Seems Bill was a PITA (Pain In The Ass) and really needs a PITA (Personal Information Technology Assistant). Someone who is at a desk in the next room who can assist Bill with his IT challenges.
Dec 9, 2022·edited Dec 9, 2022Liked by Alistair Dabbs
In my early life, I taught some basic computer intro courses for people who -mostly- never had used computers before. Once there was a lady who complained about the difficulty in using the mouse as the cursor moved on the wrong direction(s). Sure enough, the mouse's cord was under her wrist and all went smoothly after showing her the right way to hold the device...
And a colleague told me about one of his students complaining about not being able to see where the cursor was, as he was using the mouse directly over the screen instead of the provided mouse pad, like every other person in the room.
We‘ve all had those conversations - sometimes 400 miles apart, or whole oceans apart. Thank goodness for programs like TeamViewer where the conversation can be boiled down to “Can you press the left mouse button on the TeamViewer icon. It’s the blue one with the white circle and the blue arrows going left to right”. A few seconds explaining the enter key or double-click again and you have access once they read the access password out. At least then you know it’s connected to the internet.
Conversations with friends on “Why does the printer not save a scanned document to the laptop as a document, but does if it’s asked to send it as a scanned picture?”, or “Why have they changed the font size of the clock on the front screen of my iPhone. Can we change it back to the smaller font. I don’t like this large style.”, or “Why do I have to do all these security updates you keep telling me about. Can’t they just write the software and get it right first time so I don’t have to do this on my phone, my tablet, and my laptop so often?”. I’ve lost count on how many of these I’ve had over 20+ years.
Some calls end with me saying ‘I’ll stop by tonight on the way home.’ or they carry on for hours because solving one thing leads to solving more things as you’re already on the line.
On a side note, I get asked about COVID rules and what we should do all the time as if I’m somehow a microbiologist and public health care professional. I read a lot. I understand a lot. Doesn’t suddenly make me an expert at everything. If it’s a computer, however, I’m almost certain the man in my social circle and probably friend of a friend level. That means these types of support requests are just part of the job.
Re: "On a side note, I get asked about ... as if I’m somehow a ... professional"
I think a fair number of people want to hear the advice, or a summary from an actual person, and in person, rather than via media. Presumably they think you seem sensible enough to provide - or at least repeat - reasonably reliable advice.
Back in the '80s, on the bus back from uni, and so presumably somehow looking like the more reliable sort of student, a random stranger asked me how serious I thought AIDS was going to be. I recall, though not very clearly, that I said something like "well, even the black death only killed about 30% of the population", ... which perhaps was not all that reassuring, now I think about it.
I get the point of wanting to have a discussion with someone who looks at things logically, take in advice, and can extrapolate data to give reasonable guidance to where things would eventually head. In the initial UK lockdown I said Christmas 2020 for a vaccination, by estimating development time, pilot phases, and approval - it certainly shocked my immediate social group who didn’t think that far ahead. Then discussing why 30 million people getting a needle in the arm would not be quick either gets to your point - looking beyond the bare data and understand the impact events 9-12 months down the calendar even if you don’t control them or have any way to avoid the event from happening.)
I suppose the switch from being the Go To IT Man to suddenly being the giver of advise on protective equipment, or what rules have been published now, or spending two weeks being the one person in the group who was tasked with spending hours standing in supermarket queues as various households around me all went into their own mini-lockdowns was a bit sudden. Yeah, I’m the most likely to be labelled ‘The Logical One’ in this social group, and on occasion ‘The one who’s given more thought to these things’.
Some days I act just like Bill. Knowing that somewhere out there there’s someone I know I can trust to give me their time to resolve my issues, even if I know it’s an imposition on their time or patience is important. If you have no-one else you trust then you go the person you do trust. I’d like to think that I’d have considered that Bill had been a mentor to others in his younger days, or he helped someone over the telephone to do something one sunny evening when he’d rather have a beer in his own garden. Sometimes the hours lost are gained by someone else.
Evevybody working in IT had probably to deal with a Bill (most probably several) already.
In that case, my opinion is that if somebody doesn't understand, then it's because it wasn't well explained. It's sometimes hard, but one must find the good words, adapted to the audience. It's clearly an art, and a very valable competence.
Dec 9, 2022·edited Dec 9, 2022Liked by Alistair Dabbs
I tend to agree, but not completely... my dear dad has a mild case of "the Bill". I've guided him several times through a particular process (say, get a photo from whatsapp and send it by email)
He manages to do it fine, but a few days later he'll get stuck in the exact same step he already performed just days before.
