The 5 Users You'd Meet in Hell 649
cweditor writes "The Know-It-All. The Finger-Pointer. The Whiz Kid. "Just as a zookeeper cares for his monkeys one way and his rhinos another (we kid — sort of), so too should IT tailor its responses to fit the individual styles of its end users," according to this Computerworld "rogue's gallery of users (and one angel)".
Includes advice on how to best deal with the most common types of users, without having to run screaming into the night. Expect sometime soon to also see reader feedback offering other ideas (and, oh, perhaps some disagreement with the article's)."
Or any combination (Score:5, Interesting)
These people can ruin your job. I'm just glad that I was a lowly operator, it would really suck if I'd have had a good job there and this happened.
Re:Irony (Score:5, Interesting)
I'll admit, I fall into the wiz kid category, with a few smatterings of know-it-all (except I'm willing to admit I'm wrong if I screw up, and even temporarily take the blame while we wait to figure out what is really wrong, and I don't install things against company policy). A while ago I had an odd problem on my computer when dealing with a server (the IT area changed settings on the server a while ago related to the server-client connection, and something was cached on the clients computers and not updated). Anyway, the IT guy was the finger pointer. He kept trying to blame me for the problem - jumping from one thing to another, and I just stood there thinking "I don't care if I caused it or not, I want to know what was wrong, and how to fix it. If it was me, I'm more than willing to accept the blame, but without knowing what's wrong, we can't assign blame."
Turns out it wasn't me and everything he tried to blame me for wasn't the problem. Especially since several users have since had the same problem (The client caching things it shouldn't).
*sigh* I've been an IT help desk (like the person assiting me was), and I've been on the client end. As much annoyed as I got with some clients, I don't think the worst clients I've delt with are nearly as bad as the worst help desk individuals. Maybe it's just that I have a better personality for helping than being helped (a lot of clients asked for me by name), but I think part of the problem is that some IT desk people can get quite arrogant and put their users into two categories: Those that don't know nearly as much as they should know (the know nothings), and the people who know what they should while still knowing nothing and not having the possibility of knowing more than 'me' (everyone else).
Sorry about the rant, there are issues with both sides, client and help desk. Many seem to think their own side is perfect, but really neither is.
Not just the users (Score:5, Interesting)
Even worse are sysadmins who think that every other tech in the company are Know-It-Alls that must be contained at all costs. At a previous job, I was tasked with installing a rather expensive server application. It was one of those nightmare jobs with a huge spaghetti-coded shell script installer. You know the kind: works great once it's running, but you better have things exactly right before running ./install.sh.
Anyway, one of its requirements was an empty Oracle database and an account with permissions to create the tables it would be using. Now, I'm sure our DBA was a pretty clever guy, and I understand that he had an important job, but he was a complete ass about giving me that empty database. After all, only a Trained DBA is qualified to know how your schema should be designed; never mind that we were buying the app and didn't have a lot of say over how it was set up. Since he and I reported to different bosses, it finally took a request travelling up to the VP level and back down (plus some not so veiled threats of a beating) to finally get the ability to install the application we'd paid about $50K for. Oh, and the installer ran perfectly the first time. You could actually hear his teeth grind as it completed without so much as a warning.
I'm sure in his mind I was a pesky Know-It-All who wanted nothing more than to make his life difficult. He probably complained to his friends about the thorn in his side at the office who wanted - can you believe it! - free reign over a corner of his beloved Oracle.
The moral is that sometimes the people "beneath" you really do know what they're doing if you can bring yourself to give them a chance.
From a top-down consultant's point of view (Score:5, Interesting)
First of all, if we have bad users, we're the first to highlight them in our quarterly and yearly billing breakdowns. The users who are surly, obnoxious, and complain the most are usually the ones who get the biggest chunk of the maintenance budget. Their name is usually at the top, and each user is also compared to the company average. Many CEOs and owners love our breakdowns, and look forward to them each quarter.
