Disclaimer: Yeps..you know the drill and if you know what's good for you, don't drop the soap!
Soooo…in one of our Midwestern facilities, we have a young lady, (We shall call her "A".).
"A" is a nice enough gal, and is a good diligent hard worker, who does her job and all that is required with no initiative or desire to move upward in a career path with the corporation, or to ascend to bigger better things…
In other words…she is "the perfect drone".
The problem with A is that she has a bit of low self-esteem and the fact that "technology scares her". She tells me that she is "Computer Illiterate" which is a term I have never ever really understood. I mean, if you can read your login, then you are NOT computer illiterate.
To her a computer is a "magic box". She knows enough about them to do her job and that is it. She touches nothing else, does nothing else and learns nothing else.
Which sometimes is very frustrating.
Simple problems that she can fix herself, (like making sure the CAPS lock is off), she contacts me about.
It's gotten to the point that I got her a spiral notebook and I tell her to take notes on how to do things so that in the future if/when you have this issue we don't spend time repeating the fix.
Sooooo….last week she puts in a trouble ticket saying that her desktop PC isn't working. It won't go to "The Welcome Screen" and when it does about an hour later, and she logs in, it takes another hour or so to come up and etc..etc…yada yada…nothing works!!!!
In other words…her "Magic Box" isn't working….
I tell her to let me know when she is there so I can remote into it. She says okay.
The next day a large box arrives via UPS overnight shipping.
"What's this?" I think…
I open the box and lo and behold, she sent me her desktop.
"Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?" I say to myself. I call her on the phone. Seven rings later, she answers and I ask her "Why did you send me your PC?"
A then says "Well it wasn't working and you said that you needed it to fix it."
Sigh…I respond with "No A. I said for you to let me know when you would be available that I could remote into it to fix it."
"Oh." She says. "I thought you wanted it."
So I tell her I will get back to her.
I pull out the pc. Notice that she spend 75.00 on an overnight shipping to get it to me. Hook it up. Turn it on…call her back and ask for her login and passowrd. She gives it to me. I hang up, and login as her.
Desktop comes up perfectly.
"Hmmmm…" sez I. I check her settings. There is one java setting slightly off, but this wouldn't affect anything on her pc setup. Just her oracle applications.
I log off and try her login again…
It works perfectly.
I pick up the phone and call her. Put her on speaker, and tell her. "Guess what? Your computer works perfectly. There's nothing wrong with it."
A then goes into the "Nuh-uh!" mentality. "It's not working!".
After about five minutes of discussing the issue with her, and she not believing that her pc works, I take out my Iphone and log off her pc and video myself logging back in as her and it coming up and all apps working, while I was talking with her on the speaker phone.
I send her the video via email.
She swears…SWEARS….that "This computer wasn't working at all."
So I write up some quick instructions for her including a tibit that says "At the end of the week, on Friday when you go home for the weekend, please turn your PC OFF. Keeping your PC on for 1200+ hours without a turn off or reboot DOES indeed cause some issues."
(I've only told her that three times already)….she just "Forgets"….
So I unhook it, pack it back in the box, and ship it back because "they gotta have it overnight!".
Then I cheerfully note in my notes for next weeks meeting that "We just spent 150 bucks of corporate money on overnight shipping a PC back and forth for "repair" that there was nothing wrong with.
And to top it off…that was the second pc that I had gotten this week with the same issue….
Needless to say I am going to be doing some "Retraining of folks" come January…..
Submitted respectfully;
Murphy
