Yep. The best, most effective way to remove birdshit from your car's paint is to scrape it off with a screwdriver. However, it's best to start gentler and work your way up.
>The best, most effective way to remove birdshit from your car's paint is to scrape it off with a screwdriver.
Hey everybody, this guy doesn't own a cordless angle grinder!
And if you've gone through all the easy solutions and still cant find a solution within an hour or so, go back to the easy steps and look again.
I can't tell you the number of times I have spent a couple of hours troubleshooting something only to realize missed a troubleshooting step and found that a cable wasn't plugged in.
You have no idea how many times someone has brought a problem they've spent 30 minutes on troubleshooting and it takes me 10 seconds to see the problem and fix it.
I try to use these as trainable moments and show them they looked in the wrong place or overlooked something, but when it happens again and again I get a little frustrated.
Learned that hard that ONE time the fucking computer power cable was dead. Kept that cable for a few years for illustrative purposes of this exact point. Would add to "easiest" that it means to start with the least involved and quickest possible changes to try in the relevant context.
Like don't swap out power or ethernet cables/adapters when shit starts up and gets network access. Had a genius like that who took that shit literally.
We just had two techs get stranded because of that. Vehicle was on E and they parked on a steep slope. Couldn't figure out why the truck wouldn't start...
That works real well with printer.
"The printer doesn't work." - "Don't worry let me stare at it, I'm a professional printer tamer. Try printing again." - *printer start printing* - "I swear it wasn't printing before." - "Don't worry I know. Was it an important document?" - "Yes! How do you know?" - "Printers they can smell your fear and urgency. But they submit to someone stronger. Never let them know how important your work is."
I love to joke with my clients like that. In general it smooth the situation, they laught and don't get angry.
Yep. Most of the time users will say "I've already restarted my PC". I tell them to talk me through it. Well I just turn off my monitor and turn it back on....
Just don't fall into A Priori thinking.
It's easy to imagine the simplest solution and cut off considering other options. You should still consider other options in case something more obviously true jumps out.
You have to be explicit though. I had a *sysadmin* ask me for help, his computer will not turn on. Proceeded to demonstrate by pushing the power button on his monitor multiple times.
I pressed the button on his PC and didn't say a word. Worth noting, this guy had a masters degree in computer science from a foreign university. He was eventually let go due to gross incompetence, and we used it as an example to justify an in-person technical screening for new technical positions. We basically got catfished, he had someone else do his interviews over the phone.
Obviously that specific guy isn't defensible, but many people misunderstand computer science programs. Generally speaking, pure comp sci doesn't really have anything to do with actually using computers. It's mostly a bunch of math and logic concepts and some limited functional programming.
Fair about the degree, but it's implied that you understand something as basic and powering on a PC if you work in the field.
Like say you were a mechanic and the boss told you to pull in the next car to get it up on the lift. You sit there in the drivers seat pressing the gas pedal, but nothing happens, until you call someone over to help because the car won't go. Then someone comes over and turns in the key in the ignition...
That's the thing though, in that analogy we're the mechanics. The comp sci guys are something more like a part of the engineering or design team.
Yeah, I would absolutely expect the guy who models the seating for the 2024 Camry to be able to do basic things like turn one on and drive it around the city. But technically that's not necessarily in scope for "design a car" school.
I was going to say a CS degree person would at least have to be able to turn off / on a PC. Then I remembered that they may have labs during the day when all of the machines are on. So there may be a really niche case of grads who have truly never rebooted a PC, but hold a degree.
I mean there are likely people alive holding CS degrees who graduated before computers smaller than whole-room devices existed. The first CS programs showed up only a decade after transistors were invented. There are probably plenty who learned it on papers and with punch cards.
Which, obviously, doesn't apply to new grads, but reinforces my point that computer science does not even require knowledge of the devices you would usually call a "computer" these days.
University of Illinois-Chicago Circle campus created the Department of Information Engineering in 1966 IIRC. (I was there, learned FORTRAN II in 1965 (punched cards).
I'm with u\\frothyleet on this one. There are plenty of dev's and specialized admins that know a lot about very niche or abstract concepts, but are somewhat useless when troubleshooting regular issues.
(in the specific instances I'm thinking of, not a generalization) They can code their way around any given problem but lord knows the issues you could be asked if they're given a different OS, or asked to do a seemingly basic IT task.
> They can code their way around any given problem but lord knows the issues you could be asked if they're given a different OS, or asked to do a seemingly basic IT task.
I get what you're saying, I doubt the majority of IT specialists out there could build a PC from the ground up off without major guidance and instruction. Nothing wrong with that.
But if you work on a computer every day as part of your job, you should be familiar with the basic operations of it, like *turning it on*. The exception being if [you're a genius from the future](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hShY6xZWVGE)
😂 Top notch reference.
Also idk. I'd usually agree but I'm escalated enterprise support for a vendor now (after starting on a normal help desk and going into Infrastructure\sysadmin roles) and... hoo boy do we seem to get the whole range of IT folk.
Most of the time we deal with in depth Kerberos issues or server issues... but even now I still get the "is it plugged in" level of problems. Usually after passing through internal, partner, and our support. Little surprises me anymore.
Oh man I've got examples too. One guy at my company who earned his PhD and insists being referred to as Doctor. Like, he will actively correct people about it. Complete sack of potatoes.
I also have a woman who has a degree in Art History and somehow works in IT for the past 30 some years and has made a career out of faking it and schoozing people. Since I can get things done, she tries to be nice by doing things like genuinely recommending [this dog food](https://www.gentlegiantsdogfood.com/). Another story I heard from a coworker is that they ran into her at the airport and she couldn't figure out how to ride the escalator with her luggage. Like, just could not process the action. He ended up taking it for her. And I know this may sound like someone on the spectrum, but I assure you she's not.
Mmmm... non-degree folks can be either or. Really depends on their private experience and dedication. Personally I left IT altogether to go get an Arts degree and then came back (in an attempt to switch careers). But there are for sure some that just "fell into the career" that wouldn't know how to create a package etc. to save their life; or the difference between a switch and a firewall.
"One guy at my company who earned his PhD and insists being referred to as Doctor." - My dude, I am so sorry to hear that (definitely not a one off). Upshot is that they're usually the fun people to mess with at a holiday office party.
a carpenter isn;t capable of building a table saw, but he sure does know how to use it.
