Funny and Humorous Technical Support Tales and Stories

My boss decided to go on site to help one of our customers get connected. He couldn't get their modem to connect so he tried to get a multimodem we had on hand to connect. No luck. He brought the modem back to work and tried to get it to work on his computer but couldn't. He had one of my tecks helping him but they couldn't figure it out. Later He came back to tell us he had the modem cable pluged into the ethernet card.

Actually, on several occasions, customers have called in saying they have purchased an "internet ready" computer and when we advised them to setup a dial-up network connection the window opens up to install a new modem. Self detect finds nothing. I.E.... there is no modem installed. The customer responds " Do you need a modem to get on the internet?" "Why did they say this computer was internet ready?" if I need a modem to connect to the internet?

What can I say? There are a lot of make it yourself computer stores out there that try to make a buck by saving a buck on hardware.

I once received a call as I was pieceing together a system

for a Cyrix Server! ....Well, the lady asked for a

technician, and I calmly told her that I could help her out.

She replied, "Help! My laptop screen has gone blank and

I think my computer is dead!" She frantically yelped.

She followed up with, "The little lights are blinking, but

it won't do anything." I asked her what made it do this

and she replied that is just blanked out on her like that.

I began to smile to myself as I realized what the deal was.

I asked the woman to press the touch pad and to move the

mouse. There was a pause for a moment, then...

"Wow! You fixed it! Thank you so much! What happened!?"

I replied to her that her computer went into sleep mode.

She asked, "Can you make it stop sleeping?!" "Yes, I said."

Go to Compaq.com and download some drivers and quit bothering

me. I know it was rude, but c'mon. If you were piecing

together a system board for a frikkin Cyrix server, you

would be aggravated too!!

Well, actually it's two tales, but anyway.

Tale 1 occurred while I was working tech support for a modem company 3 or 4 years ago, shortly after Win95 came out. The call went something like this:

M: Hello, thank you calling tech support, how can I help you?

C: I have one of your modems, and I need to install.

M: Okay, can I get your phone number first?

C: No.

M: It's only for our records, so we can call you back if necessary in future.

C: No, this is a secure line, and I can't give out the phone number.

(This goes around for a few moments until I finally give up, and put the phone number for information in, just to have the tracking info in SOME fashion)

M: Okay, which of our modems do you have?

C: I don't know.

(Note: We had some 10 or so actively being sold modems, and another couple which while very old, we still got calls about on occasion. However, since we do OEM modems as well, it's not unheard of to have somebody who doesn't know which modem he has. However, the next part is unusual. I asked for this, since we have information on the manual which identifies the modem pretty uniquely.)

M: Okay, do you have the manual for the modem available?

C: No.

M: Okay, do you know what features the modem has?

C: No.

M: Okay, is this a 14.4 or 28.8 modem?

C: 14.4

M: (thinking finally we're getting somewhere!) Does this modem have voice capability?

C: Yeah, it does.

M: Good, now I know which modem you have (we only have 1 14.4 voice modem, or so I thought...)

To make a long story short, he had a newer version of the voicemodem, using a different chipset, with different jumper configuration, and it took about 30 minutes to get through the call.

Second tale is much shorter, I promise, and happened within the last few months.

M: Hello, I/T Support, how can I help you?

C: I can't login to Windows

(Fairly common complaint, password reset, and we're done, right?)

M: Okay, we've got your password reset, go ahead and login.

C: How do I do that?

M: (thinking oh god, here we go) I'll remote in to your system, watch you login, and make sure that you can get in. (after remoting in) Okay, press Control-Alt-Delete on the keyboard, all at the same time.

C: Got it.

M: Good. Now click by username, and type in your username.

C: Done.

M: Now click by password, and type in your password.

C: Done.

M: Now click okay.

C: Where is that? I can't find that on the keyboard.

M: No, click it on the screen, it's not a key on the keyboard.

Thanks for all the reading guys. I've just found here, so I'm going through all the backlogs. Keep up the good work!

Customer: I keep getting my old account when I use the e-mail

Me: Open Outlook Express, click on tools and open accounts. Click on the mail tab. Highlight your old account and click remove.

Customer: I've highlighted it but it will not go away.

After several tries she asks he kid for help.

She was using the delete key on the keyboard not the remove button on the screen.

I was informing a customer that they could find a lot of usful information for their new iMac in the "Trouble Shooting Handbook" that came with their computer. Her responce was, "You mean I have to READ? I didn't buy a computer to READ." Confirming something I had suspected all along. ô¿~

I tech support of an Internet Service. More often then not know what computer the caller is using can help to troubleshoot their problem. This is a typical responce:

Tech: And what kind of computer do you have?

Caller: A Macintosh

Tech: What kind of Mac please?

Caller: A Power Mac

Tech: Which one please?

Caller: A Performa

Tech: Which one please?

Caller: How would I know?

Tech: The number sir, printed on the machine next to "Performa"... what does it indicate.

Caller: I don't know, I'm calling from my car.

I handle tech support email for a Canadian ISP.

A customer emailed us about having problems with our

news server.

I sent him an email along the lines of:

Perhaps you should one of our other news servers.

John Smith, Connectivity Support

to which they replied:

What is John Smith, Connectivity Support? Is that

another news server?

Hi there! Greetings to all the other "grunts" out on the front line of the tech support world!

Well, I suppose I have read enough of the tech tales and "user friendly" archives that it's about time to add one. This call *just* happened.

Background: I work for the c_____q computer company doing tech support for a large aircraft company. I get this call around 9am:

Luser: I'm having problems getting to some of my folders on the network, and my archives on my email.

Me: When were you last able to access them?

Luser: Yesterday. Everything was fine when I left.

Me: Okay, Have you made *any* changes to your system in the meanwhile.

Luser: Nope. Everything is the same, I have been careful not to touch anything. (First warning sign)

Me: Whats the error message..

(snip)

Okay, we run through the general triage procedures, check the lusers network connections, have him re-boot and watch for drive mapping errors, nothing! I check his permissions on the network, everything looks cool. He sounds fairly intelligent and tells me how he was able to do his own drive mappings etc .. I am about to send the ticket off to the network guys for 2nd level, when I hear this gem.

(/snip)

Luser: I wonder if I should have picked yes?

Me: Yes to WHAT?

Luser: It said "You have never logged on to this workstation before, would you like to save your settings .. blah blah"

Me: Thats odd. You certain *NOTHING* is different from yesterday?

Luser: Nope! .. well... I mean ... there is "one" thing ( I reach for the mute button and begin growling profanities)

Me: What?

Luser: Well, Bob is not here today, and I am sitting as his desk.... it's just for a couple hours, and .. well .. he has a window seat, and I wanted it today... (sound of me holding my breath before I say something really evil)

Me: So you are at desk you have never been at before?

Luser: Well .. Yes

Me: And your drive mappings are customized to *your* computer, and your mail is archived on *your* hard drive?

Luser: But those follow me around wherever I go don't they?

(sound of me slamming my head against the monitor.....)

I work for a major systems integrator doing field support and such. I recently traveled to Edmonton to install some replacement PC's.

One of the trickiest bits of the replacement was the migration of a specific software package used for financial reporting. The software is ancient and must be manually configured to use the modem on a dedicated line to dial in to the regional bank for reconciliation.

After getting everything else configured, I tried testing the dialup. Nothing. Since this is a DOS app, getting meaningful error messages was nearly impossible. So I went out to 95 and tried a connection, and it worked fine.

Puzzled, I spent the better part of a day working on the issue. Sometimes it worked, but the next test failed; sometimes 95 could do a dial-up, and sometimes that failed for no reason as well.

The office manager, who spoke almost no English, came over to check on my progress. I told him that it wasn't looking good for the dial-up to the bank. He asked, "Oh...did you check with D. or F. (two secretaries)?"

ME: "No...have they had this problem before as well?"

HIM: "No, no...all three systems share phone line. You need to only call when they not calling."

I nearly killed him. Seems that in the interest of saving cash, they only had one modem line installed to share amongst three users...and of course the other two had been dialing in all day...

So much for a "dedicated line."

I am currently working for a large computer manufacturer

which will remain unknown... At the time of this call I was

working for an ISP here is dallas.

Him: Umm, yeah, I am getting a protection fault error with

Dial-up Networking.

Me: Ok, tell me what exactly you are doing.

Him: Ok, well. I don't have a connection so I was going to

make a new connection, but everytime I click on Dial-up

networking, I get the error.

Me: Ok, which Windows95 system are you using? OSR1 or OSR2?

Him: Oh, I don't know! It's the one I downloaded off the

internet.

At this point I was ammused and baffled at the same time.

I didn't know what to say to him... So I asked my manager

what to do. He told me what I should say.

Me: Ok sir, you still with me?

Him: Yes

Me: Ok, here's what you need to do... Call microsoft

and BE SURE to give them your serial number!

We all got a good laugh out of that one!

Hello this is Packard Bell tech support, how may I help you?

Yeah, hi, my Pakard Belle POS873 is malfunctioning.

Ummm.. sir, there is no such Packard Bell model.

Then why does my computer say Pakard Belle on the front of it?

Okay, lemme check again.

I'm sorry, but there is no model POS873.

Excuse me, WHY IN THE HECK DOES MY COMPUTER SAY PAKARD BELLE on it then?

Ok, what is the problem then?

When I turn it on, Windoze 92 freezes up.

Sir, there is no program called Windows 92.

Yes there is, it came packaged with my Pakard Belle POS873.

Sir, are you sure it is Windows 92?

Yes, it says Mikrosofft Windoze 92 Now loading when I turn it on.

*tech support sounding annoyed*

Sir, where did you purchase your computer?

At a store.

Sir, let me send you up to computer software support.

*put on hold for 10 minutes*

Hello this is Packard Bell computer software support, what may I do for you?

Yeah, I have a problem with my Pakard Belle POS873.

Okay, let me find this model.

I'm sorry, there is no Packard Bell POS873. Are you sure that is your system number?

Yes. it says it on the front of the box.

Okay, let me check one more time then.

I'm sorry, that is not a valid model number.

Yes it is. Maybe your program is messed up or something.

Okay, what is the problem then?

Well, it boots up fine, but when the Windoze 92 logo comes up, it freezes.

Ummm... there is no such thing as Windows 92.

Yes there is.

It says Mikrosoft Windoze 92 when I turn on my computer.

Sir, there is no such thing as that. Are you sure it is Windows 92? It's probably Windows 95 or 98.

No... it says Mikrosoft Windoze 92 when I turn it on!

Sir, are you using a counterfeit computer?

Yes.

Sir, we don't offer support for those.

Why.

Because we didn't make them.

Why.

Sir, I have other calls to attend to.

Why.

*click*

I work for a large ISP in the U.S. I got this call tonight:

Customer: I typed in a URL into the Netscape Location bar, but it didn't go anywhere.

Tech: Did you hit return?

Customer: No, am I supposted to do that?

Tech: Yes, go ahead a hit return.

Cust.: Ok it's not going anywhere . . . oh, there we go. Thanks.

1)

client:

I apologise for making you wait this long, I just got this new keyboard

and I have yet to learn where the letters are here.

(true story)

2)

technitian:

Ok, now please close all windows

(CLIENT DISAPPEARS TO CLOSE ALL WINDOWS IN HOUSE) (true story)

Hi, I am in T/S, but this story is not from work.

I'm fairly young (~20 yo) and due to some financial obligations I still live with my folks (something about my car dieing and me only being able to get a loan for a brand new $12000 truck). Anywho, we recently got the local ADSL service. For those of you unfamiliar with ADSL, you get an ADSL router, get connected directly to you service providers network, and log on via a web interface. It is about 25 times faster than what we did have (a modem in 3 of the 5 computers we have running). Well, my mother does not understand the concept of being connected all the time but having to log on to the service.

That is one, I'll give one more, but i could go on for days:

My mom uses Eudora Light (3.0 I think, it's the old 16 bit version). Well, Eudora defaults to running minimized (yuck!), well, my dad had changed it to run in a normal window. Due to this (shortcut) setting change, my mom thought that Eudora was not working correctly, even though she could see her mail and use the program.

FAMILY MEMBERS ARE THE WORST USERS!! Especially when I am A+ and MCP (WinNT WS) and my dad is MCSE and the Senior Network Engineer for *elcan. And we have 6 computers and are building 2 more!

Great site, keeps me awake when I have to work on these damn saturdays

I work technical support for a South Jersey ISP. I occasionally get a stupid question, or an error I can't help but laugh at, but this one was too much. I was trying to get a customer to run a subsidary dial-up networking setup off our cd rom. I had him go to start, then run. He had something else typed in there, so I told him to delete that and type the command line I gave him. For the life of me, I couldn't get this program to run. He kept getting errors that the file doesn't exist, etc... I eventually just gave up and had him go to the file manually. Later in the call, I realized that when I told him to delete or back something out, he was clicking in front of it and hitting his space bar until it ran all the way off the screen! He asks me "Why does this keep coming back?" I had to put him on hold to save myself from laughing in his face...

This one completely shocked me. When you work in technology you generally expect your boss to know at least as much

as you, if not more. That wasn't the case this day. I was filling in for a student worker that couldn't work her shift. After the shift

was over I was thanking God that it wasn't my regular shift. I had been helping a girl with an email problem. The basic

problem was that the email program didn't have enough space on the user's portion of the network drive for the new

email files. The way to fix this problem is to simply delete old mail files. The girl didn't want to do this since she didn't

know which files she didn't need. So I went to ask the manager if there was any way to save the new files to another

drive temporarily. She said "NO, the user needs to delete some of her mail, The program doesn't have enough

RAM to run". So I said "Kim, it doesn't have anything to do with RAM". Then she says "Oh, that's right it's a

network drive so it's ROM". So I said "It's not ROM either". She then yelled at me loud enough that the back of the

lab could hear: "IT'S A NETWORK DRIVE SO IT'S ROM". This girl was trying to be accepted in the pre-med

program, I pray she doesn't become a surgeon.

I have an update to the story. Not too long ago this manager graduated with a B.S. (never has that term been more

fitting). She started grad school at the university and was put in charge of training all of the managers and workers in

the labs. That semester I started working for another department. The situation in the labs is so Dilbertesque it's scary.

I have a page full of stories like this from my college at

pages.preferred.com/~aaronu/

I was working with support for an electronic trading company, a system where the end user had to have a dedicated network connection to our site.

One user called in and in detail explained that he was unable to trade, nothing worked.

I went through some quick questions and realized that he most certainly did not have a working IP connection to us.

I told him to bring up a 'Command Prompt' i.e. DOS prompt on his NT workstation. I explained to him that he should type 'IPCONFIG' in the window to see what his default gateway was set to. He did that and told me the IP. That was also the correct IP so I knew that it was not any configuration issue on his workstation.

Then I told him to try to ping the default gateway, suddenly he went quiet for a number of seconds, than he answered. Yes, I think I can do that. I answered OK, and I heard him yell at his partner to come and help him. I waited a while, gave him a chance to handle the situation.

After about 30 sec, I hear him back in the phone:

Yes, yes, it is working! Simultaneously I hear some noise in the background ‘ding ding ding', his media-player is playing the standard windows 'ding' wav-file, so high that his loudspeakers almost exploded.

My comment was: Well, ok.., your soundcard is working, that's good, but that was not exactly what I meant when I told you to 'ping' the gateway. Let's see, if you...

Quick and simple call from a new internet user.

Customer: "I am trying to connect to AOL and I cannot login" ..

Panic set in as I try to remember all the non-standard stuff that AOL use during their connection. I continue with some trepidation ..

Me: "OK, what kind of problem"

Customer: "When I type in my password, I get a load of stars on screen, so I do not know what I am typing"

Me: Mute button on .... scream at top of voice .. calm down .. Mute button off .. "That's the whole point of them, madam. They are there to stop anyone else peering over your shoulders and getting your password from you".

Customer: "Oh .. so how do I know if I am typing is correct ?"

Me: "Type slowly and carefully"

Customer: "Oh ... anyway the password I'm trying to use does not work."

Me: "Have you signed on and created an a/c?"

Customer: "No"

Me: "Give them a ring and get one set up"

Customer hangs up and I decide to go outside and headbutt a brickwall. Times like this I wish alchol was available on shift!

I work for a computer manufacturer doing telephone support.

Today, I had call in which I was giving my normal instructions

until they failed..

Me: type C colon and press enter

User: Its says bad command or file name

Me: what did you type ?

