Funny and Humorous Technical Support Tales and Stories

Many years ago, when female tech support people were a real oddity,

I found myself managing a tech support and QA division for

a small software publishing house. My boss, a brilliant but volatile

human being from Argentina (this IS important!) was hanging around

my office going over reports when the following call came in (I took it

because our agents were gone for the day and we were too poor

to afford a "real" ACD system.

Me: Thank you for calling "blah" tech support, how may I help you?"

Cust: Lemme talk to a tech support rep!"

Me: You are. How may I help you, sir?

Cust: No! Lemme talk to tech support analyst.

Me: You are. How may I help you tonight.

Cust: Look! Don't you pull that crap on me! I paid good money for this software and I want to talk to a tech support engineer.

Me: Sir, I am a tech support engineer. In fact, I am the tech support manager!

Cust: Yeah right!

My boss pipes in at this point with a questioning look on his face:

Boss: What's this #$%# problem?

Me: He doesn't believe I'm the manager.

Boss: Okay...let me talk to him--I'll sort him out.

Me: Cool! (I'm tired and ready to go home--let boss handle it)

Me: Okay, sorry about the wait, I'll let you talk to someone in authority now.

Cust: Well! It's about TIME!

Me: Please hold for the supervisor.

After transferring call to my boss, who has customer on speakerphone...

Boss: 'Allooo???:

Cust: Are you tech support? I demand you help me with #$@%!

Boss: Sorry...its not my job! All is closed now!

Cust: ????!

Boss: We go for business 8AM-5PM--you call back then? Yes?

Cust: @#$%@!! what about my tech support?

Boss: I yust mop floors here, yes?"

Cust: ***sound of phone handset hitting switch-hook***

Boss was pretty darned brilliant programmer and entrepeneur who also

happened to be from Argentina--it is a miracle that customer

didn't hear my none-too-svelte body hitting the floor in absolute hysterics.

I was reading your techtales and I came across one that

read a bit familiar. When I checked out the author I noticed

that it was written by the guy across the hall from me about

an incident I had with an international student earlier this

fall.

I decided to submit the sequel about how he "misplaced"

his RAM. His word, not mine. He actually came up to me

and another friend of mine and asked us "Have you

seen my RAM? I think it fell out of my computer." His

fujitsu was missing a 32 MB DIMM(Out of 64) because one of

the people he was living with got pissed off at him and

uninstalled it from his laptop about a month ago.

I don't know how many of you out there are familiar with

the Fujitsu, but the RAM is stored underneath the keyboard,

beneath a panel that has to be unscrewed, and is overall

kept in place very securely. You should have seen him

searching the floor underneath his computer for it.

I work for the IM department at an aerospace company and am constantly amused

by the things that the users come up with for example taking a call to go and adjust

a monitor. But one that I found particularly humorous was last week when I was setting

up a new computer for a user and after jumping through a bunch of hoops to get the data

off her old machine. (she had deleted all the files that she did not need or want the next

person who got the machine to have, including some system files) I had just finished and was

preparing to leave when she stopped me and said "stop, I thought I told you I needed a left handed

mouse". I replied "yes maam and that's what I set you up with I configured the mouse for the left side

of the keyboard and everything". She said the cursor was still going to the right. "It's not a left handed

mouse unless the cursor angles that way."

...

customer- it says drive d is not accessible

tech- do you have the cd in?

customer- yes

tech- is the shiny side down or up?

customer- up why?

tech- place it down and try again.

customer- it worked!

I work for an Internet Tehnical support desk, One evening I took the following call.....

Me: Thank-you for calling XXXXXX internet, How may I

help you?

Cust: Yes, I'm having some trouble installing your software

on my system.

me: What seems to be the error message or the difficulty

that you are experiencing?

Cust: Well I get halfway through the installation of your

software and I get an "Out of disk space error".

After Finding out how many available MB of drive space she

had left on her system. (12 MB).

Me: Ma'am the minimum requirments for our software

installation is 100MB. You will need to free up

some space on your hard drive in order to install the

software.

Cust: Can you help me go through the files on the system

and remove anything that I don't need?

Me: Sure, Lets open the Windows Explorer and look at the

files you have installed.

After removing some simple temp files and other useless

objects we came across an obscure directory.

Me: What is the name of the directory Ma'am?

Cust: It says (spelling) X-P-I-C-S.

Do I need this directory?

Me: Well Its not a crucial system folder. Lets look

inside.

Cust: It's filled with 120 files and uses 178MB of space.

The files end in JPG and BMP.

Me: OK MAM, Whatever you do don't....

Cust: OH, MY LORD! (Pause)

(Strange shuffling noise)

How do I get rid of this?

Me: (Knowing what she was looking at, or at least I

could imagine) Just click on the X in the top

right hand corner Ma'am.

Cust: Ok!

Two seconds later I hear.

Cust: OH, MY LORD!

Me: Ma'am maybe you shouldn't click on the files

anymore!

Cust: I'm so Embarrased.

I want these off my system NOW!

So we delete the entire folder and all the sub directories

on the drive. Removeing someones hidden collection of PICS

and movied.

***********3 Hours Later***************

To Keep a longer story short. three hours later I get a call from a man with the same account name asking for me.

He blasted me on the phone for 20 mins for removing what

he called his only reason for living!

Strange the things we deal with!

This is not so much a tech support tale as a practical joke I played on our office staff for April Fool's Day. I hope it qualifies.

I'm the systems administrator in an office of about 20 people, and I often have to nag people to get things done. This email (below) was sent on April 1 last year.

From: Hughes, Pat

Subject: Spring (monitor) Cleaning

Date: 4/01/98 Time: 7:03a

Hi.

In celebration of the arrival of spring, I'd like to ask everyone to help me out with the one thing I know you're all just dying to do - clean! Moreover, clean your computer!

In this case, I don't mean the ordinary routine of wiping off the dust (although if you have the urge, feel free). Recently we received a policy update from Occupational Health & Safety regarding an issue with computer monitors.

We need to go over a bit of detail on how monitors work in order to explain this problem. Basically a monitor operates like a television screen. One or more "electron guns" fire electrons toward the face of the display. When these electrons hit, they release energy and illuminate a tiny spot on the screen, called a pixel. On average, we're talking about close to 500,000 pixels composing your display image, kind of like the dots of ink that compose a photograph in the newspaper. Electromagnets control the path of these electron beams in the monitor, moving them around so that the entire face of the display screen is reached.

Due to imperfections in the fabrication process, not all of the electrons actually reach the face of the display screen. Most of those that don't are deflected on their way through one of several "masks" inside the monitor, which are used to improve image sharpness. According to the OH&S report, those deflected electrons accumulate inside the monitor and, over time, can substantially weaken the structural integrity of the plastic monitor housing.

This brings us to the matter of cleaning up. The OH&S report provides a protocol for safe cleaning of accumulated electrons, which I have paraphrased here:

1. Turn the computer off and disconnect the monitor from the power source (unplug it)

2. Start at the upper front portion of one side of the monitor. Using a gentle motion, repeatedly tap the side of the monitor, starting at the top and progressing toward the bottom. This should free any accumulated electrons, which will fall harmlessly to the bottom of the plastic housing.

3. Repeat step 2 for the opposite side of the monitor.

When you have completed this process, call me and I will come by your office with the vacuum cleaner. I can vacuum out the offending particles through the venting areas in the plastic housing. For those of you off-site, if you have a vacuum cleaner, please do the same. You can call me if you have any questions.

According to OH&S, this process should be repeated every spring at around this time. Don't worry about remembering to do so, though - that's my job. I'll forward these instructions to you again next year at this time.

Thanks for your help!

P.S. If you have a laptop, don't worry about this cleaning process. The display technology is completely different, and isn't vulnerable to deflected electron buildup.

-Pat :)

I received 4 calls that day, and one about a week later (someone was on holidays) asking if they could use the vacuum cleaner. Nobody was more surprised than I that it worked!

I was working at a Pro Audio shop a few years back here in Toronto, when I received a distress call from a doctor who

had purchased a cassette deck from us and was having trouble

getting his cassette into the machine.

The conversation went something like this:

ME: "First, open the cassette door. There's a button

just to the left of the window. Press it."

DOCTOR: "OK, the door opened".

ME: "Good. Now slide the cassette into the door, with the end with the tape exposed going first".

DOCTOR: "It doesn't fit".

ME: "Is there a tape in there already?"

DOCTOR: "No."

ME: "Are you inserting the end with the tape first?".

DOCTOR: "What do you mean 'tape'?"

ME: "Look at the cassette. At one end you can see

the audio tape exposed."

DOCTOR: "I don't see it."

ME: "Describe the tape."

DOCTOR: "Well, it's rectangular, about the size of a deck of cards".

ME: "OK. Are there two holes on it?" (thinking it might be an 8-track tape) .

DOCTOR: "No."

ME: "Where did you get the tape?"

DOCTOR "I just bought it at (record store withheld)".

ME: "Sir, you have to REMOVE IT FROM THE CASE!!!"

Before today I would at least have trusted the customer to

be somewhat intellegent but no more. I am not even going

to take for granted that they can tie their own shoes properly.

I work for a large ISP. A woman calls asking for help setting

up an account. Just getting her onto the desktop was hell enough,

so I was going to brush her off by just getting her the software

sent out and telling her to call back. Unfotunately someone had

told her that our software comes pre-loaded with windows through

the online services folder. She knew this and asked me to set it

up this way. I told her that online services installs to the

desktop by default. After 5 minutes of hard looking I asked

" And where are you looking for this folder again ? " I had

assumed that when I said desktop she would assume that a folder

would install in the computer. No. She was looking ON THE TOP

OF HER DESK, in around the keyboard and mouse. She went straight

to the software order desk after that. I really hope she walks

infront of a truck before those discs arrive in the mail.

Immediately after that call I was asked the question :

"What do you mean Win3.1x and Win95 aren't the same thing?"

Needless to say I jetted out of there and sucked back 2

ciggarettes in the cafeteria after those calls. AHHHHHH !

I saw this on a message board on AOL...

Hello, I have a problem with my floppy drive. When I put a piece of paper, dollar bill, piece of balogna, or a disk into my floppy drive, it starts emitting smoke. Does anyone know what could be wrong? I'd really appreciate it. My father is getting mad.

A colleage and I who work together at many times work hand in hand with our IT department. SO we constantly exchange stories. But this one fine sunny day was the best. Our IT helpdesk lady answers an inhouse call.

(well i cannot remeber which of the three but it was Linda, Katrina, Alanna) SO they should get all the credit.)

Agent: Thank you for calling the IT helpdesk.My name is

******. How may I help you.

Executive: Hi. I wonder if you could help, my coffee cup holder is no longer working.

Agent: "COffee cup holder?????

Executive : " Yes, It was working all the time and suddenly now it does not work anymore.

Agent: Well that is certainly unussual........

Executive: " yess it is, suddenly there today it does not work.......(sounding REALLY concerned!!!)

Agent: Ok we will send someone down immediatly.

(One of the guys went down. )

When he came back up it took many MOONS to stop him laughing.HAHAHAHA_HAAA_HAAA HEEEEE HOO HA....

It appears that our " Executive" had this coffee cup holder.....you know kinda like the one you push the button on in the car and it automaticaly opens so that you could place your Coca cola can on whilst driving.(can holder)

The IT guys prefered to call this device a CD Rom player!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(No wonder it was stuffed)

On behalf of our It helpdesk ( Linda, Katrina and Allana)

David and Lourens

I am tech support for a large ISP, I recently had a call that went like this

Thank you for calling....my name is ???? How may I help you

User: Your f#*^&ing software wrecked my computer, everytime I try to connect my monitor turns green, than black and than blue!

Me: Hmmm...do you have microsoft internet explorer 4?

User: Yes

Me: did you install the active desktop?

User: Yes

Me: That's it, pretty cool right?

(customer was than referred to microsoft tech support :))

HA!

S: Hello! Welcome to techsupport!

C: Hi! We,ve just assebled our new cuputer that we bought at your store.

S: Yes, and what seems to be the problem?