Secondly, the hard workers in an organization also appreciate our reports, which we request to be open if the company's policy allows it (about half do). They know who the jerks and deadbeats (Finger-pointer and Mr. Entitlement) are, and they're happy to be "below average" in terms of company burden. It is also those users/employees who like us the most because we give them extra-special attention when they really do have emergencies. The guy who cries wolf all the time is still served well, but most quickly learn that they'll be singled out at their next review -- "Why do you need so much support?"
The finger-pointer loses power under this system. When it is obvious that the finger should point to them (and that's what the report clearly shows) they have little in the way of demanding a change in consultant or operations. Most finger-pointers we've dealt with have been the first to leave or be fired, based on the clarity that we show to the owners to see who is bringing down efficiency. Since we've taken over some telephone system operations, we also generate a report that shows the delay in responding to voice mails (a skewed report in some ways, because we don't use a weight-system for people who get way more voice mails than average), and it's usually the finger pointer and Mr. Entitlement who ignore the voice mails significantly more than average.
The Whiz-Kid is usually a good person to have for us, as we are open to changes in our system. If the Whiz-Kid gives us a recommendation, we'll include it in our summary of recommendations, and give them the credit. If that recommendation is accepted, and it works, more power to the Whiz-Kid, maybe he should go off on his own and consult. If the recommendation fails, it's also his responsibility. But here's the good part: the Whiz-Kid doesn't have the time to take over our work, so it's not competition for us. Owners should know if they have a talented worker, but they should also be aware that the talented worker should do what his job description says he should do, or he should be moved to a different department. About 20% of our customers have attempted to hire in-house staff, but their costs go up, not down, and the service seems to get worse. Currently, we work with no business with an in-house IT guy (even one customer who generates over $100m a year in income).
The Know-It-All is not a problem for us, because every invoice we produce references industry recommendations or knowledge base articles as to why we do it. If the Know-It-All calls us out in a meeting (or otherwise), all we have to do is say "Maybe we missed something, can you point us to two industry experts who recommend that action?" So far, maybe 5% of Know-It-All complaints have led us to making changes, but 95% of them fail miserably. And no, slashdot is not a great place to grab links to recommendations, because it also usually has replies from other "experts" who recommend against the same idea.
The Know-Nothing is our worst user, and maybe the only bad one. Because some WANT to know more, but don't have the aptitude, it seems part
And then there are the real know it alls (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Typical Asshat IT POV (Score:3, Interesting)
I went to my school's IT department because I messed up my MBR installing Ubuntu and needed to borrow the Windows install CD so I could run fixmbr in the recovery console. He had no idea what this so-called "recovery console" on the install CD was and had never heard of this "fixmbr" program. So I sat in his office and fixed my computer, but I couldn't help wondering how he rose to IT support. That's when I realized why so many students were complaining about losing all their data after taking their computer to tech support--their solution to every problem is "reinstall Windows" because they don't know how to actually fix the problem!
Re:The user that gives me more trouble than any ot (Score:4, Interesting)
What about useless-waste-of-space sysadmin types? (Score:4, Interesting)
Sysadmins and wire runners who think one becomes an engineer simply by changing his title to "engineer." This makes for great fun when Systems Engineers (systems integration, production, platform, environmental testing, component, etc. engineers, usually mechanical but also electrical) look for Sys Eng jobs and the search engine keeps returning Sysadmin jobs that were mislabeled by morons who wanted a better title without the schooling. And no, getting an MSCE does not make you an engineer.
I-never-heard-of-that-problem-so-it's-impossible admins
We had network tools and browsers that would lock up for minutes at a time, all the time. I reported it again and again and was told it was impossible. I guess I was hallucinating for 300 seconds at a time repeatedly throughout a the day. Months later I mentioned it to an underling and within 2 minutes he changed DNS settings and everything worked perfectly. To the same admin, I asked him to either stop forcing my desktop to sync with their server's clock, or to set their clock to be at least 15 minutes withing the actual time, preferably withing one or two minutes. I was told that it was impossible to sync desktop clocks to remote computers and I was confused. I volunteered to demonstrate it by changing my clock and then waiting a few minutes for it to be changed back to the wrong time, but he was not interested, because it was impossible. That was 5 years ago and the clocks are still off, but only by 4 or so minutes now, not the 17 or 23 or whatever annoying number it was. I also asked why 50% of my hard drive was "reserved" and was told it was impossible, or I didn't know what virtual memory was (40GB of swap?). I caught him once and showed him, and he shrugged and wandered off.