User: C colon and press enter

Me: hmmm.... okay lets try it again

User: It says bad command still

Me: Read exactly what you typed

User: C colon p-r-e-s-s-e-n-t-e-r

Me: just type c colon ....and then press enter on your

keyboard.

Who said Technical support was easy ?

Who ever said tech support was boring ?

I have had other calls which need to be submitted but

one at a time is enough.

W.

I am just a teenager but I was helping someone log on to the school network and I told them to click on the Apple sign in the top left corner in MacOS then click on chooser.

The reply I received was "How do I do that?"

Strictly speaking, I'm not in tech support - but as an assistant manager for a large unnamed national 24-hour copying chain that also offers computer rental, I'm often called upon by customers to answer questions ranging from the intelligent ("Should I scan this as a TIFF or a JPG?") to the moronic ("How do you print?").

One night, my nightshifter had called in sick, so I had to stay over to cover his shift - it was a bad night to do so, as we had a lot of orders due first thing in the morning. So when a customer came in and asked, "My friend sent me in to print something, can you help me?" it rang warning bells. I explained that I could put him on a computer, but that he would have to print it himself. After the fifth time he called me over with questions like "Where does the disk go?" I finally gave up and took over the process, even though I didn't really have the time.

When I opened the file, it came up with several mislinks - and since there were several dozen files on the disk and the customer had no clue which needed to be linked where, I apologized and explained that I wouldn't be able to help him, because sorting through each link would take a lot longer than I actually had. At this point, he actually began pitching a temper tantrum, no exaggeration: Imagine an adult whining in a highpitched childlike voice, "But this is IMPORTANT, you HAVE to help me because I need it RIGHT NOW, why can't you HELP me?" I explained that our regular computer services people would be in at 7am - but that there was no possible way for me to correctly link the files in his document without it taking at least half an hour to an hour, and that I couldn't stop working on the orders I already had to work on his. His response? "But it shouldn't take that long! Why don't you know more about computers? It's your job, right?"

This struck a nerve, so I sweetly explained to him that if he felt he could relink them himself, he was welcome to try - but that my strong recommendation was for him to wait until one of our computer services people got in at 7 to help him. He proudly announced that he could do it, at which point I bit my lip to keep from saying anything in reply, and nodded. Having already spent more time than I should have, I returned to working on the copy orders we had, while he fumed and played with the computer. Long story short, after he managed to delete half the files on the disk in the process, he told me he was just going to retype his document, and wanted me to open Word. I did so, and returned to work... only to be called back a moment later.

C "There's something wrong with this computer!"

K "Pardon?"

C "I said there's something wrong with this computer!"

K "What is it doing, sir?"

C "It won't go to the next line!"

K (thinking the computer has frozen in rebellion against the continued stupidity) "I'll be over in a moment, sir."

K (walking over to the computer and customer) "You say it's frozen, sir?"

C "I don't know what's wrong with it, it won't go to the next line! If you'd helped me blah blah blah blah..."

K (tuning out customer, and wiggling the mouse to see if the pointer moves) "This doesn't appear to be frozen."

C "Well, something's wrong with it!"

K (types a few letters to make sure the keyboard is still connected) "Sir, there's nothing wrong."

C "But it WON'T GO TO THE NEXT LINE!"

K (thinks about it a moment)

K "Sir... do you know how to use the enter key?"

C "What?"

K "The enter key. This button right here. Did you try pressing it when you were finished with the line?"

C (presses the down-arrow key) "See? It won't work!"

K "No, sir... when you're done typing a line of text, you use this button to get to the next line." (presses enter)

C "Oh. (long pause) Well, I don't see why you have to make these things so hard to understand!"

At this point, I had to curtly nod and walk away before I burst out laughing... unlike those with the luxury of a mute button, we have to get out of earshot. ;-)

Int the late 80's our company was developing a niche market application. AS the market was so small we felt that we had to add a dongle to maximize our revenue. So we sent off upgrades to our users with a dongle required to make it work.

A few days later we got a call from a client. He was real mad that the software would not work anymore. We asked what the problem was. He informed us that although he had plugged in the dongle into one oh the machines in his department, seven other machines there would not run the new upgraded software and that his staff were now going to be behind schedule on a very important project as a result unless we could fix it there and then.

Needless to say we had to explain in subtle detail that he had only purchased one licence. We really wanted to tell him he was like a bank robber ringing up a bank to complain that he did not get enough money in a robbery

My wife handles tech support for the plant where she works.

The company employs a well known (but nameless for our tale) security firm.

Even with constant security, things sometimes disapear.

One day she noticed that an old PC and an ASCII terminal with keyboard that were sitting next to each other had vanished from the storage area.

She reported the incident to security, but was not too concerned because both items were basically obsolete.

A couple of weeks later, one of the 2nd shift security guards approached her and asked for her help.

It seems a "friend" of his was having trouble setting up a new PC he had just acquired.

After listening to him describe the problem he was having making the connections, she realized he was talking about the missing equipment.

She notified the head of security, who questioned the guard.

The guard denied being a thief, and he gave permission for the security comapny to search his home.

Of course they found the missing equipment and a lot of other items recently stolen from the company.

You have got to question the basic intelligence of someone who would ask the "victim" for help in using a stolen item and then allow his home to be searched!

I really, REALLY hate typos.

I do phone support for home scanners. The other day a customer called up complaining that the scanner that I got working for them six months ago had ceased to function again. The problem was similar to the one they had last time, so I checked the previously logged call. The logged call went something like this:

"Checked this, changed that, launched scanning software, scanner testes ok."

It took every ounce of my strength not to crack up laughing.

I perform helpdesk support for a rather large accounting

and consulting firm (that will remain anonymous). One day,

I take a call from a gentleman who is working with a large

Excel spreadsheet and needs help writing a formula to help

interpret the data. The man was pleasant and actually

seemed rather competent with the computer. After asking a

few questions about the type of data and how it was

arranged, I came up with an appropriate formula. This is

what followed: (Bear in mind that this is a certified CPA)

Me: Okay, double-click on cell E1.

C: Got it.

Me: Now, type an equals sign.

C: What's an equals sign?

Me (thrown for a complete loop, then regaining composure):

It's, um, right next to the Backspace key.

C: Oh, you mean the double slash.

Me (hitting the Mute button): Double slash?!?

Are you $&%*#@ KIDDING ME?!?

This man had obtained a Master's degree in Accounting and

had successfully passed the CPA exam without ever knowing

what an equals sign was! *whack* *whack* whack*

I do second level support for WordPerfect for my company. Most of the time, I deal with the first-line support analysts on difficult issues that they either 1) don't have documentation for, or 2) can't handle on their own.

Today, I had to walk away from the phone. Keep in mind, this was NOT a user, but a support analyst. Sorry it's long, but it loses it's character if you cut it short. Here's a brief rundown of the conversation:

Me: (standard opening line)

SA: Hi, our Seniors aren't in today. Can I ask you a question?

Me: Sure, go ahead.

SA: I'm dialed into a PC and it's getting an error.

Me: Okay, what's the error?

SA: Oh, I just clicked through it. Hold on a minute.

Me: (on hold) (thinking: Doesn't she know better by now?)

SA: It's an invalid directory error.

Me: Did you check to see if the directory exists?

SA: No. Hold on.

Me: (Ohhhh boy. It's going to be a long day)

SA: No. It's not there.

Me: Okay. You need to create the directory.

SA: How do I do that?

Me: Well, you can either do it from within the word processor, in Windows Explorer, or at a DOS prompt.. whichever is easiest for you.

SA: Well, how do I do that?

Me: (dying at this point) Create a directory?

SA: Yeah

Me: (thinking, this person is a support analyst?!?!) Are you in WordPerfect now?

SA: Yeah

Me: What directory are you in?

SA: How do I tell?

Me: (sigh) Click on File | Open. At the top of the dialog, there's a path in the gray area. What does it say?

SA: C:\WINDOWS (no wonder she couldn't find the directory)

Me: Okay. Go down to the Directories box and double click on the C:\

SA: Where's that?

Me: Better yet. Go up to the filename box and type the whole path, okay? Type C:\OFFICE\WPWIN and press (Enter)

SA: (repeating the path as she pecks it out) Okay, now what?

Me: Look in the Directories box in the middle of the screen. Do you see a directory called WPDOCS?

SA: No.

Me: Alright. That's the directory you need to create. The reason she's getting that error is because that is the default directory, and it's somehow been removed.

SA: Oh. How do I create the directory?

Me: (pulling my hair out) Click on File Options, and Create Directory.

SA: Where is File Options?

Me: There's a button on the right side of the dialog box.

SA: Oh that. Okay. What do I do again?

Me: Click on File Options, and Create Directory. In the box, type WPDOCS and press (Enter)

SA: Don't I have to click on OK?

Me: Look at the box, there's no OK button. The button in place of that says Create. But you don't have to use the mouse, just press (Enter), it's faster.

SA: Okay. Now what?

Me: You just fixed her problem!

SA: Really? That's it?

Me: Yep.

SA: Well that was easy. Okay bye.

Me: Wait! (There was another issue to be taken care of) I tried to call her back, but got voice mail. I figured in about 5 minutes, she'll come across the other error and we'll take care of it then.

Five minutes later:

SA: Hi. One more thing.

Me: Yes?

SA: Now she's getting an error that says "the specified backup directory does not exist." (Gee, what a surprise) How do I fix that?

Me: Well, the backup directory should be

C:\OFFICE\WPWIN\WPDOCS\BACKUP. Since you just created WPDOCS, it's safe to say that the backup directory isn't there either.

SA: So how do I fix it?

Me: Remember what we just did, creating the WPDOCS directory?

SA: Umm... yeah I think.

Me: Okay, you need to follow the same steps. Just make sure you create the backup directory under WPDOCS and the error will go away.

SA: Could you walk me through that again?

AAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!! And the worst part? She was trained, has detailed documentation on this, AND she has been on the desk supporting this application for at least a year.

I work to filter the calls for an insurance company and place the calls to the local technical teams whenever needed.

We received a call from a man completly panic-stricken yelling in the phone: "Come quick!! I got it! I've isolated the virus!". Wondering what the hell he was talking about we placed the call as many other calls to a technician so he can go see what it was all about.

While arriving nearby the man's office, the technician saw a small crowd staring at a man overexcited. The man in question was circeling a network printer nervously.

"Don't touch it! You could be infected! Don't even approach it! It is ferocious!!!" said the man.

"What's happening here sir?" said curious the technician

"I was trying to open a word document when a virus came out of it! You'll be proud of me; I was quick enought to isolate it!"

Taking a look at the printer, the technician saw a document simply printed as usual ... but the printer itself was buzzing weirdly. That's when the technician saw the worst... THE MAN HAD CUT OFF THE PRINTER WIRE WITH SCISORS!!!

Beeping and buzzing, the printer was messed up.

"See!!! it is still alive! don't touch it you'll be infected you too!"

What can you say to a man so proud of himself...

Receiving a call from a woman who said random caracters were appearing in her word application. We placed the call to a technician to go see what was wrong. Normal until then... The technician saw nothing wrong and went back to his office.

The woman called back once more. Same story; the technician...nothing wrong...going back. This little story lasted 6 times!!! At the sixth time, no need to say the technician was bored of the case.

Technician: "I'll stay beside and see what happens ok?"

Woman: "No problem"

(time passes...so long....then the phone rings)

As the phone rings and the woman stretched herself to answer, the technician notified THE HUGE NIPPLES OF THE WOMAN BUMPING ON THE KEEBOARD!!!

Next question: how do you say to a woman her computer problem is of class D or E?

An easy one... We were trying to help a woman to close an application in Windows with the X box in the right corner of the application.

"Move your cursor in the to right and click on the X icon"

we said.

"I can't, it's not moving!"

... (a little later) ...

... (a lot later) ...

After searching like fools we realised the woman was actually PULLING UP HER MOUSE IN THE AIR!!!! expecting the arrow picture to move.

There is an old story from the days when XTs were pretty up-to-date.

A local authority was using a customized program developed a local software firm. After as short time of using it they called at the developer's office.

"Yesterday the program worked, but today it won't start. I just get an error message an cannot continue my work."

"Which error message do you get?"

"It says, 'read error on drive a:'"

"Ok, this could be a defect on the disk, I'll send you a new copy of it".

So it happened. Somebody drove to the authorities' building an delivered a new copy.

Right the next day the same thing happened again: the user could not start the program but got an error message. Once more a new disk was sent to his office.

Of course, you guessed it, the same happened again right the following day.

By now, the developer got suspicious about the disk drive and considered replacing it. The measure of choosing a different disk brand had already been taken.

So when the user called again to report the same old problem, somebody was sent to the user's office which a new copy of the disk and a new disk drive. This time, they would fix it.

After everything was working fine, the tech had a look at a defective disk. It had two new holes ... After finishing his work for the day, the user had been punching the holes in the disk for the purpose of storing it away in a letter-file ...

When you install Windows NT 4 in german and are already doing the second part of the installation (after the reboot), you get message telling you to

"insert the Windows NT installation diskette to the cdrom drive"

I'm still awaiting the moment when somebody takes that serious.

Had a call the other day from a lady who said she thinks she

messed up her floppy drive. She told me that she had put a

floppy disk into the drive without a metal guard on it and

now she couldn't eject it. I told the customer to push down

on the eject button as hard as possible to try and eject it.

That didn't work. I had her go to my computer and it

couldn't read the disk. I then told the lady that the next

step could damage the drive, but if this happened we would

be glad to replace it. I had her get a pair of tweezers and

attempt to pull the disk out manually. She put the phone

down and after several minutes she came back unsuccessful.

Then it finally clicked in my head, I told her to put

another disk into the drive, she did, it ejected without a

problem. She asked me what this ment, i told her that she

did nto have a disk in the drive to begin with. She said

"oh" then said "good-bye" and hung up. I couldn't help but

laugh.

While reading all the tales i remembered a story from when i worked in a helpdesk in the biggest phone company in Sweden. One morning a very sad woman called and told me that she couldn´t work cause there was no power in her computer. We started to do all the normal checkings like if the power cord was in and all the usual stuff like if the screen was on. After about 30 minutes i didn´t know what to do so i told her to send me the machine by express post since she didn´t work in the same town. The machine was going to arrive the same afternoon but i couldnt see it anywhere. I couldn´t get a hold of her that day so i called her up the next morning and asked her if she sent the machine. Yes she said, and told me that it was a big cardboard box with her name on it. While checking for the box and having her on the phone at the same time i saw a monitor box with her name on it. I opened the box and inside was the monitor. I asked her if she only sent one box and she said yes again.

Hmmmm i thought! I asked her if there was something still on the table`? Yes the racket for the computer is still here.

I had to bite my hand not to laugh.

She thought that since everything that she clicked on was on the screen, then it must be the computer.

Yiiiikes!

Rickard Roos

Sweden

I work TechSupport for a small town ISP. Most of our subscribers

have very little internet or computer knowledge.

What follows is the funniest call I've ever had.

ME: blah blah Technical Support, how may I help you?

CUSTOMER: Ya, What kind of outfit are you guys running there?

ME: Uh.. What can I help you with, sir?

CUSTOMER: Are you guys in trouble with the law?

ME: (Thinking illegal operation, haha heard this one a million

times)Did you get an error message on your screen?

CUSTOMER: No, but I've tried getting on the internet twice,

and each time, the police come to my door! Are

you guys in trouble with the law?

ME: No, So when your computer dials, the police come?

CUSTOMER: Yep and I'm not to happy with your shady service!

At this point the light begins to come on and I'm thinking no way

could this guy be that dumb.

ME: Sir, could you please go to my computer and then click

on dial up networking. Next click on Connection to blah

blah. Ok read me the phone number.

CUSTOMER: 911(7x5)8xx-1x4x

ME: Doesn't that phone number seem odd to you.

CUSTOMER: What difference does it make, it's just a computer!

After 10 minutes of explaining that a modem works just like

a regular telephone, the guy gets it through his head that

he is dialing 911 when he tries to get on the internet. I even

figured out how it happened. When he was putting in our zip code,

he put a 1 in front of the areacode. When he went to dial, he

checked the boxes, dial a 9 to get an outside line, dial a 1 to

dial longdistance. It would first dial a 9 to get an outside line

and then dial a 1 for longdistance and then the area code, which

he put in as 17x5. Once 911 was dialed, the rest of the numbers

would be ignored and the police would come. I never laughed so

hard in my life!!!!

