Alistair, yes yes, same thing happens to me. Every day. As I run QRP Labs but am also the IT boy in our small office. Someone has a problem, calls me over. The problem magically disappears. The internet starts working again. Mouse stops freezing. Printer starts printing what it was told to print (allegedly 5 minutes ago). You name it. I just have to be near it. It fixes it.
All seasoned IT survivors know not to rush towards the explosion, but to saunter calmly, possibly taking the scenic route, making a pitstop, topping up the tank with another cuppa, then advancing cautiously towards ground zero! This will have allowed the coveted 5 minute IT rule to kick into gear!
I don’t have the self fixing ability but I can annoy people by isolating and pointing out problems that they have been stuck with for a few hours and just walk away with it working.
Although someone once turned off spanning tree on a port causing a shutdown of loads of other ports to which my fix was reboot it the reply came back it is the core switch, my reply can you get a console session to it - no then reboot it, the site has two of them so it won’t cause any more issues.
You have to be a certain amount of years in IT to gain these magical powers. In my first job, my boss has this magic touch. It took years before it started happening to me.
Fortunately I am a Cisco engineer,, and Cisco are one of the few companies with a huge documentation set on their web site, there are some products which it is a bit sparse on but for most problems there a lots of examples and troubleshooting tips.
This is why I like writing documentation to make things easier to understand.
In the late 70s, I was responsible for maintenance of our mainframe OS. When coming up with enhancements, the first thing to be written was the documentation, which would then be shown to users.
Yes, I had some idea of what was possible and how to go about it, but after all, if I couldn't explain it to a user, what use was it really? The doc then became the basis of a spec for the coding task.
Sod having documentation on the web, lets get back to the good old days when the docs came in lots and lots of 3" ring binders or, in the case of the Windows SDK, 3 big thick books.
That will separate the men from the boys!
p.s. @Alistair. This Substack website/application is absolutely rubbish, bet it was designed/developed by a millenial who only ever uses a phone.
Science may explain it: it's self-preservation. When calling an IT Pro for help, users usually start paying attention to whatever the fuck they're doing, so they see and correct their own mistakes before the IT Pro can knock them in the back of their heads for their stupidity
Another contributory factor with some people is exaggeration.
My (elderly) mother is a master of the art. I often find myself asking in exasperation 'Mum, what are you asking me?' as she meanders around something, adding bells and whistles that are unrelated as she does so. My dad has started doing it now, as well.
She called me into her bedroom yesterday because she couldn't delete a series of naff cable shows she'd recorded and watched. The fact that she deletes them at all is a major step forward, since she records so much and she used to fill up the old Sky box inside a couple of weeks (and the old Sky box didn't take too well to being filled up and tended to stop working completely if it did).
Sky Q with a 2TB drive is more forgiving, but when I upgraded and saw the menu system, I knew what was coming. I mean, it was DIFFERENT to the old one, and... Well, that's all. It was different, and mum's brain doesn't do different very well.
I've tried numerous times to explain the principle of the pages, and how they all link together, but she just doesn't get it. She doesn't understand HOW to record something - she just knows which buttons to press which generally results in a high probability of recording something, and fairly frequently, the RIGHT thing. And don't get me started on explaining those movies on the TV channels which have a break for the news in the middle, so you have to record each part as a separate piece.
Anyway, long story short. I scrolled down one extra line and the buttons to delete were there.
When my Mum's phone stopped working, I bought her an identical model to replace it. Unfortunately it was blue rather than black. Although the phone was identical in every respect right down to the version of its firmware, APART from the colour of its casing, the colour change meant she was unable to use it.
My dad's older than my mum and almost blind now. I've challenged them several times with: 'Be honest. I'm adopted, aren't I?' as a result of their inability to grasp any form of technology that doesn't involve rubbing two sticks together.
One time, due to dad's inability to simply turn off the Virgin box and TV without mashing every single button and changing the settings (and, worst, the TV input HDMI channel), I bought a programmable remote control which on had four buttons on it, and programmed every one to toggle on/off.
It WOULD have worked if he didn't still need access to the main remote to change channels, which still resulted in the original mashing of keys.
Nowadays he has a voice controlled remote, but he can't find the voice button visually, so I stuck a piece of rubber on it to make it obvious. And he STILL can't find it.
When he DOES find it, he then stumbles over what to say, and then there's remembering what channel he wants.
Obviously all this is in jest (but absolutely true). But it is meant with the kindest of feelings and intentions. One day, most of us will be there, having similar age-related problems.
Dec 30, 2022·edited Dec 30, 2022Liked by Alistair Dabbs
What about the contrary power? There is a balance in the Force, so for each TalatObig there is a person with the ability to make electronics fail with their mere presence.
My brother is one such person. He is a sort of walking EMP, able to take new gadgets and make them crash in exciting and never-seen-before ways.
