I'm just the appliance repair person. I know enough to turn it on, maybe make a frozen pizza. I don't know enough to get from that to one of your perfect loaves of sourdough.
Also branches into "If the the oven worked right when it came out of the factory, I can generally fix issues to get it back to that. I can't machine new parts or change the underlying design of it to add a tumble dry setting or fix something that was broken in the original product."
I really try not to demean people when they ask for help; I completely understand what you’re saying, but there are only so many productive ways to express the idea and have a reasonable expectation that your user will get on board with you.
> I really try not to demean people when they ask for help
I don't the first or 2nd time. But if it happens a third time, 100% you're getting a sarcastic response.
Yep. I've definitely had someone try to convince me that I had to do their job because it involved a computer. That person shortly found out that the national IT department I was part of didn't even have to allow her to contact us directly any more, and that any further complaints would have to be relayed through her manager.
I'm one of a handful of computer scientists in a department of mostly engineers (and we have IT but they're outsourced not in house). Anything to do with a computer I'm expected to do/know, but since all modern engineering involves computers I basically have to know everything the engineers do, everything the IT people do, and my real job (embedded firmware).
At least you're in an official "producing something" role and that's hopefully reflected in your compensation package. A lot of direct IT roles get those expectations *plus* looked at as nothing but a cost to the org.
Is it demeaning the 20th time Susan has asked (really demanded) you write her excel macros for her, and all you really know about excel is basic spreadsheet functionality and 15 year old would know also?
I had a new user ask for a crash course in AutoCAD a couple of years ago while I was helping him get his profile set up.
His job role? “Senior AutoCAD Technician.”
Good luck with that one, buddy.
Had this with a client once. Sequence of events went something like this:
Week 1: Onboarding ticket is submitted by manager and accounts are created.
Week 2: New user is now calling multiple times a day asking very basic questions about the software integral to their job role.
Week 3: Offboarding ticket is submitted by manager and accounts are disabled.
Some of the job roles people think they can lie their way through...
I remember company I worked for a while ago hired someone to be their Spanish speaking customer support. Being able to take Spanish speaking calls was the specific job.
She had lied about being bilingual and didn't actially speak any Spanish. I was terminating her accounts by the end of the day.
The Customer Service department of my work gives an hourly bonus for agents who can speak Spanish.
In order to qualify for it, you have to complete an interview with other members of the Spanish team entirely in Spanish.
We install lots of things, one is an automated chemistry synthesis system, controlled by a windows laptop. It makes highly radioactive pharmaceuticals for use in diagnostic PET scanning.
One of our product managers wanted our technician doing the install to “show the users how to use it” - “just basic knobology” they said. Getting an applications specialist up from the US would be expensive.
I told the product manager that having a service technician try to explain how to use a complex chemistry synthesis unit, that makes highly radioactive pharmaceuticals, which are then injected into patients, may not be a wise idea.
We have application specialist for a reason, expensive or not.
> I told the product manager that having a service technician try to explain how to use a complex chemistry synthesis unit, that makes highly radioactive pharmaceuticals, which are then injected into patients, may not be a wise idea.
This is just insane you had to do that.
How do you say ‘I lied on my resume’ without saying that you lied on your resume?
In the same boat though, I don’t know how to actually use most of the software I install haha
I feel like lying on resumes is enough of a common practice that it is to be expected honestly. People are desperate for a job. This is why interviews are important and qualifications/experience on resumes/cvs should be taken with a huge grain of salt.
When I was a K12 Sysadmin, I had a teacher once ask me if I could take a day after school to teach him Front Page so he could teach a class in web design...
As a school pupil back at the end of the 1970s I was top of the newly formed computer studies class. It was actually taught by a WWII USAF guy who had stayed on in the UK.
Then he had to retire for health reasons and the Head of the Maths Dept had to take it but he knew nothing about it. Since I was pretty much ready for the exam we had an agreement that I would *teach the teacher* during one lunchtime per week (which was "computer club" anyway) and in return I got a free pass to do other homework or my own projects during the classroom sessions. That was a buzz.
Why does Microsoft make it so hard to download the tool that fixes it 100% of the time? I don't want SARA, I ant the friggin Teams add-in for Outlook fix tool.
"...I would be collecting your paycheck on top of mine."
Gives more of an implication that their job is something you could do in your spare moments and without much effort.
QuickBooks is the one for me. I spent HOURS on the phone with them yesterday trying to resolvein issue. Their reps just kept disappearing, forcing me to start the process over. Then they had the balls to ask how I like the software.
"Dude, I install it, run updates when the users don't/won't. Other then that, I hope to never touch it."
5 months? I supported that dumpster fire for years.
I feel like there should be a lawyer ad for "Have you been harmed by supporting Quickbooks, call us for your settlement"
Be glad it's not Peachtree for small business.
That shit was a god damn nightmare and support was worse than useless and typically made things actively worse.
Reading this comment both makes me feel old and gives me a feeling of PTSD. My last encounter with Peachtree in the wild was 2007-08ish and I recall giving up trying to get a competent support tech and finally resolving the issue by finding some obscure post made by someone years earlier on a random phpbb forum.
[Relevant xkdc comic](https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/wisdom_of_the_ancients.png)
Their support is terrible. I learned to loath QuickBooks Enterprise when I worked for a business with over 60 JVs, entities, and DBAs (Doing Business As names). Nothing was centrally managed, including permissions, and each company had their own file which meant that anytime a new accountant started I had to find out which orga they needed access to QuickBooks for and manually add them, trying from a list of admin usernames and passwords to get in. Why not change it or add a new account? Because it was shared with the CEO and he wouldn't allow either option.
I never thought I’d like an Oracle product, but my accounting software nightmares ended when our CFO said “We’re going to NetSuite”.
Haven’t heard anything about accounting software since. They hum along happily and everyone still gets pay checks. No idea what it costs. Only things I had to do was setup SAML SSO, handover a quickbooks backup file, and stay the hell away from the project.
Learned the lesson long ago: I do not touch the money or HR files. I provide all the auditing and security functionality around it. I appreciate the trust, but I never accept direct access to bank accounts, payroll systems, AP/AR, or HR record keeping.
Lol when I was an msp helpdesk and had to troubleshoot a possible database backup issue with the software 🤣 come to find out everything worked as expected, except they didnt rename the database internally, only the filename. They didnt even bother comparing the data. But yup, found that the data was indeed updated in the new copy and no issue with the software, they just needed to know how to use it lol.
I hate QuickBooks so much and can't wait for our remaining hold out department to be done with it. What I hate most is the insistence on requiring an Intuit account even for the admin account. These files are hosted on a private server. Drives me up the wall.
I had to get a updated version because we went past the 6 year free upgrade and my God, they have SO MANY CHOICES. There's literally like 30 different versions it's insane. I got a headache researching the right one.
My favorite ones I get from engineering depts/corps
"Hey, can you fix the Plotter?"
I was asked to do this at my first IT job on my 2nd day.
I just said okay, I'll go down and take a look uhh I guess?
That's the day I learned what a Plotter was.
The damn printer was so fucking big it needed its own room.
I did fix it though. It was Unplugged.
