The Glade 4.0

Caller: "I'm locked out of my email"
Me: "Your password expired, I'm resetting it. Here's your temporary password, use it to log into the mail.companyname.com website. You'll then be prompted to change it"
Caller: "Which of these things do I click?" <Rattles off a bunch of totally non-related things>
Me: "What are you talking about? Where did you go? Read to me what's in your browser's address bar."
Caller: "http://www.bing.com ..."
Me: "No, no ... actually go to mail.companyname.com, don't search for it on Bing! Type that into the address bar."
Caller: "Now I'm seeing " <rattles off more totally non-related things>
Me: "What? Where are you now? What did you do?"
Caller: "I typed mail.companyname.com and clicked the 'search' button."
Me: "No, no, no. Type mail.companyname.com and just hit [Enter]."
Caller: "Ok, I logged in - now it's prompting me to change my password ... and it's saying 'incorrect password'. What's wrong?"
Me: "What password did you type?"
Caller: "Well, in the 'old password' field I typed my old password ... or was I supposed to enter the temporary one you just gave me?"
Me: "Yes, do that."



Thankfully, I only have to take "outside of normal business hours" help desk calls and we don't get all that many.

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Go back to zero, take a pill, and get well ~ Lemmy Kilmister

These morons keep about 50-60% of support staff employed at any given time.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

I feel your estimate is far too low

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Yup. Thank goodness that no matter how advanced computers get, idiots will always be unable to work them. Job security!

I dunno, most are password resets. The people who don't understand basic functionality are rare enough that they have stories surrounding them.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

Really they could save an inordinate amount of headache if they state Old password or password reset key and we tell them its a password reset key instead of a "new password".

I hate places where stubborness that prevents a few keystrokes causes a huge increase in inefficiency because some people won't adapt to users and expect users to adapt to procedure (which never happens).

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

It's awesome when you find someone who doesn't understand something that you do. Then you get to judge them and call them names.

Basic computer knowledge and skills are a reality of modern life, and an expectation of the workforce. That level of ignorance is evidence of an unwillingness to learn and adapt.

To make a car analogy, you probably shouldn't mock people for not knowing what the timing chain is/does. Not knowing what tires are or what the steering wheel does, though? Yeah, that's fair game for derision.

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Sail forth! steer for the deep waters only!
Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me;
For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go,
And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.

QFT. Especially when they take a seeming pride in their ignorance. "Here, I'm asking you to drop what you're doing and do half of my work [for which I'm being paid, not you] for me, because I don't understand computers. I'm just not a 'computer person,' ha-ha!"

That may be the expectation but it is not the reality. Not many companies hire senior executives, technical people, or sales people with any consideration of computer skills. Thus the reality should influence the expectation because it is much more simple to change your expectation than how the world actually is.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

Of course I am serious. This is business operation that is out of your power to change - and it many of the cases above it would be a change for the worse for the company.

If you want to be continually upset and aggrivated then maintain your expectation - if you want to operate more smoothly with reality in business then accept this is how it is and these factors will become part of your operating paradigm.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

That approach never fixes the problem, though.

You assume those are
1. Problems
2. Fixable

Having a personable salesman who can generate sales is by far worth him being supported 24/7 by one person let along all the sales people being supported by 1 team and the sales people getting personalized and dumbed down systems.

Thus - not a problem as it maximizes revenue.

Fixable - People are not going to make their bottom line worse to make support staff's job more easy. Nah ghuna happ'n People are not going to stop hiring the person who (they are related to, sleeping with, grew up with, best friend, wife's friend).

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

1) Seeking help for a problem is not an indication of unwillingness to learn.
2) You're making a boat load of assumptions here. YOU don't know (typically) what the individual's job is, or how good they are.
3) Not knowing how to change your password is not equivalent to not knowing what a tire is.
4) Someone not knowing what a tire is for is not cause to ridicule them.

1. I have dealt with people who don't want to learn, and their purpose in calling is to have you do it for them. I don't mind helping you out the first time, but the third time you call for the same thing, then you get contempt.
2. If your job involves using a tool, you should know at least the basics of using that tool.
3. Not knowing how to change your password is not the problem; not knowing how to use a browser is.
4. If your job involves driving a car, and you don't know what a tire is, that is grounds for ridicule.

On my own note, computers have been around for 20-30 years, and they've been ubiquitous in the workplace for at least a decade. If you don't know even the basics of a computer by now, wtf have you been doing this entire time?

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Anyone that has a job requiring computer usage has no room to say that they're not a "computer person." At least not in a capacity that excuses them from being able to do their job without assistance.

/sigh

Salesperson: "I can't sell anything because I need a sales deck made!"
Me: "OK, here you go."
Salesperson: "This is a PDF! I can't edit this! I need to be able to change this information myself! Give it to me in PowerPoint."
Me: "OK...well, I wish you would have told me beforehand that you wanted them in a format editable by people who aren't graphic designers (and since PowerPoint isn't really a design program, I have to make concessions on the aesthetic), but OK, here. I've rebuilt the entire thing in PowerPoint. I've also included your necessary fonts, extra slides with backgrounds already in them (so you can just plug in new slides as you need), and filled them out with placeholder information so you keep the same font and formatting."
Two days later...
Salesperson: "I can't edit this thing! I don't know what I'm doing. Here, I'll email you all the text I want in it. Just put it all in and send me back the finished product."

Some tribesman in Africa not knowing what a tire is, or a small child, or mentally disabled.. no they ought not to be ridiculed. Anyone over the age of 5 who lives in this country, is mentally competent, and doesn't know what a tire is is either an idiot or will be one when they grow up.

As for knowing how to change your password, that's on the order of checking your oil - not changing it; looking at the dipstick. Every driver should know how to do it; those who don't (like my wife) are being carried by someone else (me) or are courting disaster.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

In the U.S. and Canada, where learning to drive a car is one of the rites of passage into adulthood, not knowing what a tire is for is indeed grounds for ridicule.

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Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

I disagree, but then I don't like pricks who spend their time ridiculing people.

It's not that people are trying to ridicule others, it's astonishment at the sheer cluelessness and obnoxious belligerence that some people exhibit towards tech support. Tech support is there to help people with their problems, and they are constantly bombarded with willful ignorance, superior attitudes, hostility, refusal to cooperate, and simple cluelessness.

To strain the car analogy even further, it would be equivalent of a person driving up to a mechanic with 4 flat tires and complaining that the engine doesn't have enough power. When the mechanic points out the flat tires, the customer doesn't understand what a tire is, refuses to listen to the expertise of the mechanic, and makes claims of having fixed cars for decades.

edit: You can read here for more stories from tech support.

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Read some, they were all fairly similar. Common themes:

1) Users are soooo stupid.
2) Users are soooo stupid, and their stupidity is not MY problem.
3) YOUR emergency is not MY problem.
4) Help desk people are soooo abused.

/shrug