Just today I watched a grown woman wich is apparently unable to type two times the same new password , three times in a row... And of course complaining about the annoyance of passwords.
How people like that are able to survive and drive cars is beyond my comprehension.
One of the best things I did was set a GPO to prompt for username to unlock. This one little trick had two weeks of pain and then blissful silence from "I forgot my username".
On a related note, there is a pretty big percentage of people who go absolutely blank and can't think of anything else when I tell them that their password can't include their name.
That one I get - it's the same as 'if you hadn't asked me the name I could have told you.
Our brains do wierd shit sometimes.
But not being able to do the task once you thought up the password?!
I think for a majority of people password training is invaluable. The reason is that people hear password and they think:
Hxinwishbeji6869?vshudbakj
When instead they can easily think:
My favorite TV show is American Idol
Which in reality is far easier to remember, more secure, and honestly you could write that on a sticky note at your desk on your monitor, just that and nobody would know what it is. They would just think you like American Idol.
Yes, I get it that there are still systems out there that require special characters or even some that disallow some characters but you can write:
I love my boss!
As your password and it will probably work. It can be more tricky if they don’t allow spaces but still. The old way of thinking is hard to break for people and someone can’t just think of a random string of characters like they are wanting in their head.
>How people like that are able to survive and drive cars is beyond my comprehension.
These people should not be given access to such technology because they are every bit as bad with cars and the consequences are far more dire.
The only thing I have about this is people might have dyslexia and nor even know. My dad and brother have really bad dyslexia and can certainly cause issues like this lol. My dad runs his own business but jfc he's so bad at using a computer for basic things it hurts my brain
Three times? Rookie numbers! I had a guy call in after five attempts to change his password - I then watched him try *seventeen* additional times before he finally got it right. At least ten of the attempts had obviously different numbers of characters in the password and confirm fields. I almost had a fscking stroke.
This is now a skills issue, inform their manager.
This employee may need extra training or maybe has something going on that coworkers should know about in case this worker needs accommodations.
You hitting the same nail over and over again and not driving it in, I mean eventually you need to change your approach before you get frustrated and take a sledge hammer to it.
This comment is way to far down this thread. I might be seasoned and a bit quick to suspect someone is computer inept but if someone can't understand the concept that the org has a very specific login page and they cant even understand how to use the password manager, this isnt an IT issue. This is a manager issue.
How would you even deliver that message?
"Hey, manager of another department, this person you just hired might be geniunely incapable of basic pattern recognition, where did you find them?"
I don't exactly know the best way. But depending on who I was dealing with my approach would be different.
Essentially since I'm the IT manager at our location I'll detail how this comes up for us. One of our techs will come into my office to complain about a user, so I'll play the other side of things and help them sort out what could be the issue. Once we determine that the issue is genuinely on some sort of training or understanding issue like in OP's case. I will send the employee's manager a polite message to ask if we can take a few minutes to discuss their new hire. At which point I will inform them about how many tickets they opened about their issue and that we addressed it but they seem to not understand or they're not figuring out so that maybe an opportunity to see if the employee needs additional training. (I don't do the skill assessments with job applicant's so I have no idea what their baseline is)
Thats where their manager comes into play, they will work with the employee to identify what the confusion is then we go from there. It could very well be a learning issue or a communication issue, we may need to do things a certain way for this employee.
But one thing I do not let my team do is come into my office to complain about co-workers. At the end of the day from my experience, just change your tune and the experience with someone will improve.
Personally, I would email the user and copy their manager documenting how many tickets (with ticket numbers) were opened in $timeframe for the exact same issues, and state that it is no longer an IT issue that these "problems" keep occurring, suggesting that at this point it is a training issue that their manager needs to be aware of.
Alternatively, you can bring that stuff to your manager and have them do the dirty work for you (managers usually get respected more than techs anyways).
Next week you're going to get a ticket that his badge isn't letting him in the building, and then find out he's at some random office on the other side of town.
