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Comment by once_inc | Hacker News Reader

Once when doing tech support at a local hospital, one of the nurses called us stating that she had "some sort of weather report" up in a window on screen, but she couldn't click it away because the most would go under the screen. Obviously piquing my interest, I told her not to touch the computer until I arrived.

Since the hospital was quite big, it took me about 10 minutes to reach her workstation, where she exclaimed that "the window closed on its own a minute ago. I swear it was on there for half an hour".

That, coupled with the layout of the desk, the description of the window led me to a hypothesis. I pressed the button on the monitor (which she had unknowingly pressed with the corner of her keyboard) which called up the system menu of the display. It showed 100% sun (brightness). The mouse would go under it.

Then, I hiked back another 10 minutes to await the next phone call.

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I also did tech support in a hospital. I'm not sure IT is a value add in that environment, at least not as much as IT thinks it is. Nurses are busy doing things like saving lives and caring for people experiencing the worst day of their life. On top of that nurses have to deal with poorly implemented and maintained workstations. Then when they ask for help the very people who created the problem in the first place come and belittle them.

I'm not accusing you of anything. Just noting my own perception that IT people tend to be very smug and see the world from an IT-centric perspective. Nurses aren't dumb and they certainly aren't lazy. They just have better things to do with their time than deal with inconsequential IT issues.

As I recall everything in the hospital that was actually critical to providing care had some specialist that maintained the system. The computer running the MRI machine wasn't bound to Active Directory and might not even be on the network. Issues with it were routed to GE, not the guy that fixes printers.

Ha - I know where you're coming from, but, like every opinionated SOB on this site, can't help but throw in my own opinion*:

1) The parent comment seems completely neutral and non-judgmental. Seems quite just "I had this experience", essentially a set of facts (compared to frequent enough comments that possibly really ought to generate a response / "note of approbation").

2) Stereotypes are the epitome of judgmental thinking, language, attitudes, etc. That may sound judgmental itself, and I apologize for that - that's due, in part, to connotation "issues" with words we use (although, I can't, obviously, claim that even removing those removes all of that issue - I am literally labeling and characterizing strictly in denotation). To be fair, people, in general, can be very smug.

In my experience, there has been an "enrichment" of that in "IT", but, for example, try talking to some of the especially high-ranking surgeons, say ... or, certain professors. In particular, I've personally come across a somewhat bimodal distribution, I think. Some people who reach "very high levels of expertise" are very humble ("right-sized" - not subservient or etc.) and super nice (surprisingly willing to help and talk to even "the layman" / "novice"). Then, there are the outright "arrogant bastards".

So, to add some kind of summation - calling out "IT people" specifically, and especially the parent comment ... well, what's the point? Again - not meant to be rhetorical or aggressive ... but, I think many would agree that people in general should cut that $h1t out.

This opinion brought to you by my "Big Giant Head... remember, when you're thinking of giant heads, think [my] Big Giant Head..."**

* Which, we all know is likely to be comparable to ... something else everyone's got. Though, I'm telling myself, of course, that I've got something useful to say. "Caveat lector". :)

** With apologies to the writers and other people involved in making "3rd Rock from the Sun"

You are way too apologetic with the original post. It was not just a set of facts. You could feel the superior attitude. It's kind of obvious in the last sentence. The person you answer did well to call it out.

I read the post in Mastodon with a tone of amused incredulity at the unusual situation. Yes, some unusual habits of the professor may have contributed, but I don't read any negative judgement there.

Somebody got burned too many times with IT people, I think.

Every group of people who's remotely decently specialized... will get very smug assholes. I've met IT people who just want to help you get your shit done, and those who look down at you for being a "stupid user". Also I've met Doctors whom think they are god, and Doctor's who want to be a partner in your health journey and are totally non-judgemental (at least outwardly).

I'm sure you'd find the same in any similar field. Engineers. Pilots. Mechanics. Nurses.

And yes, everyone looks at the world from their personally centric view of the world. It's the only way we, as humans, know how. After all, how would you get to your oh-so-important job if not for the road engineer, or the mechanic who built your car, or the city designer who designed the routes that you use every day.

Some are more aware of main character syndrome [1] than others... and some are just less assholes than others.

[1] https://www.cxomedia.id/human-stories/20220722170529-74-1756...

Thanks for sharing the interesting article!

> They just have better things to do with their time than deal with inconsequential IT issues.

I understand a nurse shouldn't need to be a computer expert, but where to draw the line? I'm not a car guy, but I am expected to maintain a working vehicle and obey the rules of the road. I'm not a nurse, but am expected to comply with their instructions and understand to some degree what they're doing while under their care.

And because of that, all the important interfaces to cars are standardized so that anyone can operate any car. Not just for convenience or even for efficiency but for literal safety.

But the winshield wiper control might be anywhere and take any form, and because of that it's frequently got wrong and fumbled.

This monitor setting menu button is just the stupid widshield wiper knob. Neither the nurse nor the monitor manufacturer nor the IT industry as a whole needs to do anything about it, for this particular example.

