don't forget about the ID 10 t errors.

 

ID10t

Dick: The machine was working fine and then it just puked....

yrag: What were you doing at the time it puked?

Dick: Nothing.

yrag: Have you installed anything new?

Dick: Nope.

yrag: Any error messages?

Dick: Nope.

yrag: Besides the puke, do you smell anything?

Dick: Just me.

yrag: Wonderful. So, you didn't install anything, you show no errors and you were sitting there
frozen in time when this thing went belly up....do I have that right?

Dick: Yep.

yrag: Well, that narrows it down. Give me a minute.......

Dick: Could you hurry.....I need this machine working.

yrag: I'm trying DICK, but I'm drawing a blank. By chance, is there anyone else there that has a clue as to what time zone they're in?

Dick: Just me.

yrag: Great......

Dick: This can't be that hard to figure out.

yrag: You're right. Try this: unplug the machine for six months. I'll play the odds that after that much time you'll break that fuckin' phone you're on and we won't have to re-visit this problem. You have yourself a great day.







We're up to the chains and whips level, so by all means Honey.....break something.  

but my mother used to ring me from interstate and expect me to resolve her PC issues over the phone.

That is when GoToMyPC is worth the $20/month!  Not my mom (after spending a career working on big iron, she refuses to own one), but my Aunt Who lives 1000 miles from me.

I have met some Techs that are worth more than gold. But most are clueless.  I called Verizon to get the user's password (he was there with me) to set up their wireless, and got 2 hours of anything BUT!  Finally got the password when he decided that the problem was the linksys (duh!), but it cost an hour and 55 minutes of "MR. Mighty PC Tech" knowing less than me, and being condescending about it.

Until I owned a PC for the first time (almost 6 years ago), I didn't realise just how many computer experts there really are out there. In fact, it never amazes to cease me just how many, sight unseen, will offer opinions on what the problem is, so who needs levels one through five phone tech, anyhow!

All I gotta do is go down the street and ask: "OK, so I got Vista, what do I gotta do about....?". There's no language barrier/difficulty with accents, orright, maybe a little (after all, Oz is a multi-cultural society these days)...OK, a lot, but I'll have a thousand and one fixes (all for nix) in no time....no need for expensive phone IT.

Yep, the way things are going, with "MR. Mighty PC Tech" knowing less than me, and being condescending about it", the unprecedented growth in computer/PC experts out there in the wild, and it's sad but true, but the IT professional is fast becoming a dying breed and may soon become extinct.

It surely is a sad indictment of this throw away society we live in..."Who'd throw away a perfectly good IT boy in the garbage like that?" .....or finding them congregated around a bonfire in an old oil drum under a bridge to keep warm.... cos their cosy little IT cubicles have been rented out to illegal immigrant families.

Nope, I wouldn't be in IT for quids.... and it's gonna become even more of a cut throat (computer) world if Apple and/or Linux ever increase their market shares, even minimally. Yep, I can see it now, the dog eat dog scramble for an extra IT position or two this creates...a predatory battle for that one, solitary OS-X cubicle in your hemisphere...until the rogue street expert prevails and effectively shuts them down.

Bah...the more I think about it, the less I feel inclined to let anyone use MY PC!

I usually do most of my own stuff, but I had an IT guy that I went to when I couldn't fix it myself. He owned his own computer company and sold/built all of our computers at our office (I've been there for 15+ years) and we've been using him since before I started working there. Sadly, he passed away from a heart attack about 3 months ago and we've not found anyone to replace him. If it was something that the office manager or I couldn't handle (and she has a degree in computers ~ and I designed and programmed the databases we use at our company, even though I don't have a "formal" degree yet! I'm working on it eventually when you get 70+ hours a week, kinda hard to fit college in!) we just had to call Dave and he could usually either tell us over the phone or we would drop the computers off at his shop and get them back the next day, unless he had to order a part. I really miss him , you don't find many people like that!

That's not the only crap one has to put up with,not so long ago i was in the motor industry as a automotive mechanic one of the classics is because you fixed their ignition system you must be at fault coz they seized their motor as it had no oil a week or so later..lol.. ok that's a bit xtreme but you get the idea,true story did a tune up on a customers car as the engine had a miss,vehicle itself was old & quite run down,however not really taking any notice of wires below steering wheel being out of their wiring loom as tho someone had been hacking into it for whatever reason,i fixed the cars fault (all done under the bonnet nothing to do inside the vehicle) next thing customer comes barging in wanting to know why wires under dash were all hanging down,the service manager asks me what the story is my reply pretty straight forward ask the customer who they know that's been mucking around with the inside wiring loom at home..lol..

Not an IT guy but I can piss and moan with the best of em.....

Working in construction , I have had similiar experiences with ALL OF YOU. Get off your high horse and realize that your not smarter than everyone else. Your just better at what you do than others. For crying out loud you work in SUPPORT. So SUPPORT!

I have had to replace a frikkin lightbulb for a guy that supossedly invented a part in all fax machines. He earns $ 300,000.00 a month in royalties for the rest of his life but can't change a lightbulb.

I'll bet most of you that if your car suddenly stopped working, the first thing you would do is call a tow truck. You would probably tell the driver you thought it was the battery when you probably ran out of gas.

Your dealing with just PC related issues. You call for support when your heating system goes down. I don't think your an idiot for calling. Your an idiot for trying to fix it yourself and it costs you more money.

My point is we are all stupid in some regards. For some reason IT guys feel like they earned the right to be rude on top of stupid.

oh and good luck any of you when it comes to pleasing a woman.   

Go Night Train, you tell 'em mate, you tell 'em....and you're so durned right about the geniuses with university degrees and jobs we can't even pronounce. Yep, some of 'em are good at what they do, but still can't find their arses with both hands and an instrucion booklet.... so the ones who ain't any good at what they do are pretty well stuffed.

