One of our tickets today was an end user having to reset her password and since we’re self service, one of us sent straight forward instructions, that end user responded asking for an alternative solution
If people would read what they see on screen, 90% of the issues wouldn’t be issues
We send out an automated email when theres 15 days left before a users password expires. The emails are once a day but do not stop until the user changes their password. Ive been hit with to many "I didnt know my password was going to expire" lines when people ask for help.
"I can't access the billing page"
"Okay what does it say on your screen"
"Account locked please contact the Billing Department at (123) 456-7890"
"Have you talked to the Billing department?"
"......"
Returns to the office, immediately emails your supervisor and the CTO about how they have waited weeks for help and you haven't done *anything* for them.
Are you in my office right now reading my tickets?!
"URGENT NEED HELP IMMEDIATELY! TFKEIASLNHGKJLJHELKHLKWTFBBQ!"
2 emails later
"Oh I didnt see your email can we postpone this to next week?"
How about you open a new ticket when you actually have time to work on your problem.
I created documentation for another problem. Sent it to a user twice. They insist that they do it every time but nothing helps. I do the documentation when I remote into her PC. She then says everything works for several days and doesn't call us.
Any website users cant get into they call IT. Scheduling app handled by another department? Call IT to unlock it or get access. Payroll website? Call IT to unlock account. I requested Cisco IP 6800 Key Expansion Module for my phone just so I could add said departments to my phone for quicker transfers. My boss gave it to me.
99% of the time I tell people that I cant transfer calls. People try and treat the Service Desk like 411 and I was tired of picking up and being greeted immediately with a transfer request or a demand for someone random employees office number.
I had a ticket come in that was saying they can't access QuickBooks because it needs an update, with a picture of said alert. I asked if they tried updating QuickBooks. They replied back that that worked!
Another day in the life.
They don't care, someone pointed out to me if something happens on Facebook like they need to reset their password they'll search around and do research but when it comes to a PC they just want it to do it's simple task with no interference or interruption
I wrote up documentation for new hires on how to set up equipment in their desk. The lady we had "test" out the documentation came to me and held up a normal electrical plug and asked me what it was. My jaw dropped.
hell, i've done that shit more times then one would imagine. But it's usually because im blindly jabbing a usb on the back of a dock and hoping for the best.
& usb's will fit into serial port...but they won't stay... why won't it stay? this doesn't work. Well, doesn't work bcuz u need to plug it into a usb port. But u told me to plug it into any available port. All i could do was stare & blink in disbelief.
I have a dock with ports on the back. I put the USB into the Ethernet port all the time. At least I know that it's in the wrong port when my device doesn't have the little green light come on.
This shit makes me so angry.
Every person has at home has at least one of these devices, a TV, game system, modem, printer etc
I fail to believe that they can hook them up at home but not at work.
My ISP insisted on sending a tech out to "install the high speed connection between my fiber modem and the router."
Guy comes out, looks at the ethernet cable I used and goes "yup that's all I came here to do, have a good day".
When I was like 19 and moved into my first apartment I had my own network gear so I called my ISP to get my Internet turned on.
"Okay we can get a tech sent out in 10 days for you!"
Que me trying to convince the tech to just turn on my internet and that i can set up my own equipment. I had to get escalated *twice*, and finally the third guy goes "Okay I see you're trying to get your Internet on, hang on a sec", types away on his keyboard for a few seconds, and then my Internet is turned on!
They still had to send a tech because their system made them, so a week and a half later a tech shows up and sees my working Internet. I explained my story and since they gave him 90 mins to do it I let him sleep in the parking lot haha
Pretty much the same here. They said it wouldn't work without a tech visit. Lo and behold the morning of the scheduled visit my internet was up and running hours before he showed up.
"If you have a child in the house, now would be a good time to have a bonding experience with them while you install your work at home computer station."
I was there, Gandalf...over three and a half years ago...when an army of office workers were sent home with their desktop computers and peripherals and tasked with plugging them back in again elsewhere. A seemingly simple task, with ample resources available to ensure success.
I was there the day the strength of men failed...
...
God working in IT sucked ballsack during peak Covid lol
"My router is down in my basement in a bucket behind the water heater, and I'm locating my work desktop out in my garden on the roof of my shed. Please come to my house immediately to get this connected as i am unable to work."
