Thursday, March 08, 2007
Jesus himself might not be able to save you
In general, I believe that after 60 minutes on the phone with someone, I should be able to say certain basic things with certainty. A recent caller provided a good example of a case where I couldn't, and this frightens me a little.
This customer was having a bit of trouble with her router, and after an hour, I couldn't get it going properly. It partially worked, but not quite like it should have. I had to get someone notified to replace her router.
The thing is, I'm still not 100% sure that she needs it replaced. She was actually using two routers in addition to her cable modem, and whenever I would ask her to try and change the configuration of the cords going from one box to another, she'd get a bit flustered. Initially she had trouble distinguishing between her modem and router, so I started referring to each one by its brand name, since they were all from different manufacturers.
Even so, she'd get flustered, even if I just asked her to move the network cable from port 1 on her router to port 2. After 30 minutes of trying to get the proper response from the problem router, I had to give up and order a new one on her behalf, but even so, after more than 30 minutes of work on it, I couldn't ascertain that she had the cables in correctly.
That's still not the worst experience of its type that I've had. Another time, I spent about 20 minutes trying to explain to a woman how the phone cord goes from her phone jack to her dialup modem. To this day I don't understand how she could fail to understand that. It's one cord with identical ends, and it pretty much just goes in where it fits. After 20 minutes I had to give up and suggest she get someone over to help her.
I don't generally expect much from the people I talk to in terms of computer skills, but I would hope that they can negotiate the cords that plug their computer into other things.
This customer was having a bit of trouble with her router, and after an hour, I couldn't get it going properly. It partially worked, but not quite like it should have. I had to get someone notified to replace her router.
The thing is, I'm still not 100% sure that she needs it replaced. She was actually using two routers in addition to her cable modem, and whenever I would ask her to try and change the configuration of the cords going from one box to another, she'd get a bit flustered. Initially she had trouble distinguishing between her modem and router, so I started referring to each one by its brand name, since they were all from different manufacturers.
Even so, she'd get flustered, even if I just asked her to move the network cable from port 1 on her router to port 2. After 30 minutes of trying to get the proper response from the problem router, I had to give up and order a new one on her behalf, but even so, after more than 30 minutes of work on it, I couldn't ascertain that she had the cables in correctly.
That's still not the worst experience of its type that I've had. Another time, I spent about 20 minutes trying to explain to a woman how the phone cord goes from her phone jack to her dialup modem. To this day I don't understand how she could fail to understand that. It's one cord with identical ends, and it pretty much just goes in where it fits. After 20 minutes I had to give up and suggest she get someone over to help her.
I don't generally expect much from the people I talk to in terms of computer skills, but I would hope that they can negotiate the cords that plug their computer into other things.
Labels: futility
# posted by Terry @ 11:23 AM 
