My IT knowledge is better than average. I work for a tech company, although not in a tech position, but I’ve learned a lot through proximity. My brother is a sys admin, and he’s always helping me out when I have IT issues. Most of my days are spent with super-techy colleagues, and they would consider my IT-skills below average. But when I’m hanging out with my friends, most of whom aren’t in IT, I’m considered incredibly smart. So it really depends on the perspective that you take to figure out if someone has basic IT-knowledge or not.
One thing I know for sure is that I just don’t want to deal with problems when I’m using IT. It should just work. I don’t want to read any manuals, I don’t want to waste time on setting things up and I don’t want to spend my resources finding the source of a problem.
That I would become a help-desk ‘problem’ in any company is hard-wired. Since I’m just the average IT-user, you can multiply me as the problem times one-hundred and that’ll give you an idea about the volume of help-desk tickets of any company.
Before coming to work at ezeep, where our Cloud-Managed Printing is solving the print-infrastructure problem, my days could quickly turn into disasters if the printers weren’t working. Much of my work is in finance and human resources, and that requires an enormous amount of paper documentation.
First I would simply complain aloud to my printer and my computer. That part is still fun for my coworkers. Then I would ask for IT support. That’s when fun is over. Depending on how many issues they’re currently taking care of, my ticket could be processed within minutes or within weeks.
If it’s more than minutes, I will take care of the problem myself: I will stop complaining. I might stop printing. I might stop printing everything I need printed and focus on the things I need desperately. Then I either ask others to print things for me or I will find the printers that are somehow magically connected or installed on my computer and use them. That usually turns out to be a very interesting, time consuming experience.
You hit the print button and once you arrive at the printer to pick up your document you will realize that you document is not there. Questions you will ask yourself: Did I hit the print button? Is the printer working? Did someone else take it? Then you try again, and it still doesn’t work and in the end you don’t print. Months later you will realize that you would really need that printout, now but you don’t have it. Sometimes it will turn out to be a real issue. Let’s say it was the transmission report for your tax declaration…
Other times you will try to print something on a specific paper. If you have to do that with a printer that is miles away from your desk and other people can also use it, of course, it will be a lot of trouble. Happens.
When IT-support finally processes your ticket, two things can happen: the problem will be solved within seconds. Just one question on your mind “Are you serious?” Second option: IT can’t find the problem and it will take at least half an hour. Or two. They run into issues with the printer’s supplementing software, they can’t find the accurate driver, the driver can’t connect with your printer, and it goes on and on. After an hour you’ll decide that you won’t need to use that printer if it’s that big of an issue.
I know what printing problems feel like from the user perspective. Been there, done that. Now I’m with ezeep and, knowing first-hand about the pains of printing, I’m proud to work for a company whose Cloud-Managed Printing will make life easier not only for guys like my brother, the sys admin, but also for other people like me, an office worker who doesn’t want anything keeping me from doing my job well!