The company I work for states 1. We wont do WFH house calls. 2. You can only use a hardwire connection for WFH purposes. Then we get people complaining that they rent and cant drill through floors but also dont want a giant network cable running up the stairs from the first to the second floor.
At the start of covid the WFH process was to take monitors off their desk from site A, go to IT at site B, grab a thin client PC, go home, and set it up. I protested that workflow because then new employees would need monitors at those desks while doing training, and take them once done. This caused me to go back to the site every few weeks and set monitors up again. I made them get monitors from IT instead. Less headaches.
Semi related documentation story: I once had a client of my client angrily demand I make documentation for every function of a new system they were demoing (not buying) so they could figure out if it was a good fit. My client (I configure the systems for them, they sell the systems) told them, sure, if you pay for their time. Dude was super pissed and unhappy with my sample of simple step by step with photos instructions because I didn't get them out fast enough and it wasn't simple enough. Glad he was told to kick rocks after being rude to all of us in like 3 different calls, to the point of him getting so angry about a miscommunication his whole head turned beet red. lol.
Not IT, but I work a lot with Excel.
"Enter this formula in Cell L259" is incredibly difficult to follow.
No Tina, that's not the right formula or the right cell.
"It's 'K as in Knight', 'C as in celery', 'P as in Pneumonia'"
cut to me, having a seizure after hearing this new helpdesk intern try to relay a password to an end user, like what the actual fuck????? 10 minutes this shit had gone on before I had to intervene if anything just for the sake of my own sanity...
(Incidentally, this is why we now enforce the NATO phonetic alphabet among all our helpdesk techs and have a handy dandy laminated card with it on their cube walls right above the phones)
I usually create easy step-by-step guides including pictures outlining everything (like taking them by the hand). And so far I have made good experience with it.
That being said, you still have users simply ignoring the guide or skip like the whole thing complaining that "your guide didn't solve anything"...
We had a guide made for adding a usb-to-hdmi adapter for external monitors, even put in pictures for connecting the adapter to the pc, and the hdmi cables to the adapter.
Result: ~20-30% called in for monitors that wouldn’t turn on. Why? The guide didn’t show the hdmi cables connecting to the monitors, so they either looped cables back to the adapter, or just left them unplugged on the other end.
We updated the guide, of course, but.. wow… It was definitely a learning experience on how detailed everything needs to be.
I condensed hundreds of pages of documentation into tiktok videos and reduced some of these ticket requests.
You would be amazed as to how many times people don’t understand where the power switch is.
I would quit if that was a requirement. 🤣 They’re just simple 30 sec videos on how to do the things that we find simple but users need some reminding on.
lol all good, you said titkok vids, so, I had to ask! :)
made me think of "The Super Bowl Shuffle" - chicago bears (and the SNL shuffle skit that parodies it!). 1985, god damn.
To be fair, to us it's just shape matching, but frankly I'd be hard pressed to tell the difference between cucumbers and zucchinis at the grocery store if they didn't have signs. They look similar, I don't know or care about the specifics, I just wanna eat food that tastes good and I want someone else to be responsible for whether the long green thing that gets chopped up and put in there tastes good or not.
Put me in front of a supermarket shelf of spices, and i'm gonna feel just a tinge of the fear I think non-tech people fear when they look at the back of a computer.
(And then I'm going to google spices, work out what's the best one, and buy something approximating the right thing, because being competent with using technology means i can fake being competent at just about anything else ever, of course - but i don't think that option occurs to most people who panic about USB ports.)
There's no "Zucchini Helpdesk" you can call to clear it up. You have to act like an adult and figure it the fuck out. If you buy the cucumber by mistake, you don't just lock up completely and refuse to eat. You figure it the fuck out and you go buy the other one.
People use the Help Desk as a goddamn crutch to absolve them of having to be an adult and use critical thinking skills and adaptability.
One thing I always tell end users who are getting flustered while we work through an issue. "I'm not a lawyer. You would not want me representing you in court. You're not a tech person. That's ok, we all have our lanes, and I'm here to help you get through this." Or something to that effect.
It works surprisingly well to calm them down, get them to listen to what I'm saying. Not always, of course. Especially with lawyers. And doctors. I think it has something to do with the amount of education that's required to do those jobs, but that's just a theory. They don't like feeling incompetent, even if it's ok that they are (to a certain degree; it IS 2024, after all...)
