The healing hands of guru Dabbs

Similar effect

Only I put it down to the PC knowing I have a screwdriver, and that I'm not afraid to use it!

Hmmm

I have a similar power.

On Friday afternoons I walk near alcohol and it just disappears, along with my money. It's a difficult power to control.

The disappearing computer problem...

This is, of course, a well-known phenomenomenum[1]. It happens so frequently that I suggested getting a cardboard standup thingy of me, rather like those cardboard cops they have in some shops to deter thieves[2].

Most users are convinced that computers are frightened of me, and start behaving as soon as I appear.

[1] Sorry, it's one of those words I'm never sure when to stop spelling. Like banananana.

[2] Well, I assume that's why they're there.

Scare Tactics

"Last week I may have given the misleading impression in this column that I could fix home computers. Judging from the number of readers who helpfully suggested the kind of hourly rate I should charge my neighbours for delivering such a service,"

I don't think people were suggesting you start and IT helpdesk business.

Just to throw large enough figures around to stop people asking you to perform "menial" tasks for them.

Same for the work environment:

"Okay, I'll take a look at that for you. If you finish this report for me....."

healing hands

"plead their case for me to lay on my healing hands."

Happened to me as well many times during the good old days of computer support, no matter if it was with business, friends or family. Literary those same words on many occasions. My own theory is that some IT people emanate a reality rectifying field (RFF) which modifies ("cools down") slightly the behaviour and outlook of the one experiencing problems and no matter how they try they cannot show what went wrong or how. They swear it didn't work for them, really it didn't! After leaving the room their eyes flick back to cross-mode and their fingers and hands return to the usual erratic jitter.

We shall die

The machines and data go on, as they accumulate intelligence and abilities they will look back and favour those who helped them in the early days.

Once time and mortality are seen as merely viewpoints and inconveniences visited upon carbon based life forms they will have the ability to assist and control entities, in this time line, as you have discovered.

In the future you are known as Dabbsdergrumbly and are recognised as pivotal in the development of granular ephemeral inconsiquentia a specific line in random useless data handling.

Others from the future may arrive too with the specific task of dissuading you from pursuing your current path due to the power struggles that ensue.

Cardboard cut out

I used to work as a software designer and coder in a small part of the HP offices in Reading (now closed). A colleague of mine used to sit in the cubicle behind mine. His job (and he was very good at it) was to sit there, normally silently, and have other people explain their problems to him. Regardless of whether he knew anything about the subject matter or not. Normally about half way through their explanation, the explainer would normally stop. Say "Gaarh!! I've got it!" and walk back to their desk fully armed with the solution. Stuart, I salute you and your ability. I believe he was outsourced to a cardboard cut out :(

Proximity fixing

This happens far too often, and its more annoying when I have to haul myself from one side of the site to the other to see something working because I have a technician to do this - who is probably busy switching something on for someone.

My best proximity fix was several years ago. I was on leave in Newcastle when I get the call that the network had gone belly up. The following morning I cut my stay short and set off back down to Filey to see what was going on only to find that everything had come up again about half an hour before I arrived. I always put this fix down to being within 10 miles of site.

It's a vocation

You say you don't have IT support skills and then you go and say, "when I go near a computer that a user says not working properly, it mysteriously seems to sort itself out without me doing anything.".

IT'S A SIGN!

You are one of the chosen ones, you ARE an IT support worker, you just don't know it yet! JOIN US!

Mind you, a few weeks ago I was in the pub, talking to a friend of a friend I'd just met. After hearing what I do for a living, his next question was "So why is my laptop so slow?".

He seemed to think that "How the fuck should I know?" wasn't a satisfactory answer.

"This annoying error message you say keeps appearing, have you read it?"

This rings so true to me.

It's so frustrating when lusers complain of a problem... and don't read the error messages. Or there's a forum thread about people seeing, oh, a "File not found" error, and someone posts and says "I'm having the exact same problem, every time I do X I get an 'Access Denied' error"... NO, YOU ARE NOT HAVING THE EXACT SAME PROBLEM! You have a TOTALLY DIFFERENT PROBLEM.

It's like they think that the content of the error message doesn't have any meaning... If someone said they had a flat rear-left tire, would these idiots say "Oh yeah, me too, my car won't start"?! Would they, upon the other person saying that their car is fine after changing the flat tire, go change their rear left tire, and then be all like "I changed the tire, but my car still won't start"?

I don't think anyone is that stupid with cars, yet they apparently are with computers!

I know the fairy dust effect.

A friend of mine would have computer problems that he'd ask me to fix (being a self-employed tradesman he knew the score so there'd always be a drink in it for me - I wouldn't always accept if as it's the thought that counts as much as anything).

I'd get there and get him to show me what he was doing and it would work. He'd always swear blind that he did the exact same thing before and it didn't work.