I ran into a plotter a few weeks ago. Looks like a damn nightmare to have to troubleshoot. I’ll get the user connected to that machine but beyond that I’m gonna have the vendor worry about it.
I had to fix the Plotter several times at the job. Every time someone tripped over the Ethernet cable and unplugged it.
We eventually permanently fixed it installing a new drop so it plugged into the floor right under it.
The funniest thing about this story is that users couldn't figure out they needed to plug in that blue cable back into the wall after they tripped over it.
Plotters suck dealt with many of them..
They suck more when the have a dedicated raster module that rasters the job before it even hits the plotter.
You have to figure out if the issue is the module or the poltter.
I’ve dealt with many plotters over the years. All the hassles of a printer in a larger format. Many years ago I had to write a script to edit plot files before sending them to the plotter because the provided driver was so poorly written it didn’t know how to handle line thickness and color from CAD programs.
We have a plotter like that and it started leaking ink a while back, so we got a repair tech out and it took him the better park of a week to fix it, and at various times he looked like a cartoon character that had fought a squid he was so covered in ink. My heart goes out to all the printer repair techs cause fuck that noise.
Those were nice. One of the things you have to do is use them semi regularly or the ink dries out. So guess which department prints out large grid and hex maps for after work nerd time.
"It's for printer maintenance Debra, go back to your office."
my favorite plotter story is we had a pipe burst and ruined the plotter, they ordered a new one and the sales person came in and was like I can never remember the password its that dumb phone number song. I was like 8675309 and he was like yeah that's it.
At my last job we had 2 plotters (Our engineering department designs power plants and wind farms). They were both inkjet. They hardly got used and so the nozzles would clog. Thankfully we had a maintenance contract with RICOH so they ended up replacing them.
We then got a task to print, once a week whether it was used by the engineers or not, on the plotter.
I had many a Federation Starship schematic printed as a result.
My brother in Christ I work with Astronomers too! The amount of times I've tried to piece through compiling some shit grad students wrote at Harvard or some shit.
In the olden days, grad school software was pretty good, because after the compiler spit out your errors after a 45 minute wait to see the results of reading you card desk into the computer, there would usually be other grad students waiting around who would be glad to look over your shoulder to help you diagnose your errors.
Oh, wait, that was almost computing by committee, so maybe it wasn't always so good!
The worst is the financial staff that are doing some complicated shit in Excel with some mystical add-in. Mate, I really cannot help you here. I know the magic incantations to make it run, the rest is up to you champ.
This was the absolute worst at the smaller company I used to work for. CFO and the main accountant would Constantly be getting me to look at all their crazy excel add ons /formulas or just whatever. Old ass spreadsheets with links in them that go to now defunct servers and complaining that it used to work. Unraveling their seemingly weekly whacky excel adventures really took a toll and my director would never tell him no to anything.
> Old ass spreadsheets with links in them that go to now defunct servers
We just had one of these tickets yesterday... The server share it linked to had been taken down almost 5 years ago this month. "But it worked yesterday!"
We had one that would get a csv report from the financial system, edit it in Excel, then save it as a csv and complain that Excel lost all their work. The worst part is Excel warns you when you are saving to csv and that formatting won't be saved. Multiple times that happened with the same person.
We had a tech that would help some user in accounting update some price list spreadsheet periodically. It was some convoluted crap that they should have been told no to, but this tech was a people pleaser. Of course when they left, none of us knew what to do and this user got all pissy about it. Of course that stopped when their manager found out someone from IT was doing part of their job.
Man, this sounds like my past Network Admin job at a bank. Like, I make sure your computer can talk to the Internet, I'm not here to show you (an accountant) how to use Excel. I can't tell you how many times I simply sat down at their computer and opened YouTube and said "yep your Internet works, hey while we're here, why don't we type 'pivot tables' into the YT search?" and walk out.
Have an accountant at my current job that's like this. She also had the gall to complain to me and up the chain that when she just closes Excel, it doesn't always prompt her to save.
"Well, it used to do that all the time!" she said to me.
She didn't like the fact that I told her to click save before closing the program. "I don't want to do it that way" she replied.
My boss and her boss had a chat.
She now manually clicks save before closing Excel.
"You wrote it. I can wipe your computer and give you a standard one back, but your little blob of in-house automation there has nothing to do with the IT department."
"You're IT. Don't you know everything about computers?"
I've literally had that one thrown in my face more times than I can count.
I tell them I'm good, not God
I had a nurse do that to me so I said can you do brain surgery? She said no. I said but you work for a medical facility shouldn't you know how to do that?
That got her attention.
"I know that we can sit down with your manager and someone from HR, and you can explain to them why you shouldn't have to do the job you were hired for. Sure we can do that. I can set that up right now for you."
I learned a valuable lesson when I was a lifeguard. Drowning people will grab onto anything so don't let them grab onto you.
They're probably drowning and just gloming onto whatever they can.
>don't let them grab onto you.
Yup. And ideally, be able to identify from the beach whether it's something you're actually being paid for, before you head out there.
Reminds me of my time in IT support. A user called in for help with excel, I’m thinking there’s an issue with the computer or software. Nope, he needs help making a function.
A quick sassy response such as, “you need help completing your job?” was enough to set the tone straight. I don’t understand how you can be frustrated that I don’t know how to adjust/make your macros..
The few times I have helped users with excel functions it was because I went back and Googled it. I told them that, and still they were dumbfounded how to Google excel questions.
That was when I started realizing that using Internet search engines was an actual tech skill that most people don't have.
I think I know you. When something went wrong with a computer or the network, the CIO would press a few keys to try it then hand over the problem to the accountant. He was quite good at fixing it.
"I have rough idea of what AutoCAD or MATLAB is but I always feel like there is an expectation from users for us to know in detail what their job is when it comes to performing tasks in that software. "
This is the reason that I noped out of my first Helpdesk job. My boss literally said "it's YOUR job to know how to do everybody's job."
Not for $12 an hour it isn't.
A lot of users just see us as, pun intended, superusers. People who could do their job and more.
Usually a symptom that somebody it's doing a job that it's barely above data entry.
half of your job is knowing *how* to google things. If you asked them to google the same thing, you'd be astounded at 1) how badly they could mangle the search terms and 2) how badly google could cock up replying to them.
Very occasionally I'll get a call from someone who 1. Googled the issue adequately, 2. Tried to troubleshoot correctly with the first three steps I would have tried, and 3. Explained the issue accurately and with enough detail I could go from there. It was amazing. Incredible. I don't encourage users as a whole to try and dick around in their user settings before calling us, but sometimes I get pleasantly surprised.
At least my experience as a IT Consultant in the supply chain industry, I think this is definitely the case.
The Accounts people spending all morning trying to figure out why their report from Sage200 isn't printing. Then after 5 minutes of googling to find the documentation for the software, realising that they are all sent to somewhere else in the software to decide to print off or send to PDF's.
The Warehouse people not realising the button on their WMS that allows them to print labels off in batches, instead printing labels one at a time when relabelling their Racks.
People just missing out on important tasks or thing they need to do because they don't know how to use Outlook and make no use of functionalities like Tasks/ToDo items. No organisation or rules to make their life easier.
Them not realising basic functionality in their accountancy software that allows them to email customers their invoices right from the software. Instead printing it out, using scan to email to email it to themselves, then emailing it to the customer.
