Tech Support Cheat Sheet
Tech Support Cheat Sheet
Dear various parents, grandparents, co-workers, and other "not computer people." We don't magically know how to do everything in every program. When we help you, we're usually just doing this:
[There is a flowchart there. Numbers are included to improve clarity, and do not appear in the original.]
Rectangle: Start. [Go to 1.]
[1. Diamond] Find a menu item or button which looks related to what you want to do. [I can't find one - go to 2.] [Ok - go to 3.]
[2. Diamond] Pick one at random. [I've tried them all - go to 4.] [Ok - go to 3.]
[3. Rectangle] Click it. [Go to 5.]
[4. Rectangle] Google the name of the program plus a few words related to what you want to do. Follow any instructions. [Go to 5.]
[5. Diamond] Did it work? [Yes - go to 8.] [No - go to 6.]
[6. Diamond] Have you been trying this for over half an hour? [Yes - go to 7.] [No - go to 1.]
[7. Rectangle] Ask someone for help or give up. [End of flowchart.]
[8. Rectangle] You're done! [End of flowchart.]
Please print this flowchart out and tape it near your screen. Congratulations; you're now the local computer expert!

The main point of this comic is that many tech-savvy people may not know much about computers (and certainly don’t automatically know how to do everything someone may want help with). They just have developed an intuition which works in many situations. This intuition is shown here in the form of a diagram. In particular, the chart exposes the computer expert's secret ingredient: trial and error.
A flowchart is an organizational tool for showing process flow. A box is an instruction, a diamond indicates a question, and the arrows control the flow from one symbol to another. Other flowchart comics can be found here .
The title text is a sad admission that even knowing the procedure for how to fix the problem, many people will not follow it and still call their presumably more tech-savvy children.  (In a minority of cases, it may be that the person did try to follow it, and still ended up at the "Ask someone for help or give up" step.) In this case the father of Megan calls her to help print the flowchart to put near his computer so he can be the computer wiz...
This is one of the cases where the name Megan is used, without the character Megan being drawn in the comic.
Dear various parents, grandparents, co-workers, and other "not computer people." We don't magically know how to do everything in every program. When we help you, we're usually just doing this:
[There is a flowchart there. Numbers are included to improve clarity, and do not appear in the original.]
Rectangle: Start. [Go to 1.]
[1. Diamond] Find a menu item or button which looks related to what you want to do. [I can't find one - go to 2.] [Ok - go to 3.]
[2. Diamond] Pick one at random. [I've tried them all - go to 4.] [Ok - go to 3.]
[3. Rectangle] Click it. [Go to 5.]
[4. Rectangle] Google the name of the program plus a few words related to what you want to do. Follow any instructions. [Go to 5.]
[5. Diamond] Did it work? [Yes - go to 8.] [No - go to 6.]
[6. Diamond] Have you been trying this for over half an hour? [Yes - go to 7.] [No - go to 1.]
[7. Rectangle] Ask someone for help or give up. [End of flowchart.]
[8. Rectangle] You're done! [End of flowchart.]
Please print this flowchart out and tape it near your screen. Congratulations; you're now the local computer expert!