I wonder if he wandered by when Dabbsy saw the Cyrilic and Cantonese errors!
I worked with two such entities. One had a connection to another world. The other grew up some where in New York, with high power lines just above the house!
Might there be a related condition, where we are convinced the fault is still present, but it's actually fixed?
Only yesterday I was reading of someone with a classic car which had a non-functioning fuel gauge. He was in the habit of regularly adding fuel so as not to run out at inopportune moments.
He bought 2 replacement gauges from eBay sellers, and fitted the first one. It immediately registered "Full", which is usually caused by an electrical short. He fitted the second one, and it did the same.
So he decided to examine the sender unit in the fuel tank, and removed it.
I have experienced similar bouts of auto-correction to systems, but mine involves the aura of an adjustable spanner; a 'shifter' in local parlance.
My big shifter (of 4) has magical properties in that its mere presence induces faults to disappear. Indeed, it was used to attend a leak on a friend's heating system and when the spanner left the premises, the leak resumed. I can't afford to be without this invaluable piece of equipment so my friend took a photocopy and placed the print next to his boiler: the leak stopped.
Some years later, that friend had moved house but I know that photocopy/talisman remained, continuing to offer protection.
My wife seems to contain a field of the opposite value (haven't concocted a clever acronym for it yet) whcih manifests whenever she uses our universal remote to access our home A/V system. Works perfectly whenever I come anywhere near it...
I'm a mere amateur as far as this particular skill. Having to actually have some interaction...
Even then it's mostly with other developers who struggle for hours to get something working. But just a few minutes of them talking me through what they're doing. Nowhere near enough time for me to comprehend, in languages I barely know, suddenly they have the answer.
Ah now, you have reminded me: my skill also works on techniciens and white goods repairmen.
We had a guy in to fit a kitchen tap while I was working in the office. Three hours later he was still there, on the manufacturer's helpline and trying to work out why the tap refused to be fitted. I sat down at the kitchen table and picked up one of the parts. The man then completed the job in 4 minutes.
Just today we had a guy in to fix the washing machine. Again I got called down so that he could explain to me that he'd been supplied with an incorrect replacement part and that he'd have to come back at some future date when he had the right part. I looked at the part he was holding and looked at the completely different part shown on his computer screen, then he said "Oh hang on, it says here I can adapt it for your machine". He then fixed it in 10 minutes.
Nah, you are telling porkies. "Fix the washing machine" ?? It is well known that white goods have been manufactured to be irreparable for the last quarter of a century. Spares might be "available" but only at huge cost, in the manner of inkjet printer supplies.
Dec 31, 2022·edited Dec 31, 2022Liked by Alistair Dabbs
Just a year ago I spent Christmas eve and Christmas day without hot water because my gas boiler crapped out and decided to throw out error codes instead of heating water as the maker intended it to. I tried everything, disconnecting it from mains, letting it rest before retrying, all to no avail. Day after boxing day the repair man came armed with replacement parts, as the error codes I gave him meant the electronics had died. So he turned it on and much that we both tried, nos a single error occurred. Not while he was visiting and neither since. I guess the boiler was just feeling lonely that time of year... This year, to prevent more shenanigans, I put on a boiler suit and paid it a visit, gently caressing it's pipes and handles. New Christmas tradition?
“Even more freakily in the current era of remote online training, all the trainee has to do is type a request for assistance in the Chat window. Even from a distance of hundreds, maybe thousands, of miles...”
Spooky action at a distance. This is clearly a quantum phenomenon. No doubt there are many possible worlds where users are still whining...that thought cheers me up.
:) Indeed. I wasn't clever enough to think of it. It's interesting to envisage your "favourite" user being in a box either alive or dead or both. I was an IT Manager in Advertising/Media for 10 years. I plead that experience as an excuse for being nasty.
Alistair, yes yes, same thing happens to me. Every day. As I run QRP Labs but am also the IT boy in our small office. Someone has a problem, calls me over. The problem magically disappears. The internet starts working again. Mouse stops freezing. Printer starts printing what it was told to print (allegedly 5 minutes ago). You name it. I just have to be near it. It fixes it.
All seasoned IT survivors know not to rush towards the explosion, but to saunter calmly, possibly taking the scenic route, making a pitstop, topping up the tank with another cuppa, then advancing cautiously towards ground zero! This will have allowed the coveted 5 minute IT rule to kick into gear!
I don’t have the self fixing ability but I can annoy people by isolating and pointing out problems that they have been stuck with for a few hours and just walk away with it working.
Although someone once turned off spanning tree on a port causing a shutdown of loads of other ports to which my fix was reboot it the reply came back it is the core switch, my reply can you get a console session to it - no then reboot it, the site has two of them so it won’t cause any more issues.