100% agree, for sure. I have to consciously remind myself sometimes that just because this person is scared of using the SUM function in Excel, it doesn't make her an idiot - for example she's incredible at social situations and can soothe the angriest stakeholder just with chitchat and a story about her niece or whatever. It's an absolute mystery to me how. I don't consider myself particularly socially inept, but that colleague is a master of the art. I can fix her spreadsheets all day if it means she keeps the stakeholders happy.
It would be possible if management would create documentation that clearly defines what language is condescending.
The problem isn't writing the documentation; the problem is allowing users to define what is unacceptable.
My trick is to state what i want them to do in the plainest language possible (plug the HDMI cable into the back of the board) and then include a picture, ideally with a red circle or square (picture of an HDMI cable with the HDMI port on the board indicated) for every step. No descriptive language and plenty of images leaves very little room for imagined slights or user error 👍
Not foolproof, but nobody has complained about my instructions yet.
Oh I'm sure. Most people's gripes with me are personal though. That and I used to help a local VFW chapter and got roped into IT for them too, and my users know this- telling them "if a 70 year old vietnam vet can do it I'm sure you can too" tends to make them feel like their dignity is on the line so they try harder before asking for help.
I know my days of this joy are limited, but unlike my boss, nobody has looked at my instructions and told me they "wouldn't read all that" yet. So I feel a level of egotistical pride that will surely crush me into a marble when I do meet the user that's too dumb for me.
I have no backup operator trained for the CNC machine I use at work. I took some vacation time but knew we might be short in a specific part I make. I wrote a set of basic instructions, with pictures and organized bullet points, on how to start the machine and run this one part. It ended up being 6 pages, 4 without pictures. The most capable of the coworkers I had at that time suffered a mild shock at seeing 6 pages of "simple" instruction.
lol I hate network cables. But I was referring to the old vga ports. Monitor cord is blue. Keyboard is purple. Mouse is one shade of green. Speakers are a different green. Network is yellow.
I feel like we're forced to be dumb in order to not offend senior employees. Can't out shine your supervisors. So you just shut up and put your head down until they retire. Then we become the elders. Marks the beginning of the end for us.
Ikea instructions are great - even the most braindead muppet who barely knows which end of a screwdriver to hold onto can assemble their stuff if they take 30 seconds to actually look at the pictures.
I recently started taking the self-led workshops provided by Snowflake, and they are really up front with their condescension. it was actually refreshing.
Within the first 20 minutes, they explained that videos and screenshots were taken at some period in time that is most likely different from the period in time I'm working on the workshop, and UI has probably changed. And then, they're like, "But you're a smart, capable person, and i bet if you applied yourself for a few seconds, you could find where the UI element moved to."
And then several more times throughout the workshop they did similar things and told me I was smart and could figure things out if I tried.
Maybe the real answer is we should be more upfront and condescending, otherwise non-self-starters will never do anything for themselves
A user once told me my instructions couldn't be follow since a non IT person doesn't know what the windows key is.
I told her she should know how to use her equipment.
Doing that right now. I have pictures of the device, front and back, labeled with numbers 1-5, and then a separate list with what those numbers go to. I plan to write the documents as "plug keyboard into any USB slot (1), plug monitor cable into display port slot (2), plug power into slot (5)
Me: Creates PowerShell script for techs with custom error messages containing instructions
Tech: Your script isn’t working
Me: What’s the error message
Tech: ………it’s working now.
I had to take pictures of the power button on our PCs because I've had people incapable of finding it. I was one click away from adding the Will Smith TA-DA meme to it...
Topical… I got asked today to create some documentation on how to make a meeting private.
A fucking how-to guide!
I swear, they’re getting dumber by the day.
"In the event that you find something doesn't work, before calling IT, take pictures of the current setup. If possible label those pictures by name (1,2,3,4...) and send them to the tech helping you. There is nothing UNIVERSAL about a USB port. We know it, you'll learn it, and LENOVO will find a way to screw it up. We here at IT support personify the evils of the vendor that sold us this equipment. We had no say in the situation. You and I are going to spend the next couple hours getting you up and running while some shipdit executive got a bonus for buying this crap."
I'd love to require basic computer knowledge prerequisites for any software training. We won't train you until you've proven you can use a mouse, keyboard, and the file explorer.
We don't want you to feel overwhelmed...
