Funny and Humorous Technical Support Tales and Stories

I work the night shift for a national ISP. After this conversation, I just had to chuckle;

Me: Thank you for calling "blah" How may I help you?

User: I can't login.

Me: Well, does it give you any error message suggesting what the problem may be?

User: It says "Check your password"

I gather the user's login ID and password and try dialing in as the user. Of course, I get connected.

Me: Well sir, I was able to login as yourself ...

User: [interrupting] Well then you must not be doing it right 'cause it's rejecting me!

I don't think I've ever had a client tell me the right results were wrong.

Turned out his CAPS-LOCK was on [our passwords are case sensitive]

Me: Try it now sir.

User: It works ... but I've logged on in the past with the CAPS-LOCK on. Why do you keep changing it?

I think he honestly believed we switch back and forth from case sensitve to non-case sensitive just to mess with clients.

I recieved the case notes of a call I was working on from one of our CSR's (they handle info collecting and billing). The problem line stated "compaq...win98... customer us getting a hymen sys error." Wanted to tell her the only thing I could do with that was uninstall it.

1.Speak in a robot voice and say "beep" after every sentence.

2.Whenever a customer asks you a question say "I will have to consult my supervisor on that."

3 Cough loudly through out the call.

4.When cu asks you for your name reply with "You may call me lord of the underworld."

5.Hicup after ever other word.

6.After every sentence quietly say "Man I have to pee."

7.Loudly eat an apple.

8.Breath loudly into the mic.

9.Speak in a Swedish, German, French etc...accent.

10.Ever get tired of talking to a cu? Try this say "Ummmmmm....bye."

11.While telling the cu the fix hit the mute button during the important parts.

12.Slowly move the mic away from and towards your mouth while talking.

13.At the beginning of the call burp loudly.

14.Sniff your nose every 10 seconds.

15.Sing the fix.

16.Every time they say(your company name)cluck like a chicken.

17.Every time they say something reply with "I have a cat."

18.Sneeze several times every time they say the word problem.

19.Yawn in the middle of every sentence.

20.Use several ethnic accents over the course of the conversation. Switch between accents in the middle of a sentence. If you feel daring switch between accents in the middle of a multisyllable word.

User: I can't find my file!

Me: Where did you save it?

User: On my hard disk.

I sit down at their computer and run Find File.

Me: Do you remember what you called it?

User: Yes, BLAHBLAH.DOC.

I search the _entire_ hard drive for anything resembling their file, including *.DOC

Me: I'm sorry I can't seem to find it, are you _sure_ you saved it on your hard disk?

User (Holding up a 'hard' plastic 3.5" disk): Yes, this one, right here.

A few months back, I was on the help desk for a

microelectronics corporation. The most interesting call

I received went something like this:

Me: Thank you for calling [...] help desk, this is Josh,

how can I help you?

Caller: [heavy accent] Yeah, I've got a mouse problem.

Me: Okay, what platform are you on, '95 or NT?

Caller: [yelling] No! I've got a mouse problem! The damn

thing just ran under my desk!!

Needless to say, I transfered him to our facilities dept.

His name was Donald Grayson, userid: "dong"

This is from the guy who sits next to me:

Tech: Thank you for calling BLAH, can I have your account#?

(2 min of getting information)

Tech: Ok and what can I do for you today?

Cust: Well, I've got a message on the screen that says

"illegal operation". I've already called the cops and

they say they can't help me.

Many years ago I used to work for a Government department and had to replace a 286 with a 386 (I did say it was many years ago). The older PC had a database listing several thousand people and I had to transfer the database across and assure the staff that it would still run their critical reports.

When I hit the go button to start compiling the information they required, everyone started walking away and I asked them where they were going. They said that because the report normally takes over 15 minutes to run they take a coffee break. I told them to wait a minute and sure enough the faster machine reported the job done. Everyone looked dumbfounded and I assumed they were impressed with the speed of the 386.

Not so. They were horrified that they no longer had an excuse to take a break everytime they requested a report.

ME: Thanks for calling (so and so) technical support,

This is (so and so) how may I help you ?

CUST: Well I can't seem to get on the internet.

ME: What error messages is it giving you sir ?

CUST: Some thing about 'The modem is not responding'

ME: Ok, do you know what type of modem you have ?

CUST: No, let me check

(Customer drops phone and gets back on a moment later)

CUST: A (so and so) 56k internal modem.

ME: Ok sir, lets doulble-click on 'my computer'.

CUST: I can't

ME: Why not sir ?

CUST: My computer froze.

ME: When did it freeze.

CUST: Right after I took the modem out of the computer.

ME: Sir, you physically pulled the modem out of the computer while it was on ?!

CUST: Yes.

ME: Sir, turn of your computer off right now. Put the modem back in. Turn it on and call back if it works!

Here's one that's been heard before, but the sheer amount

of time involved is what humored me for several hours.

I've had several friends over the years work in tech support

and I've heard nearly all the stories from them. I just

started my tech support job a couple of weeks ago for a

mid-sized ISP.

Me:Thank you for calling xxxx tech support! This is me, may

I have your username please?

cust: Uhh, my username?

Me: Yep, what's your e-mail address?

cust: OH! "medicgroup@xxxx.net" [namechanged but it was something

medical]

Me:What operating system are you using?

cust:Gateway.

Me:No, is it Win95 or Win98?

cust:It's Win97.

Me:[oh, great it's one of those.]

What can I assist you with today?

cust:This thing is broken or something! I've been sitting

here looking at "You're connected to xxxx for 22min.", and

it won't do anything!

[At the time she called there happened to be no que, so she

was on the line with me immediatly!]

Me:Have you opened a browser?

cust:What's that?

Me:Do you have an icon for Netscape or Internet Explorer on

your screen?

cust:[very hesitant]Communicator??

Me:Yes! Just open it up and start surfing!

cust:Oh! Okay! Thanks!

After all the stories, I still couldn't believe that someone

would sit patiently for 22 MINUTES without trying to click on

SOMETHING!

I had a gentleman call one day questioning why his keyboard

didn't work anymore.. I proceeded to ask him why.. and he

said all he did was clean it and then the next day plugged

it in but this time it wouldn't work... I asked him how he

cleaned it and he replied.. "all i did was removed all the

keys one by one and soak the keyboard in the tub overnight."

*rolls eyes* No wonder it doesn't work =)

Ok I work for a large PC Superstore in the UK. I work in the technical help department, luckily we have dedicated telephone support, run by other people not me. However I do get all the best customers who come in for help.

Anyway one day there I was, legs up in the technical centre, trying to get through to microsoft for something when I get a call to come and speak to a customer.

I wander out, and meet this nice old gentleman. He informs me that he is interested in getting onto the internet, and his manual says that he can, but our sales advisor disagrees. Anyway I do the stupid thing and just wave of the (desperate looking) sales advisor, and take the gentleman to the modems. I start asking a few questions, free slots, internal or external, when I begin the realise that something is up. He doesn't have any normal slots on his "machine", so I do what I should have done first, I ask what machine he has. It turns out this gentleman has a wordprocessor, no not Word for Windows, a dedicated 3-lines computerised word processor. I try to explain to him that there is no way in hell that it will connect to the internet to let him "surf the web", when he pulls out a mobile phone and phones brother. (the makers of the WP.)

Sure enough I get this phone handed to me, and the brother rep explains that the WP has the capability to connect to a ISP with a Hayes Compatible modem, it can then connect to a SMTP server and get mail. Me very suprised, and actually impressed, explain this, and sell the gentleman a nice 33,6 Modem to take home.

However the best bit is when I get a call half and hour later from the same gentleman,

"Excuse me, but where do I put this Compuserve CD in my WP. and um, how do I install Netscape?"

I gave in at this point and just passed him onto our telephone support guys.

This email came in to our helpdesk. I believe it speaks for itself. Only the names/address have been deleted to protect the desparate.

Message: PLEASE!!! Can you help me!!! There is a lady who is using your email service that sent in a personal ad to a dating service. She apparently gave the wrong email address. Is there any way possible that I, or you could contact her, so that I could respond to her "ad?" She is exactly what I am looking for in a person. Please! In the name of "love" could you, would you, try to help me? When the dating service tries to send in my response to her ad, they tell me that her "destination address" is unknown, to check the address and re-mail the message. It then gives me the following email address: xxx@xxx.xxx after that they tell me to: Please reply to Postmaster@xxx.xxx if I feel that the message about the email address is in error. Please, please, PLEASE( HELP!!!!!! Thank-YOU for any thing you can do for me. This is the type of woman I have waited all(46 years) my life for!!! Thank-You!!!!!

Hi thanks for calling Packard Bell. My name is Justin. How can I help you?

Well, my computer comes on and then it says error reading drive c:..

(Later on after 15 minutes of trouble shooting she asks) Where can I buy memory for my hard drive?

I'm sorry ma'am you can't increase the size of your hard drive. You have to purchase a new one.

Well... I upgraded this one.

How did you do that?

Remember the old big floppies?

Yeah.

Remeber how you could punch a whole in it and it would double it's memory?

Yeah.

Well I did it to this disk too. But for some reason I can't get it to work.

(while we were talking I checked her call history and she had called before because her modem didn't work. The tech had troubleshot it. The resolution was that the reason the modem didn't work because the line was melted in half. It had been laying across her heater)

It was the begining of December 1997. I was sitting at my desk waiting for the next call on my phone. Low and behold a tone sounded off in my ear telling me that the caller was on my phone. "Thank you for calling #$*!, my name is Dale, may I please have your telephone number area code first." Getting the information from the customer I quickly brought up his files. "Mr. So-n-so, how can I help you?" "Well", he says, "my wife was on the internet...on second thought let me let you talk to her she is in front of the comptuer." I thought to myself well maybe she is just a little bit more adapt at the computer than he is, BOY WAS I WRONG!. Her voice came on the phone, "Hello?" "Hello Mrs. So-n-so, my name is Dale. How can I help you today?" The next words out of her mouth were, "Your credit card reader will not give me my credit card back!" I replyed "Ma'am????", totaly confused at this point. She then replyed with the same words "Your credit card reader will not give me my credit card back!" Just to try and understand her i said "Mrs. So-n-so, lets start from the begining. What were you doing? What did you do? & What happened?" She replyed, "I was on the internet and doing some shopping for Christmas. I wanted to purchase this item and the site said that it wanted my credit card number. So I stuck it in." "Ma'am, when it asked you for your credit card what did you do exactly?" Her reply was, "I got up went to my purse, pulled out my credit card, came back to the computer and stuck it in and now your credit card reader will not give me my credit card back." "Ma'am our computer does not come with a credit card reader. Is this a piece of equipment that you have added?" "No, I only added a printer." "Ma'am, please exactly tell me where you put the credit card?" "I put it in the slot." "What slot where ma'am?" "The top slot on the computer." "The slot just above the cd-rom drive!?!?" "Yes!" Totaly unbeleiveable. I then advised her, "Ma'am, that is not a credit card reader. That slot is the 3.

5 floppy drive." Then she realy made me laugh, because she replyed with, "Well, don't I feel ####ing stupid." We ended up getting her credit card out of the floppy drive by using a pair of tweasers. While she was doing that I explained to her what the floppy drive was used for.

Way back when BBS's were all the rage a teenager called with the following problem....

Me: Hello, can I help you?

Kid: Um, I just downloaded a bunch of games from a BBS.

Me: Yes

Kid Where are they?

I get this lady on the line. She has an old Compaq Deskpro, XL.

Now the XL is an all SCSI machine with an integrated NIC. She goes

I have a modem and I need to get on the internet.

me: That's great ma'm..(input third party sript here about her modem

not being a Compaq.)

her: OK well I put a phone cord in it and I can't connect.

me: What error do you get.

Her The comptuer can't find a modem.

me: How many phone jacks are on the back.

her: one

Me: is it larger then normal?

her: well sorta

Me: Ma'm that's a Network card, ou need a modem

As I mute her and die laughing..stupid end user.

I have a user who calls on a fairly regular basis. His company recently switched from Mac PowerBooks to IBM Stinkpads, but to avoid as much confusion as possible, they supplied the new laptops with the same software as they had on their MACs.

This user calls in one night and the call goes something like this:

Luser: I have just finished typing a document in Word and I want to know how to save it.

Me: What word processing program are you using?

Luser: Microsoft Word 97

Me: Wern't you using Word on your Mac?

Luser: Yes...

Me: OK, how would you save a file on your mac?

Luser: Well, I would go to the file menu then select Save, type in the filename and click on save again.

Me: Ok, have you tried that yet?

Luser: No...

Me: OK, Lets try that. Go to the file menu, select save...

I expected a lot of calls from frustrated Mac users who are having difficluties in the transition from Mac to PC, but you would think that keeping the same software packages would eliminate some of the confusion. What really gets me is he didn't even try.

We've all heard about the "cup holder" and the "any key", even the "foot pedal". I thought I'd pretty much heard them all. One day I was assisting a customer troubleshoot some software problems, I asked the customer to "close all the open windows"....the customer said "just a minute", set the phone down and proceeded to close all the windows in his house!!! That is hillarious!! He closed the windows in his house!!

My father has a masters degree in Education with an emphasis in Comuters. In fact he and a select group of people designed and instuted the standard for computer education in Newfoundland.

In any case, several years ago when computers were just being introduced into the schools, my father was teaching a group of students how to use them. He told the class that in order to get the computer started you "Booted" the computer. He turned his back for just a moment, and when he turned around, on of his students had gotten up on the desk and was preparing to kick his computer. My father sreamed for him to stop, and asked the student just what he though he was doing. The student replied "I was only getting ready to turn it on Sir."

For those of you unfimilar with Newfoundland dialect to boot something is to kick it.

Being a computer support professional I have cause to work with tech support quite frequently. Recently I was speaking with a rep from a giant software company in Redmond, WA and we had resolved the issue. The tech then asked if I was comfortable with the situation and asked if I had any further questions or concerns.

Seizing the opportunity I simply stated that while I had been on the phone with him (which was a $100+ call) I had been playing the Solitaire game that was included witht he O.S. I has managed to win several games and had a scaore of $437 (using Vegas rules). I simply asked the teck how I submit my claim for the winnings.

Needless to say he was quite baffled, but I managed to have some fun with him for a few minutes. I am sure he was telling everyone in the office about his customr that wanted a check for his Solitaire winnings.

One of the users in the company I work for had recently

returned from holiday vacation. She came to my desk and said

what had we done to her PC while she was gone because it was

asking for a password and login. She insisted that she had

never before had to login to her machine to use it so we

obviously must have changed something and can we change it back.

I explained to her that her pc is a Windows NT machine and

in order to use it, you MUST login and she was adamant she

had never before had such a barrier. Skeptical, but knowing that

she was not known for being the brightest crayon in the box,

I went over. On the way, I remembered that she had recently

gotten a new PC from her old win 3.1 Compaq. So I asked her

if perhaps she had not used her new machine and this is

what she was meaning, but she assured me she had been using this

machine for weeks before leaving. When I got to her desk,

I noticed not only was the machine running, it had two copies of

Word already running along with Outlook. Puzzled, I maximized word

and noticed it was a memo dated November 18th (this was

now January) and I asked her to explain to me what was

the problem again. She was staring at the screen puzzled then

she said wait, I wasn't working on that memo, that is old.

Suddenly a scary thought occured to me. I asked her

to turn off her PC and let's go through the steps she uses

one by one. She nodded and said 'I turn off my pc like this...'

and clicked off her monitor, 'then in the morning, I push this

button again and it is on and I never enter a password, just

start working.' It seems that when the tech

turned logged her into the network after the new install,

she had never again turned off the pc, only the monitor.

I went for coffee...

Once, a customer called me and they had a problem getting connected to the Internet.

I asked the customer what was the error message, they said " I don't know, something about it not being connected."

I asked the customer if they had one phone line or two, they said "two."

I asked the customer to try and connect so I can see the error message.

The customer connects, and reads the error message to me "The modem is not responding, make sure the connections are correct and that it is turned on"

I asked the customer if the connections from the wall to the computer were correct.

The customer replied," You mean this thing needs to be plugged into the wall?"

I said "Yes, the modem needs the phone line in order to connect."

The customer puts me on hold and connects the computer to the phone jacks according to my instructions.

I asked the customer to try and connect again. It worked.

This happened on a IRC support channel: (#Support on Efnet)

[19:04] (thugman) how do u install winamp in yo pc

[19:05] (CATBX) how to innstall winamp? :)

[19:05] (thugman) tes

[19:05] (thugman) i mean yep

[19:06] (CATBX) ah

[19:06] (CATBX) download winamp from www.winamp.com and just click on the file.. then follow the instructions

[19:07] (thugman) i did that and it still wont work

[19:07] (CATBX) what's wrong?

[19:07] (thugman) can u guys hold on ill try

[19:07] (CATBX) ok

[19:08] (thugman) click on what file

[19:09] (CATBX) winamp209.exe

[19:09] (CATBX) i guess

[19:10] (thugman) yea but where do i put thaT IN

[19:10] (thugman) WHERE DO I TYPE IN WINAMP209.EXE

[19:10] (CATBX) You dont type it in!!

[19:10] (CATBX) you click on it

[19:11] (CATBX) the filename is winamp209.exe

[19:11] (thugman) yea buy what program do i type taht in

[19:12] (CATBX) uhm

[19:12] (CATBX) you dont type it in

[19:12] (thugman) well what do i do wit winamp209.exe

[19:13] (CATBX) what OS do you run? win95/98 ?

[19:13] (thugman) win95

[19:13] (CATBX) ok

[19:13] (thugman) im downloading winamp right now

(How can you innstall winamp before you've downloaded it?????)

[19:13] (CATBX) uhm, okey

[19:14] (CATBX) hmm... well, click on the file when you're done

[19:15] (CATBX) use your windows explorer

[19:15] (thugman) it keeps on asking me to install it first

[19:15] (CATBX) what keeps asking you?

[19:16] (thugman) it says that i have to install winamp

[19:16] (CATBX) how can it say that when you haven't downloaded the file yet.. cos you're still downloading right?

[19:17] (thugman) now im done

[19:17] (CATBX) ok

[19:17] (CATBX) use your explorer

[19:17] (thugman) so now what do ido

[19:17] (thugman) ok

[19:17] (CATBX) click on the winamp file

[19:17] (CATBX) and it will innstall

[19:17] (thugman) just tell me and ill do it all at once

[19:18] (CATBX) i just told you what to do

[19:20] (thugman) yea now how do i make an icon fo it

(Oh finallay he got WinAMP installed.. wow...)

[19:21] (CATBX) It's in the preferences in the WinAMP program

[19:22] (thugman) what does that mean

[19:23] (CATBX) what do ya think?

[19:23] (thugman) i man how do i make an icon to put on my desktop

[19:23] (thugman) sorry im new at this

[19:23] (CATBX) okey.. now you have the WinAMP player started right?

[19:24] (thugman) its not playing right now

[19:24] (CATBX) press CTRL+P to access the preferences

[19:25] (thugman) it wont work

How stupid do you get?!

I just couldn't explain this person how to innstall this program...

I'm a tech support specialist for a professional sports team. And we receive service request via email. Well, one day I received this unusual but very funny email.

(The person sending the email was an admin assistant for one of our VP's who was relaying the message.)

User: Ron says there's something wrong with his mouse. He said one day the ball popped out and he put it back in. But it just hasn't been working since then. Any suggestions?

Tech: I told her that she didn't need an IT guy, she needed a vet.

Since then, the user made sure that she proofreads anything she sends via email.

Last year, i worked part time at Best Buy. We had a guy bring his machine in for optimization. Turns out he had a 6.4 gig hard drive and it was filling up pretty fast and he wanted to know if there was anything we could delete to free up some space.

When we started examining his hard drive, we found several GIGS of kiddy porn, real sick stuff too. We told him we would have to keep it overnight and that he should come back at 10:00 in the morning to pick up his machine. He agreed and said he would be back then.

Needless to say, at 10:00 the next morning, we had the police wiaiting for him and they escorted him from the premises in handcuffs. They confiscated his machine and sentenced him to 5 years in jail.

The moral of the story: Don't ask your tech support people to help you break the law, especially one as sick and perverted as that.

A real and true call I took at work this week went something

like this:

Co-worker: Hey, Dave. Ms. Customer on line 3. They can't

seem to get their computer they just got to come on.

