Total utter fuckwittery
In a previous employ I worked for a firm of chartered accountants as IT Support. They had two offices based in two quite major northern cities. I worked in one and the majority of the partners (bar two) worked in the other along with my boss, who was on leave. One morning I'd arrived around 8.20am with the intention of making a leisurely brew, having a chat to the friendlier accountants, eating a few rounds of toasts before firing up my laptop and awaiting the day's usual exciting IT Support calls including such favourites as "I've forgotten my password" and "My printer is broken".

However I had no such luck. My phone starting ringing while I was making a brew and before I'd even had time to have a whistle wetting sip the jarring ear drum shattering tones of the Managing Partner torturously warbled down the earpiece. "MY LAPTOP IS TOTALLY BROKEN!! I HAVE A VERY IMPORTANT PRESENTATION TO GO TO AT LUNCHTIME WHICH I NEED TO WORK ON AND I CAN'T!!!!!!!!!!!". "Okay, I'm sorry, in what way is it broken?" "IT'S TYPING GIBBERISH!!" "How long has it been doing this for?" "FOR THE PAST FIVE MINUTES!!! I CAN'T WAIT!!! YOU MUST COME HERE AND FIX IT!!!"

The prospect of travelling to the other office in another county via public transport was not appealing, and would take at least an hour and a half so I gently tried some more troubleshooting. "Could you try plugging an external keyboard into the laptop to see if the problem lies with the laptop or the keyboard?" "NOOOOOOOO YOU'LL HAVE TO COME HEREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" I stifled a sigh. Despite how annoying this was sighing audibly to the Managing Partner would have been employment suicide. "I'm on my way now".

~~~~~Wavey lines forward an hour and forty minutes later~~~~~~~

I arrive at the other office and atmosphere was quite chilled. I thought this was strange as usually if the Managing Partner was on a rampage then the rest of the accountants were trotting around wild eyed like frightened horses. I donned my best professional smile and approached the office of the Manager Partner. I knocked on the door. "COME IN!" was shouted. I entered. She looked at me like I was a trifling inconvenience and I realised she couldn't place who I was. "I've come to fix your laptop?" I said apologetically. "Oh yes. Well, it's taken you so long to get here that's Mike's (another partner) fixed it.

Inside I begin to die.

"What was wrong with it?". "Well," she says snootily and in the tone of voice that somehow I am to blame "the number lock key had been pressed, so unbeknowst to me I was typing numbers".

OH.MY.GOD.

I resist the temptation to bang my head against the door frame until I am rendered unconscious and will no longer have to live faced with this awful truth.

"Oh well I'm glad it's fixed," say I.
(Fireyfox is prepared to change, Mon 28 Sep 2009, 19:07, 1 reply)

You need your "calming the paniced technophobe over the phone" training
1st off. Ask them, don;t tell them. "Please could you..." "Would you mind..." etc. If you;re polite they feel more important. If they like listenign to you they might just listen to you.

2nd. When you need to talk the user though testing things tell them that it will help "pin point the problem and ensure that it gets fixed as soon as possible" Then get them to turn it off/on. Make sure this or that is working etc.

3rd. When you're baffled use the phrase "We're looking into it" and "We're currently working to get this fixed as soon as possible" The thought that there's several people working on their job really helps calm users down.
( Crap Little Monkey Deathstar, so good they built it twice, Thu 1 Oct 2009, 11:37, closed)