Amuzing Rant - It's 2003, people should have a clue what a window is by now...

[labgeek]

Part of an actual call that came to me this morning!

Setting: medical transciptionist (types really long words on a PC all day long) running a old DOS app under W2K

Problem as reported: "The screen is too small"

Problem as it really is: shortcut had 80x50 set for it's size.


...
Me: Is the programming running in a window? (They often run full screen)
Them: No
Me: Hit Alt-Enter (pause) Now is it in a window?
Them: No
Me: Try hitting alt-enter for me again. How about now? Is it in a window?
Them: No (pause) It's in a box though.
Me: (long pause - trying not to laugh) Does the box have a blue title bar at the top?
them: yes
Me: That's a window. (pause to allow time for this to sink in) Right click on the title bar.
Them: Right click?
Me: yes, right click.
Them: is that 1 or 2?
Me: Just right click once
Them: But is it button 1 or 2?
Me: What?
Them: Is it button number 1 or 2?
Me: I haven't seen them numbered... It's the one on the right.
Them: oh ok.
Me: Did a popup menu appear?
Them: Yes.
Me: Good click properties then click the Layout tab.
(they find that)
Me: now see where it says Width and Height?
Them: yes
Me: Does it say 25 for the 2 height fields?
Them: No it says 80.
Me: Are you sure you're not looking at the width.
Them: Yes the width says 80
Me: Both the width and the height say 80?
Them: No the height says 50
Me: (another long pause - trying to stay calm!!!) OK change the 50 to 25. (I don't want to say height as she's confused that once already).
(she does - and clicks ok. Saves the change to the shortcut. Now in the meantime she's already in the application and I need her to restart it).
Me: Are you at a menu right now?
Them: No
Me: Ok, where in the program are you?
Them: At the "Transcriptionists' Menu"
Me: (can't help it this time) the Transciptionists' MENU IS a menu. That's why we call it that.
...

 

[iamwiz82]

Hey, it's Nick Burns!

 

[Wag]

I should introduce you to my father.

 

[labgeek]

But has your father worked with a PC every working day for the past 10 years? How could someone whose livelyhood depends on something working have apparently not even a basic knowledge of it.

 

[OutHouse]

damn, I was starting to get pissed just reading that. I just dont have any patience when it comes to that crap.

 

[blackdogdeek]

Originally posted by: labgeek
But has your father worked with a PC every working day for the past 10 years? How could someone whose livelyhood depends on something working have apparently not even a basic knowledge of it.

i agree it would be frustrating to troubleshoot someone like the caller, however, i would wager most drivers have no basic knowledge of a car's inner-workings, even after having driven them for over 10 years.

 

[EyeMWing]

And this is why IT departments across the world need to restructure their help desk - to evade loss of productive time due to dumb end users, and simply use some sort of remote desktop to forcibly fix the problem.

 

[labgeek]

But they'd know what a steering wheel is called and how to use it. We're not talking about how to program here.

 

[MegaloManiaK]

Me: That's a window. (pause to allow time for this to sink in) Right click on the title bar.
Them: Right click?
Me: yes, right click.
Them: is that 1 or 2?
Me: Just right click once
Them: But is it button 1 or 2?
Me: What?
Them: Is it button number 1 or 2?
Me: I haven't seen them numbered... It's the one on the right.
Them: oh ok.


heh, thats where i would have lost it.

<--- Recovering Tech Support Specialist.

 

[labgeek]

Originally posted by: EyeMWing
And this is why IT departments across the world need to restructure their help desk - to evade loss of productive time due to dumb end users, and simply use some sort of remote desktop to forcibly fix the problem.

That's the kicker here... We have a help desk. We have a operation rooms above that should have been able to handle the call all too easily as well. Instead this call got put through to me - a Sr Analyst. Not even a Programmer 1 or 2, nor an analyst. No it went to a Sr Analyst. We're 6 levels up from where it should have been dealt with.

 

[blackdogdeek]

Originally posted by: labgeek
But they'd know what a steering wheel is called and how to use it. We're not talking about how to program here.

true, but we know what a steering wheel is called because someone told us what it's called. obviously, the caller received training on the app but not on the vocab of the os.

 

[labgeek]

True. But we have over 7000 employees and a whole department that does training. In fact it's required to take x ( I don't remember the number) hours of continuing education a year. We offer the classes, it takes a phone call or a couple of clicks with the mouse to schedule yourself for one. You have to do it anyway, why not learn something that might just be usefull in your job.