Me: O.K. .... (After finishing the call I was already on,

I pick up) This is Dave. How can I help you?

Customer: Dave? This is Helga(name changed to protect the

terminally incompetent). This computer you all sent with me

is broken. It won't come on.

Me: (Knowing it worked beautifully when it left less than an

hour before) I'm sure we can figure out what's wrong. Does it

do _ANYTHING_? Any sounds or beeps or lights when you press

the power switch?

Helga: The only light is the little one on the screen. Nothing

else does anything.

Me: (Thinking, well, the outlet has power since the monitor's

indicator light is on) OK. Let's look at the back of the computer.

Helga: OK. I'm looking...

Me: There should be quite a few wires, and we'll check them one

by one... first, let's.

Helga: (cutting me off) There's just two wires.

Me: What? OH! You are looking at the back of the monitor, ma'am.

We'll start there since you're already looking there. One cord

should lead to a surge protector or power strip plugged into a

wall outlet. It's pretty safe to say that's done since the light

on the front of the monitor is on. The other cord should lead to

the tower case part of the system. Can you see that it's connected

to the tower part?

Helga: (Huffing and tracing the cord) Yes... It's connected and the

screws are twisted on. It's not loose.

Me: Good. Let's look at the tower, now. From the top down, we'll

check them one at a time. The top one should be a power cord. Is it

plugged firmly into the tower part? It should only fit one way...

Helga: Yes, it's in good.

Me: Alright. Next should be a cord with a round connector. That

is the keyboard. It's in? Yes? OK.. next to that is the mouse. It's

a smaller round.... (You get the idea....)

After about 5 minutes of checking all the cords, and her assuring

me that they had both been plugged in, I said:

Me: Well, I can't seem to find anything wrong with how you hooked

all the cables and cords up. Let's press the power button on the

tower and see what we get...

Helga: OK... (click, click, click) Nothing. Should I bring it

back in?

Me: Maybe. Let's check the power strip just in case.

Helga: It's not in a power strip. It's straight to an outlet.

Me: Oh! That's not good. You need a surge protector power strip

to protect against power surges and lightning strikes and such.

But that shouldn't keep it from working. Make sure the cord from

the tower to the outlet is connected at the wall one more time.

Helga: Well, I'll be!

Me: Was that it? (Glad but frustrated that this has pulled me away

from reading slashdot.org)

Helga: Why, yeah. (The sound of the boot-up beep and ram-counting ticks

are music to my ears)... But.. hey! Shouldn't there be something

on the screen by now?

Me: (sinking into despair)Yes, there should. But there isn't, is there?

Helga: Nothing. Pitch black.

Me: Remember that cord from the monitor to the tower? Check it one

more time.

Helga: It's on tight.

Me: I'll be right back... Please hold...

A cigarette later...

Me: Sorry to keep you waiting. Had another call.

Helga: That's OK. I know y'all are busy. I did notice one thing

while I was on hold, though...

Me: What's that?

Helga: That little green light on that screen part? It's off now,

but the lights on the case part are one. Is it supposed to do that?

Me: (Not believing what I'm hearing)Helga... Are the tower and

the monitor plugged into the same outlet?

Helga: Welllll.... They were...

Me: What do you mean, "were?"

Helga: I unplugged that one cord to hook up the tower thingie.

Now the tower part lights up and stuff, but my screen's quit.

Me: Doesn't the outlet have two sockets on it? Why didn't you

just put the tower's power cord in it?

Helga: That's where my speakers' are plugged in at. You mean they

both have to be plugged in _AT THE SAME TIME_?!?!?

I used to work in phone tech for one of the major manufacturers where it was standard procedure to talk customers through fitting h/w outside of on site warrannty period. One day a customer called in with a replacement mother board to be fitted. He assured me he had done stings like this before and it would be no problem to him, naturally I was doubtfull to his abilities so I sat back prepared for a 3 hour call but 45 minutes later the board was fitted and the system back and running w95 first boot with no problems! Then the customer confessed that he had never done anything like this before so I congratulated him and then he dropped the shocker. His right arm was in plaster, He had fallen through the garage roof 2 days earlier!

User: For some reason my internet tells me that I can't find the host?

Me: okay if you double click on the my computer icon I'll take you through your setup.

User: Where can I find that?

Me: Well it's on your desktop, you are using windows 95 correct?

User: yes I am . . . but I can't (rustling of papers) find my computer icon on my desk?

Me: Where are you looking for it?

User: on my desktop where you said

Me: okay, look at your computer screen, is there a computer there with the words "My Computer" under it?

User: I'm not at my computer.

Me: well call me back when you are

*click*

freak of nature? ... I think not, it was a clear case of B.I.N.F.A.A (Brain Is Not Functioning At All) or P.E.B.K.A.C (Problem Exists Between Keyboard And Chair)

Nathan

I'm not an actual tech But I can move around a computer sometimes.

I was helping one of my less literate friends try to build a web page.

He had it all together but saved it as the site name... flukent.com and for some

reason he wasn't able to open it to edit it at all. Doing all this work on his

laptop, he was rather frustrated that it didn't work and he spent all that time on it

he preceded to slam the laptop closed. I tried to stop him but he realized that he forgot

to shut the system down first so proceded to open it up and then turn it off and then slam

it shut one more time. When I went back to the laptop after he had left to cool off I tried to

restart the system just to see if he had damaged it. It wouldn't boot. When he sent it in after I told

him that it wouldn't work it seems that he had cracked the case. Bounced the head off his harddrive,

and cracked the monitor. Some people need to find safer/cheaper ways to channel their aggression...

Jeremy

I used to contract as a tech support person for a large teaching hospital in New England. There were six of us on our shift that would handle the normal issues of the day. From the six, one person was assigned to "run" problem calls, i.e. visit the customer personally.

Well, this one day, yours truly had the pleasure of being the call runner. The first two calls were your basic "I can't log in" type of problems and I was able to resolve those issues quickly.

The third ticket was from a neurosurgeon who was having problems with his mouse. So, armed with replacement mouse and floppy, I proceeded to the 6th floor to see if I could fix the problem. I arrived at his office and knocked lightly onthe door jamb. to let the good doctor know that I was here. He waved me in and said, " Oh, great, you're here. Maybe i can get some work done, now"

I asked him if I could sit at his machine to test the existing mouse to see if I could determine whether the problem was hardware or software. He motioned for to sit in his overstuffed, overpriced office chair. I then started to perform "mouse exercises". You know, left click, right click, drag and drop, copy and paste, etc. The mouse was working perfectly. Suddenly, the doctor's voice exploded over my shoulder.

"You idiot, you're doing it all wrong"

"Excuse me, what do you mean" I replied. He said, "Get out of my way, I'll show you what I mean". Not sure where he was going with this, I got out of his chair.

He then proceeded to grab the mouse and raise it about 6-8 inches above the pad and 2-3 inches from the screen. He next was clicking the mouse like a madman.

"See, I told you it doesn't work" he argued.

Thinking fast, I asked, " Doctor, where did you learn your computer skills? He answered with some obscure junior college I'd never heard of.

I added, "Oooh, I see now. There are several methods by which mouse manipulation is taught. You were probably taught differently than from the method that the hospital follows . Unfortunately, the standard we have to follow is for the method which is in place. That method is the only one we are supporting, so my recommendation to you Doctor, is to learn the other method of manipulation,so you will be supported, and who knows maybe someday, the hospital might switch to your method of manipulation."

"Do you think they might change?" he asked wide-eyed.

"Maybe Doctor, you never know" I replied.

" Yeah, maybe you're right.." he sighed. "I'll try to learn the hospital's method."

" I think that's a good choice, because now if you have a problem, we can support you"

His attitude soften, and he extended his hand and said "Thank you for your assistance. You will inform me when the method changes,no?"

Shaking his hand, I looked him square in the eye and said, "You can count on it"

I barely made it out of his office and around the corner before I totally lost control.

Wow, this guy is a neurosurgeon, and he calls ME the idiot...

I received a call, from a normal, older, much older man:

ME: Good afternoon,#$*&$ dot net tech support, can I help you?

END: Umm, yes, I was wondering , I got a new fast speed modem and my wife is hooking it up for me, what are the phone numbers for your V.90 lines?

ME: I gave him the numbers, then I heard his wife in the background murmur something

END: Sir, are those 56k lines "tone" or "pulse"?

Part of my many-faceted job as an army health facility Network Administrator

is the answering of the help desk phones. Following is a recap of one of the most memorable

calls I've ever had..

After the typical hellos, who and where are you, how can I help you, user tells me that she has no sound coming from her speakers.

They worked fine yesterday. I asked her if they were plugged into the computer..she looks and says yes..Are the plugged into the surge protector..She says yes..Are they turned

on..She says turned on..??I said yes..The on/off button..Is it on..? She asks me where it is..I told her on the front of the

speakers. Button has little letters that say on and off..Which way is it pointing..She gets quiet and says off..I said well, there is your problem..Turn them on..

Guess you had to be there..

Same client had problem with her monitor a few weeks back..

Seems the monitor as not working at all..Nothing she did seemed to work..I got to her office, looked at the monitor

and showed her where the on/off switch was..

Sigh..

I work for a decent sized company doing Mac support. I got a help desk ticket one day that described how they couldn't get a Quadra 610 to print to a LaserWriter IIg that they had recently connected. I had already ordered them a serial cable for it but they got impatient and went out and bought a cable themselves and attached it.

So I figured it was a software problem or maybe the serial port on the printer was broken, so I gathered my tools and CDs and headed over to the site. I found my contact and he showed me the printer. I said "I think I see the problem".

They had bought a 25 pin to 50 pin Centronics SCSI cable and they had attached one end to the Mac's scsi port and the other to the printer's scsi port, which is reserved for attaching external HDs. Fortunately I had brought a serial cable with me, so I hooked it up and it worked perfectly.

Watching their faces as I explained what the problem had been was worth the trip over there. :)

I was helping a guy out with a CAD program, who apparently never used a computer before...

C: OK, well how do I start the program?

S: See the icon on your desktop?

C: Icon?

S: Yes. You should see some icons on your desktop. What do you have there?

C: Well, I've got some pencils, and some paper, and...

S: No, no, no! Your deskto- Never mind, your monitor. What do you see on your monitor?

C: There's a power button...

S: *sigh* Look above that. What do you see on your screen?

C: Nothing. The power's not on.

This one guy called in when I was doing tech support for a CAD company. Keep in mind the simple principles of Geometry.

He drew an equalateral triangle and rotated it 60 degrees, but nothing happened.

Duh.

Actually, I used to work at the info desk at the college library. It's an excellent library for all kinds of research you have to do.

My job was just to tell people where the bathroom was, or where certain subjects were located, or where you could find a particular call number. Sometimes, however, I'd get strange questions.

This one came over the phone. I had no idea why she was calling the college library. She wasn't a student or in any way connected to the college:

HER: I just bought this Internet stuff and I want to get on the Internet.

ME: Okay... (why are you calling me?) I suppose you just put it on your computer and...

HER: You have to have a COMPUTER??

I told her she was probably better off calling the place she got it at.

Another strange call was to ask how much it would be to mail a letter to England. I told her to ask the Post Office.

hello portables tech support

yes I am trying to install windows 95 on this computer and it is asking for a certificate of authenticity

ok fine that will be on your windows 95 manual

But my dad bought this from a friend of his.

Ok you will ne to go to your friend and get the manual from him

But he died.

.....

There's many customers out there who does not listen to the questions you ask, or they're just plain ignorant.

Scenario 1

I asked many customers to do right click on the icon and go down to properties and left click.

Customers responses:

1. "You mean click with my right hand?"

2. "So do I click with my index finger or my middle finger?"

3. "Which one is the right mouse button"

4. "Now my mouse has 3 buttons, which one do I click on?"

5. "How do I click with the right?"

6. "Do you mean click on the button that I don't normally

click on?"

Scenario 2

On an opening of a call, I would ask a customer for their user id.

Customers responses:

1. "What is that?"

2. "Where can I find that?"

3. "Is that the email address?"

4. "How do I know what my user id is?"

5. "I don't know what that is?"

6. "Can you show me where it is?"

Scenario 3

I sometimes ask customers what screen they're currently on, just so I'll know where to instruct them to go.

Customers responses:

1. "I'm on the very first screen"

2. "I'm in front of the computer in the bedroom"

3. "The screen with all the icons"

4. "The windows screen"

5. "I'm on the Compaq/IBM/HP/SONY screen"

6. "I'm on the main screen"

7. "Well, I can't turn on the computer because it will

disconnect us"

Well, these are CUSTOMERS!

I sent one of our entry level technicians into retrieve a modem which the customer no longer needed. Upon closing the call, the technician said he had the modem in hand, but all terminals had ceased to function. He also stated,"This is the firsr time I've ever seen a modem with eight phone lines attached!" The technician had mistaken the hub for the modem.

While working as a Senior Support Engineer in Ma. I was

called to a very prestigious university in Cambrige MA.

The FE on site had gone over the machine with extended

diags and could find no error from the floating point unit.

Together we went over the output from the diags and decided

that we needed a meeting with the customer. Now you have

to remember this machine had been down for 2 days and nights.

We called managment in, the customer and the FE and myself.

Despirate to get this problem solved I asked the customer

what the problem was, he said with a stright face, "well the

answer I get on my calculator dosen't match the computer".

case closed, customer was charged per call rates for 32 labor

hours.

Me: Thank you for calling tech support this is Bernie

Cust: Hi, I have a big problem with my system.

I just Upgraded to DOS 6.22 and now my Windows does't work.

Me: Sir, I am looking at my records and I see that your system had

has Windows 95 installed on it. May I ask why you downgraded to

to DOS 6.22.

Cust: One of my techie friends told me that I have and old

DOS Upgrade

A friend of mine hadn't used a computer before and when it started up some virus checking sofware came up it said "press any key to continue" she looked for a while before ringing the tech support and asked where the any key was!!

My Wife received a call at 2:00 am from an executive at her company. He was frantic, because a bunch of his directories were missing from Explorer on his computer. After talking to him for a while, he finally mentioned the fact that there used to be a little "minus" sign next to them, now it's a "plus" sign. My wife told him to click on the plus sign, and Viola! He's an executive of a computer keyboard manufacturing company.

I work for a foodservice company. Our sales reps carry laptops in the field. My job for the past three years was to do Q/A on the proprietary software they used to make their sales.

About six months ago, we started migrating to a new, commercially developed software package, so there is less stuff to test. They like me, though, so they moved me over to the help desk. Now, I can answer a lot of questions about the software, because I know it inside and out, but when it comes to things like problems on the OS/2 servers or the DECs they grab the data from, I admit to being clueless. I was terrified.

Not to worry, a coworker informed me. All you need to know is the five R's.

1. Our sales reps use the laptops' suspend mode all the time until memory leaks bleed off all their resources. The number one fix is "Reboot."

2. Our software uses dBase IV databases (circa 1988), which are known to be unstable in an extended memory environment. The second fix is "Reindex."

3. Our software does not have the ability to delete information from its inventory and pricing databases (which are 12+Mbyte each for the .dbf and .mdx files on a good day). If those files are damaged, the reps need a fresh copy, so the third fix is to run the utility that downloads them, "Re-init."

4. Finally, if you get modem questions, Refer them to Jon and if you get DEC questions, Refer them to Mike.

Oh, yeah, and if someone calls asking about their router, they are trying to dial AT&T's help desk, which is the same number as ours but with the 888 toll-free area code instead of the 800 one.

I've been on the help desk for three months now. My supervisor is very impressed with my work, and 90% of my calls have been handled with the first three R's.

A good friend of mine, we'll call her "Mary," is an artist. She had an old, beat up 486 that had been put together by another friend of hers from spare parts. The 486 was pretty average, and since all she did was use it to do word processing and get e-mail, she really didn't need anything more. Not that she could have afforded a brand-new computer anyway.

Then she gets this boyfriend, we'll call him "Chuck." Chuck fancied himself the computer expert because he helped his father install networks. Since his father owned a garage, I am not sure where the networking came in, but that is what he said.

Mary tells me one day that her modem has been getting excessively noisy, even when she is not dialing into anything. After she describes the sounds on the phone, I fear that her modem is not at fault, but her hard drive (which was an old, small thing) was dying. I tell her I'll look at it. We get it set up, and I don't hear the noise. I know this happens, you want to repeat a symptom for a tech, and it vanishes. We waited, and after an hour talking about random stuff over coffee, I hear what sounds like a grating whirr. Listening to the CPU, it does sound like it is coming from the hard drive. But this was difficult to tell because the case was very large for a CPU, like a 3-foot tower case, often used for large servers, so the sound was echoing everywhere. I try to do disk diagnostics, but oddly, defrag and check disk were not found. I ran them from my Win95 CD, and the drives checked out okay. While the disk was defragging, the tone of the whirr, while getting louder, did not seem to be connected to the sounds of the disk accessing, which was good news. So I decide to open the case. The case was some sort of weird puzzle-like construction, involving many screws, and panels that slid around in slots. After I finally got into the case, a quick inspection found the noise: it was a fan motor. Most of this HUGE tower was empty space, and it was apparent it was once used for more than one motherboard. It had drive bays for many hard drives. Obviously, what was once there generated a lot of heat, so there were two large high-powered fans, one that sucked in, and one that blew out. One of them was producing the squeal. I managed to remove some lint from the motor (did I mention a smoker owned this computer? Smokers will ruin moving parts in a computer rapidly because of the tar buildup near the vents). She was there when I took it apart, and I showed her how things worked, and what the problem was. I told her the fan was hard-wired to the power supply, so I didn't want to risk just cutting the powe

r cable, because it may stop the power supply from working. She was relieved that it was just a fan motor, and we agreed she could just put up with the noise. We put everything back together, and this should have been the end of the story.

Not so. While I had been poking around her Windows, I noticed that there was evidence of a lot of installing/uninstalling, plus the fact that some disk and systems tools (like defrag, chkdsk, regedit, and sysedit to name a few) were missing. When you booted up, you got no less than three registry errors that are indicative of someone installing software, and then not uninstalling it properly. In short, her boyfriend had been downloading shareware like mad, and when he ran out of drive space, he just started deleting things. Apparently, they have had to reinstall Windows more than once. I suggested a complete reformat, but some of the software they depended on (like Corel Suite) had been installed for them, and of course… they didn't have the original disks. So a complete system reformat would have been a disaster. It pays to ask.

But Chuck was not satisfied with this solution. He insisted it was the modem. So he decided to take it apart himself (I think it's a macho guy thing). Remember how I said the case was hard to open? He found out the same thing. He had a less subtle approach to it. He used some sort of crowbar-like device, and managed to rip the face plate off, breaking the plastic molding off the front. Then when that didn't work, I think he found the screws in the back, and removed them. Of course, he didn't find the sliding panels, either. So her bent a lot of those metal plates, and managed to tear them off the metal and plastic tracks that held them in. Then he (brace yourself) tore the speaker off the internal modem. When the noise didn't stop, he did find the fan that was squealing, and sprayed a liberal amount of WD-40 over everything. That did stop the squeal, all right. Then he sort of hammered and bent things back into place.

So I get a call that after he "fixed" it, the modem wasn't working anymore, the CD-ROM tray would stick when opening and closing, and when the machine booted, it was giving off an oily smell. For a while, we were both unaware of this "fix" until Chuck causally mentioned it. My friend moved away, and gave me the now useless system. I was able to salvage some of the essential parts to build a new system, but I had to replace the case, motherboard, chip, soundcard, and memory. Forget the modem.

Macho boyfriends should never be allowed near computers.

We are developing an online database application for a customer whose understanding databases is minimul at best. He was making some changes on his web page and testing a few things out when he recieved this error..

'[Microsoft][ODBC Microsoft Access 97 Driver] Syntax error in FROM clause. /shortlist.asp line 203'

We recieved a fax from him saying he changed 'visual emissions' to 'visible emissions' to correct syntax. He thought Microsoft was checking his grammar.

I've just read through a few of these tales and I think I've got a pretty funny one to tell myself.

Well, everybody knows what a CIO is: Chief Information Officer, the guy in charge of all the computer

hardware, basically the man in charge of any company's IT department. Well, he is supposed to also

be one of the most knowledgeable guys in the company about Windows NT.

