This started as an inside joke that grew over my 34 years in IT.  You know, what the IT support people behind the scenes joke about when they see the same user stupidity over and over again.  It's a good way to release the tension, especially when you've had one of these facepalm moments for the thirtieth time.

But, it evolved into a real checklist that I give to relatively new IT people.  And it serves as a reminder even for the seasoned IT people, even myself from time to time.  This list does not exist because every user makes these mistakes -- even we make these mistakes from time to time -- but, to quickly eliminate these easily-overlooked things as possible causes for a problem, and avoid frustrating both us and the user.

And, in case you were wondering, every one of these troubleshooting items was added to this list because we, amazingly, saw it happen with a user in everyday support situations, repeatedly confounding us until we would figure it out.  Just like big red warnings on everyday consumer items, if it's there, some customer somewhere really did something to require the warning be added to the product.  Coincidentally, these are all things that competent users check themselves, which is why the competent users rarely contact us.  And, believe it or not, that's what we all want.

So, let's start with hardware:

Is it plugged in?  (well, that's embarrassing)
Yes, "check the power connections", this is something we need to mentally think about when we first start talking to someone about a problem they're having with some hardware.  Usually we'll say something like "Can you check that the the power cord is securely and fully pushed into it?"

You have to have them check the power cable all the way to the wall or wherever it's plugged in, including if it has a power supply in the middle, where a power cable also plugs into that.  Having a power cable slide partly out of a power supply on the floor or in the back of the device is very common.

Is it turned on?  (it was before)
Yes, "check those lights", you have to make the user look at the power lights on the device, which they may not have even looked at for many reasons.  It could be facing away from them, it could be under a pile of who-knows-what under their desk, etc.

I had this literally happen at a customer just yesterday.  They went for days, not being able to use their wireless or even see the wireless networks it should have been broadcasting.  I found the problem because a user had a wireless-only VoIP phone that hadn't been able to connect for days, it could see another wireless network everyone was using, but it's difficult to configure a new wireless network.  I went to power cycle the missing wireless access point, then I found the power button was pushed out, apparently because one time someone power cycled it, they had pushed the power button "out" or off and never pushed it back "in" or on.  Worked fine after that.

Is it connected?  (I think so)
Yes, the support session may start with "I can't connect to the server", but you have to have the user check if they are actually connected to the network by checking the ethernet cable or the wireless status icon.

And, this also applies to any device, really.  After "is it plugged in" and "is it on", this is the number one reason for a general support issue.  The monitor wasn't plugged into the computer, the scanner wasn't plugged into the network with the ethernet cable, the network switch the printer was plugged into wasn't plugged into the network or the wall.  Basically, check every cable, or cable related to the problem, from end to end to make sure it is not disconnected.

Is it the right cable?  (well, it fits)
Oh yes, how many times has this happened.  Well, it is #4 on the list.  Sometimes people will unplug a cable to move something, then jam it into a port on a device that it was never meant to plug into and will never do any good with.  This is how I discovered that a USB-A connector on a USB cable fits perfectly into an ethernet RJ-45 port.  Try it yourself.  It's like pushing a rectangular peg into a square hole, it might just work.

This also forces them to check that the cables are plugged in, if they missed one or more in the previous step.  And there are less obvious situations that can cause a user to call us, like the speaker cable is plugged into a mic port, which is identical, VoIP phones often have two ethernet ports, one for the network and one for the PC, etc.

Have you power cycled or rebooted it?  (I rebooted it three times like you said)
Yes, this is something that people learn after a few calls.  Sometimes your device just needs to be rebooted, and that's the quickest solution.  And sometimes, on a related note, signing out of your device will more quickly solve the problem, or you need to specifically shut down the device (but not unplug it for 30 seconds) and start it back up.

And, as I told a user before, any, and I mean ANY support person who tells you to restart your device (or power cycle it) two or more times and to call them back is not trying to help you, but trying to get rid of you so you call back and talk to someone else.  There is literally no problem that will be fixed by your restarting a device multiple times exactly the same way.  This is also an inside joke so when you do call back and tell the new support person that you restarted your computer two or three times like the previous person told you, then they know you are abusive, extremely frustrating, or particularly dense.

