Funny and Humorous Technical Support Tales and Stories

I was working as an assistant network administrator at a large pharmaceutical company during the late 80s... One day, I was on the way to the water cooler when I passed by the main receptionist. She was wiping down her monitor screen with one of those alcohol saturated cotton pads that come in the little foil pouches. I thought nothing of it at the time and went back to my desk. About an hour later, I was thirsty again, so I went on another quest to the water cooler... and this time, the receptionist was wiping down her keyboard with an alcohol pad. I noticed a little pile of perhaps sixty or seventy used pads in her wastebasket. She'd obviously been at it for most of the morning. Conversation follows:

Me: Hi Fran, how are you?

Fran: Oh, I'm just fine. (smiles)

Me: What's with the sudden bout of computer cleanliness?

Fran (leaning over and lowering her voice): Well, you know, I hear that you have to be very careful with computers these days. If you're not careful, you could catch a virus! I'm planning on a vacation next month, and I can't afford to get sick now!

It was then that I noticed that she was wearing a pair of latex gloves. I comforted her, told her not to worry about her computer because we have a computer virus cleaner, and walked away. As soon as I got to my office, I closed the door and burst into violent laughter for about 20 minutes.

I've been asked before to remotely baby-sit a friend's UNIX box, and I use a local bot to watch my telnet window and have it beep me if something like a talk request or system occurs.

One day, a user named 'Bob' to conceal his identity sends me a ytalk request. Being a kind hearted soul, I answer, and he asks:

Bob: How hot do hard drives need to be to 'hot swap' it?

Me: What?

Bob: Well, we're running a server that says its hot swappable. You gotta heat up the stuff so it'll work right, don't you?

At this point I am massaging my eyes..he couldn't have done that, could he?

Me: Sir, a hot swappable server means you can remove and insert things like hard disks without shutting down the server completely.

Bob: Oh, I thought it meant 3 minutes on HIGH.

I do tech support for an ISP. One day this guy calls and explains how he uninstalled our software. So, I explained how to download the installation kit using HyperTerminal. I walked him through this process in great detail, and step by step, then hungup. 30 minutes later he calls back. The conversation goes like this:

Him: Hi, my wife picked up the phone, will that cause a problem.

Me: Were you downloading at the time?

Him: I don't know, was I?

Me: There is no way for me to tell if you were online or not but if you were, it would probably disconnect you.

Him: Ok, can we do it again now?

Me: Sure, you can download the software any time.

Him: Okay call me again in a few minutes.

Me: Why do you want me to call you?

 Him: Do start downloading again.

Apparently, he thought that our server was going to call his computer and re-install the software he removed. And, he thought that this process was already attempted once but disrupted by his wife picking up the phone, although he admitted later, his phone did not ring.

Him: My internet is not working

Me: What program?

Him: Intenet! Me But what browser?

Him: I told you internet!

Me Do you mean Internet Explorer or Netscape?

Him: Don't give me all this technical crap! By now, I am guessing it is IE since I can't fathom this person downloading Netscape.

Me: Okay, click on the little icon called "The Internet" and tell me what you see on the screen.

Him: Nothing!

Me: Do you mean nothing changes, or the browser opens with nothing in the viewing field?

Him: There's nothing!

Me: So, you are still on the (I wouldn't dare say something technical like "Desktop") first screen you normally see when Windows95 starts?

Him: Like I said, there is nothing!

Me: Well, there has to be something?

Him: No, nothing at all.

Me: No icons or words such as file, edit, view across the top of the screen?

Him: No nothing, when are you going to get this thing working?

Me: Is your computer turned on?

Him: Yes, of course!

Me: How do you know?

Him: Because of the pictures on the screen!

Me: You said there was nothing on the screen?

Him: There is not except for the pictures.

Me: Well that's not nothing is it, that is something, pictures are something, right, not a blank screen but a screen with pitures on it. PLEASE HOLD!

I transferred him to someone else because I was going to lose my temper. It seems the browser did open, but no graphic appeared in the viewing field, so hence "nothing" was on his screen.

I am a college student at the University of Georgia, and I worked for a year as tech support for a small ISP who's local dial-in area included the north half of Atlanta and plenty or extremely rural towns. I have gotten dozens of calls ranging from the modem is not plugged into the phone line to questions so technical I can't even repeat them, much less answer them.

There was one call that left me rolling on the floor for five minutes (and all my co-workers looking at me like I was nuts). The guy calling asked me to help him find pictures of naked women on the Internet!!!

Beside the fact that we had a search engine on our homepage, but what sort of person calls TECHNICAL SUPPORT to find pornography!

It's a good thing I don't sit near a window or have any sharp objects nearby...

Caller: I keep getting this error that says "Output drive or temp drive may be full. Free up disk space." What does that mean?

Tech: That means you'll have to make more free space available on the hard drive.

Caller: Oh. How do I do that? Tech: You can try deleting files that you no longer use or need.

Caller: Okay, how do I do that?

Tech: Using the Windows Explorer, look for files that you don't use anymore and delete them.

Caller: Where's the Windows Explorer?

Tech: Click Start, Programs, Windows Explorer.

Caller: Okay, now what?

Tech: Look for files that you don't need and delete them.

Caller: Oh. Which files don't I need? *sigh*

I'm a senior tech at a large software company. One of our technicians came to me one day to inform me that he was going to "flag" one of the customers who called so that they are not to get any support, and then he explained why. After getting the necessary name and address information, the call went something like this:

Tech: And may I have your serial number please?

Caller: Where do I find that?

Tech: You'll find it on the registration card, or from the Help, About XXXX menu if you entered it during the installation.

Caller: I don't have a registration card. This isn't my software, my friend gave it to me to install on my computer.

Tech: You do realize that you and your friend are breaking the software's license agreement and that it's against the law, don't you?

Caller: Oh. Can't we just forget that I told you that?

This is an e-mail I had to send to a user's group that is helping to develop a new application here at the welfare department:

Hi, Just thought I'd let you know that I checked out the message you guys were getting when you tried the print function for the ACIS Case Combined screen.

Instead of a nice report preview, it was telling the user "The source for the report was not found, 'Dummy'"!

I didn't remember writing an error message like that. Well, it turns out that I thought that I needed a table to base my report on and so created a dummy (no data) table and called it 'Dummy'. Later I found a way to get around the requirement and since I didn't need that table any more, I got rid of it. That particular report didn't get modified to the new way of doing things and was still looking for the table named 'Dummy".

The report really wasn't intending to disparage anyone!

BACKGROUND: I was on a contract with a Health Provider, who wanted to upgrade many of their older (486sx25)PCs to something more capable. Each department submitted requests to tech support who went to the machine, to verify type and what components (CPU, HardDrive, RAM, etc.) needed replaced. I went to one machine, which turned out to be a VT320 dumb terminal.

Me: I understand you requested an upgrade for your PC?

User: Yea, it's right there, see, I can only get that reddish text display, I can't take any work home, I think the hard drive's full, it's real slow (it probably needs more RAM and A Bigger CPU). I can't even play solitaire like the others in the department. How soon can you get the parts?

ME: Umm, you're talking about this machine right here? I, Uhh, (thinking long and hard how to avoid saying something nasty), really don't think we can update this.

User: It's too old huh? Like maybe a 286?

Me: (seeing a way out), Yea, yea, but it's really a little older than that, you should probably just put in a request for a new machine. The user was very happy with that explanation, and the Techs had a laugh for a few weeks trying to figure out where to install the upgrades (for the user, not the terminal)

I'm the guilty party. I had my network administrator delete and reinstall Office 97 three times because I had convinced him the program was faulty. I could not see any highlighting I made of a certain color in Word For Windows on my machine.

