Stupid poxy bloody Windoze- can anyone help please???? Before I smash it all up!

Windoze is still crap though.

At least the spell check works, your Marvellous Mac has been spelling Windows wrong all thread!

No, what it’s about, is one set of people feeling superior to another set, because they have certain skills the other doesn’t, and acting all smug about it.

Some geeks act like that, but a lot more non-geeks THINK that geeks are acting like that. Most geeks I know are quite patient with non-geeks, and only start getting annoyed when the non-geeks are being unreasonable.

By for instance lashing out against the geek trying to help them because they can’t handle being in a vulnerable position due to not knowing something (like in the cartoon).

Being helpful is one thing; being all smug and supercilious isn’t necessary.

Of course.

Put someone else down, so you can feel better about yourself. no need for it really

In the cartoon, that’s exactly what the caller does first.

Put someone else down, so you can feel better about yourself. no need for it really.

People have differing skills and abilities. This should be respected, not insulted.
Did it make you feel better about your IT inadequacy putting geeks down?

Because it’s the only time in your life you can, you sad socially inadequate nerd. Go out, get some fresh air, expose that pasty skin to some day light.

Flipping hate smug geeks. Yeah, you can fix a computer, but you can’t fix your hair, diseased spotty, boily skin, BO, inability to communicate naturally and confidently with other Human Beings or indeed interact effectively in social situations, can you?

what it’s about, is one set of people feeling superior to another set, because they have certain skills the other doesn’t, and acting all smug about it.

At least that’s slightly preferable to people acting all smug just because they’ve spent lots of money on a bit of hardware which only comes in white or silver.

Did it make you feel better about your IT inadequacy putting geeks down?

Not really. It was a silly, angry outburst. No need for it tbh.

My Mac isn’t white.

It’s silver.

Yeah, you can fix a computer, but you can’t fix your hair

What hair?

inability to communicate naturally and confidently with other Human Beings or indeed interact effectively in social situations

Irony 🙂

(just kidding, Elf 🙂 )

not sure why you felt the need to say you are kidding.
i assume you actually know him/her/it

Because I don’t want Elf to think I am getting at him – after he apologised so graciously earlier it’d be mean to be mean.

I’m too ashamed and upset now.

I don’t feel smug because I think I’m superior. It’s more that I just dispair at people who seem to go out of their way to be demonstrably irrational, unreasonable, or plain dense. I could cite you many, many examples of just how spectacularly bonkers people can be.

I’ve spoken to a bloke who’d bought 72-pin SIMMs to go in 30-pin slots and then tried to make them fit by taking an inch off with a hacksaw. I’ve spoken to someone who rang support because his computer was actually on fire (he’d first thrown a can of Coke down the monitor vents to try and put the flames out but it hadn’t worked). One woman rang trying to use her modem to fax a document by holding a piece of paper against the monitor screen. I’ve had a lengthy chat with an old bloke who couldn’t get his footpedal working properly; turned out he’d got his shoe and sock off, and had his mouse on the floor. One chap was adamant that he didn’t have a video card in his PC; after half an hour of me telling him that he had, he went “well where do I put the damn tapes then?” And that’s just off the top of my head. Believe me when I say, there’s nothing to be smug about, it’s just depressing.

The original problem had the solution right there in the first post. The transaction was failing because the pathname was too long. You’d three options here.

1) Think “hm, the pathname is too long, perhaps I need to try a shorter one.”

2) Think “Hm, the pathname is too long, I don’t really know what that means so I’ll google it and find out.”

3) Think “ZOMG it doesn’t work and I’m too blinded by rage to have retained the ability to read, so I’m going to vent all over the Internet about how shit everything that isn’t me is.”

4) As per 3), but then channeling abuse back at the people who’ve just fixed the problem for you.

This entire thread has been full of piss and vitriol about how shit “Windoze” is. That right there is inflamatory before we’ve started. It’s a perjorative term that came out the newsgroup community in the early 90s and was considered old and tired by about 1995. I can only assume you think you’re being clever or witty, but everyone else here just thinks “oh for goodness sake.”

So you got your problem fixed. And inbetween your bilious spewing, you got a little bit of mild sarcasm back. That’s seemingly sufficient grounds for you to then make unfounded generalised assumptions about me, my profession and my peers, and launch into some directly targeted abuse. Frankly, I don’t think you did too badly out of the deal, myself.

Cougar – you speak the truth, but he did apologise quite well.

Can we be friends again please?

One chap was adamant that he didn’t have a video card in his PC; after half an hour of me telling him that he had, he went “well where do I put the damn tapes then?”

That’s understandable to a degree. After all back in the day, ‘video’ meant the tapes to most people.

Cougar – you speak the truth, but he did apologise quite well.

To be fair, I assumed that 90% of it was done for comedy value rather than serious anyway.

