Funny and Humorous Technical Support Tales and Stories

Disaster Prevention (1)

An IT manager had just returned from a course on disaster

prevention and was showing a new starter around the newly

re-designed computer room.

Manager) Over here we have the live service, pointing to

one side of the room. The backup servers are located over

here pointing to the other side of the room

In the middle of the room is a big gap.

Manager) The gap is there so that any plane crash landing

from the near-by airport cannot take out both live and

backup services. I've checked with the airport and we have

2 feet more gap than their widest plane.

New Starter) Doesn't a bowling ball sometimes knock down

all ten pins rather than passing straight through?

Just proves that cream always rises to the top (Rich and

thick).

Disaster Prevention (2)

A student just finishes his final year project and has the

task of taking it across campus to run it on the live

machine.

This was not easy in the early 1980's and a large project,

which he spent days inputting the data is stored and run

from a removable hard disk. These disks were huge and very

fragile. They were transported via a plastic cover that

screwed into a spindle supporting the platters.

Removing one from the drive bay felt like your arm was

being pulled out of its socket as you overcame the vacuum.

Needless to say the disk proved to be unreadable on the

live machine. Did he have a backup? No he did not, so he

was told to type it in again and this time take a backup!

Days later he attempted to transport his project across

campus again. However when you attempt to take too much

care accidents tend to happen. So he dropped the disk onto

the computer room floor.

Did he have a backup? Yes, he backed it up onto the other

side of the disk he had just dropped.

Disaster Prevention (3)

Sets of floppy disks were distributed to the users with

the message "Please make a backup copy of these disks" on

each disk. When they eventually failed the user was asked

to insert the backup disk instead.

This proved to be rather impossible because the user had

photocopied the set of disks and neatly stored the paper

copies in a ring binder.

Dave Tugby

I visit a user to clean her pc after she got infected with some viruses. She had the floppy that contained the virus in a box with a few other floppies. After I finished cleaning the pc and the floppie,the user wanted to know if the other floppies in the box would get infected because they came in contact with the infected floppie.

customer: my can-holder is brooken. can I have a new one

help-desk: can-holder?

C: yes. it's attached to my computer.

h: hmm. did you get it at a fair or something?

c: no. it was installed on my computer when I bought it

h: ?

c: it's on the front of my computer and it says 24X on it...

SIGH!!!!

Just got this one:

csr: I haven't been able to receive e-mail for weeks now, and I know people have sent me some.

me: do you get any sort of error message?

csr: I'm not sure, but it doesen't receive mail.

me: Ok can you open up your mail program?

csr: ok (csr is using Internet Mail). See? it still says no new messages.

me: Sir, what happens when you click the send/receive button?

csr: Dunno, I've NEVER clicked on that...

me: click on it, sir, please.

csr: Oh look! now it says "receiving 1 of 24"!! you guys are so smart, where do you learn this stuff?

I worked tech support myself for a little while. We were to provide tech support strictly for setup of our own bundled internet software. Hardware support was discouraged due to the high volume of calls we received. Once in a while we'd help someone with a hardware issue, such as trouble shooting modems, etc. This was a dandy: By the way, he had the thickest Hick accent I've ever heard. I have translated it for your viewing pleasure:

Me: "Thank you for calling ButtNutt Tech Support this is David."

Him: "Hello. I'm having trouble with my computer."

Me: "Glad to help, what seems to be the trouble?"

Him: "Well, it doesn't seem to want to boot up at all."

Me: "Know the feeling, is your platform Win95 or Macintosh?"

Him: " Windows 95"

(Interrupt: Even though the following solves about 80% of computer bootup problems for the Technically Challenged it must be asked with a degree of tact.)

Me: Allright. Is the computer plugged in?"

Him: WHAT KIND OF A ******** IDIOT DO YOU TAKE ME FOR? OF COURSE I KNOW HOW TO PLUG IN A GODDAMN COMPUTER!! I"M NOT A ********** IDIOT YOU KNOW!!!!!

Me: Sir, I totally apologize, no offense was intended. It's happened more often than you think.

Him: Well, people are stupid. That's all

Me: Fair Enough. Now, what happens when you power up the computer?

Him: I get this wierd humming and something smells funny.

Me: (Uh oh). And nothing happens at all.

Him: Nope, and I can't....

(Next thing I heard was a loud POP)

Me: Sir, are you okay?

Him: $&!* I think it's real messed up now.

Me: What happened?

Him: Well, I had just turned it on and there was this blue light and a bunch of smoke came out of the back of it.

(Okay, now I'm worried)

Me: Sir, please turn off the computer and unplug it from the wall.

Him: Okay

(Now I think I'm brilliant, fried power supply. Nothing could have prepared me for why it was fried).

Me: It sounds like your power supply was bad. How long ago did you buy the computer?

Him: Oh two months or so.

Me: i would contact the store you bought it from. Chances are the computer itself will need to be replaced. That's very strange to have happen so soon but not completely unheard of.

Him: I just don't get it. All I was doing was trying to get back a program I erased.

Me: ???? What do you mean?

Him: Well I was cleaning up the hard drive and I deleted some files.

Me: Okay and..

Him: I know a bit about electrical stuff and.....

Me: (HE DIDN'T...)

Him: ..since I know a hard drive is like a record so I thought I'd run it backwards.......

Me: (HE DID!)

Him: and just reversed the power cord.

Me: (mute button) YES! YOU ARE A ****** IDIOT!!!

By the way the computer store didn't honor his warranty and he cancelled his internet service shortly thereafter. I also never figured out how he did what he did. Nor would I want to.

Lovely.

overheard from next cubicle-

"no ms. the internet isn't storeed localy on your hard drive"

HUH??

Received a call from a New York lawyer with all the bluster and belligerence only an attorney can generate.....

....."My laptop isn't working. I want someone here in one hour or I'll return it."

....."Just a moment, sir. When you turn it on do you hear anything; see anything?

....."No."

....."Does the light go on? Does the screen go on?"

....."No."

....."Is it plugged in?"

....."OF COURSE it's plugged in - what do you think I am - a bloody idiot?"

....."No, sir. Just try to help you."

After 10 minutes of basic troubleshooting, his partner walked in to the office and my litigation buddy stormed from the office, cursing and screaming things that I believe are anatomically impossible.

....."How bad has he been? said the partner.

....."Terrible," I replied. "Is he like that with everyone?"

....."Only people who are breathing."

....."Ok. Please check if it's plugged in."

.....After a few seconds, "Oh, no...Oh, no. He is gonna flip. He has so much junk and papers under his desk, he kicked out the plug without realizing it. He's gonna go berserk."

....."Don't worry about," I said. "Tell me you and I had a real techie conversation and we solved the problem."

....."Yeah, go on."

....."Tell him he had a T - A - E Configuration Conflict."

....."Ok," said the partner hesisitantly, "what's that."

....." T - A - E Configuration Conflict. Thomas Alva Edison - he had no damn electricity."

....."Yeah, yeah. that'll work," said the partner.

Two months later the partner called back to schedule a technician and said at the company Christmas party he told that story.....and now the attorney everyone loves to hate is nicknamed Edison by his adoring colleagues.

While I suppose this is a problem that all ISP techs have dealt with at one time or another,

I thought it might be nice to let the rest of the world know

what we go through... :)

(paraphrased, but close enough)

Me: Tech Support. Can I help you?

Customer: You need more modems! Every time I dial, I get a

busy signal. I've been tryin' this for a week! Is this the

kind of service you're happy to provide to your customers?

Me: No ma'am. I'll do everything I can to get you connected...

Hmmm... Every time you dial, you get a busy signal, correct?

(I was suspicious immediately... We had received some complaints of busy signals

recently, but not on *every* dial attempt for a week!)

Customer: Yes! Every time! No matter *when* I dial.

I've tried all times of the day and night! You need more

modems!

Me: Do you know which number you're dialing, ma'am? We've

had some problems recently and I'd like to see if that might be the problem.

Customer: No... I have no idea. How do I find out?

(There was a big surprise)

Me: Well, double-click your "My Computer" icon.

Customer: Hmmm... Where is it? ( a minute passes) Oh!

Here it is!

Me: Double-click "Dial-Up Networking" now, please.

When you've done that, find the icon called "My Connection"

(or whatever she had it named) and double-click that.

Customer: Okay. Done.

Me: In the box that says "Phone Number", what do you have there?

Customer: Hmm... XXX-XXXX

(Which was not one of our dial-up numbers)

Me: That is not one of our dial-up numbers, ma'am. Does that

happen to be the number of the line you're on now?

Customer: (hesitant) Yes...

Me: The reason you've never been able to connect is because

you're dialing your own phone number when you try and dial into us.

You are creating your own busy signals. We simply need to

change that number to one of our dial-up numbers and you

should be ready to go.

Customer: *CLICK*

I shook my head and laughed for a while after that one. :)

Some of these things you read here are so funny, you think people are making these up but this one is true.

I just recently installed a network for a company and sold about 10 notebooks with PcCard Nic's. After about a week of the new install, one user with a notebook wanted me to look at his shutdown problem. Thinking that I just needed to install IE4.0 sp1 (which by the way does fix shutdown problems)I asked the user to show me the problem.

He went to Start, Shutdown and press OK. (I noticed that it was select to "Restart Computer") and watched for the problem because the NIC was out. I do know if its out when you shutdown it will never inform the server that its going off the network and the "Its now safe to turn off your computer" screen won't show if the NIC was in when he started the computer.

The notebook restarted just fine. Then the client said "See how that worked, now watch when I put in the Network Card". It came back to logon screen and he said "Now to me, the computer should be off by now but I have to do this logon thing again". He went to Start, Shutdown and Clicked Yes (still it was selected on restart computer) I watched it restart perfectly (holding my chin now, wondering what the problem is)

He said "See it never shuts down, thats the problem!!. I informed him that he was choosing to restart the computer and not shutdown. He angrly told me that he DID shutdown. He keep telling me he pressed start (to start the computer) then shutdown to turn it off by clicking yes. I had to show him he had 4 choices after pressing Shutdown (which totally confused him) I finally got him to click the radial button to shutdown the computer, then Yes. It shutdown perfectly. I asked him "How long have you been going through this endless loop of restarting?" He said "A VERY LONG TIME!! I GIVE UP AFTER ABOUT AN HOUR AND JUST TURN IT OFF BY PRESSING THE BUTTON BECAUSE I'M TIRED OF WAITING!!"

I had to go to the restroom and laugh out loud cause I couldn't hold it any longer. To this day, I don't think this guy still gets it....

I was working for a fairly dodgy company a few months back; most of the calls we were getting were coming from people pissed off that their computers hadn't arrived after 3 months, or were missing monitors, or something equally dicey. But for a dollar a minute, I could handle it.

Finally, my conscience got to me: I got a call from someone who wanted me to tell them what to do with their computer.

They'd just paid $400 for a computer they didn't know they needed, and wanted me to tell them how to use it at $3.95 a minute. The thought of keeping them online for a few hours while I explained the intricacies of windows was appealing, but my better instincts prevailed, and I told him a few quick tips and told him to buy a book.

I left the company about a month later when it was taken over. Last I saw, it was going into receivership with numerous court cases pending. Guess there had to be something a little dicey about a company that hired people sight unseen with no qualifications at those rates of pay...

Luckily nobody was injured in the course of this call.

The victim is using a new Compaq, Windows 98 and an old copy of WordPerfect.

***normal beginning of call routine removed***

(me) What can we help you with today?

(victin) Well...I was moving some files around in DOS. I wanted to put my WordPerfect files in the WordPerfect directory. So in DOS I typed MOVE C:\*.* /S C:\WP51.

