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)."
The know-nothing. (Score:5, Funny)
Step 1: Click the third icon from the top in the second column [...]
Etc....
Re:The know-nothing. (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:The know-nothing. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The know-nothing. (Score:4, Informative)
If you're serious, I don't buy that explanation. While what your friend did was a little unorthodox, it almost certainly didn't fry the card. I don't care how much static the tape holds. The charge has to go somewhere ESD-sensitive for it to do damage, and that simply isn't realistic in the situation you describe.
First, for tape holding a card in a slot, if the static charge discharges at all, it would discharge straight into the metal PCI card cage (which is grounded) or into the metal plate at the end of the card (which is also grounded). Assuming reasonable card margins, there should be no realistic path from the tape to anything other than output buffers (which should be ESD-protected anyway) from anywhere near that end of the card even if somehow the computer's case and the ground rail on the PCI bus were not grounded. (Yikes!)
Second, if he was in contact with the tape, any charge held by the tape would be distributed into your friend. While air is a poor conductor, it does cause electrical charge to dissipate slowly. When the tiny charge in a piece of tape is distributed across the much larger combined surface area of the tape plus your friend's body, the dissipation rate increases proportional to the increase in surface area, and thus should be near zero reasonably quickly.
Third, how do you stick something to a PCI card's connector area without touching any metal part of the case again? If your friend was taking even basic steps to avoid static buildup (touching any metal in the computer even once should be sufficient), the remaining charge would be almost nonexistent.
The main reason people say to avoid cellophane tape with equipment is that it is awful stuff. It leaves behind a sticky residue that is darn near impossible to remove (without nasty chemicals), leaves little bits of cellophane that end up in the strangest places (like baking on the power supply transformer), and tends to fall off eventually and subsequently end up somewhere obnoxious (like buzzing in the fan housing), not because of the relatively small ESD risk it contributes. Rubbing your clothing on your chair in a dry climate is likely to produce orders of magnitude more than the charge that cellophane tape holds.
I'd say there's pretty much zero chance the tape caused the card failure. When it comes to electronics, infant mortality happens sometimes. That's what warranties are for... and good return policies.
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The know-nothing. (Score:5, Funny)
>
> Step 1: Click the third icon from the top in the second column [...]
That wasn't just any know-nothing. That was the team lead for your company's ISO 9000 programme!
Surprisingly common (Score:5, Funny)
Me: "Right-click on your program shortcut and go to Properties..."
User: "What?"
Me: "The shortcut to the program."
User: "What?"
Me: "However you normally open the program."
User: "Ok, the program's open."
Me: "No, just right-click on that icon."
User: "So close the program?"
Me: "Yes"
User: "It says, 'are you sure you want to exit.' Click ok?"
Me: "Yes."
User: "It says, 'An error was encountered.' Click Send?"
Me: "No, click Do Not Send."
User: "OK, so go into the program?"
Me: "No, right-click on the shortcut."
User: "What?"
Re:Surprisingly common (Score:4, Funny)
Me: click the thing
User: Ok
Me: click the next thing
User: Ok
Me: click the next thing
User: Ok
Me: right-click the next thing
User: what?
Me: click the right button on it
User: Ok
Me: click the next thing
User: Is that left click or right click?
Me: left click
User: Ok
Me: click the next thing
User: Is that left click or right click?
Me: AAAUAHGGHGHAHG!!1
And my favorite question:
User: Is the Internet down?
Me: Is there panic in the streets today?
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Surprisingly common (Score:5, Insightful)
You joke, but pretty much anyone who has ever done usability testing on modern computer systems has run into difficulty with right and left mouse buttons. It is the single, number one, most common usability problem. The worst are users (about 5%) who always click both buttons at the same time, usually resulting in a left click, but occasionally (and apparently randomly to them) their other finger wins the race and they right click. The problem is not even solely that of novice users. When you use software to record the screen as people work, you see the problem for advanced users, most of whom do not even notice. I saw this once for one of the top security architects for one of the biggest tier 1 ISPs in the US, and he was a really bright guy.