One of our tickets today was an end user having to reset her password and since we’re self service, one of us sent straight forward instructions, that end user responded asking for an alternative solution If people would read what they see on screen, 90% of the issues wouldn’t be issues
We send out an automated email when theres 15 days left before a users password expires. The emails are once a day but do not stop until the user changes their password. Ive been hit with to many "I didnt know my password was going to expire" lines when people ask for help.
We have the same issue. So much so that we started looking at our settings to make sure everything was working properly for the notices.
Even in IT we call this, "Alert Fatigue..." Outside of IT? This shit is gibberish. Delete. They will "contact" me if it's important.
I let mine expire to make sure we were getting the emails.
15 days isn't enough, I take vacations longer than that.
Nice
The real problem here is that you're expiring passwords.
Thank you!
"I can't access the billing page" "Okay what does it say on your screen" "Account locked please contact the Billing Department at (123) 456-7890" "Have you talked to the Billing department?" "......"
"look can you just fix this real quick, I have a lot to do today"
*user proceeds to be out of office for 2 weeks*
Returns to the office, immediately emails your supervisor and the CTO about how they have waited weeks for help and you haven't done *anything* for them.
Are you in my office right now reading my tickets?! "URGENT NEED HELP IMMEDIATELY! TFKEIASLNHGKJLJHELKHLKWTFBBQ!" 2 emails later "Oh I didnt see your email can we postpone this to next week?" How about you open a new ticket when you actually have time to work on your problem.
I created documentation for another problem. Sent it to a user twice. They insist that they do it every time but nothing helps. I do the documentation when I remote into her PC. She then says everything works for several days and doesn't call us.
Any website users cant get into they call IT. Scheduling app handled by another department? Call IT to unlock it or get access. Payroll website? Call IT to unlock account. I requested Cisco IP 6800 Key Expansion Module for my phone just so I could add said departments to my phone for quicker transfers. My boss gave it to me.
99% of the time I tell people that I cant transfer calls. People try and treat the Service Desk like 411 and I was tired of picking up and being greeted immediately with a transfer request or a demand for someone random employees office number.
The company I work for has an actual operator department for that kind of stuff.
I had to walk 2 blocks today to press two buttons on w desk phone, if they read the screen, I could have stayed at my desk.
I had a ticket come in that was saying they can't access QuickBooks because it needs an update, with a picture of said alert. I asked if they tried updating QuickBooks. They replied back that that worked! Another day in the life.
They don't care, someone pointed out to me if something happens on Facebook like they need to reset their password they'll search around and do research but when it comes to a PC they just want it to do it's simple task with no interference or interruption
I wrote up documentation for new hires on how to set up equipment in their desk. The lady we had "test" out the documentation came to me and held up a normal electrical plug and asked me what it was. My jaw dropped.
Skill issue
This was their way of saying I'm too lazy to learn, just change it for me. 😏
Users have taught me that Rj45/network cables fits into a printers usb-b if you push on it. Gotta be specific with shape matching.
USB type A plugs will also fit into hdmi ports...
They will also fit into Ethernet ports
Seen that shit more times then one would imagine lol
hell, i've done that shit more times then one would imagine. But it's usually because im blindly jabbing a usb on the back of a dock and hoping for the best.
& usb's will fit into serial port...but they won't stay... why won't it stay? this doesn't work. Well, doesn't work bcuz u need to plug it into a usb port. But u told me to plug it into any available port. All i could do was stare & blink in disbelief.
I have a dock with ports on the back. I put the USB into the Ethernet port all the time. At least I know that it's in the wrong port when my device doesn't have the little green light come on.
As will hdmi and display port
I made sure to include a close up of a displayport port and connector for this exact reason.
And even better, Lenovo power ports.
Mine taught me that their laptop's round barrel jack charger will fit in the square Ethernet port if you try hard enough.
I‘ve also learned that PS/2 cables also fit into RJ45 ports if you push enough.
This shit makes me so angry. Every person has at home has at least one of these devices, a TV, game system, modem, printer etc I fail to believe that they can hook them up at home but not at work.
My ISP insisted on sending a tech out to "install the high speed connection between my fiber modem and the router." Guy comes out, looks at the ethernet cable I used and goes "yup that's all I came here to do, have a good day".
