A friend who used to do tech support told me that he learned that instead of asking "is it plugged in" it was better to ask the customer to unplug it and plug it back in. Then they might notice that it was unplugged but they don't have to admit it. I think about that a lot
@jamey [disgruntled customer] "I assure you I am constantly unplugging and plugging it back in!"
@jamey I've never had something that wasn't plugged in at all but a few times I've had something where the non-wall endof the plug somehow wasn't connected despite appearing to be
@ben Yeah, I think he mentioned it was a good strategy for dealing with flaky connections too
@josh @jamey One of my major enshittification bugbears is sometimes having to be on the phone to customer support being forced to troubleshoot for hours turning things off and on and resetting and unlinking, bending into awkward angles, and most of all waiting, when I just wanted to sit down and relax and watch a damn TV show but I can't.
@neal@social.typica.us@jamey I'm reminded of an art teacher I had in high school who needed help getting a machine on. They were trying to just press the button on the monitor thinking that would turn the whole thing on, but the confusion was somewhat more understandable by the need to press the switch for the power strip feeding everything on the cart. I could easily imagine myself missing that. (I also showed them the computer and the power button on that).
@jamey "can you follow and check the power cable from your [insert device] all the way to the outlet to make sure it didn't somehow get damaged?"
@jamey It's also the perfect use for the passive voice.
We don't care if "I/you pressed the wrong button" and everyone is a lot less stressed if "the wrong button was pressed".
@KarenDorman@mastodon.sdf.org@thomasbeagle @jamey
Yes, this. I still remember and appreciate (from 35 years ago) the absolute relief, joy and self confidence I regained, when the farmer (owner of the tractor I was using to cut grassy fields) corrected me.
ME: I'm sorry, I broke a cutting blade."
FARMER: "No. The tractor blade broke. "
@jamey There's a lot of reseating components in servers, including cables, and sometimes in trouble tickets that covers, "it got unplugged", or, "we forgot to plug it in".
@jamey also because sometimes it's not plugged in properly but may appear to be from some angles.
@jamey I was that guy once - well, almost; I noticed myself, after at least half an hour on the phone with support, that my modem (this is a while ago 
) wasn't plugged in. I didn't admit it but I'm pretty sure he put 2 & 2 together when I suddenly wanted to end the call & "try a few things on my own" or whatever embarrassed excuse I managed to stutter out 
@jamey Yes, I think it's even a step more clever than that, if the customer questions that, you can say that sometimes plug contacts don't work because of things like corrosion or dirt. Doing a plug/unplug cycle can clean the contacts.
@jamey i used to do freelance tech support when i was a kid and that's how i found out that someone can plug a USB-B plug into an Ethernet jack and have it stay well enough for them to honestly be able to say it's plugged in
@jamey all our respect for the people who held that role formally. we're of the age where we, as kids, were tech support for every adult in our lives, including people we'd just met.
the way we learned to do it was ask them to keep it unplugged for thirty seconds, to let the RAM clear. technically true, not actually helpful, the real reason was what you said. some people resist instructions without a stated reason...
@jamey we're pretty sure kids these days no longer have that experience. probably for the best, but it was quite a thing. at the time it seemed inevitable...
years ago, when I was a service technician for a commercial and industrial scale company, I drove 150 miles (one way) to plug in an electronic read out for a motor truck scale. yes, I had asked them if it was plugged in when they called and told me the display was dark and they assured me that it was.
@davidbraze
We had a customer who said we didn't fix the problem of his crt monitor not working.
We had sent out courier over, picked it up, taken to to our monitor repair guy. No fault found. Returned and plugged back in. So we picked it up again. Still no fault found, but customer still had the problem.
Had a talk to him. Yes plugged in correctly. Told me the original fault happened after a blackout and never worked after that. Did you turn the power button on the front on?
"No. It doesn't have one. I just always turn my pc on and it works"
Instructions him how to find the button in front of his face.
