here's one from the other side .. when i used to do desktop/helpdesk support type stuff i got a call from this manager that said his
PC had a power problem - kept switching off and on.

I went to see him and he had this 'stupid computers and support guys' attitude.

I turned it on and watched it go off ... and in 5 seconds i figured out the problem ..

this masterbating membrane was swinging his feet back and forth under his desk like a 3 year old kid at a park .. he was occasionally kicking the power switch on his power bar ... off ,,, then on ...

i just looked at him and shook my head .. and walked away.

normally a career limiting move but no one liked or respected the ass so it wasnt a big deal.

My luck has varied.

I had a year of McAfee Hell with tech support on Virusscan, then I changed to Norton and didn't realize how nice McAfee's support was.

Nobody at Norton could speak understandable English I don't know where in the hell they outsource to but the native language is not English or Spanish.

Everything worked out fine, though--I returned the McAfee to Fry's Electronics for a refund, and Norton sent a refund by mail.

Now I have free Avast!, and it hasn't needed tech support.

Re: The Horror Of Tech Support
 

In our defence there is a hell of a lot to remember for a tech suppor person. And not to mention the fact that you are usually working ALL DAY with someone (the users) looking over your shoulder. Trust me, that gets to you... and that is why the support person goes back to their desk, their 'space' to work out what the problem may be and then come back with a few ideas.

At my last place of employment (which was a charity, so we did not have a lot of cash to throw around) we did not have a SOE. So we had every Microsoft Operating System to support - 95, 98, NT, 2000, XP. Various makes and models of computers, different peripherals attached to those machines. There was no way we were ever going to know it all off the top of our heads. We would have loved to, but it just aint gonna happen.

Then there is the fact the pretty much anything with a power cable falls under the IT departments umbrella (well it did for us). So you find yourself being a printer mechanic, audio visual expert, etc etc etc :rolleyes:

I think that support is a small part knowledge, a larger part knowing where to go to get answers, and an even larger part customer service.

Tech support offices dont have an interesting environment to work in. A lot of technicians get call after call, and most of the time, the people who call in are either lazy or arrogant. It gets them irritated.

Absolutely. you can onlu get so many "My computer doesnt work, FIX it..." calls before you become apathetic about human suffering in general.

go here for some hilarious reading:
http://rinkworks.com/stupid/

its one of the jobs (like the doctor) where people only come to you when something broke - so they are already agitated and demanding when they get to you.
Not everyone is like that but enough of a number to make a name.

its hard to even make them happy once you fix their problem because you only got things to where they should have been all along - not something extra to brighten up their day.

value added service (can i wash your car for you too ?) is great if you have the time.
or you arent bitter as hell by then yourself..

I work on a Service Desk now for a global company and the main difference between my last job and this job is that we can not go to users machines, we get calls and emails from AOA zone (Africa-Oceania-Asia) people and our job is to act as a filter to resolution groups. Resolve what we can, and escalate what we can't.

100% phone support is the support you don't want to be doing. It is FUCKED!
As Steve mentioned above sometimes people call that are lazy and\or arrogant... or silly.

I had a call the other day and the user told me what was or was not happening I asked him to try something, and he said "ok" and then there was silence for around 30 seconds... I said "have you done that?"

He said "I will as soon as my computer reboots - I shut it down just before I called you to see if it resolves the problem. I am just restarting it"

I said pretty sarcastically "ok, great... did you want to call back when you have your machine up and running and we can take it from there?"

A full reboot of our machines takes around 12 minutes and I was not waiting on the phone for that amount of time. he did not call back so again the mighty reboot resolved the problem.

Its calls like that (from one of our resolution group people) that leave you scratching your head and wondering how can we be ESCALATING tickets to these people??

Man, this tech guy is a retard....All he needs to do is sync up my domain name with the server. It's been 5 days and the retard keeps emailing me back with stupid questions. I'm getting tired of e-mail tag.