Current Events > People's unwillingness to read an error message never ceases to amaze me

(+) Yeah! (+)

The sheer volume of calls our support team take along the lines of

User: computer is broken
Support: How is it broken?
User: it's just not working. Nothing is happening
Support: is there any message on screen?
User: yeah. some message or something.
Support: Ok, what does it say?
User: Hang on, let me get my specs...it says "you are trying to book an appointment that overlaps with an already existing appointment. Please select an empty time slot". What does that mean?
Support: Ok, it looks like you are trying to book an appointment that overlaps with an already existing appointment. What you need to do is book an empty time slot.
User: Oh, I see. Thank you. I always struggle with these computer ma bobs, hah!
Support: haaaaah ah ah ah....aah.

Despicable

Tbh I've been an IT guy, and I'm still guilty of that sometimes. I think people are just conditioned against pop-ups.

Could have just left it at people's unwillingness to read

Xavier_On_High posted...

Tbh I've been an IT guy, and I'm still guilty of that sometimes. I think people are just conditioned against pop-ups.

My clients ask me daily why they can't have a pop-up for every conceivable action an end-user might take on their web portal. "We want a pop up every time one of our customers updates a field on the portal".

No, no you don't. You don't read the pop-ups you have, why would you want a pop up every goddamn 3 seconds??

Guy sounded super nice and reasonable

Well yeah, more often than not error messages are some stupid shit nobody understands like "Read fault in 0x12345678" or "PC Load Letter"

WilliamPorygon posted...

Well yeah, more often than not error messages are some stupid shit nobody understands like "Read fault in 0x12345678" or "PC Load Letter"

This is a little bit more understandable but man I wish I could just send P/A to every end user along the lines of "look, we don't know what those errors mean either, we just google them"

WilliamPorygon posted...

Well yeah, more often than not error messages are some stupid shit nobody understands like "Read fault in 0x12345678" or "PC Load Letter"

Error messages have come a long way in the last 10 years or so. End users don't see these vague errors much anymore. Most of them are very English readable that people just choose not to read or comprehend. Shit happens exactly like TC says.

LOL, that's the damn truth. When I did ISP tech support, there was a day where some NASCAR PC game's server was down for maintenance

Me: Thanks for calling Frontier's tech support, how can I help you?
Him: I can't connect to my NASCAR game.
Me: OK. Are you able to connect to the internet?
Him: Yeah, I can get on the internet just fine. It's just this game.
Me: You might need to contact the people who made the game about that, but what error are you getting?
Him: It says the server is down for maintenance. What's that mean?
Me: Well, normally when the server is down for maintenance, it means the server is down... for maintenance. (Freaking out internally because I realized I just explained it by repeating the exact phrase. Expecting him to to get mad.)
Him: Oh, is that all?
Me: ... ... ... Yes
Him: OK, thank you. *Hangs up*

CableZL posted...

LOL, that's the damn truth. When I did ISP tech support, there was a day where some NASCAR PC game's server was down for maintenance

Me: Thanks for calling Frontier's tech support, how can I help you?
Him: I can't connect to my NASCAR game.
Me: OK. Are you able to connect to the internet?
Him: Yeah, I can get on the internet just fine. It's just this game.
Me: You might need to contact the people who made the game about that, but what error are you getting?
Him: It says the server is down for maintenance. What's that mean?
Me: Well, normally when the server is down for maintenance, it means the server is down... for maintenance. (Freaking out internally because I realized I just explained it by repeating the exact phrase. Expecting him to to get mad.)
Him: Oh, is that all?
Me: ... ... ... Yes
Him: OK, thank you. *Hangs up*

The audacity of having a server down! I liken this problem to how spoiled we are with modern supermarkets. The post covid world society that has food shortages on shelves due to logistical problems must be causing service staff endless headaches from Karens who just can't believe that their favourite pre-sliced chicken cubes from Organic brand are not in stock.

CableZL posted...

(Freaking out internally because I realized I just explained it by repeating the exact phrase. Expecting him to to get mad.)

I'm the opposite. If it's a common sense message, I used to make it a point to read it back to them word for word just to see if they went oh ok. lol

Sometimes it's fun to get a problem that really makes you think but more often then not the other person is just screaming at you to fix their issue and is just being a dick.