For IT DUers, How Stupid Are The Users That You Support?

My users don't know how to unzip a zip file. Your turn.

where the instructions say "Press any key to continue". ;-)

Him: "Whadda ya mean tab? Like the drink?"

Me: "No, no - It's a key that moves the cursor, um - the square blinky thing, from one box to another on the screen. It says 'tab' on it."

Him: "Oooohhhh!!! ....."

I posted this below.. didn't see this first.

I'm not an IT guy, and there are things i'm too lazy to learn, even as a power user. So, some of our folks probably think that makes me a stupid user. But this "any key" is just a precious one!
The Professor

You need a Rapidograph pen and a bottle of clear nail polish.

When the user says he can't find the "any" key, go look at his/her keyboard. Find the least-worn key that's not one of the alt/start/window/ctrl keys and, using the pen, write the word "ANY" on it. Let the ink dry and put two coats of nail polish on it. Voila! Instant "any" key.

Works best if the user has light-colored keys.

"If I push the wrong button will I hurt the computer?"


Khash.

I don't have an 'any' key LOL

their knowledge and experience is variable.

Never mind there's no shortage of money.

Whatever. I know what's happening in society and I've accepted my inevitable fate. I'm learning new things and hopefully I'll be of use. It's all I can do.

you wouldn't believe the people that opened up a 5 1/4 disk to take the inside part out to put in the drive - like it was a case.

My favorite was a guy who was running the mouse over the monitor and clicking. it took me forever to figure out why he was not able to click on what he needed to.

He asked the user, "What's on your desktop?"

User says, "Couple of pens and pencils, some papers..."

:rofl:

Khash.

who probably should be stuck in a corner somewhere debugging SQL script and never to be allowed to go near another living human being until we learn to be nice & patient

That's the actualy designation we used on reports to upper management to make it look nice. What is PEBKAC you may ask?

Problem
Exists
Between
Keyboard
And
Chair

:evilgrin:

Problem
In
Chair
Not
In
Computer.

"idiot"

instead of waiting for a user to call me back because she doesn't know how to unzip a zip file.

:D

I mean, that's what I had to remind myself when I did customer support.

Of course the dumbest thing any customer did was run out of disk space because of all the porn he downloaded. This was a pharmaceutical rep making more than you & me and about 10 other people combined

unzip a zip file. I actually think that you have a bit of a bad attitude if this is what you think is really stupid. (And yes, I know how to unzip a zip file. And yex, I've done Technical Support. Personally, I don't think that people are nearly as stupid as most people who do Technical Support think they are. Yes, there are a few funny things, but for the most part, I'm surprised by how quickly people have caught on to all of the complexity that has been added to our lives.)

And why should I care? :evilgrin:

Seriously, though... :yoiks:

I work with computers ok. People? Not so much. ;)

So, I tell her to reboot by shutting her computer off, waiting 15 seconds or so and turning it back on. She calls me back an hour later "it's still frozen on the same spot." I ask her to describe exactly what she did. "Well, I turned off the thing on my desk that says Viewsonic then turned it back on after 15 seconds."

I explained that what she had done was just turn off her monitor, not the computer. She responds with "well, on my computer at home, one button turns it all off." It took me 5 more minutes to get her to tell me that her home computer was actually a laptop. . . of course only one button turned it all off.

GRRRRR.

Then there was the lady whose only explanation of her problem was "my typewriter thingy is broken."

..when she warmed it in the over for about 2-3 minutes.

Needless to say we know where this story is going

tidbit to begin with. :rofl:

(No..don't go there) are usually fairly kind and somewhat hip to stuff.
The ones that don't have a clue usually are aware of that fact.
I just tell them..."Hey..I didn't know beans about operating systems once either.." :)

I'd like to recommend that you get a higher salary. :loveya:

I know he appreciates nice things from Nice People...

Yes, they forgot the other ones so often I took away their ability to choose. And yes I'm the type of guy who will open your drawer or lift your keyboard and take the post-it note that you wrote the password on.

The chassis can only be fabricated from stock sizes.

customer who is a friggin whiz with digital photos and video. The woman uses Pinnacle Studio 8 like she was born to it.


Then again, I have 23 year old customers who, also, can't unzip a file or open a pdf.

Takes all kinds.

YOU'RE WELCOME!

"So do I have to put all my stuff on again?"