C: We.ve just attached all the cords but there is still one that remains.

S: What does i look like?

C: It comes out of the harddrive and we don't know where the oter end schould go.

S: (whith some panic in his vioce) From the harddrive?!...... Have you opend the computer.

C: What do you mean? It just hangs out from the harddrive.

S: ...... Have you opned the computer?

C: I don't understand, but no i don't think so?

S: Let's go over the different parts of the computer.

You have the keyboard with all the buttons and the monitor?

C: Yes, the keyboard and the computer.

S: The monitor is the ting that you get the pictures on.

C: Aha, okey!

S: And then you have the big grey box on the floor - thats the computer.

C: Aha, the harddrive. Thats the place where the cord is hanging from..........

I now do tech support but I used to be a secretary.

At my last clerical job, there was a fellow secretary

wasn't too bright when it came to computers. Before

I left the company, they were in the process of getting

everyone networked and I had to explain to her the concept

of network drives versus her local drive. I thought she had

it down until one of my friend from that office relayed this

story to me.

The network had gone down (as usual for this place)

and this secretary had all of her data stored on one

of the network drives. She was pitching a fit because

she needed the network up and she needed it up NOW. My

fried tried to convince her to just work off of her c:

drive because that's where all her applications were stored.

She could always copy her document to the network drive

when it was available. The secretary's response:

"But I HAVE to work on the network in case my C drive crashes!"

...once I was on help desk at the company where

I currently work when a lady called with a server

problem. I went through a few troubleshooting tips

and asked the lady: "Is the server hanging?". The

reply was: "No, its on the desk".

I had a possibly inbread caller call up.

me : thanks for calling xxxxx can I get the number please

c: uhm yeah 555-555-5555 (this is the number they actually gave me at first)

me : o.k. what is your real number

c : xxx-xxx-xxx (give me the real number)

(skip to getting the serial number which for the average user takes about 1-2 minutes)

me : it is on the side of the computer

c: flips over keyboard to read it under the keyboard.

me : no on the side of the the computer where you plugged in the keyboard

c : can't see it

me : o.k. go to (give instructions on how to get the serial number from within the OS)

c: huh? what is the mouse?

(this continues for about 20 minutes I finally give up and get to the problem)

me : how may I help you?

c: my gave xxx won't work

me : what error does it give you

(customer was a woman , now gives the phone to her son who couldn't be more than 8)

c : couldn't load data file during installation

me : o.k. ... are you trying to install the game or what?

c: yeah.

me : take out the cd and look at the back (I was checking for scratches)

c: o.k. there is my tic-tac-toe game

me : huh?

c : I like the o in the middle and wanted to play so I took a paper clip and played against my mom.

(I was training someone and they started laughing very loudly)

me : take the Cd back to the store it appears to be a bad CD

c : o.k. (hangs up)

my trainnee - Does this always happen?

I work for a small ISP doing tech support, earlier this week I had a phone call from a user who was using Windows 3.1.

The previous Friday my boss had sent him diskettes with a dialer on them so he could connect to our servers. So after almost 20 minutes of telling him how to click buttons and what to type in what exact blank we finished the internet setup and I was feeling ok about it. Well little did I know that there was more to come. Since the user had two phone lines I proceeded to have him try to dail up to our service, but he recieved an error message that said the computer couldn't find the modem. I proceeded to ask, "Sir do you have a modem?"

He said, "Yes,"

I asked, "Did you install the modem?"

He said, "Yes,"

I asked, "Sir would you mind telling me how you installed the modem?"

He said, "We plugged it into the computer and then into the phone line,"

I (Smiling to myself) said, "did you install any software?"

"No,"

I asked, "Did you recieve any CDs or disks with the modem?"

He told me, "Yes there was a CD."

Since the user didn't have a CD-rom drive that was pointless so I explained to him that I needed to find him a modem driver online and hopefully it would fit on a 3.5" disk so I could mail it to him.

Well a few minutes later he called back and said, "I do have a slot on my computer, I put the CD in there, but I had to tip the hard drive sideways to get it out,"

Don't ask me how I explained to him that it was a 5" floppy disk drive he had just put the CD into without laughing.

I do technical support for a ISP, and as the rest of you tech's now, we get lots of newbies calling in. Well one day, I just got this call from some old man in Florida. I said the opening statement, and asked the customer for his last name. He gave me all his information, and asked him how could I help him. The funny thing though is that while I was on the call, I heard cars honking and people talking in the background. Well the problem the customer was having was he did not know how to disconnect from the internet, that is drop the connection. I asked the customer sir are you in front of the computer ? He replied no I am on a public phone calling you, because I don't know how to disconnect. And I need to make some calls but my phone just wont let me dial. At that point I hit the mute button and start to break up in laughter. I released mute and told the customer just to shut his computer off, and sent him away.

These are the lyrics I wrote one morning after a night of dealing with the computorially challenged. All of us who have been in the trenches will find this funny. Civilians don't seem to get it (then again, it is about them after all)

Sung to the tune of "If I only had a Brain" (from the "Wizard of Oz")

I could set up my computer

like any basic user

configure my domain

On the modem I'd be dialin'

In my browser I'd be stylin'

If I only had a brain

I would surf the web in excess

get software with my access

check email with disdain

All the pages would be flickin'

and my mouse would be a-clickin

if I only had a brain

Oh I, could tell you why

my modem doesn't seem to dial

I could make a server go and recompile

and I could load an ascii file.

Oh I lack the needed IQ

To tell you how I dial to

your server in LA

I will blame it on your system

or some other stupid reason

Since I do not have a brain

I worked (for a very short time) in an on-campus computer

lab at a largish university. One day, a girl comes up to

the desk and says,"Can you help me? I was typing and it

suddenly got all small." So I went to her computer not quite

knowing what to expect. When I got there, I found Word

running in a very small window. She had apparently clicked

the Restore Down button by accident. As I maximized the

window for her, I caught a quick glimpse of a resume,

"Computer experience: Familiar with Windows 95"

Doh!

I am a Field Engineer for a worldwide data communications/ networking manufacturer. In the state where I work, one of our larger accounts is a regional mega bank (XYZ Bank). We provided the leased line analog modems for their teller terminals and ATMs at each branch.

I was paged a call to install two modems the next day at a new branch aproximately 70 miles from where I live. Being the cautious and thorough person that I am, I call the Network Operations Center at the bank's headquarters to make sure that they had shipped the equipment to the site and that the local phone company had installed the dedicated lines for the modems.

Me: Hi this Joe Blow from ______. I'm scheduled to install some modems for a new branch (ticket# yada yada) and I just wanted to verify that the equipment's on site and the circuits have been installed. Could you please confirm this for me?

[the network technician gets rather irritated by my question]

Tech: Why wouldn't they be? We scheduled you didn't we?

Me: Well it can't hurt to check right?

Tech: I don't need to check! I traced the shipment yesterday and it HAS been recived and the phone company confirmed the install completion this morning. What time will you be there? This install needs completed ASAP the branch manager wants the ATM running today. Don't be late because the ATM vendor will be on site waiting for you.

Me: No problem, I'll be there in about an hour. Thanks for your help. [click] JERK!

I then hop in the van and drive to the city where the new branch will be. It's located on the main "commercial business" drag so I shouldn't have any problems finding it. Right on time. I'm driving down the street reading addresses off the buildings looking for the bank branch. Gettin' close.........almost there.......should be right past this light.............nothing! Assuming I missed it, I turn around and make another pass. Should be...right around......here............nothing.

I'm now a half hour late and I'm starting to think that I was given the wrong address (happens once in a while). I should probably call Network to confirm the address.....nah....that guy was being a jerk. I'll drive by again.

I turn around and head down the street again while paying close attention to the addresses on the buildings. It has to be right HERE! I then see the sign in the vacant lot which reads "FUTURE HOME OF XYZ BANK"! They hadn't even broke ground yet! I laughed my ass off for a few minutes as I realized that all the talk from the network tech had been a complete load of bull.

This was gonna be a fun phone call!

This call seem weird to me. .

Well, the call began in the traditional manner, name, number,

product information. Here's how the rest of the call went.

Cus: I need some information on your printers.

Me: (Smiling)Ok. what info can I give you.

Cus: Well, I've reading on your printers. I saw that there ink is

water-based. Does your company make waterproof ink?

The reason he wanted waterproof ink is he works at a dock.

Me: (In shock)I'm not sure, let me check some resources on this.

Well after three tries, I didn't find anything on waterproof ink.

I told the customer. He thank me and went on his way.

This is a story from the other side of the help desk...

I'm a computer science major at a really tiny midwestern university. Our Information Technology (IT) department, maintains the computer labs and helps students with their computer problems (installing hardware, upgrading software, etc). For the most part, the department is *not* staffed by CS majors. This was proven admirably earlier this month...

My dorm finally got wired so that students with their own computers would be able to access the school network through an ethernet nic instead of a modem dialup. IT was installing the ethernet nics at cost, but I thought I'd put my own in to save time. I also was installing some additional memory. I called them to see if I could borrow a grounding strap for the afternoon. The secretary had no idea what I wanted, so I had her transfer me to one of the student workers who was doing installations. He didn't know either, but he transferred me to his boss (not a student). He told me that they didn't use grounding straps, or anything else similar, because it really wasn't necessary for either of the installations I was describing.

And to think... he's got a masters in this stuff.

While doing tech support for a database software company a few years ago,

I had the pleasure of supporting one customer who had an unusual grasp of the english language.

She was struggling with a program that automatically deleted records from a database.

In her very 60-hippe stoner voice, she said

"I cannot release the data from captivity."

When I inquired about the code that was supposed to do the job, she said

"I don't know, it's deeply in the midst of language"

Yeah.

I am not tech support but I'm one of three people in my office who know a little something about Macs. We have several, ranging from Classics to G3s. The older ones go to those who only do word processing, the newer ones go to the typesetters.

We have an employee who has been in school for over a year, taking a Mac class. A few weeks after she got her Performa, she asked me if I turn off my modem every night when I leave work.

"I don't have a modem," I said.

"Oh," she said. "I just wondered. I turn off my computer and the little light on the modem is still on. I wondered whether it is supposed to be turned off."

Knowing she didn't have a modem either, I looked at her, puzzled. "What do you mean?"

"This light here," she said, tapping the hard disk case.

This Mac student had been turning off her monitor, leaving the hard disk running. She didn't know the difference between a modem and a hard disk, despite her schooling.

A few years ago, a user called IT stating her password expired. We got this a lot from users who ignore the password expiration warnings. Anyways, I reset her password and a had her enter a new one. The system kept stating her password had been used previously. I told her that she cannot use the same password twice in a row and to pick a new one. She stated she could not think of another password to use. I told her there are thousands of words in the english language. She replied 'I don't know all the words'. I just walked away shaking my head.

I worked in the computer support department for a large company who uses Eudora as their email client.

One gentleman with a strong East Indian accent called and said he cannot get his mail.

I had him check the settings, quit out of Eudora, try some other things out. When it was time to see

if he could get email I said "Ok now open Eudora."

His reply was "Ju want me to open my door?"

ROTFLMAO!

Greetings once again. I'll give the short version of this call.

Customer calls in getting a bad username/pass error when trying to connect.

Instantly check to see for errors, which is the case most the time. NO exception here.

The guy had put in one of our IP address for his username.

(Hrrmm. NOT going to work monkeyboy!)

Told him his current prob. and had him put in correct username.

He connected fine and sent him on his merry "clueless" way.

8)

*I love this job*

Once there was a construction company who gave their workers a financial program so they can buy them self computers. They all bought them at the shop where I work.

We had many "funny" stories and problems these particular customers had but one of them was pretty interesting.

One of them comes in saying his Microsoft Mouse is not scrolling well. So we plugged it in on one of our system and tested the mouse, it was working fine. So one of my co-workers told me to plug the mouse in front on the demo computer and show him that it's working. We did that. The Client sits down, and did something pretty strange, it was very hard for us not too lough and stay professional: He held his mousepad under his elbow for comfort, and scrolled the mouse on the screen.

