Oh Please God ..

[lihan161051.livejournal.com]

.. JUST ANSWER THE QUESTION I ASKED. Don't go off on a tangent and answer a very much more general question that tells me nothing about what actually happened. I *KNOW* it "doesn't work", what I need to know is what it *IS* doing.

And that applies to *ALL* the questions I ask. I don't care if you did it two years ago and it "didn't work then either", and I care even less whether you think I'm a competent tech for asking you to do it again, or want to find out in detail what happened when you did it. Just trust that I understand enough of the internals of the system to be able to figure out how to fix it if you will just stop substituting meaningless gibberish for answers to questions I composed with extreme care to find out a very specific fact or two that will help me FIX YOUR PROBLEM.

*headdesk*

Ok, I'm better now ..

Comments

[kastinkerbell.livejournal.com]

Here is half of my calls:

"What is the error message you get?"
"IT'S NOT WORKING! WHAT DID YOU/I DO?!! LAST WEEK MY BOSS TOLD ME THAT I HAD TO FILE THIS REPORT BUT NOW IT'S NOT WORKING!!"
"I understand, but it could be a variety of things. What's the error message you get when you try?"
"WHY DOES THIS HAVE TO BE SO HARD?! I TOLD YOU IT DOESN'T WORK! YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND THIS--I'M ON A DEADLINE HERE. IF THIS DOESN'T GET DONE, IT'S YOUR FAULT BECAUSE YOU OBVIOUSLY BROKE SOMETHING. I CLICKED ON THAT BUTTON AND IT DOESN'T WORK"
"Ok, I know it doesn't work. Just try one more time and tell me what it says."
"I DON'T KNOW WHAT THE PROBLEM IS. I GOT AN E-MAIL FROM SOMEBODY SAYING THEY WANTED TO GIVE ME A MILLION DOLLARS. I JUST DELETED IT...DO YOU THINK THAT SCREWED IT UP? OK...It says wrong password entered."

"IT WORKS NOW! WHY DID THAT HAPPEN?! WAS IT BECAUSE OF THE E-MAIL?!"

[lihan161051.livejournal.com]

Once again, it occurs to me that if we could just *train* people to interact with tech support .. :D

And a recent post on my own LJ about this very subject (http://lihan161051.livejournal.com/31261.html) ..

[gilmoure.livejournal.com]

Hell, if we could just train people to read alerts and error messages...

[the-s-guy.livejournal.com]

...they still wouldn't comprehend them, merely parrot them.

[gilmoure.livejournal.com]

True, true. Kill 'em all; let Bill Gates sort 'em out!

[the-s-guy.livejournal.com]

Or just send them all to Bill's voicemail to ask their questions.

[anamacha.livejournal.com]

yeah, I love it when ppl call and say "you know, I got this error."

"I see. What did that error say?"

"I dunno."

or better yet, "uh, the computer's in the other room."

[anamacha.livejournal.com]

that's what we're for -- we're the comprehending monkeys.

or something.