"No"

"But you just took my memory"

"Your files are on your hard drive"

"Huh?"

Waited until 7:30 for the user to call me back. She never did. Until I get off the subway, and I get an e-mail from her. I had to unzip the files myself and send them to her one by one. BTW, this was my second user this week that didn't understand zip files.

I was on a greyhound bus once, years ago, long before wireless networking became common, piddling around in Photoshop on a laptop. This high-school kid in the seat behind me goes, "Dude, are you surfing the internet on that thing?"

My favorite is the (probably apochryphal) tale about the guy who calls because his automatic coffee-cup holder stopped ejecting when he hits the button.

The majority of us know what we need to know about tech/mechanical things, and no more. That doesn't make us "stupid."

If you come to me with an automotive question — let's say your brake pedal feels spongy — and I tell you to bleed the wheel cylinders and you say "What's that?" are you stupid?

I wish I had a dollar for every time someone called me at my old job and asked, "How do I get something in the paper?" Often, they seemed puzzled when I told them they could e-mail it, fax it, send it by postal mail or bring it in. People have told me, "I thought you had to pay to get a story in the paper." Are these people stupid? No. They simply don't know, and I wouldn't expect them to. It's not their job.

We all know only what we've learned, and what we've learned is what interests us or what we need to know to get by. There's much more that we don't know, but that only means we haven't learned it.

:toast: Well said.

trying to figure out what she meant. :shrug:

I mean, god, can't you ever get the computer to do what it's supposed to?

Okay, like, someone knocks on my door. I hit "enter." Do you think they come in? Noooo. They just stand there and keep knocking.

Or they run out of coffee in the breakroom, so I just go back to my desk and hit "function." Hah, what a joke. I feel nothing. NOTHING.

Or I see my boss coming at me, and he looks mad. So I hit "escape." I pound on it, even. "Escape!" "Escape!" "Escape!" And what happens? NOT A GODDAMN THING! Five minutes later I'm sitting there getting my ass chewed out.

So you IT people got NO RIGHT to laugh at us when you can't even do your own stupid jobs!

Morans!

:rofl:

That's was great, funny stuff!
The Professor

I shoulda been a comedian, I tell ya.

I woulda been a contenda!

:thumbsup:

Prt Scr? (Private Scrotum? Passionate Screed?) And when I press "Home" - jeez - I'm still not there.

:rofl: all - exceptionally good laugh at 2:10 a.m.!!!

saying that the mouse didn't seem to be working. gentle pressure applied to the back of his hand solved his problem.

to be fair the guy had never used a computer before. I can dimly remember the time when I hadn't used one myself, it was a very long yime ago, and try not to rip into people for doing something dumb. You have to start somewhere.

some of the people who have posted in this thread. I'm a technical person, and I've done Technical Support work. Why would people understand that memory isn't where files are stored until they need to learn this at some point, or why would someone know how to unzip a file until they need to learn this? What's with the attitude? Why do you laugh at your customers or fellow workers for things that a reasonable person wouldn't consider to be stupid? Personally, I think that it has to do with lack of self esteem. If it makes you feel better about yourself by putting other people down because you happen to know something that they don't (even though it's your field of expertise), that doesn't say much about you as a person or as an employee. Why do you think you're getting paid?

Flame on if you need to, but what I'm saying is true.

BUT, turning their computer off is not one of those tasks. When you've been with the company for 15 years and using a computer for 14 of those years, knowing how to turn it off is a bit rudimentary.

those "idiots" IT people deliver service to often do very important things LIKE BRING IN MUCHO CASH SO THE COMPANY CAN KEEP OPERATING.

IT support (difference btw that and the IT execs), admins, support staff are largely expendable bottom feeders. and i am in that class.

your typical "idiot pool" of users do what is required to keep the business going (bring in $$$$$). IT/support staff are there TO MAKE MORE VALUABLE PEOPLES' LIVES EASIER. and don't take that personally: since we are all basically line items on an excel spreadsheet, it isn't hard to figure that those in cubes aren't as valuable to an organization as those with offices. don't be suprised if they can't open a .zip file: they're probably worrying about their sales volume or some such silly stuff.

is not my job.

I personally think that people in Technical Support don't get enough respect. However, the OP shows that many don't give respect either.

back to the days of punch cards. Work in a University Datacenter and get all kinds of "Id10t" calls.

