Bad Customer service...

[BioAlien]

And today i was at the mall and i stopped in the Dell store to surf the internet and ebay and what not. And the phone rings next to me and this guy working there answers it and proceeds to tell some woman who can't log into her computer that she is SOL and that she will have to re-install and lose all of her saved stuff and what not.... he goes on to tell her that since she cant find her install disc she will likely have to drop $200-300 to buy a new copy of windows xp or vista.

If I didn't know you were living in Dallas, I could have sworn you were talking about my aunt there..

[Animeniax]

Until people realize computers and technology aren't scary and out of their realm of understanding, these sorts of scams and misinformation will happen. I used to be worried that my career in the IT industry would become obsolete once people caught on that computing isn't as difficult as they believed. Boy was I wrong. Tech support will be around forever because people are afraid.

It's the same with anything really. Look at cars and the medical field. If some doctor tells you that weird pain in your little toe is caused by a problem with your heart that requires open heart surgery, you might be inclined to let him operate, even if the actual problem is far less severe. In the end, it's a person's own responsibility to educate themselves or ask for 2nd opinions, or risk getting sold some swamp land in Florida.

[Buffalobiian]

Until people realize computers and technology aren't scary and out of their realm of understanding, these sorts of scams and misinformation will happen. I used to be worried that my career in the IT industry would become obsolete once people caught on that computing isn't as difficult as they believed. Boy was I wrong. Tech support will be around forever because people are afraid.

It's the same with anything really. Look at cars and the medical field. If some doctor tells you that weird pain in your little toe is caused by a problem with your heart that requires open heart surgery, you might be inclined to let him operate, even if the actual problem is far less severe. In the end, it's a person's own responsibility to educate themselves or ask for 2nd opinions, or risk getting sold some swamp land in Florida.

I'm hesitant to agree with you about the medical field. There's a lot of training and learning going on in university and colleges, and it's not really knowledge, skill or understanding that can be gained for wiki or google. Same with a proper tech with a degree from itadakimasu's story. Correct me if I'm wrong, but that guy seemed like more of a store assistant than a proper tech, so he sounded like doing stuff from a textbook. Can't log in? Start from step 1. Can't find CD? Have to come buy another.

[Animeniax]

I'm hesitant to agree with you about the medical field. There's a lot of training and learning going on in university and colleges, and it's not really knowledge, skill or understanding that can be gained for wiki or google. Same with a proper tech with a degree from itadakimasu's story. Correct me if I'm wrong, but that guy seemed like more of a store assistant than a proper tech, so he sounded like doing stuff from a textbook. Can't log in? Start from step 1. Can't find CD? Have to come buy another.

It's scary to think but there are more hacks in the medical field than we'd like to believe, simply because we put so much faith in them to keep us alive. Only recently have I personally made the discovery that a lot of doctors are motivated by financial gain. They'll prescribe drugs made by pharmaceuticals in which they own stock or are looking for a job with when they quit practicing medicine. And hospitals are now businesses too, with HMOs and insurance companies calling the shots. It's like anything, if you go in uninformed, you're at the salesperson's mercy.

I'm in IT and I know plenty of "techs", not store assistants, who don't know sh*t about computing and technology. There's this one guy (who started as a tech and is now a manager) who liked to blame any and all IT issues on solar flares. Other "techs" where I currently work don't know how to take screenshots. Unfortunately in the IT tech business, especially in corporate IT, all you need to know is about 5 tricks: how to connect to a network printer, how to set up the mail client, reboot, reinstall, and reimage. That will get you a $45k/yr job in the states.

[Board of Command]

It's scary to think but there are more hacks in the medical field than we'd like to believe, simply because we put so much faith in them to keep us alive.

Especially in China, where a lot of people have this crazy idea that every little illness needs to by drugs because as long as you take the drugs, any drugs, you will get better. They will go to the doctors to ask for drugs, and the doctors will prescribe them whatever crap they want because they know that as long as the patients gets the drug and take it, they're happy.

It's not even the placebo effect. They're just very close-minded.

[Animeniax]

Especially in China, where a lot of people have this crazy idea that every little illness needs to by drugs because as long as you take the drugs, any drugs, you will get better. They will go to the doctors to ask for drugs, and the doctors will prescribe them whatever crap they want because they know that as long as the patients gets the drug and take it, they're happy.

