Is Computer Tech Support the Equivalent of TV Tube Testing of 50 Years Ago?

Cartouche

[CARTOUCHE]

So I'm on the phone with Samsung Tech support in SOUTH CAROLINA - not Bombay or Sri Lanka, (thank you very much Samsung) to troubleshoot the connection problems with the other half's inability to print wirelessly from across the room to our recently acquired Samsung Color Laser Printer CLP-325W. (The HP 6300 was a gross waste of time, talent, and energy, NEVER AGAIN as they say in Tel Aviv))

And I'm musing that the process is not much different than when I would accompany my long past Dad with a paper bag full of Philco TV tubes to the local drug store where a TV tube tester was available. And, where replacement tubes were sold at exhorbitant prices for the TV denied family.

And I'm thinking with a wry smile, how little has changed in the human condition. And the Samsung 325W, while working perfectly for a week with crisp color laser printed images, including some from this website, is in need of some tube testing at Thrifty Drug's tube tester.

Fortunately, I paid for the extended warranty so that the Samsung 325W will assume room temperature back at Office Max and we'll try again next week on a hopefully fully competent new Samsung. Imagine trying to describe 2012's screen shots, printed in laser sharp color of a 1958 Honeymooner's episode from TV Land to a frustrated father whose tubes wouldn't light-up in Thrifty's tester?

What will I expect my grandkids to say of grandpa whose frustration with an actual American English speaking young man from South Carolina is expressed in this archived 2012 FR Treatise? Granpa, that is so 2012. What is Tech Support?

[grey_whiskers]

Are you logged in?

/rimshot>

Cheers!

[CARTOUCHE]

Not only logged-in but logged-on and now having a discussion with the missus whether we can fly to Corpus next week for a well-deserved vacation without worrying about her ability to print KITTY pictures from a well-known kitty freeper.

[discostu]

Wow do you have it all 100% backwards wrong in every way. Your “enlightened” age would be a nightmare if it were even possible, it would mean your computer is running itself not you running it. What you’re basically asking for is a car that can install its own clutch, just plain not realistic, and hellish if it could because you can almost guarantee the car won’t like the clutch you bought.

Every facet of your graphic interface is infinitely customizable. All you gotta do is right click. Of course understand that just because you can pick that setting doesn’t mean the monitor can display it or your eyes can actually see it.

If every program and piece of hardware found out about every file move then every file move would take 10 minutes.

What’s wrong with expecting a user to be able to click Tools, Options and enter the POP3 and SMTP addresses you’ve provided? What’s freaking idiotic is thinking that’s idiotic. It’s like finding the fuse box in your new home, you can probably cruise fine without it for a while (most ISPs have webmail) but eventually you’re going to have to flip a fuse switch because that’s life. Of course most ISPs will tell you exactly what setting to enter where in the most common aps that you could be using to interface with them so you really don’t need a tech savvy friend, you just need to READ what your ISP tells you. The reason Geek Squad had trouble is your mother probably gave them the wrong info, it’s a garbage in garbage out world, when the user doesn’t know the addresses of their ISP then they won’t give support the right addresses so support won’t put the right ones in.

Your OS is communicating in words fine. The problem is you’re not reading them. Most of the errors you’re seeing are highly informative and if you actually bothered to understand the tool in front of you would allow you to fix the problem in 30 seconds. But you’re relating to the computer incorrectly. You want it to be self driven, it’s not, it’s like your car, YOU drive it. When your gas gauge says E you put gas in your car because you bothered to learn what the car means when it says E. When Outlook says it can’t find that POP3 server it just gave you a very useful message, the only question is did you bother to learn what it means.

DOS was powerful. There’s still thing I do in DOS because it’s faster. Steeper learning curve but effort has rewards.

We need a new leap where users understand how they’re actually supposed to work with computers. Stop treating them like magic, start treating them like tools. Instead of blaming the computer LEARN it.

[Mariner]

Individuals will continue to gravitate toward computing appliances...no configuration required, no computing knowledge required.

If you think YOU have it bad, just imagine the millions of businesses small and large that have to deal with the enormous complexity of virtualization. VMWare, SANs, abstraction and the whole ball of wax.

They are simply overwhelmed. They and their IT staff don't even understand it conceptually.

Those who DO are making a very, very good living and have more work than they can handle or scale for in the near term. Fortunes are being made and destroyed.

Over 1/2 of the virtualization business now is rebuilding the initial, feeble attempts of in house staff with a new plaything.

Beware folks. Another very big economic era is about to hit where the average IT worker has no job.

A meritocracy of the very smart.

Everyone else will be dependent upon what they build and service.

Enormous virtual, portable computing in the cloud that anyone can use for a fee and only the top 1% in brains can invent, build and service.

[driftdiver]

They hate you too, perhaps thats why you have so much trouble.

[Polynikes]

“He gave me such a look. But half the time at work when someone would come to me with “it just won't turn on” the problem was that something wasn't plugged in. “

I used to do IT support back in the day. Our csr’s were large commercial users, but also included the the military in some circumstances. A repair man was sent out once to a large military base for a dead csu/dsu. He found that an enlisted tech had thrown the CSU’s O N / O F F switch to the OFF position thinking it stood for officer mode insomuch as they were sending encrypted data and he didn't have sufficient clearance. :~)

[ThomasThomas]

There will always be a “tech support” it has been around along time, here is proof.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQHX-SjgQvQ

[Hillarys Gate Cult]

Used to have liberal friend who thought that The Tubes were the greatest thing on earth because the way they took on corporations and “the power” until I showed him videos of their songs “Mondo Bondage” and “White Punks On Dope.” Sure was a dose of reality for him.

