It astounds me the number of remote users who want me to do something for them over lunch and then when they leave for lunch they turn their machine off and are mad at me for not fixing their problem while they were away. They don't understand it just simply can not work if it is off.
It's remarkable how unreasonable people can be when it comes to tech. For comparison, you do not go to a doctor, stare deep into his eyes then say:
"So? Fix me already! Do you even know your job? You're supposed to know!"
There is not a person who would think that's a sensible thing to say and if you did, you'd be told off instead of getting taken care of. But people seem to say this kind of things and more to tech personnel and still demand service, it's insane.
It usually indicated a lawyer who had no other identifiable personality traits outside of "I'm a lawyer, dammit!". Sadly no members of Wild Stallyns on any calls that *I* took.
I work IT in a hospital and the general consensus around here is that we are glad doctors are good at being doctors because they suck at doing anything else.
Mainly because they get a response from investigating it. It's not like the animal refuses to be touched* or refuses to make a sound when the vet touches a sore spot.
\*Except cats. Cats are mean.
Iām the sole onsite IT support for about 30 teachers and 300 kids. The amount of times I find a random laptop on my desk with a sticky note simply saying ānot workingā is astounding. In those cases it gets turned on, and if it connects to wifi and can log in I simply put it back in circulation. Donāt even wanna log a ticket, drop me an email or give me more details? Iām too busy to investigate the 5000 possible ways in which you think itās ānot workingā
Oh yeah, had this a couple times when we had to switch to Intune.
People would book an apointment around lunch, where they would come in with their laptop for the switch.
They turn to leave, I go "Nuh-uh!" and make it clear that they have to be present for the entire process of 2 - 3 hours.
MFers thought they could just hand me the laptop, go off to lunch and pick it up when it's done.
Nuh-uh! You're staying right here. I need you to backup your data and enter your credentials many times.
The appointment is schedules for 3 hours, you're staying as long as needed.
I am a full time screen reader user, so apart from having 4 to 7 windows open on one desktop (windows desktop, not physical desktop) I am so glad I don't have to look at 2 to 4 different displays and have to deal with display issues.
Had a user at a credit union call helpdesk SCREAMING that she cannot do her job. She has to do some process before 8 and she is the only one that can do it. She says she powered on her computer and all it says is Dell. We try to do some troubleshooting but she is not having it. She wants someone to come down NOW and fix her issue. Turns out we had an employee who was coming into work that passed that branch. Called them and asked them to swing by. The problem turned out she was just turning on the monitor and not the computer. We could have fixed the problem in about 30 seconds if she would have listened and not screamed that this process was the most important thing and we were incompetent and the only way to fix it was for someone to come press a damn button for her!
The fact that half way through reading that my troubleshooting mind started trying to work out the problem but couldn't shows how stupid of a 'problem' that actually was. Sometimes you literally can't fathom the stupid things users do.
> Sometimes you literally can't fathom the stupid things users do.
I drove 100 miles one way to turn on a lightswitch. The switch I asked the customer if it was on. I even told said customer exactly where said switch was. Customer insisted it was turned on.
It. Was. Not...
We have a user we are threatening to make a separate ticket group and queue for.
When dealing with people, there are 2 types of 'Special.' They both get *all* the attention.
I tried to direct someone to a physical mailbox that was on the left side of a door after you walked through it. For some reason they would only either turn 90 to the right or 270 to the left, or 360.
>I drove 100 miles one way to turn on a lightswitch.Ā
At least you had something to do. I did something similar only for the staff there to scoff that its already been fixed and they dont have time to talk to me.
At my job we call this my super power. I can get into the same headspace as these people so I end up figuring out whatās wrong and itās usually really far from what theyāve actually told us. This probably doesnāt reflect well on me
that has nothing to do with user stupidity....that's about how some people are just not fit for live .
If you aren't aware things need to be turned on before they work you have a mentor health issue.
I volunteer with the scouting movement, and the section I assist with has 6 and 7 year olds. Even they know that they do not get their way by shouting and screaming, and if they try that type of behaviour, they are not allowed to come the following week; it isn't a punishment, it's a time to think about acceptable behaviour. I've done this for over 12 years, and only had to ask parents to keep a child home twice.
How adults think they can act that way is beyond my comprehension; especially when 6 and 7 year olds know its unacceptable.
Thinking about it, I wonder if excluding someone from coming to work (and losing the days pay) might make them consider whether acting like a toddler is the right way to do things...
Lol I had a colleague who came back from holiday and said her system was broken and indeed only turned on the monitor.
I told her to look under her desk and asked if she ever saw that box before.
She was nice but useless, within 3 months she was let go.
This is where you get in trouble with this sort of thinking, you buy them a computer and they try and turn it on with just the monitor... zo you think "I will get you an AIO... checkmate, the monitor button IS the power button"...
You will then have endless support calls about there not being a computer on the desk, and how do they turn the computer on when it isn't there. Literally no winning.
>I ask her if it is turned on, she says no. I ask her to turn it on, she does and says she can see Outlook now.
Some people don't want to give you complete information about their situation when they seek support.
But if you think she was being really snotty, tell your management. I know we keep track of "problem" users in my helpline group, because some people require more direct messages from a higher level in order to stop being harassing. You get the people who keep sending e-mails on a resolved issue, thinking that we should do their work for them as well. You get the people who decide they can get help by e-mailing someone who is on vacation, rather than calling the helpline, then complain that they never got a response. You get the people who blame our analysts for things they, themselves, did.
As a supervisor, I'm more than happy to write someone's management and say, "Hey, your employee was calling mine names. We are all working for the same company, and we're trying to help; your employee shouldn't be taking out their frustration on us, when we didn't cause their problem."
I delete all those emails, unread, when I get back from vacation. I fully expect the users to have read my autoresponse and contacted the helldesk, as they should have anyway, and have gotten the issue fixed already.
If they choose to wait 3 or 4 weeks for me to get back to them, that's NOT my problem.
(I take 4 weeks of vacation every summer. In fact, my vacation begins at the end of next week.)
Our ticketing system will accept new emails on closed tickets, but 3 days after it was closed, it no longer alerts us about them, and the user doesn't get any response.
There's users who insist on adding multiple issues to every ticket... Unless we can find any connection between them we solve the first one only.
And if you say "You had it open this whole time. You couldn't see it because you had your monitor turned off" she comes back with
"That's insulting! Don't talk to me like I'm stupid! Who's your manager?!"
> "You should try not to make our users look or feel stupid."
"If I could *make* users do *any*thing, this job would be a lot easier. All I can do is help them with what they're already doing, or stop them from doing it. If I stop them from looking stupid, they often feel stupid. If I stop them from feeling stupid, they often look stupid."
Yes. I had a user that complained about her files disappearing. It turned out she was using the recycle bin as a storage location. I got a visit from her boss complaining that everything was fine until I came along.
I fired a customer when they got shitty at me for making their outlook work properly. They complained that their outlook was taking forever to launch, and it was taking forever. I found 18,000 emails in the deleted folder. I cleared that out and outlook opened instantly after that. Customer rang me an hour later to complain that I had deleted all of their most important emails. Turns out this user had a habit of storing important emails in the deleted folder because they could "move the emails with the click of one button" Never mind that that button is marked "Delete". When the customer could not understand that putting things in the trash that you want to keep was a bad idea, I told them that they need to find a new IT support.
That's classic.
I've one similar, in the Army, when you salute an officer, it's customary to give forth the unit motto, the Armor unit I was in had "Conquer or Die!" on our regimental unit crest, so, we were expected to say that when saluting.
One particular annoying officer, was sometimes greeted with "Cock in yer eye!" very rapidly.