And if it's not hardware-related, move onto software:

Is it installed?  (well, I just uninstalled/deleted that other thing, so...)
Yes, how could this be?  How could you have a problem with an application that isn't even installed on your computer?  It happens, believe me.  Well, someone might need the software installed, and that's the problem, right?  No, I'm talking about people who say an application is installed, they can't find it, and upon investigation, we find out it is not installed.  So, usually this is related to user confusion, but sometimes they somehow remove an application and either forget about it or really didn't know what they were doing.  Or they might remove one application, not knowing another application requires it.

I even had a supposedly competent IT person occupy an hour of my time as we tried to figure out why he couldn't uninstall antivirus software on a user's computer, only to find out that it had already uninstalled itself (as is normal, but he was saying it was not working).  A shortcut was left behind and he didn't know how use it to find its install location to figure out that there was nothing there.  He had not restarted the computer to remove the related services he saw and was trying to remove, as he was previously told.  I guess he should have been told to restart the computer three times.

Is it running?  (yeah, it was)
Wow, yes, I think this actually happens at least once a month.  My goodness, do you think that application's ability to email something might depend on your mail application (Outlook) actually running?  You know, look down at the bottom of the screen and check to make sure it is there and shows it is running.  Maybe click on it and check if it's trying to tell you there's a problem.

Now, of course, we don't think this way if this happens one time with a user.  Everyone learns something like this one time.  This is only on this list because more than a few users simply don't remember to check this or just look to make sure the application is running.

Is it updated?  (how do I check that?)
This is really a bottom-of-the-list thing, but needs to be on the list, because it's a basic troubleshooting item. 

Maybe the problem software hasn't been updated for over three years.  Well, there's your problem, and 90% of the time, it really is.  Maybe you have hours of Windows updates waiting to be installed, but today this is only a problem when the update process is somehow broken, so checking this forces everyone to find this possible problem.  Maybe the software just doesn't update itself, the user has never checked, and the operating system (Mac or Windows) has updated to the point that the un-updated software just doesn't work or is buggy?  Or maybe some software you never use and was installed and never updated years ago is interfering with newer software you use?  That happens more often on Windows with interdependent libraries.

I had a gig-coworker give me a piece of useful advice recently: You don't always have to respond to every message.

She happily noticed that I always promptly responded to her when she reached out for help.  I'm proud that I always help anyone who asks me for it.  Then she told me something unexpected, that nobody has ever told me before.  I have a habit of responding to every message, almost as if I have to have the last word.  Of course she knows I'm not that way, but she said I act like a teacher or a big brother, even when I don't have to.

I acknowledged what she said, she responded, and I ... did not respond.  Until the next time she needed to tell me something or ask for something.

Then I realized I really did have some need to respond to every question and statement with a question or statement, even when it's really not needed or even useful.

I realized this tendency of mine probably enabled or at least encouraged bad or literally disqualified customers to constantly reach out for help, even when they didn't want to buy anything and would possibly even argue later about paying for the consultation.  So, since she pointed this out, I've been watching my communications with non-regular customers.

Sure enough, I had a customer contact me recently, like he does a couple of times a year, to ask a whole laundry list of questions and give a bunch of information about something going on with him and his business.  I remembered that I had disqualified him and his "business" because we literally had no real business with him since nearly eight years ago.  Even then, that one time was equivalent to 10% of the monthly business with a regular customer.  Eight years ago.  And I knew from all the contacts I had from him over the years that this was going to lead nowhere, for many reasons.

So, I answered his response to my email, which I sent after hours because we had more important paying customers waiting for work to be done, with a generally informational email that ended with a recommendation that he essentially go buy a Microsoft Azure subscription instead of buying a server host or a VM setup that might (or might not) give us a paltry bit of business.  Essentially, don't waste my time or yours, go get free advice from Microsoft.

And he responded with more questions and comments.  And I deleted his email before going back to the paying customers.

It felt good.  And I knew the end result would be the same either way.  Except possibly that he, maybe, wouldn't reach out to me with a dozen more questions later this year.

And today I get a text from someone at another disqualified customer who had so conveniently "dumped themselves" last year, relieving me of the need to create a reason to stop doing business with them.  Somehow I was texted a Google code they needed because I was still on some old Google admin account.  She asked for that and some number of other questions.  I politely gave her the code and ignored the rest of what she said, because I was working on an urgent problem for a customer that I had to get done in less than an hour.  Then that customer had another problem come up I had to immediately address.