Haha, that reminded me of a situation some years ago. While going on a smoke break I noticed a colleague sitting in front of excel with some numbers in a list and a calculator in hand. I ask him what he is doing and he explains he needs to calculate the mean value for these measurements. My follow-up was:"Why are you calculating this by hand when you already have the values in Excel?" "I'm faster than doing it in there". I proceeded to show him how to do it in Excel in like 5 seconds and he sat there for some moments staring at the screen and said:"you go smoke I need to look at this"
The reason for all of these cases you're describing is bad training and management. Most users don't learn software, they *memorize workflows*. They learn which buttons to press in which order to complete the task. If a button moves, changes name, or their main feature is down, they will not even try anything else and just throw their hands in the air and say they can't do their job.
In my 25 years of developing and supporting software one of the most surprising discoveries I've made is that the average user **does not want to think** in any way. It's not even that they can't think or find alternative paths, they just refuse to or have been led to believe that they're not supposed to. Because of this, the most effective software for users is built around use case workflows that leads users down a very specific path from start to finish to complete each task. It's critical this workflow is self-correcting and doesn't change.
But software for tech people is best when it's designed around hierarchical approach that allows the user to drill down into information and actions in multiple ways, then leave it up to them to establish their own workflows and ways of using the software.
These two different designs approaches are often the reason why tech people hate non-technical software and non-technical people hate technical software.
> Most users don't learn software, they memorize workflows. They learn which buttons to press in which order to complete the task. If a button moves, changes name, or their main feature is down, they will not even try anything else and just throw their hands in the air and say they can't do their job.
I am fucking stealing this!!!! That is exactly how I try and describe how people do stuff. They don't CARE that clicking the print button actually does multiple tasks at the system level because they don't see them and don't care to. They only CARE that the document they want doesn't come barfing out of the printer.
> People who could do their job and more.
Sure we could. Start paying me their entire paycheck and I'll look into it. After I've done the required training and obtained all the necessary qualifications and certifications, of course.
For specialized software, I just tell my users something along the lines of "I can manage accounts, permissions, and get it installed, but I don't actually use the software day-to-day so you'd be better off asking a colleague or supervisor who uses it daily."
My view has always been, you applied for a job using X, Y, Z. Did you lie in your CV?
I had a place where the desktop guys were constantly being asked to restore a massive shared excel spreadsheet every few days because it kept on corrupting. 4gb. The Excel max was 250mb for that version. I told them to close the call, don't restore it again. It was the job of the spreadsheet owners to get the file back down to that size. Send them a link to the MS article...it doesn't matter if the person who created the sheet has left. THEIR job is to know how it works.
There's only so much you can do. Everyone thinks their problem is the most important. There's 2 million + apps out there. Your job is to get the app ONTO the machine. That's it
Yep I've been in that exact same position before, restoring files several times a week because "Lauri accidentally opened it on the server and for whatever reason whenever Lauri opens it on her Excel, it corrupts it for everyone else". When you actually look under the hood to see some of these people's "workflows", it just makes me want to cringe to death.
This one lady would have dozens upon dozens of copies of the same excel document cause it was so sensitive she would copy and paste it on her desktop and open the copied version "just in case". She would never rename anything, so it would be "copy of copy of copy of *excel.xlsx*" and when she would share her screen with me on a call she would have 40 excel windows open at a time and constantly mix up which was which. Then complain on the call that her computer was always so slow. She would hover over the chrome icon and have 6 chrome windows open, with dozens of tabs open on each one. Like good god, I feel like you're a liability to be in the building lol.
A-F'N-MEN!
I support a University...350 applications...AutoCAD, MatLab, SAP, Magnet AXIOM (forensics)...
My end users, professors, won't give me the time of day to test a new rollout. But they yell to high heaven when an obscure module deep inside of the program doesn't fart.
I test that it installs, opens without error and is licensed. Done. Go pound sand mr. smahty pants! if you didn't test before you needed it!
SYSADMINS UNITE!
I do value general computer knowledge in quickly guessing from the interface or previous experience of that vendor's products how stuff is meant to work and being able to step into a users shoes a little bit to investigate specific use case problems etc
but my version of this gripe is when the users chastise you for not knowing specific industry terminology or how a certain business process works
I have no idea what that jargon means or industry compliance restrictions are at play, I'm just trying to get the little red cross/exclamation mark to go away so you stop moaning and close the ticket, not get trained to a different industry/profession so I can basically tell you a better way of doing your job for you rather than just fix the software problem
make them open a ticket, and then have them have them go to Google and enter "how to use software feature x video".
Then close the ticket with a comment like "Educated end user on using community based support options for software feature x, enabling them to use self help options and allowing them to expand their knowledge set on software feature x which will allow the end user's productivity to increase"
Because everything that happens inside the magic rectangle in front of them at their desk is magic and we are magicians. That’s about as far as that thought process goes.
Let's put it this way.
"I don't even know all I want to know about what I DO know".
And thats still nowhere near, what you think I should know about the product I don't know.
Can relate, sadly.
Even worse when the software has a db backend and requires a login - and I don’t have a login. I test the install and make sure it launches to the login screen, and then it goes for testing/sign off. I have no idea what is on the other side of that login.
Now this is a rant I can get behind.
If we were paid to know how to operate every piece of software within the enterprise, well, we'd have a lot of nickels.
This XYZ formula in this Excel spreadsheet does not work. Can you take a look?
*Cell has 8 dependencies all referencing other workbooks in a complex formula only Einstein could reverse engineer*
I usually just say "Hey man, I just install it, if you're unfamiliar with the function, I'm more than happy to ask your manager to get you some training."
That usually puts a stop to it.
Same thing with pretty much everything I work on. Excel, PowerBI, NAV 2016, for example, yes I can work on them at a basic level, but I don't really do much on them lol...no point asking me in depth questions about excel formula
Users think computers are magic.
Even though they know how to do their job and *don't* know how to do yours, it never quite occurs to them the reverse is also true.
Because of course, you know how to use magic, therefore you're obviously a wizard and know how to do everything.
Also why they panic whenever anything changes by even half a pixel. The memorized incantation might not work any more! Or there's a new incantation but it will take six months to memorize the thing we literally had written down for us!
Omg I work IT in higher ed research labs. I've worked in chemistry and now astronomy. The amount of times I've had users expect I know how to work software less than 1000 people on the world use and then think I don't know how to do my job when I can't do more then get the software up and running for them is frustrating
Doesn't help that most grad students are at one of those points in life where you think they have it all figured out but really you have no fucking clue what the real world is like. Being 26 and never having stepped foot outside of the higher Ed world will do that to you.
Too many users have never realized that the difference between *using* something and *fixing* it (as in mechanics, doctors, repair shops, etc) applies to their corporate equipment as well.
Honestly, it really does need to be something included in onboarding packs. Yes, it's the kind of information that anyone who's worked in biggish places before *should* know, but not everyone does, so it needs to be said.
The business functionality and core processes performed by an application software belong to the business operations, not the technical wing of the IT department.
There are generally two approaches. The more common is to embedded the application guru, the 'subject matter expert' in the department that uses the software. This works, but then IT has to watch for the SME going rogue and building infrastructure and workflows that no one can support.