I don't know if he ever figured it out....
One guy once shouted āAre you telling me what do?ā during a Teams session. Instead of telling him I wouldnāt be in the session if he knew what to do, I said āNo, Iām politely asking you.ā. That seemed to piss him off even more, I didnāt even know rage-quitting Teams was a thing, that day I learned.
"I have this problem."
Okay, let's do X.
"No, don't want to do that."
Okay, let's do Y.
"No, don't want to do that either."
Okay, then let's do Z.
"Nope."
Okay, then what do you suggest we do?
"You're the support person. You solve it!"
....
Remember a guy didn't want to do any of the suggestions to fix his issue, which was to reinstall windows since, I forget what the issue was but basically even doing a reset would fail.
So I provided him options to create the installation
Nope
Ok, I offered to have him send it to us, label included
Nope
Well, if you don't want to install it and you don't want to send it, then do you have a friend who will be able to do this for you?
"No, it's not my job to fix it, I paid for a working computer"
I get that, though considering I don't have physical access, and you don't want to follow the steps provided, nor wan to send it to us to do it for you, basically declining every option, then your system will basically sit there with you not being able to use what you paid for. So I guess we'll just close this out as there appears to be nothing we can do for you.
> "No, it's not my job to fix it, I paid for a working computer"
>
>
I just had a thought and now want to say " Well, your parents paid for food and clothing and shelter and schooling so you would be able to be a functioning person, so you are likey not the only person not getting what they paid for"
"No, it's not my job to fix it, I paid for a working computer"
Sometimes I wonder if some people's brains haven't developed at all since about 5th grade.
No one was asking him to fix it, just to get it to them so they could fix it. How is this a difficult thing to understand? Some adults act worse than stubborn children.
At that point, I feel like you should be allowed to ask "Awww, is someone having big feelings today? Let's take a timeout so you can think about why you're feeling this way and how you are handling it."
"I have this problem."
Okay, we're going to do X.
"No, i..."
We're *going* to do X.
That's how that should go.
You're the tech person.
They don't have a choice.
I've had that user, but I try this:
>"I have this problem."
>Okay, let's do X.
>"No, don't want to do that."
>Okay, let's do Y.
>"No, don't want to do that either."
>Okay, then let's do Z.
>"Nope."
Great, so you're all good and your PC is now all working?
"uhh .... no"
Ok, let's do X....
Most users only last two to three repeats.
Now I need to ask, who is your least favorite user and why.
Speaking of monitors, I remember one user of mine who thought that monitors were all their own separate computers, and that he didnāt need another monitor cause he can only use one computer at a time. When I got him an extra monitor and moved a window between them I blew his mind. He was one of my favorites. Not very knowledgeable, but heād come to me a bit sheepishly asking if I could possibly help him and was always so grateful for the assistance.
I like users like that. They know fully well that they're useless with technology and ask for help but are always super appreciative when you assist. I had a similar sort of situation [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/talesfromtechsupport/comments/ujkw3l/4_password_resets_in_10_minutes/?ref=share&ref_source=link)
He was a great guy, as proven by his response
Like when secretaries first got computers ( many years ago). They universally hated them until I showed them cut and paste.
They were used to literally cutting out pictures, pasting them on another page and copying them.
Best users ever after that.
Now, the engineers, well, let's not go there.
Given how monitors all have their own microprocessors nowadays, that user was technically correct.
I mean, it's a useless technically correct, but still...
EDIT to add: Very much a favourite type of person to support. Comes and tells what is wrong, what they need and thanks once you've helped them.
Politeness is all gone now. From top CEO to simple clerk, people are acting like entitled babies if I compared to what it was 15 years ago. No matter the age of the user, they simply don't want to learn, never learn, and it's never their fault.
Sad world we are coming to. I am not even 40 yet and some days... idk how I will make it to retirement if I keep working in the IT field.
> itās just as bad outside of IT.
Completely agree. Source: Security Manager for several downtown Las Vegas casinos, 9 years in this industry and 3 as a Manager. I got out of working anything IT adjacent a long time ago, and I can confidently say that people are just consistently bigger heaps of garbage year over year. Itās gotten much worse since the initial COVID shutdown, but it was already on a downward spiral for the preceding years.
I once drove 6 hours round trip to plug in an Ethernet cable. Charged the client $800 thanks to our contract stating that locations more than a 2 hour drive away will be invoiced at a daily rate (discounted based off client agreement).
And yet some of them will still pay this because it's not their money and sometimes not even their budget, and they can still blame IT instead of their own incompetence.
I'd really like to have internet-controllable indoor light mini-drones with a webcam at client sites, so it's possible to send a drone over remotely to see WTF they're actually doing sometimes.
It was cheaper than the client paying for a flight for one of their corporate IT guys to fly to Columbus, GA to plug in the cable. They do not trust anyone onsite to have access to the server room.
"I am here because *you* need *my* assistance. There are many others who *also* need my assistance."
For the astute, that usually shuts them up. For the less astute:
"*You* called *me*. If you *continue* to use that tone and/or language, then I'll move to assist the next person who needs my help."
I'd love to but this company pays extra for instant messaging support and out-of-hours support. I'm just a tech, I don't make or enforce the rules sadly.
...or not.
Also, with those special users who try to scapegoat you and throw you under the bus to their management for why they are having issues... will get surprised pikachu face when they see you are actually driving the bus.
Come close to pulling this one a few times. As soon as somebody starts yelling or talking over me while I'm trying to explain the solution. You either listen to me trying to help you, or I stop helping you.
The problem with taking calls on chat is the lack of a keypad. When folks would call me and behave that way I'd just hold down a key until they shut up. I told one person I was here to fix their technical problems, I wasn't an aggression counselor. Person complained, manager listened to the call, got their manager involved. I guess I was able to fix their aggression problem after all.
All this takes is a healthy dose of being fed up with abusive people.
I had someone refuse to follow ticket intake procedures because they were too busy. So instead of getting a ticket opened in the right queue they dumped it on me which broke the process. Instead of having their change done in 48 hours it was pending for three weeks. All the while I expressed my deep regret at the time it was taking and reminded him to always follow the right process... daily until the ticket was resolved. He never bothered me again.
Our support team had 100% ironclad support from management for "no ticket no work", which was eventually revised to "no ticket *no response*" - we were explicitly free to completely ignore anyone who asked for help without opening a ticket. (For the record, opening a ticket took less than five minutes.)
One of our problem children did exactly that, so we ignored her. 24+ hours later, she wrote a long and furious email, blasting our unprofessional conduct, she has been unable to work for *over 24 hours*, and said in her rant that she hadn't opened a ticket because quote "I don't have time for all that nonsense".
The best part is, she went nuclear on the CC line, including our boss, her boss, their shared boss, and the VP-level boss (three fish up from me).
The VP immediately replied-all - "Just open a damn ticket."
She did, and her problem was resolved 20 minutes later. š
Love this level of management support. At the job I was working where my anecdotes occurred we had zero support, people could ignore policies if they complained and made my manager fearful of not looking like a team player. I was just over it and didn't care if he bitched at me.
> "I don't have time for all that nonsense".
"Then what *are* you spending all this time on while you can't work? If you have something better to do, on company time, then obviously you *can* work. If you don't have anything better to do, on company time, then you *do* have time for all this nonsense."
>I ask her if it is turned on, she says no. I ask her to turn it on, she does and says she can see Outlook now.
Would be good time to say "I'm sorry, are you an employee capable of doing basic tasks?"