(me) Let me guess.

(victim)It moved ALL of my files and directories into the WordPerfect directory. Now the system won't boot. What do we do???

(me) (Right now I am muting the customer and sharing the call with anyone in earshot. Hearty laughter all around.) Looks like the system is going to need servicing. Bring it into the store.

(victim) OK...bye.

The bad news is his warranty won't cover this since its a self inflicted wound. But there is always the restore CD.

***evil laughter**** :)

A few years ago when PCs were relatively new in our office, I was going to demonstrate "drag-and-drop" to a co-worker. When I said "Come here and I'll show you how to drag and drop files," another co-worker who overheard me said he wanted to see how too. I showed them and when I was finished the second co-worker asked, "What was that called? Dragon dropings?"

This happened several years ago while I was working as a graphic production artist and de facto help desk/tech at a small graphic design firm in Greenwich Village. The owner of the company ("Bill") is a complete technology idiot. This is exemplified by this example.

He was going on a trip to China to pick up his newly adopted son and wanted to take his PowerBook with him so that he could stay in touch with us in the office. So I diligently investigated the telephone and electrical specifications of the area he'd be staying in, purchased the appropriate adapters, set up a simple AppleScript which would switch some software settings for him while he was out there (all he'd have to do is double-click the script and it would take care of the rest), and wrote him extremely simple instructions on how to plug things in. (This is a guy who would regularly print a document ten or eleven times before calling me for help, at which point I'd discover he had again disconnected his ethernet cable...) I walked him through the whole process, twice, to make sure he had it. Reasonably convinced he was set, off he went.

It should be pointed out that at the time our office was running on a QuickMail system, and I had our mail server configured to accept a remote access dialup for just such a contingency. And for those who don't know about QuickMail (be thankful), it's a proprietary system which is EXTREMELY sensitive about its connectivity and gets very cranky if it can't find a server.

A couple of weeks later he returned, mildly disgruntled, and angrily curious as to why we (the office) didn't return any of his emails. I immediately checked the server log but couldn't find any emails from Bill, nor could I find any record of his PowerBook dialing into our system.

After a little Q&A I discovered what had happened. Bill got on board the plane on the way to China -- with his PowerBook. Once he was in flight he turned it on (getting two error messages, one about network connectivity being lost and the other about not being able to find the QuickMail server, which he simply dismissed without a second -- or first -- thought), launched QuickMail (again receiving an error message, which he dismissed), composed some new messages, attempted to send them (again receiving an error message, which he dismissed), closed QuickMail (AGAIN receiving an error message, which he dismissed), and shut down his PowerBook.

Not enough?

When he got to China he never bothered to hook up the PowerBook, making all of my preparatory work useless. Though he did (again) on the plane ride home try to send us more email...

This is another Bill-related story which happened in the same era when I was working for that Greenwich Village design studio...

Bill had this wonderful policy wherein all of his friends, acquaintences, and casual contacts could call me whenever they needed help with their computers. One of these people was a somewhat batty woman ("Melissa") who ran this preservation society for certain dance-related films, or something strange like that. She had an ancient computer, a Macintosh SE, which she lovingly personified (she called it--, I mean, she called HIM "Maxie" -- Mac SE, Maxie, get it?) and tapped away at whenever she needed.

I would often get calls from her on the most basic functions. "How do I copy a file to Maxie? How do I format a floppy disk? What do you mean, 'double click'?" Sometimes I had to translate what she said to me into something more akin to english: "I put the thing in the thing and it wouldn't do what it usually did and now it isn't doing what I want it to do when I do the thing." (Translation: "I put the floppy in the floppy drive and it didn't show up on the desktop, and I don't know how to eject it since I can't drag its icon to the trash can.")

One day her hard drive bit the dust and (of course) she called me for advice. I suggested to her that since her hard drive was dead, her monitor was flaky (had been cutting out on her randomly for several months at that point), and her machine was well past its prime, that it may be time to invest in a new machine. Long story shorter: After several weeks she decided on a Performa 6116CD with a 14" monitor, 350-MB hard drive, 24-MB RAM, and several "demo" programs which Bill had me install. This one was quickly dubbed "Maxie II".

But Maxie II had teething problems -- or perhaps more appropriately, Maxie II's operator had some issues of her own. The biggest problem was that her SE was running System 6 while her Performa was running the newly-minted MacOS 7.5, a HUGE jump by whatever definition. I received DOZENS of phone calls from her. What does this do? What does that do? Why doesn't he do this when I do that any more? Why is this that way? Where's my alarm clock thing? Blah blah blah...

So I set aside a few hours to go over things with her. I showed her where the "how to use your computer" interactive software which Apple provided was and how she should use it. I gave her some training materials and the manuals for the updated software she was now running. I went through the basics: How to run a program, how to find a file, how to quit out of a program (along with the concept of multitasking, which her Performa does, versus monotasking, which her SE did), how and where to save her files, etc. Convinced that perhaps one molecule of training stuck with her, I left it at that.

I, of course, was stupid.

Over the next week I received even more calls from her, plus she was now calling Bill and complaining to him -- which of course meant that Bill was starting to come down on me. I was at a breaking point, and the next time I spoke with her I lost it:

MELISSA: "I can't find that program."

ME: "Which program?"

HER: "The one I used to make this file."

ME: "Which program is that?"

HER: "I don't know."

ME: "Okay, just double-click on your file."

HER: "Which file?"

ME: "The one you're trying to open."

HER: "Oh. It says 'The application which created...'"

ME: "Okay, never mind. For some reason it can't find the program which created the file. Let's try rebuilding the desktop. I want you to restart the computer -- do you remember how to do that? good -- and hold down the COMMAND and OPTION keys."

((a minute later))

ME: "Okay, is the desktop back up?"

HER: "The what?"

ME: "Is your hard drive icon on the screen now?"

HER: "Yes."

ME: "Good. Now try double-clicking on that file."

HER: "Which file?"

ME: "The one you're trying to open."

HER: "It's giving me the same message. And now the icons are all strange."

About fifteen minutes later I learned the story. She had created (accidentally) a new folder on her desktop and called it "my programs" where she wanted to store some dance recital programs she was working on. Coincidentally (do I really have to explain this any further?) there was a folder on the root directory of her hard drive called "My Programs" which is where she had stored all of her software. When she finished the previous evening she had moved the "my programs" work folder to her hard drive. The computer asked her if she wanted to replace the "My Programs" folder which was already there, she answered YES, and the computer deleted all of her programs in response.

Think it's over? HA! You fool.

After I explained to her what she had done I told her she would have to reinstall the program she was looking for (MS Word 6) from the floppy disks I had left for her. The conversation went something like this:

ME: "Okay, insert the first disk and run the installer program that's on there."

HER: "Okay, which is the first disk?"

ME: "It's probably the one that says 'Disk One' on the front."

HER: "Oh, okay." ((computer noises in background))

ME: "Is it running?"

HER: "Yes, it's asking me what to install."

ME: "Okay, great. Just follow the on-screen instructions, okay?"

HER: "Okay. What do I do now?"

ME: "What does the screen tell you to do?"

HER: "It says 'Click install to begin.'"

ME: "So...Click install."

HER: "Oh, okay. It's doing it now."

ME: "Okay, now just follow the directions on screen."

HER: "Wait! Don't hang up! I need you to do this."

ME: "Do what?"

HER: "This Word thing. I don't know how to do it."

ME: "What, install it?"

HER: "Yes."

ME: "You're doing it now."

HER: "Oh!"

About half an hour later I get another phone call from her...

ME: "What's the problem?"

HER: "It's installed, now how do I do it?"

ME: "Do what?"

HER: "Get to my things."

ME: "Oh. Just open the folder you had saved your file in from before, then double-click on the file you want to work on."

HER: "How do I do that?"

At this point I totally lost it.

ME: "Melissa, I cannot and will not continue to baby you like this. You're a perfectly grown woman and there are far more technophobic people out there than you who have successfully worked with computers. If you want to learn how to use the computer, I've left you everything you need and then some."

HER: "But I don't WANT to learn how to use the computer! I just want to use it!"

ME: "Well, then you don't need me. Good bye."

And I hung up. Then I got my jacket, told Bill I was taking the rest of the day off, and left.

Epilogue: I found out the next morning that she had deleted her "my programs" folder before she installed MS Word, thinking that the original "My Programs" folder would magically reappear. I wasn't fired or even reprimanded for these events, but I never spoke with her again. Thank God.

Me: Hello, how may I help you?

(I'll call her Jane)

Jane: I recieved a birthday card in my e-mail, but when I closed it the sound wouldn't stop.

Me: How did you close the birthday card?

Jane: I clicked the little hyphen, Is that what could be causing it?

Me: Uhm...

Jane: Oh, wait, it popped back up.

Me: Ok, see the X next to the hyphen that you pushed? You need to push that button to close it.

Jane: Oh, OK, thanks.

Grrrr. It can't be THAT hard. Wouldn't it be nice if all purchasers of new computers were required to take the following test?

BASIC COMPUTER SKILLS TEST

in order to purchase your new (insert model) you must answer the following questions with 100% accuracy.

(insert picture of standard machine here w/monitor, case, mouse, keyboard, and printer.)

Part I. The Pretty Picture

1.) Identify the "mouse" by circling it and writing "mouse" in the circle.

2.) Identify the "keyboard" by circling it and writing "keyboard" in the circle.

3.) Identify the "case" by circling it and writing "case" in the circle

4.) Identify the "monitor" by circling it and writing "monitor" in the circle. (hint: it looks like a small T.V.)

5.) Identify the "printer" by circling it and writing "printer" in the circle (hint: it does NOT look like a small T.V. and says "printer" on it)

Part II. Demonstration

1.) Demonstrate how to properly use a mouse.

2.) Demonstrate the difference between a monitor and a keyboard.

3.) Demonstrate the proper use of a keyboard, including the "Shift" and "Caps Lock" keys.

Part III. true or false

1.) The mouse is actually a foot operated foot switch.

2.) "Remove disk from jacket" means to take the disk out of the plastic shroud covering the diskette.

3.) The computer looks like a small t.v.

4.) If you have a cordless phone that means you have two phone lines.

5.) You don't need a modem to access the internet. It's all a big scam.

6.) You can load Windows 98 on a Sony Playstation.

7.) You can recover deleted files by making the hard drive spin backwards, accomplished by reversing the polarity of the power cord.

Part IV. Multiple Choice

Circle the correct term

A.) I want a new Internet, I'm bored.

B.) I can't get on my Internet

C.) I'm having difficulty logging onto the internet.

A.) "I's trahin tuh open muh com-pyooter so ahs culd gets me some Rayams, do ya thank I blued sumpin uhp?"

B.) I AIN'T STOOPID COZ I GOTS TA ADJUST THA AERIALS FER MY COMPUTER AND DUH S&*T DON'T WORK!

C.) Perhaps I'm missing something, but I'm having difficulty opening the case. I purchased some more memory recently and I would like to install it.

Part V. Essay

1.) Answer in 50 words or less what "Technically Challenged" or "Computer Illiterate" means.

Lovely

I work at a company that produces database software for Unix systems. The following story happened to the support engineer in the cube next to me...

Eng: Thank you for calling us, may I help you?

Cust: My database sometimes just goes away. Why?

Eng: What do you mean "goes away"? Can you access it all?

Cust: No! It's gone! Why does your software do this? It's the fifth time that its done this in the last year!

Eng: Do you mean that the physical files are gone?

Cust: Yes!

Eng: Wow. There's just no way that we do that...

