Whatever happened to being precise in language?

In my line of work, I have to deal frequently with people who are not precise in their language, and it makes things really difficult.  I work in Information Technology, and I frequently have to work with users who have problems with their computers. It really doesn’t help matters when they are not precise with their description of their problems or the steps they’ve taken to try and resolve it themselves.  Even worse is when they attempt to paraphrase error messages.  I’ll talk about each of these separately.

The first problem I want to talk about is also the most common. I ask a user what they’re experiencing, (usually over the phone, but not always). They tell me, and we begin troubleshooting.  Inevitably, I’m going to ask them what they’ve done to solve it, and they tell me.

Now, I want to state something right here. I do not, nor have I ever, faulted someone for not knowing about computers.  I know it’s not something that everyone wants or needs to know a great deal about, and if everyone knew everything about computers, I wouldn’t nearly be as necessary at work.  :)  However, I DO have a problem with people who are resistant to education regarding equipment and processes they use on a daily basis.  I’m not talking about change.  I’m talking about clarification.  I will continue.

When they tell me what they’ve done to try and solve the problem, they are not precise.  They say things like, “I clicked on my Windows” instead of telling me that they clicked on the Start Button.  Or they say they downloaded a program, when they mean that they opened it. A major confusion is when I ask if a program is open, and they tell me it’s not.  It actually is open, however…it’s just minimized.  These are the types of things I’m talking about.  It’s not major changes, but I’m hanging on every word they say to help me understand what the problem is.  When I’m stumped, they use my confusion as a justification as to why they don’t trust computers.  “You see,” they say. “Even a computer guy is confused by computers.”  The problem is, if I knew all the information about the problem, I’d not be stumped. If they had not confused me by using the wrong words or concepts, I’d know exactly what the problem is. Now this, in and of itself, is not a problem, of course.  As an IT guy, I need to be used to this.  Sadly, this often comes through in the maxim, “never trust the user”.  I don’t think this is the case, though I often wonder why I bother. No, I believe that users are people, and they genuinely want to solve their problems; they want to get work done. Most importantly, they don’t want their computer to be busted while they’re trying to get work done. So my beef is not when they use the wrong words, though I always have to combat against my impatience, of course.

My problem is when I try to correct them so that they can have a proper understanding of terminology, or so that they can understand their computer a little better, and they actually argue with me or get angry with me.  Now, I know what the difference is between geek speak and regular people speak.  If I say that the problem is that the computer is running too many programs, overloading the system’s RAM capacity, and that the system itself is running a CPU that is FAR too slow for what they’re trying to do with it, I know they’re not going to understand a word I say.  So I don’t say things like that to my users.  They don’t want to hear it, and I don’t think they need to.  However, if I explain the confusion between open programs and minimized programs, or if I try to tell them that “my Windows” is not synonymous with “Start Menu”, and they get mad at me, THEN I have a problem.  Sure, it could be my tone of voice.  I’ve considered and dismissed that.  I’ve said things angrily, and I’ve said things nicely.  Many times, they both elicit a reaction of anger.  What I am doing when I explain something to a user is trying to eliminate confusion on everyone’s part later on.  And that kind of explanation is common everywhere in life.  If someone tells me they need to go get in their mobile, I’m not going to have a clue as to what they’re talking about.  If they’re talking about their car, then “mobile” is not the proper short form of automobile.  See, the entire concept of communication requires some level of familiarity on all parties concerned with the mode of communication being used! However, don’t get mad when someone corrects your terminology so that communication can be facilitated. They could just ignore everything you say from here on out.  Would you prefer that?  Most people wouldn’t.  Most people want to be understood when they communicate.  Most people aren’t explaining computer problems to their IT Guy just to hear themselves talk.

The other problem I have is when users paraphrase error messages.  Now, I know that most users don’t look at error messages.  However, they’re completely blown away many times when I tell them that I cannot help them unless I know what the error message said.  I’m not being difficult…those error messages may not make sense to most people, but they often help IT people out in trying to figure out what’s wrong.  Not always, of course…but sometimes.  Enough to where I want to know what the error messages say.  The funny thing about this scenario is when they don’t say, “I don’t know what the error message said.”  Instead they say, “It said something about memory.”  Oh really?  What?  You have too much memory?  You don’t have enough?  Your memory is bad?  “Instruction at 0×00000001 referenced memory at 0×00000002. Memory could not be read”?  There are a couple different memory messages it could be, and “something about memory” doesn’t really help.  In many cases, my users are joking with me, and explaining that they didn’t read the error message.  That’s fine, and I always laugh when they did.  It’s the ones who are seriously trying to answer my question that get me.  They’re always annoyed that I want to know the exact text of an error message.  That their paraphrase isn’t good enough for me is an annoyance to them.  If I went home and this conversation happened, it wouldn’t be good enough for me:

Chris: “Honey I’m home!”
Kim: “Hi, hon!  Hey, we got a letter from the IRS.”
Chris: “Oh yeah?  What did it say?”
Kim: “Something about money…”

Yeah, THAT would not be sufficient information for me to understand the situation. (My wife would never do that…she is very precise in her language.  More so than I am, sometimes.)  But that illustrates my point.  I realize that users don’t understand computers, and don’t care to understand what error messages say.  It is precisely that reason that should cause users to write down error messages instead of relying on themselves to remember them.  I don’t even rely on myself to remember error messages.  When I want to research a problem, I write down the exact text of the error message.  Now, if the error message disappeared before the user can write it down, that happens!  Of COURSE I’m not talking about that. That happens to everyone too.  Especially me.  In fact, I like to say that if I want to write down an error message, it will disappear.  :)

At any rate, we need to be precise in our language.  Don’t be resistant to efforts to help us all communicate better.  :)  I feel better after having written this.  I wasn’t mad about any specific incident or anything.  Just something that had been brewing for a couple years and I needed to figure out a good way to write it.  :)