Funny and Humorous Technical Support Tales and Stories

I work for a fairly large ISP in the UK, and (as always) offer technical support for people who shouldn't really own a PC in the first place.

A call was put through to me, and I gave the regular greetings and asked what the problem was.

"My modem hasn't worked since we reinstalled Windows 98"

Easy I thought, and asked them if they had the driver disk for the modem.

They said yes and proceeded to take their current CD out of the drive to put the driver disk in.

I heard them make a comment about the CD being hot as it came out of the drive.

"That doesn't sound too healthy"I commented, "Is the fan in the computer working?"

They weren't too sure, so they proceeded to place their phone on top of the PC to see if I could hear it. Trying not to laugh, I said that I thought I heard some rattling.

"How long has it been like that?" I asked,

"Oh ever since we were struck by lighning!!!"

I work for an ISP, as usual we get funny call from people having trouble connecting. The most unusual call I remember having is the one from the guy who had an error message that ressemble this:

"Windows cannot find the type of application associated with extension .EXE please specify the path for this application"

Something like that, I would've love to have a screenshot of this ;)

Tonight I had a call from a member of our online services. The call was about how the caller was unable to connect to the server. He was experiencing the same message over and over.."Your connection to *** has been lost please sign on again." I tried several things, including changing his modem string and access numbers. After everything failed, he asks "Our phone was out all morning--could that have something to do with it?" ---DUH?!!

Tech Support : Good morning sir, Technical Support Speaking.

Customer : I have just bought your package today, but can not use.

Tech Support : What is your problem?

Customer : It always says No Dial Tone!

Tech Support : Please check the phoneline put into your modem correctly on the socket line or wall.

Customer : What do you mean by socket line or wall?

Tech Support : Most of the modem will have two sockets that

you could put the phoneline which are named PHONE and LINE.

Customer : Ok, I see a phoneline put on Line socket of the modem.

Tech Support : (suspecting the line is loose)Ok, Take the phoneline off the line socket, and put it back again, you should hear a little noise 'glick'.

Customer : I do that, and I hear a 'glick' noise.

Tech Support : Try to connect again.

Customer : (Try to connect.) Same, No dial tone.

Tech Support : Take the phone line off from line socket, and put it to telephone machine, do you hear any noise?

Customer : On the telephone, do not have any socket I can put the phoneline!!

Tech Support : ER...It should have a socket that you can put

a phoneline into. What kind of telephone you use, not have a phone socket...?????

Customer : I'm using a mobile talking with you, and I do not have a telephone at my home. Do we need telephone to connect to your server?

Tech. support :????????? (thinking if I meet another line like this, I will quit myself.

I'm working in a local isp. One day, I had a customer called

with the problem,

ME : Tech. Support, can I help you?

Cust : Yes, I would llike to talk to your manager with your

product.

ME : May I help you about your problem?

Cust : I don't need any help!!. I just would like to talk to your manager!!! (sound angry)

ME : Ok. Could you give me your name please?

Cust : No need, your customer no me well...

ME : Ok.., I will transfer the line to manger.

__________________________

A minute passed ...

__________________________

Manager came out, with laughing face.

I asked him, what his problem is. Manager said No problem

with us. Customer would like to complain another ISP not

our ISP. It meant that he called to wrong company..:)

I'm not tech support really but I am the resident HW person in my office and at home(ugh)

I found out that we were getting ethernet connections installed at my dorm in college. Well I was pleased and went looking at adapters in a few magazines. After a short look I realized I needed to know what type we were going to have in oreder to make a smart purchase.

Me] Yes hello. I was told we were going to have ethernet now and was wondering whether we were going to have 10baseT or 100baseT? Also I'm assuming we will have the big phone type connectors(ie RJ-45).

Her] um.. Yes we are going to have ethernet. You can buy an adapter at your local computer store. Thank you.

The saddest thing was when I arrived we had two connectors for a four person room. I charged the school for the hub I had to buy.

This one's slightly different. When I first started in electronics, I was service engineer in a small television shop in south-east England. One very wet (and also very quiet) Saturday afternoon I was sitting in the workshop watching a war film on one of the tv's in for repair. It had just got to the exciting bit - torpedo in the engine room, water everywhere, men rushing round screaming - when the telephone rang. The conversation went something like this:-

me: Workshop, good afternoon.

cust: You're not going to believe this, but I've got a weird fault.

me: (thinks - help, another one) Yes, madam, and what is the fault.

cust: Well (short pause) I was watching that war film (another short pause) and the picture wasn't very good, but I thought I'd wait until after the film to call you.

Me: So what happened?

cust: Well, this is the bit you're not going to believe (slightly longer pause) - it had just got to the bit where the torpedo crashes into the ship and water is everywhere (much longer pause) and my tv went bang and water is dripping out of the back onto the floor!

She's right - I didn't believe it, but I ventured out into the storm and went to check. Sure enough, one dead tv and water now a steady stream out of the back. It seems husband had DIY'd the aerial, and not covered the terminations. Water had got into the coax (causing the bad picture) and run down inside to the aerial socket ( at the top of the tv case) and run into the works.

Still, the lady was relieved that the water wasn't actually coming out of the sinking ship.

Testing a microphone shipped with a system.

Tell customer to open sound recorder.

Tell customer to select the red record button and talk into the mic.

Customer asks what colour is Red.

Whilst working in the service dept for a computer retail company in Australia, i received a call from a frustrated customer. She needed my opinion on something... She had purchased her system from another computer retailer and had had nothing but problems with the CDROM drive. Having taken the system back to them several times, she was constantly being fobbed off by their service department. They kept telling her that the problem she was having was caused by software and that she should try installing this driver and that, or try changing this other setting.... you get the picture. She had tried demanding that they replace the drive, but kept on being told that they could not replace the drive under warranty... By the time she spoke to me, the problem had been going on for about 7 months. She described the actual problem to me and asked if i agreed with their 'diagnosis'.... What she told me defied belief!!!!!!!

THE PROBLEM: Whenever she pressed the eject button on the CDROM, the entire CD tray flew out of the drive and landed on the floor approximately 3 feet away from her system...

Hello,

I work for a big ISP and recently, we had calls from one of our competitor's customers. They wanted to move with us when the other ISP told them to "put the modem in the refrigirator to make it go faster"

What kind of tech would recomend to cool off a modem that way!?!?!

Speaking of techs that don't know what they're saying, I once heard a tech saying that "the k56flex technology was faster, the X2 tech. used the best compression....and "they" mixed those up to obtain the V.90..." Yeah, Right.

I read the story TILT and it reminded me of something quite similar that once happened to me. I was at computer camp, and we were having free time in the lab. We were all playing huge networked games of Quake. I couple kids didn't get computers. There was one computer that only worked when tilted on a 45 degree angle. One kid wanted to play Quake so badly, he payed another kid to hold the computer while he played!

I'm working in a big ISP. Here is my story. This customer came to the office with her computer PC desktop. I took care her.

Me : can I help you madam?

cust : Yes, you can. My friend had borrowed my computer to do his presentation. Then I don't know why my computer can not connect to internet anymore. it always says "not response from modem"

Me, I knew from her that her modem was internal modem with

.... brand 56 k modem. (but strange one phone socket).

I spent a half of day to install driver change irq, dma, etc. but not work. Before I gave up, I decided to open her computer to see, what exactly her modem brand is. When I look at the card which I thought it is a modem, and I do not found any modem in her computer. That card is written "Ethernet II Card".

After a year of working on the Help Desk, I knew that saying

"Press 'any' key" didn't work. I was usually asked something

like "Is the 'm' key OK?". It was late one night, when the

call came in. I told the person on the other end of the

line to press the space bar to continue. The silence was

deafening. Then came..."I'm sorry, none of the keys are

labeled 'space bar', which one is it?"

I do email tech support for a major ISP and received a message that had us laughing for quite a while. This excerpt has been copied directly from the email I received:

"I have been unable to access my e-mail on my home computer when I am away from home."

He wasn't talking networking either!

I was walking past this guys office and he saw me and he

came running out shouting

"QUICK QUICK come and look at my PC I think it has been

infected by a VIRUS I am running word and all that I can

see is just dots appearing one after the other nothing I do

on the key board registers such as space bar esc or any of

the keys".

I went over and had a good look at the PC and the keyboard

and established that he had been eating some peanuts and the

end bIt of a peanut had dropped onto his keyboard whilst he

had pressed the period KEY. This had stuck into the gap

between the keys holding the key down, I resolved the

problem with a paper clip.

So beware users and the PEANUT VIRUS

User wanted to know how much it will cost to get Internet access for a new user in her department. Informed user that anyone logging into the LAN has the ability to access the Internet. User stated "Well... what if they don't have a PC?" Resolution: Informed user that no amount of money will suffice if the user has no PC. User will contact Desktop Coordinator to order a PC.

I would not have believed this if i hadn't seen it with my own eyes. One of my techs brought in a printer from a customer with a label stuck on the toner cartridge. at this time i'm busy fixing a computer so i'm not really paying attention to what the other tech is doing or where the photo sensetive drum is, so needless to say the tech took the whole damn printer appart looking for the drum. about an hour of disection later he is on the virge of tears and idly flipping the door on the toner cartrigeand suddenly i hear a string of profanity and when i ask what happened he shows me the photo drum on the toner cartrige with a large black toner coated sticky label folded over it.

After laughing myself silly I told him to put the printer back together and order a new toner cartrige. Ahh another printer virgin deflowered.

peace.

I work for an ISP. One day I got a call from customer, that

he could not play internet. So I would like to check his configuration.. I tried to ask him to open Dial-Up networking to see the properties of connection. But he didn't understand how to do so I guide step by step.

Me.: Please double click on My Computer (I skipped to say

icon, I believed that he could do, but...)

Cust : Excuse Me, How can I double click on YOUR

COMPUTER????

I had spent 20 minutes to check his properties, and found

out that he had specified IP Address, and put other ISP DNS.

I'm not a computer technician but I used to help out guys with their computer hassles in exchange for cappuccino.

This one time, a friend rang up and told me that his computer was REALLY slow and took ages to do even the simplest task. Intrigued, I drove over.

We both knew a bit about computers and sat down to check out what was wrong. We worked for roughly 7 hours straight trying to improve the performance. Eventually, at 3am, we had just about got it back to top speed again.

As I leaned back watching the computer work reasonably fast, I noticed that something was odd about the tower...I then leaned forward, not believing what I was seeing...

A few seconds later, I pressed the turbo button and the computer has NEVER ran soo fast in it's life!!

This is a true story about a teacher I had last year in school. This particular teacher was a bit of a fossil who had no business teaching kids in the 90's. Anyway, we put up with her throughout the year, but what we most remembered her for was her distaste for her computer.

The school had decided to equip each classroom teacher's desk with a brand new Gateway PC. The district tech guys had unpacked them and set them up, so even the dumbest teachers could switch them on and use them without too much difficulty.

We had her class on the block where we broke for lunch, so we would have half the class before lunch, eat, then finish the class after lunch. Every day after lunch, we would hear her cursing about that awful computer. She would come back from lunch, and jiggle the wires coming out of her monitor, and then proceed to curse about how it never worked right.

Being well known as a computer guru around the school, I decided to come by after school and have a look at her computer. I found her in the office after school, and after offering to try to fix her problem, she led me to her desk. She said, "See, it's doing it right now. The monitor's 'busted. The screen just goes blank whenever I leave it alone."

Immediately sensing her "problem", I let her continue, asking the usual TS questions, pretending that this was a big deal and was somehow difficult to diagnose. (Hey, a little brown nosing never hurts). She then said, "The only way I can get to fix it is by jiggling the wires back here." She proceeded to reach around behind the monitor and shake the cords violently. Her screen returned to normal after a few seconds.

It turned out that her "Blank Screen" screen saver was selected, and by jiggling the wires knocked the mouse or it's cord just enough to turn the screen saver off. I explained to her what a screen saver was, and that her monitor was not really broken. After telling my friends, we couldn't even look at her without laughing. What an idiot!

I am working as a ppp supporter in a big isp in israel

this event was before 2 years

customer: i today bought a brand new modem and i want to install it , can you help ??

me: yea , sure . internal or external ?

customer: well...Hmmm... i don't know ?!?!

but i see the chips (me- sure internal)

me: ok ,so first you need to insert the modem to your computer and than we will connect .

customer: ok ,how ??

me: just pull it out from the box and plug it to

the computer

customer: well i try and but didn't success to insert it

me: Hmmm .. try harder (sometimes ISA slots need strong)

customer: i try , i try i almost successied to insert all

but chips & register are getting broken

me : WHAT ?? WHERE THE HELL YOU TRYING TO INSERT THE MODEM

customer: to the floppy 1.2Mb off course.

I work for Voicenet, a regional ISP. A particular lady had

called us 4 times in the last day or 2 complaining she was

never connected to the internet even though windows said

that she was. Took her through all standard troubleshooting

procedures.... still nothing. Finally I asked her how she

knew she was not connected. She told me that "MSN's web

site kept showing the same stuff it had yesterday". I asked

her what date it said in the upper left hand corner, and she

was bewildered by the fact that it had TODAY's date on it.

Appearently because "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" hadn't been

changed in 2 days, that meant she was not online, regardless

that the date had changed.

I work for tech support for a large travel agency. I give thhe agents credit for knowing SABRE and the job they do but if it goes outside that to windows or hardward they just don't get it.

Last week one of the agents comes to my desk and tells me she has gotten an error saying "keyboard not attached" and the terminal won't finish booting.

So I walk over to her desk and check the back of the machine, make sure the keyboard is attached and right before I get ready to hit the reset button she looks at me and says "See the screen says hit ctl-atl-del or F1 to continue and I did that and it didn't work."

I started laughing so hard I could hardly get out the words, "Now, if your keyboard isn't attached did you really think that was gonna work?"

*laughing continues as said agent slaps herself in the forehead and laughs too*

Gotta love it!

hello, tech support.

I'm trying to get on the internet, but nothing happens.

O.K lets check it, do you have two phone lines ?

yes, sure I have.

O.K. lets try to connect and see..............hello ? sir ???

Here's an ironic techtale...

A got a call from someone who said that something was screwing up the date/time on her computer. Every day, the date on her computer advanced by three days and it was making the program I support not work.

It turned out to be her Year 2000 checker program.

Not really a tech support tale, but still fairly relevant.

Our NZ based company was recently purchased by a rather large US based PC builder and retailer.

This changeover didn't really happen in one go; a lot of our systems were left in place for transition later on.

This did cause some problems with purchase orders and other things as data had to be manually copied from one system to the other. There was one unexpected benefit though.

A few months after the takeover the Melissa virus struck. For those not familiar with it it's a virus which uses Outlook (not outlook express) to mail itself to the first 50 people on your address book. As a lot of companies use outlook for internal mail and most people also mailed outside the company this affected large numbers of people throughout hundreds of companies all over the world.

Now the virus arrived at our mailserver from the Dublin branch of our new parent company, and it rapidly spread throughout our mail clients too. However, we do things differently than our parent company and we had everything under control with all the virus protection software updated on every system within 2 hours.

Microsoft and our parent company and numerous other businesses took hours longer to get their mailservers back up.

Just goes to show bigger is not always better, and never underestimate the abilities of the smaller organisations.

User: I am not able to dial into the modem lines. Is this because the Air Conditioning isn't working in my building?

Me: Let me go check on that.

(put phone on mute, went to make some popcorn, came back a few minutes later)

Me: You still there?

User: Yeah, I am I going to be able to log on?

Me: I just talked with the A/C guys and they will not be done working on it for atleast 2 hours. Sorry!

User: That bites I really wanted to get online.

The sad thing was this guy was a Seinor Electronic Engineer, but I was off in a hour and someone else would have to explain to him how the A/C and his computer share no relations.

I work for a big ol'd ISP over in the UK and a while back

I had to deal with a monster of a customer.

Their complaint had been escalated from the phones, to 2nd

Lvl support and then to me to do a call back. (I was

holding the mucky end of the stick that week).

So anyway, I call this bloke back and I get him to fire

up his machine, a beautiful new *ackard *ell *gnnn* machine.

We fight back and forth between him refusing to do what I

ask him and me refusing to yield that the problem lies with

us. After about 20 minutes, I get this evil minded swine

to go into the Dial Up Networking folder and ask him to

right click on the relevant icon.

Easy.

You would have thought.

A brief transcript follows:

Me: Okay - see the icon?

It: What, the little picture.

Me: Yep, that's the feller! Right click on it and choose

"Properties"

It: How do I do that, then?

Me: Well, point at it and click with the right mouse button.

It: How do I do that?

Me: Well, point at it...

It: Yes, yes - I understand that, I'm not stupid!

Me: .. and click the right mouse button.

It: But how do I know which one is the right one!?

Me: *mute* Make the pain stop...

Oh, just another quick one that leaps to mind - another

bloke who was having PEBKAC difficulties.

Me: Good - that's what we wanted to see. Okay that and...

It: Sorry?

Me: Just click OK and ...

It: I don't have OK.

Me: (thinking he'd already cancelled and probably started

a low level format) What do you have?

It: Two buttons - a "Cancel" and an "OKEY"

Me: *I've fallen and I can't get up*

Anyway, cheers for listening - off to do some more

productive ... stuff.

ATB,

Dave.

We operate a sales and service computer business, and I personally

do the hardware support for our contract and not-so-contract

customers. Anyway, I have one customer who overreacts to

the littlest things, making mountains out of molehills.

Call: The computer says windows files are damaged and it won't boot

Actual Problem: I ask the customer to read me what it says. Customer

says "Scandisk has found so and so bytes of data..."

Call: The computer doesn't work.

Actual Problem: I get to her system to find it off. She won't

work on it because it doesn't print to one printer, therefore the whole

computer is broken.

Call: Nobody's printing.

Actual Problem: (After much time troubleshooting) "Oh, only Linda's not

printing.

Call: (reading messages during bootup on a laptop) Boot from floppy

FAILED!

Actual Problem: Duh, we're not loading from a floppy

And now for the tidbits of terror:

The password you gave me doesn't log in (turns out the last

time I used his Win 95 system I logged in as supervisor. He didn't think

to change the name from supervisor to his and that's why the password doesn't

work)

He couldn't dial in over the weekend. (They use PCAnywhere to log

into the systems at the office. Instead of shutting down his own laptop

he set the dial in system to shut off!)

No one can connect and there's nothing on the screen (turns out the server

crashed and the monitor died also. The funny part of this is the 4 hours it

took me to try to walk these people through putting another monitor on the

server while I'm on the phone with them. After all that, they hooked the

monitor up to a system sitting next to the server, which was off, then proceeded to tell me

it's just black.)

Why is this thing here? (referring to taskbar that they keep dragging

all over their screens. When I tell them how NOT to do it..."We never

touched that!")

There's plenty more, much more than I can even remember. But the kicker is

that they indirectly once called ME incompetent!

I work for one of the few ISP's in Canada wich offer's the both the Dial-Up connection(in majority )and the Cable Modem, wich can be a real pain because you never know wich the client is using till later in the call

Me: Tech Support JF speaking how may i be of assistance

Cu: Um yes im Mr. Xyz and i cant connect to your server, are you having problems again (ever notice its always our fault)

Me: Not to my knowledge sir (trying to stay polite)

Cu: Well why is this damn thing not working again.

Me: Is there an error message that the system gives you

Cu: it says it cant connect, i already told you that, now are you going to help me or what.

Me: (mute alright, another winner) can you be more specific please, i need the exact error message that it gives you in order to diagnose the problem properly (utter bull**** of course since i already know its a user problem)

Cu: #%@$ it sais it cant find the url because it doesnt have a dms entry or something like that.

