Discussion on:

The top ten peeves of a support tech

I agree!!! I thought that you had borrowed my brain to write this article. My tech and I have had every one of these peeves in the last week. I am printing this off and posting it in the breakroom which will bring on pet peeve #8 - nobody bothers to read anything.
#2 makes me want to say: "If you know how to fix it, why did you call me??"
#3 makes me want to hit my head on the wall. Two days after I fix it, they will say "I KNOW I didn't download anything. Do you think it could have happened when I played Yahoo games at lunch? I KNOW I said NO to download."
#4 makes me go ballistic when they say "call your network administrator" I AM the network administrator with over 20 years of experience.
#9 happened and we had to listen to the employee play kissy face with her latest main squeeze. When she FINALLY got off the phone, she said "hurry up and fix this -- I have WORK to do!" Talk about being PEEVED!
Good job! I LOVED it!

Is having to scoop up the mess created by another techie who couldn't be bothered to:

1. Read the manual (We ask our users to; what makes us soooo different?)

2. Raise and wait for the approval of a Change Record before making 500+ changes to Active Directory at 08:45 on a Monday morning, then hides when replication kicks in and the network grinds to a halt (I kid you not)

3. Doesn't bother to document anything, then moans at other people's documentation.

4. Doesn't understand clustering, but dives in like a maniac when there is a little problem and then causes a big problem. Especially when I'm on leave and then get called in by my Director to sort the resultant mess out.

5. Cannot accept they EVER make a mistake; everything is someone else's fault.

... and the Director who thinks the sun goes in every time the said techie pulls their trousers up.

I'd rather have 1,000 users who cause the problems listed in the article any day over the one techie who commits the above sins (and others like them).

These and many more are pretty much universal, I think. I have worked in some of the same situations and a few extras and found the same things from small tech shops to international corporations and private companies to government agencies. As people and Techs, we may deal with these things a bit differently, however, the situations remain the same. So, enjoy the little things and have a good laugh at the things our users do. After all, they are the reason we're here...

L8er
DA Walton

Working with the tech specialist from a different department.This is the worst. You install the new program, test with competent users, you create the documentation, train the specialist how to install and troubleshoot their program and as soon as it doesn't work it is a network issue
You show up and follow your bolded comments in the documentation and it works. Wow they just got the network fixed in time. Are we allowed to yell at them???

One of my biggest pet peeves is the failure to notice the blatantly obvious. I cannot begin to count how many times I have responded to the the question of "how do I save this?" by saying "you click on the save button"

When problems are blamed on IT in order to cover another persons blushes.
Once, while using a male merge style system for reporting, around 200 statements had to be written, so for the sake of speed, they were all written for one sex. Instead of simply replacing the name, and the titles (he, she, his , her) the person left them in.
A computer error the management agreed to say, and how was that supposed to reflect on me? 1 person looking after 1500 users.

Get a new job.

Where I work, we call it job security!

Aren't your number 1 and number 4 fairly incompatible?
I mean you complain about being treated like a user by outside tech support, but don't like it when a user acts like they know what they are doing.
One of my pet peeves is being a power user who knows how to diagnose problems, but doesn't have access to fix them, then having to try to convince the IT department to just fix the problem.

Just another perspective

Not all users are idiots. But you were not hired to work on
computer issues.
I have many users who want access to their system so they can
'fix' problems they encounter that they 'know' how to fix.
The company is not paying you thousands of dollars more than
the average IT person to fix IT issues. They would rather have
you dealing with matters that you are being paid to handle.

So you are an expert of your system at home - that is true. The
system at work - you would have to admit is someone else's
expertise.

True That... I'm feeling all of this!

You go to a client site on the 19th floor of a building that cost 10
bucks to park waiting in the lobby for 20 mins, so you can walk in
the office, look at the compter look at the device manager and ask
(went out to fix sound card tech support for the company said he
was missing drivers.) Every thing here looks fine ?, Stand up look
around Where are your Speakers? I NEED SPEAKERS? to have sound

The automatic assumption that since you are IT, you must know something about the HVAC in the office. Or that lugging computers makes you the Company Mule.

Yes. I only just got out of a tense session with a VIP client who expected me to know the phone number that external clients should use to initiate a conference call. Somebody 'stole' the documents detailing this and other numbers, apparently. Technical analyst, or local switchboard operator? Not so sure, now.

I was Self promoted to the Director of Paper movmenet. as well as my normal Director of Technology job.
printers use paper, paper comes in , users need paper, who brings it to them?

yeah..