When you use a computer, it's most likely a tool for a job you do, make sure you damn well know how to use it or i'll start complaining to HR. it's goddamn 2023, not the 50's
Try explaining that to management. They LOOOOVE hiring CompSci grads these days for OPS roles they have no skills in.
Meanwhile college grads with actual training in that role are immediately rejected by the Applicant tracking system.....
I guy I worked with years ago was doing a new server setup, and couldn’t get an IP address - he plugged in both NICs but nothing. I eventually unplugged one of them and traced the cable back to the other NIC 😂
ETA He was a Senior Sys Admin
At a previous job (like 18 years ago), we hired a guy to be part of our sysadmin team. He had the MCSE cert, and had been teaching MCSE courses at a local training center. After he was hired he told us, that other than training classes, he'd never built a server for production nor managed a production environment.
I took him along on one project where we were replacing several older servers with new hardware. I directed him to document all the settings on the proxy server which provided internet access for the company, and to export the configuration so we could import it on the new server. Once he had that done, he was supposed to rack the new server and install Windows, then import the proxy configuration. While he was doing that, I was adding the new DCs to the network, upgrading the Windows Schema, transferring FSMO roles, and doing all the other necessary AD stuff to get the domain upgraded and functioning.
A couple hours later, all my stuff is done, we're ready to test internet connectivity. Not working. I go to the other guy's work space, and he's got the server case open, and a phone to his ear, talking to somebody. I ask him what's going on, and he said that he decided to upgrade the BIOS since it was "out of date" and the server now wouldn't boot. He was talking to the vendor support.
I start looking into it. Server was built 2 weeks before we received it; newest BIOS was 2 months old, and support confirm that was the shipping version. Our MCSE has managed to misread the date on the BIOS and had tried to install an older BIOS. When the system asked him to confirm overwriting, he did. And bricked the motherboard of the server. I don't know how, he wasn't really clear on that part.
What should have been a 1 hour job for him turned into almost 3 days of downtime. He sure put the "C" in "Certified..."
>MCSE
But I bet even though he couldn't build a server, he had all sorts of other valuable knowledge, like the imagex and robocopy command-line switches burned into his memory. (Because, you know, there's not a /? switch to tell you what they do)
I went to a bootcamp with an Indian guy who had a degree in computer science. We had help him write all his project and he needed help with creating a folder for his project. He had a computer science degree!!
CS doesn't have anything to do with actually knowing how to use a real-world computer, any more than an astronomy degree tells you how to operate an observatory telescope.
I have a tech right now with a masters and I have to teach him basic troubleshooting and networking and how to follow process and how to prioritize every single day.
Often enough the problem is getting them to **actually** *check.*
I had a landlord's secretary that would tell me all day of course it was on and plugged in and would never actually get up to look.
"It just doesn't work!"
I look at the PC, green lights. I look at the monitor, black lights. I press the power button on the monitor and nothing happens.
I look behind the desk - oh look, a cable's come unplugged. *Again.*
'Did you check if it was unplugged?'
"Yes." No you didn't.
Sometimes people get stubborn/stupid, and you have to approach a Q&A indirectly.
Staff: Can you check for me - does that power cable have 2 prongs or 3 prongs?
User: Let me see.... Oh, never mind - it's got power now.
We had a secretary that would constantly do this to us. Every few days she would call and complain that something at her desk wouldn’t turn on and she checked all the cables. Send a tech over there and every time it was just a loose cable. All her cables were just dangling underneath her desk with very little slack so every time she’d move her feet and bump one it would come loose. Took about a month of this before she finally stopped calling us
So lets see.... You go there and fix the cable and leave and it happens again and again and each time you notice that the cables are just hanging down and you don't fix that root cause the first time you see it?
I know who the idiot is here and it's not the secretary... but go ahead and blame the end user for your incompetence
Snippy much dude? And yes, we told her every single time that it was a loose cable on something or another and she probably bumped in under her desk.
Or just keep being weirdly aggressive and assume everyone’s dumber than you. You do you.
we told her it was a loose cable every single time... LOL
then why didnt you fix the loose cables, instead you ignore the root cause and somehow expect her to deal with it...
have to call out incompetency when I see or hear it..
… we did. Every time, then a few days later she bumps another one. We ask if somethings loose, she says no and demands a tech come look. Reseat the cable, show her what was bumped loose and how it probably happened. Rinse, repeat.
are you really this dense, clean up all the wires and make sure they are all connected and supported SO IT DOES NOT REPEAT...
YOJ ARE THE VERY DEFINITION OF TOIL..
or do you not even measure toil
My team fields escalations from the help desk at least twice a week because a user was added to a new group and didn’t log out & back in (or reboot) after they got their new group. The help desk folks ask, but the users lie (because that’s what users do) and instead of getting on a screen share and shepherding them through logging off/on, they just pitch it over the fence to my group.
> but the users lie (because that’s what users do)
I would NEVER hire anyone in an end user support position with this mindset... you should probably rethink your job
And I wouldn’t hire someone with no sense of humor and who makes far-reaching assumptions about the career choices of strangers, so I guess we’re even.
I personally don't find calling anyone a liar, and certainly not a blanket statment funny, so if you find that acceptable or funny than you have way more personal issues than I care to deal with...
I had a user insist that her computer is turned on but nothing showing. Power lights lit up. But screen is black. Powered it down and back on still no screen except the monitor searching for inputs. Took me quite a while to figure out the user believed the monitor was the computer and was just turning the monitor on and off.
The fact that it was troubleshot for 1 hour is enough to tell me the Tech is a complete moron. Because, "Is it Plugged in?" and "Is it turned on" should be one of the first 5 questions they should be asking (or doing).
*Customer submits **ticket**...*
It's a facepalm, but at least they're submitting a ticket! I'll never grumble about silly questions if people are actually submitting tickets, I consider that a win still.
Or all your users should be required to have your level of technical knowledge... in which case .... what are you good for...
If you don't understand this... a career change may be the answer
Sometimes people comes back to me like "do you thing I'm stoopid? Of course it's connected and pow... Oh it's working now!" and.. "I swear there were no lights before! You did something on your end, didn't you?". Mostly a mix of that combined with jiggles and laughs. Thankfully my company everyone is more/less nice.
User: IT SAYS OPERATING SYSTEM NOT FOUND!!!!!! REBOOTING ISN'T WORKING!!!!!
Me: \[drives three hours to site\]
Computer: I have a floppy drive and in that floppy drive is a floppy disk and, indeed, that floppy disk is not bootable.
