Dear Users... (A thread for Sysadmin, Technical Support, and Help Desk people)

[arthwollipot]

I work with a couple of Sysadmins who work exactly the same way trying to fix server problems. The reason is they can limit the "documentation" to a couple of paragraphs and get it "back in action" quickly. Never mind trying to find the reason or source of the problems. This is the CTL-ALT-DEL mode of "fixing stuff" at its ultimate.

The problem is that not all problems can be fixed using this method, and many problems will just repeat very soon again. So when their process (such as it is) fails them, they simply try doing stuff at random to try to fix things. Literally pushing buttons at random. As you can expect, it wastes an enormous amount of valuable time, and makes the problems even worse.

That's where I usually have to quietly but firmly step in and tell them to go get coffee while I fix it. From the coffee shop in another city. I'm far from being a wizard genius at this stuff, but by all that's holy, I can usually find the problem and make a permanent fix faster than all their dicking around.

Yup. You can't treat a Problem as an Incident.

 

[Wudang]

I've run into a few of those. The solution is to put them in charge of a "special process improvement project" which isn't actually expected to do anything. They can then spend their time talking to their friends in every department, assembling spreadsheets of unnecessary data, and when they retire they'll hand over their files while beaming with the joy of knowing they're bequeathing you a great legacy of wisdom to fix all the processes.

eta: Lean Six Sigma is a wonderful program that teaches problematic employees to babysit themselves while making their own busywork. Highly recommend.

Old saying "Special projects are just like normal projects but the normal projects aren't allowed to tease them about being 'special'".

 

[JoeMorgue]

I've run into a few of those. The solution is to put them in charge of a "special process improvement project" which isn't actually expected to do anything. They can then spend their time talking to their friends in every department, assembling spreadsheets of unnecessary data, and when they retire they'll hand over their files while beaming with the joy of knowing they're bequeathing you a great legacy of wisdom to fix all the processes.

eta: Lean Six Sigma is a wonderful program that teaches problematic employees to babysit themselves while making their own busywork. Highly recommend.

I have noticed that no matter how important (or self important) these particular sub-category of users are while they are there, when they leave they never seem to be replaced and their "duties" either just quietly go away or get assigned to other person(s) as collateral duties.

 

[TragicMonkey]

I have noticed that no matter how important (or self important) these particular sub-category of users are while they are there, when they leave they never seem to be replaced and their "duties" either just quietly go away or get assigned to other person(s) as collateral duties.

When I left my job at an oncology practice they hired three people to replace me. When the special projects lady left a month prior to me they turned her office into a storage closet. Not even for medical stuff, they just put boxes of styrofoam cups and coffee stirrers and stuff in there.

 

[Tolls]

I'd feel slightly put out if I was easily replaced by some styrofoam cups...

 

[Darat]

I'd feel slightly put out if I was easily replaced by some styrofoam cups...

I've had two jobs that I would have felt pity for the styrofoam cups if they had had to replace me.

 

[JoeMorgue]

As I've alluded to my issue has always been the Medical Industry has such a very weird but specific image of what its front line, patient facing, non-Doctor employees should be; mostly female, mostly older, possessed of a vaguely homey and reassuring Matricharial demeanor.

The problem is "Technology phobic" seems to be part of this vague image they want to present.

Again as I've said these aren't people who don't know how to use computers per se, it's people who have "LOL I'm just not a computer person" on their internal character sheets.

 

[Darat]

Years ago (1994-95 or so) I worked with an IT trainer who knew nothing about IT but was incredibly good at rote learning and teaching. She literally memorised the steps with absolutely zero understanding of why those steps worked, and that was the way she taught IT - to do this, click this, then click this, then click this.

She was incredibly popular.

I was once brought to my knees and ended up training a whole company worth of secretaries that way.

It will have been about 30 years ago and we won a deal to go in and "computerise" a largish loss-adjusters. We were to supply some bespoke software (database & reports) and get the secretaries to move from their typewriters to new-fangled PCs running Wordperfect 5.1..

It was agreed we'd roll WP out over the course of a month and the first week was for us to train the 3 senior secretaries and to make sure they could still do everything they needed to do, tighten the training up from their feedback and get all the other secretaries trained up in the following weeks.

