View Full Version : If the Helpdesk gave Darwin Awards......
Angry Puppy
4th May 2005, 14:28
These guys would surely win.
User sent in an email to say she had an error on her screen, so she printed it off and wanted to know our fax number so she could send it to us.
It gets worse…..
A while back when we changed from CRT to TFT monitors, a user emailed us to ask if he would loose his desktop shortcuts. The stupidity of this is compounded by the fact that it was our supposed Webmaster who asked us!
Andy
IS Support, Purgatory
These guys would surely win.
User sent in an email to say she had an error on her screen, so she printed it off and wanted to know our fax number so she could send it to us.
I'm not clear what's wrong with this ? She had an error, did a screen dump, printed the dump and wants to fax it to you. What's wrong with that? Much smarter than any of my users. They, at best , after hours of interrogation, will at most admit that there "was some sort of error thingy , but I don't know what it said, just a bunch of numbers and crap "
I guess emailing the dump might be simpler but a lot of places have restrictions on email size. Or it may have been a Unix connection, email but no images (without being clever). Or one of those email systems built into ERP systems that aren't really email at all.
scumdog
4th May 2005, 14:37
I'm not clear what's wrong with this ? She had an error, did a screen dump, printed the dump and wants to fax it to you. What's wrong with that? Much smarter than any of my users. They, at best , after hours of interrogation, will at most admit that there "was some sort of error thingy , but I don't know what it said, just a bunch of numbers and crap "
I guess emailing the dump might be simpler but a lot of places have restrictions on email size. Or it may have been a Unix connection, email but no images (without being clever). Or one of those email systems built into ERP systems that aren't really email at all.
Whoa!! You lost me there dude!
I'm not clear what's wrong with this ? She had an error, did a screen dump, printed the dump and wants to fax it to you. What's wrong with that? Much smarter than any of my users. They, at best , after hours of interrogation, will at most admit that there "was some sort of error thingy , but I don't know what it said, just a bunch of numbers and crap "
I guess emailing the dump might be simpler but a lot of places have restrictions on email size. Or it may have been a Unix connection, email but no images (without being clever). Or one of those email systems built into ERP systems that aren't really email at all.
Read it again, slooooowwwllyyyyy.....
User sent in an email.....
jazbug5
4th May 2005, 14:42
Read this (http://www.scotsmist.co.uk/unwashed.html)
heheheheh
Read it again, slooooowwwllyyyyy.....
User sent in an email.....
Yes, but that doesn't mean that she can send attachments. I know lots of email systems that can send text but not images.
bugjuice
4th May 2005, 14:57
Read this (http://www.scotsmist.co.uk/unwashed.html)
heheheheh
lol.. some classics there..
Angry Puppy
4th May 2005, 15:04
I'm not clear what's wrong with this ? She had an error, did a screen dump, printed the dump and wants to fax it to you. What's wrong with that? Much smarter than any of my users. They, at best , after hours of interrogation, will at most admit that there "was some sort of error thingy , but I don't know what it said, just a bunch of numbers and crap "
I guess emailing the dump might be simpler but a lot of places have restrictions on email size. Or it may have been a Unix connection, email but no images (without being clever). Or one of those email systems built into ERP systems that aren't really email at all.
Well, obviously if there was more to it than that, it wouldn't have seemed such as dense thing to say. :no:
Read this (http://www.scotsmist.co.uk/unwashed.html)
heheheheh
Top work that lass. Have a pat on the swede from me
TwoSeven
4th May 2005, 15:32
I find from a usability point of view its not the user thats the idiot - its the engineer that created the product that suffered the brain fart that made the product hard to understand.
If users could understand products - they wouldnt have problems would they ? Seems to me that a user having a problem means they dont understand something - whos fault is that - the user for being normal, or the designer for doing a bad/complex design.
If you want to appreciate the difference of context people have - try working with the disabled or the elderly - you soon get an appreciation for why people dont seem to understand simple things.
jazbug5
4th May 2005, 15:36
Top work that lass. Have a pat on the swede from me
Swede..? Y'mean 'neep', don't you?