I do.

nothing is nicer for them to call me when we get a new shipment in, to deliver it them.

Stated in P&P - Users are responsible for consumables.

Stated in P&P - Users are responsible for consumables.

experience has taught me that a particular large computer company (no names, but imagine a typical one that begins with D and might only have 3 other letters in the name) which has telephone hardware support, will quite properly respond in a 'by the book' manner. So - before I call them for support on one of their products, I make sure that I've run the diagnostic CD that came with the PC (you do need to keep them), I've unplugged this & that, rebooted, yadayadayada - and am ready to respond to any question or diagnostic instruction they might have. Get on first name terms straight away, ask the tech on the other end of the phone (usually in India or Malaysia) what the weather's like over there etc. & Bob is at least somebody's uncle - they're sending out a spare part within the next 48 hrs. Or an uber-tech with The Right Stuff, if you have Gold support and the problem is with a monstrous array of hard drives. Some small software support teams aren't always as predictable though and actually, sometimes I find that if I act like a helpless-but-willing-to-follow-instructions dumbass on the phone (and funnily enough it's scarily easy for me to do that), they don't get all uptight and techy (i.e. insecure & feel they have to prove something) - and away we go - they feel good that they've talked a dumbass through a sophisticated helpdesk call - and I walk away getting paid for the fix. Sweet as.

Oh yes - nearly forgot - I try & document the software fixes & include screenshots (takes longer, but boy is it worth it). Then - next time it happens (and it will...) - I'm ready, on the ball and looking like I know what's going on.

For the most part, I think you have a pretty good list, but I don't agree with #7 at all. I think it is important to have the desire to help coworkers while at work. Would you rather talk to them right after work when you want to go home? I don't find it annoying at all when users approach me about home problems. I am happy to hear that you left the interview as you would have definately not been the person for that job.

My delima is that our upper's (aka-Officers)really don't know half the time when it comes to IT related devices and tech support. They're, what I call, "The ones with doors",as I sit with all of my team in an area that I built for the 4 of us. Ok, here's the issue just because one user wines to their direct Officer they get what they want, right? Well yes they do, everytime and this to me is my pet peeve as this particular user has know idea how to use any of the devices they bring in and guess what, I'm the tech support for the device when it doesn't work! ARRRGGGH!

I do phone support.
I have had people tell me thay have already rebooted or they will fake a reboot.

What da!

I don't know if it's a full moon or what but in the last 2 weeks I've run into 3 users in corporate settings who refused to tell me their passowrd. All three had to find their supervisor to explain the situation, explain that they didn't understand why I might need it and what if....As though I'd be interested in the price of widgets once I left their premise.

As if I would be the least interested in knowing the password anyway, as I'm the one, as the administrator, who can just change it on a moments notice. I like when I go to a station and ask the user to type in their password and they ask me to turn away, like I care what their cheesy password is in the first place. Most of them have know clue how to even set a password let alone create a secure one.

I did 4 years of tech support with an ISP, and the Mac users expect you to know all bout their marginal OS.

Also advising them to turn off and on their router usually ges a "What good will that do?"
Then they do it, the DSL comes back on, and they ask " What did you do? "

( I just did some thinking for you ) I never said

"Great! That is the problem, you get a star! Now, since you must also know the solution, CLICK."

What a load of rubbish, if your job in support is so annoying, why do you do it?

The Golden Truth which keeps me coming in every day is the fact that I am paid quite well for helping people. Yes - some people are helpless, and will ask the same questions again and again, but they are in the minority, and they probably only lack confidence to try other things. Without these "peevish" people we would all be doing less interesting work, possibly even interfacing only with computers all day and having no contact with people; a short "road to purgatory".

Accept it; people will make mistakes,
enjoy it; people will be glad of your intervention,
don't flaunt it; they are probably more interesting and rounded than we are! Get to know them, get to help them and go home after your shift, happier, more fulfilled and a great deal better off in many ways.

Give thanks to Bill Gates, he produces less than perfect software, give thanks to IBM, Compaq, HP ... every day. Sing the praises of your users, they keep you in a good lifestyle. Stop whingeing and accept that the only stupid people are the ones who work in a job about which they whinge.

Join the Human race, we err, but oh oh oh what fun it can be!

My pet peeve is being called to a classroom by a teacher who insists that their mailbox is has been cleaned out and that they have nothing else to delete. They I find that they have about a gazillion folders under the inbox - duh - yes your mailbox is full!!