Fastest analyst in the west… (actually the south east but close enough)

Posted by thebarcodelad@reddit | talesfromtechsupport | View on Reddit | 51 comments

So, I’m just sitting there, a typical Wednesday morning, first day in-office that week (thank you hybrid working), not many support calls, ticket queue quite low for me, phones relatively quiet.

I get an email. „$User account locked out on DC01“. ‚Ok, cool’ I think to myself. ‚I’ll wait and see if I get a call’.

Not 10 seconds later, I get a call, the deskphone says it‘s this new user, she’s been here about 2 weeks now. She hasn‘t called to complain about anything before, everything’s been fine for her. So, I pick up, and as we talk I unlock her account on the DC.

She says her keyboard doesn’t work. I press further. Are you at a new desk? (We hotdesk). Nope, same desk as before. What happens when you press the caplocks key? Oh, it turns itself back off. Is there anything resting on your keyboard? Nope, it’s just the keyboard. Can you unplug the keyboard and plug it back in again? Yep, issue persists.

I don’t know her level of technoability. So I decide to make the trip up the 2 flights of stairs. I get to the desk she said she was at.

She‘s there. So is all of her equipment. But, ummm… she had her laptop. Sitting atop its case. Which sat atop the keyboard and mouse. Which clearly had buttons being depressed.

Naturally, this depressed my buttons too.

„You need to take your laptop off the keyboard.“

She stared at me blankly. No expression, no thought. So I reiterated.

„You need to take your laptop off the keyboard. It‘s pressing the buttons and preventing you from typing.“

She lifted it off, set it down in front of the keyboard, then said „look my capslock is weird“.

Because the laptop registered it as being constantly depressed, it had somehow desynchronised the capslock between her Citrix session and her actual keyboard. So I unplugged it from the dock, pressed capslock, plugged it back in, all was fine.

„Could you just log in for me please?“

Bam, bosh, done. She‘s in. And stupid.

I went down, chatted with the other analyst who was in, told him everything that happened. He laughed because he watched me get up and rush upstairs. I laughed because you cannot be this stupid with tech and be 25 years old.

All in all, the issue took probably 2 minutes to resolve from start to finish. Which is not the fastest call I’ve ever had, but it was damn close. And I managed to write this essay about it. I like to ramble… :3

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Strazdas1@reddit

a lot of people dont believe it anymore but theres a reason there used to be viruses capable of setting your PC on fire. Hardware had no limiters.

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Rathmun@reddit

That's still possible today, it's just not profitable for the virus writers. You can absolutely burn a modern CPU with bad overclock settings, which means a virus could do the same thing. But once it's done, it's done, and theres nothing to leverage as extortion. You can't un-melt the victim's chip after they pay you. Hell, you can't even show a ransom note.

Sure, it probably won't start an actual fire since it's mostly surrounded by metal and fiberglass, but it's possible if there's bad cable management involved.

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Strazdas1@reddit

The commercialization of viruses :(

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Rathmun@reddit

Honestly, I'll take an encrypted customer machine over a melted customer machine any day of the week.

In either case you can't trust any storage that was in the machine, so you still need to restore from backups after a full wipe. But the hardware cost of ransomware is lower since you're not replacing the CPU/mobo/cooler/etc... and it definitely won't start a structure fire. (Well, not directly anyway, if an industrial control system gets locked, that could cause a fire. But WTF was that doing on a network with internet?)

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Strazdas1@reddit

i think you need to consider all storage, not just hard drives, though. Ransomware can get into the execute table on the motherboard and reinstall itself the moment you image the drives. At which point you are replacing the mobo at least or you need to have equipment for cold flashing of motherboard chips.

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Rathmun@reddit

That's fair.

brandthedwarf@reddit

"you cannot be this stupid with tech and be 25 years old."

yeah you can, its not using apps on phone - this is now considered tech savvy by ordinary young people.

Delicious_Big8371@reddit

A lot of people in the generation below me have never used a file manager, they don't know programs, everything is "apps". Shook me to my core when I realized that.

