Stupid @#$%ing end-users.

[Mongo Skruddgemire]

For nearly 5 years now I've been explaining to people how to change their password.

It's a routine. I tell them...

"Ok, you need to click on the 'change password' link just below where you would normally log in. Put in your user name and where it asks for your current password, put in <password>. Then select a new password following the guidelines below, enter it in twice and you're set."

There is this one user for whom this has been a problem every 90 days for the PAST FIVE FUCKING YEARS! Every 90 days I explain what they need to do, damn near hold their hand every step of the way while they're doing it AND THEY STILL CAN'T FIGURE OUT HOW TO CHANGE THEIR PASSWORD WITHOUT MY HELP!

Jesus Christ! And we trust this person who can't manage something as simple as how to change a password on a computer to calculate dosages? To properly document patient vital signs? To place orders for lab work? All using the computer as we are now required so to do by federal law?

Don't get me wrong, I love working here but there are some people here that if I ever end up here as a patient and I get assigned these nurses...I'm checking myself out AMA and walking out the door. I don't care if my legs have been gnawed off by rabid weasels...I'll find a way.

This user hears my instructions every 90 days and I keep getting the same questions.

"I tried logging in with the password you gave me and it's not working."
"Did you go to the change password like like I said to do?"
"No...do I need to go there?"
<facepalm>Yes. Yes you do.

-or-

"What am I supposed to put in where it says "current password"? I can't remember my current password."
"Your current password is the one I just gave you.
"So...I put in <current password> that you gave me where it says <current password>?"
<double facepalm> Yes.

-or-

"It won't let me use the password I'm trying to use."
"Did you follow the rules below?"
"Yes"
"So it has a minimum of eight characters?"
"Yes"
"It has uppercase letters, lower case letters, numbers, and special characters?"
"Yes"
"It's not using any part of your first, middle or last name?"
"No...it's something different."
"Is it a password you've used before?"
"Yes...is that a problem?"
"Well it's in the rules that are listed at the bottom of the page you're looking under the "you can't use" section."
"Oh."
<headdesk>

-or-

"I just changed my password and I'm getting an error box"
"What's it saying?"
"It's saying "Password successfully changed". What does that mean?"
"It means that you have successfully changed your password and can now log in to the site."
"Oh. I thought I had done something wrong."
<headdesk><headdesk><headdesk><headdesk><headdesk> <headdesk><headdesk><headdesk><headdesk><headdesk> <headdesk><headdesk><headdesk><headdesk><headdesk> <headdesk><headdesk><headdesk><headdesk><headdesk> <headdesk><headdesk><headdesk><headdesk>

Tonight was the record though. I got every one of these from the user tonight.

EVERY DAMN ONE.

I have a headache and a dent in my desk shaped like my forehead. I think there may be a correlation between the two but my brain is still reeling from the stupidity of this user (and the blunt force trauma) and isn't quite up to processing things yet.

[Rapscallion]

Send them an email detailing the procedure and tell them to print it out in case you're not available, and copy in their manager.

Sit back and feel gleeful.

Rapscallion

[Dreamstalker]

They'll delete the email/lose the printout/find some way to blame Mongo ("You sent it to my manager because you think I can't do my job? How dare you?!"...etc).

[Lace Neil Singer]

Reminds me of the numpties who hand out their password to scammers and then complain about being "hacked". It doesn't count as hacking if you're daft enough to believe that an admin needs your password to access your account!

I've told people on other forums that an admin can go into every single account thru admin, and that anyone who asks for their password is therefore not an admin but a scammer, but some people still don't seem to get it!

[Jetfire]

Sounds like you have a 90 day cycle for passwords. Shrink her cycle down by half each time you need to guide her through it. Maybe once she's done it daily for a week, it'll finally sink in. And every time a cycle goes through that she doesn't need to ask for help, double the time to the next reset.

[Racket_Man]

Send them an email detailing the procedure and tell them to print it out in case you're not available, and copy in their manager.

Sit back and feel gleeful.

Rapscallion

They'll delete the email/lose the printout/find some way to blame Mongo ("You sent it to my manager because you think I can't do my job? How dare you?!"...etc).

LE Sigh... Been there Done that.

I know I have told this story over at CS a few times of a similar situation I had with one company I worked at.

I worked at the company HQ in Chicago. they had divisions all over the country. One of the division I was responsible for was in the San Francisco area. I usually arrived at work around 7 - 7:30am (depending on traffic that morning). Now come the watch setting part. around 7:45am our time (5:45am west coast time) the phone would ring almost EVERY SINGLE DAY.

/bg
each division I had had its own machine to run the cost/accounting system. all processing was performed on this machine and then the data was shot off to HQ in the morning. every morning a procedure needed to be performed to start up the link between the division and HQ and a program run to shoot the data to HQ
/end bg

same person in the SF division would call almost every morning and ask how to do the above stuff. I sent e-mail after e-mail to them AND their supervisor for months detailing how to perform said tasks. The phone calls kept on coming in.

The only reason it stopped was because of Y2K. a central machine will all of the data at HQ was installed and the link and process procedure was finally eliminated.