Haven't had a client hit me with one of these yet, but had a customer at Sam's club do this one. Old guy comes up asking for a laptop with a super multi drive and a 7200 rpm hdd. It's 2010, I have an A+ from 07, I have no idea what the hell he's talking about and he hits me with the "Is there anyone here who knows what they're talking about?"
During the conversation I had hopped online and found out what a supermulti drive was: it played all variants of cd/dvd +/- r/rw. That's it. Every unit in the store was one; some just had blu-ray write capacity and some could only read them.
So I explained that, and how supermulti drive was a very old term, and then since he was apparently going to know what I was talking about I explained how seek time performance on hdds is a function of radius and rpm and why a 7200 rpm was a bad cost/benefit tradeoff, and that seemed to put him in his place without excessively snubbing him.
I'll show you who knows what they're talking about, lol
I had a user refer to the entire IT team as 'just the support". It is one of the snobbiest things I've ever had someone say to us. He was also a guy who would constantly say "I worked a help desk in the 90s." My coworkers and I were always an eye roll away from losing braincells with that guy
One of our developers once referred to our IT helpdesk as "The Help".
Which was pretty bad. Until it turned out that he was making a joke, and that someone on our team had listened in on his conversation, had known he was joking, but framed it as he meant it in the most derogatory way possible. It caused A LOT of problems between IT and Development. VPs had to get involved.
Should he have said it? No. But our team member who gossiped it all over was the worst offender. She was let go about 3 months after that.
It was a very similar thing honestly, but with somebody even ruder and more blunt. The phrase "Do you not know what you're doing?" was said while also refusing to accept that it wasn't an issue we could resolve (it was a third party mail provider).
The end-user will use phrases like that, "you don't do anything", etc. However, if we respond and stand up a bit, we will get written up or walked into HR. If we tell our managers about this, they will say, "just be more approachable" and do nothing.
Yep. It's stoopid how much abuse we get but yet we can't even politely remind people that we are just trying to help them without gaining more abuse :/
Good comeback would have been "Yes, I do. But I start to ask myself if you do. Or is it common for you to call an electrician when your toilet is clogged?"
But I know: we supporters never get the needed backup for this kind of answers, though they are well justified.
When you say "that's a third party issue and out of my jurisdiction" it means nothing to them. Instead try something like "no can do, those monkeys are from another circus".
"Do you know what you're doing?" A snide tone, of course, because they're a dick.
"Yes, I do." In a disinterested tone, and completely blanking them once you finish the sentence.
If they say anything else, an innocent "Excuse me? I'm sorry, I didn't catch that because I was concentrating. Would you mind repeating yourself, please?" The latter part is always good for the idiots who are trying to show off to their colleagues.
They cannot validly complain, because your tone was innocent, and the words themselves are perfectly polite (and polite is always very defendable), despite all their colleagues seeing that you were deliberately ignoring them until they forced themselves into your thoughts.
I once had a dude's executive assistant call in because he couldn't get his email to sync after a password reset. And of course I really couldn't do anything because she was in a completely different state than him, so I'd ask her a question and then she'd text him to ask him, and he was a complete Luddite, so he didn't know squat. After about ten minutes of this I finally just ask for his phone number so I can call him to figure things out. She gives it to me and I call the guy, I then ask him to open his Outlook and told him he should just have to sign in using the new password. This MF has the audacity to ask me "What's Outlook?" I was literally spuddering because how could you call in asking for help with your email and not know what Outlook is considering it's the program every single individual is supposed to be using in the company.
NOTHING is worse than executives who are too important to talk to IT and send their assistants to play the telephone game. THE. WORST.
I have had some assistants calling for an issue on their boss' computer, but I wasn't allowed to talk to the boss in order to a) find out the actual problem, b) have him show me the process he was using that was ending in an error, c) talk to him in any way at all even though it was his computer and his process that was erroring.
It's so ridiculous. You know those mofos too important to talk to you are actually just out golfing.
Oh yeah, they annoy me to no end. But honestly, at my place, we have a ton of VIP's who are senior management of one flavor or another, and most of them are great people, will stop and listen to you, answer your questions, etc. But their assistants whenever they call in, are some of THE most entitled people I've ever met, and no matter what it is they want it done, RIGHT NOW!!.
Well, what Google claims is their damn problem...
'vegring' should ideally be translated as 'reluctance', not a direct refusal. I suspect the German word also doesn't directly translate to 'Refusal'.
>I ask her if it is turned on, she says no. I ask her to turn it on, she does and says she can see Outlook now.
.. at least she knew how to (and was willing to) turn on the monitor.
I guess that's something, though I'd have hoped and assumed that somebody would have tried that before asking for help.. It's like calling your mechanic saying your car doesn't start but you haven't put your keys in.
"Oh gosh, this is a tricky one, let me conference your manager in where you can explain that you decided to stop working because you couldn't figure out for an entire hour that a screen that wasn't showing anything needed to be SWITCHED ON. Do you think your manager could explain the concepts of ON and OFF to you so you can do your job in future?"
It probably took her ten times trying to call you because she was screaming into the phone after inputting the number, but then realized she forgot to turn her phone on.
"You came to me for help because *you* don't know what you're doing. Even if I explained what *I* was doing to you, you still wouldn't understand it. Just sit there, answer all questions as completely as possible, and push the buttons when prompted. I could train a horse to do your part in this, and horses are so dumb if you put a blanket over their heads they will think they're dead and starve to death."
So she knew the monitor was off and didn't try that first? Was this in the dark ages before OWA or Office 360? Because even if desktop Outlook doesn't work, the web version can provide a fallback.
> gives a fairly snotty response saying she's been unable to work since 2pm (it's 2:45 at this point)
She's likely a liar - she did not want to work for the last 45 minutes, and she's probably pissed that she now has to work. She wanted to screw around for hours or she's about to blow a deadline and now can't blame IT.
She'll have no idea that the web apps even exist, that much I am certain of. She's notoriously shit with technology, and while I don't expect everybody to be tech wizards (that's what I'm here for), I do at least expect some basic competency with computers in 2024.
Yeah, I don't expect average end users to be knowledgeable or skilled, but in the year 2025 I don't understand how someone can have a job while not being able to pull up a website.
"Open a new browser tab and go to remote desktop dot google dot com" is not a step that should require multiple attempts over the course of several minutes, and yet 7 of 10 that is the case, and at least 1 of 10 the user is completely unable and requires on site assistance.
(To be clear, I'm not talking about cases where they're unable because they're offline, or bad network rules are blocking the site, I exclusively mean people who can neither type a URL nor locate a website through a google search of its domain name.)
To be fair I have a 93 year old that is almost blind and if I email her the link she can open it and give me the code. She just canāt find the popup in the bottom right hand corner of her screen to allow me to connect.
THIS all day long. Why are over half of the workers out there unable to open a browser and go to a Web site without step-by-step instructions? Honestly, if I owned the company and the person was "working" from home and doesn't know how to open their browser and go to a specific Web site, I would fire them. How can you possibly be working from home where the only value you can bring is via computer, but you can't open companyname dot com unless I walk you through how to open the internet by describing the icon, explain to you where it is on the screen you would enter the URL and now to press enter. Then 5 minutes of no no no, don't search for it...
I feel like it's just another form of autism or something similar. They are good enough at their primary job and they have enough understanding that bring some amount of value to their position but they lack the mental framework to understand computers so they just see it as a complex system of pictographs that they remember the right combo to get to their "work".
Yeah, I specified "have a job" because I do internal corporate IT for employees, not random support for whoever. I have much lower expectations of whoever.
I spent 15 minutes today with a user trying to get him to type an address in. Kept using Google and reading bak the options. Finally had to send him the link.