Me: ah, ok lets see (Going throught his IE5 config,dial up networking properties, and checking his tcp/ip configuration, and generaly having a fun time listening to him bitch about the service)

(after about 30 minutes and a thurough search)

Me: Hmmm, everything seems to be in order i really cant see why its not working, how about you try connection and we'll see if it happens again. do y...

Cu: (Interrupting) is it normal for that cable light to be off, its the first time i've seen it that way.

Me: (Mute: Frantic Scream and thirst for blood) Well it would be why you cant connect. is your tv working properly

Cu: (Slightly annoyed) What the $@#! does my tv have to do with the damn internet, its a brand new tv, of course its working properly.

Me: (doh!) Let me rephrase that, could you please turn on your tv and tell me what you see

Cu: (sound of person waling away and comming back a minute later) well all i see is snow, now can you fix my @#$! internet, i'm tired of all this crappy service im getting.

Me: (Mute: there is a god after all) well sir you see the cable modem works with the cable tv, so as long as your tv isnt working you wont be able to connect to the internet throught the CABLE modem

Cu: Oh, can you transfer me to your cable service then so i can cat my cable fixed

Me: Of Course just a moment (pressing hang-up button on my phone controler) oops wrong button *^-^*

This is the log of one of this many ISP's former users. I will submit 1 a month for the next few months. Also I do not work for this ISP anymore.

4/21/99 7:52:56 PM CANX- does wish to be charged for next month

4/21/99 7:50:36 PM *user* called/ Wants to close account. Transferred to CS./

4/18/99 9:07:39 PM *user* called. / Wanted to cancel. / Told her to call cs in the morning. /

4/18/99 9:50:37 PM *user* called/ Having a problem with her computer/ Told her to contact her computer manufacturer/

2/26/99 4:55:17 PM *Stupid User* ..// She trashed her system and wanted me to help her install it again. I checked with lead and confirmed with her we did not do this. We will help set up OUR software settings and help with e-mail but we do not support 3rd party software or full setup's there of. She hung up on me.

2/22/99 4:10:48 PM Needed mail configuration for Netscape. Asked about a Hebrew Language pack and directed her to Netscape.

2/22/99 3:53:34 PM *user* / her father didn't like what she was

looking at so he had her trash netscape, freePPP, and macTCP. / walked

her through netscape setup - she had already installed macTCP and freePPP.

Verified settings for macTCP.

2/19/99 10:19:02 AM c/b and cust said that problem cleared up by itself.--

2/17/99 7:14:39 AM *Stupid User* , authentication problems with freeppp.

Retyped un/pw did not want to test sac number. Told her to keep trying as

everything is ok with her account -

2/15/99 10:30:17 AM *user* called/gets error server has no DNS entry/this is an ongoing problem/cust.hung up/writing trouble ticket on this-/see notes for details/.

2/8/99 6:31:13 PM *user* called because she had isptest in username.

1/26/99 7:07:36 PM normal problems with ancient system; applescipts not working so all the shortcuts are dead; put FreePPP connectoid on the desktop and Netscape alias as well; she must connect via FreePPP, then open Netscape after connected for connection to work; configured her email and Confirmed it is woking; MacTCP is having problem remembering gateways; showed her how to reset if she had DNS resolution problems; should be good to go but old system will require lots of maintenence, so expect more calls from her.

1/26/99 3:52:25 PM c/b l/m -

1/25/99 9:50:52 PM *user* called / Added e-mail account

"user/xxxxx" becuase it wasn't created. I told her that I needed to reset it because it may not be working properly and that if it doesn't work tonight it will by tomorrow for her. Also she was getting an error type of 3 when she opened up netscape. We removed netscape and netscapef from the system\preferences and then reinstalled it. She still got the error type

three, I told her it may be just because it was not connected and to try to connect and see if when she opened up the browser if it would give her that error. I also told her to try using webmail to see if that may help. Also I wrote up a trouble ticket so that someone may call her tomorrow about the issue..

1/25/99 3:34:26 PM *user* called. Netscape is freaking out. Was working last night accroding to her. Brad will call her back ASAP. Ifyou can't call her back by 4PM, please wait until tomorrow as she is leavingat 4PM and will not be back until 10PM. Phone # above is correct.

1/22/99 7:54:05 PM Cust was very well behaved this time. Had her trash ALL PPP files, MacTCP DNR & MacTCP Prep. Configured MacTCP, installedFreePPP and rebuilt the desktop. Her Mac gave a FreePPP extension error, so Ihad her put a space in front of the MacTCP name and restart. This time it loaded it properly. We setup FreePPP, but when we went to connect, it said that the modem was not responding properly. We tried numerous init strings and auto detection, but nothing worked. I had her try to install the

modem installation software again, and it still didn't work. Did a custom removal

the software and reinstalled it, but that didn't work either. Told her that the only people who could help her at this junction was USR. If they manage to wake up the modem she should be able to get online with no problems. If they c/b within the next few days, please refer them to me

1/21/99 5:20:07 PM Customer claims that she was told that she would get a call back in five minutes, talked to J who said that he specifically told E that he would call her tomorrow and witnessed everett tell her the same. Told her this, she started swearing at me and demanded to talk to a manager. Manager took over, spoke to J and informed the customer that shewill get a call from a mac tech between 6pm and 6:15 tomorrow.

1/21/99 4:43:41 PM Customer was reactivated under the assumption that she has upgraded her system. In regards to her verbal abuse to our staff and her rudeness… - If this occurs at any time please transfer the call to CS(note in Hist what she is saying or doing to you) and we will handle it on our end. -

1/21/99 3:54:51 PM *user* called / OS 7.1 / her computer was giving her all sorts of errors. I talked to J and he told me to create a Mac trouble ticket and he will call her back.

1/20/99 3:09:38 PM *if there is any questions on the length of validity on this acct, see assigned services date paid thru*

1/20/99 3:02:56 PM Mrs called -=) reactivating, will give

info to to cancel refund -=)

1/12/99 3:33:35 PM User called saying that they needed to speak to a Mac tech, looking at her history her computer doesn't meet our system requirments. I told her "sorry 'bout that" and she said "I'm not". Then I told her that I was going to tranfer her to customer service becuase of this and while in the process of transferring she said "$%#@ing Idiot

1/12/99 3:57:44 PM Cancelling user's account. System is not

compatible.

1/12/99 11:13:14 AM cancelled trouble ticket, contacted CS and

having account cancelled due to hardware limitations and really foul attitude;

have her speak with CS; she is cancelled -

1/11/99 8:38:14 PM Customer is calling with mac problems. (

1/11/99 8:21:42 PM Still not quite understanding the concept that

they need to wait to speak to a mac tech, tried to explain. They wanted to

talk to a Mac Tech NOW. Transferred unhappy customer to MANAGER so he could

tell them the same exact thing

1/11/99 7:33:27 PM *user* called - Having problems getting on

internet / also her computer is giving other errors when shutting down / FreePPP

was uninstalled / had her rebuild the desktop and try again

1/11/99 6:19:52 PM computer only has 4 megs built in ram, told her

that she sohould have 16 megs. Doesn't want to buy anything else.

1/11/99 5:59:12 PM computer freezes when opens browser, has mac

450 , has new modem, sent tot ech ..t

1/11/99 3:42:01 PM Got new modem, setup freePPP for higher baud

rate and auto find init string.

1/10/99 5:07:42 PM *user* called, getting error "there is a

problem with the finder" brad told me to have her redild the desktop she did not

want to do that, reffered her to an A+tech or apple

1/9/99 12:18:10 PM called to reactivate the acct

1/8/99 7:52:16 PM spoke to *user* who is 16 years old and a lovely girl. She started by calling us a bunch of f***ing liars and that it was a pile of s**t that was told to her in the first place. Wanted us to buy her a new modem. Her dad got on the phone and ranted at me. Told him we were doing a full refund and closing the account as it should not have been set up in the first place.

1/8/99 7:06:54 PM tried 2 xpln prob w/cust & started using foul

lang,xsfered over 2 CS

1/8/99 7:00:07 PM We do not support customer's system. She is

not to be transferred back to Tech support.

1/8/99 6:46:56 PM sent to tech, told her she was going ot have problems with what she has, still trying to make it work, i tried ..

1/8/99 5:15:10 PM performa450; OS 7.1; installed 3 disk set; major psycho customer; probably better off cancelling her but managed to get her setup; whether she connects now is a whole other story; has 2400 baud modem and warned that the internet will be incredibly slow with it; if she calls to complain or gripe I recommend cancelling her account; this looney will be nothing but trouble -

1/8/99 4:15:21 PM *user* called / OS 7.1 / I told her that the

system requirements were 7.5.3 and she got pissed and hung up on me. (Look at my

knees, they're shaking)

1/5/99 6:08:07 PM I think she's only 16 her dad Mr father of the BITCH was in the background shouting out usernames. Used father Credit Card.

1/5/99 6:03:15 PM Told about set-up fee. Needs MAC floppy. Has

performa 450 OS 7.1. Told to verify. Added email. Told

24hrs 2 BE active

I work for an ISP who bought the Mississippi portion of another ISP. We chose the Missisippi travel bureau's old number since they switched to a new number (big mistake on our part). We now constantly get calls wanting travel information on Mississippi. Well, I got a good one a few weeks ago. A lady called the number a few weeks ago and here's how it went: (Me) Operator... (Lady) Yes I would like travel information about Missouri please. (Me) Ma'am, this is an internet company, and why did you call the Mississippi travel number for information on Missouri?? (lady) (something garbled) then (CLICK)! :-)

Older unexperienced users of computers WILL NOT see what you want them to see!

tech: Close out of that screen sir.

member: What screen?

tech: the screen right in front of you, hit the x in the upper right corner; there's a dash, a box, and an x, hit the x.

member: Well I just don't see what your talking about....I don't have an x.

tech: ok, then go up to file, and exit.

member: where's file?

tech: on the very very very very very upper left hand side of your screen...(getting extremely irritated)

tech: Sir have you ever closed out of a screen?

member: Yes

tech: Do you remember how?

member: no

tech: *throwing up hands in despair*

Some people just don't know what they're doing, common sense is slowly dwindling out of existense.....

me: how can we help you today ma'am...

member: I can't read my email, the computer won't let me!

me: ok, when you click on the email, does it open, or does it just hang at an hourglass?

member: all it says is when he sent it, the time and date, and it says receipt! it doesn't tell me what he said!

me: ma'am, you hit the return receipt check box when you sent the mail, you got a receipt in your mailbox that tells you when he read the email.

member: well i've never got one of those before!

me: ma'am you have to check the preference...

member: well why won't it tell me what he wrote to me?

hmmmm.....

I am not in tech support, but I am majoring in Computer Science in college. This means that I get to fix every problem anyone in my family has with their computer. My mother has the most problems. She got a computer last year and she's working on a book. First off, she hasn't used a computer since we got rid of the Apple IIe about 12 years ago, so she's never seen Windows of any sort. It took about three days just to teach her how to open Word in Windows95 and how to simply type a page. Anyway, she calls me to get help with her computer almost twice a week (it used to be more often). I can't stress how much I hate Word because it seems to crash all of the time. On my mother's machine, it's even more so.

One time she called me down to her writing room (it's in our basement) and told me that the A: drive wouldn't read anything on her disk. (She has a fear of writing to the hard drive, which when asked why replied, "I can't hear it when it is saving, so I'm not sure that it's saving.") Apparently the hard drive is too quiet. Anyway, I took the disk up to my machine and had no trouble reading the document. I put it back in her computer and sure enough, it wouldn't read it. I checked the drive and found a piece of masking tape that had been attached to the disk! Apparently it had fallen off of the floppy and gotten stuck in the drive. I told her that she needs to use the labels that the disk came with and she said that she didn't want to waste space by writing on that big label with such a short title.

Another time:

She was trying to save the document to the floppy drive and the disk was full. She immediately yelled at me (like it's my fault) asking why the hell they couldn't make the floppies big enough to hold what she wanted. I then tried to get back to the regular screen, so I could save to the hard drive, but I was met with an error. (Damn Word!) I then clicked OK to get rid of it and the computer crashed. I then had to sit in front of the machine trying to find the auto-backup for about 45 minutes, all the while being yelled at for losing all of her work from the last three hours. (When I finally found the back-up, she had only lost ten minutes.) When I tried to tell her to save more often and to the hard drive, she just yelled more, asking why the stupid @&*%!$# computer wasn't easier to use and why it always crashed when she was trying to use it.

I finally got to talk with her later and asked what she would change about the computer and how she would make it easier to use. She said she should just be able to type and have it not screw up. I said maybe we should get you a word processor, instead of the computer. She asked, "What's that?" I told her that it was basically like a typewriter that had a screen and allowed you to save your work, she said, "That's all I wanted in the FIRST place!"

So much for wasting $2000 on the laptop!

I recently worked for an ISP doing tech support. Here is a call that came in one morning.

Me)) Hello this is tech support.

C)) I need to know what the hell is wrong with your system today.

Me)) Nothing that I'm aware of. What kind of problem are you having?

C)) I'm not able to establish a connection.

Me)) Are you getting an error message?

C)) YES! Dammit! it says the computer you are dialing is not answering.

Me)) What number are dialing?

C)) Let me tell you something I live in North Carolina and today I'm traveling in the state of New York. I have tried the local access number here xxx-xxxx and I even attempted to dial a long distance call at my expense to my local number xxx-xxx-xxxx in my home state. Same damn problem everytime. Now are you gonna fix this RIGHT NOW!

Me)) (after verifying the numbers were indeed correct and verifying that there were no known issues in these areas) Sir lets check your dialing properties to make sure your computer is dialing properly.

C)) For god's sake this is ridiculous!

Me)) Well we just need to verify a few settings.

C)) OK but I've spent an hour this morning trying this and then I spent another ten minutes on hold with you people on my cell phone. Now it sounds like you don't even know how to help me. What the @#%^*@ is the big mystery here?

Me)) I just need to verify a few things. (after looking into his dialing properties and changing a couple tidbits to my satisfaction I instructed the customer to try connecting again.)

C)) Same @*%#@**@ problem what is the big @#**#@ mystery?

Me)) Sir you stated you were traveling. Are you in a motel?

C)) NO! I work for a Fortune 500 company and I'm in one of our offices.

Me)) Do you need to dial a 9 for an outside line?

C)) @#@@*#@ NO! I didn't dial a 9 to call you.

Me)) You said you were calling from a cell phone. Can you physically pick up an office phone and try dialing the access number manually to see if a computer answers.

C)) That is completely unnecessary. This is your problem and I want it fixed NOW!

Me)) Can you ask someone in the building if you need to dial a number for outside access?

C)) Why should I do that? I know how to make a @#@@**@ phone call.(pause) All right I'll try it from this phone next to me just to prove you wrong.

Me)) (hear numbers being pushed on phone)

C)) The call went through and I didn't dial a @#!!*@ 9 for an outside line. This service is completely unnacceptable.

Me)) What buttons did you push on the phone?

C)) I pushed the damn outgoing call button and then dialed the number and I didn't dial no damn 9. If you can't fix this RIGHT NOW put someone on the @!#*@ phone that can.

Me)) (after being verbally abused) Well sir I think the big mystery is over. You needed to push the outgoing call button. Now go ask someone what number to dial for an outside line and the problem is solved!

C)) This is completely unnacceptable(click)

Me)) (after being hung up on I logged in to the authentication server and noticed he was connected within a couple minutes of terminating our call. What kind of Fortune 500 company would hire a moron like that. Would it be any mystery that corporate downsizing is in their future?)

As the only person in the family who understands computers, I get to do the tech support, training, installation etc etc for all PCs at my mum's office (a charity).

Now she's been getting quite good on PC's since I've been guiding her, so I was surprised when she couldn't get the deskjet printer to work with new system I'd set up the previous week. We'd had to wait for a new printer cartridge.She couldn't find the shortcut to the printer help that lets you align printheads (HP make these things idiot-proof...!). I was surprised, because its the same section you use to clean the printer heads, and she had told me she and her secretary cleaned the heads when needed, though the print quality was getting pretty bad these days...

So down I go, locate the shortcut, go through the align process, showing her each step. Printer starts working, and mum says, "Oh, thats how its done, thats easy. The quality is still poor though, we should clean the heads".

"Yes, I'm surprised you couldn't do the align thing, its here in the same menu as the clean thing".

Long pause, puzzled look.

"But you don't use that, you just press that switch on the printer there..."

I look. Turns out for the past 2 years she's been "cleaning" the print heads by pressing the test page button...!!

Below is an email I received from a user.... had a good laugh

)X-POP3-Rcpt: user@where.com

)From: "Joe User" (User@techsupportfrequents.com)

)To: "Tech Support" (techsuppport@werlaughingwithyou.com)

)Subject: Re: test

)Date: Sun, 24 Jan 1999 20:22:19 -0500

)X-MSMail-Priority: Normal

)X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.72.2106.4

)X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.2106.4

)

)Thanks for your help, I may need some more. It appears that I cannot send mail. On the other hand if you get this, then obviously I can. Signed User

)-----Original Message-----

)From: "Tech Support" (techsuppport@werlaughingwithyou.com)

)To: "Joe User" (User@techsupportfrequents.com)

)Date: Sunday, January 24, 1999 7:34 PM

)Subject: test

) Just a test

One afternoon near the end of the day, I get a call from a user who

is having PC problems. Here is the text:

Me: Tech Support, Mike speaking.

User: I have been working on a budget report since 6:00am that MUST go out today and my PC

has frozen.

Me: That is simple, just reboot the PC

User: Whew, I should be able to keep working on the file?

Me: Yes, just reload the file and it will be at the point when you last saved it.

User: I did not save the file.

Me: You have not saved the file since this morning?

User: Yes, can you get the file back, or is it gone for good?

At this point I had to suggest that he use the Autosave feature to prevent this from

occurring in the future.

This call was handled by both myself and a coworker. Basically, the customer says he turns the system on it won't go on. No lights. No sounds. Went through the whole cable check. Figured maybe it was a bad power supply. In any case someone would have to go out to the site and bring the system back.

So my coworker goes out to the site and I get him on the phone. The reason it won't turn on...THERE'S NO COMPUTER THERE!!!

No, this isn't a joke! It was an unopened store with some computer parts thrown between two rooms. Seems they had it "in storage." So since the computer is in shambles, they ask him to put one together with the parts laying around. Well, they don't even have all the right parts for the thing! The keyboard won't fit, among other things. I don't know whether we dealt with the customer any more on that problem. It was just by far the strangest call I ever heard about!

Our support center is handled with an answering machine. Basically if you have an emergency, you leave a message with this one extension and the pager goes off so someone can assist you. A few of the funniest I've come across (that I can display here anyway) went like this:

Message: The machine is in backup and it says to insert a tape. What should I do?

(We didn't even bother calling back.)

Message: There's a window that says backup. Call me back.

(Turns out a backup window was open. Damn, that's a hell of an emergency!)

The one other funniest message I've ever gotten really can't be told word for word. Let's just say the woman was having a panic attack and crying her eyes out because she couldn't figure out how to log in, despite the instructions on the table that say "Log in with your own name"

About three years ago, I worked in the R&D department of a modestly large photofininshing firm. They had an windows-based network, as well as a large (UNIX) mainframe. It was necessary to access both during the course of the job. There was a drop in my office for a terminal, but they didn't have a spare terminal. I just asked what terminals they used. "VT-100," I was told, "but we don't have any."

"No problem, I replied, I'll just use my computer."

"You can't do that," the IT manager said. He then proceeded to give me a very long and detailed description of the difference between a computer and a terminal. I managed not to doze off, and just answered "Ok, fine."

I just plugged the UNIX port cable into a spare COM port, started Hyperterminal, configured it for VT-100 emulation and did my work.

About three weeks later, a tech from the IT department lugged a large, ancient (heavy) terminal with an obviously-burned CRT into my office and said "we've got a terminal for you."

