@ John:

I don’t think this is a good analogy because most people are fairly good at communicating with plumbers. You may not know the jargon, but you can show the plumber where the problem is, when it started and etc. You don’t just let a plumber into your house and go “My friends kid, who is a real plumbing whiz said there is something wrong with my pipe things or something, and it needs to be fixed. I didn’t write it down, but I’m sure you can figure it out.”. No, you actually tell him you have a leak under the sin, or that water pressure is weak upstairs, etc..

So many people out there just don’t know how to ask tech support questions. If you work in end-user support the most difficult part of the job is figuring out what the hell is going on based on incoherent, jumbled descriptions with miss-matched jargon words thrown in just for kicks

I have to strongly not disagree with your first sentence. You are correct that EUs do not know how to communicate their problem effectively to tech support. Being in tech support is like being a detective and a firefighter all in one. You have to play detective to figure out what they screwed up. Asking the right questions as you did is the first step. I like to take the stance that all EUs are lacking any sort of skills when it comes to a computer.

Think about it this way. For the sake of argument, you know nothing about plumbing. Do you know what questions to ask the plumber to have him fix a leak for you? No. You know you have a leak and it needs to be fixed.

@ road:

Yep, I love that upload/download are completely interchangeable and can mean any of the following:

1. Download
2. Upload
3. Install
4. Attach
5. Delete
6. Uninstall
7. Copy
8. Save/back-up to external media
9. Burn to CD
10. Save
11. Restore from backup
12. Restore from Recycle Bin
13. Access a website
14. Pretty much anything that does not involve email

@ Dileep:

Not sure actually, but I think the guy is in 40’s or maybe early 50’s max. In other words, not that old.

@ Zen Master Ralph:

I also love the fact that any time you actually touch someone’s computer you are automatically responsible for every future problem with that machine they may encounter. So six months down the road they will smugly remind you that “hey, buddy – I guess you didn’t did such a good job last time cause I got the same virus again”.

Sigh…

@ MrPete:

Yes, I especially love the fact that we constantly get calls from people asking if it’s ok to download Adobe update and Windows update, but I have yet to field one call in which person actually gets suspicious of an actual malware popup. No they click those right away and then call us afterward.

This somehow reminds me of my work.
I should be working on offers for customers and planning their installations.
But sometimes the other workers see a “dubious” message and immediatly need my help to tell them what to do.
So I go and tell them: OK, you are hereby allowed to install an update for the Adobe Reader/latest Flash-version/whatever…
Life cuold be so simple if people knew the tools they are working with.
Or would you operate a chainsaw without a clue?

While I am not in any official tech-support position, there seems to be a general consensus amongst the computer-clueless that anyone and everyone that knows something about computers is, by default, their personal, free, tech support person.

[[About 5 years ago, I decided that I only do Linux…. hell, I don’t even help my very own wife with non-Linux computer problems.]]

What I have noticed is that some people are not only clueless about computers, but they are even smug about their lack of knowledge… as if it were some badge of honor and superiority that they are computer-ignorant. And they ask for help after having borked their computer, while still maintaining their sense of smug superiority (or is that superior smugness?). Screw it, I figure that they could best be served by tossing them a live CD (their choice: slax, enlighenment, or ubuntu) and having them use that, because that’s the most I will do for their problems.

Maybe its a generation gap though. How old was the guy? He sounded like John McCain.

Haha! love it. great post. Especially the confused upload/download part… that drives me crazy.

I went to a small middle/high school in the middle of nowhere colorado, about half of the computers we had were mac os based and the other half ran various versions of windows. The only tech guy at the school was completely oblivious towards anything to do with microsoft, so whenever there was a problem with something not made by apple, it got relegated to the students who used PCs at home. What it taught me is that most people don’t know and or care to know how a computer works, but when there is a problem they will use whatever terminology they see fit and expect you to understand what they are talking about. computers don’t have problems, people who use computers have problems.

Hilarious!! Though, I feel sorry for you sometimes, Luke, dealing with this kinda thing everyday. You must be really really patient.

About a week ago, i had someone come in while i was working tech support, insisting that I Remove ubuntu so he could install windows. Long story short, he was mistaking (multiple) pirated copies of Office as being the same thing as windows. It took us (between tech support and our store) over an hour to get rid of him.