We tried the same file on several other machines on the network all worked well except on my machine. Only after the third re-install did it dawn on him to check if the WIN95 background color was in fact the same as my highlight color. Was I ever embarrassed, but he even more so. The best part was that I tend to consider myself a bit of an expert and I "always" look for the obvious.

I have been working for a small, unknown ISP for about a year now. During this time I have been bombarded with all kinds of "enlightening" questions and problems. Several are TeckTales worthy, but none can out match this one.

I receive a call from a woman that is interested in out Internet Service. We cover the general information concerning her account and I get everything squared away on our end (creating the account, paper work, etc.) I inform her that she will need to bring her computer into the shop so that we can install our software onto it for connectivity.

She tells me that she will have her husband bring it down during his lunch break. No problem.

About 12:15, a older male enters the shop carrying a computer monitor. He sets it on the front counter and informs me that his wife said to bring their computer in so that we can put Internet on it.

Do you think my boss would have fired me had I grabbed the white out and written "Internet" on his screen? It was actually my first thought.

The setting is a Major Fortune 100 company. The sole person responsible for BILLIONS of dollars of equipment is a man we shall call Mr. T.

His job is to watch a Monitor during the wee hours of the night. The Monitor has little lights on them. Each Light represents a Server. If the lights are GREEN everything is fine. If the Lights are RED. There's a problem with that particular Server. If there's a problem, a second level support person gets paged for an immediate solution. Every once in a while a light will go red.

This night, however, ALL of them went RED! Mr. T was flabbergasted! He sent a Page, obviously there was an emergency. And this was of the utmost importance! ALL THE COMPANIES SERVERS IN TWO CONTINENTS WERE RED!!!!

Mr. T followed procedure and send out an alpha-page to the second level support people. It read something like this... The alert second level engineer called back immediately (As well as everyone else who got the page.)

Engineer: "Was there any notice of Nuclear War?"

Mr. T.: "Not that I know of."

Engineer: "Reboot the monitoring system."

"EMERGENCY!! THE FOLLOWING SERVERS ARE RED ON THE MONITOR..." (And he proceeded to list all fifty of them.)

Mr. T.: "OK.....WOW!!! It worked...all the lights are now green!"

There are 2 tales involving backups that I saw over the years while working with a large computer chip manufacturer. In one case we had a user that religiously backed up his system doing the dailys and weeklies. His system crashed and we drove to his site to replace the hard drive and restore the network backup to the server. The replacement of the drive went flawlessly until we got to the restore portion. The network boot worked fine and asked for the backup tapes and we supplied the last Fridays backup. For some reason that did not work.

We then tried the previous weeks backup and it didn't work. By this time we had tried several fixes including replacing the tape drive and trying one of our test tapes in the system. All worked well. Puzzled we tried any number of different commands and combinations to no avail.

By chance someone asked the user where he had stored the tapes. He pointed to a safe in his office. All was safe and secure there.

However we happened to notice something strange about the safe. There were object sticking to it that were neither magnets of postit notes. One of our crew took some paper clips and tossed them at this safe and they stuck with no problem.

The safe was a mid to late 1800 model that was made out of soft iron and over the years had acquired enough of a magnetic field to be harmful to the tapes stored there in.

For a number of years I worked in, then managed a design department. At the time we were using a wide variety of graphics applications (AutoCAD, Corel, etc.)--- all under Win 3.1 --- and were constantly upgrading HW/SW.

I had a real "hotshot" assistant who (regardless of whether he knew what he was doing or not) would plug/load/install absolutely ANYTHING into his box. He wasn't really big on reading the manuals first; nor was he apt to listen when told NOT to do anything unless I was there.

Came the day when "his" new graphics card arrived. It was a very busy morning, and I told him not to even attempt installation yet, since there were likely to be several configuration issues.

Needless to say, I returned from lunch to find: (1) panic-stricken employee; (1) very dead station; (1) monumentally irritated direct report; and, of course, (1) open graphics card package.

What followed was a three-hour waltz, going back into Win setup, replacing drivers, re-configuring the .INI files for a bunch of apps, etc. It was good to be able to use my time so effectively. The point of all of this is my revenge.

That afternoon I hopped across the network and made a few small modifications to my pal's autoexec.bat. The next day, when he booted, he was greeted with the following cheery message on his monitor: "Please wait ... Please wait ... formatting Drive C:" After CPR, he never "soloed" again.

Well I've been in tech support for about 2 years now and I've heard and seen it all, but the best story i like to tell "i have many stories" is about a person named Robbie "last name not included". Let me first start off by giving you the background of the story. I'm doing end user tech support for a company who has a high end home user pc's, and with that the customer want high quality customer support and a toll free number to call which they had.

Well one day a kid call up and his name as Robbie and requested a supervisor, got him it touch with one and the kid just need basic support, then the kid call back again, asks for a supervisor and he just needed basic support, well this went on for about 1 month or 2 and then we stopped transferring to the supervisor for basic support.

Well a little while after this he called up and he wanted to install some mac software on his pc."oh ya he has a brand new mac next to his brand new pc" and we told him it cannot be done on what he want to do. well we hung up and he called again, and again, and again, he called back so many times that he talked to everyone we had staffed for that day which during the day we have about 75 people staffed.

Well that stopped in a hurry after that day, We put a restriction on his account that he can only call if his parents call for him, well that did not go on for that call because soon as his parents got a hold of a tech they put the kid on the phone the other problem with this kid is that when we try to fix something that he broke, he does not listen and screws something else in the process of fixing the first problem, then you have another problem to fix after that, plus he always ask us why his pc did not work like his mac.

Well finally management got mad and they banned him from our free support, because he called 1300 times in a 6 month period, we thought we was gone for good, we were wrong, what happened he started calling our free support and giving us random telephone numbers till one of the came up in our system, once in out system he was able to get the new tech to give him the serial number of the pc, home address and what ever info he needed to be that customer when he called, and to this day he is getting free support under another account, and because he is using another account and its hard to tell if its him he will have all the support he needs to abuse again

Everyone has 'em. The customer who, "...didn't spill anything," while there's water/coffee/acid pouring out of their keyboard, the customer who, "checked everything," except for the power cord, the guy who insists you come out, then balks at paying the travel charge (especially when they're, "only a few blocks away."

I was assigned a call from the Help Desk of a Large Corporate Customer. I called them in the morning to get a few more details on the problem; after listening, I realized their problem could be fixed by changing a setting on their printer. Hit a couple of buttons, and you're up and running. "We're very busy, here...we don't have time to troubleshoot this problem. That's what we pay you for!"

I tried to explain I wasn't trying to keep myself from going out there; my goal was to get them up and running quickly, and if they'd just indulge me...

No dice-they threatened to call my boss, the President of my Company, the Better Business Bureau...you've heard it all before. I went to the site, saw the manual for the printer sitting next to the printer that was giving them problems, and I fixed their problem by hitting four different buttons a grand total of ten times. The price they paid: $100 for one hour of labor (our minimum charge), plus $75 travel.

I used to feel guilty about something like that, but I remembered her smug voice on the phone, and a sudden realization came to me: This is a Stupidity Tax. It's a tax paid by those too busy to RTFM, by corporations too cheap to pay for good in-house support, and by users too stupid to think. I haven't become a total jerk, though...I still give them one chance to listen to me. And once in a blue moon, someone does, and they don't pay the Stupidity Tax. But you gotta love them: they guarantee I will never, ever, be unemployed.

