Guy calls me today, and you can hear from his voice he is on the verge of tears. He is literally about to have a nervous breakdown – his computer just stopped working. Nothing works! He can’t do anything. Everything is messed up. He is going to miss the deadline and loose his job. Yeah, like he is the first guy who missed a deadline around here – I actually built an app that automatically emails these people 3 days past due date and nags them for their shit. Anyway, sky is falling, people are dying and it is über emergency.
Turns out he tried to “import” a Word document into a spreadsheet and somehow managed to associate all .doc files with Excel. It took me about 25 minutes to extract this information from him, and about 30 seconds to show him how to fix it. Sigh…
Another dude has a wireless 10-key for his laptop. It stopped working – the USB dongle lights up but the key presses do not register. The thing takes AA or AAA batteries – so most probably it’s just out of juice. I told the guy to just flip it over, open it and replace the batteries. He was trying to open it for 10 minutes and couldn’t figure it out. Sigh… I’m sending him a wired 10-key so that he won’t have to worry about changing batteries anymore. I don’t know the exact model he had but I’m pretty sure it’s not rocket science. And I don’t think he just wanted a new one – if he just said his 10-key is old, uncomfortable, or cuts out I’d replace it with no questions asked. No need for the whole “I can’t figure out this battery thing” song and dance. I truly believe that the guy is just that clueless.
How do these people survive in this world? How do they manage to hold on to their well paid, white collar, desk jobs? Not everyone has to be a computer whiz, but Jesus Christ people! How about just learning some basic stuff so that you don’t have a heart attack every time your computer or electronic device does something unexpected?
Sigh, you just can’t make this shit up.
[tags]tech support, support, tech support horror stories, work, file associations[/tags]
I thought the associating .doc files with excel was bad enuff but the battery story now that takes the cake. If he had a kid he should have let his kid fix it. Kids can usually replace batteries. lmao
I used to believe that kids are usually more technologically competent than their parents, and that this competence improves with each generation. Then I got to teach a class to college freshmen. It was a sobering experience. Younger generations are as clueless as their parents (if not more). The only difference is that they use IM and Myspace – but they do it very ineptly and without understanding.
They are not as good at changing batteries either. Why bother if you can just buy a bran new item. Sigh…
Recently I’ve heard some people say they’re not going for IT A-levels because the industry is full/by the time we get there too many people will be good with tech stuff
Good to have confirmation that that’s a load of bull – looking around at people my age (16), I can see that there will always (for the foreseeable future at least) be a need for “that guy who makes complicated electronics work properly.
I do have faith (not fate) in the futhere (joke) of mankind.