You can bring a horse to water, but you can’t hold it’s head underwater until the bubbles stop. I feel this post deep in my soul. I don’t even do tech support, I do insurance enrollment in an HR office.

I give explicit written instructions on how to fill out the forms, and get reply emails asking how to fill out the forms. The second email then includes step by step pictures with the written instructions. I will get another reply email again asking how the forms get filled out. My final response is a phone call to ask if they need work accommodations for low vision or blindness. If they don’t need those accommodations, I make them find my emails and read them back to me over the phone.

They think “Set up” is the title of the menu rather than a selectable option.

I’m not saying the title isn’t wrong, but when I am giving tech support, I write for the least common denominator and make things explicit and obvious.

• Click the 3 dots on the top right of the ‘Search’ from your homepage.
• Go to ‘Set up’
• Here you can change the number of results shown.

Having worked in the industry 30 years, you have to account for stupid, distracted, reading comprehension, squirrels, and anything else. Typing the instructions on 3 lines or in three texts would clarify it.

I honestly used to enjoy those moments as a treat, when I’d have this kind of situation unfold, would get to walk over to the persons desk, click one thing or plug something in and it’s fixed… The good ones would know they did something embarrassing and give me a gift of some kind. The bad ones would be punished in ways they weren’t even aware of.

Have you ever wanted to reach through a screen and bitch slap someone?