Slaves-to-super-secret-policy admins
Briefly I moved in to (and later back out of) another building in the same company with different admins who had to follow corporate policy. That policy forced us, a computer security company, to use IE. An obsolete version of IE. And we were not allowed to install or change anything, no matter how minor. Our homepage was locked to a link that had been broken for over a year and we couldn't even hit "stop" - we had to let it time out before we could use the browser. I once requested a laptop for a 2 week business trip. I told them I needed admin privs so I could install a compiler. They said ok, gave me the laptop, and I was on my way. Once I landed on the other side of the country I tried to install the compiler and found I had no privileges. I called and asked wtf, and they told me they don't give admin privs. They had no explanation as to why they waited until I carried that boat anchor cross country before telling me.
Re:listen to the whiz kids (Score:4, Interesting)
1) The whiz kid is advocating a violation of protocol. Often, this is the whiz kid not understanding how things work for the average technology user. In this case, you probably should consider but ultimately reject the opinion of the whiz. In other cases, the opinion should be weighed carefully, keeping in mind that protocol should be adapted once in a while.
Best way to handle that can be to tell whiz kid that yes, he's technically right, his solution is better in an ideal world. Unfortunately, you're left supporting 1 genius (him) and 499 mouth-breathing retards, so he can thank the retards for forcing you to do things even you'd rather not do. That way you can win his respect and, possibly, some sympathy.
Personally, I'm probably a somewhat older/more mature version of the 'whiz kid.' I see our poor IT guy swamped by users who fit very well into the other 'demon' user categories. Seeing what the guy goes through, I try to help him out as much as possible and give him long lead times on things I need. As a result, when unforseen things happen that very rarely require me to play the 'I need this NOW' card, he trusts that I'm not being a jackass and I really do need it (most likely, somebody else did the same thing to me and we're in the same boat).
I pay him back by helping out with our Linux systems since our Windows users usually keep him swamped.
voodoo users (Score:5, Interesting)
My experience with many such people leads me to believe that voodoo users have a mindset that effectively prevents them from learning how computers work: I think in some cases they're so convinced that they can't learn it that they prevent themselves from doing so even if they otherwise could, and in some cases they don't have the sort of brain processes that allow a person to systematize knowledge about how one part of one thing works to understand how other parts or other things work, so memorizing instructions is all they can do.
I usually make them lavish documentation with lots and lots of color screenshots. (Yes, I've had users that failed because the document was b&w and the screen was color and they couldn't match the two in their heads. This also means the document has to be created with the default system colors, and I have to ensure that their workstation is set to the default system colors.) And over-simplistic language. (You can't say "click 'ok'" and expect them to figure out that there's an on-screen button labeled 'ok' that they're supposed to click with the mouse: you have to say "using the mouse, move the pointer so that it is on the on-screen 'button' labeled 'ok'. [picture of it here] Press the left mouse button and release it.")
Re:voodoo users (Score:3, Interesting)
Types of People and How to Work With Them (Score:3, Interesting)
As a financial planner I have to learn how to be a partner with people, relate to them, and get them to trust me with their money. Helping different types of people is most often about showing them what is in it for them (why should they care), and helping shore up their insecurities. The know it all and whiz kid could be Analytic types who just didn't get enough hugs as a kid (or something) and are insecure. So, trying to out-do them and show them how they are inferior is a BAD idea. However, working as a partner with them, acting like someone who is on their side to offer suggestions, now *that* will get you much farther, in my experience, and you'll also have a person who begins to trust you and who will be loyal over time.
That's just one personality type I've encountered, there are others of course.
I know it's a stretch for the metaphor between IT and running a client-based practice, but I thought this might prove useful. Mod me down if it's just a bunch of pie-in-the-sky guff, though.
