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Ask HN: Do you find it hard to help others with tech from a remote location?
1 point by magicthighs 17 days ago | hide | past | favorite | 2 comments
I find it can be difficult and frustrating to communicate over slack/google meet or even talking to the person you are trying to assist with programming face to face. Often I go up to them and hijack their keyboard all the while poorly explaining what I am doing. I could use something like TeamViewer but this feels like a heavy handed approach and I still feel like they are not fully understanding what I do on their computer.

Do you frequently work on computers other than your own for brief periods of time? If so, what do you do and do you try to explain what to do remotely with an app like slack/google meet, or do you perform the operations for them?

If you had access only to their terminal with no full screen mirroring like TeamViewer, do you think you could still get your job done?




I'm not sure for remote asistense, but for in person help one recomendation I got is to cross my hands in the back and never uncross them.

The idea is that you are forced to explain the other person what to do instead of hijacking their keyboard. It takes like the tripple of time, but it's better to teach them to soleve their problems.

(Sometimes I need to use my fingers because some task use a lof of muscle memory, so I do the task but I hit cancel at the last second, and then explain the other person how to solve it.)

For remote help ... it's hard, but perhaps you can try to make a videocall by phone and help the other person fix their computer. Good luck!


It is hard when I can't see their screen. Something as easy to do as a Windows update becomes impossible because they don't know how to scroll to the bottom of the Window to see the Windows Update icon and claim they did but can't see the icon.




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