[koliber]

Regarding the "is it plugged in?" question. A great anecdote I heard was that the support person on the phone asked if the power plug was clean. The user was confused. The support person told them to unplug it, blow the dust out of the holes, and plug it back in. This fixed the problem!

The issue was that the power plug was in the socket, but too loose to connect. Somehow, the support person figured this was the case (prior experience?) and knew that if he asked "is it plugged in?" he would get a "yes". Taking the power plug out and putting it back in ensured that it would be in properly. But just asking the person to do that can be faced with push-back or even a lie that they did it (since the power plug obviously was already connected).

I always chuckled at the story but did not think it was true. I worked tech support while attending university. One time, I had an on-site where the monitor just stopped working. We went through the standard question on the phone, including asking if it is plugged in, and of course it was. Could not get it fixed over the phone. Once on-site, it turned out it was a loose power cable.

I could have avoided an on-site had I only asked them to blow the dust out of the power cable. Maybe this should be added to the questionnaire.

[okreallywtf]

I used to work as an installer for a wireless-isp and we supported some very rural areas as well as an urban area. I typically did the urban area but I grew up in one of the very rural areas so I could appreciate how badly people wanted their internets out there.

At one point I had to service some of the rural areas when the installer for that area quit and had one service request that I was sure would be fixed by a simple power cycle but wasn't. "Are you sure you unplugged the right thing?" I asked, and "If I come all the way out there and power cycle it and it works I'll have to charge you, do you understand?" I warned, he understood but wasn't worried because he knew that wasn't it.

After a nearly 2 hour drive out into the utter boondocks, I go inside and check the POE injector, unplug it and plug it back in. 20 seconds later I check his internet through his own router: golden (or as golden as you can be over a waverider 900Mhz link). He had just been unplugging his own router and plugging it back in over and over. In retrospect I could have made him physically trace the power cord but there was still a good 10% chance the unit actually had a problem.

People in the rural areas were really nice about everything though, being on 56k until 2010 makes you appreciate whatever broadband you can get. He just laughed and got his checkbook, in the city people complained when you told them the bill an hour after telling them what the charge would be over the phone.

[arethuza]

Many years ago in my first job (1988) I was diagnosing a Unix printing problem on a machine remotely (dialed in via modems).

There was an IBM engineer on site who insisted it was a software problem - I was on the phone to him and he was getting rather annoyed with me and I asked the inevitable "Is it actually plugged into the power?" which got him very angry that I would have the cheek to suggest that he hadn't checked that.

Then the phone went silent for a bit and he said "Try now".

Power supply was plugged into the power but the power cable from the supply wasn't plugged into the printer.

Edit: I'm sure I've been the guilty party in similar scenarios myself a few times, though hopefully not more than once in any particular context.

[Noseshine]

To give a story from a different field so that it's not all IT stories here:

When I served in the German army as a battle tank weapons systems front line mechanic I didn't know all the tricks of the tank crews from the start (obviously) - nor that they did have tricks that they used to get out of training exercises and to (our) fresh coffee.

One common trick was to turn all the dials for brightness and contrast for the passive heat-sensor (night vision) all the way down. Then they told their commanding officer they had to go to the "Inst" (German "Instandhaltung" = maintenance depmt., in our case right behind the battle field - with power generator and attached coffee maker) because their screen had gone out. Which was quite important

The first time I went to such a tank I fumbled around for a few minutes, not finding anything, before admitting defeat. I called in a more senior colleague of mine. He went in, turned up the dials and that was all, case closed.

It was sooo embarrassing (to me, I don't think the other people gave it much thought) - that's the reason I still remember it even though it's been 16 years or so by now.

[kpgraham]

In 1984 I was a PC instructor at a large paper company and I was called up to the 23rd floor to fix a senior vice president's PC. He stood there while I worked on it. It would not power up. I looked around the back of the desk and the PC was unplugged. I then carefully took off the case cover and removed all the cards and cleaned the contacts and put them back in. I assembled the PC, plugged it in and it booted. I did not want to tell a senior VP that his PC wasn't working because he didn't check to see if it was plugged in.

[StavrosK]

Apple did that on the iPod manuals. They wouldn't say "make sure the lock button is unlocked" (because duh, of course it's unlocked), they would say "turn the button to the lock and then the unlock position".

