Doctor gave patients the wrong test results due to 'printer problems'
- Reference: 1661506273
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2022/08/26/on_call/
- Source link:
This week meet "Arthur" who told us of the time – in an age before networked printers – when he took a call from "a doctor in distress" who couldn't print the pages he wanted.
"When I connect the printer to computer A, computer B can no longer print and when I connect it to computer B, I cannot print from computer A immediately," the quack complained. "But later in the day, prints from computer B come out of the printer but mostly when I am trying to print from computer A."
[1]
Yes, dear reader. This medical doctor did not realize that unplugging a printer made it unreachable.
[2]
[3]
A reminder: doctors are supposed to be quite smart.
But this story stops being funny right now, because the doctor was so flummoxed he had given patients the wrong test results.
[4]
Complicating matters further, Arthur was at the very beginning of his career and sorting this situation was to be his debut as an on-site problem solver.
"I was grabbing my jacket and already planning my route when my mentor grabbed me and asked me what the problem was," Arthur explained. "He made me repeat the customer complaint several times. Had me sit down have a glass of cold water and state the problem several times. He suggested perhaps I should sleep on the problem since he didn't want me tackling my first solo support call halfcocked."
[5]Mouse hiding in cable tray cheesed off its bemused user
[6]The perfect crime – undone by the perfect email backups
[7]Your software doesn't work when my PC is in 'O' mode
Arthur followed that advice, and the next morning was supplied with a device called a printer switch – a thingummy with two serial cables and one printer cable.
"My boss looked the user squarely in the eye and told him that it was a printer channel switcher and that whenever he couldn't get the printer on one channel, he could always try the other channel,” Arthur explained.
"The user was delighted and never had a printing problem again," Arthur recalled.
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But for a few days afterwards he also had a nagging feeling – while the problem had been solved, the doctor was none the wiser about what had gone wrong and how it could have been avoided in the first place.
"It was only then that my boss began to teach me that it is often easier to find and apply a solution than it is to educate a user," Arthur told On-Call.
And with correct test results again flowing, was there even a need to revisit the doctor's dilemma?
If you've ever decided that ignorance is bliss, let us know by [9]sending a message to On Call . ®
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[5] https://www.theregister.com/2022/08/19/on_call/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2022/06/24/on_call/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2022/04/29/on_call/
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[9] mailto:oncall@theregister.com
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Another no news day at El Reg?
Here's some news for you:
BBC News 30/07/2022: Guy's and St Thomas' systems hit by 'ludicrous' heatwave
The inside track is that:
The air conditioning in the server room failed.
The servers then died.
The backup servers were in the same room.
A reminder: IT people are supposed to be quite smart.
A lot of people seem to think air conditioners just generate 'cold'. I have a lovely portable unit at home that I bought for a steal because it had a 'fault that blew hot air out the back' when it was blowing cold out the front. I did explain that this was by design but the former owner was incredulous over having to connect a vent hose to it and just wanted it gone.
edit: sorry, I misread that as the backup servers being in the same room as the hot side of the AC
Conference Confusion
Reminds me of the inordinately large (for the size of the business, more seats than employees) conference room at a former employer. It was so large that it had screens half way down to relay pictures of the speaker. The whole setup came with a whizzy KVM switch that could arbitrarily map any input to any (or multiple) outputs. Sadly, the protocol of pressing the input button, followed by any output buttons and finally the set button (to allow multiple outputs) was too challenging and a pretty expensive piece of hardware vanished behind a rats nest of increasingly tangled cables. The equally expensive mid screens also saw no use at all.
Photocopier challange
I remember when I were young, and we had these new hi tech copiers. I needed 50 copies of a report. So, doing what I always used to do, I copied the first page 50 times, then opened the doors, and put the 50 copies into the paper feed ( the right way up), then printed the second side. Put these duplex sheets to one side, and did it over again.
One of the secretaries stood and watched me for a minute, then said if you press this funny button - it does duplex automatically.
We did find an instruction book (small, with very small font - with features in alphabetical order)
Next day there was a sign over each copier saying "to print duplex - press this button", to shrink A3 to A4 - press ... this other button.
I recently had a hire car - and the instructions on how to use the parking brake were on page 200! I suggested they have a one page set of instructions. "This is how you start the car - this is how you stop it - this is how you park it"
Using the word "quack" is quite disrespectful. Furthermore, having been involved in this profession for over 30 years, I can assure you that being a smart and intelligent MD is not necessarily the same thing as being a smart ass digital handy professional …
The provided solution was perfect: