Annoying Users

I'm sure there are already a ton of these, but I thought I would make one of my own as I have had to deal with some <cough> Computer Users Non-Technical this and last week. Here is what I hate:

1. Users who thinkthat if something is not on their desktop, it simply does not exist. No icon? The program did not install properly.
2. Users who refuse to think logically about what is going on. If something does not behave in exactly the manner they expect it is "broke" [sic] and they simply give up.
3. Users who do not listen to what you tell them repeatedly. "When will X be done?" "This afternoon." [8:30 AM] "Hey, Bob. When will X be done?" "This afternoon." [9:30 AM] "Are you going to do x?" "This afternoon." [10:30 AM]
4. Users who are unable to transfer knowledge from task to another. Word and Excel are both programs from Microsoft and are both a part of Office. If right clicking in one allows me to do something perhaps right clicking in the other will allow me to do the same action? Why even bother when I can just ask someone?
5. Users who refuse even try. I actually had this conversation today.
"Think of it like this..."
"I can't think of it any way, because I don't understand it or know anything about it."
"Well, that's the purpose of an analogy. It allows me to explain something to you that you don't understand in terms you do understand. But only when you allow me to complete a sentence."
6. Users who have no idea how to use a computer except to do the simple things they do every day. And I know someone will tell me that "oh, but without people like that we wouldn't have jobs" or some such rubbish. But that is a non sequitur. It's like saying if Engineers knew how to use protractors IT people would not have jobs. Just because users actually understand how to use the tools they need to do their jobs well, does not mean IT support/administration would be rendered useless. It only means we might actually enjoy our jobs more.

A month ago or so I heard a guy saying "stupid piece of crap" at a workstation as I passed. I stopped and actually observed him holding his hand on the mouse and moving the mousepad... Of course it's the computer that is stupid.

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Comments

wd40

You have to stop caring about these things

So, the user is "uneducated", why should I care, I just do my job, "I'm very good at switching off my feelings when I step into office"

I have a coworker that is always angry because of this stupid user or that stupid request, sometimes I agree with him that the user or the request is stupid, and we will have to help the user and finish the request, but I can not see a reason to get so angry about it.

phoeneous:
We do not bother any more, just reboot the machine, it is faster

Psoasman

I hear you on the user complaints. I just look at it as job security.
My favorite user I work thought I was talking about a REAL mouse on her monitor.

dynamik

#1 - Take a screenshot of the desktop and then remove all the icons. Hilarity ensues. You have to find ways to enjoy your job and keep your sanity.

MentholMoose

User: "The printer is broke!!!1"
Me: "Let me take a look..."
http://i46.tinypic.com/fkxhe0.png
*facepalm*

disi

MentholMoose wrote: »

User: "The printer is broke!!!1"
Me: "Let me take a look..."
http://i46.tinypic.com/fkxhe0.png
*facepalm*

That one is good

What I hate are people who keep information from you to have an advantage. Isn't this a common manager practice?

One example:
User comes into the office and says he has network problems. I check and see an IP address conflict.
I ask the guy who was here before me what this IP is and if it is static why it isn't assigned to a MAC. He says he doesn't know. Next day I just use the arp table and enter the IP for this "unknown" device into the pool. He then comes up and tells me it is some NAS drive on the network he forgot about.

Kaminsky

RobertKaucher wrote: »

6. Users who have no idea how to use a computer except to do the simple things they do every day.

I once had an office full of secretaries that had been using WordPerfect then MS Office to send out hundreds of medical appointment letters every day for years. One of them got promoted and asked me how to change it so it now comes out on landscape instead of portrait. She didn't have a clue nor did any of the other secretaries as they never needed to know it. Years before, I had set up a letter template for them and that's all they used. This is where a PC guy knowing ALT-TAB can seem like some sort of guru.

There was a famous article several years back entitled, "Heping users to help themselves" where the main point was, don't help them so much or so quickly. Give them time to try and figure it out for themselves. Unfortunately, necessity is the only way a lot of them will even try to learn new things.

Think I found it
http://articles.techrepublic.com.com/5100-10878_11-1042682.html

blargoe

Those don't bother me. The ones that bother me are the ones that are slightly more savvy, but THINK they know everything and screw stuff up.

laidbackfreak

blargoe wrote: »

Those don't bother me. The ones that bother me are the ones that are slightly more savvy, but THINK they know everything and screw stuff up.

yep got a couple of those here and when you go to assist they deny everything! Where by IF they told you up front you could solve the problem in a fraction of the time.
Not that I have much interaction with end users these days

Kaminsky

blargoe wrote: »

Those don't bother me. The ones that bother me are the ones that are slightly more savvy, but THINK they know everything and screw stuff up.

Oh yeah... they are irritating. Then when you remove their access and lock them down so they can't do it again, they get all pissey about it.

/whistle

down77

MentholMoose wrote: »

User: "The printer is broke!!!1"
Me: "Let me take a look..."
http://i46.tinypic.com/fkxhe0.png
*facepalm*

As sad as that seems we do have users here who are REQUIRED to print monthly documents more than twice that size.... sad part is no one reads the 27,000+ pages.... and yes they are in PDF format

Zartanasaurus

RobertKaucher wrote: »

5. Users who refuse even try. I actually had this conversation today.
"Think of it like this..."
"I can't think of it any way, because I don't understand it or know anything about it."
"Well, that's the purpose of an analogy. It allows me to explain something to you that you don't understand in terms you do understand. But only when you allow me to complete a sentence."