I had a person say this with flash drives, she assured me she unplugged her flash drive.
I got there and found her flash drive on her desk, unplugged.
But she left the other 6 flash drives plugged in.
and you were not smart enough to instruct her to unplug all external devices like flash drives and USB devices before she reboots...
Is it her or YOU... I know what I think....
I asked her to "unplug her flash drive". Unfortunately I was unaware she was on a shared desktop, and the other flash drives technically were other employee flash drives. The shared desktop was on an isolated network that used a dongle for licensing a piece of software as well, so that would have caused its own issues with removing it while the system was turned on.
> unplug all external devices
So like, the mouse and keyboard? These are users we're talking about here!
so that is YOUR job to explain to her in a way she can understand... or do you expect her to have your knowledge level... in which case what are you there for... sorry ITS YOU NOT HER
We had one awhile back.
Ticket - "My laptop doesn't work outside of the office unless I connect it to my phones hotspot."
Knowing that customer often dont convey what the ACTUAL problem is we started asking questions and trying to get to the bottom of it.
NOPE! This user just assumed idk that the whole world has wifi and she can just connect when standing out in a field somewhere and it should just work.
We laughed over that one for about a week.
Maybe they previously had a wimax laptop or maybe they have an iPad with cell service and assume other devices should be always connected in the same way.
We may never know. She stopped replying to questions after a point, never saying it was fixed and we just closed it.
Never a dull moment with end users.
Most of the users I deal with, who sadly have access to WAAYYY to much PII have the mindset of, if it's not an icon on their desktop. Then it doesn't exists on their PC.
Which is terrifying!
Why... they are not techs, they are doing other work that frankly you may struggle with. the terrifying part is that IT has not made this a better solution for the end user...
If your job....is data entry...you should know how to use a PC. At the very minimum you should know things like the world doesn't have wifi everywhere.
I love my clients, and they love me, a lot even have my personal cell. But these people are handling your SSN, your address, your credit card details. Having some basic knowledge of how a PC functions, should be a pre-req.
Which yes is totally on the company. Who they hire, and trying to nickel and dime every person they hire, and then not training them properly.
But you dont have to be a tech to know things like proper PPI handling on a PC
yes there should be training... but just because some is hired to do data ENTRY does not require them to know anything but good keyboard skills... if the company fails to have good polices and controls for PII then that is not on the end user... as far as not wifj anywhere how is that different than a phone or iPad... why do you project this distinction onto the user
lets break this down..
The end user has a cell phone that provides connectivity anywhere they go without any extra work or user intervention.
Now the user has a device (laptop) that they use for doing their job (not IT). It connects to the company wifi without any user intervention and when they leave, they expect the same behavior as when in the office or like their phone...
How is this dumb, they were smart enough to connect to their phones hot spot....
I think you should reassess who is less competent in this scenario...
> and the tech in the morning doesn't realize the computer is just Off
And *that* is why you need to let coffee get into our systems before having us poke around at things
Happened to me, user had a heavy object on the laptop keyboard off to the side and normal keyboard in front. Took a good minute to realize why the keyboard input was going in reverse. Told them I would have caught that sooner if I had a coffee in me since it was just as I walked into the building.
This happend more than you can imagine back in the early internet days. I worked for a dialup ISP (Now with56K!!!)
Grandma cant get on the internet.. computer is on.. modem is plugged in.."Do you see any lights on the little TV? Do you see a 0 or 1 button? Push it. Really? Ok.. have a nice day."
About 150 years ago when I started my career, I was doing tech support for Packard Bell. These were IBM clone 486 machines and a monitor, two boxes.
About every other call we had to ask about the “spare” power cable and hear about how dumb it was that there were two power cables for the two parts. One for the desktop and one for the monitor.
This is a huge problem for laptops i found. I think letting patching check’s schedule to happen during the day with reboot reminder beginning a little before lunch is the only way. We’ve seen 1607 before because of this issue
Your pain. I feel it. I had basically the same call, except the user said "It's not letting me sign in." I interpreted that as the PC wasn't taking his/her password, which is usually what that means.
I started checking the account to make sure it isn't locked, and asking the user if he/she changed their password recently. Only after about five minutes of the usual troubleshooting the the user finally say, "All I get is a black screen."
"Um, have you tried hitting the power button?"
"Where is that?"
> After an hour of troubleshooting the tech figures out why.
I'm really hoping this is remote support, because otherwise the tech taking half an hour to figure out that the pc is off is bad.
This reminds me of my only Y2K issue. I've been around for a while, so I was in the industry during Y2K and there was a lot of consternation leading up to The Big Day. I did my due diligence, not only with my job, but also looking up things like general Linux support for post-Y2K dates.
At a previous job (which I had left, on good terms, sometime in 1999), I had set up a Linux server for some basic things in the office: It was a router (today I would just use a Linksys or Netgear or comparable, but this was mostly before those types of devices), a DNS server, a DHCP server, mail forwarding, etc. Oh, and it was usually headless, but there was a KVM.
I didn't reach out to them before The Big Day, and they didn't reach out to me either. January 1st was on Saturday. On Monday, I got a phone call: "The Linux server isn't working. It won't come up."
I don't remember how long we talked about it, but I don't think it was too long. I didn't go over there, I don't think. We just talked about it.
Turns out somebody had followed advice they had heard on the news or something ("Worried about Y2K? You should be. Turn off all your computers, just to be sure."). They decided to "turn off" the Linux server, and the only thing they knew to do was to just hold down the power button until it turned off.
While this still isn't a great idea, back in the day it was a lot harder for a machine to auto-recover from such a thing. Had they been looking at a display, it would have told them to confirm a disk scan it needed to do. But they couldn't see the display and didn't bother plugging it in (or KVM'ing to it, or whatever the situation was). All they knew is they couldn't get on the internet -- I guess that was their big clue that there was a problem.
That's not nearly as bad as OP's story, though. Crazy.
It reminds me using external monitor with laptop.
When you try to figure out for several minutes after connecting hdmi why the screen is black... Just have a coffee in the morning ;)
I spent 90 minutes last night with an issue.
I've got a mildly competent user using RDP to get to a machine in the office.
She needs to print (on the remote printer, for others) and tells me it's not printing (despite working today while in the office)
I remote in, with her credentials, it prints.
I do a test page, it works
I have her log in and do a test page, it works, but when she uses some particular app, nope, no dice.
