h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Why do all the stupid users wait until I am in the office by myself before ringing up with their daft queries? Yesterday's record was held by Jeannie who claimed she couldn't type any numbers on her screen. She didn't have her num lock on!

More to the point, why are Stupid Users so proud of their inabilities? In the UK, being able to program your VCR is social suicide. Luddites abound everywhere, and they think it's clever! I hate them all.

I read a very good article, which I will now fail to cite because I can't remember who wrote it, which pointed out that 'literary' types are quite happy to parade their total ignorance of anything scientific as if it were a badge of honour, but they wouldn't dream of saying they were ignorant of, for example, Shakespeare, and would deride a scientist for doing as much. It does seem strange that apparently intellectual people are happy, even proud of their ignorance of other fields.

I just take comfort in the fact that, if I so wished, I could deconstruct the writings of Umberto Eco, but I'll bet Melvyn Bragg really sucks at C++

I suck at C++, and I've never heard of the other guy you mentioned. However, I'm not at all proud of the fact. I CAN do a bit of VBA, and I know enough about Thomas Hardy to wish he'd had therapy at a young age. Is that alright? Oh, yeah, and I can program my VCR because its got one of those videoplus thingies on it.

You know how hardware types will always blame the software for any problems & the software types blame the hardware - but get them together down the pub after work & they'll all agree that the problem is definitely the wetware at the keyboard.


;^)#

"Do you still have the box the computer was shipped in?"

Maybe its just me but are all IT technicians that are employed at twice the rate you are, complete ignorants - no offence to good IT blokes there are some of you - as whenever my computer shags itself first on the blame list os me until someone who actually knows what they're doing tells me just to reboot and relax.

No, it's just 99% of calls to helpdesks and technical service departments are down to user incompetence rather than a hardware or software problem. That's why they always start with the assumption that the user has done something wrong.

OK fair enough, actually thinking it through I may be one of the stupid users you mentioned but Iam proud of the fact that I can program my video recorder and I take a small amount of pleasure explaining to people the basics of a VCR i.e. you don't have to watch the channel that your recording for it to work.

True story - I once spoke to a user who said
"The program isn't working right, it won't do XYZ".
I walked the user through the program steps & it worked right. Anything different I asked, any reboots or anything? Has the wind changed? "No, nothing different" said the user.

I went away & spent 2 days looking for the bug in the program & trying to replicate the problem.
I couldn't.

So I rang the user back. After an hour on the phone it transpired that when the 'puter had asked "Are you sure you want to do this?" the user had responded "NO" - coz they weren't really sure & didn't want it to be their fault if it was wrong - the 'puter should have known if it was right to do.

I have been reluctant to answer the phone ever since.

;^)#

LOL!

Mind if I borrow that one?

Borrow away.

;^)#

Thank you.

"Truth has its enemies, as Sagan documents. But, perhaps because he doesn't live in Britain, he overlooks a separate problem faced by science in our culture: a philistine double standard. When The Daily Telegraph reported a survey finding that a high percentage of adults think the Sun goes round the Earth, the then Editor inserted, "Doesn't it? Ed." If a survey found that 50 per cent of adults believe Shakespeare wrote The Iliad, what Editor would find it funny to insert a parenthetic "Didn't he? Ed."? That's the double standard."

http://www.the-times.co.uk/news/pages/tim/96/02/15/timfeabks03007.html?000999

Ignore Umberto Eco. Watch the Slater/Connery film adaptation and regard it as something to enjoy, not something to get mad at for sucking ass.

IT helpline people have it hard. If they say, for instance, upon finding that the user is trying to get their computer to function during a powercut "Why don't you call back when you're being less f**king stupid?" they get sacked. Many people are using computers that have no right to use a something as technologically simple as a toaster which is, essentially, one wire. Although it is handy that Microsoft has to upkeep the largest network of helplines to balance the vast amount of "product" they shift, thus slowing the rate at which they are taking over the world.
With the advent of the videophone (if it ever materialises in a popular form) the helpline industry will simply have to cease. No-one would call if they could see the exasperation and contempt in the face of the staff.

But it would be handy so that someone who knew what they were doing could check that the 'puter was both plugged in & turned on.


;^)#

We once created the hubble telescope award for technological innovation and gave it to a bloke called Harry O'Leary (It's ok he'll never read this) because he kept complaining that the printer wouldn't work and what did this message on the diplay mean anyway. When we asked what the message was he told us it said "Paper out". Even when we showed him how to refill the paper tray he would still ring up every time it ran out of paper!

It's a small world after all.

By the by, my printer has stopped working...




;^)#

Hmm.. as we suspected - Mr O'Leary is a complete waste of disk space and bandwidth.