[RESOLVED] user intelligence

[kubrick]

YEEEESSSSS!!!
Computer Renaissance in the hizzy fo sho!!

I agree that AOL6/user unawareness is a good percentage of the work i do. But we all gotta pay our dues, yeah?
(on the soap box now)You can't really stay sane behind the bench w/o a little compassion. If you can educate each user somewhat each time you see him/her, the entire tech community will benefit as that knowledge spreads.

But oh how I DIG them old Compaqs and old Packard Hells!
REPRESENT CR!

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Don't let the Muggles get you down...

[darkspyre0]

well, when i was workin' at best buy the most common thing was when the customer swears up and down that they did absolutly nothing to their computer. worked fine the day before, blah blah blah... Then you open up the computer and wonder how the hell the ide ribbon cable just "fell" out of the hd. must have been those pesky computer goblins... heh

[WickedTech]

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, Geneva, Arial" size="2">
I agree with the above post except for one point. When you work at a company and your primary job is working on a PC (doing spreadsheets, documents, etc.) I think the using should learn at least the basics. Such as copying files and installing programs.
</font>

Actually, you might want to revise that opinion slightly, some companies (like the misbegotten place I work for) make it a terminatable offense for anyone to install software or move a computer other than the system administrator.

Supervisor: "I need you to move your stuff over to that desk near the stairs."
Me: "Sure thing Boss."
- Start to unhook computer
Supervisor: "What are you doing?"
Me: "Moving my stuff..?"
Supervisor: "You can't move that! You'll have to call the system admin over!"
Me: "But the new desk isn't more than 10 feet..."
Supervisor: "It doesn't matter!"
Me: *sigh*

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Thank you for calling, how can I hang up on you today?

[Lowen SoDium]

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, Geneva, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by darkspyre0:
Then you open up the computer and wonder how the hell the ide ribbon cable just "fell" out of the hd. must have been those pesky computer goblins... heh
</font>

Gremlins... they are called gremlins...

Lowen SoDium

I am self am an ex-Computer Renassance tech and problem a soon to be ex-best buy tech if I ever get a call back from the job I interviewed for last week.

[LPetrarca]

Had a user open a Help Desk Request claiming his installation of Word 2000 had a defective spell-checker.

He claimed it wouldn't catch all the spelling errors.

When I asked if he was starting the spell checker from the start of the document - Problem resolved!

[jbar1]

I think the thing that gets to me is intelligent users trying to act dumb. We just had a middle aged women bring in a PC for service. Seems her hard drive was filled to the max. Seems that between her recycle bin, IE cache, temp internet files and download files she was using over 3 gig of a 4.3 gig drive. She is a single school teacher who teachs computer lab in a local grade school. When I called her to explain the problem, she wanted to know how that could be as she didn't use the computer that much and was the only one to use it and wanted to see what we were talking about. When she came in we opened the various files to show her. Needless to say they were filled with porn and seemed like about every site on the net had been visited and there were tons of jpg and pic files. When we opened some of the pics she really got irate and started to insist that we had used her computer to visit all the sites that was until we showed her the dates and times that all the cookies were were logged and under what screen name. She still insisted that she didn't do it and wanted everything removed which we did and showed her how to do it herself. She paid the bill and left, about 2 hrs later she called and made me promise that we would not say a word to anyone about what was on her PC which we agreed. And she teachs computer lab?

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If life is a bitch then what is death? I believe I will take the bitch!

[behemoth1]

The ones that crack me up are the power users and early adopters...i have one guy from my home town bought his machine with win95 osr1. upgraded to osr 2, win 98, osr 1, and 2 and then ME...with no re format ever...in his inf directory there was 15000 files...it took 9 hours to deltree windows before we said screw this....his machine has been upgraded a couple times... I think its now a k6-2 400 or some such... poor machine.

or the guys who buy a brand new machine os loaded and all.. 2 weeks later they call and tell me that it is dropping files and corrupting directories. i get there and the machine is now running some hybrid linux combo (you know mandrake gui, redhat kernel, ) and all screwed up drivers...now i admit i have only limited experience in linux but cummon when your tryin to load sound card drivers for your modem becase in windows it used to come up in sound & video devices is just lame.....read a book retard.

[jimmr13]

Just wanted to add a little Bomb I still use on a daily Bases a Pachard Bell P1 233, that I upgraded, to a PIII . Just loved the case big ole fat boy. room for stuff and room to work.
Got it from my ole buddy Mac. couple years ago.
Now if I could find A nice NEW big ole fat boy case for a P4 1.5 Gb with like 5 places for CD ROM, Burner, DVD, Removeable Hard Drive, and like 3 lil guys for Floppy Backup floppy ? and the zip I never used
Plus room inside for 3 40 Gb maxtors, Like That is all I want !


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If all else fails read the directions !

[theBeast]

How 'bout this one:

Customer calls says that he can't get on the internet. He brought it in a while ago (about a month) for same problem, I noticed content advisor was enabled, disabled it. I connected to net through his account, surfed around for a half hour or so. Everything was hunky dory.
He brings it home, couldn't get on. I asked him to check the cable. Yup, fine, it was plugged into the right place. I told him to check a couple o' things. Everything was fine. Possibly an internet problem. He called his IP. Everything was fine on their end. They thought it may be the jack.
He brought the system up stairs to another jack. That's when he called. He said that when he turned it on he got "DISK ERROR. INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER TO CONTINUE". I asked if there was a disk in the drive. Nope. So I told him to bring it in (figuring the HD would be bad).
He came in, and as he was talking to me, he was holding his tower kinda face down. Well, the hard drive hotswap bay came sliding out, and the drive bounced a foot off the floor. Hmmm...I wonder why his hard drive crashed.

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***the Beast
- Fate drove me here...then told me to get out of the car...

[jeffbrown]

Intelligence? Users? that is a new one to me....

Ever get one where they get a virus on their PC (by email attachment) and then when you ask what happened, or if they opened any attachments, they say "No, No, NO" or something like that. Why do users/customers LIE to computer techs? It is like you are going to the dentist, when he asks if someone flosses every day, they lie, knowing good and damn well that the truth is already known. OK, thank you for the semi-vent!

[thejun]

I am also from CO.
haha cool

[jimmr13]

User intelligence ? isn't that an oximoron like Navel Intellagence Just no such thing ?

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If all else fails read the directions !

[stormtech]

I had a user that has worked her for five years and suddenly forgot how to log on!!!!!!!!!!!! All week long!!! OMFG!!!!!

"they don't call them users for nothing!"

[dragonslayer]

The biggest excuse I hear is "I came in this morning and it just wasn't working, I don't know what happened." Makes me wonder if a little green gremlin came in and messed everything up before they got to work that morning.

[sebass54]

Former Computer Renaissance technician here.

I've seen many, but CR techs are the best around.

You know who you are...l8r