"Don't need it," I said.

"You can't log in without one," he said.

I maximized Hyperterminal, showed him the display, and said "this works just fine."

"How'd you do that?" He asked. I explained and told him what to do. He remarked "I asked ___ (IT manager) why we couldn't do that, and he said it couldn't be done."

Within a week, the only people still using the old terminals were on the lab floor, and they didn't have computers.

At my job, there are hundreds of servers throughoout the network, and it's not uncommon to have connections to 6 or more just to access the data you need.

One morning, I could not access a server which had some critical source code on it. I called the owner of the server, who explained it had been off the network ever since the techs had moved it.

That evening, he called back. He explained the problem. They had moved everything into his new cubicle and tried to hook it up. His new cubicle had something the old one didn't--an analog phone line for dial-out. Our other telephones were ISDN.

Faced with a connector and nothing to connect it to (his modem was still on order), these geniuses had taken an RJ-11 to RJ-45 adapter, plugged it into the analog jack, and used a standard network cable to hook it to the network card in his server. Since the analog jack was on the floor under his desk, he had to get a flashlight and crawl underneath to find the problem.

In the building where I work, the only people with mouse pads are the ones who bring them from home. I got a call the other week and here's how it went:

Me: Tech support for XXXXXX, how may I help you?

Him: Yeah, my mouse won't work.

Me: Ok, what seems to be the problem?

Him: Well, when I move it, the arrow doesn't go very far

and it jumps when it moves.

I went through all of the usual checks (plugged in all the way, drivers...) and nothing seemed to work.

Me: How long has it been doing this?

Him: As soon as I got a mouse pad.

Me: Is the mouse pad soft on top or hard? (I've had some

problems with older mice and those hard-topped mouse

pads)

Him: Neither...................It's just a piece of paper.

Apparently he had put a piece of printer paper under his mouse and was using it as a pad. The paper moved along with the mouse and messed up the movement of the pointer.

(He said he got the idea after a friend of his told him that a mouse pad would improve performance, but he didn't feel like spending the money on one.)

I swear this really happened. I support around 100 users in

a mixed environment. In order to make it easier for them

we assign them passwords that are the same for each of

the different systems they need to access. In order to

make it real easy we use their given name as their login.

One user I have is kind of a slow learner. Mind you she's

been using this computer and password for over a year.

On Monday she called me up because she needed help with her

computer. She coudn't log into the network. Seems she took

a vacation and forgot her login id. Not her password,

her login id. I was a bit confused at first. After all

her login id is her first name. I couldn't believe it, so

I walked to her office.

Sure enough she had her password correct but forgot her

login id. I had to try real hard not to laugh when I said

to her: "Hey Kay, your login name is K-A-Y."

Afterwards I looked at server history. She last logged in

successfully 10 days earlier - on the last work day before

her vacation started.

I work at a TS company that works mainly as a third party support desk for a lot of different companies. Depending on the contract a certain company has, we coud be anything from 1st level support on up. To make things more confusing, we have a call center where calls are initially received then routed to various agents based on category.

Recently I had a support call transferred to me from this desk. The user was a Tech on-site. The problem? Lotus Notes would not print to the network printer... JUST Lotus Notes. I went through basic troubleshooting with him. Suggested some fixes (which he'd already tried), suggested a reinstall of Notes (which he'd already done). When he goes to file/print in Notes, it lists the proper printer and the correct network path. But when he tries to print he gets a Printer Error. That is the error message in its entirety "Printer Error". The strange thing is, he CAN print if he captures an LPT port.

So, after going through all this and realizing that pretty much anything I could have done for him on the phone has been done, I fessed up that I was stumped. I told him that everything that I can try at this desk has been tried and that, at this point, the only other thing I could suggest is wiping the drive and doing a fresh install of everything. No response. A good 2 minutes or more of silence on his end... I don't know if he was thinking about it, upset, dumbfounded... No clue. Complete silence. Finally, (as a last ditch resort) suggested he call Lotus directly. He says, "Why don't we call a tech from internal? They fixed a similar problem last time."....

WHAM WHAM WHAM! CALL A TECH!?!? I THOUGHT *YOU* WERE THE TECH!!!!! WHY DIDN'T YOU SAY ANYTHING BEFORE!?!?!

I need a vacation!

(me) Thank you for calling **&* *****n*t service. My name is ***.

(caller) You guys have a sick sense of humour.

(me) Why is that sir?

(caller) I called to get your installation software, and they sent it out to me for my mac.

(me) Did they send you PC software by mistake?

(caller) No. They sent me the software on floppy disks, and I use an IMAC!! iMACS DON'T HAVE FLOPPY DRIVES!!! But, I went out and bought a floppy drive for the iMAC.

(me) and?

(caller) The floppy drive doesn't work. You and Apple must like tormenting me.

(me) Why would you say that? Did you call Apple about the Floppy drive?

(caller) Yes, and they said I had a defective install disk. And you know what they told me to do?

(me) what?

(caller) THEY TOLD ME TO DOWNLOAD THE DRIVERS OFF THE INTERNET!!!! I NEED THE FLOPPY DRIVE TO GO ON THE NET, AND I NEED TO GO ON THE NET TO USE THE FLOPPY DRIVE!!!!! YOU GUYS ARE SADISTIC!!!!.......(customer hung up)

I am one of the senior Mac techs for **&* W****n*t. When Customers call our tech support 800# they have to go through a computer voice prompt system to get to the proper dept. When you choose Tech support, the computer tells you to select 1 for IBM compatibles and 2 for Mac. Well here is a sample call which represents sometimes over 50% of my calls for the day.

me) Thank you for (Blah blah blah)...how may i help you?

him) I can't connect to the internet.

me) Do you here your modem dial at all?

him) I'm not sure if it does or not?

me) Ok, go click on the apple menu.

him) What apple? I only have a Start menu.

me) So you are using Win95/98?

him) Yes

me) Ok, you've reached the Mac dept, i'm going to have to transfer you to the IBM department.

him) Well, I don't have an IBM, I have a Packard Bell, and there was no selection for Packard Bell in your menu.

i was supporting a nice woman in windows 98 abd she was very nice

we were waitting for a process to finish

meanwhile said that its kinda cold today and then after she says well the proccess is finished

i told her to close windows and tell me when she's done

after about 5 minutes i aske her what is wrong why isn't windows up yet and she says you didnt ask me to restart !!!

i said i did tell you to close windows and she started laughing and told me that she thought i told her to close the windows cause its cold and that what she did !!!!!!!

Recently at the corporation where I work, an employee was getting

his own PC, and was scheduled to receive it on a Monday. Unfortunately

something "popped up" causing myself and the other tech to

have to travel to the edge of the state, losing a day worth

of productivity.

On the Monday, the employee (AKA the Monkey) shows up at my desk at 9:15am.

About this time, I was drinking my coffee and eating my

breakfast...not a good time to disturb me.

I told the Monkey that I would try to get the PC done by 2pm

that day, and wandered off to the back room to begin building

all the PC's needed. A couple hours later I was told by

the other tech that the Monkey had wandered by and annoyed

him and the HelpDesk several times. Just before lunch I was stopped by the

Monkey myself, and he rudely shouted "hey!" at me to get

my attention. He then began harrassing me about his computer.

I told him we had to build the PC, and he decided to be a

wiseguy and ask "What, you guy's have to build the PC's from

parts?! You don't have any made up!?" I told him that

we had to format the PC's and install all the software and

I was told "thats interesting" and the Monkey walked away

whispering comments under his breath.."

Finally after I was officially gone for the day (around 5:45)

he stops again at my desk to give me a hard time again. OK

Fine. I gave him a nice Pentium 133, with 2 meg video, ect

with all the toys installed (Internet, Games, ect).

At the end of the next day (when he has had 8 hours to get

used to the P133), I gave him his permanent PC...a P90 with

32 Megs, set at 16 colors, 640 x 480 screen, and the worst

mouse I could find in the rack.

A day later, he seems to be MUCH friendlier....He stopped me

and asked how I was doing, thanked me for fixing the P90,

ect.....

Fat Monkey

I do outsourced desktop support for a large pharmaceuticals company.

Yesterday I got a call from an employee who wanted to know why her 18 page document would only print 8 pages. She said it just stopped printing after page 8, and when she tried to start the job from page 9 nothing happened.

Thank God for remote control. I took over her pc and examined the document, which--lo and behold--was only 8 pages long. Never mind...

I used to work for a Circuit City store selling computers, but oddly enough most of the customers were either knowledgable

or smart enough not to question my almighty authority (mu-hu-ha-ha-ha-hack-hack-hack!). Although I did have one particularly

irritating customer who was interested in an open-box 120 MHz Pentium HP dinosaur that had come back from our service department. The

original software discs were gone, and we weren't planning on it leaving. He asked me to describe it to him, and I told him

about the 120 MHz Pentium processor, which was slow condiering that we had 266 PII's at the time. I had to attend to another

customer, and he and his wife looked at some other computers. When I came back he was playing "Hearts" on the HP. He was

saying to his wife, "Look, that's as fast as you'll need. This doesn't run any faster over on that top-of-the-line thing over

there." He was gauging the processor speed by how fast the machine played Hearts! (Keeping in mind that "Hearts" plays quite

quickly even on a Pentium I.)

I tried to explain to him that this was not a good way to measure the processing speed between the two machines, but he wanted

me to show him something better. Unfortunately, since the HP was pretty much devoid of software, I didn't have much else to

show him. He insisted on buying the machine, and since it was past closing time, I decided not to argue about it. I would have

felt guilty about getting the unusually large commission on that computer if the guy hadn't been so irritating and arrogant.

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

During the span that I worked at Circuit City, I was renting space in a friend's house. He was a software engineer, like I am

now. He had gotten a new computer, and had given his computer-illiterate mother his old one. He was trying to teach her how

to get started in Windows (Name changed for privacy's sake):

Rob: Click on "Start".

Mother: How do I do that?

Rob: Use the mouse.

Mother: What's that?

Rob: That little thing next to the keyboard.

Mother (upon moving the mouse): Oh! That's cool! I always thought that was just a nervous habit of yours.

He and I both had to laugh at that one...

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

BTW: I read a story about a guy laughing at a user who was trying to rotate an equilateral triangle 60 degrees.

Having a degree in math, I can safely say that a 60 degree rotation would cause the triangle to point in the

other direction. Sorry to nit-pick, but we all have to keep in mind that we aren't perfect, either.

More years ago than I want to relate, Honeywell built a stand-alone

word processing machine. It contained a monitor, processor and floppy

all in one case. There was also, of course, a keyboard attached by a

cable.

While working in the support center, we received this call one day:

Support: Hello, welcome....(normal welcoming chit chat). How can I help you?

User: I need a bigger cable for my keyboard.

Support: A bigger cable? The one you have isn't long enough?

User: It's plenty long. I need a bigger one.

Support: Okay, why do you need a bigger cable?

User: Well, when I am typing letters stop going to the screen after I

type a "w". We've analyzed the problem. The points on the "w" are getting

stuck in the cable and then all the other letters pile up behind the "w".

We need a bigger cable so the "w"s can get through without getting stuck.

Support: (long pause to recover from laughter)

When I tell this story, I say that we told the user to try twisting the

cable in the other direction. They say they tried that but the "M"s started

getting stuck. We didn't really but it would have been fun.

The lesson I take is that the user was able to perform their job perfectly

well without understanding how the machine works. As easy as it is to laugh

at unknowing users, they just use the machine as a tool and not really need

to understand how it all works. But it is still a funny story.

I work tech support for a local isp, mainly on the weekends

because there's no boss and hardly any calls at all. One

slight problem with this is you get some people who have

nothing better to do on the weekend but play with their

computers. Every weekend for about a month this guy would

call up who is about 65 years old with a new email problem.

Trick is every week he would change email programs.

It was incredible, he could always find a new one, everything

from eudora to outlook express to internet mail, you name it

he would call about it.

He claimed to be experienced in eudora, but of course forgets

to mention he had been using a eudora about 10 versions behind,

and decides to upgrade and then call up when all the settings are

different. If you're familiar with eudora, you'll know that most

of the settings change in every version or two somewhat.

It's just like a reoccuring nightmare, but this one you come

to know by the sound of their voice every weekend about the

same time.

I work for Tech Support for a local isp, while still a senior in high school.

So of course like everyone else in the world who does T/S friends call me to fix

every kinda computer problem they have.

A friend of mine who I occasionally bummed rides from calls me up and several other

people complaining his floppy drove dont work.

Well eventually I give up and go over there just to discover the cable was disconnected.

Plug it in and wow it works! What do you know?

Who would have ever thought you would need to plug in the damn cables?

This guy once shorted out the damn thing by screwing the feet in on the case too far

and fried half the damn system.

Last week his hard drive died, this is a 5 year old system and he buys a 8.4 gig hd

just to make things difficult. Well he didn't like all of those drive letters.

So some nice ez-bios tricks that his system didn't like and eventually we got that working.

Although he does have a lovely error on boot:

1790 - HD Size Error

Press F1 to continue

Now WTF good does it do to do that everytime when it makes no difference?

Yes you guessed it this was a POS compaq.

Have fun next time your friend calls you to fix their system, I find it's helpfull

to own alot of old spare parts.

And pray they we're smart enough to buy extended hardware warranties,

you never know when they'll screw the feet on the machine :)

I work tech support for a local isp.

Lately I keep getting people calling up saying they get ACCESS DENIED everytime they log on to the internet.

Yes these come from the people who think the internet is internet explorer and made by microsoft.

Then you tell the genius's to go to our homepage and what do u know it loads up just fine?

So of course they bitch at me because they want that page with all the search engines on it

so they can access the interenet.

Lets see here, excite hrmm excite.com, altavista ... altavista.com maybe?

Why cant people understand that search engines aren't the internet and there's alot

more things to the internet then web pages, and that internet explorer and netscape

are used to only access one part of the internet and are not the internet.

I feel sorry for people who cant figure out the basic concepts of things yet alone

have any clue how to use them. Then of course these same people tell all their friends

they're "internet savy." I bet they watch all those decorator shows on tv and

think everything is savy.

A user called the help desk to say that her laser printer

was giving out "bad vibrations". We imagined she meant

the fan was noisy and making the desk shake, or something

like that.

The technician went round... printer seemed normal. The

user said, "no, you don't understand, it's emitting bad

vibrations". She _really meant_ that the printer was

putting the 'fluence on her.

In the end we sent the technician back to pretend to

upgrade the firmware. We had to tell the user that we'd

found a bug in the version she had and it was indeed giving

out evil messages in that version. After the "upgrade"

she never called again.

I work for a small software company and make a do-it-yourself personal tax preparation software. It's pretty easy to setup. Just run setup. However, we had one client who we could not get it to work. He calls up and says everytime I try to run D:\setup, it gives me "Can't find D:\Setup". We went to My Computer and there was no cdrom drive there. We checked Autoexec and Config to see if there are any DOS drivers, none. After about 10 minutes of pondering, the client says, I don't know why your disk won't work, the ones I have here work. I said, which ones? He says, the square black ones, the real fragile kind. He also complained that he couldn't eject out disk like his others, he had to tip his computer frontwards to eject ours.

We then realized he was using our cdrom in a 5.25 floppy drive.

I once had a lady installing our program off of 3.5 disks. there were two in the set. She began the installation and when the 1st disk finished the install program asked for the second disk. She then called us and was complaining about how she had to buy a second 3.5 floppy drive for her computer because our program comes on two disks. I guess she didn't know about the eject button on her 3.5 floppy drive and how she was supposed to eject the first disk and put in the second one. She felt real duh after that one.

I'm the IS guy at a small business and get the basic "Why can't I do this" calls...

[RING]

Me: Hello?

Operator:I want fishies on my computer!

Me: Huh?

Op: [Coworker] has fishies on her computer, I want them too!

[Assuming a screen saver]

Me: You can't have that on your computer, it's too slow [reffering to a 486/50].

Op: But I have flying windows and can get on the Internet, why can't I have fishies?! [clearly about to de-ball me]

Me: [wanting to mention a grand conspiracy, I settled for] Because she has Windows 98 and that won't run on your computer.

Op: Why not?!

Me: It just won't install; I can't make it.

Op: OH FINE!

[click]

Isn't life grand? This after her wanting to get a 800x600x24bit slide show with sound running on the very same machine that chokes on WordPerfect. [We're slightly low-budget...]

I work for a national I.S.P. and had a call from an older user one night who had formatted and set everything up himself. To my surprise, he got the Phone number, DNS and user/pass correct. He was complaining about an error when sending and checking mail. Thinking the solution was simple, I took him into Outlook Express to see what he put in there for incoming and outgoing mail servers. The user had entered as the mail server name "wally" because he though this was a good name and easy to remember. He did have the correct settings but thought "wally' would work much better. Needless to say, I repeated this outload for the benifift of nearby techs, and we all had a good laugh at the users expense.

The software I support has a little sound recording utility, adequate for recording human voices. One day I get a call from a customer with a lot of odd questions about it.

CALLER: Can your (sound recording program) pick up something that's already in your computer?

ME: Uh, no.

CALLER: Can it pick stuff up from down the hall?

ME: Well that depends on your Windows sound settings, type of microphone (unidirectional/omnidirectional), etc.

(I go into standard Windows sound recording troubleshooting. Microphone plugged in/turned on, checked volume levels, no feedback, correct sliders are muted, etc. Everything is OK.)

ME: Can you ordinarily do sound recording?

CALLER: Yes, and it's always fine. But today it's like I picked up something from inside the computer or the next room.

ME: What kind of microphone are you using?

CALLER: (el cheapo nine-dollar brand, which is usually sufficient for our purposes)

ME: Where was the computer located?

CALLER: (In the middle of the room, not against a wall or anything. Nowhere that should cause any problems)

ME: (puzzled) So exactly what problems are you having? (A question I should have asked a long time ago.)

CALLER: It's like I picked something up else somehow. Here, listen.

She plays back the sound recording. Through the phone, I hear a scratchy recording of some voices, and then...

RECORDING: Take those old records off the shelf... I'll sit and listen to 'em by myself...

It's a static-filled recording of "Old Time Rock And Roll", by Bob Seger.

ME: (explodes with laughter, falls out of chair)

I put her on hold and laughed for two solid minutes. After regaining my strength, I explained the situation to one of the other techs, who is knowledgeable in electronics. He said that her cheap mic, or more specifically the cable, had some frequency problems and was picking up an AM radio broadcast.

This other tech suggested that she go to Radio Shack and buy a little thingy that will shield the cable from external wavelengths (I forget the name of the item).

After explaining all this to her, I asked her to give me the street address where she was doing the sound recording. I used to work in radio and still have access to some industry resources. So I did a search and found that there was in fact a tower for an AM oldies station not far from there.

Another day, another problem solved. :)

Ok, I dont work for any tech suport line(some of you guys suck!), but for some reason im the ONLY person with in a one mile radius that knows anything about computers. So when ever some idiot's computer "breaks" they call me.

There's this one person, who just a month ago bought a 100mhz computer 3 months ago for $500. They decided they didnt have enough HD space and delted what ever they didnt always use. this included various config files. Not olny did they not have a back up disk which windows prompts you to make 10 times when you install windows, but they didnt have there windows disk anymore. deciding this idiot didnt deserve a computer, I told here she needed to give me her computer. I took it from her brought it over to my house and screwed it up royaly. The next day i brought it back to her and told her (like a doctor tell a mother her son died) "I couldnt save it".

Just wanted to share this.

I work for very large Australian ISP on the helldesk. And these are my stories.

This is devoted to one of our support staff - a 17 year old with a background in Macintoshes.