Which, funnily enough, colloquially means 'idiot' or 'fool' where I'm from...
Hey!
ManDownUnder
4th May 2005, 15:38
[QUOTE=Ixion]I'm not clear what's wrong with this ? She had an error, did a screen dump, printed the dump and wants to fax it to you. What's wrong with that? Much smarter than any of my users. They, at best , after hours of interrogation, will at most admit that there "was some sort of error thingy , but I don't know what it said, just a bunch of numbers and crap "QUOTE]
HEY - YOU HAVE MY OLD JOB! I met those people.... :mad:
Read this (http://www.scotsmist.co.uk/unwashed.html)
heheheheh
Damned funny!!
Read this (http://www.scotsmist.co.uk/unwashed.html)
heheheheh
Techie mate of mine told me that 3rd one (....too stupid....) really happened. The guy on the desk got fired.
MOTOXXX
4th May 2005, 16:03
i heard of one help desk person got rang up by someone saying that there keyboard wasnt working.
helpdesk - is it pluged in.
user - yea i thinkso.
helpdesk person - ok try this. hold your keyboard up.
user - yes
helpdesk - ok now walk ten paces back
user - yes
helpdesk - did your keyboard go with you
user - yes
helpdesk - im afraid its not plugd in.
:laugh:
StoneChucker
4th May 2005, 18:00
Read it again, slooooowwwllyyyyy.....
User sent in an email.....
Maybe they mean she composed an e-mail, printed the e-mail (without sending it) and wanted the fax number to fax the e-mail printout. That would be daft.
TwoSeven
4th May 2005, 20:58
I thought this might be interesting.
An adult points at an object on a wall and asks another adult what it is.
"Well", says the second person, "its round, got numbers and there is a long arm and short arm that point to two of the numbers. But I have no idea what it is".
The first person takes the object off the wall and hands it to the second person.
"Oh - its a clock" says the second person as soon as they touch it.
Turns out that some of the mental disorders people suffer can be rather odd. The above is from a person that suffered a stroke in their visual cortex. While their eyes work normally they are unable to associate names to things they see - hence they could describe it, but not recognise it. As soon as another sense was used - in this case touch, they could immediately recognise and give it a name.
Regarding the printing email and sending it via fax. Its actually quite common both in people that are computer illiterate and people that dont have email accounts or modems.
Gremlin
5th May 2005, 04:26
Try the opposite. When we were first setting up internet etc here, we had problems with our email. Couldn't connect, send etc.
Phoned xtra (I think, maybe clear) and explained everything. They said they would get onto it, and then tell us what was going on.
Days later we phoned back to say we had heard nothing. Helpful person on the other end says the solution to our email woes had been emailed out to us... :no:
And a more modern case. I have been messing around with a lot of bluetooth products lately, but being a new technology, products are in their infancy and have teething problems. I was trying to sync my PDA and outlook via bluetooth. Had worked, now didn't.
Bloody woman goes through all the obvious that I had already told her, and repeated as well. Then, the brilliant solution she comes up with:
- Do a selective startup and only choose active sync. OK.
- Can you sync? No, my laptop doesn't have bluetooth enabled anymore.
- Why? Coz you told me to only start sync.
- Can you start bluetooth? Only by rebooting. Ok, do it.
- Now can you sync? Yes.
- Me: Great, what about all the other programs you have stopped running? Oh, you don't need those.
No, of course you want to manually start nortons antivirus. Even after I got everything starting again, nortons was always defaulting to auto-protect = off. Took me a loong time to fix that problem...
Help Desk are not always innocent. I think out of 20 odd problems put to help desk, 1 has been solved by them. Then again, usually I know what I am doing, so if I am phoning a help desk, its usually a big problem...
Oh, then there was a guy who instantly blamed my bluetooth dongle for all the problems between it and a bluetooth accesspoint. :bs: No, it was your stupid site that wouldn't give the firmware upgrades to the accesspoint. They got a nasty email in reply... :mad:
weeee...... 200 posts :whocares:
And who's to say she was sending the email from the same machine she had the error message on?