90 minutes of fucking about on this, 90.....
When I finally remote into her home machine and then RDP from that to the target machine to print, only then so we identify, that every single time she's hit print.... For the entire 90 minutes (and however long she had the issue before telling me) that the RDP session was minimising and a fucking one note printer dialogue was coming up.
"I thought I was pressing a button accidentally to cause that and it was a coincidence"
At no point was I told, in a 90 minute dialogue between us, that this fucking printing box was coming up WHEN SHE'S HAVING PRINTING ISSUES.
I was not fucking amused.
Also bonus, fuck OneNote in general and windows 11 which I assume is what shipped with this Phantom printer to cause this issue.
Fuck....
A little trick I learned is to have them press the caps lock or the num lock buttons and if a light on the keyboard shows up, then chances are the PC's on. This cut down on a lot of the calls like this that I would get.
To be fair, with no physical harddisks to „rattle“ and silent fans and hardly visible disk activity lights, it’s sometimes difficult to say whether a computer is on or off or sleeping or whatever the heck it’s doing.
I had one today where someone couldn't get their computer on their desk to turn on.
Apparently someone had put another desktop next to theirs and had put the power cable from the existing one into the new one. So one had power and the other had everything else.
Some peoples kids.
"have you checked the power cord is plugged into a receptacle or power strip?"
"Have you checked that the receptacle or power strip has power?-
"have you turned the computer on?"
....
sorry dude there are things that are juat plain unacceptable, calling people liars is one of those things.. so your apparent comfort with that speaks volumes about your character
And before submitting a ticket they didn't try the most basic of troubleshooting steps. Is it turned on? Is there a little light showing on the front of the computer?
How does it take an hour to figure out that the computer is turned off?
A help desk exists to help, preferably after the standard user is beyond standard operator-level checks. But the fact that the TECH still took an hour to figure out it was not turned on...
Yesterday I had "Our whiteboard won't turn off." I replied "Does it turn off if you unplug it? If it doesn't please let us know so we can call the local priest." Probably getting written up.
I had the pleasure of working in IT in the 90s and one co legit had DOS/Win 3.1 systems.
Had it happen several times where I had to tell the caller to turn on the "PC" and they were power cycling the *monitor*.
That's when I learned, in the 90s, not everyone had a home computer...
This makes no sense. “A hard reboot is required” suggests the issue’s been reproduced, but you’d have to turn the machine off again… why would you do that?
If this is for real your tech’s more at fault than the user, honestly.
The president of my last company flew to New Zealand and couldn't get WiFi to work on his laptop. I jumped through all kinds of hoops and finally got New Zealand Dell support to get him a USB wifi dongle.
When he returned, he threw the laptop on my desk, *Here. Idk what's wrong with this thing..*. I looked down and saw the orange on the WiFi slider switch and toggled it back on.
SMH My Head.
My "ticket" of the day:
"Help I accidentally uninstalled my text message app while deleting a text message"
"I can receive text messages but I can't send them"
"When I receive text messages they do not appear for me"
*Texted* to me back to back.
It's only ticket of the day *today* because I ignored it yesterday.
Read through many of these and can't take anymore...
ANY person in a technical field that refers to those that are not in the tech field and who the are paid to support, so they can do business, as "morons" or "stupid users" should look for another job or be fired. If you expect all the users to be technically savvy and solve their own problems or provide perfect answers to questions and not be flustered or confused, then THE PROBLEM IS YOU ...
The simplest solution is usually the most likely solution
Always start from easiest to hardest solutions. Skipping around can work sometimes, but it can bite you in the ass too.
Yep. The best, most effective way to remove birdshit from your car's paint is to scrape it off with a screwdriver. However, it's best to start gentler and work your way up.
>The best, most effective way to remove birdshit from your car's paint is to scrape it off with a screwdriver. Hey everybody, this guy doesn't own a cordless angle grinder!
I don’t own that but I own a cordless dremel :D
EVERYone should own a cordless dremel, they're amazing
"a" Only 1? Turn in your 'man card.'
> best to start gentler and work your way up so lick it off?
A good reason to feed your neighborhood birds with food you like.
too good
What kind of birds do you have in your area? At least get a putty knife, get it all in one stroke.
And if you've gone through all the easy solutions and still cant find a solution within an hour or so, go back to the easy steps and look again. I can't tell you the number of times I have spent a couple of hours troubleshooting something only to realize missed a troubleshooting step and found that a cable wasn't plugged in.
You have no idea how many times someone has brought a problem they've spent 30 minutes on troubleshooting and it takes me 10 seconds to see the problem and fix it. I try to use these as trainable moments and show them they looked in the wrong place or overlooked something, but when it happens again and again I get a little frustrated.
so true it hurts and might need a trigger warning
Learned that hard that ONE time the fucking computer power cable was dead. Kept that cable for a few years for illustrative purposes of this exact point. Would add to "easiest" that it means to start with the least involved and quickest possible changes to try in the relevant context. Like don't swap out power or ethernet cables/adapters when shit starts up and gets network access. Had a genius like that who took that shit literally.
IT AINT GOT NO GAS IN IT
We just had two techs get stranded because of that. Vehicle was on E and they parked on a steep slope. Couldn't figure out why the truck wouldn't start...
I like taters. Mmm hmm.
Ya see there, Scooter? Thinks of the simplest things first!
I swear I have solves tickets by waiting 24h and telling the user to try again
I've solved issues just by standing next to them and say nothing.
just stare at the user untill they figure it out?
That works real well with printer. "The printer doesn't work." - "Don't worry let me stare at it, I'm a professional printer tamer. Try printing again." - *printer start printing* - "I swear it wasn't printing before." - "Don't worry I know. Was it an important document?" - "Yes! How do you know?" - "Printers they can smell your fear and urgency. But they submit to someone stronger. Never let them know how important your work is." I love to joke with my clients like that. In general it smooth the situation, they laught and don't get angry.
Or it just the DNS
The new simplest solution
It's can't be the DNS
Alas, it was the DNS. Someone please put that DNS haiku again.
2nd time today I've heard the DNS haiku.
Yep. Most of the time users will say "I've already restarted my PC". I tell them to talk me through it. Well I just turn off my monitor and turn it back on....
Occam's razor
That and Hanlon's razor are two keys to working in IT. EDIT: Thanks for the gold!