My past company sold large computer systems to the financial industry. We had customers from every corner of the world. My primary role was that of a trainer - but I filled in as tech support as well. Customers could pay extra money and come to our site for hands-on training before a system was shipped to their site.

Two gentlemen from Cambodia requested such a class. The problem was, they spoke almost no English - and I spoke no Cambodian. Just before the class was to begin I recalled that we had another tech support person in the building from Korea. I tracked him down and asked if he would act as an interpreter for the class. He looked at me kind of oddly, but said OK.

The two gentlemen were waiting when we arrived at their system. I told my fellow tech-supporter to ask the Cambodian gentlemen if they had any questions prior to us beginning our formal training.

He looked at me, shrugged his shoulders, and in a slow, booming voice, and in English yelled "DO YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS?" I looked at him perplexed - he looked at me and said "Isn't that how YOU Americans do it, if you don't know the language?"

A father and his son on a Sunday afternoon. The father wants to show his little kid all the fancy mainframes and other servers that his father are operating. They get inside, the little kid with big eyes watching when his father explains everything. Then it happens. The father sees a problem.

He concentrates and forgets his little son who has begun his wondering around and looking on all the nice little buttons and switches. He soon can't control his urge for touching things. Then he sees the BIG red button on the side. Looks around, waiting..... Then he flips it, turning the mainframe off, flips it back. FUN!

He thinks. And does it again, and again, and again... faster and faster. after the machine stop the funny noise it makes, the little son finds his father who, by this time, know nothing other than the mainframe is down.

He was lucky. From what I know only the power supply needed to be replaced

This one happened to me. I had this call from a user who had no clue at all.

Me: Help desk? How may I be of service?

Her: Do you have storage databases?

Me: errr... yeah, sure! (thinking about disk space on the server)

her: Good. I have some files on a floppy I need to store in the databases.

me: And the problem is......???? I started to get ready to explain how she could store them from the floppy to the server via her own computer.

Her: Oh never mind. I can talk to the janitor instead

Me: ......?????? I tried to call her back, but no one answered. We never heard from her again. So maybe the janitor explained to her how thing REALLY are working.

I used to do technical support for a software company and one of the funniest things that ever happened to me wasn't from a customer - it was from my manager!

I got an internal call one afternoon from my manager: Manager: "Can you help me, I'm having a problem with my PC."

Me: "OK, tell me what's happening, maybe we can solve it on the phone."

Manager: "The machine is eating disks."

Me: "EATING disks? What do you mean?"

Manager: "I put a disk in, I hear a noise and the disk disappears."

Me: "I gotta see this, I'll be right over!" So I hung up and went over and there she was, peering into her 5 1/4 inch floppy drive.

So I said "Show me."

My manager proceeded to take a 5 1/4 disk and insert it not into the drive, but into the gap between the bottom of the drive and the blank faceplate below the drive! It went "clunk" and sure enough, it was gone.

Once I stopped laughing I got a toolkit, took the machine apart, retrieved the disks, and put a piece of electrical tape across the gap to prevent further "disk digestion" by the machine.

There were at least a dozen disks in there, though, which made me ask the obvious question... "OK, so you thought the machine was eating disks, I can understand that. But once you knew it, WHY DID YOU KEEP PUTTING DISKS IN???" We still laugh about it.

During college, I worked as an office gofer for the tech support department of a multinational company.

One day I noticed the boss getting very frustrated, mumbling epithets about our hardware suppliers and so on.

I asked if I could help and he explained that he was trying to relocate a workstation to the center of the room and couldn't get the "cables" he needed. He had described the cable to the supplier and to several other reps for various computer hardware manufacturers, but no one could help him and he was at his wits end.

I told him to go to lunch and I would see what I could do.

When he returned from lunch, the workstation had been moved and everything was working fine. I had earned his eternal gratitude with 5 minutes of my time and a $5 extension cord--to allow the relocated workstation to be plugged into the wall outlet.

I work for a National ISP... Working as a Tech, I hear all the stories, and some have topped it off. Once, while sleeping on the job, I woke to hear the tones of 'you have a call'.

The caller told me "alright, I am at my computer, now what..." this was his first line...

Alright...I said, what can i help you with...

he said "Yeah, I need help installing my CD Rom".

You ..you need help with your CD Rom?, Sir we deal with Connectivity and Internet related issues. "Alright, Fine"...CLICK.

Huh, Tech support...FOR EVERYTHING.

I got a phone call from one of our secretaries, she was hysterical - so inaudible I told her I'd take a minute and come personally and talk. This is what happened when I got there;

Me: What's wrong?

Her: My supervisor told me to install this software from this CD-ROM disc. I need a new CD-ROM drive right now, because if this isn't done for him he'll flip! (she confides it was supposed to be installed on the PC a week ago)

Me: Okay hold on, I Double click My Computer (the CD-ROM drive icon is there.)I am thinking hmmmm

Her: She's going bananas

Me: I decide to eject the CD-ROM, Lo & behold She put the CD-ROM disc in the drive upside down. I calmly flip the CD disc over right side up - close the CD-ROM door

Autoload starts working.

Her: Oh, what did you do? How'd ya fix it?

ME: Oh, not much, I put the CD-Rom in with pretty picture facing up.

As related to me by a friend from Haiti: My friend was a field service engineer for a large computer manufacturer and one evening when on call he gets beeped by one of his less favorite customers.

It seems that this customer has a computer based typesetting system that occasionally pops a circuit breaker on a power controller due to power surges in their shop. He knows that most likely all he has to do is reset the breaker, and that the night foreman will not do it so he has to go in.

Arriving at the scene he visually verifies that the breaker has in fact popped (it's in plain sight on the front of the system) and he opens his service kit and removes a rubber chicken.

He shakes the chicken at the system and begins a voodoo dance around the system, cleverly resetting the offending breaker as he passes the front of the system. He then stops, shakes the chicken at the system again, chanting and quickly turns the power key on. The system powers up and boots up just fine. He packs the chicken back in his case and leaves as somewhat shaken foreman at the customer site.

This happened about three months ago. It's standard procedure for us in technical support to set a client up with a PIN (Personal Identification Number) on their first call. This serves two purposes: A) The client can use the PIN thereafter to identify themselves in advance to our automated system, thus reducing the amount of time it takes to assist them (i.e. we have all the details from previous calls...), and B) it ensures the client is using a legal copy of our software. This is the only case I've ever had that went in this direction... read on;

Me: Hello, xxxxx Support Services, Bryan speaking. May I have your name please?

Client: No.

Me: (I explain our support methods, the PIN identification, etc.etc.) Now, can I get your name please?

Client: (heavy sigh)Look, you don't need anything like that from me. I don't need to prove anything about my identity, or provide you with anything.

Me: Sorry, sir... (and explain the support requirements again...)

Client: (sigh)Okay, fine, my name is John.

Me: And your last name, John? Client: (another heavy sigh)Smith. Of course, you know I'm lying.

Me: (Thinking, okaaaaay....) All right, John, can I get your address there, please?

Client: (again with the sighing)1234 Elm Street, New York, N.Y. 11111.

(muttering "of course, that's a lie, too...")Me: All right, "John", your PIN number is xxxxxx. You can use that for future calls, and it'll help you get through the automated system more quickly.

Client: Fine. Are you going to help me with my problem now?

Me: Sure. But I might or might not give you a truthful answer... You can fill in the rest. Give your head a shake.

I had a user who was having accessing her e-mail through Exchange.

She brought her laptop down to the Help Desk and I cleared the problem up.