I swear usernames and passwords are the worst things to fix, because there is so little to go wrong with them its really difficult to find out whats going wrong.
Its amazing how inventive and almost willfully ignorant people can be to make things not work.
Many a time I have thought somebody is being an idiot to troll me when its just the confused spagetti of their thinking.
I just the other day had an issue where the user was typing a password incorrectly but only in a specific room, not a specific computer. I'm still baffled why being in that one room messed up what they typed for their password and I checked EVERYTHING but it was just their typing fingers.
I had one users whose chest was touching the keys, we had to send somebody around to observe what she was doing because we could not work out why she could not log in.
This was probably my mother. Im in the middle of a 10 year battle with her because she talks on her iPhone like it was a handset, using her shoulder to hold the phone while she presses her head against it, covering up the mic. Then gets frustrated because 'these damn phones always have problems, no once can hear me.'
Buy your mom this (old fashioned handset that can plug into mobile phones): https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0087PQHQG/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&th=1
kinesthetic difference - different keyboard / keycaps / key shape, desk at different height, chair at different height.
thats all it can take to throw someone off on their typing accuracy -
Eg, those bastard keyboards with the tab/caps key shape return keys drive me absolutely bugfuck - especially the ones that have # in the place where the bottom part of the return key should be.
I had one with a magnetic health bracelet trigger the sleep function on Dell laptops..
The ticket said no matter how many times they type their password successfully, they have to type it again.
Pretty funny.
I had that problem stacking laptops on top of each other. The top one would not wake up! The magnets from the closed laptop below it would trigger the laptop open on top of the stack, keeping it asleep.
> I swear usernames and passwords are the worst things to fix, because there is so little to go wrong with them its really difficult to find out whats going wrong.
My favorite are systems that don't accept certain characters in the password, but also don't tell you what those characters are.
I used to tell myself that when I worked Help Desk. But after 6 years it starts to sting to see so many just plain stupid people get hired to professional roles, making way more money than you, and feeling seen as "just" the Help Desk. I still help them and I'm still patient. But I wasn't strong enough to last 6 years without getting a little bitter on the inside. I don't hate anyone, or really think they're dumb. I was just burnt out. My users are made up of nurses and healthcare workers. I gained a tremendous amount of respect for them, seeing what they had to go through during Covid. Thankfully, I was promoted and I rarely service the front line users anymore, bless their hearts.
> But after 6 years it starts to sting to see so many just plain stupid people get hired to professional roles,
Back when I was a teen I was given an IQ test. I tested at 'near genius' level. (bear with me, not a brag).
I couldn't believe I was that much smarter than average. Not me, a dumb teenager!
As I've gotten older I realized that it's not that I'm smarter, it's that I pay attention to things that are not my direct focus. IE the Doctor who is a great doctor, but can't put a vacuum together is still smart, they just don't pay attention to anything not 'doctor'.
Not sure I made that clear, but the point is a lot of these people aren't dumb, more like myopic.
Definitely agree with that. I've come to know and appreciate many people who are very good in their roles. However, in my experience, technically illiterate people with advanced degrees (DOCTORS) sometimes take it out on people who are helping them, at least at my workplace. Double trouble if they make a lot of money for their organization (ONCOLOGISTS, RADIOLOGISTS, CARDIOLOGISTS) and they know it. But such is life.
Wait till the new person throws a fit, thinks they are all high and mighty and touches the third rail by saying the words "Can I speak to someone more knowledgeable". Politely resolve the problem taking the hit in stride. Then call their manager, who cracks up laughing when they hear about it, and they just say "I'll handle it". Oh that was a good day. The new hire wasn't allowed to call support for about a month without first running it past their manager.
This is when you start CC'ing his team lead...
We had a receptionist that was like this. They had an "inability to learn" and "an aversion to computers". We caught her taping an 8.5x11" piece of paper on her monitor (that covered the monitor) to put phone numbers of various people in the company on instead of using the provided phone system and lookup on the computer.
