Challenges, or no challenges?

[redqueenmeg.livejournal.com]

Are you guys with Wes Borg? Does it really give you a rush to configure an ADSL modem when they're running Windows 3.1 with 4MB of RAM?

Cuz I just had to troubleshoot VPN on a 300mHz eMachine with Windows Millennium. And it didn't excite me. It annoyed me.

Which side of the fence are you on and why? Also, how long have you been doing tech support (trying to see if burnout is a factor)?

me = just 5 years so far

Edited to add: Or do you like some challenges and not others? What's the distinction to you? If the user is competent? If the question is interesting?

Comments

[inahandbasket]

No. it irritates the fuck out of me.
been doing it full time for 3 years, and part time for 4 years in college before that.

I like technical challenges, not user challenges.
I far prefer a savy user with a bitch of a problem to a luser with an easy problem.

[ghostdandp.livejournal.com]

I only like it when it's something someone says you can't do. IE You can't connect a ADSL line to a Win 3.1 machine w/4mb of ram. Actually I don't think that would be all that difficult as long as you had a copy of trumpet winsock or a old IE Version 2-3 disk sitting around.

Then again, I worked for a ISP that ran all windows NT servers and when I started the current version was NT 3.51

Uhm.. Roughly 10 years, give or take a few breaks (lovely dot comb bust)

[jjjiii]

I like a good challenge, but there are challenges and then there are stupid challenges. Working with old hardware can be OK, if only for the nostolgia value. It's kindof a thrill to realize that you do still remember all the stuff you had down cold 6+ years ago. It's cool to be able to get more out of something than anyone ever would have expected out of it.

It's especially cool if it's an "Apollo 13" scenario -- where survival is at stake, the resources are limited, innovative problem solving is critical, and time is of the essence. Of course, I'd never want to actually be in that kind of situation if I could at all avoid it, and I really doubt that I could do something like that given that I've always been put to work in environments where you don't have to be that resourceful, if something breaks you simply replace it rather than dissect and cannibalize and McGuyver a fix -- but yeah, it'd be thrilling.

What I call "stupid challenges" are when it's pointless to continue supporting the technology, or you're called upon to bail someone else out because they're too dumb to extract themselves out of the hole they just dug themself. It's pointless to support a system when it requires constant attention and fiddling to make work, such that the time spent on making it work costs more than the hardware itself or the cost to replace it with something modern that would be less trouble-prone and provide far better performance.

[redqueenmeg.livejournal.com]

Well said; that's about how I feel. The eMachines scenario, that was just unnecessary, but there are some challenges I get that I'm glad to help with.

[brutalentropy.livejournal.com]

I totally agree. The most enjoyable time I've had at work lately was when we had an issue with Spotlight (OS X 10.4 indexed search technology) messing with our roaming profiles. Basically, we have a 50 MB quota for our roaming profiles, but Spotlight was putting an index file in there that was constantly expanding and taking up space. I got to much around in terminal reading the man pages for the various Spotlight command line features. Ended up fixing it by using a symbolic link that pointed all references to the .Spotlight-V100 file in the home folder to the hard drive.

So much better than helping dumbass grandpa #924 figure out how to use "that thur innnternet".

Then a few days later I got to take some time off the phones to write a shell script that went and cleared out various "fluff" from ~/Library/Prefences and ~/Library/Caches upon login. It's nice being one of the only people here with any UNIX background at all.

[swwinchester.livejournal.com]

For me, it's a matter of the following : under most circumstances, "YOUR" (read as, the end-user's) problem is a challenge I don't inherently want or need to deal with, and as I am a freelancer now, I generally decline such issues with the simple explanation "It will cost you more in my labor to do what you want with that hardware than to go out and buy hardware that can do what you want it to do".

My challenges, those that I set up for myself, however, are fun diversions from the normal grind I seem to get freelancing (Which is pretty much now almost 90% spyware removal / luser education).

I'm debating making my next 'challenge' to go out, get a dead Mac, and fish tank it ... then drop in the right internals under the tank to make a mini file server out of it.

[loosechanj.livejournal.com]

I think he was being unintentionally (possibly through psychosis) ironic.

[redqueenmeg.livejournal.com]

Well, yes, it is a comedy routine, I'm aware. However, I know people who think that way.

[residentgeek.livejournal.com]

Challenges I cook up when I'm bored out of my skull and have spare parts lying around: Good. Fun. Enjoyable.

Challenges cooked up by random people to make my life a living hell because they Will. Not. Upgrade.: Suck ass. Through a straw.

I do desktop support now. I've been in the field about 7 years. That doesn't count teaching my parents DOS when I was 10 :o) I haven't seen it all by any stretch of the imagination, but I do have a few good stories to tell :o)

[loosechanj.livejournal.com]

I used to think that way, until I had to do those sorts of things day in and day out.

[loosechanj.livejournal.com]

All things considered, I think I'd prefer to use the straw.