..." box up. So you were trying to print?
Usr: No, it just crashed, why won't you get me a new computer!!!!
OR
Usr: I can't download the file into excel
Me: Ok, what do you see on your screen
Usr: What does that matter I want to download my statement!
Me: You see the underlined words that say "download file."
Usr: [immediately]Yeah sure.
Me: Click that
Usr: [slience]
Me: Well?
Usr: NOTHING HAPPENED!
Me: Ok, you didn't see a box pop up that said "save as"?
Usr: There isn't anything that says "download file!"
Me: You just said clicked it, right?
Usr: Look, just help me download my statement ok?
Me: Ok, can you scroll down?
Usr: Ok i found it.
Me: Um ok click "download"
Usr: [immediately]I did. Nothing happened!
Me: Uh you have to wait for the file to download.
Usr: Ok I clicked it. It says "downloading"
Me: Ok good
Usr: But excel's not opening! Look, ok, I just want to get this done. Give me your manager.
(Sidenote: customer's account manager confirmed later that this is a "problem" customer - i.e. stupidity is not a factor here).
Arg.
I've worked as a tech support rep for 3 years. Why do I do it? I am lazy and there is not very many job options in where I live.
Doing tech support is boring. I often work on my own projects while at work. I do not pay much attention to the person calling me. Just enough to make them think I am working with them on there problem.
Telling the customer you don't know about the issue they are having is a great way to get out of doing the work. Pass the buck off as much as possible. The company doesn't care about these people. Why should I? In the end all that matters if numbers. My managers look at call stats to see how well I did. They never look at content as in how well I handled a call. If they did it would be more about if i were nice to the person other than actually helping them.
Nobody cares about the end user. Don't get me started on policies. Lots of stupid rules to follow. The user is better off finding the information from their fiend or off the net.
Knowing all of this. I never yell at anyone on the phone if i ever have to call in to a company. I often do not call in anywhere unless it's my last option.
People calling tech support lines have bought a product which is meant to do something. The fact that they can't work it out even when everything is working is the fault of a bad UI - not the users.
There is a major point you're overlooking that even the best UI will never fix. Photoshop will not make someone who can't draw an artist. Cakewalk will not make a musician out of a tin ear. CAD/CAM software won't make instant engineers and DTP software does not create instant pro magazine publishers.
Many users are basically expecting the computer to do all of the thinking for them when in reality all they can do is automate drudgery. Non-trivial tasks have skillsets and computers can't always paper that over.
If you aren't able to go to the Applications/Utilities folder and double-click on the monitor-like icon labelled "Terminal", then you have no business futzing around there anyway. "Mac user for years" my ass! Even the X-hating OS9 zealots are able to find their way around...
-- The plural of 'anecdote' is not 'data'.
End users shouldn't have to know the difference between DDR and SDRAM or RIMMS or ... why? Because they are END users. Last time I checked most people who drive cars don't know how to replace the bearings on their tranmount front wheel drive driveshaft. Drivers are END users.
Most of my 19 year career in educational technology can be summed up with one mantra.
"There is no such thing as a stupid question, only a stupid answer!"
Besides any good technical support person, or script, should allow the user to reveal what 'stupid' thing they have done with out embarrassing them.
FAMOUS LAST WORDS: Ha! They couldn't hit an elephant at this dist...
I'm a system integrator who happens to specialize in Mac support. A few of my clients are Mac-based design departments of large companies whose internal IT people can't be bothered to support the Macs.
This is fine for all involved, unless the internal people make some change to their network without telling anyone, like when one place suddenly enabled authentication on their web proxy. Or when I was setting up Outlook for a new user and discovered that they had migrated all my users to a different Exchange server than what I had been using for the previous year.
Still another place uses a Microsoft web proxy so outdated that no Mac OS X browser I've tested will work with it (including IE!). No Mac browser newer than IE 5.0 for OS 9.x will work with it. This is in the PA office, so the IT people at HQ in CT couldn't care less. They won't upgrade their proxy software, nor will they exempt the small subnet of Mac IPs from having to use it. So these people are hampered by their own company when they have to do their jobs, having to stick with an old browser that will have to be run in Classic when they upgrade to OS X.
I cringe when I have to call a company's internal IT people to find out what's going on, because as soon as the word "Mac" is mentioned, I can practically hear their brain disconnect and the drool start flowing down their chin.
Right now I'm involved in a fight at one place trying to justify upgrading the 10Mbps switch the creative group is on (not that 100Mb is prevalent anywhere else in the company) to at least 100Mbps or hopefully gigabit-- twenty people pulling job folders weighing in at tens or even hundreds of MB over a 10Mbps network seems to be perfectly acceptable to the internal guys. Honestly, if they'd give me the IP range and other details I need to configure it, I'm about ready to pay for the fucking thing out of my own pocket and install it myself.
~Philly
One of the drawbacks to providing IT support is that once you've helped them solve one problem, in the future, if something else breaks, they might blame you for breaking it. I remember working at a bank as an IT. I went to a location to make some changes to an email server. While I'm there the office printer malfunctions. They blame me, even though the email server isn't even set up to print.
EvilCON - Made Famous by
hkypipe writes "In response to a CNN story slamming tech support, a former tech fired back. He correctly points out that much of the trouble end users have with their PCs can be traced to their skillset, which in many if not most cases would make them more qualified to operate an Etch-A-Sketch."
No offense, but I think people who use phrases like skill set are probably part of the problem too.
Me: Please put the disk in the drive and close the door.
Him: Okay, wait a minute. (sound of walking and a door closing) Okay, the door is closed.
I got a letter from a customer which explains that another tech had asked her to send a copy of her data disk so we could fix it. Enclosed was a photocopy of said disk.
I got a letter from another customer. Enclosed was a floppy disk with "Bad Disk" scrawled over the label. The handwritten letter explained that he was furious because this was the third disk that he had received that had bad sectors on it. The paper on which the letter was written was a printout of chkdsk, which had clearly been run on his 20MB hard drive. After showing everyone, I wrote back and explained that his floppy was fine. Then I sent him back Bad Disk.
The longest call I ever took was from a guy who could run his programs, could back them up, could see his data in the list in his backup program, but couldn't find the data on his disk. I had him cd here and cd there, all to no avail. I finally caught on to his use of the phrase "I installed the program to my DOS" and had him look in his C:\DOS directory. Sure enough, he had installed all his software in the same folder.
So, my theory is that proficient use of a computer requires not only seeing what's in front of you, but also maintaining a model in your head of what's going on. In all these cases, the person misunderstood something fundamental about what they thought they were trying to do and consequently could not work out a correct sequence of actions.
I'm sure most slashdotters would recognize the experience of "seeing where you're going" (a folder, a dialog box, a menu in an application) before your fingers make it happen. If you are generally proficient with your tools, you probably are really irked by the experience of, for example, navigating up and down the menus of a new program (or an MS-Office upgrade where the menu items have been pointlessly shuffled); and you feel like you're getting somewhere with your new app/tool/whatever when you start memorizing the keystrokes to get where you're going, and you no longer actually read the menus most of the time.
This is where I think most "technically illiterate" people differ. They don't have that model, don't really think that way, and can't understand it if you try to explain it to them. For instance, my dad used to insist he couldn't use a computer because he didn't learn the New Math in school. He simply would not hear differently until his company made him use a browser to access his reports; he changed his tune pretty quickly, after that. :-) But if he hadn't
been forced, he never would have made what seems a pretty simple leap to most
of us. Whether it's biological or cultural, some people don't "get it" at a
deeper level than I think is generally realized.
Was it just me, or did anyone else get to the end of the introduction and then wonder where the rest of the article had gone?
Please tell me I'm not blind and have missed the "next page" link
I lay awake last night wondering where the sun had gone, then it dawned on me.
Dupe.
In Soviet America the banks rob you!
Having served as a "tech support boy" to my family and their friends and their friends' friends back in the day, and having been around different environments with different kinds of people using computers, I have witnessed many a bright person do things that to us, educated computer geeks, would seem either silly, stupid or overly complicated.
So you're going to tell me that an estemeed professor, who has written many papers (or an executive of a successful non-tech company), who has trouble using what we consider basic computer programs... you're going to tell me that he's an idiot and is only qualified to operate an Etcha-Sketch?
You're full of it. Write me a physics paper.
Everyone on Slashdot owes it to themselves to go out and read "Inmates are Running the Asylum" by Alan Cooper (I read mine in a local library). You will be enlightened to no end.
