Adventures In IT: What Language Do You Hear? · 11:05pm Nov 27th, 2018
It's a question I'd just love to ask my callers sometimes.
This isn't at all aimed at the dual citizens/foreign students/etc, actually. It's aimed more at people fluent in English who should be able to understand very basic instructions. Instructions like, oh...
"Open an internet browser and go to totallyalegitwebsite.totallytheplaceiwork.domain so I can assist you remotely, please?"
"Go ahead and log in."
"Hey, are you using the desktop application on the computer or are you going to the website? Could I have you go to the website so we can test there?"
Simple shit. Very simple.
My personal favorite, though, the goddamn top of them all, is from last week when, while remoted into a client's computer, I brought them to a login page so they could try to check their files in the cloud storage system and said "go ahead and log in."
Their reply: "... So should I log in?"
This person holds a PhD, btw. It pained me.
Though not nearly as much as I had to bite my tongue so I didn't say "No, I want you to try searching your account from the login screen. Good luck."
Also, words have happened at a decent rate this month. I've finished three chapters of Out of Love, bringing me up to 19 written. Hooray.
They probably weren't paying attention because you were driving, and then suddenly had to reconstruct what you just said from memory when they realized you were waiting on them.
Ah, that is a trial I am familiar with. I currently teach elderly people to use computers, and trying to explain to them the difference between 'a browser' and 'the internet' can be... challenging.
I work in IT too, and get a lot of dumb questions. I think people are afraid to break something that they dont act or they click something with out asking why am I downloading or clicking this.
WHY???!!! Stay sane please and happy holidays!
Definitely feel your pain.
I do have a theory, that some of the dead obvious repeats are because military people are trained to confirm stuff like that even if it's obvious. We have a lot of veterans in IT, at least where we work.
And then some people and just knuckleheaded morons who you wonder how they manage to get their shoes on.
Im sorry, though, your brain sorta leaks out of your ears when you get to listen to the elevator music of hold for 4+ hours.
I get where you are coming from in folks, but a four hour wait to tell me theres no eta on an issue you caused, just, yeah. Spectrum needs to play in california traffic.
Been there, done that. Welcome to the world of IT, remote or otherwise. So glad I got out of the call center. I hope you don't have to put up with a cube farm that stretches for eternity.
4973666 I'm working on getting out of it. Got one application for a sysadmin 1 position with the email/office365 admin team and I'll be putting in another for our desktop engineering team as well. Also got a cybersec lab application and a meeting with our internship coming up.
Hope life's been treating you well on your end. Hmu whenever ^^
I save this just for you, Carapace. :)
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4973671 Yup. Legitimately me.
I quit IT because I had a user adamantly refuse to allow me remote access. Like ma'am, that is the service you are paying my boss to provide. You are literally paying extra money for us to fix your device remotely instead of bringing it in to the shop.
4973681 See, I just tell people I can't help them at that point.
Me on the phone listening to a particularly intelligent customer while silently wondering how they managed to figure out how to breath and trying to walk them through a simple (at least to me) process and not sucumb to the stupidity leaking through the phone.... i can feel my brain cells dieing
I feel your pain; I'm in the restaurant business, and have a theory (with a lot of evidence) that whenever a group of people sends one person for food, they choose the person with the lowest IQ. I still remember someone asking how large a footlong sub is and getting offended when my response was "Twelve inches?"...
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I once had a woman tell me she couldn't log in and stay on the phone at the same time. They only had one line and she was knee deep in chickens at the time, so she was writing down my instructions on a scrap of a paper bag.
4973671
My reaction is more often laughter. Far healthier than all that anger, plus when you walk away from a total moron for a minute to laugh the people watching don't start recording expecting "excessive use of force."
Skype for business remote desktop assistance FTW. It's a reflex.
"Ok, I sent you a message. Go to the bottom of the screen, click the fourth button. Primary monitor. Ok. Now I'm looking over your shoulder, go to the top of the screen and click to give me control. Great, now put your right hand on top of your head. Why? So you'll quit moving the mouse."
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And THAT is often the difference between mere ignorance and stupidity. I can actually understand asking how long a footlong is, especially if they've dealt with some slimy buisiness that shorchanged it to 9 inches and called it close enough.
All of that is exactly why I left IT. I keep getting calls for interviews and I have to politely decline. I prefer security actually. Much simpler and I feel good about my job. Hoping eventually to get I to executive security.
I work in IT, used to work in a health care facility. I developed a theory that if a person has a doctorate / PhD in anything, they have no room for more knowledge after I had to explain to an MD how to copy and paste...
What language do you hear? Some of them probably hear the adult language of Charlie Brown.
They probably see you doing some computer voodoo and ask just in case. It's not an unreasonable thing to do.
It's still annoying though, from the IT guy point of view. I usually can do "explaining like he's 5" for quite the time, but it's tiring and probability of snapping increases with every
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