Absent-minded keyboard manufacturers

One of my favorite dumb questions at the Help Desk was one where the user called in a frantic and crazed voice stating that she couldn't find the "Any" key...she claimed the stupid computer was asking her to press the "Any" key and the dumb keyboard manufacturers hadn't thought to put one on it...it took all of my energy to keep from laughing while she was on the phone...I struggled through an explanation of what the PC was actually asking her to do...just had to share that with you guys, and I am sure you have heard of something along those lines...

Yeah, I've heard episodes of this before. It kinda scares me that some of these people are using computers... I wonder what would happen if you told them to type in "format c: /u" at the DOS command prompt... Heehee! :p

thats not as bad as " your keyboard is disconnect press the F1 key to continue" or something like that

Yeah, I've heard of that one before too. I think we could get together a book of the most stupid Help Desk calls and it would sell out! LOL

surely the point is "what are we doing to stop people like this".

If somebody buys a car they have to be licensed and have full trianing before they are allowed on their own. You buy a PC (for MORE than my car is worth) and we let them walk out the store and into their own little dream world thinking that automatically they can program games, talk to your aunty in the vineyard etc. etc.

Shouldn't we say as an industry that all PC's come with a standard 1 day training covering "cup" holders, "any" keys, terminology - how many times do you hear people ask for 1.2gHz of RAM or such like, etc etc.

Or we could just keep it to ourselves and laugh at them....


Shiraz

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how many times do you hear people ask for 1.2gHz of RAM or such like, etc etc.

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I totally agree, I come in contact with people all of the time that claim to be computer literate and refer to ram with MHz etc. There needs to be an hour crash course in computing before the customer leaves the store :)

Tuxedo: I don't think they could go to the DOS prompt... LOL :D

I am a firm believer in User Education. I started out at the Help Desk, so I know exactly what kinds of calls that come in. Every opportunity I had, I tried educating them. We even had a ticket reason called "User Training." It definitely helps to avoid more crazy calls from the same individuals over and over again. Shiraz, it did, however, help me to get through the day to be able to sit back and laugh at some of the calls we got. I'm a firm believer in the "laughter helps to prevent insanity" way of thinking.

Yes, but to top that off I had a user bring in a Dvorak keyboard, and kept complaining it was typing the wrong letters, so we sent someone out to swap her keyboard, and she looked at the qwerty keyboard, and said the letters are wrong, and the guy "who has never seen a Dvorak keyboard, kept saying someone switched her keys, and she told him she brought it from home... etc, etc, etc,....

just should not own computers. We have friends who have owned a computer for 2 yrs. It came with an antivirus program which he disabled because it wanted to update and he thought he was being "attacked." So, he shut it down. I talked him into enabling it.

A month later, it tried to do an auto update and he disabled it again. This time, I sighed deeply and let it pass.

A few months ago, he discovered online gaming and began frequenting these sites. A month ago his computer crashed and it cost him a bundle for the hard drive to be reformatted and everything reinstalled, including the out of date antivirus that would have saved him. The techs did the update, but he has again disabled it.

Now, he's talking about getting firewalled (to prevent viruses, trojans, and other things from infesting his computer). Two years this past April, and he can't figure out how to load software, download software, upload software, keep his antivirus updated, send emails, or do much else but turn the computer on and access and basically navigate the Internet and he wants to firewall his computer.

I won't discuss what my wife and I went through over the phone when he bought a scanner and printer and tried to install the drivers for both. We live in New Mexico, they're in Massachusetts. It was a three hour phone call and he never could figure out how to load the CD's!!!!!

His wife is a thousand times worse, by the way. They're good friends but I'm sorely tempted to tell them to sell the machine and find a nice Royal typewriter. Oh, and besides the firewall, now he's talking about having XP installed because it's supposed to be easier to use, and maybe that would help he and his wife learn quicker.

Go BOFH on them =)

Some people put so much faith in the Microsoft system and in the computer manufacturer's that I have actually heard the comment, "why doesn't it (the computer) just do what I want? Isn't is supposed to know?"

No different than AOL advertising that it's "parental controls" will keep your kids safe while surfing the net.

Lack of knowledge.