Well to be fair a lot of people contacting a front-line service center for a non-specialized product/service can't even articulate their problem accurately, if at all. I'm sure it'd be pretty easy to get jaded about people after hearing "I don't know if it's on or not, it just doesn't work...fix it" enough times.
That person calling in more than likely knows significantly more than you about some other topic, and that's the point.
Someone calling in that doesn't know the difference between the PC tower and the monitor and doesn't care to learn isn't "stupid" any more than you are stupid for not knowing an alternator from an AC compressor, and chances are you won't remember even if shown once or twice because you pay someone else to know and maintain/fix that stuff.
Yeh but what would the mechanic think if I didn't know the keys had to be in the ignition? Such are the level of questions you field at First level tech support.
Stuff like "where's my seat warmer?", "How do I turn off the windshield wipers" and "why does my window go up all the way when I just touch the button" are all questions I was asked when I worked as a mechanic.
And if they are coming to my shop to get those answers, then it's my job to help them. Hopefully come tax time when I need to talk to that accountant he wont laugh me out of the room because I didn't know I needed to keep my own tax when working as a contractor.
"why does my window go up all the way when I just touch the button"
hmmm, in many cars the window dongle has two states. Half pull moves the window only as long as it's pulled, full pull makes "the window go up all the way" even after releasing the dongle... and it might depend on whether the keys are inserted and whether the doors are open. Took me some time to figure it out in my car.
