Helpdesk work sucks! How do *you* deal with the idiots?

[SunnyD]

I do insult them. The key is to be friendly and curteous while doing it. Then everybody laughs and after they get off the phone they think they're a dumbass and you're god, and once you're off the phone you think they're a dumbass and you're god. Works out well for everybody!

 

[shimsham]

Originally posted by: Armitage

Originally posted by: shimsham
oh grow the fvck up. im sure there are things that these "idiots" can do that you wouldnt have a clue about. if it bothers you so much, get another job.

youre only hurting yourself by acting like theyre stupid. even if you dont come out and say it, they can pick up on it. maybe try treating them like people capable of learning, and you wont have such a hard time with them.

Grow the fvck up yourself. This is ATOT, people come here to vent - I'm venting.

This guy can't follow simple instructions in his native language - it's not some specialized rocket science (that comes later). At least in this instance, he's an idiot and I'll have a bit of fun taunting him anonymously in a forum he's likely never heard of let alone visited. And a few other ATOTers will come in and share their stories and we'll all have a good laugh. Of course my replies to the users are nothing but courteous & professional.

exactly, its ATOT. so you should expect to hear the flip side when you come to whine about how stupid people are in the presence of your god-like intellect and skills.

 

[sharkeeper]

Haha

We have a guy at work (actually, he's a sodding Director ) who cannot type his password correctly, three times in a row, multiple times a week. This results in his account being locked out usually once or twice a week.

His password? password.

Imagine this one...

Users request no password. (blank) Ok so we print in their literature that their password is blank. There are multiple lockouts. Why? They were typing the word 'blank' in the password field! Unbelievable.

Here we have passwords like this one:

opfP421FP1768Hvh00N80tg5aE (not mine!)

These are assigned on a weekly basis (no surprise) but a new system is going to be implemented using a secret system and dongles. Now people will lose them. :roll:

 

[shimsham]

Originally posted by: Bootprint

Originally posted by: shimsham
oh grow the fvck up. im sure there are things that these "idiots" can do that you wouldnt have a clue about. if it bothers you so much, get another job.

youre only hurting yourself by acting like theyre stupid. even if you dont come out and say it, they can pick up on it. maybe try treating them like people capable of learning, and you wont have such a hard time with them.

But there are users that never seem to do any minor toubleshooting for themselves.

I had a user call up to say her computer seemed to turn off. So I went down and visited her, she told me that it seemed to go off when she turned to answer her phone.

Neither the computer or monitor turned on. First checked that it's plugged in, and found out that it's connected with a power bar. This power bar is behind a foot rest, with the off/on switch towards the foot rest. Well she had swung in her seat and pushed with the foot rest which hit the power switch, but I needed to go down and figure this out for her.


It just seems that as soon as they have a computer problem and some times nothing related to the computers, they call the help desk.

The help desk number seems to have become the 911/411.

id say theyre smart to call in the person who is paid to deal with things like this instead of poking around and potentially screwing something up that may cost the company some money and/or their job.

 

[jjoyner]

Yep! but you must qualify this with what shimsham said as well.

I'm IT for a law firm, and one of the lawyers has her own wireless Logitech mouse. The batteries died one day, and she replaced them, but after 20 minutes of messing with it could not get it to work. She called me, I went to her desk and turned the mouse over and pushed the CONNECT button and it started working fine.

She told me "wow you must think I'm an idiot" and I told her "Only if you think I'm an idiot because I don't know how to take a deposition. You keep doing lawyer stuff and I'll keep doing tech stuff"

This makes you a good tech...IT demands someone with 10% technical knowledge and 85% ppl skills.....the other 5% is reserved for making lowball quips about the CEO talking dirty to his girlfriend over AIM will you are VNC'd into his machine....and not getting caught....

/me doesn't move the mouse whilest he types....

 

[shimsham]

Originally posted by: Joemonkey

Originally posted by: wondersteve

Originally posted by: Jzero
I just keep telling myself that if it weren't for an endless supply of morons, I'd be unemployed.

Exactly ...

Yep! but you must qualify this with what shimsham said as well.

I'm IT for a law firm, and one of the lawyers has her own wireless Logitech mouse. The batteries died one day, and she replaced them, but after 20 minutes of messing with it could not get it to work. She called me, I went to her desk and turned the mouse over and pushed the CONNECT button and it started working fine.

She told me "wow you must think I'm an idiot" and I told her "Only if you think I'm an idiot because I don't know how to take a deposition. You keep doing lawyer stuff and I'll keep doing tech stuff"

this guys got it:beer:

 

[Joemonkey]

Don't get me wrong, it is VERY difficult to NOT call these people idiots. I thought just like the OP did the first 5 years or so I was in the field. Experience taught me that just because someone can't use a PC at the same level I can doesn't mean they are an idiot, just that they have spent their time learning another skill.

