So stupid it hurts

[klytus.livejournal.com]

I'm helping break in one of the noobs today by having him sit at my desk and field the calls while I listen in to give silent guidance and such. Things were going reasonably well until this one lady who was a few sandwiches short of a picnic calls in. It sounds harmless enough; she has a new laptop and wants help “restoring her backup” (remember this phrasing.. its important later in the story). Not a problem – doing this is part of the new-laptop-setup process anyway. The question is asked if she had a backup from before. Turns out she had not run a back-up on her old laptop before – but she knew which files she needed and she still had the old laptop. OK, we can work with this. Noob asks Lady to plug her backpack (the brand-name of the external back-up harddrives we use) into the laptop. She reports she has done so, only it is not appearing in her My Computer as an available drive. Hmm…. We ask her to make sure it is plugged into the wall. So she unplugs it from the power strip and directly into the wall. Not exactly what we meant, but at least we know this thing has power - and gives us a glimpse of her towering intelligence. Now Noob asks her to make sure it is properly connected to the USB port. Lady has no clue what we mean. After some haggling over terms, she says the only cord she has going into it is the yellow one. No, it doesn’t look like a big phone cable.. its just the only cord that can go into the battery.

“Um,” sez the Noob, “I said back-pack., not battery.”
Lady: What’s a backpack?
Noob: It looks like a brick that plugs into your computer
Lady: Oh, I don’t have one of those.
Noob: You don’t?
Lady: No.
Noob: How do you make backups?
Lady: I’ve never made a backup.

Why, on Earth, is this Lady calling us to restore a backup, when she has not only never made a back-up, but also lacks the requisite hardware necessary for us to even pretend we are restoring a backup? If she has no backup, how are we supposed to restore one?!?

So we told her she’d have to go get some blank CDs so we can copy the files she wants from her old laptop to the new one. I’ll let the poor technicians who got her later calls tell their tales of her in their own words…

Comments

[jecook]

Fortunately, As I'm the one who gets the laptops and computers up here before I hand them to the Great Unwashed, I make bloody sure that I have their data copied over before I hand them their shiny new boat anchor.

I don't make backups, unless you count ghost images as backups. ::snicker::

The saga unfolds...

[grayhawkfh.livejournal.com]

Now this waste of precious oxygen calls this morning. She needs me to guide her through setting up her computer.

My first step: take three Aleve and 4 Tums.
My second step: Put something soothing on my DDJ.

Highlights of this setup:

--No less than a dozen instances of "Oops. Wait a second." Great. What did you double click on now, you great horking twit?

--"Well, for whatever reason, my Outlook decided to close" Probably because when I told you to close your My Documents window, your lump of cartilage masquerading as a brain thought that Outlook was what I told you to close

--"There's no System Tools Folder" Ye gods, someone kill me now...

--After being told we need to restore her files from her CD (half-wit)"What CD?" (me)"The one that voiceofthelost helped you make last night" (half-wit)"Oh, we need that now?" May the gods rain millions of blessings on whomever created the Mute button. No, we'll need it in three hours to eat lunch off of!

--"I didn't get any paperwork with the replacement computer!" (BS Alarm going off - full bore!) It then took me several tries to explain to this mouth breathing, gum flapping, inbred blonde moron that she needs to contact her section office for further directions. I have to know how it is you get dressed in the morning. You don't appear to be capable of chewing gum at the same time you're chewing gum!

And people wonder why I drink...

[grayhawkfh.livejournal.com]

Never mind that the company policy is for the sales force (which is who we support) to do a backup at least once a week.

These droolers have problems finding the power button when they are lucid - they have no chance of setting up their software packages on their own. At least not correctly.

And gods help us then.

Re: The saga unfolds...

[liakela.livejournal.com]

As I've said a few times this week, there are times when it is best to ration out clients like that to as many analysts as possible, to dilute teh stupid a little.