This is a long story, but it is the biggest fiasco I can remenber. A few years ago I worked at a small computer company as the techniction. I got a call one day from a medium size manufacturing company who was having a problem finding a document in wp. I went to their site expecting a quick fix. I looked for the f drive where they stored all their information, accounting, payroll, you name it. Anyway there was no network drive. When I asked to see the server I recieved alot of blank looks. No one in this company knew what or where the server was. After I explained what a server was, the manager said that there was a computer in another room that they were told never to turn off and maybe that was it. I was taken to this computer and sure enough there it was. Of course the hard drive was dead. This system had been running for 5 years with no maintance at all. It was using novell ver 2 for the operating system! I saw that there was a tape backup system in it so I asked for the most recent backup. I was planning to replace the server and most of their workstations. Again more blank looks. I pulled the tape out of the tape drive and it fell apart in my hand. The last good backup they had was 4 years ago. Of course they thought I could use it anyway. To make a long story short, I replaced the server, all the workstations and upgraded their operating system. They used a custom designed manufacturing software system, from an out of state which was fortunally still in business. They flew in two techs to reinstall the software. Two days at primium time. After rebuilding and upgrading the network, and the software company reset their software (thousands of dollers later)I received a call from them again. It seems they still could not find the document they were looking for in the first place. They could not understand that they lost everything.

User 1:

She was having problems configuring Eurdora Lite (on a PC) and couldn't understand the manual:

"Locate the [whatever] file in the System Folder, create an Alias and place it on the Desktop."

After suggesting she try looking in the Windows/System folder I asked ... are you sure you're not reading the Mac section of the manual? "Well it's not awfully clear, if this is the idiot's guide I hate to see the advanced guide".

This from someone with a BSc in Computing Science working as a programmer/analyst for a large firm of accountants!

User 2:

She phoned up in a panic. She had the "File | Open" dialogue box open in MS Word and was trying to select a file to open. Every time she clicked a file, it stayed selected and more and more of the files listed were becoming selected.

This sounded spooky enough for a walk-round (and they served good coffee in that dept) so I strolled round, sat down at her PC, automatically adjusted the keyboard for comfort, and started clicking around her screen. The problem disappeared, and I gently pointed out the corner of the ringbinder on her desk had been pressing against the Ctrl key (Ctrl + click enables multiple selections in Windows).

Boy was she embarrassed ... and I was relieved it was nothing worse than that. (I should have thought of it myself though!)

User 3:

Had (for some reason) Win 3.11 and Win NT on dual-boot on the same PC. For some even stranger reason had NT running on a DOS FAT-formatted partition.

He was in Win 3.11 (DOS) and conscientiously defragg[ment]ing his Win 3.11 partition. Then he defragged his NT partition. With the DOS defragger. Bye-bye long file names. Bye-bye NT operating system.

This is the user who told me that he was an intellectual, knowledge-based worker whereas I just did simple repetitive tasks like fixing PCs. And like defragging disks, I suppose, except that I usually do it right. This user got told to install his own tape drive. And when this user installed new RAM, meaning the system failed to recognise said tape drive after bootup, this user got told that as well as taking backups he should have checked he could do a restore (the drivers for the tape drive were ... on the backup tape, of course.)

Being a technical specialist on computers at my college, I get all my friends bugging me at all times of the day. An emergency email from a computer-phobic friend to me in the middle of the night, the exact words being:

"D, something fell off in the harddrive and i suppose u have a computer tool to fix it?"

Needless to say, I ended up rolling on the floor laughing.... "Yes, I'll be right over with my magic repair wand!" Maybe I should take some rubber chicken voodoo classes.... :-)

I'm a computer specialist for a Southern California university, and I have too many of my friends who call upon me to provide for their consulting needs. But, this one isn't about them -- it's about ME.

A few weeks after I moved in to my new apartment, my wired up gaming PC's hard drive crashed. Lost its boot sector. Since I didn't want to lose ALL my data on the drive, I went out and bought a HUGE 13 GB drive, replaced the old one, transferred everything over, set up Win95 again to perfection with one exception: THE MODEM WOULDN'T WORK. I tried restoring the drivers from my CD's, downloading new ones, trying different manufacturers, and messing with Plug 'n Play options, but nothing worked.

I got fed up and decided to use my roommate, Matt's, slower but still reliable computer to surf the 'net until we got our DSL line installed. Since he had his computer in the bedroom and mine in the living room, it was inevitable that my late night computing habits would eventually intrude upon his sleeping habits. One night that he complained I reminded him yet again that I couldn't restore the drivers, but then his response was, "Hey, Dennis, if I fix it in 5 minutes, you're buying me dinner!" I told him to go right ahead, gave him all the assistance I could, providing my CD recovery stuff and pointed out the various drivers I tried. He saw one 56K modem listed that I HADN'T tried yet, went "What the heck, I'll try that one", installed it, and it ran PERFECTLY. I was online, ready to play, chat, download, and email.... Needless to say, even if it took him over 5 mins to get it fixed, I'm buying him his choice of din din!

Admittedly, Matt DID get the posistion I vacated in the computer lab at school when I moved on to greener pastures... so he's got some M4D Skillz of his own. But the best tech support people SUPPORT EACH OTHER! Rock on!

I'm not a technical supporter, but I've told this tale to a few people, and they suggested that I submit it here.

A couple of years ago, I decided to order a computer, and did so through a company that I'll call *ate*ay. It took a week to get to the house. When I finally got it, I hooked it up according to the instructions, and it didn't work. So, I called tech support like a good little girl, assuming that I had just screwed up the installation.

After waiting on hold for oh, an hour or so, and being sent back and forth between different people, and having to take the cover off the side of my tower, and messing around with hardware that I had never seen before, let alone messed with, I was finally told that I needed a new motherboard and a new video card.

I was also told that I would have to install both myself. I knew that they had a system set up where they had local technical supporters that would come to your house and work on the problem for you free of charge. I asked if they could get somebody out to install the parts for me, and they told me it would take about 2 weeks for somebody to get to me. They assured me that they would talk me through the procedure.

They didn't.

I called back when I got the materials about FOUR days later, and they told me that I would have to do it by myself. They said that it was easy, just remember what plugs in where. Please keep in mind that I had never owned a computer before, let alone installed a motherboard. I wasn't exactly happy, but I did as I was told. After all, they knew more than I did, right?

It still didn't work. I called the company back and was on hold for a couple of hours. After several more hours of switching wires, and fiddling with cards, I was then told that the problem was my monitor. So, I would need a new monitor, and incidentally, a new video card, since my bad monitor was shorting out my video card.

After the four or five days it took for my new monitor and my new video card to get to my house, I installed it. Guess what?

It still didn't work.

So I called back. They told me that they would send somebody out. Remember when I said that I was informed that it would take 2 weeks for somebody to get to me?

He was there in less than an hour.

Turns out that when I installed my new video card, I didn't push it in all the way. He had my computer up and running in less than ten minutes. More than two full weeks after I had ordered it.

At least it works now. (g) But I'll never call *ate*way again.

This actually happened to one of my co-workers. The customer

had one window on top of another.

Tech: Alright, hit Ok and then Ok again.

Customer: Um, I see the "Ok" button but I don't see the "Ok again" button.

Put customer on mute and everyone has a good laugh

I can't take the credit for this story as it happened to

one of the guys in the support department where I worked a

few years ago.

One of his friends was having problems with her PC. When

she turned it on, it started booting up okay, but would

then beep continuously and freeze the system. So she rang

up a local computer shop who sent an engineer round and

claimed to have fixed it. She tried it again and while the

beeping had gone away, the computer still froze.

My former work colleague then got his hands on the PC and

discovered the problem in the first place was actually due

to a piece of chewing gum that had got trapped next to the

space bar, thus keeping it depressed. Needless to say,

the beeping was due to the keyboard buffer being

overloaded with a constant pressing of the space bar.

He then opened up the PC to see what the engineer had done,

and discovered that he'd failed to spot the chewing gum,

and had merely disconnected the wires going to the PC

speaker!

First of all, I'm not a Tech, I just happen to have some education in the field and a slightly above average knowledge to how computers work....

I know this guy, who is totally hopeless, and I should have known better than to voulenteer to help him again after spending an entire night on the phone explaining how to use his new scanner ....

(Placing a (SMALL) picture on the middle of the scanner, and scanning the ENTIRE thing - the big black "frame" and all, saving it and then distributing it via mail without downsizing or croping it is NOT a good idea)

He once deleted explorer.exe, cause he was making room for a new game, and thought he didn't need it ...

Anyway ... he had gotten himself a new HD, and wanted to install it.

He called me at work, desperate, and said he couldn't get it right.

I had told him to download the Seagate Diskwizard thingy from the net, and use that when installing.

He mumbled something about him not getting the cables to fit.

It turned out the IDEcable was to short, so I told him to get a new one ... he did so and surely enough he was back on the phone the next day.

Same problem .... the cable wouldn't fit it was still too short.

He had gotten the power cable hooked up, but not the IDEcable.

I asked WHERE in the cabinet he was trying to fit it.

He told me all the places were in use, so he was putting it on the bottom of the cabinet, slightly tilted, and supported on the motherboard ... !!!!!!!!!!

I told him he was mad, too which he replied "oh ?? ... wait a minute, I just got a message on ICQ ..." ..

Me : "......... ???? Say WHAT ?? ... Are you telling me you are hooking up the new HD - Powersupply and all, tilting it onto the motherboard, WHILE your computer is turned on AND you're on the internet ??????" ..

Him : " .. Well ... yeah ... ??" ...

I told him to turn everything OFF, and take the #¤%&# thing to a place with trained professionals ...

Then I counted slowly to ten, and went outside to cool off.

Heard he had to buy himself a new comp. a few weeks ago ...

I do tech support for software that our members use. The other day a user called and was having problems printing data online. I suggested going to HP's website and downloading updated printer drivers. After talking to her, it was clear that there was no way that she was going to be able to get these drivers. I suggested that it may be easier if I got the drivers and then emailed them to her. He responce was "No, that's not going to work. Could you just fax them to me?"

I work for a company that provides computer based stock trading to the worlds stock exchanges. One day I get a call from the HEAD desktop support guy at one of the New York exchanges...

him: I have a terminal here with a dead keyboard.

Me: No problem, I will get our field tech to drop off a new keyboard right away.

him: No you don't need to do that, I have a spare keyboard here. Just send your tech over to plug it in to the terminal for me.

Me: Good afternoon Tech support

Angry Woman: My computer is broken

Me: Okay describe the problem

Angry Woman: I unplug the computer and it doesn't turn off

Me: um... say that again...

Angry Woman: I said, whenever I unplug my computer from the wall it doesn't turn off

Me: are you sure you are unplugging the computer ma'am?

Angry Woman: YES!!!!!!!! now get down here and fix it!

Me: Ma'am I can't come and fix your computer. I am only an over the phone tech support. I can schedule an appointment with an in-home tech for you.

Angry Woman: NO! I don't want to wait! Get over here. I have a report to type up! I am a college student.

Me: Ma'am I don't see how your computer not turning off would prevent you from typing up your report.

Angry Woman: Don't get smart with me!

Me: Okay... Ma'am reality dictates that if an electronic device does not have electricity to run from it will not run. End of story. If this is actually happening you are defiying all laws of physics and you own the perfect computer for it does not run on electricity, as you have explained to me

Angry Woman: Get down he (***Click***)

I was working as an all-around desktop/network support person

at a particular office. One user could not log onto email.

My boss, also a computer techie type, couldn't even ping the

mail server from the user's PC. Around this time I showed up,

back from lunch, so my boss asked me to take a look at it.

Purely as a joke, I immediately headed into the computer room,

grabbed a rubber chicken from my desk drawer, walked back to

the user's office and waved the chicken over the monitor a few

times. "OK, try it now" Amazingly, she was able to log right

on!!!

(I'd like to think that the real problem was just that the

server was temporarily down and happened to come up when I

had her try it, but I still keep a rubber chicken in my toolkit

just in case. If science and technology fail, try black

magic and voodoo!)

I had been hired, after a software company takeover, to support Dr Solomon's Anti-Virus software. Soon after the training period began, I was taken aside because of some experience on the Macintosh, and asked to move from the Microsoft operating systems to the Macintosh.

Several weeks later, not realizing the intelligence of the average Mac user, or even the ability for many to accumulate even the most basic knowledge of that operating system, I was on the phone with a lady who had problems with her Anti-Virus software and needed my help in resolving them.

As one of the steps in determining what the problem was, I needed her to restart her computer with extensions turned off. Asking her to look at the keyboard and press the "C" key, she asked where her keyboard was. Thinking that this must be a joke, but already having enough experience in the field to know that I should answer the question I replied it was probably sitting directly in front of her.

She responded, "I can not see the keyboard, where is it?"

I asked, "Ma'am, what do you use to type with?"

She replied, "I use the keyboard." Duh, now we are getting somewhere, or so I thought. Again, I prompted her to look at the keyboard and hold down the "C" key so we could start with extensions turned off.

"Where is the keyboard?" she asked again, "I don't see it."

"It is in front of you ma'am," I replied.

"No it is not, I don't see it sitting on the screen. Where should my mouse be going so I can see the keyboard?"

At this point, with other technicians looking into my cubicle to see if I was making this up or actually talking to a customer, I told her, "The keyboard is that thing in front of you that you use to type commands into the computer. It is sitting in front of you. It is not on the screen, I do not want you looking at the screen. Please look down, away from your monitor, at the keyboard so that we can fix your problem."

I would assume she looked down, because I could hear a light dawn across the phone, "Please hold down the "C" key," I told her.

"Where is the keyboard again?" she asks me.

I had to turn the call over to another technician.

I work for a major computer retailer. It is my fervent belief that RAM should never ever be put on sale, as it drags the morons out of the woodwork, such as this fine example of humanity.

ME: What can I help you with?

GUY: (pointing at memory in ad) I want that.

ME: All right, what kind of computer do you have?

(Understand, Dear Reader, I always ask this to be sure that the memory on sale will actually work for the customer. So I'm a nice guy, shoot me.)

GUY: (not about to be stopped in his Holy Quest for more RAM by common restroom bacteria such as myself) No. F**k you. Gimme the memory.

So, I sell him the memory... 128mb PC-100 168-pin DIMMS. For those who don't know, this is at the moment TOP OF THE LINE memory, used in computers topping speeds of 350mhz. He walks away, and I move on to the next Nobel Prize Winner. Like I said, the morons just come out of the woodwork those days...

Twenty minutes later, he returns. The memory is in one hand. His computer is in the other. He does NOT look like a Happy Camper at this point, and realizes that it's ALL MY FAULT for DELIBERATELY selling him defective memory. What can I say, I'm an evil bastard who likes pissing off the customers like that.

GUY: I tried installing this, and it doesn't WORK. I want my money back.

ME: All right, you just need to go to the Customer Serv--

GUY: (who obviously needs to rush off to Save The World and is doing us a favor by stopping in BEFORE doing so) Look, see, it doesn't even fit into the slot!

So I look. And sure enough, a 168-pin DIMM does NOT fit into an ISA slot, which is what he was trying to do.

ME: That's not the slot it goes into... PLEASE, PLEASE, if you're making a mistake like that, PLEASE have one of our techs install it.

Understand, by this point, I didn't much care if the guy got to look at his online porn or whatever that night anymore. I just felt sorry for the computer. The guy was ABOUT to argue, but grumbled out an affirmative. I rang him up on it, and he gave the computer to our techs.

A few minutes later, one of the techs calls me back to the tech shop. I go back there, only to be confronted with this self-same damnable memory.

TECH: Quin, what made you think this would work on a 486/DX?

The guy wound up going all the way to corporate to complain about me. I got a commendation after the regional manager spoke to him for not exploding in this guy's face.

Keep the tales coming, people... it's us vs. the morons.

I'm a technology coordinator for a public school educational

service region. This entails being a technology consultant,

sys admin, computer technician, trainer in using computers,

and you get the gist.

One of the schools we service had a coax Ethernet installed.

Being a 50 year old building of course, the cable was strung

through suspended ceilings, down walls and around doorjambs,

generally looking unattractive as usual.

The technician who originally installed the Ethernet

(we serve a number of school districts over a multicounty

area) slapped the cable and cards in, checked that the

Ethernet & TCP/IP worked correctly, and flew off to the

next site.

Several weeks later, I get a call from this school,

complaining that their email has stopped working.

After going through the typical (fruitless) telephone

support checklist, I decide to go myself to this school

(about 30 miles away) to check out the problem.

I arrived to find the cable neatly restrung, with fencing

staples (for attaching barbed wire to wooden fenceposts)

every three to five feet along the run. Of course, the

staples were driven *into* the coax, which broke the jacket

every 3-5 feet. Turns out that an school administrator

(not computer, obviously) had visited the building and

objected to the sloppiness of the cable runs.