Frankly, I don’t think you did too badly out of the deal, myself.

Well, that’s your fault for not backing me up when I suggested elf go ahead and “smash it all up” early on the first page. Now we’ll just have this to go through again in a couple of weeks.

That’s understandable to a degree.

A lot of it’s understandable. These people aren’t (always) stupid, so much as they’re faced with something new and strange and a little overwhelming. I’ve no problems with “stupid” questions, I like to help people which is why I do the job I do.

What I have a chip on my shoulder about is the attitude that some people bring with them. Their computer doesn’t work, usually due to a problem of their own devising, and this is somehow our fault. Or that yelling and screaming like a three year old is going to get their issue resolved any faster. I’ve had my career dismissed as “shit” before now by people who have come to me for help. And now I’m being stereotyped in a manner that’s frankly offensive (cos y’know, I never venture outside, being a member of a bloody mountain biking forum 🙄 ).

So yeah, whatever. I wasn’t taking Elfin particularly seriously, I just found the whole experience tedious. Friends, group hug. Just, next time you want help, follow Wheaton’s Law when you reach for the keyboard, yeah?

Well, that’s your fault for not backing me up when I suggested elf go ahead and “smash it all up” early on the first page. Now we’ll just have this to go through again in a couple of weeks.

😀

To be honest, why the geoff he doesn’t just buy a Mac and be done with it escapes me.

Don’t; I’ve just cut my own hair and it’s all gone terribly wrong. 😥

I like to help people which is why I do the job I do

Are you actually support professionally then?

Or that yelling and screaming like a three year old is going to get their issue resolved any faster

Yeah – I think that’s cos people get extremely annoyed very quickly and continue to get more and more annoyed – only phoning support when they’re in an absolute rage and can’t keep control of themselves when trying to discuss it.

As a general observation, people don’t tend to realise when they’re being unreasonable and will try and justify their own actions by making out that YOU’ve done something wrong, which is where we get the situation Cougar talks about.

Are you actually support professionally then?

For my sins, aye. Though these days it’s more Enterprise class stuff rather than halfwits whose printers have run out of white ink. It’s good to keep my hand in though.

Mostly I look after Windows servers for large companies, doing remote support over VPNs and suchlike.

As an owner and professional user of windows, mac, unix, and linux machines, I can tell you that the are all good/bad, depending on if you know how to use them or not. 😉

I think that’s cos people get extremely annoyed very quickly and continue to get more and more annoyed – only phoning support when they’re in an absolute rage and can’t keep control of themselves when trying to discuss it.

I firmly believe that there is a “type” of person who thinks that the best way of getting results is to shout at people. Unfortunately for them, it doesn’t work with IT staff. We’re sneaky and have long memories.

Years ago, I used to do end-user support for a large PC retailer, in the vein of the UserFriendly cartoon above. The company manufactured crap PCs and very angry customers.

In terms of rage, sheer obstinacy and a total unwillingness to listen, the worst people to deal with by a country mile were professional people; doctors, teachers, directors and managers who are all used to telling people what to do and getting their own way.

Generally, people were exponentially worse on a monday morning. I theorised that they’d spent all weekend with their mates going “I’ll ring them on Monday and give them hell!” We called them “screamers.”

The people who receive the best customer service, above and beyond the call of duty, were the people who were nice to us. The people who thought that screaming at graduates in their first IT job was good sport, they went as far to the back of the queue as we could get away with. It was quite eye-opening as to how it all works behind the scenes. I always get great results out of tech support departments these days, funny that.

Wunun…

Oh. 🙁

FCOL Elf – CALM DOWN. Did you get my e-mail the other day?

No CG. Email down at mo. Major technical issues at Elfin Towers. 🙁

BTW I was mainly promoting Linux because it is free.

It wont cost you a penny and for a lot of people it does everything they need. Its something you can try and make a decision on without even installing (by using a live CD).

The hardware support has come on leaps and bounds.

Programs or things that don’t work as you expect sometimes just require patience. Its incredible to think that people have built all this stuff and it doesn’t cost a penny. Theres also plenty of willing people out there and forums to help.

I think because we live in a “now” world Microsoft is always seen as the preferred option. Because back in the old days it seemed masses ahead in usability – you didn’t have to understand anything about what you were doing. Other OSes have caught up in this area though.

Sadly still not up to Windows 7 standards of usability, though. I’m on Ubuntu, it works OK, it’s great for programming and development stuff, but Open Office is crap, Gimp’s even worse, it changes screen resolution every time I start it up, … Mostly minor niggles, but if I could* I’d switch to Win7 in a flash.

I find Open Office fine for home usage. At work I have to use MS Office 2010 which I find worse than previous Office releases. I’d say though, so far at work I’ve not had to do anything OO couldn’t do.

The GIMP problem is probably X or your video driver. Not GIMP.