She was about to go back upstairs and wanted to know if it would still be logged on if she "ran" upstairs to plug it back in faster. She was dead serious.

I work for an ISP and I gat a call this morning that went a little like this

ME: good morning how may I help you.

Cust: Yeh, I just set my account up yesterday and I having trouble sending faxes

ME: Sorry, faxes aren't anything do with the Internet you'll need to contact the supplier of that software for more info.

Cust: OK will do, tell me - what phone number do I use if I want to send a fax to myself

ME: (trying my best not to laugh) Errr you cant send a fax to yourself

I was working for a company that repaired other companies computers.(i.e. We would repair computers from other manufacturers) One day, we received a laptop in for repair that had a large hand printed sign on the LCD that stated "DO NOT REMOVE OR REPLACE ANY SOFTWARE ON THIS HARDDRIVE".

Well, he was running an EARLY BETA version of Windows95. It was such an early beta release that neither I nor any other tech had seen it(win95) yet.

Needless to say, his laptop worked perfectly with DOS/WIN3.11. I had the pleasure of calling this gentleman and informing him that if we couldn't replace his software/drive, we could not fix his computer. The customer was extremely irate stating that I shouldn't be repairing computers if I didn't know anything about fixing "common problems".

He raised such a stink at the repair facility and at the computer company that manufactured his laptop, that he was given a new hard drive and his old one was sent to microsoft to figure out why it wouldn't work. I never heard anything further from microsoft or the cust.

As an FE for a major datacom equipment manufacturer, I was accustomed to late-night panic calls from customers. However, this one got on my nerves... 3:00 AM pager: BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP I dial the customer number.

me: Hello, this is Mike from XXX-datacom, I understand you have a problem?

he: Yeah, I got a modem at a POP site n your area that doesn't respond to the network management system.

me: Is it running data OK?

he: Yeah, it's running fine, I just can't see it on the management system.

me: Since it's running traffic OK, can we wait until normal hours? I can be there at 7:30 or 8:00 no problem.

he: No, my manager is out, and I want this fixed before he comes in at 6:00 AM.

I tried (politely!) to talk him into waiting for normal business hours, no dice.

me: OK, I'l be there in an hour and a half... SO, I drag out of bed, drive 90 minutes and get on site. I call the customer's data center again...

me: OK, Joe , I'm on site in Atlanta, can you tell me which modem is bad? (This customer has about 250 standalone units mounted in racks.)

First he complains about how long it took me to get there, then...

he: Yeah, it's in rack 12, unit number 15.

me: Are you sure it's rack 12, modem 15?

he: Yeah, that's what I said! me: And you're sure it's up and running traffic?

he: Yeah, it's fine. Just get the thing fixed so I can see it on the management system!

me: Joe, that's gonna be hard to do, because that unit has no power supply, no control panel, and NO cables plugged into it!

he, after a 10 minute pause: Uh, I just looked on the schedule database, and that circuit was decommissioned 2 weeks ago...

I made REAL sure they got a bill out of that one!!

Several years ago I was an FE for a well-known datacom equipment manufacturer. One day I was dispatched to a major customer's data center to diagnose a complaint of a "dead" remote facility.

Seems they couldn't get any carrier on their dedicated analog line. After arriving on site, I worked via telephone with the remote user for about 30 minutes and diagnosed the problem as a dead phone line. The local telco for the remote site was called in, and I was asked to wait for their arrival so I could explain the problem to their technician. When the phone company rep arrived, I suggested he check punch downs, connector blocks, etc.

He said "Hang on", then I heard silence for awhile. When he came back, he said "You're not gonna believe this, but the office manager here decided to store some stuff in the attic, and all those cables strung across the attic floor were in her way, so she got a pair of scissors..."

Seems the customer had to get new cables for all their in-house wiring on that site, as well as a new office manager!

We'd been experiencing some major bush fires around the fringes of the city I lived in and, not only were they playing havoc with aircraft flying into the city ( seriously bad turbulence ) they were also putting spikes and dips into the electrical grid.

Fortunately, my clients had UPS's and so all should have been fine. Note: *should* :)

Sure enough, one evening while just about ready to head out to a thumping party, the bat phone rings and it's one of my clients: "You'd better get down here right away - the system's down and won't come back up. We were right in the middle of order processing and *have* to get it running again for tonight's deliveries!"

Throwing curses to the gods of timing, I leap in a cab and arrive at their factory. Sure enough, the system starts up but as the main application loads, it dumps them out with a "Corrupted database" error. A quick examination shows that the main order data file has been trashed. Upstairs in the management offices are the server and the workstation I usually hack at when on-site.

I stick my head into the boss of bosses' office to say "HI" and assure him that I'm here to do the best I can, etc etc etc. He's gazing out the window, smoking a cigarette and looking white as a sheet. While this is a *very* serious issue I have to deal with, it's not the end of the world, so I ask him what's up ( yes, some times you're a shrink as well as a systems development consultant :)

After a seriously huge sigh, he takes me to where the server sits and starts explaining: "Well, you see, with all the power hassles we've been having, the UPS has been whistling away like a canary. I figured it was probably under a lot of strain so, after a while without any whistles, I figured that the power feed was back to about normal so it should be safe to turn it off and give it a rest..."

At this moment, a sudden cold, lead like sinking feeling descended through my body as I asked the dreaded "So, just what did you do?" Apparently, he came out to the UPS, saw that the lights weren't flickering and all seemed OK, so he pressed the big red button ( actually a switch ) that shut the thing down, thinking that it just shut out the UPS bit but didn't stop electricity flowing through to the server.

The result was extremely predictable - the server went down like a 747 with no engines - right in the middle of the nightly operations, taking out the order file with it. Now, this was the life of the company here as they processed all the orders received & confirmed during the day to do their shipping for the night. Not only $200k+ of orders but also the future orders of clients who would no doubt be seriously pissed off about not getting their order done right this time. All because of one guy who couldn't resist the "Big, shiny, juicy red button."

It took me two hours of hacking, backup recovery and general swearing to get the order file reassembled, re-ordered and get processing started again. Lots of seriously dirty work with sector editors and so on. The boss stayed there for the whole time, ordering pizzas and ensuring there was a steady flow of Coke ( which changed to beer once it was obvious that the system was recoverable :)

Following this event, the client miraculously found the money required to upgrade their "disaster recovery" operations, which included better hardware, modifying the system to create backups of the order file just prior to processing commencing, strictly enforced backups AND a "Hackers Only" sign for the server room :) In addition to my "emergency rates" call out fees ( rather obscene at the best of times :) I was also handed $2k in cash by the boss. I'm still not sure if it was a bribe or a "thank you" but I certainly made a point of never mentioning anything other than "Power interruption due to over-stressed system components" :)

I work for a local cable company doing tech support for their cable modem service.

Our customer service staff answers most of the calls before forwarding them on to us in an effort to block needless calls from getting through. As you'll see, they are put there for a reason.

A couple of weeks ago we had a minor rain storm which did the usual damage to power and phone lines. Well this one poor soul called up in out of breath and in a fit of rage.

Support: XYZ cable tv, how can I help you?

Customer: I'm calling to report that my phone is not working!

Support: Uh..Excuse me... You said you phone is not working?

Customer: That's right! I had to jog 3 blocks to this payphone to call you! How soon until you can get it fixed???

Support: Uh...Sir, this is the cable tv company...

Customer: Yeah??? So???

Support: Well, you really need to call the phone company for that... Typically though we just get the callers who complain that they can't watch tv because the power is out...

I was contracted working Tech Support for a Government entity when I got a call from one of the remote offices. The Government entity had contracted a computer company to build the computers for them and a different company to fix them.

