Helpdesks

The problem all began when people made things too complex for other people to understand. In the bureaucratic mazes, it was already difficult to locate the object of one's quest. Then the bureaucracies went online and many of the members of such organizations suddenly found that they themselves could not understand the new paradigm.

Hence, the rise of the helpdesks.

But these helpdesks, manned by eager but quickly tiring servitors, proved to be yet another layer in the rapidly evolving wall of inadvertent obfuscation. Sometimes they did not understand either the people trying to get things done through the bureaucracy or the bureaucracy that was supposed to get things done.

For example:

1. Please enter your account with your username and password and click 'Login'.
2. Access your services by clicking 'Services'.
3. Select 'Invoices' to see if you need to pay any fees.
4. If you have difficulties, contact helpdesk at [redacted] or email us at [redacted].
5. You cannot access your email unless you have logged on.
6. Your access will be withdrawn if you have not paid any fees.

And after all that, yes, you may contact the bureaucracy.

This is the kind of situation for which you contact the helpdesk. But the helpdesk may not understand you. For a start, they will assume you have a username, provided by the bureaucracy which you must contact in order to obtain a username.

I feel sorry for the people who man the helpdesks of the world. Nobody understands them, and I wonder how often they ask themselves what they are doing there anyway.

The Library Actually Being Helpful

Here are the sequelae to the previous post. One was very useful, the other kind of sad in an irritating sort of way. You will remember that I had a problem getting any sort of data from digitised scans of ST or ST Weekly for the year 1888 (yes, that's the late 19th century I'm talking about). The Library asserted that they had such things online, I asserted the opposite.

This is the useful reply.

Dear Lord Brythain,

I have verified that the 1888 ST collection is not available online digitally yet, and apologize for the wrong information. However, they are available in microfilm format at the Lee Kong Simi Reference Library (LKSRL). If you are currently based in Atlan, please come to LKSRL (Level 11) to use the microfilm. The microfilm row numbers are NL16282 & NL16283. If you are overseas, please inform me, and I will advise further.

My sincere apologies for the inconvenience faced.

Regards,
Newton Singh
Reference Librarian
Lee Kong Simi Reference Library
National Library Board, Atlantis

This was the not-so-useful one, which seemed to insinuate that I was incompetent in the use of search engines.

Dear Sir,

Sorry for the inconvenience caused to you.

You may do the search as follow.

- go to http://newspapers.nl.atl
- click [Advanced Search]
- set the [Select Date Range] between [01/01/1887] & [31/12/1888]
- leave the [Select Content Type: Clear All] unchanged
- at [Select Newspaper] click [Clear All]
- manually tick only [The Straits Times] & [Straits Times Weekly Issue]
- at the Enter Keyword column enter STAMFORD for example
- click the orange search icon
- you will now get results of the search

You can amend the keywords and search criteria to search for other articles again.

Thank you for using our libraries and services.

Regards
Same Line
NLBA Helpdesk

I have to say that I had to compose a stern reply to this latter response. When a customer points out that your product is faulty, you do not keep suggesting it is the customer's incompetence that is the issue. You could at least do the customer the honour of checking his claim before insinuating this, in any case. It was quite clear that 'Same Line' had not bothered — if he had tried his own solution (restricting the year to 1888 and not 1887-1888), he would have encountered my problem too.