This I cannot comprehend: it is not that he has some senility or mental health issue. He's actually a very intelligent person, but is baffinlgly incapable of remembering computer-related instructions.
I've told him this in terms he graps easily: it is af if everytime he gets into a different car, he would be unable to find the ignition, or would forget which pedal does what. That obviously doesn't happen even if it is a brand new car he never drove before.
But computers and related electronic stuff causes him some sort of dread that renders him unable to learn. It is a situation that (non ironically) keeps me awake sometimes: it goes to psichology or neurological fields way out of my league. But I'd like to understand why this happens.
TL;DR: I tend to be lenient with the Bills of the world because I think there are deeper causes at work for their apparent foolishness.
We all have had to deal with one of these, the best I can remember is back in the days of dial up an “important person” was in a hotel complaining he couldn’t dial into the office network. After basic troubleshooting someone asked how he was calling us and he replied on the hotel room phone it was then asked how many phone sockets were in the room - answer was one followed by a pause as the penny dropped......
I thought the ladies in the vid had just been on a team building course and were performing their final task.
Anyhow, Bills .... just helping to deal with someone given admin rights over Google Workspace who shouldn’t have been allowed it. GW workflows are amongst the best I’ve seen but it still requires just a soupçon of understanding.
<cough>Ah bless. The guy’s long past retirement age but still hangs in there. In fact, he’s a bit of an entrepreneurial demon. It’s just that he can’t conceptualise computers and can’t handle the terminology.</cough>
Almost every person who was responsible for inventing the Internet and computers is now "long past retirement age." Technical incompetence has nothing to do with years, and everything to do with... um... technical incompetence.
Or the annoying new non-turn-off-able "feature" MS has added to Windows and Office apps: "Teaching Tips". Large blue or green rectangular boxes which randomly pop up, halting all input, and informing you of some clever new shortcut, and must be dismissed by clicking on "Got It" before you can resume work.
Apparently, we users need to be reminded of all the clever things Microsoft has done to Office and Windows on a regular basis, even if it does annoy us. Progress!
I haven’t yet come across exploding menus, but I often have to write documentation for various systems.
However my documents are often a lot longer than other people’s, this is for several reasons.
1. I want the document to be understood by someone who has just been called out at 3am and needs to fix things fast (for years it was likely to be me until I escaped from on call). I.e. the recovery instructions are very detailed and written in simple language.
2. Pictures and screenshots make documents easier to understand.
3. All instructions and menu paths are quoted in full. I.e to edit a network object definition in a Cisco fmc then you go.
From the front screen click on objects -> network use the filter box in the top right of the screen (include screenshot here) enter the name or ip address of the object you are searching for.
When you have located the object click on the pen icon to the right (include another screenshot) change the value, click on Ok.
This will edit the object you now need to click on the deploy menu at the top of the screen, verify the devices to deploy to and click on start deployment.
My current least favourite job title is Analyst - especially as I'm now a Senior (Data) one.
I expect that a fair few others around here, have as I have, been labelled as many different labels over the years. Despite basically doing the same job. From Junior Programmer, Software Engineer, Database Manager, Statistical and Technical Officer... Though I've yet to be called an Architect.
Anyway I have actual PhD level Data Scientists working for me. Partly I dislike it the DA moniker as it's not what we do!
But the real reason is that everyone is being referred to these days as an Analyst.
Including but not limited to -
Business Analysts who don't think it's their job to ask for reasons why people want specific data - and have seemingly no understanding of the DPA or GDPR.
Service Desk Analysts who simply follow a script and then refer your issue to someone who actually does some analysis of the issue.
Change Analysts who do no more than check that the form has been filled in correctly. And send it back if you've asked for a change date earlier than the priority level allows. Then when the change you've asked for isn't implemented in the requested timescale ask you why it's not been done and do you still want it.
Anyway, analyst, because they couldn't find their arse with both hands and a flashlight...
Often people with no idea what needs to be done but a checklist that must be followed.
I used to sit in change meetings a few companies back and get asked what could go wrong. It was a running joke that the possible causes got slightly wilder.
For one upgrade of a core switch the possible problems included a lightning strike on the building, the device could explode etc…
As long as I followed the process they didn’t care too much. Although I never managed to get the April 1st electron alignment raised….
