Dealing with Clueless People: My Frustrating Experience

[Evo]

I just can't understand how some people can be so clueless. A girl I work with is constantly coming to me for help with using the circuit pricing system. I have walked her through the same process probably 50 times, seriously.

Yesterday she insisted I show her "one more time". She had already started a quote, but couldn't figure it out. The quote was listed by the company name which started with a "P". She opens page "1" these are customer names starting with "A". Then she clicks on page "2", these are customer's starting with "C", then she clicks on page "3" AARRGGHHH. Ok, you have 10 pages of quotes listed alphabetically, you might want to try page 8 or 9. She clicked on every page one at a time looking for it.

Sorry, I just had to rant. I have no door on my cubicle and I'm supposed to help people, but dear god, there is a limit.

I guess we are all surrounded by these people, I'm just NOT a patient person. How do you deal with people like this?

 

[Curious3141]

I guess we are all surrounded by these people, I'm just NOT a patient person. How do you deal with people like this?

Institute an IQ test criterion for hiring.

 

[FredGarvin]

I just can't understand how some people can be so clueless.

What do you mean?

 

[Astronuc]

I just can't understand how some people can be so clueless. A girl I work with is constantly coming to me for help with using the circuit pricing system. I have walked her through the same process probably 50 times, seriously.

Yesterday she insisted I show her "one more time". She had already started a quote, but couldn't figure it out. The quote was listed by the company name which started with a "P". She opens page "1" these are customer names starting with "A". Then she clicks on page "2", these are customer's starting with "C", then she clicks on page "3" AARRGGHHH. Ok, you have 10 pages of quotes listed alphabetically, you might want to try page 8 or 9. She clicked on every page one at a time looking for it.

Sorry, I just had to rant. I have no door on my cubicle and I'm supposed to help people, but dear god, there is a limit.

You have my condolensces.

How do you deal with people like this?

I tend to avoid people like this. My company would not hire such people.

I work alone, except when visiting the main corporate office or clients' sites.

At my previous company, we did have nut-case, who did not get it. We pretty much left him alone, but I did have to occasionally deal with him when he stood in the doorway and stare into my office, that is when he wasn't pacing the back and forth in the hallway outside my office.

What do you mean?

 

[Andy]

You wind them up until they get soo fed up that they don't talk to you again. I did that on friday and the guy still hasnt talked to me and we work on ramps that are next to each other.

 

[BobG]

I just can't understand how some people can be so clueless. A girl I work with is constantly coming to me for help with using the circuit pricing system. I have walked her through the same process probably 50 times, seriously.

Yesterday she insisted I show her "one more time". She had already started a quote, but couldn't figure it out. The quote was listed by the company name which started with a "P". She opens page "1" these are customer names starting with "A". Then she clicks on page "2", these are customer's starting with "C", then she clicks on page "3" AARRGGHHH. Ok, you have 10 pages of quotes listed alphabetically, you might want to try page 8 or 9. She clicked on every page one at a time looking for it.

Sorry, I just had to rant. I have no door on my cubicle and I'm supposed to help people, but dear god, there is a limit.

I guess we are all surrounded by these people, I'm just NOT a patient person. How do you deal with people like this?

Do you mean the "Cargo Cult" people? The ones that need a detailed ritual to perform because they have no idea how the system works, why they do what they do, and no idea what happens if they deviate from the ritual they perform.

You write a detailed checklist they can follow and pray nothing ever happens to disrupt the routine. That never actually works, of course.

I used to work space surveillance and we had a person on crew who analyzed the shape and attitude of the objects we tracked. One night, he came on crew, followed his checklist to the letter, and found nothing at all unordinary that every object we tracked had the exact same shape and each object was incredibly stable (i.e. - he had flat lines across the screen for every object he analyzed for 8 hours straight - this is equivalent to driving 8 hours straight and not noticing that your speed and the scenery haven't changed). He worked an entire 8 hour shift without realizing his console wasn't working. When they send people like that to you for corrective training, you're tempted to ask, "Can I use a bat?"

 

[jtbell]

this is equivalent to driving 8 hours straight and not noticing that your speed and the scenery haven't changed

Have you ever driven across western Texas?

 

[Evo]

Do you mean the "Cargo Cult" people? The ones that need a detailed ritual to perform because they have no idea how the system works, why they do what they do, and no idea what happens if they deviate from the ritual they perform.

