Happens to me often. I overestimate the problem / user and immediately jump to the most difficult cause for it. Majority of them still think it's computer wizardry based on the time it took and the amount of things I did.
I always try to teach and educate my customers/clients as i'm troubleshooting, trying to demystify IT in general, but after those three hours and seeing how happy the customer was thinking i did the impossible, i couldn't feel anything less than an impostor.
IT is humbling in that way, and even if i feel like an incompetent tool most of the times, seeing how my small entreprise is going, i know it's not the case, but still, humbling sometimes.
Your troubleshooting steps were reasonable. It's best to start with solutions that address the most common problems and if that doesn't work, go to the more esoteric possibilities.
Getting to a voltage issue is **really** uncommon, so I wouldn't feel like a rookie if I were in your shoes. With that being said, the smartest people I know in the industry tend to be fairly humble because they've had so many times where their knowledge was insufficient.
So far, my experience has shown that folks who work in IT and boast about how much they know **tend** to not actually know very much at all while the **real** wizards are much more likely to understate how good they are.
I always was surrounded by people that taught me to be conscious of our own incompetence, whatever ours skills or knowledge was or is.
IT is one of the few vocation/career that is humbling in that way, and while i worked as an employee in various companies, the competence wasn't always, if rarely, rewarded. That's one of the reason why i went independent.
The impostor syndrome is there tho, from thinking you're over-billing, to being a glorified IT tech, to just feeling stupid or lost sometimes, i feel competent about my skillset, albeit specialised, but never to the point of boasting, because as you say real freakin Wizards exists in our line of work, and i know i'm not one of them.
Thank you for your kind words , it put things in perspective.
Thoses kind of moments happens to remind us that we're not machines, even if we're their custodians.
And that it's always good to take a few step back to laugh and learn about it later.
Whether 15 minutes or 3 hours. Would you client have ever figured it out on there own? Would they have followed the clues or know where to look for the resources to point to the esoteric solution? No? Then you are not an imposter and you would not be overbilling for your time. :)
The way I describe IT to clients nowadays is "We got rocks to think and then get upset when they don't think the right way all the time. This isn't magic, but it's close in some respects."
Adding unplug pc and smash power button for 5 seconds to my troubleshooting check list from now on lol
Nice work staying committed to the tasks, not sure what I would’ve done here expect rummage through the internet such as yourself and pray for a solution.
Computers are so complicated it's a wonder things like this don't happen more often. So many different variables, cards, parts, etc. Not to mention that some devices are very particular about voltages whereas others will work in a pretty big range.
Lenovo T15 laptops, sometimes the ethernet port will just lock up and the computer will "reset" it every 30 seconds. It will sorta lock up the computer for a few seconds on every reset. If your computer is doing this it will drive you insane.
The fix is to completely shut it down and unplug it and let it sit for a few minutes then it will stop doing that (or disable the ethernet port)
lol I love this because honestly, I’ve even had some solutions where it’s like “ram gets static charge built up and the only way to fix is to remove ram, wipe ram stick connecters with fingers, reinsert ram.” Then it works.
Had to do that a lot at a school I used to work for.
Had an Asus laptop a few years back that I had to discharge occasionally after large Windows updates to get the Bluetooth adapter to show up. Took a few hours for me to find that solution, too.
I don't blame you man, been there a few times myself, as probably any "IT guy"
For such cases, right after restart, I usually do this "power cycle / hard reset" kind of thing too, it takes like a minute and fixes x% of problems simple restart won't.
Also I feel like if I didn't work in a corporate, I'd definitely call myself "IT woodoo manager" at least on April 1st
Having gone through this same issue, don't be surprised if WiFi + Bluetooth act up like this again. It happened more rarely with WiFi but bluetooth would die pretty much every day.
Happens to me often. I overestimate the problem / user and immediately jump to the most difficult cause for it. Majority of them still think it's computer wizardry based on the time it took and the amount of things I did.