He was given the job after being recommended to position by our real Mac Guru (who

makes you believe that Macs can actually be used for something apart from oversized

paperweights). Apparently, our Mac Guru rues the day he got this kid a job. They know

each other because Special used to ring him up (he began as one of our customers - that's

always a bad sign) with lame errors all the time. He has been dubbed 'Special' for all the

'special' support he provides to his 'special' customers with his 'special' solutions...

I should point out I hold no grudges against him however I believe that support staff should

know their stuff. They are paid to know their stuff (then again so are sys admins and MCSE's :-)

Here are just a few of his exploits.

Specials of the Day

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

- Thought Microsoft Office 97 was initially designed on the Macintosh.

- Didn't understand how to play minesweeper

- When presented with 3 login id's and 3 passwords, he could not

figure out how many combinations exist to get in, even when

it was drawn on paper for him.

- Believes Internet Explorer will hold the answer as to why a winbloze 95 machine

is having DialUp Networking problems.

- Burned a copy of a game after borrowing the cd from it's owner. When the owner asked

for his CD back, Special asked jokingly if he could keep the original and the owner

take the (not working) burnt copy. Seemed genuinely suprised when the owner refused.

Persisted for five minutes.

- Could not play Flight Simulator despite the fact it had tutorial videos come with the

game. Could steer and drive along the runway real well though...

- We use an old 286 with DOS 6.22 for our labelling machine. At the DOS prompted he saw a DIR

listing (whether he typed in the command is highly questionable). In the C:\LABELS path he

saw three files: LABELS.DOC, LABELS.FIL, LABELS.EXE. One of these would load the labelling

program he needed to use. He could not figure out which one would load the program. We asked

him which one is the executable. He did not know.

- We also employ voice-over-ip technology, allowing us to use the Internet for phone calls (you

can imagine the system is far from perfect). But it works quite well internally, especially for

monitoring call queues. This is a transcript of a conversation between Special (s) and one of

the Team Support Leaders (a).

s: "Hey, does the ******* phones tell you how long you have to wait on hold?"

a: "The ones in sydney do but not the ones here."

s: "What do the ones here do?"

a: "Nothing."

s: "What do the ones in sydney do?"

a: "They tell you how many minutes wait the queue is when you dial in."

s: "Well what do they do?"

a: "They tell you how long you have to wait on hold"

s: "Oh. so what do they do?"

a: "They tell you how long you have to wait on hold."

s: "Yeah but what do they do?"

a: "Are you f*cking stupid?"

Not ten minutes later, he follows it up with this:

- Special is looking at a brochure of the same voice-over-ip phone service we offer to

can imagine the system is far from perfect). But it works quite well internally, especially for

monitoring call queues. This is a transcript of a conversation between Special (s) and one of

the Team Support Leaders (a).

s: "Hey, does the ******* phones tell you how long you have to wait on hold?"

a: "The ones in sydney do but not the ones here."

s: "What do the ones here do?"

a: "Nothing."

s: "What do the ones in sydney do?"

a: "They tell you how many minutes wait the queue is when you dial in."

s: "Well what do they do?"

a: "They tell you how long you have to wait on hold"

s: "Oh. so what do they do?"

a: "They tell you how long you have to wait on hold."

s: "Yeah but what do they do?"

a: "Are you f*cking stupid?"

Not ten minutes later, he follows it up with this:

- Special is looking at a brochure of the same voice-over-ip phone service we offer to

the public. After carefully examining the various rates for all the different COUNTRIES

he makes the following comment;

s: "Aaaw they don't have New York"

a: "Uuh.. it's got the USA"

s: "Yeah but they should have New York too"

a: "Where exactly do you think New York is?"

s: "Yeah i know that but they should have it"

a: "It's a listing by country"

s: "So?"

But this is my personal favorite. I should note that the following incident occured with a

Macintosh that is the same make and MODEL as his home mac. So there is no justification for

this blatant act of stupidity. One of our techies (b) was looking at the front panel of the

mac (this panel detatches I should point out). He was looking at the hard drive LED up close

to see through that small black plastic square (which suspiciously resembles an infra red

remote control square...) - just to see if the hard drive was firing up after messing about

with the hardware. Special witnesses our techie staring at the LED and grabs him:

s: Don't look at that!

b: Why?

s: You'll go blind!

b: *thinking* wtf?

s: It's infra red man!!! Haven't you seen those printers without cables! It can detect new

hardware!

b: ?????

After he picked himself up off the floor, the techie told us the story. I made a note of taking

this detachable panel off the front of the mac, aiming it at our printer and beating it against

the table, crying "IT'S NOT WORRRKINGGGG!!!!....". It had the office in stitches. For the rest of

the week the support staff were running around with this detatchable panel and point it at

objects trying to get them to 'detect new hardware'...

Oh yeah, he also at one point said he knows more about computers than I do! I'm not one to blow

my own trumpet (I didn't even have to leap to my defense when he said that, about three other

people did which was quite funny) but he made this comment not long after the labelling incident.

He had been on the helpdesk for two months (I had hit the 11 month mark) and my first computer was

a TRS-80 back in '82 (if anyone can even remember these things you know you've been in the

industry far too long). He knows more than me? At least I know what an .EXE file is...

Them: Thank you for calling the Help Line. Please pick one of teh following 6 options:

Me: (2)

Them: Please enter your employee number

Me: (123456)

Them: Please pick one of the following 5 options....

Me: (4)

Them: All agents are currently helping other customers. Please hold.

(7 minute wait)

Them: Printer Support. Can I have your employee number please?"

Me: I just entered it.

Them: I know sir, but I need it again

Me: 123456

Them: Thank you. How can I help you?

Me: Will you please send someone to Room 235 to add toner to printer XXX1234?

Them: Are you running Windows 95, Windows 98, or Windows NT?

Me: What difference does it make? The printer needs toner.

Them: Sir, I need to know what operating system you are using so I can diagnose your problem.

Me: Ok, fine. Windows 95.

Them: Have you tried rebooting?

Me: There is nothing wrong with my PC. The problem is with a LAN attached printer.

Them: Well sometimes rebooting will fix things.

Me: I am not going to reboot my PC because a LAN attached printer needs toner. Would you please just send someone over with a toner cartridge?

Them: Ok, can you descibe exactly what problem you're having?

Me: In room 235 there is a printer named XXX1234 that needs toner.

Them: What kind of file are you trying to print?

Me: WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE? JUST SEND SOMEONE OVER WITH A TONER CARTRIDGE!

Them: Sir, I am trying to help you. I need to know what kind of file are you trying to print?

Me: It's a WordPro document.

Them: Have you tried printing from other applications?

Me: Yes. And I have the same problem.

Them: Can you describe the problem?

Me: I can barely read the text on the page and there is a large white streak down the middle of the page and the display on the printer says "Add Toner"

Them: Hmmm. Sounds like the printer needs toner. We'll send someone right over. Thank you for calling the Help Line.

Me: Good Morning, Welcome to Tech Support, how can I help you?

Cust: This bl**dy computer. It's a load of ****! It doesn't work! You're all bl**dy ****. It was the biggest waste of money I have spent!

Me: What's the problem?

Cust: It's not bl**dy working! I should never have bought it!

Me: Could you tell me exactly what is happening please?

Cust: I turned it on, and it seemed ok but the screen went blank.

Me: Ok. Can you please reach around the rear of the machine and turn the power switch off for 10 seconds, then turn it back on again.

Cust: This isn't going to work.

A few seconds silence ensure...

Cust: Ok, I've done it. Oh. My foot is wrapped around the power cable.

Me: Please turn the machine off again, ensure all cables are plugged in and turn it back on again.

A few seconds more silence...

Cust: Yeah. It's working. Hey what's that noise? (high pitched beeping) It's not bl**dy working! It's broken! It's a load of ****!

Me: Look at your keyboard. Is there a key stuck down?

Cust: Oh. There's a book sitting on the keyboard. Thank you (click)

I work for a medium sized ISP in the Seattle area and am in

charge of the tech support crew. One fine Friday afternoon about a year ago, all my guys were busy so I picked up a call to help out. Typical of my luck it was an elderly lady with a brand new P2 266.

Cust:"Can you help download the Internet?"

Me: "Ummm... I can try, have you set up your computer to connect yet?"

Cust: "No that's what I want you to help me with."

Me: "OK, no problem Ma'am is your computer turned on?"

Cust: "Yes the guys from the store just hooked it up."

Me: (mute) "Groan....." I knew I was in for a long call when I asked the question...

Me: "OK do you see the big blue E on your desktop?"

Cust: "Oh dear they didn't leave me one of those..."

Me: "Umm how about on your screen, do you see one there?"

Cust: "Oh...I'm terribly sorry, I see it now, I'm just a beginner so you'll have to go slow..."

Me: "No Problem Ma'am, I was a beginner too once... Now I want you to double click on the blue E."

Cust: "Ok it turned green...."

Me: "ummm did you double click?"

Cust: "Yes I'll do it again....(I hear a strange rustling sound) click.............click....."

Me: "ok you need to click a little faster.....click, click, not click.........click"

Cust: "Can I take this plastic off? It sure is hard to move the little arrow with the mouse all covered up..."

Me: (trying to keep the disbelief out of my voice) "Ummmm, yes that would be just fine, you don't need that anymore."

What followed was about 10 minutes more of explaining finer points of double clicking on an icon. Then the bombshell hit....

Cust: "Now it says, 'Are you sure you want to send Internet Explorer to the recycle bin?' click yes?"

Me: "NO! Click on NO...."

By this time the rest of the helpdesk was off the phone... I put the customer on hold to transfer her to a level one tech...since we work in a small space they were pretty aware of the nature of my call. I never saw so many men go to the bathroom together at once! In less time then it took me to ask the customer to hold so I could transfer her to tech support, I was alone in the room.

What followed was literally 30 minutes (no kidding) of the following dialog...

Me: "OK now double click on the blue E...click, click not click...........click....... NO! click no, we don't want to delete it!"

I was completely baffled, in 4 years of internet tech support, I had never had this problem, every time she double clicked on the Internet explorer icon, it tried to send it to the recycle bin...I was about to give up entirely and have her reinstall windows when she made the following comment...

Cust: "OH! It works much better if you lay your hand on it and then click...it doesn't move around so much that way!"

I was dumfounded and no reply for a second or two...she had been trying to use the mouse without touching it. The Explorer icon was directly above the recycle icon, and everytime she tried to double click, the force of her attempt would drag the Explorer icon into the recycle bin!

Now that we "fixed" that problem, it only took me about another hour to go through the connection wizard and get her set up to "download the Internet to her hard drive"

As we finished the call she gave the following advice...

"You should tell all your other customers this trick, (resting your hand on the mouse) it makes it so much easier

to click on things....

Needless to say I had one loooonnnnnnng coffee break after that one!

I work for an internet service provider account, and

got a call one night from a gentelmen (?) who proceeded to

chew me out because his problem wasn't being resolved. He

reenacted every detail of the problem and his ALL computer

settings, even as I told him that wasn't necessary.

I checked his past ticket, and he had called in several

times in the last two hours. We had been escalated his case

to the next level of support. They didn't respond to the

conference call, so we issued a call directly to them to call

the customer back.

After he slammed me, he asked for my supervisor, and

slammed him too, re-reenacting every detail to my supervisor.

He ended up taking up nearly an hour of our time on the phone.

We finally were able to get him to listen, and told him, that

the next level COULDN'T call him back if he kept his phone line

tied up with calls to us.

A DOS handheld application I wrote for my largest customer has some self-diagnostic capabilities and will, in some critical cases, display a message to the user along with the help desk's phone number and asking the user to call for help. (These messages pop up not because the user did anything wrong but because my program generated a hardware or software exception of some kind.) The messages are also logged in a file that is uploaded at the end of the day, but without the user telling the help desk exactly what they were doing at the point of failure, the message alone is usually not enough for me to figure out why my program failed.

Anyway, some users ignore these messages, reset their handhelds, and carry on. One such user got the same message day after day and repeated attempts to contact him failed (some of these users are in really remote locations, others are barely literate, and still others regard any call from head office with the same suspicion accorded to a contract that includes the phrase "your soul for all eternity").

Because of this and other difficulties with some users, I have introduced a new feature that I feel should be standard in any application: the help desk can now lock the application by remote without ever having to contact the user. The ONLY way to unlock the handheld is to call the help desk (even resetting won't work).

If the handheld is locked, the user can't sell. If the user can't sell, he doesn't get paid. It's amazing how responsive and cooperative users get when their salaries are threatened.

I work for a smallish ISP doing phone support. This is a call I did one day with a user who needed a DNS update.

Me: Okay, are you at the computer now?

User: Yes

Me: And are we at the desktop?

User: With all the icons on it you mean?

Me: Yep. There should be an icon on there that says My Computer. Do you see that?

User: Yes

Me: Go ahead and double-click on that icon. On the next screen do you see one that

says Dial-up Networking?

User: Yeah

Me: Okay, double click on that. Now you should see two or more icons. What do you see there?

User: Huh?

Me: What do we have on the screen now?

User: What do you mean screen?

Me: What does it show on your monitor right now?

User: Oh you mean I'm supposed to turn on my computer?

I work in tech support and my friend took the following phone call.

Cust. calls in and system is beeping (sickly sounding every 10 seconds or so). System turned off and still beeping. Started disconnected keyboard, mouse, etc... disconnected every peripheral save speakers. Customer states it's coming out of the speakers, disconnected speakers and the beep goes on. Had cust. open up cover and pull out the cmos battery. After going nuts for about 10 minutes trying to figure this one out, I again asked him what was around the computer. He opened a desk drawer,turned off his beeper and sheepishly hung up.

Suzi

I work for a smallish ISP doing phone support. On the nights and

weekends that means sitting around waiting for the phone to ring,

often I'll work 9 hours and take 2 calls. So when a lady calls

in with severe connection troubles, I figure I'll go a little

beyond the call of duty to get it fixed. All in all, I spend

4 hours on the phone with her, tweaking with things.

When I have done everything I can possably do over

the phone, I tell her that the problem is either a hardware issue

with the modem or a problem with the phone lines, which was

likely considering that she was 12 miles down a dirt road and

35 miles from our POP. I suggested that she call the phone company

to have them test the lines.

Her: Oh, yes, the phone company has been here.

Me: Oh? What did they say?

Her: They said my old buried lines were so old they were going

to replace them. In fact, they're out there right now trenching

for the new lines. Gee, now that I think about it, I started

having trouble about the time they started digging this morning.

I suggested that she wait for them to hook up the new lines and

try again.

I have a room-mate who is... not all there. As in she gets social security

and thinks the police are always following her. I don't complain,

rent is cheap and I see her maybe twice a week. One day after I'd

been living there for a month she asks me "exactly what kind

of work do you do?"

"I configure computers to connect to the Internet"

"Huh?"

"People call me on the phone and I fix their computers."

"Oh," she paused, "how do you put parts in over the phone?"

"I don't do hardware, I just configure them."

"Well if you don't need to replace the parts, what's wrong with them?"

"They're set up wrong."

"No," she said, "YOU don't understand. They're just like a TV:

it works or it doesn't!"

And to think that I was considering letting her use my machine

for email...

I work for an International ISP Group, and recently, we had a serious outage in Scotland that was really causing some problems. After a few days of isolating what must have been 5 separate issues making one big problem, we finally reduced the problems from a solid heavy flow to just a trickle. Some of the issues left were to be dealt with as individual cases.

The last one was a real stickler, and after a lot of headache, it turned out the user was plugging his phone jack into an Ethernet card, and didn't even have a modem. Doh! That should have been determined at the site, but it somehow got missed. It was kind of a relief, and kind of a "well, damn all that for for nothing" kind of moment, so I turned to the guy manning our main help desk, and told him as a joke to put out a major bulletin that, "Users with no modems are having trouble dialing into the service."

It was meant to be a joke. But he was distracted, took is seriously on a subconscious level, and damn if he didn't put out a major bulletin, reserved for major outage events and such. "Users without modems cannot connect to service." When he told me he put it out as a major bulletin, at first I didn't believe him, thinking he was playing along with my tongue-in0cheek comment. Our internal computing people interpreted this as meaning people connecting directly through TCP/IP could not connect, and they called me for details. Luckily, one of the desks manning our direct customer relations asked me if the guy at my help desk was on crack. I told him what had happened, and they ragged this poor guy to no end, which made him say, "Oho... I see... you want me to look like a fool, do you?"

Now... I nervously wait for his revenge...

This story happened about ten years ago.

We got a call from a user that his line printer was

occasionally printing random garbage characters in the

middle of reports. This problem had started (naturally)

after one of our FE people had been to the customer's site

(of course, he hadn't been anywhere near the machine in

question).

Went to the customer's office... sure enough, lots of

reports with # and @ and whatever, but strangely, not in

exact character positions (for people under 25: a line

printer typically only prints a single fixed-width font

with a fixed line height, so the characters are effectively

printed on a grid, and these random ones were slightly

offset).

Now, this customer was about to place a BIG order, so my

boss told me to put in "whatever it takes". We cleaned

the printer and changed all the cables. We replaced the

entire printer. We reloaded the operating system. No joy.

Then, one day at about 11pm, I dropped my pen into the box

of fanfold paper which was in front of the line printer.

Picking it up, I noticed random characters on the page. I

flipped furiously through the rest of the paper. There was

a # or : or % on every fifth page, approximately.

It turned out that one of the programmers at this (very

cost-conscious) company, had printed a binary file which

had taken up a whole jumbo box of paper. He had taken it

from the output basket and put it back into the input box.

We billed them about 40 hours of technician time and the

programmer was fired. Guess he should have owned up and

bought a box of paper.

Hi,

(first a merely rhetorical question: does it help against

nerds, to name utilities: "... Utilities"??)

Doing software-support for suspicious German customers, can

be hell, esp. if they withhold vital informations about

their system, not trusting a techie.

Last Friday, I received several calls from a "skilled" customer

()2.5 hours in total!), regarding a simple installation, also

involving IE4 for accessing the new helpfiles. The customer

only did admit, running a freshly installed Win95 and no

(no Sir, really NONE!!) utilities or other programs, only

drivers. Thus, our program being the first to get installed.

Nevertheless, having some years of techie-experience, I asked

for any background-tasks (e.g. M$-Office, Virus-Scanner, Utilities,

etc!). Nope, no utilities for sure; the customer pretending the

Win95-tasklist being empty, besides of Explorer and Systray!

Well, on the phone, I had to rely on those informations!

Two hours (and some more calls) later, he even couldn´t start

Win95 any more, because he fiddled around with the installation,

but w/o calling me for assistance/advice!

Finally (me also having experience in tech-inquisition), he

did admit, that he used a copy of Norton-Utilities(!), and when

he tried to install IE4: he let CrashGuard *repair* a possible

expected crash during IE-installation!!!! I assume this was

making many unintended changes to several system-files, which

just got installed. And I also assume several severe user-

RTFM-errors, when using those utilities.

Now, trying to launch Win95 resulted in a frozen system, because

CrashGuard always complained about a possible crash, followed by

a totally crashing Explorer.exe!! Not even starting in safe-mode

was possible any more.

Now for his incredible reply (translated), when I mentioned

those withhold utilities, while silently grinding my teeth:

"(him incredible/surprised)... oh, THAT is what you meant

with UTILITIES???!"

When I then suggested FDISK and a new Win95-installation, he

suddenly started to whail about losing all his Corel-, Winword-

and other documents! Pretty strange files, concerning a

"naked" Win95 installation!

Imho, some PowerUser urgently need a drivers-license for their

PC! Or much better, a weapons-license for using utilities!

;-)

Nevertheless LOL!

Herbz

(Btw: being techie, I myself appreciate such utilities! No

reproaches are intended towards any manufacturer, besides

of possible user-RTFMs.)

