August 19th, 2003

Lessons from the trenches

Raymond Chen
Raymond Chen

Lessons I learned from working in product support the past few days:

  • If the husband is in the room, hope that he leaves. (He will second-guess everything you do.)
  • If there’s a 14-year-old in the room, hope the parents give the phone to him/her. (Teenagers type a lot faster.)
  • Hope you get a grandma.  They’re not the fastest typists in the world, but they’re so sweet you don’t mind.
  • If they don’t have a second phone line for their computer, ask if they have a cell phone.  Call them on the cell phone so you can talk them through the rest of the steps.
  • Get a binaural headset as soon as possible.
Category
Old New Thing
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Author

Raymond Chen

Raymond has been involved in the evolution of Windows for more than 30 years. In 2003, he began a Web site known as The Old New Thing which has grown in popularity far beyond his wildest imagination, a development which still gives him the heebie-jeebies. The Web site spawned a book, coincidentally also titled The Old New Thing (Addison Wesley 2007). He occasionally appears on the Windows Dev Docs Twitter account to tell stories which convey no useful information.

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