Wednesday, June 21, 2006
"Why are you so bitter?"
It's a well-known stereotype: the bitter tech support worker. "Why do you get so frustrated with these people? It's not their fault." Sometimes, outsiders have a hard time understanding what's so difficult about the job. I think that there are a couple of reasons why a job like ours can wear out your mental faculties, and to explain, I'll use a couple of analogies.
First of all, imagine that someone tells you a joke. It's pretty funny. You have a good chuckle. 25 minutes later, someone else tells the same joke. There are a couple of words that are a bit different, but as soon as you hear that person start to talk, you know what's coming. It's still kinda funny. An hour after that, you hear another person tell the same joke. Now it's just starting to get old.
And now imagine that you hear that same joke at random intervals a dozen times every day. Is it still going to be funny after a week? A month? A couple of years? Definitely not. In fact, you'll probably find yourself wanting to scream each time you hear the joke starting to be told:
"COME ON! Don't you know any other jokes?! Any at all?! Here, I'll just yell the punchline now! Maybe then we won't ever have to hear anyone else ever tell this joke again!!"
That's kind of what it's like whenever you hear the next customer say "I can't... you know, open the thing where I usually get my stuff to come up." It's bearable at first. You understand that not everyone knows how to use their computers or how to explain their difficulties. But after a while, you start to wonder: shouldn't these people know better at some point? You start to hope that maybe if you drill the right concepts into this caller's head, the ignorance of the rest will be pushed back by osmosis. Needless to say, it doesn't work that way.
Secondly, our society tends to have rules in place for having people tackle new things. You aren't allowed to hop into a car and hit the roads; you have to undergo a testing and licensing process that proves you're capable of handling a vehicle on the streets.
After doing support for a while, you start to wonder if perhaps people need to be licensed before they can own a computer, or perhaps before they can hook it up to the Internet. There are a myriad of statistics which estimate the amount of money lost every year to things like preventable user problems, viruses, and time spent getting simple programs setup properly (normally figured in the hundreds of billions of dollars). In some of those cases, it's not a user problem. Perhaps the software being used isn't very secure or intuitive. At the same time, from my experience, it seems that an awful lot of the damage could be mitigated by a bit more knowledge on the part of the user. Is it the fault of Customer Joe that his unpatched Windows XP system is a ludicrously unsafe setup? Maybe not, but if Joe knew that it's important to have his system download security patches once in a while, he'd be at much less risk. Is it the fault of Customer Linda that her system requires her to right click to access some options? Well, here I'd say yes. I think that there's a reasonable expectation that people are familiar with the basic functionality of their computers. You don't have drivers who aren't aware of what the right pedal on the floor does.
So what's the answer? How do we educate more people to use their computers more effectively? I think the problem is already fading, as more and more people grow up with computers in their homes, and more and more jobs require a minimum level of skill with a computer. Ultimately, however, the problem will never disappear. We can fix it by...
... you know, I have no idea. I'm bitter. I complain about things, I don't offer solutions!
First of all, imagine that someone tells you a joke. It's pretty funny. You have a good chuckle. 25 minutes later, someone else tells the same joke. There are a couple of words that are a bit different, but as soon as you hear that person start to talk, you know what's coming. It's still kinda funny. An hour after that, you hear another person tell the same joke. Now it's just starting to get old.
And now imagine that you hear that same joke at random intervals a dozen times every day. Is it still going to be funny after a week? A month? A couple of years? Definitely not. In fact, you'll probably find yourself wanting to scream each time you hear the joke starting to be told:
"COME ON! Don't you know any other jokes?! Any at all?! Here, I'll just yell the punchline now! Maybe then we won't ever have to hear anyone else ever tell this joke again!!"
That's kind of what it's like whenever you hear the next customer say "I can't... you know, open the thing where I usually get my stuff to come up." It's bearable at first. You understand that not everyone knows how to use their computers or how to explain their difficulties. But after a while, you start to wonder: shouldn't these people know better at some point? You start to hope that maybe if you drill the right concepts into this caller's head, the ignorance of the rest will be pushed back by osmosis. Needless to say, it doesn't work that way.
Secondly, our society tends to have rules in place for having people tackle new things. You aren't allowed to hop into a car and hit the roads; you have to undergo a testing and licensing process that proves you're capable of handling a vehicle on the streets.
After doing support for a while, you start to wonder if perhaps people need to be licensed before they can own a computer, or perhaps before they can hook it up to the Internet. There are a myriad of statistics which estimate the amount of money lost every year to things like preventable user problems, viruses, and time spent getting simple programs setup properly (normally figured in the hundreds of billions of dollars). In some of those cases, it's not a user problem. Perhaps the software being used isn't very secure or intuitive. At the same time, from my experience, it seems that an awful lot of the damage could be mitigated by a bit more knowledge on the part of the user. Is it the fault of Customer Joe that his unpatched Windows XP system is a ludicrously unsafe setup? Maybe not, but if Joe knew that it's important to have his system download security patches once in a while, he'd be at much less risk. Is it the fault of Customer Linda that her system requires her to right click to access some options? Well, here I'd say yes. I think that there's a reasonable expectation that people are familiar with the basic functionality of their computers. You don't have drivers who aren't aware of what the right pedal on the floor does.
So what's the answer? How do we educate more people to use their computers more effectively? I think the problem is already fading, as more and more people grow up with computers in their homes, and more and more jobs require a minimum level of skill with a computer. Ultimately, however, the problem will never disappear. We can fix it by...
... you know, I have no idea. I'm bitter. I complain about things, I don't offer solutions!
# posted by Terry @ 7:43 AM 