This doesn't really qualify as a Tech Tale, but it's sort of

related, and I've been storing up this particular rant for

years.

I used to work on the order desk for a company that would

provide drugstores with all their merchandise - drugs,

cigarettes, candy, you name it. The managers of the stores

would call in and place their order. Most of the calls were

quite straightforward - "I want 3 cases of Snickers, 1 box

of Tylenol Extra-Strength" ... you get the picture. But

every now and again I'd get a call like the following:

Customer: I want some cigarettes.

Me: Yes, sir. What kind?

C: The kind with the blue label.

M: Um, do you have a brand name, sir?

C: (getting testy)I said the kind with the blue label!

M: I'm afraid that doesn't help - I need a name.

C: (patronizingly) Just go look at the cigarette shelf,

honey. Find the ones with the blue label. That's the one

I want.

(Let me interject here that I did not work around the

merchandise. For security reasons (since a lot of the stuff

we provided to drugstores was drug-related and/or expensive),

only warehouse staff were allowed in the warehouse where

the merchandise was kept. I worked in the main office. But

I COULD NOT convince customers of this!)

M: I don't work in the warehouse, sir, so I can't go look

at the cigarettes. (Aside: even if I COULD go look at the

cigarettes, do you have any idea how many brands, types and

sizes there are? It would've taken me an hour!)

C: (suspiciously) Are you new there?

M: (trying to be calm) No, sir, I've worked here for over

a year.

C: Well, all I want is the ones with the blue label! I've

never had any problem like this before! I want to talk to

Terry! (My supervisor.)

Whereupon I'd get Terry to talk to the guy, she'd

miraculously know which cigarettes he wanted, and he'd go

away happy - convinced that I was an idiot who was too

stupid or too stubborn to just go look at the damn

cigarette shelf and find the ones with the blue label.

And don't even get me started on the customers who'd call

the answering machine, leave a huge order, omit a couple

of tiny unimportant details like WHAT COMPANY THEY

REPRESENTED, and then call and complain the next day when

they didn't get their order ...

Or the customers who'd call asking for lightbulbs and would

be confused when we asked what wattage they required.

"What do you mean? Lightbulbs! You know, the things that

go into lights!". "Yes, ma'am, but do you need 40 watt,

60 watt, 100 watt ...?". "Oh. I don't know."

Phew, thanks! That's been building for a long time!

This one isn't humerous, it is intended to set some info straight. And to show that thing can go both ways. Some questions may appear a little "off the wall" until you stop to think about them.

So here goes the reason for writing...

I have to pitty the person who got the tech. who told them that the (post) beeps don't mean anything.(story:"Beep Beep") I am here to tell you that they do. and that there is a list that will tell what that mean, if you can get your hand on a service techs. repair guide.

There are a series of long and short beep in this code.

Usually a short beep means everything is OK.(I would include the rest of the list if I were at home to get it)

Signed: Been there - Done that!

I work for a company that has users around US, either working at home or small office complex. IT Support is managed out of Corporate HQ, using using an outside vendor as National Support.

This story has been five months in the making.

It involves a small office user who happens to be a bit 'thick' to do what IT support asks him to do and what he wants done.

The user has a problem with the network config of his machine.

He is unable to duplicate his problem to a tech and has turned down suggestions to return his machine to HQ, to get it repaired.

Tired of the endless communication with the user, the IT support director decided that he will get a new machine and send it to him from corporate distribution.

Telling the user that he will get a new machine to get rid of the problems, the user agrees that he will handle its installation and data transfer.

A month after the user receives his new machine, the user calls up IT support and talks to the director.

This is a transcript of what happened in the conversation -

User: (Describes an "Out of Memory" error).

IT Sup: Okay. Is there anymore problems ?

User: Yes. (And he describes the problems he had for months with his old PC)

IT Sup: So the problems that you have had with your old PC - you are now experiencing them again on your new PC ?

User: I did not install the new PC. I'm still using the old one.

IT Sup: Did you receive the new PC ?

User: Yes. It just been sitting here doing nothing. When is someone coming out here to install it?

IT Sup: I'll get back to you.

-

Suffice it to say that we will send a tech to the user but I could've swore the IT director was chocking the phone before he hung up.

I work in the printing industry and had been the "Mac guru" at our shop.

Many times I would be called upon to answer questions for customers.

Enter the case of the "misinformed customer":

One fine day, our shop was called upon to scan a picture in high

resolution (300 ppi) for the designer. No problem. However her disk

was Windows format and we were a Mac shop. Still no problem since

the Macs could read and write to the Win format. The problem

came when our scan was 45mb (not unusual) and the remaining

space on her disk was 30mb. Thsi wouldn't do, so I called her

and explained the situation. "Oh, just delete everything on the

disk" she instructed. "Sure thing", I said, "but before I do,

you have a complete backup of the contents of this disk, right?"

"Of course I do" she exclaimed, "Don't you think I would", this

time more terse. I sensed here exaspitation with this experience,

but I had to know these things. She also informed me that I

shouldn't need to delete in the first place since her Syqyest

88mb removable disk had 300mb of space and I should have plenty.

Hmmmmm, now something doesn't jive. 88 - 300 = -212mb. Doesn't

add up!

Instead of deleting as she said, I went to our Production

Manager and explained all the above. He called her and she came

over.

To make this long story shorter, after her insistance that we

delete the contents of the disk, and copy her scan, AND

repeatedly insisting that she had a backup (keep fact this

in mind--I asked her repeatedly if she had a backup), we

deleted, reformatted (some i/o errors) and copied the requested

scan. No problem. I had my butt covered ;-)

Later that day, dummm dummm dummmmmm, she calls and wants the

original contents back on her disk. "What" I exclaimed! "How

in the world are we to do that? We deleted and reformatted

her disk!" She didn't like that and came over immediately (and

in a huff). "Please, put the original stuff BACK on..." she

demanded! "Sorry, we deleted, as you insisted, and it's gone"

I said. A great discussion on how we couldn't retrieve the

information insued and finally she said "Just copy the stuff

onto the disk from RAM." RAM? What was she thinking? I asked

and she said "I have it under good authority that you can

retrieve deleted files from RAM". Oh yeah. And pigs fly.

I instructed her that THAT was completely incorrect and showed

her and said "In any case, you have your backup, right?"

She innocently replied "That WAS my backup." I couldn't resist.

I'm reading through this, and can't help but remeber the first time I used the net.

I was so pround of myself, because I had managed to doubleclick & open the browser window. What I couldn't figure out, however, was how to go anywhere. So after looking at the college home page, the bookmarked pages, and the history, I decided the net was pretty small, and pointless. I knew there had to be more to this whole net thing than what I could find, but I was too shy to ask a tech person, because I knew it would look stupid: "Uhm, yeah? How do I find the net?" Anyway, guys go easy on the new people! I was doing full time tech support 6 months later.

I work for a (H)igly (P)opular company (you can figure out wich one), and we get a plethora of irate callers. Just one of the joys of working on an 800 number.

One call everybody eventually gets is about print cartridges.

The caller begins by immeadetly asking for a supervisor (which ain't gonna happen on my call) because he wants to register a complaint. It turns out they decided to read everything written on their new ink cartridge, and are upset because it says, in plain spanish, negro.

Usually we have to explain for ten minuets that the same cartidge is sold in Mexico, and not everybody would understand the word 'black' if they spoke spanish. Eventually the caller (whom isn't always an African American) says those magical words "LAW SUIT" and we get to give them to the legal department and cut off the call.

It just goes to show that it doesn't take all kinds, but we do get all kinds.

Around 1985, I worked at second-level technical support

for a CAD vendor. We got a call from Denmark (I was based

in Holland. USA readers: get the map out). Our guy there

had been trying to get our system to work over the phone

with a customer for several weeks. Nothing worked. The

plotter would not plot anything.

I got on a plane, flew to Copenhagen, hotel overnight.

Next day, off to Billund airport, 50 kilometre drive.

Arrived at the customer's building - it was a public

holiday there, so there was just me, the guy from our

Danish company, and the janitor to let us in.

Up to the VAX, log on, read the plotter command file.

Expected:

$ ASSIGN TXA7: PLOTTER

Found:

$ ASSIGN TXA7 PLOTTER

That means that plot jobs went to a fiel TXA7.DAT instead

to serial port 7. I inserted the colon, ran the file,

plotter whirred away, got back in the car, went home.

800 kilometres each way (a thousand miles round trip) for

a single colon in a command file. Beat that.

Sometimes it's amazing how the light's on, but there's really nobody home:

Customer: "I'm getting an error message 'You are working in Offline Mode. To connect, click on file, then uncheck Work Offline.' What do I do?

I almost replied,

"I'm sorry sir, I usually can think for other people, but I have gone over quota today."

Josh

This is not really a problem, but more of a funny

(and common) occurance.

Me:"Hello, thank you for calling ****, my name is Sai, may I

have your registration number please?"

Cust:"---"(silence).

The customer hangs up.

Phone rings again.

Me:"Hello, thank you for calling ****, my name is Sai, may I

have your registration number please?"

Cust:"---"(silence).

The customer hangs up again.

Phone rings again, and i begin to feel frustrated.

Me:"Hello, thank you for calling ****, my name is Sai, may I

have your registration number please?"

Cust:"---"(silence).

Me:"Hello?You are speaking with Sai!....hello?"

Cust(tentitively):"....hello?"

Me:"Yes, hello?"

Cust:"Oh thank god, I keep getting this automated message!

Am I talking to a real person?"

No....

Not all customers are stupid. I find that mostlt it is a

case of snoobby or superior agents, who are just taking

advantage of the customer. Here is one such incedent.

Me:"Hello, thank you for calling****.You are speaking to Sai"

Cust:"Hi, I'm having problems with the internet. I can't

connect."

Me:"Who is your ISP, sir?"

Cust:"World access."

Me:"And have you called them yet?"

Cust:"Yes, but they had no idea where the problem lay. They

refered me to my dealer, who refered me to you."

Me:"And have you added any hardware or software?"

Cust:"No."

Me:"Okay.Please click on start, settings, control panel. Now

double click on the system icon, and device manager. Now

could you please click on the plus next to modems?"

SHOCK HORROR!!

The customer turned out to have an ISDN card which he had

been told by the dealer was sold with the computor, as

standard. Not only had they charged him for this addition,

but he had an analogue line! And when the cust finally came

back to me, after having bought an ISDN line, the modem

wasn't working....they had installed a faulty modem!

When the customer called back, he was told that they did

not support this problem, and to call us.

As you can imagine, I was furious for the customer, and

called the dealer, to whom I complained to so much that he

put me through to customer service.

I explained to customer service about the problem.

Me:"And you are supposed to deliver it in working order?"

CS:"Yes."

Me:"So why was this customer sent to me?"

CS:"WHAT? Who told you that?"

Finally, we sorted it out, and I could help the customer.

You see, the blame over stupid mistakes usually lies on the

agent, who either doesn't check something simple, or is too

vague or supeirior to the client, or doesn't listen,

assuming that he can psychically determine the problem!

I do on-site support for about 75 people. Every once and awhile I'll get some no brainers...

Lady came up to my desk saying that her monitor was shaking. "Hmmmm... what could this be" I thought. I smiled and walked over to her desk to check out the problem. As soon as I walked up I noticed the left side of the monitor was flickering exaclty in synch as the fan she had plugged into the same outlet and resting within a finger of the monitor - DUH!

I received a call from a user who was clocking in her

current application and couldn't proceed any further. I had

her go into her Task List to see what her computer was up

to behind the scenes. I asked her if there were any tasks

in the list that were "Not Responding" and she said "No,

They all say 'Running'". I then had her start to read off

her Tasks to me. About the 2nd one down was a Firewall

message from Netscape, so I had her read the following

tasks to see what might have triggered the Firewall, which

turned out to be pretty funny. The user proceeded to read,

"Women who like women", "Long lucious dildoes", and so on

and so forth with about 8 tasks running on a wide variety of

porn sites. Needless to say, I didn't ask any questions and

proceeded to have her highlight the 'undesired' tasks and

End them all.

I work as a tech support agent for a huge computor company.

When customers call us, we ask for their surname, and then

for their initials. The dutch customers are the worst, as

when I repeat the letter to make sure that I have heard it

they always give rediculous answers.

Me:"R as in Richard?"

Cust:"No, R as in Ralph."

"G as in Gary?"

"Can't you tell that I'm female!!!"

"A as in ****"(computor model of cust)

"No, that's my computor. I thought you asked for my

initials"

"Y as in York?"

"No, Manchester!"

"W as in william?"

"No, just one U"

"S as in Simon?"

"No, S."

"F for Fred?"

"NO I SAID S!!!AS IN SIMON!!" (???)

It is always amusing, and I have not yet tired of it, even

after 6 months!

I do night support for a smallish ISP. One customer had an interesting series of calls.

Me: Tech Support, this is JT

User: Hi, I'm ready to get setup here.

(gather info, see that he's a new user. The account lists the OS as

Win95)

Me: Okay, did you get the CD from us when you signed up?

U: Yeah, I did... but there's a problem

Me: yes?

U: Well, this is an old Mac powerbook with no CD Drive

Me: Hmmm. Well our CD doesn't have Mac software on it anyway.

Lets take a look here...

I check to see if his system has FreePPP on it already,

and it doesn't. Note that to do this I had him navigate through the

Mac system, so I'm CERTAIN it was a Mac.

I send him in to the local office to get software on floppies

1 week later

Me: Tech support, this is JT

User: Me again

Me: Good! Did we get the disks?

User: Yeah, but there's a problem

Me: Yes?

User: I have Windows 95, and this is for Macintosh

Apparently this guy has multiple personalities. Anyway I set up the Win95 and get everything going nicely.

Of course he called back a week later... this time he managed to remove dialup networking and didn't have a 95 CD.

He calls for SOMETHING about once a week.

I work in the IT business , so among my freinds , i`m the computer genius and the tech support man . Anybody who is going to by a new PC takes me along , anybody who already has one asks me to come and "see how its doing"

One day , last month , a very dear freind of mine decided he will finally join the PC age and purchase himself a PC.

I went through all the procedures with him and started giving him some lessons on how to start using this machine.

After we got the PC installed at his home and worked on it for 3 hours , i decided to call it a day and go home.

As soon as i entered the house , my phone rang and ofcourse it was him.

Me : Hi , is everything OK?

Him : well , i think i have a problem...

Me : OK what happened?

Him : there is a black screen on my monitor whith the words " It is now safe to turn off your computer" on....what do i do now??????

Several years ago I was lead developer on an inventory system for a large aerospace company. It was all mainframe and dumb terminal stuff. The beta testing all went fine so we rolled it into production for live use. Every day just before lunch we'd get a call from a user (not always the same user, but from the same location) that they couldn't use the system. We'd frantically check that the transactions were up, and the database was healthy, and everything was fine, but the calls kept coming in. Finally decided to go over to the users area and watch them in action. It turns out that the offending terminal was one used during beta testing when we would refresh the software every lunchtime. I pulled off the post-it that said 'Don't use between 11:30 - 12:30' and the problem went away!

One early morning I received a call from one of our users

complaining that a local computer company installed some new hardware on his system and it "erased everything on his computer". At first impression I thought that I would need to reconfigure Dial-up Networking and set up a new connection for him. It became clear as the call progressed that he just needed his mail set back up in Outlook Express. We send out instructions to help customers do this so I asked him if he had a fax machine. He said yes he did and was happy that I could fax the information to him right away. I then asked for his fax number and he gave me the number to dial in to our equipment! He didn't even realize what number he had given me until I pointed it out to him. This is a classic case of the 1D10T error in full force! :)

I work for a fairly large broadband ISP in Michigan. Occasionally The techs log into sales on slower days. This computer savvy lady call up. The brief conversation follows:

me: Tech support can I help you.

Her: Hi I just received a flyer advertising your Internet service through the cable.

me: thats correct maam.

her: can you still watch tv while using the internet?

me: yes thats correct. The broadband signal is transmitted at 6hz which is well below the television signal frequency. There is no interference.

her: wow thats great. The price is a little higher than most internet, (I'm not making this up) does it come with the keyboard and screen and everything.

me: (on mute while I bust a gut laughing), no maam it does not.

her: ok then thank you.

I seriously hope that this lady was thinking web tv or something. If not perhaps I could call her back and tell her that yes, it comes with the keyboard, monitor and cpu. There will however be a one time fee of $1200.00 and you get to keep the "keyboard and everything".

Several months before I began working at my current place of employment, they replaced whatever color printer they had been using in my department with a massive color laser printer. (Said very expensive printer does not do labels or legal sized paper in color & is very slow, but that's a whole other story.)

This was not done by or requested by my predecessor. It was just something that the top guys at the company decided to do.

A couple of months ago, one of the head guys involved with the purchase (who is usually a fairly computer literate person) walked into my office & said -- I need color copies made of these sheets of paper (in his hand).

I said -- oh, you want me to scan them into the computer & print them.

Him -- NO, I want you to make color copies!

Me -- I'm confused. We only have a B&W copier. One of the independent contractors who shares our facilities has a color copier, but that's the only one in the office.

Him -- Can't you just run the sheets through your machine?

Me -- Um, that's a color PRINTER, not a color COPIER.

Him -- stomps off in a huff.

Sigh.

Several years ago I worked for a company that handled insurance.

Most of the peasants worked on terminals that would interact with our LAN.

Because of the nature of my particular job with said company (aka Doofus, NM), I was one of the first to get a stand-alone PC, that was also hooked up to the network.

Now keep in mind our IT dept had egos the size of national parks & the arrogance to match. They made it a point to let us lesser mortals know what a trial it was to work with anything/anyone not in the IT dept. (At one point, one member of the IT dept. stood in the middle of Underwriting & in a voice clearly audible to everyone in the dept, informed some poor peasant that IT had MUCH better things to do than answer questions from the peasants. Oh, really? How about getting a personality transplant?)

Anyway, at some point in the 2 1/2 years of hell I spent with Doofus, NM -- the decision was made to switch from whatever antiquated software they had been using to something a little closer to the latter half of the 20th century. To this end -- they were going to schedule "training" classes. Said classes turned out to be class (singular) of about an hour, less if they could swing it. (God forbid they should actually TEACH people how to use this fancy new system. Which, like everything else that our IT dept. put together, didn't work properly for the first several months of implementation.)

During the session that I was in, one of the peasants innocently asked why Solitaire had been taken off the network. (Since I was on a stand-alone, I hadn't noticed.)

Mr. Smooth replied -- we found that some peasants had been playing Solitaire for 2-4 hours at a time. When asked why everyone on the network had been punished & not just the guilty parties, he said -- well, in the Army, when one person screws up, the entire platoon is punished.

He was NOT amused when I pointed out that none of us had signed up for military service. And that most of the peasants I worked with responded much better to courtesy & respect instead of scorn & disrespect.

I found out a couple of days later that Solitaire had been put back on the network.

I love my fiancee, but she can be a little dense at times. She sees no difference between playing games or surfing the web at home, and logging problem calls or troubleshooting software at work. Since the only computer frame of reference she has is chatting on IRC, I'd get nagged for "playing" all day.

That is, of course, until she broke my computer.

me: Tech Support (blahblahblah) how can I help you?

her: honey?

me: Um...I hope this isn't the boss *laugh* What's wrong, angel.

her: I can't chat.

me: Ok...I need a little more inormation.

her: The chat program won't connect.

me: (getting frustrated) I still need more info, hon. Are there any error messages?

her: Yes.

me: (wait)

me: (wait some more)

me: (really irritated) Well, are you gonna tell me what it said?

her: I already closed it.

me: *groan*

So I proceed to walk her back through logging on to the chat program to generate the error message. She reads it to me, and I learn that the system is infected with a chat macro virus called DMSETUP.

me: Sweetie, did you download anything earlier today?

her: Well, yeah. Someone sent me a bunch of pictures and some other file.

me: I thought I asked you to let me check files you downloaded before you open them.

her: It was only one file!

me: (sigh) And it was only one virus. Ok, can you go to (webpage) and download (file).

her: How do I do that?

me: *groan*

So I walk her through downloading the fix for the virus, running it, and restarting the system. I finally get her back up and running, happily chatting with God knows who. 45 minutes after picking up the phone, I finally let her go so I could get back to work.

