this post was submitted on 10 Feb 2024
96 points (95.3% liked)

Ask Lemmy

26690 readers
1875 users here now

A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions


Rules: (interactive)


1) Be nice and; have funDoxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them


2) All posts must end with a '?'This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?


3) No spamPlease do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.


4) NSFW is okay, within reasonJust remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either [email protected] or [email protected]. NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].


5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions. If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email [email protected]. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.


Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.

Partnered Communities:

Tech Support

No Stupid Questions

You Should Know

Reddit

Jokes

Ask Ouija


Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu


founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

It's helpful to take a few steps back from time to time to reassess where we're each coming from on our knowledge of tech (or anything) to better communicate.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 18 points 8 months ago (4 children)

I have worked in IT for 10+ years, IT support is 90% psycology, especially over the phone.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago (2 children)

True that. I got tired of the tech support theatre. Fix a problem in two minutes = unhappy user. Fix a problem in a quarter hour and make it look difficult = happy user. I just want to do my job and leave without any human interaction, y'know?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago

I have only worked at internal IT helpdesks, and they have been very good with regards to that, but I get you.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Then why do you have that job?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I don't, any more. I switched to supply chain.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

The work's not exciting but the money's better and I'm sharing an office with people I like. So I think it was worthwhile.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

Glad to hear it. Excitement’s for kids anyway. I’d rather have the most boring job the in the world at this stage of life. People I like and good money’s just about perfect. Also, so long as I’m not doing anything wrong on the job: lying to people, screwing people over, etc.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Agreed. For me personally, I've got 3 things I do to which helps me figure out the problem most of the time without demeaning the customer or implying that they don't have the knowledge.

1: Asking the right questions. My two most important and first ones are "What is it doing?", and/or "What is it not doing?". I find the question "what's wrong with it?" to be almost entirely ineffective.

2: Talking in an appropriate technical level to the person you're talking to. Eg, a 80 year old vs a 50 year old.

3: Using simple analogies. Eg. A CPU is like a brain, a motherboard like a body, a video card like legs to run really fast etc.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

I have also found that admitting to making the same misstake yourself from time to time really helps, unlocking their account? It's fine, it happens plenty of times for myself as well, especially since we at the IT team have four different personal accounts with different uses and passwords.

Regarding passwords, depending on what the user works with and if they use exterbal services they need to logon to, I will also offer to install a password manager for them, and set up the initial database while giving them a tour of it and how to use it, many users really liked it and used it ever since.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago

Not official IT, but computer repair but I insist that the T in IT stands for therapist.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

That's why I got out of a support role into an admin role as soon as possible. Did not sign up to be a psychologist.