Meanwhile, this woman at the disqualified customer kept texting me one thing after another.  All of which I ignored while I finished addressing the problems successfully for the qualified, paying customer in time.  I did, and ended up going home with a good sense of accomplishment for the day.

After I got home, after-hours on a Friday, before my weekend, I remembered that I had forgotten to look at her messages.  I deleted the entire text conversation without looking.  It felt good.

Again, I consciously made a calculated decision that one person/company did not require a response, mainly because my response would not actually lead to anything good, anyway, for me or them.  And in the process, I redirected my efforts toward the customer who treats us right and pays us well every month.

Hmm, I guess a customer can become unworthy of even a response.  And the reality is that our more valued customers, who actually value our work, are happier when I choose to engage with them.  And, I'm less stressed.

No conversation or even person is obligated any response if the end result is pretty much guaranteed to produce nothing of value.

Sure, you could say that's bad because it's transactional and there should be a relationship involved with a customer or client.  But, this is business and the bills don't get paid by people or companies who have no intention of doing business with you.  Business has to come first or you won't be in business for long.

 

I saw an interesting, thought provoking video recently, a modern equivalent of a traditional essay.  Why do people do bullshit jobs?

Well, that's a good question, one that I rarely think about unless I'm faced with someone who obviously dislikes their job (and they seem to want me to know it).  Most people just take it as a given, "I have a bullshit job, I am going to work" or something like that. They do it because it "is".  I don't think most of them care enough to even ask the question.  Usually, the thought, if any is given, is "Let me do my bullshit job, get my paycheck, and get out of here."

My wife of 26 years had one bullshit job for well over 20 years.  But hey, I met her at her first bullshit job, so I don't think you can call bullshit jobs useless.  And you might like being with the people at your bullshit job, like she did.  She smiled a lot at that bullshit job, but maybe that was just my point of view.  She didn't dislike it and the owner of the place was good to her.  The owner's wife was a different story, but every bullshit job has a thorn or burr it puts into your ass.  That just seems to be reality.

I had bullshit jobs, jobs that I worked just to explore things I could do in life or just make money. I worked at a gas station at night, while I worked at my main job during the day, to make the extra money to get a new car.  I liked the people I worked with, although I never saw the owner.  I heard he was rich, although I was amazed you could become "rich" by owning two or three gas stations.  One coworker introduced me to the show Red Dwarf, which I will always be grateful for.  Another coworker showed me how to dash across the street to call the police when a suicidal drunk tries to light your gas pumps on fire with a Bic and a one dollar bill.

I think most people work bullshit jobs primarily to get money, like the social equivalent of a stalemate -- you need money, they need bullshit done.  It's just that sometimes it's a little bit more than just a place to get money and get bullshit done.  The thing is, how important is it to have all the people at each of these bullshit jobs I've known?  Most of them, there are more people than necessary if the owner just worked there.  But, the owner hires some of us so he doesn't have to be there, and enough to account for the bullshitters who are excessively lazy, which is inevitable.  And that's where a lot of bullshit jobs come from, to make it possible for the owner to never be there doing one of the bullshit jobs.  Because he doesn't actually want to be there.

So, here we are at a definition.  People do bullshit jobs to get money for what they really want. The owner sets up these bullshit jobs, so he can get money to go do something else.  Sometimes at these bullshit jobs, as in other areas of life, we meet people who we like in the process.

OK, so where does that leave us as these bullshit jobs inevitably go away?  Are we a little bit emptier or a little bit better because of it?

The point of that modern essay I saw was that these are bullshit jobs.  Why do we still do bullshit jobs when society doesn't need you to and we don't want to do them?

Well, it seems like one more thing waiting to be obsoleted, that should be obsoleted because its usefulness has been outlived.  I have good memories from my bullshit jobs and I met my wife at one, but those are the upsides. 

The downsides are that we spent a lot of time and years rushing to and from bullshit jobs when we were young, a lot of time standing around talking, doing bullshit.  I personally spent a lot of days working 16, 20 hours, with barely enough time to eat and sleep.  My wife worked 6 days a week for decades, even during the early years of our children, at that bullshit job.  Even though she didn't really have to, technically we didn't need the money, but she wanted to have her own money, even if 80% of it went to a nanny.  So, every Saturday, Mom was at work, doing her bullshit, and Dad and the kids went out to see some stuff, do some light shopping, go check out what was new at Fry's or the mall, maybe visit Mom at the bullshit job before lunch.