Less than an hour later I get another call.

me: (blahblah - you know the drill)

her: (angrily) I can't chat again.

me: What's happening now?

her: The same thing. I though we fixed it!

me: We did! Did someone send you another file?

her: NO! I'm not stupid! I learn from my mistakes!

me: Ok, just tell me what's happened in the last hour.

her: I've just been chatting and looking at the pictures people send me.

me: (uhoh) While you were looking at the picture, did you look at that file again?

her: Well, yeah! I wanted to see if it had any pictures in it.

me: *groan*

So, I walked her through cleaning and restarting the system, again. I explain that that file is what's causing all of her problems, again. I tell her not to open anything that isn't a .jpg or a .gif, again. This time I take the added precaution of having her delete the infected file.

That night when I got home, something very strange was going on.

Dinner was ready when I walked in the door (I usually cook).

She apologized for giving me a hard time at work (she never apologizes...If she's wrong, she'll forgive me).

I got on the computer to play quake for an hour and she didn't complain once the whole time! (will miracles never cease)

I worked for an ISP back in Maine last summer. In the evenings, customers would have to call and leave their name and phone number on our voice mail and the techs would call them back in the order they were received. On this night I pulled the voice mail calls and put them into the "Q" and started calling.

I called this one customer, stated my name and the company I worked for (which has the word INTERNET in it). A sheepish voice states, "I have these 3 baby racoons in my garage and I'm not sure what to do with them...." I again said who I was and the company I worked for, making sure to add in that we were an ISP. The guy, again, told me about his racoons. I then asked him if he had the Internet and he said he wasn't sure but "probabley did... I don't use it my kids do." So after that statement I once, again, stated all of the above and that I did technical suport for people having problems to getting onto the Internet. I suggested that he try calling Animal Control. "Oh, I never thought of that." was his responce.

i'm a it student and one day one of my friends asked me what is a computer?

10 years ago I was doing Desktop and LAN support for the (Australian) Federal Government. These are two tales of managers of the IT group:

1 - Early morning, manager sticks his head into my cubicle and asks if I can figure out what's wrong with his PC, it makes all the right noises but nothing else happens. Enter office. Switch monitor on. Leave office trying to leave him with some dignity.

2 - New manager decides that 16MB RAM was too much for our desktop machines and decides to remove some. Opens case, removes SIMMs with screwdriver (insert screwdriver between SIMM and socket and lever until it pops out - dead SIMM time). Sent formal complaint to CEO, she didn't last.

I work for a local ISP and had a strange client the other night. I asked her to close all the windows on her screen, she rushed off, came back about 5 minutes later saying that she had closed every single window in her house, now what ??

The user stated that she had a problem logging in one day last week after another user had been on her computer and had logged in as "guest". The username "guest" appeared in the login window in place of her own ID, and the user did not remember what the Helpdesk technician told her to do in order to change it to her own ID. Another user was using her PC yesterday, and the name "guest" is appearing in the login window again. Resolution: Suggested the user replace the word "guest" with her login ID by typing it in. The user was able to log in!

Caller's PC is making a repetitive beeping noise. Resolution: Another user looked in the desk... and shut off the caller's alarm clock.

The user called to ask how long she had to wait. The conversation was approximately the following:

"How long must I wait"

"Excuse me?"

"How long must I wait for the system to work?"

"I'm sorry, I don't understand. Wait for what system to work?"

"My computer."

"I don't understand. Is something wrong with your computer? If you explain the problem perhaps we can help you."

Resolution: The user got frustrated and hung up.

User called to complain that his name no longer appears in the TAO (mainframe email) directory. Explained to user several times that his mainframe account (which he states he has not used in years) is being deleted, and it will take about a day for his name to reappear in the email directory with his Lotus Notes email address. User was not satisfied with the explanation given; he wants someone "in charge" to call him and explain the entire process, how the mainframe will "know" that he is still with the company, and how he can get his name back in the mainframe address book. Resolution: transferred call to [my manager].

User wants his PC reconfigured to have his name appear in the Novell login screen. Informed user the login screen will retain the last ID that successfully logged in; all he has to do is log in and his ID will appear from then on. User stated that he does not know his password, so he cannot log in. Asked user if he needs his password reset. User stated that he does not have an ID, so I cannot reset his password. Resolution: The user will contact his manager to get an ID created.

User called to find out why her boss is unable to access applications on server 3PP_NJ_SRV1 when she was able to do so yesterday. Explained to the user that the server is down. User stated that she was able to access the files yesterday. Explained to the user that the server is down. User asked why she could access the applications yesterday but not today. Patiently explained to the user that the server was not down yesterday.

I've been in tech support for about four years now, but one call I got after about a month, really takes the cake. This gentleman called up, after having purchased a new computer. He had just hooked it up and was calling because he wanted to know how to find out what his computer's fax number was.

I don't even remember how I answered that, because I was too busy trying to keep from laughing.

I work at a very large ISP in Norway, daily we

get calls from our (l)users, and help them to get a

connection and we answer other relevant questions about

the internet and what we supply.

Once i got a call from a real luser, and believe it or not,

this is what happened:

Me: "***, you're speaking to ***"

C: "Hello is this the Tech support?"

Me: "Yes, what may i help you with?"

C: "I can't get on the internet."

Me: "Ok, could you be a little more descriptive please?"

C: "When i try to connect it says 'No dial tone'"

Me: "Are you sure the phone lines is plugged into your PC?" | C: "Yes, I haven't changed anything since we got the internet" Me: Ok. Do you know if you have a ISDN or regular analog modem?" C: "I think it's a ordinary modem.." Me: OK, can you just check that all cables are plugged in please?" C: "Sure, the cable goes from the computer to the box with 2 lights on the wall." Me: "Box with lights..? Do you have ISDN phone lines at home?" "C: Yeah, if that's what it's called.." Me: "Sir, you cannot connect your regular modem to a ISDN lines, you will have to purchase a ISDN modem." C: "I can't??" Sigh..

I was told this story from a friend of mine, and thought I'd share it with you ;)

My friend was called to help someone with their computer. She could not get her mouse to work in Windows. My friend checked the drivers etc. and decided to check if the cord was plugged in firmly. He crawled under the table where the computer was stationed, and discovered that the mouse-cord was firmly shoved into the outlet of the networkcard!

He changed the port and the mouse worked fine (ofcourse)!

He asked how she got the mouse-cord into the networkcard.

She responded, that when she tried to connect the mouse, she just reached under the table and back of the computer and felt her way, and when she felt something that resembled a hole, she just pressed the cord into it!

Amazing what people do.. !!

I work for a large manufacturer help desk....

One night I had to register a new user, we have a three

key code to access the serial number on the system while

the sytsem is on.....anyway....

Me: Is system on ?

User: Yes

Me: Could I get you to press CTRL + Alt + S all at

the same time please. The serial number will then

be displayed in a window for you.

User: Sorry, I can't do that my system isn't on right now.

Such is life, I was actually able to resolve this users

issue....

I work for a local ISP. This is pretty funny.

Last fall, a newer customer called in for tech support. One of our more disgruntled techs (who has since left our organization) took the call. It was Windows 95 and he told the customer to right-click on his desktop. It seemed to be taking longer than normal. Turns out the customer took out a pen and wrote the word "click" on the top of his desk. Needless to say, we were all chuckling over that one.

I have a friend that is new on computers and he had ask someone at work that called himself "Pc expert" to how to install windows 3.1.

He had told him to do a format C: and all should be OK.

When my friend did this and still didn't get his computer to work he turned to me and we fixed it. But he called this so called "PC expert" and he still told him that the format c: should work.

I do telephone technical support, and I was trying to determine what operating system my customer was using.

I asked, "Are you on Windows 95?"

In an annoyed tone of voice she said,

"No, I'm on a cell phone!"

my first day on the job for at a computer store in town and sort of as a joke all the veterans have the newbies do tech support...

*usually greeting*

cust: ever time i try to start netscape it asks me to make a new profile

me: have you made a profile?

cust: what is a profile?

me: tell me about you self

*she rattles on about herself*

me: well thats a profile now just type that in when it asks for a profile

cust: ok so will i need to plug in my keyboard to type this in?

*i was really close to razor knife*

me: yes

cust: ok i got i pluged in but now my mouse doesnt work

me: did you unplug you mouse?

cust: yes it looked like the only place it would fit

me: there should be another place to plug it into right next to where your mouse plugs into

cust: i dont see one...

me: do you still have the manuals and boxes from when you got your computer?

cust: yes

me: box everthing back up and bring it over to our office

me: since we forgot to give you a place to plug in your keyboard we will give you a full refund

cust: really? you people are so nice! ill recommend you to all my friends!

*i screamed*

I'm installing a modem and memory for this guy at work, and as soon as I insert the driver CD in the cd-rom, and before I pushed the trayback in, I swear to GOD the man looks me dead in the eye and says,

"you know you can press that button again to make that thing go back in," with a very enthusiastic yet informative tone in his voice.

i just nodded-its all i could do

At ComputerWare well sell all Apple Macintosh products. We have set the precedent that customers may call us for tech support issues. These are the quotes that come in to our main phone center that handles all the phone calls for our 10 stores. We have been gathering quotes we believe to be funny from callers. Remember, we sell Macintosh only products.

5-8-99:

"…less hard drive?"

"What kind of *&^% is this?!" (In regards to the floppy-less PowerBooks)

5-15-99:

"Will I have to get an adapter to use Microsoft files to download onto my iMac?"

"Is my iMac a powermac?"

"Do you sell IBM?"

"I have a printer on top of my hard drive."

"I need a screen and a printing for my apple Macintosh."

5-22-99:

"Do you have the floppy drive for the MG? 3G? Oh I’m sorry...the G3?

"Well, you’ve been helpful but in a not helpful way, thank you."

(Wondering when exactly we will get the new PowerBooks)

"I’ve been stuck on the idiotic installer thing all day."

"I have a 386 with Windows 3.1 and 19,000 ram and I need Netscape. Do

you have it?" (Can’t tell what version she would need) "Is there any way

you can tell if it will work?" (No) "Oh! I meant to call CompUSA, not

ComputerWare."

"Do you have any word processors? I’m looking for just an inkjet based engine."

5-29-99:

"Is this G-M-A-C?"

"Do you guys have the thirty-three hundred iMac?"

"It works when I hold down the shift knob..."

"I thought that was for ether stuff"

"The software is called Toast, how cute"

6-5-99:

"Hello?...Is this iMac?...can you tell me what’s wrong with my mouse?"

6-17-99:

"I heard something about how I need a certain amount of ND to install programs?"

"I just got a Powebook G3 and I just realized that I can’t print out of this thing."

"Back in 1973 I bought a Powerbook 145..."

6-19-99:

"Well that lady is a useless as tits on a bull."

"Hi, do you carry the Panasonic fax machine paper role?"

"I need a laptop that can do email so I can check my email."

"The iMac people told me to bring my iMac to you guys."

"My keyboard is frozen."

"Hello, have you found my stuffed piglete that I left there?"

A couple of years ago there was a woman who bouht a computer from us, who was havin problems. She was renovating her home, room by room. And in the process, she was movin her computer between rooms as well. Any time she would plug a computer in a room, then move it, that wall socket would become non-functional. It had to do with the prongs being badly bent on the computer's plug. The funny thing is that the lady was -convinced- that the computer, being so large, was sucking -all- of the electricity from the walls, leaving none behind for the lamps etc. she tried to plug in after. She had even gone so far as to call the power company before calling us.

I work for an E-mail company that provides Free internet based E-mail to the public.

Here is a conversation I had last week!

Me: Hello Thank you for calling ******mail!

Them: Yes I'm having trouble getting into my E-mail account!

Me: Are you calling from home or work?

Them: From Work

Me: Are you behind a firewall (Companies set up firewalls to protect their computer systems from hackers

and to keep employees from accessing certain web sites)

Them: (From Mississippi in a drawl) Well I'm at school and we do have a big brick wall and i think its thick enough to keep a fire out.

But I never really gave it much thought!

Me: (Diving for the mute button and spewing coffee out of my mouth laughing)

(After a long pause to compose myself)

Please hold Mame I'm having a little cough!

Them: ok

Well needless to say the whole office was rolling on the floor for a few minutes.

We fixed the problem and I explained to her what a firewall was and we all had a

chuckle!!!

i got a very angry costumer on the phone accusing the dum girl who gave him the FAX number instead of the internet number.....

understanding the guy has never seen a computer in his life i explained him the "fax noises" are the way the computers communicate with each other.

after he finally agreed to listen to me and believe me that is the case, i checked his settings and asked him to get connected.

and again he shouts that the noises don't stop and the computer gives him a "no dial tone" error

at that moment i started to get suspicious and asked him to explain step by step what he was doing.

and this is an exact quote: " i pick up the phone, dial the number, the fax answers and nothing happens on the computer...."

...guess what...... he was dialing from the telephone manually and listenung to the beeps!!!! can u top that? :)

have fun :)

A customer called in recently with the following story:

Tech: "Thanks for calling tech support, how can I help you."

Customer: "Yeah, I just bought the 56k modem and I am trying to get signed on with your internet service"

Tech: "Great! Are you getting any sort of error messages?"

Customer: "Uh... No, not really."

Tech: "Well, what version of windows are you using, please?"

Customer: "Double-Paned... the person at the computer store said all I needed was a modem and a nice set of windows. This here is a nice set... I can see the mountains and everything."

Tech: "I am really sorry, but you need a computer to run the software."

Customer: "Oh... Well I am gonna get my money back for this darn modem... (click)"

I work fore an isp that is cellphonebased. This means that we only supports cellphone connectilons and the other day one of mu coworkers got this call from an anoyed Swede that had problems connecting to our service. After chekking and correcting most of his settings on his computer he asked if he was talking on his cellphone at the moment. And if not kould he svitch the phone off and on again so that the cellphone was reset aswell. The Swede repyed ok, an shut off the phone he was talking to my kollege wiht.......

We never heard from him again.

A typical day for an ISP tech agent...

tech: thank you for calling tech support, how can I help you

client: every time I dial in I get disconnected

tech: is this windows 95, 98, Mac?

client: windows 98 i think

tech: okay, can you double click on your my computer icon for me?

client: i don't have one of those

tech: it's in the top right corner of your screen

client: it's not there

tech: what does the icon say in the top right corner?

client: Rome

(every tech's favorite...desktop themes)

tech: ok, can you click on rome then please?

client: ok...it didn't do anything

tech: did you double click on it?

client: oh, double click...ok...nothing happened

tech: you double clicked on it and nothing happened?

client: ya

tech: can you try it again for me please?

client: ok...here we go...it says cancel or create shortcut

tech: hit cancel please and double click on rome without draging your cursor

client: ok...nothing happened

tech: are you double clicking with the left hand mouse buttong

client: i have 3 mouse buttons...i'm using the middle one

tech: can you double click with the one on the far left?

client: ok...it says cancel or create shortcut

tech: ok...is rome highlighted or selected?

client: yes

tech: can you hit enter on your keyboard?

client: ok...it opened a box

tech: do you see where it says 'dial up networking'

client: yes

tech: can you double click on it for me please?

(again we go through the same double clicking process for another 5 minutes.)

After finally getting into the properties of her connection, I have to have her type

an init string into her advanced modem settings.

tech: at the top right corner where it says use flow control

client: yes

tech: is there a check beside hardware or software

client: hardware

tech: down at the bottom where it says extra settings, is there anything there?

client: no

tech: ok, can you click in the space and I'll have you type in the following

client: ok

tech: is there a flashing bar in there now?

client: yes

tech: ok...can type in the astericks key

client: the what?

tech: hold the shift key, and hit the number 8

client: ok

tech: then, keep holding the shift key and hit the letter 'M'

client: ok

tech: then hit the letter 'M' again

client: ok

tech: and then the number 12

client: but, I don't have a '12' key

This is from the comments field from one of our customer's accounts:

this lady is very easily flustered and is good at flustering me. she insists that instant

messaging is the sole purpose of the internet and that *ISP* should either support AIM

and ICQ extensively or write our own software for Instant Messaging.

a real pain in the ass. 8/16/98[tech1]

can't remember how to connect to the Internet. **HUGE** communication problem. Put IE 4.0 on

computer and it trashed AIM. Had her go to AOL and re download AIM. It was a **GIANT**

production and took about 25 minutes. [tech2] 8/17/98

This woman should not own a computer. In fact, she should not be allowed to own a coffee maker.

Spent about 25 minutes trying to figure out what was wrong with her e-mail. Nothing was wrong

with her e-mail, she was just foolish. She couldn't remember how to get into the e-mail

application. She didn't read me the error messages that were coming up on the screen, she

would try to anticipate what I was going to tell her. And she would click on things even when

I told her not to. This woman gets flustered very easily and makes you very flustered also.

In my opinion, it would not be unfortunate if she was to cancel her account [tech2] 9/14/98

Well, today *customer* half installed compuserve win IE 4 and then cancelled. totally screwed Windows

and her browser. Had her call Compuserve to uninstall everything. Then she called and talked

to *tech3* without a browser. she had no copy of IE or Netscape except for on her Win 98 CD(which

she refused to install). *tech3* asked if she wanted us to mail disks. she said "no, i'll try to

get it off of the cd i have". She then put her Packard Bell auto restore disc in and wiped her

hard drive and everything was like new, again. IE setup fine. I wonder what she'll do when she

realizes AIM is gone. 10/04/98[tech1]

*Today Rita decided to somehow delete her *ispname* setting again. I spent a 45 min tring to

get her setup AGAIN. When I told her to type in http://www.ispname.com . She typed

httpcollon\\www.ispname.com. Luckily she still didn't notice that her AIM was gone. 12/16/98 [tech4]

My company just opened another office in a city about an hour's drive away.

I have just found out, via a series of phone calls from the new office, that at least 2 of the 4 members of the new office are what could be termed as semi-computer literate. (They know how to turn the machines on & use Word a little, but are foggy on some of the "higher" levels of computer usage.)

Example: I've been trying to email them copies of the company's logo so they can get them to a graphic designer who will make signs for the exterior of their building.

Person #1 received the logos OK. Tried to open the "tif" files direct, couldn't & so assumed they were "faulty."

Person #2 is having problems receiving email.

I suggested she copy the ones her coworker received & transfer to her PC. OK.

Not OK.

She's only mildly aware of how to do this, so I have to walk her through the procedure. While I'm doing this I explain that you cannot open a "tif" file. You have to import it as graphics. (Sound of whooshing noise as this info goes in one ear & out the other.)

She gets the files transferred & goes to her PC. Complains because she can't open the "tif" files. I sigh & explain again. I start to walk her through the procedure. This is a problem because she listens to me but makes no notes & stops me halfway to tell me she hasn't been following the steps with me on the computer. I sigh again & say -- physically do what I tell you to do. Oh, OK. Guess she thought I was just doing it for my health.

Needless to say, I've spent about 45 minutes this afternoon receiving numerous phone calls from her. Makes me glad I'm not the "official" IT person here at work. I can see where this new office is going to be high maintenance for awhile.

We get some dumb ones but this one stands out.

me: Thank you for calling ** customer care how may I help you

eu: Yeah, when I turn on my computer it makes an alarm sound

me: Ok lets turn it on. (repeated beeps)

me: Do you see any keys stuck down or is the keyboard not completly plugged in?

eu: Well, the mouse is setting on it. Would that make a difference?

me: Take the mouse off and turn it on.

eu: Wow it works!!

me: Thank you for calling ** customer care.