Apple has largely solved this problem with two major things. First, all systems ship in single button configuration, so developers almost never require right-clicking for any action. (aside from one pro graphics company and a few bad ports of Windows/Linux apps). This means everything accessed by right-clicking is a secondary way to get to that function and can be used for quick shortcuts. The second thing they did was the invention of the mighty mouse. It isn't perfect and I don't use one myself, but they change a mouse from single button to multi-button in software, so different users of the same hardware can have either a simple mouse or an advanced mouse. This is the best thing ever for public machines, family computers, and other shared systems.
I suppose having actual experience with formal, scientific testing in this area is why all the idiotic comments about 1 button mice and ridicule of people who have problems is so annoying to me.
Re:Surprisingly common (Score:5, Informative)
Who modded this comment up?
1.) You can tap the pad. It's just disabled by default. Which is a good thing, because every time I try to drag one of my heavy fingers across the pad, it registers as a click on any PC out there.
2.) Doing a double-click (on Macbooks/Pros that can run Windows) is as easy as putting two fingers on the trackpad and clicking.
You can also do all sorts of nice tricks like using two fingers to scroll (horiz. and vert.) and things like that. And, of course, you can always plug in a Bluetooth or USB mouse -- the blindingly obvious solution that every Mac critic seems to know about.
All that said, the Mighty Mouse is dogshit. You have to hit it -just so- to do a right-click, and while that's ok when you're not e.g. gaming, it's really awful when you're trying to zoom in with the sniper rifle and instead fire off a shot that gives away your position. And the little scroll-ball is in exactly the perfectly WRONG place for it to be.
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.
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In addition to this, you cant tap the pad, like every single other computer, and have it count as a click.
Yes, you can - this has been available (maybe as an add-on?) since at least 1996.
You have to use this huge ass stupid button that constantly reminds you that there should be two.
Ever since the move to Intel, putting two fingers on the trackpad will cause a right click when you then push the button. It's actually a more natural movement than the thumb-contortion required for a right click. Unfortunately, I have an iBook that cannot do this so I am stuck hitting Control :(
So the mac solution is to redesign the entire interface for 5% of idiot users.
No, it is designed so that the bottom 5% can s
Re:Surprisingly common (Score:5, Funny)
Me: Right-click on your mouse
Client: Hang on, I'm getting a pen. (PAUSE) OK.
Me: Can you see the context menu? Click Properties on it.
Client: Menu? What menu?
Me: Did you right-click on your mouse?
Client: Yes.
Me: OK do it again then.
(SILENCE)
Me: Can you see the context menu?
Client: No - nothing happens. I've written click on my mouse twice, nothing's happened and now I've got ink on fingers!
Re:Surprisingly common (Score:5, Funny)
A tech support rep for another company emailed saying our upgrader didn't work for him. I asked him what the filename of the upgrader was. He replied with the file version and all the other information about the file, but said he couldn't find the filename...
----
Me: Here is your registration code: Alpha One Five...
User: Alpha? Where's the alpha key? I don't see that...
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A user wanted to use a camera with our software, but said it wasn't showing up as an option. I asked her if the camera was plugged in; she said no, but said "that shouldn't matter"...
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Me: Open up Windows Explorer by right clicking Start and going to Explore. Do you see our program folder under C:\Program Files\?
User: I don't understand what you're talking about! ALL I SEE IS GOOGLE!
Me: Not Internet Explorer. Windows Explorer. Right click on Start and go to Explore.
----
A tech support rep from another company was convinced that our "Watch Guard HTTP Proxy" was blocking him from downloading files from our site. I tried to explain to him that it was HIS proxy, not ours, but he didn't believe me and said he wanted to talk to another tech support here.