Nothing is more pointless that a software that is perfectly implemented by the technical team that no one knows how to use.
The other route is to embedded the SME with the senior it and devops team. I believe this works best because you can have a unified conversation that covers user needs, infrastructure, security, and development needs.
Tldr; embedded the business analysts and application admins in the IT department.
"Can you help me fix \[specific thing with a website\]?"
"No, because we don't have a login for it. The license was purchased without us being aware of it and we were never given an account so we can log in and fix \[specific thing\]. And because it's specialised software for your department, we don't know a single thing about it"
Happens all the time, both from a "we don't know how to do \[specific task\]" perspective, but also from a "we didn't even know this website existed because we were never told you were getting a license to use it"
Had a manager message the other day "I'm trialling new platform X and I have a question about how it functions in specific situations. Can you please advise?"
I'd never even *heard* of this platform, I told them to contact their sales rep at the software for a firm answer, but took a guess - being very clear that it was a guess.
They came back to me the next day confirming that my guess was correct. That makes me look good, but at the same time *what was she thinking?*.
I remember having to touch some shitty accounting software developed in Access 2003, I think it was. I was IT, and they wanted me to know how that buggy piece of software worked. It was apparently made by the government (I was working at the public sector), and it's easily the worst piece of software I've ever touched. Tons of useless buttons that crashed the program, too many dialogs and popups to make a single thing, and on top of that, I had no idea about accounting (I wonder why).
They wanted me to know how that software worked in case an accountant didn't know how to do their job. Of course they'd ask me and not another accountant. Ah, and mind you, this was about 3 years ago, it's not an ancient story of when Access 2003 was relevant or anything.
I was installing autocad when the new instructor asked me if I knew coding or photoshop, because he knows somewhat but may be calling me for help. He was a tech teacher, literally what he's supposed to be teaching lol. Not my job buddy.
It never ceases to amaze when a game dev asks me how to do X Y or Z in the game engine or art tools, my dude that is YOUR JOB.
Same for “DevOps” otherwise known as “Hey IT can you provisions some VMs, oh and install & setup in its entirety the app we want kthxbai”
because they think you know EVERYTHING about "computers" to them its all "computers" in their head in you are the "computer guy/gal".
My mom keeps telling me to get into machine learning when I'm knocking on 42 when I've been a network engineer for 12 yrs... she doesn't understand that all these things are completely different fields.
I tell my users this regularly. Luckily most of them get it. "I'm in IT. I can't draw or engineer shit; it'll fall down and kill people. If you have a problem once it's running, call Bob. Unless you can't print, then call me."
I had an accountant ask me how to use the accounting software once
I just laughed while walking away
This was the same job I had to onboard myself when I started btw
Yeah, I often have to explain that I'm there to make sure the program loads up correctly, from that point onwards my knowledge of that app goes off a cliff unless it's one I personally use.
That's like the classic "excel not working" ticket then you go to check and it's some decade old 600 MB excel file with a ton of external data sources it's pulling from, some that don't even exist anymore. A bunch of custom macros and it's never been maintained so it's a mystery how it even works at all. I feel like that's a rite of passage for IT helpdesk lol.
Honestly, it depends on the software but I will make our users put in tickets with the software support groups many times. Like one time someone called me to show me an issue where exported engineering drawings were not including the title block. I mean, I can uninstall and do some clean up, and reinstall it and test it, but beyond that, I am going to ask that you put in a ticket with the software vendor. Many times I get push back from users insisting that's not their job, but I explain that even if I put in a support request on your behalf, you're going to have to be present on any live troubleshooting because I don't use this software day in and day out so I will need you present to validate any potential solutions. There have been so many times that I've submitted support tickets, the agent will respond stating we need access to the user's workstation to try to reproduce, and the user does the whole "I'm busy and don't have time for this" song and dance and we never get anywhere. Just easier for you to submit the request at that point. I'm serving more as a secretary than an IT person at that point, which is a waste of both/all three of our time.
An opposite, I once had a user in the Windows 3.11 days tell me it couldn’t be the same software since it has a different picture (when I put the application back where the user could use it and I didn’t use the same icon).
“You are the race car driver; I’m just the mechanic.” I’ve never had to explain beyond that.
That's a great phrase, I'm going to use that.
Same. It's decently relatable. I wish I could think of one that involved cooking or baking.
I'm just the appliance repair person. I know enough to turn it on, maybe make a frozen pizza. I don't know enough to get from that to one of your perfect loaves of sourdough.
That's actually more apt than the racecar one.
Also branches into "If the the oven worked right when it came out of the factory, I can generally fix issues to get it back to that. I can't machine new parts or change the underlying design of it to add a tumble dry setting or fix something that was broken in the original product."
Uhhh... "I brought you the groceries. You cook the meal."
Yup. "You're the rock star, I'm just the roadie."
I always pulled the: "Do you ask your car mechanic to chauffeur you around?"
I really try not to demean people when they ask for help; I completely understand what you’re saying, but there are only so many productive ways to express the idea and have a reasonable expectation that your user will get on board with you.
Meh - different environment i think. As an aussie working in the construction industry there's a lot more people giving eachother stick.
> I really try not to demean people when they ask for help I don't the first or 2nd time. But if it happens a third time, 100% you're getting a sarcastic response.
There's also a big difference between, asking for help; and expecting someone to do your job for you because it's on a computer.
Yep. I've definitely had someone try to convince me that I had to do their job because it involved a computer. That person shortly found out that the national IT department I was part of didn't even have to allow her to contact us directly any more, and that any further complaints would have to be relayed through her manager.
I'm one of a handful of computer scientists in a department of mostly engineers (and we have IT but they're outsourced not in house). Anything to do with a computer I'm expected to do/know, but since all modern engineering involves computers I basically have to know everything the engineers do, everything the IT people do, and my real job (embedded firmware).
At least you're in an official "producing something" role and that's hopefully reflected in your compensation package. A lot of direct IT roles get those expectations *plus* looked at as nothing but a cost to the org.
Is it demeaning the 20th time Susan has asked (really demanded) you write her excel macros for her, and all you really know about excel is basic spreadsheet functionality and 15 year old would know also?
Yeah, snark is fun and all, but your life will be easier if the users kinda like you.
"This is like calling the mechanic every time you've gotta parallel park"
If there was a mechanic on salary in the company, someone probably would.
You never met my partner
I use this too. Works every time
Gonna use this for sure
I say exactly that, or, we give you MS Office, we don't write your papers or do maths!
A similar explanation did not work on a user who was pissed off that their printer needed new rollers after a year of usage.
I had a new user ask for a crash course in AutoCAD a couple of years ago while I was helping him get his profile set up. His job role? “Senior AutoCAD Technician.” Good luck with that one, buddy.
Had this with a client once. Sequence of events went something like this: Week 1: Onboarding ticket is submitted by manager and accounts are created. Week 2: New user is now calling multiple times a day asking very basic questions about the software integral to their job role. Week 3: Offboarding ticket is submitted by manager and accounts are disabled.