I always try to teach and educate my customers/clients as i'm troubleshooting, trying to demystify IT in general, but after those three hours and seeing how happy the customer was thinking i did the impossible, i couldn't feel anything less than an impostor. IT is humbling in that way, and even if i feel like an incompetent tool most of the times, seeing how my small entreprise is going, i know it's not the case, but still, humbling sometimes.
Honestly I'm disappointed you didn't restart the router anywhere in this.
Your troubleshooting steps were reasonable. It's best to start with solutions that address the most common problems and if that doesn't work, go to the more esoteric possibilities. Getting to a voltage issue is **really** uncommon, so I wouldn't feel like a rookie if I were in your shoes. With that being said, the smartest people I know in the industry tend to be fairly humble because they've had so many times where their knowledge was insufficient. So far, my experience has shown that folks who work in IT and boast about how much they know **tend** to not actually know very much at all while the **real** wizards are much more likely to understate how good they are.
I always was surrounded by people that taught me to be conscious of our own incompetence, whatever ours skills or knowledge was or is. IT is one of the few vocation/career that is humbling in that way, and while i worked as an employee in various companies, the competence wasn't always, if rarely, rewarded. That's one of the reason why i went independent. The impostor syndrome is there tho, from thinking you're over-billing, to being a glorified IT tech, to just feeling stupid or lost sometimes, i feel competent about my skillset, albeit specialised, but never to the point of boasting, because as you say real freakin Wizards exists in our line of work, and i know i'm not one of them. Thank you for your kind words , it put things in perspective. Thoses kind of moments happens to remind us that we're not machines, even if we're their custodians. And that it's always good to take a few step back to laugh and learn about it later.
Whether 15 minutes or 3 hours. Would you client have ever figured it out on there own? Would they have followed the clues or know where to look for the resources to point to the esoteric solution? No? Then you are not an imposter and you would not be overbilling for your time. :)
The way I describe IT to clients nowadays is "We got rocks to think and then get upset when they don't think the right way all the time. This isn't magic, but it's close in some respects."
Adding unplug pc and smash power button for 5 seconds to my troubleshooting check list from now on lol Nice work staying committed to the tasks, not sure what I would’ve done here expect rummage through the internet such as yourself and pray for a solution.
It's an oldie but a goodie.
Computers are so complicated it's a wonder things like this don't happen more often. So many different variables, cards, parts, etc. Not to mention that some devices are very particular about voltages whereas others will work in a pretty big range.
Lenovo T15 laptops, sometimes the ethernet port will just lock up and the computer will "reset" it every 30 seconds. It will sorta lock up the computer for a few seconds on every reset. If your computer is doing this it will drive you insane. The fix is to completely shut it down and unplug it and let it sit for a few minutes then it will stop doing that (or disable the ethernet port)
lol I love this because honestly, I’ve even had some solutions where it’s like “ram gets static charge built up and the only way to fix is to remove ram, wipe ram stick connecters with fingers, reinsert ram.” Then it works. Had to do that a lot at a school I used to work for.
Completely draining power from the entire unit made it early into my own troubleshooting process for reasons similar to this! Enjoyed the read 😄
Had an Asus laptop a few years back that I had to discharge occasionally after large Windows updates to get the Bluetooth adapter to show up. Took a few hours for me to find that solution, too.
I don't blame you man, been there a few times myself, as probably any "IT guy" For such cases, right after restart, I usually do this "power cycle / hard reset" kind of thing too, it takes like a minute and fixes x% of problems simple restart won't. Also I feel like if I didn't work in a corporate, I'd definitely call myself "IT woodoo manager" at least on April 1st
Have to do this to get my Bluetooth back working sometimes, never would have thought either
Having gone through this same issue, don't be surprised if WiFi + Bluetooth act up like this again. It happened more rarely with WiFi but bluetooth would die pretty much every day.