...when the only entry under Entertainment and Lifestyles in

your bookmarks is ... TechTales ...

And, even though I do not do tech support -- I write books

on computer programming -- I do get calls from people needing

assistance ... some more than other.

Like this evening when I was innocently reading TechTales

(while watching Crusade on the TV and writing a CD in the

background, of course) the phone rang with one of those

calls

In this case it was a young man (who seemed to know who I

was but didn't immediately introduce himself and my

telepathy was on the blink) who needed to know why, when he

ran the RamDrive.sys utility (under \Windows) it caused his

CD to disappear? And how could he get rid of Internet

Explorer? He'd been told that his system would run faster

without it. And what was the point of having a swap file?

Wasn't using the disk slower than memory? And ...

Well, you do get the idea, don't you?

And prehaps I'm too patient for my own good but the final

question was whether I thought he should switch to Linux

since he'd heard how much faster and better it was ... yeah!

So, for all of you out there who man the phones for pay ...

My sincerest sympathies ...

Some years ago, a friend brought his newest computer over to

show me how much faster a 486/66 ran ...

And it was a very nice machine ... with the LED numerical

readouts on the front -- a nice clear '66' ...

There was just one small problem. The financial software my

friend was using -- financial analysis -- seemed to be

rather slow ... slower, he thought, than on his old '386 ...

and did I have any idea why?

Well, my first thought (since my '486 was just fine and a

lot faster than a '386) was to run a benchmark program and

try to get some idea of what was happening.

And, sure enough, the benchmark was slow ...

... until I reached out with my toe and nudged the Turbo

switch ... and the LEDs changed from '66' to '33' ... but

the benchmark suddenly jumped up to a reasonable performance

level ...

That dear old Turbo switch ...

And, after he finished blushing ... and I quit laughing ...

I showed him how to disable the turbo switch entirely ...

and how to set the LEDs to read '999' ...

A Co-Worker of mine had just purchased an upgrade for his computer. Actually it was a 2nd hand "Pentium 75" and he wanted me to install the CD-ROM drive and Hard driver from his old 486.

The first thing I noticed was that his NEW Pentium 75 was really an Overdrive for a 486. I informed the guy and he said "But that's the same thing as a Pentium". Knowing this guy and that it would be easier to explain the difference to a tree; I shrugged my shoulders and continued to do the shuffle.

He also pulled out a bag (an actual static bag, thank god), of SIMMs. He asked "Can you put in some of these? I don't think there are any bad sectors on them." Bad sectors on RAM?!? Hmmm

At one point I was having difficulty connecting the IDE cable to his CD-ROM drive in the NEW PC (Desktop cases ugh!), and his head was actually about 2 inches from mine. I guess he thought that this would help. I finally couldn't contain myself and told him, "Look, this is going to take some time, because I'll have to re-initiate the system and re-align all of your data once I finish here. You might as well head home and I'll call you when I'm finished." (I knew that he wouldn't know that I was blowing smoke up his butt.)

When he left I could finally get on with it and I finished in about 15 minutes. His PC worked fine and I had a shower and a beer and then gave him a phone call so he could drive through the Saturday traffic to my place and pick up his machine.

I work for a service company who do on-site repair services

for vairous companies. Most of them have an own helpdesk

which screen the problem for us.

Here are some experiences i ran into when being on the job:

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

I got this call at a customer and the complaint noted:

Network card doesn't work, helpdesk employee checked cable

and switched the card, no response.

I arrived, diagnosed the network card:okay.

I checked the cable:no network connection.

I disconnected the pc from all cables and hooked it up on

a spot where another pc was working.

This was how i reported the end of my on-site session:

Pc attached to a good network socket, user installed behind

the new desk.

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

Another call:

Pc doesn't start-up, helpdesk employee went to look,

inspected the pc, tried several jumper-settings on the PC-

board without result:pc does not initialise anything.

When i came i expected to change the mainboard since this

is most obvious a PC-board problem.

I opened up the machine, closed it again and closed the call

with this:

What the PC got and the helpdesk emp. lacks:brains

What the PC is missing and the helpdesk emp. is too stupid

to use:memory

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

Another network problem, again networkcard doesn't work,

no connection.

Helpdesk employee checked if everything is alright but no

relevant changes.

When coming over i checked the network card:ok

Cable:ok

Network:sure there is connection.

I turn on another PC to check it's configuration i notice

a small difference:no network domain.

I copied the configuration from the working pc and fixed the

"broken" pc.

I end the call with this line:

There is nohting wrong with the pc, order a network-teacher

for the helpdesk employee instead.

Sometimes i have to sit inside to screen calls myself.

Ironicly it happens that i also have to treat calls on-site

which i screened earlier myself.

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

Complaint:

"White/bright areas on screen."

As undetailed as most complaints look like above i call up

the customer to get more details:

me:hello, i am calling according to a complaint about a

monitor?

user:yes that's correct, i have some bright areas on my

screen and they won't go away.

me:have you tried the configuration on your monitor itself?

like brightness, colour etc?

user:i pressed and turned every knob on that thing but

nothing changes, pressing on/off neither.

me:have you tried screen configuration settings in your

operating system?

user:what is that?

I was busy for one hour trying to exclude any possibility.

user:there is one strange thing:these white areas are slowly

moving outside my screen to it's plastic frame.

me:what? i will sent over an engineer right now.

Engineer went by and called back within one hour:

I just closed the flex-curtains and it solved the problem.

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

Here's another complaint:

"Computer doesn't work anymore after inserting key."

I call up the user and ask her what exactly happened.

user:Well, when i turned on the computer it asked for a

login and after that it said:

"Insert key and press enter"

I did that too but than it said:

"incorrect key, insert key and press enter"

me:Madam, i'm terribly sorry but i'm not authorised to help

you with access matters, you should call your internal help-

desk department and ask them what to do.

user:I already did but when they came over to look they said

it was hardware and they would put it through the extended

hardware support provider.

me:can you supply me the number of your internal helpdesk?

i'm curious why they call it a hardware malfunction while it

sounds like an authorisation problem.

i got the number and started dialing, i got a helpdesk

engineer, gave their callnumber and started asking about this

matter:

me:why do you call an authorisationproblem a "hardware" error?

Cust.Helpdesk:Well, we thought it was an authorisation error

too, spent two hours on trying helping the user throuhg the

phone but when we went over to start looking everything

became clear:she inserted her key but it became stuck.

me:the key became stuck? or the machine hang? you know what?

i just advice a new PC-board and i will let an engineer look

at it.

This engineer happened to be me.

on-site:

user:hi, this is the pc and this is the problem.

me:i see, why didn't you told me that you did that?

user:i told you so, as i told the internal helpdesk but

every technical engineer i spoke seem to be too stupid to

find out what i have done and just have to come down so that

i have to show them the problem myself. sooner or later i

can probably also solve it myself because you guys don't

know that either right?

I apologised myself instantly for my stupid behaviour,

opened the pc, removed her keycard out of the floppy drive

and then advised her a training company who IS capable of

teaching her how to use her machine.

(because we engineers aren't, are we?)

I was working the late shift and feeling pretty bored when one of my co-workers and I decided to play a game of Wheel of Fortune online. We tried for about 15 minutes to get onto the Wheel site to no avail. During all of this, my phone began to ring at which point I informed my colleague that all fun was out the window and it was time to go back to work. I answered the phone and attempted to find out what the problem was. The caller on the phone tells me that "his wife has been trying to get onto the Wheel of Fortune site all day and he wondered what was wrong with his computer"!! After barely controlling my laughter I informed them that I was experiencing the same problem with the same site and that there was no problem with their computer. After they finished laughing they hung up the phone and went about their merry way!!! Who says that playing games at work can't solve your problems! Another satisfied customer!!!!!

As a Help Desk Manager I saw a puzzling problem report from a user.

PROBLEM: When he typed the letter on the screen was different from the key that they pressed. A few examples only confussed matters as there seemed to be no relation between those typed and the results. Couldn't be coffee, no eating or drinking at the desks.

SOLUTION: Dispatch the hardware engineer.

He returned about ten minutes later to get a spare keyboard and chucked to himself. When he returned from the call we got the full story and a look at the keyboard he had replaced.

CAUSE: The user, being new to computers, had difficulty locating the keys on the keyboard. His solution to this was not to learn to type, he prised all of the letters from the keyboard and rearranged them in alphabetical order to make them easier to find!

I support a software package that accesses a rather large

database over a LAN. We have a message that is generated

when there is a problem connecting to our server where the

DB is stored. Is says something to the effect of "check

network connections and call the helpdesk". Most network

savy people would realize these "network connections" refer

to "software" type connections. Well, one time when a user

(Pres. and CEO of the company)encountered this message he

calls in and says "I've been crawling around on the floor

for half and hour checking the network connections and can't

find the problem so I called." He was rather annoyed that a

"stupid machine" would make him get his suit all dirty.

It turns out he wasn't logging in correctly (the old "Caps

Lock" error in the password). I filed it under the PEBKAC

error (Problem Exists Between Keyboard And Chair).

I work for an ISP in South Africa and deal with all types of people - the mentally challanged up to the brain surgeons.

One day I get a call put throught to me. On the other end is this dear lady who sounds middle aged and really new to this whole computer world.

Me: Steven speaking, how may I help ?

Cu: How do I find my File Transfer Protocol? I believe I'm meant to have one but I can't find it, do you provide me with one?

Me: (considering the implications of shelling to DOS and telling her to use the command line FTP) Ummmmm, why don't you tell me what you want to do and I'll see how I can help...

Turns out this lady had decided to take an Internet class and the manual she had told her they need to FTP some files off of the institute's server and that if her service provider would give her FTP.

After pointing her to our local Tucows mirror for a FTP client she was very happy. At least she's trying ;-)

a friend of mine called me and said he could get coonected to the internet.

him[its been like this for two days it wont connect ive even tried your test setup.

me[ok lets check out your modem go to control panal and click on modem

him[ok

me[goto diagnostics and more info what does that say

him[ it says its work ok ill stop by to see whats up

i got their and checked out the system everything was fine

so i decide to remove the call waiting diabling code off of dailing properties

and try it. it connected right up.

his roommates disconnect call waiting and dint tell him.

i have a small network setup at home for me and friends to

play games and stuff and a freind of mine wanted to be able

to bring his system over and connect it i told him sure youll

need a nic card to do it. so he went to the local new and

used computer store and talk to the clerk. I got a call from

my friend asking what type of card i told him to get one

thats has a cat5 twisted pair cable with rj45 connections

on in he told the clerk. The clerk got on the phone

and ask a ethernet card?

me)yes i said with rj45 connection

)what he said

me)an rj45 connection

)is that an ethernet card

me)yes

)is that the one that look like a big phone cord

me)yes

A woman called cuz she had trouble getting on the internet, here's how it happened.

Hello tech support.

I have a problem getting on the internet with the instruction you gave me.

No problem we'll verify a few things, so take the mouse and...

Ah! a mouse!

Click.

She hanged up!

Sold an old 200Mhz Pentium to my girlfriends brother for his

kid to use. Kid was thrilled. Games and Internet access kept

him happy for weeks...until one day the system would not boot up. I get called to "fix it". 1.5 hour drive later, I'm sitting in front of the PC in hysterics...27 full screens (dir/w/o/p listings) of .TMP and .CHK files in the root directory. When asked how he exited Windows and other apps, he says "I just hit the power off button". This probably also explains why he kept running out of room trying to install new games...Ok - clean up those files, then we get to his C:\windows\temp internet folder - 37.4 MB of files in there with 100's of "cookies" no less. Explained miracles of cache files and need to keep them cleaned up. System boots and runs like a cheetah. They think I am God now! LOL

I support Windows NT and Internet Explorer on Windows NT. This morning a customer came through for Internet Explorer, saying that he was stuck on something he had never seen before, and the AOL support person to whom he had been speaking previously didn't know how to solve the problem.

The other technician took this man into his BIOS, had him change something, then reboot the machine. When it came up, it was on a BIOS setup screen, and he didn't know how to get out of it. AOL tech gave him the Microsoft Support number, saying he didn't know what to do next and MS would have to help him.

When he got to me, he didn't even know what OS he was using. I had him read me the menu at the bottom of the screen, which indicated ESC was the proper key, and voila, the machine booted properly -- and the splash screen said Windows 95, so I don't even get credit for the call!

What a life!

The owner of the Co. I worked for noticed a small insect on the top of his scanner (which was on a table), while in a meeting with me.

Obviously annoyed by the bug, he slammed the heel of his hand on it. Hard! Hard enough to jiggle the monitor on his desk. The next day

he complained to me that the scanner didn't work, all images came out in triplicate. He tried to get me to return the scanner as faulty.

I wouldn't do it, so he got someone else to take it back for credit.

This same individual (while on the road) unplugged his laptop because he didn't want to wait for his AOL update to finish. I got a long-

distance call from him, requesting me to call AOL to get him back on-line. He could not longer access AOL, or anyone else for that matter

from his modem.

A few years back I worked for a restaurant company that would rush to the trailing edge of technology (it still does). We used old 486's with an old dos version of lotus. I want to say that I was NOT the tech support person, I was a restaurant manager. Well, since I was the only manager in the company that had any computer knowledge, everyone depended on me for support. I had two consecutive days off(rare for rest. managers) and went out of town. when I got back everyone rushed to me to come "fix the computer". It seemed that they couldn't navigate around on the lotus spresdsheet because the arrow buttons didn't "work" any more. All of them.

When I asked them to show me what they were talking about, they brought up lotus and started navigating around on the spreadsheet. The arrow keys were "Broken" because they had inadvertantly hit the 'scroll lock' key. They had stopped using the computer for two days and did all of the paperwork by hand, adding a couple of hours to their day.

A Week at the Computer Help desk, the REAL story...

From: Pete Gilbride

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

Monday

8:05am

User called to say they forgot password. Told them to use password

retrieval utility called FDISK. Blissfully ignorant, they thank me and hang

up. Wow, we let the people vote and drive, too?

8:12am

Accounting called to say they couldn't access expense reports database.

Gave them Standard Sys Admin Answer #112, Well, it works for me. Let them

rant and rave while I unplugged my coffee maker from the UPS and plugged

their server back in. Suggested they try it again. One more happy

customer...

8:14am

User from 8:05 call said they received error message Error accessing Drive

0. Told them it was an OS problem. Transferred them to micro support.

11:00am

Relatively quiet for last few hours. Decide to plug support phone back in

so I can call my girlfriend. Says parents are coming into town this weekend.

Put her on hold and transferred her to janitorial closet down in basement.

What is she thinking? The Myst and Doom nationals are this weekend!

11:34am

Another user calls (do they ever learn?). Says they want ACL changed on HR

performance review database so that nobody but HR can access database. Tell

them no problem. Hang up. Change ACL. Add @MailSend so performance reviews

are sent to */US.

12:00pm

Lunch

3:30pm

Return from lunch.

3:55pm

Wake up from nap. Bad dream makes me cranky. Bounce servers for no reason.

Return to napping.

4:23pm

Yet another user calls. Wants to know how to change fonts on form. Ask them

what chip set they're using. Tell them to call back when they find out.

4:55pm

Decide to run "Create Save/Replication Conflicts" macro so next shift has

something to do.

Tuesday

8:30am

Finish reading support log from last night. Sounded busy. Terrible time

with Save/Replication conflicts.

9:00am

Support manager arrives. Wants to discuss my attitude. Click on PhoneNotes

Smart Icon. Love to, but kinda busy. Put something in the calendar database!

I yell as I grab for the support lines, which have (mysteriously) lit up.

Walks away grumbling.

9:35pm

Team leader from R&D needs ID for new employee. Tell them they need form

J-19R=9C9\\DARR\K1. Say they never heard of such a form. Tell them it's in

the SPECIAL FORMS database. Say they never heard of such a database.

Transfer them to janitorial closet in basement.

10:00am

Perky sounding intern from R&D calls and says she needs new ID. Tell her I

need employee number, department name, manager name, and marital status. Run

@DbLookup against state parole board database, Centers for Disease Control

database, and my Oprah Winfrey database. No hits. Tell her ID will be ready

tonight. Drawing from the lessons learned in last week's Reengineering for

Customer Partnership I offer to personally deliver ID to her apartment.

10:07am

Janitor stops by to say he keeps getting strange calls in basement. Offer

to train him on Notes. Begin now. Let him watch console while I grab a

smoke.

1:00pm

Return from smoking break. Janitor says phones kept ringing, so he

transferred them to cafeteria lady. I like this guy.

1:05pm

Big commotion! Support manager falls in hole left where I pulled floor

tiles outside his office door. Stress to him importance of not running in

computer room, even if I do yell Omigod -- Fire!

1:15pm

Development Standards Committee calls and complains about umlauts

in form names. Apologizing for the inconvenience, I tell them I will fix

it. Hang up and run global search/replace using gaks.

1:20pm

Mary Hairnet from cafeteria calls. Says she keeps getting calls for Notice

Loads or NoLoad Goats, she's not sure, couldn't hear over industrial-grade

blender. Tell her it was probably Lettuce Nodes. Maybe the food distributor

with a new product? She thinks about it and hangs up.

2:00pm

Legal secretary calls and says she lost password. Ask her to check

in her purse, floor of car, and on bathroom counter. Tell her it probably

fell out of back of machine. Suggest she put duct tape over all the airvents

she can find on the PC. Grudgingly offer to create new ID for her while she

does that.

2:49pm

Janitor comes back. Wants more lessons. I take off rest of day. Wednesday

8:30am Irate user calls to say chipset has nothing to do with fonts on form.

Tell them of course, they should have been checking Bitset, not chipset.

Sheepish user apologizes and hangs up.

9:10am

Support manager, with foot in cast, returns to office. Schedules 10:00am

meeting with me. User calls and wants to talk to support manager about

terrible help at support desk. Tell them manager about to go into meeting.

Sometimes life hands you material...

10:00am

Call Louie in janitorial services to cover for me. Go to support manager's

office. He says he can't dismiss me but can suggest several lateral career

moves. Most involve farm implements in third-world countries with moderate

to heavy political turmoil. By and by, I ask if he's aware of new bug which

takes full-text indexed random e-mail databases and puts all references to

furry handcuffs and Bambi Boomer in Marketing on the corporate Web page.

Meeting is adjourned as he reaches for keyboard, Web browser, and Tums.

10:30am

Tell Louie he's doing great job. Offer to show him mainframe corporate PBX

system sometime.

11:00am

Lunch.

4:55pm

Return from lunch.

5:00pm

Shift change; Going home.

Thursday

8:00am

New guy (Marvin) started today. "Nice plaids" I offer. Show him Server

room, wiring closet, and technical library. Set him up with IBM PC-XT. Tell

him to quit whining, Notes runs the same in both monochrome and color.

8:45am

New guy's PC finishes booting up. Tell him I'll create new ID for him. Set

minimum password length to 64. Go grab smoke.

9:30am

Introduce Louie the custodian to Marvin. Nice plaids Louie

comments. Is this guy great or what?!

11:00am

Beat Louie in dominos game. Louie leaves. Fish spare dominos out of sleeves

(Always have backups). User calls, says Accounting server is down. Untie

ethernet cable from radio antenna (better reception) and plug back into hub.

Tell user to try again. Another happy customer!

11:55am

Brief Marvin on Corporate Policy 98.022.01: Whereas all new employees

beginning on days ending in 'Y' shall enjoy all proper aspects with said

corporation, said employee is obligated to provide substance and relief to

senior technical analyst on shift. Marvin doubts. I point to Corporate

Policy database (a fine piece of work, if I say so myself!). Remember,

that's DOUBLE pepperoni and NO peppers! I yell to Marvin as he steps over

open floor tile to get to exit door.