Re:voodoo users (Score:5, Interesting)
Many of the elderly had occupations or grew up on farms where making a mistake with a piece of machinery would result in them losing a limb. Years of operating under this mindset causes severe paranoia with machinery that they don't understand. Critical thinking involved in figuring out even the simplest of tasks on their own can be frightening for them, but they can follow explicit step-by-step instructions, because they trust them more than themselves.
Do you really want to know the TRUE answer? (Score:3, Interesting)
It depends, how much you are willing to pay wether it is tech-supports work to hold you hand or wether it isn't.
Car anology time. If you hail a cab, you pay enough that you shouldn't have to care even about the most basic things of operating a car like speed limits or fuel. If you rent a car, you pay slightly less, but you are supposed to know the road laws and put in your own gas, although you should be able to count on it to have a full tank when you first got it.
Lease a car and you pay even less, but know you got to remind youselve about oil levels as well, buy the car and you are even cheaper but you know need to maintain the car yourselve and if you turn it into to the garage because it makes a funny sound, you can expect the garage to charge you for discovery time.
The same works in IT. Tech support is often also responsible for basic maintenance, that is, just because a guy is from tech support doesn't mean he has nothing else to do then answer questions. Even if he is, how many people is he servicing?
Are you (or your company) willing to actually PAY for the amount of handholding you require?I once had the luxury of having a REAL secretary, just for me. I was considered so expensive that the company was willing to pay someone fulltime (and secretaries don't come cheap) to do all the non-tech tasks for me. You would be amazed at how this is different from having a office worker who you can ask things.
For instance, he took care (yeah male) by himself of things like keeping my office supplied, you don't know how luxurious it is to have someone who keeps the printer working for you until you got to order your own catridges again. My time was precious, precious enough to warrent the costs of hiring an extra person to make sure I spend my hours on my task and not supporting myself.
The biggest problem I see with tech support is often simply down to budget, you seem to have 100 dollar questions but are only willing to spend 10. Sorry, but you ain't gonna get what you want unless you are willing to spend.
If I was willing to do support (not on your life) I could easily arrange it for you to have the pefect IT setup where you would never have to read a manual or do a patch or wait arround for tech support to come around. Mind you, it would cost you.
IBM is famous for its excellent support, you got a problem, they come, 24/7 year around, but be prepared for some screaming for accounts when you actually use that support.
I have used them a few times when I was confronted with managers who don't understand a problem unless it comes with a huge price tag, and they are excellent, but the price per hour came to about 500 euro's per hour, all to say that the server was fine, the problem was in the software, just as I had been saying all along.
Tech support can only deliver what you are willing to pay for, and while I do not know you, I find it fairly easy to assume that you are unwilling to pay for it.
Don't expect a doorman to hail you a cab at a motel.
How I deal with finger pointers (Score:5, Interesting)
I find that most of the problem users are also finger pointers. It's rare that I encounter one of the other problem users who isn't also a finger pointer. Usually they'll call my boss, whoever that is, and try to get me fired. This is why I won't even consider an IT job unless I've discussed it thoroughly with my potential new boss and they've made it plain that they will back me up. The finger pointer then usually tries calling my boss's boss. I therefore insist on having enough of a relationship with *that* person that they know me enough to call me and have a friendly discussion about what really happened, rather than flying into a rage as the finger pointer wants them to.
I've found that attempting to mollify finger pointers is generally a bad idea: they'll get pissed off anyway, either now or later, and go to management and tell whatever kind of outrageous stories they think are necessary to get rid of me (or my staff), even if it means lying outright. (And I don't mean the kind of "they're too ignorant of computers to tell the difference" lies, I mean things like claiming I said a bunch of sexist stuff that I would never say.)
So, my new method of dealing with finger pointers is "take no prisoners." If something goes wrong and they say "what did you do?" they get a detailed lecture about not jumping to conclusions before analysis. They try to blame something on me and it's their fault, and they get a lecture about exactly what they did wrong and they get told that if they insist on blaming me or my staff for their errors we will withdraw service from them, including their network connection, and they can figure out how to do their job without a computer. (And I mean it - I've done it.) If they claim that they're suffering because me or my staff is slow in responding to them, all work for that user halts while I contact the help desk and get them to retrieve the records to demonstrate our reasonable response times for that user, and then I insist on receiving an apology before I can continue work.