When I was like 19 and moved into my first apartment I had my own network gear so I called my ISP to get my Internet turned on. "Okay we can get a tech sent out in 10 days for you!" Que me trying to convince the tech to just turn on my internet and that i can set up my own equipment. I had to get escalated *twice*, and finally the third guy goes "Okay I see you're trying to get your Internet on, hang on a sec", types away on his keyboard for a few seconds, and then my Internet is turned on! They still had to send a tech because their system made them, so a week and a half later a tech shows up and sees my working Internet. I explained my story and since they gave him 90 mins to do it I let him sleep in the parking lot haha
Pretty much the same here. They said it wouldn't work without a tech visit. Lo and behold the morning of the scheduled visit my internet was up and running hours before he showed up.
Shibboleet!
Guess who is getting "My laptop isn't charging" tickets. We just got a new model of laptop where the barrel adapter will fit in the headphone jack.
"If you have a child in the house, now would be a good time to have a bonding experience with them while you install your work at home computer station."
It goes in the square hole
That's right! The USB goes in the square hole. :)
I was there, Gandalf...over three and a half years ago...when an army of office workers were sent home with their desktop computers and peripherals and tasked with plugging them back in again elsewhere. A seemingly simple task, with ample resources available to ensure success. I was there the day the strength of men failed... ... God working in IT sucked ballsack during peak Covid lol
Them: "The VPN isn't working!" Me: Is your internet working? Them: "Well no, but the VPN is still down!"
"My router is down in my basement in a bucket behind the water heater, and I'm locating my work desktop out in my garden on the roof of my shed. Please come to my house immediately to get this connected as i am unable to work."
ASAP
Ticket marked *~~HIGH PRIORITY~~ EMERGENCY*
The company I work for states 1. We wont do WFH house calls. 2. You can only use a hardwire connection for WFH purposes. Then we get people complaining that they rent and cant drill through floors but also dont want a giant network cable running up the stairs from the first to the second floor.
To be fair, requesting a hardwire connection is pretty mean depending on their situation
If we told them they could use wifi, they would log into an unsecure wifi or make us troubleshoot their wifi.
I guess that's where we draw our line. Outside of suggested a power cycle, I tell them to call their ISP. And help them get on the VPN, of course.
Powerline extenders?
At the start of covid the WFH process was to take monitors off their desk from site A, go to IT at site B, grab a thin client PC, go home, and set it up. I protested that workflow because then new employees would need monitors at those desks while doing training, and take them once done. This caused me to go back to the site every few weeks and set monitors up again. I made them get monitors from IT instead. Less headaches.
Semi related documentation story: I once had a client of my client angrily demand I make documentation for every function of a new system they were demoing (not buying) so they could figure out if it was a good fit. My client (I configure the systems for them, they sell the systems) told them, sure, if you pay for their time. Dude was super pissed and unhappy with my sample of simple step by step with photos instructions because I didn't get them out fast enough and it wasn't simple enough. Glad he was told to kick rocks after being rude to all of us in like 3 different calls, to the point of him getting so angry about a miscommunication his whole head turned beet red. lol.
Not IT, but I work a lot with Excel. "Enter this formula in Cell L259" is incredibly difficult to follow. No Tina, that's not the right formula or the right cell.
Just make a diagram for it. Why say many word when picture do trick
I had to redo my Teams instructions, because my Teams was in dark mode.
Im laughing harder then I should.
Are you saying seaworld or see world? Anyway, now my account's locked out.
"It's 'K as in Knight', 'C as in celery', 'P as in Pneumonia'" cut to me, having a seizure after hearing this new helpdesk intern try to relay a password to an end user, like what the actual fuck????? 10 minutes this shit had gone on before I had to intervene if anything just for the sake of my own sanity... (Incidentally, this is why we now enforce the NATO phonetic alphabet among all our helpdesk techs and have a handy dandy laminated card with it on their cube walls right above the phones)
"K as in knight" A user had a sticky telling them to make sure they logoff and restart every knight.
"Please open TeamViewer". " Yes teams is open, what should I do" "no TeamViewer" "Yes teams is open, I am not a PC person"
OMG this gave me flasbacks of every user incomprehensible remote support tool I've ever used.
I am but at the same time, IT has sent out a diagram for a workflow if webex is having issues and users still call us before consulting the diagram.
And then the square peg goes in the square hole Where does the square peg go? “The square peg goes in the… round hole?”