1:00pm

Oooooh! Pizza makes me so sleepy...

4:30pm

Wake from refreshing nap. Catch Marvin scanning want ads.

5:00pm

Shift change. Flick HR's server off and on several times (just testing the

On/Off button...). See ya tomorrow.

Friday

8:00am

Night shift still trying to replace power supply in HR server. Told them it

worked fine before I left.

9:00am

Marvin still not here. Decide I might start answering these calls

myself. Unforward phones from Mailroom.

9:02am

Yep. A user call. Users in Des Moines can't replicate. Me and the Oiuji

board determine it's sunspots. Tell them to call telecommunications.

9:30am

Good God, another user! They're like ants. Says he's in San Diego and can't

replicate with Des Moines. Tell him it's sunspots, but with a two-hour

difference. Suggest he reset the time on the server back two hours.

10:17am

Pensacola calls. Says they can't route mail to San Diego. Tell them to set

server ahead three hours.

11:00am

E-mail from corporate says for everybody to quit resetting the time on

their servers. I change the date stamp and forward it to Milwaukee.

11:20am

Finish @CoffeeMake macro. Put phone back on hook.

11:23am

Milwaukee calls, asks what day it is.

11:25am

Support manager stops by to say Marvin called in to quit. So hard

to get good help... I respond. Support manager says he has appointment with

orthopedic doctor this afternoon, and asks if I mind sitting in on the

weekly department head meeting for him. No problem!

11:30am

Call Louie and tell him opportunity knocks and he's invited to a meeting

this afternoon. Yeah, sure. You can bring your snuff I tell him.

12:00am

Lunch.

1:00pm

Start full backups on UNIX server. Route them to device NULL to make them

fast.

1:03pm

Full weekly backups done. Man, I love modern technology!

2:30pm

Look in support manager's contact management database. Cancel 2:45pm

appointment for him. He really should be at home resting, you know.

2:39pm

New user calls. Says want to learn how to create a connection document.

Tell them to run connection document utility CTRL-ALT- DEL. Says PC

re-booted. Tell them to call micro-support.

2:50pm

Support manager calls to say mixup at doctor's office means appointment

cancelled. Says he's just going to go on home. Ask him if he's seen

corporate Web page lately.

3:00pm

Another (novice) user calls. Says periodic macro not working. Suggest they

place @DeleteDocument at end of formula. Promise to send them document

addendum which says so.

4:00pm

Finish changing foreground color in all documents to white. Also set point

size to 2 in help databases.

4:30pm

User calls to say they can't see anything in documents. Tell them

to go to view, do a Edit -- Select All, hit delete key, and then refresh.

Promise to send them document addendum which says so.

4:45pm

Another user calls. Says they can't read help documents. Tell them I'll fix

it. Hang up. Change font to Wingdings.

4:58pm

Plug coffee maker into Ethernet hub to see what happens. Not (too) much.

5:00pm

Night shift shows up. Tell that the hub is acting funny and to have a good

Weekend. Cheers

Me and several friends were in a high school class that was basically tech support for the school's 800+ workstations. It was a great way to get credit for screwing around retrieving passwords for those who forgot them.

Story 1: One day, to relieve the monotony, one of my friends played a prank on the sysadmin. The admin had left the room, and my friend took a complete screenshot of the desktop and saved it to a bmp file. He then replaced the wallpaper with the file, and moved every icon that could be moved into a safe folder off the desktop. I think only My Computer and the Recycle Bin were left. The result was that it looked as if every icon except for those 2 had stopped responding to mouse clicks at all. When the admin came back, he was totally baffled! He could get to the start menu and browse, and everything looked fine, but he couldn't figure it out. After 10 minutes when the bell signified the end of the period, we all busted up laughing and my friend told him the truth. I was the last to leave, and when I turned to ago, it seemed the admin had already forgotten about what had been done. "Tell your friend I logged him out", he said, because the wallpaper copied his username from Novell and made it look as if he was still logged on. "Wait, nevermind," he added. "Tell him I'm getting rid of his stupid wallpaper."

Story 2: This same friend had managed to smuggle quake2 into the class so we could have some entertainment when there was nothing to do. Our network used this program called "Ghost" which would basically restore a disk image to a workstation from a pristine computer's disk image in the lab. It was very easy because we just threw in the disk, booted, and Ghost would pull all the files it needed over the network. One time my friend installed quake2 on the model computer, and buried way deep in the windows folder to make it hard to find. The result was that ghost then started installing quake2 on any workstation whenever it was ghosted! Soon over half the computers in the school had quake2 on them. After a long long time, the admin eventually found quake and removed it from the model system. Needless to say, he wasn't very happy!

Reading from the archives about people storing documents and mail messages in the recycle bin reminds me of this true story:

Once while I was an acting supervisor for a national ISP, I had to take a supervisor call. Seems like the guy can't send his e-mail, telling him he ran out of resources.

We check a few things and found out that he was running out of disk space. He is using Netscape Messenger.

We go in and find out that he has over a hundred messages in his Messenger Trash Bin.

We start to empty it, when he blurts out that he keeps his important messages in there.

Of course, by then, it was too late to stop it. But the real kicker is that he told me earlier that he used to work for JPL or NASA (I forget which).

I'm wondering whether he was a rocket scientist (G) (i.e., "It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure this out....")

I work for a large ISP in the US. As part of our service, we

have some software that a new customer can use to help install

their software and configure everything. It would dial into

a server using the customer's dialer and get a local phone

nuber to dial into. This customer got our software and wanted to use our software to upgrade her version

of Netscape.

Customer: I am using your software and it keeps telling me

that it can't initilize my modem.

After 10 minutes of listening how badly her Internet Explorer

is terrible and her Netscape Navigator doesn't have an email

program.

Me: Lets go and check a couple of things.

5 minutes of checking all of her settings. It shows in her

dialer that she's still connected to the Internet.

Me: Ma'am you are still connected to the Internet.

Customer: Do you think that could be the problem. I quit out

of Internet Explorer.

Me: (on mute) Good for you. (to customer): Ma'am quitting out

of Explorer doesn't disconnect you.

Cust.: Oh. Is that my problem.

I must admit, that I do class myself as a fairly competent techie, but one particular story that I'd like to relate shows that even I am not infallible! :^)

In my old job, I worked as a Database Administrator and due to the nature of the work, ran a lot of speed and memory dependant programmes. As I felt that my PC was too slow, I kept on pestering the IT techie (a mate of mine) to give me either a faster PC or stick some more memory in, just to help me do the job faster.

One morning, I came back to find a brand new PC stuck on the desk, bearing that ever reassuring logo, "Pentium II". As happy as Larry, I worked away, thinking that the PC ran smoother and faster. Oblivious to all the world, I was content. At the end of the day, I popped into the IT room to see the IT techie rolling around in laughter. Eventually, he calmed down and let me know that he'd only changed the case of my PC and in fact the bit's inside were all the same…….

This is an actual tech log from a call I just did...

user got an email from someone and when he opened it he got an illegal operation. He experienced the usual misconceptions on this "Would that be if the message had pornography"?

I proceded to explain how an illegal operation works. I finished with "Usually this happens when the message is corrupted." "You mean pollitically corrupted?" Mute. Laugh. "No, sir, I mean when the message gets cut off in the middle of being downloaded, especially if it has an attachment, like an image or something". "So, it didn't like that illegal transmission, huh?"

Sometimes they just don't get it. I mean usually, they just don't get it.

I work as a technician in a small computer store here in Canada. My duties include building new systems, troubleshooting service jobs, AND answering the phone calls of clueless customers.

The other day, a man called in. He had just purchased a new computer (PII-400, 64SD, 10.2Gb HD, etc) which had included in the deal a Lexmark 1100 printer. Nothing special, but its a printer, after all. :)

Anyways, this customer calls up, and says "My printer won't print anything on the page". OK, that's fine - lets check to see if its:

a) Powered on

b) Connected to the computer

c) Cartridge is setup correctly

Well, I do that, and everything appears to be OK. He says that the paper feeds just fine, but no ink is appearing on the page. I ask the man if he installed this cartridge himself (usually, we install a colour cartridge that comes included in the box before we ship the systems). Yes, he installed a new black cartridge.

Me: "Did you take off the protective wrapper on the bottom?" (on there to keep the ink from drying before use)

Him: "Yep, I did that"

Me: "OK, we've exausted all possibilities. Bring in the printer at your convenience, and we'll do some tests on it." (a.k.a. fix stupid user problems)

Him: "OK, sure thing."

... 2 minutes later ...

Ring - ring - ring

Me: "Hello, XXXXX, how may I help you?"

Him: "Hi there. You know that sticker thingy ... it was still on the cartridge. Guess I forgot to take it off!"

Me: "That's great sir, have a nice day."

IDIOT! After 20 minutes of wasting my time, he DID have the protective wrapper on there! Ugh - users!

I work for a large telecom company,tech support for Gsmdata.

Here the other day I had a woman that wanted to have the email adress to a person in USA. When I told her that I couldnt possibly help her she went angry and screamed BUT I GOT TO HAVE IT!! I then asked her if she knew what company this person was using just to help her on her way. Guess what she didnt know..

ME: Good morning your speaking with XXXX

CUST: Good morning I Need to Know my Pinup code.

Our Exchange server occasionally needed to be taken down for maintenance etc., and our administarator very thoughtfully sent out email notices to tell us he was going to be taking the server down in the next 5-10 minutes or so and when to expect it to be back up and so on.

This was a good plan, except that the exchange server is our source for email. Nothing quite like finally getting back on the server after three hours mysterious downtime to see as your first email "hello this is xxxxx letting you know we will be taking down the exchange

server in five minutes, and will be down for 2-3 hours while we pack the databases. Call if you have questions." After the third round of this I finally emailed him to point out the worthlessness of his messages. Now we get annoncements at least several hours in advance

of pending downtime.

One night about a year ago we had a customer calling who was absolutly livid because he was seeing pornography on his web browser. After we calmed him down we got the full story.

It seems that his dog was having trouble performing some of his necessary bodily functions. He was squatting a lot and acting like he was trying to go but he couldn't. So he took him to the vet and was told that the dog had distended anal muscles.

That night he wanted to look up some more information on this particular problem and he typed in "dog", "squatting" and "anal" into his search engine. He was not pleased with the result. We had to put this guy on hold for about 5 minutes while we laughed our heads off.

He eventually calmed down once we explained that we had no control over the search engines.

I would like to share with you a story from Israel.

I am working in a computer company as an on site service technition.

On one of my voyages I went to a customer with a screen problem.

Here screen was damaged (it was a 17" screen) and I ofered to replace it with a temporary screen I had in my car until here screen will be fixed.

After 5 Minuete I came back with a temporary replacment ,

a 15" screen.

Me: where do you want me to put the screen?

Customer: right here.

Me: OK

Customer: WAIT!!!

Me: Whats wrong?

Customer: How will my documents fit into the small screen?!?

I got to tell you falks , the screen almost fell of my hand.

Technofear strikes in the oddest ways -

T) Hi and welcome to **** how can we help

C) My CD you sent me for signing up doesn't work

T) what happens when you place the CD in the player

C) all I hear is a scrathy niose (!)

Seems the cust din't realise that her brand new top of the

line computer could play CD Roms and seriously thought

that she was supposed to insert the CD in her Hi-Fi and

follow verbal instructions

When we had finished laughing we explained how to open

the tray , ( i kid you not ), cust seriously belived

this was a can holder !!

Before i start, just let me tell you guys, that i feel for you. The story i'm about to tell, is peanuts compared to some of the stories that i've heard on this site, and i feel really sorry for you guys. There are some people who just do not deserve computers for the good of mankind.

Any way, I'm not a tech, but i am the resident computer guru for my family and all our friends. Once my mums friend just got a new computer. They got it all set up with help from the companie that they got it from. Then they decided to connect to the internet. So they saw me and asked of i could help. I said yes, (What was i thinking?!) and went there on afternoon. The computer was set up on a tiny table, with a mass of cords going everywhere. I checked all the leads and they were all right. Then i made sure they had a phjone line and it was properlty connected. Then i checked the harware. (It was an internal modem). Everything was seated right, and everything was installed properly. So i sat down to get them connected. I sat there for over an hour trying to figure out why irt wouildn't connect. All the phinenumbers were correct, and i checked with the company to make sure. Then i found the problem. When it came to the section when it asked for an area code for the phone line, they had put in there postal code. i almost screamed. Why can't people think?!! It turns out she had her friend over 2 days before me and she tried to connect and you can guess what happened. Another serious case of PEBKAC if you ask me.

Then to cap it all off, 2 weeks later, another friend had the same problem. When i asked what had happened, it tiurned out the same friend had come over and tried to help. Yup, you guessed, same problem. With the last experience fresh in my mind, i fixed it quickly, and it worked perfectly first boot. God i hate it when people think they know everything whenthey don't know jack.

Oh well.

**sigh**

I was at the computer room of my school when one of my friends calls up the teacher:

Jerome:"Hey Mister! My mouse is silly! When I take it to the bottom of the screen, the cursor go up! What's up"

The teacher had not the time to come as the neigthbour of Jerome says to him.

Stephane:"You're not taking you're mouse to the right way. You reversed it"

I work for a rural ISP in Southern Oklahoma and as with all ISP's we handle many tech support calls daily. Sometimes we have to have to customer bring in their CPU to set it up for them. We have found that this can save time and money for the business.

One particular day a gentleman was asked to bring in his computer, and the following morning he comes in the front door carrying a monitor. In a very polite tone I asked if I could help him and he tells me that he needs his monitor setup for our internet service. He could not understand that he needed to bring in the CPU instead. He was sure that I could set up his monitor for him.

I attend devry and live with 3 other devry students in an apartment. The cable provider out here offers cable modem, but with 1 IP address so i take it upon myself to become the net tech and get 5 computers and 2 printers and a web cam all working without problems..(proxy print servers etc etc)

now one of my roomates, who is taking TCOM, moved out (we had lived together for 5 months, and he has helped me solve some of the hell of Win98 networking).

the thing was though, all the network cards where mine.. and when he left, i took my network card.

so he proceded to reformat the computer, install win98, and a modem.

He calls me and asks me (remember, there is no network card in his PC), why the network Neighborhood icon isnt on the desktop. i told him its because he didnt have a network card anymore, and wasnt connected to the network..

he then asked me..

"well, why not ?"

i actually hung up on him..

I used to work as a techie (but I'm better now)

Anyway one day I got a call from one of the sales secretaries saying could I come up immediately as she had a bit of a problem.

I cantered along to her office to find that her PC screen was blank and a thin stream of blue smoke was coming out of the top of the monitor.

She pointed at it "Is it supposed to do that?" she asked.

!!!??

Aytee

I work for an ISP and sometimes get some really funny calls.

I got on the phone with a customer who complained that our service broke her phone line. Turned out she was getting connected and then picking up the line, hearing the modem tones and thinking that it was broken. It took me a few minutes to explain to her that she couldn't use the phone line to make calls as her computer used it.

Another time, I got a caller who couldn't connect. She got a voice message when she tried to connect. I had her plug the line going from her computer to the wall into an actual phone and pick it up and dial a non-Internet related number, suprise, suprise, turned out her line was disconnected by the phone company so she wasn't able to call anywhere.

I've had some good calls in my time, but this one was a lulu:

eu: My computer tells me the CD-ROM failed and to make sure media is present in the drive. How do I know if there is media in the drive?

me: Pop open the drive and see if there's a CD in the drive.

eu: How do I do that? What does the media look like?

me: It's round and shiny on one side, with a label on the other side.

eu: I bougtht something, of course, that I know nothing about.

(O -- K).

And then there was the guy who wanted to know if his Brother word processor was Y2K compliant.

This is a genuine email to an ISP support desk not a million miles away from me.

Anything that might identify the sender has been deleted.

To whom it may consern

I AM WRITEING TO ASK IF ANYTHINK CAN BE DONE AS I HAVE SOMEONE HACKING

IN TO MY COMP EVERY DAY ABOUT 5 TO 8 TIMES I KNOW HIS IP NUMBER AND NAME

IF YOU WANT IT I WILL PUT ON END OF THIS LETTER IF NOTHING CAN BE DONE

COULD I HAVE MY IP NUMBER CHANGE SO HE DONT KNOW IT

HOPE TO HERE FROM YOU SOON

YOURS THANK YOU

HIS IP NUMBER IS:--127.0.0.1 AND NAME IS localhost AND IT IS

LOCATED NEAR [deleted]

A friend calls up and tells me his hard drive is full, and

could I come over and help him delete stuff to free up some

space on his machine. This is actually an improvement for

him, as a month ago I had to reinstall windows for him after

he went on a hard-drive cleaning rampage that left his system

in such a pitiful state that I had to reformat his hard drive

and reinstall windows from scratch. I also wondered how he

had managed to fill up his hard drive in a month, as I knew

that there was over 2GB of free space when I was finished

fixing it the last time.

When I reformatted his drive, I had changed it from having 2

FAT16 partitions to a single FAT32 partition, as he was

having dificulties grasping the concept of installing

programs to non-default locations. So he went from having

both C: and D: as hard drives, and E: as his CD-ROM,

to C: as his hard drive and D: as his CD-ROM. I explained

all this to him before I went, and it seemed to have sunken

in.

His problem? You guessed it... he was trying to save things

to his D: drive (now a CD-ROM). Windoze, being as helpful

as ever, was telling him that the CD-ROM was full (which,

technically, is true) rather than a more helpful error

message.

I was hosting a management meeting where the topic was Microsoft

Outlook. While I was describing the feature that Outlook has

when used with Exchange Server to automatically notify the user

when a new mail message has arrived I received this question

from a meeting member "will it display a notification even

when my computer is not on?" It took great composer on my

part not to burst into laughter.....

I work for a company that designs medical software. Some of our current clients still use our old DOS program, and must be converted over the our new windows one before 2000. One of these DOS clients was asked to send a copy of their database to us, for us to convert into the new windows system for them. So, a few days later we get a big box in the mail from them....well, a backup tape fits into a fairly small envelope, so we wondered what this was. Well, it turns out they backed up their ENTIRE 100 meg hard drive (yes, 100 meg, its a very old system) onto DOUBLE DENSITY floppy disks, and didnt even compress it! So, one of our techs had to stand their swapping _140_ disks in and out to get their data onto one of our computers. When he got done we had the database alright, along with their Prodigy files, windows files, etc. etc. *sigh*

Thanks for calling tech support my name is core how may I help you?

Oh good, I have a problems.

Ok and what is that?

When I boot my computer up all I see is a black screen with a C:\ and a flashing cursor

Ok you do have windows correct?

Yes I have windows 95

Ok we'll do a little test i want you to type in W I N and press enter

Win and enter?

Yes

OK... click click clcik clickidyclick clcik, ok nothing's happening.

Nothing?

yes nothing.

Okback space and try it agian.

CLCIK CLICK CLIK clickady click click

Nothing

Ok ma'am what are you typing.

Just what you told me W I N E N T E R

Hi, I work for a rather large Office Supply store Chain. A hint for you all

"Ya We've Got That" We got a new printer for our store. (Don't ask what

happened to the old one) But the next day I tried to print a file,

Guess what, it didn't work. (Not a big suprise) I consider myself

fairly computer literate, I do alot of IS at my HS, maintaing our Fiber/NT4sp4

network) I figured no big problem just a stupid error. Now I was not prepared

to handle what it said it's problem was,

"What's my Nickname?"

Sorry, but I've had alot of wierd errors, but a printer asking what it's

nickname is was a first for me!!

Keep up the stories, there great reading at 2AM