After doing this tiny little test with the client, we figured out the mouse was not the problem.

Many years ago, when personal computers and computerized test equipment was still new, I was responsible for software and hardware support at a large fuel-injection manufacturer's R&D division. We had a digital oscilloscope which could capture data, analyze it, and store it on floppy diskette. I worked with one of the engineers to create a very complex analysis program. This engineer's boss borrowed his diskette (with the program) to use for a weekend's testing. He returned it, and, to make sure the engineer found it, the boss stuck it to the file cabinet with a magnet. The only thing that kept him from violence was the fact that I had a backup.

In the late 70's, I used to work on aircraft radios and otrher navigation instruments. One day, I was working on a DME (Distance Measuring Equipment) transceiver, when George, the shop foreman, walked over and said "the pilot is in a hurry, how much longer?"

"Just a few minutes. I just replaced ---- (a common problem in that unit)." I flipped the power on, and the chip I'd just replaced literally blew apart--I'd installed it in the reverse direction. An understandable mistake, because this chip was the only one which faced the opposite way of all the other chips. The foreman glared at me, and grabbed the soldering iron from me. "get another chip," he ordered, "and I'll replace it this time."

I brought him the new chip; he soldered it in, and mumbling about how someone could be so careless, flipped the power on. Blam! The new chip blew up, too. He'd made the same mistake. "Get me another chip," he said, "and shut your f-----g mouth."

I came back with the chip. "It's the last one in stock, George." We must have checked the placement twelve times each beofre we powered it up. Thankfully, the DME hummed into life, locked on, and passed all tests with flying colors.

A few jobs back, I worked in the automation division of an electrical wholesaler, where we sold industrial PC's. I did technical support and integration and we had four salesmen working in the office. One of the dullest tools was always having problems with his PC. One day I heard him screaming at the top of his lungs "No! No! Stop!"

I walked over to his desk and inquired what was happening.

"My (Windows) icons are disappearing! Make it stop!"

Noticing a familiar beeping from the computer, I reached over and removed the edge of his clipboard (on which he'd been writing an order) from the delete key on the keyboard. By this time, all of the icons were gone from his desktop.

"What do I do now?" He asked.

"You're screwed." I said. "Reinstall Windows."

A nice little one for yas...and yes I'm another one of the slave army of stressed out ISP techies around the world

A call I had tonight:

(the approximate dialogue starts just after answering the the call and verifying our customer's username)

ME: And what operating system are you using Mr Blah Blah..Win95, Win98 etc..

CALLER: Err...Win96 I think.

ME: No problem Sir...

(At this stage the mute key comes in and I repeat to the chagrin of fellow colleagues...We now have a Microsoft Windows 96 operating system to deal with) :-)

Jason (keep solving the problems it's our only relief...)

At my last job, our server's hard drive was far too small, and, since we had a service contract, the boss just called them up and asked them to install a secondary drive. The tech came out, and, after about two hours of looking blank, he showed me the drive and said "I've looked at the specs for two hours and I can't figure out how to set this as the 'slave' drive."

I looked at it and said "that's because this system uses SCSI drives, not IDE drives."

He looked even more blank, so I ended up spending 30 minutes explaining about SCSI addresses. I finally showed him how to set up the jumpers, etc. All totalled, he spent four hours there, and burned almost two hours of my time.

When my boss got a bill that showed an extra 3 hours of time (the service contract only covered 1 hour for the installation), he asked me what had happened. When I explained the situation, he wrote them an invoice for two hours of my time, with an explanation, and sent it off. The next bill we got didn't include their tech's extra time.

Just a few stories of my years working with the complete Lusers who supply the retail stores with bussiness.

Beat Some Sense Into It

Customer: Hi, I need a new display.

ME: Ok, we have these monitors for sale.

Cust: Will it fit on a compaq?

ME: Sure, monitors fit in standard ports, what exactly do you need?

Cust: I dunno, but all these look too big (even the 14").

ME: OK, what size are you looking for?

Cust: Well it needs to fit on a laptop....my son got mad at a game and punched the display. It doesn't seem to work right now, and I just want to get a replacement.

Not a Clue

Customer comes in and buys a motherboard, ram and processor. He drops about $600 on the upgrade items. I ask him if he wants me to set the jumpers and such on the motherboard for his processor. He looks real condescending at me and say he knows all about computer hardware and he can do it all himself.

Later, he comes back saying we sold him c*** and wants to exchange it. I give him no problems and give him a new motherboard. Next day wife call and starts cursing me out. She demands that we give the money back, because all of the equipment they bought are trash. She says she is coming in with the PC and we had better take the parts back.

She shows up very steamed. I pop open the cover and smell the residue of burnt chips. In front of her I do a cursury exam-- the motherboard was screwed DIRECTLY to the case (no standoffs), the ram in backwards and the power supply leads reverse. I show this all to her and explain that we cannot warranty items incorrectly installted. She looks even more steamed but just says, I kill my stupid husband.

While working at a small PC shop, I have run had call like this several times.

Senario: customer get PC back after having work done.

ME: PC SHOP, can I help you.

CUST: Yeah, I just got my computer back from you morons, and now it won't work.

ME: What is the PC doing?

CUST: I won't turn on, you guys must have screwed it up.

ME: OK, you did turn on the power and plug it right?

CUST: Yeah, it is just dead.

ME: What power button are you using to turn on the computer?

CUST: The one I have always used, on the surge protector....

Of course ocassionally there would be the customer who would swear forever that the PC doesn't or never had a power button before. I always wondered how they intially powered up the PC.

Me: Ok, what type of system are you running?

Client: Compaq P50

Me: (grinding teeth)errr...no, that's your monitor model!

Anytime a client refers to their system unit as their

"hard drive", it's gonna be a long call.

Anytime you can't figure out from the client's responses

if they are running a desktop system or a laptop system,

it's gonna be a long call.

Anytime you find yourself saying, "Now, hold down the (shift)

key and press the key immediately to the right of the 'L'

key"...it's gonna be a long call.

It's gonna be a long call when you ask the client if they

are having problems printing to a network or a local printer,

and from there you are asking if there is a fat cable running

from the computer to the printer, or a "phone line" running

from the printer to a "phone jack". It's gonna be a long call.

If they can't tell you, it's gonna be excruciating.

Any call that starts out with "I'm using Jack's machine today

and I want to get my e-mail, but now Jack's

e-mail is mixed up with mine", and you're running MS Exchange...

is gonna be a long call.

Anytime a client calls wanting access to their "N" drive,

and they can't tell you what share or server they need to

access...it's just the "N" drive...it's gonna be a long call.

Anytime a secretary calls the Help Desk and starts off with

"My boss told me to click here to set up ODBC, but it doesn't

seem to be working right..." you're gonna miss lunch--gauranteed!

I answered the phone, doing tech support for an internet provider. After the initial introduction, confirming information, etc, I asked how I could help him.

"What do I do with these floppy disks your company sent me?"

Well normally we send out a CD but have floppies available for people with older systems.

"What kind of computer do you have?"

"An iMac."

Well besides the obvious (iMac has no floppy drive), I found this especially amusing because the Mac floppy set should only be used for OS 7.5.1 and below and can actually damage the newer systems. iMacs have a minimum of 8.1 (the rev. a's) and most have 8.5.

We do corporate multimedia presentations - this one was for

an agency who were bidding for a multi-million dollar deal,

so it rated close to a 10 on the importance scale.

I knew nothing of this at the time I was told to go to the

address "NOW!" to make sure everything went smoothly. I

remained in ignorance as I checked the laptop to make sure

it played .mpg and .wav files properly, and I must admit

that I was somewhat disconcerted by the sheer number of

our production staff and management who were also present.

Having proven to everyone's satisfaction that everything

was working as it should, I returned to base.

Later I asked out of curiosity more than anything, "So, what

was all that about?". "Oh, the CD audio died, so we had to

burn a new one five minutes before showtime - but we now

think the original laptop has a fault, because the CD

played fine on my desktop".

So I checked the laptop.

To this day, I've told nobody in the company that the

person responsible for the presentation neglected to turn

the Volume thumbwheel on the Toshiba, I just said I'd

fixed it and left it at that...

I work as a pc tech for a company, and was stopped by the

person working the help desk at the end of a day. It seems that

a new employee (Mr X) was complaining about his screen looking

"fuzzy" and being hard to read. It seems that myself and

another tech had formatted and reinstalled the machine to

remove all the junk that the manufacturer had placed there.

The next day I wandered over, and the new guy was in a meeting.

I hopped in his chair, and yes, there was a bit of "fuzzyness"

to the picture.

I corrected the problem and wrote back to the help-desk

(who had not seen the machine and was relying on Mr X's

descriptions of the problem) the following solution:

"This ticket can be closed.

I performed a maintanance operation on the viewing area

of the Cathiode Ray Tube, consisting of merging said CRT

with a standard chemical solution for removing airborne

and tactile residue.

(IE - I cleaned the monitor screen)"

About twelve years ago, I returned to college to get an engineeering degree. I took a co-op job to help out with tuition. I was actually working in an electronics lab, but I quickly got a reputation as being a "computer expert." One of the techs came to me and asked me if I could help her with her friend's computer. It seems her friend (a secretary in another office) couldn't get her computer to work.

When I got there, the screen was displaying the message "Bad or missing command intepreter".

I took out the floppy disks (this machine had an awsome 20 MB hard drive) and booted. Although she was supposed to be running DOS 3.3, command.com was a 2.x version. Also, her autoexec.bat and config.sys files referred to A:\, not C:\. I questioned her on EXACTLY what she'd done. She had this game diskette from her home computer that she liked to use. A friend had given it to her. All she needed to do was put the diskette in and reboot, and it took her straight intot he gamr. Well, she wanted to play it during her off time at work, so she put it in drive A: and typed copy a:\*.* c:\. Of course, all the files from this bootable diskette ended up replacing her regular files.

I wrote a quick batch file to move all the files she'd copied from the game to a sub-dreictory, sys'd the hard drive and reconstructed the autoexec.bat and config.sys files (thank God the person who'd set it up had made backups), then marked commad.com as a read-only system file. When all was said and done, she still wanted to play her game.

I suggested she leave the games at home, and cautioned her against copying anything to the company machines without clearing it with the IT deaprtment. She wasn't pleased with that, but at least she was thankful her computer worked.

In the early 80's, our R&D lab purchased several IBM PC's with 20-40 MB hard drives. Oneof the engineering managers called me up one day and asked me if I could help him with his system. He was tring to install some software, and kept getting the error "cannot create file." The system was reporting 30+ MB free, but wouldn't let him create any files.

I typed "dir" and watched files scroll by, and scroll by, and scroll by. He had 1022 (if I remember correctly) files in his root, and no subdirectories. The DOS manual stated quite palinly that that was all the fioles you could have off the root. I tried to explain that to him and he was quite insistent that that was a dumb way to do it. I finally explained that he needed to set up sub-directories for each program, yadda-yadda-yadda. He had one of the interns do it for him.

In the early 80's, our R&D department bought several IBM PC's with hard drives. One of the engineering managers asked me about tape backup systems. I explained what they wwere for, what they cost, etc. He said "that's an awful lot of money." I asked him how much data was stored on the computers. "Oh, about six months' worth."

"And if the hard drive crashes, what would it cost to reconstruct?"

"I don't know?"

"Well, do you still have the raw data?"

"No, that's too sensitive to keep around, so we shred it as soon as it's entered."

"So, if the hard drive crashes, you'll need to rerun six months of your team's work. That's a lot more expensive than a tape drive."

He never did buy a tape drive. He just had an intern spend all day Friday swapping out 360K floppies to back up the hard drive. Of course, floppies were expensive, too, so they only had one set....

Love the site!

I am the families' and Dorm tech support and I have a few stupid stories f my own to relate.

For chem class we were in the computer lab using a molecular

modeling program andjust had to resize the window. Teacher gave us printed instructions, I was insulted every one can rezise a window, until a gril leans over and asks " How do I resize the window?

###################

In the dorm my roomate's friend got a new computer, bought the ethernet card and I went to install it.