This person had required that someone neatly arrange

the cable (of course, due to budget constraints, my earlier

suggestion that raceways & boxes be installed was rejected).

The school's bus mechanic, a nice elderly gentleman (at least 70)

had been directed to perform this task. Reasoning that this

little cable was just like RG6 for cable TV, he had run up to

the local hardware store, purchased a box of these staples (which are U-shaped)

and straightened out the Ethernet.

After returning from my laughing fit in the men's room, I made a

cable run, showed the bus mechanic to pull the staples out enough to run

the coax through the staples, and we replaced literally every

inch of the thinnet. One of the classrooms had a huge green

chalkboard that had a join in the center between two pieces

of the slate. The coax was run down this join, and we couldn't

get the coax out without tearing down the chalkboards.

This isn't my worst tech support tale, but it seems certainly

unique.

Hmm, just one of many stories I could tell. This one really left us laughing..

A new subscriber calls up, she sounds like a middle aged woman... here we go:

Woman: Whats the meaning of this filth?

Me: What are you refering to ma'am?

Woman: This software you sent me, its full pornography sites!

Me: Where are you seeing this sites?

Woman: When I click on the address bar in my web browser, it drops down and there are porn sites in the list!

Me: Our software wouldn't have put those on their when it installed...

Woman: My 14 year old son said it did, and he knows about these computers!

Me: Perhaps you should have another chat with your son...

Woman: (Understands what I'm saying...) Hmm, yes, I think we'll be having a little chat...

I found this very funny, although I did feel sorry for the poor kid..

I work for a consulting firm helping them set up their computers.

Well they got a new employe and I went to setup his laptop

with Netscape and Email. After I had finished setting up

Netscape for him he asked me where his bookmarks where.

After a few secounds of silence I asked him "what bookmarks"

and he said "the ones I have on my computer at home"

well he thought that his book marks would just in his words

"update to this computer over the internet"

I had to leave his office before I laughed in his face.

How do I print out a color article out of the newspaper - I have the paper right here in front of me and I want to print out a copy of it... ...Oh, so that's what the scanner is used for... "

A good friend of mine related this story...

He was a photocopier repair-man, sent to fix a copier at someone's home.

Apon knocking at the door, he was greeted by a lady in her mid thirties, he explained his mission, and was let towards the offending machine.

Usually photocopiers in the home are in a home-office, so my friend (married for 15 years with three children), was horrified to be led into the bedroom! (True!)

There next to the bed was the photocopier, the lady then got back in to bed and continued to watch TV. To make matters even worse, the lady's daughter aged about 15, was in bed watching TV as well.

As embaragging as it must have been, my mate worked fevershily to get the copier fixed, and exit the situation.

A couple of minutes before finishing, the lady left the room, leaving him in the room with her daughter. Sweating and feeling very akward, he quickly fastened the final screws and tested the machine.

Sure that all was working well, he hastily shut his tool case and rushed out of the room.

Unusually, his toolcase felt a little heavier than normal, on inspection he had caught the corner of the bed sheets in the case when he closed it, and the bed sheets had followed him down the hall, leaving the daughter in bed in her underwear!

Mac

user says that some computer repair people

that were working on his computer stole some stuff, messed

around with his computer and tried to kill him. had a heart attack today and the hospital let him come home because of the situation. says that a lady took out motherboards and

modems and switched them. said he was going to call the police on the people. computer isnt recognizing modem possibly because the lady switched modems and correct drivers are not installed, or there might not be a modem.

hardware and software were both altered by these people. his computer was set up very strangly.

user needed someone to go over his settings with him, he had a lot of extra stuff installed

that i removed. aol adapter, vpn stuff in network, extra dun connections which he never used. cleaned it up a bit.

tried to connect, computer is not detecting modem, he is going to call the manufacturer of his modem and get back to

us if he has any more problems. he was quite entertaining with his tales of hackers, police, and heart attacks.

thanked us very much, very grateful for our help. thinks our tech support is the greatest thing since sliced bread.

we dont support hardware problems

heh..but it was cool told user that scandisk does finish, he was happy then.

still still still still.....doesnt have windows 95/98 cd ....

tried to tell him but didint understand...

Ok, this isn't one I've experienced, but it was SO funny I

just had to tell you guys (and no... not the coffee cup holder!)

My colleague gets a call from this lady in accounts. The call

goes something like this:

Tech: Tech Support, how can I help you?

Cust: I think my phone is interfeering with my PC.

Tech: Sorry? Can you clarify that for me? What exactly happens?

Cust: Everytime I use the phone, and then look back at my screen

there's a jumble of characters where the cursor was.

Tech: I'll be right over.

So my friend turns up, with spare keyboard in tow. Checks the

keyboard drivers, no probs there. So he changes the keyboard,

and leaves not entirely convinced that he's fixed it. Within

an hour she's back on the phone, saying it's doing it again.

So he goes back down there with a new phone, and a colleague to

try and troubleshoot the problem. The sit there for an hour trying

to replicate the problem and failing everytime. In the end, they

say they want to sleep on it, and they'll have another go tomorrow.

As he walks away, he turns back to see her answering the phone, and

her rather large breasts (can I say breasts on here?? ;)) where

landing on the keyboard as she stretches across the desk.

Trying desperately NOT to laugh, they tell her to move the phone

closer to her, so that 'the phone won't cause interference on the

cable between the keyboard and the PC'

I was called by a man who had just installed windows 98 and

his computer stopped working. I asked if he could look if the computer plug was in place. He said that he could not look because it was to dark. I asked if he could put some light on. He said:'That isn't possible because the power was off.'

Customer rang up to enquire why (after upgrading to Office 2000) she was still getting 00 instead of 2000 when typing in dd/mm/00.

Not sure what she was complaining about .. but sat through her question and did everything she did ..

Then the penny dropped .. she had bought Office 2000 thinking it was a Year 2000 bugfix for Office 97. She only had Word 97 on her machine .. and did not realise that it came with Excel, Powerpoint, Access 2000 !!

Trying not to laugh too much, I pointed the lady in the direction of a few Y2K websites for programs to check her system properly :)

I had just installed a (l)user his first NT 4.0 Workstation

he was extatic. I spent almost an hour teachig him how to use it and

left him logged in explaining how to log out later.

Got back at the office only to receive a phone call:

luser: "Hey. I logged out but i can't log in anymore!"

(Me thinking, sure... another NumLock or CapsLock case)

me: " what's the problem? what do you have displayed on your screen?"

luser: "well it says press ctrl+alt+del to continue"

me: "so, press them and get on with it"

luser: "i can't"

me: "why not?"

luser: "i don't have three hands"

(Me thinking, this is gotta be Candid Camera)

me: "press it with yer nose"

(Beep-Beep-Beep)

I recently completed an assignment for a client that wanted

to know the Y2K status of all the companies with which it

does business (banks, airlines, and so on). So, we sent out

some letters and got back some responses. Most of them

were along the lines of "We were Y2K-compliant as of

November, 1998" or "We will be Y2K-compliant by the end

of June, 1999". One response that made my jaw drop,

though, was the following one-sentence letter:

"Dear (blah):

We do not have a Y2K problem because all of our software and

hardware are less than two years old.

Sincerely,

(blah)"

Oh, dear. Who wants to be the first to break the bad news

to them? Yes, software written in the 60's, 70's and 80's

are the big bad boys as far as Y2K problems go, but

believe me when I tell you that THEY AIN'T THE ONLY ONES!

I was working for a small computer company as the techniction. We had alot of faithful customers that would come to me for everything. I got to know their systems pretty well. One day I get this call from a 12 year boy named Todd he was always comming in to talk about games, kind of a pest. Anywasy he was whispering and sounded frantic on the phone. He told me that he was playing around with his dad's office computer and accedently deleted his document folder. He wanted me to help him restore the documents over the phone. I told him that his dad would have to restore them and there was nothing I could do, but don't touch the computer until I talked to his father. At this time I could here pounding in the background. It seems that when he discovered his mistake, he locked himself in the office and the pounding was his father at the door trying to get in. I spent about 30 min talking this kid into letting his father in. I managed to calm him down and he opened the door. His father was hot! He got on the phone and I told him what had happened. I helped him recover his files which wasn't easy because this was before the blessed recycle bin. This was the first time my computer skills saved a life.

I do tech support for a large American ISP. Often, people think that since it's a free call, they may as well see just what we support, and some of them push it a little bit. I got a call from a seemingly nice but panicked lady who said, "just now when I tried to open my e-mail, I got the messag 'the file command.com is missing or corrupted.' What do I do now?" I don't know. Cry? The best part is that I do MacIntosh support... We also get those who cannot follow the voice prompts (difficult even for us) and try to fool us into believing that they have reached the right department. "I use a Hewlett Packard MacIntosh." Yeah right, and I drive a Dodge New Beetle. Love the site, it's good to know we're not alone...

We got this letter from one of our more "special" members. I work for a small isp so we get to know our members problems and whatever else they tell us, but I think this guy went a little too far:)

July 12, 1999

COMPUTER PROBLEMS CAUSED BY ISP'S OUTLOOK EXPRESS E-MAIL PROGRAM

My ISP's Outlook Express e-mail program has caused nothing but problems for my computer since the first time I installed it about two and a half weeks ago on my new computer. An Apple-Mac Performa 6016. These problems are only getting worse

I cannot quit the Outlook Express e-mail program or shut my computer down without this program causing my computer to bomb It states that it is" an error 11" problem It even bombs while I'm trying to use the program. One of the first things the Outlook Express e-mail program did yesterday afternoon when I turned the computer on was to try to dial up my ISP. This was before the computer was fully booted up It would not stop trying to dial up my ISP until I turned off the modem of. This caused the computer to bomb again It called it "an error 10" bomb All of this bombing cannot be doing my computer any good and may be causing damage to it. This is especially true since either I have to improperly shut the computer down or the computer improperly shuts itself down

I have trashed and tried reinstalling the Outlook Express e-mail program, as suggested, without any success of solving the problem. In fact I have tried this several times and the problem has only gotten worse. As of Saturday night, I'm unable to send e-mail messages I had found two or three messages that I needed to respond to, but I was unable to. I had a heck of time just trying to find out if I had any new messages at all. I believe the problem is that my ISP believes that I'm a new customer my ISP believes that when I use our codes and my e-mail address, ecotopian@ISP.com, that I'm using someone else's codes and e-mail address

Another problem is that the Outlook Express e-mail program has myself identified wrong. Both my first and middle names are misspelled I do not know why they are misspelled. This was the way I found them when I first wet to use the e-mail program on my computer. I have been unable at my end to correct this. I want it to state "John Doe," despite the fact that it requests my full name I would also like my personal web page to use the name "ecocapian" rather than the something 20 that it states. Whatever that is supposed mean I have been unable to correct this also at my end.

I want these problems resolved today. If not then I will have no choice but to file a consumer complaint against my ISP. I have a number e-mail messages that need to be responded to in a timely fashion. This includes my efforts to obtain paid employment and to obtain teacher certification This teacher certification would be starting in a teacher certification program or Master of Teaching program at a college this fall. I'm in the process, through e mailing, of negotiating with a number of colleges. If I lose a professional employment opportunity or the chance ho obtain teacher certification because of my ISP I'm going to be mighty upset! So will my parents whom I'm stuck living with until I obtain an income.

Thank you

P.S.

The names have been changed both for the isp and the member. Also he spelled his name wrong in the letter too.

I do support for a major computer manufacturer and I had just gotten off a call that I couldn't help but laugh afterward. After my normal script and gathering info, I immediately asked the caller what I could help with. He describes the scenario that he closed out Word 97 and he says that his computer calls him a jerk for doing so.

Curious, I asked him what he did and he told me that he saved his document, closed out Word and immediately got an error explaining that "Vicodens Loves You" and the second part of the dialogue box read, "(Name of product) is a big fat jerk". I didn't disclose the product so as to protect the guilty parties. Knowing what I know about viruses, I informed him he'd better get McAfee or Norton and run a virus scan. He'll also end up losing his data since it'd also be a good idea to format and reinstall. He then went on to rant that he'd lose his data and wanted me to help restore. I explained that customers are responsible for the upkeep of their units and other basic policy stuff, but just to hear this guy feebly say that his computer called him a jerk.... well, I guess the motto of this story is, "The truth hurts, don't it?"

I'm a graphic artist, and as such, I've had to learn a lot about my computer. I'm by no means a wiz, and don't know everything - that's what I have a husband for. He does tech support for routers at a small company up here in New England, and has also done a lot of work for MS, Macs, and Linux. So when we'd moved from one end of town to the other, I got him to set up our cable modem and then waited for the cable people to show up so we'd be on our way to the wonderful world of the internet and I could download some of the stuff I had backed up on my website (I got into the habit of this after a moron at a shipping company applied a magnet to my box of disks with all my work on them).

The cable people came by, and I nodded at all the right times, and made sure to ask if they'd set up everything, and that all of it was working. Of course it was, as the guy had been up on the side of the apartment building most of the day setting up our cable.

So I watched some cartoons, to make sure the cable was on, and then jumped onto the computer. Lo and behold, there was no internet connection. So, wanting to get my work done, I called up tech support. I explained what had happened, and we went through checking out the IP addresses and such, changing them when necessary. I ran through the command line, ran through DOS, and ran through the Win95 internet set up wizard. No use. Finally, he said "If there's a problem, I can't find it. You're physically set up right, and the computer seems fine. I'm going to connect you to the second level, here's your customer number, write it down, and give it to the next guy so he can open up the case file."

I did as I was told, and waited as they put me on hold. I'd waited a total of 30 minutes listening to muzak versions of old disco tunes, and the phone cut off at their end. I sighed, and dialed through the 18 (Yes, 18) different switches to get back to tech support.

I was connected to a different person this time, and explained what had happened, that I'd been cut off, and give her my number. She sent me up to the second level again, and this time I was mercifully picked up again within 5 minutes.

This guy came out rather cocky, and after looking over my write up in the customer information database, he made me go through all the making sure it was hooked up right and making sure the modem wasn't connecting, and which lights were blinking and which weren't, until finally he put me on hold again.

I asked if maybe they'd just not turned on my stuff, and he asked if the regular cable was working. I said yes, but wasn't it possible that they'd forgotten something? I'd had one on without the other before.

He replied "Ma'am, we don't MAKE those kinds of mistakes. The problem is obviously with you."

"Could you at least check?" I asked.

"I'll check just to put your mind at ease, ma'am."

I could hear the annoyance in his voice, thinking that I must be lying about soemthing not being connected, or maybe not knowing what he meant by "Command line prompt."

He came back again, and apologized. Turns out that the cable guy that had been by hadn't turned on the modem service, just the regular cable. There was nothing wrong on my end, but on theirs. I got my cable free for 3 months.

I had a customer who was an elderly lady named Dot. She called in saying her email wasn't working (I work for a Canadian ISP). I got her to enter the entire domain for the email server:

mail.abcd.efgh.ijk.com (not the real server name)

She thought the . (dot) was her name Dot, so the server name turned out to be too long for her to read back ie.

maildotabcddotefghdotijkdotcom

Of course there wasn't enough room for that server name in the server name box.

I work for a company where, well, let's just say, the users aren't so technically astute. Sometimes I have to go to an office where the user is available. In one instance, I ask the user to shut down her computer. She goes to the start button correctly, gets the computer ready for shut down.

So then, I tell the user to power off the computer and she reaches for the Monitor... I'm thinking "DOH"(Homer Simpson style). I finally show her where the computer power switch is. Needless to say, I don't take anything for granted anymore.

I've had a couple of calls where the conversation went like this...

ME: What type of computer do you have?

USER: Gateway.

ME: What Model is it?

USER: Where is that at?

ME: Should be right there on the front.

USER: It's an EV700.

ME: That's the Monitor. What does it say on

front of the box on the floor?

USER: GP6-350.

My advice to wannabe techs...don't take anything

for granted and explain it the simplest way possible.

Well this is my tale,

You know how we must all have to go to dept. of motor vehicles for registration and new driver licenses

And it is truly a nightmare I have been around since win 3.11. So I arrive at the dmv early 7:30 to pay for new tags. Well I have been waiting for awhile, being herded like cattle when they come out with that their systems are down and wont be back up for 7hrs well I have my TCP/IP book and guess what the tech trying to fix the problem asked me a question for support. I then inturn go into the server room look at his actual problem and find that he can ping the home server on the backup but the host went down which the bdc was not promoted. Regardless I had the dmv up in 1.5 hr, took a new D.L. photo and receive my new tags. but now I am the IS. mgr. for DMV, and I have not paid for tags now in 2 years. Your talent does payoff

I've submitted a few of these before- about a year and a half ago- and agter several years in tech support I thought I'd heard them all...

