If this is a user-facing tech-support position, then it is a hard job requirement that the candidate be able to handle being lied to by the user. I don't care what they say, they didn't check the cable, they didn't reboot, and they most certainly didn't not do anything that might have caused the problem.

>If this is a user-facing tech-support position, then it is a hard job requirement that the candidate be able to handle being lied to by the user.

Yes, I agree. Are we supposed to also assume that our bosses and interviewers lie to us, too? At no point does he say that he is emulating a user that needs support help.

Well if not lying, you should always entertain the possibility they are mistaken. The best confirm and reaffirm constantly. You know what they say about assumptions.

You are going to think your boss is mistaken/wrong/lying in the first hour you meet her/him, during a job interview? Nah. You're not.

To be fair the first thing you do is look for relevant buttons to click on if there are any, the next thing is to google the problem, the thing after that is check it's all plugged in

It's just testing the basics really

yeah! screenshots and logs or it didn't happen!

All he said was that everything was in working order. He didn't say that the cable was fully seated into the receptacle. Your first inclination would challenge your assumption and you would likely follow the stack down to the wire. At that point you'll note that the link lights are off and reseat the cable.

>the network works (i.e cables are good...)

This means - to me - that the network... well, works. And it clearly does not. If this was a Windows machine I'd probably wonder what the hell was going on with the Ethernet (!) sign in the bottom right of the tray and if it was a decent version of Ubuntu (11.x or earlier) then you'd also notice it quickly.

But still. He's pretty obviously leading the person astray by giving him the solid impression that the machine is in good working order. (which it is not) If you mean to say that he didn't CLEARLY specify that the "cable was fully seated..." I don't know what to tell you. That's a "gotcha" question. Not a good diagnostic one. Unless this is for a $12/hour CSR position. In which case, OK fine.

"Check connections" used to be the first rule or something of debugging

And not lying to your candidates is usually a good rule of thumb.

Every day, I have QA, tech support, my boss, and other developers tell me something that is not actually true, or simply omits any of the relevant information necessary to fix the problem. This is something you live with on a daily basis in a technical job involving complex systems that not everyone understands the entirety of.

If you can't solve a problem with only some information, and some of it incorrect, then how are you supposed to be able to help?

You are looking at this like it is a single-variable problem. This "test" should be easily solvable by a candidate. It is also a very bad one if it involves lying to the candidate. These two factors are not mutually exclusive.

No statement in that list is a lie; the computer is in working condition, the network itself works, the cable works, the switch it is connected to is working, DHCP on the computer is enabled. The cable being unplugged doesn't break any of those.