Tweet
I work until about 630pm most nights. Our office has two different service desk teams, the IT service desk and the telephone service desk. The latter team does things like reset voice-mail and so on. My colleagues at the telephone desk leave at 6pm, and then any calls they receive get sent to us.
Not all of us at the IT desk have the ability to resolve telephone issues, and I'm one of that group.
So, that's background settled.
Last night, at 6:01, literally SECONDS after my colleagues at the phone desk have logged off of the system, I get a voice-mail reset call. I explain to the woman on the line that I can't assist them, but she's understanding and says she'll call back tomorrow. She hangs up, and I shake my fist at the phone desk peeps, who sheepishly laugh. They then leave.
A few minutes later, at about 6:10, I get another call for a voice-mail reset, as the luser had just changed offices.
I again explain I don't have the accesses or tools to do what she needs done, but I can put in a ticket for her to have it done tomorrow morning. She agrees to this, and then asks if I can help her out with something else.
A little more background: at The Client, there is a system in our intranet where our office/phone #/contact info is stored. We (by which I mean Client staff, employees and contractors) are responsible for keeping our information up to date. If we change offices, update the system. Phone number changes, update the system. Etc.
No problem. This should be a simple enough task. (Oh, how wrong I was.)
(this is paraphrased)
J2K: You can update your information in <system>.
Luser: How do I do that?
J2K: You go to <system> from <Client homepage>.
Luser: Where's that?
J2K: Open up your web browser.
Luser: How do I do that?
Alert! Alert!
J2K: Internet Explorer or Firefox. Either one will work.
Luser: I don't see that here.
J2K: There should be an icon for IE on your desktop.
Luser: I don't see it-- oh, wait. Okay, I'm at <Client homepage>.
J2K: There should be a link to <system> on the left hand side, under <link>.
Luser: I can't see it. I see <link>, but ... I can't scroll down, it's not letting me scroll down. There's no button to do it.
J2K: Check on the right hand side of the window, there isn't a scroll bar?
Luser: Oh, I see it. Okay, there's <system>.
J2K: All right, click the link for <system> and on the page that loads up, press the button that says <system>.
Now, the <system> page has a few different tabs, and several sections on each tab. All she really needed to update was her contact info, which is on-- funnily enough-- the first tab.
Well, it took a minute or two to explain to her that she was already on the right tab, and she needed to click the Edit button on the contact info section. There's a few extraneous fields in the section, which again I had to explain she didn't have to worry about. All she needed to update was her phone number and office location.
This still took a few minutes, because she couldn't locate the new phone number on her phone at first, but we finally got it input-- only it didn't save properly. Because she'd put the phone number in incorrectly. So we had to go through the whole process again, and this time we got it done.
So. That was her <system> info updated and proper. All's said and done, right?
Eh heh. No.
Now she wanted to update her location information in <IMclient>, the instant-message service we use at The Client. There are actually two different <IMclients> available, the same "brand" and software, but one is standalone, the other is built into our mail-client.
I had mistakenly assumed she was on the standalone <IMclient>, and tried to walk her through updating her info... but my instructions weren't lining up with what she was seeing. I tried instead to go about it a different way, by going through the preferences settings. Except... she wasn't seeing the preference setting I was telling her to use.
So I finally realize, "Oh, you're in the <mail> <IMclient>?" Different procedure. So I finally get her to click on the button that will bring up her location preferences. Now it should be a simple matter for her to enter her info.
Nope. She keeps telling me "It won't let me type anything, I'm clicking and typing, and it's ... it's not working... why-- why is it doing this? I just want to get this over with, I don't have time to do this during the day..."
Finally, I realize she isn't even trying to enter her info in the fields provided! So I get her to click in the Personal Location field.
J2K: You can put as much of your location info in there as you feel comfortable with.
Luser: So should I put <building> <office> <cubicle>?
J2K: It's your call how you want to put that in there, ma'am.
Luser: So should I put <building> <office> <cubicle>?
J2K: It's your call how you want to put that in there, ma'am.
Luser: So should I put <building> <office> <cubicle>?
J2K: It's your call how you want to put that in there, ma'am.
No lie, she repeated herself at least twice, and I stuck to my answer, because I did NOT want to do the thinking for this woman anymore.
Luser: All right, so I'm putting in <building> <office> and <cubicle>. Should I put "cubicle" in? Or "cube"?
J2K: It's your call, ma'am.
Luser: Okay. So... city, state, postal code--?
J2K: You can ignore that, ma'am. The only other field I'd recommend you fill in is your phone number.
It still takes us a few minutes for her to get it through her head that there's no required format for how she puts in the data, but she gets it entered, and accepted, and her <IMclient> info is updated!