Military Alphabet (Score:5, Insightful)
I learned the hard way that using military alphabet abbreviations [wikipedia.org] over the phone just confuses most folks who aren't current/ex military or pilots. You end up having to say "A as in Alpha" instead otherwise they can't cope. It's even worse if they are a foreign national whose English language skills aren't so strong.
Of course most folks here can't deal with metric either so I shouldn't be surprised. (yes I'm an American slamming other Americans on this topic) There are a lot of things people could do to make their lives easier that they don't bother to learn. Sad but true.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
For real fun, make good use of all the possibilities. You can get someone to lose hope if you spell it
H as in Hour
O as in Opossum
P as in Psychic
E as in Excel
See also
A as in Aardvark
G as in Gnu
K as in Knife
M as in Mnemonic
X as in Xylophone...
Re: (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: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Military Alphabet (Score:5, Funny)
Of course they were confused. That should be "niner".
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Stupid User Story [slashdot.org]
Of course since then I have had many more, like:
My printer is printing things upside down.
What do you mean I can't drag and drop things to a blank CD in my CD-ROM drive, I have no problems doing it at home with my CD burner
Of course the famous...is the Internet broke, because I have not received any email in the last 5 minutes so the Internet must be broken
There are so many, that I probably could write a book
Re:The know-nothing. (Score:4, Funny)
User: I'm awfully sorry. I deleted 'The Internet' (Windows 95)
Tech: Thats fine. I think we have a backup of it around here somewhere.
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.")
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It was easy for me to pick things up the way he taught. The teacher made all the relevant points by Tuesday and spent the rest of the week making sure the students understood. Unfortunately this means the rest of us were held to a class "average" of sorts.
As I understand things have gotten worse under the No Child L
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Except they'll hold the button down too long and end up dragging and fail to click. They won't retry or even realise it didn't work, but simply get confused by the next instruction.
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.
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....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.
In other words, they're just not very bright.
I generally agree but I think "brightness" is a composite of several mental feats or traits. Just being enthusiastic about a task or subject can sometimes appear as brightness. Just being able to memorize a metric butt-load of dry facts can sometimes appear as brightness. The above trait is the ability to extrapolate across kinds of information, and/or the ability to generalize various facts by their common aspects, and these are depressingly rare abilities. Some people really do have moments where
Re:voodoo users (Score:4, Insightful)
The term you're looking for is "learned helplessness." They have either been told so many times, or have told themselves so many times, that they CAN'T do something that these "false facts" become their reality. Since trying to go beyond your limits requires an emotional risk (i.e. "What if I fail? I'll look foolish....") people who learn to be helpless tend to stay that way unless they get help breaking out of it or they accidentally do the thing the "know" they can't and get the idea that they actually can. (Wow, that was one tortured sentence...)
Re:voodoo users (Score:4, Insightful)
However, often they don't even want to hear what I've done. They are reading off of scripts and have no idea how to actually fix the problem. They are in the same voodoo category, and very rarely end up actually helping. A shame, actually, because they either seem unable or (worse) unwilling to learn what they're trying to support. It wastes everyones time.
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It can also be that they're not allowed to deviate from the script. This is especially true in large ISPs. First level support agents are randomly monito
Re:The know-nothing. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Hmm.. (Score:5, Funny)
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"I can't tell because it's dark because of the power cut..."
Irony (Score:5, Funny)
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.
Re:Irony (Score:5, Insightful)
The unix administrators I've run across certainly have their tyrants but they eventually relent in order to let me get some work done. The windows side of IT seems perfectly willing to let work stop in order to conform to policy.
Re:Irony (Score:5, Insightful)
There are more.... (Score:3, Insightful)
2) all of the millions of people that don't RTFM or help screens before lifting the phone and calling tech support; yes, the manuals and help screens suck, so did your chemistry book.
3) people that experiment with key configuration settings. Go ahead, click that DHCP button.