Users who are idiots (not unintelligent, but ignorant of the extent of their own ignorance) and tech support people who are assholes (not incompetent, but prone to saying things like "most people are barely competent to wipe their asses, they're so stupid") ... well, these people deserve each other.
Shop as usual. And avoid panic buying.
The majority of people are just plain stupid. Fair comment that people should not have to be computer experts to operate a computer. I have no idea how my car's engine works but do I really need to if I can drive the thing? Similarly you should not have to possess expert knowledge to write a letter in Word.
I've done my time working tech support, and I have some personal favorites.
First there was the person who filled in an order for a new telephone, had it approved and delivered and fitted then complained to the Helpdesk that their voicemail was still full.
I've had someone who didn't know their own name.
One of our departments called complaining that their phones were broken. We asked what made them think that they were broken and we were told "because they hadn't received any calls." (Nobody had called them and they didn't think to test by calling themselves).
My current all time favourite however has to be this caller who commented on the call queue music -
Luser: "Ohh that sounded like I was listening to Barry White then - but I can't have been can I?"
Tech: "Why's that?"
Luser:"Because he's dead."
It wasn't even Barry White - it was Thin Lizzy.
Back before I was replaced by a Russian H1-B visa, I called a Sun hardware support number to arrange to have a failed system board replaced. The nice person there scheduled a hardware tech to make a site visit, gave me the tech's name, and I then hung up.
Soon after I did this, I realized there was an issue about which I needed to speak directly to the hardware tech. However, I had not written the guy's name down, and did not remember it. So I called the number back, and the conversation went something like this (I was speaking to a woman):
Tech Support: Hello, this is Sun, may I help you?
Me: Yes, I need the name of the man assigned to case number XXXXX.
Tech Support: How do you know it was a man? It *could* be a woman, you know.
Me: Nooooo, I don't think so. I was already given the guy's name last time I called, and I remember it was a man's name, I simply don't remember the exact name.
Tech Support: Oh....
And before anybody rags on me about taking better notes, etc., I normally do, or at least I try to. But these things happen when you've got 5 or 6 pots on the stove.
They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...
Feh. I don't shed any tears over frustrated tech supportists anymore, because they still suck even when conditions are ideal. Read more.
I am from a small, grease-loving country in the north called Ca-na-da.
The other day I had to sit on hold for nearly an hour to try and figure out a problem with my work's ADSL connection. The guy was absolutely flabbergasted that I knew what routing was, that I'd done traceroutes and other things to pinpoint the problem and that I had a suggestion on how they could fix it. The real pain in the ass part was that I had to go through all the stupid questions that he's forced to ask normal users (ie. "have you rebooted?" "have you installed any software recently?").
Most humorous was telling him that every single computer in the office ran linux so his suggestions were not going to work (ie. "Ok, go to Start, Settings, Control Panel).
I think pretty much everyone on Slashdot can agree that both sides are true:
1. A lot of tech support sucks, yet we feel sorry for tech support people, because 2. most users don't know which side of a keyboard to type on.
One reason so much tech support sucks, escecially for us geeks, is that they hire tech support people based on their ability to field (and put up with) the 95% of calls they receive from people who plugged the power-bar into itself. When I call tech support, I've usually already done everything they will "walk me through" to fix the problem. Often, I've already done more than everything they come up with.
Two REAL tech-support stories. These are NOT urban legends, I witenssed these first hand.
1. We switched my Mother to a Mac. Three weeks later, I was showing her how to do something on her computer, and she asked if I was right-clicking or left-clicking to do that.
I told her she only had one mouse button.
She said no, she'd been right clicking and left clicking a lot. I watched her push down on the right and left halves of the mouse button. For three weeks, she thought these had been doing different things.
2. No one beleives this, but I saw it. My spanish teacher in high school took a 5 1/4" floppy disk from one of the Apple ][e's, FOLDED IT IN HALF, and crammed it in the 3 1/2" hard-shell floppy drive on a Macintosh SE. Thinking this would work.
Can anyone tell me how to set my sig on Slashdot?
http://www.ghostwheel.com/merlin/businesslike/Appl eTechSupport/
-- This sig is only a test. If this were a real sig it would say something witty. --
Here is three facts from my time doing Tech Supp.
:).
1. Most companies have a time limit per customer, which varies between 5 and 20 minutes. Time is money to the company and also aginst other customers who are waiting.
2. Management is generally poor and these are the ones who try to make sure that each agent follows "the script", unfortunately if you know the answer and give it you can actually be penalised for doing so. Not all managers/supervisers are techs!
3. Your mileage will vary. Even within companies you're going to get quite a varience with regards to tech quality. Rule here is that if you're not happy, call back until you are.
Never doing tech support ever again, just too repetitive and boring
My personal experience is that about 7/10 techsup peeps will change their monotone tune when you display some level of intelligence. The rest will become agitated for some reason.
I remember last year when the school chopped off my connection telling me that my box is compromised and the "net tech" must come in to clean it before they will hook me back up.
The dumb piece of sh*t have never known of a computer with two monitors in his life, and therefore insist that I have two contaminated computers..
Then he insisted that I have run illegal P2P programs because I have a lot of hard drives laying around.
Then he ran the virus program and deleted files.now the box wouldn't reboot he insisted that I must reformat all my hard drives: more than 200G worth of data!
Upon hearing that, I booted him out of my place telling him to ask his boss to call. That guy is a piece of work, in this huge engineering school full of jobless geeks... I still want to kick his ass everytime I see him.
I'd mod this up if I had some points. Hopefully someone else will.
Your post shows the amount of experience you have. It's very low.
Here's what I do:
Me: Hello, helpdesk.
user: I can't get on the internet.
Me: Okay, what happens when you try to get on the internet?
###
Notice I don't try to ask anything technical here, about anything the user probably doesn't know, like the operating system they use. My response gives much better results.
###
user: Um, it gives me an error
###
Responses vary. Sometimes they'll actually give me the error. If I wanted to know what the operating system was, I would know from the error. Like if they said "It says 'error 691'" I would know right away both that they're using windows, and that their password is wrong.
###
Me: What does the error say? I'd need that information to find out the problem.
### again, no technical knowledge required.
user: I don't have it in front of me right now, I closed that window.
Me: Okay, can you try to connect to the internet right now, or do you have to hang up the phone first?
user: I've got a second phone line. Lemme try this again.
###
It's not always this way, but I want to be somewhat brief. If the user answers that he has to hang up first, then I tell him that he should write down any error message he gets and call us back. Sometimes this is where he reveals he has ADSL, which again, is very helpful.
###
user: it says "The computer you are dialing is not answering" And I can hear a voice coming from the computer. Oh, it's starting to dial again.
###
Here we see why we didn't get the error message earlier. Oftentimes, the user will leave the error message on the screen before calling us, because they know they'll need it.
###
Me: Okay, click cancel, we don't need this window anymore. Can you see your "My Computer" icon?
###
Notice I said "your 'my computer' icon" not "my computer." Microsoft has always irritated me with that little naming convention.
###
user: No, I just see "This page cannot be displayed."
Me: Okay, close this window. Umm, for that matter, close anything you have open right now.
user: okay, all I can see now is my icons.
Me: Okay, double-click on the My Computer icon, and then open Dial up networking.
###
Two steps at a time, max. Even YOU couldn't follow instructions much more complex than that unless they were written down.
###
user: Okay. Now I've got "Make new connection," and "Internet Foo"
###
See, we've just established that the user has windows 95 or windows 98. If he had Me or XP, he wouldn't get this, and I would ask him what he *does* have in this window, and I could figure it out from there. At any rate, I now have the information in our database so we don't have to guess next time.
###
Me: Okay, now right-click on the "Internet Foo" icon...
user: right click?
Me: click with the button on the right side of the mouse. It should pop up a menu.
user: Okay, it says 'connect', blah blah blah
Me: Alright, now click properties at the bottom.
user: right click or left click?
Me: Unless I say otherwise, I always mean left click.
user: okay...
Me: we should see the phone number here. More than likely, we've got the area code in the area code box. Windows will just assume you don't need to dial that unless you're dialling long distance. Just type '604' at the beginning of the phone number in the phone number box.
###
Finish up the call, various troubles getting user to edit text snipped, close windows, haveaniceday.
The user I just walked through here is pretty typical, although perhaps a bit on the slow side and certainly not clued when it comes to computers. You'll notice there's no yelling, no frustration on my part, and most of all, it's not that hard.
I hope this helps.
