To my tech supportees:

XKCD’s Tech Support Cheat Sheet nails it! This is es­sen­tial­ly what I’m doing when I sit down at your computer and dig you out of your latest hole.

If only you’d make some more in­tel­li­gent guesses for yourself, you might be able to solve more of your problems.

But it’s not quite that simple.

You probably don’t understand very much about what you’re doing. I have enormous depth and breadth of experience which informs my in­ves­ti­ga­tion. I am—no false modesty here—a master of debugging. The extra context helps me hone in on a solution more often than not.

Still, do give the flowchart a shot. Being able to solve your own problems is very empowering.