It makes me wonder how many times on a forum somewhere I was the customer asking about something I had no clue about and everyone on that forum laughed over how much of an idiot I was...

 

[EyeMWing]

Originally posted by: sharkeeper

Haha

We have a guy at work (actually, he's a sodding Director ) who cannot type his password correctly, three times in a row, multiple times a week. This results in his account being locked out usually once or twice a week.

His password? password.

Imagine this one...

Users request no password. (blank) Ok so we print in their literature that their password is blank. There are multiple lockouts. Why? They were typing the word 'blank' in the password field! Unbelievable.

Here we have passwords like this one:

opfP421FP1768Hvh00N80tg5aE (not mine!)

These are assigned on a weekly basis (no surprise) but a new system is going to be implemented using a secret system and dongles. Now people will lose them. :roll:

Drop $50/seat on biometrics, and record all 10 fingers of all your employees.

That way, they only have to call helpdesk with login problems if they lose both hands, and then you can smack them and ask them "WTF did you think you were going to accomplish with a computer and no hands?"

 

I used to deal with resetting passwords all day.

If that is the worst of your aggrivations, consider yourself lucky.

Go smoke a joint or something.

 

[sharkeeper]

Biometrics are easily bypassed and they don't consider this "secure" technology.

The neatest one I saw was a scanner device that made a tick tock sound, you would look into it like binoculars and a voice prompt would tell you to follow the flying saucer with your eyes. It would typically authenticate you in about 10 seconds.

They can tell if you have been drinking or too stressed out to stay at your post too.

Gotta love technology.

 

[Adul]

I am surprised we don't have more password isues like that. Our requirements for passwords are 8-14 characters, at least one capital, at least one lower case, at least one number, and at least one letter.

 

[sharkeeper]

I am surprised we don't have more password isues like that. Our requirements for passwords are 8-14 characters, at least one capital, at least one lower case, at least one number, and at least one letter.

People write them down on a sticky and have it on their keyboard.

That's grounds for a LOW if an officer notices.

 

[Scarpozzi]

Yeah....well.....help desk work is dealing with idiots. Do your time there and try to move up as soon as you get the experience. Just be careful. I've known people to stay there for too long and lose their edge. I went straight from Help Desk to Sys Admin....anyone can do it if you can network around town and study outside of the hd.

 

[EyeMWing]

Originally posted by: sharkeeper
Biometrics are easily bypassed and they don't consider this "secure" technology.

The neatest one I saw was a scanner device that made a tick tock sound, you would look into it like binoculars and a voice prompt would tell you to follow the flying saucer with your eyes. It would typically authenticate you in about 10 seconds.

They can tell if you have been drinking or too stressed out to stay at your post too.

Gotta love technology.

True. Any good High School student can beat a fingerprint scanner. :shiftyeyes; Not that I'd know or anything :shiftyeyes;

 

[SarcasticDwarf]

I get about 1 e-mail a week from users who can't log in to my site. The e-mails NEVER contain information on what the error is. It has never, ever been a problem with the server, it is always user stupidity (as in they can't read the text that says "click here to change your password" and such).

 

[Armitage]

Originally posted by: Scarpozzi
Yeah....well.....help desk work is dealing with idiots. Do your time there and try to move up as soon as you get the experience. Just be careful. I've known people to stay there for too long and lose their edge. I went straight from Help Desk to Sys Admin....anyone can do it if you can network around town and study outside of the hd.

Yea - I should be clear. Helpdesk is not my career - which is a good thing for both myself & the users This is just a relatively small website that we took on. It's a small shop so I'm both the developer and the helpdesk. Even the web development stuff is a bit outside my area of primary expertise (astrodynamics & satellite operations).

The helpdesk aspect of it is just taking up *much* more time then we anticipated, which takes me away from the fun stuff! We were expecting more technical questions about the data rather then stuff like this.

 

[Meractik]

all of you need to stfu and quit complaining about shit, people have problems and some could use help and the real winners are the individuals who help those people and allow them to truely understand. it might take a while but if they understand and you make sure they understand you won't get their call again. as for this god stuff its all retarded and you should be ashamed, if you think you're so smart that you're godlike then you are destine to fail because there is always more to learn. Anandtech sucks for this very reason. Moderators like to cut things out that they deem inappropriate and users like to flame everyone else b/c they feel that they are superior or better then the next guy. nobody cares to learn from anybody else (for the most part) and everyone thinks they know it all. screw this place im done with anandtech!