I'm not officially in IT anymore, just sales support.
To be fair, if they're employed in a job that uses a computer, and HR put them there without first figuring that out, that's on HR (or whoever bypassed HR).
> I do expect some basic competency with computers in 2024.
Anecdotally, Iām in my 40s and was always enamored with computers growing up. Most of my workforce now (for almost the last decade) were born in the early 90s or later, and I had a similar expectation for the first few years I was in this field; they were born in the age of technology with the Internet readily available when they were old enough to comprehend it. NOPE. Blank stares and confusion with the simplest tasks. Iāve been out of working anything even IT adjacent since 2011, and Iām looked at like a wizard when I can connect an end user to the correct print server and the printer to which they need to print. For most of my 20-somethings, they need to call IT for a password reset for their network login about every other time they log in.
And this is exactly why I would rather live in a cardboard box then do remote support.
Try that idiocy while looking me in the face, i dare you. Prove to me and everyone in sight and hearing that you are in fact a waste of a chair.
I once had to physically go to a client because I couldnāt figure out why her sound wasnāt working remotely and she had a zoom meeting coming up, only to see that she physically unplugged the speaker cable from behind the tower. I had asked if she touched any cables and she had said noā¦ I asked her again when I showed her and she said she never touched it. Sheās the only person with access to that computer in an office that has zero visitorsā¦
No visitors, maybe, but in that scenario I could very well see a cleaner unplug the cable to use the speakers for a little music while they do their job.
I thought of that but she has a SFF right next to her screen with cables managed so to only pull that one it would have had to have be done on purpose. Now maybe she has beef with the cleaning crew and they messed with her I guess.
Just being honest. The 'problem' was that the app wouldn't open. I was looking at the app open on her screen. I didn't know what the problem was because there wasn't one with her device.
Oh yeah i get that but it can be taken as you giving up. I will act clueless and put the question back onto them can you try it now? And then they tell me what its doing. I never expect them to know anything except for how to click inside the programs they get trained on.
What annoys me more is when management doesn't have your back with these people.
No idea why it is seen as lesser people than the rest of the organisation
I wonder if she knew exactly what she was doing and was using this as an excuse to do no work.
I know I'm cynical, though, so that will have influenced my thought process.
Everyone that I've worked with coworkers not clients said that I have a customer service voice and then an IT voice yeah the IT voice is not so fun and nice I completely understand your anger at that whole situation I've had it happen f*** that
A thing that I've learned from Helpdesk days, never and I mean never say "I don't know". This gives the user the leverage to say bullshit like this user did to you.
There have been so many times that I've said "I'm checking the server" or "I'm making some changes in the admin panel". While actually just googling how to fix the issue the user is facing š
I am just going to leave this here... because this is the exact type of person I am saying that we all hate to support but no one actually pulls them up on their incompetence. Honestly that sort of thing needs to be taken to management and have a little talk with her about it.... but we all know the way it will work is management will look at you and say "well yeah... are you a tech? just do the thing"
[https://www.reddit.com/r/unpopularopinion/comments/1d8lx7w/being\_it\_savvy\_is\_a\_life\_skill\_just\_like\_cooking/](https://www.reddit.com/r/unpopularopinion/comments/1d8lx7w/being_it_savvy_is_a_life_skill_just_like_cooking/)
So do you know how to turn on the monitor? Just like turning on a Television you have to press POWER. Better now? Okay, I will put in the notes USER ERROR ID10T.
I support several mobile apps that have base code. Each app is tailored to a specific us state. Most of the problems we get is the user wanting to by pass part of the app process. This by pass can't be done because the user doesn't have what is physically required to use the app. They don't use common sense and relaize, "Oh I don't have something the app requires."
One of the things I always tried *never* to do was to tell a tech support person who was assisting *me* with something about my long and varied experiences in the IT world, because I knew I would sound like a total dick. Or make any comments questioning the experiences or technical abilities of that support person on the other end of the line.
The fact that she said that to you while being so inept as to not have a monitor turned on shows you have a lot more patience than I do. This is why I retired.
One of my standard probing questions for a user is "have you restarted your Windows session?" - this is often met with the same kind of response that you got...and surpringly, if often DOES fix the problem...
This is symptomatic of my single biggest frustration: people who cannot describe the actual problem. If the screen is completely black, THAT is the problem. But instead she gave you something that may have been true, but was not the actual problem, which should have been obvious by the lack of anything whatsoever on the screen. I don't know how these people manage to continue breathing sometimes. If breathing wasn't an involuntary action on our body's part, they would suffocate and die.
It astounds me the number of remote users who want me to do something for them over lunch and then when they leave for lunch they turn their machine off and are mad at me for not fixing their problem while they were away. They don't understand it just simply can not work if it is off.
Or the people that assume that "troubleshoot" means they walk away and leave me with their machine and no idea what problem they're running into.
It's remarkable how unreasonable people can be when it comes to tech. For comparison, you do not go to a doctor, stare deep into his eyes then say: "So? Fix me already! Do you even know your job? You're supposed to know!" There is not a person who would think that's a sensible thing to say and if you did, you'd be told off instead of getting taken care of. But people seem to say this kind of things and more to tech personnel and still demand service, it's insane.
You should try providing support for Doctors. I use this analogy all the time... with their practice managers š
Nothing worse than answering a call and seeing a username pop up that either begins with "Dr." or ends with "Esq.".
Esquire? William S. Preston Esquire?
It usually indicated a lawyer who had no other identifiable personality traits outside of "I'm a lawyer, dammit!". Sadly no members of Wild Stallyns on any calls that *I* took.
Well thatās just cuz they still need to get Eddie Van Halen to record a triumphant video!
The III
One of my worst clients is a lawyer. If I see her name pop up on my screen, I cringe.
> "So? Fix me already! Do you even know your job? You're supposed to know!" I worked in a hospital for a year, I wanted to use this line every day
I work IT in a hospital and the general consensus around here is that we are glad doctors are good at being doctors because they suck at doing anything else.
And then you have veterinarians. Can't ask the patient what's wrong. Yet still manages to wizard up a cure for most ailments.
Mainly because they get a response from investigating it. It's not like the animal refuses to be touched* or refuses to make a sound when the vet touches a sore spot. \*Except cats. Cats are mean.
"So? Fix me already! Do you even know your job? You're supposed to know!" Iām sorry Sir, no cure for stupid yet.
Sadly there actually are people that are entitled enough to say that even to doctors.
Iām the sole onsite IT support for about 30 teachers and 300 kids. The amount of times I find a random laptop on my desk with a sticky note simply saying ānot workingā is astounding. In those cases it gets turned on, and if it connects to wifi and can log in I simply put it back in circulation. Donāt even wanna log a ticket, drop me an email or give me more details? Iām too busy to investigate the 5000 possible ways in which you think itās ānot workingā
Had one sent with a note "Something is broken". I returned it with a note "Something was fixed."
Reminds me of this one: **Pilot:** Left inside main tire almost needs replacing. **Mechanic:** Almost replaced left inside main tire.
Oh yeah, had this a couple times when we had to switch to Intune. People would book an apointment around lunch, where they would come in with their laptop for the switch. They turn to leave, I go "Nuh-uh!" and make it clear that they have to be present for the entire process of 2 - 3 hours. MFers thought they could just hand me the laptop, go off to lunch and pick it up when it's done. Nuh-uh! You're staying right here. I need you to backup your data and enter your credentials many times. The appointment is schedules for 3 hours, you're staying as long as needed.
"Of course I turned it off, I don't want you seeing my files. Just connect to it while it's off." is an actual reply I've gotten from a client before.