4) the well-intentioned, yet clueless. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
5) fanboi bigots; these weak ego'd miscreants are so insecure that the mere mention of a competing technology will drive them into brutal defensive postures. Their reactions remind me of our current political upheaval
Re:There are more.... (Score:5, Insightful)
But isn't it your job to be on the other end of the phone to answer a question in ten minutes that would take me an hour to figure out by reading the poorly-written book? If not then why am I paying for support?
Re:There are more.... (Score:5, Funny)
Is it just yor external email or email or external emais from you hole area?
Depends (Score:3, Insightful)
Usually IT positions seem to be more responsible for the larger picture, making sure the systems and network operate correctly. Past that, a lot
Re:There are more.... (Score:5, Informative)
There are different types of technical support available, and your company may employ some or all of those available. They include (but by no means are limited to) the following:
Tier 1: First level telephone support
In general, this level of support will assist you with "I can't find the right mouse button" type questions. The people who work at this level are generally very comfortable with the desktop operating system that your company uses, and can help you find applications, sometimes even help you find departmental data. Some companies even grant Tier 1 support staff the ability to remotely control your PC and help you to launch applications in this manner.
Tier 2: Second level support
In general, this level of support is called upon when the Tier 1 support personnel have exhausted their flow charts of canned information. This would include problems like, the computer won't reboot or we can no longer send e-mail.
Tier 3: Third level support
In general, this level of support will never talk to the end user. This group of people are involved in building the infrastructure, maintaining servers and network gear, and resolving obscure technical problems that are beyond the scope of responsibility for the Tier 2 support personnel.
It is important to note that there are many Tier 1 support staff who work their way towards Tier 3. They attempt to learn as much as they can about an area - by resolving problems for people that are outside their sphere of responsibility. These people "go the extra mile" trying to resolve problems that you, as a user, should be able to look up and answer for yourself.
If you are using CAD applications, Geophysical applications, or an obscure 4GL to compile your custom application, you will not likely get the support that you are looking for from the standard 3 tier support infrastructure. In many cases, you will have a contract with the vendor to obtain support directly from them.
If you are using obscure functions of "off the shelf software", then you will likely end up being more knowledgeable about the product than your Tier 1, 2 AND 3 support staff, as they have no reason to use the software as intimately as you would.
Your help desk can only provide the service that your company is willing to support. I somehow doubt that refusing to learn an uncommon application feature for yourself on the basis of "it's too hard" will not make you look good to your manager.
Re:There are more.... (Score:5, Insightful)
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 k
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Boy can I relate to that. I can't count the number of times I've gotten this blind, dogmatic reaction from Vi users when I explain to them, in the simplest possible terms, why Emacs is The One True Editor.
I know one more... (Score:5, Funny)
And when they get to Hell - (Score:4, Funny)
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listen to the whiz kids (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:listen to the whiz kids (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
2) The whiz kid is telling you how the technology actually works (not how it looks from the perspective of the Windows Management Console). In this case, if you disagree (and/or accuse them of going to hell, as in this article), you have now become the know-it-all, and he is the expert. Show some humility, and try to learn. If he is eventually found to be wrong, your humility will only act as a slap in his face. If he is right, you have potentially avoided losing face.
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.
7th graders (Score:2, Insightful)
Worst user... (Score:2)
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.
IT problem (Score:5, Informative)
Re:IT problem (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Or any combination (Score:4, Funny)
Of course, if you were a semi-BOFH, you would've promptly done some looking, then claim with alacrity that his account was breached by a third party (w/o naming the secretary), and that the lock-out was a safety measure. Then get the alarms going and report it as a security incident... this hands off the problem to the IT manager (hey, he's getting paid the big bucks to deal with crap like that). Eventually the problem gets (naturally) tracked to the secretary (who can no longer credibly claim that you did it, what with all the other uppity-ups getting involved and the log analysis/forensics that go with that), and it has the added benefit of being completely true. As a plus, they can't come back at you because when it comes to IT security, everyone knows that paranoia is a Good Thing(tm).
