Tech support story...

[JustADude]

I'm in Springfield, MO myself. Uber-geek, but not a professional techie.

[technical.angel]

Did you change your location recently, or am I just stupid?

The Missouri crew is now, offically, insanely huge.

[Tigress]

One very important policy that I used MANY times in that job (especially because I had just gotten out of some tough security jobs and wasn't about to let someone act like an ass toward me) was that of "unproductivity." Basically, if a customer refuses to continue with your troubleshooting, you have the right to inform the customer that the call is becoming unproductive.

It's a basic warning that lets the customer know "Hey, you called us. You want support, so fucking cooperate or else."

One phrase I've learned to dread at my job is "I don't have time for this!" Which I quickly respond with "Is there a better time for you?"

Usually, when they "don't have time", it means that the nurse / technician is a lazy twit that wants someone to come on site to do everything for her. By asking her if there is a better time, I'm telling him/her that it's not going to happen. Not without some basic troubleshooting at the very least. And by not cooperating, that "roomful of patients" s/he's complaining about may be there for a lot longer than she wants.

Even when they decide to let me walk them through stuff, some of them still fight me every step of the way. And I start thinking, "Look, you're a nurse. You have to go to school to be one. I know you're not that stupid. So stop pretending that you are, dammit!"

[JustADude]

Did you change your location recently, or am I just stupid?

I just never had it listed before. You're not hallucinating.

Shame everyone else seems to be out St.Louis-way.

[gunsage]

Example one customer's problem sound like a virus, when I said I would be testing for such and went to put the disk in he grabbed my hand claiming he never could have a virus.

*Cue Soprano's OH!*

Yeah, that would've been me backhanding the customer then going "Oh, I'm sorry! I forgot to mention I'm a ninja. And ninja's...have reflexes!"

[xlr82xs]

Ah yes, the "It worked once, so it must never go bad" customer.

On that note, i've had customers at the netcafe i work at replace our nvidia drivers with the ati drivers they use at home "because they are better" and then moan at me that suddenly the monitor isn't displaying anything


or of course the ones that use one of the frequency locking programs (HertzLock etc etc) to force the monitor to display at some random refresh rate, then either try and force cs (they all seem to be cs players for some reason ) to display at 120 hz (instant "WTF PEBKAC unsupported frequency" message on the monitor) or then complain that the game isn't reporting 100fps (which breaks my mind, because even if the game is sending data at 4000fps the monitor itself will only be displaying at 72hz (or whatever they locked it at) anyway)

[technical.angel]

Shame everyone else seems to be out St.Louis-way.

I grew up thataway, but now I'm living near the middle of the state.

[technical.angel]

On that note, i've had customers at the netcafe i work at replace our nvidia drivers with the ati drivers they use at home "because they are better" and then moan at me that suddenly the monitor isn't displaying anything

Wait, wait, wait, replacing drivers at a netcafe?

And you don't have the computers locked down?

[Geek King]

Wait, wait, wait, replacing drivers at a netcafe?

And you don't have the computers locked down?

That's my question too. Any new software should have to be installed by a site admin. If they want it, they ask for it. Politely.