A few days ago I ran into an old friend of mine who also works as a 'computer consultant' (sic). We were sitting over a couple of cups of coffee when he said something that really threw me for a loop.

"When will my computer be able to make a cup of coffee as good as this one?", he said.

I told him that there were several products on the market that could operate devices through a computerized remote control system (ie. x10, smart houses, and so on), and that such systems have been publicly available for the last few years.

"No- you don't understand! Your Internet service is pushing some kind of remote control service like the one you just talked about. Can you set it up on my computer tonight?"

"I have absolutely no idea what the hell you're talking about", I said. "We're an ISP- we don't have anything to do with remote control hardware or software."

At that point, he got angry. "Your goddamn system has a remote control system that'll start my coffee maker. I'll prove it!"

I gave him my usual answer for such situations. "This I GOTTA see!"

We sat down at his computer and fired up his browser, and we surfed through several sites before I saw what he meant.

In the status bar in Netscape it read : "Starting Java..."

"Computer Consultant", eh? It took me 5 minutes to explain what the message meant!

This didn't actually happen to me, but I heard it from a male co-worker. The program I support has a windows and a dos version that link together. You can get into the dos version by itself using what we refer to as the "back door" way, having to type in a set command to launch the program without an error message. This is how it went...

Him: Ok I want you to go to a dos prompt and get to X directory.

User: I'm there

:: He has her get into the menu of the program:::

User: Hey I haven't seen this before!! What is this?

Him: Uhm, (since everyone should have used this a million times) this is the dos version. I'm using the "back door" way of getting you into this.

User: You're taking me the back door way?? Just wait till I tell my husband!!

Im not really a tech supporter but im more the computerfixer at my school.One day I was changing the screensaver properties at my class' computer and set it to textbanner or something(text moving over the screen), I typed something like "danger virus", just for fun.But when a teacher was working on the computer and the screensaver switched on, he thought there was really a virus on the computer and every time the screensaver started he would reboot the computer. When I saw this I couldnt stop laughing.

Happened to a friend of mine:

While taking lunch at a popular restaurant my tech support friend spotted a group from our production unit having lunch at another table nearby. These guys were notorious for being a pain in the a** when it came to their accounts and networking - always forgetting their passwords or locking up their accounts, typically on weekends or holidays and such. To get even my buddy decided to send his lunch check over to their table telling the waitress to tell them to pay it for "Services rendered". Well one of the guys at the other table shot him back a dirty look and sent the check back - and unknown to my pal slipped THEIR check in underneath it. The "goof troop" left in a few minutes, yukking it up, laughing and slapping my pal on the back as they left. When my friend got to the register and discovered THEIR check under his own. He knew precisely how to get even.

Back at work he reset all the morons passwords to NO FREE LUNCH, took away password change ability from the user and set the time slots to on and off every hour alternating.

They humbled themselves and bought him lunch the very next day :)

And they say there is no god :)

I work in software support, in the call center. It seems that the 1-800 number that we're at is given out like candy. Not only that, our number is one digit difference from some other companies such as Hampton Inn and AT&T. One time I answered the phone, "Hello, this is Lecia, is this a new or an existing problem?"

"What are you wearing?"

"Excuse me?" I asked.

"You sound sexy...I'll bet you're a blond."

"No, I'm not. Sir, who are you trying to reach?"

"Isn't this the 1-800 number for Hot Sexy Babes? I'm suppose to get 10 free minutes."

"No, sir, this is IBM. If you have a problem with your computer, I'll be happy to assist you in directing your call. But I suggest you try your number again if you're trying to reach a phone sex hotline."

"Couldn't YOU talk to me for a little while?"

"Sir, I'm sorry, but I don't get paid enough for THAT."

I hung up.

Sometimes, we get callers needing help with a specific software that we don't support. We try to give them the correct phone number to call so that they can get support. One time, this lady with a horrible southern accent (I'm from the South, and I couldn't understand her) called and was needing help with a voice recognition program. Of course, I've never tried the product myself, but she begins to tell me about how it don't work right, how it misspells a lot of words, and doesn't understand her. And I'm thinking, "Well, if I don't understand most of what you're saying, how do you think a computer is suppose to understand you?" Eventually, I got her to shut up, and transfered her to the right number.

I worked for awhile for a now defunct computer store. We had

a guy with an older brandname PC come in for an upgrade.

He got the works - new board, processor, modem, cd-rom, etc.

Of course the techs had it working perfectly when he picked it up.

About two hours after he left he called irrate that the

computer wouldn't work, no cd-rom, modem, etc. We had him bring

it back in, fixed it for free and sent him home. This happened

about three times and he started to demand his money back.

Come to find out the computer originally came with a setup disk

that would automatically install all the drivers if there was

ever a problem. The problem was he kept installing the

drivers for all the OLD components that no longer existed

in that computer! About the only thing left that was

original was the case! We finally convinced him to get

rid of that disk! And of course the computer worked fine

after that!

This occurred not too long... rather amusing.

Me: Thank you for calling the Response center, this is Mike.

User: Hi Mike.

Me: Hello. Are you having a problem with your computer?

User: Well, yes and no.

Me: Ok..

User: See, my screen is out. But I have the part I need to fix it, I just can't for the life of me figure out how to get the darn thing open.

Me: You're trying to open the monitor?

User: Yea, see I was working earlier today and had to run out for a few minutes. When I came back, my screen was blank.

Me: Ok, do you see the light next to your power button on your monitor?

User: Yea.

Me: What color is the light?

User: Look, I know you want me to check all this stuff, but I already know what the problem is, and I'm really short on time here. I just need you to tell me how to open up my screen.

Me: Ok, what "part" do you have?

User: (a long sigh) A 40 watt lightbulb what else? Obviously the old bulb blew or something. I can't seem to find a way to get it in the screen.

Me: ...Um... I tell you what, how about I send a tech down there, and he'll help you... replace the "light bulb" ok?

User: You can't help me? All I @#$ need to know is how to open up the screen!

Me: Ma'am, there isn't a 40 watt light bulb in your screen. let me send a tech out.

(At this point she hung up. I went ahead and dispatched a tech. He called a few hours later laughing hysterically. Her monitor had gone into power saving mode, confirming my suspicions... She had given him the lightbulb for anyone else who might need it...)

In the course of taking calls , I have

heard many people who are too lazy to do their fair share,

like reading. RTFM (Read The [enter explicative here] Manual)

should be a valid problem description, alas we've been

saddled with that nemesis "PC" (and I don't mean x86).

So we need to be somewhat creative in our dealings

with the zero-brain-cell-count portion of the population.

One particular mentally-challenged individual insisted the

text-editor in unix (called vi) had a bug and was not working.

Far be it from us to tell the customer they're wrong. One

support engineer came up with the ultimate punishment. In

a very confident manner, she advised the customer that there

may have been a slight power-drop during the installation

which could have caused the trouble he was seeing. The best

way to remedy this was to re-install the OS from scratch, and

there should be no further trouble.

He bit... hook, line, sinker, and Titanic. He did call

back to say thanks for the excellent support (the re-install

did the trick), and the support engineer is now revered as

a prophet.

I was recently trying to uninstall Microsoft Encarta 98 and got the following error message:

A file required to uninstall Microsoft Encarta 98 was not found. Please re-install the software and try again.

The following didn't happen at the helpdesk, but with a cousin of mine:

Cousin: My computer doesn't work anymore

me : Ok, restart your computer

cousin: I did, now it only says wrong disk.

me : Did you remove all disks from your floppy-drive?

cousin: Yes.

me : hmm. this could really be a problem.

So I go over to his place to check things out.

me : your missing some files here; like command.com

cousin: How could that be. do I have a virus?

me : Don't know. let's try this startup disk.

hmm. there's some messages about more missing files

and they all have the word command in them. Tell me,

what was the last thing you did while the computer

was still working?

cousin: Oh, I got some space on my hard drive by deleting a

couple of games

me : like?

cousin: Command and conquer, diablo, etc.

me : How did you delete them?

cousin: Oh, I did a search in explorer on the words command

and conquer, and deleted everything that was found.

me : yeah, I thought something like that.

At the end it turned out that his cleaning action didn't

remove the game he wanted to get rid of, as it was placed

in a folder called CC. Yet I was so mad at him at the time,

that I told him the only way to solve the problem was to

format the hard drive and reinstall windows }:) Just because

he told me that reinstalling was the only thing he didn't

want to do.

One of our customers bought a computer in our store. He want's to use it for surfing the internet, typing some letters and other small stuff.

After a few days he called our tech support telling them that his internet connection is verry slow and surfing is no fun anny more.

Our tech told him that it depends on your location and type of connection that you use. After a moment of silence the customer wanted to know how many floppy disks it takes to store the entire internet on his computer so he could surf at full speed!?!?!

Woman called our shop in a fit of worries.

"My PC needs a plumber" she explained!

"A plumber" says i? (at this point i put the speaker phone on so the rest of the lads could listen to this)

"How do you mean a Plumber" i asked.

"My computer just starts to boot up then it sdays i need a plumber.." was the answer.

Mass looks of puzzlememnt on our faces by now. We are now under the assumption she has spilt coffee or pop into the PC.

"How do you know you need a plumber" i asked? "Whats happening when you turn on the PC?" i asked.

"It starts to boot, some writing appears on the screen then it just stops..."

Ok, says I, "whats the last thing the screen has written on it before it hangs up?" I ask.

Err, something about an L2 Pipe Burst she says!!!!!!!!!!!

DOH!!!!!

During the past two school years, my junior and senior years in high school, I worked in the computer labs as a teacher's assistant during my free periods.

The computers in use (HP Vectra's) had a *very* bad habit of crashing and hanging with a great deal of regularity. Keep in the mind the people in these classes aren't necessarily computer-literate, altho by the time they were done with the classes (Computer Applications, mainly Office '97 and the internet; and Word Processing using Word '97), most were pretty good at it.

Well, as I said, the computers would hang frequently. On these Vectra's, there was a power button, a reset button, and a third button. So after trying to move the mouse, and CTL+ALT+DLT failing, I would have them press the reset button. Of course, there were a few students who, even after having this class for the whole year, couldn't remember from day to day (or minute to minute), where the reset button was.

Here's what a typical exchange sounded like:

Me) OK, push the reset button.

Them) Where's that? (keep in mind the reset button is labeled as such)

M) On the front of the computer.

T) Where??

M) Look at the front of the computer. Do you see three buttons?

T) Oh wait I found it!

In addition to this, more often than not they would press the power button as opposed to the reset button. Oh well.

After the computer reset, they would get the scandisk screen (Windows was not shut down properly. You computer will now be checked...press any key to continue). Usually, to save time in a 43-minute class period, the teacher or I would have them press X to exit it. Then the "There was a problem running scandisk" message would come up, prompting the user to press any key. You can imagine what their response is -

"What should I do now?"

**********

About 3 months into the school year, they changed the login process for the third time in two years. During my sophomore year, we had MS-DOS-based 286's for Computer Apps, and then over the summer between that and my junior year, they replaced them all with HP Vectras, giving the 286's to the Keyboarding Lab. On the 286's, the login was a letter (signifying which of the two labs was being used) and four numbers - your period number followed by your personal number (I.E. mine was like A8025). The password was yours to choose, on the first day of class. Once the Vectra's came in, the system was changed to a Windows 95 version of Novell, but the login process basically stayed the same. Then, this year (my senior year), in October or November, they changed the login system to the first seven letters of your last name followed by your first initial, a period, and your year of graduation. Your password was your student ID number. Well, at this point, every student in the school was given an account, whether they had a class or used it or not. In addition, now the context of the login had to be changed if a teacher had been sitting at the station right before you. With over 1800 students, the admin was bound to screw up somewhere. And he did. With a great deal of frequency. Starting with the direction cards that they printed up to be attached to the front of the monitors. They read (in part) - "The last 7 (seven) letters of your last name, followed by the first letter of your first name" and "All teachers' context is teachers.mhs.medcity1. Example: teachers.mhs.medcity1" (can we say DUH!). The flawed instruction cards remained. The admin was eventually fired for mouthing off to teachers (this admin was a grown man, FYI).

Hope you enjoyed this!

I used to do tier 3 support for a large ISP. Part of my duties were answering email questions.

One day I found this gem in my email box(paraphrased):

"I cannot send or recieve email. I want this taken care of immediately

Customer"

No contact information other than the email address was included in this message and it was generated by the customers email account not our online helpdesk or some sort of web based email. Since every message must have a reply, mine went as follows:

"Dear customer,

I recieved your message about not being able to send or recieve email. If you get this message and the problem persists please call tech support at 1-800-XXX-XXX

my alias"

What else could I have done?

Love the stories, keep 'em coming

me: Ok just close down the browser for now.

her: There's no button to do it.

me: Hold the Alt key down and press F4.

her: Aah, I have a laptop.

This call was taken by another tech at work providing support for dialup customers of an Australian isp. The customer was having pretty generic problems getting connected which seemed to be a modem issue.

tech: "Have you finished entering that?"

cust: "Yes"

tech: "Great, now click out of that until you get back into diaup networking"

cust: "Ok I'm there"

tech: "I'd like you to try and connect now, and put the phone next to the computer so I can hear what's happening"

cust: "Should I connect now?"

tech: "Yes please"

Now at this point I was listening in on the call to hear the handshake and suggest what could be done about the connection problem.

There were a few rattling sounds at this point, then a click, and then the modem dialed out. Immediately after this instead of hearing the guard tones of the modem all we could hear was new age music blaring through the phone. This went on for about half a minute, then there was the rattling, and then the customer returned.

cust: "Are you still there?"

tech: "Yes, what happened then?"

cust: "Did you like my music?"

The tech sat there in silence for a moment before responding.

tech: "I actually wanted to hear the modem"

cust: "Oh"

I received a PC one day to install and configure the standard Internet software. The people admitted that they were new to computers and had just been given a Compaq Net series (workstation) PC.

Upon inspection I had found that there was the standard built-in ethernet adaptor (RJ45 and AUI connectors) but no modem. I called back the customer who immediately started CORRECTING ME by saying "The PC has already got a modem inside it and it worked just fine! You don't know what you are doing by the sound of it!".

I explained that there is no internal modem installed, perhaps they might want to consider purchasing one.

About 2 hours later, I'm faced by a very snide couple who now think because they own a PC that they are immediately trained to offer advice. I took them through to the workshop where I asked her where they were plugging the line into. She points at the RJ45 connector and then proceeds to tell me that I don't know sh*t.

I then produced a standard BT to RJ11 cable and asked her to demonstrate how she intended to plug it in. After 3 minutes of grunting and streams of 4 letter words beginning with 'F' she finally gives in and admits that they have never ever tried to connect it to the phoneline.

The calm, smug feeling came over me while I asked them which brand of modem they would prefer installed. All is well now , and I hear that they are getting to grips with Internet life very very well indeed.

Why can't all jobs be this simple? I'm looking forward to retiring from PC repair around November. :)

We sell computers and networks mostly to schools.

Occasionally when we do a large bid the teachers in the school

will request a machine ordered for home use so they can

use the the same config at home as they do at school.

On one occasion we have a teacher calling up screaming at us because

evertime she turns on her computer. Blizzard's Warcraft II game starts up

I went over a few things with her such as checking the startup folder and

as well as a few other places to no avail. She informs me that

she will be bringing in the system so that we can set it up

like we should have. She brings it in the next day along with

her 16 year old "Computer Genius" son who is telling her

that she should get a new one from us because this one is so

messed up and that it has never worked. After I have a chance to

look at it i realize that this kid has copied the entire warcraft cd

to the root directory so all of the startup files have been replaced.(DUH)

He then tells his mom that it did it by itself when he was installing it. Ok,

I decide to let it pass. She then tells me that her internet is

really slow and wonders what I can do to fix it. I log in and it is

is way slow, so I start poking around even more. Come to find out she has over

1.5GB on a 3.2GB Drive of hardcore porn on her internet cache and downloads.