Lou Girardin
5th May 2005, 08:25
Don't start me on computer geeks. Why do they write manuals that only other geeks understand? MANUALS ARE FOR PEOPLE WHO WANT TO KNOW WHAT TO DO.
And there must be a special corner of hell reserved for help desk staff/operators.
3 separate calls, 3 diferent 'solutions'. None work.
TwoSeven
5th May 2005, 10:43
He he .. Welcome to the wonderful world of 'Usability'. :)
Otherwise known as 'Why bright people do dumb things'
Don't start me on computer geeks. Why do they write manuals that only other geeks understand? MANUALS ARE FOR PEOPLE WHO WANT TO KNOW WHAT TO DO.
Correct. Geeks don't need the manuals - if the system is too obfuscated for a geek to figure out solely by logical guesses and experience, it is "brain damaged" and not fit for use - only Marketroids would like it and only Room-temperature-IQ "Suits" would buy it. Ergo, any manual is for the end users to read.
And there must be a special corner of hell reserved for help desk staff/operators.
There is and I'm sittng at it. It has fluorescent lighting and a device that makes a noise occasionally to herald that someone wants to tell me "it don't go" or they "can't login to Word" or "the power light on the modem is going but there's no picture on the computer". All of them were presumeably able to convince a panel of interviewers that they possessed sufficient skills to perform a job that requires extensive use of a computer despite the fact they don't even know how to turn one on or even the basic nomenclature. Most of them share their passwords with everyone within a thirty mile radius and slavishly click on attachments to emails that say "Hear are sum pitcures of David Beckam fcuking a spanish hooker. Clik on teh attached file to see them." or send their banking and credit card details off to random sites because they got a letter claiming that, somehow, their bank can't remember them...
Compared to where I am now, an eternity of flames and being shafted up the arse by demons in some kind of Dantean dystopia looks like a blessed relief.
MOTOXXX
5th May 2005, 15:01
Correct. Geeks don't need the manuals - if the system is too obfuscated for a geek to figure out solely by logical guesses and experience, it is "brain damaged" and not fit for use - only Marketroids would like it and only Room-temperature-IQ "Suits" would buy it. Ergo, any manual is for the end users to read.
There is and I'm sittng at it. It has fluorescent lighting and a device that makes a noise occasionally to herald that someone wants to tell me "it don't go" or they "can't login to Word" or "the power light on the modem is going but there's no picture on the computer". All of them were presumeably able to convince a panel of interviewers that they possessed sufficient skills to perform a job that requires extensive use of a computer despite the fact they don't even know how to turn one on or even the basic nomenclature. Most of them share their passwords with everyone within a thirty mile radius and slavishly click on attachments to emails that say "Hear are sum pitcures of David Beckam fcuking a spanish hooker. Clik on teh attached file to see them." or send their banking and credit card details off to random sites because they got a letter claiming that, somehow, their bank can't remember them...
Compared to where I am now, an eternity of flames and being shafted up the arse by demons in some kind of Dantean dystopia looks like a blessed relief.
:killingme
yep
its always helpdesk vs the user.
and the helpdesk is trying to help fix the prolbem that most of the time the user has created.
but computers are complicated things and sometimes shit happens that ya cant explain.
chin up son :D
Swede..? Y'mean 'neep', don't you?
Which, funnily enough, colloquially means 'idiot' or 'fool' where I'm from...
Hey!
Swede means head as far as I've heard it
pommie girl
5th May 2005, 22:37
yeah, well everyone knows 99.9% of computer problems are situated between the chair and the keyboard!
ricksta
5th May 2005, 22:54
These guys would surely win.
User sent in an email to say she had an error on her screen, so she printed it off and wanted to know our fax number so she could send it to us.
It gets worse…..
A while back when we changed from CRT to TFT monitors, a user emailed us to ask if he would loose his desktop shortcuts. The stupidity of this is compounded by the fact that it was our supposed Webmaster who asked us!