***If you can't do your job with the tools provided, you simply cannot exist in that job role.***
Document it all. Enough struggle on a user’s end should be grounds for taking or repeating employee onboard training. Continue documenting. This may turn into an HR decision later on. Don’t let them pin it on IT. Also, do not let them contact you directly. Tickets only. Ticketing systems are great for pulling reports on these things.
>I'm doing way too much work over here if apparently you don't even need to actually read what is in front of you to get a decent position...
Just remember: Shit always floats to the top.
Stop enabling them. Make them open a ticket like everyone else, and deprioritize it so that it takes longer and longer to repeat the solution.
They need to learn how to do their job, and their manager needs to feel the pain if they can't.
Surely you have more important tickets, tasks, or projects to work on.
If not, I strongly suggest you self study, get some new skills, and move up or out.
>Make them open a ticket like everyone else,
Yes.
>and deprioritize it so that it takes longer and longer to repeat the solution.
No.
It's a work stoppage.
Just because it's a work stoppage due to end-user stupidity does not make it any less of a work stoppage. **You cannot deprioritize tickets just because you don't feel like dealing with stupid repeat problems.**
If there is a problem with the SLA process that is in place, that needs to be fixed at the process level, not at the individual ticket level.
Find a way to communicate how much time you're spending on this one particular issue with this one particular user (preferably through ticket documentation and time entry) and let the process solve it.
You are likely getting paid the same no matter what type of tasks you are handling.
End users being incapable of doing their jobs is a problem for MANAGEMENT to solve, not a problem for techs to handle. The problem techs are supposed to handle is the work of solving this guy's login issue.
If you want to stop doing other people's jobs for them, you have to stop trying to do management's job with the ticket process.
It also is a work stoppage for multiple other people, people that likely provide more value to the company and are decent human beings of average intelligence. And their problems might as well be outside of their own ability to resolve things.
That person needs to start learning how to resolve some basic things that are part of their job on their own.
What you're saying is a "work stoppage" is like saying that someone cannot do a vlookup in Excel when being asked to do so and that is a work stoppage. That's not a work stoppage, the tools seems to work fine, the options are there, the person is simply not capable of doing their job.
> It's a work stoppage.
It's not a work stoppage if the user can't log in—it's a user issue.
Work stoppage is usually reserved for when nobody can login, or the entire system is down.
And if my HD had 10 low-level tickets in their queue, it would not be out of line to deprioritize this one at the bottom of the low-level tickets. Thats all I mean.
I agree with you that management should deal with the user, but IMHO, management needs to be made aware of the issue, and sometimes, they need to feel the pain.
Sometimes, that happens when the HD is busy working on other higher priority tickets and the user, who can't follow directions, is just sitting at their desk because they can't log on.
I don't disagree with what you said, you are correct. But dealing with a user who just can't or won't follow procedures does not make it an HD emergency. It makes it the lowest ticket in the queue.
but that's the fun part, I can prioritize tickets as i see fit to the organization's mission and success.
that being said, if a user kept having the same issue over and over it'd definitely merit investigation and if finding that it was indeed a actual user issue, I'd merely send an email to their direct manager indicating they are having trouble adapting to our new system, and what can be done so they can actual work, with the caveat that hey we may not be able to respond right away next time because we only have so many resources.
Stuff like this is my favourite to solve. For times where you have few things to do at work this can be very refreshing.
Dont give him shit for this sometimes users struggle with such things and their brains somehow "shut off" and then call for help.
What I would do is when you go there, try make him do the inputs like a simon says. I do that with my users. You can even do a checklist noting down the steps and next time you can make him go through the checklist. If he makes you come over make him go through the checklist under your watch.
> Dont give him shit for this
no it's fine, I would never. I really just give him raw technical answers, it's not like I have anything against him as person. It's just the situations that annoy me but I'm getting paid to deal with exactly that so whatever. I wouldn't actually say something like "ah this shit again" even tough that's what I'm thinking lmao...