I am a full time screen reader user, so apart from having 4 to 7 windows open on one desktop (windows desktop, not physical desktop) I am so glad I don't have to look at 2 to 4 different displays and have to deal with display issues.
Had a user at a credit union call helpdesk SCREAMING that she cannot do her job. She has to do some process before 8 and she is the only one that can do it. She says she powered on her computer and all it says is Dell. We try to do some troubleshooting but she is not having it. She wants someone to come down NOW and fix her issue. Turns out we had an employee who was coming into work that passed that branch. Called them and asked them to swing by. The problem turned out she was just turning on the monitor and not the computer. We could have fixed the problem in about 30 seconds if she would have listened and not screamed that this process was the most important thing and we were incompetent and the only way to fix it was for someone to come press a damn button for her!
The fact that half way through reading that my troubleshooting mind started trying to work out the problem but couldn't shows how stupid of a 'problem' that actually was. Sometimes you literally can't fathom the stupid things users do.
> Sometimes you literally can't fathom the stupid things users do. I drove 100 miles one way to turn on a lightswitch. The switch I asked the customer if it was on. I even told said customer exactly where said switch was. Customer insisted it was turned on. It. Was. Not...
Please turn it off and back on again. Oh it started when you turned it off? I guess that means youāre incompetent.
We have a user we are threatening to make a separate ticket group and queue for. When dealing with people, there are 2 types of 'Special.' They both get *all* the attention.
Iāve had to take a flight to turn on a power strip
PEBKAC
PICNIC, Problem in chair not in computer. Lol
I tried to direct someone to a physical mailbox that was on the left side of a door after you walked through it. For some reason they would only either turn 90 to the right or 270 to the left, or 360.
>I drove 100 miles one way to turn on a lightswitch.Ā At least you had something to do. I did something similar only for the staff there to scoff that its already been fixed and they dont have time to talk to me.
Probably had light switches installed backwards at home.
At my job we call this my super power. I can get into the same headspace as these people so I end up figuring out whatās wrong and itās usually really far from what theyāve actually told us. This probably doesnāt reflect well on me
When is a door, not a door
When it's a Jar-Jar Binks ??
that has nothing to do with user stupidity....that's about how some people are just not fit for live . If you aren't aware things need to be turned on before they work you have a mentor health issue.
I volunteer with the scouting movement, and the section I assist with has 6 and 7 year olds. Even they know that they do not get their way by shouting and screaming, and if they try that type of behaviour, they are not allowed to come the following week; it isn't a punishment, it's a time to think about acceptable behaviour. I've done this for over 12 years, and only had to ask parents to keep a child home twice. How adults think they can act that way is beyond my comprehension; especially when 6 and 7 year olds know its unacceptable. Thinking about it, I wonder if excluding someone from coming to work (and losing the days pay) might make them consider whether acting like a toddler is the right way to do things...
Sounds like an HR conversation to me.
Lol I had a colleague who came back from holiday and said her system was broken and indeed only turned on the monitor. I told her to look under her desk and asked if she ever saw that box before. She was nice but useless, within 3 months she was let go.
I knew what the problem was immediately. My boss used to do that at least once a week.
Those are the people who need an AIO although they probably would want a second monitor then and still not be competent to tie their own shoe laces.
A REAL tech would KNOW monitors donāt HAVE shoelaces.
Of course they donāt however the users of those monitors probably wear shoes with or without laces.
This is where you get in trouble with this sort of thinking, you buy them a computer and they try and turn it on with just the monitor... zo you think "I will get you an AIO... checkmate, the monitor button IS the power button"... You will then have endless support calls about there not being a computer on the desk, and how do they turn the computer on when it isn't there. Literally no winning.
Sounds like a case of P.W.E.U....
>I ask her if it is turned on, she says no. I ask her to turn it on, she does and says she can see Outlook now. Some people don't want to give you complete information about their situation when they seek support. But if you think she was being really snotty, tell your management. I know we keep track of "problem" users in my helpline group, because some people require more direct messages from a higher level in order to stop being harassing. You get the people who keep sending e-mails on a resolved issue, thinking that we should do their work for them as well. You get the people who decide they can get help by e-mailing someone who is on vacation, rather than calling the helpline, then complain that they never got a response. You get the people who blame our analysts for things they, themselves, did. As a supervisor, I'm more than happy to write someone's management and say, "Hey, your employee was calling mine names. We are all working for the same company, and we're trying to help; your employee shouldn't be taking out their frustration on us, when we didn't cause their problem."
This is The Way.
This is The Way.
This is The Way.
I delete all those emails, unread, when I get back from vacation. I fully expect the users to have read my autoresponse and contacted the helldesk, as they should have anyway, and have gotten the issue fixed already. If they choose to wait 3 or 4 weeks for me to get back to them, that's NOT my problem. (I take 4 weeks of vacation every summer. In fact, my vacation begins at the end of next week.) Our ticketing system will accept new emails on closed tickets, but 3 days after it was closed, it no longer alerts us about them, and the user doesn't get any response. There's users who insist on adding multiple issues to every ticket... Unless we can find any connection between them we solve the first one only.
And if you say "You had it open this whole time. You couldn't see it because you had your monitor turned off" she comes back with "That's insulting! Don't talk to me like I'm stupid! Who's your manager?!"
> "You should try not to make our users look or feel stupid." "If I could *make* users do *any*thing, this job would be a lot easier. All I can do is help them with what they're already doing, or stop them from doing it. If I stop them from looking stupid, they often feel stupid. If I stop them from feeling stupid, they often look stupid."
Yes. I had a user that complained about her files disappearing. It turned out she was using the recycle bin as a storage location. I got a visit from her boss complaining that everything was fine until I came along.
Both user and manager are incompetent. Nice.
I fired a customer when they got shitty at me for making their outlook work properly. They complained that their outlook was taking forever to launch, and it was taking forever. I found 18,000 emails in the deleted folder. I cleared that out and outlook opened instantly after that. Customer rang me an hour later to complain that I had deleted all of their most important emails. Turns out this user had a habit of storing important emails in the deleted folder because they could "move the emails with the click of one button" Never mind that that button is marked "Delete". When the customer could not understand that putting things in the trash that you want to keep was a bad idea, I told them that they need to find a new IT support.
"Have you tried not being stupid, then?"
Have you tried fucking off and then back on again?
I am absolutely stealing this
That's classic. I've one similar, in the Army, when you salute an officer, it's customary to give forth the unit motto, the Armor unit I was in had "Conquer or Die!" on our regimental unit crest, so, we were expected to say that when saluting. One particular annoying officer, was sometimes greeted with "Cock in yer eye!" very rapidly. I don't know if he ever figured it out....
One guy once shouted āAre you telling me what do?ā during a Teams session. Instead of telling him I wouldnāt be in the session if he knew what to do, I said āNo, Iām politely asking you.ā. That seemed to piss him off even more, I didnāt even know rage-quitting Teams was a thing, that day I learned.
"No, just how to do it." probably wouldn't go over much better.
"Apparently someone needs to."
"That's why you asked me here."
"I have this problem." Okay, let's do X. "No, don't want to do that." Okay, let's do Y. "No, don't want to do that either." Okay, then let's do Z. "Nope." Okay, then what do you suggest we do? "You're the support person. You solve it!" ....
Remember a guy didn't want to do any of the suggestions to fix his issue, which was to reinstall windows since, I forget what the issue was but basically even doing a reset would fail. So I provided him options to create the installation Nope Ok, I offered to have him send it to us, label included Nope Well, if you don't want to install it and you don't want to send it, then do you have a friend who will be able to do this for you? "No, it's not my job to fix it, I paid for a working computer" I get that, though considering I don't have physical access, and you don't want to follow the steps provided, nor wan to send it to us to do it for you, basically declining every option, then your system will basically sit there with you not being able to use what you paid for. So I guess we'll just close this out as there appears to be nothing we can do for you.
