Wednesday 18 May 2011

Non Self Service

I have always been amazed at the actions (or lack of)  of people when a problem occurs. They will moan and groan, and blame everyone under the sun, but will do nothing to help themselves. Is it because it happens with a computer in the room? That as soon as a crisis hits, they immediately switch to dumb mode until someone points out a simple solution and forces it upon them.

For instance, when an electrical fault occurs I am always perplexed at the mentality that causes these people to ignore simple safety or logic. There are several examples already posted on here and here is another.

A couple of weeks ago, the late shift upon me again, I get a phone call from a tutor. He informs me that a woman in his class had just received a rather severe electrical shock from a plug socket in one of the new classrooms.

I took this as a serious priority and made my way upstairs immediately. After all I had to make sure there was no damage to the equipment. Oh and make sure that the user was still alive and unhurt.

As I entered the classroom I had expected to see a crowd of people pointing and moaning in useless tones, a sense of unrest, even a woman with a worried or even angry look on her face, with a tinge of black on her fingertips or smoke billowing from her ears. But instead as I stepped over the threshold I was hit with a blazing fury of out of control calm and silence.

Everybody in the room was sitting quietly in front of a PC and the tutor was at his desk, busy surfing through the listings on eBay and barely looked up as I approached. When he finally noticed me, he pointed and gestured towards a woman on the right hand side. She was slouched in a chair and casually using the computer that was on the desk in front of her to check her email.

"Which socket did you get a shock from?" I ask her.

She didn't seem bothered at all, but she gestured towards the socket next to the computer she was using: The one that the computer was plugged in to.

There was no sign of burning, no blackened plastic, no smell, no evidence at all that there was a problem. I asked the woman what happened.

"Jus' sparked and give me a shock when I plugged the 'puter in." She volunteered as if nothing had happened at all.

"But you're still using it" I say, a little concerned.

"Yer. Gotta get me work done" she answers as she opens a new email message.

I look around the room at the seven spare, unused workstations. Whether there was an issue with the socket or not; it was my responsibility to make sure that it was properly tested by an electrician, and in the meantime prevent it from being used in case someone got seriously hurt.

I asked the woman (politely) if she could move to the next computer along. I may as well have asked her to move to another country, but after a lot of huffing and puffing, and comments under her breath, she finally moves along to the next seat. Honestly I wonder why I bother sometimes. She obviously didn't care, why should I? I even had to log off the computer she had been using; her email was still open and the message was from her bank no less... Data protection, gotta love it!

I took a note of the socket number, unplugged the computer, put up an "out of service" sign and explained to the tutor, now finished with his online auctions, that the computer must not be used.

Next as I was turning to leave, he tugs my arm and complains that a guy on the left side hadn't been able to use the computer he was on. This wasn't surprising as it was installing a service pack, failing and rebooting on a loop. The man was sitting staring at it, fingers poised, ready to login when the opportunity arose. The lesson had been going for over forty five minutes and he hadn't taken his eyes off the screen.

Neither the man or even the tutor for that matter hadn't even considered using a different computer that was working, but were just using blind hope that eventually the log-on screen would appear.

It took even longer to coax this person from the defective machine and on to one where he would be able to do his work. For some reason he must have been surgically attached to his chair as he refused to stand up, and merely scooted across the room on the wheels and shoved the other one out of the way in to the corner.

Without so much as thank you I left, a little bewildered and wondering if stupidity was contagious.

Some people just won't help themselves.

2 comments:

  1. This was hilarious!!! I was laughing out loud. I am glad that you have such a great sense of humor.
    Kathy
    www.robbinswrites.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete
  2. LOL, You have to have in our business. Thanks for reading.

    ReplyDelete

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