You write a detailed checklist they can follow and pray nothing ever happens to disrupt the routine. That never actually works, of course.

This reminds me of a guy I worked with in New Jersey. He didn't last very long. When you first turn on your work computer, there is a statement saying that access to the systems are restricted to authorized users only. He would call out "it's telling me again I'm not authorized to use this". Oy.

He worked an entire 8 hour shift without realizing his console wasn't working. When they send people like that to you for corrective training, you're tempted to ask, "Can I use a bat?"

It's mind boggling. How do these people get hired?

 

[Evo]

Have you ever driven across western Texas?

 

[Averagesupernova]

Do you mean the "Cargo Cult" people? The ones that need a detailed ritual to perform because they have no idea how the system works, why they do what they do, and no idea what happens if they deviate from the ritual they perform.

That sounds like my mom on the computer. She insists that she needs to write everything down and when she does it enough times she will remember it and it will all be fine. If I worked like that I wouldn't be past second grade. Memory is great, but there's a limit...

 

[Astronuc]

Have you ever driven across western Texas?

Oh yeah - from SA to EP - as fast as possible. Time - less than 7 hrs - probably closer to 6. Passed every car.

 

[Chi Meson]

I just can't understand how some people can be so clueless... How do you deal with people like this?

And all these people are allowed to vote. That's what bothers me most.

 

[siddharth]

And all these people are allowed to vote. That's what bothers me most.

Atleast, you're lucky that they aren't the ones who you're supposed to vote for.

 

[Astronuc]

Atleast, you're lucky that they aren't the ones who you're supposed to vote for.

Unfortunately in some cases they are.

 

[berkeman]

I guess we are all surrounded by these people, I'm just NOT a patient person. How do you deal with people like this?

For situations like this, I write a crib sheet out for the person as I'm explaining it. Then I leave the crib sheet with them. If they come ask for help on the same thing again, I ask to see the crib sheet, and have them use it while I watch. Once or twice is usually enough to get them doing it on their own.

But I do know what you mean, though. Reminds me of the guy who used to re-type URLs that people sent him into his IE address bar -- even the *really* loooong ones! When I showed him how to Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V copy/paste the URL text into the address bar, he was dumbfounded.

 

[siddharth]

Unfortunately in some cases they are.

Yes, that's the situation I'm facing.

 

[franznietzsche]

Threads like this make me hate humanity even more

 

[Evo]

For situations like this, I write a crib sheet out for the person as I'm explaining it. Then I leave the crib sheet with them. If they come ask for help on the same thing again, I ask to see the crib sheet, and have them use it while I watch. Once or twice is usually enough to get them doing it on their own.

Unfortunately, you have to first understand what you're trying to price before you can use the system.

Me: What are you trying to price?

her: He said he wants black fiber.

Me: You mean dark fiber? We no longer sell it.

Her:Oh, or an OC12

Me:An OC12 to what?

her:I don't know, he says he wants to buy 6 strands off it.

Me:We don't do that. Did you ask him what he's trying to do?

her: No, I guess I should have, I was just so confused. Can you talk to him?

This is typical of every conversation.

 

[berkeman]

Wow. Now I'm really starting to feel your pain. That kind of person wouldn't last very long here at my work. Time for a little hire/fire action, isn't it? You're not working in France, right?


(EDIT -- oops, er, no offense to the French.)

 

[Math Is Hard]

How do these people get hired?

hmm..possibly there are just fine for they job they are hired for, but then the Peter Principle kicks in when they get promoted?

Your first post about the woman navigating through the last names in the system reminds me of some of the things I see at work. (Sometimes I have to go out and troubleshoot so I have to watch what people are doing at their workstations.) For instance, I have seen more than one person create his/her capital letters when typing by first pressing Capslock, typing the letter, pressing Capslock again, and then proceeding.

 

[Moonbear]

Your first post about the woman navigating through the last names in the system reminds me of some of the things I see at work. (Sometimes I have to go out and troubleshoot so I have to watch what people are doing at their workstations.) For instance, I have seen more than one person create his/her capital letters when typing by first pressing Capslock, typing the letter, pressing Capslock again, and then proceeding.

