Man, some times people makes me extremely angry, and make me loose hope in humanity.
Posted by CLA_1989@reddit | talesfromtechsupport | View on Reddit | 60 comments
We have the guy, you know, that one guy that everyone in support knows and tries to avoid, Mr Baldy came in his first day "I have been in tech for the past 25 years, I probably know more than you!"... EVERY single ticket he opens, is dumb stuff, like literally, basic kindergarten stuff.
Last ticket?
6 lines of gibberish, he is American, and has a masters and a PhD, so he should at least know how to spell.
What he wanted?
Simple stuff, he wants to open gmail as an app(which comes by default as we manage the browsers), I give him the instructions, tell him to open the menu in the address bar, send him a freaking screenshot showing him EXACTLY where it is and tell him to enable it there... he replies (SIC) "You instructins make no sens e, there isn t menu there, pls fix".
He literally took a screenshot and marked the exact spot where the menu is, and when I tell him that, he was like "You never mention that I need to click for the menu to appear" (Again, I am typing this EXACTLY as he did)
Dude has been in IT for 25 years and "knows more than me" but doesn't know you need to click on the menu button for the menu to pop up -_-
And just so you have an idea of how much of a pain he is(He always complains, ofc) this ticket went through 5 different people, all saying "No, I will not touch that, not my responsibility"... last dude is a friend and he outright told me, "You are the Sr, I do not want to deal with him, so please, take it, I am begging you"
ITSolutionsAK@reddit
Might be time for upper managerial intervention. He's wasting time and resources, and clearly needs remedial training, or to be assigned to a position where a computer isn't used frequently or at all.
ac8jo@reddit
Like the janitor?
Z4-Driver@reddit
How does the janitor get his assignments nowadays? If a lightbulb is broken, doesn't he get a ticket for that?
Strazdas1@reddit
Where i work, if a lightbulb is broken they have to contract an external company to come in and replace it. No joke we sometimes go weeks without light until the contract gets negotiated. The janitor, who is also outsourced contract, is only responsible for emptying recycle bins and washing the floor. Nothing else at all.
sapphleaf@reddit
How many employees does it take to change a light bulb? 0, actually, because it's an outsourced job.
Warrlock608@reddit
At my last job our maintenance crew were tech illiterate, but they did a fantastic job at maintaining the building. They operated on some sort of old world word of mouth system and after seeing them try to use a computer it makes sense as that would just add a ton of complexity (In their minds).
Their offices were right next to mine and I let them have a stop in for tech support kind of policy and wrote up my own tickets for them. Literally the only people I will ever make an exception for on this just because they worked so hard on their actual work.
meitemark@reddit
Well, the users think that since it is electrical and powered by magic, helpdesk should already know about it and send someone to fix it.
ac8jo@reddit
True, maybe he needs to be promoted to customer.
diMario@reddit
Better yet, get him to "work" for your competitor!
paishocajun@reddit
Our facilities team does. Not all of them, but at least some of them
number__ten@reddit
I worked as a prpfessional floor cleaner to get through the 08 recession. You don't give boneheads access to cleaning chemicals and propane powered buffers. Every time i went on vacation i'd come back to a mess.
ITSolutionsAK@reddit
Yes
vinny8boberano@reddit
Hey now! Don't go sending this level of stupid to janitorial. This one sounds like the type who would fuck up using a push broom.
meitemark@reddit
"It is a push broom. Push, not slam into the walls."
androshalforc1@reddit
Once when i was a kid i was using a push broom to sweep out under a table. Someone snarkily said ‘it’s a push broom not a pull broom’.
I seriously considered flipping the table over with broom and commenting on how it didn’t seem to work better that way. To this day i still wish i had.
diMario@reddit
You mean a pull broom right?
Diminios@reddit
Not the janitor. Promote him to customer.
TheResistanceVoter@reddit
Since you mentioned spelling, the word you want is "lose," not "loose."
CLA_1989@reddit (OP)
Sorry, not my first language
sortalogic@reddit
You're doing great -- thank you for sharing the language. I also make tons of mistakes In my 2nd language :-)
TheResistanceVoter@reddit
It's confusing to people whose first language it is, so no worries.
loose is what happens to your pants when you lose weight = )
Level_Solid_8501@reddit
It's learned helplessness.
I work in a position that also does support, and I get certain tickets from users that have been in the company for 5+ years, doing the same low-level bureaucratic job about basic functions that make me wonder if these people have a brain at all.