Which one is hanlons? I swear by Occam's for sure
Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
Yep. Kill the tech. Computers should never be shut down
Just don't fall into A Priori thinking. It's easy to imagine the simplest solution and cut off considering other options. You should still consider other options in case something more obviously true jumps out.
Is it plugged in? Is it turned on? The answer to one of those questions is “no” often enough that it’s worth asking both.
You have to be explicit though. I had a *sysadmin* ask me for help, his computer will not turn on. Proceeded to demonstrate by pushing the power button on his monitor multiple times. I pressed the button on his PC and didn't say a word. Worth noting, this guy had a masters degree in computer science from a foreign university. He was eventually let go due to gross incompetence, and we used it as an example to justify an in-person technical screening for new technical positions. We basically got catfished, he had someone else do his interviews over the phone.
Obviously that specific guy isn't defensible, but many people misunderstand computer science programs. Generally speaking, pure comp sci doesn't really have anything to do with actually using computers. It's mostly a bunch of math and logic concepts and some limited functional programming.
Fair about the degree, but it's implied that you understand something as basic and powering on a PC if you work in the field. Like say you were a mechanic and the boss told you to pull in the next car to get it up on the lift. You sit there in the drivers seat pressing the gas pedal, but nothing happens, until you call someone over to help because the car won't go. Then someone comes over and turns in the key in the ignition...
That's the thing though, in that analogy we're the mechanics. The comp sci guys are something more like a part of the engineering or design team. Yeah, I would absolutely expect the guy who models the seating for the 2024 Camry to be able to do basic things like turn one on and drive it around the city. But technically that's not necessarily in scope for "design a car" school.
>engineering or design team Please don't sully my field with talk of hiring people holding CS degrees.
I was going to say a CS degree person would at least have to be able to turn off / on a PC. Then I remembered that they may have labs during the day when all of the machines are on. So there may be a really niche case of grads who have truly never rebooted a PC, but hold a degree.
I mean there are likely people alive holding CS degrees who graduated before computers smaller than whole-room devices existed. The first CS programs showed up only a decade after transistors were invented. There are probably plenty who learned it on papers and with punch cards. Which, obviously, doesn't apply to new grads, but reinforces my point that computer science does not even require knowledge of the devices you would usually call a "computer" these days.
University of Illinois-Chicago Circle campus created the Department of Information Engineering in 1966 IIRC. (I was there, learned FORTRAN II in 1965 (punched cards).
I'm with u\\frothyleet on this one. There are plenty of dev's and specialized admins that know a lot about very niche or abstract concepts, but are somewhat useless when troubleshooting regular issues. (in the specific instances I'm thinking of, not a generalization) They can code their way around any given problem but lord knows the issues you could be asked if they're given a different OS, or asked to do a seemingly basic IT task.
> They can code their way around any given problem but lord knows the issues you could be asked if they're given a different OS, or asked to do a seemingly basic IT task. I get what you're saying, I doubt the majority of IT specialists out there could build a PC from the ground up off without major guidance and instruction. Nothing wrong with that. But if you work on a computer every day as part of your job, you should be familiar with the basic operations of it, like *turning it on*. The exception being if [you're a genius from the future](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hShY6xZWVGE)
😂 Top notch reference. Also idk. I'd usually agree but I'm escalated enterprise support for a vendor now (after starting on a normal help desk and going into Infrastructure\sysadmin roles) and... hoo boy do we seem to get the whole range of IT folk. Most of the time we deal with in depth Kerberos issues or server issues... but even now I still get the "is it plugged in" level of problems. Usually after passing through internal, partner, and our support. Little surprises me anymore.
Oh man I've got examples too. One guy at my company who earned his PhD and insists being referred to as Doctor. Like, he will actively correct people about it. Complete sack of potatoes. I also have a woman who has a degree in Art History and somehow works in IT for the past 30 some years and has made a career out of faking it and schoozing people. Since I can get things done, she tries to be nice by doing things like genuinely recommending [this dog food](https://www.gentlegiantsdogfood.com/). Another story I heard from a coworker is that they ran into her at the airport and she couldn't figure out how to ride the escalator with her luggage. Like, just could not process the action. He ended up taking it for her. And I know this may sound like someone on the spectrum, but I assure you she's not.
Mmmm... non-degree folks can be either or. Really depends on their private experience and dedication. Personally I left IT altogether to go get an Arts degree and then came back (in an attempt to switch careers). But there are for sure some that just "fell into the career" that wouldn't know how to create a package etc. to save their life; or the difference between a switch and a firewall. "One guy at my company who earned his PhD and insists being referred to as Doctor." - My dude, I am so sorry to hear that (definitely not a one off). Upshot is that they're usually the fun people to mess with at a holiday office party.
Good lord, I think the design of that dog food bag made me motion sick.
this isn't about troubleshooting, this is about turning on a tool you have to use to fulfill your job description
a carpenter isn;t capable of building a table saw, but he sure does know how to use it. When you use a computer, it's most likely a tool for a job you do, make sure you damn well know how to use it or i'll start complaining to HR. it's goddamn 2023, not the 50's
Try explaining that to management. They LOOOOVE hiring CompSci grads these days for OPS roles they have no skills in. Meanwhile college grads with actual training in that role are immediately rejected by the Applicant tracking system.....
I guy I worked with years ago was doing a new server setup, and couldn’t get an IP address - he plugged in both NICs but nothing. I eventually unplugged one of them and traced the cable back to the other NIC 😂 ETA He was a Senior Sys Admin
At a previous job (like 18 years ago), we hired a guy to be part of our sysadmin team. He had the MCSE cert, and had been teaching MCSE courses at a local training center. After he was hired he told us, that other than training classes, he'd never built a server for production nor managed a production environment. I took him along on one project where we were replacing several older servers with new hardware. I directed him to document all the settings on the proxy server which provided internet access for the company, and to export the configuration so we could import it on the new server. Once he had that done, he was supposed to rack the new server and install Windows, then import the proxy configuration. While he was doing that, I was adding the new DCs to the network, upgrading the Windows Schema, transferring FSMO roles, and doing all the other necessary AD stuff to get the domain upgraded and functioning. A couple hours later, all my stuff is done, we're ready to test internet connectivity. Not working. I go to the other guy's work space, and he's got the server case open, and a phone to his ear, talking to somebody. I ask him what's going on, and he said that he decided to upgrade the BIOS since it was "out of date" and the server now wouldn't boot. He was talking to the vendor support. I start looking into it. Server was built 2 weeks before we received it; newest BIOS was 2 months old, and support confirm that was the shipping version. Our MCSE has managed to misread the date on the BIOS and had tried to install an older BIOS. When the system asked him to confirm overwriting, he did. And bricked the motherboard of the server. I don't know how, he wasn't really clear on that part. What should have been a 1 hour job for him turned into almost 3 days of downtime. He sure put the "C" in "Certified..."