 

[moonshinemadness]

I so couldnt do your job id either die laughing or kill the person on the other end of the phone

 

[blackdogdeek]

believe me, i would be sooooo frustrated talking the caller through the fix. AND i agree that if people are going to use a certain technology, they should learn as much as they can about it.

but i bet that the company doesn't want to pay for the caller to be trained in anything other than the app.

my point was just that because someone uses something doesn't mean they know what it is called. i agree it's ignorant to not find out what it is called.

 

[ElFenix]

i couldn't do tech support

 

[PTCvette]

Lol I know the feeling... I work in tech support for a company that designs software for airline flight crews to do their schedules. Imagine walking some of them through fixing things... Heck, some of them don't even know their own airline's terminololgy! But the job pays pretty good and night shift is slow, so I bring my computer up here and game all night!

 

[labgeek]

but i bet that the company doesn't want to pay for the caller to be trained in anything other than the app.

That is absolutely unequivocally not true. The company is paying it already. We handle it in-house. Every employee is evaluated yearly. Part of each and every employee's performance evaluation is the requirement for several hours of continuing education. To earn a merit increase (raise) she MUST attend. Like I said before we have a whole department that does nothing but training. They offer many computer oriented courses with basic to advanced levels.

And come to think about it, when the move from DOS to Windows occurred for that department, all of the employees had to have Windows training. Her PC never would have been replaced with a Windows box back in 95 (?) if she hadn't.

 

[Kyteland]

Conversation with my mom this morning:

Mom: I'm having trouble opening this pdf file in word.
Me: Why are you trying to do that?
Mom: Well I'm trying to save it, but when I open it in word it appears as gobbly beloved patriot.
Me: Did you try opening it in Acrobat?
Mom: No.
Me: *sigh* Perhaps you should try that.

I swear we had this same conversation 6 months ago.

 

[ATLien247]

Originally posted by: Kyteland
Conversation with my mom this morning:

Mom: I'm having trouble opening this pdf file in word.
Me: Why are you trying to do that?
Mom: Well I'm trying to save it, but when I open it in word it appears as gobbly beloved patriot.
Me: Did you try opening it in Acrobat?
Mom: No.
Me: *sigh* Perhaps you should try that.

I swear we had this same conversation 6 months ago.

And a lay person would automatically know which application opens PDF files how?

 

[Kyteland]

Originally posted by: ATLien247

Originally posted by: Kyteland
Conversation with my mom this morning:

Mom: I'm having trouble opening this pdf file in word.
Me: Why are you trying to do that?
Mom: Well I'm trying to save it, but when I open it in word it appears as gobbly beloved patriot.
Me: Did you try opening it in Acrobat?
Mom: No.
Me: *sigh* Perhaps you should try that.

I swear we had this same conversation 6 months ago.

And a lay person would automatically know which application opens PDF files how?

She uses it all the time and knows that Acrobat is used for PDF's, thats how.

 

[GoodRevrnd]

Originally posted by: blackdogdeek

Originally posted by: labgeek
But has your father worked with a PC every working day for the past 10 years? How could someone whose livelyhood depends on something working have apparently not even a basic knowledge of it.

i agree it would be frustrating to troubleshoot someone like the caller, however, i would wager most drivers have no basic knowledge of a car's inner-workings, even after having driven them for over 10 years.

Dude... that has nothing to do with fixing a cars inner workings. This scenario would be more like you driving a car for ten years and not knowing what a steering wheel is and calling the turn signal the "clicky thing."

EDIT: I see the thread has already gone through this discussion. Perhaps in the future I'll read all the posts first...

 

[ATLien247]

Originally posted by: Kyteland

Originally posted by: ATLien247

Originally posted by: Kyteland
Conversation with my mom this morning:

Mom: I'm having trouble opening this pdf file in word.
Me: Why are you trying to do that?
Mom: Well I'm trying to save it, but when I open it in word it appears as gobbly beloved patriot.
Me: Did you try opening it in Acrobat?
Mom: No.
Me: *sigh* Perhaps you should try that.

I swear we had this same conversation 6 months ago.

And a lay person would automatically know which application opens PDF files how?

She uses it all the time and knows that Acrobat is used for PDF's, thats how.

Well, then you should've said so in the first place...

Sheesh!

 

[Grey]

our IT department just installed remote PC on every computer. I have seen them taking over the PC in seconds, usually after your idiot response "what is a right click?"

 

[rh71]

I do "tech support" for my mom and some relatives... I swear I would kill myself if I did it professionally. I have ZERO patience.

 

[Lithium381]

i tried helping someone configure modem settings in AOL once, to simpy turn the sound off, with the $M0 i think it is(been a while) and she didn't understand the "text box" where the line was, and how to click on it......oy