Well, to make a long story short, he tells me, one day, to make a copy of the three NT workstation boot disks

so that we have a backup. Just as I'm getting ready to do this, well, he says that you can't do a diskcopy on

the NT floppy boot disks because the floppies are formatted under NTFS (NT File System) and so they're encrypted and won't

allow you to copy the disks directly unless you use a specia utility on the CD.

All is well, except for one thing which most people familiar with NT know: NTFS has an overhead of about 5MB for NTFS

security and file system. So there's no way anyone will ever be able to install NTFS on a floppy.

BTW, our CIO was an ex-MCSE....

I used to do tech support at a large company that made printers when I got this call

me: thank you for calling *****copany name here**** my name is ******name here**** (gatheredcust info) what seems to be the problem?

cust: my computer keeps giving me an 'out of paper' error message whenever I try to print (already some can see where this is headed)

me: alright, that can be caused be several problems, first lets see if your printer itself is working properly, (instruct cust to do a self test on printer) now, is the printer pulling in paper to print?

cust: no, there's no paper in the printer, should I put some in?

me: yes lets do that (cust puts paper in printer) good, lets try to print from the computer

cust: (shocked and amazed) it worked!!!! you fixed it!!!! what was wrong with it?

In the early era of DOS, I worked as a programmer for a company writing business software.

One of our sales representatives was true in his belief that computers, and DOS, couldn't be that hard to master. He was a frequent user of Lotus Symphony, the king of spreadsheet software in those days. He was running DOS 2.x something, and had by himself figured out how to fool DOS not search the A: drive for the "key disk". He simply wrote the statement "ASSIGN A=C" and was *very* happy to have mastered DOS, into searching for the key file in the hard disk instead. However, after creating a spreadsheet, he needed to save his work. He retrieved a new diskette, put it in, and typed "FORMAT A:" ...

(In case you didn't get it, he just formatted his hard disk, since he had told DOS that A: *was* C:...)

In the early era of DOS, I worked as a programmer for a company writing business software.

We had a product that was called "COMPACT", a business system. When installed, the software had a COMPACT.BAT file created in the path, so the user could type "COMPACT" anywhere, and start the software.

One day a new client called in, and could not start the software.

Me: What error message do you receive?

User: It says "Bad command or file name"

Me: Did you spell the name right? Does it say "COMPACT" ?

User: Yes.

Me: Please press Enter. (making sure the she knows which key it is...)

User: I did. Now it says "Bad command or file name" again.

Me: Did you *really* spell the name right? C - O - M - P - A - C - T ?

User (a bit angrily): Yes, I'll write it again. (clic-clic...)

Me: (counting the clics. It is one short of what it should be. Then I get it. She's typing "OMPACT", because the "C" was already on the screen... You know the C) prompt...)

In the early era of DOS, I worked as a programmer for a company writing business software.

Our sales dept had shipped a set of diskettes for demo purposes to a soon-to-be client. We didn't hear from the client for three weeks, so we called and asked what they thought about the software.

Client: Yes, the software works fine, but why does it have to take so long to start it up every morning?

Me: Long? How long does it take?

Client: It usually takes 1-2 hours...

Me: 1-2 hours..! Please explain to me what you do!

Client: Well, we follow exactly as the manual says: 1. Format the hard disk...

(She made a complete re-install of the PC every morning..!)

Within the last two weeks I've had two calls from people complaining that they are unable to save to the floppy .. errors such as there not being enough space to store the files.

At first I thought this odd .. and each time I've looked into the problem, I find that their blank disks are full to the brim and they have managed to put 1 file on each disk. The customer obviously thinks there is something wrong with their system and / or the disks.

Both calls were solved by extracting the disks and getting the customer to read out what it says on the blank disks:- "HP Deskjet 870c Driver Disk 1 of 5" !!!!!!!

The second customer wanted to know how to format the disks and it took about 10 minutes of pleading for him NOT to do this but spend a couple of pounds on a set of blanks!

A little about myself- At the time of these stories, I was the assistant head technician at the main store of a 14 store computer chain (we will call it XYZ to protect the names of the completely stupid) located in a southern state who's name begins with an "A" that Bill Clinton is *NOT* from. (That should narrow it down a bit)We built its own computers and sold parts to those who wanted to build or upgrade a computer themselves.

The first tale involves a redneck (Lots of those down here) who decided to build himself a new pentium class computer, and save himself a few hundred dollars in the process. He bought himself all of the parts he needed (or rather what the salesman told him he needed, because this guy didn't have a clue) He took all of the parts home and, surprise surprise, came in two days later with his new computer tucked under one arm and demanding to see the store manager. The manager at this store talked to him for about half an hour before the man calmed down enough for us to find out that he was pissed because we sold him parts that didn't even power up. Ok, so we opened the case and found that HE HAD WELDED THE MOTHERBOARD TO THE CASE. Not ducked taped (Ive seen those too), not glues, but WELDED THE MOTHERBOARD TO THE CASE. Even melted parts of the plastic in doing so. Then he wanted his money back.

We had a good laugh on that one.

The next one was a few months later and also involved an idiot with a motherboard. This one bought a board and, two or three days later, came back complaining it didn't work. He just brought the motherboard in, and so we tested it and lo and behold it didn't work. So we gave him a new one. He called us up a day or two later saying it didn't work and B*****ing us all out over the phone about how we sold him junk. When we tried to ask some simple tech support type questions (Is it plugged in? Do you have the power cables black-to-black? etc) he got really furious and started shouting "I'm a CNE! I *KNOW* what *I* am doing!" A little later he comes back, twice as mad as before and with motherboard in hand. We checked it and it to didn't work. So we gave him a third board, but not before checking it to ensure that yes, it DID work. Two days later he comes back, demanding to see the owner and this time brought his entire computer. His complaint was that not only did this board not work, but it SMOKED when powered up. I took his computer to the back and took off the motherboard plate that the board mounts to so I could work on it. I applied power and smoke started coming off the thing from the SIMM banks. I unmounted the board to check his mountings when I noticed that he had a brass standoff mounted right under the contacts for the VRM (voltage regulator module) that had shorted out all three motherboards. I removed the standoff (Don't ask me why or how the smoke came from the other side of the board) and tried it again and the system worked perfectly. It was fun seeing the look on his face when he was told what was wrong, and that while we weren't going to charge him for the two other motherboards that he fried, he owed us $65 for the labor to fix it.

I work for an unnamed satellite provider as a technical consultant. I do admit that the wait times are out of hand for tech support but this is why!

Me: thank you for calling blah, my name is paul, how can I help you?

Caller: why does it take so long to get through to a person?

Me: the wait time is so long because people with non echnical questions. people with billing questions call us. people with sales questions call us. these people tie up the technical lines. they don't listen to the options when they call in. how may i help you?

Caller: I need to pay my bill. I have two credit cards and I want to pay 100.00 on one and 250 on the other.

Me: (pause)

Caller: Hello? Are you still here?

Me: You dindn't hear a would I said, did you?

Ok... I am sitting here doing tech support for a large ISP, reading tech tales, and laughing. I think man, some of this stuff is just unbelievable.

My phone rings, and I answer...

ME: "Hello, this is XXXXXXXX...."

(gather user info)

USER: "Yes hi, I can connect no problem and everything is fine, but I am trying to download a doc from Electronic Libary, are you familier with it?"

ME: Thinking of just giving spiel of This-is-not-our- product-cant-help-you, but decide against it, its been slow.

"Yes, I have heard of it but havent actually used it."

USER: "Well I am clicking on this document to download it and I am being prompted for a username and password, I try to enter Login info and it doesnt work."

ME: Realizing allready that she is trying to type in her Log-on-to-our-ISP info for their prompt, I decide to make sure though. "And what exactly does it say?"

USER: "Well it says, for a free.... (ect, ect, ect) and is asking for my username and info!"

ME: "Well it says something about a membership with Electronic Libary doesnt it?"

USER: "Yes..."

ME: "Well then I dont think that your user info for us will work for that then, it sounds like you need to sign up with them to get access."

USER: "Do you really, think so?... Well I'll try that and see if it works... but I dont know..."

ME: "Thank you for calling XXXXXXXXXX......"

Here is another ISP story... as related by friends who listened in with tech who took the call (and then spammed the floor via Instant Messanger the call just after it happened)

Tech: "Hello, welcome to XXXXXXX, can i have your email address please?"

(gather user info...)

User: "Yes I am trying to logon and I keep geeting a password error."

Tech: "Well what are you entering for the username?"

User: gives his username in a format that was used before our two companies joined.

Tech: "Ah ha... I see the problem, you havent converted yet."

User: "CONVERTED!!!!!! WHAT THE F--- DO YOU MEAN CONVERTED!!!!!" "WHAT KINDA F---ED UP COMPANY IS (name of our ISP)!" "Have I converted.... HELL NO!!!!!! and I plan to stay straight ALL MY LIFE!!!!!!!!!!!"

at this point the user slammed the phone down and hung up.

Is that crazy or what?

After numerous billing problems, I decided to switch long

distance providers. The customer service woman (let's call

her Jill) cancelled my account, but could not answer my

billing questions, so she transfered me to the billing

department. Again, I gave my personal information, and

asked for my account balance.

I was told that the account no longer existed, perhaps I

had misread the account number.

Apparently, instead of merely canceling my service, Jill

had deleated all of my account information, including my

outstanding balance. Kind of makes me wish I had a larger

bill!

Not really a tech tale but happened to me once during a

computer class. It was a basics course so the teacher was

teaching us how to write protect the disks. Instead of

flicking the tab on the disk, one of the girls on my class

ripped of the metal thingy that protects the disk from dust,

thinking it to be the write protect tab. Needless to say,

the disk was pretty much ruined. Not much of a tale, but

enough to convince me that people aren't just making up

some of these tales on this site:)

Two women were waiting for a program to load, one of

the women waved a paper across the front of the screen and

informed the other, that made the information come up quicker.

Some years ago I had exchanged a computer for some work on my car, the computer was an apricot xen ls-ii and the mechanics wife was called Dale. The computer was one of a few that I had which were surplus to requirements and was chosen for its cosmetic appeal more that its processing power (such was the nature of the end user). From the day the computer was installed I regretted this situation with all the usual questions (how do I switch it off, how do I copy the CD to floppy disk etc). I offered to spend a day with her to provide free training to which she turned down saying she knew a bit about computers and would be able to cope, after about a week things started to become quiet until one Friday night, I returned home at about 8pm to recieve a message on the answering machine from a very irate Dale stating the computer had 'blown up' and to call her back. I hesitantly called her back, she answered the phone and proceeded to tell me that she had come home early from college that afternoon and been working on the computer for about 5 or 6 hours during this time she had not saved her work, she decided to take a break, when she returned the computer had 'blown up' and the screen was covered in white dots at which point she promptly switched the machine off at the mains and lost all her work - It still turned out to be my fault that I had not told her that the Starfield Simulation screen saver was installed!

Recently we had a bad snow storm that took out power and phone lines. I am doing some shopping at a local store and an internet customer recognizes me. He says "I can't get on the Internet since they got my power back on. I tells me no dial tone detected. I wonder if I had a power surge or something? I would have called but they haven't fixed my phone lines yet."

This sounds like a typical dumb customer/urban legend, but it

really happened to me. When I was just starting out as a

software support tech for a big computer company, I got a

call one morning from a lady.

"I'm backing up my cd, and I'm on disk #50. I'm

running out of disks. How many more do you think I'll

need?"

After telling her that she might need over 400 diskettes

to back up her cd-rom and that she shouldn't bother anyway,

I said goodbye and convulsed at my desk for a few minutes.

Well as a technician I have seen alot of funny things happen,

But this one has to be one of the funniest to date.

We put together clone pc's for customers and load software to thier specifications.

One day this guy bought one and had the standard config installed (Sound card, modem, ect).

Well after about a day with this pc, he decided to call me.

As I picked up the phone I noticed some slamming and screaming going on. As a voiced answered "I am so mad at your people".

I said "What can I do to help you sir?". You people have not done what I have asked. I then replied "What is it we did not do."

"You people loaded some piece of software that I cannot get off of my pc". I asked him "What software did we load?".

Customer replied "This AMI software keeps loading everytime I turn on the pc". (He is referring to the

Bios program when the pc boots up).

During a system crash, I asked the user to power the system off and then back on after 5 seconds. After a pause, she said 'the screen still looks the same'. Obviously it will do if you only turn the monitor off!

When I did 1st level tech support for a major pc maker, I got a call one day from a guy who said he had just finished installing a cdrom drive and wanted a new fascia plate (you know, that piece of plastic that goes in empty drive bays to cover them up.)

Anyway, I didn't understand why he needed it if he had just installed a cdrom drive that came with a faceplate. After going round and round with him for several minutes about this, I finally got him to explain how he installed his cdrom drive.

Mr. Wizard had taken a Dremel tool and CUT an opening into the fascia plate so as to be able to slide his cdrom drive in and hook it up.

Needless to say, he did not get his replacement fascia plate

At the time I was working Level III IT SUPPORT at a Large COmpany.

The Case was entitled Video Problems.

It had been passed already through Level I phone support and Level II desktop support.

Case XXXXXX

Client has a p166 Compaq with 17 " monitor, 3 d video card, Went through with client and checked video drivers and monitor. Client still complains that the monitor still cannot clearly read the information on the screen.

LEvel II visited desktop all drivers loaded and monitor operational

I received the Case and visited the desktop after looking at the monitor observed one "dirty" glare protector. Housekeeping appearantly had used polish on the screen

Solution removed glare guard

It never fails.

I'll ask the customer to go to their printer, physically, and

they ask, how to do that.

one day a lady called in with some problems that led me to have to modify one of her files (batch file or something, I don't remember). So we tried to modify the file in win95, but, you know customers.....

anyway, to keep it real simple for her, I had reboot to DOS and we proceeded to locate the file and change to the directory it was located in and confirmed by doing a DIR command. ok, the files there.

me: ok, ma'm. I'd like you to type in 'edit config.sys' . I sound it out for her and spell it so there is no mistake

cust: I get the error message "File not found"

me: huh? are you sure? type it again, please, and spell it out while you are typing it in

cust: ok. "E-D-I-T C-O-N-F-I-G-.-S-Y-S" (enter) Nope, still get "File not found"

me: well, you spelled it right.

(we went round and round like this for about 5 minutes)

finally, when she was repeating it back to me once more she started spelling it like this:

"E-D-I-T C-O-N-F-I-G-P-E-R-I-O-D-S-Y-S"

me: WAIT A SECOND!! You're typing in the word 'period' and not an actual period itself?

cust: yes

me: (doing a slow burn for stupid customers) no ma'm , you need to type in a period, not the word 'period'

She had been typing it in that way the whole time but when she spelt it out for me, she would say the word 'period' and not spell out what she was typing, which was the word 'p-e-r-i-o-d'

I was on my second week at a new helpdesk support job. Our service is alot like an ISP although we support Real Estate agents who access our Multiple Listing Database to view properties.

A lady calls and says that her office bought everyone some new laptops so they could take them into buyers homes and let them view properties off the computer. She says she is having trouble connecting to our server. I start off with checking her dial up and talk her through manually dialing the connection through dial up networking. She is getting a no dial tone message. I ask her to check the cord running from the laptop's modem to the wall jack. She says, "what cord"? !!!! I can't believe it but I want to maintain my composure, so I politely explain to her to attach a phone cord to the modem and to the wall jack. She calls back ten minutes later and says, "I have a phone cord now and it's attached". The first thing I ask her at this point is, "do you have a separate phone line or are we talking on the line that you'll be using?" She says, "yes, I am on a cordless phone so you don't have to worry about that!"

Wow, what a nice way to work into a new job...

I'm still laughing over this one.

Well a lady calls in about her printer. She's having problems

setting up the printer.

Well to make a long story short. Half way through the call she says.

"I think this print is smarter that me. I think it has more brain cells."

Needless to say I'm in tears at that point.

I had an elderly gentleman call me up with a problem: he couldn't get his program to install. I got all the necessary data: kind of computer, hd size, etc. It was a brand new P2 350 with a 8.4gig hd. I figure: if it's brand new, he can't have filled up the hd yet, go through some other stuff, the whole nine yards. Nothing.

I'm about to tell him that I've got no clue when I hear our sysadmin muttering something about damn tape drives. I think, what if this guy isn't installing off a CD or floppy? I ask him about this program he is installing, and what the drive looks like that he is putting in into. (Having just read tech tales and hearing about people putting CDs into 5.25" drives)

It turns out that this guy was trying to load a program he wrote when he went to college in like the 60's or something. Specifically, he was trying to run it off of PUNCH CARDS, which he was feeding to a 3.5" drive!

And I thought that punch cards were too big to fit in a 3.5". Oh well.

I got this call from our branch office.

Me: Hello, Tech Support. How can I help you?

User: Every time I reboot the computer has the same error.

Me: What is the error?

User: It says something like you may now

shut down your computer".

Me: No problem, you can turn the power to your

machine off to reboot.

User: Ok.

( I hear a click of a button then another click)

User: It stills says you may now shut down your computer.

Me: Oops, You need to turn off the power to the computer

not the monitor.

User: What's the monitor?

A guy I know started repairing Sony Playstation's before they were officially released here in the UK. Being a helpful kinda guy, he'd always try and talk people through problems for free over the 'phone.

Now, one guy that got in touch with him called up, and the following conversation ensued:

T: What's the problem?

C: (Caveman-like accent)When I put a CD in it, it dun't start.

T: OK, is (the Playstation) plugged in and turned on?

C: (Caveman-like accent)Yeah, I 'ad it workin' before.

T: OK, so what happens after you put the CD in and close the lid?

C: (Caveman-like accent)I can't close the lid any more, i'd break the wires.

What had happened, was the moron with the playstation (the kinda guy whose knuckles drag along the ground as he walks, whose lower jaw sticks out further than his upper jaw, who lives on a riverbank, and whose relatives all play duelling banjo's) had tried to pull a CD off of the locking hub. Unfortunately, the hub was still locked to the CD when he removed it, and as a result, the CD drive mechanism was hanging out of the case on the end of it's wires...

I just hope he never graduates to PC's........ (shudder)

At the company I work for we install the hardware along with

the custom software we sell. I installed the server and some

workstations in a rural courthouse. Two weeks later I got

this phone call.

Me: Hello, (compnay name). How can I help you?

Judge: You need to get out here and fix this d*** computer!

Me: What's the problem?

Judge: It keeps making the lights go out!

Me: Makes the lights go out?

Judge: Yea, the computer starts making these click'in sounds

then the lights go out!

Me: Judge, that is the UPS turning on. It keeps the

computers running when the power goes out.

Judge: Well it should'nt keep mak'in the lights go out!

Me: (Another explanation from me about the UPS)

Judge: Let me speak to your boss!

After some debate, my manager sent me to remove the UPS.

These are things that have happened to me in the past, but being the IT guy for a small office and as I'm just about to enter my BSc(Hons) Computer Science course, I think I should keep quiet about them...

However, I think I should first explain that I'm only 18 and have had no practical training in computers. My NT and networking skills are self-taught, and I've only done courses on computer theory.

1) The Home Network

At home, I decided it would be fun to network my machine to my Dad's machine (games....). I didn't think it'd be too difficult, because I am the IT guy in my office so I have added new machines to the network, and have setup plenty of networks for games in the past.

However, it took me nearly a day to get a Win95 machine networked to a Win98 machine. The protocols were setup correctly, there were the correct clients installed, the cable was fine etc... There was no reason why our two machines could not see each other.

I then fell back on changing T-Pieces. As I pulled the connector off the back of my machine, I had one hand on the case, and one hand on the earth/shield of the network cable. I got a pretty nasty shock from this.

After having taken an A-Level in Electronics (and making the same mistakes as everyone else on the course), I recognised the shock as being 60Hz (UK Mains frequency). This worried me, so I got out a circuit tester and measuered the PD between the case and the shield of the network cable (still connected to my Dad's machine). The PD was 240Volts!! Something wasn't earthed!!

When I'd put the network card into my dad's machine, I forgot to put in the screw to hold the card to the back plane, so it wasn't earthed to the case.

