I'm A Luddite And Proud Of It!

**Lady's Human** · 02-20-2006, 03:25 PM

I had the responsibility of being the IT person for my unit while we were activated. I've never been more frustrated with a help desk than when I had to call Dell for a replacement part for a computer.

Me: I need a replacement #......... for service tag #.......

Help line: How do you know that's what you need (launching into a looooong discussion of what the machine is doing)

Help Line: Well, according to my script here, you're supposed to:

Me: Already done, here's the part I need

back and forth for 30 minutes, finally requested another employee, 5 minutes later they were shipping me a new hard drive, which is what I asked for when I originally called. 45 minutes of arguing for something that should have taken 5 minutes.

**slick** · 02-20-2006, 03:50 PM

LH:
At work all of us have Dell computers and I've never had a problem with them. Very often, I'll do the grunt work first then call and after giving them the PC identification I go into this long speech on what's wrong with it and what I have done to try and problem-solve. If it needs a new part, we get it the next day, or if it's the motherboard, a techie will come onsite the next day to do the replacement.

Richard:
Let me get this straight. You have a problem with your PC you have to place a call to a remote site which then reroutes it to your local IT Dept??? That's nothing short of dumb. Heck, fly me down there and I'll fix it.

PEBCAK

Every heard of it????

It's a famous IT term "Problem Exists Between Chair and Keyboard".

Also....hey that's an ID 10T problem.

**catland** · 02-20-2006, 04:09 PM

If I've learned two things in the corporate jungle, its to be nice to two people at work. Not your boss or their boss, but to the receptionist and the IT help person.

**RICHARD** · 02-20-2006, 04:18 PM

Originally Posted by Lady's Human

Help line: How do you know that's what you need (launching into a looooong discussion of what the machine is doing)

LOL...

These ID 10 ts are our own company nitwits.....

"I need a printer cable..."

"Why? what's the matter with the old one?"

"It does not work...."

"have you checked the drivers?"

"No, I don't need to"

"Well, you HAVE TO...that's the way you know it's not the cable."

"I know it's the cable without looking at the drivers..."

"You can't tell it's the cable unless you check the machine!"

"Oh, So the copper of the cables SHOULD be visible?"

(The cable was draped over the edge if the desk near a drawer, after a few thousand times of getting caught in between the drawer and the desk front, the insulation wore away and the cord finally pinched off....)

And because I am the end user, I do not have the brains to tell you what I need for my machine!

Slick,
You forgot a step,

I have to talk to the SA who has no idea about what is wrong with the machine, and have her stare at the machine for about twenty minutes...

THE PART I REALLY HATE IS WHEN YOU TELL THEM EVERYTHING YOU DID, and they have to sit down and do exactly what you did, then they get P.O.ed when you stand there and tell them, "That's exactly what I did..."

I forgot they have magic powers and should never be questioned about their brains......

**slick** · 02-20-2006, 04:24 PM

As Julie says.....be nice to IT people.

With the "flip of a finger" and we can bring ya down.....

**RICHARD** · 02-20-2006, 04:30 PM

Originally Posted by slick

As Julie says.....be nice to IT people.

With the "flip of a finger" and we can bring ya down.....

I am only beholden to the Power of the Power Company....IT people can make it work..

The Guys in the Hard Hats and Tall Ladders make then run.

Without Electricity You Ain't ---!

**Lady's Human** · 02-20-2006, 05:30 PM

Slick, my problem wasn't with the Dell machines themselves, it was with the support ID10T's on the other end of the phone. The Army pays big $ to dell for the support contracts, but getting parts out of them is like pulling teeth sometimes. I like the machines, I just have an issue with some of their support people. My favorite was I got an error message telling me that the EIDE driver had a hardware error, and the person on the other end of the phone wanted to know if I had checked to make sure the cable was connected to the drive. Excuse me? It's a laptop, there's no cable, it plugs into a slot on the motherboard. Well, just check the cable to be sure!

It's cutting through the first layer of people who are reading a flowchart (if this then do this) to the people who can actually HELP that's painful.