Thank you Bruce!! I found Pete Crosby's response a little over-the-top
myself. 

Joe Alexander   Systems Manager 
Biowhittaker, Inc.  Walkersville MD
[log in to unmask]

>>> "[log in to unmask]" 04/29/98 10:51am >>>
Pete Crosby writes:

>I agree with the arrogance part. But, I don't think John was being
>arrogant at all. He was merely expressing his disbelief that a company
>would hire a person to control their computer system and then not
>give them the most basic level of training. And I agree with him on this
>point. I see it every day and it is very sad. These operators are being
>set up to fail in their new jobs.

The person who asked the question obviously knew that (a) he had to
have
users off during a backup, and (b) there must be a way to do it. This
doesn't sound like someone inexperienced with computers, just
inexperienced with the HP 3000.

It's also the case that newsgroups are ways of getting specific
command
information. Granted, this person should have been reading the manual.
But does HP ship printed, browsable manuals any more? Or do you
expect
new HP 3000 users to wedge themselves in front of their PCs for hours
on
end, reading undersized chunks of fuzzy print and trying to make sense
of
a manual's organization by putting it together from a couple of thousand
tiny, disconnected views?

>I don't know how many times I have been involved with down systems,
the
>recovery of which was hampered greatly by the operator's inability to
>perform even the most basic tasks.

I'd be curious to find out what task is so complex that you can't talk
the operator through it. I have no problem working through someone
who's
following instructions. It's the ones who don't follow instructions, or
who do their own interpretations and then give me interpreted rather
than
raw data, that I find frustrating. That has nothing to do with the state
of someone's training.

-- Bruce


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