Little piece of advice here. Never try to explain anything to the end user. Never. Get in and get out. Tell them the problem is fixed and it shouldn't happen again. "What was wrong with it?" is code for "was it my fault?".

arwes

I've got this one user who is on the exact opposite side of the building. I've got Spiceworks set up to catch help desk emails to make tickets, and I've got a phone right beside me. She always walks to my office to tell there's a problem with her computer. It doesn't help that she has a northern Missouri accent either. I don't know what it is, but every woman I've known from Missouri sounds like she's whining when she's talking. The equivalent of nails on the chalkboard to me.

The other day though she got something called Antivirus Soft installed (slipped right by good old Symantec Endpoint Protection) with **** popups galore, and tried valiantly to blame it on a vendor site she was on. Uh huh. Too bad they don't do any advertising on there.

BADfish10

They all lie!
Never believe a single word any of them utters!
If they say good morning check your watch! If they said that never used to happen they probably only just noticed after several years.
And the smarter they are as with kids the more they will lie if they know they have done something wrong. The good thing about pool sec is they generally are not very imaginative and get confused quickly leaving less to un-pick.

F

Bokeh

No need to remove their icons. Just take a screen shot, and install that as their new background. They will click forever and wonder why things don't open.

Did this to an ex boss. After yelling a bit, he thought it was quite funny, then ran in and did the same thing to his wife's computer.

Super99

I understand what you're saying and it gets really annoying but these people are the main cause for jobs.
If we were all techs and or computer smart people, then we woudln't need special admin, help desk, etc etc.

rsutton

A picture says a thousand words

snadam

My favorite is SALES

They are just amazing because they know everything! I literally was fixing someones desk phone and in the other cube a sales person was incorrectly explaining (to a customer no less) that a Fiber HBA and Fiber NIC are the same thing....

Yea, yea, I know; necessary evil. I still get to make fun though.

Im sure this was posted here before but... THE WEBSITE IS DOWN NSFW

arwes

Oh yeah, definitely sales. One of them had a AT&T aircard and we hadn't been upgraded to 3G yet. She was adamant that one of her coworkers was using the same thing and was having no problems connecting to our gateway server. I got so frustrated trying to explain to her the difference between her coworkers wifi and what cell companies use. She didn't believe me and went over my head. I guess she thought I was trying to brush her off.

MentholMoose

down77 wrote: »

As sad as that seems we do have users here who are REQUIRED to print monthly documents more than twice that size.... sad part is no one reads the 27,000+ pages.... and yes they are in PDF format .

That is understandable in that they actually have a business reason to print at a high volume (even if it is a complete waste).

In this instance, the user with the 13K page print job was quitting to go back to school, and based on the document name it is apparent he was trying to print a few copies of his Sociology textbook!

RobertKaucher

Super99 wrote: »

I understand what you're saying and it gets really annoying but these people are the main cause for jobs.
If we were all techs and or computer smart people, then we woudln't need special admin, help desk, etc etc.

As I stated in my original post I totally disagree with this fallacy. Just because I know how to drive my car, put gas in it, fill the fuids, does not mean I do not need a mechanic.

I see it like this: You sit in front of a computer for 8 hours a day. Shouldn't you understand how to use it? There is a far cry from an informed user and IT Support. Actually knowing how to use a PC will enrich their work and open up new ideas and possibilites. It will not render help desk obsolete. It will also reduce frustration as the user will not FUBAR their machine as easily.

Hyper-Me

RobertKaucher wrote: »

I see it like this: You sit in front of a computer for 8 hours a day. Shouldn't you understand how to use it? There is a far cry from an informed user and IT Support. Actually knowing how to use a PC will enrich their work and open up new ideas and possibilites. It will not render help desk obsolete. It will also reduce frustration as the user will not FUBAR their machine as easily.

Its worse in education. A teacher has to meet the kids at their level if they are going to have any interest in learning the material, and the amount of teachers that cant even do basic functions on a computer is outrageous.

forkvoid

Hyper-Me wrote: »

Its worse in education. A teacher has to meet the kids at their level if they are going to have any interest in learning the material, and the amount of teachers that cant even do basic functions on a computer is outrageous.

I have a theory that the more advanced education you have, the less common sense you retain. Students with undergrad degrees are usually quite savvy, but by the time you reach students with doctorates, it's like they through all their ability to function within the real world out the window; the only thing that matters to them is their research, and even CS doctorates are bad.

eMeS

dynamik wrote: »

#1 - Take a screenshot of the desktop and then remove all the icons.

That explains why my computer isn't working....

MS

RobertKaucher

arwes wrote: »

Oh yeah, definitely sales. One of them had a AT&T aircard and we hadn't been upgraded to 3G yet. She was adamant that one of her coworkers was using the same thing and was having no problems connecting to our gateway server. I got so frustrated trying to explain to her the difference between her coworkers wifi and what cell companies use. She didn't believe me and went over my head. I guess she thought I was trying to brush her off.

Sales guys crack me up. I have an internal priority list that goes like this:

1. My Boss and my boss's boss.
2. Fron office and HR as they do payroll.
3. Sales/Customer Service as they make the money.
4. Everyone else.

But for sales guys everything revolves around them. The earth does not rotate unless they reach their fart quota or something.

The guys where I work now are great. I only ever have problems with one because he is an outside sales guy and he will call me from 100 miles away because he can't make calls on his phone. "Are you getting signal? No? What can I do about this?" Just kills me... But he's a good guy, it's just hard to help him when he's off site.

But I have worked at places with sales guys who promise the customer that this or that server will do whatever including toast bagles. And then blame IT or Professional Services because we can't make something do what they want. I cannot wave a magic wand and make an MFP a full document management solution. I just can't. It's a flippin' copier.