Eng: Has someone removed them?

Cust: No!

Eng: Have you restored from a backup recently?

Cust: No!

Eng: Has your disk drive had any problems?

Cust: No!

We go on like this for awhile ... the engineer is getting more and more mystified. Suddenly, I hear the following:

Eng: Where is your database located? What's the path to it?

Cust: (mumble, mumble)

Eng: [with a completely straight face and voice] Do you really think that it's wise to put your production database in /tmp?

I lost it completely at this point. So did he.

For those people who don't know Unix -- when rebooting the machine, all files in /tmp are commonly removed. His database was being removed every time he rebooted the machine.

This is a long one

It was about 10 minutes after closing time and I was getting

ready to leave the computer store in which I had been

working as a part-time computer saleswoman/tech support

since November 15 (it was now December 20, 1997). The

things you do to get more money to buy useless Christmas

presents!

The phone rang. I should have just kept walking out of the

store but I answered.

ME) Hello this is (my name) speaking, the store is currently

closed but if you want to leave a messag..

CU) I don't *@#%^ care that the store is closed. I bought

this *@#%^!*$# printer from you guys and it doesn't work

and I need to print a *@#%^!*$# important document

tonight!

(Definitely in a bad mood, so I will cut the *@#%^!*$# from

the conversation)

ME) What is wrong with your printer?

CU) It doesn't print! That is what is wrong with it!

ME) Are all cables plugged in?

CU) Yes, YES!

ME) Is the printer's power on?

CU) Of course it is on!

ME) I am to assume that you followed all the instructions

in the manual, right?

CU) Manual? I am not an idiot. I don't need to read a

manual to install a printer. Anyway, why am I talking

to you? I want to talk to a tech support guy.

ME) I am the tech support sir!

CU) No you are not!

ME) Yes I am!

CU) You are a woman!

ME) Yes, that too.

CU) I want to talk to somebody who knows about computers.

ME) I know about computers! ( I have been working with and

on computers for a long time know, not to mention that

during the week I am a software engineer ).

CU) Get off the phone and let me talk to a man!

I should have hung up.

ME) Sir, the store is closed and I am the only tech support

person here.

CU) You are a woman!

The conversation was going nowhere and my shoes where

hurting, I wanted to go home. I turned around and saw Brian

(name changed for privacy). Our cleaning person!

ME) Hold on sir! I thing I can get a man on the phone.

I called Brian and convinced him to help me with this bigot.

BRIAN) Hello sir, my name is Brian, what can I do for you

Note that at this point the bigot is no longer swearing.

CU) My printer doesn't work Brian.

ME) Ask him if he has installed the drivers that came with

the printer

BRIAN) Have you installed the drivers that came with the

printer?

CU) No drivers came with the printer.

BRIAN) No drivers came with the printer.

ME) Hmm.

BRIAN) Hmm.

ME) Ask what model of printer he has.

BRIAN) What is you printer's model sir?

CU) I don't know. And I don't care what the model is,

I want to make this thing work! (Frustrated)

BRIAN) He doesn't know, he wants to make his printer work.

ME) Ask him his name and the name of the salesperson that

helped him in choosing the printer.

BRIAN) Sir what is your name?

CU) Bob Smith (name changed for privacy)

BRIAN) Bob Smith

ME) Ok. (As I typed his name in our record database to

check his most recent purchase)

BRIAN) Sir, do you remember the name of the salesperson who

helped you with your purchase?

CU) I didn't have a salesperson help me. I knew what I

wanted and I paid for it at the customer's desk. I don't

trust salesperson!

BRIAN) Nobody helped him. He got the printer by himself.

ME) Great!

BRIAN) Grea..!

ME) Brian, tell him that there is nothing he can do tonight.

(As I looked at the database)

BRIAN) Sir, there is nothing you can do tonight. May I

suggest for you to come tomorrow?!

CU) Why?

BRIAN) Why?

ME) Because what he purchased is not a printer... It is a

fax machine. And to be used by a phone. Not a computer.

BRIAN) Sir.....

here is one confusing one,

for those of you who don't know us "idiot" minnesotans just elected Jesse "The Body" Ventura as governor.....

well today I got a rather strange call:

me: "*** tech support this is ***** speaking"

user: "yeah ever since ventura was elected governor I haven't been able to connect to the internet"

I work in tech support for a company whose software can be downloaded from the Web. A customer was having trouble getting it set up.

Me: After you download the file you need to install it.

Customer: How do I do that?

Me: Well, you can just double-click the file and it will begin to install.

Customer: I click it once and it turns black, then I click it again and it turns white again.

I had to teach him how to double-click.

Back in 1997' I was working as a Novell/Unix Admin for a large 2,000 client

network, I hadnt worked helpdesk in a awhile, and all I remembered

about it was the calls normally came from morons. Now, to help

eliminate alot of the calls by computer illiterate people, this company

had mandatory training class's you had to attend, and then pass

a test at the end, before you were allowed to use Windows, CCMail, and

and Wordperfect. Also if you didnt pass the test, then the helpdesk

did not have to support you.

So begins this story, As said earlier, I, the Novell

and Unix god of this network was asked to fill in for the lowly helpdesk and

being the nice yet arrogant fellow I was, agreed. I handled a variety of no

brainer calls that day, which mostly ended with "Push the reset button.".

Later that afternoon I got call from a woman that was puzzled about a

setting in her wordperfect, I booted up wordperfect on the terminal in front of

me and proceeded to talk her thru step by step, then it came to getting her to

look at the preferences menu in word perfect, however she just seemed unable to "see"

anything to which I refered, it was durring this call some of the helpdesk staff got

back from lunch to resume their duties and noticed I was struggling with a total git

on the other end of the phone. Finally I had a struck of genius, I'll ask if she went

to the Word Perfect training class, if she hadn't I could end this call and be free!,

and so the dialogue of that moment is listed as follows;

Rodney: Did you attend the Word Perfect training class?!?

Lady: Well.. Yes..

(now pissed I snapped back without realizing.)

Rodney: Well did you pass??

......

its moments like this that you have to re-think what and how

you say things, the normal helpdesk crew just looked at me with

their mouth's wide open after I said that, They seem to have noticed

what I did not, the total lack of humanity in my statement and voice.

Ahwell, I'm a Unix Admin, what did they expect?

Rodney Caston

I worked for the IBM MultiMedia Helpline back in 1989. I can still remember one of the longest calls that our support area ever handled. The first technician spent close to an hour working with a kindergarden teacher trying to solve her problem. After he put the teacher on hold in frustration, he pleaded with me to take the call. I did. A few notes of background information: The IBM Model 25 was the computer used - one with just a 3.5" floppy drive that was used to boot the computer and then run the program off that 3.5" diskette. Also, IBM typically gave instructions for operating this computer so that even little kids could follow them. Example: 1.) Take diskette out of box. 2.) Remove diskette from plastic wrapper. 3.) Insert diskette into 3.5" floppy drive. and etc.

Back to the call: Since the other technician had probably covered just about everything - including power problems, etc. I decided I better start from square one and I did this by asking the teacher to get the list of instructions and tell me how she followed those instructions. The teacher said that this was ok.

"The first instruction?" I ask.

"Take diskette out of box - I cut the box open with some scissors."

"Ok, and the next instruction?" I ask.

"Remove diskette from plastic wrapper - well it's funny that you should ask about this instruction," she says.

"Oh? Really," I say.

"Yeah, it took me close to thirty minutes to get this diskette out of that plastic wrapper," she replies.

"It did! Why did it take so long?" I ask.

"Well, the metal slide at the top gave me a little trouble, but really, getting that plastic off the diskette was tough! I even had to get some scissors to pry the sides away from each other!"

"And then you inserted that diskette into the drive, right?" I ask.

"Yeah, but now the computer won't work..."

"Well, I think that I know what the trouble is now."

This poor kindergarden teacher had spent thirty valiant minutes ensuring that she followed those instructions to the letter! And by doing so, she destroyed a 3.5" diskette and then placed it into that Model 25's floppy drive - where it was of absolutely no use.

I GO THROUGH THE INTRODUCTION......

ME: HOW MAY I HELP YOU?

CUS: I WOULD LIKE YOU TO HELP ME THROUGH A INSTA LATEN (ONLINE SERVICE)

I FIND OUT WHAT HIS COMPUTER TYPE IS AND WHAT HE HAS.....

ME: OK DO YOU HAVE A CD OR A DISK

CUS: YES I DO.....

ME: OK SIR WHAT ONE CD OR DISK?

CUS: THE ROUND ON....

ME: OK WELL LETS PUT THE CD IN THE COMPUTER....

CUS: WHERE DO I PUT THAT?

ME: IN THE CD ROM...

CUS: OK WHERE IS THAT?

SPEND TEN MIN TELLING HIM WHAT A CD ROM IS, BY NOW I AM READY TO FREAK OUT... THE CUSTOMER IS NOT COOPERATING AT ALL.....

ME: OK SIR WHERE IS THE COMPUTER NOW?

CUS: ON THE TABLE.

ME: LOOK AT THE FRONT OF IT TELL ME WHAT YOU SEE.

CUS: OF THE BOX?

ME: NO THE COMPUTER!!!!

CUS: SHOULD I TAKE IT OUT OF THE BOX FIRST?

ME: UM..... I AM NOT SURE CALL MICROSOFT!!!!!!

WHEN I JUST WANTED TO SAY EATHER NO CUT A HOLE THEN PUT THE CD IN AND KICK THE BOX 50 TIMES OR SORRY SIR YOU HAVE A DEFECT TAKE THE COMPUTER BACK AND SAY YOU ARE TO STUPID TO OWN ONE!!!!!

I work for one of the largest company's in the United Kingdom as one of many first line support technicians. After a really stressful day this call from a lady in Scotland cheered my colleagues and I right up.

tech: Good afternoon ****** ***** helpdesk, how can I help?

cust: Oh I'm getting fed up with phoning you people all the time.

tech: I'm sorry you're having problems - how can I help?

cust: this is the fifth time I've called up this week for some help?

tech: Right, do you currently have a call logged with us?

cust: No, not at the moment - the other problems have been fixed.

tech: OK, is it a problem with the same computer?

cust: "No, its the new computer I've just recieved."

tech: OK, and what seems to be the problem.

cust: "Well, I don't want to fobbed off with some rubbish - I know what I'm talking about when it comes to computers and I haven't got time to mess around."

tech: OK, well I'll do my best to help - so what exactly is the problem.

cust: "My Playstation doesn't work..."

tech: ??? - I'm sorry could you repeat that.

cust: "My Playstation doesn't work, I'm switching it on and nothing is happening."

tech: OK, is this a computer we've installed for you?

cust: "Yes, yes - an engineer came yesterday and set it up and it worked fine."

tech: So whats happened in between then and now?

cust: "Nothing."

tech: Are you sure its a Playstation?

cust: "OF COURSE I AM!"

tech: Well a Playstation is actually a games machine and its not something we would have installed for you.

cust: "LISTEN - You obviously don't know what you're talking about - let me speak to someone else."

tech: Can you see a brand name or model number on the machine?

cust: "yes...its a Toshiba Satellite etc."

tech: Ah right - its actually a docking station you're referring to.

cust: "No its not its a Playstation! - I've worked with computers for over 10 years and this is a Playstation! What are you? Stupid!"

Eventually ascertained that it was a faulty power cable that was causing the problem, but, I had to conduct the rest of the call referring to the docking station as a Playstation or the customer would start shouting down the phone at me! The looks I was getting from my colleagues were enough to send me into fits of laughter as soon as the customer hung up. God knows what she going to do when she finds she has been upgraded from 3.11 to NT

This is a short one:

Cust: I can't hear anything on my computer! (It's a brand new)

Me: Do you have a multimedia kit?