When I tell her that her space is being taken up by this she says that we must have given

her an old hard drive because no one in her family would do

anything like that. So just to be fair I checked the dates on the

files and showed them to her, not only was boy genius browsing, but

during the day while he was at school and she was at work,

her husband was the only one home and it was obvious that he had done

his fair share of downloading as well. Needless to say,she thanked me,

grabbed her computer under one arm and a handful

of her sons hair in the other and left. :)

There is one lady that used to call our tech support

all of the time. She was an elderly lady so I felt kind

of sorry for her. The follow conversation that transpired

between me and her was her final call, she called in to

cancel her service.

Me: Good Afternoon, Customer Support.

Her: Yes, I'd like to cancel my service.

Me: Were you dissatisfied with our service, ma'am?

Her: Yes, you people screwed up my computer and stole

my netscope.

Me: Alright ma'am, I have cancelled your account. I'm

that we stole your netscope. Can I suggest you try

AOL? *evil grin*

Anyways, I relied heavily on my mute button that afternoon,

and the rest of the techs in my department were of no help

while I was trying to stop laughing long enough to reply to

her.

P.S. The lady was using Netscape Navigator and had only

deleted her shortcut. She had done it twice before

according to the notes on the customer.

I work for a local ISP and a couple of days ago I received

a call from a man wanting to be set up on the internet. We

walk the customers through the MS connection wizard (ugh).

When we got to the part about what phone number to put in, I

told him to type zero four zero zero and then click next.

When he clicked next the connection wizard told him the number

was invalid. I asked him to repeat to me what he'd put in.

He then asked me if he should put in little zeroes or big zeroes.

For a while I sat wondering what he could be talking about. I finally

realized that he was putting in O's instead of zeroes.

Hello , there is some story that happend with me..

(sorry for my english ;) )

I'm working like tech support for ISP

It was some day before holydays, morning 8+ am

phone is ringing

Me : Hello this is Alex from Technical Support, how can i help you ?

Customer Women (Cs) : It stucks....

Me: sorry , what is stucks ?

Cs: It stucks, it stucks from night and i afraid to do something with it....

Me: Sorry computer stucks ????

Cs: Yes computer...

Me: Ok , then please press in the same time on Ctrl-Alt-Del

Cs: (half min of silence..) Why do you curse me, not all piople know english very well and if you can't help me, then give me someone else.... !!!!

Me: 8-[ ] ??!!!! Sorry mam , this problem is not releated to our support - you need to call tecnician that will solve this problem for you...

that's all folks ;)

I received a phone call from an elderly gentlemen who

obviously had zero experience with computers and was trying

to access our online brokerage service. He was huffing and

puffing in my ear and expressing his frustration in so

many well chosen mutterings about how evil our company was,

with each muttering and deep sigh in my ear, I became more

and more ready to explode, and he worked himself into a

frenzy.

me: blah blah, how may I help you.

idiot: Yes I can't access your website. (why is it always

my website?)

So I ran through all the usual questions making him angrier

and angrier at me.

Finally I decided to give him an alternate servor address

just to get him off my phone, bear in mind that the address

I was giving him was https://99.999.99.9

me: Are you ready?

idiot: (sigh) yes.

me: Okay, its H as in Henry, T as in Thomas, T as in Thomas

idiot: Wait what was that last one?

me: T as in Thomas? (pause) P as in Peter.

idiot: T?

me: no, T as in Thomas and then P as in Peter.

idiot: no wait start over.

me: (putting him on mute) die die die (off mute) Okay,

H, T, T, P.

idiot: Right right , I got all that and then...

me: S as in (shut-up) Sam,

Then I ran through the number repeating when he asked me to.

Finally we were done and I waited while he tried that

address.

idiot: It's still not working.

Knowing he typed something wrong I asked him to read it back

to me

idiot:(sigh, mutter, mutter, evil company)Just like you told

me, h - t- t- p - f - s - h - t....

me: (interupting)(Sigh) sir, let me give the number for our

competitor.

I am a lan manager for a small company. So when my mother wanted to buy her first computer she came to me for advice. I questioned her about what she wanted to use the computer for, and I came up with a spec list including all the peripherals she would need. I also gave her a phone to a dealer I had dealt with before knowing they would be able to deal with a newbie.

Two weeks later, I asked my mother when the new computer was coming.

Her - "I heard that they are coming out with a new digital computer, so I am going to wait for that"

Me - "Umm, that makes sense, you wouldn't want to waste time with one of those old analog computers."

Me: Computer Lab, May I help you?

Luser: I can't get my e-mail to work.

Me: Who's your ISP?

Luser: My what?

Me: Who do you dial up to get online?

Luser: AOL

Me: What version of AOL are you using?

Luser: 5.0

(trying not to laugh)

Me: So you can't get your AOL e-mail?

Luser: No, I can't get my Hotmail e-mail.

Me: You can't login or what?

Luser: Well, I downloaded to my desktop and it doesn't seem to work.

I work for a major computer company and provide tech support over the phones

for their clients...Had a client who knew absolutely nothing about her machine

I literally had to to in and teach her how to use her machine

Tech: Thank you for calling, how may I help you?

Client: (in a thick Indian accent) Hello, I think I having keyboard issues

When I go into Word, my keyboard not typing, and my machine locks up to where i cannot

restart the machine.

Tech: (thinking something wrong with the keyboard) Ok, lets go down to start, shut down, and restart in the msdos mode

Client: ok...done

Tech: Do you see the C:\WINDOWS) prompt?

Client: I see nothing

I'm now thinking something is seriously wrong with the software.

Tech: What EXACTLY do you see on the screen?

Client: I see a black screen with white letters that say "Microsoft Windows (reads the speil) 1998"

Tech: What do you see at the bottom of the text?

CLient: C double dot windows and right arrow

(Banging head on desk)

Tech: Ok..go ahead and type something in please

Client: What should I type?

Tech: Anything...right now we're testing your keyboard

Client: Ok..I did

Tech: Type exit and hit enter

Client: I not seeing the enter key...I not knowing what it looks like

Tech: (gritting teeth) It is on the right side of your keyboard and will have an arrow pointing to the left

Client: Ok found it

We boot back into windows...Explained to the client that her keyboard is fine

Client now wants to do something the system lockups

(suppressing a groan)

Tech: Ok...go to start, run and type in msconfig

Client: I not seeing the start button...where's that?

Tech: (attempting not to lose my temper) In the lower left hand

corner of your screen

Client: Oh, Found it

Finally got to the system configuration utility

By this time, I was about ready to strangle the client

Tech: Ok, look under selective startup and you should see a check mark by

load startup group items

Client: What's a check mark? I not knowing what that is..I still learning

(pressing the mute button and letting out a bloodcurtling scream of frustration)

Tech: (thru gritted teeth) DO you see a mark next to load startup group?

Client: Yes

Tech: Ok..click on that and take the check out

Client: OK

Call goes on like this for the next 40 minutes or so with me putting the client on hold

every few minutes to remain calm.

Near the end of the call, I had to have her turn off her system

Tech: Ok, Ma'am, lets go ahead and turn off the system

CLient: How I doing that?

Tech: Look at your tower, you should see an oval shaped button with a light next to it

Client: I not seeing that...(light turns on) Ok, I see it

Me not realising that she had turned her monitor and NOT her pc off.

I never was able to figure out what her issue was....Fortunately we have feebased support lines

that tutor our clients on how to use their systems

Just goes to show ya that Patience IS a virture

Ok i am not a tech support person as a job but i do it as a favor to friends.

anyway just a few mins ago i recieved a call from someone that was having problems a win3.1 system (problems big suprise)

so i say sure i will help them out so here is pretty much the conversation

(me) Whats the problem?

(them) well first of all whenever i click in a text box all it types are +'s

(me) hmm...

(them) i think it is some kind of virus

(me) that is highly unlikely

(them) are you sure i really think it is a virus

(me) well a pretty pointless virus (sarcasticly)

(them) yeah

(me) you want me to come over an check it out

(them) yes please

so i go down there and walk up to the computer open up a dos prompt and sure enough nothing but +'s

so i quickly examine the keyboard and sure enough the + key was stuck so i hold back some laughter

then ask if they have a spare keyboard they say yes and run and grab it for me so i plug it in and open a dos prompt and bam no more +'s

so i then politely say (still trying not to laught) All done!

she says thank you then as i am walking out the door she asks what the problem was so i say t

(me) your keyboard had a virus

(them) i didn't think keyboards could get viruses

(me) oh yeah it happens all the time

(them) how can i stop it

(me) clean your keyboard reguraly :)

well thats my story

Greetings, fellow grunts on the front lines in the war against rampant user ignorance. The following little tale is one I decided I had to share, if only to acknowledge that it DOES happen and one never knows when that next call in the queue is going to be a gem like this one. I believe I read my first account of this kind of call here at Tech Tales, and sure enough, it eventually happened to me personally:

I'm the overnight shift supervisor at a small company that contracts out as technical support to a number of ISP's across the country. One quiet night about 4am, a call rings through from our largest ISP and I field it as usual, none the wiser for what lies in store.

Me: Good morning, this is Chris, could I get you login name please?

Caller: (older gentleman, sounds a bit impatient) Login name? Yeah, it's 'blahblah'.

Me: One moment, please. (After pulling up call logs and user account info) Ah, yes sir. And what can I do for you this morning?

Caller: Do you censor the email?

I'm struck out of the blue by this odd question, wondering what this guy might have in his email correspondence that has him THAT worried about censorship or people examining it? Gamely, I rally on.

Me: Ah, no, sir, there is no active censorship or email editting that occurs on our end. Are you having some difficulty with your email...?

Caller: (sounding rather peeved now) The reason I'm asking is that every time I try to send any email out, I get this message telling me it's an illegal operation and the computer will be shut down.

At this point I somehow manage to not snort laughter rudely into the caller's ear, and politely explain to him in the most basic terms about the concept of an illegal operation message and errors occurring in the actual software programming. He manages to understand that it was, in fact, his email software giving Windows a fit, and not us telling him that his email was illegal and we were shutting down his system. :P

I read your page avidly, comforted to know I'm not alone in the fight. Let this story attest: It Could Happen To You!

I am a tech support manager and purchase manager

for the canadian goverment. this is bar far one of the wierdest tales..

Me:Hello, tech support, how may i help you?

Him: well i have be having trouble faxing and printing!

Me: do you have a modem installed?

Him: No.

Me: you need one to fax....

Him: i use the netwokedmulti function machine. but

it w'ont fax when i hit the button!

Me: you have to select the mfc fax from the printers,

then hit print.

Him: it is not working....

Me:Are you connected to the network?

Him: oops, i forgot that..

Me: bye.. i will callback to make sure it works.

I later found out it was another tech support agent from

another building, he was a novice, i guess!

I work tech support for a large ISP. One day I recieved a call from a very upset woman who opened up with "If you guys don't stop this I'm going to sue!!!". In an attempt to settle her down, I asked her to describe what was happening, and told her that I would do my best to help her fix the problem. She exclaimed that every time she signed on, a little voice came over the computer telling her that she had mail, and every time she went outside to check her mailbox there was nothing in it. She was tired of the pranks and wanted it to end right then. I instructed her to click on the picture of the mailbox on her screen. After a long pause she said, "Oh....thanks."

I work on a helpdesk that services major corporations. One day we had a user call in to report that he was installing Win 95 from floppy disk. He reported that he installed the first disk and loaded it fine, was prompted for the 2nd disk and managed to get that in.

However he is now prompted for the next disk and he declared

"The first disk was easy, the second one was a little tricky, but there is no way that I am going to be able to get that third disk into the floppy drive."

It turns out that the user had never removed the first 2 disks from the drive. We quickly sent a tech out to install a brand new floppy drive and Win 95.

I work for a major ISP with a name somethink like "HURLnet" and one night the last call I receive went like this:

(picture a guy with a heavy southern accent)

CSR: Yeah I just got your software in the mail. I can

connect now right...

Me: Well we have to install the software first...

CSR: So all I do is put the CD in a press start then I get

connected right?!?!

Me: Well there's a few more steps than that..

CSR: (pause) Like what?

Me: First we have to detect if you have a modem.

CSR: (Pause) What's a modem?

Me: (Pause and Grin)

CSR: (crying out) Wait, I got one, I'm talking to you ain't

I?!?!?!

Me: Ummmmm!.. No, sir....A modem is within the computer.

Are you next to your computer?!?

CSR: No,it's in the other room.

(Big Suprise!)

Me: Okay.. Go into the other room and look at the back

of the computer for where it looks like 2 phone jacks

should plug it.

CSR: okay...

(I casually place the phone on mute and tell the story to

the surrounding agents.)

CSR: Hello?!... Hello?!..

Me: Yes?

CSR: I'm gonna have to call you back, *Click*!!!

Me: hahahahahahahaha

I work for a major computer company and got this call one day several months ago. Preamble: I was working in portables support were we supported Windows 95 and the hardware. We would usually refer customers to Microsoft when it came to problems with their Office package. However, some customers were smart enough to call MS themselves knowing we couldn't help them much. This is about MS and not the user. Call went something like this:

Me: Thanks for calling tech support. How can I help you?

User: Well, I just got done talking to Microsoft for an hour trying to get my MS Word working and they told me to call you.

Me: Okay... What was the problem with Word?

User: Well, I was having problems... (can't even remember, but it was definately something we would have refered to MS anyway.)

Me: Okay. Sounds like a Word problem alright and not an OS problem. What prompted them to refer you here?

User: Well, I told the lady what my problem was and she said, "Oh, that's easy." and took me into editing the registry.

Me: [Thinking "Oh boy, here we go..."]

User: Well, she was walking me through doing some things in the Software key and something happened and she told me to call you guys.

Me: Okay. What is the problem you're having now?

User: I can't see anything on my desktop and keep getting registry key errors of some sort when I boot up.

Me: All right. Well, lets open up the registry editor and see what we can find. [explained disclaimer about registry editing and such] Do you remember what you did?

User: Not really, she lost me after the first couple of things we did.

Me: [working on the idea that the problems were Software key related, decided to check there first.] Go ahead and click on HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE and then Software.

User: It's not there.

Me: Which one isn't there?

User: The Software thing.

Me: [oh boy...] The Software key isn't there? You should see... [the usual] ...and Software isn't there?

User: Nope.

Me: Well, sir, it looks like she had you delete the Software key which is causing all your problems and we'll have to get the OS re-installed from scratch to fix it.

[Here's the kicker...]

User: Hmmm... I guess I should have known when she said, "Uh oh."

Me: She said, "Uh oh?"

User: Yeah. She said it would be easy. Just hit the Delete key and the problem would be fixed. So, I did. And when she wanted to look further it was gone. She said, "uh oh" and put me on hold for almost 10 minutes. When she came back she told me I should call you guys since the problem is something you can fix.

[I couldn't help but laugh and forgot the mute button]

User: I guess "Uh oh" isn't a good thing to hear from one of you guys, huh?

Me: Well, not while editing the registry, it isn't. Got some blank disks handy?

I then walked him through re-installation of Win95. Moral of the story: Beware the tech support technician who says "Uh oh". :)

While working in our high schools computer lab, I happened to observe one of the school's Tech Facilitators at work. The problem she faced was a floppy drive that wouldn't read. She took the drive out and proceeded to blow the dust out with compressed air. But when she used the air, she turned the can upside down which most of you know is a big NO NO! A near-by student asked her how that magical canned air worked. She replied with "I don't know. I think it acts like a vacuum and sucks all of the dust in."

One time I called a major Communications Equipment company, L*nkS*s and asked for Tech support for our Modem router. The problem was the modem would not dial. It would pick up and then hang up immediatley. I told the tech this and I told him that I should note that we are running it inside a phone system. He replied with "What's a phone system?" So much for communications experts ...

Once I was reading the newspaper, and found

a job oportunity advertisment:

Need secretary. Requirements: Word, Excel

and 5 years of experiance working with Windows 95

Not funny ? IT WAS 1996 !!!

A Customer called in to our Software support. She complained the system was giving a non-system disk error on her hard drive. After asking a few qualifying questions, I was shocked to find out that she had deleted the hidden files on her drive. She didnt think she needed them, so they were gone, of course they were IO.sys, msdos.sys, etc. Necessary files for the system to run. I sent her back to the store for a reimage of the hard drive.

I run a small PC repair business and had a friend bring me

a PC that didn't work. I thought that he had a reasonable

grasp of electronics till I looked at this PC

He had replaced the Mother Board in the machine and now when

you switched it on nothing happend. I opened up the case to

have look and noticed that the MB had been screwed directly

to the bottom of the metal case, no spacers or standoffs at

all, not to mention that the plug in cards didn't even make

it to the ISA plugs.

