IT Support

[greencreeper]

I know this forum is stuffed full of IT support type people, so share with us your tips, tricks and anecdotes. I'm doing 2nd line IT support, but I'm still learning the systems and what not. I can't wait to start handling calls

[Russ]

While at ntl I spent 5 minutes on a call (I know 5 minutes doesn't seem long but try to picture this...) trying to get this guy to right-click on 'My Computer' so I could check his system resources. Each time he tried to do it, he would tell me he could see "C drive, E drive" etc which evidently told me he was left-clicking. I made sure his mouse configuration was the right way around and it was fine but no matter what I asked him to do, he seemed to have problems right-clicking. Anyway, I eventually found his system resources another way but it was bugging me - why could he not use the right-click feature?

Eventually I cracked it - he told me that when I said 'right-click' he though I meant he was to use his right hand.....

[greencreeper]

Originally Posted by Russ D

Eventually I cracked it - he told me that when I said 'right-click' he though I meant he was to use his right hand.....

I hope they're all not that bad. God. What have I done

[Russ]

Oh no, that sort of thing is very uncommon in my experience.


Although another good one was when I asked a guy to click on My Computer.

His reply was "I don't know where your computer is".

[greencreeper]

It's mostly Americans and Europeans with poor English that'll end up with I'm trying to find out how to say "I don't speak French" I've got the "Goodbye" bit

[Stuart]

Well, this actually happened to a friend. I work for a Uni doing student support. One of our guys got called in to sort out the then head of school's computer.

Basically, every time a window opened on his PC, it closed without giving him a chance to do anything. My friend was trying to eliminate the cause of the problem over the phone. He couldn't.

Eventually, he couldn't find a solution, so he went to the Head's office to have a look. He sat there for about 10 minutes trying to solve it, then realised there was a book sitting on the "Esc" key. He moved the book, and all was OK.

[Stuart]

Then of course, there was one user who plugged a 9V mains adaptor into the speaker output on her soundcard and wondered why the PC was smoking.

[swoop101]

One great time saver is the shortcut for system properties

windows key/break

every IT support person I have told this has found it a godsend, until you find somebody with a different keyboard that is.

[50420]

i took a call from a customer back in january of this year, the guy was very abusive from the moment i took the call.. he werent happy that he had no internet connection....
after nearly twenty minutes ... and the customer not accepting that the issue was with his pc...i gave my name and ext number and reluctantly had to terminate the call.
during the twenty or so minutes i managed to get information from the guy to the effect that he had recently purchased a brand spankin new pc for just over £1000.. .. the pc had been setup in the corner of a room... which the guy thought seemed a bit bare.. so to make it a more pleasurable work area, the guy had put a hanging plant there... directly above the monitor... can u see where this is going yet anyways the first day the guy watered the plant...water seeped through... and into the monitor.. BANG and lots o smoke...
now the guys train of thought was that ntl..as a service provider.. were duty bound to fix this ...ASAP... as he could not get onto the net !!! and no amount of explaining things to the cmr could get him to see sense..
hate those type of calls....

[cookie_365]

I'm not sure if anyone's posted a link to this elsewhere, but here goes:

http://rinkworks.com/stupid/

Now, some of it is just smugly laughing at people who don't have detailed knowlege about computers (why it should be funny that someone doesn't know that '486' and 'pentium' are mutually exclusive isn't too clear) but some of it really is stupid .

I once had someone (on a different floor) phone up asking why her laptop wouldn't connect to the network; couldn't get to the bottom of it & had to get up off my backside to look at it myself. I know you're always supposed to ask first if it's actually plugged in but you never do because, well, it's so obvious ...........

[greencreeper]

One of the things that worries me is that half the stuff I would do to fix a problem, probably isn't available to an ordinary login, such as repairing devices and connections. I can remotely connect to their machine, but only if the problem isn't a networking one (obviously) but they're the trickiest problems to solve I'll be dealing with employees, so hopefully abuse will be minimal

Plugging power into a non-power socket is so easy to do, especially when you can't access the back of the machine, and I've done the book on key thing - the space bar. I just couldn't work it out

I've made a note of the shortcut swoop provided. Cool Didn't know that. You learn something every day

I'm despairing at the tales told so far

[Stuart]

There was also a technician (part time) who I used to work with who told me a student wasn't able to write CDs in one of the PCs I am responsible for. I went to have a look only to find she was sticking the blank CD-R into the video recorder on top of the desk, rather than the PC under it.

Before you say "that's an easy mistake", it may well be, but the video was clearly labelled "JVC DV/VHS Video Cassette Recorder", and while it is a similar size to the PCs we have in one of the labs, it looks quite different.

Then there was a lecturer who complained that ten keyboards and mice had been nicked. I was rather worried about this, and went to have a look. Obviously, I was running the lab, and it would have looked rather bad if a student had managed to nick ten keyboards and mice.

Now, some of our machines are configured for video editing (these now have the JVC VCRs attached, but didn't at this time). One thing these machines did have (and still do) is external video monitors.

The lecturer saw ten of these video monitors and, despite the fact they have no connections apart from a power and video connection, he assumed that they were computers.

[greencreeper]

My colleague (there's only two of us) was having trouble with a CD drive. I told him it was a floppy drive, hence the trouble. But no - wouldn't have it. I'm the newbie and what do I know huh. I let him flounder - the hard lessons are the best lessons. After a bit I opened a command prompt and typed A: and the drive light came on. Then he accepted it was a floppy drive. I've encountered this quite a bit over the years, either because I'm a newbie or because I'm young. Did I mention that my colleague has a degree and MCSE?

[Chris W]

Best piece of advice i could give would be to learn at least two ways of doing everything that you need people to do- to use Russ's example, if a person is having problems right clicking on my computer, it can all be done with left clicks.... start-> settings-> control panel-> system gives you the same info as a right click on my computer.

If a person cannot manage to highlight and delete everything in the address bar of internet explorer, press F6 and it highlights it so you can just get them to type over it, or F5 refreshes a page, windows key + m will minimize all the windows etc etc

Knowing two ways to do things can save you time, as you learn quicker ways to do things, and can also save frustration of you and the caller- they will get frustrated if you try to get them to do the same thing over and over again that they can't do, and you will get frustrated with asking.

Good luck with the job anyway it can be very amusing... stressful... infuriated... satisfying... so enjoy

MB

Do not say press control alt and delete.

You will get someone asking where the control key is.

To be fair, second line support probably isnt going to be as brain dead as first, Firstline should get all the people that cant do the basic tasks and solve the problem with first time fixes.
Where I work the Second line support team only contact the customer if they need any more info or the customer to do something. Just remember avoid techie jargon, not only is it mind numbingly boring but its also a poor excuse to confuse the not so tech savvy peeps.

As for saying I do not speak french......

Je nais parle le francaise
Parlez vous anglais?

I do not speak French, do you speak English? (I think)