K.I.S.S. – a.k.a. Techies are Human Too

I have been accused in the past of being extremely egotistical, to the point where an old friend of mine had drawn a diagram to define just how much.  He drew a circle, and labeled it “The World”.  Next to this, he drew a second circle, and labeled it “Andy’s ego”.  After a good chuckle, I “corrected” the first label to state “The Universe”. 

Now surely that paints me as a very arrogant soul.  Like other “techies”, I worked very hard to gain the technical knowledge I possess, and am very proud of being able to use that knowledge to solve problems and help others.  However, that level of knowledge can also in fact breed arrogance.  I mentioned in an earlier entry the British show “The IT Crowd”.  In this show, the phone was almost always answered, “Hello, IT.  Have you tried turning it off and on again?”  That question is rather haughty, don’t you think?  After all, techs are in the service industry.  It’s their job to help others with technical issues.   But it brings to light something anyone working in the service industry has to face from time to time.  The fact is they are exhausted by “stupid people”.

That’s not meant to be insulting.  Anyone who has worked in a service industry has been worn down by customers from time to time.  This can happen due to a series of unreasonable requests, irate people, or simply “having a bad day”.  In the tech world, we sometimes get impatient with those who do not possess the same level of knowledge.  To be fair to techies, this usually stems from dealing with customers that every service person has dealt with, those who seem to have no “common sense”.

Let me explain what I mean.  For example, on my old web site, I shamelessly had a posting wall titled “Stupid User Tricks”.  Now, this wall didn’t have complaints about customers who had a lack of knowledge.  It was for those who did crazy things like try to scan paper into their monitor, used their CD/DVD disk tray as a cup holder, or couldn’t find the “ANY” key on their keyboard.

The “any key” story is sort of an urban legend of technical support.  The idea is that the customer is installing software, but can’t complete the process.  He calls tech support, and after some discussion with the tech, explains that the screen is stating “Press Any Key to Continue.”  Customer is actually looking for a key labeled “any” on the keyboard.  Sounds definitely like an urban legend, of which many a software and hardware manufacturer has claimed this story.  I also will make that same claim – I did in fact receive that call many years ago.  Those of my former colleagues reading this blog may or may not remember the fact that I fell out of my chair laughing – and almost got fired over how I treated the customer.  (Something I am not proud of.)

As in any service industry, at some point you “hit your breaking point”, and the “next customer” is the one who takes the brunt.  In most cases, if the more seasoned and professional of us “lose it”, we simply come off as arrogant, sometimes in the form of talking down to others.  At this point, we have to remind ourselves that everyone has their skills that they can be proud of.  If I have an electrical issue, I call my brother-in-law, who is a master electrician, and he gladly helps out.  I am of course there for him when he needs help with computers or electronics.  Same goes for my younger brother – who has his own business performing general work on people’s homes.  I call him if I need somebody “handy” to help me with a project around the house.  Hmmm… I wonder if either of them would be willing to help me if I got all “high and mighty” whenever they had a question around their computers.  Probably not.

Another challenge of becoming an “expert” is the K.I.S.S. syndrome.  K.I.S.S. stands for “Keep It Simple Stupid”.  This is not something techs say to people they are assisting (unless they want to get them angry and/or get fired)!  This is a statement that really is a mantra for any type of troubleshooting.   The K.I.S.S. syndrome is inversely proportional to the amount of knowledge someone has.  The more knowledge you attain, the more you forget the basic steps when you go to troubleshoot.  The result is you tend to jump to the solution because “you’ve seen this before”.

Over the years, I was repeatedly reminded of this indirectly by my wife.   My wife is a “techie” as well, but she’s been the “Mac person” while I was the “PC guy”.  One example was when I was troubleshooting one of our PCs that wouldn’t power up.  I dismantled and reassembled it, swapping components, even stripped down to its basics, but couldn’t get it to boot.  She then came over and reseated the memory chips and it worked.  There have been many other examples of this over the years anytime something electronic wasn’t working – I tend to jump to what I believe to be the solution and get frustrated when it doesn’t work.