I ask him to have it booted when I get there and he said he couldnt because it was still in the boxes not hooked up!

Gateways have directions and color codings!!! it went downhill from there.

Hi, it's Israel online. (So please forgive my speeling)

I used to work in a Computer store and every once in a while I had to give tech support over the phone.

One day I got this call.

Me: Good morning, how can I help you?

Him: I got a problem with the computer.

Me: And what is the problem?

Him: The coffee rack is stuck

Me: The What?

Him: The coffee rack, you know, that thing that comes out of the computer every time you press that little bottun with the arrow picture on it.

It turnes out that this guy Used the CD-Rom as a coffe mug rack.

PREFACE: It is not always the User who is the dunderhead.

I had just been assigned head of Computer Services for the office complex of a local performing arts center. It wasn't a large operation -- a tech staff of only two, but there was very direct interaction between the staff as well as the Director since all the offices were on the same floor. People would wander into the my offices wanting immediate fixes to their problems. It was a little intimidating, especially when the Director(ess as we called her) came in saying she had this or that problem that needed to be fixed "NOW."

As I was learning where everything was, the manuals, the spare parts, etc, I came across about 6 or 7 Gateway keyboards piled in the corner. The Directoress had come by so I asked her about them. One might characterize her as a less than warm, mostly unfriendly person. She looked very disdainfully at them and said they were terribly manufactured and we never should have purchased that brand. I was puzzled. I knew Gateway to be a very reputable manufacturer.

"What seemed to be the problem with them," I asked.

"They're all junk," she snapped . "They all stopped working right in the middle of my work. Feldon (my predecessor) told me that you can't really fix keyboards because it's cheaper to just by new ones, so I told him to stop wasting my time and just do it." I am thinking, the poor guy, it must have been very embarrassing to keep having the boss's keyboard constantly failing and not have any real explanation for it. But SEVEN...how could this be? Not wanting to run into the same embarassment, I decided to check them out myself, maybe get a handle on what was causing the failures before I got called into her office. I took one out and set it up. Seemed to work fine. So I called and asked her if she could describe exactly what happened with her keyboards. In two minutes she was in my office looking particularly unpleasant.

"The damn things just started typing the wrong letters, " she said angrily, and preceded to type on the errant keyboard. She banged away at the keys, looking for the bad ones and sure enough, she hit the G key and A came up on the screen the screen, K would send E and on and on. About 4 or 5 letter were sending the wrong information. So I thanked her and she left. I stood staring at the keyboard scratching my head when I noticed the Gateway Keyboard had additional, proprietary keys in the top left corner. I broke out the manual (which was still in its shrink wrap) and found a section on "REKEY," an assignable program that allowed keys to be reassigned to user-selected keys on the keyboard. All you needed to do was to hit the REKEY key and the program was launched, memorizing keystrokes. The manual explained how to clear any user programmed keys and reset the keyboard back to default.

That's all it was. The Directoress had obviously accidentally hit the REPROGRAM key which set the reassigment in motion. Every key hit thereafter would be assigned to the next key struck. With the program running and someone typing, in a few seconds the entire keyboard could be reprogrammed. I guess my predecessor was so in a hurry to appease the boss that he didn't bothered to really troubleshoot the problem and just bought new keyboards every time she had a "broken" one....pretty expensive problem solving philosophy. Imagine buying a new computer every time Windows crashed!

So now we have seven perfectly working, programmable keyboards, thanks to techie incompetence.

Frank A.

Brooklyn

The office where I work was using WP 4.1 until about two years ago. We had dual disc drive computers. I was having a problem with my program one day and called WP for tech support. After asking several questions about my computer she wanted me to go to my hard drive. I explained to her that I didn't have a hard drive and she wanted to know how my PC was able to run without it. I had to explain to her that I had two disc drives, one for the program and one for the working disc. She said she had never heard of anything like that and referred me to another tech.

I have a friend of mine who goes to CalPoly in San Luis Obisbo.

He'd write programs and have me as one of the standerd 'debuggers

for his work - not that I always knew what I was doing, but that

I had the time, and average computer, and the general skills to

figure things out and write down error codes and get them back to him.

He would always put a 'programmer's page' in his software, which was accessed

by using a backdoor password. Kinda fun - type in a series of almost

random keystrokes and get a windows that pops up, plays cheap midi music,

and thanks people.

In return, I would always get a special thanks in this page for the extra hours

I put in for him.

Here's the story:

I work at a hospital in town, and I'm also known around various departments as the

guy to ask for help if our internal tech support is too busy. One of the departments

called and needed some help with manually changing over some 1500 hundred entries

that had been incorrectly typed. I'm just the guy to do it.

Oh, well, -they'll pay me, and I need the hours.

I come in ready to learn a new system, and lo and behold, its the one I helped debug

two years ago! I already know it, all I need to do is change the entries!

So I come in every Saturday and unlock patient files, change two things on them,

and lock them up again.

As I'm there one day, dressed in torn jeans, a cap, drinking coffee slouching in the

manager's office chair and typing my little heart away, the second-senior manager comes

in and does a double-take at me.

Me: Hi

Jerk: What are you doing here?

Me: Working - want some coffee?

Jerk: Who said you could be in here?

Me: My job description.

This goes on for a while - I've NEVER gotten along with this guy, and didn't want to deal with him

at all - much less right now.

Finally -

Jerk: I don't think you're authorized to be in here.

Me: No - this is my job, and I'm doing it.

Jerk: Well - I don't think you're authorized to work on that station - it's a

very complex program and you're not trained on it.

I am about to tell him to shove off, but then think better of it. I whip out my wallet,

pull out my drivers licenced and hold it against the screen.

I type (one-handed) the backdoor password and watch as the page comes up.

Names scroll by, and an 'extra special thanks' goes to (myname) with fireworks and cheesey

music around me.

The jerk is trying to figure out what I did - and then notices the names on the screen and my

licence are identical.

My real boss - the jerk's boss - comes in at that point and chews him out

for not letting me work.

It was a good day.

This is a mac user that I was trying to help through a partial reinstall, we needed to trash a few items before the install.

me: we're going to trash a few things and then reinstall

her: sounds good

me: open the hard disk please

(in the background I hear a loud cracking sound)

her: Ok, the round part is out what should I do next.

me: wait by your mailbox while I send you a new disk.

A user called me once and mentioned that her PC would not start up, I asked her the obvious, if the PC was plugged in. She said it was, she mentioned that nothing was moved and she checked all connections and all was fine. I went over and checked the PC and discovered that the plug was not in the back of the PC. Once I replaced it, the PC was back to normal. Go figure.

Not only our customers fail to think through the consequences of their actions. This morning I logged in to find that the Exchange server was dead in the water. This means, no incoming or outgoing Email.

Our network people kept us up to date with a series of progress reports the last one announcing that the server was back in service.

Brilliantly they sent these reports by Email. So it was not until someone's PC had to be rebooted that we found out that the server was running again and we could pick up the progress reports.

I work as tech support in one of the campus labs where I attend university. While I was there one day at the start of the semester a boy and his dad came down to ask if the ethernet card they had purchased for use on the university network was appropriate and if someone could come install it. Well, university policy is that none of the techs can handle students hardware, but we can walk them through the process. One of the techs said yes, the card is fine and informed them of university policy. Said father and son retreated to son's room to install the card.

Later, network support gets a call from son and father. They had a problem installing the ethernet card. It simply would not go all the way in the slot and they "had to use a hammer". Consequently the motherboard was broken in two and they wanted to know "if you can't just use duct tape or glue to hold the motherboard back together."

Duh.

I was sitting here at Apple one day and I got a call from a girl that was rather panicked.

me:"Thank you for calling Apple, this is Jon, can I get your areacode and phone number please?"

her:(gives me number)

me:"Ok, I need to give you a Case ID number.. it's similar to a tracking number for this call..and I'll also need to get the serial number off the product you're calling about today."

her:"xb9023m3fl0" (something like that)

me:"how can we help you today?"

her:"well, I'm missing a box..."

me:"A box? Which box?"

her:"The printer box isn't here!"

me:"Did you order this from the Apple Store?"

her:"No, it came from MacMall."

me:"Have you contacted MacMall?"

her:"No but they use Airborne Express...wait...who is this?"

me:"This is Apple Computer, ma'am.."

her:"Oh!! Well can you help me?"

me:"I doubt it, we're not a shipping company. Maybe you should contact Airborne Express.."

her:"Ok, thanks..."

me:"Would you like their number?"

I gave her the numbers for MacMall and Airborne Express and thanked her for calling Apple Computer.

Stranger yet.. she had managed to get through the entire telephone tree system... and was happy with her iMac

I work for a large company of the Azure persuasion doing phone monkey work. I get a call from one of our first-level

support people, who says 'Here's the user' and dumps. Talking to the user, her Lotus Smartsuite toolbar was not

working correctly, so the brilliant first-level person MOVES the entire 'Lotus' directory into the startup folder.

Surprisingly enough, on bootup the system more or less exploded, and rather than undo the stupidity, she tells the

user that her computer is broken, hold on and I'll transfer you to the second level. (Me.)

This one was told to me by another tech. The call came in, and on the message line of the record was

'Printer on fire'. Spoke to the user, and sure enough, there were three inch flames coming out of the

output paper slot. The tech told the user to unplug the printer. "But it's still printing my job. Can't

I let it finish printing first?" He told the user no, that it would be best if the printer was unplugged

now, and to find a fire extinguisher. The user unplugged the printer, and the fire went out. User puts

out the fire, then asks if he can turn the printer back on to finish his print job.

I live in a student's dorm with a newly installed LAN.

most of the students have gotten used PC:s or Macs and

bought cheap ethrenet cards "to surf for free", as they

tend to put it. being a student of Computer Science &

Informatics, my friends & neighbours tend to ask me for

help when they run into trouble. Most things can be solved

over the phone or ICQ, but at times i have to run down-

stairs to have a look. I like to be of help, so this isn't

a problem. Anyway: at a small gathering in a common TV room

in the basement, a girl i know by looks-but-not-name

approaches me, wanting me to take a look at her computer,

"the sound doesnt work anymore" she said.

I ask her a few questions ( OS, Computer type, have you done

anyting unusual..)

i agree to take a look. the next day i walk into her room.

Just as she said, the sound is completely dead.

I spend 20 minutes checking the "enhetshanterare" in w95

(we run swedish windows here -

i guess it's called "peripheral manager") for hardware

conflicts, reinstall the soundcard drivers, boot the

system "failsafe", nothing helps.

I then (yes, i know i'm a running-nowhere-fast kind of

character) think to check the cables, ( i had assumed

they were ok sonce she said it had been working and she

hadn't done anything unusual) and go "Hmmm.."

-" errm.. where are your speakers ?"

she says, without any hesitation:

- "Err.. my boyfriend took the with him when he moved out

last week.. is that why there's no sound ?"

-"Yepp. get a pair of phones or speakers".

-"OK" she says; smiling. thaks for helping out.

I walk out, holding my breath, and rush down the stairs

to get out of hearing distance.

And this is a person who speaks fluent klingon !!

i used to work tech support for a certain large isp. one

particular call went something like this:

me: thank you for calling --- tech support, this is ---

speaking, can i get your username?

****: yeah, this it's ****

me: okay, and what seems to be the problem today?

****: who do i call to get my money back from you ppl?

me: (slightly irate at being called "you ppl") excuse me?

****: you hear me! i have paid for your service for over

a month, and haven't gotten connected once! i want my money

back.

me: (confused as to who would wait a month to call in) well,

let's see if we can't figure out what the problem is.

perhaps a setting just needs to be changed.

****: fine.

me: okay, go ahead a click on the shortcut to --- icon.

****: okay. did that. now what?

me: alright, what do you have typed in the phone number box?

****: no, that's right, i know it is.

me: (tired from long day, didn't feel like arguing) fine, do

you have a second line for the computer?

****: yes. you want me to try it?

me: please

(Luser procedes to click dial and i hear the expected busy

signal)

me: okay, now go ahead and click cancel. now would you please

read me what you had in the phone number box. (hoping to

make him feel less stupid) our number might have changed in

your area.