So now you know why they're rude and obnoxious over the phone, they're all icky and uncomfortable on the other end of the line.

Night Train,

I support INTERNET CONNECTIVITY! I do NOT perform PC Repair over the phone! Maybe you should stop DEMANDING CAVIAR when you're paying for frankfurters!

You, and people like you, are the biggest part of the problem. If we don't do the impossible (yes, I HAVE been asked to reformat a hard drive and reinstall Windows XP OVER THE PHONE...FOR NOTHING...remember, folks, the tech support is for INTERNET CONNECTION!), you jump and holler that we're not doing our jobs.

You work in construction. If someone pays you to build a 250 square foot add on, do you feel it's reasonable to ask you to build a 3000 square foot house for the same price you quoted for the add on? Because that is EXACTLY what you are demanding of us!

I'm not calling people idiots for calling, Night Train. I am simply saying that the end user needs to understand that tech support doesn't cover every little thing on their computer.

Now, to be fair, when the issue involves tech support of another company (say the issue is with their hardware and the computer is still under warranty), I am more than happy to find support numbers for the proper tech support to take care of the end user's needs. And I've logged many hours in chat with software vendors to get the end user the right answer. But as my job involves tech support for an Internet Service Provider, there are MANY requests that go beyond my ability to fulfill.

I love what I do; I wouldn't be doing it otherwise. And I try to get the end user an answer, even when it falls outside of our jurisdiction. But I cannot be expected to know every piece of software and hardware ever made to troubleshoot over the phone at the drop of a hat. My company does provide PC Repair services, but those services are extra. At a certain point, it's robbing the company of revenue.

Gideon,

When I say YOU I was referring to anyone out there. Sorry.

The world is full of unreasonable people that will try to negotiate anything on the grounds that you might bend for them to keep them as a customer. Those people are just not worth my effort. I simply tell them I cannot help them anymore and in some cases I tell them to lose my number.

My venting was related to the link in post #12 and not related to your comments.

I recently had a place build me a PC. They didn't put in the Vid Card I had requested because the one I asked for broke when they were installing it. Instead of a 1 tb vid card they put in a 256 mb card. Big difference!

When I approached them on it they said ..Oh you didn't need the 1 TB card anyways.
Ummm, excuse me, but thats not what I asked for. What really pisses me off is that because they don't quite understand something, there is no way I could possibly know what I was talking about and they actually give a little arrogant chuckle. If it were the wild west, I would have been packing and they wouldn't be smirking anymore.

They call Vista Ultimate...Ultima, and I am the one that gets laughed at for asking for a 1 tb vid card. You should have seen what I went through to get them to set up my dual boot config for me.....which I had to redo 3 days after getting the box because MS support had me install something that crapped up a brand new PC.

Dont even get me started with MS support and Vista. I had a hunch that Vista would be a similiar experience as Window ME and after a few week with Vista I can now say that it is window ME all over again. Vista is a terrible OS but thats another topic, another day.

Sorry to have upset you personally, my lashing out was directed at the other useless support people out there.

If we could only clone Yrag....send him overseas....he needs the vacation anyway....we would have much better tech support!

And I'm sure there are a few good tech guys out there...somewhere...but I sure as hell haven't found any...especially when my call gets sent overseas. And its also not very encouraging when your talking to some "tech" guy and he can't even get his phones to work right. I've learned to just fix most stuff myself...but when in doubt...I have Yrag on speed dial!

OK, sorry. I understand. I just get the OTHER end, the one that assumes tech support is ALWAYS useless when some of us are working to do a good job.

Unfortunately, the best in the field don't stay in tech support long. So the dolts usually run the day because tech support doesn't pay NEAR what it should.

I think the worst thing to give tech support a bad name was farming out phone support to offshore call centres with little or no hands-on experience with the given product. When a customer calls to get assistance, and a strongly accented person answers the phone, appears to be reading off a cue sheet, it does very little for customer confidence, much less the company's image

Sadly, while the companies are at fault here, through either farming out or not paying a worthy salary, it's the poor (good) techies who cop the name calling and abuse.

Also, I do not blame the Indian staffers who take these farmed out tech calls for their lack of expertise/experience, or the language difficulties/conveying instructions, etc. They are offered the jobs in their home- land, where reasonably paying jobs are an extreme rarity, and they are doing their best with the training given and tools at their disposal....and again, that comes down to the companies and inadequate training, a lack of provision.

A while back I had to reactivate XP, and while I was transferred to customer support at Microsoft in Redmond, I was still greeted by someone with a strong Asian accent with a US twang) that, at times, was difficult to understand. However, despite the slight, occasional language difficulty, she was polite, friendly, efficient and made the process as painless as possible - "...and is there anything else I can do for you today?" - for which I thanked her sincerely at the conclusion of the call.

I guess what I'm saying here is that we, as customers, need to be a little more patient and understanding of the difficulties/problems the person at the other end must also be experiencing, being they have no sight/hands on with each specific instance and can not always provide the answers being asked of them.

Yes , Night Train, but I:
Don't call my support with some self-infated sense of entitlment and/or attitude when I call. I know what I want and what I am entitled to, and I'm not looking for a fight.
Don't question what the support tells me unless it directly conflcts with what I'm seeing. I don't know cars , I don't know HVAC , etc.
Don't assume it's something it's not. I don't try fixing it then blame you for breaking it.

And yes, I *have* dealt with that , and yes, I'm one of these people who actually does serve my customers/clients when they've called.

It works both ways , but we don't see CNN/CBC/whatever 'special reports' on the customer experiences of customer support analysts.