"No problem. I have the capacity to do infinite work so long as you don't mind that my quality approaches zero."-Dilbert
Here's a test for all geeks here to determine if you're true geeks or if you're a luser. It's not an unfair test, BTW. I personally know several people who could answer yes to each question.
(1) Do you know how to trap+skin+butcher+cook+preserve your own food?
If you answer yes, you're a survival-geek, goto question (2).
If you answer no, you're a survival-luser. Go sit in a corner while the geeks laugh at you, or go to step (2) to find out if you're even more of a luser.
(2) Can you build your own car and maintain it properly?
If you answer yes, you're a car-geek, goto question (3).
If you answer no, you're a car-luser. Go sit in a corner while the geeks laugh at you, or go to step (3) to find out if you're even more of a luser.
(3) Can you build your own house and maintain it properly?
If you answer yes, you're a construction-geek, goto question (4).
If you answer no, you're a construction-luser. Go sit in a corner while the geeks laugh at you, or go to step (4) to find out if you're even more of a luser.
(4) Can you fly your own plane and maintain it properly?
If you answer yes, you're an avation-geek, goto question (5).
If you answer no, you're a avation-luser. Go sit in a corner while the geeks laugh at you, or go to step (5) to find out if you're even more of a luser.
(5) Can you run a mile in 4 minutes?
If you answer yes, you're a running-geek, goto question (6).
If you answer no, you're a running-luser. Go sit in a corner while the geeks laugh at you, or go to step (6) to find out if you're even more of a luser.
(6) Can you climb a 10+ or V11 rock face? (If you have no idea what I'm talking about, answer no.)
If you answer yes, you're a climbing-geek, goto question (7).
If you answer no, you're a climbing-luser. Go sit in a corner while the geeks laugh at you, or go to step (7) to find out if you're even more of a luser.
(7) Can you remember the names and phone numbers of 1000 people that you've just met 2 hours ago?
If you answer yes, you're a memory-geek, goto question (8).
If you answer no, you're a memory-luser. Go sit in a corner while the geeks laugh at you, or go to step (8) to find out if you're even more of a luser.
(8) Do you know what Bach's last words were? How about the number of toes an elephant has? Or what Steven Spielberg's approximate weight was when he was in high school?
If you answer yes to even one of these questions, you're a trivia-geek, goto question (9).
If you answer no, you're a trivia-luser. Go sit in a corner while the geeks laugh at you, or go to step (9) to find out if you're even more of a luser.
(8) I mentioned that, "It's not an unfair test, BTW. I personally know several people who could answer yes to each question." It's true. What I didn't say was that I know no-one who can answer yes to *all* questions;-)
So how did you do? Are you a total geek? Are you a total luser? Did you even pass?
If you aren't a total geek, then you should be able to understand how it is to be a luser and try to have sympathy for the poor luser. Sometimes lusers need to go to geeks for help. The luser may be completely incompetent in the geek's specialty
In general, the world need more people with your attitude and patience. Not to mention complete absence of elitism.
:-)
In lack of mod points, please accept this post and a new user to your fan base.
I have seen alot of people here telling techs that they shouldn't blame end users for not knowing any better.
I'm sorry, but I just don't see it that way.
ONLY when it comes to tech products can people believe that it is alright to be uninformed and ill prepared to function.
If I worked for Ford Motor Company and I got a call from some idiot who didn't know that you had to use a key to unlock the door or start the engine on his brand new Mustang, I'd be highly upset.
If I worked for Nike, I'd be pissed off if I was expected to take calls from idiots who couldn't figure out how to lace their new Air Force One's.
Peoplw who work for BMG aren't expected to take calls from clueless fucks who don't know which side faces up when they play their new Backstreet Boys CD.
I've worked tech support in several industries, and the attitudes of idiots are universal. It is MY fault because THEY don't know what the fuck they're doing.
In addition to computers. I have done tech support of a Satellite TV providor. I couldn't tell you the number of people who have to call in EVERY TIME their power goes out and their TV gets reset to channel 2. You read the 80 notes in the account and the first thing you try is to have them press the buttons "0" and then "3" on their remote control, because that's what they were instructed to do 80 times before and guess what, it works!
Sure, some companies force techs to follow a scripts that cripple their ability to help customers, but the larger problem is that it is too easy for people to live out their lives in ignorance.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
We needed CNN to determine that end users aren't so bright? What's the world coming to ...
My most recent tech support experience was about 5 years ago and went something like this:
Tech Number 1: Hello, thank you for calling XXXXXX. How can I help you?Me: Hi! I'm running MacOS 8.6. Recently, my internet connect has gotten very flaky. I can connect with no errors and do anything I like for the first 30 seconds or so with no problems. But then I either get disconnected or have a system crash.
TN1: Hmm... We had a guy a few months ago with those systems. He had a corrupt DNS cache; deleting the file cleared up his problems.
Me: Great! Do you know which file it is?
TN1: It was in the system folder.. I think it was named DNSCache or something like that. Just look for a file with DNS in the title.
Me: Ok, I'll try that and see if it works.
TN1: Actually, I'm not a Mac expert; let me transfer you to another guy who knows a lot more about Macs than I do and he can make sure your problem is fixed.
Me: OK.
Tech Number 2: Hello, thank you for calling XXXXXX. How can I help you?
Me: Hi! I'm running MacOS 8.6. Recently, my internet connect has gotten very flaky and disconnects or crashes frequently. The other guy suggested I delete the DNS cache. Do you know anything about that?
TN2: OK. The first thing we're going to try is to reboot your computer and see if that clears the problem.
Me: err.... yes; I already tried that. It didn't help. TN2: Sir, you could not have rebooted your computer already. The process takes a minute or two.
Me: I meant, I rebooted the computer earlier, before calling you. The problem persists despite rebooting.
TN2: Yes, sir. Move your mouse over to the "Special" menu. You do see the special menu, right?
Me: Yes.
TN2: Good! Now hold down the mouse button, drag down to "restart" and let go of the mouse.
Me: (sigh)
Mac: Boing!
TN2: OK, it sounds like your computer is rebooting.
Me: OK, can I now tell you that rebooting did not fix the problem?
TN2: Just one step at a time. Let me know when the computer has rebooted.
(pause)
Me: OK, it has rebooted. TN2: Great! Now lets see if the problem is still there.
Me: It is,
TN2: Have you tried connecting to the Internet just now?
Me: I only have one phone line, so I can't connect while using the phone.
TN2: Are you running control strip?
Me: Yes.
TN2: Great! Look for an icon on your control strip which looks like a globe.
Me: Let's pretend for a moment that I click the icon and open the OpenTransport control panel. I then click the default button of "connect". You hear a loud click, my modem plays a "Boop-beep-beeep-boop" as it dials the number, and there is a long pause. Then Open Transport will display the error message: "Unable to connect: Remote site did not answer". Now what do you want me to do?
(long pause)
TN2: Sir, do you have one line or two?
Me: Like I said earlier, just one.
TN2: Just so I understand, do you mean that the modem is connected to the exact same line as your phone, the one you and I are using right now?
Me: Yes.
(pause)
TN2: (official voice) Sir, I am sorry, but you will be unable to test your connection to the interent during this call.
Me: Yes.
TN2: So, what we need to do.... We need to end this call. Try connecting to the internet after we hang up. And if it doesn't work, please call right back at XXX-XXXX and we'll get some help for you.
The ironic part is that since I didn't call him back, he thinks he must have helped me.
I remember that very episode of Dick Van Dyke myself.
"... and scream like a chicken!!" as he's got the paper bag held up high.
I agree with you to a point... just wanted to make a distinction about surgeons, similar to a point raised above by another poster. I am a doctor myself, BTW.
Surgeons are doctors, that's true, and they are often stereotyped as being brusque, impatient, and sometimes frankly rude. Like most stereotypes, there's a grain of truth to it in some cases. I prefer to think of it another way: I want a surgeon who is adept as his craft, not necessarily one who is nice. If I can't have both, I'll take one who is the best operator, since I could care less about his demeanor if the majority of our interaction is while I'm anesthetised. Just fix my freaking bowel obstruction and spare me your misanthropic attitude... I want him for his hands, not his personality. Similarly, in tech support, I'll take someone who knows his craft first, and someone who's ingratiating and nauseatingly nice second (assuming I can't have both).