RivaTNT2M64@reddit

The skills loss / gap is not limited to tech.

https://www.bbc.com/news/education-46019429

Tattycakes@reddit

That is some serious nominative determinism

antimidas_84@reddit

Haha, I was thinking the same thing about Kneebone.

Theres a teachers subreddit if you want first hand knowledge. I avoid reading it because it makes me depressed about future.

meitemark@reddit

r/Teachers is mostly american. I read it because any problems that are starting to show in the US, will eventually creep over the pond and come to europe. Then I can be less surprised when the world falls apart here as well.

Agreed. There are a few subreddits I avoid because its a mental shock that such adults are loose and at large.. :s

Woodfordian@reddit

I'm 74 and heartily sick of learning, learning, learning as tech has evolved.

A 25 year old that doesn't know how a keyboard works!?

Unbelievable. And sad.

Zoleish@reddit

If you're not learning, you're dying.

In that case, You don't want to go down the rabbit hole that opens up if you mention older skills - touch typing & shorthand.

In the past there was a movement to have Police learn skills and be paid an allowance in every pay for having those skills.

High on the list were touch typing, shorthand, and swimming lifesaving.

Its only getting worse. they totally upset everything and make you want to do same thing in a worse way every year now. My insirance company was extremely insistent i use their app when their website was far superior in functionality. Just watch them disable the website next year to force everyone onto the app.

Yes. I have had two strong requests to use apps this week.

I don't have full functions in my hands and my eye sight is deteriorating as happens with age so a phone app is hard to use for me.

androshalforc1@reddit

Most phones have about 4 buttons. And most people struggled with that. A keyboard has about 100 you have to be a genius to figure out how to use them all.

Geminii27@reddit

Not actually using them to do anything interesting, mind you - just using them to do basic things the app was designed to churn out in a couple of screen-taps.

Throwaway_Old_Guy@reddit

People have either forgotten or never understood the History of Computers and how far we've advanced. They might not believe you if you told them there was a time when you had to park the heads on your disk drive before shutting it down or they would merrily skip along, destroying sectors along the way.

When I bought my first Home PC, it was pre-loaded with Windows 3.11, a step up from MS-DOS.

If you wanted to install anything, hardware/software it might involve selecting ports and/or moving jumper pins in order to get it and the machine to cooperate. Still, no guarantee it would work seamlessly.

With Windows 95, we saw the beginnings of Plug & Play.

We've reached the point where it, mostly, magically works without having to cudgel it into submission.

Compare it to the development of Automobiles. The steps involved in starting and driving a 1925 Model A are more complex than anything built in 2025.

you had to park the heads on your disk drive before shutting it down or they would merrily skip along, destroying sectors along the way.

I destroyed my first CRT with a bad configuration in linux. Hardware used to cheerfully wreak havoc on itself if you told it the wrong thing.

khopki30@reddit

Plugging a Floppy disk drive controller into the wrong port on the PC, not a good outcome!!!

Dpek1234@reddit

Im wondering what exacly that config did

Also yep, but most of the time its stuff like overclocking and bios updates, most people frankly know nothing about both

NekkidWire@reddit

http://howto-pages.org/ModeLines/ is a good read on how the config works and how it can be created. In short, u/rathmun asked his monitor to work out of spec with bad configuration and some monitors don't have protection against this type of error.

Yep. Painful mistake when you're still too young to get a real job, so you're mowing lawns/raking leaves/shoveling snow for the neighborhood to get money for the parts.

I recall being quite upset about child labor laws at the time. "But I want money!"

Bad modeline.

AStrandedSailor@reddit

I do not miss doing hardware port settings, waiting for floppy disks to spin down before ejecting.

Brilliant comment. I think it is really encapsulated, even back in the 80's, by Scotty trying to talk to the computer before failing the use a mouse and finally using the "quaint" keyboard.

