OK, Dharma posted an article about an ID ten T at SBC. Now I have a confession to make. I was once in end user support! {{{SHOCK}}}
Most of us engineers are not born as engineers but come up through the ranks. So we have to do our time at the help desk, or desktop support (at the source of the problem). So I am not going to slam Sukdav Sirra (her support person) that much as I have been there with the really totally clueless!
And I will make another confession. I was once a programmer! {{{Eeeeevvvvviiilllll}}}
Anyway, I am going to relate a couple (out of a file cabinet full!) instances of my experiences both as a Network Support person (on site) and help desk person (type the letter Y - no DON'T spell out the word type. Just press the Y).
I am reminded of this because Dan Kashel just wrote an article (http://dankaschel.joeuser.com/index.asp?aid=89096) where he related a day in the life, 21st century style.
Here is a day in the life, 1980s style! We installed a 400 user LAN system that the users insisted upon calling a LAND system in 9 floors of a 30 story office building. We had the top floors, and the 3rd sub basement!
After installing the NICs, drivers (those ancient things! anyone remember Interrupts?), and NOS software and verifying all we moved on to the next computer. Well in this case, being on what is essentially the 28th floor, I was doing the paperwork from the previous day, and get a call from some one on the sub level! His computer would not turn on (that happened in those days - these too). So I went all the way down to see him. He shows me his computer. See? he says?
I pushed the power switch. brinnng!!!!!! he had never known what it was! he had always turned it off at the power strip! Grrrrrrrr!!! (He retired 2 years later thank god!).
Then you had the Software support questions. We had one lady that if you told her exactly, keystroke by keystroke, what to type in, she would mess it up! Honest to god!
OK, now type the following: E D L I N (space) A U T O E X E C (period) B A T
Anyone want to guess what she typed? Uh huh! She typed out the words space and period!
Ever been on a tech support call as a customer and the other end goes dead for a few seconds? Sometimes they were not laughing! No, in this case I was beating the phone on the desk!
OK, case 3. We were running DRDOS 6, which meant (this is geeky) we could actually rename the autoexec.bat and config.sys files! Which meant that most software (which the user was not supposed to install themselves) would modify the wrong files and probably not run! Yippeee!
But there was this one user. He knew everything! So when Windows 3.0 came out (gagging sound), it would not run! (Contrary to Microsoft's illicit claim, DRDOS 6.0 worked fine with both Windows 3.0 and 3.1x) Of course not! It installed itself into dummy files not the real files!
But he did have the audacity to call us and tell us his computer was broken! It took about a New York minute to figure out what he had done, which of course he denied! Right! Bill Gates snuck in over night and did it!
In those days, a del dirname /r /s /e (I told you we had DRDOS 6.0!) took care of any rogue programs! I don't think he knows to this day why it would not work at work while it worked (????) fine at home!
OK, so Dharma, while you are very smart. I have been in the Business too long! There are a lot of dummies out there! I have the gray hair to prove it!
But now I just have to deal with idiot engineers, and blowhard big wigs! No more end users! I gradieated!