problems that aren’t
Oct 24th
I had the privilege of speaking to the gentleman who is the root of the expression “Asshat”.
I rarely get mad at any users; most often the errors that they have are due to lack of knowledge on how to do something. This does not mean that they’re stupid or bad people, but that they just haven’t had the opportunity to learn something yet. This can be turned in your favor by teaching them what happened, and usually this makes everyone happy as kittens in a sunbeam.
This gentleman is the asshat that has “problems” that are “your fault” and has no interest in learning anything at all, ever. If it was up to him, he would sit there and the peasants would bring him mutton and mead and tell him how right he is.
My favorite issue of his went as following:
“When I open Windows Explorer, it always selects the Start Menu folder”
“…yes…what’s the problem sir?”
“Well, I want it to go to the folder the last time I had it open!”
“…um, well sir, we actually can’t control that, it’s how Windows works”
“But can’t you make it the way I want it?! I don’t want it to go to Start Menu! I want it to go to My Documents!”
“Sir, there’s a My Documents shortcut right on your desktop, you can just click on that”
“…..Well, I don’t want to do it that way!”
He had about 15 other issues that were not problems. For the most part, it was changes that he wanted me to make to the basic operating of Windows XP.
I’m good with computers, but not that good.
it’s on typewriters too
Oct 24th
Sometimes you just get a feeling when you’re talking to someone about the cause of a problem, and I had a hunch that this one was due to user error. Her password was very simple (Happy12) yet she couldn’t get it to work. I could log in as her on my computer, so there was definitely something screwy going on with her side.
A common mistake is having the capslock key on so that it inverts your password (hAPPY12). I told her to turn it off, but she told me that she was “only using it for that one letter”.
That seemed somewhat suspicious as when you only have one capital letter, isn’t it much easier to use the Shift key?
Come to find out, this lady had a routine when typing in her password: “caplock, h, capslock, a, p, p, y, 1, 2″. When she came in today, someone had left the capslock on, so her routine was causing her to invert the password.
I explained how if you hold down the shift button you’ll only capitalize the one letter and how much easier it is, and she was amazed that the shift key could do such a thing. In her words, “I thought you just used it to get the symbols above the numbers.”
I also explained how the little light would tell you when the caplock was on. She couldn’t find it for awhile, and when she said she did finally see it, I promise you she was looking at the light on the monitor.
computer abuse
Oct 22nd
A user was complaining her computer was running slow.
After checking her computer, I find that it has a 38gb hard drive that only has 150mb free. I cleaned off all the temporary files I can find, do some basic cleanup things, deleted some old programs, make as much space as I can without making drastic changes to her computer. This gets me to 250mb free. I then go to tools and want to defragment her hard drive.
Wow.
I have never seen a computer this bad. Several technicians came over and offered their condolences. If her computer was the family cat, time to take it to the farm and find a new kitten.
listen to me
Oct 22nd
This morning a representative whose desk is across from mine had this happen to him.
Slightly geeky back story:
In order to get a client’s IP address, you have to type “ipconfig” in a DOS window.
Since this isn’t the most common thing for someone to type, we walk users step by step on opening a DOS window and typing this “ipconfig” in letter by letter. Once in awhile, someone will mishear you and type it wrong once. Usually this is corrected after one attempt.
We usually say something along the lines of: “I as in indigo, P as in Peter, C as in Cat, O as in Omega, N as in Nancy…”
OK, not the most exciting intro to a story, but if you’re still reading by this point, here’s the payoff.
When this technician was trying to get the client to type this in, the client was having a lot of problems. After many, many attempts, he was finally able to get the IP address, which allowed him to see the clients screen.
He found the word “ipconfig” misspelled over 9 times. She tried IPCOMSIJ, IPCONSIG, IPCONSIF, IPCONCNFIG, IPCONCNSIG, among others.
This isn’t that funny of a story. This is more meant for you to understand the frustration and level of some users that we work with. This mistake wasn’t made by someone who was a computer novice; it was made by someone who was refusing to listen to directions.
Draw circle. Bang head here.
tucker plays for real madrid
Oct 21st
I figured out what’s wrong with Tucker: he is a European soccer player in a dog’s body.
He will be running around playing just fine, having a grand ol’ time, and then something will cause him slight discomfort (hitting the end of the leash, bumping into a table, Leinie taking his toy).
This causes him to assume the “oh I’m so injured I can’t possibly go on anymore!” flop that soccer players do when someone looks at them too hard.
When we ignore him for a few minutes, he goes all sulky to his corner, as if to say “Fine, if you don’t want to acknowledge my egregious physical mistreatment, I will just go sit over here and think bad thoughts about you.”
I know this sounds more like an emo dog, but Tucker does not meet the criteria for such a designation. Here is the list of what it takes to be emo:
1. Life is good but you must pretend its bad
2. Nobody else cares that you’re pretending life is bad, so therefore its time to brood.
3. Dumb hair
Tucker does not have dumb hair, ergo, he cannot be emo.
“ignore me while i wrap myself in a blanket of pity”this isn’t new
Oct 20th
How long have PCs been around in the mainstream? 15 years or so? Like around that time, every library threw out their cards and got computers, and every school had a teacher who didn’t know jack about computers trying to teach typing. Still, I get this variation at least twice a week:
“Can you tell me what kind of computer you’re on?”
“…umm, it says Planar on it”
“No, that’s the monitor, the computer is the other box, can you tell me what it says on it?”
