Chris - You do one outstanding job. On the other forums that I experience the moderators or founders are know it all's and think they are smarter than anyone else. You are number 1.
I have to rant
- Thread starter Chris
- Start date
no squatch... don't do it..Wait...
There are other forums?
ejay
TJ Addict
Meanwhile some poor fool that shares his screen name can't get into his account. 
I’m not purposely trying to bring someone down. Sometimes I just have to rant, that’s all. I say a lot of stupid shit I don’t mean. Other people do the same.
I've been using, programming, building and even designing computers and computer hardware since long before most people had ever seen one or knew what one was. With that said, the "in" thing nowadays is to be a networking guru, which I'm not. I know enough to get by, and not much more. But if the damn computer is broken, I can usually fix it.
OTOH, I know very little about smartphones and tablets. I bought a tablet a few years ago to see what all the hubbub was about, and decided that outside of youtoob video watching, it wasn't good for much, and its crippled operating environment precluded my having much use for one - and a smartphone was the same thing only even smaller. As a consequence, nobody can ask me to fix their "device", and I'm OK with that...
Shortly after I started in IT, my boss walked in to find a laptop that I had COMPLETELY torn apart to fix a chickenshit problem deep inside. He was flabberghasted as he had always had "born and raised" IT people working for him, and I was something new to his experience: An electronics technician. He told me he wanted to see it running when I got it back together - so I showed it to him! I saved his department so much money by fixing stuff, that I got an unscheduled raise!
OTOH, I know very little about smartphones and tablets. I bought a tablet a few years ago to see what all the hubbub was about, and decided that outside of youtoob video watching, it wasn't good for much, and its crippled operating environment precluded my having much use for one - and a smartphone was the same thing only even smaller. As a consequence, nobody can ask me to fix their "device", and I'm OK with that...
Shortly after I started in IT, my boss walked in to find a laptop that I had COMPLETELY torn apart to fix a chickenshit problem deep inside. He was flabberghasted as he had always had "born and raised" IT people working for him, and I was something new to his experience: An electronics technician. He told me he wanted to see it running when I got it back together - so I showed it to him! I saved his department so much money by fixing stuff, that I got an unscheduled raise!
Like you, I grew up in the IT industry. Navy trained me as an ET and my first computer repair was on a DEC PDP-8 in 1970. Got my EE on the GI bill and worked for a company that built some of the first LANs. Became an MCSE, NCE and a bunch of other alphabet soup stuff. In '96 changed over to project management and got certified and a masters and doctorate. Managed large scale infrastructure and re-engineering projects internationally for 20 years before retiring. Somewhere along the way I ended up leading our customer support organization for a couple of years. We recorded everything, mainly so we could play it back for senior management when a customer complained.
No one ever minded helping someone who didn't know how to recover from a bone fide fault. What we did mind was the arrogance some people display when they feel they are entitled to support, after they are too lazy or inconvenienced to read the manual or attend training. Questions like, "How do you insert a new line into a spreadsheet?" or "How can I recover a deleted e-mail?" asked in that tone that many of us know so well, really used to frost some of my CSRs. After checking with my boss to get the OK, we started answering these questions with "The answer to that question may be found on page 137 of the user guide" or "The next Outlook training session starts on the 15th. Would you like me to sign you up?" We rarely got a call back from them.
I have been amazed at how much more help you can get by being mannerly and polite than you can by being nasty and demanding. A few years ago, somebody drove their F-350 over the front of our GC. I took it to the body shop and told the guys fix whatever you can and let me know if there are additional charges, and I'll cover them. Take your time, no rush. They fixed the broken stuff and repainted the entire front half of the Jeep at no charge. It's true that you catch more flies with honey than vinegar.
How many of you remember the Osbourne computer? I still have a working one my father bought in 1981.
Definitely, since I got my start in the computer industry with Sperry Univac in 1972. I even went to an Intel school to learn 8080 assembler when CP/M was king, before MS-DOS took over. Yep David Osborn was a pioneer but there were a lot of new microcomputers coming out in the early 80's. Coming from the large-scale (mainframe) computer repair side, yep I heard my share of bonehead complaints but we all wore suits back then and they were paying huge monthly support fees so we smiled and said no problem for anything and everything. We did hate it when they'd spill coffee with cream & sugar into their keyboards but we cleaned or replaced them with a smile too.
By the way Blaine's "how do it know" comment near the top of this thread reminded me of this... when the Thermos bottle was being introduced around the country in the early 1900's, the salesman was pitching it to a bunch of farmers.... 'It keeps cold liquids cold and hot liquids hot!'. One of the famers raised his hand and asked 'How do it know?'