2) The Dead Server

In our office, we have two main servers (Both NT machines) sharing a single monitor, but with a keyboard and mouse each. When I first started, I thought I'd familiarise myself with the two servers. The Secondary server worked fine, but when I flicked the monitor switch over to the Primary server, I got no response from the keyboard or mouse!

I checked from a workstation and found that I was still getting a response from the Primary server (pings were returned, I could retrieve documents/time syncs). My first thought was that the keyboard and mouse had been disconnected, but no. They were plugged in. The lights were even on the keyboard, and they turned on and off when I pressed the caps lock or the scroll lock etc..

Eventually I decided to restart the machine, so I volunteered to come in over a weekend. I shutdown the Secondary server after taking a backup of both machines, then hit the power switch on the Primary. To my horror, the server box turned off, but the picture on the screen stayed there.

The last guy to do any IT work in the office plugged the Fax server's cable into the monitor switchbox in the Primary server's position. I had been looking at the Fax server's screen all this time.

3) Booting an NT Server

I installed one of the NT4 service packs on one of our servers, and when it went to restart, the screen came up with the blue "Setup Windows NT" screen. I immediately rebooted and the same thing happened.

I forgot the Windows NT was in the SCSI CDROM. The Windows NT CD is bootable from certain SCSI CDROM drives.....

Well, I think I've embarrased myself enough for one night, so isn't it someone else's turn? :)

I've worked PC support for a few years, and I've heard a few dumb questions, but I always look at them as true problems that trouble an 'upcoming power user'. I'm always kind, and found that keeps people from being belligerent.

While walking through the PC department of a large chain computer store, I overheard a customer questioning an (overworked) salesman, "So, what's the difference between a 15-inch monitor and a 17-inch monitor?"

I didn't wait around for his response. I also knew right away that I didn't want his job. And I always wondered if he'd answered "Two inches" or "Two-hundred bucks."

Working on an ISP could be the single most devastating experience of my life - you will not believe the frustration we have gone through. Anyway, one day I was doing tech support and I got a weird call:

C: My answering machine won't work!

Me: Say again?

C: My answering machine won't work!

Me: Do you mean that the voice mail software for your modem won't work?

C: No! My answering machine won't work!

Me: And you don't mean your modem either, do you?

C: Nope

Me: It isn't software, it isn't your modem, you mean an actual external unit? An actual answering machine?

C: Yes! It stopped working since I installed your software

Me: And what's the problem?

C: The outgoing message was erased

Me: And you don't mean software?

C: No! My ANSWERING MACHINE!!!!

Me: Ok, the best way to fix it is for you to pull the instructions on the answering machine and re-record your message. It is impossible for our software to conflict with your ANSWERING MACHINE.

It was hard not to laugh through this

One day, I was listening to one of my tech reps answering to a tech call. Everything was going ok: Open the folder, double click here, double click there, say ok..., etc.

Well at the end of the call I hear my rep laughing so hard the entire office had to find out what happened. This is the actual phone call:

C - I was following your instruction to setup dial-up networking but I am confused

Tech - Ok, double click on my computer, double click on dial-up networking, right click on the connection icon, click on TCP/IP properties, etc... Did you finish entering your secondary DNS?

C - Yes

Tech - Say Ok now

C - Ok

Tech - what screen do you see now?

C - same screen.

Tech - Say ok

C - Ok

Tech - what do you see now?

C - Same screen!

Tech - Did you click on the OK button?

C - Oooh, you wanted me to click on the OK button? I just thought you just wanted me to say OK

A team member told me this one. We are Field Service Engineers at a very notable memory manufacturing company in the U.S. My counterpart received a case to troubleshoot a CD-ROM drive that would not play audio CD's. At least not all of it (ahem). When my tech friend got there, he couldn't reproduce the problem. Seemed that any audio CD he tried would play just fine. Then the customer told him that when she flipped it over to play side B, nothing worked!

Helpdesk: Helpdesk, how can I help you?

User: I can't get into my computer? It won't let me log in?

Helpdesk: What do you mean you can't log in?

User: Well, on friday (today is Monday), I had a message pop up telling me that I had 2 days left to change my password.

Helpdesk: And did you change your password then?

User: No! I thought I would wait until either Monday or Tuesday.

Helpdesk: Uh-hu. What day is it today?

User: Monday!

Helpdesk: Yes, thats correct. And when were you prompted to change your password?

User: On Friday.

Helpdesk: Right! And how many days left did it give you to change your password?

User: 2.

Helpdesk: Very good ... Now!!! If you got that message on Friday, & today is Monday. How many days is it between Friday & Monday?

User: Oh - yeah! Its 3 ...

I work at a fairly large (for this country anyway) computer manufacturer. We had recently been through a bad period where a lot of the experienced tech support staff had left for better paying jobs, so a lot of the less experienced tier 1 (call screening and classification) staff had been promoted to 2nd tier.

This left a sizeable gap in 1st tier, so we ended up hiring quite a few staff who maybe didn't have quite the experience level we wanted. Now E-mail is used extensively inside the company for mailing around fixes that people might not know yet or to ask for help with a particular problem, so I wasn't too surprised to read an E-mail from one of the new guys asking for help.

A system (Pentium class) had come in for an upgrade (RAM, HDD) and the guy working on it was more familiar with Pentium II's. His message asked something along these lines. "I've got a system here that's saying "Pipeling Burst SRAM" on it. Is it a problem with the RAM, Should I replace it???"

Turns out that he was used to the PII's onboard L2 cache, and so hadn't ever even heard of Pipeline Burst cache in Pentium systems. Needless to say, he got a few messages that day pointing out his mistake.

It was a late Sunday evening, when I had to stay in my office to complete some of my tasks, when suddenly the phone rang and I could hear the voice of our Human Resource Manager, Dina (not her real name), on the other side of the line...

(Just to clear things up, Dina was one of those old and rusty users, who suffered a lot from the Technology Revolution that's been hitting them in the face for the last, oh let's say, 50 years or so...She had that computer in her office for TWO years!)

Me: Hello?

Dina: Um, is this Tech Support?

Me: Yes, how may I help you?

Dina: Well, I have a problem with my computer...

Me: Can you please describe it for me?

Dina: It won't start!

Me: What did you try to do?

Dina: I turned it on, but a few seconds later, I got the

"It is now safe to turn off the computer" message...

so I turned it off and on. I waited a few seconds

and it gave me that message again!

Me: Er, Dina, please tell me how you turned the computer

on and off... what button did you press?

Dina: That little one in front of me...

Me: The one on the monitor?

Dina: Yes!

Well, you can guess the rest by yourself...

I've recently managed to move beyong the tech support role in my company, but I have my collection of weird tales to tell.

At one stage I took a call from a customer who was having problems with their PC. There was a short period where our systems went out with windows 95 and IE4 installed and if you reinstall windows without first removing IE4 it would cause problems on startup. The only way to fix this was to start the machine in dos, delete 2 offending files and re-reinstall windows, then reinstall IE4 (Thank YOU microsoft!).

Anyway, they had reinstalled windows (An error message had told them to do it) and had gotten these errors. I rattled off the solution as I had a dozen times that week alone, concentrating only enough to determine how experienced the user was so I could tailor my instructions to their level.

Suffice to say, I misjudged. We managed to get the system booted into DOS and I spelled out the exact things to say.

Me: Type C D Backslash (to make sure we're in C:\)

Cust: Done that.

Me: Press Enter.

Cust: Okay. (The fact that I needed to say that was one hint I should have heeded)

Me: Type C D space W I N D O W S and press enter.

Cust: Done. (I thought it best to change ti the windows directory and then to system. CD Windows\system was a bit much I thought.)

Me: Type C D space S Y S T E M and press enter.

Cust: Done.

Me: What does the last line on the screen say (Just to make sure we made it to C:\Windows\system).

Cust: Invalid command or filename.

Me: Hmmmm. Okay spell back to me what the last thing was you typed (How hard can it be to spel CD???)

Cust: CDSPACESYSTEM, and before that CDSPACEWINDOWS.

D'oh!

I got a call from my father the other day, saying that he

got a strange error on his computer that said to "Pry off

a key from the keyboard, press that key, and replace it".

Believing that this was real, my father went to the cellar,

got a screwdriver, and proceeded to pry a key off of the

keyboard! I immediately figured that it must be some kind of virus or

trojan horse. I told him to be especially vigilant and tell me

exactly what the messages says (read: write it down) the

next time it happens. Not a month later, when I went to

my parents place, he told me that he had left the computer

on and that the message had reappeared. Finally! I could now

see the symptoms of this virus that had been bugging me for

quite a while! I went to the computer and saw the words

"Invalid System Disk. Replace and press any key". "That is

the exact message that I got before!", my dad exclaimed.

Of course, as I looked at the floppy drive, there was a disk

inside, I popped it out, pressed the space bar, and all was

well!

A secretary was unhappy because the mouse pad was not big enough. She would often reach the edge of the pad before she got to the edge of the screen, so she would have to lift up the mouse and move the pad over some, lower the mouse, and continue. It was a happy day for me when she retired.

Another older woman was being trained on a program. When she was done and wanted to leave the program...she did not know the command, she asked; "how do I get out" to which I responded with "you quit". She sat there with a blank look on her face and asked again (several times). I guess I raised my voice some the last time I said "QUIT" at which time she picked up her purse and started to leave the room. I asked where she was going and she answered "you told me to quit!". I should have let her go.

These are true stories. You gotta love 'em

A woman called to complain that one of our techs had ruined her Win3.1 machine and now must come over to fix it for free. She had called for assistance with installing a new browser. Before hanging up, the tech had provided verbal instructions for the actual download and advised her to click on the zipped file and follow the on-screen instructions to install the software. When she called back she claimed that the instructions the tech gave her resulted in her computer now not booting up and giving a missing system.ini error. As it turns out, after hanging up with us she had downloading and installing the program, but had not been able to start the browser because she kept clicking on the zipped file rather than using the icon for the executable file. Rather than call us for help, she had become frustrated and decided to uninstall the browser. Her method? Well, since she had installed it that very day, she decided to do a search for all files with that day's date on it and remove each and every one of them. Needless to say.....

Back in the days of superfast 20MHz 386 computers, I gave a 5.25 floppy disk with some crucial files on it to a coworker. About 20 minutes later, she appeared at my door and sheepishly said that she had lost the floppy disk. After a bit of coaxing, she explained to me that she put the floppy disk into her new computer and it never came out.

Thinking the disk was jammed in drive, I grabbed my needle nose pliers and walked with her to the computer. When we arrived at her cubicle I discovered that the computer, which was a tower unit, was placed under the table she used as a desk. As I got down on my hands and knees to look at the drive, I noticed that it was empty. At about that time, she told me that this wasn't the first time that this had happened. She said that her computer occaisionally ate floppy disks.

Bewildered, I looked at the computer again and noticed that there was a gap between the drive bay covers, just below the disk drive, that was just big enough for a 5.25 floppy disk to fit through.

After turning off the system and uplugging it, I proceeded to take off the case. When I did about a half-dozen 5.25 floppy disks fell out.

Apparently, when she'd reach down to insert disks into the drive without looking, she was missing the drive completely and inserting the disks into the gap.

After the laughter subsided, we moved the computer out from under the desk and taped the gap shut. Her computer never ate another follpy disk.

Customer: My computer is broken, it won't start !

Customer Services: Is your computer plugged in?

Customer: How do I know?

Customer Services: Check the cables in the back of it, anb see if any of them goes to the power outlet on the wall.

Customer: Yes, they are plugged in!

Customer Services: So what happens when you power up the equipment?

Customer: That's the problem, it won't turn on when I step on the pedal!

Customer Services: Excuse me Ma'am, What pedal?

Customer: Well you know the one that says Microsoft, with the little two buttons!

Customer Services:Ma'am that's not a pedal to turn on the computer, that is your pointing device!

Customer: Oh!...I thought it was like a sawing machine...

I provide support for a large governmental agency. One day a

user came to me and asked, can a mouse work backwards? I looked

at her a little puzzled, and said, "Not usually" She said,

"Well it won't respond to my hand movements, it goes opposite

of what I tell it to" This user was not the brightest I have

ever worked with. I said "I'll come look at it in a couple of

minutes". I walked over to her cube and as I came around the corner

she said "Never mind, I had the mouse upside down"

I had to lean against the wall, and bite my cheeks not

to burst out laughing.

Heres a couple that actually happened to myself and are absolutely true!

I had a call from a user who wanted to know how to print landscape in her application. Being in a somewhat buoyant mood that morning I responded with "ah yes you will need to turn your printer sideways to do that". The user said "OK hold on a minute" and after a while returned to say "If I do that it won't fit on the desk" !!!!!

Heres another..

I was talking to user and asked them to go to the MS-DOS prompt. I then asked them to type CD\ and press enter

When the user did this, the message "invalid directory" came back

I asked the user to try again making sure they had the correct slash, Again, the same message. After several more attempts I discovered what the user was doing wrong...

CD\PRESENTER

!!!!

Hope you enjoy these!

Bill Marsden

S.D Manager

Pavilion Computing plc

www.pavnet.co.uk

Please submit this as an "anonymous" story. We have to protect our users.....

I work for a company that assembles it's own brand of "clone" PCs. Last Friday, I sold a couple of systems to a small business. The systems were sold with CD drives, speakers and sound cards, so they could listen to their favorite music CDs while working. They claimed that they would need no help in getting them set up, since one of their users "knew everything about computers".

On Monday, I got the call.

User: (Beligerent tone)"You LIED to me. We can't play our CDs and hear music!"

Me: "Wait a minute, here...did you follow our instructions, and are you sure everything is plugged in correctly?"

User: (Still beligerent) "Yes, the speakers are plugged in to the power and the computer, the switch is on, the CD is in the drive, and the little CD light is on. You LIED to me."

Me: "Well then, there must be something else wrong. Let's go through each piece..."

(Double check all connections, power, etc, still no sound)

Me: "Everything seems to check out OK. I can't imagine what's wrong. I can have a Tech over there in 15 minutes."

(Flash of inspiration........)

Me: "By the way, can you tell me what CD you are trying to play?"

User: (Major attitude)"Windows '98"

After I explained the difficulties of trying to "hear" Windows '98, I asked him to call me after he tried a Garth Brooks or Pink Floyd CD. Funny thing, I never heard back.

HelpDesk, may I help you?

KK: I cannot find my file and I need to update this report for a meeting in 15 minutes!

HD: Ok, what is the name of your file?

KK: I don't know.

HD: Where did you save it?

KK: I don't know.

HD: What application did you make the file in?

KK: I think it is in Harvard Graphics, but I'm not sure.

HD: So you do not know the name of your file, where it was saved, or what it was made in?

KK: Yes, that is right. I only use this file once a year, and that meeting is in 15 minutes.

{This occurred. I was the helpdesk person and it took just over two hours to find this file on our network.

one year later she called and we did the same thing!}

As a Lab Tech at a community college I got a very excited "customer" one day.

Customer: All the words have vanished from under the pictures!

me: What do you mean.

CT: When I started the computer I couldn't see the words under the pictures!

me: Oh, the little pictures that say what programs are there?

CT: Yes.

me: What were you doing before this happened?

CT: Nothing! (don't they always say that?)

I started the computer (Hmm, why had she turned it off?)

Indeed the words were missing from beneath the icons. after several

minutes of thinking and searching I went into the setup and found

that the colors had been changed to have a white font, and the background

was white. When I went into the setup she said:

CT: I was trying to make it prettier, so went in there to make it nicer to use.

me: Why didn't you mention that to me?

CT: Well! I was sure I hadn't done anything to it!

Please submit this from an "anonymous" source......

I recently sold a batch of systems to a local company to upgrade all their existing systems. Their old ones were pretty bad, and the replacements dazzled everybody. Except one. There's always one.

She worked in the graphics department, and claimed she was a "Power User" from 'way back. There wasn't anything new we could teach her about the new systems.

Since she was always too busy to learn about the new Operating System, she continued to do her job with the old software, in the old way. "No time to learn the new stuff, but I want you to know I am having lots of problems with the new hardware. It's all JUNK!"

When asked for an example, she said that the monitor kept going out, and she had to re-boot the entire system to make it work again. She had to repeat this several times a day, and was tired of it. She had told her boss that she wasn't happy and wanted a replacement, NOW!!!!

When we investigated, we looked at everything we could think of....power surges, software conflicts, video adapter faults, but could find absolutely nothing wrong. Yet, she insisted that she had to reboot several times a day, because the monitor goes blank.

It finally dawned on us that she had never re-set the screensaver, and it would blank the screen after the default five minutes. Of course when she rebooted, the image would reappear and everything was fine, until the screen saver kicked in again.

When we told her how to remedy the problem, and stepped her through the process over the phone to resolve the problem, she had to invent other reasons why she didn't like the new systems. Each was an easily solvable issue that could have been avoided, had she taken the time to learn about it.

Each time she called, our Techs would fight over who got to talk to her, so THEY could have a good story to tell their friends!

I work for a small computer manufacturer. We have three stores in different towns. We often sell quite a few machines to factories or large companies. We recently sold 20 computers to a ...... company. Their sysadmin wanted this and that and we had to have it perfect. We assumed he knew what he was saying as he ordered some nice hardware for his company. We built the machines, delivered them, and set them up for the company. Two days later we get a call "ALL YOUR #$%# MACHINES ARE DEAD.... GET OUT HERE AND FIX THEM NOW". We asked what had been done to them? They all had worked when we took them out there. He replyed by saying in so many words there were pieces of #$#%.

The next day another technician from the company and I went out to see what was wrong with the machines. Upon looking at the back of the machines the reason was obvious. We went to talk to the sys admin and tell him what he had done. It turned out that he had decided "the employees have too mcuh freedom with that much mouse cable...so i lopped 2 feet of it off and respliced it." Well it turned out he had done this while all the workstations were on and were currently backing up their data to the server. It blew up various parts in ever computer from network cards to mother boards. And lost them 3 days of work. How can a sysadmin be dumb? Boggles the mind.

This is from the other side of the fence. I was the cusotmer, but I am also a computer professional. This was a long time ago. I had a 286 PC with a Meg of RAM on the motherboard. I wanted to add memory so I could use Windows 3.1. I bought the computer at a store run by the company that made it. I later went back there to get an add-in RAM board and additional RAM. I told the salesman the RAM chips he gave me were too slow for the machince, but he said he was sure he was right. He wasn't, I kept getting memory errors in the new RAM. I took the machine in to have them check that the RAM chips were too slow and change them. Instead, they replaced the motherboard, at great cost to me. I took it home with grave misgivings. Started it up and got exactly the same memroy errors.

Over the next several months I took it back no less than eight times, and each time they replaced the motherboard. I got to point that I would take it in, pick it up, take it home and test it, and take it back in the same day.

Finally one of their techs says he thinks he has it fixed for good, but did my hard drive always sound like this. I go behind the counter to listen. It sounds like a chain saw! He had to ask? Of course not I told him. While I was there I saw him try 3 motherboards, and each time one did not work he put it back into bench stock in hopes it would work on some other computer.

I then asked him how he was checking memory. He was using a DOS program that could only acceess 640K of RAM. They did not have anyway to test the RAM I bought.

They finally replaced the motherboard with one that had space on the motherboard for additional RAM, so they no longer had the RAM card and slow RAM I bought installed. Imagine my surprise when that fixed the problem. The only other problem I had when I got it home was that they somehow had installed 2 extra IO cards. I'm not sure whose computer the extras came from.

Needless to say, this company is no longer in business.

Client - 'I went to eject a floppy disk, and my screen went black'

Me - 'It says here in our records you have a Dell Dimension tower PC, is that correct?' (Note : same as the PC I was using at the time)

Client - 'Yes, it is...'

At this point, I looked at my PC, and the button that you use to eject the floppy. It is about 3/4" long, and about 1" inch away from the power switch to the computer. The power switch is about 1" long, which the customer pressed to eject his floppy, but instead turned off his machine...

A user called in to our help desk and said she was having a problem connecting remotely with our internal network. I ran through some troubleshooting with her and needed to see what kind of modem she had (we use laptops and all the modems are PCMCIA card modems) Here's the meat of the conversation:

Me: OK. I need to see what kind of modem you have. Go ahead and pop your modem out of your computer.

(Pause)

User: OK. My hard drive is out. Oh, by the way, my computer just shut down for no reason.

