Seriously?

[Stage Notes:: Trying to figure out how to keep myself occupied]
[iPod:: Father of Mine Everclear]

Ever wonder why dealing with tech support is such a pain. When it comes to support of any form, there are only two scenarios of what can happen. The first scenario is one where the support person you are talking to knows exactly how to fix it, but does not remember what it is like to not know how to fix it, and therefore cannot explain to someone else how to fix it. This is of course a bad thing and makes both parties very frustrated. Been there, done that, have broken phone pieces to prove it.

The second scenario is that the support person does not have the first friggen clue how to fix it. Yup, I said it. Not a clue. The scary thing is that this is far more common that scenario one. How do I know? I am a support person, and most of the time I am scenario two. Don't believe me? Here's how it works.

1. Person calls help desk (Help desk people do not know anything about anything technical. Their main job is to figure out who which group of people might be able to fix the problem by recognizing key words)
2. Help desk calls me
3. I call the person in need of help and have them tell me what software they are using and how to re-create the problem (the ticket that the help desk opened usually are written neither in any comprehensible spoken language, nor are they in any recognizable programming language) and have them send pictures (without pictures things go very badly)
4. I take pictures of the problem that I may or may not have replicated (I too have no clue how fix it)
5. I call one of several other help desks. Yes, I am absolutely serious. Guess what they do :oP
6. Someone calls me for an explination (Sound familiar)
7. Voodoo happens (yup, voodoo, because I have no idea how the fixed it)
8. Repeat 6 and 7 until problem is solved.
9. Gelp desk tells me ticket is closed.
10. I tell original person that the problem is fixed.

At no time did anyone learn how to fix the problem. This is why tech support is such a pain. Everyone wants to be supreme geek and therefore refuses to teach anyone the mystery voodoo that solves the problem. What's even worse is that when they are promoted or getter job because they know the mystery voodoo, they still will not teach the new support person the voodoo that they do so well. That is when we get to the point where no one actually knows how stuff works, and don't even bother asking about documentation. There is none.

I am just frustrated because I am getting more applications to support that no one really knows how they work. I hate that. I hate the stupid support cycle because it is a waste of time and makes everyone feel like an idiot. Maybe that is just the way things work here at my company, but I have a feeling it is a much bigger problem than that.

For the record I now support approximately 11 different applications and databases with almost no sufficient training. The only reason I know how a few of them sort of work is because I watched them get installed. Oh well, I think I am done ranting, and am moving on to banging my head against the cubicle wall. Some parts of it are actually foam so they aren't too rough on the head.