As a number of posts have said.."been there done that".
I have been involved in writing some major application systems over the last 40 years mainly for agribusiness and international trade. I always appreciated input from the SME's because it was likely they had started a cadetship and had decades of experience. My challenge was to capture and encode that expertise so following generations could benefit. I was taken aback with my latest application project though. Working for a city council, I am modernising the processes associated with building inspections and consenting. The bloke I have been sitting alongside has been at the council since 1961 (61 years ago!). He started at 18 and qualified as a QS while employed by the council. He is still working 40 hours per week and providing brilliant input to my development.
When I started work, draughtsmen used classic wooden pencils finely-honed by knife, sharpener and fine emery. Sharpened to a chisel-point for constant line thickness, with different pencils for thicker lines. Special holders were available which enabled a favourite pencil to be used right down the very last inch..... New trainees turned up with their mechanical drafting-pencils holding 0.3 or 0.5 mm leads, the older generation mocked this new technology. It was expensive and would never catch on.
These gents (always men, the 'tracers' were women) were clever people with phenomenal memory; they used the card index system merely to confirm what they already knew, recalling drawings from 20, 30 years earlier with ease.
When these records were put onto a database they recognised that the world was moving on but that their working life need not embrace it so they became grumpy old men.... but did tell very good stories from days of yore.
I still use my 4H and 9H wooden pencils from that time.....
I'm sure the pace of change is increasing though. Like you I remember draughting with pencils on acetate sheets, also creating PCB layouts with crepe tape and Letraset. That all disappeared in a few years as computers came in, of course. Now everything is migrating into the cloud, the wheel turns again, and now I'm one of the Grumpy Old Men myself.
Seems Bill was a PITA (Pain In The Ass) and really needs a PITA (Personal Information Technology Assistant). Someone who is at a desk in the next room who can assist Bill with his IT challenges.
In my early life, I taught some basic computer intro courses for people who -mostly- never had used computers before. Once there was a lady who complained about the difficulty in using the mouse as the cursor moved on the wrong direction(s). Sure enough, the mouse's cord was under her wrist and all went smoothly after showing her the right way to hold the device...
And a colleague told me about one of his students complaining about not being able to see where the cursor was, as he was using the mouse directly over the screen instead of the provided mouse pad, like every other person in the room.
We‘ve all had those conversations - sometimes 400 miles apart, or whole oceans apart. Thank goodness for programs like TeamViewer where the conversation can be boiled down to “Can you press the left mouse button on the TeamViewer icon. It’s the blue one with the white circle and the blue arrows going left to right”. A few seconds explaining the enter key or double-click again and you have access once they read the access password out. At least then you know it’s connected to the internet.
Conversations with friends on “Why does the printer not save a scanned document to the laptop as a document, but does if it’s asked to send it as a scanned picture?”, or “Why have they changed the font size of the clock on the front screen of my iPhone. Can we change it back to the smaller font. I don’t like this large style.”, or “Why do I have to do all these security updates you keep telling me about. Can’t they just write the software and get it right first time so I don’t have to do this on my phone, my tablet, and my laptop so often?”. I’ve lost count on how many of these I’ve had over 20+ years.
Some calls end with me saying ‘I’ll stop by tonight on the way home.’ or they carry on for hours because solving one thing leads to solving more things as you’re already on the line.
On a side note, I get asked about COVID rules and what we should do all the time as if I’m somehow a microbiologist and public health care professional. I read a lot. I understand a lot. Doesn’t suddenly make me an expert at everything. If it’s a computer, however, I’m almost certain the man in my social circle and probably friend of a friend level. That means these types of support requests are just part of the job.
Re: "On a side note, I get asked about ... as if I’m somehow a ... professional"
I think a fair number of people want to hear the advice, or a summary from an actual person, and in person, rather than via media. Presumably they think you seem sensible enough to provide - or at least repeat - reasonably reliable advice.
Back in the '80s, on the bus back from uni, and so presumably somehow looking like the more reliable sort of student, a random stranger asked me how serious I thought AIDS was going to be. I recall, though not very clearly, that I said something like "well, even the black death only killed about 30% of the population", ... which perhaps was not all that reassuring, now I think about it.
