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What Do You Do for New User Orientation?

Posted by Cliff on from the things-a-bofh-wouldn't-do dept.

An anonymous reader asks: "What do you do for new user orientation? I started at a company as part of a very small help desk / MIS department. Part of my job is to give orientation to all new computer users for the entire company (no more than 10 new users a week). Right now I have to sit with each user, go over logging in, passwords, email, outlook, Microsoft Office, and so on. This takes between 30-45 minutes. What do other IT departments do? I was thinking of a Flash presentation or website, and maybe even a short orientation movie. What ideas have you tried and how well did they work?"

7 of 97 comments (clear)

  1. Orientation? by MyLongNickName · · Score: 4, Funny

    It involves duct tape, Vaseline, five rolls of toilet paper and the trunk of a mini-cooper.

    But we don't call it "orientation", we call it "hazing".

    --
    See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
    1. Re:Orientation? by phunctor · · Score: 3, Funny

      First I orient them in a generally inverted position, suspended by one ankle over the edge of the observation deck. Then, when I begin to actually believe their frenzied promises to RTFM, I re-orient them to a feet-down, head-up position and send them on their way. Help desk calls are down 87%, possibly due to the unfortunate slippage rate amongst those who fail to convince me that they will in fact RTFM. -- phunctor "mmmm, crack!"

  2. Here's what I do by Centurix · · Score: 5, Funny

    I sit them in front of a computer, don't tell them anything and I poke them with a stick if they do something wrong.

    --
    Task Mangler
  3. Re:Set up a wiki by kitsunewarlock · · Score: 2, Funny

    Until some vandal (inside the company* or outside) finds your wiki and has your employee jumping up and down in a grass skirt on the top of his cubicle screaming at the height of his lungs "ITS A TRAP! ITS A TRAP! THE LAWNMOWERS ARE PLANNING A REBELLION AGAINST US! WE WILL SERVE TO EVERY ONE OF THEIR GREASY, SHEERING-INDUCED WHIMS!"** Wait, that might be a good way to preemptively screen for people who don't have the balls, foresight and brain power to determine if an idea is bad or not, even if its an order. *Disgruntled workers, ho! **I for one welcome our new sheering-intoxicated lawn-cutting overlords.

    --
    Ginga no Rekshiya Mata Each page.
  4. Get a co-worker to just start screaming and crying by antifoidulus · · Score: 4, Funny

    about how he "lost his lifes work and will probably get fired because he didn't listen to the IT guy."

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    Monstar L
  5. Re:Swim or drown by biglig2 · · Score: 2, Funny

    Weaklings! I give my users a bucket of sand, and if they haven't build a 486 laptop from it by the end of the day, we kill them and eat their livers.

    --
    ~~~~~ BigLig2? You mean there's another one of me?
  6. Re:Swim or drown by bplipschitz · · Score: 2, Funny

    Weaklings! I give my users a bucket of sand, and if they haven't build a 486 laptop from it by the end of the day, we kill them and eat their livers.

    . . .with a nice Chianti.