I work for a company that specialises in server-based comms software. The majority of calls need at least a little competence on the side of the end user... Early on in my employ here I had a call from a customer who announced himself as the 'MD and Technical Director' of his company (yeah, I know now...). He described a situation that was fairly simple but long-winded. We spend about 10 minutes clearing up the workstation side of the problem and asked the guy either to rconsole (NetWare util.) his server or to gain physical access to it. This baffled the guy no-end. "What's a server?" he asked. After a quick discussion he came out with "Oh, you mean that box in the corner?"!

These days, if someone declares themselves with fancy titles, I know not to make any assumptions. ;-)

Well, this story is a sad and funny one.

All my customers have my pager number since i had problem with

my cell. phone (You are working with someone and talking over

the phone while charing him...).

I lost one of my customer because he was dialing my pager number

and at the sound of the bip 'LEAVING A VOICE MESSAGE'...

so i never did answer his call.

What make's me mad a bit is that he had my home phone number...

JM

Chuck (customer): I've been using your program for months but I can't put numbers in some of the fields anymore. Did you make a change in the program?

Rep: Chuck, is the little light on next to the NumLock key on your keyboard?

Chuck: OOOOppppps.

Rep: That will only cost you a hundred . . . this time.

PS Chuck's company went BK shortly thereafter.

Here's my contribution, I'll call it "Drive Too Small":

Me: Good Morning, @$#% Computers...

Cust: I bought this newfangled, gee whiz piece of software at @#% (BIG BOX store)...and I can't get it installed.

Me: Did you check the installation isntructions carefully?

Cust: Yes, I read them completely before starting.

Me: And what is the problem?

Cust: It won't take disk #3...

Me: Disk 1 and 2 went in OK?

Cust: Disk 1 was easy, disk 2 was a little tight, but disk 3 just won't fit.

Me: (Put cust on hold, break down laughing, cry, go pee...

Me: (back to cust) Please bring your computer in, and we'll get it working for you.

You may have guessed...the customer had NOT removed disk 1 or 2, and was trying to cram disk 3 in on top of them!

Cheers, Jim

My computer had been making a mechanical 'click-click' sound every couple of seconds for several months. Although it irritated me, it never seemed to cause a problem so I didn't investigate or take it back to the store for warranty work (although my wife constantly asked me to). Last weekend I'd had enough of being asked about it so broke out the tools and opened the computer. After determining the noise was coming from the fan/power supply I noticed that the fan wasn't running. Figuring it was stuck and needed a kick start, I stuck my pencil through the fan grill and pushed the fan blades several times. All of sudden the fan starts running (hadn't been doing so for several months when I thought about it) and a dead scorpion is ejected from the fan. I'm glad I didn't take it back to the store to get fixed - think of the reaction.

During a Company Wide upgrade of Virus-Scan I returned to my desk to find the following note from a customer I had upgraded earlier.

"You installed Virus-Scan on my PC this morning and now a lot of my files have virus's on them - this is not good enough".

I sent her an email explaining the concept of Virus checking - oddly enough she didn't reply..........

I used to work on a helpdesk for one of the larger phone companies on the west coast and got a call one day from a Vice President saying that he had accidentally emailed out a document that no one should see to a large distribution list and wanted to know if there was any way we could have it removed before anyone sees it. After a couple more questions I discovered that he had sent the email out more than 6 hours earlier so I had to explain to this executive that not only can we not clear that message, but most of the people on that distribution list had probably already read the document.

Me: Tech Support, Steven Speaking.

User: (Thick accent, female) I can't get on line

Me: Okay, what kind of error messages are you getting?

User: Its telling me it won't accept my user name and password

Me: Okay, whats your username and password?

User: My username is _____ and my password is ____

Me: Ummm. What was your username? (She said same for both)

User: Oh.. Its __________ (Different answer this time, after I tell her its the first part of her E-mail address)

Me: Okay, Let me check that against the server here quick.

(*Amazingly they matched the radius*)

Me: Okay. Can you make sure that you are typing your username and password in both lower case?

USer: I'm sure its not that, it has to be something when I set the account up. It would be easier if you called me back at ###-##### so I could try to connect while we are on the phone.

Me: Sure thing lady.

*Click.* (She didn't get a call back)

_---------

Moral of the Story: Don't argue w/ Techs. When it says wrong password/username and the tech wants you to check the caps or make sure you didn't accidently hit shift, do it. Violent attitudes come quickly if I tell you that, I check the authentication log, and thats what you were doing.

Another one: (Summary)

User calls in, says she needs me to clear out her E-mail box bewcause she has some large file in it.

I get her username and password. Gives me a log/pass error. I ask her to verify the password and username for me.

Of course, she then says that her username is something different than what she told me before, that the first username she told me was her friends that sent her the e-mail.

-USERS-.... kill em all.

Long live the Techz.

A few years ago I was doing phone support for an e-mail package my company used to sell. Being file-based, it would run on just about any server that could present to the client machine a logical drive; at that time Novell was still the dominant server OS.

A call came in one day to my phone. I answered and said, "Thank you for calling mycompany, my name is Daniel. How may I help you?" The customer replied, "Look, this is Bob Smith, network administrator for Snatchem, Blindem and Fleecem, the largest law office in Philadelphia. I'm a CNE (Certified Novell Engineer) and I've been troubleshooting this problem all morning. I'm positive the problem has nothing to do with the server."

What followed was a painful fifteen minutes of troubleshooting. It was painful in that any time I wanted to look at something having to do with the server, he would reply that he had already looked at that and it was fine. Finally I asked him to run filer.exe to check for ownerless files.

"Filer.exe? What's that? Is it a utility that comes with the mail package?" (Filer.exe is a utility that shipped with Novell's server package, is supplied by Novell and is an essential utility. It's hard to imagine someone being a CNE and not knowing what filer.exe is all about).

I had to walk him through using filer and, sure enough, found bunches of ownerless files. "What's with all these ownerless files and where did they come from?" he demanded to know. So I explained to him how Novell (this was on 3.11) could create ownerless files.

"No way," he insisted, "this can't be a Novell problem. I've never heard of such a thing." (I wanted to say "yeah, you never heard of filer either, but I'm polite). I assured him it was a problem specific and unique to Novell. He then called me a liar and demanded to speak with my supervisor.

"No problem," I cheerfully replied, "I'll have to put you on hold a couple of minutes. Is that okay?" He said sure. I immediately surfed to Novell's website, found an article that explained ownerless files in detail, and got back on the phone. "I'm sorry," I said, "my supervisor stepped out; I'm not sure when he'll be back. However, I found the following article on Novell's site you may be interested in" and gave him the URL.

"What am I supposed to do with that?" he asked. "Well, open your browser and put that address in. It will take you direct to Novell's website and the article that explains ownerless files."

He was quiet a moment, then said, "I have no idea what you're talking about. I don't have a browser.exe on this or any other machine. Whatever the heck a yew-are-ell is, it's obviously not anything compatible with Novell. I'll tell you this; I've been doing network administration for twelve years (this was in 1994) and I can tell that you have no idea what you're talking about and have been lying the whole time. I intend to write a letter to (insert the name of my company's president here) and tell him how incompetent you are."

"You're certainly welcome to do that, sir. Here's the correct address and how to spell my name. And the reference for this case is (insert case number). Is the mail working now, though?"

"Yes, it is, no thanks to you" followed by the sound of a phone being slammed down. Needless to say, I documented the hell out of that case and laughed the rest of the day.

A sweet little old lady came came into the store I was working at. She said her monitor was dim. "Can you put a new bulb in it?"

I'm a student at a highschool in michigan and consider myself fairly smart around computers. One day a person in my CAD/CAM class had their mouse ball fall out. As you probably know they're held in with that little circular tab that locks when you slide it around. Well this person apparantly didnt know about it. After the person had found the tab and the mouse ball they proceded to try to fix the mouse. After several attempts to keep the mouse closed

and not being able to do so (they werent turning the tab) they decided to glue it shut. So they go over to the materials area and get one of those round bottles of elmers rubber cement and procede to dump about half of the bottle into the mouse. Needless to say the mouse ball stayed in there but when the next hour came to use it it (Duh) wasnt working. So the kid calls the instructor over to see what the problem is and the teacher takes one look at it and then

rips the mouse out of the keyboard and calls the office to get the trouble maker down to his classroom. I forgot to mention that this teacher is about 6'2" must weigh about 235 lbs and is built like a tank. You dont want to mess with him. When the kid arrives the teacher procedes to talk to the kid and then starts to rise up to a yell while the kid just stands there looking like hes going to pee his pants. It was the funniest scene i've ever seen in school. Needless

to say the kid was kicked out of the class and was forced to buy a new mouse for the computer.

Customer: I just got my software upgrade and I think I have a defective CD.

Me: Ok, what point were you at in the install.

C: I was following the directions, it said the setup file would be in the root of the CD.

M: That's correct.

C: But my CD doesn't have a folder named "root"

Hello... [company name], how can I help you?

I just got hooked up with your Check Verification service, and I can't get it to work.

OK. Do you have a checkreader attached?

Yes, but I can't get anything to go through it.

Is the green light on?

Yes, and the motor tries to pull the card through, but it can't seem to bend it enough?

Card?

Yes, this customer wishes to use Visa to pay for his groceries.

Hello... [company name] support, can I help you?

Yes, I was just to your website, and I saw the portion on Account Submissions... where you can enter in the person's name and collect money. I wanted to get in, but I don't know the password.

OK. What is your log in name?

[some name]

Well, I don't have record of that. It should be a letter followed by 4 digits.

Well, can I just give you the information?

Sure, that will work as well.

OK... His name is Josh, and he lives next door. I want to get the $0.25 that I let him borrow for milk at lunch today back. When will you get it to me?

I recently had a customer call in saying that since their second telephone line was installed, they now can't use any phones throughout their business.

I had them do the usual checks, and they had a voltmeter, so I had them take a jack off the wall and test for voltage.

When we didn't get anything that way, I went out to see what the problem could be.

Upon following the wires, I found that both phone lines had been connected to the same spot inside the jacks, but in reverse polarity.

When I asked why that had been done, they answered, "I wanted to be able to use either line from any of our phones."

The reverse polarity was by coincidence only.

I had a coworker call me saying that her printer wasn't working. No matter what she did, her fairly new color printer wouldn't print in color.

After checking the software settings over the phone, I went over to see what was happening.

I opened the printer to find a black cartridge in there.

When she had run out of ink, someone had given her a black as a replacement for that printer.

I work as a freelance web designer, and got a call from a customer a few weeks back about their site not working.

I checked my server, and everything was set up properly. I looked at all their files, and it was all still there.

After a few minutes of frustration, I logged onto a server elsewhere and tried coming back. I got a message saying "Could not locate host".

Knowing that the host was fine, I looked them up in the "Whois" check.

Thier domain, bieng just over 2 years old, had expired. Since the bill for the domain hadn't come from me, they figured it was just some solicitation and hadn't paid.

People should really read and ask questions before problems arise... right, like that'll ever happen!

We (purport) to support a lot of independent sites around London. A couple of years ago we were in the process of replacing complete network hardware/systems.

Our users were quite used to performing regular tape backups on their old gear and the new systems had nice new DAT drives.

A call came in:

Caller - "I'm unable to get the tape into the drive, it's too big"

Me (Thinking that the user may still be using tapes from the old system) - "Are you sure you are using the correct tape - the new ones have (tradename) DAT written on them"

Caller - "Yes that right"

Me "The old tapes were slightly smaller than a video tape and the new ones nearly the size of a cigarette packet"

Caller "Yes i'm using the smaller type"

Lucky Me "I'll come over"

Eventually having tracked my way through the London traffic I get to see the caller with the correct DAT tape in hand

Me "Can you show me what you are doing"

Caller "In training they said you just push the tape in the drive and it accepts it ready for the overnight backup"

Me "It does help if you tape the tape out of its box first"

A few years back, I started working a tech support company that was just starting

out. We where all very new, and green to the help desk field. I was sitting with some guys

who seemed in the know, so I felt I could handle any calls that came in.

The first call to come in the new tech site was a S/W ? about a program called "Media Pilot", my buddy took the

call, and effienctly explained that her flight simulator would have to be supported by the manufactor

of the game. Hanging up, he informed all of us of how easy this job was going to be. At the same moment, the

supervisor handed our "Media Pilot Manuals, How to trouble shoot the cutting edge in telephony software" Needless to say,

that tech didn't say much for the rest of the day.

I was several calls into my first day, when I recieved a call about "TabWorks" I realized that this was a shell on

top of Win 3.1, and gave the EU my opinion of shells, and how they just slow up the works, and often make it harder

to work with Win 3.1. I also asked her how she got such a terrible shell, and recommed if you want a shell, go

with Norton Desktop. The eu was very grateful for my technical expertise, and had me walk her though removing the

shell. I too proceeded to brag to my fellow techs that I had just "Shown another EU the light on useless software"

About an hour later, we recieved the manuals on that software, that was pre-installed.

I am happy to say that we all quickly caught on (Within 6 hours) and there was no casualties (Firings) that day. Those techs

I work for the military at a Computer and Telecommunications station. I was doing a trouble call for one of our many customers, when i arrived in his office this is how it went:

ME: What's the problem

User: I have tried 3 times to login and kept getting an error that said "Check username and password" but now it says I am locked out.

ME: Well after 3 failed logins it will lock you out.

I took the user down to the server room to unlock his account and change his password and sent him down to try and login again. 3 minutes later I get a call and guess what? Him again, same problem. So I went back down.

ME: Same problem? Well let me watch you log in.

the user proceeds to type his username and then his password. He does it 3 times with no avail and gets locked out again. So I unlock his system and have him log on to my computer, again with the same results. But the last time I notice that his lastname (part of the username) isn't spelled the same as what is on his uniform (military thing to have name on clothes :)...)

ME: How come you are spelling your name different than what is on your uniform.

User: That's not how you spell it (pointing to the computer)

ME (frustrated): It's your $#*$&% name, how the heck should I know????

I have yet to hear from him by phone, but have recieved some E-mail from him so I assume he has learned how to spell his name.

I find it amusing when you ask users to do something like end task and they read the instructions to you.... "this program is not responding...blah, blah, blah, and then it says Wait, Cancel or End Task. What should I do?" or, "This will end your windows session. Do you want to exit windows now? Do I?" They sound like those kids in the hooked on phonics commercials. They can read the words but they have NO IDEA what they mean. So many times I've wanted to say "Hmm, let's see... I said 'let's end task' or 'let's restart your computer'.... WHAT DO YOU THINK!!! It just goes to show ya. they can read em, but they can't understand em.

I was working for an ISP two years ago when I guy called in needing help. "It says, no dial tone."

"Okay, let's check that the phone line is properly connected."

A pause.

"You're going to laugh at me," he said at last.

"No, no, sir. I won't laugh."

"Yes, you will. You're going to laugh at me."

"Honestly , sir. I won't laugh. And if I do, I'll hit the mute button so you don't have to hear it."

"I need a phone cord, don't I?"

I used to work for a local ISP in Tech Support. One day, I got a call that went something like this...

me: Thank you for calling "BLAH", how may I help you?

user: I would like to know if my computer is big enough to go onto the internet.

(I was very tempted to ask the caller to get a tape measure out and find out)

me: Okay, what kind of modem do you have?

user: When you say "modem" what do you mean?

We work at Louisiana State U's Computer Help Desk. It is isted in the directory as Help Desk under Computing Services.

We got a call one day from a person with a simple question, "How do i cook hotdogs?" After a good laugh we gave him the cooking

directions.

Working at Louisiana State U's Help Desk, we get many calls from

students who are brand new at computers. One call went like this:

Help Desk: How can we help you?

User: Yes, my CD-ROM won't access any CD's I put in it.

HD: Have you had any problems before?

User: No, It always has woked fine.

HD: Are you getting any error messages?

User: Yeah, every time I start up it says, "OS not found."

HD: Did you do anything to your computer?

User: I formatted the hard drive yesterday, would that cause it not to work?

Working at Louisiana State U's Help Desk, we get many profesors who don't have

a clue about computers. One day, a proffesor came in complaining

about his modem not being able to connect. Since it was a

holiday, and calls were slow, I volunteered to go and look at

his computer to try to fix it. When I got to his office, I went over the hardware

to see what he had and if there woul be any problems.

I tried dialing in, and got no response, so I started checking all the connections.

He had an external modem which was not turned on. I asked him how long

the modem had not been working, he said he had had it for three weks and

it had never worked. I stifled my laughter, pretended to reinstall the

software and told hime that was the proble. I didn't have the heart

to tell him that it just needed to be turned on.

When I was working on 2nd shift this call comes in from one of our clients.

Me: XXXXX Solution Center, How may I help you?

Client: My mouse doesn't work (client's company uses a Norand laptop with a stylus pen)

Me: Exactly what is happening sir?

Client: I move my pen over the screen and nothing happens.

Me: When was the last time it worked properly?

Client: About two weeks ago. I've just returned from a two week vacation and this is the first time I've touched it.

Me: Ok. Well, please plug in your keyboard and press

Ctrl + Esc to open the Start menu.

Client: Oh wait, I forgot. I left my system lying on the table while I was gone. When I came back, I noticed that the cat had peed on top of my laptop.

Me: (completely silent for several seconds) And now your mouse doesn't work (remember, he uses a stylus pen to control his mouse). Exactly what do you see on your screen when trying to move your mouse?

Client: Well, I see these little puddles of water moving underneath my pen.

Me: (client on mute because I'm laughing so hard)

Me: Ok Sir, please hold on so I can conference you in with the internal helpdesk for a replacement laptop. Conferenced client in with his internal helpdesk and filled them in on what happened before bridging the client in with us. By now, everyone is do their best to keep the laughter out of their voices.

I have a BS in Management and minored in computer hardware and application. I also own the family Real Estate company now. Several years ago, we installed 3 servers and 16 work stations and networked them together...no problem...or so I thought. One of the Associates comes to me and informs me her system won't work. I go through the check list with her and all appears in order. I go to her desk to take a look.. *sigh*... She had cleaned up her area and when she pluged the surge protector back in, she had pluged it back in to itself... Hmmmm... Fault = USERHEAD SPACE!!!!

I work as a technician for a US wide chain of retail electronic stores. Anyway, one day I recieved an HP printer with an ink streaking problem. Naturaly, I cleaned the print carriage and service caps and printed a self test. The smearing was gone. I also noticed that his color ink tank was empty and I told him that it should be replaced. Well, the next day he came back in saying that it was streaking worse than before. I though to my self, "Hmmmm...interesting, it can't be dirty again!?" So, I checked it back in and sure enough, it was streaking again. I took off both cartriges to inspect them for fibers or hairs when what do I see? The protective tape on the bottom of the brand new color cartridge! I removed the tape and the printer worked fine. Charged the guy $20 for labor and sent him on his way.

In 1995, I had aquired my first PC package at cost of "measly" $3000.00(can.). It was an IBM Aptiva 510, or the formal IBM model designation is:2168-62P. In 1997, unable toget an upgrade of my computer's BIOS from Internet I wrote a letter directly to IBM, requesting upgrade and information on a "chip"/processor upgrade options. The only BIOS upgrade available for my PC model was a one specifically made for a single, particular chip upgrade : "Pentium Overdrive P24T".

Yes, initially, I was content with new info about my PC system the prospect of entering into a new "Pentium" class of computers...

Alas my enthusiasm was chaterred shortly after, the IBM specified processor upgrade was nowhere to be found - no local store was carrying it, nostore was able to order it!?? The piece was nowhere to be found, to was obsolete: to my utmost horror, my system was OBSOLETE!!!

Very unhappy with realisation that after two (2) years my PC was a "piece of junk", I had contacted IBM again, in writing, to further investigate situation. This time I was contacted, by PHONE, "lend a sympathetic ear" but nothing else than that!? IBM does not produce nor stock my PC's processor upgrade, which to me 3was/is just hilarious!!!???

In 1998, the BIOS upgrade was finally available on Internet and eas downloaded to my computer with no difference in speed/operation of my system.

At the end of 1998, I had upgraded PC-processor to 5-86, 133MHz produced by Evergreen Technologies. This upgrade , it seems, is not known by IBM people???

In conclusion, Aptiva is a good machine and through my experience is an ecellent "first" computer but do not expect any miraculous help from IBM if you plan to upgrade your PC, nor any technical service is offered when additional sofware is installed..To obtain any, under warranty, technical service you must first remove ALL software that was NOT part of the original package...

