From the Wall Street Journal, Tuesday, March 1, 1994.


 Reprinted without permission


 


AUSTIN, Texas -  The exasperated help-line caller said she couldn't get


her new Dell computer to turn on.  Jay Ablinger, a Dell Computer Corp.


technician, made sure the computer was plugged in and then asked the


woman what happened when she pushed the power button.


 


"I've pushed and pushed on this foot pedal and nothing happens," the


woman replied.  "Foot pedal?" the technician asked.  "Yes," the woman


said, "this little white foot pedal with the on switch."  The "foot


pedal," it turned out, was the computer's mouse, a hand-operated device


that helps to control the computer's operations.





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Only two years ago, most calls to PC help lines came from techies


needing help on complex problems.  But now, with computer sales to homes


exploding as new "multimedia" functions gain mass appeal, PC makers say


that as many as 70% of their calls come from rank novices.  Partly


because of the volume of calls, some computer companies have started


charging help-line users.


 


[boring stuff deleted] 





John Wolf: "A frustrated customer called, who said her brand new Contura


would not work.  She said she had unpacked the unit, plugged it in,


opened it up and sat there for 20 minutes waiting for something to


happen.  When asked what happened when she pressed the power switch, she


asked, 'What power switch?'"


 


Seemingly simple computer features baffle some users.  So many people have


called to ask where the "any" key is when "Press Any Key" flashes on the


screen that Compaq is considering changing the command to "Press Return Key."





Some people can't figure out the mouse.  Tamra Eagle, an AST technical


support supervisor, says one customer complained that her mouse was hard


to control with the "dust cover" on.  The cover turned out to be the


plastic bag the mouse was packaged in.  Dell technician Wayne Zieschang


says one of his customers held the mouse and pointed it at the screen,


all the while clicking madly.  The customer got no response because the


mouse works only if it's moved over a flat surface.


 


Disk drives are another bugaboo.  Compaq technician Brent Sullivan says


a customer was having trouble reading word-processing files from his


old diskettes.  After troubleshooting for magnets and heat failed to


diagnose the problem, Mr. Sullivan asked what else was being done with


the diskette.  The customer's response: "I put a label on the diskette,


roll it into the typewriter..."


 


At AST, another customer dutifully complied with a technician's request that


she send in a copy of a defective floppy disk.  A letter from the customer


arrived a few days later, along with a Xerox copy of the floppy. And at


Dell, a technician advised his customer to put his troubled floppy back in


the drive and "close the door." Asking the technician to "hold on," the


customer put the phone down and was heard walking over to shut the


door to his room.  The technician meant the door to his floppy drive.


 


The software inside the computer can be equally befuddling.  A Dell


customer called to say he couldn't get his computer to fax anything.


After 40 minutes of troubleshooting, the technician discovered the man


was trying to fax a piece of paper by holding it in front of the monitor


screen and hitting the "send" key.


 


Another Dell customer needed help setting up a new program, so Dell


echnician Gary Rock referred him to the local Egghead.  "Yeah, I got me


couple of friends," the customer replied.  When told Egghead was a


software store, the man said, "Oh! I thought you meant for me to find a


couple of geeks."


 


Not realizing how fragile computers can be, some people end up damaging


parts beyond repair.  A Dell customer called to complain that his


keyboard no longer worked.  He had cleaned it, he said, filling up his  


     tub with soap and water and soaking his keyboard for a day, and


then removing all the keys and washing them individually.


 


Computers make some people paranoid.  A Dell technician, Morgan Vergara, says


he once calmed a man who became enraged because "his computer had told him he


was bad and an invalid."  Mr. Vergara patiently explained that the computer's


"bad command" and "invalid" responses shouldn't be taken personally.


 


These days PC-help technicians increasingly find themselves taking on


the role of amateur psychologists.  Mr. Shuler, the Dell technician, who


once worked as a psychiatric nurse, says he defused a potential domestic


fight by soothingly talking a man through a computer problem after the


man had screamed threats at his wife and children in the background.


 


There are also the lonely hearts who seek out human contact, even if it


happens to be a computer techie.  One man from New Hampshire calls Dell


every time he experiences a life crisis.  He gets a technician to walk


him through some contrived problem with his computer, apparently feeling


uplifted by the process.