Why does the End User Think I'm Omniscient

[BDawg]

I get calls where the person says, "my computers crashing."

"Okay, what are you doing when it crashes?"

"Uh...different things."

"How often does it crash?"

"All the time."

After a week of questioning, you find out that it's only when they do a specific function in 1 program...why can't they determine that? It would make the troubleshooting so much easier... *sigh*

 

[TheManiac]

I have end users like that!

 

[warcleric]

To add to your point, why do good normal everyday people become scandalous liars when they call for support?

&quot;Have you rebooted?&quot; &quot;Yes&quot; <LIE!>

&quot;How often does this happen?&quot; &quot;ALOT!&quot; <LIE!>

&quot;Did you install napster on this PC?&quot; &quot;No&quot; <LIE!>

&quot;Have you called the help desk?&quot; &quot;Yes&quot; <LIE!>

 

[SonicFlux]

LOL!

We run NT4.0 at work and have a secretary that had a corrupted hard drive not too long ago. We replaced it with a brand new and bigger hard drive. Well yesterday she called and said her computer won't boot after she &quot;turned it off&quot; to clean the keyboard. I found out that she's been pushing the power button all this time rather than shutting down properly... doh!

 

[LadyNiniane]

But...but...Aren't you? :Q

My users all think that, too. But then I'm a consultant; that's what they're paying for, after all...

Lady Niniane

 

[BDawg]

Well it's like Warcleric says. So many of them flat out lie about it for whatever reason.

I had one user claim their app was completely screwed up. She couldn't do anything. I spend 30 minutes troubleshooting it to one file which had one corrupt page. I mentioned it to her and she said, &quot;Oh, maybe that's all it was.&quot;

I think she was vague so I would take over her computer and she could go have a snack.

Somedays, I just wish I could only work on our servers and forget the end users...

 

[warcleric]

Bdawg: heh that is why I have an interview to take over a NOC next week. Screw this end user crap, I am a SysAdmin not a help desk monkey.

 

[yakko]

How about calls like this.


Id10t: I can't sign on.
Me: What happens when you try to sign on?
Id10t: Nothing.
Me: Nothing happens at all?
Id10t: No.
Me: So when you click sign on absolutely nothing happens?
Id10t: No.
Me: It gives you no error messages at all? It doesn't even change screens?
Id10t: No. It gets to checking password and then bumps me off.
Me: So it does do sometthing?
Id10t: No. It doesn't do anything.

 

[Demon-Xanth]

People also thing software is psychic

We have some calibration systems in the cleanroom where I work that I was told get a certain error message 70% of the time, yet I've only seen the error happen ONCE, so we said &quot;call us when the error comes up&quot;, they've called once in two months.

A friend of mine asked me to take a look at his computer because &quot;the computer is f'ing up&quot;, turns out when he tried to dial out he got a message saying his phone service was disconnected because he didn't pay the bill. (his speaker was turned off so he never heard the message)