I can definitely feel your pain. This week, I've been running an experiment that's pretty complicated, but I've been giving people some easy tasks to help out, because I can't physically be in two places at once (unless one of you physicists wants to tell me about some fantastic discovery you haven't revealed yet). The task is simple...watch the collection tubing, make sure it doesn't get clogged, and watch the test tubes on the fraction collector to make sure the right one is in the right place at the right time. If anything, it's tediously boring, but not hard. For the first two days, every time I got a chance to walk back into the other room, it seemed the arm on the fraction collector was in the wrong position (it catches on the tubes...I know this, I explained this to the help, it needs to be repaired, but we didn't have the luxury of sending it for repair before needing it). Then, it seems one post-doc (a post-doc, not even an undergrad or tech, but someone who has actually managed to obtain a PhD) cannot troubleshoot ANYTHING. Every time there was a clog in the line, she comes running to get me to fix it. By the time she gets to the room I am and tells me and I get to the room it's in, we've missed 3 samples, not to mention however many were missed while she's staring at the clogged line deciding it's clogged. It's not a very challenging set-up to fix...check each connection one-by-one, and when you open the one up that let's everything flow again, change the connector to one that isn't clogged. She's now watched me do this I don't know how many times, yet still can't seem to just do this herself.

 

[Astronuc]

For instance, I have seen more than one person create his/her capital letters when typing by first pressing Capslock, typing the letter, pressing Capslock again, and then proceeding.

I presume they use Caplocks rather than the Shift key to do a single capital letter. Caplocks would be appropriate for a TITLE of other STRING of capital letters. On the other hand, I tend to use the Shift key, holding it with my pinky while typing ALL CAPS.

I sometimes get some strange questions regarding Word (or other Word/Text Processors) and Excel - from people who are supposedly trained.

 

[Cyrus]

You should put a panic button on her keyboard and tell her if she presses it someone will come shortly to help her. It may take a few times, but eventually she'll get the message when no one ever shows up.

 

[Math Is Hard]

It's not a very challenging set-up to fix...check each connection one-by-one, and when you open the one up that let's everything flow again, change the connector to one that isn't clogged. She's now watched me do this I don't know how many times, yet still can't seem to just do this herself.

That's amazing. Seems like something even a workstudy assistant would be able to handle.

I presume they use Caplocks rather than the Shift key to do a single capital letter.

That's exactly what I mean.

You should put a panic button on her keyboard and tell her if she presses it someone will come shortly to help her. It may take a few times, but eventually she'll get the message when no one ever shows up.

Almost as much fun as convincing them the new printer/fax/copier is voice-activated.

 

[Astronuc]

Buy her a "Dummies Guide to . . . ." and see if she gets it.

Maybe she won't, but you can still have a good laugh.

 

[scott1]

I have no idea what anyone is talking about.
This thread is about polticans it should move to P&WA

 

[nrqed]

I just can't understand how some people can be so clueless. A girl I work with is constantly coming to me for help with using the circuit pricing system. I have walked her through the same process probably 50 times, seriously.

Yesterday she insisted I show her "one more time". She had already started a quote, but couldn't figure it out. The quote was listed by the company name which started with a "P". She opens page "1" these are customer names starting with "A". Then she clicks on page "2", these are customer's starting with "C", then she clicks on page "3" AARRGGHHH. Ok, you have 10 pages of quotes listed alphabetically, you might want to try page 8 or 9. She clicked on every page one at a time looking for it.

Sorry, I just had to rant. I have no door on my cubicle and I'm supposed to help people, but dear god, there is a limit.

I guess we are all surrounded by these people, I'm just NOT a patient person. How do you deal with people like this?

Now, imagine having to teach a whole semester of physics to some people like that...

Do you feel better now?

 

[Evo]

Now, imagine having to teach a whole semester of physics to some people like that...

Do you feel better now?

I could NEVER teach. Every person that has been assigned to me to mentor, I've fired. My boss said he wasn't going to assign anymore to me (he was joking) he gives them to me to give the thumbs up or down.

 

[Cyrus]

Evo is the new decider.

 

[BobG]

Almost as much fun as convincing them the new printer/fax/copier is voice-activated.

That sounds as fun as convincing the new 2nd leuitenants that their monitor could be turned on and off by clapping.

The officer on the crew was supposed to monitor the commands one of his crew members sent to the satellite, however, occasionally the commands being sent to the satellite were classified. Since the feed to the officer's monitor also went to a physically separated room for engineers, there was no way for the crew to know who was watching the monitor. The crew member sending the commands to the satellite would disable the feed when he had to and the officer was supposed to walk over and watch over the crew members shoulder.