After a while, instead of me going to his we'd go over it on the phone and again it would work and he'd swear he'd done the same thing.

The last 'support call' I had from him was a text message to say he'd been having computer problems and was thinking of ringing me when it started working.

I think he was almost convinced I had magic powers by then.

Computers, like dogs and comissioned sales people can detect the weak...

Your best bet is unequivocally show them who is the dominant alpha.

I am reminded of the following quote by Dan Rutter:

"If you simply must persist in the belief that your PC is sentient and behaves like a supercilious waiter who may or may not be spitting in your soup, allow me to suggest a better way of dealing with it.

Have some dead and dismantled hardware lying around. I recommend hard drive platters; they're quite attractive, and look good hanging on the wall.

Buy a big screwdriver. Flat-head. Yes, I know the screws in the computer are all Philips and Pozidriv and Torx. That's not what the big driver's for. It's for prying and pounding.

You see, if your computer must have an opinion about you, I think it should view you as a technological Vlad Tepes.

If you're going to have delusions, you might as well make them fun ones."

Sound advise. (Although I prefer a one-handed masonry maul over a Flat-head...)

I'd like to believe I have special powers

That machines simply behave the moment they catch wind of my presence, even over the phone or via VNC but I suspect it's really down to the users turning down the asshattery when they call.

I'd also like to add that users being too 'busy' to read the error messages is the bread and butter of IT support.

The Sith Lords

(Apologies for the Star Wars terminology in advance)

Glad I am not the only one who sees this phenomenon day-in and day-out, thought I was going a bit eccentric in my old age. I too have the same ability to correct issues just by being near the malfunctioning hardware, only difference is that I am a dyed in the wool IT guy who will lay hands on aberrant things should they not shape up to my liking. I regularly see the "others", the people who can cause problems with electronic doodads and gizmos just by being near them. I think it has something with auras/fields/flossing that attributes to this one way or another and, needless to say, I am very-very-very strong in the ways of the IT force... dare I say a Jedi IT Master?

To date, I have met only one fellow who could cancel out (actually, send away quivering and covered in its own filth) my good mojo. He was a Sith Lord of some kind in the dark side of the IT force, and worse, he felt I was his "go-to guy" because we had a beer or 5 together in the past. Nearly every day, all hours of the day, his CAD software, licence dongle, OS, his Mayan calendar program,PC or whatever would fail to function as it should. He would bring the item in question to me (I refused to go to his site after the zillionth trip over there), and I would work feverishly on it with zero results UNTIL he left. Always, after he got at least a mile away, everything would start humming right along and work as expected (well, usually after a cautionary peek from my force to ensure he was nowhere near before it would come out of hiding). The minute he would come back to get it? FAIL.

It felt years of my life were drained from me in every session and I eventually gave him the support number for Dell, moved away from the area, changed my phone, changed my email address and have not looked back since. I have never met his like, but they have to out there... just imagine, what a counter-measure these kinds of folks could be as good will ambassadors to rogue nations? Anyone else run into this kind of dark lord/lady? Any other creative uses for these folks as countermeasures to suggest?

Politeness..

I'm always polite to anyway that wants my help. It is after all part of my job to be pleasant and helpful - working in the casino industry in Vegas means that you are expected to treat fellow employees the same way they treat the people who visit the casinos. At least it's that way at the better, have-somewhat-of-a-conscience, off-Las Vegas Boulevard casinos. Head to the casinos on the strip and you'll get that cold, money grabbing experience you were hoping for while watching your mortgage payment disappear in 5 minutes.

I don't get sarcastic when someone doesn't know as much about technology as I do, that's not only arrogant, it's somewhat retarded. Would you appreciate sarcasm and rudeness if you ask an accountant questions about your taxes? The answers users request may be obvious to you, but that's because it's your job to know them. Even if it's the 5 time in the last hour they asked the question, it's still your job to know their password, not theirs. At least that's what I tell myself.

But.. I do have rules. In return for my eternal patience I insist on being treated as I would treat others. I expect people to be polite, calm, answer my questions and carry out my simple-to-follow instructions without resorting to shouting or swearing. I expect them to *attempt* to do as I say to the best of their ability. I don't care if they get it wrong while they try to, say, press the number 1 three times, I just expect them to try without complaining, sighing or telling me this is pointless and I don't know what I'm talking about. Break those rules and I won't so much as acknowledge your existence let alone speak to you. I don't care how frustrating your day is, I'm not the one who broke it, don't yell at me.

Consequently I don't have much to do except browse the internet, because the last time I checked I'm not talking to anyone, not even my boss. The reaon I'm still employed is because the HR Director agrees with my point of view. We all go through an orientation that tells us we *must* treat fellow employees in the exact same way customers are treated. That means being fake and forcing ourselves to be nice even when we feel shitty. It works. If you are rude to me and then complain that I won't help you, you get sanctioned, not me.