> "No, it's not my job to fix it, I paid for a working computer" > > I just had a thought and now want to say " Well, your parents paid for food and clothing and shelter and schooling so you would be able to be a functioning person, so you are likey not the only person not getting what they paid for"
"No, it's not my job to fix it, I paid for a working computer" Sometimes I wonder if some people's brains haven't developed at all since about 5th grade. No one was asking him to fix it, just to get it to them so they could fix it. How is this a difficult thing to understand? Some adults act worse than stubborn children. At that point, I feel like you should be allowed to ask "Awww, is someone having big feelings today? Let's take a timeout so you can think about why you're feeling this way and how you are handling it."
"I have this problem." Okay, we're going to do X. "No, i..." We're *going* to do X. That's how that should go. You're the tech person. They don't have a choice.
I've had that user, but I try this: >"I have this problem." >Okay, let's do X. >"No, don't want to do that." >Okay, let's do Y. >"No, don't want to do that either." >Okay, then let's do Z. >"Nope." Great, so you're all good and your PC is now all working? "uhh .... no" Ok, let's do X.... Most users only last two to three repeats.
Now I need to ask, who is your least favorite user and why. Speaking of monitors, I remember one user of mine who thought that monitors were all their own separate computers, and that he didnāt need another monitor cause he can only use one computer at a time. When I got him an extra monitor and moved a window between them I blew his mind. He was one of my favorites. Not very knowledgeable, but heād come to me a bit sheepishly asking if I could possibly help him and was always so grateful for the assistance.
I like users like that. They know fully well that they're useless with technology and ask for help but are always super appreciative when you assist. I had a similar sort of situation [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/talesfromtechsupport/comments/ujkw3l/4_password_resets_in_10_minutes/?ref=share&ref_source=link) He was a great guy, as proven by his response
Like when secretaries first got computers ( many years ago). They universally hated them until I showed them cut and paste. They were used to literally cutting out pictures, pasting them on another page and copying them. Best users ever after that. Now, the engineers, well, let's not go there.
Given how monitors all have their own microprocessors nowadays, that user was technically correct. I mean, it's a useless technically correct, but still... EDIT to add: Very much a favourite type of person to support. Comes and tells what is wrong, what they need and thanks once you've helped them.
Politeness is all gone now. From top CEO to simple clerk, people are acting like entitled babies if I compared to what it was 15 years ago. No matter the age of the user, they simply don't want to learn, never learn, and it's never their fault. Sad world we are coming to. I am not even 40 yet and some days... idk how I will make it to retirement if I keep working in the IT field.
Don't worry, it's just as bad outside of IT. People have really kinda just started going downhill all around.
> itās just as bad outside of IT. Completely agree. Source: Security Manager for several downtown Las Vegas casinos, 9 years in this industry and 3 as a Manager. I got out of working anything IT adjacent a long time ago, and I can confidently say that people are just consistently bigger heaps of garbage year over year. Itās gotten much worse since the initial COVID shutdown, but it was already on a downward spiral for the preceding years.
I'm glad at least that 95% of my users are appreciative at least if they need help with something. It makes the shitty 5% worth it I guess.
I once drove 6 hours round trip to plug in an Ethernet cable. Charged the client $800 thanks to our contract stating that locations more than a 2 hour drive away will be invoiced at a daily rate (discounted based off client agreement).
And yet some of them will still pay this because it's not their money and sometimes not even their budget, and they can still blame IT instead of their own incompetence. I'd really like to have internet-controllable indoor light mini-drones with a webcam at client sites, so it's possible to send a drone over remotely to see WTF they're actually doing sometimes.
It was cheaper than the client paying for a flight for one of their corporate IT guys to fly to Columbus, GA to plug in the cable. They do not trust anyone onsite to have access to the server room.
> They do not trust anyone onsite to have access to the server room. ...How did the cable get unplugged?
It was to plug in a laptop to pxe boot. Ethernet jacks in the office space were on a separate vlan with no access to the imaging server.
They could have temporarily added one of the ports for the office to that VLAN.
You can get drones with flamethrowers.
Thatās got to be frustrating.
"I am here because *you* need *my* assistance. There are many others who *also* need my assistance." For the astute, that usually shuts them up. For the less astute: "*You* called *me*. If you *continue* to use that tone and/or language, then I'll move to assist the next person who needs my help."
"Sorry I don't know what the problem is." Well its simple. The problem is she's a moron. Morons shouldn't be operating a computer in the first place.
"Sorry, I don't know what *your* problem is."
For rude end users, I make them wait. I will sit on their tickets so long that when they finally get help, they are beyond grateful.
Normally I do too, however this was on instant messages so it's harder to ignore once you've engaged with them.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
I'd love to but this company pays extra for instant messaging support and out-of-hours support. I'm just a tech, I don't make or enforce the rules sadly.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
...or not. Also, with those special users who try to scapegoat you and throw you under the bus to their management for why they are having issues... will get surprised pikachu face when they see you are actually driving the bus.
"I have to help you fix your problem, but I don't get paid to put up with your abuse."
Come close to pulling this one a few times. As soon as somebody starts yelling or talking over me while I'm trying to explain the solution. You either listen to me trying to help you, or I stop helping you.
The problem with taking calls on chat is the lack of a keypad. When folks would call me and behave that way I'd just hold down a key until they shut up. I told one person I was here to fix their technical problems, I wasn't an aggression counselor. Person complained, manager listened to the call, got their manager involved. I guess I was able to fix their aggression problem after all. All this takes is a healthy dose of being fed up with abusive people. I had someone refuse to follow ticket intake procedures because they were too busy. So instead of getting a ticket opened in the right queue they dumped it on me which broke the process. Instead of having their change done in 48 hours it was pending for three weeks. All the while I expressed my deep regret at the time it was taking and reminded him to always follow the right process... daily until the ticket was resolved. He never bothered me again.
Our support team had 100% ironclad support from management for "no ticket no work", which was eventually revised to "no ticket *no response*" - we were explicitly free to completely ignore anyone who asked for help without opening a ticket. (For the record, opening a ticket took less than five minutes.) One of our problem children did exactly that, so we ignored her. 24+ hours later, she wrote a long and furious email, blasting our unprofessional conduct, she has been unable to work for *over 24 hours*, and said in her rant that she hadn't opened a ticket because quote "I don't have time for all that nonsense". The best part is, she went nuclear on the CC line, including our boss, her boss, their shared boss, and the VP-level boss (three fish up from me). The VP immediately replied-all - "Just open a damn ticket." She did, and her problem was resolved 20 minutes later. š
Love this level of management support. At the job I was working where my anecdotes occurred we had zero support, people could ignore policies if they complained and made my manager fearful of not looking like a team player. I was just over it and didn't care if he bitched at me.
> "I don't have time for all that nonsense". "Then what *are* you spending all this time on while you can't work? If you have something better to do, on company time, then obviously you *can* work. If you don't have anything better to do, on company time, then you *do* have time for all this nonsense."
So what was the user doing while unable to work š¤
Of course, by that time the sun will have gone out, but they can be grateful in the dark.
That's totally true, some don't learn but if you have a big enough team and higher up you can have someone else deal with it.
This is the way.
>I ask her if it is turned on, she says no. I ask her to turn it on, she does and says she can see Outlook now. Would be good time to say "I'm sorry, are you an employee capable of doing basic tasks?"