By the same token, I believe most people just want their computer fixed, though techs will often have to eductate people in that process. All that's required on the customer's end is a teachable spirit, and some patience on the part of the tech. Let's face it, both the customer and the tech have the same goal; that is, to end their encounter as quickly as possible. Attitude will often intrude, just like it does in my own practice (nobody having crushing chest pain is in the mood to endure a long lecture about their cigarette smoking). In the same way, nobody who's pulling their hair out with a computer problem is in the mood to be treated like a moron. Nobody likes a smart-ass, no matter the situation. I might think a person is stupid for continuing to smoke after their third heart attack... but I would never say so out loud... it would seriously harm the theraputic relationship, and anything that interferes in my helping someone is to be generally avoided. Not to put too fine a point on it, but helping them is my one and only reason for being there. It's true the stakes in tech support are not as high, but the principle is the same.
That said, I WILL call bullshit on a frankly abusive or violent patient. Unfortunately for you techs, you don't have the option of administering drugs to your customers.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
And written language is badly designed because people can't just pick up a book and read it without several years of instruction first?
UIs can be badly designed, but if the user hasn't even made an attempt to check the manual or the help files, i know where i'd be placing the blame first.
If the user has taken those preliminary steps and is still flummoxed, then something is wrong, either the UI is faulty, the manual or help files are incomplete, or they're badly indexed. (I'll agree the user shouldn't have to read the _entire_ set of documents just to fix one problem)
In that case the next version of the product should have that feature fixed, or the docs or index to the docs updated.
However issue of whether it's a bad UI or a bad user aside, you're right, tech support should be glad that there are so many clueless people willing to keep them employed, and to provide amusing stories to the rest of us.
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
One of my favorites from tech support went like this:
Customer: My computer is broken and I need it fixed.
Me (after hearing description of the problem): That sounds like a software problem.
Customer: I don't use software
"For every expert, there is an equal and opposite expert"
This tech vs. user problem stems from the fact that computers are still too hard to use and understand. The usability hasn't "settled in" yet.
Regular home telephones and family cars have been fairly straightforward user experiences for some time now. People can approach them easily, consistently, and the pedagogy for them is well established.
New model copy and fax machines have been getting better in recent years, though they can still be a bit bewildering. If these technologies aren't obsoleted they may very well get away from their early confusing usages. Similarly video players and game consoles.
But desktop computers have been go go go. They haven't stopped changing, simplified, or settled, but instead are doing the opposite. There are more and more options, they do more and more things, and there are more conventions than ever. This may never change, because computers are virtual machines, meaning they can be anything, and this particular feat makes them so damn useful, but at the same time often makes them less than usable.
But, for consumers, desktop computers probably will settle someday (hopefully soon). Email, web browsing and word processing don't have to be hard. Those little email-only machines never took off, but maybe they were before their time. My mother would be a lot happier with one. Ask yourself, how much about computing should someone have to know just to use a browser or send an email? The correct answer: almost none.
Of course, eventually, my mom would want to email someone a picture she took, or put up her own web page, and she'd be right back in the awful fray.
Personally, I wish those little email & word processor machines had taken off. There are people who _want_ to do cool things with computers, and those people should buy them. But there are lots of people who simply want to browse the web, send email, and print letters - and those people are ill served by being tricked into buying a computer.
Fortunately, cell phones, PDAs, and console game machines seems to be cannibalizing a lot of the regular home computer sphere of service. Maybe in the future families will just buy these devices (which still need some "settling") and forego a home computer.
It can't happen too soon.
I asked him if he had entered CMOS himself or if the computer had booted into it. He didn't answer me, just said he was in CMOS. Usually it detects an error and asks you to hit F1 or DEL to enter CMOS settings, etc. So I had him select Standard settings, not knowing what clock speed and voltage his CPU was as I didn't build his computer and the guy who did wasn't the guy he called when things went wrong. So he starts talking about different things for 15 minutes. I asked him if the settings took, and he said No, it still says Standard settings and didn't change the screen. I wondered if he hit the Enter key, he said he did, but still no change on the screen. I had him hit the enter key again, and he said it took that time. I then asked him to hit Enter on the hard drive setting, he talked about different things, and then said the computer was rebooting. I didn't tell him to reboot yet, and I was waiting to hear if he had the CMOS actually detect the hard drives. No answer from him on that. So I asked him again, and he said he did but now it says hard drive failure.
I got fustrated, this is my best friend after all, Automotive Expert, but not sure how to enter CMOS settings. So now tomorrow he is bringing his computer over to my house so I can properly look at it. I have no idea if he actualy hit the settings I told him to, or if he was doing something else. If he did do what I told him to, I couldn't tell from the phone call, and his hard drive controller or hard drives may be fried. If he didn't do what I told him to, and he just entered random numbers for the hard drive instead of auto detecting them, then I can see why he got the hard drive failure message.
I used to work at a help desk, I'll never work at a help desk again if I can help it!
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
I find myself doing informal tech support for several intelligent people who expect not to be able to solve computer problems. Their eyes glaze over because they 'know' they won't understand.
I now accept that the little notes saying things like "Control and C = Copy" will still be useful to these users after five years, because of their strong belief in their inability to learn computer stuff. I suspect this kind of computer user will be with us for a long while. I have given up telling them what they 'ought' to learn and just fix whatever they want fixed.
Based on what I have to deal with at my ISP support job, I can agree with the argument that it's often the customer.
Take what happened to me today. It's an extreme example, but it shows just what techies deal with. I had a call come in, and I asked for opening info. I suddenly hear some dialing from the customer again. I tell him that I'm a real person. He pushes some numbers again. It took something around 4 attempts to get him just to actually respond to me! He even said that his version of Windows was "a Pentium." And you expect someone like this to be able to use the Internet properly?
Many customers are just simply unwilling to deal with the fact that the computer is a machine like any other. Instead of treating it like (as an example) a car and learning enough to figure out how to perform maintenance, they feign helplessness and call someone else.
What we really need is mandatory classes and/or reading before someone is allowed to use their first computer. This should also include awareness of terms, and the fact that other computer platforms exist besides what's in the majority. Once someone at least knows how to navigate some basic control panels and access menus, then they can use a computer!
a system right nest to the tvs, it had better be as easy to use as the TV.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
The real problem between techies and end users is one of communications. Techies often use terms and jargon and expect the end user to know them. When the end user doesn't, they think they are stupid or ignorant.
Often they are neither, simply not familiar with the jargon of the techie world.
The real problem is with the techie, they are the ones who have a primary responsibility to insure that end users understand them.
This actually happened to me one day. This user was in marketing (big surprise) and honestly had trouble finding where to plug the power cable into his laptop.
LUser: "Can you please increase the power to my LAN segment?"
Me: "Come again?"
LUser: "Please increase the power to my LAN segment."
Me: (amused enough to wonder what the hell he was on about this time) "Why do you need the power to your 'LAN segment' increased?"
LUser: "I'm printing a document and it comes out very light, lighter than everyone else's. Obviously my LAN segment is weak."
Me: (dude, it ain't your LAN segment that's weak) "Have you been watching 'Star Trek' again?"
LUser: "Beg pardon?"
Me: "Nothing.. let's go have a look. I'll bet your laptop went into a special 'Power-Save' mode that drops the power-output from the NIC."
LUser: "The what?"
Me: "The thing on your laptop that the LAN plugs into."
LUser: "Not the power supply.. that's OK."
Me: (very alarmed now, but not showing it) "No, the little blue cable with the clear plastic end on it."
LUser: "Oh.. ok."
So I walk over to the other side of the building to inspect his machine. After giving it a thorough "going over", I switch his printer setting from "Draft" to "Normal". Then I jiggle the network cable and pronounce the "LAN Segment" at full power...
Another satisfied LUser.
I have something in common with Stephen Hawking...
How is this article Slashdot worthy? It's just some punk telling us that 'end users tend to be stupid'. Well, duh; who DOESN'T know that?
I find it more amusing however that a chit-chat article made it on CNN.
1-800-DEV-NULL
I have something in common with Stephen Hawking...
It seemes to me that both sides are partially to blame.
The computer makers are more than likely underpaying and undertraining staff for what is, obviously, a very difficult job. Much like teachers, they are underpaid and a good one makes a big difference.
Many users like my parents (don't get me started) refuse to take responsibility for educating themselves on the basics of the machine. My parents still don't understand the difference between hard drive storage space and RAM. Computers are complicated - you have to take some time to read and experiment until you understand the vocabulary and basic methodology.