Of course, the most common use of the switch was to get the newbie to spend his entire first mid shift clapping (amazing how even the slightest noise could turn the darn thing off, but it was so much trouble getting it to turn on)

And then, of course, around the vernal equinox or autumnal equinox, you had to explain to the new guys that the reason the solar arrays on the satellite weren't generating any power was because it was a cloudy day, to which way too many would respond, "Oh, duh! That should have been obvious". (There are no clouds in space - because of the Earth's tilt, you just don't get the Earth between the satellite and Sun very often.)

 

[DaveC426913]

She's now watched me do this I don't know how many times, yet still can't seem to just do this herself.

Have you considered you watching her do it?

 

[Lisa!]

I just can't understand how some people can be so clueless. A girl I work with is constantly coming to me for help with using the circuit pricing system. I have walked her through the same process probably 50 times, seriously.

Yesterday she insisted I show her "one more time". She had already started a quote, but couldn't figure it out. The quote was listed by the company name which started with a "P". She opens page "1" these are customer names starting with "A". Then she clicks on page "2", these are customer's starting with "C", then she clicks on page "3" AARRGGHHH. Ok, you have 10 pages of quotes listed alphabetically, you might want to try page 8 or 9. She clicked on every page one at a time looking for it.

Sorry, I just had to rant. I have no door on my cubicle and I'm supposed to help people, but dear god, there is a limit.

I guess we are all surrounded by these people, I'm just NOT a patient person. How do you deal with people like this?

That girl reminds me of myself...

 

[BobG]

This reminds me of a guy I worked with in New Jersey. He didn't last very long. When you first turn on your work computer, there is a statement saying that access to the systems are restricted to authorized users only. He would call out "it's telling me again I'm not authorized to use this". Oy.

Things like that make me nervous. I feel like big brother is watching over me. Like when you pop a VCR in and get a message telling you the video has been specially formatted to fit on your TV screen. How is it that they always know what size your TV screen is?

 

[Astronuc]

An appropriate quote,

They only taught me to think outside of the box. I'm not trained for circles.

from a cartoon by Randy Glasbergen (www.glasbergen.com)[/URL].

 

[GregA]

The kind of clueless people I hate are those that are senior to me ...any other clueless people are idiots for sure, but when all hell is breaking lose and I have to figure out what is causing my nightmares; the stupid questions asked by my *supervisor* designed not to rule out certain possibities, but instead to clarify for him yet again what it is that isn't working, and why it isn't working (as though I'm just pretending I don't know what's screwing everything up yet) just to feed his curiosity and make him look all supervisor-like...really really p*ss me off!...It's even worse when if I know that the consequences of not solving the problem will be really costly, get me a severe bollocking and he just tells me to calm down

he's no longer my supervisor anymore because I left that job

 

[Dawguard]

The problem with this is that they lack the ability to reason logicaly. Therefore they can't come up with the solution on their own, no matter how simple it is. Also, they can't reason through the solutions, even on a basic, almost subconcisous, level once it's presented to them. Therefore they have to rely on mindless memorization, making it nearly impossible to remember. Personally, I blame the education system in America for not training this people with critical thinking skills. Have you taken a look at middle-school math textbooks? I swear, they make you think that logic and math to be like east and west, and never the twain shall meet.

 

[Astronuc]

Have you taken a look at middle-school math textbooks? I swear, they make you think that logic and math to be like east and west, and never the twain shall meet.

ARRRGGGGHHH! The middle-school texts are attrocious. As far as I can tell, a typical middle schooler knows as much about math as I did when I was in 6th grade. And some graduates from high school don't seem to know much more about math than the middle schoolers.


On a completely different track - I sent a letter to the editor of the local newspaper regarding one of their articles, and in the letter, I mentioned the title and date of the article about which I was commenting.

This morning, I received an email from a staff member to inform me that they could not find the written article, nor could they find it in their 'electronic archives'. So I searched on Google, found the article and emailed the link, which was to the local newspaper's website, back to the newspaper! : What the bloody h*! is wrong with these people?

 

[Dawguard]

On a completely different track - I sent a letter to the editor of the local newspaper regarding one of their articles, and in the letter, I mentioned the title and date of the article about which I was commenting.