Ohh that works now.
@jamey
@asha@fedia.social@jamey
Nice guy, your friend! <3
@jamey “unplug the network cable and plug it in the other way around” checks it’s plugged in at bothe ends.
@jamey this approach is really good for a lot of things 
@jamey
have utterly done this:
"unplug the power cord from the power supply.
Switch 'On' the power supply,
&
Hold the power button for 10 secs.
Turn the power supply off,
& plug it back in.
Turn the power supply back on, then try to start it back up again.
Call me if problems, and I'll be right down."
never hear back.
(ps, been out of the game for long time.
So many issues are due to these eff'n machines *never* actually turning off)
@jamey I had to do that all the time with wine customers: "I want the Cabernet Sauvignon Blanc."
"Great. Would you prefer the red or the white one?
That's why I'm starting every call to tech support with rapping the standard "Iunplugedandreconnectedrebootedcheckedlinkpingdnsanddhcp..." as fast as I can.
Back in the 1980s, in our open plan office, I observed a very junior clerk deal with the CEO (seriously) who had picked up the phone from her desk (all phones were corded back then) to make a call and was complaining that it didn't work. She quietly said, "Oh I'm sorry, let me try.." Then put it down, picked it up again and handed it to him the right way up... earpiece to his ear and mic to his mouth, as it hadn't been before.
I thought, "She'll go far." And as it happened, she did.
This approach avoids sounding patronising and misogynistic whilst also allowing alpha males who ordinarily wouldn’t ask another guy for directions the opportunity to save face. Enlightened.
100% but also, it's inherently less condescending and usually just a good approach if it's a USB peripheral where reforcing driver install can sometimes lick it. Or a different port can. There's a little more holisticism in it.
And yeah, I've wracked up 200 calls this month where a portion were Topaz pads or various scanners and a reseating was half the trick. The other half was then selecting the right Twain in the EHR.
@jamey … there’s an issue between the keyboard and the back of the chair …
A long, long time ago I (at that time junior sysadmin in training) had exactly this conversation with *the* managing director ...
And judging by his reaction, the network cable really wasn't plugged in 
@jamey This is brilliant! Noted, and will be used!
@jamey This relates to my pet peeve of, when explaining a problem I have with, say, the company network and how it interferes with my workflow, one of my coworkers will enter the conversation with "Why don't you just <do something I tried and rejected weeks ago>?"
The way that sentence is worded makes the (wrong) solution sound trivial and obvious, so it is actually a little insulting to the intelligence of the person it's said to. A simple "Have you considered <thing>?" works just as well.
@roadriverrail @jamey yeah, absolutely... the challenge is that there's a power dynamic which IT support people are on the unhappy side of, and part of the way it manifests is that people seeking support are predisposed to disbelieve and find fault in any suggestion the support person makes
There's also "you touched it last so every future unrelated problem is your fault"
But I am definitely trying to reduce my usage of "just" and "simply" after I noticed how annoying it comes across as, because that's (usually) not my intent.
@ireneista @jamey I definitely know about that. I started my career being the tech support department for a small company.
@ireneista @roadriverrail @jamey
One of the more effective tech "fixers" I work with likes to say "'JUST' is a four letter word"
They're right — it packs in contempt as well as instruction, and that's a rapport-killer
and I'm remembering that I started saying "try a solution I think is easy:" when I would have said "just"
"I think this will work again if you {try a solution I think is easy:/just} put the subroutine call behind a feature flag"
it's much clearer about the epistemic humility of the helper
@trochee @roadriverrail @jamey yeah, absolutely. we have a bunch of things like that that we are trying to change, lately... the other big one for us is saying "obvious" or "of course". it's either worth saying or it isn't; if it is, suggesting it's not is just going to come off as insulting...
0x4d6165 
@0x4d6165@wanderingwires.net@jamey also I've seen it far too many times (and done it myself) where something looks plugged in but has wiggled out just enough to no longer be making contact
