On Tue, 2003-03-25 at 12:09, deFreese, Barry wrote: > <RANT> > > It amazes me sometimes how little effort people put into things these days. > This includes people who actually do support for a living. We pay an > outside company some significant money for help desk/desktop support. > Whenever they run across a problem they haven't seen before, do they > troubleshoot it at all? No. "Time to re-image your hard drive". Yeesh. > Same goes for this newsgroup. I am guilty of it at times myself, I will > admit but at times I am amazed at the simple questions that are asked over > and over. Do they not search the net at all? What would these people have > done 8-10 years ago when the Internet, newsgroups, etc. were not so readily > available. When I was doing field service, we actually had to > "troubleshoot" problems. And God forbid if you needed a new driver or such. > Then it was digging through Company BBS's or CompuServe or some other such > means. And Oh My God, no pretty Graphical web browser to navigate those, > how did we survive??? :-) > > </RANT> Bring back the wall of Manual Binders, complete with printed source code :) I used to run up substantive long distance bills when I was running Windows and OS/2 in the pre-consumer ISP days, each Saturday calling around to corporate BBS for software updates and patches. It would have been better in the earlier days if I had a better than 2400 baud modem then, but you do what you can ;) We come from the days when Unix Wizards had their well earned reputation for knowledge, and that was why *they* were the only ones allowed to do certain tasks. That was when users might do data entry, but those actually processing the data *knew* the system and what it was up to. Today, most people have a computer and might get the idea of the name "mouse", but even handling the cables connecting things together is too difficult for them. If they can't handle that, they should stick to a Game Cube or Playstation *WITHOUT* Linux, let alone running the risk of having to install an operating system, even if it is merely Windows. Just because the computer does all manner of calculations doesn't mean the user *can* stop thinking ;) -- Mark L. Kahnt, FLMI/M, ALHC, HIA, AIAA, ACS, MHP ML Kahnt New Markets Consulting Tel: (613) 531-8684 / (613) 539-0935 Email: kahnt@hosehead.dyndns.org
Attachment:
signature.asc
Description: This is a digitally signed message part