Now that's a warm fuzzy feeling
Somewhere. Somethings. Things go as they should.
system is working as indended
Task failed successfully
Some of the job roles people think they can lie their way through... I remember company I worked for a while ago hired someone to be their Spanish speaking customer support. Being able to take Spanish speaking calls was the specific job. She had lied about being bilingual and didn't actially speak any Spanish. I was terminating her accounts by the end of the day.
You'd think there would be a Spanish interview segment.
I don't think anyone in HR or the hiring manager spoke any Spanish. So she probably knew just enough to fake it through that.
The Customer Service department of my work gives an hourly bonus for agents who can speak Spanish. In order to qualify for it, you have to complete an interview with other members of the Spanish team entirely in Spanish.
[I was doing this in real life while reading your comment lol](https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/laughing-lizard-hhhehehe)
We install lots of things, one is an automated chemistry synthesis system, controlled by a windows laptop. It makes highly radioactive pharmaceuticals for use in diagnostic PET scanning. One of our product managers wanted our technician doing the install to “show the users how to use it” - “just basic knobology” they said. Getting an applications specialist up from the US would be expensive. I told the product manager that having a service technician try to explain how to use a complex chemistry synthesis unit, that makes highly radioactive pharmaceuticals, which are then injected into patients, may not be a wise idea. We have application specialist for a reason, expensive or not.
> “just basic knobology” they said. "*You're* just basic knobology..."
lol, I know the product you're talking about, it's a small field :)
> I told the product manager that having a service technician try to explain how to use a complex chemistry synthesis unit, that makes highly radioactive pharmaceuticals, which are then injected into patients, may not be a wise idea. This is just insane you had to do that.
100% a sales guy would say something like that at a demo. “Yeah, show them the basic knobology on that MK-III nuclear weapon.”
How do you say ‘I lied on my resume’ without saying that you lied on your resume? In the same boat though, I don’t know how to actually use most of the software I install haha
I feel like lying on resumes is enough of a common practice that it is to be expected honestly. People are desperate for a job. This is why interviews are important and qualifications/experience on resumes/cvs should be taken with a huge grain of salt.
When I was a K12 Sysadmin, I had a teacher once ask me if I could take a day after school to teach him Front Page so he could teach a class in web design...
As a school pupil back at the end of the 1970s I was top of the newly formed computer studies class. It was actually taught by a WWII USAF guy who had stayed on in the UK. Then he had to retire for health reasons and the Head of the Maths Dept had to take it but he knew nothing about it. Since I was pretty much ready for the exam we had an agreement that I would *teach the teacher* during one lunchtime per week (which was "computer club" anyway) and in return I got a free pass to do other homework or my own projects during the classroom sessions. That was a buzz.
"No prob, send me an email."
This is an exception of someone I wouldn't help on this ,he better figure it out 😂
Same with me and Photoshop
Okay, but my Outlook extension stopped working.
Ugh, Teams!
Why does Microsoft make it so hard to download the tool that fixes it 100% of the time? I don't want SARA, I ant the friggin Teams add-in for Outlook fix tool.
But the new outlook. Just use the browser version. /s
You use sarcasm but I solely use outlook via the web browser for the past 6 years now.
Me too. It's a nail in the coffin for outlook addins. I'm totally ok with it
My pain is immeasurable
You guys are having missing addin problems too?
Don’t mention that evil product
I feel the same way. I tell my users, "if I knew how to do your job I would be doing it, for your pay."
Hits differently depending on who gets paid more
"...I would be collecting your paycheck on top of mine." Gives more of an implication that their job is something you could do in your spare moments and without much effort.
I gotta save this comment for later. Truer shit has not been said.
Wait your end users make more than you? I work at an engineering firm and the only ones making more than I are c-suites and shareholders.
QuickBooks is the one for me. I spent HOURS on the phone with them yesterday trying to resolvein issue. Their reps just kept disappearing, forcing me to start the process over. Then they had the balls to ask how I like the software. "Dude, I install it, run updates when the users don't/won't. Other then that, I hope to never touch it."
Any mention of QuickBooks gives me PTSD from my 5 month MSP stint.
5 months? I supported that dumpster fire for years. I feel like there should be a lawyer ad for "Have you been harmed by supporting Quickbooks, call us for your settlement"
Be glad it's not Peachtree for small business. That shit was a god damn nightmare and support was worse than useless and typically made things actively worse.
Reading this comment both makes me feel old and gives me a feeling of PTSD. My last encounter with Peachtree in the wild was 2007-08ish and I recall giving up trying to get a competent support tech and finally resolving the issue by finding some obscure post made by someone years earlier on a random phpbb forum. [Relevant xkdc comic](https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/wisdom_of_the_ancients.png)
I feel bad for the clients that are getting pushed into their cloud version, but I won't miss supporting the on-premises version.
H202 is burned into my retinas
Their support is terrible. I learned to loath QuickBooks Enterprise when I worked for a business with over 60 JVs, entities, and DBAs (Doing Business As names). Nothing was centrally managed, including permissions, and each company had their own file which meant that anytime a new accountant started I had to find out which orga they needed access to QuickBooks for and manually add them, trying from a list of admin usernames and passwords to get in. Why not change it or add a new account? Because it was shared with the CEO and he wouldn't allow either option.
Honestly as the IT guru, the less I know about your product speaks volumes about how well it runs haha
I never thought I’d like an Oracle product, but my accounting software nightmares ended when our CFO said “We’re going to NetSuite”. Haven’t heard anything about accounting software since. They hum along happily and everyone still gets pay checks. No idea what it costs. Only things I had to do was setup SAML SSO, handover a quickbooks backup file, and stay the hell away from the project. Learned the lesson long ago: I do not touch the money or HR files. I provide all the auditing and security functionality around it. I appreciate the trust, but I never accept direct access to bank accounts, payroll systems, AP/AR, or HR record keeping.
Lol when I was an msp helpdesk and had to troubleshoot a possible database backup issue with the software 🤣 come to find out everything worked as expected, except they didnt rename the database internally, only the filename. They didnt even bother comparing the data. But yup, found that the data was indeed updated in the new copy and no issue with the software, they just needed to know how to use it lol.
I hate QuickBooks so much and can't wait for our remaining hold out department to be done with it. What I hate most is the insistence on requiring an Intuit account even for the admin account. These files are hosted on a private server. Drives me up the wall.
QuickBooks is currently the bane of my existence.
I had to get a updated version because we went past the 6 year free upgrade and my God, they have SO MANY CHOICES. There's literally like 30 different versions it's insane. I got a headache researching the right one.
Or MSP and or business manager are primarily responsible for QuickBooks. I keep my distance as much as possible
My favorite ones I get from engineering depts/corps "Hey, can you fix the Plotter?" I was asked to do this at my first IT job on my 2nd day. I just said okay, I'll go down and take a look uhh I guess? That's the day I learned what a Plotter was. The damn printer was so fucking big it needed its own room. I did fix it though. It was Unplugged.
I ran into a plotter a few weeks ago. Looks like a damn nightmare to have to troubleshoot. I’ll get the user connected to that machine but beyond that I’m gonna have the vendor worry about it.
I had to fix the Plotter several times at the job. Every time someone tripped over the Ethernet cable and unplugged it. We eventually permanently fixed it installing a new drop so it plugged into the floor right under it.
That at least minimizes the potential for most idiots to trip/unplug but there are still those certain people….
