I was pushed into a university IT call center with no training in actual computer skills and felt like this. But after fumbling through some calls it was 40% getting people to reboot, 40% getting people to reboot despite their lies that they already did, 15% problems I actually happened to know the answer to from home PC use, and 5% “Let me ask the specialist”.
My record for computer uptime was 18 months. The conversation went like this:
EU: I’m calling about [known problem whose known solution is a reboot]
Me: That’s a common issue. All you need to do is restart and you’re good to go.
EU: Do you think I’m an idiot? I tried that 3 times before calling.
Me: Let’s go ahead and try one more time so I can note it on the ticket.
EU: But I already did! Are you calling me a liar?
Me: runs systeminfo /s
Me: I’m certainly not calling you a liar, but your computer is reporting that it’s last boot time was [date 18 months ago]. Do you mind if I try rebooting it remotely?
EU: That worked click
Like, I knew they were logging off and on instead of rebooting because it was a remote station, but I wanted to let them make an ass of themselves.
I don’t even bother arguing with them if they say they already did it. At that point it becomes “ok I’m going to check something on my end, your computer might reboot again when I do this”. Then I just reboot it. No room for argument, no trying to figure out what they’re actually doing.
Often when the uptime is that high on Windows it’s because the fast boot option or whatever it’s called is on. When that’s on uptime doesn’t get reset if you shutdown and then start the computer (it does get reset if you reboot though).
I was pushed into a university IT call center with no training in actual computer skills and felt like this. But after fumbling through some calls it was 40% getting people to reboot, 40% getting people to reboot despite their lies that they already did, 15% problems I actually happened to know the answer to from home PC use, and 5% “Let me ask the specialist”.
My record for computer uptime was 18 months. The conversation went like this:
EU: I’m calling about [known problem whose known solution is a reboot]
Me: That’s a common issue. All you need to do is restart and you’re good to go.
EU: Do you think I’m an idiot? I tried that 3 times before calling.
Me: Let’s go ahead and try one more time so I can note it on the ticket.
EU: But I already did! Are you calling me a liar?
Me: runs systeminfo /s
Me: I’m certainly not calling you a liar, but your computer is reporting that it’s last boot time was [date 18 months ago]. Do you mind if I try rebooting it remotely?
EU: That worked click
Like, I knew they were logging off and on instead of rebooting because it was a remote station, but I wanted to let them make an ass of themselves.
I don’t even bother arguing with them if they say they already did it. At that point it becomes “ok I’m going to check something on my end, your computer might reboot again when I do this”. Then I just reboot it. No room for argument, no trying to figure out what they’re actually doing.
That’s so cool that you did support for the EU! Was it the parliament itself?
End user, I’m assuming
Often when the uptime is that high on Windows it’s because the fast boot option or whatever it’s called is on. When that’s on uptime doesn’t get reset if you shutdown and then start the computer (it does get reset if you reboot though).
“Sir, I need you to reboot your computer”
“Sure, let me juuuuust restart… Huh, doesn’t seem to have solved the problem”
“Sir, I’m remoted into your computer and can see you didn’t actually reboot.”
So many goddamned times while I was on first line…
Sounds like Millennials solving Boomer computer issues for 25 years.
younger zoomers and boomers have similar levels of understanding. this is not going anywhere
The Dr House rule of everybody lies is oddly very specific in the IT support world
and that is how we know you are not lying and actually suffered through that job 😂