Cust: No

As a member of a user's group (with the official title of

Technical Advisor) I field a lot of interesting queries. But,

sometimes, it goes a bit beyond that and, recently, a local

volunteer fire department contacted us because they thought

their computer might have a virus. Troubleshooting the

problem with a phone call didn't seem to be getting anywhere

and it really didn't sound like a virus so I decided to drop

by and take a look at the situation.

The system was an older '486 running Win3.11 and they were

correct -- they did have a virus -- but it wasn't a particularly

virulent one and hadn't really done any damage.

But the problem was that they could not update their records

(using a popular spreadsheet) of calls and notes or perform

a number of other tasks ... including being unable to install

an anti-virus program.

The first clue was when I discovered that it was also not

possible -- despite several hundred megabytes of free space

-- to even create a new subdirectory.

The second clue was when they mentioned that they were now

having trouble surfing the net.

And the real problem came when I listed the contents of the

root directory ... which contained 512 files ... of which

507 were temporary cache files from the net.

The solution, of course, was a massive delete followed by

resetting the browser to use a subdirectory (and instructing

the 'sys-op' to periodically clean the cache files).

Oh yes, the person who called with the original problem?

Mr. (NAME WITHHELD) is a computer consultant specializing in

Web access and internet conferencing.

I guess we all have a few blind spots ...

You posted a call from a user asking whether his computer will burn.

Yes, came the reply from tech support.

Good, said the user and he hung up.

No, I'm not the user but I may have the answer to this strange behaviour.

A friend of mine used to work for an insurance company dealing

with computer claims.

One guy puts in a claim in for his computer catching fire and setting alight to his carpet.

The fan was making too much noise so he wanted to spray some WD-40 oil on it. He couldn't get the case off so he decided to spray the oil in through one of the PC air vents. All went well for a few minutes until the oil caught fire sending a fireball out of the floppy drive bay onto the carpet.

Technically he had not voided the PC warranty because he did not break the seal on the computer case. But I don't think he got anything for the loss of carpet.

Dave Tugby

Me: Hukkelbokje Helpdesk speaking, may I help you?

Customer: Yes, could you help me with this problem I have?

Me: Of course, ma'am, what exactly is your problem?

C: My new faxmodem does not send any faxes.

M: Did you connect all cables?

C: Ofcourse you BOZO!

M: Okay...did you install all the drivers for the faxmodem?

C: Do I look stupid? Give me someone else, you dickhead!

M: Erh...what program do you use mostly to send faxes?

C: Program? PROGRAM?!!? What program??

M: Well...how DO you send your faxes then?

C: YOU IDOT! I just hold the page against the screen!!! I'm not THAT stupid, you know...

M: (uh...)Okay ma'am, I think the solution is quite simple. You are probably holding the document upsidedown.(sigh)

C: Thanks man...finally your saying something usefull there!

M: You're welcome and have a nice day ma'am.

Well, I'll be honest--I'm not an official honest-to-god

techie. And I won't claim to be one, because you people

do a lot of hard work with a lot of really stupid people.

But, I do have the role of being the only computer literate

person in my house. This tends to make things rather

interesting. Recently, I was upstairs in my house, and

could hear my father rather loudly shouting downstairs.

We had just bought a beautiful new computer, and I wondered

what the problem could possibly be. It was inevitable, after

a while my father stormed upstairs and shouted at me "You think

that the computer is your own personal toy?!?" Staying calm,

I asked, "What seems to be the problem with it?" "You're

the problem," he shouted, "You made it so it won't listen to

me, only you; obey only your commands!" A little confused,

I said, "Why don't you show me what the problem is?"

Nonplussed, he went to the computer, sat in front of it, and

proceeded to start a conversation with it. As computers tend

to do, it sat there. He had accused me of bending the computer

to my will, because it didn't respond to him when he talked to it!!

...sigh...

Now that voice recognition software is getting really good,

I wonder what will happen if he ever purchases some...

This one is so dumb it sounds fake, but it's 100% true...

I worked for a small computer tech company near Harrisburg, PA.

We upgraded and sold PCs to the general public, so we ran into

quite a few compu-illiterates. One day, a professor at the

local college dropped by with his PC. He wanted it upgraded with

a new motherboard and more RAM. I performed the work, then

tested the PC to make sure all was well before I called him

to come pick it up. About an hour after he went home with

it, he called and said that the PC didn't work. I asked if

it was plugged in, and he said yes. I asked if he had turned it on,

and again he answered affirmatively. He said both his printer

and monitor came on just fine, but his computer didn't. Since

he lived between work and my house, I told him I'd stop in on my

way home. I took the toolkit and left a little early, not sure what

I'd find. I got to his place and went into the computer room.

Just like he said, his printer and monitor were on, but the PC wasn't

even though it was plugged into the same power strip. I pushed the Power

button on the PC, and it came right on. He looked at me quizzically, then

asked what I did. I told him I hit the power button.

He looked at the power strip and said that it was already on.

I said no, the power button on the PC.

"Where?"

"Right here, on the front. The round one."

"Oh."

It was all I could do to not burst out laughing before I got to my car.

Overheard:

A: "This is a Mac."

B: "That's all right, it takes PC disks."

A: "Oh, it does?"

B: "Yeah, it's a PC Mac."

Maybe she was misled by the PowerPC label on the case.

This is a story a collegea of mine told me about when

he was working as a support engineer on some help desk.

The time was from the early 80's when computers where

still new and floppies were big and soft.

Customer: I've been having problems installing this soft

ware that you gave me with my computer.

Tech: Allright, we go step by step.

Customer: Fine.

Tech: First you have to insert the first floppy into the

computer and type a:\install

Customer: Allright. Wait a moment.

After a while...

Customer: Allright, it says now that I need floppy number 2

Tech: Ok, insert this disk into the computer and press enter

Customer: Doing it.

After a while...

Customer: Ok, it is in, but nothing seems to be working.

Tech: Ehm, did you insert it in the same way as the first

Customer: Yes sure did. Same as the first.

Tech: OK, can you eject the floppy for me?

Customer: OK... Well they're both out.

Explanation: The payroll program we use is not in our network, because of security, but we do not have local printers in the network, so users have to connect as usual to access printers.

I received an email sent to My boss, and some other techs. So I call herAccounting Manager: I can not print the payroll, please call the programmer to fix it, it was working yesterday.

Me: Let's see, we still do not have to do that (trying to print from DOS program)... What different you did?

A.M.: Nothing at all.

Me: Tell me what you did this morning.

A.M.: As usual, came in, turn on the pc, ran the program.

Me: (run an capture [program used in Novell Networks to redirect a printer], no printer selected. Now expecting the unspected) What did the computer told you when you logged in this morning?

A.M.: I don't know, i did not see any messages of logging in.

Once we checked the network status, she was not on the network, And all because she forgot to login this morning.

Several years ago, I was on weekend call, when the pager went off.

I called in and received the most frantic message that the user couldn't

complete their "End-of-Day". (*note: "End-of-Day" had to be performed

before going home...) When I called the site, I discovered that the

user I would be working with was the Manager. In order to save some

payroll costs, he had decided that this 'computer stuff' wasn't so hard,

and that he could just get a set of instructions, follow them, and do the

weekend tasks himself. Here is how the conversation went...

Me: "Hello, what can I help you with?"

Mgr: "I can't get the End-of-Day to work right, it's not giving me the right

questions to answer.."

Me: "Ok, let's start from the beginning and walk our way thru..."

Mgr: "Well, I have a little problem..."

Me: "What's your problem?"

Mgr: "Well, I have all my instructions on some white card things, and I dropped

them. Now they are out of order..."

Me: "Ok, I'll help you get them back in order... Let's start with the first one

and then we'll go from there. What does the first one read?"

Mgr: "3"

Me: "Pardon? Did you say 3?"

Mgr: "Yes, 3"

Me: "Is that all that is on the card?"

Mgr: "Yes"

Me: "What does the next one read?"

Mgr: "1"

Me: "...and that is all that is one it also?"

Mgr: "Yes"

To make a long story short...the manager had asked the daily operator

to give him the steps to perform the "End-of-Day", so he wrote them

down just exactly like she showed him... by the menu option number

for each screen.

I walked into a computer shop the other day, looking for

some game or other, and happened to hear the so called

attendant telling a customer all about what his computer

could do.

It could phone, fax, e-mail, had voice recognition, etc.

In fact, you could dictate a fax, and without touching

the keyboard, tell the computer to send the fax to a

certain number...once your voice was trained to it.

All well and good...until the next bit.

Customer: so what if I've trained my voice to the thing,

but have a cold when trying to dictate?

Assistant: Don't do that! You'll make a computer virus!

The frightening thing was...he was deadly serious.

Where do they get these people?

Never mind computer illiterate, sometimes I get the sneaky suspicion that some of my users are just plain illiterate. Here's an email exchange between myself and a highly-paid economist in our shop.

))) My message:

Sir,

To install this software under NT, you have to log in as local administrator. Instead of logging in to (OUR DOMAIN), select (YOUR NAME) from the drop-down list of domains and log in as "Administrator", password "admin".

))) His reply:

Stephanie,

Thanks for your reply, but I need tutoring to login as local administrator, i.e. what user name, password and domain are to be used? Would you write something that I may get guidance?

))) My thoughts:

This guy is making three times my salary.

Me: Helpdesk, may I help you.

Cust: My computer doesn't work.

Me: What doesn't work?

Cust: Nothing happens when I type:

Me: Are you running 95 or NT?

Cust: I have 97. (Oh, boy another long call)

Me: Hit CTRL, ALT, DEL.

Cust: I did.

Me: What happened? (have to work for this one)

Cust: Nothing.

Me: Okay, just turn the power off and restart

the computer.

Cust: I already tried that and it didn't work but I

will try again. (10 seconds later) Okay I restarted and

the screen looks the same.

Me: Did you turn the power off on the monitor or the cpu

case?

Cust: I turned the power off on the computer.

Me: Do you have a case where you put in diskettes?

Cust: I think so.

Me: Turn the power off on that case.

Cust: Oh, I always use the other switch to turn off my

computer.

The call went something like this.

Me: Thank you for calling (@m$@& Technical Support. May I have your first and last name please?

E/U: My name is John Doe(histerical)

Me: Can I get your telephone number area code first?

E/U: Gives Number

Me: And the model PC you are calling about?

E/U: Gives Model, listen I dont have time for this! My wife is gonna be home any time now!

Me: Ok How can I help you today?

E/U: Ok Please dont transfer me or send me to someone else. I just finished installing AOL4.0 upgrade from 3.0 and it placed a new icon for 4.0 on my desktop!

Me: Ok sir that is normal.

E/U: I know that but I am going to get a divorce! Please help me change it or get it off my computer. I will format if I have to, please just help me!

Me: Sir what is so bad about the icon? Is it to big? Not in the right space? What?

Eu: No it has my user name and password listed underneath the icon. Please I am going to get divorced here I, I have 2 kids come on man hurry!

Me: Ok sir I dont understand, are you wanting me to get rid of the whole icon or do you just want the user name and password gone?

E/U: If you can leave the icon great! Just help me get the user name and password off it! If my wife ses's it my marrige is over!

Me: Why is that?

E/U: Because my password is my wifes plus IS A B#TCH! Please she will be home any minute!

Me: Ok sir let me go ahead and place you on hold for a few minutes and let me see if I can get authorization to rename that icon for you please hold.