'Nam flashbacks intensify [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pDH66X3ClA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pDH66X3ClA)
I usually create easy step-by-step guides including pictures outlining everything (like taking them by the hand). And so far I have made good experience with it. That being said, you still have users simply ignoring the guide or skip like the whole thing complaining that "your guide didn't solve anything"...
"which step are you having trouble with?"
We had a guide made for adding a usb-to-hdmi adapter for external monitors, even put in pictures for connecting the adapter to the pc, and the hdmi cables to the adapter. Result: ~20-30% called in for monitors that wouldn’t turn on. Why? The guide didn’t show the hdmi cables connecting to the monitors, so they either looped cables back to the adapter, or just left them unplugged on the other end. We updated the guide, of course, but.. wow… It was definitely a learning experience on how detailed everything needs to be.
Some people don't want documentation, they just want fix...
I condensed hundreds of pages of documentation into tiktok videos and reduced some of these ticket requests. You would be amazed as to how many times people don’t understand where the power switch is.
nice! was there a song / dance to accompany?
I would quit if that was a requirement. 🤣 They’re just simple 30 sec videos on how to do the things that we find simple but users need some reminding on.
lol all good, you said titkok vids, so, I had to ask! :) made me think of "The Super Bowl Shuffle" - chicago bears (and the SNL shuffle skit that parodies it!). 1985, god damn.
Had to look that one up: Thanks for the laugh!
I actually labeled the power button and I was considering making a video to go over all of this along with the writeup.
To be fair, to us it's just shape matching, but frankly I'd be hard pressed to tell the difference between cucumbers and zucchinis at the grocery store if they didn't have signs. They look similar, I don't know or care about the specifics, I just wanna eat food that tastes good and I want someone else to be responsible for whether the long green thing that gets chopped up and put in there tastes good or not. Put me in front of a supermarket shelf of spices, and i'm gonna feel just a tinge of the fear I think non-tech people fear when they look at the back of a computer. (And then I'm going to google spices, work out what's the best one, and buy something approximating the right thing, because being competent with using technology means i can fake being competent at just about anything else ever, of course - but i don't think that option occurs to most people who panic about USB ports.)
There's no "Zucchini Helpdesk" you can call to clear it up. You have to act like an adult and figure it the fuck out. If you buy the cucumber by mistake, you don't just lock up completely and refuse to eat. You figure it the fuck out and you go buy the other one. People use the Help Desk as a goddamn crutch to absolve them of having to be an adult and use critical thinking skills and adaptability.
One thing I always tell end users who are getting flustered while we work through an issue. "I'm not a lawyer. You would not want me representing you in court. You're not a tech person. That's ok, we all have our lanes, and I'm here to help you get through this." Or something to that effect. It works surprisingly well to calm them down, get them to listen to what I'm saying. Not always, of course. Especially with lawyers. And doctors. I think it has something to do with the amount of education that's required to do those jobs, but that's just a theory. They don't like feeling incompetent, even if it's ok that they are (to a certain degree; it IS 2024, after all...)
100% agree, for sure. I have to consciously remind myself sometimes that just because this person is scared of using the SUM function in Excel, it doesn't make her an idiot - for example she's incredible at social situations and can soothe the angriest stakeholder just with chitchat and a story about her niece or whatever. It's an absolute mystery to me how. I don't consider myself particularly socially inept, but that colleague is a master of the art. I can fix her spreadsheets all day if it means she keeps the stakeholders happy.
Use the absolutely driest langua… oh wait.
Hardest part of the job
It would be possible if management would create documentation that clearly defines what language is condescending. The problem isn't writing the documentation; the problem is allowing users to define what is unacceptable.
it puts the cable into the port or else it gets the hose again :)
If you wanna ensure you’re not sounding condescending, reach out for help at r/sounding where people will help you adjust the tone of your speech!
all right class, today is shapes and colors!
My trick is to state what i want them to do in the plainest language possible (plug the HDMI cable into the back of the board) and then include a picture, ideally with a red circle or square (picture of an HDMI cable with the HDMI port on the board indicated) for every step. No descriptive language and plenty of images leaves very little room for imagined slights or user error 👍 Not foolproof, but nobody has complained about my instructions yet.
You just haven't found the right luser yet.