I then go back to my desk and fire off a very polite email to their boss and mine about their poor behavior and its negative effect on my staff's morale. Since my boss always knows from experience that I am a professional and would never make shit up, when my email and the inevitable one from the finger pointer come in, I am the one who is believed.
The other consequence of this is that I insist that my staff have no more contact with finger pointers than absolutely necessary. If a finger pointer calls the help desk, the help desk notes what they have to say, tells them they'll get a call back, and then routes the complaint to me, and I handle it personally, calling in other IT people to assist me (not them) as necessary. This means that sometimes they have to wait for me to become available to work on their problem for them. If they complain to me about it, or my staff, they are told that because they've had difficulties in the past they have been placed in a special service category in which they are always taken care of by the top IT people (the managers) to ensure that they receive the best possible quality of service. If they complain to upper management about it, upper management will ask me, and I'll tell them the real reason - that they're not allowed to deal with lower level IT people because they can't be trusted not to tell lies and try to get my people fired, while I have the clout to stand up to them.
It has happened that management has decided to fire a finger pointer after they told nasty lies about me came to light. (The specific user accused me of making a pass at her and then discriminating against her for being a lesbian. HR called me about this, and I merely informed them that I'm gay. The discussion was over and I was off the hook.) And yes, management did back me when I withdrew all services from a user because of their nasty behavior - the user was fired, on the basis that they had such behavior problems they couldn't get along w
Re:The know-nothing. (Score:3, Interesting)
My FAVORITE, a finger-pointer, is the woman who called us up bitching, whining and moaning that "THIS IS RIDICULOUS, I PAY FOR THIS AND I SHOULD GET BETTER SERVICE THAN ANYONE ELSE"..she couldn't get online and that *gasp* she had to wait to talk to someone. I found out that she was having signal issues but during the conversation she let it slip that she was using Kazaa. Since I had to listen to her bitch that she "was thinking about moving to the other cable provider", I turned the tables and told her that she could consider this her first warning about sharing illegal files online and that if we got a complaint from anyone she would then have her net access permanently revoked. You could hear her tonally shift from bluffing about leaving us to "oh, I'm sooo sorry..I'll never let it happen again", fearing that she might REALLY lose her access and since the other company was TimeWarner, she didn't want to play their by their rules.
Re:voodoo users (Score:3, Interesting)
The Categories in the Mirror (Score:5, Interesting)
What kind of support techs are there?
(1) The Whiz-Kid - just scraped by in college, but reached Level Google in every game during those 4 1/2 years. Builds PC's in (inevitibly his) spare time. Has never touched a mainframe in his life and doesn't really understand it, and therefore, looks down on it. Knows every upcoming Intel processor code name, but can't write code, else they would be in "real" IT. How to handle? Empathy. Tell them they are amazing, and let them add that secured printer driver to your system and reboot.
(2) I'm New Here. Usually female, males will try to BS through it. Will have to check back with someone else on everything. How to handle? Empathy. Show patience. Be tolerant. Followup with an email to their boss thanking them if they didn't royally screw up. They are your friends for life.
(3) Whatever. The private sector civil servant. Doesn't know, doesn't care, just get the job done and move on. How to handle? Empathy. Tell them they are very busy and you appreciate their time. Won't help move them any faster, but there is a 1% lower chance they'll totally bork your system.
Interesting, how empathy is the correct response in every situation. There's a life lesson in there, young Jedi.
On me: I joined a Fortune 25 company as an executive, and have since risen in the executive ranks. I actually am entitled to nearly anything. But I never, ever take that tack. I personally throw out a few questions to see what category they fall into and deal appropriately. Occasionally the newer ones (who haven't heard the rumors) will decide to do what TFA says, dive deep and bury the user (me) in tech talk. It hasn't worked even once. I may have a title, but I write code at home for fun. It's a kind of malicious fun to see them retreat to Executive Support with their wanna-be tech tails between their legs.