Oh, and after a couple of decades of dedicated work, my wife slipped on some soup, hit her head on the floor/table, and ended up in the emergency room.  She was OK, but never fully recovered and still has pains in her head and shoulder that she lives with to this day.  But after a couple of months of paying for doctor visits and worker's comp, the owner at that bullshit job unceremoniously fired her ass.  Well, what did you expect, it was a bullshit job.  That she worked at for over twenty years.  That gas station coworker who introduced me to Red Dwarf worked full time at that gas station job and never in her life had medical insurance, even after working there for over ten years.  Imagine working at your job for over 10 years, in your mid-30's, never having had medical insurance, and never knowing if next year you won't even have that.

So, there are a lot of things today that have changed since I started working as an adult, like all these bullshit jobs, to which we can gladly say "Goodbye and good riddance!" 

Like wearing a suit and tie every day to every office job.  Like working "9-to-5" where work actually starts at 8am, you'd better be there by 7:30am so you're not a minute late, and you work later than 5pm to get the day's work done so you don't have it waiting for you tomorrow.  Like working the hourly factory job where you clock in and clock out at PRECISE times, but people always start walking toward the clock-in or clock-out area 15-20 minutes early, then stand around talking until PRECISELY one minute before the time that they actually slide that card into the time clock and walk into or out of the building. Like the sales job where you brag to the other guys about how you overcharged the old lady to pay for your new sports car.  Like the retail job where every worker has a nightmare customer and every customer has a nightmare salesperson.

Yeah.  Good riddance.

I don't think any of us will have a problem turning over the bullshit jobs to AI or machines, will we?  I think we can find our friends elsewhere...

 

There were misconceptions I had when I started my business over 16 years ago.  They shaped the first years of my business, and are examples of why most businesses never make it past 5 years.

If you can learn from these misconceptions that so many new entrepreneurs have, you might make it.  You don't even have to be good at what you do in your field, you just have to know how to hire, manage, and retain the people who do.  Some of the best entrepreneurs I've seen in the Silicon Valley were so great because they knew how to build and keep together teams of the people who really knew their jobs.  Get those people, give them what they need without micromanaging them, set the direction, and get out of the way.

We should do anything for anyone
No, don't take the direction of your business from whatever potential customer you're talking to today.  This one I think is universal.  It seems obvious, but it's very tempting to believe, especially in the beginning when you have intense pressure on you financially.  Also, there are so many ways to fall into this trap, like just changing what you offer to customers based on one or two invoices for specific things, even if they are within your field. 

If you've ever been a salesperson, this is where "qualifying a customer" comes in.  You shouldn't be doing much more than talking to a company if you haven't qualified them as having one or more qualities of your ideal customer. The only exception is if you literally have no business, and even then, reaching out to companies you don't know is more productive than talking to someone you've disqualified or can't qualify.

I worked in a sales-oriented company (or companies, depending on how you look at acquisitions and mergers) for years before I started my business, and heard salespeople asking each other all the time, "Did you qualify them?  Did you ask all the questions on the sheet?"  It still didn't sink into me until I was actually out there selling myself and my business.

This can be the biggest waste of your limited time in the beginning, but it is a waste even later when you're established.  Investing in a relationship with an unqualified customer for months or years is a huge waste of time, and time is money.  Think about your ideal customer and what they have that makes them ideal, then use that to formulate solid questions to qualify any potential customer.

And a customer who was once qualified may become unqualified.  Some qualification questions can only be answered after some time.  Don't be afraid to part ways with an unqualified or disqualified customer when it becomes obvious.  And if they are the ones who present you with the opportunity to get out, take the time to recognize it and take it. 

This is where my prior experience in an electronics company failed me in running my services business.  If you're not a qualified customer we want to do business with, but you just want to buy another part, it's fine because it's a one-and-done transaction.  But, if you want us to come back to help with IT issues that are caused by your internal problems that disqualify you as a customer, forget it.

An offshoot or variation of this is believing, well, it may not be worth doing business with this customer now, but it might be later.  That brings us to:

Your customers will grow
No, they won't, not as a given.  This is sunny, positive thinking at it's worst.  If you qualify a customer based on the idea they'll grow in the future while today they don't qualify as a customer, you're making a mistake.  You must qualify the ones that are worthy of your time today, so you can avoid the others.  It seemed obvious to me that people would be in business to grow over time.  It never occurred to me that many businesses just want to do exactly what they're doing today, with no desire to grow or improve in the future.  And then there are others who simply can't grow no matter how hard they try.  If the last company they paid to do what you do won't answer their phone calls, take the hint and run.