She thanks me for helping her out, and hangs up.
I finally got off the phone with her by 6:50pm. Almost FORTY MINUTES I spent on that call.
Not all of us at the IT desk have the ability to resolve telephone issues, and I'm one of that group.
So, that's background settled.
Last night, at 6:01, literally SECONDS after my colleagues at the phone desk have logged off of the system, I get a voice-mail reset call. I explain to the woman on the line that I can't assist them, but she's understanding and says she'll call back tomorrow. She hangs up, and I shake my fist at the phone desk peeps, who sheepishly laugh. They then leave.
A few minutes later, at about 6:10, I get another call for a voice-mail reset, as the luser had just changed offices.
I again explain I don't have the accesses or tools to do what she needs done, but I can put in a ticket for her to have it done tomorrow morning. She agrees to this, and then asks if I can help her out with something else.
A little more background: at The Client, there is a system in our intranet where our office/phone #/contact info is stored. We (by which I mean Client staff, employees and contractors) are responsible for keeping our information up to date. If we change offices, update the system. Phone number changes, update the system. Etc.
No problem. This should be a simple enough task. (Oh, how wrong I was.)
(this is paraphrased)
J2K: You can update your information in <system>.
Luser: How do I do that?
J2K: You go to <system> from <Client homepage>.
Luser: Where's that?
J2K: Open up your web browser.
Luser: How do I do that?
Alert! Alert!
J2K: Internet Explorer or Firefox. Either one will work.
Luser: I don't see that here.
J2K: There should be an icon for IE on your desktop.
Luser: I don't see it-- oh, wait. Okay, I'm at <Client homepage>.
J2K: There should be a link to <system> on the left hand side, under <link>.
Luser: I can't see it. I see <link>, but ... I can't scroll down, it's not letting me scroll down. There's no button to do it.
J2K: Check on the right hand side of the window, there isn't a scroll bar?
Luser: Oh, I see it. Okay, there's <system>.
J2K: All right, click the link for <system> and on the page that loads up, press the button that says <system>.
Now, the <system> page has a few different tabs, and several sections on each tab. All she really needed to update was her contact info, which is on-- funnily enough-- the first tab.
Well, it took a minute or two to explain to her that she was already on the right tab, and she needed to click the Edit button on the contact info section. There's a few extraneous fields in the section, which again I had to explain she didn't have to worry about. All she needed to update was her phone number and office location.
This still took a few minutes, because she couldn't locate the new phone number on her phone at first, but we finally got it input-- only it didn't save properly. Because she'd put the phone number in incorrectly. So we had to go through the whole process again, and this time we got it done.
So. That was her <system> info updated and proper. All's said and done, right?
Eh heh. No.
Now she wanted to update her location information in <IMclient>, the instant-message service we use at The Client. There are actually two different <IMclients> available, the same "brand" and software, but one is standalone, the other is built into our mail-client.
I had mistakenly assumed she was on the standalone <IMclient>, and tried to walk her through updating her info... but my instructions weren't lining up with what she was seeing. I tried instead to go about it a different way, by going through the preferences settings. Except... she wasn't seeing the preference setting I was telling her to use.
So I finally realize, "Oh, you're in the <mail> <IMclient>?" Different procedure. So I finally get her to click on the button that will bring up her location preferences. Now it should be a simple matter for her to enter her info.
Nope. She keeps telling me "It won't let me type anything, I'm clicking and typing, and it's ... it's not working... why-- why is it doing this? I just want to get this over with, I don't have time to do this during the day..."
Finally, I realize she isn't even trying to enter her info in the fields provided! So I get her to click in the Personal Location field.
J2K: You can put as much of your location info in there as you feel comfortable with.
Luser: So should I put <building> <office> <cubicle>?
J2K: It's your call how you want to put that in there, ma'am.
Luser: So should I put <building> <office> <cubicle>?
J2K: It's your call how you want to put that in there, ma'am.
Luser: So should I put <building> <office> <cubicle>?
J2K: It's your call how you want to put that in there, ma'am.
No lie, she repeated herself at least twice, and I stuck to my answer, because I did NOT want to do the thinking for this woman anymore.
Luser: All right, so I'm putting in <building> <office> and <cubicle>. Should I put "cubicle" in? Or "cube"?
J2K: It's your call, ma'am.
Luser: Okay. So... city, state, postal code--?
J2K: You can ignore that, ma'am. The only other field I'd recommend you fill in is your phone number.
It still takes us a few minutes for her to get it through her head that there's no required format for how she puts in the data, but she gets it entered, and accepted, and her <IMclient> info is updated!
She thanks me for helping her out, and hangs up.
I finally got off the phone with her by 6:50pm. Almost FORTY MINUTES I spent on that call.
Comment