(a true full-on BOFH would've had the secretary meet with an 'unfortunate accident' involving either high voltage or a fall from a high place).
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:How I deal with finger pointers (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
those users are easy (Score:2)
I've found that being respectful but firm with all users they understand what they can and cannot do. If I treat management different than the cube grunts the management become the Mr. Elitist.
Typical Asshat IT POV (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (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
Bribe them. (Score:4, Insightful)
I resemble that remark! (Score:4, Insightful)
The Techno-phobe (Score:2)
There always seems to be one user in the office who looks at technology as if it were spawned by demons. They use it, because it is required of their job, but they distrust it, and if something they click on takes 5 ms longer than normal, there must be something wrong. They pine for the day of the typewriter and carbon paper, and hate it when anything is updated/upgraded/replaced, because they don't want to have to learn anything new.
Did anyone else look at this and go 'duh'? (Score:2)
The user that gives me more trouble than any other (Score:4, Funny)
...the dreaded 'family member'
In some cases, like my dad, it's not so bad, he pays attention to the explanation of whats wrong and is usually pretty good about dealing with problems he's seen before so I rarely have to fix the same problem twice, plus he's as good at fixing cars as I am with computers and I'm *rubbish* with cars so that results in a pretty fair exchange of skills.
Other members of my family are *much* more irritating and would think nothing of calling me up at 3am because they have a paper due in at 9am that they left to the last minute and couldn't figure out why their printer wouldn't work (for reference: because the dizzy bint had unplugged it to charge up her MP3 player).
The really shocking thing is that several of my techie friends seem to have it even worse than me with their family!
In a corporate environment the worst I face on a day to day basis are those I classify as 'know just enough to be dangerous' - its a combination of a modicum of ability with computers combined with just the right level of arrogance that they know more than I do that leads to all sorts of problems.
Day to day though it's pretty easy - the place I work is only 300 or so people, which is small enough to build reasonably personal relationships with the various staff, so I generally know the best approach to deal with whomever is having a problem - up to and including who can I get away with calling a dumbfuck to their face, and which ones I should save to have a laugh about back at the pen ;)
Re:The user that gives me more trouble than any ot (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The Whiz Kid (Score:5, Funny)
10 points for whoever can spot the huge flaw in this quote!
How about the sys admin categories? (Score:3, Funny)
Cookie Cutter
All users everywhere should have the same setup and run the same programs. The engineer working on software/hardware design has no need to use anything more/less that the receptionist at the front desk. Any "rogue" programs will quickly be blamed on why the computer is crashing. Even if they haven't been run in months.
The Tester
Any problem must be fully tested and proven before any action is taken. Of course its the users responsibility to do the testing. Having a crash/blue screen. Run tests for 5 days and take detailed notes on when it happens. The users project/schedules don't matter. If tests aren't sufficient or notes don't detail every last action help is denied.
The Swiper
Have a problem? The swiper is more very willing to help. They will take your laptop promising to return it within hours. Days later you still haven't gotten it back and you can't find the swiper anywhere. (note, yelling swiper no swiping doesn't seem to help).
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: (Score:3, Insightful)
I did support for a while, and periodically got users who didn't want to go through the first 10 basic steps of diagnosing the problem. They would assure me that they already tried that, and that's not the problem. 9 times out of 10, they are wrong, and some stupid thing they would swear they on their mothers grave they already tried fixed the problem.
Maybe you're that 10th guy, ever
No useful info (Score:3, Insightful)
Another one - the "It's got a virus!" user (Score:4, Insightful)
The worst thing about these people is they all have a know-it-all friend/relation who'll came over at the weekend and install his pirate copy of Windows/Norton on the machine to "fix" it.
Now Windows won't validate and Norton, well, it's Norton...
Now the only way out is to reformat.
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.
