CompTIA A+ Certification All-in-One Exam Guide

malware is installed so a computer doesn’t get infected again. Sometimes
there’s no action to take at all: nothing can prevent a hard drive that decides
to die. But you can take one more critical action in almost every case:
education. Take advantage of the time with the user to informally train him
about the problem. Show him the dangers of malware or tell him that
sometimes hard drives just die. The more your users know, the less time
you’ll spend out of your chair.
Document Findings, Actions, and Outcomes
Based on his famous quote, “Those who cannot remember the past are
condemned to repeat it,” I think the philosopher George Santayana would
have made a great technician. As a tech, the last step of every troubleshooting
job should be to document your findings, actions, and outcomes. This
documentation might be highly formalized in some organizations, or it might
just be a few notes you jot down for your own use, but you must document!
What was the problem? What did you do to fix it? What worked? What
didn’t? The best guide to use for documentation is: “What would I have liked
to have known about this problem before I walked up to it?” Good
documentation is the strongest sign of a good tech (see Figure 1-18).