One of the more technical users called one day with a problem connecting to the network. After troubleshooting a bunch of things (patch cable, network drop, IRQ's, etc), I determined it was the network card driver. So, I asked her if she had the disk that came with the computer that said "3Com" on it.

She said, "Hold on, I need to get a screwdriver." "Screwdriver???" "Yes, the last time the guy came to install more memory, he put all the manuals, disks, and packing inside the computer's case so we wouldn't lose them."

I fell out laughing. Prepared for the answer I asked, "Did he do this with all of them, individually? And did you say packing too? As in bubblewrap?"

"Yes. Is that bad"

Thinking of the liability of fire I replied, "Yes, very. You may want to open up all the computers and remove what he put in.... By the way, where in the case were these." "Oh, on top of the big circuit board" {Motherboard, great.} So much for a $500 hammer...

Don't know how true this is but here a story I've heard. Some woman phoned a tech support center stating that she had a problem with her computer. Her problem was that although she had turned the machine on, she could not she anything on the screen.

Having established that the monitor was switched by the green light on the front the technician could not work out why there was a problem.

After a nearly a hour long call, the technician asked the lady - "Can you remember what the last thing you did on the computer?"

She replied "Well my husband was last to use it, he was playing a submarine game. but he got a bit angry and pulled out a gun and fired it at the monitor"

It was late on Halloween night when I was given a call to run on my way home by our "Help Desk." A customer who had recently purchased a system could not connect with her ISP.

After arriving at the site the user explained that she had been on the phone with our help desk and her ISP's help desk for days but was unable to correct the problem.

After checking her modem setup in Win95 and finding that it was indeed set up correctly I turned the computer around to make sure the line was plugged into the correct jack. Voila, there were no lines plugged in at all .

Unable to control my emotions I tried to explain that they must have some sort of connection between their computer and the outside world.

They explained that they thought it just connected through the air or the electrical wiring in the house, you know, like cell phones do ? They then had the nerve to ask if I would re-install their internet software ? OK, whats that command for internet installation again ? Oh yeah ! Format c:

You want to get even with a relative? Give him a really

crummy computer, and then teach him everything with the

wrong words. Then, years later when he tries to upgrade,

watch his blood pressure rise. Here's a boiled down

conversation we had:

Him: Where's my Option Command menu?

Me: What?

Him: Unsually when I middle-interface on my beetle on the

wall, a menu explodes, exposing the Option Command database.

[Translation: When he right-clicks on the desktop with

his mouse, he usually gets a desktop properties menu]

After about a few hours of re-education on more common terms

(he stuck to the beetle definition, because he said his mouse

was called "The Beetle" on the packaging), he finally summed

it up with this gem:

Him: You taught me a lot. No wonder those people at the

trade shows looked like I was from Mars or something.

Me: How did you learn?

Him: My brother taught me. He's always been an idiot, until

he became a programmer. Now he's an idiot with a laptop.

Well put!

One of the worst things I've done is play tech support for my friends.

I remember one of my less intelligent friends called me up asking about getting an account

with MSN. When I asked him if MSN was installed in his computer, he said no.

I told him he can only get an account with MSN if he had the software in his PC.

Before I could give him the 1 800 number for the free disk,

He screamed "Oh my God! Does that mean I'm going to have to sell my computer system

and buy one that DOES come with the MSN software?!?!?" I'm not a mean person,

but I HAD to laugh. Did I mention that this is the same friend who claimed

he could not disconnect his mouse because, according to him, his mouse was connected

to his modem?

I know a person can forget an error message if not staring directly at the screen, but this is crazy...keep in mind these people were staring DIRECTLY at the error.

Customer: I'm getting an error, "cannot find C FILE"

Me: Are you sure it's not something else?

Customer: Well, let me try it. ::clicks:: Right there, it says "cannot find C FILE" .. hold on, I need to go somewhere, talk to Juliet.

Me: Ok, Juliet.. what is the error again?

Juliet: Hold on.. ::clicks:: It says "cannot find menu windows"

Me: ::groans:: Juliet.. are you SURE it doesn't say "Cannot find file c:\mta\menuwin.pif"?

Juliet: Oh that.. that's right.

A friend of mine who works as a tech for the bookstore of a

large Canadian university had the following story.

It seems that a box with a computer had arrived in his shop

with no paperwork or any indication of who owned it or what

was wrong with it. Being extremely busy (rush week) he put

it on a shelf until the owner called.

About a week later a gentleman called asking if his computer

was fixed. After a few minutes that man stated that he had

dropped his computer off in a box about a week earlier. The

tech said that because there was no description of the

problem or name of the customer he couldn't begin to "fix"

it. The customer then stated that he was going to describe

the problem when the tech called.

My friend told me a story a while back and I thought I would share it with you

My friend just recently bought a new computer, a Pentium 166.

The owner connected all the neccesary wires and monitor etc....

He went to turn it on and nothing came on but the monitor. So

he checked the wire connections and still nothing but the

monitor.

He then called my friend over to his house to see

if he could help. He check the connections and still nothing but the monitor came on.

They called tech support and explained their situation and

same thing happened.Tech support was puzzled. My friend then

took the case off and low and behold they found their problem.

There was nothing inside no processor,no simms, no boards

nothing but an empty case and a few wires. Someone had

previously purchased this PC and took everything out and returned

it back to the store. I think I would shot someone for that. (Not really)

As a technical support engineer for a large company, we get calls from all over the country, and do all of our support over the phone. Our customer tracking system keeps track of customers, their products and the problems they call in about based on the customer's phone number.

Me: Thank you for calling technical support, my name is Andrea. Can I get your area code and telephone number please?

Customer: No.

Me: Pardon me?

Customer : No. You don't need to know my phone number.

Me: Ma'am, we use the phone number to call up your file so that I know what software you are working in and what problems you have had in the past. It also lets me write down what we do during this phone call, so that if you have to call again you won't have to re-explain.

Customer : No, I don't want to tell you my phone number.

Me: Ma'am, would you mind telling me your name?

Customer : Yes. You don't need to know who I am to help me out.

Me (somewhat flabbergasted -- I had never had this happen before nor have I run into it since): Alright, well, how can I help you?

She starts describing her problem, it was a fairly common problem, solved by renaming a particular file, then launching the application, which would recreate it from scratch. I asked her to search on her computer for the file name so that we could rename it.

Customer : I don't want to do that.

Me : If you don't rename that file, you will keep having the problem.

Customer: I don't trust you people at (company name). You're going to do something to my computer that will make it so that you can see all my files and everything, and you'll know everything about me.

She never did let me make the changes, she finally decided she would call her computer technician and make sure that this wouldn't allow us to see her computer.

I do software support for a company that provides medical software, including billing and appointment tracking.

One of our customers recently left voice mail asking about information for billing two services.

He said that one of our reps had faxed it to him last summer and he passed it on to the dental office but

they lost it so could we send it to him again? I'm relatively new to the company and there are still large

gaps in my knowledge so I contacted the customer and let him know that while I wasn't certain exactly what

info he was looking for, I'd check with his former rep (she's now a programmer) and see what I could find.

I called the rep and asked her if she remembered faxing anything to him about using two billing services but

she didn't remember talking to the customer about that at all. So I put a note on the work order asking

my supervisor if SHE had any idea what this guy's looking for and I get back a big 'beats the hell out of me!'

So now we're all running around trying to figure out what info he's talking about and we're all completely at a

loss. Lo and behold, the customer calls again, getting a little impatient that he hasn't received the info yet

and his dental department needs it so they can start entering tooth surfaces into the computer for billing.