 

[Mayfriday0529]

Alcohol lots and lots of alcohol

 

[EyeMWing]

Originally posted by: Meractik
all of you need to stfu and quit complaining about shit, people have problems and some could use help and the real winners are the individuals who help those people and allow them to truely understand. it might take a while but if they understand and you make sure they understand you won't get their call again. as for this god stuff its all retarded and you should be ashamed, if you think you're so smart that you're godlike then you are destine to fail because there is always more to learn. Anandtech sucks for this very reason. Moderators like to cut things out that they deem inappropriate and users like to flame everyone else b/c they feel that they are superior or better then the next guy. nobody cares to learn from anybody else (for the most part) and everyone thinks they know it all. screw this place im done with anandtech!

Bye!

Okay, he's gone, we can all drop the act now

 

[tami]

Originally posted by: Meractik
all of you need to stfu and quit complaining about shit, people have problems and some could use help and the real winners are the individuals who help those people and allow them to truely understand. it might take a while but if they understand and you make sure they understand you won't get their call again. as for this god stuff its all retarded and you should be ashamed, if you think you're so smart that you're godlike then you are destine to fail because there is always more to learn. Anandtech sucks for this very reason. Moderators like to cut things out that they deem inappropriate and users like to flame everyone else b/c they feel that they are superior or better then the next guy. nobody cares to learn from anybody else (for the most part) and everyone thinks they know it all. screw this place im done with anandtech!

are you going to keep tainting all threads with your piracy advocacy and your "holier than thou" attitude?

ATOT is a community. people help others. people vent. people share thoughts and feelings.

the only posts i've seen from you today are completely degrading of loyal (read: more than 266 posts) anandtech members.

 

[shimsham]

Originally posted by: Meractik
all of you need to stfu and quit complaining about shit, people have problems and some could use help and the real winners are the individuals who help those people and allow them to truely understand. it might take a while but if they understand and you make sure they understand you won't get their call again. as for this god stuff its all retarded and you should be ashamed, if you think you're so smart that you're godlike then you are destine to fail because there is always more to learn. Anandtech sucks for this very reason. Moderators like to cut things out that they deem inappropriate and users like to flame everyone else b/c they feel that they are superior or better then the next guy. nobody cares to learn from anybody else (for the most part) and everyone thinks they know it all. screw this place im done with anandtech!

spend a few days in P&N:shudder; and youll see how innocent and harmless OT is.

 

[sharkeeper]

Uh oh.

You did it now. You just opened the box of Pandora. This thread is going to get worse than a week of yellow shitstorms.

 

[FrustratedUser]

Originally posted by: Armitage
So the first time you log in to my site, you get a screen asking you to change your password from the temporary one emailed to you, to one of your own choosing. The email that goes out with the temporary password states: "You will be required to change your password on the first succesful login."

So today I get an email along the lines of "I am trying to log into your site, but all I get is a screen asking me to change my password.". So far, he's attempted this 6 times :roll:

WHY DON'T YOU TRY CHANGING YOUR PASSWORD AND SEE WHAT HAPPENS???

must .... resist .... insulting .... the ... users ... grrr

LOL, that sucks dude!
<assclown>
But why get an education that puts you in helpdesk to start with?
</assclown>

 

[Armitage]

Originally posted by: Meractik
all of you need to stfu and quit complaining about shit, people have problems and some could use help and the real winners are the individuals who help those people and allow them to truely understand. it might take a while but if they understand and you make sure they understand you won't get their call again. as for this god stuff its all retarded and you should be ashamed, if you think you're so smart that you're godlike then you are destine to fail because there is always more to learn. Anandtech sucks for this very reason. Moderators like to cut things out that they deem inappropriate and users like to flame everyone else b/c they feel that they are superior or better then the next guy. nobody cares to learn from anybody else (for the most part) and everyone thinks they know it all. screw this place im done with anandtech!

Meractik, I'm sorry if I've had some fun at your expense - what a coincidence to find you on Anandtech.

If you simply follow the instructions on the form you will be able to access the site.

- enter the temporary password you received by email in thye first field titled "Old Password"
- enter a new password of your choice in the second field titled "New Password" This password must be between 6 and 8 characters long and contain 1 UPPERCASE LETTER, 1 lowercase letter, and 1 number.
- enter the password from field to again in field 3. This is to help prevent typographical errors.
- click on the submit button. This will take you to the home page.

Thanks for using our site

 

[Armitage]

Originally posted by: FrustratedUser

Originally posted by: Armitage
So the first time you log in to my site, you get a screen asking you to change your password from the temporary one emailed to you, to one of your own choosing. The email that goes out with the temporary password states: "You will be required to change your password on the first succesful login."

So today I get an email along the lines of "I am trying to log into your site, but all I get is a screen asking me to change my password.". So far, he's attempted this 6 times :roll:

WHY DON'T YOU TRY CHANGING YOUR PASSWORD AND SEE WHAT HAPPENS???

must .... resist .... insulting .... the ... users ... grrr

LOL, that sucks dude!
<assclown>
But why get an education that puts you in helpdesk to start with?
</assclown>

See above - this is just a side job that has grown to take up more time then neffing on ATOT