Even if these "titans of business" and their employees are in immense pain every day just doing things the way they've always done them, they typically just want help putting out fires when they come up, nothing more.  And they'll as easily blame you as they will their own employees in the process.  Many pay for your recommendations and never do anything with them because of severe indecisiveness.  They may argue on and on with you about minute details of your work while you're doing it. 

I watched one customer pay us thousands and thousands of dollars to keep decades-old software working instead of just upgrading it for less money.  I told him so.  He didn't take the recommendation, and in the end, there was no reason.  Another customer made every major decision based on pennies of difference in cost, then never admitted he made mistakes in those decisions after they didn't work out.  That closed circuit security system was a bargain, if only it worked when you used it.  And then he kept trying to get me to figure out why it didn't work when it's a completely custom-coded system that only one guy could make work again, the guy who sold it to him.  But, what a bargain. 

Then another customer wanted a cloud solution meeting exact specifications.  There was one solution I recommended that cost $100 exactly, no recurring costs.  We talked about it twice a year for hours in great detail.  Then he'd always go away to think about it.  Rinse and repeat ... for over four years.  All his employees loved testing the solution I recommended.  He just never paid for it.  After those four years he ran out and got a subscription to another solution that accomplished the same thing, but cost $75 a month.  Don't ask me why he spent so many hours with me explaining the solution that exactly met his requirements, multiple times a year, every time like we never talked about it before, then he decided to get a solution that didn't meet his original requirements.  That is an example of a customer who was qualified early in our company history, then it became obvious later after we had grown that they were no longer.  They had become unworthy of our time.

This brings me to another realization I had after years in business:  there are vast numbers of poorly-managed companies out there that will never go anywhere except out of business (eventually).  I knew one that took over 20 years to skid out of business, and the final hole that took them out was the pandemic.  I never realized how lucky I had been to land in a well run company in the early days of my career until I started a business to help other companies.  In my daily work in my business, I had so many opportunities to see so many small businesses (less than 50 employees).

Your customers will utilize your team's talents
Well, the ones worth your time will, but most won't.  Badly run small companies are typically run by people with a very narrow skill set who don't know how to find talented people to make up for it.  They may hire you or your company, but don't really understand how to utilize you or your team.  If they did, they wouldn't be so badly run.

It's not like they don't try, but companies like these don't understand exactly how to piece together different people and organizations like the puzzle pieces they need to get what they need done in the best way possible.  There is a reason they are badly run in the first place.  No amount of talent can really substitute unless your service is actually performing exactly that function for them.  And, of course, will a badly run company actually let you perform that function without interfering?  Probably not.  You can't make them do what you know will work, and often you can't even lure them into doing it even when you tell them exactly why.

So, the point is to disqualify a customer you've confirmed doesn't meet one or more qualifications you've set for a customer that is worth your time.  Or at least to leave them unqualified until you confirm them one way or the other.  What I've learned over the years is to deal with these customers by prioritizing them to your lowest, end-of-the-queue service level, with the disqualified getting service last.

Bottom tier customers just need to wait behind qualified customers.  The customers who always need you to put out fires, don't actually take recommendations seriously, and who like to argue on and on about semantic details will naturally get less and less opportunity to waste your time.  Eventually, they'll go away or in rare cases actually change so they may become qualified and move up your service ladder.  That's why you never stop talking to the unqualified or disqualified, you just don't allow them to take up more of your team's time than the top tier qualified customers.  If you let them, your bottom tier customers will take more and more of your time while they don't actually take your recommendations, resulting in them having more problems, and taking more of your time.  Get out early when you see this.

The beauty of prioritizing this way is that if you just started your business, even disqualified customers have nobody to wait behind and you need their business.  In the beginning you need to survive first. You'll grow, but it'll be painful.  Later, as you acquire more and better qualified customers, those unqualified or disqualified customers just naturally go away as you have less time for them.  Either they go out of business, or they look for another sucker to take your place.  Until they inevitably go out of business.

In the end, avoiding the worst potential customers can be even more important than outmaneuvering your competitors.  Think of it as running next to a guy while an angry bear is chasing both of you.  All you have to do is run faster.  Let your competitors have the worst customers.