(At this point I tell allthe techs around me what is going on and we all had a big laugh, all this for just renameing an icon)

Me: Thank you for holding sir.

E/U: Your welcome.

Me: Ok sir this is normally something AOL would have to help you with, however we will go ahead and do it for you this time as you are in a hurry.

E/U: Thank you so much!

(Renamed it for him, and as he starts to thank me he begins crying as his wife asks him from behind who he is talking to on the phone)

E/U: Thank you so much by thank you again!

Tech: Tech Support this is Joe, how may I help you today?

Cust: How do I know if I have E-mail? Will someone call

me to inform me that I have E-mail?

Tech: (Explained how to access her E-mail)

The word is pronounced with a hard G. Not a J. Checking with a science prof would be about as useful as asking a technican about the basic table of elements. An English prof. would be a better choice but only if they are familiar with computer lingo. A majority of the words used in computers are either new or have different meanings or spelling from the standard english use. For example byte as in Gigabyte. ITS AN NEW WORD. And if you want to follow up on more items you might want to check out computer math. A Kilo (Metric) is 1000. In computers a Kilo is 1024 bytes. Therefore a 2 Gig drive would be 2,147,483,648 bytes not 2,000,000,000 as a non computer literate person would assume.

My Next Door Neigbour called me over to look at his computer.

"It doesn't work" he said

The machine was load Windows 95 properly, and the dreaded Error message was displyed "Command.com not found" (or something like that. After a quick search on his hard disk it turned out that he had deleted the whole of DOS!

Of course I managed to reinstall DOS afterwards I asked him

"How did you do this?"

"Oh, I was uninstalling COMMAND and Conquer, so I search for Command and Deleted everything to do with it"

Of all the calls I have taken in the three-plus years I've been working help desks, my favorite is the guy who called in from home, reporting urgently, "My cat walked on my keyboard and deleted my Lotus Notes icon!"

Well, I managed to control my laughter and got his Notes icon restored to the desktop. We spent a few minutes before I closed the call discussing the vagaries of cats and equipment. He told me that the cat was fascinated by his fax machine, and would often turn it on in the middle of the night...placing an order for catnip, no doubt!

Not long ago I was talking to a friend of mine, who does some freelance computer work--web pages, training, you name it. He was telling me about his latest client, who had just installed voice recognition software.

Me: So how is it?

Him: Not bad--you just don't want to sneeze while you're dictating.

Me: Let me guess---it translated it into Gallifreyian or something.

Him: No, it was in English---but it was--ahem--something of a double entendre.....

(BTW, he's very much the British gentleman--he wouldn't tell me exactly what it said!)

Hi,

Here's one that me and my co-worker enjoyed a lot...

Me: Hi, (name) how may I help you...

C: My internet connection doesn't work...

Me: What happen's when it doesn't work...

C: well I've got an eror message...

Me: Did you wrote it down?

C: No, why would I do that? (since now it's a typical client)

Me: Ok, so we'll go trough different basic verification... First, I've desactivated the WINs resolution... (I had solved a few problem like that this way...)

C: It ask me "Do I want to restart my computer"

Me: Ok, Yes, you want to restart your computer... (I like to start by that in those case cause it gives me time to browse throug the customer info.. )

C: Ok, my system is shuting down *CLICK*

I was a bit surprise to see that client hang up... :/ but there was no way I could call him back... A few minuts later, a co-worker of mine came laughing...

Co-worker: You remember Mr. X

Me: Yeah why?

Co-worker: The conversation was cut off he told me...

Me: Yes, I remember...

Co-worker: Well he was talking with his voice modem... And guess wath hapenned when you made him restart... (he didn't told me)

I was about to apologize but when I saw him start laughing... I couldn't do much more than laugh myself...

A customer of ours was having problems so I decided that an engineer was required to fix the computer. Just before her visit was due, she called us and asked for the visit to be changed. No bother, just call the engineers on xxxxx and rearrange it.

Weeks pass and I have forgotten all about this customer. The phone goes and the following happened.

Me: Welcome to xxx, can I help you.

Cust: (Very irritated) I was getting an engineer to fix my computer and I was away on holiday.

Me: Yes. you rearranged that visit.

Cust: Well I had to cancel it because I didn't have time.

Me: OK, so....

Cust: Now the computer is still not working and I'm getting very fed up with it and I just want to throw it out the window.

Me: Let me get this straight. You cancelled the engineer.

Cust: yes

Me: So the engineer who was to fix your computer never came to fix it as you cancelled the visit

Cust: yes

Me: Well, I can understand why the computer is not working. The engineer needs to FIX the computer before it will work so you need to re-arrange for the engineer to come out

Cust: Well how do I do that then?

Me: Phone them up and re-arrange it just on the same manner you cancelled it!

By the end of the call I was between irritated and amused. The customer was feeling rather stupid but too arrogant to let on. Honestly, there is just no hope for some people!

I work a tech support line for a national ISP. One day.....

I asked the customer, "What do You have open on your screen right now?"

Cust reply: "Oh, the registry editor. I'm fixing my registry, and making some adjustments. I had Windows 98 installed, but didn't like it, so I'm changing everything back to windows 95, I almost have it done I think."

ME: (YIKES!!)

Customers issue was he couldn't get IE 4 to install again. All kinds of crazy error messages. I wonder why.

I am not a tech supporter, but I have a bachelors in MIS from Mississippi State University and am considered the computer guy in my family until that dark dark day three months ago.

I was working at building my own computer. So, I got all the parts and put it together, lickety-split. I turned it on, fully expecting to bask in pride, until I found out that none of the input devices(keyboard, mouse) failed to work. I'm not one to cuss out loud, but my mom threatened to wash my mouth out. Anyway, I take the motherboard out of the case and hook everything up. Worked like a charm. I put it back in the case. Same problem. All of a sudden, my dad walked in and asked, "Whatcha doing?" I told him the computer I had been working on for a month would not work, and frustrated, I slumped into a chair. My dad started to look at the computer. Suddenly, his eyes popped open in surprise. He said, "Why do you have your keylock on?". What?, I said. "You have your keylock on. That locks up the input devices on your computer so no one else can use them." I luckily found the key and turned the keylock off. Worked like a charm.

This happened almost five months ago and I still haven't heard the end of it.:)

Thanks.

David

Ok, I work with an ISP that has many numerous companies within the SouthEast and MidWest (and still expanding).

As usual, we're bound to get the oddest/lamer calls around.

Here was one that i've never had before but makes you wonder about the intellegence of these people.

After taking the usual username, local provider info. I began the call.

ME: And how can i help you today, sir?

Cust: Yes, i recieved your software from XXXX and i installed it but cant connect now.

ME: What error are you getting sir?

Cust: Just that its not letting me connect..I'm in xxxx town.

ME: What is the modem # your dialing sir?

Cust: xxx-xxxx..

ME: Hmmm..the # should be xxx-xxxx for that area..

Cust: That's not the # i got from my other provider.

ME: Your OTHER provider, sir?

Cust: Yes, I am using a different provider in that area to

connect with and use your software...but its not

connecting me as i said..

ME: Ahhh. Sir, our software will not work with an outside provider

if they are not within our services. In order for the software

to work you have to be using our services and modem # to dial.

Cust: Well that's just Great!! I've been screwing with this thing

for nothing then.

ME: I'm sorry sir, but that's how it works..

Have a good day. *Click*

In that call, i wonder if it was the ignorance of the customer or that particular

provider by giving him the software. *sigh*

I work for a national ISP and as a result of having a famous

corporate name that everyone in America trusts, we get a lot

of calls from people who have no idea how to use their

computers, let alone access the Internet. In fact, they

have no business breeding... :-)

Here's a good example:

A woman called in about the 1st of July.

Me: How may I help you?

Her: (Sob) I just came home from a vacation... (choke) And

I have an email here that says... (cry) "You must forward

10 copies of this message to friends and family memebers or

we will put your telephone number and credit card number to

use for our own purposes." (Whine) There are 17 pages of

people's names and phone numbers and mine is one of them.

The date on the mail is June 10th and today is the 1st of

July. (wheeze) My time ran out a week ago. What do I do? It

says they got all this information by breaking into AOL's

customer database.

Me: Are you an AOL customer?

Her: No. I never have been, but they've got my phone number.

They're going to use it, I know they are.

(At this point, it's pretty obvious that she's received a

piece of "scare mail.")

Me: Well, judging by the way the letter is written and the

fact that you've never been an AOL subscriber, the best

thing you can do is delete the message and not worry about

it. Lots of people send out mail like this on the Internet

and they all amount to nothing.

Her: No!! (Sob!) They're going to run up my credit card.

What if they already have? What if they've already charged

a bunch of calls to my phone bill?

Me: Ma'am, where would they get your credit card number

from?

Her: From AOL!! Haven't you been listening?

Me: Yes, I've been listening. You have never been an AOL

customer right?

Her: Right...

Me: So does AOL have your credit card number?

Her: No...

Me: So, how did the people who sent you the mail get your

credit card number from AOL if AOL doesn't have it?

Her: (Whimpering) I don't know!!!

Me: Ma'am, this is just like a chain letter....

Her: What's a chain letter?

Me: You've never heard of a chain letter?

Her: No. What is it?

Me: It's a letter sent from one person to another, then

another, then another, then another, and so on.

Her: I don't get it.

Me: (Changing tactics) Ma'am, have you seen anything on the

news about hundreds of people being defrauded by an

unscrupulous person who got the same email?

Her: I don't watch the news. It's full of bad things. How

are you going to prevent these people from ripping mer off?

Me: (Fed up with this ignorant woman at this point) OK...

We have to look at this logically. The sent you a

threatening letter which says they're going to defraud you.

Now, just making the threat is probably not a crime but we

know that actually carrying out the threat is.

Her: (Less apprehensive) OK...

Me: They made the threat over a telecommunications device: A

phone line. Now, the FCC is in charge of all the phone

lines. That means this falls under Federal jurisdiction.

Her: (More cheerful) Yeah...

Me: I think the best thing we can do here is have you call

the FBI.

Her: (Optimistically) Really?!?

Me: (Authoritatively) Absolutely. They have jurisdiction in

most Federal matters.

Her: (Quizzically) Well, maybe it'd be better to just call

the local police department. What do you think?

Me: (Hmmm... Where does she live? Middle Of Nowhere,

Tennessee. Her brother could be the chief of police...) No.

They'll just call the FBI as it is. Better to call the FBI

yourself. That way you only have to explain it one time, and

it'll be to the people who are going to investigate it

anyway.

Her: Oh, well... That makes sense. Do you have a number for

them?

Me: Sure let me look it up... Would you like me to transfer

you to them?

Her: Oh, would you? Please?

Me: Sure...

I dialed the number, waited until someone said "Federal

Bureau of Investigations, This is Special Agent So-And-So,"

and hung up.

I support Visual Basic for a Help Desk, and most challenging call I ever actually took was with a new user who couldn't install VB. I gave him the benefit of the doubt, and began some troubleshooting. About 20 minutes into the call

Customer: Uh, which one of these CD's should I be installing?

Me: Whichever one says Visual Basic on it.

Customer: What are these floppies for then? I've been using them first.

Me: I'm not sure, what did the label(s) say?

Customer: I dunno.

Me: Would you eject the floppy from the drive and tell me what it says on the label, please?

Customer: Setup for Windows NT 4.0.

Me: Sir, you haven't been trying to install VB, you've been trying to install the operating system NT.

After a year of doing this job, this is still my funniest "user" story.