****: the number didn't change! (very emphatic)

me: how do you know?

****: how could you change the number?

me: well, we can change the number whenever we want sir.

****: what?!?!?! (very upset) i didn't give you permission

to do that!1

me: (catching on to what was happening) um, sir, do you have

you phone number in the dial box?

****: OF COURSE I DO!!!

me: um.. well, you might want to put our number in there.

****: oh...

Here's one you proabaly never had happen. I was working as a contractor for a big mutual funds firm. My job mostly entailed running calls from the help desk. Help desk recieves call, logs it, emails to me, I fix the problem, close the call.

I check my mail one day and receive a call from a user who complains that the computer beeps constantly whenever she would use the mouse. Figuring the computer had run into one of those uncommon but occasional lockups where the mouse movements would cause beeping, I went to reboot it.

The user was at lunch at the time I visited her cubicle. I checked the mouse, no beeping. I ran through some tests, but couldn't elicit one beep from the computer except normal ones from the reboot. Figuring it was "one of those things," I closed the call.

An hour later I receive the same call. When I arrive at the desk I see that the women is, shall we say, rather large, but I didn't really take too much notice of it. I sit down at the desk, move the mouse, no beeps. She sits down and sure enough as soon as she starts to move the mouse, the computer begins beeping. I realize that in order to move the mouse, she must lean forward a bit. I realize that when she does her *ahem* breasts were smashing down the space bar! Oh boy....

I'm the sysad-by-default of a large state university.

(That means nobody else wants the job).

To pass the time, I'm constantly trying out lots of different

things on my office PC, unfortunately, I don't usually remember

to tell anyone else. :)

So I've spent the entire week setting things up so my Win95

PC would use the password on our Solaris server (instead of

its own .PWL files). I'm trying to set up a restricted-access

lab, you see.

One morning I walk in and my PC's missing. There's a note from

my boss, though - "Borrowed your CPU. Will return next week".

The PC's got the only sound card in the office (yes, the uni

won't buy sound cards for us, but I brought one of my own.

Which incidentally gets "borrowed" all the time for presentations

and such).

So after asking around and sorting out what happened, it seems

my boss just had to do a presentation at a trade fair about

100 km away - and decided to take my PC, soundcard and all,

to save time.

I forgot all about it (most of my work's on the Sun anyway) so

I was surprised to get a long distance call later that day.

My boss. "What's the password?"

"Password?"

"The password to your win95... it doesn't allow me to press

Cancel, it keeps asking for the password..."

Oh, dear. Turns out, since they pulled the PC off the network

without disabling the password first, the only way they would

get into Win95 was if they'd brought it back, plugged it back

into the LAN, and had me disable the authentication...

So they're stuck 100 km away in some isolated town, with no

way to do the presentation, and no way to blame me for it (he

did take it without telling me first...)

I've worked various support gigs for the better part of ten years, even going so far as to run my own computer shop for a while. I tended to hire & train women because I've always believed they're just as capable as men-folk. :)

I've read with amusement the sexist jerks who won't take a female tech seriously. One of the first things I taught my ladies was that there were people who didn't think women could figure out how to turn one on, much less work on them. This being the late 80's at the time, they understood, and my troops all had high morale despite the occasional idiots.

A latter-day Homo neanderthalis, who I will call Mr. Jerkwad, came into the store one day, and my lead bench tech, Amy, did the meet & greet thing with him. In the back doing paperwork, I could only hear bits and pieces of it, but it clearly sounded like he was talking down to her. Let's listen in, shall we?

Amy: (finishes recording Basic Customer Information) Thanks, Mr. Jerkwad. So what seems to be the problem with the machine?

Jerkwad: It's not working. I could explain it better to the tech. Can you call him out here?

A: I am the tech, sir.

J: No, honey, I mean the one who works on the machines.

A: That's me! (chipper smile)

J: I'm glad you think so... how's about I talk to your manager instead. Can you go find him for me?

A: (forcing the smile, but still friendly-sounding) Sure. (dials me on intercom) Mr. Cook, I have a YCP request on the floor. (pause) Thanks. (to Mr. Jerkwad) He'll be right out.

J: (smug arrogant look) Thanks, doll.

So I come walking out, and sure enough, I see a box that we used to sell... the guy looks vaguely familiar, too. We also did training on the systems back then, and my staff used to do the training... my *female* staff, mind you.)

I ask what I can do for him. He gives me a fairly competent explanation of what the problem is in the system. I manage to get him to admit that since he's bought the machine, he's added in more RAM and some other goodies. This is in the era before SIMMs and DIMMs; we're talking DIPs and sockets you have to use a hammer to get things into.

So we crack open the case. I spot the problem immediately, and so does Amy, but we're determined to solve his recti-cranial inversion about women in computers.

I make a big show out of poking around inside the box, checking wires and connections and such. I scratch my head in puzzlement, and say, "Amy... what do you think?"

Mr. Jerkwad blanches a bit; a Male has just asked a Female how to fix the Sacred Box of Technology. He's not sure what to make of this...

She pulls out a screwdriver and field-strips the computer down to the motherboard in about 30 seconds, and pulls the m'board out to show us. "When Mr. Jerkwad installed the RAM, one of the pins didn't go into the socket; it went down the side of it." She then got a chip puller out of her pocket and remove the RAM chip.

When she got out the chip puller, Mr. Jerkwad started going off about how she shouldn't be messing with stuff like that, she might break it. I turn to the pinhead and look him dead in the eyes.

"Mr. Jerkwad, Amy is better at this stuff than I am. She knows the hardware inside and out, she writes her own software, and she's got a much more delicate touch than I do, even when she's angry. You've managed to insult her five times since you came in, and she's STILL fixing your computer. If it was *ME* you'd just insulted like that, I'd 'accidentally' break the motherboard right down the middle, and charge you for the privilege. Do you want *her* to work on it, or *me*?"

He stuttered and stammered and managed eventually to blurt out, "No... she can fix it." She did fix it, we bench-tested it and it worked perfectly. He went home a happy, yet scarred, man.

Some months later, he came back to the store. I happened to be out front this time, so I cheerfully called out, "Hi, Mr. Jerkwad!"

He came over and said, "Is Amy here? I've got a question about (something-or-other)."

One sexist bastard cured of his illness...

Did not happened to me but... I work for an Internet Service Provider with 50 000 customers, and we have softwares on the market to help getting people connected. The book included with the CD calls for "right-button"clicks...

So...

A woman calls us to say she can't find the button... so our tech starts thinking about it and can't find out how it is possible. She really has a PC and just bought it ! Then, she suddenly tells him that she also has problem clicking with the button... she can move the mouse but...

You guessed what's next ? She was using the mouse upside down, her finger on the black ball... :-) So bright...

Hi, I work for techsupport from a big internet provider in Canada, here is my little story (but we here more than that)

I respond a call:

Me: Good morning, "provider" techsupport.

her: Hello, I'm calling 'cause I've got troubles, I cant connect to the internet.

Me:Ok, are you in front of your computer and it's opened ?

Her: yes.

Me: Do you have windows 95 or mac or else ?

Her: Windows 95

Me: Ok, now close all the windows that are opened and all the applications...

Her: Close the windows ?! They are all closed...

She didn't let me reply

Her: ...you must means my windows shades...

And then I heard her closing her window shades, I was too suprised to laught.

This happened to a co-worker of mine (I'll call him Bob). We worked for a company that used to do end user support for a major computer manufacturer. We offered free support for OEM software that was specific to the company computer, and fee based support for all bundled software, including Windows. We had more than 150 techs in a large room taking incoming calls, so a caller rarely got the same tech twice.

Bob got a call from a woman who wanted support for bundled software, but refused to pay the fee. Bob explained the policy to her, and she hung up. She called back about 20 minutes later, hoping to get a tech who wouldn't insist on charging her. She got Bob again. She called back 5 more times during the day, and got Bob every time (what are the odds?).

Finally she called and got Doug. She explained her problem, and he explained the fee based service policy. There was a long silence, then she asked "Have you been talking to Bob?"

I have a small computer company, and we are an authorized

repair service center for a couple of major manufacturers,

so we get a lot of home users who bring their system to us

for warranty repair work. A common opening line we hear to

explain the problem they are having is 'I don't know much about

computers, but I started having this problem,and my friend

said that this is the cause, I want you to fix that' Our responce

is always 'Well, we need to run a full diagnostic on the

system to verify that that is the problem.' I usually add

the line 'and to make sure you're not having any other problems

since it's under warranty'. That usually takes the edge off them

a bit. A few months ago, a customer called with an old machine

with an extended warranty. Because they were a distance away,

and the way she was discribing the problem (that her computer

expert friend diagnosed for her *groan*)and after talking to

her, I decided that 99% chance that her hard drive was bad.

I went ahead and ordered the parts in. (It was an old machine

and we didn't stock the parts anymore)After she canceled three

appointments on us, she finally managed to bring her machine in.

We completed the repairs, yes it was the hard drive, and sent

her on her way. A few weeks later, she and her friend ('who's

been working with computers for 20 years') called me, upset

that her old hard drive was 850 MB and even tho I assured her that

it would be replaced by a drive of equal or larger size, it

was only reading 823 MB. I verified the paperwork, including

the packing slip and it all confirmed that the drive should be

850 MB. I told her the only thing I could do for her was to have

her bring the machine back in. Four months later, and 2 more

cancelled appointments she arrived unannounced. She showed me

the paperwork that her 'friend' printed out for her (the CMOS

settings) and right there, in big bold letters, it read 823 CYLINDERS.

I booted it up, and the drive was reading 850MB just like it should.

There are times that I think not only should people who want to

buy computers should be required to pass a test, but anyone

who happens to walk by them and let their eyes fall on them.

With friends like that..... *sigh*

I couldn't believe it when this happened to me today.

I work for a retail company in Canada, (think RS... Hmmmm).

I'm in between school and college right now and have worked

a few jobs including head tech at a computer store.

Anyhow, this guy comes in today and asks for some help with

his printer. He has a Lexmark 1000 and it's just out of

warranty. (Probably just as well - wouldn't want those

poor guys at Lexmark to have to deal with this!) The jist

of it is that the printer has been working fine for the past

14 months and suddenly will not print. We went through

cabling and I was sure to cover ink cartridges. You'd be

surprised how many people don't put them in and expect the

printer to print - duh! Or they don't click them in all the

way or they don't take off the tape - sheesh. None of these

reasons appeared to be the cause for the problem though.

We got on to the topic of test pages and he said that the

printer would do those just fine - just nothing else.

(Thanks for telling me this 10 minutes ago buddy!) Anyway,

drivers were next then. Even though the printer had been

workig fine in the past it could be a simple IO error. (Idiot

operator - the real meaning for IO in this business) After

ascertaining that there really was a CD that came with the

printer (funnily enough with the word DRIVERS in BIG letters

on it) I explained how he needed to load them into the

computer in order for the computer to know what type of

printer it had connected to itself. He really didn't seem

to be able to grasp the concept that the computer didn't

just know by itself, so I gave up on the explaination and

started telling him how to load the drivers. I assumed he

had Windows 95 but asked anyway. Here was the light at the

end of the tunnel.

Turns out this guy didn't have Win 95. He didn't have 98

either. No, he wasn't running 3.1, NT or DOS... not even

UNIX or OS/2. Turns out this guy was using a Tandy 1000!

At this point I simply couldn't hold back the laughter - he

still didn't get it either... that just made it worse.

Seems that when he bought the printer he just took it home

and plugged it right in to the Tandy. My guess is that it

was able to print out plain text but nothing more. I then

tried to explain the concept of an IBM compatible machine

but this was like trying to run Win 95 on a 286, only less

productive.

I ended up just telling him to go home and plug it all back

in and see if it works. Truth is the man behind him in line

was trying to keep the laughter in and I just couldn't take

it any more. Besides, there was nothing I could do for him.

I guess it just proves to show how clueless some people can

really be.

