Tip 4 in the continuing saga of Tips to providing Technical Support
Kevin Wood
Experienced leader with experience in implementing technology to achieve organizational goals and overcome challenges
This one is possibly appropriate for a Monday. . .
Tip 4: Never underestimate the power of Human Stupidity (including your own).
Just because you wouldn't fold or staple a floppy disk, do not think your clients would not. Error messages that are important to you, are not necessarily important to them. You may not know how they normally do things. Your knowledge base is not their knowledge base. Their knowledgebase is not yours. Don't project. Assume they will.
Obviously, this (along with the original article), dates back to the floppy disk era. However, it is still appropriate. Saving space on your hard drive via "format C" or updating a table in your database without a 'where' clause (and no backup) result in less than optimal outcomes.
Note that I add 'Including your own' [my own]. The phrase that somes to mind (while pointing to myself) is
"If you were twice and smart as you are, you would still be half as smart as you should be"
As much as I would like to think I am smart enough to avoid mistakes, I am not. This reinforces rule 3 (previously posted) ensure I can back out of or recover from 'MY' mistakes.
second to this is NEVER assume those I support know as much about what we are trying to accomplish as I do. (they might actually know more about some aspects.) but also never assume THEY backed everything up before attempting to fix the system (or before calling YOU)
Messaging Architect / Engineer -> I build things and encourage people!
1 年“Just because you wouldn't fold or staple a floppy disk, do not think your clients would not.” I like that you handled this gently. We are paid to be deeply conscious of tech. If we do our jobs correctly, we allow the client the freedom to disregard the tech and just get their objectives managed.