Some user stories (Score:5, Funny)
Then we had the guy who complained of a slow computer. He had about 30 icons on his taskbar, about 8 of them screen saver programs and who knows what else. I suggested deleting all of them and he balked. I suggested deleting one or more and he balked. Then I started to leave and he asked me if I was going to do anything or not.
But my FAVORITE story: my ex's dad called completely irate. He wanted us to drive 200 miles to his house on a work night and fix his computer. His daughter was crying, his wife locked herself in the bedroom, and he was in a rage because they did something and now he couldn't print AND his landline didn't work. (Needless to say, I had fixed this computer numerous times only to find 400 pieces of spyware and 15 screensavers and 86 viruses on my next visit) Well, my ex explained that we didn't want to do 8 hours of driving that night so he should call the phone company to fix his landline and we'd see about his computer on the weekend.
2 days later, a guy from AT&T shows up, unplugs the printer's USB cable from the phone jack and leaves.
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.
Ones I've met (Score:3, Funny)
Caller: I can't get into the site.
Me: Do you have an account to log in with?
Caller: Huh?
Me: Ok, click 'Create Account', you'll see a form to fill out with your information. Fill it out to make an account.
Caller: Ok (typing noises heard over phone)
(long pause... no typing noises... getting really long...)
Me: Are you done?
Caller: Do you want me to press that 'Submit form' button?
and a different caller -
Me: You need to create a password for your account. It should have a lower-case letter, an uppercase letter, and a digit.
Caller: You mean the number kind of digit?
Me: (suppressing urge to say, "No, cut off a finger and mail it to me!")
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: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I wonder what category I belong to... (Score:5, Insightful)
If I ask a user to reboot their computer (which, by the way, means I think it might help) and they say it's unrelated, their just prolonging the time it takes to get the problem solved, because I'm just gonna reboot it myself when I get to their desk. Why not save us both a little time and just do it now? Who knows, it might even work, and that'll save us both a lot of time.
Re:I wonder what category I belong to... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I wonder what category I belong to... (Score:5, Insightful)
Back when I was a "Windows Guy(tm)", I visited the desk for almost every system crash that was encountered by the user community. I admit that I, too, chose the occasional reboot rebuff when I was swamped with server issues. But I made a concerted effort to visit the user, and I was usually able to isolate the problems - generally related to faulty hardware or driver configuration.
Rebooting the computer will, in fact, resolve many things. For a while. Ultimately, most problems will recur. If it is software related, it will continue until the software problem is addressed. This could be the OS, and application, a utility, a driver, etc. If the problem is hardware related, it will also continue until the problem is addressed. And, it may end up costing you more money to replace any components that the faulty unit may be attached to.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I wonder what category I belong to... (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the problem is with different definitions of "fixed" which Windows and Unix/Linux/Mainframe/etc admins have. In the Windows world "fixed" frequently means clearing up an inherent, recurring, deep-seated internal design problems of either Windows or some business app which are fundamentally unsolvable given the lack of access to the source code and even sufficient diagnostics tools to track the cause down. So rebooting "fixes" the problem in the sense that people get back to work and the thing limps along for some unpredictable amount of time again, until one of the many fundamentally unsolveable issues crops up again. Then reboot. Lather, rinse, repeat.
In the other environments "fixing" means employing a set of different diagnostic procedures, from analysing logs (which are actually useful, unlike the Windows ones), turning debugging info on, running strace etc, all the way to parsing source code, all of which procedures are very quickly focused on a specific running process or kernel module, which in turn can, in a vast majority of cases, be stopped/started/loaded/unloaded at runtime. Following which "fixing" means alteration to either the system configuration or applying appropriate patches. In some cases even writing your own.
This is because of this fundamental difference you have such a chorus of disagreement between those who come from Microsoft-only shops and those who have a much broader experience.
Re:I wonder what category I belong to... (Score:4, Funny)
-mcgrew
(going for "funny" so I'm sure they'll mod "insightful". [slashdot.org]
-mcgrew [slashdot.org]
Re: (Score:3, Funny)