International Skeptics Forum - View Single Post - Dear Users… (A thread for Sysadmin, Technical Support, and Help Desk people) Part 10

BowlOfRed · 3rd February 2022, 11:33 AM

Originally Posted by zooterkin

I can remember my tutor at Poly saying that he could be replaced by a cardboard cutout for most debugging; that would have been 1978 or '79.

I didn't get so much Rubber Duck where someone was reasoning it out when I was on helpdesk as our theory that computers were cats and sensed fear and doubt. The helpdesk personnel were mainly there to subdue the computers.

Computers can tell when you know what's going on and they behave. When an expert is watching, they can't get away with mischief as often.

I think 75% of my helpdesk was similar to this:

"I can't print"
"Show me what you're doing"
"I open the chooser and select the printer here. Then I click print here. Then I change the feed type to 'duplex' and hit Print."
"That looks okay..."
"Hey! It's printing this time. But that's what I've done the other 3 times!"

3rd February 2022, 11:33 AM	#656
BowlOfRed Master Poster Join Date: Jul 2010 Location: Silicon Valley Posts: 2,130	Originally Posted by zooterkin I can remember my tutor at Poly saying that he could be replaced by a cardboard cutout for most debugging; that would have been 1978 or '79. I didn't get so much Rubber Duck where someone was reasoning it out when I was on helpdesk as our theory that computers were cats and sensed fear and doubt. The helpdesk personnel were mainly there to subdue the computers. Computers can tell when you know what's going on and they behave. When an expert is watching, they can't get away with mischief as often. I think 75% of my helpdesk was similar to this: "I can't print" "Show me what you're doing" "I open the chooser and select the printer here. Then I click print here. Then I change the feed type to 'duplex' and hit Print." "That looks okay..." "Hey! It's printing this time. But that's what I've done the other 3 times!"