Tuesday, March 17, 2009

The art of troubleshooting

Troubleshooting(TS) is a term used for problem solving, especially of technical nature, that too more in relation to computers. And there are people assigned to do the job. But I call it an art because I feel it does have a personal touch to it. The type I am referring to here is the one in which TS is done over the phone. I learned TS in the US when I started working on-campus. There, it was preferable to solve problems over the phone if possible, so that the commuting time to and from classrooms is reduced. Initially, it was difficult and after struggling for a few minutes, I had to say "I will be there in a minute". But as I started getting to know the system better, I was able to TS the problems more n more on the phone. And I tell you, there's a great satisfaction when it is done on the phone. The persons on the other side are happy that they could do it themselves, only they needed instructions for it. I get the satisfaction that I saved time and efforts.

But the greatest of satisfaction was when I used to TS back at home. My mom picked up voice chatting quite fast and I do appreciate her zeal and willingness to learn new things. But sometimes there were issues such as internet didn't work, or some error messages, or installing new softwares for VC etc. My brother was not always at home to help her during daytime (night time in US) and the only way to TS was me calling home and TS on the phone. And due to my on-campus job, I had developed the art of TS and was easily able to get things going. My mom was happy that she could solve the problem and I was happy that she was happy.

The reason for writing this blog now is that the same thing I did today. We had disconnected the internet cables last night and my bro mis-connected them in the morning hurry. My mom called me to say that the net is not working, and I was able to get her to do the right connections within minutes and the happy "Haaaa....zaala" was my certificate of a good job. I knwo my mama complains that my cousin doesn't teach him voice chat and so he asked me and my bro to do it. So you can see, its surely an art.