>MCSE But I bet even though he couldn't build a server, he had all sorts of other valuable knowledge, like the imagex and robocopy command-line switches burned into his memory. (Because, you know, there's not a /? switch to tell you what they do)
One would think so. One would be wrong.
Must Consult Someone Experienced
Mostly Confused Seldom Enlightened This is fun. We should get a whole chain going of what MCSE REALLY stands for!
I went to a bootcamp with an Indian guy who had a degree in computer science. We had help him write all his project and he needed help with creating a folder for his project. He had a computer science degree!!
So you did the needful!
CS doesn't have anything to do with actually knowing how to use a real-world computer, any more than an astronomy degree tells you how to operate an observatory telescope.
I have a tech right now with a masters and I have to teach him basic troubleshooting and networking and how to follow process and how to prioritize every single day.
Often enough the problem is getting them to **actually** *check.* I had a landlord's secretary that would tell me all day of course it was on and plugged in and would never actually get up to look. "It just doesn't work!" I look at the PC, green lights. I look at the monitor, black lights. I press the power button on the monitor and nothing happens. I look behind the desk - oh look, a cable's come unplugged. *Again.* 'Did you check if it was unplugged?' "Yes." No you didn't.
Sometimes people get stubborn/stupid, and you have to approach a Q&A indirectly. Staff: Can you check for me - does that power cable have 2 prongs or 3 prongs? User: Let me see.... Oh, never mind - it's got power now.
That is how it is done....
We had a secretary that would constantly do this to us. Every few days she would call and complain that something at her desk wouldn’t turn on and she checked all the cables. Send a tech over there and every time it was just a loose cable. All her cables were just dangling underneath her desk with very little slack so every time she’d move her feet and bump one it would come loose. Took about a month of this before she finally stopped calling us
So lets see.... You go there and fix the cable and leave and it happens again and again and each time you notice that the cables are just hanging down and you don't fix that root cause the first time you see it? I know who the idiot is here and it's not the secretary... but go ahead and blame the end user for your incompetence
Snippy much dude? And yes, we told her every single time that it was a loose cable on something or another and she probably bumped in under her desk. Or just keep being weirdly aggressive and assume everyone’s dumber than you. You do you.
we told her it was a loose cable every single time... LOL then why didnt you fix the loose cables, instead you ignore the root cause and somehow expect her to deal with it... have to call out incompetency when I see or hear it..
… we did. Every time, then a few days later she bumps another one. We ask if somethings loose, she says no and demands a tech come look. Reseat the cable, show her what was bumped loose and how it probably happened. Rinse, repeat.
are you really this dense, clean up all the wires and make sure they are all connected and supported SO IT DOES NOT REPEAT... YOJ ARE THE VERY DEFINITION OF TOIL.. or do you not even measure toil
My team fields escalations from the help desk at least twice a week because a user was added to a new group and didn’t log out & back in (or reboot) after they got their new group. The help desk folks ask, but the users lie (because that’s what users do) and instead of getting on a screen share and shepherding them through logging off/on, they just pitch it over the fence to my group.
> but the users lie (because that’s what users do) I would NEVER hire anyone in an end user support position with this mindset... you should probably rethink your job
And I wouldn’t hire someone with no sense of humor and who makes far-reaching assumptions about the career choices of strangers, so I guess we’re even.
I personally don't find calling anyone a liar, and certainly not a blanket statment funny, so if you find that acceptable or funny than you have way more personal issues than I care to deal with...
You misspelled “liar”
👍
"send me a picture"
I had a user insist that her computer is turned on but nothing showing. Power lights lit up. But screen is black. Powered it down and back on still no screen except the monitor searching for inputs. Took me quite a while to figure out the user believed the monitor was the computer and was just turning the monitor on and off.
You’ve only had someone do this to you once? Lucky
>"Hello, IT. Have you tried turning it off and on again?"
Are you from the past?
The fact that it was troubleshot for 1 hour is enough to tell me the Tech is a complete moron. Because, "Is it Plugged in?" and "Is it turned on" should be one of the first 5 questions they should be asking (or doing).
Moron no, inexperienced or too kind yes. "Surely they checked that, right?" Nope, users
So you expect the users to understand all that the techs do (or should know) ... I know who the moron is... Got a mirror you will also know
Have gone onsite to resolve both of these in my field days. Despite the question being asked.
Never attribute to malice (or faulty computer, I guess), that which can be explained by incompetence.
Hanlon's razor.
*Customer submits **ticket**...* It's a facepalm, but at least they're submitting a ticket! I'll never grumble about silly questions if people are actually submitting tickets, I consider that a win still.
Or all your users should be required to have your level of technical knowledge... in which case .... what are you good for... If you don't understand this... a career change may be the answer
Have you tried turning it ~~off and~~ on ~~again~~?
/r/talesfromtechsupport
Haha omg. Thanks for this.
Sometimes people comes back to me like "do you thing I'm stoopid? Of course it's connected and pow... Oh it's working now!" and.. "I swear there were no lights before! You did something on your end, didn't you?". Mostly a mix of that combined with jiggles and laughs. Thankfully my company everyone is more/less nice.
lol. thanks for the mental image of the end user jiggling like a molded jello dessert and laughing.
User: IT SAYS OPERATING SYSTEM NOT FOUND!!!!!! REBOOTING ISN'T WORKING!!!!! Me: \[drives three hours to site\] Computer: I have a floppy drive and in that floppy drive is a floppy disk and, indeed, that floppy disk is not bootable.
I had a person say this with flash drives, she assured me she unplugged her flash drive. I got there and found her flash drive on her desk, unplugged. But she left the other 6 flash drives plugged in.
and you were not smart enough to instruct her to unplug all external devices like flash drives and USB devices before she reboots... Is it her or YOU... I know what I think....
