Why Working From Home Is Not An Option For Some

Our company is transitioning to working from our homes instead of the office. I am a network engineer, but my supervisors have me working extra hours as a helpdesk service agent to assist with other employees in my company who are having issues getting set up to work from home.

Me: “Helpdesk, this is [My Name].”

Employee: “Hi, I’m [Employee] with customer support. I went out and bought a [Brand] wireless keyboard and mouse, and the keyboard’s not working.”

Me: “Okay, is there a switch on the keyboard, and is it in the on position?”

Employee: *Checks over the keyboard* “Yes.”

Me: “Are the batteries in good condition and are they inserted in the correct orientation?”

Employee: *Opens the battery compartment and checks* “Yes, they are.”

Me: “Okay, good. Do the mouse and keyboard share a USB receiver?”

Employee: “What’s that mean?”

Me: “It’s a little plastic thing that you inserted into a USB port in your docking station.”

Employee: “What’s a docking station?”

Me: “It’s the device that your extra monitors and other devices connect with. It should be plugged into your laptop.”

Employee: “Oh, that thing! Yeah, the UBC thing is plugged into that.”

Me: “USB. Okay, and the mouse is working fine?”

Employee: “Yes.”

Me: “Hmm, that’s odd. You might have a faulty keyboard.”

Employee: *Annoyed* “Well that’s just great, I’m going to have to go back to the office and grab my work keyboard and mouse.”

Me: “Let’s try to eliminate some variables first. Unplug the receiver and plug it into one of the USB ports on the laptop.”

Employee: “My laptop doesn’t have any UBC ports.”

Me: “Ma’am, I have the same laptop model as you. You have three USB ports: two on the left side, one on the right.”

Employee: “Let me get my husband over here to help.”

She puts down the phone and I can hear her faintly discussing the situation with her husband. It takes a while but the two of them manage to locate a USB port and plug in the receiver before she picks up the phone again.

Employee: “Okay, we got the UBC thing plugged into the laptop.”

Me: “Okay, good. Does the keyboard work now?”

Employee: “Nope.”

Me: “But the mouse still does?”

Employee: “Yes.”

Me: “That is odd. The only thing else I can think of is to check the drivers. Can you click on the Start button?”

Employee: “Is that on the keyboard?”

Me: “No, it’s that little button on your screen with the Windows symbol in the bottom left-hand corner. You click on it with your mouse.”

Employee: “I can’t find it.”

Me: “What do you see on your screen?”

Employee: “It just says [Brand Of Monitor].”

It starts to dawn on me what’s going on.

Me: “What’s on your laptop’s built-in monitor?”

Employee: “It’s just black.”

Me: “Is there a little white light above the left side of your laptop’s keyboard?”

Employee: “No.”

Me: “Ma’am, your computer is not turned on.”

Employee: “Oh, how do I turn it on?”

Me: “There’s a little round button in the same place as the white light; you need to press it and wait for the computer to boot up.”

There was even more that I didn’t include here. We were on the phone for over ninety minutes. It took a while to get her to put her USB receiver back into her dock, too; it was like it became invisible once she inserted it in her laptop.

There are so many questions to which I’ll never get an answer. Why did she not recognize that her computer wasn’t displaying her desktop? Why did she assume the problem was with her keyboard? Why did she think her mouse still worked? And most curious of all, how has she spent years doing a job on the same computer and not have the slightest insight into its basic operation?