My current least favorite user (Score:3, Interesting)
There is a new assistant at the company who at the time of this incident hadn't even made it through her thirty day probation period. She had managed to piss off all three of the other guys in my department by claiming to be a know it all and basically telling them how to do their jobs. Despite that I went into my first encounter with her with a semi-open mind. I was there to deal with some slowness problems that she was having with her computer (she was trying to insert 20 megabyte uncompressed graphic files into her Word document from a file server on the opposite side of a 3mb MPLS circuit.) While I was there diagnosing that problem, she started into me with her, "I need a flat screen." diatribe. I won't bore you with all the details of the multi-week long ordeal, but the conversation involved the lines. "My brother works in IT and he says I need a flat screen. My dad has been developing computers for years." She claimed that she had been working with flat screen monitors for "ten years" at which point I expressed my suprise and shared with her that I had done some market research on flat panels when they were just about to be introduced widely into the market... in 1997. That really flustered her and she mumbled something about how her dad had always been into really advanced computer stuff and that she had been "using computers for fifteen years." Now I'm 29, and she looked younger than me so I was kind of flabergasted and asked, "Wow, that's a long time. How old ARE you?" She got really defensive at that point and told me, "My age doesn't have anything to do with what you are here to fix." to which I replied, "Neither does your "need" for a flat screen monitor."
During the same conversation I was looking at her computer and I realized that she had both anti-spyware software on there and Symantec corporate edition which also does spyware scanning. I uninstalled the anti-spyware program (it was old and should have been uninstalled long ago. The guy who usually handles the workstations had obviously missed that). She of course needed to know why so I explained to her how when multiple programs try to access a file at the same time to scan it, they can often spike the CPU utilization as they fight to get a lock on the file. She then tried to tell me how she doesn't "scan files" and so obviously that wasn't her problem. I had to explain to her how the programs automatically scan the files any time she opens or saves them and her eyes started to glaze over before she retorted, "You don't have to dumb things down for me. I understand how computers work." I wanted to grab the bitch by the shirt and yell at her, "Then why the fuck are you asking me so many god damn innane questions then?!?!" Some how I resisted the urge.
Re:Military Alphabet (Score:3, Interesting)
My express service tag is:
"B as in Bravo, C as in charlie F as in Foxtrot, S as in Seirra, 4 5 9 2 6" to which they respond:
"So thats B as in Boy, C as in Karen, F as in fun, s as in Cicero? 4 5 9 2 X"?
"NO"
"B as in Bravo"
"B as in boy"
"c as in charlie"
"C as in catwalk"
"F as in foxtrot"
"F as in Friendly"
"S as in Sierra"
"S as in Sam"
They're worse than the morons at starschmucks...."I'd like a large chocolate latte' please" "venti mocha?"
"What?"
bastards.
Re:Military Alphabet (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Typical Asshat IT POV (Score:2, Interesting)
I brought a thumbdrive in to work with a small document that I had to print out for school (less than 1 page). I forgot to take the thumbdrive out of the back, and took the following day off. When my co-worker tried to use my pc the next day, the mounted thumbdrive set off a 'Non System Disk' error, and she called IT. The newest member of our IT team came down, restarted the pc once to view the error again, and the first words out of his mouth were "He needs a new computer!"
He then proceeds to call the SVP of IT, who happens to be 4 levels higher than his own manager, to ask him how to proceed with replacing my computer. The SVP then quickly told him to check for a thumbdrive, and the IT guy said he didn't see one. The SVP had to clarify to look in the back of the pc for it since there aren't any USB ports in the front, and there it was... pulled out the drive, and everything was fine.
Now using personal equipment on personal computers is against our company policy (a scarcely enforced one since other people in my department bring in CDs and thumbdrives of pictures and videos of our recent holiday party to show my manager and his bosses), yet because the IT guy caused a big scare over everything and called in the SVP, I actually got in trouble for it with my manager. They even drew up a waiver for me to sign, explaining that my manager spoke to me about the issue, and if it happens again, I could be fired.