So, here is one idea for a partial solution - have levels of support based on the users grasp of the OS. So, when a user wants to buy a support package, he or she is directed to a short multiple choice quiz on the Web that ranks the user based on their skill. The higher they rank, the cheaper their support package.
This may seem a little harsh, but it makes logical sense.
* Users like you and I might not have to jump through so many hoops to actually get to a crux of the problem becuase the person on the other end of the line would know that we have a clue.
* People who know their computers better are less likely to need tech support and should, therefore, pay less. Conversly, people who don't bother to learn the lingo and basic operation of their machine would be fairly penalized.
* Joe and Jane would have more incentive to pick up that Windows XP for idiots book and give it a read.
* Users who don't understand such basic terms as "right-click" and "hard drive" could be forced to learn those terms prior to callinng tech support.
"The world is a construct of forceful imagination. Those who don't know walk around in the reailties of those who do"
I do hardware and software support for diesel engine controllers and the windows based software used to program the controllers and extract data from vehicles. Part of my job consists of assisting accident investigators with data extraction and analysis, which is both fun and interesting, but the majority of my time is spent on the phone with diesel engine mechanics, who generally as a group are not computer literate in the least. (I once received a laptop from a user to investigate problem; on the desktop, right under "My Computer" was "Shortcut to My Computer." As an example, I would never think of saying "right-click on My Computer", that's way too advanced. It's more like "Move your mouse until your pointer is pointing at the My Computer symbol on your Main Screen (which is how they invariably refer to the desktop), then click once on the right-hand button of your mouse." Most of these fellas feel sheepish about their lack of PC savvy, but I always tell them that I would be lost replacing the fuel pump on my car so it's all relative. It's not their fault that all of a sudden they are forced to become tech users when they signed up to be wrench monkeys. They're always grateful when I can fix their problem in a few minutes after they've been banging their head on the bench for an hour, and I'm grateful to have the opportunity to spend my day helping people. There's way too many Tech Support people who act like they're put out when someone calls for assistance.
--If 50,000 people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing.
An interesting thread as I was a technical consultant for a State library system for several years when computers were being introduced into libraries and there was little experience with technology by library staff members. I ran into several hundred "trouble calls" and I set up a "triage mechanism" where my intuition told me that after a few mins on the phone let me several things 1)the severity of the issue 2)the tech ability of the caller 3)any techies nearby at all if the issue was clearly beyond the scope of the caller. It was encumbant upon me to assess their situation and make an appropriate decision as to best help them .. clearly they are in distress and sometimes a phone call can clear an issue but sometimes, an on site visit is the only remedy.
Many times the solution is easy for me but impossible for them to implement.
It is important for us to remember that for many, technology is a tool and they need help if it fails them.
Best
Jeff
... it's upper management. The overpaid, underworked, affluent people in positions of responsibility simply aren't competent or ethical. Furthermore, they've got it made in the shade whether or not they deserve it, so why should they care? Croynism, nepotism and patronism rule in our society.
These people of privilige have used their power entirely for self gratification. In the process, they've sold us all down the river so they can live like kings. They are criminals and traitors, pure and simple and they've so corrupted the system that there is no democracy or freedom for most Americans. The global situation is worse, billions starve to death, billions more will never have a fair chance at a decent life. Not that the wealthy care, as they'd rather be landlords in hell, then tenants in heaven. Greed has destroyed this land, we're only watching while the rot spreads down from the top now.
From what I've seen, the computer company really doesn't care.
I worked tech support for e-machines for awhile, and was halfway good at it. Right now you are saying to yourself, "That explains a lot." And you'd be right. But my check came from the support company's bank, not the customer's. That means that it is my job to do what the company tells me to do.
In this case, the company explicitly said that we weren't to bother with Linux, or anything but the standard configuration of the machine. They put some rather tight time limits on us. Nowhere, and at no time, did they tell us to do right by the customer and to think logically or to tell the truth.
The only thing that mattered was beating the metrics. That is only tangentially related to helping the customer.
The idea that the logical and reasonable is the tech flunkie's job is a pipe dream. Especially when the work for e-machines (email em if you know what I'm talking about.)
Regardless, even with the support of the ignorant, you're going to be way ahead following directions patiently, making a list of the things you've already done, and actually making sure you're in front of the machine with a telephone and sufficient light to see. Seriously.
The big challenge for both parties is realizing when the other is out of their depth. I loved it when the customer realized I was lost and politely demanded a supervisor. It got them out of my hair helped my metrics.
A pedantic, step by step approach to problem solving often is the most efficient. The tech may be counting on throwing away a little time on every call, just to avoid missing a jump that could cost hours. Occasionally there may be fault in your computer model, or some other part of the system, that doesn't seem logical. The tech only be picking up on it because the person next to them has seen it five times that week and discussed it during lunch.
Again, when you're dealing with two-week-wonders supporting customers on cheap entry level machines, deciding who's the idiot isn't always easy.
Yelling doesn't help. I remember getting great joy out of charging a guy for the call because he was a little over an hour out of the free tech support period (20 days, I think.) If he wouldn't have made a stink, I wouldn't have checked the time stamp that closely.
I'm glad that job is over. Now I'm going to back up my imporant files because this machine is an e-tower 500ix2. You never know.
Why do I have this? I don't smoke.
That is exactly how I handled it as a tech, although I would have explained right click when I asked for it.
Being as that is almost word for word the exact thing that I did, you would have to admit that every call does not always go that smoothly, and those are the ones that cause the general complaining.
I've worked for a local ISP with the cheapest rates in Indiana, and I had numerous calls with people in which getting to dialup networking was a 30 minute conversation.
After that I moved on to working for a large insurance company, and dealing with internal clients. Much easier to deal with.
They have just enough information to help me out, and if they do not, I ask to speak with their supervisor, and have them walk through the process.
Never a problem, unless dealing with a higher up who felt that their needs for the slightest thing was more important than the needs of everyone else.
Thankfully, I have passed that hurdle in my career, but quite honestly I never minded doing internal support.
http://use.perl.org
I've had a lot of fun reading this site. But I have to say, the funniest line on it seems to be unintentional.
Umm imagine a supposedly clueful techie, laughing at the clueless l0s3rs, thinking that application programs 'boot'?
Heh.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
True, but one /is/ expected to know the basic operations of a motor vehicle, and its important controls. Not knowing what a right click is, or the OS one is running is like not knowing where the brake pedal is, or the make/model of the car, respectively. If you buy a tool, learn how to use the damned thing.
A user who doesn't know basic layout of their desktop, or basic tasks deserves as much sympathy as someone who runs a red light 'cos they don't know that you're supposed to stop.
This type of user is a big headache too. I used to do support for a hosting company. There were customers would would open tickets saying "my website doesn't work", without specifying their account usernames nor the specifics of their problems. Now suddenly we have to waste another couple of emails just to get them to give the details needed for troubleshooting.
Finally when it's clear what his account is and the problem he's having, I tell him "please open up a ms-dos prompt and type 'tracert domain.com'". I then get yelled at for being condescending to him. What a jerk. How am I supposed to know how much this guy already knows? I ask a simple question and instead of getting a "I already did that", I get scolded.
This is just one of the typical scenarios you run into as a tech. If you've worked in this field for any length of time, you'll begin to realize that a huge percentage of support is dealing with ignorant users with attitude problems.
eTrade SUCKS
1) At almost every OEM tech support department, we are "graded" by our ability to fix people's problems on the first call (this is usually required for government contracts). Where I do my tech support, our scripts constantly change based on discovery of problems with a particular machine. Sometimes those problems don't show up in searching the internal knowledge base. As it relates to the tech, it suppliments their ability to fix problems. AND more importantly, the tech can blame the script for not fixing the problem. For some, that can mean a raise or a pink slip.
2)Some people work at an OEM, they could be suporting 5-10 business lines with 20 products. you do the math. *EVERY* product created have some quirks. Some more than others. Its not easy to remember quirks and specs of that many products.
3)The scripts are arraigned in a way that the most successful ways to fix a system are at the top of the list. Doing steps out of order can make a 5 minute call drag on for 15+ minutes.
I can understand that people will fib to speed up the process. However, you have to make for damn sure that you've troubleshot the problem correctly. For example, on laptops, you have a reed switch that tells the system that the lcd is closed. If that reed switch fails, you get a no POST senario. 99.9% of the people on the want motherboard replacements. Usually the ones that argue with the tech the most are the systems with the failed reed switch. And that is a LCD replacement. So, if you want to fib to speed up the process, you may delay getting your system running correctly.