Yes, I did read it when it was originally published! I may trawl through the Reg comments and see what I may have had to say then!
Happy New Years Everybody!
You have to be a certain amount of years in IT to gain these magical powers. In my first job, my boss has this magic touch. It took years before it started happening to me.
IT professionals do appear to be imbued with a special talent, one it would seem that is not available to mere mortals.
On the application of this talent problems resolve themselves or disappear as if they were never there.
‘What is this magical ability’, I hear you cry,
it's quite simply being able to 'Read what's on the bloody screen'
Or on those particularly rare occasions when even we need to, we RTFM !
Conjugate the verb,
I RTFM,
You did not RTFM,
He, She, It did not RTFM,
They, Them did not RTFM,
I'm a millennial, could not find RTFM on Youtu.be
Fortunately I am a Cisco engineer,, and Cisco are one of the few companies with a huge documentation set on their web site, there are some products which it is a bit sparse on but for most problems there a lots of examples and troubleshooting tips.
This is why I like writing documentation to make things easier to understand.
Me too, I enjoy writing documentation enormously. I put this down to Montessori education at nursery school.
In the late 70s, I was responsible for maintenance of our mainframe OS. When coming up with enhancements, the first thing to be written was the documentation, which would then be shown to users.
Yes, I had some idea of what was possible and how to go about it, but after all, if I couldn't explain it to a user, what use was it really? The doc then became the basis of a spec for the coding task.
Sod having documentation on the web, lets get back to the good old days when the docs came in lots and lots of 3" ring binders or, in the case of the Windows SDK, 3 big thick books.
That will separate the men from the boys!
p.s. @Alistair. This Substack website/application is absolutely rubbish, bet it was designed/developed by a millenial who only ever uses a phone.
Science may explain it: it's self-preservation. When calling an IT Pro for help, users usually start paying attention to whatever the fuck they're doing, so they see and correct their own mistakes before the IT Pro can knock them in the back of their heads for their stupidity
You've seen a pink screen of death? You can have any colour you want, it's just a registry key value
(https://www.tomshardware.com/news/windows-11-black-screen-of-death)
Another contributory factor with some people is exaggeration.
My (elderly) mother is a master of the art. I often find myself asking in exasperation 'Mum, what are you asking me?' as she meanders around something, adding bells and whistles that are unrelated as she does so. My dad has started doing it now, as well.
She called me into her bedroom yesterday because she couldn't delete a series of naff cable shows she'd recorded and watched. The fact that she deletes them at all is a major step forward, since she records so much and she used to fill up the old Sky box inside a couple of weeks (and the old Sky box didn't take too well to being filled up and tended to stop working completely if it did).
Sky Q with a 2TB drive is more forgiving, but when I upgraded and saw the menu system, I knew what was coming. I mean, it was DIFFERENT to the old one, and... Well, that's all. It was different, and mum's brain doesn't do different very well.
I've tried numerous times to explain the principle of the pages, and how they all link together, but she just doesn't get it. She doesn't understand HOW to record something - she just knows which buttons to press which generally results in a high probability of recording something, and fairly frequently, the RIGHT thing. And don't get me started on explaining those movies on the TV channels which have a break for the news in the middle, so you have to record each part as a separate piece.
Anyway, long story short. I scrolled down one extra line and the buttons to delete were there.
When my Mum's phone stopped working, I bought her an identical model to replace it. Unfortunately it was blue rather than black. Although the phone was identical in every respect right down to the version of its firmware, APART from the colour of its casing, the colour change meant she was unable to use it.
I introduced my aunt, now 96, to email a dozen years ago. She had never even touched a keyboard before, not even a typewriter.
She coped, sending messages to her friends in New Zealand amongst others.
Until BT decided to "refresh" their webmail design. Only six months after their previous balls-up.
I installed an offline reader and spent a while getting her used to it.
She's still using the same reader, though both the laptop and OS have changed twice. Classic Shell still makes the desktop familiar.
Her new phone though, is "too complicated" because there are different buttons on the handset.
You could scream sometimes, couldn't you?
My dad's older than my mum and almost blind now. I've challenged them several times with: 'Be honest. I'm adopted, aren't I?' as a result of their inability to grasp any form of technology that doesn't involve rubbing two sticks together.
One time, due to dad's inability to simply turn off the Virgin box and TV without mashing every single button and changing the settings (and, worst, the TV input HDMI channel), I bought a programmable remote control which on had four buttons on it, and programmed every one to toggle on/off.
It WOULD have worked if he didn't still need access to the main remote to change channels, which still resulted in the original mashing of keys.
Nowadays he has a voice controlled remote, but he can't find the voice button visually, so I stuck a piece of rubber on it to make it obvious. And he STILL can't find it.