Imagine your PC-machine "frozen", you need to "untangle" system: call on IBM help line just to find out that your warranty is revoked because your newly installed software/game should not be THERE... To all consumers, be prepared to change your PC every two (@) years to keep up w/ advent of computer technology...in another words PC is a very, very expencive "toy".

The time: @2300

The place: A tech floor of a local ISP

The situation: I was playing a game on the computer when I

get this phone call.

ME: "Tech Support, this is Pablo. What is your user i.d.?"

Uer: "*********"

Me: "And what is the problem today?"

User: "I cannot log on to the internet."

Me: "And is there an error message associated

with you not logging on?"

User: "Yes, when I turn on my computer, it tells me to

pres [ctrl]+[alt]+delete], to log on.

Me: "Well, sir, that is not an internet problem

that I can handle. What you will need to do is contact your

manufacturer to get them to solve the problem.

Have a good evening, now."

*note*-) User was in his elder years, he had WinNT machine

400 MhZ, and it was brand new. He did not know how

to log onto his computer.

I'm an in-house tech support. One day, a new employee came to our office. As usual, a new PC to the new employee.

Manager : Where is Fouad(That's me) ?

Me : Yes sir.

Manager : Mr. BlaBla is new here, you have to help him to be familiar with our system.

Me : Ok sir.(I Smiled, recognized that it will be an impossible mission, cus while i'm talking to my Man., he switched the computer on, and started to look for the ON/OFF switch for the keyboard and the mouse).

New : how could you switch these stuff ON ?

Me : No, sir. the computer supplies power to either mouse and keyboard .

30 minutes later (i really had a headache), i asked him to close the window he is opening now.

New : How ?

Me : Just press the button marked X at the corner of the screen, he left the mouse and tried to press on the screen using his finger.

Me : Sir, use the mouse please, Yes, up, up...

Slightly, he pulled the mouse up from the pad. and asked me ,where now ?

Hmmm, i asked him if i can have a cigarette.

After that, i recognized that instead of that, we have to buy a new USER for the PCs.

Here is a replica of an actual support message I received last summer(the only item I edited was my company's domain name for privacy):

From: First & Last Name (userid@ourdomain.com)

To: support@ourdomain.com

Date: Wednesday, July 08, 1998 7:14 AM

Subject: e-mail problem

Good morning. A couple of weeks ago I downloaded Internet Explorer Version 4. All the settings ended up perfect except for one problem. I cannot get my e-mail address to respond. I checked all of my mail settings and they are all okay. Any suggestions? Please reply to (jsmith@ourdomain.com) Thank-you.

I guess this customer was following our software configuration instructions to the letter. Of course I gently helped him to realize his little mistake. Needless to say, this one made it to my support wall of fame.

Me: Good afternoon, XXXX net. You are speaking to Matt - how can I help you?

Cmr: Oh, good afternoon. Right. My son has sent me an e-mail with a document attached...

Me: Right...

Cmr: And he said that he would send the other document to me by "Snail Mail". Have I got a SnailMail program? Is it on your disk?

Me: (desperately trying not to laugh) Snail mail is a computing term for the post, or Royal Mail.

I considered saying "You have the correct port installed to recieve SnailMail on your front door, and the correct reader file installed as vision.eye...", but decided against it...

A friend of mine is an administrative assistant for the IS department of a huge financial company. I mean they have 5000 people in her building and two other buildings in the greater area all doing IS functions. Of course, she isn't a digithead--she's an AA--but she's familiar with computers.

Well, she was doing a lot of overtime and convinced her boss to let her have a computer to take home. They give her one. They also give her two printers, mostly because no one in her department seems to be able to get them to work. If she can get either one to work, she can keep it at home.

They test her setup, unhook it, put it in her car, and she brings it home.

She calls me to come look at it and help her put it all together.

OHMIGOD. They gave her a 300MHz system (mid-98) with a 21" monitor (and she told me the one on her desk was LARGER). But no one had set the monitor to anything better than 640x480 resolution.

Then I look at the printers. They are each about 20" tall with two paper trays and two-sided printing. They're a few years old, but when new probably cost upwards of $5000 each. I start with the newer one, hook it up, see that the drivers are already loaded, select that printer, create a test message in WordPad and am rewarded with five pages of gobbledygook. But FAMILIAR gobbledygook.

The IS department had installed the POSTSCRIPT version of the printer driver.

I am fairly new at teching (7 weeks new) and was starting to get really discouraged by the calls I've been getting. After reading some of your tech tales, I feel much better now. At least I'm not the only one who gets calls from the brainless. Here is a good example of what I deal with...

Me: Thank you for calling...how may I help you?

Customer: Your goddamn program won't work! I installed it over a year ago and it has never work!

M: (Thinking "You waited a full year to call for help?") What seems to be the problem, ma'am?

C: Your program!

M: Could you be more specific, please? What exactly is it doing?

C: Nothing! There are no icons!

M: No icons? (The program usually has some 20 to 30 icons, depending on the version)

C: None!

M: What does it say across the very top?

C: File and Help.

M: Okay...what does the rest of the screen say?

C: Select a project.

She had the program for over a year and never got past the first page. This is what my day is normally like. The very next call, I dealt with some lady who couldn't find the power cord that goes into the wall. (After 10 minutes of explaining to her that only one cord goes directly out of the computer and into the power socket, she finally found it. She wasn't very happy with me when I forgot to mute before laughing.)

When I was a tech support rep for an ISP, I did get a few computer newbies, but over the years I have become convinced that there are just certain people who just won't get it.

Me: Okay, double click on "My Computer…"

He: Okay! [sounds remarkably childlike despite his adult voice]

Me: Double click on "Dial Up Networking…"

He: Yes, sir! [sounds way too cheerful, like a child about to embark on an adventure]

Me: And I want you to--

He: Am I on the Internet now?

Me: No, we have to set up your dial up--

He: Can I get stocks? I love stocks!

Me: Okay, let's get you on the Internet. Do you see anything listed as "xxxxx.ISP?"

He: Nope! [long, cheerful pause]

Me: Okay, what do you see listed?

He: [describes a lot of stuff, which I figured out to be an Excel spreadsheet]

Me: Okay, let's exit out of Excel.

He: Oh-KAY!

Me: Double click on "My Computer…"

He: Yeesss!

Me: Double click on "Dial-Up Networking…"

He: Yowiie!

Me: What do you see?

He: [Describes an AOL Logon screen]

Me: Okay, why did you click on that?

He: I want to use AOL, America's Number One Online Software!

Me: Okay, well, you can use that, but we have to double click on "my Computer…"

[This went on for about 20 minutes, and he would just double click something else, or ask questions not related to our ISP… until I finally said that if he wouldn't do as I ask, I couldn't help him, to which he said:}

He: [happily] Okay, thanks for your help! [dialtone]

Wow… what was he on?

It amazes me how many horny people are on the Internet. Maybe if they spent less time looking at those pictures, and more time learning social skills, they would get some real action instead of drooling on their monitor.

When I was a tech rep for a major ISP, I got a few people who just wanted porno, porno, porno…

He: I can't load web pages, I get a proxy authentication error.

Me: Okay, what web site are you trying to load?

He: www.videotapes.com

Me: [checking to see if site exists… big mistake… it's an Asian teen porn site] Uh… [desperately trying to close browser window before supervisor sees]… okay, the site exists… uh… [I was really thrown]

He: Yeah, how do I get on it?

Me: Okay, let's uh, look at your uh… proxy settings… do you know what's on this site?

He: Yeah, I fought them [racial slur] in the war, don't you know… those girls will do anything for ya.

I deleted his cache and he was on his way… yeesh! But at least he liked the opposite sex, this next guy scared me.

He: My browser shows up complete gibberish!

Me: Okay, which site are you loading?

He: dubya dubya dubya blah blah jay pee slash blah blah

Me: [loading site] Oh, it's in Japanese. [images load, they involve cartoon people who are half human/half animal and all naked, well endowed creatures]

He: Oh, and my browser won't translate?

Me: Uh… no. Do you get images?

He: Oh, yeah, I just didn't know the site was in Japanese. Do you see those images?

Me: Uh, yeah…

He: You like 'em? I got a lot of them I can sell you.

I'll pass… I prefer my own species, thank you. I once got a caller who was a poor liar:

He: [sounds young] Can I have some links to some sexy pictures? [thinks quickly] I mean, so, uh… I won't accidentally click on them? I don't like them. I mean, I like girls, but not naked ones. Unless she wants to be naked, but I can't watch. I'm not gay or nothing. Are you going to call my parents?

The next caller summed it up for me:

He: How do I get to all this child porn that the Jerry Falwell keeps talking about?

Yes, he talks a lot about that, doesn't he?

I'm not an official techie, since I am still in high school, but I get calls from friends and family all the time about computer problems. Well, my friend called and said they got a GPF (blue screen of death) every time they started up. So I made a 'house call'. I don't know HOW this happened, but this was the problem: They had put the uninstall file for a game that had already been uninstalled in their Startup folder. I had the problem fixed in a matter of seconds, and my friend's parents expressed their gratitude that I was the "geekiest person they knew". Uh, thanks...I think.

I work for a large ISP one day I got a call from a customer

I got all the usual details we require and I asked if she was

running windows 95...she preceeded to say yes.

after finding out what her problem was I asked her to

double click on my computer...she said she couldnt find it.

I explained to her where it was.

"Its' not there" she told me..."you are running windows95 aren't

you" I asked her...she said "no I've got Windows 3.1"

I told her I would have to pass her onto a technician who

fixes problems with Windows 3.1.

so be sure your customer knows what operating system they are

running...it does save a lot of time

I arrive on site

User: We cant print to any printer.

I check setup, all printers set to page default letter size.

I change setup back to pagesize A4.

All good, okay bye.

next day.

User: Same problem , you havent fixed it, are you going to waste our time again today?

Me: Well I'll try not to.

Looking at setup I notice it's all back to letter again.

I said who is changing this setup.

User: I am , I am typing a letter and I want to print it.

me: Bye.

I am working in the customer support of one large printer manufacturer in Israel.We have a lot of funny and sometimes strange calls that could make one's day.

Here are some examples:

One customer happened to be religious ortodox called claiming that our printer destroys the saint of Sabbath.He complainted that suddenly in the middle of holy Saturday printer suddenly wakes up and starts to print satanic symbols on multiply pages.What could we say? We were not sure our machine is kosher!

One customer called and asked why she could not find the keyboard in the box of her brand new typing machine.She was so shocked than she need to have PC to use the printer.

We sometimes seriously discuss opening Mental support department in the center but always come to conclusion

that we could be the first customers.

At a previous job in a small company, I was in charge of the DEC system and the software residing on it (both of which were relatively new). For many of the users, this was their first exposure to computers so there were many comical situations which came up. The best, though, had to be the time our warehouse manager (very computer illiterate) felt that the program was not responding the way it was supposed to. After trying to troubleshoot his problem over the phone, I felt it was time to visit him at his terminal. The terminal was sitting on a desk in the warehouse. A rolling chair was sitting in front of the desk. I had the user come to the terminal and was asking him questions about the data he had entered. We were both standing in front of the terminal. Finally, I got to a screen and I asked him "Is this where you were when it happened?" He said "No, I was sitting right here (pointing to the chair)" I tried very hard to not laugh but did not succeed! Many tech buddies of mine have gotten a big kick out of this story.

A guy with a heavy Spanish calls me up today wondering if service had been completed on his unit. After about 15 minutes of trying to get his info,I couldn't understand what he was saying, I finally got a last name out of him. The name seemed familiar, but I couldn't figure out why. So, I put him on hold for about 25 minutes, (I was helping other customers that I could understand) I realize that I had forgotten him on hold. So I look up his last name in the database and check the unit's history. Reading the service preformed, "Warranty void. Insect infestation. Unrepairable. Total loss." After telling him that his warranty was void due to insect infestation, he again askes if it was fixed. I explained it to him again, and he asked if it was fixed again. I said no, your warranty is void, come pick it up. So, the guy comes in, and askes if it was fixed again. After 30 minutes of explaining that his warranty was voided, and that is was not fixed or would NEVER be fixed, he finally left. I couldn't belive I had to explain to this idiot about 8 times that his warranty did not cover insect infestation. We also had some pretty gruesome digital images of the infestation too. =) ICK!

Derek

While managing a software/hardware retail outlet a couple of years back I ran into a very determined customer. This was just after the release of the new Voodoo and Voodoo rush video cards. This customer had purchased one and taken it home. He called the next day.

Customer: My video card didn't come with glasses.

Me: What glasses would that be sir?

Customer: You know the glasses for my video card. Like the ones they used to give out in the movies? The ones with the red and blue lenses.

Me: (Unbelieving) You mean 3-D glasses?

Customer: Yea thats it, can you get me a pair.

After 15 mins. of explaining polygons and 3-D rendering he seemed to understand and hung up.

A week later my assistant manager told me that he had called back again asking for the lenses! My ever patient assistant had explained it to him once more.

This customer came in and called us no less than four more times! Until one of my more mischievious employees brought a pair in. The next time the customer came in my employee told him that he had managed to get him a pair but it would cost him thirty bucks. The man happily paid and left with the glasses. The employee then bought everyone lunch.

I work as a Team Lead of a very large PC company. A technician called me the other day and asked me the best question I have heard since I started:"What is that numlock key for anway?" I couldn't believe that he actually was hired to help other people fix their problems!!

I'm not a tech-guy (although I know something about computer), but dumb things happen to me too.

One day in '95 when CD-ROM's were expensive, I had a 386 with 3.5 & 5.25 floppy drives (and no CD at all)a guy came to my place with a bunch of 5.25 floppies to copy some games. Not a big deal at all. He puts down his disks, I start copying and we're talking about miscellanous things.

At one moment he starts staring at my computer and after long seconds of silence when I didn't know what to do he looks at me and opens his mouth: " WoW! You have a CD-ROM!!!".

I replied: "Yeah" and took one of his disks and put it into the "CD-ROM". He didn't had a clue then either.

Betcha can't beat that dumb guy!

Over the last 15 years, my colleagues and I have come across many strange customers.

There was the guy who was running Wordstar on floppy (under CP/M no less). He had been using his computer for several years, and had never bought a blank disk in his life. He comes in oneday and tells me his computer stopped working. I discovered he had been making space on his ORIGINAL master disks by deleting all those uneccessary .COM files and stuff so he could save his doc's!

Another bloke bought a microbee (a trs80 like beast made in Australia) in kit form and said it didn't work. He had super glued all the resistors etc in.

Then a schoolteacher bought in his microbee and said that it had stopped working right after he had bolted it down to the desk. He had drilled a hole right through the middle of it.

Another bloke complained that his printer wouldn't print the letter 'P', and after much argument, it turned out that the 'p' on his keyboard didn't work.

Another good one was the guy who bought his 'bee in in two separate broken parts. He had run over it with his car.

One bloke sent his entire system, including printer, monitor and modem via courier from perth to sydney (about a 4000Km trip)because the computer was dead. A quick tweak of the brightness control fixed that one!

I think my favourite one was a lady in a 'PC's for dummies' class. Everyone was asked to "move the mouse around the screen to get the feel of it" so she did, right up against the glass!

I worked as a secretary at a large bank in Chicago for six years. One of the people I worked for had a repeated problem in Word Perfect. From time to time, he would call me over to fix his memos when the first line of the paragraph would stretch across the page, with too many spaces. I would turn on Reveal Codes and remove the extra indents at the end of the line. Apparently, he wasn't too good with the wraparound feature. Each time I would show him what I did, yet he would do the same thing again. And he has an MBA!

I am not an official tech person, just someone who tries to understand computers and help people. So, I was helping a friend who had bought a new monitor try to install the drivers. After a few minutes of going round and round, we finally realized it would help if she would actually download the drivers from the website (since monitor didn't come with disk or cd). After she downloaded the driver, went round and round a few more times... during the course of the conversation (in an icq chat), she said something about the diskette. Turns out that when she downloaded and was asked if she wanted to save to disk, she saved to a diskette. I carefully explained to her that it's ok to save to her hard drive, and since many programs are way over the 1.44 mb available on a diskette, it's preferable. Not a guffaw here, just a quiet chuckle. :-)

Working as a Hardware Tech for a company that sold systems to Real Estate Boards, I was in constant contact with users who didn't have a clue. It was on fateful Friday afternoon when I recieved a transfer from our Customer Service Department with an end-user who couldn't get her computer to work. I did basic troubleshooting with her and found that even though the system should be booting it wasn't. I asked her to double-check the system to make sure all the cables were attached appropriately. I was on hold and mentioned to one of our other techs what was going on and he said, which client? I told him again and he told me he was on the line with a Unisys Rep. sitting in the same office as my client. He apparently had the motherboard in his lap. My client came back on the line and I said,

"Ma'am, do me a favor. Look over your desk and tell me if you see a gentleman sitting there."

She stated, "Yes, I do."

I said, "Do you see the large green thing in his lap?"

"Yes" was her reply.

I stated, "Well, when he puts that back into your computer, it will work again."

"Oh, really?" She stated, "I had no idea".

Obviously.

This is not a story of my own experience, but I was surprised it wasn't included on the web page. It is the one techie story that makes me crack up every time I hear it! My own techie stories pale in comparison!

This is taken from an actual conversation between a customer and a tech-support person at WordPefect Tech Support (The conversation is printed here from memory, so it probably isn't exact, but the last exchange actually happened!):

Tech Supp:Hello? This is Kevin. How can I help you?

Cust:Are you support for WordPerfect?

TS:Yes, that's right. How can I help you?

C:I can't see anything on my screen.

TS:(a little confused)I'm sorry, can you clarify your problem for me? You have a blank screen in WordPerfect?

C:I don't know, I just type and nothing comes up.

TS:Is it a blue screen?

C:No, it's blank.

TS:(thinks)Um... Can you see a cursor?

C:A cursor?

TS:Yeah, a little flashing line, probably in the top left area of the screen.

C:There's nothing there, the screen is black.

TS:Black? Is there a C:\ prompt?

C:What's a sea prompt?

TS:(thinking)I'm sorry if I seem rude sir, it's not intended, but is your monitor on?

C:(not offended at all)How can you tell?

TS:(trying not to laugh)There should be a little light on the front.

C:I can't see a light... are you sure the monitor has one?

TS:Well it's possible yours may not, so well try something else. Reach behind the monitor and see if there is a power cable.

C:(after shuffling noises)There's two cables. Which one is the power cable?

TS:(excited that the customer seems to be beginning to understand)Thats great! One of the cables is power, and the other goes to the computer. Are they both plugged in?

C:I think so.

TS:Is either or both of them securly fastened to the back of the computer?

C:(shuffling)Yes.

TS:Great! (sudden insight)Is the computer on?

C:Well, the power button is pushed in, so I guess so.

TS:Is it making a humming noise?

C:No, it's really quiet here.

TS:(thinking, oh my god!)Maybe the computer is not plugged in... can you have a look?

C:(shuffling)I can't tell.

TS:You can't tell? Are you looking down behind the computer?

C:Yes.

TS:Well try putting your knee on the desk and leaning over the back...

C:No, that's not the problem, I just can't see down there it's too dark.

TS:(smiling)Well, turn a light on.

C:The lights won't come on.

TS:Why not?

C:There's a power outage.

TS:(laughing down the phone)Ah ha! I think we've found our problem!

C:(excited)Oh really? What's that?

TS:Do you still have the box that the computer came in?

C:Yes... it's over by the door. Why?

TS:You need to box the computer up and take it back to the store.

C:Really? Is it that bad?

TS:Yes, I'm afraid so.

C:What should I tell them?

TS:That's easy, just tell them that you're too stupid to own a computer... (click)

This is about something I did once, not someone else. We all have blond moments, so here is one of mine. I've been upgrading PC's and such for over 4 years now.