Andy
IS Support, Purgatory
cant keep my eyes off of your avatar... :eek: :eek: :eek:
Correct. Geeks don't need the manuals - if the system is too obfuscated for a geek to figure out solely by logical guesses and experience, it is "brain damaged" and not fit for use - only Marketroids would like it and only Room-temperature-IQ "Suits" would buy it. Ergo, any manual is for the end users to read.
There is and I'm sittng at it. It has fluorescent lighting and a device that makes a noise occasionally to herald that someone wants to tell me "it don't go" or they "can't login to Word" or "the power light on the modem is going but there's no picture on the computer". All of them were presumeably able to convince a panel of interviewers that they possessed sufficient skills to perform a job that requires extensive use of a computer despite the fact they don't even know how to turn one on or even the basic nomenclature. Most of them share their passwords with everyone within a thirty mile radius and slavishly click on attachments to emails that say "Hear are sum pitcures of David Beckam fcuking a spanish hooker. Clik on teh attached file to see them." or send their banking and credit card details off to random sites because they got a letter claiming that, somehow, their bank can't remember them...
Compared to where I am now, an eternity of flames and being shafted up the arse by demons in some kind of Dantean dystopia looks like a blessed relief.
Of course though, 'home' computers are sold as a piece of piss to operate.
Unfortunately the promoted ideal of computers being so easy to use that anybody can pick one up off the shelf, plug it in and enter the wonderful world of the 'net etc is a long way off.
Of course though, 'home' computers are sold as a piece of piss to operate.
Unfortunately the promoted ideal of computers being so easy to use that anybody can pick one up off the shelf, plug it in and enter the wonderful world of the 'net etc is a long way off.
If I were marketing home computers they would be sold preconfigured with firewalling/anti-virus/antispam etc that the DoD would accept. The problem is that most systems are hyped as "fool-proof" and the average home user has absolutely no idea of the risks. The sales people don't tell them, because that would run counter to the sales pitch. So they shell out $1700 or whatever and within a week are pissed off because the machine runs like shit (174 pieces of spyware, a remote-control service running periodic Denial of Service attacks and three viruses all competing for the same processor's attention), they're being bombarded with advertising for penis enlargers, weight-loss programmes and "generic viagra" (really appropriate for a 55kg widow who only wants a computer to keep in touch with her daughter) and they discover that computer service people charge like wounded bulls.
they discover that computer service people charge like wounded bulls
Have you had to hire a plumber, electrician, or *shudder* a lawyer lately?
We dont really charge like wounded bulls.. or if we do, so does every other bugger.
$250 an hour for a lawyer, now thats charging like a wounded bull.
Or works $2688 a day consultant ay wolf.
The sales people don't tell them, because that would run counter to the sales pitch.
Or, just as likely, the sales person has absolutely no idea themselves.
I was on a train recently and I wanted to check my emails - so using my NewFangledWidget™ I switched on my PDA and attempted to connect to the tinternet using my new mobile phone via Bluetooth. I hadn’t paired them up at this stage, so I needed to search for the phone. Surprise, surprise - my PDA identified around 6 or 7 other Bluetooth enabled mobiles on the train.
“I wonder”, thought I. I attempted to connect to them, one by one just to see whether or not I could use their phones to access the internet. When I was asked to enter a password I entered what I know to be the default password for most mobiles. What a surprise, one by one I briefly accessed the internet on every one of the phones. What fun was had, as each time I connected to the internet via some poor suckers mobile, the phone beeped, and I quickly identified whose phone was whose, and wound up a lot of people in the process. What fun!! (yeah I know – simple things….)
My colleague and I found this highly amusing. Then I had a brain wave, I started up my laptop which has the standard Nokia software installed on it. I then used my Bluetooth enabled laptop (USB dongle) and connected to one of the mobiles. Then I started up the Nokia software and managed to download all of the configuration settings and address book from one of the mobiles!! The damage I could have done.
The moral of the story - CHANGE THE FREAKIN DEAFAULT SECURITY SETTINGS ON YOUR MOBILES!!
