For the Tech Support lads and lasses

pellaeons_scion · Post by **pellaeons_scion** » 2003-08-24 11:56pm

I had to do this. 4 years working tech support for local government and now a Medical School has driven me to this. Feel free to share your tales of woe and ineptitude here...

The stupid. It is killing meeeee

TrailerParkJawa · Post by **TrailerParkJawa** » 2003-08-25 12:03am

My last permanent job in tech support involved working in an engineering company. This means most users are pretty advanced and your job is more of a caretaker than actually teaching users anything. Most of my time was spent keeping machines running, updates, moving phones or rebuilding machines for the engineers.

I recently did some temp work for a company whose employees were less than savvy and it was kind of scary. I dont mind helping those who dont know the difference between a router and a printer, but when they openly panic because of shortcut is missing, then you know you are in for an experience.

pellaeons_scion · Post by **pellaeons_scion** » 2003-08-25 12:08am

I work for academics in the health and medical sciences.
These people are supposed to be smart. Or at least pick things up reasonably quickly.

I have no problem with those that know very little, but are willing to admit and learn. The ones I have the problems with are those who think that its always the computers fault, and that it can all be solved by a new computer

This is also the kind of person who wonders why their system crashes when they have around 40 explorer windows open..

Joy of Joys. A secretary asked me to show her the basics of HTML coding. Its not much, but its a small ray of light in my world

Drewcifer · Post by **Drewcifer** » 2003-08-25 12:19am

I used to be the first line of defense in the tech department for a large company. I answered most of the email that came in from the company web site and a lot of phone calls.

I liked helping the people that wanted help, that was a lot of fun, but it was hard to help the people that were idiots or blamed me for the internet not working. Stuff like, "how do I register?" My answer: "the first step is to click on 'register'," that kind of thing.

I also distributed and supported a zip code database on diskette, and there was one phone call where the guy wanted help to put the executable on his company network. I was a little worried, he seemed really confused and not very computer literate. I told him that he should contact his company's IT department, or if he wanted, I could call them directly and help out. His answer: "Ummm, I am the IT guy". We eventually got everything working smoothly, but that was a long phone call...

pellaeons_scion · Post by **pellaeons_scion** » 2003-08-25 12:25am

I also distributed and supported a zip code database on diskette, and there was one phone call where the guy wanted help to put the executable on his company network. I was a little worried, he seemed really confused and not very computer literate. I told him that he should contact his company's IT department, or if he wanted, I could call them directly and help out. His answer: "Ummm, I am the IT guy". We eventually got everything working smoothly, but that was a long phone call...

Sounds like me talking to the local ISP. A supposed tech was trying to tell me that the reason my clients account wasnt working was because the shortcut was in capitals....errr..ooohhkaayy...

Was bullshit. Fact was that the account had merely been disabled due to non payment. Apparently it was too hard for this 'senior' technician to look at the accounts status. Not surprisingly we changed ISP's after that

TrailerParkJawa · Post by **TrailerParkJawa** » 2003-08-25 12:34am

I did some temp for a local company in the call center. It was level one calls for network attached storage devices. It was interesting and fun to help the small business owners that wanted to learn more. It was frustrating to take a call from someone who never backed up their data at all over the last two years, and had a dead drive, and expected you to be able to get the data off over the phone somehow.

I have no idea where my career will go from here. The market is flooded with people who have more talent and will work for less money. Im lucky in that Im not too expensive yet, so Ive been able to find a couple of temp assignments this year. But its hard to stay fresh when you have nothing to work on. Thats the one thing I hate about IT. Im sure you've all had that moment when you go, "I've seen this problem before. Jim had it. Oh, that was 7 months ago, WTF did I do to fix it? "

EmperorMing · Post by **EmperorMing** » 2003-08-25 12:36am

Aaarrgghh!!! I know your pain. Some users actually have a brain, and some have me banging my head

What really bugs me is when users call in acting like kids and lying about the information they provide...

Pu-239 · Post by **Pu-239** » 2003-08-25 12:51am

I though tech support was a good job?

. (some guy I knew said it was nice because of the stupid managers at both of his jobs at RCN and COX, and the opportunity to slack off). Maybe it depends on what you do support for... cable doesn't sound like something someone would call in for very much.

Drewcifer · Post by **Drewcifer** » 2003-08-25 01:03am

I enjoyed most of the tech support stuff I did. It was fun helping people, and I really liked the 'solving a mystery' aspect to it. There were some assholes and idiots to deal with, like any job, but overall it a fun job for me. (It helped that I dealt with insurance agents and IT staff at insurance companies rather than the public at large though. That would suck.)

Durandal · Post by **Durandal** » 2003-08-25 01:27am

I do Mac tech support at my university. A lot of retired faculty still run very, very old versions of the Mac OS. Some of them are just great. They can get so incredibly grateful to the point where they send the department E-mail extolling my virtues as a support tech. They'll even offer to take you to dinner sometimes.

Others are so unbelievably stupid that it's all I can do not to crush the phone in my hand.

Kamakazie Sith · Post by **Kamakazie Sith** » 2003-08-25 01:35am

I worked for AOL tech support for three years....

That's where I learned that stupidity has no bounds.

I once had a customer get mad at us because AOL wouldn't work on his commodore 64.

EmperorMing · Post by **EmperorMing** » 2003-08-25 03:33am

Pu-239 wrote:I though tech support was a good job? . (some guy I knew said it was nice because of the stupid managers at both of his jobs at RCN and COX, and the opportunity to slack off). Maybe it depends on what you do support for... cable doesn't sound like something someone would call in for very much.

You would be surprised at the calls broadband techs get. Routers, switches and what not go down for any odball reason. And then you get idiots like me who forget their email password...

Post by **The Yosemite Bear** » 2003-08-25 07:50am

I liked when I worked for the state the idiot who.

Complained because the Disks (High Density 3.5 inch floppies) wouldn't work on his computer (Which was so old it could only read DOUBLE DENSITY floppies)

Formatted the HDD instead of the system disk

Complained that his printer wouidn't work. (He had severed the cable & knocked over the printer, banging his secratary)

Posted his password in his PROFILE

StarDestroyer.Net BBS

For the Tech Support lads and lasses

What do you think is the intelligence of the average user?

For the Tech Support lads and lasses