The one that pops immediately to mind. A student called over the winter break complaining that whenever she tried to dial in, all she would get was some womens answering machine. Demanded to know why we changed the modem pool number and didn't tell anyone. Needless to say, we hadn't changed the number. She had gone home to St. Louis for winter break and hadn't realized that the area code was different.

I am one of those "stupid" users you guys are still talking about. At least I know how you guys really feel when I say, I'm really sorry I don't know how to do what you just asked me and the tech say's Oh it's OK. Now I know they are really doing this :eyes:. :shrug: :cry: :sarcasm: :rofl:

I'm sorry, but look at the world around you. We live in a highly technologically advanced world. Computers have become the primary means of communication. We are on a message board are we not? Knowing how to unzip a zip file is rudimentary knowledge. Everyone that uses a computer should know how to do that. IT literacy is just as important today as reading literacy.

file with what they do on a computer. I don't know what you do, but zip files aren't that common, in my opinion. You have said that anyone who doesn't know how to unzip a zip file is stupid. That's really arrogant, and I'm surprised to hear this attitude from someone who's a member of DU.

Also, I think that it's wrong to equate the people on this message board with the average computer user. I think that the average computer user is someone like my retired mother, my husband who is in Social Services, or my niece who works at a retail store. However, I'd say that many, many members of DU don't know how to open a zip file. You've now labeled them as stupid. Why would you do that?

I think that your attitude is why people are intimidated by computers. Nobody wants to feel as though they're going to be judged as being stupid because they don't know everything that there is to know about computers. People tend to learn what they need to know when they need to know it. That's not stupid.

I'm very good at Windows and UNIX, and I just got a Mac. I'm an an absolute newbie on the Mac. There are so many basic things that I don't yet know how to do on my Mac. That doesn't make me stupid. Luckily, I'm a computer programmer, so I have enough self-confidence in reference to computers to just throw off your charges of stupid, but your charges probably really adversely affect many people's feeling about themselves when their intelligence has nothing to do with their knowledge of how to open a damn stupid zip file!

Aprox. half the people in this country don't have access to a computer. Of those that do, half of those haven't had any sort of formal training on it, the box, monitor and keyboard were set down in front of them, along with an instruction manual if they were lucky, and they were expected to figure it out. Quite frankly given those numbers I think the population is doing pretty damn well in using this technology.

And people who are uneducated in such technology do have to ask a whole lot of stupid questions, thus you get these people calling you. That is your job, educating the non-computer savvy amongst us. But hey, as the years roll along, more and more people will become computer literate, almost from birth, and your job will become easier, easier to the point where you won't have a job. Think about it.

SQL> SELECT * FROM users WHERE clue > 0;

No rows returned.

SQL>

If he was standing up, then his login failed. Sitting down at his desk though, he was able to login without problems.

Straight up. No joke. Tech support didn't believe it, until they saw it. It was true.

It was ages before they found out the problem.

Two of his keys were swapped around. When he was sitting, he touch typed and got his password right. When he was standing up, he looked at the keyboard, and typed his password wrong.

"I forgot my password" (this from a person so stupid that "password" IS his password to start Windows)

"The internet is slow today can you speed it up?" This was actually asked of me about a week ago.

a few weeks ago. Don't think you have enough disc space, I said, and the download would take forever.

And Im not a tech guy, although some of my clients rely on me about every problem they encounter, and I've seen pretty much of some of the stories posted here myself.

Last thing I did was to re-install a whole wireless LAN network for a client after he couldn't access any online services for days. He was just helpless, and I was still looking for a configuration problem he might have caused by wildly clicking on things.

After one hour, I remembered the very basics: "Turn it off, then turn it on again." I did this with the modem. Problem solved.

So, who was the real stupid one? Me.

Let's be fair: The technology today is forced upon people, if they want it or not, if they understand everything or not. Doesn't matter. No one of you IT pros would question anyone with a broken car going to a car garage to have it fixed, yet you seem to scream about people having computer problems. Be fair and do your job. That's what you're paid for, isn't it? My 5 cents.

DELETE FROM IT_pros WHERE arrogancy = "1"

Put yourself through some form of computer training if you're applying for a job that requires computer skills.

Or HR could have the fingers pointed at them for hiring the useless masses.

