People who don’t read error messages or do not take the time to see what is going on and just come to the technician/mechanic/doctor saying “it doesn’t work” or some half-assed hypothesis piss me off so bad.
I know that at some point we all do a little of this in our lifes, but some people don’t seem to be able to read one goddamn paragraph ever.
but some people don’t seem to be able to read one goddamn paragraph ever.
I had a problem with my car. It felt strange while driving. Made some unusual noise. Then a bit later the motor warning light came on.
I went to the garage, told them about the warning light and what I noticed the time before, what I suspected and such. A short while after the mechanic came to me and asked for a few details, as my description “wasn’t helpful” and the repair would be much faster with more details that told them where to look etc. Turns out the guy who checked in my car only noted “a warning light is on” and nothing else of my ramblings.
So sometimes it’s also paying attention to what might be important and relaying information.
To be fair, I forgot an important bit of context. I was on vacation abroad when my car broke on a Friday afternoon. Our hotel room was only available until Saturday morning as everything was booked out for the weekend because of a huge event in the city. They asked me just to get a first indication and not waste time with random troubleshooting, so that I could get home and get everything checked completely with a more relaxed schedule.
From my view, it was a sensible thing to do. But the literal translation on their report they showed me was just “the warning light is lit” - not even which (though that is quite obvious, when you start the engine)
At this point, if a student brings in a laptop, explains what doesn’t work, and leaves me to diagnose and fix it, I consider it a good report because it means that the student didn’t get any overconfident ideas. If a student also explains what they were doing when a thing failed, I’m giving them preferential treatment.
Then there are comp-sci students who attempted something. I had one who disassembled their laptop and tore a ribbon cable. I had one who plugged in a random mis-matched RAM stick that turned out to be busted and wondered why Windows kept crashing. I had one who completely fucked up the registry. I had one who wanted to install Ubuntu for dual booting and accidentally wiped the entire SSD.
I would rather spend an hour babysitting their computers than an entire afternoon un-fucking something they thought they could handle. If it were up to me, I would restrict the crap out of their user accounts, but the faculty leaders insist, against empirical evidence, that they’re smart enough.
In any case I do not mind so much the “I should try to fix this on my own first”. If it’s your own device and accept the risks/consequences. But if it is a work/university provided laptop then it makes no sense to attempt to fix it on one’s own.
I can feel your pain trying to fix/repair something you have to figure out what kind of stupid stuff was done to the device.
They’re provided by the faculties at the university’s expense, but the students have admin rights and very little supervision. Two fairly expensive laptops have been stolen by exchange students during the three years I’ve worked there – they simply never bothered to return them, and we only realized it during the yearly inventory check. But fixing the asset tracking system (or implementing one in the first place) is not what I’m getting paid for.
To be fair, techs don’t usually talk to the people who can read, so they’re only ever going to see idiots. There are competent people in the world, they’ll just never need your help, so you don’t see them.
Last time I called tech support, it was for a Dell, and I interrupted their speech to tell them I already looked up the diagnostic. They asked which numbers were lit on the error panel to confirm I had the right diagnostic, and passed me directly to who I needed to talk to. I only called tech support because the cpu socket died and I was putting in a warranty claim, otherwise they would have never even heard from me because I could just install a new motherboard myself.
People who don’t read error messages or do not take the time to see what is going on and just come to the technician/mechanic/doctor saying “it doesn’t work” or some half-assed hypothesis piss me off so bad.
I know that at some point we all do a little of this in our lifes, but some people don’t seem to be able to read one goddamn paragraph ever.
I had a problem with my car. It felt strange while driving. Made some unusual noise. Then a bit later the motor warning light came on.
I went to the garage, told them about the warning light and what I noticed the time before, what I suspected and such. A short while after the mechanic came to me and asked for a few details, as my description “wasn’t helpful” and the repair would be much faster with more details that told them where to look etc. Turns out the guy who checked in my car only noted “a warning light is on” and nothing else of my ramblings.
So sometimes it’s also paying attention to what might be important and relaying information.
ah well, then that is them being stubborn and being unable to troubleshoot.
To be fair, I forgot an important bit of context. I was on vacation abroad when my car broke on a Friday afternoon. Our hotel room was only available until Saturday morning as everything was booked out for the weekend because of a huge event in the city. They asked me just to get a first indication and not waste time with random troubleshooting, so that I could get home and get everything checked completely with a more relaxed schedule.
From my view, it was a sensible thing to do. But the literal translation on their report they showed me was just “the warning light is lit” - not even which (though that is quite obvious, when you start the engine)
At this point, if a student brings in a laptop, explains what doesn’t work, and leaves me to diagnose and fix it, I consider it a good report because it means that the student didn’t get any overconfident ideas. If a student also explains what they were doing when a thing failed, I’m giving them preferential treatment.
Then there are comp-sci students who attempted something. I had one who disassembled their laptop and tore a ribbon cable. I had one who plugged in a random mis-matched RAM stick that turned out to be busted and wondered why Windows kept crashing. I had one who completely fucked up the registry. I had one who wanted to install Ubuntu for dual booting and accidentally wiped the entire SSD.
I would rather spend an hour babysitting their computers than an entire afternoon un-fucking something they thought they could handle. If it were up to me, I would restrict the crap out of their user accounts, but the faculty leaders insist, against empirical evidence, that they’re smart enough.
Are these laptops provided by the faculty?
In any case I do not mind so much the “I should try to fix this on my own first”. If it’s your own device and accept the risks/consequences. But if it is a work/university provided laptop then it makes no sense to attempt to fix it on one’s own.
I can feel your pain trying to fix/repair something you have to figure out what kind of stupid stuff was done to the device.
They’re provided by the faculties at the university’s expense, but the students have admin rights and very little supervision. Two fairly expensive laptops have been stolen by exchange students during the three years I’ve worked there – they simply never bothered to return them, and we only realized it during the yearly inventory check. But fixing the asset tracking system (or implementing one in the first place) is not what I’m getting paid for.
To be fair, techs don’t usually talk to the people who can read, so they’re only ever going to see idiots. There are competent people in the world, they’ll just never need your help, so you don’t see them.
Last time I called tech support, it was for a Dell, and I interrupted their speech to tell them I already looked up the diagnostic. They asked which numbers were lit on the error panel to confirm I had the right diagnostic, and passed me directly to who I needed to talk to. I only called tech support because the cpu socket died and I was putting in a warranty claim, otherwise they would have never even heard from me because I could just install a new motherboard myself.
edit: speeling
They’ll refuse to attempt to understand the problem then get mad when they get ripped off.