Supporting People & Their Tech

I support technology, and I have done for a long time. This does have its benefits but more often than not, it makes you the repository for everything computer and Internet related. Now this is of course fine provided that the tech does what it's supposed to. Unfortunately too much of it is designed to go wrong. The upside is that it keeps people like me busy - not than I earn a penny from it - and countless IT engineers charging huge amounts per hour to resolve faults easily understood by them but perplexing for the average user. There is good money to be made from it, but none of it comes my way.
Of all the forms of support, help by phone has to be the worst. You are blind and are expecting the person at the other end to see what you need them to. This seldom ever works and is a constant source of frustration. I know only too well how difficult it is to talk someone through reconnecting their WIFI or installing a new device. It is painful and made all the worse as the pain has to be suppressed for the length of the call and no sign given of your frustration with the person at the other end. I have years of practise to rely on and I think I do it quite well.
The advances in technology over the last 10-20 years have been fantastic. We are able to do things now that could only have been dreamt of then. What we haven't done so well is the user help side of things. When a device disconnects itself from a network, the process for reconnecting it is not easy. It should be - especially for the user. For me, the process is relatively straight forward and something I can normally do within a few minutes. I've learnt to spot the signs and indicators. For the user, there really isn't much to help them and certainly nothing that will resolve the fault. The Help System is useless, even in the latest versions of Windows often stating the 'bleedin' obvious', things like 'is it plugged in?' or 'have you installed the correct driver?'. What's needed is inbuilt fault resolution, the ability for a device such as a WIFI adapter to work out what's wrong for itself and actually attempt to apply a fix. I've singled out WIFI as this is probably the most common source of faults nowadays and certainly one that I constantly find myself fixing.
I know that WIFI works and works very well if it setup correctly and not tampered with. I have two wireless networks - one I use for gaming and media, the other I use for Internet browsing and file sharing. This setup works very well. It is stable and very seldom ever causes me problems. The hardware isn't particularly new, I've had it for several years. It isn't the best and certainly not the most expensive, but it does the job.
Most of what I hear when I am asked to fix problems is 'it was working fine yesterday' or 'it started snowing and it stopped working'. The inference that the weather is in some way to blame for the problem is wrong, but it is something that on occasion I've been known to go along with, in the interests of my own sanity.
It is hugely frustrating to me when something I've spent time designing or installing suddenly goes wrong and stops working as it should. It's even worse when having spent half-an-hour on the phone trying to resolve a problem, the fault persists.I hate leaving things like this but having exhausted every telephone skill, I have little option. A visit is now required. I know that within just a few minutes, I will have it working again. It always happens. The shock and surprise etched into the face of the user is something I've grown used to. It's as if I've worked some kind of magic. In almost all cases, I have done exactly what I had described over the phone. I am reluctant to claim any special powers or to suggest ignorance on the part of the user, and I will normally just put it down to gremlins or simply admit that I'm at a loss to explain what had gone wrong. Perhaps the weather at the time had caused it to fail.
I grit my teeth so much that they are now in a terrible state. I find myself doing it more and more, the older I get. It simply isn't worth the hassle to do otherwise. I could explain how it is that I managed to reconnect the laptop to the wireless network in under a minute, but I choose not to. I instead accept explanation from the user as fact and show sympathy that their efforts were in vain.
And then there are those who claim to know far more than you. They confidently boast that they have bought a new drive for their modem or carried out an upgrade of the processor. These people can never be argued with, I know this from experience. I've tried and failed. When it's family members, you have no chance. Again I choose just to go along with them, my sanity intact.
Sometimes I wish they would call on someone else, but I just know that isn't going to happen...