[PCWorld]

Post your comments for Stupid Tech Support Tricks: IT Calls of Shame here

[mrb186]

This is absolutely a key point for any 'tech savvy' individual to remember. What we consider very basic knowledge, is sometimes not basic at all to a large percentage of the population. You really have to be very aware of this fact.

[WilliamFigueroa]

This is why from the get go I just remotely log in. Doing it your self is so much easier.

[MikeThorne]

Okay, WTH is a network drop?

[JTF243]

Several years ago, I was working to help people set up their DSL connections with SBC (Southwestern Bell) and Yahoo. Many of the customers were people where it was PAINFULLY obvious that English was either a second or third language!
In addition to the "language barrier", many of the customers did not have the mechanical or technical expertise to take their computers apart to put a NIC card in for the hook-up to the modem! Try telling a "stay-at-home" grandmother how to do that! *LOL*

[TheOldTopkick]

I just wish he had not been talking to me quite so much. A good article.

[TerryWendellWilliams]

You have to keep in mind that people like me, at 53, might seem old to you all but when I was 10 years old I saw my first real computer. My cousin was over the Duke Univ Computer Lab. Huge. Larger than a fridge. Didn't do anything like todays computers. We never thought we would or could be carrying small computers around or even what they would be doing. Mind Blowing when you think that my Great Aunt died at 102. What all the changes that she saw!

[mjd420nova]

Having been in the electronic service industry for all my working life, I've run across just about every imaginable level of skillful users. My major frustration comes from trying to work with a support person who is reading from a script and understands very little of what they are doing and even less of what the "customer" is saying. After a while I became pretty skilled in judging the level of the user and adjusting my terminology to help them understand what I'm doing and a line of questioning that the user will understand and provide me with usable answers to help diagnose the problem. When conversing with a "help desk" person, I try to impress upon them my skill level and that I don't need help with anything but getting the proper parts shipped. Using non-technical terms to describe a technical problem can sometimes be taxing, for both me and the user. Getting call takers to understand a problem when they have little or non-existant skills is frustrating for me and a real challenge. Asking for an english speaking person often results in being passed around to multiple "script readers" until I get to someone who really understands.