Today, many users who have been in need of assistance have called our emergency phone. As I carry it nearly every Thursday, I've spoken with them. An unusual number of these calls have involved not troubleshooting, but teaching. I'll explain: our emergency phone service allows users to call us people working with IT, to have their technical problems troubleshot and to answer any questions they might have regarding the IT-environment that's set up by us. I wasn't prepared for the following two conversations in the morning, though:

1. Black is back

me: IT-department, Niklas speaking. person: Hello, my name is X and I am writing. m: Oh, that's good. p: Well, no. [pause] m: Prey tell, is there something wrong? p: Well, yes. The document isn't correct. m: Oh; please, give me the name of your computer, so that I can remote control it. p: [name of computer]

When the user's screen pops up before my eyes, I see a Word-document displaying many a miniscule row; this is apparently a telephone list.

m: Now I see exactly what you're seeing. What seems to be the problem? p: When this right here goes black I can't come back.

I nearly freak. Ever heard the phrase "once you go black you won't turn back"? That's what I thought. If you haven't, don't go searching for it now, if you're reading this at work.

m: Exactly what are you trying to do? I cannot see your mouse-pointer, so please, be exact. p: Well, it's black. m: Exactly what is black? p: The text! m: Please, remember that I don't know which text you mean. If you read the part that's black to me, I'll find it. p: I can't, I can't, I can't see it! m: But then, how do you know it's black? p: [pause] I can't see it.

This is where one has to use skill to move ahead and not think of Cronenberg's "Scanners".

m: Please, read the text on the line right above the part that's black; then I'll be able to find it. p: The part that says [person's name]. m: Thank you.

At this point, I search the Word-document, I find the piece of text, and the problem: the user has placed the cursor at the end of a little piece of text. This text is located at the end of a row, and is part of a table. As the user writes more text than the line allows to be displayed on one row, the new text gets pushed down a row. Simple. The problem: as this page is made up of a giant table with many cells, the user doesn't realise that the extra row isn't visible unless it's dragged down a bit. I explain this problem to her, to which she replies "well, do it, then!". OK. I do it.

m: There you go! All's well. p: Yes! m: Well, thank you for calling. p: Yes. m: Good-bye. p: No! You have to change the rest as well. m: I'm not sure with how much work you imply with "the rest". [I here explain why I cannot do the user's work, as that's, well, the user's work] p: I don't know, I'm just under a lot of stress, OK? m: I understand you, but I can only help you for a little while, as [here's where I tell the user what the emergency phone is meant for]. p: Yes, but please, change the rest for me. m: I can only show you how to do it, but you will have to perform the changes yourself. p: But I don't know how to. m: I'm sorry, but then you will have to find somebody who you can ask for assistance from. p: OK.

Here I show the user how to add space between cells in Word. No problem, I explain this in-depth, and add that one cannot add rows without the table growing in size - in a matter of time it will become two pages long. The user then drags a row to make it bigger, and notices how Word naturally creates another page.

p: But now the list is two pages long! It can't be! m: Well, as we just said, a page can only contain so much data before Word spills it onto a new page; your only option, if you want to let Word keep all the data on one, single page, is to reduce the size of the fonts on the page. p: Well, do that.

No "please" there. No matter, I know this user is under stress.

m: I'm sorry; I cannot help you further as I have explained why, previously. You will have to ask one of your colleagues for help. I could try to help you tomorrow, but as I'm booked for a couple of meetings, I'm not really sure I'll have the time, which means I can help you on Monday. p: Why? m: [pause] Well, I'm booked for a couple of meetings, which means I will not have time to help you then. I will, however, definitely have the time to help you come Monday, if you would like. p: No, I'll try to find somebody else. Thank you. m: Thank you for calling!

2. I see people!

Another user called, and had a few interesting things to say.

me: IT-department, Niklas speaking. person: Why do I see [the name of a person working at the same place as the user]? m: Maybe because he might be standing in front of you?

This didn't stifle the user.

p: No! I see it. m: Are you referring to a physical person, or some thing? p: A thing. m: Is this thing a folder? p: Yes. m: It might just be that it's a folder that somebody has named after said user. p: Oh, I see. Thank you. m: Did this information answer your question? p: Yes, thank you. m: Thank you! Good-bye. p: Good-bye.