But there are infinite other examples where the random haphazard thoughtless unaccountable inconsiderate nature of everything in IT is at fault and not all the users.

The original comment didn't read very smug to me, but more generally you have a point. Most people (maybe all of us?) have much better things to do than learn quirks of Windows. It really is the software/computer manufacturer or maintainers fault when things work in an unexpected way. I mean, why do we even have general purpose computers and operating systems on machines designed to do one single job (like medical equipment)? why does the system menu even exist in a setup where it's never needed? The only reason is that the computer and software industry is really a duct taping industry where stuff just gets slapped together in a way that's easiest for whoever is doing the duct taping - not in a way that's easiest for the user or the best for the actual application.

In no other engineering discipline would this shit fly; imagine building a bridge and just constructing it from rocks, old cars and whatever scrap they happened to have lying around the construction site and then fixing it on the go as some of that crap quite predictably falls apart. This is basically what all of computer/software industry is doing.

While there may be some truth in your comment, you do miss the entire point.

General purpose computers with general purpose operating systems on them are exactly what it sounds: general purpose. A PC would be comparable to a CNC mill in metal workshop. Operator needs certain base level of knowledge and skill to use the machine safely and purposefully. In fact, general purpose computers, "enterprise" controls on them and end user programs are so unimaginably good and miraculously robust that people with little to no formal training and very vague understanding of operational concerns of the system can use the system to consistently yield net positive result. Even when users actively try to bend the systems in ways they are explicitly not expected to be bent. I don't know whether this is because of or despite the systems being duck taped from scrap, but nevertheless these systems are amazingly resilient and fool proof.

> In no other engineering discipline would this shit fly; imagine building a bridge and just constructing it from rocks, old cars and whatever scrap they happened to have lying around the construction site and then fixing it on the go as some of that crap quite predictably falls apart. This is basically what all of computer/software industry is doing.

On the other hand, in no other engineering discipline engineers and operators are expected to provide a pedestrian bridge that is movable, can quickly scale to support military column and be able to support opening parade before foundation is poured. In no other engineering discipline you start building a façade and figure out internals later, based on use. The more I understand inner workings of computer systems, the more I am amazed at how they do not collapse under their own weight and remain operational.

You said well brother/sister.

I guess it is a new discipline suddenly in the world.

Whilst unlike in my youth where 99% programmer ever live still alive, we still have lots of them still alive. Still remember the first time to hear a programmer or IT guy died, he was shot down by the Soviet Union in a korean airplane.

> end user programs are so unimaginably good and miraculously robust that people with little to no formal training and very vague understanding of operational concerns of the system can use the system to consistently yield net positive result

... after destroying the keyboard, swearing to kill the guy who made such a parody of a program after decades of GUI experience was thrown out of the window.

Yes, i can use Windows and the accompanying Microsoft SW "to consistently yield net positive result", but at the expense of my mental health.

I have first hand experience with hospital IT.

> Nurses aren't dumb and they certainly aren't lazy. They just have better things to do with their time than deal with inconsequential IT issues.

I don't want to reduce this discussion to name calling. Absolute majority of my tickets were along the lines of "user entered shit data and now they are getting shit data out, help". A minority of users would put in effort to thoroughly document actual state of affairs. Huge portion of users just did the bare minimum to tick a mental box "I did a thing". If they could find a way to discharge patient from their unit with lowest number of clicks/keypresses they would do that, even if it meant marking the patient as deceased (not much of a hyperbole, by the way).

> Nurses are busy doing things like saving lives and caring for people experiencing the worst day of their life.

That's the problem with medical personnel. They see the immediate act of "saving lives", e.g. putting a patient in a scanner ASAP, as their only job. All the documentation stuff is usually seen as a hindrance, sometimes as a way to cover someone's ass. Under very rare circumstances it is seen as an integral part of patient care. How do I know that? Every implementation of rule checks would be met with backlash rather than appreciation for an extra pair of robotic eyes.

This. Same as software engineers doing production support. It's easy to glorify putting out fires and hard to take credit for careful attention that prevents fires. Preventing fires extends a lot more lives.

>"user entered shit data and now they are getting shit data out, help" [...] > If they could find a way to discharge patient from their unit with lowest number of clicks/keypresses they would do that, even if it meant marking the patient as deceased (not much of a hyperbole, by the way).

That's a classic, not only in hospital IT. Apparently you expect the user to serve the process and not the other way around. That's not how it works. If the goal of the user (or the organisation) is to do as much of X as possible (maybe even incentivized) the process better facilitates that or it will be abused and/or circumvented.

> Apparently you expect the user to serve the process and not the other way around.

One of the ways to classify process control is by degrees of freedom: closed-loop, semi-closed-loop, open-loop. Anything but closed-loop processes require users to serve the process. That's by definition and there is no way to escape that fully. Sometimes you can make manual state adjustments to the process, sometimes you can "correct" aggregated data fed to outer process, sometimes you can't do anything about it.

In SCL/OL user is the oracle. Every business process management system (ERP) will be at least as complex as the process it models. The more generic the system, the less context-aware it is and thus typically the more complex.