These were 3 over 50 ladies, after 2 weeks anything other than the simplest task was still beyond them, we'd had literal tears, throwing of things and walk outs.

I got in touch with another trainer I knew and had her come over and for her to give feedback on our training. She'd gone all through the documents and training exercises and she had some minor bits of feedback but she felt it seemed OK. I persuaded her to sit in on the next session. Her feedback was that these women weren't interested in learning anything, it was JoeMorgue's "oh I'm not a computer person" dialed up to 11!

We tore everything up and the "training" ended up being a sheet or 2 of A4 paper for each type of document they had to produce, and they were simply recipe sheets of the type "Type Date, Press F4, Press Enter, Press Enter, Press Enter . We had to repeat "press enter" as a few of the secretaries when seeing an instruction of "Press Enter 3 times" would press enter and then type "3 times". I kid you not.

 

[JoeMorgue]

I was once brought to my knees and ended up training a whole company worth of secretaries that way.

It will have been about 30 years ago and we won a deal to go in and "computerise" a largish loss-adjusters. We were to supply some bespoke software (database & reports) and get the secretaries to move from their typewriters to new-fangled PCs running Wordperfect 5.1..

It was agreed we'd roll WP out over the course of a month and the first week was for us to train the 3 senior secretaries and to make sure they could still do everything they needed to do, tighten the training up from their feedback and get all the other secretaries trained up in the following weeks.

These were 3 over 50 ladies, after 2 weeks anything other than the simplest task was still beyond them, we'd had literal tears, throwing of things and walk outs.

I got in touch with another trainer I knew and had her come over and for her to give feedback on our training. She'd gone all through the documents and training exercises and she had some minor bits of feedback but she felt it seemed OK. I persuaded her to sit in on the next session. Her feedback was that these women weren't interested in learning anything, it was JoeMorgue's "oh I'm not a computer person" dialed up to 11!

We tore everything up and the "training" ended up being a sheet or 2 of A4 paper for each type of document they had to produce, and they were simply recipe sheets of the type "Type Date, Press F4, Press Enter, Press Enter, Press Enter . We had to repeat "press enter" as a few of the secretaries when seeing an instruction of "Press Enter 3 times" would press enter and then type "3 times". I kid you not.

And that's who we get users who go into full on total shutdown when anything, and I mean anything, changes.

You can't expect even the most basic software to stay at some completely route step by step level forever. It's insane and completely unrealistic.

 

[Wudang]

I have noticed that no matter how important (or self important) these particular sub-category of users are while they are there, when they leave they never seem to be replaced and their "duties" either just quietly go away or get assigned to other person(s) as collateral duties.

When I wrote automation code for a bank I would sometimes wear a t shirt that read "Go away or I will replace you with a very small shell script".

 

[alfaniner]

And that's who we get users who go into full on total shutdown when anything, and I mean anything, changes.

You can't expect even the most basic software to stay at some completely route step by step level forever. It's insane and completely unrealistic.

I have to wonder how those people handle cell phones. My new one is difficult enough for me to figure out how to do some basic stuff. ("Slide from icon to answer", my ass...)

 

[JoeMorgue]

I have to wonder how those people handle cell phones. My new one is difficult enough for me to figure out how to do some basic stuff. ("Slide from icon to answer", my ass...)

Just fine. Because "LOL I'm just not a phone person" isn't something we as society accepts as normal, so it can't go on their character sheets.

 

[TragicMonkey]

I was once brought to my knees and ended up training a whole company worth of secretaries that way.

It will have been about 30 years ago and we won a deal to go in and "computerise" a largish loss-adjusters. We were to supply some bespoke software (database & reports) and get the secretaries to move from their typewriters to new-fangled PCs running Wordperfect 5.1..

It was agreed we'd roll WP out over the course of a month and the first week was for us to train the 3 senior secretaries and to make sure they could still do everything they needed to do, tighten the training up from their feedback and get all the other secretaries trained up in the following weeks.

These were 3 over 50 ladies, after 2 weeks anything other than the simplest task was still beyond them, we'd had literal tears, throwing of things and walk outs.