“All I have is this computer, I don’t have another one”
“OK, can you follow the cord coming out of the back of the ‘computer’ and tell me what it plugs into?”
“…the wall?”
“OK, that’s the power cord, follow the other cord and tell me what it plugs into”
“….the
Here are words that I’ve had the tower called:
the hard drive (close, at least they know that a computer has one)
the CD holder (not so close)
the engine (I guess because it makes it go?)
the hub (not so much)
“where it all goes” (I kid you not)
the Dell (it was not a Dell)
footrest (to be fair, it was said jokingly)
Honestly, I think the reason this list is so short is that a lot of people don’t even realize there is another piece to their computer, and therefore it has no name.
must be italian
Oct 17th
I just got this email forwarded to me from our Field Services team, which is responsible for the hardware at every building we support. One building is very far away, and it’s easier for them to ship broken equipment back to us rather than have a technician drive out to replace it.
From: Field Services
To: Service Desk
Subject: Brown Box Outsmarts Client
This tiny crack in the screen shows exactly what happens when clients neglect to use a bit of common sense when shipping a kiosk to us for performance repair.
Sadly, this is exactly how we received it. No paper, No bubble wrap, No packing peanuts, No nothing!!!!!! Just the kiosk bouncing in a big brown box.
Brown Box = 1, Client = 0
do you see any wires? (part two)
Oct 16th
What is it about wireless that makes some people dumb in a wireless device’s presence?
I just took a call from a client whose wireless keyboard stopped working. She has one of those keyboard-mouse wireless combos that uses a receiver plugged into a USB port. In this instance, she had been typing along when the keyboard stopped working. However, she was still able to use the mouse.
For those playing along at home, this means the receiver still worked.
“Ma’am, the most likely cause is that the batteries in your keyboard died and need to be replaced”
“Oh, but this keyboard doesn’t use batteries!”
“……Um, yes, yes it does, if you flip it over there will be a little door for the batteries”
Lo and behold, 3 AA batteries fell out, much to her surprise.
“But I thought it was wireless!”
just this once, i promise
Oct 14th
So it’s getting closer to voting day, and for the first time in 20 years there won’t be a Bush or Clinton in the White House. No wonder people are excited about this election.
Nine years ago during the presidential primaries, I voted for McCain. He was the only candidate that seemed remotely trustworthy, and to me that is a very important quality. I call it the “Babysitter Test”: if you don’t trust someone to watch your kids for a few hours, how can you possibly rationalize voting for them? I say this only half jokingly, because elected officials are the ones that we put in charge of us, and if you don’t think they’re a decent human being you shouldn’t vote for them.
McCain wasn’t like anyone else running. He sat down with people in small towns everywhere and answered questions until the crowd got tired. He showed more courage and fortitude than most people can even consider possible, yet never trotted it out to show off. He left his past in the past and from that experience wouldn’t let anyone bully him or force him into doing something he didn’t feel was right. Politically, he never felt the pressure; the Democrats liked him because he wasn’t so Republican, and the Republicans liked him because he mostly stood on their side. He didn’t care about money or growing his own cult of personality; he was John McCain and that’s all he needed.
When McCain won the nomination for the ticket this year, I was excited. I thought, finally my guy was going to get his shot. We’ve had 16 years of presidents who let other people push them around (yes, you Clinton, you were pathetic). I was looking forward to a leader that was a leader. Who was the last president people looked up to and tried to emulate?
I thought McCain would crush Obama. McCain would be the man speaking the truth just as he always had, and Obama would be the pseudologue exposed. McCain was on a roll: he had spoke the unpopular truth months ago and his predictions had come true. He was leading in the polls and was gaining momentum going into the convention, which always boosts a candidates numbers.
But then, slowly but surely, McCain has lost his identity. Once the icon of individualism and sticking to your convictions, McCain has slowly sacrificed, piece by piece, his allure. In order to shore up his numbers, he had to appeal to the conservative base and picked Palin, which made most people go “really? REALLY?”
His ads have gone from funny and tongue-in-cheek and upbeat to dark and angry and mean.
Instead of playing up his strengths, McCain’s campaign has begun to make itself into a ghost of its former image. It used to be a symbol of strength and honor, and was help up for admiration. “Look, see, McCain doesn’t need to do it the old way and he still wins!”
I don’t feel confident in McCain anymore because he’s not the same person. I don’t know if his advisors kept telling him to change his ways or if it was all his idea. Either way, the man I admired has changed. His campaign today doesn’t the same upbeat, can-do attitude. I would have thought that McCain would have stuck to his principles even if it meant losing.
If victory proved elusive, McCain should have been the first candidate to lose with honor.
He has become the man who sullied his reputation for political gain.
And that sounds like politics as usual.
it’s not a storage bin
Oct 13th
I took a call from a customer who was missing a “very important folder” that had irreplaceable documents in it. After searching high and low for it on her computer, still no luck. I even searched for names of files in the folder just in case she had accidentally renamed it, but still no folder.
I asked her when the last time she had used the folder was. She said “Last Friday, right before I cleaned up my hard drive”
Uh oh.
Did she delete the folder? Of course she did.
Is it recoverable? Of course it’s not.
She was kind of upset that these files were gone, and kept pleading with me to get them back for her. I didn’t know what to say, and honestly her despair was so deep, I didn’t even ask her what she thought would happen when she deleted it.
