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There are those clients who just don’t know what’s up and then there are those clients who are lucky to survive a day when left to their own devices…

You, of course, have heard of the typical IT calls where someone has to “check to see if it is plugged in” and to “turn it off and turn it back on” and “did you turn your computer monitor on?” You are smarter than that, right? I am sure you have never had to need that sort of tech support, right? You’re all beyond that now, right?

So, yesterday I took a call about the software we support not working. It was in my area of expertise and so I figured it was something the user was doing (or not doing) and that is why it wasn’t working the way they expected.

In this case, a teacher wasn’t able to get the software to record the grades being entered for a graded assignment. I called the client and shadowed them in my virtual meeting room. Below is the conversation:

Me: “What seems to be the problem? Can you show me what is happening?”

Client: “I know you can’t see this but I am pushing the numbers for 2 0 and nothing is happening.”

Me: “Are you using the numbers on the keyboard above the letters or does your keyboard have a 10-key pad?”

Client: “I am using the numbers on the side.”

Me: “Can you push the NUMLK key on your keyboard and try it again?”

Client: “Oh, huh, weird. I have never had to do that before.”

Me: “silence….as I roll my eyes and bite my tongue”

Me: “So everything is working like it should now? Glad I could help.”

Add that to the list of “I’ve seen it all” items.

Why is it that people have a hard time troubleshooting issues themselves? Is it that we can’t, won’t, or don’t because we always expect it to be someone else’s problem?

Chalk this one up as another head shaker…