TwoSeven
6th May 2005, 11:32
I Surprise, surprise - my PDA identified around 6 or 7 other Bluetooth enabled mobiles on the train.
Come on - admit it - you were just "toothing" werent you :) :) :)
Gremlin
7th May 2005, 15:50
I have even heard that people send texts to the person saying "I would like to chat, when you get asked for a code press 1 and say yes to any following messages"
and it works, people fall for it... :no:
whats the special code?? :D
FROSTY
7th May 2005, 16:30
Ok you lot of puter geeks explain this to me--How in hell can switching the puter off and on fix it?? And how can how long ya leave it off make a difference??
Ok you lot of puter geeks explain this to me--How in hell can switching the puter off and on fix it?? And how can how long ya leave it off make a difference??
It fixes things because when you turn off and restart, all the memory is cleared and reinitialised. And other things have diagnostics run on them and are reset to correct values.
It's really the restarting that does it, not the turning off. You just ahve to turn off so that you can restart.
Essentially, it's saying "OK, it's all f***ked up. Lets go back to the beginning and begin again".
The reason why helpdesk say to leave it off for X minutes is because computers have big capacitors in them. Even after the power is off it takes time for the stored current to drain away completely.
The reason why helpdesk say to leave it off for X minutes is because computers have big capacitors in them. Even after the power is off it takes time for the stored current to drain away completely.
Haha, if only.... Ram is cleared instantly, and if you want to wait for your bios battery to drain you will have to leave it unplugged for a few years. The reason they tell you to shutdown for 5 minutes is becuase something is fucked at their end and they know it will be fixed in 4 minutes :whistle:
I was on a train recently and I wanted to check my emails - so using my NewFangledWidget™ I switched on my PDA and attempted to connect to the tinternet using my new mobile phone via Bluetooth. I hadn’t paired them up at this stage, so I needed to search for the phone. Surprise, surprise - my PDA identified around 6 or 7 other Bluetooth enabled mobiles on the train.
“I wonder”, thought I. I attempted to connect to them, one by one just to see whether or not I could use their phones to access the internet. When I was asked to enter a password I entered what I know to be the default password for most mobiles. What a surprise, one by one I briefly accessed the internet on every one of the phones. What fun was had, as each time I connected to the internet via some poor suckers mobile, the phone beeped, and I quickly identified whose phone was whose, and wound up a lot of people in the process. What fun!! (yeah I know – simple things….)
My colleague and I found this highly amusing. Then I had a brain wave, I started up my laptop which has the standard Nokia software installed on it. I then used my Bluetooth enabled laptop (USB dongle) and connected to one of the mobiles. Then I started up the Nokia software and managed to download all of the configuration settings and address book from one of the mobiles!! The damage I could have done.
The moral of the story - CHANGE THE FREAKIN DEAFAULT SECURITY SETTINGS ON YOUR MOBILES!!
Haha, common issue. Most new phones ship with Bluetooth disabled for this reason.
FROSTY
7th May 2005, 16:47
Haha, if only.... Ram is cleared instantly, and if you want to wait for your bios battery to drain you will have to leave it unplugged for a few years. The reason they tell you to shutdown for 5 minutes is becuase something is fucked at their end and they know it will be fixed in 4 minutes :whistle:
I like your explaination best
Ohh I just remembered a conversation with the woosh helpdesk.
No sir there is nothing wrong with the network-It must be your unit playoing up. On the radio in the background -Woosh exoeriencing network problems in skycity.
Haha, if only.... Ram is cleared instantly, and if you want to wait for your bios battery to drain you will have to leave it unplugged for a few years. The reason they tell you to shutdown for 5 minutes is becuase something is fucked at their end and they know it will be fixed in 4 minutes :whistle:
No, RAM is actually left in whatever state it was at shutdown. It is reinitialised at boot up. On a big Unix server this can take several minutes. On some (mainly older) machines you can see the numbers clicking up on the post screen as it initialises memory. The 5 minutes is overkill, it only needs a few seconds, but they want to make sure and if you say a second or so, people hit the on button even before the fans have stopped.
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