I had to take a day to recover from this.

[tauren-wardrums.livejournal.com]

This is honestly not the worst thing that happens to me. But it's starting to happen with greater and greater frequency. Sometimes I wonder if this town is technologically cursed.

Sometimes I wonder what people are thinking when they ask me to do certain things. It's like I'm suddenly an avatar of God, being asked to perform a miracle that, by all rights, should not exist.

Seriously, I can't do the impossible. Despite whatever may be going on in their tiny little brain-nuggets, I'm most likely NOT a deity. I can pray to Cthulhu, but I really don't see him helping me bring a PC back to life. And praying to Joe Pesci will only get the machine broken with a baseball bat. Bad idea.

But the fact that I've had better luck animating rubber chickens doesn't seem to sway these people. They still want the impossible:

Guy on the phone: Yeah, can you recover all the e-mails I've lost?
Me: Um...like, from your deleted items folder?
Guy: No, like, they're suddenly gone and I want 'em back.
Me: Uh...bring it in.
(guy brings in machine)
(begin work order)
(two days pass)
(call customer)
(customer comes in)
Me: So you have a virtual inbox.
Guy: What's that mean?
Me: I don't know; I didn't put it there. But there's the folder right there. (points out Virtual Inbox folder) See?
Guy: Oh yeah. Well what about my e-mails? There should be some pictures from $name.
Me: You mean these? (pulls up regular inbox, finds 93 unread messages)
Guy: Yeah, those're them. How'd you do that?
Me: I, um...went to your inbox.
(pull up new message with photo attachment, server connection cuts off)
(pull up old message with photo attachment, message loads)
Me: It's something on their end. Nothing I can do here.
Guy: Well, can you get the pictures back?
Me: Um. No. I just said there's nothing I can do here. Getting pictures back is a thing, which I can't do here. It's on their end.
Guy: Oh. Well I'm so stupid I don't know how to do it. I'm computer illiterate...(proceeds to tell me his goddamn life story)
(half an hour later...)
Me: Okay, thank you.
(guy leaves, thank the gods)

Seriously, dude. I'm not God. I'm a bench tech at a local computer repair shop. If I have any sort of awesome powers of doom, it certainly won't help me get back the e-mails that you're too inept to take care of. Fucking educate yourself. Google it. Don't stand there and tell me you're stupid when I fucking tell you how to use the world's easiest search engine.

Fuck's sake.

Comments

[erunamiryene.livejournal.com]

Well I'm so stupid I don't know how to do it. I'm computer illiterate

"Can I see your computer, please? And can you hand me that hammer?"
*loud crunchy noises commence*
"There. Now you REALLY can't do it. Stop making excuses, or don't use computers. They're not difficult these days."

(Seriously, I'm imaging a bunch of new Dells, and the damn power cord now *lights up* both on the brick and at the end when it's plugged in, so the user knows it's *plugged in*, because figuring out if the POWER CORD IS PLUGGED IN is apparently really difficult. And I thought color coding everything on the back of desktops was ridiculous.)

[tauren-wardrums.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah. Lately I've been getting "Why isn't my little blue light on?" calls.

Lady, I have no idea. Bring your piece of shit in and let me check it out.

[erunamiryene.livejournal.com]

I hadn't even seen this before yesterday, but I was like, "holy shit, has it REALLY come to this?"

Working as a civilian IT tech really makes me miss the military.

"I'm computer illiterate."
"THEN FIGURE IT OUT AND COME BACK TO ME WHEN YOU'RE DONE HAVING YOUR HEAD UP YOUR ASS, YOU USE THE GODDAMN MACHINE EVERY FUCKING DAY. Well, I can't help you unless you can become computer literate enough to tell me what's wrong. Sir."

Whereas, if I say anything even REMOTELY like that here, I get in trouble. It's nonsense.

[tauren-wardrums.livejournal.com]

I still defer to the post about computer literacy that was made some weeks back.

"You're not computer illiterate. Literacy is the ability to read. You're just incompetent."

Sometimes I really wish I could say exactly that and NOT get fired over it. But I can't abuse my customers. Makes me want to cry.

My main gripe, though, is that people whose jobs require them to have computers won't even bother to learn basic preventative maintenance, so I have to clean up after them when the dying begins.

[erunamiryene.livejournal.com]

Oh, I remember that post. It should be required reading for every user that has to touch a computer ever, but most especially for those who touch them EVERY DAY.

My users have learned that if they lose things due to them ignoring the instructions I send out on a regular basis (creating a PST, running the extraordinarily simple backup program that has a handy dandy shortcut on their desktop), then the likelihood of them getting said data back is almost nil. However, if something goes wrong and they HAVE been doing that, I'll bust my buns to help them.

[vulpisfoxfire.livejournal.com]

*falls over laughing* I'm sorry I missed the post that line showed up in. That's *beautiful*.

[tauren-wardrums.livejournal.com]

Here you go. (http://community.livejournal.com/techsupport/2066178.html)

[cirobi.livejournal.com]

We're quickly headed toward living in an Idiocracy... just like the movie. I actually fear that we're already there. -_-

[erunamiryene.livejournal.com]

I maintain, and will continue to maintain, that willful ignorance & and persistent apathy are going to be the death knell of this country. Look at what that combination has done to our country's government system and our political parties.

(Just my opinion, of course.)

[the-s-guy.livejournal.com]

Don't stand there and tell me you're stupid

This for life.

[dave-iii.livejournal.com]

I want that on a t-shirt.

[the-s-guy.livejournal.com]

Don't come to me shouting I must fix your iPhone
Don't stand and demand that I jump to your call
Don't posture and scream when you've broken your screen
Or you'll find you have no-one to call

Parading your ignorance gets you no friends
And your wallowing will not help you, kid
Don't flail in your failing to know what you want
Don't stand there and tell me you're stupid.

[tauren-wardrums.livejournal.com]

Give me two weeks and this will be a death-metal jingle.