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[Continuation] Dear Users… (A thread for Sysadmin, Technical Support, and Help Desk people) Part 11

JoeMorgue said:
Not directly IT related but I'm onsite for an unrelated issue and they are installing a panic button for the security alarm at the front desk.

Which wouldn't be a problem exact the button is the exact same shape and size as the "buzz you into the door" button and is being installed RIGHT NEXT to said button and in all my years here I've never seen the front desk girl LOOK at the button to buzz someone in, just reach down and press it. Sure one button is red and one is white, but as I said the original button is only pressed by touch, they never look for it.

..... oh this gonna be good.
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Had this exact thing happen once in a company I worked for over 30 years ago. Even down to the colour of the buttons. And yep what they did was add the new button above the old one so it ended up in the position the "open door" button used to have. Poor receptionist would be on the phone, have someone in front of her and someone at the door so whilst juggling all this would reach down and.... BEEEEP!!! BEEEEP!!! thankfully it wasn't wired to make a call to the police or anything.
 
[January 2023]

Them: We want all this data to be run YTD every week!
Me: Are you sure? You'll be getting duplicated data for all the weeks between 1/1 and the current week.
Them: Yes! We NEEEEED it!!!!

[November 2023]

Them: Why is there so much data? You're sending us too much data!
 
I spent three days helping family members with IT problems over Xmas and I swear they were deliberately misunderstanding, so I’m happy to have come to the other side of the Channel for a few days where the only tech support necessary has been rebooting a router that had got confused.
 
I tried to log into the wrong system to handle my expenses before the end of the year. My IT guy was very polite in sending me the screenshot of where my expenses are in the system I was already logged into. I’m sure he’s bitching about some high paid VP who sat on thousands of dollars of expenses until the last week of the year and then couldn’t even find the right pull-down menu to click on.

I would buy him a beer next time I’m in the office, but that just adds to my IT problems re expenses.
 
My last couple of months were pretty good, because I didn't have to be so restrained.

Some of the comments that did escape my lips included:

"Have you considered not smashing everything with hammers?"

"You know, you're going to have to get used to looking up information in Confluence after I've gone, have you considered starting now, while I'm around and can help you?"

"You know that documentation that you claim to be 'in the code', it's probably a good time to publish it."
 
What is with people not understanding how time works? Someone wants data involving patient ages. Okay, easy enough, but is it their ages now that you want, or their ages then, at the time of their medical event? What do you mean, "what's the difference?" Unless every patient dies during their visit their ages will have changed since then. Are you killing all your patients, doctor? If so, you have bigger problems than not getting a spreadsheet from me.
 
Dearest User: we're all human, and we all make mistakes. That said, do not accuse me of making a serious mistake in an email copying several executives unless you are very, very sure that a) it is a mistake at all, and b) the mistake was mine and not yours. Because I am very professional, very polite, and very swift to reply all with the receipts to clearly prove the error was yours, not mine, and is there anything else I can help you understand? Thank you so much, have a great day.

Sincerely,
Tragic "C.Y.A." Monkey
 
I swear by the Old Gods and the New if I never have to touch another Apple device again, I will die a happy man
 
Odd; I feel the same way about Windows. I'm not an Apple fanboy, but I'm very happy to be using a Unix based system now I have a macbook.
 
Donal said:
I swear by the Old Gods and the New if I never have to touch another Apple device again, I will die a happy man
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Only had to help someone with an Apple device once.

He was a video editor at work and his Apple based workstation * had failed because he had too many files which were too large. (Couldn't fire up his 'desktop' view.)

He'd tracked down instructions for how to delete files manually, and had identified a bunch of old videos that could be deleted, because they had been copied elsewhere, but wasn't brave enough to follow the instructions because it was all inexplicable commands to be entered through the console.

Help desk refused to help (because Apple) and nominated me because: "You know linux and Apple is linux". (It isn't but BSD is near enough that I could follow the instructions.)

So... I sat with the guy, and explained each step before I performed it, and explained what was going to happen, and the implications of each step.

It all worked, and we recovered his set up, but I'm frankly surprised that neither of us threw up in the waste-paper bin.

Blech.

So far outside of my normal work, but he was stuck, and had drawn a complete blank with getting assistance from somewhere else.

Like you, I'll be happy if I never have to touch another one.




* Sorry that I can't be more specific, it was a tower based thing, with a bunch of external hard drives, and a video mixing desk and three giant monitors attached to it.

Whatever it was, it was a complete orphan, with no available support.
 
I had to use Apple products when I started doing development for apps for their phone. This meant buying a Mac, a laptop, and their developer program. (I had an iPhone already so I didn't look into doing Android, which later turned out to be a lot cheaper, including the Developer program.)