I purchased a bran new motherboard to upgrade my system, and me and a buddie of mine were going to upgrade it. I was gona format the HD clean, and move all the cards to the new motherboard. Well I put the board in, put all the cards in, and got ready to boot up. My friend gave me the HD and we turned the power on. The Fan came on... but nothing would come up on the monitor. So I check all my conections...monitor pluged in..monitor plugged into vid card..everything checked out ok. We thought maybe the vid card was bad or something, so we swaped it with another one..still nothing. I'm getting fustrated now cuz I think I'm out 100 bucks for the board. I strip the ENTIRE computer down to the vid card ram and CPU. nothing. I get ready to take the motherboard out of the case, and low and behold.. I didn't plug the power into the motherboard. :P

Goes to show...we will ALL have something like this sooner or later.. :)

I was trying to help a remote user who was having difficulty in getting her computer to dial into our home office network. No matter what we seemed to try, she just couldn't get a connection. After about 10 minutes, I asked her to turn up the volume on her IBM ThinkPad so I could hear if her modem was even negotiating. I could hear the modem dial, but never heard a dial tone. When asked whether or not she had plugged the phone line into the modem, she said, "No one told me that I'd need a phone line!" After explaining to her that she did, I told her to try it again and she should have no problems.

She called back 10 minutes later and said that it still wasn't working. You've probably guessed by now that she had one end of the phone cord in her modem, the other end was in the phone, and nothing was plugged in to the wall.

Yes, she is blonde.

I've actually heard this story in another form but it actually happened to me while I was working the help desk for an anti-virus company:

Me: Welcome to [...] Tech Support. This is Dan, how may I help you?

Cust: These *&$#@ disks you sent me are faulty!

Me: OK sir. Calm down for a moment and tell me what happened.

Cust: Well, I managed to install them the other day but I had to format my hard disk because Windows 97 was playing up.

Me: [Omigod - another one. *sigh*] OK. What happened the second time you tried to install the software?

Cust: Well - it said that it couldn't read the disks. Cyclic reduncancy check or something...

Me: OK sir. The disks are faulty. I'll have to send you another set. May I have your cust no. please?

[Several minutes spent obtaining details]

Me: Thankyou sir. The new disks will reach you in the mail in the next few days. Thanks for calling.

[End of call]

[4 days later]

Me: [usual intro]

Cust: It's me again. You sent me another bunch of faulty disks!

Me: [Wow! It's like Bruce Willis in DH2 - same s#$t twice!] OK sir. Did they install correctly the first time?

Cust: Yes. When I used them a second time [God knows why he had to so soon!] they failed again.

Me: Fine sir. I'll organise to send another set to you. If these fail, we may have to consider that your floppy drive is causing the problem.

Cust: I doubt it - it's gotta be your disks.

[... End of call]

[1 week later again]

Me: [*yawn* usual intro]

Cust: Me again! What are you guys doing with these disks? They're f$@*&%g stuffed again!

Me: [God - who IS this guy? Magneto-man?] OK sir. Let's step through the installation process together.

Cust: OK. First I install them using the instructions on the label on the disk. [Usual START | RUN | A:\SETUP.EXE instructions]

Me: OK - what do you do with the disks then?

Cust: Well... I stick 'em to the fridge with a magnet so I don't lose 'em.

Me: [After asking customer to hold for a couple of minutes and laughing with the guys] OK sir. [Explain magnetice media concept - send more disks]

[End of call - NOTE: This was the final call from the customer on record]

I do tech support for an ISP that has more than its share of intellegently-challenged customers. I'm a realist so when the phone rings I completely expect the user to be a complete invalid concerning computers and prepare myself well in advance. This one woman took the cake, however.

Me: This is [name], how may I help you?

Cust: Whenever I try to connect I get the error, "There is no dialtone"

Me: Do you have an internal or external modem?

Cust: Oh, it's an external one. It's down by my feet.

At this point I should have realized something was going on...but I was still kinda fresh and trusted the customer. Not wanting to experiment with init strings I suggested she turn off the modem and then turn it back on. She didn't understand so I explained it in more detail.

Me: Ok, you said you have an external modem, right? There should be a power button on it. Just push it so it turns itself off, okay?

Cust: Ok, done.

Me: Ok, now go ahead and turn it back--

Cust: Is my entire screen supposed to go black when I do that?

Me: No...(starting to see the bigger picture)...what happens when you turn it back on?

Cust: Oh, there it goes. It's back now.

Me: What's it say?

Cust: It says, "Because windows was not properly shutdown..."

At this point I understand exactly what had happened but wasn't about to give up quite so easily.

Me: Ma'am, how big would you say your modem is?

Cust: Oh, it's about maybe 2 feet high and 3 feet long.

Me: Ok, that's your computer, or CPU, not the modem.

Cust: Oh, so the modem is that thing I look at?

I'm almost howling in laughter now. She just doesn't give up.

Me: No Ma'am, that's your monitor. Your modem is a small device inside your computer.

Cust: What's it do?

Me: It allows you to connect to the Internet.

Cust: And it's inside the computer?!

Me: Yeah. [And here's the kicker]

Cust: Well I think that's just really silly and stupid.

After that call I just had to go out back and fill my lungs with cigarette smoke while I laughed my ass off.

One day at the local computer shop where I work a call came in from an old guy who was having problems connecting to the internet.I determined the problem was corrupted dial up networking files so I proceeded to help fix his problem by guiding him through the steps to remove and reinstall dial up networking.I told the man the first step was to double click My Computer,to which he replied,"How the hell am I gonna click on YOUR computer?"

=Tech: Thank you for calling "Web Developer" Support...

=Cust: Webdev? I got the fix from the other guy I talked to, but it says to click on Network Neighborhood..and I can find the Neighborhood on my computer.

=Tech: Sir? The Network Neighborhood Icon is on your desktop.

=Cust: What's an Icon?

=Tech: Excuse me, sir?

=Cust: I said..What's an icon?

=Tech: Okay...when you drop down all the windows on your machine..or, better yet, when you first boot up your computer...Those little pictures with the words under them? They are icons.

=Cust: oh..wait...(click.click..click) Okay..I see them.

= Tech: Fine sir, so, do you see one that says Network Neighborhood?

=Cust: Nope. I have "my computer", "recycle bin", a big E that says "internet explorer", and a white paper thingy with a W on it.

=Tech: Okay sir. Well, since this is Developer support, I suggest that you speak to "Operating Systems" support to find out where your icon went.

=Cust: But, wait! I am trying to be a Developer...

= Tech:Sir? I suggest that you first learn the OS that you're trying to develop on before attempting Developer products. Now, if you could wait one moment, I will transfer you to OS support.

=Cust: Oh..okay. Hmm..you have a point there.

=Tech:Yes sir. Thank you for calling, sir..

=Cust: CLICK

=Tech: (groan...laugh)

A while back I had a user call & ask me how to get the floppy disk out of his PC. I tried all the usual suggestions, press the button, use a paperclip, etc. but to no avail. I finally went upstairs to take a look and realised the user had force fed his CD ROM drive with the floppy (It was one of the newer drives that dont have a drawer, just a slot).

A couple of days later another user, noticing the way the IT dept. play music using their CD drives, asked me if I could play an album she had borrowed from a friend. Predictably, I was then handed a C90 cassette tape...

I work tech-support for a local ISP at night. I had been speaking with a customer who kept getting all of her email sent back to her as undeliverable from the mail server. After ensuring that she had specified the correct mail server addresses, I informed her that she must be typing the email address incorrectly.

TECH: The only other cause would be if you are typing the email address incorrectly.

USER: LOOK BUDDY, I'm typing it right I'm even including their Apartment number and postal code.

TECH: Can you hold for a moment, Thank You.

Fits of laughter

TECH: Thank You for holding, long drawn out explanation of the difference between a street address and an email address.

USER: Ohhhh

I was a repair tech for a short time with a Retail Computer Store in Kansas. I was working on a system on a Saturday when I get this call.

Me: "Thank you for calling Blah Blah, this is Anthony, How may I assist you?"

Customer: "Yes, I have a question. My computer won't work. It won't turn on or anything. I do hear this long beep when I turn it on though."

Me: "OK, why don't you turn it on so that I can hear what type of beeping it is."

Customer: "OK."

He then proceeds to turn it on, and I hear the tell tale beeping of no video card or no memory.

Me: OK, Sir? Why don't you bring it in, and let me take a look at it for you. Sounds like you may have a loose video card or loose memory chips."

Customer: "OK. be there in about 10 minutes."

15 minutes later----

Me: "Welcome to Blah Blah, How may I help you?"

Customer: "Yes I just called on the phone, you said I may have a loose video something or other."

Me: "Sure! Bring it back and we'll see what we have."

At this point I turned on the system, and sure enough, no video and that annoying, incessant beeping you get when the computer is complaining on boot-up.

So I opened the box (Typical lift and pull cover), and proceed to look inside the system, making sure the video card and memory chips were seated correctly. Which they were.

My next stop was to make sure the processor was seated properly. I found the processor, but no fan. When I went to go remove the processor from the motherboard, it came off in two pieces. The processor had been completely burned through.

I proceeded next to talk to the customer.

Me: "Sir, when was the processor fan removed?"

Customer: "Ummm... About a month ago I guess, maybe two."

I shook my head at this point.

Me: "May I ask why Sir?"

Customer: Well, my son who's at Berkley College, said that the fan only needed to be cooled off in the summer. So I went ahead and took it out for the winter to kind of give the fan a rest."

I sold the customer a new processor, and spent the next 30 minutes explaining why you NEVER take the fan off of the processor. For all interested, he was using a Super 7 MotherBoard, with an AMD Processor.

I've been doing tech support in one form or another since the mid to late 80's. Back in '88 I worked for a company that developed verticle market software for the insurance industry. It was all DOS based and used Novell for networking. We had fairly cheesy password protection for the program (scrambled ASCII character values) as the program did contain financial data. To make a long story short, you had to logon with a password to gain access to the system, and there were various access levels.

I got a call one day from a lady who explained to me that her screen said 'Hello Mary, processing month end, please don't turn me off' or something to that effect. Now, we had at least two or three users a month who would go into the processing month end option, answer all the prompts asking if they wanted to close off the books for the month yes (there were at least three prompts) and then decide that they really didn't want to. We would have to manually set them back so they could continue to add transactions in the previous month. I assumed this was one of those calls, and after five minutes of quesioning Mary, couldn't quite figure out why she was calling me because she DID want to do the month end.

Finally she said 'how does it know it's me?'. 'What?' I said. 'Well, it says 'Hello Mary'... how does it know it's me, can you see me from there?'. I'm not making this up, and Mary had made a long distance phone call to ask me this! She was very nervous (embarrassed?) that I had seen all the mistakes in spelling that she had made earlier in the day in her Word Processor, and never really did grasp the whole 'password' concept...

Yes Mary, we can all see you. And those shoes really don't go with that dress...

Replica is a server backup software, so we take calls for both NT and Novell.

This call in particular was on a Novell Netware 4.11 server and we had rconsole'd in. The caller had rebooted the system, but rconsole hadn't come back up on line yet. After a couple minutes of waiting, I suggested he "run over to the system console and see what's hanging."

"Well, I can't do that," he explained. "I don't have any legs. That's why I was using rconsole."

Yeep! At least he's a productive member of society.

Here's a story from an embarassed idiot who phoned tech support. One day, after a nasty thunderstorm, I tried to get on the internet. Nothing. No dial tone, no nothing. I tried everything I knew to get the modem to work. Finally, I gave up and called for help. The tech and I went over everything, connected to computer, software installed correctly, all sorts of modem commands. Nothing. Re-installed the software, restarted the computer, more modem commands. Still nothing. Then, the tech (being smarter than me) asked me to check the power supply. Seems I had moved the modem a little - just enough to pull the power cord out enough to kill the power, but not enough to be readily noticable. The worst thing is, I am an IT professional myself and I must say, I felt like hiding under a rock for a while after that. Some days...

The comptroller of our company was working on his laptop on Sunday morning

when it froze up on him about 9AM. He spent until 3PM dsparately trying to

get it fixed. Monday morning he came over to my desk desparate. Now I'm not

A PC tech, I'm a programmer but I know a little about this. It looks like his

system is set up to save an image of the memory when it is shut off and reload

it when its started again. As I look at things and sort things out he's pacing

faster and faster behind me. "This is a crisis! We HAVE to get this information!"

Finally, I can't take it anymore, I turned to him and said "Look, its not a crisis,

its just an inconvience, we'll get it fixed don't worry..." He says "YES IT *IS*

A CRISIS!!!" So I looked at him and said, "Look, when your parachute fails to open

THAT'S a crisis. If your house burns down, THAT'S a crisis. If someone starts

shooting at you, THAT'S a crisis. This? THIS is an inconvience". So he gets real

flustered and says "well you just look at life differently than I do." (how true!)

So I tell him, "Look, I'm gonna take this back to my desk, I'll be back as soon as I

figure it out." So I take the laptop back to my desk. I'm figuring, "There HAS to be

a reset button here SOMEWHERE!" But I couldn't find it (did I mention I'm not a PC guy?)

So I give the comptroller a call and ask him if he has the user manual that came with

the PC. He comes running over to my desk with it turned to the Tech Support page. It

has an 800 number with 24 hour service. I tell him I just need to find the spot in

the manual that tells me where the rest button is. He becomes HIGHLY agitated, insists

I call THE NUMBER. So I called....

Support: Hello this is ###### tech support, may I help you?

Me: Yes, I have a laptop that apparently saves its memory when shutdown, problem is

the system is hung up.

Support: Did you try resetting the system?

Me: Well I'd love to reset it but I can't find the reset button.

Support: OK, that's simple, its located on the left side, you stick a pen point in to

press it. See the hole?

Me: Ahhh there it is, thanks.

So I reset it and it booted and everything came up fine. I shut it down and started

it up again just to make sure and then shut it down again. I brought it back to the

comptroller and told him it was fixed. "How'd you fix it?" "I hit the reset button."

"ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh".

Sheesch. He spent 6 hours fretting over this thing on Sunday working himself into a lather

and never once picked up the manuel and called tech support....

I hate customers like this...

Me: (The Usual Introduction)

Cust: I can't turn my laptop on.

Me: Is it plugged in and does it have power?

Cust: Ya, the screensaver is on.

At this point I knew the problem was one of two things. One his machine was locked or two he didn't deserve a laptop.

First call I ever received while working on a Helpdesk, will stay embedded in my mind for the rest of my days...

Tech: **** Helpdesk, How can I help ?

Cust: My printer won't work

Tech: Ok, what seems to be the problem with it ?

Cust: It just won't print

Tech: Does the printer have any lights on at the moment? (thinking perhaps the power is off)

Cust: Yes, power and ready lights are on

Tech: Can you check that the cable between the printer and PC are firmly connected ?

Cust: Yes, all tightly plugged in

Tech: Are you getting any error messages on your PC ? (am now thinking this is a dream customer who actually knows what they're doing)

Cust: Nothing is showing anywhere

Tech: Does the light flash when you try to print ?

Cust: Yes, and it makes a grinding, squeaking noise

Tech: Can you open the printer and tell me how much paper is left?

Cust: (sounds of customer opening printer)

Cust: There's a whole roll left ...... Oh

Tech: Oh ?

Cust: Have just found my earring which I lost earlier today

Cust: (sounds of printer working)

Cust: (sounds of embarassed Customer hanging up phone)

On one of my first jobs as a computer tech, we often had to deliver systems and set them up and occasionally train the new users. Well, my first actual delivery was to a couple in were in their early 50s. So, I'm showing them how to use a mouse, the old guy is watching me very intently. I ask him if he wants to give it a try, so he grabs it and is totally impressed by the fact that he can move the cursor left and right. He then asks me how to go up and down and lifts the mouse right off the pad.....

My company makes a wireless computer networking product. One day I recieved this call.

"Yes, can you tell me if your product will work if the PC isn't plugged in?"

"You mean can you move a PC or laptop from room to room and still connect to the network?"

"No, I mean..Can your antennas send electricity through the air so the PC will still work even if it's not plugged into the wall."

"No sir. We don't support that."

"Thanks!"

The title is what my boss told me I should have said.

Sitting at my phone - call comes in (beep)

Hello: Allan speaking, how can I help you.

User: Hi, I have just logged on and I cannot do anything.

I can't see my programs.What do I do?

So I connected to their PC and was looking at their screen

at what they saw as I asked them to show me the problem.

They explained that they could not see the button to start

off their programs.ie. their start button

So i moved the mouse to the bottom of the screen and lo and behold and toolbar,start button and all jump up - autohide

User: Oh wow - gee thanks..that's great (beep beep)

30 seconds later - (beep)

Hello - Allan speaking - how can I help you.

User : Oh hello again Allan - its me again - i seem to have lost my start button again

I connected to the PC - moved the mouse to hte bottom of the screen and the autohide pops up the button

User: Oh my God - wow that's amazing - you're a genius

( beep beep )

I was talking to a customer who had purchased a computer

for her grandson at school. The grandmother was in a

quandry about the problem desciption I had given her. The

problem was that her Grandson had corrupted the OS on his

machine, so, to try and keep it simple for her I said

"The reason why the machine isn't working is because it is

missing software needs to run." The grandmothers response

to this was "That's impossible, I sent that same machine to

you last month and it was the same weight as this time

so how could it be missing software."

You can imagine the fun I had trying to explain how

something could be removed from the machine and not

effect the weight.

I am a technician at a local company that installs modems and Internet software. This one day, this lady came in askin for a 56K modem. We gave her one and told her that it comes with free installation and internet software.

She replied that she was going to do it herself. With the modem and software in hand, she left. We thought that everything was going ok, when the same lady, VERY angry, came back and said, "I can't get to te Internet!!" My boss called me over, and I looked at the machine, and saw no modem, or LAN card.

He told the woman that there was no modem, she became infuriated. "What the #@*$! I Installed it yesterday night!!" I was getting very impatient to get back to the bench, so I decided to take off the computer's case. Sure enough, the woman WAS correct. There was the 56K modem we had sold her yesterday.

I looked on the outside and suddenly realized that the expansion slot blank was never removed. I told the boss, and he stifled his laugh, as did I. I went back to the bench and said to the woman, "I'm going to test this machine, and make sure you can get online now." She watched as I installed the drivers for the modem, and as I installed the internet software.

As I hooked up the phone line to the modem, she asked me, "You mean I need a phone line to get on to the Internet?"

Shortly after I began working for a computer retail store I got my first customer.

He was setting up his first office.

I proceeded to set him up with a computer, monitor,and all in one printer.

All went well until he found that there was a power cord for the computer missing.

I appologized and got him one right away.

He then left the store only to return a few moments later holding the cord by the male and female ends and a puzzled look on his face.

When I asked him what the problem was he responded. "Which end do I plug into the wall?" Needless to say I needed help with this one as I couldn't keep a straight face.

When I was at school and living in the dorm I had my own computer and a not so computer savvy roommate. She was always asking me questions. One night we had an electrical storm, so I decided to unplug my computer. (I plugged my computer into a surge protector and to turn on the computer you had to turn on the surge protector. I know that is not very smart but it worked.) Well, I got up the next morning forgetting I had unplugged the surge protector and left for class. When I came back to the room my roommate seemed a little stressed. She proceeded to tell me that there was something wrong with my computer, it would not turn on. She also said that she did not know why because everything was plugged in. I then remembered that I had unplugged the surge protector the night before and proceeded to tell my roommate why the computer would not turn on. When I went to plug the surge protector back in I had an amazing discovery; the surge protector was plugged into itself. I could not laugh because she was so worried that she did something wrong and I did not want to make her feel embarrassed but every time I think about it I just start laughing because she honestly had no idea why the computer would not turn on.

I have a customer that used to use a Sharp laptop with PCMCIA slots on the left side. I recently got him upgraded to a better machine. The PC card slots happen to be on the right of this one. I mail him the machine and new, faster, card modem. I get a call from him when he's ready to use the modem.

He: Ok, where do I put the modem in.

Me: There's a door on the right, toward the back.

He: (Silence)

Me: Did you find the door?

He: Yes, now what?

Me: Open the door. Do you see the slots in there?

He: Yes. Which one should I use?

Me: It doesn't matter. Just make sure that it's in straight and if it doesn't slide right it - pull it out and try again. You don't want to force the card in.

He: Ok. It's straight but nothing happened.

Me: No beep or PC Card icon in the systray, uhh, down by the clock?

He: Nope. Nothing. Maybe I didn't get it in all the way.

Me: Maybe. (This is strange because it worked fine three days ago when I shipped it to him.) Try taking it out and pushing it in again. I did say not to force the card in but you do need to push it in firmly.