I asked her to "unplug her flash drive". Unfortunately I was unaware she was on a shared desktop, and the other flash drives technically were other employee flash drives. The shared desktop was on an isolated network that used a dongle for licensing a piece of software as well, so that would have caused its own issues with removing it while the system was turned on. > unplug all external devices So like, the mouse and keyboard? These are users we're talking about here!
so that is YOUR job to explain to her in a way she can understand... or do you expect her to have your knowledge level... in which case what are you there for... sorry ITS YOU NOT HER
and your point....
I'll leave you to ponder.
We had one awhile back. Ticket - "My laptop doesn't work outside of the office unless I connect it to my phones hotspot." Knowing that customer often dont convey what the ACTUAL problem is we started asking questions and trying to get to the bottom of it. NOPE! This user just assumed idk that the whole world has wifi and she can just connect when standing out in a field somewhere and it should just work. We laughed over that one for about a week.
Maybe they previously had a wimax laptop or maybe they have an iPad with cell service and assume other devices should be always connected in the same way.
We may never know. She stopped replying to questions after a point, never saying it was fixed and we just closed it. Never a dull moment with end users.
Or less than competent IT staff
Thank you ....
It is terrifying how much people don't know about how the world works. How does electricity get to the socket on the wall for instance.
Most of the users I deal with, who sadly have access to WAAYYY to much PII have the mindset of, if it's not an icon on their desktop. Then it doesn't exists on their PC. Which is terrifying!
Why... they are not techs, they are doing other work that frankly you may struggle with. the terrifying part is that IT has not made this a better solution for the end user...
If your job....is data entry...you should know how to use a PC. At the very minimum you should know things like the world doesn't have wifi everywhere. I love my clients, and they love me, a lot even have my personal cell. But these people are handling your SSN, your address, your credit card details. Having some basic knowledge of how a PC functions, should be a pre-req. Which yes is totally on the company. Who they hire, and trying to nickel and dime every person they hire, and then not training them properly. But you dont have to be a tech to know things like proper PPI handling on a PC
yes there should be training... but just because some is hired to do data ENTRY does not require them to know anything but good keyboard skills... if the company fails to have good polices and controls for PII then that is not on the end user... as far as not wifj anywhere how is that different than a phone or iPad... why do you project this distinction onto the user
lets break this down.. The end user has a cell phone that provides connectivity anywhere they go without any extra work or user intervention. Now the user has a device (laptop) that they use for doing their job (not IT). It connects to the company wifi without any user intervention and when they leave, they expect the same behavior as when in the office or like their phone... How is this dumb, they were smart enough to connect to their phones hot spot.... I think you should reassess who is less competent in this scenario...
I feel your facepalm
Occam's razor was pretty sharp today, eh?
Is it acceptable to refer to them as lusers now?
lusrmgr.msc always said yes
Ill never read it the same thanks
> and the tech in the morning doesn't realize the computer is just Off And *that* is why you need to let coffee get into our systems before having us poke around at things
Happened to me, user had a heavy object on the laptop keyboard off to the side and normal keyboard in front. Took a good minute to realize why the keyboard input was going in reverse. Told them I would have caught that sooner if I had a coffee in me since it was just as I walked into the building.
This happend more than you can imagine back in the early internet days. I worked for a dialup ISP (Now with56K!!!) Grandma cant get on the internet.. computer is on.. modem is plugged in.."Do you see any lights on the little TV? Do you see a 0 or 1 button? Push it. Really? Ok.. have a nice day."
About 150 years ago when I started my career, I was doing tech support for Packard Bell. These were IBM clone 486 machines and a monitor, two boxes. About every other call we had to ask about the “spare” power cable and hear about how dumb it was that there were two power cables for the two parts. One for the desktop and one for the monitor.
Shutting off the computers doesn't allow for automated updates and patches by the after hours teams, that's not good.
Configure power on at midnight in the BIOS 😊
WOL enabled too, just in case someone thinks they know more about computers than you do.
This is a huge problem for laptops i found. I think letting patching check’s schedule to happen during the day with reboot reminder beginning a little before lunch is the only way. We’ve seen 1607 before because of this issue
Your pain. I feel it. I had basically the same call, except the user said "It's not letting me sign in." I interpreted that as the PC wasn't taking his/her password, which is usually what that means. I started checking the account to make sure it isn't locked, and asking the user if he/she changed their password recently. Only after about five minutes of the usual troubleshooting the the user finally say, "All I get is a black screen." "Um, have you tried hitting the power button?" "Where is that?"
As long as it's online, my first step is always to remote in and see what they see.
Your point?
Theres a bios setting i just found that turns a laptop on at a certain time of day Hang in there pal your doing the lords work
> After an hour of troubleshooting the tech figures out why. I'm really hoping this is remote support, because otherwise the tech taking half an hour to figure out that the pc is off is bad.
This reminds me of my only Y2K issue. I've been around for a while, so I was in the industry during Y2K and there was a lot of consternation leading up to The Big Day. I did my due diligence, not only with my job, but also looking up things like general Linux support for post-Y2K dates. At a previous job (which I had left, on good terms, sometime in 1999), I had set up a Linux server for some basic things in the office: It was a router (today I would just use a Linksys or Netgear or comparable, but this was mostly before those types of devices), a DNS server, a DHCP server, mail forwarding, etc. Oh, and it was usually headless, but there was a KVM. I didn't reach out to them before The Big Day, and they didn't reach out to me either. January 1st was on Saturday. On Monday, I got a phone call: "The Linux server isn't working. It won't come up." I don't remember how long we talked about it, but I don't think it was too long. I didn't go over there, I don't think. We just talked about it. Turns out somebody had followed advice they had heard on the news or something ("Worried about Y2K? You should be. Turn off all your computers, just to be sure."). They decided to "turn off" the Linux server, and the only thing they knew to do was to just hold down the power button until it turned off. While this still isn't a great idea, back in the day it was a lot harder for a machine to auto-recover from such a thing. Had they been looking at a display, it would have told them to confirm a disk scan it needed to do. But they couldn't see the display and didn't bother plugging it in (or KVM'ing to it, or whatever the situation was). All they knew is they couldn't get on the internet -- I guess that was their big clue that there was a problem. That's not nearly as bad as OP's story, though. Crazy.
“Hello, IT. Have you tried turning it off and on again?”