I said, 'Wait a minute. Did you just say "tooth surfaces"?'

He said, 'Of course, that's what I've been trying to get for the past two days!'

So of course I burst out laughing and explained that we've been going nuts trying to find information

for billing out to two services! Once he got his breath back from laughing so hard,

we confirmed the tooth situation and I faxed him the info within half an hour.

Moral: Despite our best efforts, not all the silliness can be blamed on the customer!

I just spent half an hour arguing with a customer on the ISP line.

He was convinced that he did NOT have to dial up to the service to get his e-mail, rather,

it should just BE THERE when he started up his computer. Apparently he has a network connection

at work, and all he has to do is start up his mailer, and his mail is already there,

and he figured an ISP was the exact same thing. what made it all the worse was that this man had

the worst grammar skills I have encountered to date....a quote:"I Ain't got no e-mails on my computer!".....

makes a girl wanna cry....

I work for a large computer company, which like me, will remain nameless. Just before Christmas I arrived to find 6 Emails in my

incomings. The first was a warning not to send big files over the net, apparently everyone was sending Christmas cards, carols etc..

Next was an offer to buy some of the company's products at interesting prices. As it contained a graphic file of most of the products it was a mere 6.5 meg in length.

More interesting it contained an order form which I was advised to fill in and return. I decided it would be more interesting to sit and watch for a while.

The remaining 4 emails were machine generated ones telling me I was way over quota and could I do something about it.

At 09:47 the priority email arrived telling me not to use the order form in the offer but rather use the one enclosed.

I wonder how many people actually filled in the order form and emailed the entire 6.5 meg back.

I am a tech at the internet service provider.

Recently I recieved a call form a woman who had installed

our software on her MAC and was encountering problems.

We distribute Netscape with our software and she was trying

to set up the mail and news part of it.

She was looking at a window that wanted her to put in her mail servers and her

POP user name. The problem was there was already something

in that field and she could not change it. She couldn't

even click on the "OK," "Apply," or "Cancel" buttons. The

only thing it would allow her to do was close the window.

I couldn't figure this out.

Finally, after about 10

minuites of trying to find out exactly what she was opening

and how she was getting to this settings box I find out that

she was opening a readme file that explained how to set-up

the mail and news. She was clicking on an image file in

the readme.

I have been working technical support for one company or another for over 12 years now. This is probably the oddest tale I have ever witnessed.

Back in 1991, I had the opportunity to work at a computer company where I was the support supervisor. As most know, managers have the ability to

listen to their techs during a call. This was one I listened to of a very knowledgable tech.

The customer had called in because of a difficulty with his monitor, apparently the screen had heavy Vsync distortion. The tech started off the

conversation with the gratuities as usual and began troubleshooting with the customer to determine if the problem was related to an environment issue

or if it was a true hardware failure.

After 45 minutes of trying EVERYTHING he could think of, it was inevitable...

It was found that the monitor would require a replacement (the quick way) or the customer should send the unit in for repair. I'll start the line

by line from here...

Tech: Ok sir, I show the system is a year out of the warranty, would you like me to set up an RMA for a replacement or would you like us to repair the unit?

Customer: Well, I don't have any money for either, but I really need the computer to work.

Tech: (perplexed, wanting to help any way he could) I see. We can try something a little unconventional, but I can't promise it'll work.

Customer: Please, anything...I have a report to write and really need this thing working.

Tech: Okay. Turn the monitor off.

Customer: Okay, Done.

Tech: Put your hand on the screen.

Customer: Ummmm....okay.

Tech: Now repeat after me "Dear Lord".

Customer: Are you sure about this???

Tech: Believe me, this IS last ditch here.

Customer: Okay, whatever you say. I have put my hand on the screen.

Tech: Ready...okay, "Dear Lord, Heal this monitor from the demon which has possessed it."

Customer: This is silly. (BIG SIGH--Repeat of what tech said)

Customer: (LONG PAUSE) Is that it?

Tech: Lets hope so, now turn on the monitor.

Customer: (BIG GASP) Oh my god!

Tech: What?

Customer: You ain't gonna believe this, but I can see everything now.

Before I moved on to other things I checked this guys records to see if he had ever called back. In the 8 months that had passed, that was the last record on file.

I was the unfortunate soul manning the helpdesk when this call arrived. Every week when we have our staff meeting we still laugh about it.

"Helpdesk, Ken speaking."

"Yes - my CCMail isn't working right."

"OK, let's see - tell me what's happening."

"It's not receiving any mail."

"Are you able to login? Does it prompt you for your password?"

"Yes."

"Does it tell you it's checked your inbox for new messages?"

"Yes."

"Does the message say something like 'sorry, you have no new messages?'"

"That's exactly what it says."

"Er...it sounds like the software's working fine, ma'am."

"I'm sure it is, but nobody WRITES me!"

When people ask me who is the dumbest customer I have ever

had to deal with, I relate this horror story.

Me: Major ISP, can I help you?

Her: [furious] I want you to refund all my money now, and

I want you to apologize, and I am going to report you to

the better Business Bureau [followed by very abusive talk].

I looked up her account while she hurled insults at me. Even

though I was in the tech department and could not issue

refunds, I did not want to "cold transfer" this call, and

have someone else get this lady without warning. I saw why

she was mad: Average user's bill - $25... her bill $750.

Her: [abusive talk winding down] and you should WARN people

that you RUN this SCAM and [goshdarnit] YOU WILL GIVE ME A

REFUND RIGHT NOW YOU [xxxxxx]!!!!

Me: According to what I have, you have used our service

continously for a month, even during peak hours. Were you

explained our--

Her: ME???!! How DARE you accuse ME! It was my son. He's

only 12 and you used him to cheat me! [swearing continues

for a while]. I thought it was a game. My son thought it

was a game, something called "Internet" where you fight these

giant spiders on a web with colored lines or something. And

your game cost me over $1200 so you could show my son, he's only

12 if I hadn't mentioned before, naked people and now he's

swearing all the time and saying stuff I never thought I would

hear a 12 year old say you [born out of wedlock]!!!!

I came to find out that she let her son use our service using

HER credit card number. On top of that, they lived in a rural

area, and the closest line to her was a long distance call,

so even her phone bill was enourmous. When I

"warm" transfered the call, I told the guy what to expect, and

he said that lady was SOL since to even install the software

you can to click through several billing agreements with

"I agree" and even choose a payment plan. She said she

didn't understand computers, and took advantage of her

"literacy ability" so her son had to read it, and he never

said anything about hourly charges.

When the billing person filed the report, he mentioned to me that

the woman was so mad (even though we issued her a refund on

her credit card for "non-authorized card use by a minor" we

could not, of course, give her a refund on her phone bill),

she finalized the call with this statement:

Her: See this? See this? Know what I am going to do?

[smashing noise heard] That's you! That's what I think of

you, James [the billing guy]! And you'll never cross our

house again you, you... DEMON! [smash smash]. Eyaagh!

[smash smash]

Voice: [from her house] Mom?? You just jumped on the

computer! Aw man, stop! [smash smash]

Yes, this woman destroyed her computer as an act of revenge,

thus insuring her literacy level continues for one more

generation.

I work in Tech Support, but my all time favorite call had to be from my sister-in-law.

After purchasing a brand new machine that I must say I was jealous of, she made a move which

put her in my personal tech support hall of fame.

One sunny afternoon she calls me cying her eyes out, on the verge of histerics because her computer would

not give her any kind of response. It would not enter Windows, and would error out before even getting to any

hope of DOS.

