I read about a tech support incident similar to this but thought it was a joke -- until it happened to me.
I was on call one weekend, praying the phone would not ring. My wife and I were out for a pleasant ride in the country when my cell phone went off.
[ Want to cash in on your IT experiences? Send your amazing IT tale, lesson learned the hard way, or war story from the trenches to offtherecord@infoworld.com. If we publish it, we'll send you a $50 American Express gift card. ]
The caller was a senior staff member who went to the office to do some work on the weekend. She was not technically inclined and tended to get quite impatient with technology -- and we tended to cringe when she called. She was terribly upset because her Palm was missing. It took me a few questions to discern exactly what this meant: The icon for her Palm Pilot was always on her monitor, but today she couldn't find it.
Thus began the next phase of the diagnostic.
Did she open My Computer and look for it there? No, she couldn't "find her computer." (What?)
Did she try rebooting? Yes, but she still couldn't find her Palm.
It wasn't on her desktop? No.
What was on her desktop? Nothing.
The Q&A continued for about 15 minutes. (This was before Bluetooth, so I had pulled over to the side of the road to think better.) What was I missing?
Finally, she mentioned that her cursor had also disappeared. When? Apparently, she hadn't seen it at all during our conversation.
Could she open the CD tray? Nope.
A ha!
Could she try a different plug for her computer? She crawled under her desk and swapped outlets but nothing happened. Then she remembered that her desk light wouldn't come on.
After half an hour on the phone, we had gotten to the root of the problem: The outlets on one wall were out. A circuit breaker must have blown. She got an extension cord, was back in business, and could finally see her Palm icon.
This incident reminds me of a couple of basic "rules" to live by when working with end-users. First, listen and know the person, if possible. We were heading in a wrong direction with the problem solution until I tried to put myself in her position, visualize her situation, and think like her. Second, don't take anything for granted. Check the basics without insulting the person. What may be obvious to tech support may not be obvious to the end-user. I would have noticed right away that the monitor didn't have power, but she didn't.
This whitepaper explains the terminology and concepts behind Data Replication technologies and establishes some sizing rules through worked examples. Learn the new paradigm in disaster tolerance—protect data anywhere.
Download now »
Server virtualization is a popular option for dealing with mounting datacenter costs. Another equally promising approach is the use of an Application Delivery Controller. Citrix NetScaler provides a low-cost way for organizations to reduce their server count and accrue cost savings from a reduction in space, cooling, power and personnel.
Download now »
The emergence of WLANs has created a new breed of security threats to enterprise networks.
Included in HP ProCurve WLAN solutions is security technology that alleviates threats from WLANs through:
* Monitoring wireless activity inside and out of the enterprise
* Classifying WLAN transmissions into harmful and harmless
* Preventing transmissions that pose a security threat to the enterprise network
* Locating participating devices for physical remediation
Effectively address data protection challenges, implementing solutions that help store and protect business–critical data while cutting costs and improving efficiency and reliability.
Download now »Accounting IT Guy --
I think you missed an important point: This woman, who is not tech savvy, had plugged in and turned on the monitor and the computer. What she failed to recognize was that nothing on the desktop was showing up. A very easy thing for us tech-savvy folks to notice, but not so easy for a true technophobe.
As the author implies, sometimes you have to put yourself inside the heads of those who know absolutely nothing about computers -- or wall outlets and breakers, for that matter!
And the concept of one wall being "live" while another nearby wall is "dead" can elude even IT Pros once in awhile. I've seen it happen!
Some people are not so much "insulated" as just too busy to learn in detail how their work tools operate. Remember, tech (computers, monitors, printers, even breaker panels) is just a collection or work tools. People want things like these to "just work" so they can get on with their real jobs.
The power issues are more complicated where there are breakers invovled. A lot of people think that if one outlet in a room is working, then all outlets in that room should be working. It does sometimes require a bit of explaining to get people to realize that different outlets, even close to one another, can be on different breakers. That is not intuitively obvious to anyone, even some techies.
The CD ROM being used as a cupholder did happen a few years, when CD ROMs and CD players were much less common than they are today. And WordPerfect did not have the greatest tech support in those days. Both stories are true.
Sign up to receive InfoWorld Resource Alerts
16 Recommendations
1 reply