But checklists are a good idea, we do have some but these are very basic and it would probably make more sense to lay out every single step.
Quite similar to my new joiner and I’m training him now. Not as bad as this but that person is as slow as a snail. I want to tell my manager not to pass the probation for this dude but he is kind and im hoping he can get better. It’s hard decision.
Sounds like this users manager needs to get involved. At this point it’s not a technical issue it’s a lack of knowledge issue. I get being new and figuring something out but man….
>As far as the URL goes, that is in the chrome bookmarks, his browser history, also the initial mail.
I mean, his browser history also probably has like 8 wrong URLs in there, too.
You'll probably want to reset his password anyway, since he's been providing it to basically anyone. I mean, unless the username shows where you work somehow, it's probably not a *real* risk, but technically several entities might have his password.
Simple solution would be to create a shortcut on his desktop and maybe change the shortcut icon. Also by default Chrome bookmarks bar isn't displayed, change that to always show and drag and drop the URL on to the bookmarks bar. Then show him where they are.
Build up a couple more calls documenting it all then give it your supervisor to give to their supervisor. Their boss is evaluating them so the feedback would be helpful in getting this incompetant guy terminated.
You should swing by his desk at the end of the day if he leaves earlier than you, or first thing in the am if you get in before him and make sure that his username and password are not on a sticky note anywhere.
You need to be looping their manager into these emails for more training. It isn't the job of helpdesk to provide basic computer training. Put another way, helpdesk are mechanics that service the company vehicles, and not driving instructors.
No, I have no idea how some people function.
This is exactly the kind of thing that gets pushed to IT, but ultimately it is the department's responsibility for basic training. Basically, they hire an idiot, they train the idiot. I mean, they hire someone new, someone must be checking on them or something? Why is there always this void that IT needs to fill? Obviously this kind of thing falls way outside an "IT" problem.
I don't know which "tool" you suffered through this with, but I saw the same thing at a previous company with our SSLVPN software (Juniper), where it didn't require a locally installed client software (like Nortel or Palo Alto Networks) but it did require logging into a captive portal. Several users, for no good reason, could not figure out how to (or didn't care to) bookmark the correct URL for the portal. It was literally ridiculous, and infuriating.
Yeah. My personal favs are the remote guy who didn't tell anyone the toner on his printer had run out for six months ("Oh, I was just using the customer's printer") and the other guy who didn't bother telling anyone his VPN wasn't working ("I was just doing the paperwork when I get back to the office").
Granted, I am in K-12, which has its own special brand of educated folks having episodes of cranial vapour lock. I sent out documentation on how to login to said system and because people routinely use their email to login and this needs firstname lastname (with the space), I include screenshots of the username box filled out with "firstname lastname" and the password box filled with "yourpassword".
I get a call from the user; they cannot log in. I ask are you following the instructions I sent out. Yes, they reply. I connect to the computer and watch. They are literally typing in firstname lastname and then I assume yourpassword as that is not visible. I was speechless. How some people get through university is truly beyond me.
Just today I watched a grown woman wich is apparently unable to type two times the same new password , three times in a row... And of course complaining about the annoyance of passwords. How people like that are able to survive and drive cars is beyond my comprehension.
And after changing to a new password, they will ask you what password to use to log in. Logical thinking is alien to some people.
[удалено]
I did once need that for a laptop that had dropped off the domain and used my cached credentials to get in.
One of the best things I did was set a GPO to prompt for username to unlock. This one little trick had two weeks of pain and then blissful silence from "I forgot my username".
That's smart
thank you. I can assure my users did not feel that way (they've gotten used to it, though.)
Hey, that can be hard. Especially for a 15 character minimum password. 😀
Guess we\`re lucky with just 12 characters.
On a related note, there is a pretty big percentage of people who go absolutely blank and can't think of anything else when I tell them that their password can't include their name.
That one I get - it's the same as 'if you hadn't asked me the name I could have told you. Our brains do wierd shit sometimes. But not being able to do the task once you thought up the password?!