He: I can't get the card out.

Me: Press the little button in the slot toward the front.

He: (A little upset) There's no button there.

Me: Uh, yeah, there is. Uh (oh, no. Where did he stick the card?) Little black square button.

He: Oh, here it is. Okay, I tried again still nothing.

Me: (stumped.) Hmmm, I don't know...it worked a couple of...

He: OH. I got it.

Me: (relieved) Good. Was it not in all the way.

He: Well, yeah, it was backwards.

Me: Because you're used to putting it in on the left?

He: Yeah, I guess so.

One would think the little holes and absence of a place to put the phone cord would have tipped him off but then again, maybe not!

It's been 10 years since I got my first real computer (an XT), but I've been thinking about this problem as I worked with a junior tech on a RAM issue today.

I was having some problems with my computer. It booted fine, worked okay for a while, and then would freeze up. Fortunately, I was letting a SYSOP friend of mine have a local POP to his BBS in my home, so I had ready access to free support. He came over and we decided to take my computer apart to examine it for loose connections.

Out came the cards, the drives, the cables. Then he dropped one of the screws into the case and it rolled under the motherboard. He turned the machine sideways so that the screw would fall out, and the CMOS chip fell out of its socket.

"Well," he said, "That seems to be the problem right there."

I owned a network/computer consulting company for about 9 years before I wised up and sold it. While I heard every horror story in the world from my less than techy clients, there is one that is my favorite.

Years ago, when 5 1/4 inch drives were still popular I got a call from a client at a local hotel. She claimed that her PC was "eating here diskettes". I told her that was impossible, but she insisted. Knowing that the client is always right, and that I could bill them a trip charge, I decided to go investigate.

When I got there, I decided to pop the case and check out the PC. When I opened the case, I saw about four 5 1/4 inch diskettes sitting on top of the diskette drive. Apparently, she had been sliding the diskettes in between the disk drive and the drive cover above it. I showed this to her and she said "no way, the PC really ate the diskettes". Anyway she relented and I went on my marry way.

Believe it or not, she called back a week later with the same scenario. This is just one of the reasons I got out of hands-on consulting.

I work in tech support for my company. Recently an older

woman who is not to Internet savy went to Alta-Vista

to search for something. She entered her search and at the

top of the results page was the typical ad for a Porn site.

This clever link though switches to look like its downloading

a movie file from the site.

Well the woman paniced and hit the Stop button on the

downloading movie...problem was this was just an add so

it then sent her straight to the porn site!!! I had to

spend 1/2 hour calming her down and the other 1/2 hour

explaining that she did just what they wanted her to..she

clicked the link. Also that there was nothing my company

could do to prevent what had happened to her!!

=)

Im a college student and a CS minor at a Communication School in Eastern NJ. I was on AOL (substitue large ISP if u want) talking to a co worker in IMS. I had just purchased Visual basic 6.0 pro which i was learning in school. I made a small simple program to scare another friend of mine into thinking it was a virus when all it did was launch a small dialogue box saying that you just initiated a virus a small personal joke because he had just bought a computer and was deathly afraid of virii in his precious new machine, anyway i was emailing this program to that co worker and i asked her to run it, as a gag

here is that convo ( she is blonde by the way )

Mark: did u run it?

82: Uh i don't think so???

Mark: try running it

82: how??

Mark: ok where did u save it to?

82: i didn't i didn't even see it at all!!

Mark: you opened my email?

82: oh i got it I didn't know u sent it to my mail i thought it would just pop up!!!

Mark: you really are blonde

82: hahah

Geez im only a CS minor and i know that it cant "just pop up" =)

I had a technical support call from a customer that was having a prblem logging into our software and I needed to see if anyone was logged into the program so I wanted her to go to the windows explorer and look for a file that would indicate if any other users were logged in. When I asked her to go to her "explorer" she became quite upset and told me "It's out in the parking lot, and it's raining out!"

Needless to say I had a real good laugh.

My husband and I met on the internet and you would think that would mean we both were computer literate. However, I am the one that takes apart and fixes all the computers in our family (and all the neighbors and friends of friends computers). So I know what I'm talking about most of the time and I have very good advice to prevent problems. Well lets just say my husband likes to learn the hard way, and after losing several hard drives before we ever met, you'd think he would listen to me about "smart" computing and internet practices. BUT NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. Not only did he refuse to read the read-me files before installing a program ( ON HIS COMPUTER) (that he downloaded without virus protection), He doesn't bother to pay attention to whether he is being re-directed from one site to the other, or what the name of the site's address is. So he downloads and installs this program and immediately got a strange screen pop up saying something like he was toast or something, then the screen was acting weird, so he reboots. He then can't get a satisfactory windows session from that point. So he wakes me up and tells me his computer crashed. After getting a little history, enough to realize the problem was related to a specific file.........I did a search with my computer, found the file name, went to the site, and got re-directed to a XXX.DEVIL.COM.~XXX. etc. You get the idea. I was a tad suspisious but tried to download the program on my machine, OOPS, virus alert wouldn't let me download it. So went to test machine, downloaded said program, previewed the file and read the names of the files all zipped up and they had names like "youarefu**ed" "sheepfu**er" etc. Well needless to say, he lost all the data on his hard drive, and felt pretty silly to have downloaded a program from some devil site with links to all sorts of weird things. Funny thing is that IF the program had got past the virus scanner, and IF he had read the read-me file, he would have known this program was big trouble. BTW, he still

does not read the read-me files so needless to say I have reformatted and re-installed windows about 6 times a year compared to almost never on my other 3 computer which he does not touch.

I work for a tech support company, and a customer rang up one day, this guy didn't know anything, he didn't even know what the start bar was.

I was trying to talk him through some stuff to get him through his dialup networking, so i said

"Could you please double click the 'MY COMPUTER' icon on the top left of the screen"

and the guy goes,

"How can i double click my computer...... it's sitting on my desk".

That one made my day, well.... it was a good laugh for me and the call centre staff anyways :)

I have a friend who started working with me a few months ago. He is pretty good with computers and I actually can't believe he would make a mistake like this.

He told me that he bought a sound card for his fathers machine and was going to install it. He connected everything perfectly and tested the sound card. No sound.

So he started over again, remonving the sound card, re-installing it, drivers, the works. Still no sound.

After the seventh time he relized, much to his disgrace, that all he had to do is switch on the speakers.

I set up the new person in the office with her computer, and showed her how to use all the programs she would be using, with special attention paid to e-mail, for which we use Outlook Express. The first thing she wanted to know was how to set up group lists. No problem, I showed her, & she caught on instantly. Now, the groups in Outlook Express are just lists of people - nothing is stored in them (which, mind you, was something I specifically told her). The next morning, she calls me over saying that her groups aren't working. I check, and indeed they are not. I look in her address book, and she has no addresses! I ask her what happened, & she says "Oh, after I put them in the groups, I got rid of the contacts so they wouldn't clutter things up."

I work for a major computer mfg company. you also have to

that all throught the call we here 4 very loud beeps and then

we have 2 minutes before it starts again.

ME: Thank you for calling *** tech support my name is ***

with the laptop support group how may i help you.

(i then here four loud beeps)

CX: i just bought my laptop 2 days ago and when i came home

today it was beeping.

ME: ok (cx name here) lets remove the ac power from the unit

(more beeps)

CX: ok i've unpluged the ac adapter (more beeps)

ME: ok cx could you check to make sure since the unit is

still beeping.(cx then bundles up the ac adapter)

CX: ok ive wraped up all the cord and am holding the

(more beeps) the ac adapt. in my hand

ME: ok can you now remove the battery

CX: ok

while the cx is removing the battery the beeps go off again

this time a little louder

CX: the beeping seems to be coming from the battery let me put iyt in another

room

ME: OK(this idea seemed to make the cx happy + it gives me

a few minutes to puzzle this out)

while she is doing that the beeps go off again

CX: ok i'm back (more beeps)

ME: ok mam there is no power in the laptop so there is no

way it could be making thoose beeps. do you have a smoke

detector or other equipment that might create these beeps

(maybe a low battery beep since it is so constant)

CX: No .... let me move thge laptop to the other room

hey whats this

ME:cx did you find something?

CX:(estatclly) it's not my laptop my beeper was under it

and i could not see it. i am so glad it's not my laptop

(more beeps)

thank you for calling ***

i laughed so hard i almost beeped myself

"Ding"

Me: Hi, how can I help you

Cust: My internet access is not working, could you check my account to make sure everything is ok?

Me: Sure, what's your username

(veryfing info)

Me: Everything is fine sir, it should work

Cust: But the person who I talked to earlier said my account would be activated in 20 minutes (new subscriber), but I'm in front of my computer and I've been waiting for and hour and a half and nothing happened.

(maybe he was waiting for a window to pop and say "You are now on the internet" or something)

Me - So-n-So.net Justin here.

Her - Hello Jason, I'm having problems getting connected to the Internet

Get appropriate info and error message from her ..

Me - Ok, go to 'My Computer' - 'Dial-up Networking' - right click on your Internet

connection then select 'properties'

Her - Right or left click?

Me - Left click. Now click on the 'connection' button

Her - Right or left click?

Me - Left!!

Her - Can you see whats on my screen?

(I get this too often..)

Me - No Ma'am I can't. Now click on the 'Option' Tab

Her - Right or left click?

Etc..

Finally get her connected, and she opens Netscape.

Her - Can you show me how to send mail?

Me - Ok. Select 'Window' - 'Nescape Mail', then 'File' - 'New Message'.

Time passes...

Have you got a new message up?

Her - No, it will take a second.

Time passes...

Me - Have you got the new message up now?

Her - No the stop light is still on

If you don't know older versions of Netscape the stop button was the shape of a stop sign, and while java is running the stop button stays lit.

Was she actually waiting for it to turn Green??

I work for the largest ISP. I support the software that they sell to their members,

and I couldn't stop laughing after I took this call...

Me:Thank you for calling ( blah ), how can I help you today?

Cust:Do you have to meet all the system requirements, or just some of them?

Me:Well what one don't you meet?

Cust:I have a P2 400 with 128mb of ram, and the package says I need at least a 486

Me:(well after I hit the mute button and laughed like crazy)Yes ma'am it will run

just fine on this comp!

Oh those crazy customers! :-)

A secretary calls me late in the day absolutely frantic. Her boss is in a high power meeting and needs some changes to a Power Point presentation applied and then printed out for use. When the secretary gets me on the phone she says:

Me: "Thank you for calling XXXX. How can I help you"?

Cus: (very irritated) "I only have two minutes to get this done so dispense with the small talk and answer my question".

Me: "What's the problem"?

Cus: "I have my supervisor's user id and password and I'm at her PC right now".

Me: "OK".

Cus: "My question is: will the PC know that I'm not my boss when I enter the user name and password"?

Me: (Hitting the mute button and standing up to see who is trying to trick me, laughing the whole time) "Hold on a minute while I check".

Cus: (Exasperated) "I don't have time to wait"!!!

Me: "No problem, go ahead and attempt to access".

Cus: (I hear her nervousness as she enters one character at a time). "It took it"!!!

Me: "Thank goodness"!! "Let's print the document".

Cus" (Sudden acknowledgement) "I just realized how stupid I have made myself look, you're going to tell everyone, aren't you"?

Me: "Absolutely".

Cus: (Laughing) "Thanks for the help".

Me: "No problem, please call anytime".

After I finished the call I went tell my Team Lead and he said "Oh man, you could've had a lot of fun with that one"!!

"How"? I replied. He said "We get those often, next time, tell the customer to either turn the monitor away from the keyboard or put a jacket over it"!!!

I work for a company that deals with over 80% of all

cable companies in the US. We handle 800# pay-per-view calls

for them. I'm a tech and also the office PC guru (joy). Well

one phone call I get from a cable company about a customer

complaint goes like this:

Me: Hello, this is xxxxx, can I help you?

Cust: Hi xxxxx, this is xxxxx from Cable Company. I have a

little problem with a customer not being able to order pay

per view.

Me: Okay....what's the problem.

Cuat: They can't order

Me: (sigh) Do we know WHY they can't order?

(our service requires you to call an 800# and our computer

verifies your home phone, etc.)

Cust: They call and get a response saying "We can't recognize

your account" or something.

Me: OK, what's the customer's home phone #?

Cust: I don't know.

Me: (then why bother me?) OK, well I can't do much without it.

Cust: I guess I'll have to call them and get it.

Me: (severely confused now)I thought you just said you didn't

know the number...?

Cust: Right, we took it off their account.

Me: Then how do you expect to call them or allow them to

order?

Cust: Well we...... Can I call you back?

Me: Sure (containing my hysteria)

I wasn't sure whether or not to cry, laugh, hit myself or what.

But I ended up with tears of laughter. I wonder where they grow

people like this?

Early one Monday moring, I answered a call from what sounded like a middle-aged man. He informed me that he was having a problem installing his printer software. Being bored and needing something to do, I decided to help him instead of sending him to the printer manufacturer.

I asked him what the problem was.

CU: "Well, the CD-ROM isn't working."

ME: "OK, can you hear it working when you double-click on the icon?"

CU: "No, it just sits there."

So, I checked for an installed CD-ROM on his PC in every imaginable place. After about twenty minutes of looking...

ME: "Sir, what kind of computer do you have?"

CU: "It's a 286."

ME: "What kind of CD-ROM do you have installed on this?"

CU: "I don't know, but it has a lever if that helps."

After about 5 seconds of thought, I determined that he was tring to use his 5 1/4" floppy drive to install the printer sofware. I put him on hold, giggled for awhile, and sent him to the printer manufacturer for a floppy disk version of the printer software.

A pal of mine was in dire straits and maxed out his credit

card, I agreed to order a sound card for him and even install

it (what are friends for?). All went well until I asked him

where his speakers were. "Speakers?" he gulped, he had never

thought to buy speakers, just the sound card (frankly I

never thought to ask). So another week and another order

(he paid me cash up front for BOTH orders by the way, he

wasn't THAT good a friend :)) and he had some speakers.

I let him hook them up confident that the sound card was

correctly installed.

A day later he called pissed at me. "I've tried everything

and I can't get the 'right' sounds to come out of the 'right'

speaker and the 'left' the 'left', there doesn't seem to be

a way to reverse the channels to correct the problem". He

was convinced I got a POJ for him or installed it wrong.

Puzzeled I stopped after worked. Laughing I grabbed a

speaker in each hand and swapped their places.

Problem solved!

A co-workers experience:

A new hire (the NEW HR manager himeself for cripes sake!)

called or IS department complaining that his Control Panel

stopped working. Running through the basic steps and

getting nowhere but more confused (both of them) He hung up

and made the trek up front to his office to find that his

"Control Panel" was his KEYBOARD and it had come unplugged

when the guy slid the keyboard over to the other end of his

desk.

An extension cable and explanation that this was a KEYBOARD

not a Control Panel was all that was needed. The tech

couldn't wait to get back home and tell everyone.

Had a user burning up the phone lines trying to call me

first thing Monday morning pissed as hell. Seems she came

in over he weekend and was prompted to change her Novell

password so she did, then restarted the machine and logged

in to Novell just fine and then came to a screeching halt

when Windows 95 demanded a password. She tried "every

password she knew" (except of course the one she just

changed FROM) and couldn't get past the Windows 95

password. She said she was unable to work all weekend

because we "screwed up her Windows password" and she

couldn't get in.

I explained to her that all she had to do was press ESC

and she was in (we dont run policies BTW). We never set

a Windows password but somehow she set hers and couldn't

remember what the password she just changed from was!

User calls and says all the text on her screen disappeared.

After getting nowhere on the phone I pay her a visit.

Seems she was messing around in the Appearance tab and

changed both her windows background and her text to white.

Now white on white is just a bit hard to see!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~000~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Same user calls and says her scroll bars are messed up,

seems she was in the display properties AGAIN and changed

the scroll bar width to 999 (from 13)! Not much window

area left after the scroll bars appear!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~000~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Same user AGAIN! Says her password is "messed up", I

check with Novell's SYSCON and indeed her account is locked,

seems she was out of grace logins. When I asked if she saw

the warning about grace logins she said "Yes, I just ignored

them, I thought they would go away on their own".

Makes you want to set their password to expire hourly!

This one comes from a friend who worked for a large OEM.

TECH: "Thank you for calling @#$% tech support, my name is Vince." [verify system/address info] "Okay, sir, what can I do for you today?"

CUST: "Well, I need to get my keyboard replaced."

TECH: "What seems to be the problem?"

CUST: "The 'F' key doesn't work."

TECH: "Okay, sir, we have two choices. Either I can send you a new keyboard, or I can send you [OEM]'s new unabridged dictionary that doesn't include the letter 'F'."

CUST: [Obviously getting a kick out of this] "What did you replace the 'F' with?"

TECH: [smoothly] "PH"

CUST: "Nah, I think you better replace this thing. I'd just as soon not have to go around calling it my 'p-hucking keyboard.'"

I work the evening (1pm-midnight) shift for two national cable modem companies (not saying which - but seeing as there's only 3 in the US, and it's NOT home.com, you can figure it out).

Oddly enough, this call came in while I was reading techtales. A nice lady called and asked for the phone number to check her voicemail - this confused me considerably, especially since I'm a bit hungover from a nice party. I asked her what she meant - she said she needed the phone number to check her CallNotes. Turns out that this ISP also owns the phone company in her area.

I wound up referring her to the local customer service office.

Not the funniest thing, but it was definately way out of the ordinary.

User 1: Some of my email was just returned as undeliverable and the error says there were too many hops. What do I do?

Me: Yes, we are working on the mail server. Just re-send your email and it should be fine.

User 2: I have an email returned because of too many hops. What does that mean? Is this an Easter Virus?

One day we received this email from one of our user's:

"My computer (located in XXXXX) is exhibiting an annoying anomaly whereby it sounds a single beep every three to five minutes. No other problems have been observed. It would be appreciated if someone could repair the problem or disconnect the speaker. Thank you"

We sent someone to check it out and he explained to the user that it wasn't his PC and began to look around for the cause. He opened the desk drawer and found the user's pager going off, apparently he had never been paged before and couldn't recognize the sound.

User: I keep losing my network connection.

Tech: What are you trying to access when this happens?

User: I'm just opening Word documents on Cheri's PC.

(Tech checks network configuration, cabling)

Tech: Everything appears to be setup correctly. What exactly are you doing when you lose network connections?

User: Well, I was opening these reports, and I kicked the computer up into the corner like this

(Shoves computer up against wall with foot, pulling network cable loose)

Tech: I think I've found the solution to your problem. Don't kick your computer!

PS. I swear this really happened to me.

Keep in mind, where I work (EdgeNet Media) is a regional ISP with dial up locations only in the middle TN area.

I wonder how big he thinks we are? :)

-----------

Dear Support:

I will spending the better part of one month in China beginning on April 11, 1999 and I would like to be able to dial a local number in order to sing on to netscape. Last year I dialed the long distance local Nashville access number in order to sign on the internet and i would just as soon dial a local number in China.

Please advise if I can sign on using a local number in China. I will be in Guangzhou, Hangzhou, and in Shanghai. I would like to use our same password but if not possible advise who I can contact in China and use my credit card to be able to access a local line.

Thank you and regards,

XXXXXXXXXXX

Sales Manager

--

Later,

Bill Moore

Customer Support, EdgeNet Media

615-371-0887 x 224 or (888) 456-EDGE

"Bill Gates is living proof that P.T. Barnum was right."

I have worked for many years supporting and installing

software over the phone. One of my favorites was working

with a client installing an interface to a laboratory

instrument.

I was unable to get the PC to communicate with the

instrument when I tested the serial interface. Since I was

connected to the client's system through a modem connection,

and then using other software, I was able to run a diagnostic

program and see that she did not have the cable on the PC's

serial port.

It became quickly obvious that she had her cables confused.

Trying to cut to the chase, I asked her to make sure that

the port on the PC into which she had plugged the cable was

a male connector.

She replied, "Don't talk about males and females. I don't

understand that".

Trying both to get the problem resolved and educate the

customer, I told her that male connectors had the pins

sticking out and females connectors had holes.

She replied that she still didn't understand. I bit my

tongue because I very badly wanted to ask her if she had

ever been married, but I just hit the mute button and waited

for my fit of laughter to pass.