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Tales From the Support Crypt
An anonymous reader writes "Talking viruses, infected physical devices, and lights that go out are some of the 'problems' Panda Security's tech support service has had to face. Many of them were not a result of computer viruses, but of confused users. This proves once again, that antivirus manufacturers must make a special effort to increase user knowledge regarding computer security and malware effects." For anyone who's been on the receiving end of such questions, now's a good time to tell your cathartic tale.
I have had one or two encounters with genuinely ill people in this profession. It's hard to laugh at them.
An elderly gentleman came in to the shop where I once worked and said he had some questions about his battery backup. I was called up to answer them.
I found myself at something of a loss, however, when I heard his questions. It seemed that his UPS was emitting radioactive gas that was making him ill. He knew, he said, that they used fission piles to make them work, and that all this talk of batteries was nonsense. It was clear from the way he spoke of it that both he and I were in on this little secret. What he needed, he said, was some way to check the radioactive output of the UPS. Alternative suggestions as to the cause of his discomfort were dismissed quickly; he clearly knew the source of his illness, but had to find a way to prove it before he could take proper action. I got the distinct impression he had already tried to contact the manufacturer about it.
I did the only thing I could think of: I checked with my boss to see if he knew where a Geiger counter could be found. He didn't, alas, so I gave the customer some contact information for the US NRC. This seemed to satisfy him, and he left. I never saw him again.
Not once did that old man smile. His face was deeply lined and I don't think he had led an easy life. I often wonder what happened to him, and if there was anything else I could have done to help him.
End of lesson. You may press the button.
Doing tech support it is easy to make fun of the User but please keep in mind some things...
1. Even though you repeat the same advice over and over any particular user will only get it once perhaps twice on average.
2. Most people are not IT Specialists they have other focuses and concerns in their life. Computers are not a big deal. Lets use a car analogy, and the person didn't know if their car is front wheel drive, rear wheel drive, or all wheel drive (I am leaving out 4 wheel drive because there is normally a button that says so). As far as they know it is a car and it gets them to point A and B, the fact that it may be rear wheel drive is irrelevant to them especially if they don't need to drive in snow. However if you are car nut, the fact that someone wouldn't know this fact seems like the person is from a different planet.
3. Even people who are good with IT have gaps or operate on misconceptions. He may be a professor in computer science and knows everything about AI. However he may have never used a Unix system, or done FTP. Here is a challenge for you. If you have never used VMS no matter how good you are at Unix, I bet if you sit in front of the VMS system you will feel like a newbee as all your commands are different and even the full structure is odd.
4. When they do call you, they are embarrassed or fed up. So they will not be in the best of moods. Support is one of those cases when you see people at their worst not their best.
5.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
There's a flip side to that, most admins I've run into presume you are a stupid user and that merely aiming a few steps at your brain, with no explanation about what the steps do or why they are necessary, is sufficient to send you, the miscreant, away so they can get back to playing with the network or sucking on their thumbs or whatever it is admins do to amuse themselves. Whatever problem we have, it is always an imposition on their precious time which never involves teaching us enough so that we won't be in their office in another 6 months when we cannot recall the magic incantations since the problem was never fully explained to us in the first place...leading the sainted admins to crack wise knowing inside jokes about the stupidity they manage to put up with (read: instill) in their users.
That's actually not a rare incident. I don't even wonder how many readers nod their head to this statement because it's been an endless source to their own frustration.
One wonders why. Why do people just click away all messages sent to them by the system? I actually remember an incident where I was called to fix "something with the server". Turned out to be a raid6 system that lost three drives and thus didn't work anymore. Now, I hear you say, how can a raid6 system fail? Raid6 can lose two drives and still work. Three drives dying, power surge maybe? No.
One drive failed, but the hotspare took over. The server beeped, so the beeper was cut off. The server reported dutifully that a drive was blown, which was equally dutifully clicked away without reading it.
Another drive failed, but it still somehow managed to keep going. No beep this time since even the best beepers fail to work when they are not connected. And finally the whole system failed to provide data, or they'd probably have continued 'til a rebuilt would have been impossible.
But the real kicker was that I was being yelled at how we dare to sell a Raid6+spare as a system that prevents data loss. It does, when you don't do your best to ignore every information it gives you about an impending catastrophe.
And this is hardly an isolated case of stupidity. People simply close every warning information they get because "I don't understand it anyway". Without reading it, how do you KNOW whether you understand it?
I dare you to ask that question. It usually results in more yelling, but no really enlightening answers.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solitaire_(Windows)
Microsoft intended Windows Solitaire "to soothe people intimidated by the operating system", and at a time where many users were still unfamiliar with graphical user interfaces, it proved useful in familiarizing them with the use of a mouse, such as the drag-and-drop technique required for moving cards.
"I think an etch-a-sketch with an ethernet port would beat IE7 in web standards compliance."
My friend had a small telescope, which he was getting quite interested in. One day I visited, and found him in a complete fury. Apparently, he had been cleaning it and decided to polish the mirror. He was spitting fire because "the stupid fools put the silver on the wrong side !" ...
I burst out with something like - FFS, it's SUPPOSED to be on that side, because of refraction if you go through the glass. Unfortunately, that was a bit too blunt for him to take as he had effectively fucked his favourite toy. I didn't mean to be rude, but I was mad that he could be so stupid. In retrospect it's easy to call someone stupid, but we all go there at some stage, especially if we are learning something new.
I once had a user call because her computer wouldn't boot. I ended up pulling the hard disk and putting it in another machine so I could recover some of her files. When I looked at it, I noticed a bunch of folders on the root of the disk with three letter names: DLL, EXE, INI, SYS, BAT, etc...
The really impressive part is that she had actually managed to move most of the system into these before hitting the files that were in use.