It's sunk to a new low.

[darkblade1.livejournal.com]

Does it seem that people are getting dumber?

Ok, here we go...

This guy comes on my line screaming mad. So I go through the process of verifying his info and he's still mad. He's had 2 techs, and an senior tech on site. He notes his connection keeps dropping out. So, I check on the modem, and the modem has been online for 20 days, 7 hours, and 50 seconds. The modem log is healthy and no problems are reported. The signals look better than mine at home.

He's still yelling in my ear by the way. This guy also didn't have a firewall as I was able to ping the PC. Didn't even have any wireless equipment. Just a straight modem to pc connection. So I ask the customer what he sees on his screen right. He gives me the response of "low power." Now clearly that makes no sense...

After prying with more questions, we come to the point that the monitor has no video yet his tower has power and his monitor just shows an orange light. I'm thinking ok it's in standby mode. The customer is still screaming his lungs out and I'm just being patient. So I have him try to get it out of standby. Using the keyboard, moving the mouse, and even having the man turn the computer off and on. No dice. I asked him if it did this everytime his "internet" went down. He said, yes it does this everytime and knew it was our problem.

Uh huh...

Apparently the last tech on site said it didn't have enough power going to the monitor and that's what the last tech fixed. The customer said it differently as if he rewired the whole damn machine.

After all of this the customer asked to setup a TC, which at our building if a customer requests a TC, we have to schedule one. I didn't really care at this point because all he did was bitch about how we suck and blah blah blah.

Is it me, or are the people just getting dumber at this crap? I mean today is especially bad, but come on!

Comments

[docjeff.livejournal.com]

Is it me, or are the people just getting dumber at this crap? I mean today is especially bad, but come on!

It's not you. People are getting dumber by the day. I volunteer time at a shelter and the clueless secretary asked me today why her Mac doesn't support touch-typing. I just looked at her blankly and said, "It does for smart people." She didn't like that and stormed off. :)

[spacebird.livejournal.com]

Seems like people really are getting dumber and grumpier. I've had more people scream at me and then demand to scream at my supe in the last two weeks than I have in the previous six months.

[valiskeogh.livejournal.com]

not enough power to the monitor? WTF you just plug a damn power cord in...

If only ALL questions were so easy...

[be4u.livejournal.com]

Does it seem that people are getting dumber?

Yes.

[be4u.livejournal.com]

I just looked at her blankly and said, "It does for smart people."

Oh, you didn't!

[annamaryse.livejournal.com]

I hear ya... but I'm also on the other side. My BF and I are both techs and in fact he used to tech for a large national ISPs (I was doing second tier for a software product) and we're both computer literate.

When we had our first cable modem in the bay area, someone changed our node on us and it took us six days of talking to first-lines who were dead certain we were the problem before we finally got to someone who realized that the node had been changed on us.

With that one exception, we always had a smokingly good clear signal and (looks around) no data cap... we had scorchingly good bit rates. Ah... those were the days.

So we know that cable modem *can* work. But in our new location, the service sucked. In order to get service improved, it took our calling tech support a lot - basically whenever we had time - for about a year, because for what we pay we believed we were entitled to better than sporadic service. Our internet service dropped all the time, all the time. And it was hell to have to always get past the first lines who 100% of the time assumed that it somehow this was the customer's fault.

Cuz like, sometimes it is the provider.

[docjeff.livejournal.com]

I had to! This woman is dumber than a box of gold-plated finishing nails. :)

She came back later an apologised for being stupid though

[jjjiii]

Sounds like, in all likelihood, that the guy's monitor's power cable worked its way loose and gives an intermittently good connection, or else that the circuit he's on is drawing too much power to provide adequate juice to everything on the circuit, yet for some reason is not tripping a circuit breaker.

Yup, I'd sure diagnose that as an internet problem.

[dirtymatt.livejournal.com]

What does that even mean? Did she think the computer had a sensor to detect if she was looking at the keys or not?

[dirtymatt.livejournal.com]

Maybe he had it plugged into a magical 90 volt outlet?

[docjeff.livejournal.com]

I've decided not to ask people like that what they mean. It will only lead to more aggravation with them. It also tends to make me want to disable their computer so they can go to management and complain about how "the computer hates me so much it won't even start today" [don't laugh - it's happened]

[geekgrrl-ca.livejournal.com]

People are getting dumber, it's due to the nanny state, but that's a rant for a different community.