Oh, and don't even get me started on the day I watched an IT manager VNC into my pc, and spend 2+ hours trying to update a program I needed. She uninstalled the old version by hard deleting it's directory in C:/Program Files, emptying the Recycle Bin, and spent the next 2 hours in the registry, searching for and deleting entries... That was a fun day...
Re:Surprisingly common (Score:2, Interesting)
A co-worker in a helpdesk years ago ran into a funny situation. A customer called and complained about his internet connection not working. After trying lots of things this helpdesk dude decides to re-install the modem. So he directs the customer to control panel, phone and modem options, they see the list of (one) installed modem and the helpdesk dude says "remove the modem". There is a fairly loud crunch and then silence.
"What did you do?"
"I removed the modem"
"Ok, so now you see no modems in the list?"
"I don't see anything anymore, the screen went black?"
"How did you really remove the modem?"
"I pulled it out of the computer"
The computer was broken, and the customer demanded compensation from teh ISP, I think they gave him a month or two free internet usage.
Re:The know-nothing. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:voodoo users (Score:2, Interesting)
Flashback to High School.
My Physics teacher taught straight out of the book. Verbatim. Since I was a substantially faster reader, I soon got waaay ahead, and bored. Since I was also wresting at the time, and cutting weight, I was also tired and fell asleep often. Inevitably, the teacher tried to "catch" me - I would pop my head up, answer the question, an put my head back down.
Now add my wiseass friend. In a different class, we had some excercises where students "taught", or at least explained the concepts, and I was pretty good at it. So during a particularly trying session, when the physics teacher just wasn't getting the point across, my friend says "Mrs. Teacher, I still don't understand. Can R2.0 explain it?". Irritated, she says "sure, if you think it will help." I did my schtick, and he goes "Ohhh, now I understand it." (No, I don't think I did a better job per se, but he was busting her balls.)
Shortly after that, she asks me to stay after class, and explains to me that she was originally hired to teach sophomore geometry, and that they handed her the senior physics class 2 weeks before term started when another teacher quit. As a result, she was only 2 chapters ahead in preparing lesson plans.
"Oh", I replied, "I'm 4 chapters ahead."
"I know", she says, "So can you cut me a break?" and detente was established, although I was a little confused.
Years later, I found out that she had tried to hand in her resignation after the incident with my friend, and the administration called my Mom in to get her to adjust my attitude. They were a little surprised when the little Italian housewife says "If other students have to ask my son for help, then he's not the problem" and leaving.
Re:Surprisingly common (Score:4, Interesting)
For power users like you and I, sure, I love my context menus, but for casual tech-illiterate grandma users, it's a fricking Godsend.
Use before bash. Apple trackpads right click if you put two fingers on the trackpad. IMHO this is a far superior way to right click. PC users love the tap-to-click feature because, in fitting two buttons on the trackpad, neither button are large enough to comfortably hit with your thumb (the biggest finger you've got). On a Mac this is eliminated - the button is large and easy to access with your thumb, allowing a very easy index-middle finger configuration for scrolling, and using the thumb to click. Not to mention the two-finger scrolling thing is INFINITELY superior to cramming your finger to the edge of the pad to scroll.
Yes you can. It's in System Preferences -> Keyboard & Mouse -> Trackpad
I'd say that's more of a Windows/Linux trait than anything else. You either have interfaces cluttered by an insane number of buttons that each do simple tasks, or you start hiding less-commonly used features under layers upon layers of submenus in some obscure location. Keep in mind that OS X does have context menus - it simply involves holding down your mouse button for slightly longer (about 1 second) than a regular click to bring them up. So besides the slowness (which doesn't impact casual users) of it, the functionality of an Apple one-button mouse vs. a PC two-button mouse are identical.
IMHO it's a decent, but not perfect, compromise. Casual users get to think only about one button, while being able to achieve the same things as power users, albeit at a slower rate. Power users can still have their two-button mice if they really want to blaze along. Both have equal functionality as far as the OS is concerned.