It's not even the placebo effect. They're just very close-minded.

To summarize, people are sheep. You can sell them anything or make them believe anything if you're convincing enough.

The Chinese drug deal is a little different though. The docs aren't even to blame in that case. I've always advocated that a populace like the mainland Chinese need communist dictatorship to guide them.

[complich8]

Unfortunately in the IT tech business, especially in corporate IT, all you need to know is about 5 tricks: how to connect to a network printer, how to set up the mail client, reboot, reinstall, and reimage. That will get you a $45k/yr job in the states.

This is true... an entry-level helpdesk tech will spend the majority of his time doing pretty much those 4 things (reinstall = reimage). But most of the time they've got someone a bit more knowledgeable behind them who gave them a doc on how to reimage and how to connect to a network printer. Of course, sometimes the people who're doing the process development and documentation are promoted in from the helpdesk and never bothered to reactivate the old neocortex on promotion... but often there's at least someone with the lights on back at tier 2 or 3...

I find that a lot of over the counter drugs are ineffective and generally useless. You have to get prescription drugs if you want the good stuff, which can sometimes be a hassle.

Depends on the drugs. Sudafed (pseudoephedrine HCL) is remarkably effective and was OTC for decades, but since it's a precursor for meth and meth usage has been on the rise for a while, it's been transitioned to basically a controlled substance all over the place -- and as such removed from cocktails like NyQuil. On the other hand, there's a couple other drugs that are pretty effective that've recently transitioned from prescription-only to OTC.

[Animeniax]

This is true... an entry-level helpdesk tech will spend the majority of his time doing pretty much those 4 things (reinstall = reimage). But most of the time they've got someone a bit more knowledgeable behind them who gave them a doc on how to reimage and how to connect to a network printer. Of course, sometimes the people who're doing the process development and documentation are promoted in from the helpdesk and never bothered to reactivate the old neocortex on promotion... but often there's at least someone with the lights on back at tier 2 or 3...

Well sometimes reinstalling an application can fix a problem versus having to reimage the entire disk drive, so they can be considered two separate "skills". I've worked at companies with and without a tier 2 or 3 support group, so sometimes all a user has to rely on is the helpdesk phone operator who reads a script. It's really sad that the support people I described with the 5 tasks skill set are actually considered level 2 techs, ie desktop support techs. If helpdesk techs are hacks, then these desktop support techs are even bigger hacks.

[Buffalobiian]

Well sometimes reinstalling an application can fix a problem versus having to reimage the entire disk drive, so they can be considered two separate "skills". I've worked at companies with and without a tier 2 or 3 support group, so sometimes all a user has to rely on is the helpdesk phone operator who reads a script. It's really sad that the support people I described with the 5 tasks skill set are actually considered level 2 techs, ie desktop support techs. If helpdesk techs are hacks, then these desktop support techs are even bigger hacks.

So... that makes most of us here level 5+ techs in the US? I'm really surprised to hear that. I know that there are cases in the medical profession where doctors stuff up and stuff. A lot can happen in hospitals, but that's partially because a lot of new graduates have to work there without being able to prescribe from desktop databases like their experienced counterparts can, which often causes problems. An example of which is that a ward pharmacist once had to pick up on an error where a doctor prescribed a topical drug to a patient and told her to take it three times a day with food. But yes, doctors do have certain preferences when prescribing. They are confronted at times by representatives from drug companies, or the national drug department and are educated in terms of new products and their potency. Some do get paid for prescribing certain products. As for the effectiveness of OTC drugs, as Complich8 said, it really depends. A lot is also dependent on the amount of active ingredients in the drug. For example, Panadeine in low amount packages are OTC, but those that exceed a certain amount of codeine are considered prescription only. Mind you, the amount of codeine in Panadeine does jack all. It really has no real therapeutic effect, that's what we're told at uni.

On one hand you have the techs who don't know shit and just tell you to do stuff your friend with, what I classify as average computer skills, can do, while you have those from the Edison Chen saga who probably know a lot more, but don't tell you. It feels like I'm talking about lawyers.