I pulled it apart and put it back together with the standoffs

and found that it actually worked. Needless to say my friend

still gets told about that one.

The company I work for sells computer based security systems.

One day while covering the switchboard for the call handler

where our tech calls come from I took this call;

---- ---- Tech support, this is Al can I help you?

Dealer: I need help with our system.

Me: Okay, what's the problem you're experiencing?

Dealer: The second floor of the building at the site collapsed

onto the first floor and crushed it.

Me: The physical floor of the building collapsed?

Dealer: That's right. And we need some help.

Me: Well, I'm afraid that that's beyond the capabilities

of Tech support....

The call pretty much went downhill from there....

I recently went to a big name computer manufacturer (who

shall remain anonymous)to purchase a null modem cable.

After I got it I tried to get it to work. It didn't. I went

to take it back for a replacement. That didn't work either.

This really ticked me off so I confronted them about it.

Turns out they make their own null modem cable out of

standard serial cables by simply reversing pin 3 (send) and

pin 5 (recive). Only thing is, they switched the pins on

both ends :)

One of my coworkers on the Helpdesk picked up a call one day, it goes something like this.

HD:Helpdesk, how can I help you?

Cust:I'm having problems logging in with my password.

HD:Okay, hang on I'll reset your password for you. Okay, it's reset go ahead and login.

Cust:Okay.

HD:What's that beeping noise?

Cust:What noise?

HD:I hear a beeping noise.

Cust:Oh, that's me. I'm typing in my password.

HD:Okay, I have to put you on hold a second.

He put the guy on hold to laugh histerically. The customer was typing in his password onto the phone.

I have worked in a number of Tech support/Training roles as

a contractor, but the worst I ever did was this one helpdesk

in a large "unnamed" company who offered support of all kinds

to the people who used their hardware/software. There was

a young man working the desk right next to me and had a

customer on speaker...

Welcome to [unnamed] this is [Tech].

Customer: I can't get Word to run.

Tech: Okay, what stage are you at right now?

Customer: What do you mean?

Tech: What can you see on the computer?

Cust: Nothing. It won't do anything what's wrong with it?

- at this point the tech went through the usual routine of

asking all the standard questions to establish how much the

customer new and how far he could get, to the point of...-

Tech: I know this sounds like a silly questions, but it

happens a lot - can you just check the back of the machine

for me and see if any of the cables have come loose?

Customer: No.

Tech: Uhh, why not?

Customer: Because it's too dark down there to see

Tech [taking a deeeeeeep breath]: do you have a light you

can use to see down there?

Customer: No there's been a power failure here and none of

the lights work

Tech: Do you still have the packaging the computer came in?

Customer: (brightening up - here was something she understood):

Yes! What do you need?

Tech: Pull the computer apart, put it back in the boxes and

take it back to the supplier you got it from

Customer: Why - is it faulty?

Tech: No you're just too #$@%^#@$ stupid to own a computer

-click-

Needless to say he was fired but damn it was funny at the time...

I work on an ISP helpdesk in Scotland - I was reminded of many many calls by the 'Quick Call' story.

- Typical Call -

Customer: I can't connect

Tech Support: Are you next to your computer at the moment?

C: No, the phone won't reach that far.

TS: So the computer has it's own phone line?

C: Yeah

Then, you get scenario 1],2] or occasionally 3]

1]

C: Oh, wait, I could plug the phone into the computer's phone socket - hold on... (large click as customer unplugs phone and disconnects themselves)

2]

TS: [sigh] OK, what I'd like you to do is follow these instructions, open my computer, open DUN, see what connections you have--

C: OK, hold on a minute... (sound of scurrying as customer runs length of house to computer, opens windows and runs back)

C: [out of breath] OK, what am I looking for?

Usually by this point we get miffed and ask them to move the phone then call back, as they forget what they're supposed to be doing by the time they put the receiver down. Believe me, it's easier that way!

3]

C: It's ok, I'll hand you over to my son/daughter/husband/neighbour/au pair [honestly!]

Customer's Friend: Hello?

TS: Hi, what I'd like to do is open my computer and open DUN.

CF: Eh... click on that one - no, the 'computer' one... What was it he's to open again?

Sometimes we get people yelling to each other from opposite ends of the house, I feel sorry for the Customer's Friend (or Relation), usually they are terrified of computers and have no idea what they are on about!

As a network engineer, I frequently have the need to run tests in a lab environment, the expenses of which are never condoned by any employer to date. So I purchased a series of 5 refurbished computers for my own home lab, all at a great price I'll note. Well, the saying is true, you get what you pay for. Having a total of 7 days to accept the computers, I ran every conceivable test on each, using my fav utils from CheckIt Pro. Three of the computers had some minor problems -- broken speakers, bad blocks on hard drives, and a multitude of disconnected cables. (So much for their refurb techs, sheesh.) The most interesting was one pc that arrived with what appeared to be a broken A: drive. As hubby was moving the pc back into its box for return, since the company would not simply replace the part, we could hear a distinct chinking in the pc, and wondered what it was. As the pc was tilted to put it back in the box, a quarter fell out of the A: drive! Curious, we put the pc back on the floor and began to investigate, wondering if that was all the problem was. Much to our amazement, we not only found two more quarters in the drive, but a quarter-sized piece of a SWEATSOCK!! After conducting a rather labored diskectomy of the various foreign bodies, the drive worked just fine. But it was amazing to see the lengths Microsoft would go to get us to use their "New Winsock" -- they even paid us for it ...

I got a call from a woman one day who had just received her first computer that day (uh oh!)

She was complaining that the computer kept "hanging" and it wouldn't shut down. This was very disconcerting for this poor woman as she had just spent a great deal of money for a machine that "didn't work properly."

I asked her to take me through the shut down process - click on start, shut down, shut down computer.

Cust: And it's doing what it always does! It just sits there. The screen is dim but it's not doing anything. (she as panic in her voice by this time)

Me: Press ctl+alt+del and let's see if there is anything that is not responding.

Customer complies and reads to me what is in the window. Nothing seems to be causing any problems, so I walk her through the shut down process again.

Cust: Nope, still just at dim screen.

Me: Ma'am, what is on your screen?\

Cust: Just the "what do you want the computer to do" box.

Me: Ma'am, did you click "OK?"

Cust: Oh, is that what that's for?

I work for a very popular and national ISP, and had only been "on the floor" for about 1 month when I received this call:

Me: "Thanks for Calling....., How can I help you today?"

(a very harried but pleasant sounding voice responds)

User: Yes, I keep getting this stupid error message that says no dial tone, and if I find out my freaking cleaning lady broke something again, it's coming out of her pay this time!!"

Me: Okay, Ma'am... let's start with the basics. Have you checked all your physical connections?

Her: I think so, but I'm on maternity leave from the Police Department (infants screaming in the background) and I'm so stressed right now, I may have missed something....I just really need to chat with some grown-ups!

Me: (fixating on the Cleaning Lady factor) OK, is it possible for you to verify... blah blah... hooked up right... LINE and not phone... blah blah. (I had this poor stressed out woman crawling around on the floor for 20 minutes making sure her equipment was set up right. Modem responded in the Control Panel, System Resources good, No TSR's)

At one point she was so stressed out she says, "I'm gonna go get my service pistol out and blow this piece of **** to H***!!!)

Finding nothing wrong with any of her settings, and in desperation, I said, Ma'am, do you have an extension phone you can go get and plug in for me?

Her: Sure, but I know it works. (and she toddles off to get a phone amid the squeaking of stepped on kiddie toys.)

When she returns, she puts me on the speaker phone so she can crawl up under the desk and plug the phone in. "Now what?" says she?

Me: Ma'am, please lift the reciever......

Her: @%!@#$!&^!!! It's dead!

(Sound of door opening and a man's voice....)

"Sweetie... what are you doing on the floor???"

Her: Trying to find out why I can't get online, ^@%$@#!!

Him: Sweetheart, I had that line disconnected while you were in the hospital!!

(sounds of cursing, yelling and general mayhem for about 5 minutes)

Her, speaker phone off: Dear, thank you so much for you patience, I have to go now.

Needless to say, I hung up before the gunfire started

I work for a large Canadian ISP. One day, someone called me

complaining he was getting an error message saying "No Dialtone".

Being the bright fellow he was, he wanted to make sure the

problem wasn't with the phone cord connecting the modem to the

wall...so he stuck in his mouth. He then had the nerve

to complain to me that it hurt!!

First I am not a tech support rep, but I feel sorry of all you people have to go through with absurd customers.

Before I get into the tale, let me give a small little brief on my family. My family is very well connected when it comes to tech support and repair. My mother has close friends in Microsoft tech support, we also have a family friend named Ryan who has built computers since the late 80’s, and we have an neighbor named Keith (names changed to protect the stubborn) who can solve almost any computer problem, and I myself have used and studied computers since the Commodore 64 was on top (I am now in high school). Therefore, when we have any problems with our IBM type computers, we never have to wait for tech support.

Keith and Ryan can sometimes be very stubborn people when it comes to trying things. They come from the pre-DOS5 era, although Keith has accepted some advanced things like Windows 95 and plug and play, while Ryan hasn't. However, they are sometimes very hard to get along with because they do not want to accept a solution until it is “my” solution. (I.e., if it works, but it should not they will continue to fix it until its works “right”). Sometimes my mother and me have to get on their cases to just LIVE WITH IT. (We know there is some kind of curse on our family, stuff always breaks in ways that should be almost impossible or never works the way it should, so we’ve had to get used to trying the odd ball things just to get things to work). Anyway on with the story.

We were having problems with our main business computer. The video capture card and sound card started acting funny. Keith assumed corrupt drivers (that computer is used for editing, Internet, and CD recording, so we are talking a lot of software here) so we reinstalled the drivers and the problem stayed. Whenever we tried to capture video, the preview would show the correct picture, but the product being saved was static, and the sound was not showing on the meters. Keith and us went around and around trying this and that until he just gave up and went to dinner. I looked at it, and since I witnessed most of this, I saw he had done all the correct stuff, so I checked it over. First I started with the sound, the sound out of the capture card was plugged into the wrong port, (easy to mistake, can’t really tell which is which back there with so many holes) and the volume was all the way down (wonder how he missed that, they were in plain sight). Then since the video preview was working but saving bad, I tried turning off the preview, and surprisingly it worked (the computer this stuff is in is way underpowered for most of what we are trying to do with it), so I told Keith, and he went ballistic.

He said it cannot work that way (although my father and me saw it work) and he will not accept the solution, and said he will look deeper into the problem. Anyway, for the next half-hour, we had an argument over it until he just left for home. My mom got the video she needed, end of story, and we have been happy with it ever since.

There have been a lot more tales that I have been a part of, but have forgotten most of them. Ill be sure to post them if I remember.

I work in Systems & Programming for a junior department

store in Canada. I was implementing Telxon hand held

computers in a test store for inventory tracking, I had

also writen a very simple manual for the users. Anyways

I get this call (I take it personaly because the helpdesk

is not yet trained on the Telxon units.)

Store Manager: My stock person is on vacation and I am trying

to do this damn spot count, but it doesn't work.

Me: Do you have a copy of the user manual? Read to me from

the manual where you are having trouble.

SM: Scan Item then enter your quantity. Once the quantity

is entered press the RED BUTTON. I've scanned the item

but what is RED?

Me: Are you joking? (Tring to see if he's ^&%$ing me.

He's not.)

SM: Look, (Very pissed off) I'm no fancy ass programmer

like you. I don't understand all this damn Techo-Jargon

in this manual. I am going to call my District Sales

Manager unless you wise up and tell me what RED is.

Me: Well, ok, sorry about the manual, uh, red is sort of

a colour between orange and Maroon. Do you know those

ones?

SM: The colour red? Why doesn't this damn manual say

"Press the button coloured red"? (More angry rambling as

he realises is looks like a complete fool untill he

uses a few profanities and hangs up.)

(Just a note, I sent a program and crashed his store the next day.)

i work with internet support in Norway.

The old lady had problems to find dial up networking on the computer..

old lady: "i cant connect to internet."

me: "lets start from the beginning ok?"

old lady: "ok, should i turn of the computer?"

me: "no just look on your desktop for an ikon called my computer."

i heard she laid down the phone and she made a hell of noise for a while. Then after 1 minute she said: "i did not fint it anywhere, not on the top of my desk or in the draws. Maybe its in the origenal box the computer camed in?"

me: on mute.."LOL" and then i explained it to her ....

A couple of years back I was working as a coder for a just-off-the-block high-tech company. Maybe 100 employees total, six people in IS, no single person was designated as Hardware support, we all did everything.

One day one of the geniuses in Customer Service comes to me with a data corruption issue I was _positive_ was between the chair and the keyboard, but had possible hardware causes. Told her I would look into it after she left that night.

I check out her WS, and supisingly enough, her hard drive has a whole lot of bad sectors...all on the beginning of the disk. Took the WS, benched it, ran a low-level format, re-installed NT and all of the apps she needed to work. Took me until 2 a.m.

Next morning, I show up only to see her standing out front waiting for me. Same problem.

That night I pulled her WS and replaced it with a brand new, just out of the box PC, installed all her apps (again), and just for grins, replaced her keyboard, mouse monitor and network cable. Another 2 a.m. night.

Sure enough, there she is when I get to work next day...looking very irritated and treating me like an incompetent. Same problem.

Scratched my chin like I was thinking about it really hard, and said, "Well...let's see now...so far we have replaced everything but...you."

She never bothered me agin.

Should have hung up when the first question is “Do I put the phone # where is says name?”

No, put the name where it says name, and phone # where it says phone #.

But I’m trying to fax this, shouldn’t I put their fax # there?

Yes, if the fax # is different from the phone #, put the fax # there.

What if they’re the same, which one do I put?

OK, lets do the self test. That works OK.

Lets print from DOS, that works OK.

Lets go to win98, Wordpad works, Paint even prints in color.

Sir, I really don’t find anything wrong with this printer.

Oh, this isn’t the printer with the problem, should we be working on that one?

I work tech support for a software company, whose software includes both a DOS and a Windows version.

Got a call from a guy who has trouble upgrading our software. He gets the message that a file that needs to be updated is read-only. He tries to look for it and can't find it.

Okay, his folder options is screwed up. Fine. I told him to go to Windows Explorer. He opens up Internet Explorer. I said let's try again. He finally gets it. I told him to go to the directory...He can't see it. Told him to go to TOOLS-FIND-FILES or FOLDERS. Found it there. Told him how to change the attribute.

But wait! Here's more. He goes in to the DOS version of our software. He gets a printer not ready message. He insists on reinstalling the software while I'm still on the line. I said, OK, though I know it won't help. Of course, he still gets the same error.

Had him go to a DOS prompt and do a COPY AUTOEXEC.BAT)LPT1:. Getting an error (don't remember the exact message at this time). Told him, okay, let's try COPY AUTOEXEC.BAT)LPT2:. Same error. I told him, it's got to be a problem with his printer driver. He disagrees, saying that it must be the program. I argue that what we just did is PURE DOS, not from our program.

Finally he agreed (though he's not convinced) to contact his printer manufacturer.

And this guy is trying to upgrade everybody in his company.

I had a user call in because she wanted to create mailing labels... in Outlook.

I work for a major US ISP and I swear this one really happened. We're still laughing...

Me: Thanks for calling blah, blah...can I have your username?

Customer: I don't know what it is.

Me: Have you set up an account with us?

Customer: I think so...but all I have is a simple question..

Me: *dreading what comes next* And that is?

Customer: I have no_brain@yourisp.com and no_brain2@hotmail.com.... which one of those is my Hotmail account??

Me: *mute..laugh* Uhhh.... the one that says hotmail.com

Customer: Are you sure?? I can't seem to log on!

****I'm amazed she was even able to get connected and find Hotmail...

I was working in the mayors office of new york city in the mis office when i got this call....

essentially the woman was complaining that her mouse wasnt working - i tried to walk her through the standard repair stuff, nothing worked so i went to her office (cubical). while i went to her cubicle she stepped out to talk to some other mayor office employees. I stepped out of her cubicle and told her, "i dont see anything wrong with your mouse". so she came in to test it for herself; she was picking up the mouse in her hand and pointing it at locations on the monitor.

A friend of mine and myself are getting tagged between a user all day long with multiple problems, but the last two are classic we think.

She calls our support desk stating that she has a message that she has a virus. We ask her what the message on her screen says, and after hearing her we explain to her that it states that when opening a Office 97 file with macros to make sure they are from a trusted source before opening. We also explained to her that we are kind of busy taking care of Y2K issues. End round one.

