Typical day at my work

[moopet.livejournal.com]

Customer: Hello? Do you do, like, data recovery?
Moopet: Sure, what do you need recovered?
Customer: Well, I accidentally deleted my hard drive.
Moopet: Could you explain? It's pretty hard to delete everything on your system by accident.
Customer: Well, I turned my machine on and it said, "Press F11 to recover".
Moopet: Uh huh... Did you want to recover to a factory image?
Customer: Well it was turning on, so it was recovering the desktop, right? So I pressed F11. Then it asked me a bunch of questions so I clicked next a lot. And now all my word files are gone!
Moopet: Please bring your system in, so I can put a face to this FAIL.

Comments

[catsidhe.livejournal.com]

“No, I don't like Data Recovery.”

[alexmizell.livejournal.com]

So what did you do when they brought the system in?

[moopet.livejournal.com]

Mocked. Checked the drive with a couple of data rec apps. Mocked. Charged them £10 for looking at it and suggested they use their backups. What? No backups? I'm shocked. Sold them a backup drive.

[alexmizell.livejournal.com]

If you mocked them to their face you just lost a client. If you mocked them behind their back you're just being a jerk.

Most clients are not actually idiots, they just happen to know less about computers than the professionals who are sent to help them.

It's truly shocking the way some techs in this community talk about their customers. Don't you realize you're working in a service industry? To treat your customers like garbage is just bad business.

[fuzzyr.livejournal.com]

You're entitled to your opinion. Frankly, the mockery is not over them not knowing, it's over them doing one of three things:
1) Ignoring messages warning them that doing something is BAD NEWS (TM).
2) Ignoring their support folk's warnings that doing something is BAD NEWS (TM).
3) Not even trying to follow instructions when their support folks are trying to help them.

I suspect I won't be the last reply.

[alexmizell.livejournal.com]

It's pretty hard to delete everything on your system by accident.

This is wrong. Using a "recovery CD" provided by the OEM it is relatively easy to delete your entire system by accident.

If you are an experienced tech you have likely seen this happen before.

I'm not saying the client didn't make a mistake - I'm just saying that when they come to you for help you are better off treating them like a human being who fucked up than like a "luser" for which you have utter disdain.

Or maybe you don't care what your customers think of you - I don't know. I want mine to like me enough to hire me again. Perhaps your lusers have no choice. I pity them.

[mashiroikaze.livejournal.com]

You're right - it's very easy to delete the complete system and do a clean install with the recovery CD...

if you completely ignore every warning that pops on screen while you randomly mash buttons.

EVERY recovery CD I have ever run across puts multiple warnings on screen that what you are about to do will destroy all of your data. If a user ignores the various warnings and continues on without actually reading said warnings, they get what they deserve. That is, a clean install of the OS.

I would agree with you if the case were a boot and nuke or an unattended install CD - but both of those are tech tools that are very hard for the average layman to lay hands on, and even those examples usually include warnings.

Fix the Computer, Then Fix the Client

[alexmizell.livejournal.com]

I would characterize this as an accident. I doubt if the user "randomly pushed buttons." They simply didn't read what appears at first glance to to be a EULA, which almost nobody ever reads. The second mistake is assuming that software developers care as much about preserving their data as they do. In a perfect world that would be true.

Surely you can summon the empathy to see that this is an issue that even a smart person can have. When this person asks for your help should you a.) ridicule them and make them feel even worse just after they've experienced a preventable data loss that may have cost them years of work and/or thousands of dollars or b.) listen patiently, try to offer comfort and good advice to avoid the problem in the future?

Which one makes you more money in the long run? Which one makes you a better tech?

Re: Fix the Computer, Then Fix the Client

[moopet.livejournal.com]

Which one makes them think, "shit, I won't do that again!"

Re: Fix the Computer, Then Fix the Client

[alexmizell.livejournal.com]

The data death hurts them more than your scorn ever could.

Re: Fix the Computer, Then Fix the Client

[notthebuddha.livejournal.com]

Most people will just assume it is the mfr's fault unless it is made clear what they did and why it is their fault.

[danman3459.livejournal.com]

I think everybody in this community realizes that you are technically correct that this is a service industry, but this community is specifically for venting about lusers. If you want to berate tech reps, please do it in another community.

Being a techy entails dealing with a lot of stupid people's fuck ups, and that can be frustrating. I thought this was pretty clear from the nature of this community that comments like yours are moot.

Did I miss something?

[alexmizell.livejournal.com]

Maybe it should be called b1tch_fest. Surely there is more to tech support than complaining about the people who pay our fees and sign our checks.

[moopet.livejournal.com]

There is. It is, however, an integral part, and it's almost the entire point of this community.

[alexmizell.livejournal.com]

That's true. Clearly I joined this community by mistake. I thought it would be about, you know, tech support. I'll show myself the door.

RTFM

[wherdafux-d-cat.livejournal.com]

If you would have read the, you know, community info, you would have seen that the very first line is:

For Technical Support Reps to say everything you always wanted to say to a customer, without losing your job.

Buh-bye.

Re: RTFM

[alexmizell.livejournal.com]

I did after I read the, you know, name.

The nature of the community betrays the experience level of every tech here.

Signing off.

[gilmoure.livejournal.com]

...beep-beep-beep-beep. It was a good paper.

[hisamishness.livejournal.com]

An NT disk was left in an Engineer's CD drive one day a while back....

He turned on the system. It booted into the NT text based installer.

He ran the complete install, detroying his old profile in the process.

He called in to get to his data.

Um.... Sorry?

[chaobell]

I actually had one (a regular, who should have known better) tell me "I didn't think it'd actually do it!" once.

To her credit, she appeared to be capable of learning, and never did anything like that again.

[sethb.livejournal.com]

Then it asked me a bunch of questions so I clicked next a lot.

He told it to do something, so it did. Whose fault is that?