I work helpdesk for a rather large company, I've been overall impressed with the 'quality' of the users, occasionally you get the Gem's tho...

me: "Good morning, thank you for calling (us), how may I help you?"

user: "Yes, I'm getting an error trying to install some software"

me: "Ok, and what's the error say?"

user: "Error reading from Drive G:"

me: "and that's your CD-ROM drive, right?"

user: "well, duh"

me: "ok, it's having problems reading the disc, do you have another CD you could put into the drive to see if that'll read?"

user: "put it in the drive?"

me: "Yeah...you did put the disc into the CD-ROM, right?"

user: "hmm....hey! it's working Thanks!"

me: "no problem...thanks for calling"

Eeeerrrrrrrggggggggg! Users...:)

I work second level support on a helpdesk for a

company that provides equipment for businesses.

On this fine day, one of my calltakers calls

me and explains this situation:

He received a call from one of our clients. Their

business was on the second floor, with apartments

on the first floor. One of the apartments had caught

fire, and smoke was beginning to fill the second floor.

The client was wondering what she should do with

the computers.

I told the tech agent to have her leave the building

as promptly as possible. We would worry about the

computers later. After the call, I had to sit my

head down and sigh...one person not realizing what

to do in a fire is one thing, but when my own agents

call *me* to ask what to do is another.

Makes you wonder what would have happened if they

would have had to wait on hold...

I had two calls like this today.

First call:

Me: Welcome to X-care, what product are we calling about today.

Cus: I have a portable printer.

Me: How old is the printer?

Cus: I've owned it for one year.

Me: And the Serial number?

Cus: Ok, where is that?

Me: In the battery area.

Cus: This printer has batteries?

Second call

Me: Welcome to X-care, what product are we calling about today.

Cus: I have a portable printer.

Me: How old is the printer?

Cus: I've had this for two years.

Me: And the Serial number?

Cus: Ok, is that the number on the back?

Me: No, its the number inside the battery area.

Cus: And where is that?

I work as PC/Hardware installations for a large organization. We get printouts of helpdesk calls and then we attend to them. Obviosly some of these are typed in a hurry by the dudes that man the phones.

Three classics that came in recently:

"User has some memory sticks that need installing". (A cross between pixie-sticks and smart drugs ?)

"User needs more memory". (Yeah, and his computer needs some work too).

But the best one was:

"User has a new hard which needs installing".

(Well, I suppose I could tell you how to do it over the phone sir, but you'd need someone consenting nearby.)

If you don't get that last one, read it a little more slowly.

I am not a tech support person, but being one of the more computer literate people in my company I recently fielded the following:

P: Hi, I can’t find the company org chart file you sent me in visio.

J: Would you like me to send you another copy?

P: No, I need the copy you sent before. I made some changes to it and saved it to the hard drive.

J: Did you try to use the windows find utility to locate it? It should have a .vsd file extension.

P: Yes, I tried that, but it didn’t work.

J: I can’t think of how the file could get lost. Tell me what you did.

P: Would it make a difference if when I made the changes I did them on Peggy’s computer? I don’t actually have a copy of visio on my own PC.

The degree of illiteracy in this country is staggering. While attempting to find the customer's 'Uninstall' program for hi printer, he proceeded to read "I have 'L*****k 3200 Control Program, ReadMe, On-line Guide, and the L*****k Urine Stall."

That's exactly where I headed after this call.

I got a call from the manager of one of the companies I

service. She called me at my home, at a late hour, very

frantic and sounding somewhat upset and very scared.

Her:"My computer is haunted or something is terribly wrong."

Me: "Hold on wait, it's a machine it can't be haunted, tell

me what it's doing."

Her:"I put a game into my CD player and when I close it,

the cd player comes on it starts playing the Beatles"

Me: "Are you sure it's a game and not a audio cd?"

Her: "My husband checked it, but he wont touch it."

Me: "Let me talk to him."

Him: "This is spooky, I even restarted it thinking it would

clear it or something, but it keeps playing the Beatles."

Me: "Okay, it isn't haunted, there's obvously something very

odd going on, remove the game cd and close the drawer."

(sounds of cd drawer opening and then closing)

I had him check to see if the cd player was truly empty.

It was/

So I told him to insert the game cd back in, which he did;

sure enough the Beatles began playing.

I was stupmed until I thought to ask.

"When was the last time you listened to a Beatles cd?"

I heard the conferring and then the husband informed me, a

couple of nights before.

I told him to remove the disk again and see if there were

two disks in the player.

I heard them laughing and decided to just let them rest in

peace.

A friend had a prob with his computer - he wasn't getting any sound from the left speaker. He had taken it back to the place of purchase, and after trying the speakers on another system and replacing the soundcard, they concluded it was a win95 problem - they would have to format the system.

Being the cautious one, my friend decided to ring me for a second opinion. I asked him to uninstall the soundcard in device manager, get the latest set of drivers - no fix. I went to his place and had a look at his settings for about five minutes and i realised the tech support guy had forgotten to check volume control - it was cranked all the way to the right. I moved to the middle and voila - it worked fine.

Moral of this story: if you can't be stuffed troubleshooting a software problem, cover your tracks and format the bastard. :)

- Hello, operator?

- Yes?

- I have 50 pages document and I want to print it!

- And what's the problem?

- I have only 30 of them!!!

Just had a bloke using a "Pisson" device with his Vodaphone..... as if this wasn't enough he insisted on repeating the fact several times and then said "Yes - these Pisson jobbies are going to be very big soon".............oooooohhhhhhh!

I work at a small independant software and hardware retailer, and as such I get numerous tech type questions even though I run the software department. One of our customers is an older gentleman who has gotten the reputation for being not very adept when it comes to technical matters. The conversation went something like this.

Me: So what can I do for you today.

Him: Well I just bought a CD of Chrismas music and I put it in the cd player in my computer and nothing happens what am I doing wrong?

Me: What operating system are you running?

Him: Windows 3.1

Me:(I begin to recall his computer setup from previous encounters, and I remeber it being really old) What kind of computer is it again?

Him: It's a 386

Me: (getting leary here) Ok, so you put the CD in the drawer and close the drawer right?

Him: Oh, no it's not one of those kinds, Its the ones with the slot in the front.

Me: Slot in the front?

Him: Yeah I just put it in and pushed the little lever on the front so it won't fly out, It didn't want to go down at first but I pushed it hard cuz I didn't want my new CD to go flying across the room or something. It did make a snap though.

Me: (trying really hard not to laugh) Umm I don't think you have a CD-ROM drive, that's a floppy disk drive.

Him: So, you mean it won't play my christmas music?

Me: (trying REALLY hard not to laugh) No, it won't.

Him: Hmmm, Well then, I have another question for you.

Me: What's that?

Him: How do I get it out of the there?

Me: Umm, I would probobly open the FDD door and then pick up the computer and shake it till the peices came out.

Him: Peices?

Me: Yeah that snap you heard when you shut the door was probobly your CD breaking.

Him: Really? Do you think the store will take it back?

Me: (feeling evil now) I dunno, you can always try, tell them what happened and see what they say.

Him: ok, thanks

I wonder what happened at the music store.... :-)

I work for a tech support company in Denver and I had to share this call that I had today. I am a genuine tech support agent and do not want where I work revealed, but I can confirm if you would like. Now the tale

******************************************************

Me: Thank you for calling CompuGeek, my name is Todd, can I have your user ID please?

Customer: What is that?

Me: Well, what is your name to start with?

Customer: Uh, This is Joe from Ohio. I have been having a problem with my password and an invalid password error

Me: What is your password and I will verify it here

Customer: Street3.

Me: That is "S-T-R-E-E-T", and the number 3?

Customer: Yes

Me: I have verified that here sir, since you said you have two lines, just retype it in and see if it works..

Customer: Ok.....**Bing!** Nope! It says "check your password and try again!"

Me: Ok, I think the connectoid is corrupt then (Delete and recreate the dialer and reassociate it with all programs...10 minutes later)..Ok now try to connect again

Customer: Ok....***Bing!*** It says invalid user name or password.

Me: Hmmm. Ok, lets type in the user name again.

Customer: Ok....yeah, now what?

Me: Now retype the password one more time. You said Street3 right, S-T-R-E-E-T and the number three at the end?

Customer: Ok, I'll retype that in too...S-T-R-E-E-T-T-H-R-E-E.....

i am a tech working in a retail store in lanc, PA. (read "hicksville") I had a customer call me to say that their free AOHell disk had gotten stuck in the cd rom drive. thinking that it maybe got unseated and needed manual release, i told him to bring it in. an hour later a person walked in and asked to see a tech. i asked what can i do for you? i have a cd stuck in my cd-rom drive. i turned the computer around so i could see the front and asked if they had an external drive and could he please bring it in. no it's right there. uh huh. i grabbed a set of needlenosed pliers and proceded to extract the AOHell cd from a 5.25 floppy drive.

This isn't relly a tech tale but it's good anyways.

I know this guy who is a brilliant ingeier, he owns a compagny who manifactures computer parts.

He had a CAD-CAM system provided by IBM. He transferred his instructions to the machine via an autocad application from IBM.

Everything was working fine, ecept from one command whitch he cuoldn't transfer to the machine. So he calles IBM: and they answer that this transfer of data i imposible, but they will pay his 1 million if he can teach them how to do is.

Now thats an easy million, and it proves that tech support is overrated at IBM.

During my first weeks at work here I got a call from a person on the 5th floor about his "mouse not moving"

me : (name etc)

him : hy, this is (name) from (department), my mouse isn't moving anymore

me : the keyboard is not doing anything either ?

him : no

me : does the NumLock still flash on and off when you push the button ?

him : no it doesnt, but it's the mouse thats broken, not the keyboard

(okay easy one.. windows just locked up, should be over quick)

me : okay, you are going to have to push the RESET button on your computer. I hope you saved your work because you are going to lose it.

him : where's the reset button ?

me : its on your computer, it should be near the power-button.

him : ok I found it.

me : whats happening now ?

him : nothing

me : nothing ?

him : no, absolutely nothing

Turns out that his PC, a Compaq Desktop model, does not have a RESET-button, so he was pushing the only RESET-button he could see... Wich was on the monitor, not on the PC.

That person doesn't work here anymore now anyway.

Picking up the phone, I hear a secretary scream :

she : (my name) ! The ball has fallen out of my mouse !

She got another mouse.

In the building, I also do re-installations of software.

The day came I had to re-install the PC of a manager, a crappy Desktop Pentium 75 with no Cd-Rom.

It took a little bit longer then expected since the Intel Networkcard never wanted to work the way I wanted it, and called his secretary to inform her that the computer would arrive a little bit later then 2pm, wich was the original time it should have been ready.

While installing Explorer 4.0 (yuck) on the PC I get a call from that secretary

she : Mr. (manager's name) is asking if it is OK to turn on the computer again

me: (secretary's name), the computer is still in front of me

she : he says its all there, I'll ask him

him : yeah.. its all on my desk.. screen, keyboard, mouse.. I turned on the computer but the screen just stayed black.

Now the secretary bursts out into laughter and I can't help myself either and we LOL for about 4-5 minutes, the manager not understanding why.

Seems he did not know that you need some kind of "magic box" too for getting the computer to work

I am a Call Director and I recieved this call the other day:

Me: Thank you for calling Apple my name is Nathan, how may i direct your call today?

Woman: I have an embarrising questions.

Me: Ok, how can I help you?

Woman: I've got an iMac and my cat pee in the monitor and I want to know how to get it out.

(at this point I had to mute the phone cause I was laughing)

Me: ok, please do not turn on the computer, I am going to transfer you to a technition now.

Woman:OH! Let me give the phone to my husband then! He knows more about this stuff then I do.

Husband:yeah, I pick up the computer and noticed something dripping out of the bottom of the compter, and it was well, cat piss.

I quickly transfered the customer to a tech and had to take a break to regain my self.

I was working for the hotline of a big PC builder, here's one of the funnier things that happened to me :

Me : XXXX computers, Robert speaking, how may I help you ?

Cust : My PC won't boot any more.

Me : okay, what is happening on your screen right now ?