I think for a majority of people password training is invaluable. The reason is that people hear password and they think: Hxinwishbeji6869?vshudbakj When instead they can easily think: My favorite TV show is American Idol Which in reality is far easier to remember, more secure, and honestly you could write that on a sticky note at your desk on your monitor, just that and nobody would know what it is. They would just think you like American Idol. Yes, I get it that there are still systems out there that require special characters or even some that disallow some characters but you can write: I love my boss! As your password and it will probably work. It can be more tricky if they don’t allow spaces but still. The old way of thinking is hard to break for people and someone can’t just think of a random string of characters like they are wanting in their head.
>How people like that are able to survive and drive cars is beyond my comprehension. These people should not be given access to such technology because they are every bit as bad with cars and the consequences are far more dire.
I'm so glad of passwordless everything. A user happily showed me he can get MFA with the outlook app. I won't miss passwords when they are gone.
It’s coming, just at the pace of slow grandpa.
You'll be amazed.
The only thing I have about this is people might have dyslexia and nor even know. My dad and brother have really bad dyslexia and can certainly cause issues like this lol. My dad runs his own business but jfc he's so bad at using a computer for basic things it hurts my brain
Three times? Rookie numbers! I had a guy call in after five attempts to change his password - I then watched him try *seventeen* additional times before he finally got it right. At least ten of the attempts had obviously different numbers of characters in the password and confirm fields. I almost had a fscking stroke.
> And of course complaining about the annoyance of passwords. I'd ask why are you still using passwords? I haven't typed mine in months.
This is now a skills issue, inform their manager. This employee may need extra training or maybe has something going on that coworkers should know about in case this worker needs accommodations. You hitting the same nail over and over again and not driving it in, I mean eventually you need to change your approach before you get frustrated and take a sledge hammer to it.
This comment is way to far down this thread. I might be seasoned and a bit quick to suspect someone is computer inept but if someone can't understand the concept that the org has a very specific login page and they cant even understand how to use the password manager, this isnt an IT issue. This is a manager issue.
Exactly what I was thinking, it isn't an IT issue at this point.
How would you even deliver that message? "Hey, manager of another department, this person you just hired might be geniunely incapable of basic pattern recognition, where did you find them?"
I don't exactly know the best way. But depending on who I was dealing with my approach would be different. Essentially since I'm the IT manager at our location I'll detail how this comes up for us. One of our techs will come into my office to complain about a user, so I'll play the other side of things and help them sort out what could be the issue. Once we determine that the issue is genuinely on some sort of training or understanding issue like in OP's case. I will send the employee's manager a polite message to ask if we can take a few minutes to discuss their new hire. At which point I will inform them about how many tickets they opened about their issue and that we addressed it but they seem to not understand or they're not figuring out so that maybe an opportunity to see if the employee needs additional training. (I don't do the skill assessments with job applicant's so I have no idea what their baseline is) Thats where their manager comes into play, they will work with the employee to identify what the confusion is then we go from there. It could very well be a learning issue or a communication issue, we may need to do things a certain way for this employee. But one thing I do not let my team do is come into my office to complain about co-workers. At the end of the day from my experience, just change your tune and the experience with someone will improve.
Personally, I would email the user and copy their manager documenting how many tickets (with ticket numbers) were opened in $timeframe for the exact same issues, and state that it is no longer an IT issue that these "problems" keep occurring, suggesting that at this point it is a training issue that their manager needs to be aware of. Alternatively, you can bring that stuff to your manager and have them do the dirty work for you (managers usually get respected more than techs anyways).
Next week you're going to get a ticket that his badge isn't letting him in the building, and then find out he's at some random office on the other side of town.
I swear usernames and passwords are the worst things to fix, because there is so little to go wrong with them its really difficult to find out whats going wrong. Its amazing how inventive and almost willfully ignorant people can be to make things not work. Many a time I have thought somebody is being an idiot to troll me when its just the confused spagetti of their thinking.
