When troubleshooting, it's a good idea to know your audience I was a national support specialist for a major equipment manufacturer. Thirty minutes before quitting time on a Monday afternoon, a call was sent to my desk from a major customer who had a complete system failure. Their system supported 300+ users and everything had stopped. I found myself on the phone with both a man and a woman who told me that ever When troubleshooting, it’s a good idea to know your audience I was a national support specialist for a major equipment manufacturer. Thirty minutes before quitting time on a Monday afternoon, a call was sent to my desk from a major customer who had a complete system failure. Their system supported 300+ users and everything had stopped. I found myself on the phone with both a man and a woman who told me that everything had been fine, but then suddenly the system had died. There had been no error messages or error lights on the main processor unit. I sent them into the next room to check for fault lights on the disk drives (these old drives were the size of dishwashers and used three-phase 220V power). But there were no fault lights.I was a national support specialist for a major equipment manufacturer. Thirty minutes before quitting time on a Monday afternoon, a call was sent to my desk from a major customer who had a complete system failure. Their system supported 300+ users and everything had stopped. I found myself on the phone with both a man and a woman who told me that everything had been fine, but then suddenly the system had died. There had been no error messages or error lights on the main processor unit. I sent them into the next room to check for fault lights on the disk drives (these old drives were the size of dishwashers and used three-phase 220V power). But there were no fault lights. I asked the woman to type in various diagnostic commands into the system console. In each case, she told me nothing happened. After concluding that there was no way to possibly salvage the state of the machine, I had her press the reset button on the front of the CPU, knowing full well that this meant as many as 300 people would lose their work and require a much more in-depth recovery process. Once again, however, she told me that nothing happened.I figured there was a total communication failure between the CPU and the disks, and I had to assume that she had missed the fault lights that had to be turned on for at least one of the disk drives. Again I asked the customer if she could go into the next room and verify that the drive fault lights were not on. At this point, she asked me if she could call me back in 20 minutes or so. We had now been on the phone for about 45 minutes and we were scrambling to get this machine back up. The request for 20 minutes off seemed strange, but I was willing to give her the time. I did, however, ask why. “Because the other guy just left with the flashlight and I can’t see a thing.” After my desire to call both these people unsavory names had passed, I very quickly realized that what might have seemed totally obvious to myself was anything but to these two. There was no power in certain parts of the building, and this included the computer room and disk drive room. But it did not include some of the office areas where the users and their terminals were. The two users on the phone were not technical, and had no concept of what a UPS or emergency generator might require, or how they might work.During the ensuing 15 years of my career, I have always tried to remember that something that seems obvious to me may not be obvious to the technology user. So I always start with the basics and build from there. Tech-Related Idiocy When it comes to royally derailing IT, nothing trumps the stupidity of those whom IT is meant to serve — except maybe those attempting to hack open the IT gates: • More stupider user tricks • Stupid hacker tricks • Stupid user tricks Data Management