(no subject)

[kait-the-great.livejournal.com]

If we had tickets here, my coworker, who's on the first line of fire this morning, would have this to write up.


Problem:
Customer called to report that his workstation was locked and he was unable to do anything.

Action taken:
Confirmed customer is working on [on-campus Windows domain]
Asked customer if workstation had been left idle recently.
Stepped customer through pressing Ctrl+Alt+Del and entering his domain password to unlock workstation.
Customer recovered his workstation

Status:
Resolved



Sometimes I'm afraid I'm no good at my job because I can't understand how upon seeing this (both pics taken from google cause Print Screen doesn't work when the workstation is locked):



one wouldn't know what to do. HOLY CRAP! Once you do hit Ctrl+Alt+Del, you get this:



and I think it speaks for itself!


Am I really that bright?! I've had people ask me why I'm "so good" and I tell them it's because I've been using computers since I was big enough to propped up in front of one of these:



But really, it's just a knack for these things. It's sitting down at a new application and just knowing that the command you want is probably available if you highlight the thing and right-click, and then being brave enough to try


Along the same vein as that rant, I had someone call about Quicken last week. I like the lady and technically it's work for a prof and heck, it's dead here, so I go to check it out.

She can't print, with an error message along the lines of "You cannot print because we are missing a PDF driver. Close Quicken, run the command q:\path\command.cmd and then restart and try again." So I write down the path, close the program, run the command, and it works. (Best damn error message I've ever seen.)

I don't expect her to know how to run a command, but considering I stepped her through what I was doing, her question at the end of "But how did you know what to do?" seemed a little redundant.


It's like people are afraid to read.

Comments

[canray.livejournal.com]

"Reading will give me knowledge! Knowledge is dangerous!!!"

[gilmoure.livejournal.com]

I know what you mean. Otherwise intellegent people seem to lack some monkey curiosity/puzzle solving gene or something. I mean, I'm an art school drop out. Before that, I was a mechanic and then a medic. Now I fix computers. In all cases, you're presented with a system that isn't working right. You scan the situation, apply some logic and then try stuff. It's just like what they teach my daughter in pre-school, when figuring out puzzles and such.

[kizayaen.livejournal.com]

I have discovered an amazing abhorrence for critical thinking in people these days.

That's what it's called. Critical thinking. When you're met with a problem, you identify possible causes of the problem, and then change variables until it affects the problem, either good or bad. That gives you a feedback loop with more input into the problem and you can adjust your variable-meddling.

Come to think of it, that's also called troubleshooting, and I wish like hell that more of my coworkers knew it.

[xforge.livejournal.com]

Jeezoo, that error message makes me want to go kiss a Quicken developer on the mouth.

[kalium.livejournal.com]

I think we need to kill Quicken. That way, the developers will spread to other companies, bringing their wisdom with them.

[persephoneflame.livejournal.com]

If only Quickbooks was so well documented.

*kill Quickbooks with bomb*

[kait-the-great.livejournal.com]

I was so happy about it... I came back and told the other staff in this dazed voice, like one might use to say, "I just won the lottery and Santa Claus is real."

[guinevere33.livejournal.com]

I've definitely run across this phenomenon. The astonishing thing is that it even works when you're *speaking* about computers! I was trying to explain what a harddrive does versus what memory does to my technophobe friend, and it was just useless. Even though the words coming out of my mouth were non-technical and only one syllable, she went into frozen rabbit mode as soon as I started talking and processed literally nothing I said. It's like they're so invested in the concept that computers are too hard for them that it becomes self-fulfilling.

[kizayaen.livejournal.com]

Dear god, you've just described my mother.

"Well, first you find the power button. It's a small blue oval-shaped button on the bottom edge of the front panel, just about in the center. Press it to turn the comp..."

"Oh, I dunno, this computer stuff is just too complicated, and I'm getting older so I don't learn things as easily anymore. I'll just have your father do it."

[canray.livejournal.com]

"Please unplug your modem like you would a Toaster, or a Hair Dryer." "That's too technical."

[reddalek.livejournal.com]

Power cable or phone cable? Have you ever watched someone unplug a hair dryer or other electric device from a wall outlet by yanking hard on the cable?

Ever notice sometimes when things like ethernet or phone plugins are left in a jack for a while, they tend to be slightly more harder to remove? Sometimes they become more snug and tight fitting in the jack. I think it would make a support call go a bit faster and maybe a bit more interesting if a user yanked on the phone cable after being told to "unplug the modem" and cause the modem to fly towards their head, knocking them out for awhile.

[canray.livejournal.com]

Even more secure for me, I work with Cable Modems. The Cable Connection is screwed in. ;-)

Actually, that's another story I'll have to relate, that I got from my first Supervisor at work.

But, ya, I'm sorry. They teach how to unplug something in what? KINDERGARDEN?

[knittinggoddess.livejournal.com]

I like it when they throw up their hands and interrupt your basic question (like what application are you using?) to stammer "I don't know anything about computers!"

Oh jesus. You're 20 years old and wealthy enough to go to this school. You're telling me you have had such a limited exposure to technology that you freeze when asked to do the simplest things? How do you check your email? I know you check it religiously.

[reddalek.livejournal.com]

I work at a school district and I see the same sort of behavior on a weekly basis or even sometimes on a daily basis from teachers and students. Many students (but not all) often try something, even if it isn't correct, to work around or fix a problem.

Some teachers on the other hand...

They won't read or even try to do anything. Sometimes it seems that their brains seem to just shutdown. "Computers are hard". Troubleshooting, critical thinking or even common sense are all some sort of strange concepts to some of them. But the one thing that really bothers me about this is that these are teachers. They are suppose to be teaching some of these same concepts to their students but they don't follow their own teachings.