I got in touch with another trainer I knew and had her come over and for her to give feedback on our training. She'd gone all through the documents and training exercises and she had some minor bits of feedback but she felt it seemed OK. I persuaded her to sit in on the next session. Her feedback was that these women weren't interested in learning anything, it was JoeMorgue's "oh I'm not a computer person" dialed up to 11!

We tore everything up and the "training" ended up being a sheet or 2 of A4 paper for each type of document they had to produce, and they were simply recipe sheets of the type "Type Date, Press F4, Press Enter, Press Enter, Press Enter . We had to repeat "press enter" as a few of the secretaries when seeing an instruction of "Press Enter 3 times" would press enter and then type "3 times". I kid you not.

When my employer implemented the current Big System we went through trainers like they were tissues. The trainers were all hired outside consultants, and they were in despair because the majority of the trainees didn't actually want to learn, they just wanted someone to type out instructions that they could follow. They just wanted laminated "tip sheets" at every workstation.

 

[Darat]

I have to wonder how those people handle cell phones. My new one is difficult enough for me to figure out how to do some basic stuff. ("Slide from icon to answer", my ass...)

They don’t, they learn or are usually shown a set pattern of actions to do the one or two basic things they want to do.

 

[Darat]

And that's who we get users who go into full on total shutdown when anything, and I mean anything, changes.

You can't expect even the most basic software to stay at some completely route step by step level forever. It's insane and completely unrealistic.

To be slightly fair, and it took many a long year for me to think about it without the shivers never mind to gain some level of objectively they were a generation for the first time coming to computers so it was a huge ask to get them to move over, and of course one they had no say in at all. The thing that I still can’t understand is that they didn’t want to learn, not that they found it hard, or something was beyond their capability, it was simply the lack of will to learn something new. Your bane of today, the “oh I’m not a computer person” don’t even have the excuse that they’ve never encountered computers, or even digital equipment before.

I hope I will always want to learn something - well apart from Twitter and Facebook’s interfaces!

 

[Mongrel]

The thing that I still can’t understand is that they didn’t want to learn, not that they found it hard, or something was beyond their capability, it was simply the lack of will to learn something new. Your bane of today, the “oh I’m not a computer person” don’t even have the excuse that they’ve never encountered computers, or even digital equipment before.

I think the first part is the important, motivating factor. The second is often just reinforced by the managment who are part of the first group, thus perpetuating the ignorance.

 

[TragicMonkey]

To be slightly fair, and it took many a long year for me to think about it without the shivers never mind to gain some level of objectively they were a generation for the first time coming to computers so it was a huge ask to get them to move over, and of course one they had no say in at all. The thing that I still can’t understand is that they didn’t want to learn, not that they found it hard, or something was beyond their capability, it was simply the lack of will to learn something new. Your bane of today, the “oh I’m not a computer person” don’t even have the excuse that they’ve never encountered computers, or even digital equipment before.

I hope I will always want to learn something - well apart from Twitter and Facebook’s interfaces!

Watching my mother try to handle internet and email and her phone and her different television products is hell on my nerves. But it makes me wonder what the future will be like. Will my nieces one day roll their eyes in exasperation because Uncle Monkey can't instantiate a holographic uplink to the planetary meganetwork or get his androids synchronized to the brainputer array? "You're paying forty thousand Imperial Russian Caliphate roubles a month for a Borg network and you're only using it to watch old episodes of Mama's Family?!"

 

[JoeMorgue]

Your dear ole' grandma sitting at home being all befuddled by new tech is an entirely different beast from your dear ole' grandma expecting to stay employed in a job that requires her to use new tech for literally every single function.

I can't guarantee I'll be comfortable with every new thing introduced during my lifetime, but I am confident if I can't figure out how to use the Holographic Plasma AI Interface I won't demand to stay employed in a job where I have to use one all the time.

And I especially won't still be trying to play that card when the Holographic Plasma AI Interface has reached the level of normal everyday tech that every general office worker has been using for decades.

My user base has to deal with HP Desktops running Windows 10. I'm not handing them advanced DARPA Prototypes that just got invented yesterday.

 

[Blue Mountain]

Years ago (1994-95 or so) I worked with an IT trainer who knew nothing about IT but was incredibly good at rote learning and teaching. She literally memorised the steps with absolutely zero understanding of why those steps worked, and that was the way she taught IT - to do this, click this, then click this, then click this.

