It is annoying but their ignorance and unwillingness to learn keeps me employed so I try not to complain too much about it. Plus, most of the people I help are generally appreciative and kind so that makes helping them feel like less of a chore. I can also shoot the shit with them for a little bit and break up the monotony in the day. Silver linings and all that

Literally the shutdown menu being replaced by that shitty ai menu on android. and no manufacturer can object to it cause its a google requirement for being allowed to ship the play store...

You will need to set it up in person, because the install is too complicated for non-technical person.

but also because whatever you search for in the play store, you are lucky if the first result with big font and icon is not malware but just a competitor to what you actually wanted. and guess what will people install. outrageous.

also afaik rustdesk had an abuse problem and now you can only connect aftet a bigtech login.. or with a custom server.

“Now stop scrolling”

user keeps scrolling

“Seriously stop moving”

user scrolls faster

It was a mainframe programmer I knew who left to drive a public bus

We had a ticket that escalated to a P1 because a key worker kept having trouble with MFA.

I took the escalation and went through the login process. They had configured phone call mfs which the robot would say "press # to confirm your access".

They were pressing # on their computer keyboard.

That ex0lains where that bullshit came from...

The spread in knowledge between clients, and what we could actually accomplish with them was enormous. We had one client whose NT4.0 died completely during installation of a modem driver (wtf btw. But nowadays your antivirus company remotely kills your os).

We actually went along and helped him reinstall NT incl. everything network over the phone, and it went well. (Took a few hours tho, installation from 3.5" disks was never the fastest thing)

And then you had clients where making them focus enough on the action on the screen was nearly impossible, making the easiest things a 30 minute call.

How can she /slap?

EXACT CHANGE ONLY!!!

And the scam industry. Previously the scammers had spent long hours on the phone with my father to get to his bank account (must have been frustrating that it's usually empty), now he has anydesk and they can be more efficient. To bad because he enjoyed the attention.

Pretty sure that's copying a change Apple made first, turning the power button into an assistant button. Because adding another button for that, is obviously out of the question.

When I worked a help desk job, I once spent seventeen minutes trying to describe to a customer where the semicolon is on a keyboard. I know how long it was because my then-manager listened in and thought it so ridiculous that he sent me the recording of the call because it made him laugh.

This is relevant because the reason I wanted her to type a semicolon was to press shift+semicolon to type the web address used by my employer to grant remote access. I don't remember why she needed to type http: ... It was more than half my life ago. I was probably following a script or maybe I made the mistake of saying the full URL and the customer fixated on it.

Point is, though remote management is better now than it was, it doesn't solve all woes.

Our buses use any of prox card, paywave card, app

No trouble with cash

Right up until you miss the button and don't notice. Or it just decides not to mute you. And then your customer gets an earful of just how you feel about them. And then you get an earful about how your manager feels about you.

The thing I learned from help desk was how to say "Thank you sir, and have a nice day!" outloud but actually mean "Eat shit and die, you asshole" in my head

I remember decades ago when I did desktop support, we had found a software which could initiate remote desktop without the user (in our network) having to do anything on their end. IT Security was not happy with us when they eventually found out, but it was so goddamn convenient while it worked :D

Clicking emoji reactions works the same in MS teams at least.

But yeah, sometimes the supposedly obvious thing just doesn't click. I'm so blind to a lot of modern UX that people seem to like and need help finding the most basic shit because everything is an icon with no text. And giving directions from looking at a screen is just kind of hard.

This never happened. I was a fucking ninja.

The closest I came to something like that was when the customer on someone else's call heard me, but they were crying with laughter. Fortunately, they only caught me when I roasted someone pretty damn hard.

They also heard me switch gears, and although it drove the tech's AHT up a bit, it was so funny to her that she asked me out. We ended up dating for three years. (dated the tech/csr, not the customer. The customer was being a Karen until she heard me, and then she changed her tone and the tech's call went much smoother.)

TIL

My phone has a dedicated assistant button and the power button is separate. The assistant button can be programmed to do a few different things based on if you short, long or double press it. Some of the functions aren't AI. Some.

There are of course exceptions since there's over a dozen Android manufacturers trying to differentiate themselves. But the default Android behavior used by most of them was changed to match Apple back in 2021 with Android 12.

https://www.androidpolice.com/2021/05/19/long-pressing-the-power-button-will-activate-google-assistant-in-android-12/

Me trying to direct the dude at the gas station to the correct nicotine flavor

Time for a remote session.

I can't remember the circumstances, but I was so flabbergasted by one user's inability to understand anything that I wanted to tell them, "I'm sorry. You're unemployable."