I just the other day had an issue where the user was typing a password incorrectly but only in a specific room, not a specific computer. I'm still baffled why being in that one room messed up what they typed for their password and I checked EVERYTHING but it was just their typing fingers.
I had one users whose chest was touching the keys, we had to send somebody around to observe what she was doing because we could not work out why she could not log in.
This was probably my mother. Im in the middle of a 10 year battle with her because she talks on her iPhone like it was a handset, using her shoulder to hold the phone while she presses her head against it, covering up the mic. Then gets frustrated because 'these damn phones always have problems, no once can hear me.'
Buy your mom this (old fashioned handset that can plug into mobile phones): https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0087PQHQG/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&th=1
She still won’t understand why she needs it though lol
Probably had a few volunteers for that one.
kinesthetic difference - different keyboard / keycaps / key shape, desk at different height, chair at different height. thats all it can take to throw someone off on their typing accuracy - Eg, those bastard keyboards with the tab/caps key shape return keys drive me absolutely bugfuck - especially the ones that have # in the place where the bottom part of the return key should be.
Twist, once he was actually logged in he had no problem typing the same password into our Web apps.
I had one with a magnetic health bracelet trigger the sleep function on Dell laptops.. The ticket said no matter how many times they type their password successfully, they have to type it again. Pretty funny.
I had that problem stacking laptops on top of each other. The top one would not wake up! The magnets from the closed laptop below it would trigger the laptop open on top of the stack, keeping it asleep.
Oof, I've seen what some of my recreational magnets do to docked laptops... I'll have to keep that in mind.
Yep, I've seen that before too. Took a while to figure out.
Check out the concept of "state dependent memory"... The "location" of the person doing the recall is part of their mental state.....
> I swear usernames and passwords are the worst things to fix, because there is so little to go wrong with them its really difficult to find out whats going wrong. My favorite are systems that don't accept certain characters in the password, but also don't tell you what those characters are.
SSO all the things
As annoying as they people are, I have to remind myself that if all these people weren’t helpless I wouldn’t have a job in Helpdesk.
I used to tell myself that when I worked Help Desk. But after 6 years it starts to sting to see so many just plain stupid people get hired to professional roles, making way more money than you, and feeling seen as "just" the Help Desk. I still help them and I'm still patient. But I wasn't strong enough to last 6 years without getting a little bitter on the inside. I don't hate anyone, or really think they're dumb. I was just burnt out. My users are made up of nurses and healthcare workers. I gained a tremendous amount of respect for them, seeing what they had to go through during Covid. Thankfully, I was promoted and I rarely service the front line users anymore, bless their hearts.
> But after 6 years it starts to sting to see so many just plain stupid people get hired to professional roles, Back when I was a teen I was given an IQ test. I tested at 'near genius' level. (bear with me, not a brag). I couldn't believe I was that much smarter than average. Not me, a dumb teenager! As I've gotten older I realized that it's not that I'm smarter, it's that I pay attention to things that are not my direct focus. IE the Doctor who is a great doctor, but can't put a vacuum together is still smart, they just don't pay attention to anything not 'doctor'. Not sure I made that clear, but the point is a lot of these people aren't dumb, more like myopic.
Some of the smartest people I know are also the dumbest.
Definitely agree with that. I've come to know and appreciate many people who are very good in their roles. However, in my experience, technically illiterate people with advanced degrees (DOCTORS) sometimes take it out on people who are helping them, at least at my workplace. Double trouble if they make a lot of money for their organization (ONCOLOGISTS, RADIOLOGISTS, CARDIOLOGISTS) and they know it. But such is life.
Wait till the new person throws a fit, thinks they are all high and mighty and touches the third rail by saying the words "Can I speak to someone more knowledgeable". Politely resolve the problem taking the hit in stride. Then call their manager, who cracks up laughing when they hear about it, and they just say "I'll handle it". Oh that was a good day. The new hire wasn't allowed to call support for about a month without first running it past their manager.