Cust : I only see some junk

Me : what kind of "junk" are you seeing ?

Cust : just this stupid "C" followed by a ")" and a blinking underscore.

Me : okay, what do you usually see ?

Cust explains the desktop of win3.1 to me (yes it's so long ago)

Me : okay, just type "W-I-N" and press ENTER

Cust types for 20 seconds on the keyboard

Cust : WHAT was that I needed to type ?

Me : *SIGH*... "W-I-N" and hit ENTER

Cust : okokokok... I got it... it says "Bad Command or Filename"

After 10 minutes he finally got to the root dir of his C: drive and managed to get me a listing of his files in C:

There were no directories in the root.

I thought "OOPS" and asked him what he had done before the events.

Cust : I was running out of space, and have just removed all the files I did not need, so I could save my data...

Me : Did this include the c:\windows\ directory ?

Cust : yes

Me : *SIGH*.. that's bad, you'll have to send your PC back to us so we can "repair" it...

cust : ok thanks !

Needless to say, we were rolling on the floor for 10 minutes after that...

I have so many stories of incompetence from my year of tech support, but this one topped it all. I usually work in call centers, so when a customer walks into the tech support center, it's usually a shock.

Well, three days ago, someone wanders into the call center saying that he wants to put his web page up. My supervisor directs him over to me.

The mystery man hands me a piece of paper with a web address and says, "This is my web site." He then hands me a floppy disk and says, "This is my web page."

Needless to say, it was a long hour as I sat there and set up internet and web hosting accounts, and then explained to the mystery man the concepts of e-mail, ftp, web hosting, and the internet in general.

Well here's the story. A few friends and I worked at the now vanquished Computer City in Saugus Massachusetts and we had a little saying, "Hold up a stick of memory and a monitor cable and ask which one is the modem, if they have to think about it kick them out."

One day we got a call to our technical center which my associate Paul Delory fielded, and he had to pass the call on to me. Upon answering the phone I heard that the man on the other end had installed a cdrom drive and now his computer wouldn't start. I asked him how he had installed the drive and he recounted to me exactly what he had done.

Upon concluding the story he told me he had an extra piece, the cover for the space the cdrom now took up. He then informed me of the "secondary procedure" in which he had rubber cemented the cover to the front of the computer. I thought this was a joke. He then informed me of the fact he couldn't access the drive so he decided to attempt to drill the cover off of the drive. I hung up the phone.

To my surprise he called back, this call was actual, and this man was as ignorant to computers as I am to astrophysics. We recanted that tale to just about everyone before he came in. It was quite a scene.

-Alex Mayerson

I'm not a tech supporter, but I am a librarian. I work for a membership-only library, which means each patron is entitled to give the librarians $60 worth of grief for a year. Although some use more than their share...

We got web access for patrons in July 98, which has been interesting for the librarians at the reference desk. A lot of our members are older (okay, old), and some of them have never used a computer before, let alone for the web. They are all entitled to instruction.

So I was teaching this 70-odd year-old guy how to surf the net. I'm the kind of person who makes the student do the work himself. So this patron gets to use the mouse, which means the cursor is zooming all over the screen. And every time I would forget myself and say, "move the mouse up...", he would--about 2 inches above the mouse pad. The first or second time this happened, I explained that the mouse was driven by a little ball at the bottom ("see this?"), and that it had to be in contact with something flat in order to move the cursor.

Didn't make a dent.

I also tried to overlay my hand on his, both to keep the cursor relatively steady, and to keep the mouse on the mousepad. That didn't work either...

I work as the computer support person for a local library and it's branches. I can count on at least one call from one paricular branch almost every day.

Librarian calls me up (the branch head, no less) with a "crisis." Their Macintosh froze in the middle of a game and the kid playing it was getting impatient. O.K. Easy enough. Knowing from past experience that telling her to force quit (cmd+opt+esc) or do a keyboard restart (cmc+control+powerkey) would be completly over her head, I tell her to just turn it off using the power switch, wait a few seconds, and turn it back on again.

Her: "It's still frozen and I can't get the CD out. Could you come down and fix it?"

Hmmm. Thinking it might be getting stuck in the startup sequence, I hop in my car and drive the mile and a half to get there. THE COMPUTER IS STILL STUCK IN THE GAME! I restart the computer and it starts up just fine. I take out the CD no problem.

Me: (calling her over) Computer's fine. How did you restart the machine?

She points to the power switch--ON THE MONITOR. Of course, she's suitably embarrased when I explain the difference between the piece on top and the piece on the bottom...

-----------------------------

On a similar note, I get a call from the same branch-- different librarian.

The Mac seems to be stuck again. Again I tell them to turn it off, etc.

Her: Where's the switch?

I direct her to the button on the lower left front of the COMPUTER, careful this time to mention "not the monitor on top"

Her: I can't find it.

I repeat the explanation.

Her: It's not working.

Me: O.K. reach around the back of the computer and find the power cable (wanting to make SURE this time it's restarted!).

Her: Got it.

Me: Now pull it out from the back of the computer. (she does). Wait 10 seconds, then plug it in again.

Her: O.K. It's working now!

Too bad the *librarians* aren't that easy to fix. I had to restrain myself from telling her to lick the end of the power cord to make sure the computer was getting power.....

Well, I am a tech supporter. This call literally forced me

to put the phone on mute and laugh so hard it made my eyes

water! Mainly because of the fact this guy was soooo pissed

and swore that it was of course, my fault! The beginning of

the conversation consisted of him yelling at me while I

tried to figure out what the problem was. I will go ahead

and try to match the dialog as close as possible here.

------------------------------------------------------------

Me: Tech support, this is Matt, how can I help

you?

Customer: YOUR SOFTWARE DESTROYED MY CD-ROM DRIVE!!!

Me: Woah, calm down there. You say it destroyed

your CD-ROM drive. What exactly do you mean

by "destroyed"?

Customer: What, do I need to spell it out for you? Your

software literally destroyed my CD-ROM drive!

Me: Do you mean that it physically destroyed your CD-ROM

drive?

Customer: That's exactly what I'm telling you!

Me: Well, what about it does not work anymore?

Customer: Ever since I put your CD's in my CD-ROM drive,

It won't @#$%'ing open!!!

Me: It won't open? Hmmm, well, our software should have

come with three CD's. Which of those did you last

use when this happened?

Customer: What do you mean "Which CD"? I put all of your

software in there! And it pissed me off that

you used three CD's, because that was just thick

enough where I had to force my drive shut with

my hand!!! Ever since then, it won't open!

Me: You mean you put all three CD's in there at the same

time???!!!

Customer: Yes, of course!!! What do you think I am,

stupid???!!!

------------------------------------------------------------

That about ended the conversation. I proceeded to put

him on mute and laugh for quite some time. He wanted us

to pay for the damages, and I had to sit and explain to

him that you put CD's in one at a time. Well, if this is

not good enough for you to post up there, I hope that you

at least get a good kick out of reading this one. I must

say that this site is awesome! It's so good to know that I

am not alone! Anyways, thank you!

Matt

OK people, you all get a laugh out of these tales of woe and stupidity but a lot of you arn't immune to the mistakes made by your customers.

I despatch on-site techo's in response to calls logged by "smarter" techo's. The best call I've received so far read: Customer has dick stuck in floppy drive, replace.

And no, I didn't ask if it was a 3.5 or 5.25, just corrected the spelling.

I'm not employed as a tech but I've owned my PC for over

two years and feel pretty comfortable messing around inside

the case. I had installed RAM, a new modem, 3D card, and

had upgraded the processor. It was time to install a

second hard drive. I read the instructions, moved and

rechecked the jumpers, attached all cables correctly, and

booted up Win95. It recognized my new drive, but somehow

I lost all color from my video. The display was entirely

in shades of green. The monitor finally went blank and the

display didn't return upon rebooting. I opened up the case

and checked everything again, and couldn't find anything

wrong. While wondering what kind of Plug N Pray nightmare

this would turn out to be, I went ahead and checked the

monitor cable, to be safe. It was connected just fine.

While digging around for a tech support phone number, it

occurred to me that maybe I should also check the pass

through cable on the 3D card. Could've saved myself an hour

of worrying had I thought to do that one first. I'm just

glad I didn't call one of you guys who doubtlessly would

have submitted my story... :)

Here's another one for you guys. I'm a PC user and my

buddy is an almost fanatical Mac supporter. He works as a

network engineer and does some tech support for friends and

family. He was at work one day when his home phone rang

and someone he and I both know left a message requesting

some help with a new Mac the person had just bought. The

call went something like this:

Caller:"Hey, XXXX, could you give me a call back when you

get in? I've been writing this book and I'm trying to

transfer it over to my new computer. See, I just bought

one of those iMacs, and I've got the book on floppies and I

can't figure out how to put them into the iMac..."

Just about fell off the couch when I heard that one.

"Think Different"

Responsing to a user call about a broken mouse I showed up at the employees desk (who was out of the office) and began to troubleshoot the problem. I couldn't seem to figure out the problem with the mouse. It seemed to be working perfectly. While sitting in the office befuddled the employee returns and I asked her what exactly was the problem with the mouse.

"I move the mouse, but the pointer does not move, the clicker works though."

Now I was really confused as I had just been using the mouse on the computer for several minutes.

"Could you show me the problem?" I ask. She sits down, picks up the mouse and starts moving it around mid-air pointing it at various places on the screen like it was a laser pointer or something.

After describing that it actually had to roll on the desk I returned to my office with a tech support story I can tell my grandchildren.

Just found your site, love it!

I worked for a while at a local computer repair company that has since gone under, but my work there taught me a lot about the range of users one could expect.

Unrelated to this, though, was the time someone brought in a keyboard that they claimed had had a liquid spill. So I pick up the keyboard and start perusing it. It sure had liquid spilled and dried on it, it looked like some very sugary lemonade or something simliar. The dried crystals were well formed and a few broke off while I was looking it over.

Well as I got out the cleaner and paper towels and moisened the 'liquid' I suddenly smelled a rather unacceptible smell. Aparently someone had left a window open and an animal of some kind had urinated on the keyboard!! Thanks a lot for telling me! Well, I dumped the keyboard and washed up quite thoroughly and told my supervisor what had happened. We told them that they needed a new one.

It was at the same job that we had a woman come in with her notebook to be repaired. I looked it over, and eventually determined that the poor old thing was no more. So she asked if she could purchase a new one from us. Attempting to determine what her needs would be I asked her what she wanted to do with her new computer. She told me she wanted to write some letters, and a few other common computer uses. So I figured she must travel, because she wanted a notebook. This was back when a notebook was at least _twice_ as expensive as a comparable desktop machine. So I asked her why she wanted a notebook rather then a desktop machine. Her reason?

The computer conflicted with her Victorian decor, so she liked to be able to bundle it up and put it in her closet when she wasn't using it!

I work for a huge ISP, and like some other ISPs,

we use a telephone number to look up accounts...

Tech)Thank you for calling bigisp.com, may i get your

telephone number, area code first, please?

Cust)Sure, it's 800-555-1234

Tech)I don't show anything under that number, could it be under

a different number?

Cust)No. Well, it better not be. We won't use that number for

the internet.

Tech)That's OK, why don't you go ahead and give me the other

number and I'll see what I find.

Cust)Well, if I do that, won't we be disconnected?

Tech)Um, no... just go ahead and give me the other number and then

I'll explain to you how the system works.

Cust)Oh (reluctantly) OK, um... 963 (click)

It took me a few seconds to realize that the customer

had actually gone and physically moved the phone cord to

the other phone jack, thinking she needed to be on that

line to talk to me. The woman can't even operate a

phone or understand a simple request to be given a phone

number, she certainly shouldn't own a computer!

Unfortunately I didn't have anyway of looking up the

following call without her phone number or anything.

I only wish that I could have seen the notes from

when she called back accusing me of telling her to

unplug her phone..

I just read a Tech tale here called waterproof. Where some

arrogant help desk made fun of a customer because they asked

for waterproof ink. I don't know about any other printer

brands but I know that Lexmark supply waterproof ink for

their inkjet printers. so every now and then the joke really

is on the other side.

