Gark.

[demented-pants.livejournal.com]

I work in tech support for a rather large university with a huge department that provides no-cost tech support to anyone affiliated.

There is one person whom I hear from at about the same time every week - a little before 8 am on Sundays, when my overnight shift is almost at an end and I've been in the office ten hours - who is full of fail.

This person is probably about sixty and normally that's not a big deal but she also seems to think that she knows better than us young whippersnappers. She interrupts before you can even START explaining how to do whatever it is she's calling about.

So, no, old lady. I will not spend 20 minutes trying to explain how to use PuTTY to you if you won't listen. Particularly because you didn't tell me you were on a Mac.

Also, no, this is not the homework help line, so stop calling us for help with SQL statements.

Comments

[ptstech.livejournal.com]

"I work in tech support for a rather large university with a huge department that provides no-cost tech support to *anyone affiliated*..."

I think I see the problem...

[demented-pants.livejournal.com]

We actually take more calls in a week than most institutions of higher learning take in a month, from what I've been told.

It's kind of nice, getting to support a wide group, but man, some of these people.

[jimbojones.livejournal.com]

PuTTY + Mac = buh...? What? Hell, why?

I'm no fan of the Mac, but it does at least have SSH built right in...

[demented-pants.livejournal.com]

She never mentioned she was on a Mac in the first place, so I just went ahead with the call assuming she was on, you know, a PC.

My first recommendation - that she try a graphical client like WinSCP, which is what we officially support - was met with, "But the assignment says we HAVE to use PuTTY." Okay, fine... So I go to explain how the PuTTY config works, because, hey, she's got to be intelligent enough to download and open an executable file, right?

Every five seconds, when I'd try to explain what to do, I'd get three words into it and she'd say, "I HAVE the settings, but what do I DO?"

Finally I got frustrated and told her to talk to the prof. Then she got nasty with me. "I don't need to talk to the instructor, I need technical support."

This call made me SO ANGRY.

Then my next call was this sweet little old lady who just needed help importing her bookmarks into Firefox, thus restoring my faith in old people.

[demented-pants.livejournal.com]

Side note: there is NOT a PuTTY build for mac, that I know of.

[the-s-guy.livejournal.com]

"I don't need to talk to the instructor, I need technical support."

"Lady, your problem isn't technical, it's an inability to follow instructions. I can't help you with that."

[zendequervain.livejournal.com]

Or alternately:

"I can help you with that, but it's going to cost you $ungodlysum per hour."

[anthalus.livejournal.com]

The correct answer with all help requests for homework for SQL statements, always includes mysql_drop_db...

[demented-pants.livejournal.com]

Oh.
Ye gods YES.