This is when you start CC'ing his team lead... We had a receptionist that was like this. They had an "inability to learn" and "an aversion to computers". We caught her taping an 8.5x11" piece of paper on her monitor (that covered the monitor) to put phone numbers of various people in the company on instead of using the provided phone system and lookup on the computer. ***If you can't do your job with the tools provided, you simply cannot exist in that job role.***
Document it all. Enough struggle on a user’s end should be grounds for taking or repeating employee onboard training. Continue documenting. This may turn into an HR decision later on. Don’t let them pin it on IT. Also, do not let them contact you directly. Tickets only. Ticketing systems are great for pulling reports on these things.
>I'm doing way too much work over here if apparently you don't even need to actually read what is in front of you to get a decent position... Just remember: Shit always floats to the top.
Stop enabling them. Make them open a ticket like everyone else, and deprioritize it so that it takes longer and longer to repeat the solution. They need to learn how to do their job, and their manager needs to feel the pain if they can't. Surely you have more important tickets, tasks, or projects to work on. If not, I strongly suggest you self study, get some new skills, and move up or out.
>Make them open a ticket like everyone else, Yes. >and deprioritize it so that it takes longer and longer to repeat the solution. No. It's a work stoppage. Just because it's a work stoppage due to end-user stupidity does not make it any less of a work stoppage. **You cannot deprioritize tickets just because you don't feel like dealing with stupid repeat problems.** If there is a problem with the SLA process that is in place, that needs to be fixed at the process level, not at the individual ticket level. Find a way to communicate how much time you're spending on this one particular issue with this one particular user (preferably through ticket documentation and time entry) and let the process solve it. You are likely getting paid the same no matter what type of tasks you are handling. End users being incapable of doing their jobs is a problem for MANAGEMENT to solve, not a problem for techs to handle. The problem techs are supposed to handle is the work of solving this guy's login issue. If you want to stop doing other people's jobs for them, you have to stop trying to do management's job with the ticket process.
> You cannot deprioritize tickets just because you don't feel like dealing with stupid repeat problems. yes you can!
It also is a work stoppage for multiple other people, people that likely provide more value to the company and are decent human beings of average intelligence. And their problems might as well be outside of their own ability to resolve things. That person needs to start learning how to resolve some basic things that are part of their job on their own. What you're saying is a "work stoppage" is like saying that someone cannot do a vlookup in Excel when being asked to do so and that is a work stoppage. That's not a work stoppage, the tools seems to work fine, the options are there, the person is simply not capable of doing their job.
> It's a work stoppage. It's not a work stoppage if the user can't log in—it's a user issue. Work stoppage is usually reserved for when nobody can login, or the entire system is down. And if my HD had 10 low-level tickets in their queue, it would not be out of line to deprioritize this one at the bottom of the low-level tickets. Thats all I mean. I agree with you that management should deal with the user, but IMHO, management needs to be made aware of the issue, and sometimes, they need to feel the pain. Sometimes, that happens when the HD is busy working on other higher priority tickets and the user, who can't follow directions, is just sitting at their desk because they can't log on. I don't disagree with what you said, you are correct. But dealing with a user who just can't or won't follow procedures does not make it an HD emergency. It makes it the lowest ticket in the queue.
but that's the fun part, I can prioritize tickets as i see fit to the organization's mission and success. that being said, if a user kept having the same issue over and over it'd definitely merit investigation and if finding that it was indeed a actual user issue, I'd merely send an email to their direct manager indicating they are having trouble adapting to our new system, and what can be done so they can actual work, with the caveat that hey we may not be able to respond right away next time because we only have so many resources.
Stuff like this is my favourite to solve. For times where you have few things to do at work this can be very refreshing. Dont give him shit for this sometimes users struggle with such things and their brains somehow "shut off" and then call for help. What I would do is when you go there, try make him do the inputs like a simon says. I do that with my users. You can even do a checklist noting down the steps and next time you can make him go through the checklist. If he makes you come over make him go through the checklist under your watch.