Or the general public should be made to understand that some things aren't simple, tasks will still take an amount of effort whether you do it on paper or on a computer - and that if you expect a computer to do your entire day's worth of work with a single click you A) suck and B) need the training mentioned above.

Being an IT person myself, often flabbergasted by "stupidity"... I spent the weekend helping my father fix simple things on his computer, and he's a damn smart guy in all other ways. He had a POP3 server configured for outgoing mail, should have been an SMTP server. He couldn't figure out why, when he double-clicked a word attachment, it opened up in notepad...it was because the attachment had additional periods in the filename before the .doc extension. He had an open access wireless network, I added WEP security. Easy for me to know these things, but should we really expect EVERYONE to be an expert?

I couldn't point out a carburetor under my hood, but I don't think a mechanic would ridicule me for that.

It came down from on high: "A7 says you must have this new computer to be compatible with their operation."

No one knew who A7 was.

None of us, even people who'd been in other units, had ever reported to A7.

As far as we knew A7 didn't exist. But A7 said we needed this new computer so it was coming in. "And you'll receive a Mobile Training Team visit to help prepare your people to work on the new system."

Three days later we got this huge message that had a complete list of the equipment in the new system. There were PCs running Xenix, a small mainframe, a couple of cluster controllers, two printers, an unbelievable amount of cable, desks, chairs, just everything you'd ever want. They sent us the specs on the mainframe so we could clear out space in the computer room for it. No problem. A7 gets what they want.

Two days after that we got another message: "Your new system is due to arrive Tempelhof Central Airport (this was the US Air Force base in Berlin at the time) on {date/time group}. Due to a shortage of components your mainframe will not accompany this shipment. We expect it to be delivered to your site within six weeks. However, we still want you to install the system as far as you can so you'll be ready when it comes in. We will notify the Mobile Training Team as to the status of your equipment delivery." We went to TCA, picked up the equipment, hauled it to the shop and started putting it in. Thanks to the powers of black coffee and kung fu grip on the cable crimpers, we installed it in a few days.

Two days after that, the MTT came in. They were there when I got to work, and the first thing out of the guy's mouth was "I've been trying to log into your mainframe for the last two hours. I've tried everything, but nothing seems to work."

I asked the trainer if he'd tried going down to the computer room. "What could I do different in the computer room that I couldn't do from up here? I have superuser privileges."

'Well.....you could have seen the big empty hole it's supposed to be in. It isn't even built yet.'

Because if he's able to use the system without it being installed, then I'd be damned impressed.

The majority of the IT people in my company know far less about computers than I do. They can be counted on to consistently make any problem worse. :silly:

for designing systems that only IT people can figure out without actually taking a course on the damn thing.

doesn't even know how to use their own program!! :rofl:

Look up to message 56 on this thread--the nonexistent mainframe the guy tried to log into?

When the system was being designed, they asked a committee from A7, whoever in hell they are, what it should do. A7 said they wanted to create databases and create/edit reports.

Naturally, the numbnuts in the programming suite heard the word "edit" and gave us a choice of two programs: vi and ex.

What SHOULD A7 have told them we wanted? Because what they really wanted was a word processor, and that's not what they got.

uh huh

Make yourself more popular, look down at all the "idiots," be more condescending, you deserve to be, after all, your area of specialized knowledge is the most important one on earth, and no matter how competent and knowledgeable someone else might be in their field, they are an idiot if they don't know what you know.

Charming.

I'm sick to the back teeth of the arrogance around here from the IT people. I'd like to see them put as much effort into getting along with their fellow human beings as they do into being snarky little twerps who think the sun shines out of their asses because they were lucky enough to be born after the silicon revolution and not before it.

Get over yourselves - arrogant pricks and prickesses.
:grr::grr::grr::grr::grr::grr::grr::grr::grr::grr::grr::grr::grr::grr::grr::grr::grr::grr::grr::grr::grr:

The most memorably simplistic user error I encountered was when I was called down to see why the HR Manager's computer wasn't working. (My first day in IT...On my way down to the office, a troubleshooting sequence going through my mind.) It wasn't just the computer, it was the monitor, the printer - everything was down. A plug had come out of the socket. Took twenty seconds to identify the problem and 3 seconds to fix...

This wasn't a matter of dealing with someone with no IT knowledge, this was dealing with someone who didn't realize an piece of electrical equipment needed a power source to work....

Still chuckle about that one....