I get the point of wanting to have a discussion with someone who looks at things logically, take in advice, and can extrapolate data to give reasonable guidance to where things would eventually head. In the initial UK lockdown I said Christmas 2020 for a vaccination, by estimating development time, pilot phases, and approval - it certainly shocked my immediate social group who didn’t think that far ahead. Then discussing why 30 million people getting a needle in the arm would not be quick either gets to your point - looking beyond the bare data and understand the impact events 9-12 months down the calendar even if you don’t control them or have any way to avoid the event from happening.)
I suppose the switch from being the Go To IT Man to suddenly being the giver of advise on protective equipment, or what rules have been published now, or spending two weeks being the one person in the group who was tasked with spending hours standing in supermarket queues as various households around me all went into their own mini-lockdowns was a bit sudden. Yeah, I’m the most likely to be labelled ‘The Logical One’ in this social group, and on occasion ‘The one who’s given more thought to these things’.
Some days I act just like Bill. Knowing that somewhere out there there’s someone I know I can trust to give me their time to resolve my issues, even if I know it’s an imposition on their time or patience is important. If you have no-one else you trust then you go the person you do trust. I’d like to think that I’d have considered that Bill had been a mentor to others in his younger days, or he helped someone over the telephone to do something one sunny evening when he’d rather have a beer in his own garden. Sometimes the hours lost are gained by someone else.
Evevybody working in IT had probably to deal with a Bill (most probably several) already.
In that case, my opinion is that if somebody doesn't understand, then it's because it wasn't well explained. It's sometimes hard, but one must find the good words, adapted to the audience. It's clearly an art, and a very valable competence.
Could'nt agree more - it seems obvious to us lot but once upon a time it was not.
I tend to agree, but not completely... my dear dad has a mild case of "the Bill". I've guided him several times through a particular process (say, get a photo from whatsapp and send it by email)
He manages to do it fine, but a few days later he'll get stuck in the exact same step he already performed just days before.
This I cannot comprehend: it is not that he has some senility or mental health issue. He's actually a very intelligent person, but is baffinlgly incapable of remembering computer-related instructions.
I've told him this in terms he graps easily: it is af if everytime he gets into a different car, he would be unable to find the ignition, or would forget which pedal does what. That obviously doesn't happen even if it is a brand new car he never drove before.
But computers and related electronic stuff causes him some sort of dread that renders him unable to learn. It is a situation that (non ironically) keeps me awake sometimes: it goes to psichology or neurological fields way out of my league. But I'd like to understand why this happens.
TL;DR: I tend to be lenient with the Bills of the world because I think there are deeper causes at work for their apparent foolishness.
We all have had to deal with one of these, the best I can remember is back in the days of dial up an “important person” was in a hotel complaining he couldn’t dial into the office network. After basic troubleshooting someone asked how he was calling us and he replied on the hotel room phone it was then asked how many phone sockets were in the room - answer was one followed by a pause as the penny dropped......
Regarding the video:-
Can you put the bloody scaffolding up instead of dancing with it!
[Actually I rather liked it - never see that before]
I thought the ladies in the vid had just been on a team building course and were performing their final task.
Anyhow, Bills .... just helping to deal with someone given admin rights over Google Workspace who shouldn’t have been allowed it. GW workflows are amongst the best I’ve seen but it still requires just a soupçon of understanding.
And Monty Python skit .... just genius!
<cough>Ah bless. The guy’s long past retirement age but still hangs in there. In fact, he’s a bit of an entrepreneurial demon. It’s just that he can’t conceptualise computers and can’t handle the terminology.</cough>
Almost every person who was responsible for inventing the Internet and computers is now "long past retirement age." Technical incompetence has nothing to do with years, and everything to do with... um... technical incompetence.
Hold on... I wrote about that very subject!
https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2019/11/online-environments-older-users/
Seeing Balloons? Sounds familiar, if you're running WinXP, or just been gassed at the dentist!
Or the annoying new non-turn-off-able "feature" MS has added to Windows and Office apps: "Teaching Tips". Large blue or green rectangular boxes which randomly pop up, halting all input, and informing you of some clever new shortcut, and must be dismissed by clicking on "Got It" before you can resume work.
Apparently, we users need to be reminded of all the clever things Microsoft has done to Office and Windows on a regular basis, even if it does annoy us. Progress!
I often wonder, 20 years from now, what nonsense computers will be up to, and how confusing it will be for me to deal with them.
"Are your optical cortex entanglements synchronized with your chosen entanglement provider?"
"Try rebooting your prostrate ingress gateway"
"To continue, mentally conceptualize ennui into your tertiary iLobeTranducter"
"Printer offline" (somethings never change)
Another classic :)
Though, exploding menus, now there's something the BOFH could possibly implement to good effect.
