Topic awaiting preservation: Ctrl+Alt+Del and the life of a tech support agent

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HAHAHAHA...
ohh thats just....

does it ever happen?

The poster has demanded we remove all his contributions, less he takes legal action.
We have done so.
Now Tyberius Prime expects him to start complaining that we removed his 'free speech' since this message will replace all of his posts, past and future.
Don't follow his example - seek real life help first.

wow...scary

I don't think I've ever told this story.

I was over at my bud's place and we were just hanging out. His girlfriend's mother calls and tells him that she is having a problem with her computer sound. So we pack it up and head over there.

Now, she's one of those older folks that has no business trying to do anything that involves hardware. She's fine as long as she is checking her e-mail or chatting via IRC, but that's about it.

Turns out she messed up her IRQs while messing with the modem. It was working fine, so no idea what she was thinking. IRQs fixed and we leave.

Five minutes after we get back, she calls again just a bitching. "You broke my mouse! Why did you mess with my mouse when I was having problems with my sound?! Why did you break my mouse?" I could hear her yelling over the phone.

"What exactly is the problem with your mouse?" He's listening and nodding and stuff. Eventually he says, "Pick it up and move it. ... Yes, you can do that."

He gets off of the phone and says, "You are not going to believe this. Her mouse pointer was in the middle of the screen and she wanted over to the right. Problem is that her mouse is already at the edge of the mouse pad."

I still can't believe it. If I hadn't been there, I would dismiss it as an urban legend.

The 2 first things I learn to people new to computer is :

1. Put your wrist on the desk and (almost) never move it. If you can't reach a place with the mouse, just pick it up.
2. When you don't know what a button does, just leave your mouse over it and wait ~2 seconds.

And I ask them to take some notes while I'm showing them how to do basic/daily tasks.
It seems to work with my mum. Ok, it doesn't prevent the computer from compulsive movement of folders nor creation of "New Folders" but it saved me a lot of phone calls.



(Edited by poi on 04-28-2004 08:34)

Oh this just might be true...

Back in -98 I teached cumputer usage to a lot of employees with skillsets from "Does this intranet come adapted for Alpha-processors? I run that on my PC to get the extra power..." to people that actually knew they had things to learn.

One day that I remember very clearly was while teaching "How to turn on your PC, log on, find the intranet and navigate it, then turn off PC." (yes that was the level...)

These two geezers in the front row never said a word, but I could see that something wasn't right...
Now, as they had started their computers I had a 5 min lesson on the mouse and click vs doubleclick.
These two had not paid attention...

One of them held the mouse 1" above the mousepad as he moved it and didn't understand why it didn't move...
The other one held the mouse on the computer screen trying to push the pointer...

Users almost never surprise me nowadays...
/Dan

{cell 260}
-{ a vibration is a movement that doesn't know which way to go }-

I love stories about computer tech support issues...

Like the woman who called Compaq saying her mouse didn't work with the dust cover on it... turns out she hadn't taken it out of the plastic wrap yet...

And the guy who purchased a new pc and connected it all together, but called to say it didn't work. He didn't know he had to flip the power switch...

heh heh... some people just shouldn't be allowed around technology...

those are not some, bodhi...but most :P

Or the tech support guy that told me they didn't support mozilla mail, only Internet explorer or Netscape. I was thinking "It's ok man we support you..." Not to mention mozilla and netscape are almost the same thing anyway. Now just give me the information... ok I got it all right now check your stuff... Oh, you didn't have that on my account correctly? Cool fix it on your end.

Or that one I just got off the phone with who was dumbfounded because I used a different operating system than windows. Which in my case they were unable to troubleshoot the problem and told me to call linux support. I told him that I was linux support and the problem is on his end so there is no reason for him to read anything off the call flow, just fix it. No hope though.

Some people should be flipping burgers.


The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you've got it made. --Groucho Marx

quote:

---

poi said:

Put your wrist on the desk and (almost) never move it. If you can't reach a
place with the mouse, just pick it up.

---

I realize this is not exactly on topic, but this is a horrible thing to teach people. This sort of mouse use will lead to carpal tunnel syndrome (I think they have a new name for it now... repetitive something syndrome).

___________________________
Suho: www.liminality.org | Cell 270 | Sig Rotator | Keeper of the Juicy Bits

The poster has demanded we remove all his contributions, less he takes legal action.
We have done so.
Now Tyberius Prime expects him to start complaining that we removed his 'free speech' since this message will replace all of his posts, past and future.
Don't follow his example - seek real life help first.