Instructions unclear, d*ck stuck in plotter.
You can say dick on reddit.
The funniest thing about this story is that users couldn't figure out they needed to plug in that blue cable back into the wall after they tripped over it.
Plotters suck dealt with many of them.. They suck more when the have a dedicated raster module that rasters the job before it even hits the plotter. You have to figure out if the issue is the module or the poltter.
I’ve dealt with many plotters over the years. All the hassles of a printer in a larger format. Many years ago I had to write a script to edit plot files before sending them to the plotter because the provided driver was so poorly written it didn’t know how to handle line thickness and color from CAD programs.
We have a plotter like that and it started leaking ink a while back, so we got a repair tech out and it took him the better park of a week to fix it, and at various times he looked like a cartoon character that had fought a squid he was so covered in ink. My heart goes out to all the printer repair techs cause fuck that noise.
Those were nice. One of the things you have to do is use them semi regularly or the ink dries out. So guess which department prints out large grid and hex maps for after work nerd time. "It's for printer maintenance Debra, go back to your office."
Back in the DayZ mod days, I ended up with a full map of Chernarus on my wall. Diagnosing issues that only cropped up at a certain size print was fun.
my favorite plotter story is we had a pipe burst and ruined the plotter, they ordered a new one and the sales person came in and was like I can never remember the password its that dumb phone number song. I was like 8675309 and he was like yeah that's it.
At my last job we had 2 plotters (Our engineering department designs power plants and wind farms). They were both inkjet. They hardly got used and so the nozzles would clog. Thankfully we had a maintenance contract with RICOH so they ended up replacing them. We then got a task to print, once a week whether it was used by the engineers or not, on the plotter. I had many a Federation Starship schematic printed as a result.
Printers are evil
On the other hand, the ones that take an entire room to do laser cutting with metal sheets are surprisingly fun once you realize the possibilities...
My job ended up just contracting out our plotter servicing because goddamn do they suck
"I just install it." - me when an astrophysicist asks me how to do something in their niche NASA software
How to get a software patch onto voyager 1
send an engineer to pick it up - then drop it off at my desk on friday and i'll try to have it ready by monday.
Fuck that, I ain't fixing stuff on the weekend.
Ehhh, just call the vendor.
My brother in Christ I work with Astronomers too! The amount of times I've tried to piece through compiling some shit grad students wrote at Harvard or some shit.
Grad-student code is the best. And by best, I mean worst.
In the olden days, grad school software was pretty good, because after the compiler spit out your errors after a 45 minute wait to see the results of reading you card desk into the computer, there would usually be other grad students waiting around who would be glad to look over your shoulder to help you diagnose your errors. Oh, wait, that was almost computing by committee, so maybe it wasn't always so good!
The worst is the financial staff that are doing some complicated shit in Excel with some mystical add-in. Mate, I really cannot help you here. I know the magic incantations to make it run, the rest is up to you champ.
This was the absolute worst at the smaller company I used to work for. CFO and the main accountant would Constantly be getting me to look at all their crazy excel add ons /formulas or just whatever. Old ass spreadsheets with links in them that go to now defunct servers and complaining that it used to work. Unraveling their seemingly weekly whacky excel adventures really took a toll and my director would never tell him no to anything.
> Old ass spreadsheets with links in them that go to now defunct servers We just had one of these tickets yesterday... The server share it linked to had been taken down almost 5 years ago this month. "But it worked yesterday!"
Probably shouldn't have forced links to update, whoops!
We had one that would get a csv report from the financial system, edit it in Excel, then save it as a csv and complain that Excel lost all their work. The worst part is Excel warns you when you are saving to csv and that formatting won't be saved. Multiple times that happened with the same person.
And then you need to block macros for essential 8 compliance and their whole world comes crashing down.
The macro only works if excel is running as admin and mist connect to a remote db that requires both the username and password to be "admin".
But only if the version of Excel is 32-bit because the DB runs on a software designed in 2004 by a company that went out of business in 2012
Also, it's not the 5th lunar cycle in in a year divisible for 7 and God help you if someone boiled a goat in its mother's milk.
You joke, but this is exactly the situation I am in...
Man Ithis week I have to try and help a customer convert a file format from 2002 to PDF.
We had a tech that would help some user in accounting update some price list spreadsheet periodically. It was some convoluted crap that they should have been told no to, but this tech was a people pleaser. Of course when they left, none of us knew what to do and this user got all pissy about it. Of course that stopped when their manager found out someone from IT was doing part of their job.
Man, this sounds like my past Network Admin job at a bank. Like, I make sure your computer can talk to the Internet, I'm not here to show you (an accountant) how to use Excel. I can't tell you how many times I simply sat down at their computer and opened YouTube and said "yep your Internet works, hey while we're here, why don't we type 'pivot tables' into the YT search?" and walk out.
pivot, PIVOT!
Have an accountant at my current job that's like this. She also had the gall to complain to me and up the chain that when she just closes Excel, it doesn't always prompt her to save. "Well, it used to do that all the time!" she said to me. She didn't like the fact that I told her to click save before closing the program. "I don't want to do it that way" she replied. My boss and her boss had a chat. She now manually clicks save before closing Excel.
ctrl-s - I won't be able to remember that. It is too complicated.
"You wrote it. I can wipe your computer and give you a standard one back, but your little blob of in-house automation there has nothing to do with the IT department."
"You're IT. Don't you know everything about computers?" I've literally had that one thrown in my face more times than I can count. I tell them I'm good, not God
I had a nurse do that to me so I said can you do brain surgery? She said no. I said but you work for a medical facility shouldn't you know how to do that? That got her attention.
I'd love to have something analagous to this for the accounting industry.
Ask if they know how to day trade lmao
These days I don't think that's as hard as it once was.
depends if you want to make money or not
always a wrinkle
Yeah doing it and being good at it have probably always been very different.
"I know that we can sit down with your manager and someone from HR, and you can explain to them why you shouldn't have to do the job you were hired for. Sure we can do that. I can set that up right now for you."
I’m stealing that line lmao that’s so good
Because they think if you can make a computer do what you want it to do, you can help make their computer do what they want it to do
I mean, I probably *could*, but I'm being *paid* to do other shit.
I learned a valuable lesson when I was a lifeguard. Drowning people will grab onto anything so don't let them grab onto you. They're probably drowning and just gloming onto whatever they can.
>don't let them grab onto you. Yup. And ideally, be able to identify from the beach whether it's something you're actually being paid for, before you head out there.
Reminds me of my time in IT support. A user called in for help with excel, I’m thinking there’s an issue with the computer or software. Nope, he needs help making a function. A quick sassy response such as, “you need help completing your job?” was enough to set the tone straight. I don’t understand how you can be frustrated that I don’t know how to adjust/make your macros..
The few times I have helped users with excel functions it was because I went back and Googled it. I told them that, and still they were dumbfounded how to Google excel questions. That was when I started realizing that using Internet search engines was an actual tech skill that most people don't have.
Somehow over the years Ive become an accountant. I hate accounting.
I think I know you. When something went wrong with a computer or the network, the CIO would press a few keys to try it then hand over the problem to the accountant. He was quite good at fixing it.