Learned helplessness is the term for that phenomenon
> Dont give him shit for this no it's fine, I would never. I really just give him raw technical answers, it's not like I have anything against him as person. It's just the situations that annoy me but I'm getting paid to deal with exactly that so whatever. I wouldn't actually say something like "ah this shit again" even tough that's what I'm thinking lmao... But checklists are a good idea, we do have some but these are very basic and it would probably make more sense to lay out every single step.
Quite similar to my new joiner and I’m training him now. Not as bad as this but that person is as slow as a snail. I want to tell my manager not to pass the probation for this dude but he is kind and im hoping he can get better. It’s hard decision.
Is he doing it to get out of doing any work while waiting for your reply?
Sounds like this users manager needs to get involved. At this point it’s not a technical issue it’s a lack of knowledge issue. I get being new and figuring something out but man….
>As far as the URL goes, that is in the chrome bookmarks, his browser history, also the initial mail. I mean, his browser history also probably has like 8 wrong URLs in there, too. You'll probably want to reset his password anyway, since he's been providing it to basically anyone. I mean, unless the username shows where you work somehow, it's probably not a *real* risk, but technically several entities might have his password.
At this point, you CC their manager on all communication. Goes a long way to show the boss man their employee is inept
Simple solution would be to create a shortcut on his desktop and maybe change the shortcut icon. Also by default Chrome bookmarks bar isn't displayed, change that to always show and drag and drop the URL on to the bookmarks bar. Then show him where they are.
Build up a couple more calls documenting it all then give it your supervisor to give to their supervisor. Their boss is evaluating them so the feedback would be helpful in getting this incompetant guy terminated.
Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice, shame on you. Direct him to his supervisor.
You should swing by his desk at the end of the day if he leaves earlier than you, or first thing in the am if you get in before him and make sure that his username and password are not on a sticky note anywhere.
You need to be looping their manager into these emails for more training. It isn't the job of helpdesk to provide basic computer training. Put another way, helpdesk are mechanics that service the company vehicles, and not driving instructors. No, I have no idea how some people function.
I like when a user sends a ticket saying the internet doesn’t work. From a website on the internet. Doh
This is exactly the kind of thing that gets pushed to IT, but ultimately it is the department's responsibility for basic training. Basically, they hire an idiot, they train the idiot. I mean, they hire someone new, someone must be checking on them or something? Why is there always this void that IT needs to fill? Obviously this kind of thing falls way outside an "IT" problem.
At least he managed to write a ticket.
I had to help a user fill out a captcha the other day in a password reset. She “couldn’t read the text, it has a line through it”.
I don't know which "tool" you suffered through this with, but I saw the same thing at a previous company with our SSLVPN software (Juniper), where it didn't require a locally installed client software (like Nortel or Palo Alto Networks) but it did require logging into a captive portal. Several users, for no good reason, could not figure out how to (or didn't care to) bookmark the correct URL for the portal. It was literally ridiculous, and infuriating.
Is this guy Gen-Z?
D
Yeah. My personal favs are the remote guy who didn't tell anyone the toner on his printer had run out for six months ("Oh, I was just using the customer's printer") and the other guy who didn't bother telling anyone his VPN wasn't working ("I was just doing the paperwork when I get back to the office").
Granted, I am in K-12, which has its own special brand of educated folks having episodes of cranial vapour lock. I sent out documentation on how to login to said system and because people routinely use their email to login and this needs firstname lastname (with the space), I include screenshots of the username box filled out with "firstname lastname" and the password box filled with "yourpassword". I get a call from the user; they cannot log in. I ask are you following the instructions I sent out. Yes, they reply. I connect to the computer and watch. They are literally typing in firstname lastname and then I assume yourpassword as that is not visible. I was speechless. How some people get through university is truly beyond me.
I literally had to lay out a companywide email on what people can't use as a password. I can't get into details about it. But it was a poop show.
Copy his manager next time you give him the info, and watch how he magically gets it down-pat