Apple kept upgrading their iOS which is OK for users, I guess, but it often broke my programs or I had to recompile each one for the new OS. After a few years and very little income from those apps, I switched to an Android phone (I always had Windows laptops) and the Apple stuff is basically gathering dust.
 
Donal said:
I swear by the Old Gods and the New if I never have to touch another Apple device again, I will die a happy man
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The only Apple device I ever used was an iphone 4. I'm retired now, and I doubt I will ever own or use another Apple device, though, on the phone front, Android is starting to become almost as bad as iphones for protecting you from yourself by limiting what you can do with the device that you supposedly own.
 
TragicMonkey said:
What is with people not understanding how time works? Someone wants data involving patient ages. Okay, easy enough, but is it their ages now that you want, or their ages then, at the time of their medical event? What do you mean, "what's the difference?" Unless every patient dies during their visit their ages will have changed since then. Are you killing all your patients, doctor? If so, you have bigger problems than not getting a spreadsheet from me.
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Well, this suggestion is probably far too practical for the people you are dealing with, but how about just providing the date of birth and let them use that to determine their age at whatever time they desire? Of course, I may be overly generous in assuming that they would even know how to do that.
 
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CORed said:
Well, this suggestion is probably far too practical for the people you are dealing with, but how about just providing the date of birth and let them use that to determine their age at whatever time they desire?
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It's best not to leave calculations in the hands of the end users. Make them tell you what they think they want, gently correct them into wanting the right thing, then return results that nobody can prove aren't precisely what they think you meant when you told them what they're supposed to mean. If there are any questions explain the mechanics of the logic very thoroughly until they give up and accept what you already gave them.
 
TragicMonkey said:
It's best not to leave calculations in the hands of the end users. Make them tell you what they think they want, gently correct them into wanting the right thing, then return results that nobody can prove aren't precisely what they think you meant when you told them what they're supposed to mean. If there are any questions explain the mechanics of the logic very thoroughly until they give up and accept what you already gave them.
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Especially given their obstinate proclivity for getting data entry wrong, PARTICULARLY DATES! Every programmer will tell you that there is yet to be a 100% successful date entry routine that a user cannot break.
 
Norman Alexander said:
Especially given their obstinate proclivity for getting data entry wrong, PARTICULARLY DATES! Every programmer will tell you that there is yet to be a 100% successful date entry routine that a user cannot break.
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Those horrible "scoll to find the year of your birth" things because users cannot be trusted to type four digits correctly. Not even month/day order issues, or whether to include a zero or not, just a simple four digit year and still they screw it up.
 
TragicMonkey said:
Those horrible "scoll to find the year of your birth" things because users cannot be trusted to type four digits correctly. Not even month/day order issues, or whether to include a zero or not, just a simple four digit year and still they screw it up.
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Man I hate the scroll to find birth year things, mostly because I'm an old fart and it takes forever to scroll back that far, especially since the default on most of those things assumes I am a baby.

Everyone is absolutely correct on not trusting users. No matter how hard you try to idiot proof things, some idiot will be perversely clever enough to screw it up.
 
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CORed said:
Man I hate the scroll to find birth year things, mostly because I'm an old fart and it takes forever to scroll back that far, especially since the default on most of those things assumes I am a baby.

Everyone is absolutely correct on not trusting users. No matter how hard you try to idiot proof things, some idiot will be perversely clever enough to screw it up.
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It amazes me sometimes how often "it seems simple enough" looks to me like a low enough bar anyone can reach, only to find out how many can't.
 
rdaneel said:
It amazes me sometimes how often "it seems simple enough" looks to me like a low enough bar anyone can reach, only to find out how many can't.
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You ever find a sticker reading "Do Not Eat" on something that is patently, obviously, incandescently not edible nor resembling anything edible? That sticker is there because somebody, somewhere, at some time decided to try to eat it.
 
TragicMonkey said:
Those horrible "scoll to find the year of your birth" things because users cannot be trusted to type four digits correctly. Not even month/day order issues, or whether to include a zero or not, just a simple four digit year and still they screw it up.
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Could be worse. My GP practice decided the verification for the "contact us" function would be your date of birth. The idiot used a java script date picker widget for appointments so it started with the current month and you clicked back a month at a time. Me being 65 that's 780 clicks.
Also I hate those scrollers as you have to start from the year which is rightmost as all the ones I've seen don't let you set the day to the 8th if today is the 7th etc.
 
Wudang said:
Could be worse. My GP practice decided the verification for the "contact us" function would be your date of birth. The idiot used a java script date picker widget for appointments so it started with the current month and you clicked back a month at a time. Me being 65 that's 780 clicks.
Also I hate those scrollers as you have to start from the year which is rightmost as all the ones I've seen don't let you set the day to the 8th if today is the 7th etc.
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Often when I have to fill in my state from the drop-down scroll, I can just type the first letter and it scrolls and fills in the corresponding states. Hitting the letter a few times quickly gets to my selection. I'm not sure if that works with numbers or all software.
 
alfaniner said:
Often when I have to fill in my state from the drop-down scroll, I can just type the first letter and it scrolls and fills in the corresponding states. Hitting the letter a few times quickly gets to my selection. I'm not sure if that works with numbers or all software.
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The well programmed date pickers will let you enter digits. In most browsers, a simple drop-down will let you jump to the first letter or digit of an entry by typing it, and better ones will let you type two or three letters or digits to zero in on the entry you want.