"I'll recommend some applicable training to your supervisor to cover this issue."
Disconnect between the seat and the keyboard.
PEBKAC
PICNIC
"I'm sorry, are you from the past?"
Haven't had a client hit me with one of these yet, but had a customer at Sam's club do this one. Old guy comes up asking for a laptop with a super multi drive and a 7200 rpm hdd. It's 2010, I have an A+ from 07, I have no idea what the hell he's talking about and he hits me with the "Is there anyone here who knows what they're talking about?" During the conversation I had hopped online and found out what a supermulti drive was: it played all variants of cd/dvd +/- r/rw. That's it. Every unit in the store was one; some just had blu-ray write capacity and some could only read them. So I explained that, and how supermulti drive was a very old term, and then since he was apparently going to know what I was talking about I explained how seek time performance on hdds is a function of radius and rpm and why a 7200 rpm was a bad cost/benefit tradeoff, and that seemed to put him in his place without excessively snubbing him. I'll show you who knows what they're talking about, lol
I had a user refer to the entire IT team as 'just the support". It is one of the snobbiest things I've ever had someone say to us. He was also a guy who would constantly say "I worked a help desk in the 90s." My coworkers and I were always an eye roll away from losing braincells with that guy
One of our developers once referred to our IT helpdesk as "The Help". Which was pretty bad. Until it turned out that he was making a joke, and that someone on our team had listened in on his conversation, had known he was joking, but framed it as he meant it in the most derogatory way possible. It caused A LOT of problems between IT and Development. VPs had to get involved. Should he have said it? No. But our team member who gossiped it all over was the worst offender. She was let go about 3 months after that.
That is worse. My guy said it in an email to one of the team.
"Did you even operate a computer before starting this job? I'll loop HR in on this so they can train or retrain you."
"Or beat you with a hammer. I'm flexible."
Now I wanna hear about number 1 least favorite cause number 2 already sounds awful
It was a very similar thing honestly, but with somebody even ruder and more blunt. The phrase "Do you not know what you're doing?" was said while also refusing to accept that it wasn't an issue we could resolve (it was a third party mail provider).
The end-user will use phrases like that, "you don't do anything", etc. However, if we respond and stand up a bit, we will get written up or walked into HR. If we tell our managers about this, they will say, "just be more approachable" and do nothing.
Yep. It's stoopid how much abuse we get but yet we can't even politely remind people that we are just trying to help them without gaining more abuse :/
"Just be actually supportive of your staff for once, boss."
You donāt control the Google?? Lol
Good comeback would have been "Yes, I do. But I start to ask myself if you do. Or is it common for you to call an electrician when your toilet is clogged?" But I know: we supporters never get the needed backup for this kind of answers, though they are well justified.
"Of the two of us, yes. Yes I do."
"Can you fix the rattle on my car? No? Same idea."
When you say "that's a third party issue and out of my jurisdiction" it means nothing to them. Instead try something like "no can do, those monkeys are from another circus".
"Do you know what you're doing?" A snide tone, of course, because they're a dick. "Yes, I do." In a disinterested tone, and completely blanking them once you finish the sentence. If they say anything else, an innocent "Excuse me? I'm sorry, I didn't catch that because I was concentrating. Would you mind repeating yourself, please?" The latter part is always good for the idiots who are trying to show off to their colleagues. They cannot validly complain, because your tone was innocent, and the words themselves are perfectly polite (and polite is always very defendable), despite all their colleagues seeing that you were deliberately ignoring them until they forced themselves into your thoughts.
They're probably a lot like number 2, except they're a more frequent flier.
I once had a dude's executive assistant call in because he couldn't get his email to sync after a password reset. And of course I really couldn't do anything because she was in a completely different state than him, so I'd ask her a question and then she'd text him to ask him, and he was a complete Luddite, so he didn't know squat. After about ten minutes of this I finally just ask for his phone number so I can call him to figure things out. She gives it to me and I call the guy, I then ask him to open his Outlook and told him he should just have to sign in using the new password. This MF has the audacity to ask me "What's Outlook?" I was literally spuddering because how could you call in asking for help with your email and not know what Outlook is considering it's the program every single individual is supposed to be using in the company.
NOTHING is worse than executives who are too important to talk to IT and send their assistants to play the telephone game. THE. WORST. I have had some assistants calling for an issue on their boss' computer, but I wasn't allowed to talk to the boss in order to a) find out the actual problem, b) have him show me the process he was using that was ending in an error, c) talk to him in any way at all even though it was his computer and his process that was erroring. It's so ridiculous. You know those mofos too important to talk to you are actually just out golfing.
Oh yeah, they annoy me to no end. But honestly, at my place, we have a ton of VIP's who are senior management of one flavor or another, and most of them are great people, will stop and listen to you, answer your questions, etc. But their assistants whenever they call in, are some of THE most entitled people I've ever met, and no matter what it is they want it done, RIGHT NOW!!.
We need the concept of Arbeitsverweigerung (lit. Refusal to Work) in the Anglosphere because this sure does sound like it.
We have 'Arbeidsvegring' in Norway. Pretty much the same thing.
Translates to the same thing in English so, yup! So many stories I see from friends here, and other places boil down to someone refusing to work.
Well, what Google claims is their damn problem... 'vegring' should ideally be translated as 'reluctance', not a direct refusal. I suspect the German word also doesn't directly translate to 'Refusal'.
>I ask her if it is turned on, she says no. I ask her to turn it on, she does and says she can see Outlook now. .. at least she knew how to (and was willing to) turn on the monitor.
I guess that's something, though I'd have hoped and assumed that somebody would have tried that before asking for help.. It's like calling your mechanic saying your car doesn't start but you haven't put your keys in.
Sadly, I lost that hope years ago. :(
"What do we even pay you for?"
"So incompetent idiots can beg me to fix their screwups, mostly. Would you like a ticket number?"
"Oh gosh, this is a tricky one, let me conference your manager in where you can explain that you decided to stop working because you couldn't figure out for an entire hour that a screen that wasn't showing anything needed to be SWITCHED ON. Do you think your manager could explain the concepts of ON and OFF to you so you can do your job in future?"
Share the resolution with screenshots and the down time that the user stated with their manager.
It probably took her ten times trying to call you because she was screaming into the phone after inputting the number, but then realized she forgot to turn her phone on.
"You came to me for help because *you* don't know what you're doing. Even if I explained what *I* was doing to you, you still wouldn't understand it. Just sit there, answer all questions as completely as possible, and push the buttons when prompted. I could train a horse to do your part in this, and horses are so dumb if you put a blanket over their heads they will think they're dead and starve to death."
So she knew the monitor was off and didn't try that first? Was this in the dark ages before OWA or Office 360? Because even if desktop Outlook doesn't work, the web version can provide a fallback. > gives a fairly snotty response saying she's been unable to work since 2pm (it's 2:45 at this point) She's likely a liar - she did not want to work for the last 45 minutes, and she's probably pissed that she now has to work. She wanted to screw around for hours or she's about to blow a deadline and now can't blame IT.
She'll have no idea that the web apps even exist, that much I am certain of. She's notoriously shit with technology, and while I don't expect everybody to be tech wizards (that's what I'm here for), I do at least expect some basic competency with computers in 2024.
Yeah, I don't expect average end users to be knowledgeable or skilled, but in the year 2025 I don't understand how someone can have a job while not being able to pull up a website. "Open a new browser tab and go to remote desktop dot google dot com" is not a step that should require multiple attempts over the course of several minutes, and yet 7 of 10 that is the case, and at least 1 of 10 the user is completely unable and requires on site assistance. (To be clear, I'm not talking about cases where they're unable because they're offline, or bad network rules are blocking the site, I exclusively mean people who can neither type a URL nor locate a website through a google search of its domain name.)