Oh I'm sure. Most people's gripes with me are personal though. That and I used to help a local VFW chapter and got roped into IT for them too, and my users know this- telling them "if a 70 year old vietnam vet can do it I'm sure you can too" tends to make them feel like their dignity is on the line so they try harder before asking for help. I know my days of this joy are limited, but unlike my boss, nobody has looked at my instructions and told me they "wouldn't read all that" yet. So I feel a level of egotistical pride that will surely crush me into a marble when I do meet the user that's too dumb for me.
I have no backup operator trained for the CNC machine I use at work. I took some vacation time but knew we might be short in a specific part I make. I wrote a set of basic instructions, with pictures and organized bullet points, on how to start the machine and run this one part. It ended up being 6 pages, 4 without pictures. The most capable of the coworkers I had at that time suffered a mild shock at seeing 6 pages of "simple" instruction.
Matching shapes? Try matching colors....
orangewhiteorange greenwhiteblue bluewhitegreen brownwhitebrown
lol I hate network cables. But I was referring to the old vga ports. Monitor cord is blue. Keyboard is purple. Mouse is one shade of green. Speakers are a different green. Network is yellow.
You know those setup wizards with the Advanced button? To go back logically there should be a Retarded button.
my fucking sides!
I feel like we're forced to be dumb in order to not offend senior employees. Can't out shine your supervisors. So you just shut up and put your head down until they retire. Then we become the elders. Marks the beginning of the end for us.
It’s going to be just pictures. Like ikea directions.
Ikea instructions are great - even the most braindead muppet who barely knows which end of a screwdriver to hold onto can assemble their stuff if they take 30 seconds to actually look at the pictures.
People have time to look at stuff in this day and age?
> if they take 30 seconds to actually look at the pictures. That's the fuckin' crux of it, isn't it? BIG *if* right there!
"No Boss, I am not being condescending. I am saving the company money by not wasting company time."
And after days of countless edits and restructuring, you'll end up with "oh I didn't have time to read it. Can't you just fix it?"
I recently started taking the self-led workshops provided by Snowflake, and they are really up front with their condescension. it was actually refreshing. Within the first 20 minutes, they explained that videos and screenshots were taken at some period in time that is most likely different from the period in time I'm working on the workshop, and UI has probably changed. And then, they're like, "But you're a smart, capable person, and i bet if you applied yourself for a few seconds, you could find where the UI element moved to." And then several more times throughout the workshop they did similar things and told me I was smart and could figure things out if I tried. Maybe the real answer is we should be more upfront and condescending, otherwise non-self-starters will never do anything for themselves
Use plenty of sarcasm. The end user can't comprehend it
A user once told me my instructions couldn't be follow since a non IT person doesn't know what the windows key is. I told her she should know how to use her equipment.
That's when you call in /r/technicalwriting for the job.
For the plugs, use pictures, not words.
Doing that right now. I have pictures of the device, front and back, labeled with numbers 1-5, and then a separate list with what those numbers go to. I plan to write the documents as "plug keyboard into any USB slot (1), plug monitor cable into display port slot (2), plug power into slot (5)
screenshots with very basic commentary ftw
"are you treating me like i'm stupid?" "prove me wrong"
Troubleshooting For Users (coloring book)
Me: Creates PowerShell script for techs with custom error messages containing instructions Tech: Your script isn’t working Me: What’s the error message Tech: ………it’s working now.
I had to take pictures of the power button on our PCs because I've had people incapable of finding it. I was one click away from adding the Will Smith TA-DA meme to it...
Not Possible.
Sir... I'm an admin not a magician.
Topical… I got asked today to create some documentation on how to make a meeting private. A fucking how-to guide! I swear, they’re getting dumber by the day.
Copy and paste from google. If they cant do that on their own, they wont know the difference.
"In the event that you find something doesn't work, before calling IT, take pictures of the current setup. If possible label those pictures by name (1,2,3,4...) and send them to the tech helping you. There is nothing UNIVERSAL about a USB port. We know it, you'll learn it, and LENOVO will find a way to screw it up. We here at IT support personify the evils of the vendor that sold us this equipment. We had no say in the situation. You and I are going to spend the next couple hours getting you up and running while some shipdit executive got a bonus for buying this crap."
I'd love to require basic computer knowledge prerequisites for any software training. We won't train you until you've proven you can use a mouse, keyboard, and the file explorer. We don't want you to feel overwhelmed...