You can pretend that SCL/OL control system should try and infer things to help users, but in fact that impedes correctness, because users are less likely to enter purposefully wrong value (mental default or validation-passing gibberish) than they are likely to agree with prefilled default value despite it being somewhat incorrect. Especially if the inferred default value is usually mostly correct.

A very crude example. Think of e.g. compass based boat steering control system. It will need occasional course correcting input to account for wind/current drift. Suppose you implement periodic prompt for course correction. Empty prompt will be more likely be filled with non-zero value. Default zero value will be more likely to be accepted unmodified, resulting in more jaggy course.

I don't think we are really in disagreement here, but you are talking about steering the cart through the aisle and I'm talking about taking home groceries. If your steering process is hindering my taking home groceries, I will ignore the cart.

Less farcical, you are talking about means, I am talking about ends. Ask yourself what a successful organization needs to take care of.

On the topic of forcing users (ie. require) to adhere to the process you better have a good explanation why the process requires hindering the user in completing the task at hand. I know there exist good reasons why we ask users to jump through this hoop or that, but we need to make sure the user knows these reasons and sees why they are not a hindrance in completing the task but part of the completed task.

> you are talking about means, I am talking about ends.

You see, these things are not necessarily separate, but many people fail to understand that. Continuing shopping analogy, imagine shop sells some candies in multiple flavors. Do you need to weigh them separately when customer takes multiple flavors? The process requires you to weigh them separately. Nothing wrong will happen if you don't. Although, eventually managers will resupply you with a single flavor.

> but we need to make sure the user knows these reasons and sees why they are not a hindrance in completing the task but part of the completed task.

So what's the task at hand? Is it to simply sell candies to customer or maybe keep shop operational, properly stocked and then sell candies? For the shopkeeper the process may seem to start at customer entry and end at customer paying. For the shop that is just part of a grander process.

It seems to me that you argue for single-person scoped processes to be treated as standalone and microoptimized, regardless of how that fits into master process. I try to argue that it is the master process you have to care about.

> That's the problem with medical personnel. They see the immediate act of "saving lives", e.g. putting a patient in a scanner ASAP, as their only job. All the documentation stuff is usually seen as a hindrance, sometimes as a way to cover someone's ass.

Thankfully, we have reasonable people in the management: people who understand that it is maintaining proper documentation (and properly shifting liability) is the one and true purpose of the system; the "medical caring" (or whatever it's called) is simply a by-product that would fall out of it naturally. If only that stupid line personnel (and they are stupid because why else would they have applied to such lowly-paid job?) would understand that and would start to change the world so that it would to match the written documents and instructions (not the other way around, that'd be blasphemous).

The sad thing is that i wish that you were joking.

Again to all SW engineers out there: If there is only 1 (one) input field on the application which has focus ( in A.D. 2023, 55 after the Mother of all demos was presented, according to Wikipedia), why do i have to click on this field before typing so that the characters typed do not go somewhere else ?

> If they could find a way to discharge patient from their unit with lowest number of clicks/keypresses they would do that, even if it meant marking the patient as deceased

Real programmers don't comment their code. If it was hard to write, it should be hard to read.

> Every implementation of rule checks would be met with backlash rather than appreciation for an extra pair of robotic eyes.

When you are under pressure, the last thing you want is "an extra pair of robotic eyes" which constantly gets in your way.

Or, you DO want a rule-check, where it reduces incidence of critical errors that are known (due examnation of prior failures) to be more likely when under pressure.

I see this in a lot of software. Any software person wants to solve a problem, but their solution becomes a part of their own ego such that in their mind it is the cornerstone of the entire business, whether that's true or not. However, the person they're solving it for just wants to get something done - they don't want software in their way. The best software should is as invisible to the end user as possible.

I had to do a tech support call once where 'the screen keeps glitching out I think I have a virus' (The Net was still in theaters). I showed up, removed the boombox with two large speakers from on top of the CRT and like magic the problem was solved!

I have the misfortune of my rescued VGA CRT displaying incorrect colors in the corners, unless I either leave magnets on the screen, or flip the magnets while degaussing and remove them before using the display.

Well now I need to know what you can use a VGA for these days

640x480, but that's not important right now.

Works great in old conference rooms... I have a USB-C VGA adapter in my bag still.

MAME cabinet.

A VGA CRT? Free flyback transformer

Tethered balsa wood levitation FTW

CRT gaming is fun, both for older console and PC gaming, and even modern games to a degree. The colors are richer than cheap LCDs, the scanlines and/or smoothing act as a beauty filter over visuals, and the strobed image produces unmatched motion clarity (outside of modern gaming monitors with backlight/OLED strobing modes) though it can get uncomfortable for 60fps games (or god forbid 50fps PAL). I've written about it at my blog, at https://nyanpasu64.gitlab.io/blog/crt-appearance-tv-monitor/.

Even though I am very happy with soulless digital LCD displays, you make some compelling points. That was a fascinating blog entry.

For the larger ones, heating a room.

Nice story! Sounds like the more advanced version of the "my 4x-labeled cupholder is broken" story of the nineties.

In fact the nurse gave a quite accurate description of events i might add.

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