In the above example, my wife remembered that there is a very basic electronic circuit inside a PC, known as a bus.  That circuit connects the CPU, memory, and I/O connections – any loose component would cause the circuit to be incomplete, resulting in the computer not being able to boot.

I was recently reminded of my arrogance.  My PlayStation 3 console wouldn’t read one of my new game disks, which had been working earlier that day.  I also couldn’t eject the disk.  Naturally, I went online to see what the tech world said about it.  There were all kinds of crazy solutions, but none of them worked.  At that point, I figured, “Great, this is a common thing”.  So, I went to the manufacturer web site to see if there was anything documented around the problem.  Sure enough, there was.  “Aha!” I exclaimed, “I am vindicated!”  I then proceeded to read through all the information and perform additional troubleshooting steps.  None of which worked.  The only option was to send my system in for warranty service.

Note:  If you know a tech, you know we despise calling tech support.  This is due to the fact that we arrogantly feel that we know more, and hate wasting time performing troubleshooting steps we’ve already performed.  To be fair, with some manufacturers, this can in fact be the case due to mass outsourcing and lack of proper training.

I then called the manufacturer and got on the phone with a technician.  Knowing that the technician’s job was to troubleshoot the problem as well, I explained all the steps I had already taken.  I also noted that the system made strange noises when I inserted the disk. The tech appreciated my level of knowledge and only had me perform a few more steps to confirm my findings.  She then worked through the process of entering my device for warranty service and sent me a pre-paid mailer with instructions on prepping and sending back the machine.  Now, you are saying, that tech did their job, right?  And gave you good customer service?  In that, you would be correct.  The “hook” to this story comes next.

The next day, my kids had wanted to play a game on their Wii game system.  Generally, I don’t allow them to load the disks themselves as they had actually scratched one of the games to the point where it became unplayable.  As I went to load the game, I noticed the system was on.  One thing I do automatically is hit the eject button to make sure no disk is already inside.  (I once broke a portable DVD player by not checking and “double loading” a disk.  See, we can make mistakes!) 

I especially noted the Wii being powered on as a Wii system automatically turns on when you insert a disk.

Sure enough, there was a disk in there.  As I went to retrieve it to put it in its case, I noticed that it was, in fact, the PS3 game that I had believed was stuck in the PS3 console.  In other words, I had inserted the disk into the wrong game system, and spent all that time trying to get the disk out of the system I thought it was in. You might say, “Easy enough mistake to make.  No harm done!”  Except this is where the K.I.S.S. syndrome really shines – the 2 game systems sit on different shelves about 3 feet apart.  Boy, did I feel dumb!

Hope that last bit gave you all a good laugh.

So, in summary, techies have good days and bad days and don’t always act 100% professionally.  Not to mention, they can miss the obvious and make mistakes.  In other words, techies are human too.

But wait a minute…

…where’s the troubleshooting tip?  Well, the tip is around general troubleshooting.  Remember that troubleshooting is just a method to solve a problem – it doesn’t have to be a technical issue with a computer.  Here are some tenets around troubleshooting:

•  K.I.S.S.
• Check the simple things first.  It will save you time in the long run.
• Divide and conquer.
• Use process of elimination.  Narrow down the area of the problem’s source.
• Remember the following quote from Sherlock Holmes, “When you’ve eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.”
• If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
• Of course if you change something and it makes the situation worse, you should change it back.
• What most people don’t care for is the other situation.  What if you make a change and nothing happens?  Change it back.  Why?  You are introducing additional variables.
• The symptom points to the source.
• If the TV doesn’t turn on, changing a light bulb won’t help.  You’ll need to check anything related to the TV – the outlet, the cable box, the TV itself.
• Escalate when needed.
• This is another way to say, “Get help when you are over your head.”  If you aren’t comfortable or just plain stuck, seek help.

Hope you enjoyed this issue.  Tune in next time for more exciting tips!