For those who are experienced with systems and call in tech support, please realize that techs have a job to do also. They have to cover their asses so that if shoddy troubleshooting occured, its not on their "grades". Also, everyone works with jerks in their companies. Just because they are on the phone doesnt give anyone the right to be a jerk on the phone with a tech.
Often enough they're considered "literate" if not even "power users". Why? Because someplace along the road they learned how to use MS Word or Excel.
To complicate things, they're usually considered computer "literate" by someone - completely on the basis of having once put together a tiny spreadsheet in Excel and changed a font or two in Word.
To me this is literacy in the small - about fourth grade level in literacy-as-reading terms.
The analogy is always made with cars. Many people drive and drive well - but they are often said to be "car illiterate" because they don'tunderstand the internal combustion engine and can not adjust a cars timing with a yardstick and an alarm clock. So, the argument then goes, why should anyone need to know anything more about computing?
I find this analogy unpersuasive. Think about it - almost everyone who drives is "driving literate" in some sense. They know the basics of how to drive a car (not entirely simple) and how a car works (enough anyway to know that you need to put gas in it and change the oil ) and usually things like how to change tires. They also know the basic mechanics/physics of driving, the general rules of the road, basic road etiquette, how to read a map (well, mostly) and so on. "Driving literacy" is really pretty complicated. A good driver who's had some years of driving experience in a variety of conditions knows a whole lot. (Admittedly, much of this is not usually taught - Driver's Ed notwithstanding.)
But even so, a car is a pretty simple device compared to a computer. Cars do one basic thing - carry their contents from one place to another (serious reductionism here!). Computers are complex and very flexible in comparison to cars. Most computers can run software that does many different (and sometimes very different) kinds of things (think Word vs Excel vs Blender vs Mozilla vs Big Complicated Game).
So, counting someone as "computer literate" because they can turn on a windows machine and use a specific version of word (or whatever) just doesn't work for me.
Computer literacy for me is much more. I'm not sure what I'd consider computer literate, but at a minimum it would involve :
The most important parts for me are the meta knowledge. Not knowing how to change a font, but knowing how to approach finding the information about how to change a font. This can not be taught simply by teaching a couple simple applications.
I've proposed "computer literacy" requirements in a couple of different universities that would at least go a step or two beyond MS Word (even if not to the meta-knowledge I mentioned above) and the bulk of the faculty have responded predictably. Most common is the attitude of "We dont know that. Our students don't need to.", next is "But why? All anyone ever needs to know
I've actually had staff try and convince me that there is no such thing for TCP/IP for Linux (or for that matter, OS/2), and they wouldn't let up or otherwise ask elsewhere. When asked "well, how am I connecting to the internet?", they are absolutely convinced that it is not possible that I am connecting to the internet.
I've also had tech support tell me that connection problems that are on their end are really on *my* end by techs at...well, the company's name rhymes with "birth stink". Obviously their phones just ringing off the hook is because I didn't change anything on my machine. (Said problems were solved by threatening attrition.)
This sig no verb.
...a team of leading scientists announced that the sky is blue.
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
Are you being sarcastic? And I quote: "Your post shows the amount of experience you have. It's very low." And people wonder why IT guys are hated.
Random is the New Order.
I've personally witnessed two patrol cars pull into my work a few months back, two officers get out, and after speaking to the receptionist were allowed into the building. To make a long story short, one of our fax machines had been dialing 911 (I was never told how that could have come about).
Believe it or not, but it's true
I've personally witnessed two patrol cars pull into my work a few months back, two officers get out, and after speaking to the receptionist were allowed into the building. To make a long story short, one of our fax machines had been dialing 911 (I was never told how that could have come about). Believe it or not, but it's true
The writer of this article should have included a link to techtales.com. At least that way we would get a laugh out of it.
Not the world. Actually, Lakeland FL is the "hottest" spot in FL for lightning (between Tampa & Orlando). They bill themselves as the light. cap of No. America, dunno how accurate, but I've seen a lot of Florida, and on your way into lakeland, you will notice a LOT of trees that have obviously been struck.
Techs are morons.
Users are morons.
Humans are composed of two classes - techs and users.
Ergo, all humans are morons.
Q.E.D.
Spockian logic brought to you by the Master of Transhumanism.
Click here for PayPal donation for your moment of enlightenmment.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
In my short stint in a tech support role, I was told never to admit that the problem might be on our end. For example the server on our end went down and calls started to come flooding in, and we were instructed to take a number and say that I would look into it. When we solved the problem on our end, we would call back and walk them through a bunch of steps.
Never would we admit that we had a failure on our end. If they asked about it, we would just say something about how something between us and them might have been causing some problems.
"The amount of patience they have is staggering."
:)
Former patience, you insensitive clod!
...everybody has one. Even me.
Like many here, I spent a couple of years doing phone tech support, and have done my share of sysadminning, and I'm a big fan of the idea that people should do what they're good at. If that means that Joe Lawyer has to call tech support occasionally, that's OK.
The problem isn't the competent, nor those scared of the machine (at least they'll do EXACTLY what you tell them and tell you EXACTLY the results). The problem is those who think they know what they're doing, second-guess the tech, and lack the patience to deal with it all. Add to that the fact that your average phone tech is paid far less than a plumber or mechanic, and you have huge burnout (= 6 months in my experience).
I can't really grudge someone who's making $10/hour feeling a bit holier-than-thou. I make four times that now, so I'm happier, nicer, and don't have an attitude problem wrt service.
Now this is a great example of irony. Complain about the clueless users while unable to post a readable comment!
;-)
I know that, can also use the paragraph tag, but I wanted to know if it was possible to edit the post.
No, apparently you do not "know that". How about you learn how to use Slashdot before wasting our time with your dumb newbie questions? Oh, and how about you learn how to try things first [Preview], and do some research: http://slashdot.org/faq/ , and ask better questions? Should take you, oh, about five minutes.
Starting to understand how the hapless user at the mercy of tech support feels?
Take this post to an English teacher or tutor and have them explain to you why nobody understands or listens to your "explanations" or "training".
Sheeesh !!!
I'm suprised that no one has mentioned SOE. The support for Everquest, Star Wars Galaxies, etc is abominable. The reps get no time to talk with anyone, and all they ever do is send you an email becuase they have to move to the next call. After you're off the phone the real fun starts. Then you get the same response over and over to an ongoing problem.
Now, as a former tier two technician, I'm no 1337 h@x0r but I'm not completely stupid. When I get the same form response telling me to do the same fix I did from the last email, I just gotta wonder how bad it must be to work at SOE.
maybe the whole shebang is incorrect. Like trying to do advanced math using roman numerals.
....... if you can't dazzel them with brilliance then baffel them with bull Shit....
Maybe the route to go is to remove complexity that is there to
There is just a hand full of repetitive concepts that can be used to enlighten not only the users but tech people as well. Like switching to the decimal system including the use of the zero place holder, that suddenly makes the advanced math of roman numeral system childs play under the decimal system.
Perhaps the place to start is in what we call "computers" and lets start calling them what they really are.... "automation machines" used for taking complexity (made up of simpler things) and making it easy for the user to use and reuse..... so that the user too can automate what the do...
BUT that would require providing the user with the simple tools to enable them to do so, such that they would far more easily come to understand computers and inturn enable them to find a common vocabulary and understanding in talking with Tech people, if they would even then need to. Like the difference that the zero place holder made in simplifying math...
Between the proprietary commercial IP bitch slapping of keep the consumer in the dark, companies like MS and their de-evolved dos-shell.... and Free Software, Open Source, Open Software....
Where do you think such user friendly changes will more likely happen?
Hint: Virtual Interaction Configuration
O.K., I'm pretty tech savyy, but not an expert. While Playing UT, I kept getting a creeping ping which would always end up well over 10,000 yikes. After Checking my connections, for viruses, and calling to see if Roadrunner had a connection problem, I decided to run a traceroute. Low and Behold I was getting ping timeouts at an attbi address. I call to report it, they tell me they are having no problems, I say there is a ping timeout at one of your locations. They tell me to cycle the power and clear my internet cache - LOL. It took me 3 months and 3 technician visists for them to fix it. What did they say - oh we had a problem with one of our routers. Ummm, I told you that 3 months ago.
Very true - had an interesting situation come up not too long ago, some asshat used my e-mail address as the return address for some spam they sent out, hence I got several bounced messages from invalid targets. I looked at the headers and found Verizon all over the point of origin, so I called them up to find out if they had an abuse address I could forward that e-mail on to.