Also, did you know you can usually go to the next field of a form by pressing Tab? An enormous number of people don't.
 
Blue Mountain said:
The well programmed date pickers will let you enter digits. In most browsers, a simple drop-down will let you jump to the first letter or digit of an entry by typing it, and better ones will let you type two or three letters or digits to zero in on the entry you want.

Also, did you know you can usually go to the next field of a form by pressing Tab? An enormous number of people don't.
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My irk is when you've filled out one field, and it doesn't automatically jump to the next one. I'm talking fields like two-digit month or day.
 
Blue Mountain said:
The well programmed date pickers will let you enter digits. In most browsers, a simple drop-down will let you jump to the first letter or digit of an entry by typing it, and better ones will let you type two or three letters or digits to zero in on the entry you want.

Also, did you know you can usually go to the next field of a form by pressing Tab? An enormous number of people don't.
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Only if the people who created the form correctly completed the 'tab-index' methods correctly.

It's one of my most common 'internet pet peeves' how often I find systems where that hasn't been done correctly, so hitting tab jumps the cursor around the page at random.
 
I hate online forms where I have to add my city, state, and then zip code. Let me type in the zip code and then you can auto populate the city and state. Sure, there may be a few zips that cover multiple cities, but for most people this is a huge time saver.
 
novaphile said:
Only if the people who created the form correctly completed the 'tab-index' methods correctly.

It's one of my most common 'internet pet peeves' how often I find systems where that hasn't been done correctly, so hitting tab jumps the cursor around the page at random.
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I think that's what I just said. :p
 
arthwollipot said:
Ooooh, pet peeve. When web designers ignore tab order on their fields. Tab to the next logical field, please, don't jump me all over the form.
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I encounter that a lot where it's not random, it's the order in which the elements were added to the page (which I assume is the default tab order). My credit union login page had this problem for years, if you tabbed out of the user ID field it didn't take you to the next text box, which was the password entry, it took you to the text line beneath the user ID field that read "enter your User ID here". A bit amateur, I'd say.
 
TragicMonkey said:
I encounter that a lot where it's not random, it's the order in which the elements were added to the page (which I assume is the default tab order). My credit union login page had this problem for years, if you tabbed out of the user ID field it didn't take you to the next text box, which was the password entry, it took you to the text line beneath the user ID field that read "enter your User ID here". A bit amateur, I'd say.
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Learned that the hard way when setting up some data entry forms for our equipment and incident logs. While I was testing it would tab in the order they were added, which wasn't controlled for. So I had to go back in and reassign the tab order to a more reasonable and aesthetically pleasing order on the form.
 
This issue that Canadians always face is entering our Postal Code. The official format is ANA NAN. But many forms require you leave out the space while others require you enter the space. And some let you uses lower case and others force you to use upper case.

A couple of minutes of programming could save a zillion hours of data entry struggle.
 
Gord_in_Toronto said:
This issue that Canadians always face is entering our Postal Code. The official format is ANA NAN. But many forms require you leave out the space while others require you enter the space. And some let you uses lower case and others force you to use upper case.

A couple of minutes of programming could save a zillion hours of data entry struggle.
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Amen. My work is with the data from electronic medical records and it is insane how big the difference in quality and content is between data entered through curated lists of options and data that the users can freetext in. It's grimly hilarious when someone high up really, really, really wants to see the actual data that was directly entered into freetext fields. We try to dissuade them. "Well, we can run a few translations, group by keywords..." "No! I want to see what's actually put in there!" and then they come back an hour later looking pale and thinking back on all the medical care they've received and that maybe their doctor is illiterate and/or a chimp who slams the keyboard with a toy hammer when inputting notes.
 
TragicMonkey said:
Amen. My work is with the data from electronic medical records and it is insane how big the difference in quality and content is between data entered through curated lists of options and data that the users can freetext in. It's grimly hilarious when someone high up really, really, really wants to see the actual data that was directly entered into freetext fields. We try to dissuade them. "Well, we can run a few translations, group by keywords..." "No! I want to see what's actually put in there!" and then they come back an hour later looking pale and thinking back on all the medical care they've received and that maybe their doctor is illiterate and/or a chimp who slams the keyboard with a toy hammer when inputting notes.
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One of the best decisions someone made in the design of our system to merge medical records was every single field could be traced back to the field in the row of the csv it came from.
 
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