When he DOES find it, he then stumbles over what to say, and then there's remembering what channel he wants.
Obviously all this is in jest (but absolutely true). But it is meant with the kindest of feelings and intentions. One day, most of us will be there, having similar age-related problems.
What about the contrary power? There is a balance in the Force, so for each TalatObig there is a person with the ability to make electronics fail with their mere presence.
My brother is one such person. He is a sort of walking EMP, able to take new gadgets and make them crash in exciting and never-seen-before ways.
I wonder if he wandered by when Dabbsy saw the Cyrilic and Cantonese errors!
I worked with two such entities. One had a connection to another world. The other grew up some where in New York, with high power lines just above the house!
It has happened to me for years. Trail half a mile across the site to see in person some never-before seen weirdness. Find I am unable to witness it.
The same aura exists in other areas - the funny noise disappears from your car as you drive towards the garage.
Might there be a related condition, where we are convinced the fault is still present, but it's actually fixed?
Only yesterday I was reading of someone with a classic car which had a non-functioning fuel gauge. He was in the habit of regularly adding fuel so as not to run out at inopportune moments.
He bought 2 replacement gauges from eBay sellers, and fitted the first one. It immediately registered "Full", which is usually caused by an electrical short. He fitted the second one, and it did the same.
So he decided to examine the sender unit in the fuel tank, and removed it.
The tank was full.
I have experienced similar bouts of auto-correction to systems, but mine involves the aura of an adjustable spanner; a 'shifter' in local parlance.
My big shifter (of 4) has magical properties in that its mere presence induces faults to disappear. Indeed, it was used to attend a leak on a friend's heating system and when the spanner left the premises, the leak resumed. I can't afford to be without this invaluable piece of equipment so my friend took a photocopy and placed the print next to his boiler: the leak stopped.
Some years later, that friend had moved house but I know that photocopy/talisman remained, continuing to offer protection.
"IKABAI-SITAL" ? Isn't that Leeloo saying "Get off me you hairy creep!"
My wife seems to contain a field of the opposite value (haven't concocted a clever acronym for it yet) whcih manifests whenever she uses our universal remote to access our home A/V system. Works perfectly whenever I come anywhere near it...
I'm a mere amateur as far as this particular skill. Having to actually have some interaction...
Even then it's mostly with other developers who struggle for hours to get something working. But just a few minutes of them talking me through what they're doing. Nowhere near enough time for me to comprehend, in languages I barely know, suddenly they have the answer.
I have tried to reassure users about this...
"I once had an engineer in to see our washing machine but it worked fine!"
Ah now, you have reminded me: my skill also works on techniciens and white goods repairmen.
We had a guy in to fit a kitchen tap while I was working in the office. Three hours later he was still there, on the manufacturer's helpline and trying to work out why the tap refused to be fitted. I sat down at the kitchen table and picked up one of the parts. The man then completed the job in 4 minutes.
Just today we had a guy in to fix the washing machine. Again I got called down so that he could explain to me that he'd been supplied with an incorrect replacement part and that he'd have to come back at some future date when he had the right part. I looked at the part he was holding and looked at the completely different part shown on his computer screen, then he said "Oh hang on, it says here I can adapt it for your machine". He then fixed it in 10 minutes.
Nah, you are telling porkies. "Fix the washing machine" ?? It is well known that white goods have been manufactured to be irreparable for the last quarter of a century. Spares might be "available" but only at huge cost, in the manner of inkjet printer supplies.
Ha ha, it's a true tale but you are right about replacement parts. That's why we took out an extended warranty. 😁
Just a year ago I spent Christmas eve and Christmas day without hot water because my gas boiler crapped out and decided to throw out error codes instead of heating water as the maker intended it to. I tried everything, disconnecting it from mains, letting it rest before retrying, all to no avail. Day after boxing day the repair man came armed with replacement parts, as the error codes I gave him meant the electronics had died. So he turned it on and much that we both tried, nos a single error occurred. Not while he was visiting and neither since. I guess the boiler was just feeling lonely that time of year... This year, to prevent more shenanigans, I put on a boiler suit and paid it a visit, gently caressing it's pipes and handles. New Christmas tradition?
“Even more freakily in the current era of remote online training, all the trainee has to do is type a request for assistance in the Chat window. Even from a distance of hundreds, maybe thousands, of miles...”
Spooky action at a distance. This is clearly a quantum phenomenon. No doubt there are many possible worlds where users are still whining...that thought cheers me up.
Happy New Year all....
There should be a clever answer to that which involves users, boxes and indeterminate states...
(or hidden variables :)
:) Indeed. I wasn't clever enough to think of it. It's interesting to envisage your "favourite" user being in a box either alive or dead or both. I was an IT Manager in Advertising/Media for 10 years. I plead that experience as an excuse for being nasty.