Good grief...

[ffutures]

I always thought it was an urban myth... even when I was doing phone support for a second-hand computer shop it never happened... but I just solved a relative's laptop problem over the phone by asking if it was plugged in. The answer, of course, was that it wasn't, and the battery was flat.

Comments

[jinxed-wood.livejournal.com]

ROFL!

Well, at least now you you've proven urban myths aren't necessarily untrue... um, should I be worried now?

[Looks at microwave oven]

[fenchurche.livejournal.com]

ROFL!

A friend of mine just started doing the tech support for his school district and was complaining about how often the source of the problem was either that the computer was unplugged, the computer wasn't turned on or that the plug was loose.

It just reminded me of the tech guys from The IT Crowd -- with the first thing they say being "Have you tried turning it off and on?"

[parakkum.livejournal.com]

One of my father's fellow engineers was once sent to Hawaii (from California) to resolve a major hardware problem that did, indeed, come down to plugging the device in.

[houses7177.livejournal.com]

I spent an hour on the phone with the inlaws once, trying to get their modem issues sorted out, only to find out they didn't realize it had to be plugged in. Gah.

[sharikkamur.livejournal.com]

I've had precisely the same problem with the parents. If only it was a myth...

[kalieris.livejournal.com]

Definitely not an urban myth. I was a secretary for a bunch of engineers, and one of the installation team guys (big gov't contract, lots of workstations and laptops) called in frustration because a client's laptop kept beeping and then dying. I was supposed to take complete messages and hand them back, so as I was writing the problem down I blurted out "is it plugged in?" and was rewarded by "OH SHIT!... *mumbled*thanks."

*snerk*

[davidkevin.livejournal.com]

This is not a "I know a guy who knew the guy who" story. It really happened.

About twenty years ago I worked for an independent Apple Computer dealer in Belleville, Illinois. One of our customers through an outside salesman was a weekly newspaper in Troy, Missouri, some 75 miles distant. We got a frantic call one afternoon about how their entire network of three Macs and a LaserWriter had gone dead, nothing they could do would bring any of the machines up, Help!!!

So the next morning one of our service techs, Jim Wright, who later went to work for Apple itself, got up at five a.m. to get to the customer when they opened for business at seven. He turned on the machines. Nothing. He cycled the surge protector/power strip on/off switch. Nothing. He followed the power cord for it to the wall plug hidden behind a file cabinet.

The power strip cord had pulled partially out of the wall. He pushed it back in. Everything came up.

He drove back to Belleville. They were billed for the two-hour minimum for an outside service call, plus mileage.

[raygungothic.livejournal.com]

Not only is it not an urban myth, it's not even all that rare. I used to do tech support for a large ISP, and "not plugged in" was the root cause at least once a day.

Funnily enough, because it's also an urban myth, a fair percentage of callers became very angrywhen the possibility was suggested. In the end I arrived at the convenient stock phrase "Just one thing before we go any further... would you mind taking a look around the back to see if any of the plugs have worked loose?" Somehow, the idea that it was the plugs' fault deflected a lot of anger, though never quite enough embarrassment.

[cdybedahl.livejournal.com]

This is actually common enough that when I once was sent on a course on how to do frontline support, one of the things discussed was exactly how to say "Check that the machine is plugged in" without the customer getting angry.

[raygungothic.livejournal.com]

If only I'd had that kind of useful training...

[akicif.livejournal.com]

"Could you please unplug both ends of the cable and reconnect them?" usually works....

Unless, of course, you get a clever so and so who feels patronised by the attempt to save their face!

[keswindhover.livejournal.com]

I know someone who had to explain to their relative that getting a new wireless network, didNOT mean that she no longer had to plug her laptop into the mains.

[heliograph.livejournal.com]

Like the joke about the driver who turned on cruise control and let go of the steering wheel?

They're just living in the future... or maybe they're spies from the future! BEWARE!

[heliograph.livejournal.com]

I've done tech support for more than twenty years, and this is the most common problem. Generally speaking, computer issues boil down to:

1) Is it plugged in (to power, to the computer)?
2) If it is plugged in, is it turned on?
3) Is the Caps Lock key off?
4) Have you tried rebooting (for Windows machines, anyway)?

I'd say that covers the bulk of my help requests, historically speaking.

I've worked in a variety of environments (artists, MIT PhDs, computer programmers) and those hold true whatever the client base.

Occassionally, people do things that make me thing they're from the future -- they're ahead of the wireless curve, or they want to reformat an AOL CD so that they can reuse it -- but most of the time they assume it is something more complicated (usually a virus).

[robertprior.livejournal.com]

One of my friends worked (before Canada's New Government*) in the Prime Minister's Office, doing tech support. One of his prime service calls was listed in the log as "rectified power supply discontinuity".

It's a scary thought that these folks were setting government policy**.



* That's what they call themselves in all their press releases: "Canada's New Government". It's been, what, nearly two years since the election, but they still keep the name—maybe in an attempt to deflect criticism? "We're only Canada's New Government. We haven't had time to make any changes yet. Blame the last government."

** It's a scarier thought that the current folks, the backroom boys*** in Canada's New Government, once named their party the Conservative Reform Allliance Party, and were surprised at how people refered to it.

*** They are virtually all men, so I feel the epithet is allowable.