CLA_1989@reddit (OP)
But the worst part is when they are like that but also are aholes, this dude is a director and thinks he is above everyone else and is very rude.
Level_Solid_8501@reddit
I thankfully do not have a user like that in this company, but I did have one previously. However, he was so bad at his job, he ended up being fired for different reasons, so there is that.
Level_Solid_8501@reddit
Plenty of that to go around at the company I work for. The worst offender was a user in accounting, but thank god, she left shortly after I joined.
CLA_1989@reddit (OP)
I can only hope that happens, there have been 4 karens and kens RIFd, so I can only hope lol
Throwaway_Old_Guy@reddit
A former co-worker that was very knowledgeable and well-versed in Process Systems and intolerant of people that should have a working background of them asking inane questions.
He told one Contractor; "You must have a twin, one person can't be that stupid."
I wish I had been there for that moment.
afcagroo@reddit
I think that Pauli is credited for saying this to a student: "This isn't right. It isn't even wrong."
NotYourNanny@reddit
My favorite line from The Long Kiss Goodnight:
"Were you born this stupid, or did you take lessons?"
KelemvorSparkyfox@reddit
To paraphrase Jethro (mayherestinpeace), "I know anyone can be stupid, but that's abusing the privilege!"
Stryker_One@reddit
Jethro? As in Leroy Jethro Gibbs? He's not dead.
KelemvorSparkyfox@reddit
No, because then I would have said Mark Harmon.
Jethro (born Geoff Rowe) was a Cornish stand-up comedian.
DCourtney2@reddit
I believe that some senator (or congressman) told someone the other day, “I won’t say that you are the stupidest person on earth but you better hope he doesn’t die.” Lol
Nova_Collision@reddit
Best part of that is Sam Jackson's reply, "I took lessons!"
aj4000@reddit
Mate, PhD means nothing.
My wife used to work as a lab technician at one of the best universities here in Australia. You would be astounded at just how utterly stupid "smart" people can be. We're taking Professors with multiple PhDs in various physics fields. One of them was one of those people that thought turning their monitor off and back on is "rebooting the CPU". Another complained that his brand new, top of the line $5000+ Apple CrapBook Pro just suddenly turned itself off while he was working and wouldn't turn on again. He tried everything! Except, you know, plugging the bloody thing in and charging the damn battery...
The one time the missus had to visit the onsite IT guys, she admitted to them that she felt silly for having to get them to help her. She accidentally missed one of the steps in the procedure for setting up her staff email on new phone. An option was in a different menu or had a different heading or something. IT dude told her about those two Masterminds and suddenly she didn't feel so silly anymore.
Far_Winner5508@reddit
I am a sys-admin supporting scientists and engineers.
I really hope they pay attention to specifics in their work way better than they do in their IT problem statements.
Wish I could force the lot to take an inteo journalism class and learn the 5 Ws: Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How.
Elvessa@reddit
The PhD explains everything…
UnjustlyBannd@reddit
I once did IT for a department made 99% of PHd folks and it was the most chill thing. Only grief I had was scheduling time to install patches due to their workloads.
LVDave@reddit
I worked for a company back in the mid 90s-early 00s whose CEO, had a PhD in Physics. We got a ticket from him saying he was missing a bunch of emails. We were a Groupwise/Novell shop, and since I was the low-man on the totempole, I drew the short-straw to get help him. Of course, he wasn't there, but his assistant was, and she was right there with "WTF too you so long?". It was a 5 minute walk from our IT digs to the headshed, so the ticket had been in for maybe 10 minutes at the most. I asked her to show me where the mail was missing from. Guess where? Betcha can't.. Seems the super-smart PhD was saving his important emails in the Groupwise trash... I kid you not!!
Seems the server group had done "trash collection" over the weekend to free up some diskspace. Fortuantly, for me, the IT director got to tell the CEO what an idiot he was for saving in trash. Thanks to Novell's Salvage, the server group was able to recover almost all of his messages. I'd loved to be a fly on the wall when the IT director told the CEO what a maroon he was...
LVDave@reddit
Piled High and Deep!
K1yco@reddit
This is always code for me that they don't know anything, and that in Tech related field for X years is "Well, I was working at a place that did tech but I was only in the purchasing"
flecktonesfan@reddit
Or, “I have seen a computer before”
vinny8boberano@reddit
Or they were incredibly silo'ed in a part of IT where they basically generated reports from a system which became more and more automated until they had to find new work because they hadn't kept any skills or foundational knowledge current and relevant. So, they figured out how to use one program or accomplish one set of tasks once upon a time. Those tasks disappeared and this individual found ways to avoid learning anything new while their job slowly disappeared.