After calming her down a bit, I found that she had decided to do a little housekeeping on her drive,

and in the process had moved all those vital Windows system files into a simple directory on the root

of c: that she decided to call "computer".

For my own personal sanity, I directed her to her Tech Support folks that came with the fancy computer.

I was working for a national out-of-house support company. Basically, we gave tech support for other companies, for example, gateway2000. I recieved a call one day on the Gateway2000 1-900 pay-for-support line. The gentleman was, quite frankly, nearing hysterical....the conversation went like this....

Me - Thank you for calling Gateway 2000, how may I help you?

Him - I was working in Excel97, and I accidently his the 'Hide' button...and then all my work disappeared! ITS GONE!!! So I quit out of the program, and started it back up, and IT'S STILL GONE!!!!

Me - It's alright, calm down Sir...Do you have the application open now and did you save before you accidently hit 'Hide'?

Him - Yes I did...I do have the program open...And Its STILL NOT THERE!!!

Me - Sir, could you click on the 'File' menu for me, please?

Him - Ok, now what? HEY! I think I see what I named my document!!! Should I click on that??

Me - Yes sir...click on that.

Him - Well, What do you know!! You got it back!! Thanks You've made my day....but.....well....What if I hit hide again???

Me - Sir, go ahead and hit Hide...

Him - Do you think I should??

Me - Yes, sir, it will be fine...I got it back this time, I assure you I can do it again...

Him - Ok...I trust you....I hit Hide again...And Its Gone again..Man, Just like THAT! Wipped CLEAN!!

Me - That's right sir (trying my darndest not to should patronizing...) Now, click on File, and pull down to UN-HIDE..

Him - HEY!!!! ITs BACK AGAIN!!! Lookit that!! Wow!!! Thats so cool! Thanks alot!

Me- You're welcome Sir...is there anything else I can help you with?

Him - Well, yeah actually...Ya see, I have some of my cells colored red, 'cuz they are more important, and I want them to print bright red, just like on my screen...but when I tried a test print...before I hit hide...well, it printed everything EXCEPT the cells I have red...thoses didn't print at all...

Me - Well...Sir, do you have a color printer?

Him - No, it's just an old black and white....but that shouldn't matter, right? I mean, its in color on my screen....

Me - Sir...you MUST have a color printer to print things in color...

I work for a quite a big insurance company within the UK that sells bespoke computer systems to dentists.

A call I took the other day required me to ask the user to send me a floppy disk. I requested that she make sure

she sent the disk within a secure envelope.

When I opened the envelope the next day, noting that the envelope

was stapled tightly, I found that by error she had put several staples straight through the disk, making the disk

completely unusable.

Customers normally contact our tech support department

using a 1-800 number. We can also be reached individually

through a direct line to each office. This is a story of a

call that came in on my direct line.

me: XXXX technical support, may I help you?

caller: Is this Dr. Johnson's office?

me: No, this is XXXX tech support. What number did you dial?

caller: ###-####

me: That is my number. You must have the wrong number for

the doctor's office.

caller: O.K. Thank you.

30 seconds later, the phone rings.

me: XXXX technical support, may I help you?

caller: This isn't Dr. Johnson's office?

me: No, I'm afraid this still isn't Dr. Johnson's office,

it's XXXX technical support. The number you have is for

a direct line to my office. If you do call this same number

back, however, I will answer the phone "Dr. Johnson's office".

(I was not angry at all when I said this, as a matter of fact

I said it very jokingly.)

caller: O.K.

30 seconds later, phone rings again.

me: Dr. Johnson's office.

caller: Oh thank goodness. I kept getting a different office

when I dialed your number and I'm so glad I finally reached

you.

me: No you didn't. This is still XXXX tech support. I told

you that I was going to answer the phone 'Dr. Johnson's office'.

This story has remained a classic to this day.

I work at technical support for one of the large national

internet providers. I received a call one day from one of

our frequent callers that went a little something like

this:

"Internet support, how can we help you?"

"I can't seem to make a very good connection to my local

number."

"What's wrong with the connection sir?"

"It only gets connected at 9600 baud, i have a 56k modem!"

"What number is your computer dialing?"

(He gave me the number which I recognize IS his local

number here in the United States)

"Hmmm, were are you calling from?"

"Hong Kong."

Gee, I wonder what sort of connection I can get from MARS?

When I was doing workstation integration, we had to

move a user to a different pod over the weekend.

One user had taken his laptop home so all I had to do

was move the monitor, docking bay, network cabling,

and check all his power.

We got an irate call to tech support on Monday,

with the user claiming his system wouldn't boot.

I asked if he had power to his monitor and docking

bay. He did.

When I got to his workstation, I asked him where his

laptop was. He looked sheepishly at his carrying case.

A bit disoriented in his new place, he'd forgotten to

unpack and dock his computer.

"We don't have to tell anyone about this, do we?" He

asked with a very red face.

"No," I replied "We don't HAVE to..."

While working at a small company that runs an Accounting

System, I received many "tech support calls from hell."

Here is one that I remember quite well:

Me: Tech Support, how may I help you?

Caller: Well, I was using your system, entering all my data,

but now I can't enter anything at all.

Me: Are you still logged into the program?

Caller: Yes, the screen I was entering my data into is still

on my terminal. But when I press any key, nothing happens.

Me: Nothing happens?

Caller: Yes, I've tried pressing numbers, letters, function keys,

and nothing - no response.

Me: This might sound silly - but is your keyboard plugged in?

Caller: Of course it is. It wouldn't have gotten unplugged.

Me: What were you doing when the keyboard locked up?

Caller: Like I said, I was just leaning back in my chair,

typing and all of a sudden, it stopped working.

Me: Was the keyboard on your lap while you were leaning back?

Caller: Yes.

Me: OK. Well, I know I asked you this before, but can you

just check in the back of the computer and make sure that the

keyboard cable is plugged in tightly?

Caller: I already told you, the keyboard isn't unplugged.

Me: Could you please just check?

Caller: Fine. Hold on while I put the phone down.

[Muffled noises heard in background. After a long delay,

I can hear typing over the phone]

Caller: Never mind. It seems to be working now.

Working at Tech Support, our customers are large corporates using our development tools and relational databases.

Customer calls in and after thorough troubleshooting it turns out his database (small, approx 400Mb) is completely corrupted. Only possibility is to restore his backup.

So, what do you say?

Tech - I am really sorry sir, but the only possibility left is to restore your backup. You do have one do you? (small joke)

Cust - Well....ehhhh....yes and no (Oops !! no joke at all)

Tech - Can you explain that for me please? I know the "yes" answer, I know the "no" answer. What do you mean by yes AND no?

Cust - I do have a backup...

Tech - OK.....

Cust - but it's about 6 months old and completely useless............do you have any suggestions?

Tech - (Here's the chance I have been waiting for....)

Yes sir, the only option left is to start MS-Word, open the template called CV and start typing.......

(And this is what they call a boomerang-effect....)

Customer - Has been done already......I'm the new guy!

There is a story that I heard 5 years ago,

when I started doing network support. A tech was helping a

customer work on his network. It seems the computers were not

the communicating all the time.

After some time the

customer mentioned that the 2 computers were in different building

and had run the coax cable between them. The tech proceeded

to explain why this was not a good idea by explaining ground loops

etc. While doing so he (the tech) could hear what sounded like a roar

in the background. All of a sudden he heard "oh #$%@!" and

the customer dropped the phone.

When the customer came back,

he then said "never mind" about fixing the computers. It

seems the customer was on the 2nd floor and had run the coax

cable out the window, across the alley into the other building.