First call: got this clown in India who told me it was either a virus on my computer or it was something I'd have to contact my local authorities about. Spent a couple of minutes trying to reason with him and he just wasn't having it.
Second call: After explaining the situation again the second tech apologized and gave me exactly what I wanted - immediately. We spoke for a grand total of about 90 seconds.
Truely Brilliant !
If you ever worked in an office full of noisy windows sounds
"How many of us have had to sit on hold for hours and reformat a hard drive as DOS just to convince the tech support lackey on the other end that a hard drive really is bad? "
...
For what it is worth
I have had excellent luck with the few tech support calls I have had to make in the past 5 years by just (politely) telling them that I was a software developer, likely understood what was going on under the hood as well as or better than they did, walking me through the script would only be wasting both of our time, because I had tried everything obvious, I only need specific answers to specific questions, answers which you can't provide, and may I please speak to an "engineer";
My DSL providor's engineers even gave me their direct line, in case I had any further problems, and even asked for my number, in case they needed to ask me a question! (my problem was with a Linux box; they didn't support Linux).
I'm burned out on providing tech support. 85% of the people I support should not be allowed near the computers.
I used to be extremely nice and try to teach and walk people through solving their own problems. Now I have turned to the dark side.
For example, someone calls with a printer problem. With my mouth I am distracting them with playing with the printer. We play with all the buttons, cables, paper, and inks. I don't ask any meaningful questions or try to diagnose the software based upon their lies. In the meantime, I am able to connect to their computer and verify the software side.
The fun part comes when the problem was software, and I tell them, "Good job you fixed it."
I consider myself group 2 (who doesn't?) but I'm smart enoguh to play group 1 as you suggest. This isn't because I like wasting my time on the script, it is because 1 time in 10 I missed something that is in the script. I hate to bother someone who knows what they are doing because I forgot some detail, better for the script to find the cat ate my ethernet line again.
I get depressed every time I think about the time I spent in tech support at an ISP. We got calls from people like Grandpa, whose daughter gave him a PC so they could email back and forth and save on long distance charges. Grandpa knew zilch about computers. He signed up for an account, and called us to help him get connected (this was standard practice --- sales would enter new customers into the database and refer them to the techs to get connected).
We had to instruct Gramps on the construction of his mouse, and how to right-click on icons. The call took 45-minutes, but we were finally able to get him set up. The old guy called practically every night for 2 weeks, needing help with this or that aspect of operating a computer (how to use IE, what email was and how to send and receive it, etc).
Unfortunately, we had quite a few customers like that. I don't remember how many times I was on the phone with complete newbies with absolutely no experience with computers for 30 minutes or more.
Need a Linux consultant in New Orleans?
I currently work 1st tier phone support at a college. This means I come into contact with people with all different levels of knowledge. I don't have a problem with people who don't know much about computers, as long as they are willing to admit that they don't know everything, and work with me to resolve the problem. I can't tell you how many people I've had call because a monitor or computer won't power on, say they have checked all the connections, and the tech comes out and finds a loose connection. I've had people want a tech to come out and create shortcuts on their desktop.
The worst is people who don't save for 3 hours, have the computer crash, and then blame tech support for the loss of their document. I had one guy who closed Word, clicked "no" on the would you like to save box, and then called us up to complain that his document was gone.
of course, angry customers are not unique to tech support. But I think the biggest problem with users is not lack of knowledge, it's lack of patience.
I have blog like everyone else
I've worked at three different jobs that involved tech support. I've gotten some idiot users, alright. I've also been a real idiot myself. I thought I'd share a few stories here. All of these happened to me personally. These are NOT FOAF stories, and they have not been embellished.
Now, my first computer job was at a mom-and-pop computer store. Like many slashdotters, I had taught myself from a young age, so I came into this job on my feet.
We had one customer I had given a nickname to: "Profit Margin". He kept screwing up his computer, but was always happy to pay for us to fix it, or buy new parts. He came in for repairs at least six times as often as any other customer. (I later found out he had also been visiting two other computer stores for repairs!)
One day in (I think) 1994, he came in and said that his box wouldn't power up. "What did you do?" "I added a CD-ROM." (I knew this was beyond his skills.) First thing I did was to open the box. Cables misplaced everywhere. The customer assured me that he did this for transport, to keep loose cables from flopping around, and they were not like this for operation. I fixed all the cables, and noticed there were two sound cards.
"You got this from a multimedia upgrade kit, didn't you?" Sure enough, he had, and added a second sound card. I pulled the new addition, and then plugged the box into a test station (kb, monitor, etc). Sure enough, nothing.
So, with the box still open, I set it on its side to get better light into it. Since it was a Packard Bell, I asked Ed to come over; he has more experience with PBs. We looked at it for a moment, and I walked around to think.
"Say, Ed?" I asked, noting an unusually placed bolt hole. "Do you remember this hole?"
"No, I don't," he said, examining it closely. "It looks almost like a... drill... hole..." We shared a horrified glance. A quick examination verified that, indeed, there was a drill hole going right through the RAM controller lines.
As it turns out, the user had needed to move the hard drive to mount the CD-ROM in place. This hard drive had unusual bolt placement. Rather than use the normal way (keyhole bolts), he had drilled clean through the case and motherboard.
I keep the motherboard in my closet as proof, for when I tell this story to people who say they're "the stupidest person in the world on computers".
Here's another one. Same store.
A regular comes in. This guy knows computers well, but he comes to us for parts, and the occassional second opinion when he's stumped. One day, he came in with a 5-1/4" drive that he couldn't get working. These days, 3-1/2" drives reigned, but he needed one at the job.
Ed and I take it in the back and load some diagnostics. Ed starts to put in the scratch disk.
"Oh, Ed," I say as he starts to put the disk in. "Flip it over, the drive is upside down."
There was a moment of astonished silence.
Sure enough, that was the only problem.
Even though it was over in 2 minutes, the user insisted on paying for the full hour. I think this was to keep us from telling anybody what he'd done.
Later in life, I was working at a very small software company. In the mornings, I was a programmer, and in the afternoons, I did tech support. My work partner, Bill, was new to the game, but caught on fast. Still, he usually came to me for advice on unusual problems.
Of course, we gave each other a hard time as a matter of course. Practical jokes, transferring each other troublesome customers, and suggesting (to each other, not the customers) outrageous troubleshooting ideas; it was how we coped with the hideous jobs we had. (Well, that and lots of beer after work.)
He came over to my desk, telling me that he had a very impatient customer on the line, and the software wouldn't install. I listened carefully to the symptoms, then told him what to do.
"Tell the customer to take out the disk. Hold it vertically. Then tap it against
I have been reading through an A+ certification book, thinking I could use all the stuff I already know and do for friends for free to make a little spare cash while I'm still in school. This is giving me second thoughts about wanting anything to do with these people.
I work for SBC Internet Services (SBC Yahoo! DSL) and I can say that although most customers calling in for technical support are idiots, the problem isn't with them or the techie (although I've seen many a techie FUBAR a system (myself included on day #2 (SORRY!!)), but rather with the system. Understand that we are not working for the customer but rather for the client. The customer is just another revenue source whom the client CANNOT allow to become a source of expenditures (such as $ for free tech support calls). We have to please the client as opposed to the customer. The customer takes a back seat to our rules and regulations, our policies, our duties as SBCis employees (who don't even get a free friggin' SBC Yahoo! email account!) Rather we bend over for Average Handle [Call] Time (19:45 minutes (HAH!)); average After Call Work [finishing our notes] (less than 10 seconds!); support boundaries (oh you have messenger service/internet connection firewall/msn messenger installed/running? please contact microsoft or your oem so that they can charge you for bothering SBC. here's your caseid# and call us back when they bill your cc#).
We have so many limitations as technical support agents that everyday I get someone coming around to my unassigned, find-whatever-desk-is-open cube everyday for being on a call that involves ripping out all of our software, reinstalling it, reregistering an account for more than 20 minutes (and ESPECIALLY if i had the customer move (NOT DELETE) the AOL icon out of their startup folder). What's worse is that over half of my coworkers CAME FROM MICROSOFT TECH SUPPORT (after it got oursourced to India). Any one of them can do a winsocks rip/reinstall. anyone can fix a simple "my pppoe is disabled in xp" problem. but can we? "I'm sorry sir, but that is a feature of operating system and you'll have to contact Microsoft or your OEM to have them remove New.net from your system. Their number is 1-877-NOMNY4U; Your caseid number is: 3475417"
just a thought..
