BS: Talk me down

Subject: Talk me down
From: An Pluiméir Ceolmhar
Date: 17 Sep 02 - 04:25 AM

My first contact with Mudcat involved e-mails and phone calls linking Brussels, Paris, Amsterdam and the whole Mudcat community including Europe, the US and Japan, which caused me to marvel at the benefits of modern telecommunications

Now here's one for you: my eldest daughter has just phoned from Paris because her flatmate's friend is going for a job interview and she wanted me to talk her through tying a knot in his (neck)tie. It's not quite in the same class as surgeons talking people through emergency operations by phone, or the control tower talking down a passenger who has to take over the controls of a plane when the pilot is incapacitated, but I wonder if other catters have had similar trivial or more serious experiences of "remote control".

Subject: RE: BS: Talk me down
From: Skipper Jack
Date: 17 Sep 02 - 05:21 AM

Actually to my great embarassment I phoned Terri,Madam Gashee once or twice to find out how to remove the back cover of my new mobile phone!!

Subject: RE: BS: Talk me down
From: greg stephens
Date: 17 Sep 02 - 05:39 AM

Can't say I am widely knowledgable on the subject, but doesnt telephone sex involve a certain amount of this sort of thing?

Subject: RE: BS: Talk me down
From: Madam Gashee
Date: 17 Sep 02 - 07:02 AM

Skipper Jack!
Once or twice!!
You hold it firmly in your left hand with your thumb and forefinger firmly holding the side.
then with your right hand apply pressure to the base and gently slide upwards...

Subject: RE: BS: Talk me down
From: Skipper Jack
Date: 17 Sep 02 - 07:13 AM

Whilst taking instructions from Madam Gashee on the art of removing the cover of a mobile phone, I found it easier to use the main line phone to receive the instructions.

My mobile looks rather impressive now with dolphins splashing about all over it.

Madam G. Maybe it was more than once or twice!!!

Greg,
I don't know, I've never tried it!

Subject: RE: BS: Talk me down
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 17 Sep 02 - 08:04 AM

One of my sons moved out to the Midwest, and had to wear a tie. He'd never tied his own tie before, and to make things more difficult, he's let-handed and I'm right handed. (No, they don't make left-handed ties... see other thread, but he does everything else kinda mirror image.) I wrote out careful directions (which took a while), tried them out and then had a few friends of mine try to follow them exactly, and it worked out fine. I mailed the directions off to my son, and he was able to do it.

One of the writing excercises they do in school over here is to ask kids to write instructions on how to tie your shoe laces. Then in class, the rest of the class tries to do exactly what your instructions say to see if they work. It's a hard thing to do... they also ask kids to write instructions on how to ride a bike. All hard stuff.

Jerry

Subject: RE: BS: Talk me down
From: Bullfrog Jones
Date: 17 Sep 02 - 08:39 AM

"You hold it firmly in your left hand with your thumb and forefinger firmly holding the side. then with your right hand apply pressure to the base and gently slide upwards..."
Sounds like an example of what Greg was talking about.... or so I should imagine.

BJ

Subject: RE: BS: Talk me down
From: MMario
Date: 17 Sep 02 - 08:42 AM

there's been a few cases of diagnosis and fixing of computer problems via PM

Subject: RE: BS: Talk me down
From: Micca
Date: 17 Sep 02 - 09:25 AM

I once coached a friend on how to install and use the "Rasmol" 3D molecular imaging and manipulation software using the chat part of ICQ over a 6000 miles and 6+ hour time gap.

Subject: RE: BS: Talk me down
From: Amos
Date: 17 Sep 02 - 10:35 AM

Spaghetti sauce -- Dad, when do you start the noodles? What's the first step?

Lord love a duck!:>))

A

Subject: RE: BS: Talk me down
From: Ebbie
Date: 17 Sep 02 - 11:01 AM

"Mom, I've forgotten- my boyfriend is coming for dinner- how do you bake potatoes?"

Subject: RE: BS: Talk me down
From: Dave Bryant
Date: 17 Sep 02 - 12:20 PM

I once talked somebody through restoring a large ORACLE database via mobile phone while I was taking my boat up the River Thames (non-tidal bit thank god). I actually managed to get through 2 locks (it's a good job they were manned) during the process. It was also lucky that the phone was on charge from the boat and that the university was paying for the call !

Such is progress than I can now login on my PDA via the IR link to my mobile phone.

Subject: RE: BS: Talk me down
From: Jeri
Date: 17 Sep 02 - 01:17 PM

Back in 1990, I had the adminstrator of a bulletin board call me at the phone in the office I was trying to log on from. The computer was on another line and I'd given up an gone back to MY office. The folks who worked there transfered the call. It was along the lines of "I saw somebody was futzing around and it was driving me nuts, so I called to give you hell." I went back to the other office, called him back and he talked me through getting onto the BB.

Do speakerphone guitar lessons count? Seriously, I wonder if certain people around here might make a bit of spare cash with a 900 number and set hours folks could call for tips! Do they have 900 numbers in Canada?

Subject: RE: BS: Talk me down
From: JenEllen
Date: 17 Sep 02 - 01:35 PM

I used to work for a pet emergency service, taking emergency calls over the weekends, and some of them were outrageous. D'ja ever see that e-mail joke that went around about how to give a cat a pill? Same thing, only we got to hear it being played out over the phone (saying 'we' because speakerphones were invented for just that kind of mass-enjoyment situation *bg*).

Subject: RE: BS: Talk me down
From: SharonA
Date: 17 Sep 02 - 02:43 PM

A.P.C.: Well, this is a relief. In the States, at least, "talking someone down" not only refers to the airliner situation you described, but also means convincing someone to step down from the window ledge of a tall building to the floor inside, or to step down from a bridge railing to the roadbed, before he jumps off and commits suicide.

(Other situations such as your daughter's request would be referred to as "talking someone through" the situation.)

So stop scaring me like that! *G*

Subject: RE: BS: Talk me down
From: michaelr
Date: 17 Sep 02 - 07:44 PM

I thought this thread was about helping someone who's having a bad acid trip...

;-) Michael

Subject: RE: BS: Talk me down
From: Bert
Date: 17 Sep 02 - 08:00 PM

I did telephone support for many years, debugging customer's programs over the phone. It's difficult to convince them that it's their program that's wrong and not our software.

One interesting case was with a woman who was typoing in something and it just didn't work. Eventually I figured out that she was an old time typist and was using a lower case L 'l' in place of the number '1'. Difficult to see over the phone.

Subject: RE: BS: Talk me down
From: Stephen L. Rich
Date: 17 Sep 02 - 11:19 PM

There ar a number of times that one friend of mine or another has talked me through computer maintenance or repair problems over the phone.

Subject: RE: BS: Talk me down
From: Mark Cohen
Date: 18 Sep 02 - 02:55 AM

bert: "typoing in something"? Hmmm...is that a self-referential statement, or a Freudian slip, or both?

Aloha,
Mark

Subject: RE: BS: Talk me down
From: Bert
Date: 18 Sep 02 - 03:20 PM

LOL Mark! I really blew it there.