The roar the tech heard was a trash truck coming down the alley.

The trash truck caught the cable and pulled both computers out the

window. Problem solved...

Tech support, may I help you?

Yeah, I bought a computer from you today and when I turn it on my monitor says "No signal"

Are your cables hooked up properly and securely?

I'll check and call you back.

(Later)

Yeah, I called earlier and my monitor still says no signal.

Well Sir, i don't know what to tell you, maybe the video card went bad or came loose during transit, bring the computer by the store and we'll take a look at it.

(Later)

yeah, I called earlier and my computer is fine now.

Oh, what happened?

Well, my 4 year old daughter was looking at the back of the computer and said

"Daddy, don't you need to plug in the computer?"

The small computer company I once worked for was partially owned by

a very wealthy but extremely flaky man named John (name changed to protect the idiot).

John was also a minor partner in a very successful environmental controls

company, and we got a lot of crossover business from them, especially

for network hardware.

One day, he called me up:

John:"I need some wire"

Me:"That's no problem- go to the hardware store."

John:"No. I need you to get me some wire."

Me:"What kind of wire? What are you using it for?"

John:"For computers." (ever the conversationalist, he was)

Me:"OK, John. No problem. What kind of network cards are you using?"

John:"I don't know. Just get me some wire."

(At this point I gritted my teeth to keep from screaming)

Me:"John, is Doug around right now? I need to find out what size wire I need to order." (Doug is their

top networking specialist.)

John:"No, he's out. Look, why is this so tough for you? Just get me some &*$# wire, OK?

I patiently explained to him how there are many different types of network cable,

and I couldn't order it unless I knew what type of network card he was using.

He said he'd check it out and call me back.

Three hours later, as I was about to close the shop, I received a call from Doug, their head tech:

He told me to come down to the office of one of their clients as soon as I could. There was something

I just HAD to see for myself, he said.

He met me at the door. "Come take a peek at what John did today.", he said. "Maybe you can come up with an idea of what I'm gonna tell the other bosses, while you're at it."

It was like walking into a little corner of Hell. Every one of the dozen or so computers was merrily smoking away.

"Doug", I asked, trying not to laugh, scream, and cry at the same time, "did John call you and tell you to call me back today?"

"Nope. Now I wish to hell he had." He looked faint. We were looking at about $60,000 damage here.

I picked up one of the CPU cases for a closer look. It was a ruin. Before we both went into absolute hysterics, I think I got in the last words:

"What kind of utter moron would try to hook up a network using SPEAKER WIRE?!?!??"

(He hadn't even connected it to the network cards. I suppose he thought the video cards would do- maybe he thought they WERE network cards.)

They say money can't buy happiness. I don't care about that.

I only wish it could buy people brains.

Even so, if John bought a second brain, it would probably die of loneliness!

I currently work in Tech Support for a major Canadian ISP,

but before I began my current job I worked as a salesperson/

technician for a small computer store; so small, in fact,

was one of only two employees.

My counterpart was a middle-aged woman who had apparently spent

"10 years as a programmer", so OF COURSE she knew what she was doing!

I came into the store one day and overheard my sales associate (whom

we will call Miss P. to protect the fact that she was a total ignoramus)

engaged in the following conversation:

Customer: I just moved into an old house and it's only got these little two-prong

outlets. The computer you guys sold me has three prongs on the cord. What do I do?

Miss P.: No problem, sir. just go to the hardware store and get a three-pronged outlet.

They sell them everywhere. Switch it for the two-pronged outlet and you're in business.

The customer left before I could catch him. I turned to my associate and asked her

precisely what she thought the third prong on the outlet was for.

Miss P.: Well, that's obvious! It's to help keep the plug from falling out of the wall!

Me: You idiot! The third prong is for grounding the outlet! Without

grounding the power supply his computer will turn into a puddle of molten plastic the

minute he gets a big power spike! You might want to call him up and let him know that!

Two days later we had a major thunderstorm, and the next day the same customer returned

with his computer- which was a burned out wreck from a major surge. I spent a good half hour explaining to my

boss what had happened, and we wound up eating the cost of a major overhaul of the customer's

machine, none of which was borne by Miss P., the guilty party.

As a result of other mishaps, Miss P. stayed where she was, I got promoted above her to assistant

manager, and the rest should have been history. Little did I know....

A few months later, after Miss P. was given a crash course on computer hardware by one of our

suppliers (it was either that or kill her for wrecking their carefully-handmade systems), I

chanced to witness the following:

Customer: I've only got two-pronged outlets in my house. How do I plug this thing in? The cord won't fit!

Miss P.: No problem. I'll come out and fix it for you.

(Why the company owners let her handle TOOLS has always

remained a mystery even to this day!)

Two days later the customer decided to upgrade his RAM from 8MB to 32MB. Since

he had arrived on my shift, I did the install for him. When I told him I would just plug it in to test the memory, he told me to wait a moment so he could get the proper power cord.

Me:"What do you mean?"

Customer:"Your other technician said I needed this cord to make it work in my house.

Nothing else fits into the wall."

I was hit by a nasty sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.

"This I gotta see. Bring it on in!", I said.

He went out to his car and returned with his power cord- which had

had the third (ground) prong trimmed off neatly snipped off by Miss P.'s needlenose pliers!

(Later I recalled that she'd had to buy a new set after that service call.)

The customer hired an electrician to install a grounded outlet, and I spent a good part of

my next shift explaining to the owners why I was there working at the shop instead of Miss P.,

when it was her shift. They took the news of her immediate dismissal quite well.

The last I heard, Miss P. went into the computer consulting business for herself.....

She's now over $40,000 in debt for lawyer's fees, because she's been sued more than a dozen times

for gross negligence and breach of contract.

The more things change.......

I ran a University Macintosh outlet for some years.

We used to get our share of flakey support queries, but the

one against which we benchmarked all others was the person

who waited on for 15 minutes to ask the following question:

"What do I do when my mouse reaches the edge of the

mouse mat?"

After this, all silly questions were henceforth referred to

as "mousemat questions"

I am the Senior Tech Support person for a branch college of a State University. Most of our faculty members have advanced degrees (Masters, Ph.D.) and are supposedly very intelligent.

I recieved a frantic call in my office one morning from one of the PhD's stating that her computer and brand new printer was not working and that she had a exam to give in one hour. The exam of course was on the hard drive of the "dead" computer.

When I got to the Professor's office, I noticed that the office furniture had been rearranged from the day before when I had installed the printer.

I asked the Professor who had moved her desk, and she replied "Maintenance, but I moved the computer myself, because they don't know how to operate one"

I asked her if she had remembered to plug in the power strip, and she replied, "I have a Ph.D. in Mathematics, I have enough intelligence to plug in the power strip." I decided to look anyway, and sure enough, the plug was laying on the floor. I plugged it into the wall outlet, and watched as the computer booted up, and the printer did its POST.

Since I was taking a College Algebra class from the Professor at the time, I took her advice not to broadcast her "problem" to other faculty/staff members at the college. (I still passed the class, but it was difficult sitting in class without laughing out loud).

As a developer level support person for a programming language,

I'll often speak to people who have an incredible level of knowledge

with our application.

On day I had a call from customer service asking I return a message from

an "irate" individual.

I placed the call, and proceeded to spend the next twenty minutes

tying to explain to him that no programming language or database

will allow you to store a "maybe" to a logical field, as this would

completely defeat the purpose.

He was adamant that all other applications (other than ours of course)

would allow for the storage of a 0.5, or maybe to any logical field.

My only regret is that I did not record the conversation.