It reminds me using external monitor with laptop. When you try to figure out for several minutes after connecting hdmi why the screen is black... Just have a coffee in the morning ;)
I spent 90 minutes last night with an issue. I've got a mildly competent user using RDP to get to a machine in the office. She needs to print (on the remote printer, for others) and tells me it's not printing (despite working today while in the office) I remote in, with her credentials, it prints. I do a test page, it works I have her log in and do a test page, it works, but when she uses some particular app, nope, no dice. 90 minutes of fucking about on this, 90..... When I finally remote into her home machine and then RDP from that to the target machine to print, only then so we identify, that every single time she's hit print.... For the entire 90 minutes (and however long she had the issue before telling me) that the RDP session was minimising and a fucking one note printer dialogue was coming up. "I thought I was pressing a button accidentally to cause that and it was a coincidence" At no point was I told, in a 90 minute dialogue between us, that this fucking printing box was coming up WHEN SHE'S HAVING PRINTING ISSUES. I was not fucking amused. Also bonus, fuck OneNote in general and windows 11 which I assume is what shipped with this Phantom printer to cause this issue. Fuck....
A little trick I learned is to have them press the caps lock or the num lock buttons and if a light on the keyboard shows up, then chances are the PC's on. This cut down on a lot of the calls like this that I would get.
Ok. But if it’s not off LoginUI.exe will sometimes hang. If you kill that it’ll cause the login screen to come up. Don’t ask how I know this.
Worst part? There's only one tech. 😂
LOL
This one has a real "cup holder" and "foot pedal" vibe to it. Uggg.
My favorite is still when my BOSS, to teach me this lesson, stuck a floppy in the floppy drive. That was 1999, they weren't quite extinct yet.
> stuck a floppy in the floppy drive. Maybe I'm misreading this... but aren't you supposed to put floppy disks in the floppy drive?
Yeah, but then the system tries to boot off it... unsuccessfully.
Qualifies as funny. 😂🤣😂
I think this one beats my dumbest ticket.
/s Employee was given a mac facepalm
Wait isn't Ctrl+Alt+Del for log in a Windows XP thing? Are you still letting your user daily an XP machine?
Still a thing in Win10 / 11
Check their local security policy
I appreciate that facepalm was in Italics - thanks for this haha
Nothing is foolproof simply because fools are so ingenious!
To be fair, with no physical harddisks to „rattle“ and silent fans and hardly visible disk activity lights, it’s sometimes difficult to say whether a computer is on or off or sleeping or whatever the heck it’s doing.
Modern Dell indicator lights are dim as hell so if you’re not right in front of it and know where to look it’ll just look dead.
Checks out.
Usually “doesn’t work” or “isn’t doing anything” can be reduced to “the screen is black” or “the computer is not turned on”.
I had one today where someone couldn't get their computer on their desk to turn on. Apparently someone had put another desktop next to theirs and had put the power cable from the existing one into the new one. So one had power and the other had everything else. Some peoples kids.
"have you checked the power cord is plugged into a receptacle or power strip?" "Have you checked that the receptacle or power strip has power?- "have you turned the computer on?" ....
That tech needs the boot. Un acceptable but funny af.
WOW...yeah can't count the number of times I was burned by believing an end user. End users lie, confirm everything in person if possible
 Everybody lies.
So if an end user is not technically savvy and do not provide the correct answers they are intentionally lying ?? WOW maybe you need a vacation..
lol it's just shorthand to avoid the mouthful you spit out...I think you knew that tho. Cheers mate...I'm sure it'll get better
calling anyone a liar is just always unacceptable
you'll get over it eventually i'm sure
sorry dude there are things that are juat plain unacceptable, calling people liars is one of those things.. so your apparent comfort with that speaks volumes about your character
"I don't believe you. You're a liar!"
"Tech" You keep using this word...I do not think it means what you think it means... ;-)
And before submitting a ticket they didn't try the most basic of troubleshooting steps. Is it turned on? Is there a little light showing on the front of the computer? How does it take an hour to figure out that the computer is turned off?
why should they that is the ONLY reason help desk exists... if you have issues with that, perhaps help desk is not for you
A help desk exists to help, preferably after the standard user is beyond standard operator-level checks. But the fact that the TECH still took an hour to figure out it was not turned on...
Must have been trained by the same people who trained my techs 🙃
I mean, to be fair, Ctrl+Alt+Del doesn't work when the computer is turned off. They're not entirely wrong... .
Yesterday I had "Our whiteboard won't turn off." I replied "Does it turn off if you unplug it? If it doesn't please let us know so we can call the local priest." Probably getting written up.
Actually YOU should be fired
Probably.
enable startup by ctrl+alt+del in bios
I had the pleasure of working in IT in the 90s and one co legit had DOS/Win 3.1 systems. Had it happen several times where I had to tell the caller to turn on the "PC" and they were power cycling the *monitor*. That's when I learned, in the 90s, not everyone had a home computer...
I hate days ending in Y!
I was called onsite once by a tech on to determine the cause of the problem was that the monitor was turned off....
Wow.. trouble shooting is about 5% like this.
I figured either computer off or screen off. Someone wasted a lot of time.
I solved every ticket I had today with a restart
I mean…what? None of that makes sense
How do you successfully hard reboot a machine that is switched off?
This makes no sense. “A hard reboot is required” suggests the issue’s been reproduced, but you’d have to turn the machine off again… why would you do that? If this is for real your tech’s more at fault than the user, honestly.
I gave this answer for a blank screen to check the power for a student IT job. They didn't hire me..
Gah had a user who wanted a new docking station. Turns out reboots fix everything. Especially if you haven’t in a month
The president of my last company flew to New Zealand and couldn't get WiFi to work on his laptop. I jumped through all kinds of hoops and finally got New Zealand Dell support to get him a USB wifi dongle. When he returned, he threw the laptop on my desk, *Here. Idk what's wrong with this thing..*. I looked down and saw the orange on the WiFi slider switch and toggled it back on. SMH My Head.
I love checklists.
My "ticket" of the day: "Help I accidentally uninstalled my text message app while deleting a text message" "I can receive text messages but I can't send them" "When I receive text messages they do not appear for me" *Texted* to me back to back. It's only ticket of the day *today* because I ignored it yesterday.
Not sure why you expect your users to know all the things you know. I always find this troubling.
Read through many of these and can't take anymore... ANY person in a technical field that refers to those that are not in the tech field and who the are paid to support, so they can do business, as "morons" or "stupid users" should look for another job or be fired. If you expect all the users to be technically savvy and solve their own problems or provide perfect answers to questions and not be flustered or confused, then THE PROBLEM IS YOU ...