We recently acquired a new digital camera, and I was having a good time "test driving" it. I poked my head into the VP Finance's office, and snapped a picture. When asked what I was doing, I told him that I was test driving the camera. His reply?

"Well, you might want to test drive it on what we're going to use it for, those pictures are probably pretty expensive to develop!"

Right.

Maybe I'll send him a bill and try to get reimbursed for "Digital Development"

-gcF

I work for a large ISP. Recently we implemented a policy

that required our web farm customers to submit their CGI

scripts to our technical department for review prior to

putting them on the production server. All service level

agreements and contracts were updated with the customers

prior to this policy being implemented. This one customer

clearly did not read the fine print on his contract.

T. Technical Support, how may I help you?

C. I am unable to upload to my cgi-bin directory.

T. The new contract you have should provide procedures

for you to submit them to us for review.

C. Why must I submit them for YOUR review?

T. This is due to a new security policy which allows us to

review scripts to ensure they use system resources

efficiently and not cause security risks to customers

files.

C. I know of no such policy. Change your config so that I

can upload my scripts to your server, I and my customers

need to upload scripts often. I cannot agree to this

policy. I need to test my scripts on your server.

T. Sir you have been advised of the policy, I cannot make

acceptions. This server is a production server, not a

test environment.

C. If you make me adhere to these policies I will KILL you,

I will KILL ALL OF YOU, and I will BLOW UP YOUR BUILDING.

T. Sir, I'm going to refer you to the Customer Service

Manager.

Later the CSM called me back to confirm that the customer

had received notification of the new policy and signed off

on the contract. Further to that he was in breach of

contract by being 120 days in arrears on his bill and had

made one payment in the last 10 months. His site was

blown up!!! Our 25 storey building remains intact.

Many years ago, when remote terminals were the latest in technology, I heard of a brilliant April Fool's joke.

(April Fools day is the first of April).

A staffer had turned his manager's monitor upside down and minimised the brightness and contrast.

When the manager tried to log in he couldn't see anything so he phoned the Help Desk.

The conversation lasted about 5 minutes, and ended with the support guy agreeing to come down to look at the obviously dead monitor.

Of course he immediately registers that the monitor is upside down but, having been told about the joke, tells the manager that he'll need some time to fix the problem.

So the manager has to wait outside for about 10 minutes.

The help desk guy's eventual report was that the monitor had been subjected to "electro-mechanical interference"!

About a week ago one of our email admins sent out some update dll's for microsoft remote mail with the instructions to save them to the windows\system directory. The only problem is mail can't save these files to that directory if mail is open because the originals are in use. I immediatley sent an email advising my users not to follow these instructions because it would break remote mail and to call me for help. Two days later I got a call from a remote user stating that he had recieved my email and that of the admin. and just like I said it was broken.

Years ago (in the days before 40x CD drives and pentium processors) I was helping a customer setup a LAN. She'd just purchased some new LAN software, and I specifically told her to make backup copies of each and every diskette.

Two days later I get a call from her stating her installation diskettes didn't work. "What happened when you tried installing your LAN software?" asked I, "absolutely nothing" was her irritated reply. "Did you try using your backup diskettes to install your LAN?" I asked. Dead silence was her reply.

-me-

"Hello, did you try using your backup diskettes?"

-her-

"I never made them, but it shouldn't matter because I've never used the diskettes."

-me-

"Where are your diskettes right now."

-her-

"Most of them are still stuck to the side of my file cabinate."

-me-

"Excuse me?"

-her-

"I let my five year old put them up there for me. It kept her out of my hair the other day while she was in my office."

-me-

"What did she use to put them up there?"

-her-

"Just some little magnets I have, why do you ask?"

It's always good fun listening to a customer who has already diagnosed their own problem, and has /no/ desire to discuss anything with you. Especially when you finally get to the truth of the matter:

Cust: Your Internet's broken.

Tech Sup: Ah, right, broken in what way? You can't connect?

Cust: Of course I can't, it's not working, and you just need to get your servers working again, since I /know/ it's your end causing the problem.

Tech Sup: (slightly baffled) Oh, okay. What's the actual error message you're seeing?

Cust: Oh, something about a dial tone, just fix it!

Tech Sup: Dial tone? Uh huh.. So, if you plug a phone into that socket, does /it/ get a dial tone?

Cust: I can't.

Tech Sup: Sorry, you can't what, exactly?

Cust: Plug a phone in.

Tech Sup: Why not?

Cust: Well, it went BANG, and sparks came out of it, and now it's all fused to the wall....

To this day we are baffled as to what this person thought our servers could possibly have done that would make his modem cable fuse to the wall...

Me: Thank you for calling (BLAH!)technical support, how can I help you.

Cust: How come when I try to access the CD-Rom drive it says E:\ is not accessible The device is not ready?!?!!?

Me: It sounds like its having a hard time reading the CD-Rom Disc.

Cust: OH! You mean there has to be a disc in the there?!?!

Me: Umm, yes, that would help.

Cust: Okay (Click)

This happened a while back, just when I'd left several years doing IT and end-user support for a couple of hardware and software companies. Needless to say, in that environment, one comes to expect a certain degree of technical competence from one's users.

So...I am now taking support calls for a company that is definitely NOT populated with "computer literate" end-users, and I've not yet gotten in the swing of things.

User calls in....he's trying to print a document to "his" network printer and is getting no output. We go thru all the usual troubleshooting. Verifying that printer is on the network, verifying that user has access to that printer, I print test page, get "OK". All seems wonderful.

Finally, realizing that they've moved quite a few offices and printers, I ask the user to go to his network printer and read the "address" and other information off the printer. I'm thinking that perhaps they've swapped printers and network IDs.

User comes back after 5 minutes and says, "Here's the information on the sticker:' For toner or paper replacement, contact extension x-xxxx."For other problems, contact Telcomm Technicians at: x-xxxx."

I carefully explained to the user that fax machines weren't usually network printers, and that he might want to verify with others in the department as to the location of his printer. My new colleagues were vastly amused at the (plonk) sound of the newbie's head hitting her keyboard.

It took, btw, about half an hour before I got a request to flush many multiple print jobs for this same printer...

The very next day, we took a call from a user who'd managed to yank an output roller out of a printer in the process of removing what he thought was the toner cartridge. I am still poring thru HP's support documentation trying to figure out how exactly he managed to do this without electrocuting himself. He managed to miss all the capacitors and live wires left when he pulled out the part.

So, here I am...been doing mainframe and PC tech support for nigh on 20 years. About 2 years ago, my husband, with much training, whining, and browbeating from me, has passed his A+ exam and is officially a "junior technician". Meanwhile, I'm doing project management and technical consulting on various Wintel platforms. DH is proudly telling all and sundry, "my wife taught me everything I know."

So...it is VERY late one Sunday AM...I'm doing line testing on a new product for my company as part of working on internal support documentation, and to save my darned life, I CANNOT get this beast installed in Windows NT. Configuration is correct, IRQs and I/O addresses are correct and available...NT will NOT see the beast to save my life. I give up finally, go to the john, grab a beer, and I've now been pacing around the place for about 2 hours, and what isn't died hairwise, I've ripped out by the roots.

Finally, DH listens to my tale of woe, makes sympathetic noises, and says, "Don't hit me hon, but do you have the correct *.INF file for that thingie??"

****PAUSE****

Sound of resounding "DOH!!!!" and hand slapping forehead

I'm half of the service department staff in a small computer store. I mainly work on the Macintoshes and have had good results resoldering solder joints on the video board of the MultipleScan 15 Display. A Seiko monitor came in with no red and I suspected it had a similar problem.

I removed the case and looked for fractured solder joints around the power transistors. Nothing looked wrong but I touched them up anyway.

Just as I was putting the case back on I looked at the video connector.

One of the pins was bent over.

My partner straightened it out and attached an extension cable so that a new connector would be used instead of the weakened one. It tested out ok.

Hi. I'm working for a large ISP, and I think I aint too bad

in troubleshooting. But look, when I started on the Internet,

I had, like MANY newbies, some problems...

First, when I signed-on with my ISP (the one I'm working

for now), it took 3 hours to get me on the Internet. I

was always getting the dreadful message : UNABLE TO NEGOCIATE

A COMPATIBLE SET OF NETWORK PROTOCOL (which was chinese to

me at that time). After 3 hours, 10 call back and many

tests, the technician decided to check my TCP IP settings.

I got into CONTROL PANEL, NETWORK, and I said : UH? WHAT

IS TCP IP I DON'T HAVE THAT? Argh !

Also, I had a 14.4 external modem. Whenever I wanted to log

on late in night and don't want my mother to know it,

I was putting a big heavy pillow on it so the speaker would

not play too loud. 2 weeks later, I discovered the little

wheel on the side to adjust volume... Oups ! Sometime, it's

TOO evident...

After a year using my modem, and disconnecting the wire from

the wall to connect my phone, a friend told me that the

purpose of the second phone jack in the modem was for

a external phone... DUH!

And, on a sunshining sunday afternoon, my connection decided

to die. I was connecting, but unable to get onto anywhere

(I even tried PING tests, I wasn't that bad at that time).

I just uninstalled something (which was WINSOCK 2, oups),

and couldn't get the hole thing work. So I formatted all my

HD, then reinstalled everything, and it didn't worked. I did

that 4 times (a REAL format c:\, not only reinstall) and

couldn't get it to work. I called tech support of my ISP,

and they choosed DISABLE WINS RESOLUTION in the WINS RESOLUTION

tab on TCP IP SETTINGS, and everything got to work fine

again... DUH AGAIN !

So, please, remember your first time as a computer user,

and don't be too tough with all those newbies !

I WORK IN A TECH SUPPORT SHOP FOR A LARGE GOVERNMENT FACILITY (APPX 3000 COMPUTERS). WE RECEIVE SOME TROUBLE CALLS THAT ARE WORTHY AND MANY THAT ARE CALLS SUCH AS "I CAN'T LISTEN TO MY CD'S,....WORK STOPPAGE!!!!!"

NEEDLESS TO SAY THIS DOESN'T RANK TO HIGH ON THE PRIORITY LIST.

THIS IS ONE THAT MADE ME ROLL.

THIS LADY (WE'LL CALL HER JUNE) PUT IN A TROUBLE CALL THAT HER MONITOR WAS DEAD.

NOW, UNDERSTAND, "JUNE" WORKS WITH THE WIFE OF MY SUPERVISOR AND WAS TRYING TO USE HER TO RESOLVE THIS "DEAD MONITOR" PROBLEM. MY SUPERVISOR'S WIFE WASN'T WILLING TO USE HER HUSBAND JUST TO SATISFY "JUNE".

SO, "JUNE" CALLS MY BOSS'S BOSS AND COMPLAINS THAT HER MONITOR HASN'T BEEN FIXED YET

(KEEP IN MIND WE HAVE OVER 3000 COMPUTERS TO MAINTAIN).

SOOO, MY BOSS'S BOSS CALLS MY BOSS WHO CALLS ME TO GO ON THIS "IMPORTANT" JOB IMMEDIATLY!

I GO INTO THE OFFICE WITH "JUNE" (MISS ATTITUDE) AND ASSESS THE SITUATION.

-POWER INDICATOR IS LIT

-UPON TURNING IT ON AND OFF I HERE THAT FAMILIAR SIZZLE OF THE HIGH VOLTAGE (MONITOR IS FINE)

-CABLES ARE ALL INTACT

-POWER STRIP IS ON

????????? WHAT'S THE PROBLEM????????

I SMILE AT THE (L)USER AS I SLOWLY REACH DOWN AND PRESS THE POWER BUTTON ON THE COMPUTER.