[k__]

Yes, onboarding is a pain.

Once I thought it's because software is too complicated, but it seems every time I lower the entry barrier, people lower their opinion about what is a problem.

What I don't understand is, that even professionals turn their brain out when setting up a system of any kind.

When I have to go to a customer and need to set some stuff up, I ensure that I can complete that task without the help of others. If some unexpected happens, I write it down at some central place and consult it the next time.

But some people just head out every time without thinking or planning.

[mcherm]

> it seems every time I lower the entry barrier, people lower their opinion about what is a problem.

Exactly as they ought to! Rising standards are a much-to-be-desired effect. Of course, that doesn't always mean contacting the support staff to solve problems, but it DOES mean no longer accepting minor problems that used be a normal part of how we operated but which now can be eliminated with minor effort.

[k__]

I'm totally with you on the rising standards.

But some people are just... I don't know, you just can't catch up with them.

I few days ago a friend of mine quoted something that sums it all up: "Imagine the average person. Now imagine that 50% of the population is dumber"

[debaserab2]

When you start looking at the world with that kind of bleakness, it makes it hard to gain empathy for the people who use the things you build.

What you don't see on the other side is the guy using your software that was just stuck in a traffic jam for an hour, or hasn't had a solid night of sleep in three weeks due to his newborn, etc. The last thing they want to do is sit down and learn how to use your software that so-and-so from that other department insisted be rolled out across the company.

You have to excuse your customers for not learning things in earnest. It's part of your job to make that as easy as possible for them.

[leesalminen]

> Once I thought it's because software is too complicated, but it seems every time I lower the entry barrier, people lower their opinion about what is a problem.

100000x this.

[Jaruzel]

It's the Nintendo Cartridge Effect.

[sleepychu]

Aaactually I suspect that's to do with capacitors. You allow them time to discharge.

Still a great name for this though!

[seanp2k2]

Unless there are bleeder resistors (common when you have tons of capacitance e.g. In higher-end audio amps) or components which otherwise drain the caps, they'll likely hold a charge a lot longer than the 30 seconds someone would spend blowing the dust out.

[drspacemonkey]

When I worked tech support for a small regional cable ISP, I'd always tell people they had to "ground out any built-up static" on their cable line. This process involved unplugging the modem, unscrewing the coax connector, tapping the middle pin with a pen or pencil, and plugging it all back in.

[babuskov]

    Information's pretty thin stuff unless mixed with experience.
                                                    -Clarence Day

[evacchi]

I think it's from Raymond Chen's blog, The Old New Thing

[jakub_g]

Indeed, here's the link (though the details of the anecdote are slightly different):

https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20040303-00/?p=...

> Here's the trick: Don't ask "Are you sure it's plugged in correctly?"

> If you do this, they will get all insulted and say indignantly, "Of course it is! Do I look like an idiot?" without actually checking.

> Instead, say "Okay, sometimes the connection gets a little dusty and the connection gets weak. Could you unplug the connector, blow into it to get the dust out, then plug it back in?"

> They will then crawl under the desk, find that they forgot to plug it in (or plugged it into the wrong port), blow out the dust, plug it in, and reply, "Um, yeah, that fixed it, thanks."

[seanp2k2]

"How does dust get into the outlet if it's more or less sealed" yeah it's a good tip

[rangibaby]

Anyone who is smart enough to come up with that should be smart enough to replug the power without getting mad

[novaleaf]

alas, being capable does not always make it true.

[MiddleEndian]

"Some outlets are not perfectly flush internally even though they may appear to be fine."

[ashmud]

A few jobs ago (factory automation), we had a story from one of our projects where a device (would have been a PLC or relay panel) was failing. Rather than dust, metal filings had gotten into the case and were shorting out connections. A "quick" cleanup, and the device was working again.

[mordechai9000]

When I did Internet support at an ISP years ago, I would sometimes use a similar strategy and ask people to reverse the Ethernet cable.

If you ask directly, people will often just instantly tell you the cable is good, without even touching it.

Customers would sometimes question this, but I don't recall anyone refusing after I explained the reasoning.

[empath75]

I did that kind of thing all the time when I did phone tech support. If I suspected that a cable wasn't plugged in or was in the wrong port or whatever, I'd have people unplug everything and plug it back in all the time. It fixed a lot of problems, especially with home routers/switches.