She was incredibly popular.

Probably because so many people use exactly the same sort of process. She was one of them. They could identify with her. No geeky crap. No arcane lingo. No weird expositions on the difference between RAM and storage.

This is common in so many activities. The average car operator is largely clueless about any aspect of how an automobile actually works, but as long as they know which buttons to push, which levers to move, and in what order, etc., then they carry on brilliantly.

Until something breaks, and then they call in someone with a more technical proficiency. They won't hear a word those people say, but they'll let them fix it.

Remember the old saw about how half the people have below average intelligence? Well, this is just one aspect of that. It isn't a bad thing, its just life.

I was once brought to my knees and ended up training a whole company worth of secretaries that way.

It will have been about 30 years ago and we won a deal to go in and "computerise" a largish loss-adjusters. We were to supply some bespoke software (database & reports) and get the secretaries to move from their typewriters to new-fangled PCs running Wordperfect 5.1..

It was agreed we'd roll WP out over the course of a month and the first week was for us to train the 3 senior secretaries and to make sure they could still do everything they needed to do, tighten the training up from their feedback and get all the other secretaries trained up in the following weeks.

These were 3 over 50 ladies, after 2 weeks anything other than the simplest task was still beyond them, we'd had literal tears, throwing of things and walk outs.

I got in touch with another trainer I knew and had her come over and for her to give feedback on our training. She'd gone all through the documents and training exercises and she had some minor bits of feedback but she felt it seemed OK. I persuaded her to sit in on the next session. Her feedback was that these women weren't interested in learning anything, it was JoeMorgue's "oh I'm not a computer person" dialed up to 11!

We tore everything up and the "training" ended up being a sheet or 2 of A4 paper for each type of document they had to produce, and they were simply recipe sheets of the type "Type Date, Press F4, Press Enter, Press Enter, Press Enter . We had to repeat "press enter" as a few of the secretaries when seeing an instruction of "Press Enter 3 times" would press enter and then type "3 times". I kid you not.

And that's who we get users who go into full on total shutdown when anything, and I mean anything, changes.

You can't expect even the most basic software to stay at some completely route step by step level forever. It's insane and completely unrealistic.

"Packers" vs "mappers." Some people learn things by taking in a bit of information, wrapping it up in brown paper, taping it shut and putting it on a shelf in their brain. These people are packers and they comprise as much as 80% of the general population.

They're the type who, when introduced to copy-and-paste, wonder why they would ever need to use it, then when they have to move a paragraph of text in a word processor labouriously fumble through the steps, or don't even try and re-type the paragraph. Then they have to relearn it for spreadsheets, and learn it yet again if they have to copy something from a web browser to a text editor (if they even recall they can do it!)

Packers tend to not be curious, learn slowly, and learn to do things by rote. They're the type that break down when Yes and No get swapped in a dialogue box.

Mappers, on the other hand, take in new information and try to synthesize it with everything else the know, adding it to a giant map of knowledge and experience gained over a lifetime. These are the types of people who do well in I/T and other knowledge based professions.

They're the type who, when introduced to copy-and-paste for the first time, realize how powerful it is, adopt it into their current workflow, and use it everywhere. They also quickly learn the keyboard shortcuts, usually shift+arrow keys to select, ctrl+C to copy, and ctrl+v or shift-Insert to paste.

Mappers tend to be curious, learn quickly, and experiment: "I just learned this cool new thing! Let's see how far I can push it!" They're the type that when Yes and No get swapped in a dialogue box quickly learn the new layout, go hunting for an option to change it back, and if they can't find one file a bug report.

As noted in the posts I quoted, mappers find packers insanely difficult to teach. I suspect packers find mappers to be tough to work with because the mappers are all over the place when the packers would prefer to concentrate on one thing at a time.

 

[alfaniner]

They don’t, they learn or are usually shown a set pattern of actions to do the one or two basic things they want to do.

That reminds me of the people in those ads for Consumer Cellular. You know, the ones who only want talk, text, data, and the ability to send three pictures a day of their little yappy dogs to people who aren't interested.