HaplessReader1988@reddit

Best part of that movie imho

Deciding which drive will be a "slave" and which a "master" for the day was fun as a kid.

atomicsnarl@reddit

Upvote for Parking The Heads memory!

Strongit@reddit

I still get people who don't know what a start button is. SMH

Schaksie@reddit

Mid 20ies myself, we had one day a new traine calling in and complaining that his pc is not working, he couldn't enter anything. Because we where short staffed that day i made the tour and look and behold he was trying to use his monitor as a touchscreen ... The poor guy is probably around my age and for some godforsaken reason he didnt know how to use a keyboard and mouse.

WayneH_nz@reddit

| you cannot be this stupid with tech and be 25 years old.

I had to teach an 18 year old how to use a mouse, never used one. elite schooling, rich parents, touchscreen/pad his entire life. spent 20 mins going over every aspect of mouse stuff. just mind blowing.

KelemvorSparkyfox@reddit

That sounds like a good student/colleague. You can't fault someone for not knowing a skill that they've never been taught, and at least he seemed willing to learn.

LowFat_Brainstew@reddit

Thanks for your thoughtful comment. The world has never been more complicated, people are not going to know things. It's funny sometimes but we all just need to help each other learn where we can.

Ive seen a 18 year old that did not knew how to turn on the computer. Had to show her the power button. But it was the opposite option. Parents luddites, she never touched a computer before.

s-mores@reddit

I laughed because you cannot be this stupid with tech and be 25 years old.

http://coding2learn.org/blog/2013/07/29/kids-cant-use-computers/

With AI slop and the issues that were prevalent already 12 years ago, we are raising the most tech illiterate generation ever.

thebarcodelad@reddit (OP)

I mean I know my sister (who‘s 18) is useless and cannot even set a desktop background, but I’d like to hope she wouldn’t be this bad.

I’ve been in IT for 2.5 years and have absolutely seen my fair share of stupid stuff, but that‘s mostly from the older crowd. I didn’t expect this from people only a handful of years older than I, especially from people who have degrees and practice law.

I didn’t expect this from people only a handful of years older than I, especially from people who have degrees and practice law

You will.

Neuro-Sysadmin@reddit

Right? Lawyers and Doctors, man. Had a neurosurgeon not know what a “start menu” was. At least there was semi-plausible reason: he had always used Mac. Still, though…

dorukayhan@reddit

The last time Windows properly indicated to the user that the Start menu and button are called "Start" (mouseover text doesn't count) was 8's fullscreen menu being titled "Start", so I'm inclined to no longer expect people unfamiliar with Windows to know what the thing is called.

Yes. everyone around my office calls it "windows menu" and refers to it as "four squares". and these are people who used to work with XP computers so they remmeber it was start.

Solid point, and a good reminder. For additional context in this particular case, this was around 10 years ago, and the doc was in his 40s.

robophile-ta@reddit

That article is over 10 years old and still evergreen. We will probably still be linking it in another 10 years

harrywwc@reddit

up until 10 years ago, I was a teacher in IT at a technical college (TAFE) here in NSW.

for the previous few years leading up to my retrenchment I and the other teachers had noticed an increasing number of young people fresh out of high school didn't really know how to use a keyboard and mouse. often they would reach up to use "touch gestures" on the screen and get frustrated when it didn't work.

no doubt it's only deteriorated since then.

_9a_@reddit

I work in a public library and have had to very gently correct teens on the proper way to hold a mouse. Right way up, with their fingers on the buttons, not the heel of their hand.

"in the west" used to mean "West of europe" so it still fits.

DoneWithIt_66@reddit

Well, it may be a lack of experience. For many younger folks, their entire context has been limited to school and home.

They have essentially no usable experience to draw from, and it shows, having learned nothing other than the steps required to use those specific hardware setups. No background or education into the "why" or "how".

They get to a business and are suddenly expected to have some ideas about a broader IT landscape and some have no desire to learn any of it.

Thus, the Karen's endure and continue to plague us