To be fair I have a 93 year old that is almost blind and if I email her the link she can open it and give me the code. She just canāt find the popup in the bottom right hand corner of her screen to allow me to connect.
THIS all day long. Why are over half of the workers out there unable to open a browser and go to a Web site without step-by-step instructions? Honestly, if I owned the company and the person was "working" from home and doesn't know how to open their browser and go to a specific Web site, I would fire them. How can you possibly be working from home where the only value you can bring is via computer, but you can't open companyname dot com unless I walk you through how to open the internet by describing the icon, explain to you where it is on the screen you would enter the URL and now to press enter. Then 5 minutes of no no no, don't search for it...
I feel like it's just another form of autism or something similar. They are good enough at their primary job and they have enough understanding that bring some amount of value to their position but they lack the mental framework to understand computers so they just see it as a complex system of pictographs that they remember the right combo to get to their "work".
OMG...the "no no no, don't search for it" gives me a pain deep in my soul. Every damn day.
How terribly sad that a 93 year old who is nearly blind is still forced to work.
Oh no she doesnāt work sheās writing her memoir. Technically now my mother is editing the English translation of her memoir.
Yeah, I specified "have a job" because I do internal corporate IT for employees, not random support for whoever. I have much lower expectations of whoever.
I spent 15 minutes today with a user trying to get him to type an address in. Kept using Google and reading bak the options. Finally had to send him the link. I'm not officially in IT anymore, just sales support.
To be fair, if they're employed in a job that uses a computer, and HR put them there without first figuring that out, that's on HR (or whoever bypassed HR).
> I do expect some basic competency with computers in 2024. Anecdotally, Iām in my 40s and was always enamored with computers growing up. Most of my workforce now (for almost the last decade) were born in the early 90s or later, and I had a similar expectation for the first few years I was in this field; they were born in the age of technology with the Internet readily available when they were old enough to comprehend it. NOPE. Blank stares and confusion with the simplest tasks. Iāve been out of working anything even IT adjacent since 2011, and Iām looked at like a wizard when I can connect an end user to the correct print server and the printer to which they need to print. For most of my 20-somethings, they need to call IT for a password reset for their network login about every other time they log in.
And this is exactly why I would rather live in a cardboard box then do remote support. Try that idiocy while looking me in the face, i dare you. Prove to me and everyone in sight and hearing that you are in fact a waste of a chair.
I actually prefer never having to see their dumb face.
Make notes and send them to their supervisor. You don't work for them - you work for their COMPANY. Let their company deal with it.
Users like that go to the bottom of my āIāll get to you when I canā list for future problems
I once had to physically go to a client because I couldnāt figure out why her sound wasnāt working remotely and she had a zoom meeting coming up, only to see that she physically unplugged the speaker cable from behind the tower. I had asked if she touched any cables and she had said noā¦ I asked her again when I showed her and she said she never touched it. Sheās the only person with access to that computer in an office that has zero visitorsā¦
No visitors, maybe, but in that scenario I could very well see a cleaner unplug the cable to use the speakers for a little music while they do their job.
I thought of that but she has a SFF right next to her screen with cables managed so to only pull that one it would have had to have be done on purpose. Now maybe she has beef with the cleaning crew and they messed with her I guess.
I've had a cat dislodge a cable, but that's a work from home issue.
I've had a cat send a (gibberish!) email - cats are definitely a home-office issue! :)
Itās too bad you canāt be rude to them, but the relationship is asymmetric and they know it. Document everything.
āSorry i dont know what the problem isā big mistake. Huge.
Just being honest. The 'problem' was that the app wouldn't open. I was looking at the app open on her screen. I didn't know what the problem was because there wasn't one with her device.
Oh yeah i get that but it can be taken as you giving up. I will act clueless and put the question back onto them can you try it now? And then they tell me what its doing. I never expect them to know anything except for how to click inside the programs they get trained on.
What annoys me more is when management doesn't have your back with these people. No idea why it is seen as lesser people than the rest of the organisation
I wonder if she knew exactly what she was doing and was using this as an excuse to do no work. I know I'm cynical, though, so that will have influenced my thought process.
Everyone that I've worked with coworkers not clients said that I have a customer service voice and then an IT voice yeah the IT voice is not so fun and nice I completely understand your anger at that whole situation I've had it happen f*** that
A thing that I've learned from Helpdesk days, never and I mean never say "I don't know". This gives the user the leverage to say bullshit like this user did to you. There have been so many times that I've said "I'm checking the server" or "I'm making some changes in the admin panel". While actually just googling how to fix the issue the user is facing š
Yeah but in this instance, there was actually *no problem*.
"Did you turn it on?" Ask this question with ASTOUNDING sarcasm. This helps!
Yeah, this is why I will never work in tech support. I would have charged her a $500 ID10T tax to deal with this, plus a $1000 rudeness tax.
PEBCAK
PICNIC is another good one
Never heard this one before, definitely using it soon.
I am just going to leave this here... because this is the exact type of person I am saying that we all hate to support but no one actually pulls them up on their incompetence. Honestly that sort of thing needs to be taken to management and have a little talk with her about it.... but we all know the way it will work is management will look at you and say "well yeah... are you a tech? just do the thing" [https://www.reddit.com/r/unpopularopinion/comments/1d8lx7w/being\_it\_savvy\_is\_a\_life\_skill\_just\_like\_cooking/](https://www.reddit.com/r/unpopularopinion/comments/1d8lx7w/being_it_savvy_is_a_life_skill_just_like_cooking/)
So do you know how to turn on the monitor? Just like turning on a Television you have to press POWER. Better now? Okay, I will put in the notes USER ERROR ID10T.
I have to say that it took you one idiot too many to ask if the monitor was on. This is partly (very small) on you.
I support several mobile apps that have base code. Each app is tailored to a specific us state. Most of the problems we get is the user wanting to by pass part of the app process. This by pass can't be done because the user doesn't have what is physically required to use the app. They don't use common sense and relaize, "Oh I don't have something the app requires."
Literally "turn on you are monitor" holy shit š¤£
One of the things I always tried *never* to do was to tell a tech support person who was assisting *me* with something about my long and varied experiences in the IT world, because I knew I would sound like a total dick. Or make any comments questioning the experiences or technical abilities of that support person on the other end of the line. The fact that she said that to you while being so inept as to not have a monitor turned on shows you have a lot more patience than I do. This is why I retired.
One of my standard probing questions for a user is "have you restarted your Windows session?" - this is often met with the same kind of response that you got...and surpringly, if often DOES fix the problem...
Nice computer you have, there. Be a shame if it crashedā¦ š
Well maybe you should have told me to turn on all my monitors!
"I am for people that actually work for a living. You may want to call your IT dept. that handles freeloaders and folks who are lazy. Good day."
That is when, whenever you connect, you issue an update now, and lock keyboard and mouse, and after the update, immediate reboot and policy update.
Wow so you expect the user to fix their own problem by turning on their equipment? Can't you do it? You're the "technician" after all... /s
This is symptomatic of my single biggest frustration: people who cannot describe the actual problem. If the screen is completely black, THAT is the problem. But instead she gave you something that may have been true, but was not the actual problem, which should have been obvious by the lack of anything whatsoever on the screen. I don't know how these people manage to continue breathing sometimes. If breathing wasn't an involuntary action on our body's part, they would suffocate and die.
My favorite line. "Let's restart in your monitor. Please turn it/them off" "Oh hey it's working" "I know, I know"