techrecovery | No, dammit, LISTEN. (Reply)

You just never know which people are going to cause you trouble.

Today I spent 40 minutes on the phone with this woman who simply could not understand the concept of print preview. English was obviously her first language, and she spoke like and intelligent, educated human being. But "print preview" was simply beyond her comprehension.

"So I print them?"
"No, you need to print preview the reports. Click on the print preview button."
"So I click on print?"
"No, you click on the button that's the the left of the print button."
"I clicked on print and it didn't change anything on my screen."
*incredulous* "NO, you don't print them. Printing them won't fix the problem. We need to print preview those reports because it will change the status from scheduled to unprinted. If you can't do that all at once, then preview them each one at a time."
"Ok, let me put you on hold."
-- bad hold music --
"Ok, I'm back. So what do I click on?"
*sigh* "Click on the PRINT PREVIEW button. It's just to the left of the print button and looks like a picture of a lil' bitty computer screen."
(Yeah I get condescending when I'm frustrated. Probably get me in trouble some day.)

Repeat for 40 minutes.

On the other hand, yesterday I talked to the nicest little 65 year old lady from Texas who was intelligent and listened to everything I said and was friendly to boot.

Never can tell.