That really is disgraceful. If you are going to do something professionally, do it well. I can't really see how they can do any advanced development at all, I would imagine it's a hell of a task to use a visual tool to create a complex ASP/PHP/CF/whatever page.
All I have to say is that they should make people take a class or pass a basic user test before they are allowed to utilize tech support. I agree whole heartedly with the post.
I'm not sure if it's an abomination to God or not, but apparently Lucifer isn't happy with it. When my father phoned tech support for MSN to ask why his e-mail wasn't working on his flat-screen iMac, a machine configured for OS X out of the box, they had him install OS 9 over everything because "it's a very buggy OS, it's easier to just use something more reliable." Interesting policy for Microsoft.
I would hesitate to call tech support personnel "specialists". With some of the vendors I've worked with the tech support positions were filled with new hires. Once you'd spent time in tech support purgatory you got a programming position.
Anyway, when I've got a computer problem here are the steps I follow:
1. Check the vendor's web site for a solution.
2. Check web/newsgroups for a solution.
3. Email the company's tech support. Include copious documentation (Dr. Watson logs, screenshots) to convince them I have tried everything they're going to suggest already.
4. As a last resort, I suppose, actually call tech support.
I thought Dr. Soandso was an intriguing name, and was trying to figure out was nationality that is. Spanish?
In my experience almost every bad tech support call is due to the fact that someone on one end of the line or the other is very, very stupid and/or willfully ignorant. Sometimes it's a tech who doesn't know much more than to read a script and keep his mouth shut to keep the flies out. Sometimes it's a luser who needs a few weekly sessions with the clue by four, but someone is about one large predator short of natural selection.
I think people are missing something here.. you need to get a license to drive a car and they take the license off you if you in fact cant drive (if ya crash)... Why do people expect that they should be able to use a computer without any training and that it should be possible to tech support to help them even if they don't have a clue how to use a computer.. You cant call general motors get them to help you cause you cant figure out how to drive. So why should tech support help you if you dont know how to use a computer.
HelpDesk: How may I help you
Me: Your host host.your.domain has two MX records, nn.nn.nn.nn and jj.jj.jj.jj. The high-priority nn.nn.nn.nn works correctly but when nn.nn.nn.nn is down or busy, mail is directed through jj.jj.jj.jj. jj.jj.jj.jj refuses to relay mail to host.your.domain so my email to myusername@host.your.domain bounces.
HelpDesk: What version of windows are you using
Phone monkey: When you get the A Colon prompt type format See Colon.
Me: (glancing at cardboard box containing ready-to-return drive) OK.
Phone monkey: Now hit the why key.
Me: (drumming fingers on tabletop) OK. It says "formatting." Now it says "media error on track 1."
Phone monkey: OK, looks like the drive is bad, here's your RMA number...
Me: Thanks.
I don't asking my cable ISP to support linux. I only ask them to keep their network working, and to give me the basic network configuration info I need, in some form. At Home did that -- the policy was "we don't support linux", by which they meant "we aren't prepared to handle linux-specific issues." They'd make a reasonable attempt, and ping my cablemodem or whatever, and I could talk to second level techs when necessary.
Attbi wasn't as nice about it, and Comcasts's "we don't support linux" means "We won't talk to you if you mention linux," or perhaps "If you aren't running windows, the issue can't possibly be on our end." The one time I've called them, I had had the problem pretty well pinpointed, and the first-level tech I talked to didn't even know what I was talking about. He asked for, and didn't get, permission to escalate the call. I ended up on the line with his supervisor, whose best suggestion was making a complaint, which had to be by snail mail. (As for faking having a windows box, I simply don't know windows well enough to fake it. And the only time I've set up a windows box to pacify the techs was for the original At Home install; it's a 486 with Win95, and the techs couldn't get ethernet going on it.)
And I'm not asking for handholding -- I don't call them until I'm sure there's no way I can fix it from my end. Finding a work-around is faster, easier, more pleasant, and more reliable than calling them.
I'm sure there's no business case for training techs in linux. There may even be a business case against trying to help at all. That doesn't make it any less of a raw deal.
That reminds me! I actually had a customer who put a floppy disk in a slot-in CDROM drive. :-)
zWhat would an EWOULDBLOCK block, if an EWOULDBLOCK could block would? -- me
I would beleive this but this story
Gee. You're an Anonymous Coward who can't spell properly and who types before thinking. Imagine that. Mark Twain once wrote something like "It's better to keep your mouth shut and let people assume you're an idiot than to open your mouth and prove it." Maybe that's why you were modded -1 Flamebait.
Post as something other than AC and maybe people will actually give a fuck about what you do or don't think.
SiO2
Of course, sometimes us experts call them up and spend an hour diagnosing the problem only to find out that I had uh, transposed two letters when I wrote down my user name...
I have a problem connecting to two certain sites. When I used ping plotter just prior to losing contact with one of them, I saw I suffered 100% Packet loss at 10.66.192.1 (A name server from IANA) Shortly thereafter, I couldn't contact the site anymore. In a few hours this clears up. I contacted my ISP (Chartermi) to see if they could do anything or suggest something. The tech didn't know what a tracert was or even ping. Suggested that it wasn't their problem, but to document everything and send it to support@chartermi.net Even if it isn't something they could help me with, not knowing what ping or a tracert is - where do they get these guys?
Driver's License Gun License Fishing License.. ALL EU's need to have a mandatory class and test before they are allowed to even buy a computer or related hardware.... I am tired of all the dumba$$ end users, "Click on My Computer"-- "I can't see your computer", "Move your mouse to the Start Button", "Ok it's over the Start Button (Holding the mouse to the screen)", "What's on your Desktop" -- "Uh, Cup, Food, Mouse, Keyboard", "My DSL isn't working"--"Ok, what lights are on your router?"--"I can't tell, the power's out", "Where's this ANY Key", "How do I know if it's plugged in?", and on and on..... geez...
When I was in customer support, attention to details was an essential part of diagnosing users' problems... especially since I was supporting international clients who 1) were highly non-technical, 2) were using hugely outdated equipment, 3) were not native English speakers, and most importantly 4) had a job to do other than dinking on a PC.
So the AC's post really scared me when I saw he claims to do tech support for a living:
so [1] whats [2] your point.. that doesnt proove [3] anything, other than the fact that the fictional client is a lot smarter than the idiots [4] that made the previously reported calls to tech support... I mean I do tech support for a living, and if you think you have prooved [5] anything just cause [6] u [7] can give an example of a good tech suport call.. [8] Thats how most of my calls go.. [9] Its the really stupid ones that get too [10] ya.
Ok, how many of those 10 highlighted items seem needlessly picky? Like 8 and 9, run-on sentences and ellipses without enough dots. Or 3 and 5, mispelled "prove"? And we can't forget 1, capitalization, right?
Do you say, "what's the big deal, you *know* what I'm trying to say! Why should my grammar matter?" Well, that's exactly what our users are saying. They *know* how to do their job, just like you *know* how to write a coherent sentence. But computers aren't as forgiving, so they have to spell every word correctly, and to have perfect grammar every time.
I guess the strange thing is this: if we Slashdotters are such hotshot coders and hAxX0r5, why can't we spell?
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
Also, I have NEVER heard somebody call a auto repair shop and say 'My car won't start; can you walk me through how to fix it?'
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
My thanks for the folks with the constructive suggestions. The rest of you can kiss my ass as usual.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
My favorite story on that site is where a woman calls her PC the "Engine" (I.e. the case with the Mobo/fans/hds/etc in it). And then the tech support person complains that she dosn't know what to call the "CPU".
I mean, most of these tech support people are idiots themselves! And here they are insulting other people for not knowing things that they happen to know. Pretty stupid and annoying over-all.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Not even win2k needs to be rebooted to change network settings anymore :P Just do ipconfig /renew to get new DHCP settings...
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Example: the infamous `write click' problem. It's quite understandable that new users might not have heard the term `right-click' before, or needed to do it. Tech supporters should understand this; after all, even they had to learn it at some point. However, when the user needs to be told twice, or can't follow simple instructions, then they've crossed the borderline from ignorance to stupidity, and are fair game.
And yes, this idea is blatantly pinched from the introduction to ESR's How To Ask Questions The Smart Way FAQ, where he says "it's simply not efficient for us to try to help people who are not willing to help themselves. It's OK to be ignorant; it's not OK to play stupid."
Ceterum censeo subscriptionem esse delendam.