For the benefit of one of my lurkers…
I’m the administrator for a sales tracking system at work. In our set-up, this means that I’m the go-between for the users and the programmers…which puts me in that unfortunate position of knowing just enough about the technical side to sometimes feel a bit full of myself when the users just don’t get it.
When I was complaining one day about one of our less-savvy users, a programmer friend shared a little IT secret and said “You should tell him he’s having an ID10T error”. Apparently, this is one of several common jokes that IT folks enjoy playing on the inept (and therefore usually unsuspecting) user. Just a few examples, for fun:
ID10T error: [Synonym for PEBKAC, e.g. “The user is being an idiot”] Tech-support people passing a problem report to someone higher up the food chain (and presumably better equipped to deal with idiots) may ask the user to convey that there seems to be an I-D-ten-T error. Users never twig.
PEBKAC: [Abbrev., “Problem Exists Between Keyboard And Chair”] Used by support people, particularly at call centers and help desks. Not used with the public. Denotes pilot error as the cause of the crash. Very derogatory.
UBD: [Abbrev., “User Brain Damage”] An abbreviation used to close out trouble reports obviously due to utter cluelessness on the user's part.
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2 comments:
Actually, for the most BOFH-ish of us, all you have to say is 'user.'
The guys at Dead Troll have a couple of spot-on videos about this phenomenon. One is "The Internet Help Desk" and the other is "The Sys Admin Song."
i can't believe you gave away our IT secrets! Damn... You took all the joy out of cupholder problem tickets.
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