Is it too much to ask?
All too often companies view their IT Support departments as IT Training departments, completely oblivious to the blindingly obvious fact that being able to fix something and being able to teach are two completely different skills.

Consequently, a ridiculous number of desktop support calls will actually be "I don't know how to do something. Do it for me, please." One might hope for "Show me how to do it, please," but that implies a desire on the part of the user to learn something, and anyone who works in IT knows how unlikely that is.

I'm here to fix your computer when it breaks, not to teach you how to use the fucking thing in the first place. I don't expect you to know the intricacies of the Registry, NTFS permissions, or subnet masks, but I do expect you to be able to navigate your way around the user interface. That computer sitting on your desk is the tool for your job. Know how to use it. You wouldn't expect a plumber not to know how to use a wrench. You wouldn't expect a carpenter not to know how to use a hammer and nails. You wouldn't go to your car's mechanic and ask him to teach you how to operate the accelerator, would you? (I hope not.) Yet, for some reason, you're content to sit there completely ignorant of the basics of using that computer, and expect me to hand-hold you through every fucking thing. No, the user interface isn't especially intuitive unless you've taken the time to learn its foibles, but it's been pretty much unchanged since Windows 95 came out, long enough for you to have been exposed to it in one form or another.

Okay, maybe it's your manager's fault. I learned most of my job by myself, by having the spark to realise there was something I didn't know, work out what it was, and then go off and learn about it. But I didn't learn everything that way. I had specific training for some aspects of my job. I guess your manager should provide training to you, too. But that would cost money, and there's a perfectly good IT Support department sitting around doing fuck-all and with no greater desire than to sit there patiently teaching you what the phrase "right-click" means.

Finance Directors! Want to cut your IT Support costs? Then invest in some basic fucking IT training. Teach your staff how to use those computers you thoughtfully dumped on their desks without so much as a by your leave. Hell, tell them about that mystical, magical F1 key, and how many programs contain within them the very instructions needed for using those programs. Then they wouldn't waste fucking hours on end to the Helpdesk asking clueless questions about simple shit they should know by now. That would free up your Support staff to deal with actual faults, and thus you'd need fewer of them.
( flake has nothing against your right leg, Sun 27 Sep 2009, 15:13, Reply)