SHE BEGGED ME NOT TO TELL ANYONE...

I SAID I WOULDN'T....

YEAH, RIGHT...

MY SHOP AND SUPERVISOR (AND HIS) LOST IT ON THAT ONE....

This one makes me think:

Certain users seem to have the idea that if anything,

and with that I mean ANYTHING, goes slightly wrong with

their computer, the best thing to do is call Helpdesk

within 10 seconds.

This story proves what I mean:

Me: (My name) Helpdesk, speaking.

Him: This is (name omitted), my monitor just stopped

functioning.

Ok, going through standard procedure of power-supply etc.

Me: Is there a light on the front of your screen ?

... silence ...

Him: Don't know.

Me: Ok, never mind. There is a cable leading from the back of

the monitor to a power supply. It is secure at both sides ?

Him: .. after some noise... I think so.

Me: Ok, there's another cable leading from the back of your

monitor to your computer, is that one secure too.

Him: Lemme check.

(2 seconds later)

Him: Hey, it works again, thanx.

Me: (Surprised) What did you do then ?

Him: I accidentally hit the space-bar, thanx a lot!

Me: (after I put down the phone, to other techs)

Man, I wish we bought monitors without power-saving.

I work in tech support for a large ISP in the south.

I got a call from a guy this morning about connectivity

problems. He kept getting the error unable to negotiate

a compatible set of network protocols. I knew what the

problem was and how to fix it but before I could begin,

he asked me "could the merger of AOL and Netscape be

causing this?"

Tech: Thank you for calling America Online, my name is Rick, how can I help you.

Customer: My screen is very fuzzy and out out focus. It was fine yesterday, but a download from your company caused this.

Tech: Well lets check a few things on your computer.

Customers Wife in the Distance: Dam it Jim, you've got my reading glasses again. Use your own.

Customer: Opps, sorry my fault, bye.

Customer rang up asking about Virtual PC. She'd bought it to run on her iMac. Being a PC veteran, and the iMac not being a machine I support as easily as I do the PC, I was not really looking forward to the call. However ...

Customer: We've got Virtual PC installed .. but most of the software is missing.

Me: What software do you think is missing ?

Customer: All of it .. I click on Start, then Programs and all I can see is Word Viewer. Where is Outlook, Excel, Word and the rest of Windows 95 ?

Me: Did you get a copy of Office 97 with Virtual PC ?

Customer: Yes .. it says on the Virtual PC box "comes with Windows 95" .. so where are the programs ?

Me: You don't get it .. you have installed everything that comes with the program - if you want Word, Excel and the rest you have to buy it separately.

Customer: But the salesman told me ......

After 5 minutes of explaining the difference between Windows 95 and the "Windows 95" she thought she would get, she eventually rang off in a not too pleased mood. God help that salesman :)

Talking about laptops:

Customer: Is it electric or is it on batteries?

Hello, Tech Support

What's the password to get out of Kid's Desk

It doesn't come with a password, it has to be set by the user.

I haven't set one and now i can't get out of this !!!! program without it

Did anyone in your family set the password ?

No one in this house set a password, it must have come from you with a password

-Guided her to the .ini file where the password is stored -

Ma'm, look for a line that reads password =, what does it say after =

MOM AND DAD ARE STUPID

pause--

Do you have any children?

Not anymore !!!

Found another location to share your grief, and anxiety when

dealing with customers... Another Tech Tales forum just popped

up..

(a href="http://hawkwynd.tzo.com/discus/index.html)New Tech Forum(/a)

One morning, while showing someone to a conference room, I passed an office where someone had left a 3.25 diskette and a sticky note--"here's the urgent info you needed"--stuck to the door with a magnet.

At least I hope it was a joke........

(This sounds a LOT naughtier than it is!)

Several years ago, I was the admin in a customer support center (not quite tech support; they mostly sold service contracts and routed trouble calls to approprate support personnel.) This all took place while I was trying to do data entry one afternoon....

George: My mouse just died.

John: Did you clean the ball?

G: Yeah, it didn't help.

J: Let me see...(looks at it, tries to try it out in his own mouse, but it won't fit.) Maddy, do me a favor? Take the ball out of that mouse, will you?

Me: (obligingly removing the mouse ball. He hands me George's to try out, but it's too small to hit the rollers.)

George (bewildered): How come your balls are bigger than mine?

Everyone else in the room: WHAT?!

Me: (ROTFL....)

"Normal Day at the office"

Me: Hello

JohnDoe: Hey **** My computer Wont boot up, It keeps

giving me this weird error. I think its finally dead, You need to

build me a new one.

Me: Ok , I'll Be right there, "I walk over to his office"

JohnDoe: See , I keep pressing anykey And its still not working

Me: Uhm, Well john, It says PLEASE REMOVE DISK AND PRESS ANY KEY.

So you press this little button on your 3 1/2 Disk Drive And remove

the disk, Then Press any key.

This one is Kind of short lived but still worth a few laughs.

ME:Tech support how may I help you?

Cust: Yea I cant e-mail and havent since I signed up!

At this point im thinking oh ok not connecting or dosent have settings in.

So I walk him through the settings they where fine.

He was connecting I have to give him that.

ME: Ok what are you clicking on to get your email (his mail program was opend)

Cust: You mean someone dosent deliver it to me?

Me: nope

Cust: So what do I do?

ME: Click on send and receive.

Cust: Oh

Cust: click!

I work support for a large oilcompany with over 10.000 users on our network.

We have a lot of offices and sites all over the world.

Just today I recieved a call from a frustrated user who wanted to print to a local printer.

Me: Helpdesk, this is xxx, may I help you?

User: I need help to define a local printer.

Me: Ok sir, where are you located?

User: On the building site!

Me: ?? Which building site sir?

User: (names the site...which I have never heard of)

Me: ok sir, I am not familiar with that site, could you tell me the ID number or the logical name of the printer?

User: (goes quiet for a bit...)...I dont know...its the white one in the office besides the cement mixer...

Me: (Hits mute and prays for patience...)

The user unfortunately hung up before I could ask for any more information.

I work for a large southern ISP and recently got a call that went as follows.

Me:Thank you for calling ******, How can I help you today?

User:Yeah, I'd like to sign up for an account with you.

Me:Ok. Do you have a copy of our installation software?

User:No, I just got this Web TV thing, and I heard that your service is cheaper per month

Me:I'm sorry sir, you need to have a computer to use our service.

User:They told me that all I needed was this WebTV thing.

Me:To use WebTV that is correct, but to use our dial-up service you need to have a computer and a modem.

User:Oh (he says as reality finally dawns on him) Thanks, bye.

(Click)

A customer just called in complaining about the speed of his connection. He said that he set the max speed to 38400 but he was still only getting 14400. I checked and found that he only had a 14.4 modem. He still didn't get it.

I cannot take full credit for this story as it was told

to me by a tech rep for a large ISP. I work for a large

insurance company providing tech support to our agents

in the field. We were swaping stupid user stories and

he beat me with this one.

So This person had purchased a magazine or some thing that

had a free CD ROM with the software for this ISP on it.

The user called tech support angered because the after

inserting the disk into her computer she gets all sorts of

errors and her computer won't boot into her operating system.

After some basic trouble shooting it was determined that the

user had attempted to put the CD into her 3 1/2" drive.

She tried really really hard but she just couldn't get it

to fit.

What was her solution?

She went to the garage and got a hammer and pounded the CD

into the 3 1/2" floppy drive.

It totaly destroyed her 3 1/2" drive.

Once this was explained She wanted this ISP to pay for

the replacement of the disk drive.

The representitive laughed and said "no." then hung up the

phone when the user got profane.

I guess this proves that if a user had a hammer,

They'd hammer in the mornin' and they'd hammer in the evenin'

Gotta love call like this.

I work for a Local internet Provider, and my main job is to get

people connected, and get their email. One night after a bad

storm I get this call.

Me: Thanks for calling Technical support, How May I help you?

Customer: Hi, I can't connect.

Me: Ok, lets run through some settings and see what we can come

up with.

C: Well that the thing, I go to turn on my computer, and there

is nothing there, the screen is just black!

Me: ( A little concerned) Ok, is the computer on?

C: No, it won't turn on! I hit the button and nothing happens.

Me: Ok, I want you to look at the back of the computer, is the

power cord plugged into the computer?

C: I don't know... I can't see it.

Me: You can't see it?

C: No it's too dark, and this candle isn't bright enough.

Me: Candle?

C: Yes a Candle

Me: Ok lets turn on the lights so we have the best light available.

C: Well I can't turn them on, the storm knocked out the

electricity.

Me: (Holding back my laughs) Ok, uhh you are not going to be

able to turn on the computer if the electricity is off...

C: Really?

Me: Yes... if there is no electicity, then the computer will not

turn on, let alone connect to the internet.

C: *CLICK*

I hung up the phone, and spent the next few mins laughing my

hed off, and telling the other tech about it!

Hello Tech support!

Hi, i was wondering why i can only connect at 34600kbps with my 56k modem

Do you have an extension coord between your modem and the plug on the wall ? is it long ? good quality ?

Well, sure it is. I've just installed a new Optic cableline for my modem.

You mean you have a CableModem access ?

No no, i just installed a new Optic Line between my modem and the plug on the wall, the Phone Company tech told me i should connect 10 times faster with that new installation, i havent bought their modem because it was too expensive. But i have you Cable modem that i bought from a friend 400$.

You have our Cable Modem, in a area where it is not available ?

Yes, they told me it should be installed soon last time. Anyway the problem is not there. I cannot connect at 56600bps !

True, What is the brand name of your modem ? is it installed with the proper drivers ? What is your system exactly ?

I have a 56kbps HSP modem with a Pent 2-450 with 4HD of 5gigs each and 256ram memory. And that's not all, i dont have a normal Full Tower, i have a Full Tower 6feet high, i'm making a network with my 4 other computers here...

You know that the HSP modems are always having troubles ?

Yeah, but my 56k USR was not downloading 10 times faster then my normal speed, so i've decided to change modem.

Do you have any programs that could interfere with any transmission of Data ? like an AntiVirus ?

Well it should not interfere, i have Norton AntiVirus and i made by myself a translator tool. Each time i type something on the chat or in any window, it's translating it in 3 languages(french, english and spanish).

Everything was working fine with that before... as i know of.

Have you tryed downloading a file directly from our server to know the rate that your modem can reach ?

Well, i've downloaded a website the other day, it took me about 3 minutes only to get to the site of geocities, and i've downloaded some files from the MS website took me 2 hours.

....

(me) Usual Spiel... how can I help you.

(user) I can't get my Email

(me) Ok we'll check your email settings and make sure they are all as they should be. Can you open up your email program please.

(user) I can't I only have one phone line.

(me) You can still open it just click on cancle when it asks you to dial out.

(user) ok.... There its open.

I check all the settings and she had the wrong POP3 Server corrected this.

(me) Ok mame' that should solve your problem I'll send you a test message thou just so you know its working ok.

(user) Ok, do you want me to reply back.

(me) Sure.

I sent her the message and 10 minutes later go a responce.

"Thanks For the Help"

I went for dinner and when i cam back i had 15 messages here is the first few.

"Is this thing working are you getting these?"

"Hello!!!!!"

"Please reply so I know if this is working"

I also had a message on my desk to call her back i assured her it was working fine. After that I guess she added me to her address book because I kept getting chain mail from her.

(me) Usual Spiel... how can i help you.

I get the voice of a young boy likely 12-15 years old

(user) You gotta help me man, I accidently set a picture as my background and I need you to help me get it off!

(me) How did the picture get there?