And that arcane key combination, Ctrl Alt 666 ?
I haven’t yet come across exploding menus, but I often have to write documentation for various systems.
However my documents are often a lot longer than other people’s, this is for several reasons.
1. I want the document to be understood by someone who has just been called out at 3am and needs to fix things fast (for years it was likely to be me until I escaped from on call). I.e. the recovery instructions are very detailed and written in simple language.
2. Pictures and screenshots make documents easier to understand.
3. All instructions and menu paths are quoted in full. I.e to edit a network object definition in a Cisco fmc then you go.
From the front screen click on objects -> network use the filter box in the top right of the screen (include screenshot here) enter the name or ip address of the object you are searching for.
When you have located the object click on the pen icon to the right (include another screenshot) change the value, click on Ok.
This will edit the object you now need to click on the deploy menu at the top of the screen, verify the devices to deploy to and click on start deployment.
Strangely I like writing documentation…..
Ah yes the Software Architect.
My current least favourite job title is Analyst - especially as I'm now a Senior (Data) one.
I expect that a fair few others around here, have as I have, been labelled as many different labels over the years. Despite basically doing the same job. From Junior Programmer, Software Engineer, Database Manager, Statistical and Technical Officer... Though I've yet to be called an Architect.
Anyway I have actual PhD level Data Scientists working for me. Partly I dislike it the DA moniker as it's not what we do!
But the real reason is that everyone is being referred to these days as an Analyst.
Including but not limited to -
Business Analysts who don't think it's their job to ask for reasons why people want specific data - and have seemingly no understanding of the DPA or GDPR.
Service Desk Analysts who simply follow a script and then refer your issue to someone who actually does some analysis of the issue.
Change Analysts who do no more than check that the form has been filled in correctly. And send it back if you've asked for a change date earlier than the priority level allows. Then when the change you've asked for isn't implemented in the requested timescale ask you why it's not been done and do you still want it.
Anyway, analyst, because they couldn't find their arse with both hands and a flashlight...
Ah change analysts or form pushers.
Often people with no idea what needs to be done but a checklist that must be followed.
I used to sit in change meetings a few companies back and get asked what could go wrong. It was a running joke that the possible causes got slightly wilder.
For one upgrade of a core switch the possible problems included a lightning strike on the building, the device could explode etc…
As long as I followed the process they didn’t care too much. Although I never managed to get the April 1st electron alignment raised….
Change analysts are known as "analcysts" at my current employer.
As a number of posts have said.."been there done that".
I have been involved in writing some major application systems over the last 40 years mainly for agribusiness and international trade. I always appreciated input from the SME's because it was likely they had started a cadetship and had decades of experience. My challenge was to capture and encode that expertise so following generations could benefit. I was taken aback with my latest application project though. Working for a city council, I am modernising the processes associated with building inspections and consenting. The bloke I have been sitting alongside has been at the council since 1961 (61 years ago!). He started at 18 and qualified as a QS while employed by the council. He is still working 40 hours per week and providing brilliant input to my development.
'It turned out that what he called "balloons" was the circular, spinning mouse cursor that he saw on-screen...'
You mean the thing that the highly educated refer to as "the beachball"?
Yes. But to describe it any more accurately than that would let on which OS he was using.
When I started work, draughtsmen used classic wooden pencils finely-honed by knife, sharpener and fine emery. Sharpened to a chisel-point for constant line thickness, with different pencils for thicker lines. Special holders were available which enabled a favourite pencil to be used right down the very last inch..... New trainees turned up with their mechanical drafting-pencils holding 0.3 or 0.5 mm leads, the older generation mocked this new technology. It was expensive and would never catch on.
These gents (always men, the 'tracers' were women) were clever people with phenomenal memory; they used the card index system merely to confirm what they already knew, recalling drawings from 20, 30 years earlier with ease.
When these records were put onto a database they recognised that the world was moving on but that their working life need not embrace it so they became grumpy old men.... but did tell very good stories from days of yore.
I still use my 4H and 9H wooden pencils from that time.....
I'm sure the pace of change is increasing though. Like you I remember draughting with pencils on acetate sheets, also creating PCB layouts with crepe tape and Letraset. That all disappeared in a few years as computers came in, of course. Now everything is migrating into the cloud, the wheel turns again, and now I'm one of the Grumpy Old Men myself.