This morning, I received an email from a staff member to inform me that they could not find the written article, nor could they find it in their 'electronic archives'. So I searched on Google, found the article and emailed the link, which was to the local newspaper's website, back to the newspaper! : What the bloody h*! is wrong with these people?

My guess is that they were trying to blow you off because they were to lazy to do the work, didn't want to confront the problem you mentioned, or were simply as dumb as jackfrost jogging in the summer. I wonder what they thought when you sent them the link?

 

[GregA]

as dumb as jackfrost jogging in the summer.

I like that one

 

[Astronuc]

My guess is that they were trying to blow you off because they were to lazy to do the work, didn't want to confront the problem you mentioned, or were simply as dumb as jackfrost jogging in the summer. I wonder what they thought when you sent them the link?

Well, I received a call from the editor to verify I really sent the letter, and then the editor mentioned that they would publish it. I have to wait and see.

edit: I just received another email from an editor of the paper thanking me for the link to their own website.

 

[berkeman]

This thread seems like a good place to ask for help with this student's homework question. Especially the part about what temperature is the icewater at the end of the experiment when it's in equilibrium...

https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=119851

 

[Astronuc]

Patience is a virtue.

berkeman - you will increase your good karma.

 

[berkeman]

This thread seems like a good place to ask for help with this student's homework question. Especially the part about what temperature is the icewater at the end of the experiment when it's in equilibrium...

https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=119851

Actually, I just realized that with the phase change of the melting ice, she probably can't just use the simple temperature change formula... Maybe I'm the clueless one here now!

 

[Astronuc]

Actually, I just realized that with the phase change of the melting ice, she probably can't just use the simple temperature change formula... Maybe I'm the clueless one here now!

She needs to be using the heat of fusion for the ice, which is at constant temp (just a phase change), and specific heat and temperature change of the water.

 

[Pengwuino]

The sad part is, governments hire these kinda people almost exclusively

 

[Astronuc]

The sad part is, governments hire these kinda people almost exclusively

Well, so does private industry. I could tell you some stories.

 

[Evo]

My company hires government rejects.

 

[Just some guy]

The sad part is, governments hire these kinda people almost exclusively

The sadder part is that we elect these kind of people amost exclusively.

 

[BobG]

How's this for clueless. We had a girl temporarily running errands for the different offices and one of the guys in my office needed copies for a meeting really quick. He had her make the copies and specifically told her he wanted them double sided (we only had a single sided printer at the time, so he wanted to make sure he didn't wind up carrying 20 2 inch stacks of paper). It's getting closer and closer to the meeting and he's fretting, wondering what in the world could be taking so long. Finally, just as people were walking in for the meeting she shows up with 20 copies, printed on both sides. Great!

At least until he finished talking about page 1 (his first slide) and had everyone turn to ... page 1? "How come there's two page 1's?" "Hey, come there's two page two's?" "How come you printed every page twice? Is there a difference between the front and back?" Poor guy's standing in front of the room, dumbfounded, wondering "What the heck?"

Afterwards, he's mumbling to himself, "Man, I was wondering why the copies didn't seem to be any thinner."

As for the girl, I was kind of impressed. You don't have a button on the copier to do what she did. She had to figure out how a way to do what she did, and she had to do it quickly enough to get the copies to the meeting on time.

 

[Moonbear]

Have you considered you watching her do it?

No, because it's NOT that hard...two pieces of silicone tubing with a little metal connector between them...pull off tubing, replace connector...but letting her be a putz just means more missed samples than if I just do it myself. Everyone else has figured out how to do it themselves. It's a job a high school student could do (and one that I've had high school students do in the past...the only difference between them and me doing it is they aren't completely bored by it yet). Besides, if I told her to do it, she'd just come get me the next time when it wasn't the same connector that was clogged.

She's the same one who calls another post-doc for help every time she needs to set up an infusion pump. I thought this was some complicated apparatus from the way she tells it, until I needed to use it. The set-up requires you to insert a battery, load a syringe, stick the syringe in the pump, connect the syringe to the infusion line (connects with a needle hub, just as if you were sticking a needle on a syringe), and stick the pump in a little backpack on the sheep. It took 2 min to set up...and most of that was trying to get the sheep to stand still long enough to strap the backpack on...oh, wait, no, the first time it took 10 min, because I had to find the batteries. I think my 3 year old nephew has toys that are more complicated than that.