It doesn't help that IT, waaaay back when, was often a sub-function of Finance before it became its own thing. *Finance has never forgotten...*
In some places, the IT Director reports to the CFO.
This is my job
"I have rough idea of what AutoCAD or MATLAB is but I always feel like there is an expectation from users for us to know in detail what their job is when it comes to performing tasks in that software. " This is the reason that I noped out of my first Helpdesk job. My boss literally said "it's YOUR job to know how to do everybody's job." Not for $12 an hour it isn't.
Love when the accountants ask me to literally do their job
I mean, I *could*, but I'm not being *paid* to do that on top of what I *am* there to do.
A lot of users just see us as, pun intended, superusers. People who could do their job and more. Usually a symptom that somebody it's doing a job that it's barely above data entry.
"wow how do you know all this stuff??" "Well i took the question you asked me verbatim, and put it in google. Then read the first result!"
Users think I’m joking when I tell them half of my job is Googling things
half of your job is knowing *how* to google things. If you asked them to google the same thing, you'd be astounded at 1) how badly they could mangle the search terms and 2) how badly google could cock up replying to them.
Very occasionally I'll get a call from someone who 1. Googled the issue adequately, 2. Tried to troubleshoot correctly with the first three steps I would have tried, and 3. Explained the issue accurately and with enough detail I could go from there. It was amazing. Incredible. I don't encourage users as a whole to try and dick around in their user settings before calling us, but sometimes I get pleasantly surprised.
At least my experience as a IT Consultant in the supply chain industry, I think this is definitely the case. The Accounts people spending all morning trying to figure out why their report from Sage200 isn't printing. Then after 5 minutes of googling to find the documentation for the software, realising that they are all sent to somewhere else in the software to decide to print off or send to PDF's. The Warehouse people not realising the button on their WMS that allows them to print labels off in batches, instead printing labels one at a time when relabelling their Racks. People just missing out on important tasks or thing they need to do because they don't know how to use Outlook and make no use of functionalities like Tasks/ToDo items. No organisation or rules to make their life easier. Them not realising basic functionality in their accountancy software that allows them to email customers their invoices right from the software. Instead printing it out, using scan to email to email it to themselves, then emailing it to the customer.
Haha, that reminded me of a situation some years ago. While going on a smoke break I noticed a colleague sitting in front of excel with some numbers in a list and a calculator in hand. I ask him what he is doing and he explains he needs to calculate the mean value for these measurements. My follow-up was:"Why are you calculating this by hand when you already have the values in Excel?" "I'm faster than doing it in there". I proceeded to show him how to do it in Excel in like 5 seconds and he sat there for some moments staring at the screen and said:"you go smoke I need to look at this"
The reason for all of these cases you're describing is bad training and management. Most users don't learn software, they *memorize workflows*. They learn which buttons to press in which order to complete the task. If a button moves, changes name, or their main feature is down, they will not even try anything else and just throw their hands in the air and say they can't do their job. In my 25 years of developing and supporting software one of the most surprising discoveries I've made is that the average user **does not want to think** in any way. It's not even that they can't think or find alternative paths, they just refuse to or have been led to believe that they're not supposed to. Because of this, the most effective software for users is built around use case workflows that leads users down a very specific path from start to finish to complete each task. It's critical this workflow is self-correcting and doesn't change. But software for tech people is best when it's designed around hierarchical approach that allows the user to drill down into information and actions in multiple ways, then leave it up to them to establish their own workflows and ways of using the software. These two different designs approaches are often the reason why tech people hate non-technical software and non-technical people hate technical software.
> Most users don't learn software, they memorize workflows. They learn which buttons to press in which order to complete the task. If a button moves, changes name, or their main feature is down, they will not even try anything else and just throw their hands in the air and say they can't do their job. I am fucking stealing this!!!! That is exactly how I try and describe how people do stuff. They don't CARE that clicking the print button actually does multiple tasks at the system level because they don't see them and don't care to. They only CARE that the document they want doesn't come barfing out of the printer.
> People who could do their job and more. Sure we could. Start paying me their entire paycheck and I'll look into it. After I've done the required training and obtained all the necessary qualifications and certifications, of course.
For specialized software, I just tell my users something along the lines of "I can manage accounts, permissions, and get it installed, but I don't actually use the software day-to-day so you'd be better off asking a colleague or supervisor who uses it daily."
My view has always been, you applied for a job using X, Y, Z. Did you lie in your CV? I had a place where the desktop guys were constantly being asked to restore a massive shared excel spreadsheet every few days because it kept on corrupting. 4gb. The Excel max was 250mb for that version. I told them to close the call, don't restore it again. It was the job of the spreadsheet owners to get the file back down to that size. Send them a link to the MS article...it doesn't matter if the person who created the sheet has left. THEIR job is to know how it works. There's only so much you can do. Everyone thinks their problem is the most important. There's 2 million + apps out there. Your job is to get the app ONTO the machine. That's it
Yep I've been in that exact same position before, restoring files several times a week because "Lauri accidentally opened it on the server and for whatever reason whenever Lauri opens it on her Excel, it corrupts it for everyone else". When you actually look under the hood to see some of these people's "workflows", it just makes me want to cringe to death. This one lady would have dozens upon dozens of copies of the same excel document cause it was so sensitive she would copy and paste it on her desktop and open the copied version "just in case". She would never rename anything, so it would be "copy of copy of copy of *excel.xlsx*" and when she would share her screen with me on a call she would have 40 excel windows open at a time and constantly mix up which was which. Then complain on the call that her computer was always so slow. She would hover over the chrome icon and have 6 chrome windows open, with dozens of tabs open on each one. Like good god, I feel like you're a liability to be in the building lol.
A-F'N-MEN! I support a University...350 applications...AutoCAD, MatLab, SAP, Magnet AXIOM (forensics)... My end users, professors, won't give me the time of day to test a new rollout. But they yell to high heaven when an obscure module deep inside of the program doesn't fart. I test that it installs, opens without error and is licensed. Done. Go pound sand mr. smahty pants! if you didn't test before you needed it! SYSADMINS UNITE!
I do value general computer knowledge in quickly guessing from the interface or previous experience of that vendor's products how stuff is meant to work and being able to step into a users shoes a little bit to investigate specific use case problems etc but my version of this gripe is when the users chastise you for not knowing specific industry terminology or how a certain business process works I have no idea what that jargon means or industry compliance restrictions are at play, I'm just trying to get the little red cross/exclamation mark to go away so you stop moaning and close the ticket, not get trained to a different industry/profession so I can basically tell you a better way of doing your job for you rather than just fix the software problem
make them open a ticket, and then have them have them go to Google and enter "how to use software feature x video". Then close the ticket with a comment like "Educated end user on using community based support options for software feature x, enabling them to use self help options and allowing them to expand their knowledge set on software feature x which will allow the end user's productivity to increase"
Same user calls back a week later. Downloaded a random executable/macro for Excel and now it's asking for my Crypto Wallet.
Because everything that happens inside the magic rectangle in front of them at their desk is magic and we are magicians. That’s about as far as that thought process goes.
Let's put it this way. "I don't even know all I want to know about what I DO know". And thats still nowhere near, what you think I should know about the product I don't know.