SnooRegrets8068@reddit
One without the ability to navigate via mouse by the sound of it.
vinny8boberano@reddit
Oh no. I worked with someone who did this to themselves and they were technically capable of doing the job but only if everything worked as a very simple step by step instruction said or else they needed you to hold their hands. Basically they were done using their brains or learning.
oloryn@reddit
Sounds like you were dealing with an extreme packer.
Lemme 'splain. Back in the early days of the web, there was a web site called The Programmer's Stone. It was the result of an investigation into why some programmers were ten times as productive as others. Their conclusion? A difference in learning styles.
One group of people basically learn by memorizing small, concrete, and often disconnected "information packets". These they dubbed "packers".
The other group learned by making mental maps of information. These they dubbed "mappers".
Now, this is really more of a spectrum than an either/or, but I've found it to be instructive. Packers learn the information packets fairly quickly, but they really can't process them. Mappers may learn more slowly at first, because they're busy figuring how things fit together, but once they've got the appropriate mental structures (the initial map of the information), they can hoover up related info at an astounding rate. When things change, they usually have little problem adjusting, as they alreadt understand how things fit together, and basically understand what's going on. Packers, on the other hand, are often stymied by change, because their memorized step-by-step "ordered information packets" no longer apply.
Your guy would seem to be a packer of an extreme type.
vinny8boberano@reddit
I hadn't heard of that. Neat! I can't say either way. I *do* think that a large part of his problem was untreated anxiety, and the reality that his nervousness (fear) was blocking retention to some extent. I think that he did the "yes dear" trick during "training" expecting to have most of it be something he picked up on-the-job from a coworker. Except he was hired for the overnight shift...which was a solo shift. Add in the fact that he may have had a problem where he would default to patronizing when talking to a woman, his section was run by a woman, and she was a no-nonsense type. He could obviously turn it off, but it seemed like something that he couldn't completely get rid of.
Warrlock608@reddit
I've worked with this fuckin guy. Drove me absolutely insane that he was making nearly twice what I was because of seniority, but was incapable of handling a single ticket. Biggest waste of air I've ever been around and now that I'm writing this I realize I am still upset about him 3 months after I quit.
androshalforc1@reddit
I’ve been working in a pool related industry for the last 10 years. I can tell pretty much what the parts and equipment are, but fuck if i know how any of it works or how it goes together.
K1yco@reddit
This I could understand. The underlying issue more come from that the person is asking for help and yet are acting as if you're wrong because they have more years on you like in OPs case.
ZaraFoxy777@reddit
Ugh, having Mr. 'I know more than you' around who's basically baffled by a right-click is why I hit I guess my daily facepalm quota. 🤦♀️
meitemark@reddit
Well, how is your daily "smack the users face" quota?
HappyGeigerClicks@reddit
Why yes, I know exactly who you're referring to.
corourke@reddit
I'd note the ongoing refusal to operate his system as expected in the ticket and recommend to both your boss and his that attend a computer basics course as well as re undergo any training since he's repeatedly demonstrated an inability to operate his system.
Techn0ght@reddit
Book time with his boss to show he doesn't have competency he claimed to get the job.
UninvestedCuriosity@reddit
Weaponized incompetence. He knows but he's lashing out about something else I'll bet. Makes me wonder what some users are dealing with in their jobs or personal life. There are probably explanations that would make sense but you're just a casualty in the way in his world.
You could reach out to him to offer a kind ear and it could turn into a blossoming unexpected friendship or he could further use that vulnerability to turn you into a full on casualty to whatever his whims are. Schrodinger's empathy in the workplace. The trick is identifying the right ones.
Whatever you choose. Listen to your gut, it's usually right. Every time I've ended up on the bad side is because I ignored myself and let someone else convince me to be vulnerable or to offer more. Listen to your stomach. Do what it knows is right. Even if it ends up wrong, you won't be upset at yourself later for the choice.
CleeBrummie@reddit
With his PhD in English, does he know the difference between loose and lose?
glenmarshall@reddit
I once had a user - a manager - who insisted that her staff needed training for using their PCs. All of them were already proficient. The problem was that she was resistant to reading the manual, hitting F1 to get help, or following my coaching. I just stopped helping her and in a matter of a few days she was using her PC quite well.
darthnut@reddit
Sounds like a real pain. But for the record, us Baldy's aren't all difficult. :)
Impossible_IT@reddit
Well hell you’d better tighten up your hope in humanity because it’s loose!