Tray Burge
TJ Addict
Not surprised, we have a "pseudo" president that doesn't even know what day of the week it is half the time?
I did some work on mainframes in HS at my fathers flat bed scanner business in the early 80's. My computer in college was dual 8" floppy drive with CPM 86 operating system on one drive and wordstar word processing on the other. when I had to save a file you would remove the program disk and insert the blank floppy.Definitely, since I got my start in the computer industry with Sperry Univac in 1972 and even went to an Intel school back to learn 8080 assembler when CP/M was king, before MS-DOS took over. Yep David Osborn was a pioneer but there were a lot of new microcomputers coming out in the early 80's. Coming from the large-scale (mainframe) computer repair side, yep I heard my share of bonehead complaints but we all wore suits back then and they were paying huge monthly support fees so we smiled and said no problem for anything and everything. We did hate it when they'd spill coffee with cream & sugar into their keyboards but we cleaned or replaced them with a smile too.
By the way Blaine's "how do it know" comment near the top of this thread reminded me of this... when the Thermos bottle was being introduced around the country in the early 1900's, the salesman was pitching it to a bunch of farmers.... 'It keeps cold liquids cold and hot liquids hot!'. One of them raised his hand and asked 'How do it know?'
Also In my day if you dropped your thermos the glass inside would shatter and you had no lunch.
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I remember writing some of the X.25 communications protocol on the Osborne 1. It had no hard drive and I was using WordStar. Every time I re-paginated, it was 15 minutes of floppy disc swapping. One of the first of the 'luggable' computers. Three screen colors - green, white, and amber.
I use the Osborne 1 as "Exhibit A" when bitching about tiny smartphone screens. I tell people that I haven't used a computer with such a small screen since the Osborne!
I learned BASIC on a Univac 90/70, but my real computer experience was with microcomputers. Built my own IMSAI with 8" drives and CP/M, had a TRS-80 (Model 1), and I tried out one of those new fangled color VIC=20s just for fun. Laughed at IBM's pathetic attempt to build a microcomputer when it first came out - it was pretty bad.
As for WordStar - I still consider it to be the best text editor I've ever used, with the exception of one I wrote myself that used WordStar key strokes - or "key bindings" as they're called now.
I programmed just about every 8 bit processor, with the exception of the 1802 and the 8008, as well as the 4 bit 4004/4040. Considerable experience with x86 and 68K as well - the latter of which was so vastly superior to the former that IBM's choice of x86 was shocking...
I learned BASIC on a Univac 90/70, but my real computer experience was with microcomputers. Built my own IMSAI with 8" drives and CP/M, had a TRS-80 (Model 1), and I tried out one of those new fangled color VIC=20s just for fun. Laughed at IBM's pathetic attempt to build a microcomputer when it first came out - it was pretty bad.
As for WordStar - I still consider it to be the best text editor I've ever used, with the exception of one I wrote myself that used WordStar key strokes - or "key bindings" as they're called now.
I programmed just about every 8 bit processor, with the exception of the 1802 and the 8008, as well as the 4 bit 4004/4040. Considerable experience with x86 and 68K as well - the latter of which was so vastly superior to the former that IBM's choice of x86 was shocking...
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Oh wow, good thing you asked him if he is on the right forum. I don't have much patience as yours, you're kind enough to assist him with his concern. I hope that he said thank you afterward.
Not me, I mean every bit of the stupid shit I say.
Smart people can be air heads. Smart people can act like idiots. Doesn't excuse the lack of effort involved in making sure you are asking for support from the right support person. I sure as hell hope that a surgeon, who can't figure out what site he is repeatedly asking for support for... doesn't ever operate on me... he'd probably amputate a leg to fix my broken hand.
People these days take things too much for granted... someone posted above about knowing 'just enough' about their computer. If you don't want to put in the effort to learn how things work, at least try to present valid information to those that do... and for fucks sake, try fucking Google first cause guess what? 50% of the time when you call in with your weird ass issue, the poor phone tech is using Google to find the fix.
I wish I could use "let me google that for you" links in my work responses....
https://www.letmegooglethat.com/?q=How+do+I+find+my+IP+address
My father called them intelligent idiots, they could solve the quadratic equation but could barely tie their shoes!
Laughing at all this. I am not the sharpest tool for sure. Owning and operating a buisness for 30 yrs I get my share of WTF questions from people. What started as a 1/2 page simple contract to do residential work has morphed into a 2 pg cover my ass from your stupidity contract. One of my head technicians back in the day thought we should offer psychiatry to some of our nuttier clients as an added addenda.
Where i come from the customer may not always be right, but the right customer can’t be wrong
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