(user) I was surfing around looking at pictures and I clicked on one of them and somehow it got set as my background.

starting to see exactly what happened I decided to have some fun.

(me) Well whats the picture of?

(user) umm.... well just of a lady.

(me) Ok well in order to get rid of it I need to know what site it came from.

(user) Umm... umm.... sexweasles.com

This point I have to press mute and laugh a little bit.

I Showed him how to change the background and also told him he should goto pepsi's site and set thier logo as background just so that picture wouldn't be shown as IE's Background.

(user) Thanks man my mom would have killed me.

(me) no problem.

One of my colleagues once had trouble deleting an unwanted file using the Word 97 FIle Open dialogue box. She kept getting an "access denied" error message so called the helpdesk.

"This is a bug in Word" she was told. "sometimes it won't let you delete a single file by itself. Highlight 2 or 3 files together and then choose delete and it will be all right"

Fortunately my colleague had more sense than to follow this advise and we deleted the file using Explorer.

I work for a large ISP Help Desk in Canada. One day I took this call.

Me: "Welcome to [ISP] help desk. This is Ian. How may I help you?"

User: "When I try and send and email I get all this junk in the body of my message?"

Me: "What kind of "junk" is that?"

User: starts quoting html code that is in the body...

Me: "Ok, let's check your settings."

Walk client through checking mail settings and identity settings...

Me: "...and what does it say on the line that says 'Signature File:'?"

User: gives path for netscape's handbook.htm

Me: "Remove that path and leave that line blank and it should work for you."

User: "Oh, ok thanks"

You think that the warning message that pops up that says "Your signature exceeds the recommended four lines" would of give the user a clue.

Some people's children...

A friend called me last week, he asked me

-"where can I get me a new mouse the first one I had "is no more", I´we been eating it.

I told him, the next one he shall eat drink Coca cola with.

Although I am not a tech support person I do end up helping some of my friends and people they know when they have trouble with their computers. One day I get a call from somebody who had heard that I could help from a friend of mine.

me:Okey, how can I help you?

Him:I can't find the program that I installed.

me:Hm? What do you mean?

Him: Well I just installed a bunch of software on my machine but now I don't know what is what.

.

.

After 10 minutes of navigating the guy,

.

.

me:Hm?? Okey...what folder do you see on your harddrive?

Him:I can see one folder and that's it.

Well turns out the guy installed all of his software in the system folder of his harddrive......

I used to run the repair center for locally well known computer retailer. One day a man in his early 50's came to the counter with a Mac Powerbook that had seen better days. The case and screen were cracked in numerous places, several keys were missing from the keyboard and the little ring that holds the trackball in place was secured with scotch tape.

The customer says a little huffily, "it doesn't work!"

"I can tell", I answered. "What happened to it?"

"You don't understand!" he says getting angry. "It's worked fine in this condition for eight months!"

A bit surprised I ask him again what happened to it.

Getting impatient he replied, "Well, if you must know it fell out of the overhead compartment on a plane and the damage you see is the result. But it's been working fine all this time! I want to know why it just stopped working!"

I spent the next 20 minutes explaining about friction of the broken parts possibly causing the total failure of the computer. After giving him an top-of-my-head quote on replacement parts, I finally made it clear that it would be cheaper for him to by a new computer and have his data transferred to it than to have his current computer fixed.

And I thought he was cranky when he came in!

User called to say they were receiving a 101 keyboard error and wonder what the error meant. They said that they had accidently spilled a cup of coffee on the keyboard but still wondered what the error message meant?!

We wanted to tell the user the error message meant to add cream and sugar. Sometimes you only get one shot in life......

I for a major Airline as a PC/consultant, and have acsess

to the database in witch The Helpdesk files Troubble ticets.

These are later assigned to a techman.

The error message in this one is quite funny.

it reads:

Error: Configuration/format problems

he (the customer)has returned his Computer because it is broken.

the one that is broken is a HP Laserjet4.

he (customer)is trying to print to another printer, a HP deskjet 890c.

--

I got a bit confused, who`s in deepest waters here? The customer or the Helpdesk.

It`s clear ...It`s not always the customer`s fault.

I got a call from a user in Florida who was about to evacuate his home because of the big hurricane that was expected. He wanted to know if it would be safe to leave his computer plugged in. Would all his data be lost if his house flooded?

I suggested moving the computer to the attic or a second-story room where flooding would probably not be a problem. He asked how he could do this. I replied, "um... you unplug the computer, pick it up and carry it up the stairs." He was very surprised by this concept.

He continued to fret so I finally said, "look, why don't you just put the computer in the car and take it with you when you evacuate?" This idea shocked him even more. "Can I really do that???" he asked. Well, it's YOUR computer, isn't it???? You can do whatever you want with it!!!!

Once I convinced him that these two options were both perfectly possible, he was very relieved and thanked me over and over.

Greetings! Ok, here's another quickie call that I received one Saturday evening.

This lady calls up saying that she's been playing solitaire and two other games

and that they just suddenly disappeared. They are not there anymore. She wanted to know

how to get them back.

I'm thinking, " What the HELL does this have to do with the Internet??"

But what i tell her is to go contact Microsoft since it appears to be a Windows program

and we dont deal with that. (Almost trying not to laff)

I gave her the 800 # and sent her on her lil' way.

The sad thing is, another tech had just spoken to her just a few

minutes ago and told her the same thing. You'd think they'd learn the first time.

My friend from tech. support told me this.

me: Okay i've found your problem. I need you to open my computer.

lady: okay. how do i do that.

me: double click the icon

(i patiantly wait while i hear a tapping sound on glass)

lady: nothing happened

me: try again

lady: nothing (again tapping)

me: what exactly are you doing

lady: i'm picking up my mouse and tapping my mouse against the screen

When my company first started using Windows 3.x, they had everyone attend training sessions to learn how to use these new computers. One of my co-workers was nervous about attending, since she had never touched a computer before, so she asked me for a few pointers before she went to class.

I sat her down in front of one of the machines, and told her to put her hand on the mouse. (She did, so I assumed she had some idea of how the thing worked.) I told her to point the mouse at the Word icon and click. She picked the mouse up from the pad, pointed it at the screen like a gun, and said "click". Oooops. We went back to square one.

We had sold about 100 systems to a company, and after about of week of network install, and system setup. We got the call that one of the machines was not working correctly. We figured that well 1 out 100 system it could happen, so the inital call into us, our guy took down all the information he could, apperently it was a modem problem... (Don't ask, I don't know why this company wanted some individual modem line when they had there own T-1, but I was told it was there Chief Tech's decision.) Well since it was apperently a modem problem, I got the call, since I was the Network Enginner assigned to this project. So I took the call, and ended-up talking to there Chief Tech. After several minutes of this Chief Tech telling me about what he called a Modem Communication Problem (Modem Communi what..., I just giggled. Talk about laying it on thick.) I found out it was the Chief Tech's own machine in his office, he was trying to get his computer to dial out through one of the modem lines. (Heck, I would have been grabbing the T-1 for myself, but to each his own.) So ran him though the standard checks, make sure the phone cables pluged into the back of the wall, look at the modem and make sure the the cable from the wall is plugged into the line jack. After the instructions that I gave him who told me

"What are you some kinda idiot..., how did you ever get that job. I'm trying to get fast Internet, moron."

I just muttered under my breath "Good looks, is how I got the job, and Fast internet, whats this guy smok'in.".

So I buttoned up and asked the man "Sir, where is your modem phone cable plugged into?"

"Stupid where else, its plugged into my 10/100 Network card, so I can get FAST....Internet!!!"

For a second I thought he was going to explode, but after reciving his answer, "Sir let me put you on hold and check to book for this type of Configuration Problem for an answer." With that I put the man on hold, and broke out into a laugh that had half the office running to me door, to see if I was dying. (Ya, dying of laughter.) Well after a few minutes I again talked to the Chief Tech over there and said, "Sir, I've find the answer to your problem, Stupidity." From there I hung up and never heard from the guy again, after my boss had heard the story, I got you were right and wrong speech.

"your were wrong, becuse you should never hang-up on a client" then with a smirk on his face, which finally broke out into laughter. "But you were right in telling him what you did." and with that I broke into a short laugh. Well a week later, I had heard the the Chief Tech was canned. I'll just never get over the words "Fast Internet" without braking into a laugh.

I work for a local ISP. One day I received what was, to say the least, a rather dramatic call...

I was sitting in the office B.S.'ing with the other techs when the phone rang:

Me: (ISP Name), can I help you?

Cust: Yes, I seem to be having some trouble with my email.

Me: Well, let's see what we can do.

Now, up to this point, it had been a fairly average call (he had the wrong pop and smtp servers typed in) when, all of a sudden, humanity's darker side showed itself...

Me: Ok now type in (our smtp server addr.)

(sounds of what might be a little kid wandering into the room and making noise)

Cust: Hang on one second, please. (cups hand over phone, and screams at the top of his lungs): I'M ON THE PHONE!!!!

(sound of kid or whatever it was leaving the room, muted sound of me laughing my @$$ off...)

Cust: Sorry about that. Now what do I type in here...

(all of a sudden, a LOUD crashing sound is heard and then a THUMP as something hits the floor in the background...)

Cust: Hang on a sec--

(more banging and crashing, followed by a woman screaming at the top of her lungs, "YOU F***IN' PIECE OF S**T!!!" then more crashing and then

Cust: I might have to--BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE (dialtone)

I was awestruck. I asked the other techs if I should call 911 before I realized I forgot to get the guy's info. I guess the Internet *can* be dangerous at times...

I have great respect for tech support - I work in retail and

am constantly amazed at the level of stupidity some people

display! For example, while working in an aquarium/fish

shop I have been asked (by a customer standing in the shop)

"Do you sell live fish?" (no, sorry sir, all ours are

robotic!)and "If I shake some table salt into my goldfish

bowl, can I put marine fish in there" (sure you can)and many

more...

But this tale goes to show that ISP's are not foolproof - not

even one of the largest and most respected ISP's DownUnder.

When I first purchased a computer all of my own I signed up

casual internet access with this ISP- a high hourly rate, but

with no monthly fee. After a while I found I was using quite

a few hours every month and it was getting quite expensive,

so I looked at going on a monthly plan. Before I did so,

however, an email from the ISP turned up with a special offer

for unlimited access at a low monthly fee. To sign up I just

had to reply to the message and, within two working days my

account would be changed over. There were no other instructions.

Feeling very pleased with this unusual good fortune I replied

immediately.

The next day I attempted to dial in, but recieved the error

message that my password was incorrect. As my login script

executes automatically I knew my password had to be correct -

It worked just the day before! But I retyped it anyway, made

sure it was all lowercase, all the usual BS... but still no

luck. I gave up and tried the next day - still no go.

Thinking maybe there were server problems I tried to call the

ISP's customer support line - but gave up after a 45min wait.

The next day I still could not log on, and tried again to call.

This time, success! After another half hour wait an operator

finally answered. I explained my problem and he checked through

my settings - none of which I'd changed - but he spotted the

problem straight away: "You've got the wrong dial-up number"

Sorry? Turns out for my new account I had to dial into a

different server than I had been for casual access. He gave

me the correct number and as soon as I'd hung up I tried it.

Voila! And, amazingly enough, amidst the emails I downloaded

was one from my ISP telling me:

"Your account has now been upgraded....

You will have to change your dial-up number to xxxx-xxxx"

Unfortunatly, I had to know that BEFORE I could get the

email... Unless ofcourse I downloaded it via esp, ofcourse!

Anyway, keep up the good work - I really enjoy reading the

techtales!