"Hey, can you help me with X? It's not working?"
"Sure. Can you give me more info about why it's not working?"
"I don't know. I try to do X and it doesn't work."
"OK, but can you tell me what happens instead? Does it give an error message? Does it give a result you don't want? Does your computer explode? I need more information to diagnose the problem."
"Oh, it gives an error message."
"OK, and what does the error message say."
"I don't know, I closed it."
*turns off microphone, sighs deeply, turns microphone back on*
"OK, can you try it again and take a screenshot of the error message and send it to me."
"Sure!"
*email dings two minutes later*
"OK, I'm looking at your email and the error message says, 'Cannot perform X as Y is not set up in the parameters.' Did you try setting up Y?"
"No. Should I try that?"
"Yes, please try that."
"Oh it worked! Thank you so much!"
I got a promotion for this.
"Sure. Can you give me more info about why it's not working?"
"I don't know. I try to do X and it doesn't work."
"OK, but can you tell me what happens instead? Does it give an error message? Does it give a result you don't want? Does your computer explode? I need more information to diagnose the problem."
"Oh, it gives an error message."
"OK, and what does the error message say."
"I don't know, I closed it."
*turns off microphone, sighs deeply, turns microphone back on*
"OK, can you try it again and take a screenshot of the error message and send it to me."
"Sure!"
*email dings two minutes later*
"OK, I'm looking at your email and the error message says, 'Cannot perform X as Y is not set up in the parameters.' Did you try setting up Y?"
"No. Should I try that?"
"Yes, please try that."
"Oh it worked! Thank you so much!"
I got a promotion for this.