[Lx]

I still have tubes. My stereo is all tubes from the turntable magnetic cartridge amplifier to the power amps, tubes simply sound better and so do albums. I build tube amps and preamps from scratch and need a tube tester.

This little baby not only tests tubes but it allows you to match them, I also use a Tektronix 576 curve tracer to match tubes as well. The only solid state device that comes close is a MOSFET

[MarkL]

The reason most tech support is hunt and peck is because the customers don’t know how to usefully describe the problem. 90% of all support calls the info you get out of the customer is “it’s not working”, they can’t describe the symptoms, they can’t describe what changed (usually they say nothing which is almost certainly BS), most of the time they don’t even know what “working” actually means. This leaves the guy on the phone flying completely blind so they have to start with the big obvious ones and slowly work their way through a 20 questions-esque narrowing down of a problem that almost always boils down to you changed a setting you shouldn’t have, or you got some malware.

Absolutely correct. As someone who spends quite a bit of time doing "level 3 support," I call this sort of customer a "what color is the check engine light" customer.

Unfortunately, all too often those sorts of customers are my company's level1 and level2 support personnel.

Mark

[MarkL]

If you think YOU have it bad, just imagine the millions of businesses small and large that have to deal with the enormous complexity of virtualization. VMWare, SANs, abstraction and the whole ball of wax.

Funny you mentioned this... My company just installed a new EMC VNX SAN (our old array was no longer supported by EMC), and we're migraing our users to a VMWare View system, effectively eliminating PCs from our business and eventually all of our branch offices as well.

Luckily we already have in-house expertise with VMWare products. But that will probably allow the company to cut its end-user support staff by about 75%. And it allows complete enduser freedom: For example, the company execs will be able to use their ipads and macbooks to access their Windows applications from anywhere in the world.

Mark

[CARTOUCHE]

Tom - Tomn, thanks looks very close to the device that Dad used to use to check his tubes at Thrifty Drug in Pittsburg (CA). Appreciate your search for a similar pic to accompany your post. Nice job!

[MarkL]

I used to do IT support back in the day. Our csr’s were large commercial users, but also included the the military in some circumstances. A repair man was sent out once to a large military base for a dead csu/dsu. He found that an enlisted tech had thrown the CSU’s O N / O F F switch to the OFF position thinking it stood for officer mode insomuch as they were sending encrypted data and he didn't have sufficient clearance. :~)

Speaking of CSU/DSUs, that reminds me of a client I used to service... I had installed a high speed Internet link, and about 3 weeks later, I got a call that their Internet was down. After speaking with them on the phone, it sounded like the problem was at their end, though they assured me that nothing had changed. But when I got there, everything was working without any problems. By the time I got back to the office, there was a message waiting for me that they were back down again. We played this game for the next 2 days. I was never able to find a problem. Finally I got a call back from the ISP for a conference call, and as I shut off the light and locked up their wiring closet, their Internet went down. It turned out that their phone provider had been out to upgrade their system. And it seems they decided to use an outlet from the datacomm battery backup. The power cable they unplugged was to the DSU/CSU, and they just plugged it into a wall outlet. Well, it just happened that the wall outlet was switched, and tied to the light switch for the wiring closet. Basically, every time we shut off the lights in their wiring closet, we wound up shutting off the power to the CSU/DSU, killing their Inernet connection. We left the light on in the closet until they got the phone provider to install the proper UPS.

Mark

[CARTOUCHE]

I haven’t forgotten the importance of tubes. In the spring of 1964, March, I think, I layed on the living room floor carpet listening to Dad’s new Magnavox stereo as the reports of the Alaskan Earthquake of 1964 rolled-in on KCBS, San Fran . I was mesmerized. There are very few things electronically nowadays that mesmerize me. Lsying on the carpet in July 1969 it was a Moon landing, and at the same time being unsettled my a minor Bay Area earthquake.

[Chickensoup]

I have a HP Laserjet that did what you are talking about. Recently connected it to my new computer and the contacted HP to obtain the drivers. It went to HP and hp took over the printer through my computer, wiped the memory of the printer and installed a new os, configured it and installed it on my computer. I thought that was cool!

[ThomasThomas]

My post was of A monk and his text support discussing the operation of a book. You must meant Lx.

[CARTOUCHE]

Mark, your anecdote sounds vaguely familiar. Sure you weren’t servicing Vanguard or Midwest Express Airlines circa 2001?

[MarkL]

The best “Tech Support” calls ever...

http://www.thewebsiteisdown.com/

Harsh language, but very funny. Be sure to watch episode 1 first.

Mark

[MarkL]

It may have been around 2001, but it was a freight company in Independence, MO. I may have posted it before though, so that might be why it sounds familiar.

Mark

[NoCmpromiz]

Should have told the tech support guy that you tried to take the tubes out and get them checked but you couldn't figure out how to get them out of the machine... ;-)

Ah yes, tube testers, that was so --- high school.

There - dated myself!