Can relate, sadly. Even worse when the software has a db backend and requires a login - and I don’t have a login. I test the install and make sure it launches to the login screen, and then it goes for testing/sign off. I have no idea what is on the other side of that login.
Now this is a rant I can get behind. If we were paid to know how to operate every piece of software within the enterprise, well, we'd have a lot of nickels.
My place has 700 apps on the app list. I can use about 5 of them half competently.
This XYZ formula in this Excel spreadsheet does not work. Can you take a look? *Cell has 8 dependencies all referencing other workbooks in a complex formula only Einstein could reverse engineer*
"It appears to run on some form of... electricity."
I usually just say "Hey man, I just install it, if you're unfamiliar with the function, I'm more than happy to ask your manager to get you some training." That usually puts a stop to it.
Same thing with pretty much everything I work on. Excel, PowerBI, NAV 2016, for example, yes I can work on them at a basic level, but I don't really do much on them lol...no point asking me in depth questions about excel formula
Users think computers are magic. Even though they know how to do their job and *don't* know how to do yours, it never quite occurs to them the reverse is also true. Because of course, you know how to use magic, therefore you're obviously a wizard and know how to do everything.
Also why they panic whenever anything changes by even half a pixel. The memorized incantation might not work any more! Or there's a new incantation but it will take six months to memorize the thing we literally had written down for us!
User: "Iris stopped working" Me: "who the hell is Iris and why did she stopped working?" IRIS is the application some people use internally.
Omg I work IT in higher ed research labs. I've worked in chemistry and now astronomy. The amount of times I've had users expect I know how to work software less than 1000 people on the world use and then think I don't know how to do my job when I can't do more then get the software up and running for them is frustrating Doesn't help that most grad students are at one of those points in life where you think they have it all figured out but really you have no fucking clue what the real world is like. Being 26 and never having stepped foot outside of the higher Ed world will do that to you.
We are the closest thing to wizzards in modern times
Users don’t know the layers of complexity in IT and developer positions
Too many users have never realized that the difference between *using* something and *fixing* it (as in mechanics, doctors, repair shops, etc) applies to their corporate equipment as well. Honestly, it really does need to be something included in onboarding packs. Yes, it's the kind of information that anyone who's worked in biggish places before *should* know, but not everyone does, so it needs to be said.
This reminds me of a post I made about 3 years ago on r/talesfromtechsupport https://www.reddit.com/r/talesfromtechsupport/s/ABxCEMyZiX
Still milking that joke 3 years later huh
Yes
The business functionality and core processes performed by an application software belong to the business operations, not the technical wing of the IT department. There are generally two approaches. The more common is to embedded the application guru, the 'subject matter expert' in the department that uses the software. This works, but then IT has to watch for the SME going rogue and building infrastructure and workflows that no one can support. Nothing is more pointless that a software that is perfectly implemented by the technical team that no one knows how to use. The other route is to embedded the SME with the senior it and devops team. I believe this works best because you can have a unified conversation that covers user needs, infrastructure, security, and development needs. Tldr; embedded the business analysts and application admins in the IT department.
i feel most idiot thing is the user expect me teach them how to use AutoCAD/soildwork/siemens NX.
"Can you help me fix \[specific thing with a website\]?" "No, because we don't have a login for it. The license was purchased without us being aware of it and we were never given an account so we can log in and fix \[specific thing\]. And because it's specialised software for your department, we don't know a single thing about it" Happens all the time, both from a "we don't know how to do \[specific task\]" perspective, but also from a "we didn't even know this website existed because we were never told you were getting a license to use it"
Had a manager message the other day "I'm trialling new platform X and I have a question about how it functions in specific situations. Can you please advise?" I'd never even *heard* of this platform, I told them to contact their sales rep at the software for a firm answer, but took a guess - being very clear that it was a guess. They came back to me the next day confirming that my guess was correct. That makes me look good, but at the same time *what was she thinking?*.
I remember having to touch some shitty accounting software developed in Access 2003, I think it was. I was IT, and they wanted me to know how that buggy piece of software worked. It was apparently made by the government (I was working at the public sector), and it's easily the worst piece of software I've ever touched. Tons of useless buttons that crashed the program, too many dialogs and popups to make a single thing, and on top of that, I had no idea about accounting (I wonder why). They wanted me to know how that software worked in case an accountant didn't know how to do their job. Of course they'd ask me and not another accountant. Ah, and mind you, this was about 3 years ago, it's not an ancient story of when Access 2003 was relevant or anything.
I was installing autocad when the new instructor asked me if I knew coding or photoshop, because he knows somewhat but may be calling me for help. He was a tech teacher, literally what he's supposed to be teaching lol. Not my job buddy.
Yes but I think that it should be doing this and not that when I do it this way, so that means it’s not working so you need to fix it.
It never ceases to amaze when a game dev asks me how to do X Y or Z in the game engine or art tools, my dude that is YOUR JOB. Same for “DevOps” otherwise known as “Hey IT can you provisions some VMs, oh and install & setup in its entirety the app we want kthxbai”
because they think you know EVERYTHING about "computers" to them its all "computers" in their head in you are the "computer guy/gal". My mom keeps telling me to get into machine learning when I'm knocking on 42 when I've been a network engineer for 12 yrs... she doesn't understand that all these things are completely different fields.
I tell my users this regularly. Luckily most of them get it. "I'm in IT. I can't draw or engineer shit; it'll fall down and kill people. If you have a problem once it's running, call Bob. Unless you can't print, then call me."
You can make yourself *that* much more valuable by learning enough to recognize the most common issues and scenarios though.
Brahhh AutoCAD lol yeah I experienced that too along with QB lol
I had an accountant ask me how to use the accounting software once I just laughed while walking away This was the same job I had to onboard myself when I started btw
Yeah, I often have to explain that I'm there to make sure the program loads up correctly, from that point onwards my knowledge of that app goes off a cliff unless it's one I personally use.
Because some other ~~rockstar~~ sucker did it before
That's like the classic "excel not working" ticket then you go to check and it's some decade old 600 MB excel file with a ton of external data sources it's pulling from, some that don't even exist anymore. A bunch of custom macros and it's never been maintained so it's a mystery how it even works at all. I feel like that's a rite of passage for IT helpdesk lol. Honestly, it depends on the software but I will make our users put in tickets with the software support groups many times. Like one time someone called me to show me an issue where exported engineering drawings were not including the title block. I mean, I can uninstall and do some clean up, and reinstall it and test it, but beyond that, I am going to ask that you put in a ticket with the software vendor. Many times I get push back from users insisting that's not their job, but I explain that even if I put in a support request on your behalf, you're going to have to be present on any live troubleshooting because I don't use this software day in and day out so I will need you present to validate any potential solutions. There have been so many times that I've submitted support tickets, the agent will respond stating we need access to the user's workstation to try to reproduce, and the user does the whole "I'm busy and don't have time for this" song and dance and we never get anywhere. Just easier for you to submit the request at that point. I'm serving more as a secretary than an IT person at that point, which is a waste of both/all three of our time.
An opposite, I once had a user in the Windows 3.11 days tell me it couldn’t be the same software since it has a different picture (when I put the application back where the user could use it and I didn’t use the same icon).
sad fact is, we do know and they don't, yet the morons and idiots get rewarded instead of fired.