I work for a large Australian ISP and one day I was working

the evening shift. I do tech support. I received a call

from this poor guy - he must of been 80 years old. He was

hiccupping terribly so- every second and third word.

So after the initial introduction, I ask him what's wrong.

He tells me that he has hiccups for the past 4 days now and

they haven't stopped!

So before we proceed on fixing up his NT Workstation and

Outlook Express to receive email, here I am teaching him

how to swallow water upside down to relieve his hicccups.

I cannot help but find it amusing the notion of a helldesk

warrior giving instructions on alleviating medical conditions.

It just goes to show that it is our job to know EVERYTHING!

Apparently, the poor guy was up in Queensland, contracted

some rare tropical disease. He was rushed to hospital and

put on a drip where (so he says) he was pumped up with

44 litres of antibiotics. As a sideeffect, he's been

hiccuping now for four days and hasn't stopped yet. They

started on Sunday, I took the call on Thursday.

He was a really nice guy too...

Me:Tech Support

Caller: I think my keyboard is broken.

Me: What is happening?

Caller: Nothing, when I type, nothing appears on the screen.

Me: Is the keyboard plugged into the back of the computer?

Caller: Yes.

Now, one of my associates had just shipped the computer and I recalled that the new computer would require a PS/2 keyboard or and adapter for it to use the other keyboard.

Me: Did you receive a new keyboard with the computer?

Caller: No

Me: Did an adapter come with the system for you to plug the keyboard into and then into the back of the computer.

Caller: No, I don't need it. It plugs in just fine.

Me: How can it be plugged into the keyboard plug? it's too big to fit.

Caller: No, it fits. However, I can turn it.

Me: You can turn it?

Caller: Yeah, around and around.

Finally, I realized that the user plugged the keyboard into the BNC connector on the network card.

[RANT MODE ON]

Could we PLEASE see less of:

* Cupholder stories (we ALL have at least one!)

* CD in the 5-1/4" floppy drive stories

* Stories that refer to some obscure software or hardware issue where the tech *automatically assumes* everyone knows what they're talking about ("the customer put XVL89CR instead of XVL89CD -- what a jerk!").

[RANT MODE OFF]

That being said . . . .

Although I am currently working providing Windows 98 support for a (M)ajor (S)oftware company, my previous temporary job was providing support for a well-known educational software company that provides its software on CD. One day I got a call that I still remember:

Me: Thank you for calling *** support. (I get the customer information for our database and ask what the problem is.)

Customer: The CD you provided doesn't work!

M: O.K., in what way doesn't it work?

C: The program doesn't run when I put the CD in, and my child is very disappointed!

(Some of the software would install a control program on the hard drive and access the data files directly from the CD.)

M: So you have installed the program, but when you put the CD in it isn't reading it?

C: Installed?

M (getting suspicious): What exactly is happening?

C: Well, here, I'll do it again. (Sound of CD ROM drive opening and closing.) See, I put the CD in the drive -- and nothing! The CD doesn't work!!!

Turns out, the customer had only used CDs that auto-ran, and ours didn't. I walked her through the installation, and everything was fine. (Maybe her child should have tried it -- they seem to know more about computers these days than the parents! ;{) )

So a women calls me about her new fax machine she just bought all the bells and whistles all the latest laser technology and she says to me...Its broken i send the paper through the machine and it just comes out the other side now i got a 30 day warranty and i want a new one...I just didn't have the heart to ask her how the paper would travel through the phone lines...gotta love em!

Hello, Tech Support.

I'm having trouble printing a document I need for a meeting. Can you help me?

Sure. Is your printer connected directly to your printer, or is the printer on the network?

I don't know. It's the one on (name here)'s desk.

OK, that's the networked one. Let me check something. The network doesn't show you logged on. Where are you?

In my car.

Your car?

Yes, I'm on the way to the meeting now. The computer is on, but my secretary says there isn't a print in the printer.

When I was a sophmore I was roomed with some guy from the

middle of nowhere. He heard that he could get an ethernet

card so he could get email in the room. So he orders the

card and tries to install it. I'm sitting in the room as he

does this trying hard not to laugh. Finally he calls the

university tech support and they inform him that the ethernet

cards won't work on his Brother word processor. The guy was

convinced that it was a laptop.

I still don't think he understood what was wrong...

I work for a large software company in Houston when I received a call for pc that was dead. I went down there to check it out and sure enough the files were corrupt and the complete OS needed to be reloaded. I told the supervisor in that department that I was taking the PC with me to reload everything for her. A couple of hours later I received a call from that supervisor that there was a large error on the monitor that there was No Signal. So I went to her to see the exact error and she pointed to the desk where I took the PC. Sure enough in big letters on the monitor was NO SIGNAL. She was wanting to have another employee work there since the regular person was out but she could not get that off the screen. I told her that I had the PC and since the monitor was not connected to anything of course there was no signal. There was no PC. I advised her that since I have the computer she would have to find another place for this lady to work.

Once upon a time when I was doing help desk support for a software package, I got a call from an Irate woman screaming at me becase "my" software was "breaking" her machine (A Mac). My frist question, of course, was what exactly "Breaking her machine" meant. She went on about how she was getting strange characters all over her screen and none of the keys or mouse was working. In the middle of describing how our software was a piece of crap and broke her machine I heard over the phone a loud electrical pop and then her screaming that smoke was pouring our of her machine. I ended the call will "Sorry, Miss, that is a hardware problem" after she tried to blame our software for setting her computer on fire.

My computer repair teacher in High School was relating a story of his days as a tech for some company. This was back in the days when a normal(2400 baud or so) modem was the lenght of the entire case. And so the story goes:

He was working one day and got a call from a user.

"My modem's not working right" complains the user.

After several minutes of asking questions and getting equally vague responses as the initial problem statement, my teacher starts in on the install procedures he used.

'I wasn't sure how to put it in, so I read the manual and followed all the instructions, but it just won;t work." Insert shocked expression from tech here a user following directions.

"Ok, take me through step by step what you did." replies my teacher.

"I opened the computer, and tried to put it into one of the slots that it goes in, but it was too big for the case, so I asked my friend what to do, and he suggested using tin snips to cut it down to the correct size."

I believe that this falls under the warranty violation clause, how about you?

I work at the help desk of a large college

and I'm used to the standard calls. This one,

however, takes the cake....

- Help Desk, this is me speaking, how can I help?

- My desktop is all messed up.

- OK. Can you describe it for me?

- Well, there are two copies of everything

on the desktop, and only half of them work..

I walk the poor student through several steps,

including restarting, using find to see if there

are more than one copy of these files on the desktop

(there weren't).. The student is getting frustrated

(as am I), so I'm about to have this student

lug her Bondi Beauty across campus to our

office, when an idea comes to me...

me: OK, can you hold down control and click on the

desktop. Goto 'change desktop background'.

-OK

- now click on 'remove picture.'

- Hey wow. It's fixed. What was the problem?

I have her find the picture that was set

as the background, and it opens up - a

screenshot of her desktop...

me: Someone was playing a trick on you...

(and I explain it).

- I'm gonna kill my roomate.... Thanks.

*click*

(No students were reported as murdered that week,

or I would have felt guilty...)

School computer lab:

So, this girl comes up and says, "Hey, how do you eject

your disk?" I point to a Mac logged in, and say, "Kay.

Go to the At Ease menu, click special then eject disk."

The girl... walks over to the mac I pointed at (not hers,

I might add), and says "My disk is gonna come out of this

one?"

I got a call from our (supposedly onsite but usually offsite) tech just as I was getting ready to head out for lunch. It seems he'd spent a week and a half trying to remotely troubleshoot our department's beta test server, which is kept in an empty office next to mine.

Him: "Maddy, I need you to go in the office and make sure the phone cord is plugged into the wall jack..." He then went on to describe in great detail what a wall jack was, what a phone cord was, and how to tell if it was plugged in or not.

Me: "Okay, just give me a minute. I'll put you on hold." I unlocked the office and turned on the lights. The phone cord was indeed plugged into the wall----the problem was that it wasn't plugged into the external modem. I plugged it in and went back to the phone.

Him: "Was the cord plugged into the wall?"

Me: "Yes---it just wasn't plugged into the modem. I hooked it back up, though. Do you need me to reboot anything?"

Him: "Wait a minute! You---" He then spent almost ten minutes questioning me about what I'd done before I convinced him that I knew what I was doing. Finally he agreed to try to connect to the server while I was still on the line (he had two lines.) He was more amazed still that it actually worked this time.......

The scary part is that he makes four times what I do.....

I went into the lab the other day to help one of our users connect a peripheral to their computer. I'd given them the device with my serial cable after I had tested it on my machine.

When I went in there, I found that he had a 486 system with 2 serial ports. I couldn't see the back of the machine, but it looked like it was plugged in ok. I went into Hyper Terminal to see if I could talk to it. No Luck.

I then suggested we unplug his serial mouse from the other port and try that port to see if it would work. When he turned the machine around, I saw that he had JAMMED the 9pin connector into the 25 pin serial port WITHOUT AN ADAPTER.

Realizing what he had done, he turned red, and told me he would take care of it from there.

This is typical of a lot of the emails I get every day, emails like this make me wish there was a hunting season for clueless users...

)To: (helpdesk)

)From: A User (a.user)

)Subject: Trial Version of Acrobat Reader 4

)

)Hi,

) I installed the trial version of Acrobat Reader 4 because it has much

)improved printing controls.

)

) However it crashed and I think it may have taken the link to the printer

)down with it because I can't seem to print from anywhere anymore.

)

)A User

I do telephone tech support for a local ISP and we get plenty

of gems who call in. This is one that really urked me one night.

I gave the usual intro spiel and got the necessary info I needed

before teching the call.

Me: Ok, what seems to be the problem?

Caller: I can't get online. It keeps saying I've been disconnected

Your service stinks. Everything on your end is broken. What the hell is the matter?!?!

(Now let me inform you the default position where I work is that

everything on our end is fine unless someone informs us of a real network

problem. Needless to say, everything was ok in this user's area.)

Me: Well, there aren't any reported problems in that area.

Perhaps it's a simple settings problem. We can check those to make sure they're ok.

Caller: NO! I work on computers for a living and all of my settings are fine!

The problem is on YOUR end! Now tell me what's wrong with your system!!

Me:(annoyed at the arrogance, but nonetheless keeping cool)

There's nothing reported wrong or down in your area. It may be a settings problem.

Caller: Ok, fine! We can check my settings but we're wasting our time!!

I know they're all correct!!

(I walk through all her normal settings and everything checks out ok.

I thought maybe the problem was a little deeper but I like to work with a fresh

system before I really dig in.)

Me: Ok, everything does appear ok. Let's just close everything down and reboot, ok?

Caller: Why? What good is that going to do? We're just wasting more of my time?

Me: It's always a good idea to reboot, sometimes the problem can be fixed just like that.

Caller: Ok, fine.

(She reboots, and she's fuming about how our service stinks and our network is down

blah blah. Finally the computer reboots.)

Me: Ok, let's try to reconnect and see if we get the same message.

(The caller agrees and I hear the modem going off in the background. It's

silent for a few seconds and I don't hear Windows giving and error dialogue box.)

Caller: Oh, I'm connected now. *click*

(And she works on computers for a living!!)

I work telephone tech support for a local ISP and I came across

this one one evening:

Caller: I can't get connected. I keep getting this message

that the computer I'm dialing isn't answering.

Me: Ok, is your computer on another phone line?

Caller: Yes.

Me: Ok, can you dial in again. I'd like to see if the error occurs

again and if so when it happens. It will help me troubleshoot the problem.

Caller: Ok.

(She presses connect, I hear the modem dial out, then I hear another line in the

house ringing.)

Me: Ma'am, what phone # is your computer dialing?

Caller: It's 555-1234.

Me: Hmm, that doesn't seem to be an access # of ours.

Caller: Oh, that's the # to the other line in my house.

Is that why the other line rings when I try to get online?

(I had to put the customer on mute while I just lost it)