The next day she calls and says that we were wrong about the message we explained to her, and the document that she had worked on the previous day she had printed out and manually faxed to someone, and now they have a virus in their fax machine. She stated at the end of the conversation that she knew we were busy with 401K problems and she just wanted to let us know about the virus problem we helped create.

We seriously thought about transferring her to HR for any "401K" compliance issues :)

Okay, so this guy comes in with a new hard drive. He knew something about computers, so he had hooked it up to another computer and done a diskcopy, expecting the new HD to work just fine. We explained to him that you had to fdisk and format first, and even then you have to have CUSTOM files for your drive, another drive's won't work most of the time (especially since this guy's network was running off DOS 6.22... what a joke). Long story short, we fdisk, format, install DOS - and the next day the guy calls back and said it wasn't working again. We asked him if he had done anything, and he said, "I just copied all of my old files onto this drive." After asking HOW exactly he did this, he replied (of course) "I used diskcopy!" We don't deal with him anymore.

This one may be a little long but hey, it's worth it. It's a story for an ISP I work part-time for.

Jason: Technical Support, Jason speaking. How may I help

you?

Client: I'm not happy.

Jason: Pardon me Mrs?

Client: I'm not happy.

Jason: (hesitation) Umm... may I inquire in what sense

your with your "un-happy" with?

Client: I'm not happy with the (company name) service.

Jason: Oh, ok then. What seems to be the problem?

Client: I can't seem to use the internet.

Jason: Can you give more details on what exactly happens?

Are you able to connect with us?

Client: Your going too fast for me, I don't understand all

this technical stuff.

Jason: (oh god, another newbie user) Ok then. I'll go nice

and slow.. I'm going to help you to get on the

internet. (go on and on, check user record with the

ISP all is clear)

Jason: Ok, Mrs. Is your computer on?

Client: No

Jason: Can you turn on your computer please?

Client: (annoyed)I'm not in front of a computer.

Jason: Can you place yourself in front of your computer

without hanging up this call?

Client: I can't, I don't have access to a computer.

Jason: (wondering) What do you mean you don't have access

to a computer?

Client: I don't have a computer.

Jason: (scratches head) According to the information in

your account it's under your name. Was this a gift

for a child, parent, relative or friend?

Client: (getting frustrated) NO, THIS ACCOUNT IS MINE and

I'M THE ONLY ONE WHO USES IT. I'M REALLY NOT HAPPY

WITH YOUR SERVICE.

Jason: Mrs, I'd really like to give you a hand to get on

the internet but I need you to be in front of the

computer for me to help you 100% getting on the

NET.

Client: What does a computer have anything to do with the

internet??

Jason: You need a computer to get on the NET Mrs.

Client: But I don't have access to a computer....

Jason: (smiling) How did you expect to get on the NET

without a computer?

Client: I used my phone and called the number you gave me.

But I kept getting these weird annoying NOISES.

Jason: (looks into her record and see's she's been with us

for pratically 5 months and laugh with the mute

button on)

Jason: Let me explain something about that....(and so on)

Nothing interesting after this, but hey. You got the point.

Not too long ago I got a call from one of our customers asking for help. He had called several times before with problems I was able to help him resolve. Following is the conversation I had with him.

Customer:Hello this is xxxx. I have a stupid question. I was wondering if you can help me. (I couldn't wait for his stupid question.)

Me:OK. Go ahead.

Customer:I am installing pcAnywhere on somebody's computer and we're having problems connecting.

Me:Is the modem configured properly?

Customer:Yes. Actually can you tell me the phone number of the line the modem is connected to?

Me:You mean you don't have the number yourself?

Customer:No I don't know what it is.

Me:Does anybody else in your office know the number.(I heard somebody in the background say no)

Customer:No we don't know it.

(Can you imagine! How the heck would I know the telephone number to a telephone line in somebody's office. Especially when the person paying the telephone bill doesn't know it. Even though he called the wrong person to answer his question, I helped him out anyway.)

Me:Find a regular phone and hook it to the telephone jack the modem is plugged into and make sure you get a dial tone.(I wanted to make sure he was using an analog line and not one to his digital phone system.)When you get a dial tone call the operator and they will be able to help you.

The customer didn't sound convinced but he did it anyway. The operator helped him out. The customer was right, it was a stupid question. Actually so was the person asking it.

As a brief background, my principal occupation is writing books on computer programming and, occasionally, on certification exams. Writing aside, I also do some consulting work and, locally, maintain a few computer systems in a small resort town in the California redwoods and wine country. The latter is more as a courtesy to a few businesses (and friends) in the area than as a source of income but, on the other hand, I don't repair cars and my mechanics don't try to fix their systems. I mention this simply to point out that I am neither a 'shade-tree technician' nor unaccomplished in the computer industry. (And, if you haven't read my books, by all means, rush right out and buy all of them.)

In any case, when I dropped by my local bookstore today (another client/friend), Sherry greeted my entrance with a certain elation and amusement, suggesting that "she had to tell me about yesterday!" ... and the customers she could almost have done without.

Now, as in any other business, difficult customers simply come with the territory and the details of the initial problem are unimportant. Suffice to say that Sherry was on the point of completing a credit card sale (in three figures) when the power - abruptly and without warning - vanished just as the computer screen was displaying the credit card transaction authorization but before a sales slip could be printed out.

Of course, since I had designed and installed their computer system - as well as training the employees - there was a UPS in place and functional. And, using the remaining power, Sherry promptly saved a record of the transaction and prepared to shutdown safely to wait for power to be restored. (By coincidence, at the same time, I was at the local supermarket using a pocket butane lighter to look for the raisin, cinnamon-swirl OroWheat my wife had requested ... their power situation was less forgiving.)

The real problem - at the bookstore - came when another customer, hearing the beep from the UPS, stepped behind the counter with the explanation that he was a computer teacher from the college and that it was important to shut down the system before the standby power was exhausted.

Of course, Sherry was well aware of this and was also aware that she had enough time to perform a data backup (by clicking on the desktop icon I had installed for just such a purpose) and to then exit and close down.

But the 'helpful' teacher wasn't ready for explanations and, instead, grabbed the mouse ...

Except that 'mouse' I had installed - because of their needs, ergonomics and counterspace - was not a conventional mouse. Instead, the mouse is a Trackman Portable, a small thumb-operated mouse with no mouse pad or counter space required.

The teacher and self-proclaimed expert, however, immediately turned the mouse on it's side - placing the ball down on the counter and only incidentally 'hiding' two of the three buttons and then discovering that the hard plastic ball - on the smooth formica surface - tended to slide rather than roll ... and, consequently, the screen point could not be tracked and, in fact, hardly moved at all.

Finally, after Sherry was able to retrieve the mouse and regain control - before the UPS had run down - the teacher (whose name is withheld for obvious reasons) was still declaring that "you need a proper mouse and a mouse pad and I'll be back to tell (the owner of the store)..."

In any case, Sherry was able to save all data and backups and to complete shutdown without any further problems but, as she was recounting the incident - "...and I don't want anyone but you," she insisted to me, "touching this machine..." - I stepped over to their collection of hand and finger puppets (a lovely variety of animal and insect shapes) and appropriated a white mouse, suggesting: "Next time," I slipped the puppet on my thumb, "tell him that this is the right way to use a mouse ..."

The moral, of course, is that the 'self-proclaimed' experts - even those who teach for a living - can show a disconcerting lack of common sense and observation ... especially when they try to teach something to someone who already knows perfectly well what they're doing.

Our company used to use a mainframe e-mail system on which you could send notes or files to someone's "reader", where they sat until you decided to receive them. You could "peek" at them before receiving them, and then decide if you wanted them or not. This guy didn't like what he saw...

M: Hi, how can I help you?

C: I've got a file in my reader called TEXT NOTE. When I open it, it says "This is a test, please discard". What do you think I should do?

M: Well, it sounds like someone sent you a test file just to see if you'd receive it. They probably just got a new id and are testing it. You can probably discard it.

C: You don't think that's suspicious? ...like maybe a virus or something?

M: Weeeelll..., I think if it were a virus, they would probably ask you to receive it rather than discard. Don't you think so?

C: (still very suspicious) I guess so...you're sure I shouldn't do something with it?

M: No...I think you're ok if you just delete it.

I'm sure he's living in the woods now, stocking up for Y2K...

This is not a personal experience but that of a friend that does tech support for a large company. He once had a user that needed a file DESPERATLY. This file was not made by him and he did not the name of the file. He did not know what program it was made in. He did not know the file type or even the type of file (ie: text, cad drawing, picture etc.). We thought we could find it on his computer but as it turns out it was not made one his computer but one of the other several hundred computers at our location (and of course he had no idea which). In fact the only thing he did know about the file was that it had been made sometime beetween August and December of the previous year (that really narrow it down eh?). Of course we never did find the file despite his several hours of b*itching.

And then there is the true story of our primary Tech Support

guru who was called by a user because her keyboard didn't

work anymore.

On arrival, he upturned the keyboard and about a cup worth

of coffee spilled out.

I went to see a clients house to upgread there PC. Job well done I thought.

The next day, A get a phone call from this person, claiming that there is a 'Faint Buzzing' noise comming from the PC.

It goes somthing like this...

CL ) Sorry to bother you, but you remember when you came down yesterday to upgrade my PC.. well, there is a faint buzzing noise comming from it and I don't know what to do.

ME ) Where exactly is the noise comming from?

CL ) The PC, it only happens now and then!

'Buzzzzzzz'

CL ) SEE!!!

ME ) Right? could shut down and turn off your PC for me and check the.....

CL ) It is turned off!

ME ) Ok?... Could you check that the power leads are not loose at the back of the PC.

CL ) There in fine!

'Buzzzzz'

CL ) There it is again! You don't think someone is dialing into my PC?

ME ) ??? No.. When there is no power to the PC, the Phone would sound dead at the other end.

CL ) They couldn't have installed a phone line that is still in use could they?

ME ) No... They wouldn't do that, besides the PC os OFF and...

'Buzzzzz'

CL ) ITS COMING FROM THE SPEAKERS!!!

ME ) RIGHT! ( Thinking that I was getting somewhere! ), could you turn off your speakers for me please.

CL ) They are off... are you sure its not the phone line?

ME ) No... it is not the phone line. Have you got a printer?

CL ) Yes... But that is off too.

'Buz, Buzzzz'

ME ) ... Unplug your PC from the wall.

CL ) What from the phone line?

ME ) no... not the phone line.. the power cable attaching the PC to power supply in your wall....

CL ) Do you think I should Disconnect everything?

ME ) Yes.. That would be a good idea.

CL ) right. Everything is disconnected from the wall.

..

..

..

'Buzzzzz'

ME ) ( now in a funny mood! ) Er.. Do you have something like a pocket calculator in your draw? ( snigger )

CL ) hang on I'll check

Very long silent pause...

ME ) Hello?

..

..

ME ) HELLO!?!

CL ) Hello, er.. theres my husbands pager...

( Click )

ME ) Hello? HELLO!

( the things I have to put up with! )

Just when I though users couldn't get any worse,

they always do something to make me change my mind.

I do second level dispatch tech support for a state agency,

the other day I was dispatched out to help somebody who

couldn't print.

I arrive and they begin their story.

them: We are having trouble printing, every time we bypass

the network login, we can't print to the shared printer,

but if we login to the network, we can print just fine.

Me: (Well Duhhhh) enough said.

Not all of the calls we get are from users.

The state agency I work for contracts out the hardware

support to an outside vendor. Not too long ago, I sent a

request to have a bad motherboard replaced. They came and

replaced the motherboard, but were unable to get the mouse

to work. They called me back to reload the mouse drivers.

I get there and for some strange reason I decided to look

behind the pc before doing anything and sure enough the

mouse was not plugged in. Plugged it in, rebooted, all happy

A friend (Cisco Instructor) sent these to me. Too true.

1.) When a tech says he's coming right over, go for coffee. It's nothing

for us to remember 1350 screen saver passwords.

2.) When you call us to have your computer moved, be sure to leave it

buried under half a ton of postcards, baby pictures, stuffed animals, dried

flowers, bowling trophies and Popsicle art. We don't have a life, and we

find it deeply moving to catch a fleeting glimpse of yours.

3.) When tech support sends you an e-mail with high importance, delete it

at once. We're just testing out the public groups.

4.) When a tech is eating lunch at his desk, walk right in and spill your

guts out. We exist only to serve.

5.) When a tech is having a smoke outside, ask him a computer question.

The only reason why we smoke at all is to seek out those clients who don't

have e-mail or a telephone line.

6.) Send urgent e-mail ALL IN UPPERCASE. The mail server picks it up and

flags it as a rush delivery.

7.) When you call a tech's direct line, press 5 to skip the bilingual

greeting that says he's out of town for a week, record your message, and

wait exactly 24 hours before you send an e-mail straight to the director

because no one ever returned your call. You're entitled to common courtesy.

8.) When the photocopier doesn't work, call computer support. There are

electronics in that thing.

9.) When you're getting a NO DIAL TONE message while trying to access the

internet at home, call computer support. We can fix your line from here.

10.) When something's wrong with your home PC, dump it on a tech's chair

with no name, no phone number and no description of the problem. We love a

puzzle.

11.) When you have a tech on the phone walking you through changing a

setting, read the paper. We don't actually mean for you to DO anything; we

just love to hear ourselves talk.

12.) When we offer training on the upcoming upgrade, don't bother to show

up. We'll always be there to hold your hand after it is done.

13.) When the printer or plotter won't print, re-send the job at least 20

times before calling tech support. Print jobs frequently get sucked into

black holes and you have to force them out.

14.) When the printer still won't print after 20 tries, send the job to all

68 printers in the office. One of them is bound to work.

15.) Don't use on-line help. On-line help is for wimps.

16.) If you're taking night classes in computer science, feel free to go

around and load and/or remove any software that you desire for you and all

your co-workers. We're grateful for the overtime money.

17.) When you have a tech fixing your computer at a quarter past two, eat

your lunch in his face. We function better when slightly dizzy from

under-nourishment.

18.) Don't ever thank us. We're getting paid for this.

19.) When a tech asks you whether you've installed any new software on this

computer, lie. It's nobody's business what you've got on your company

computer.

20.) If the mouse cable keeps knocking down the framed picture of your dog,

lift the computer or monitor and stuff the cable under it. Mouse cables were

designed to have 45 lbs. of computer equipment sitting on top of them.

21.) If the space bar on your keyboard doesn't work, blame it on the e-mail

upgrade. Keyboards are actually very happy with half a pound of muffin

crumbs, nail clippings and hair in them.

22.) When you get the message saying "Are you sure?", click on that "Yes"

button as fast as you can. Hell, if you weren't sure, you wouldn't be doing

it............... would you?

23.) Feel perfectly free to say things like "I don't know nothing about

that computer s***". We don't mind at all hearing our area of professional

expertise referred to as s***.

24.) When you need to change the toner cartridge, call tech support.

Changing a toner cartridge is an extremely complex task, and Hewlett-Packard

recommends that it be performed only by a professional engineer with a

Master's degree in nuclear physics.

25.) When something's the matter with your computer, ask your secretary to

call the help desk. We enjoy the challenge of having to deal with a third

party who doesn't know jack s*** about the problem.

26.) When you receive a 30-meg movie file, send it to everyone as a mail

attachment. We've got lots of disk space on that mail server.

27.) Don't even think of breaking large print jobs down into smaller

chunks. Somebody else might get a chance to squeeze into the queue.

28.) When you bump into a tech in the grocery store on a Saturday, ask a

computer question. We don't do weekends.

29.) If your son is a student in computer science, have him come in on the

weekends and do his projects on your office computer. We'll be there for you

when his illegal copy of Visual Basic 6.0 makes your Access database flip

out.

30.) When you bring your own personal home PC for repair at the office,

leave the documentation at home. We'll find the jumper settings on the

Internet.

31.) When a tech asks you if you have checked to see if all your cables are

securely attached, immediately answer yes without checking. Why would they

ever be loose? Besides, plugging things in is technical.

32.) When you are having problems with your computer, please wait for the

following to occur before contacting tech support. The project that you are

working on is late, You and/or your supervisor are very angry and

frustrated, You've called the tech support supervisor to complain that the

problem was not picked up through ESP or telepathy by one of the support

staff and repaired.

Back in the bad old days, when I was still an IBM employee

working on a HELP DESK supporting customized applications,

which in this case was an integrated piece of software for

EXXON dealers (the app. was called EXXACT and written by a

software company out in California called TSW - The Software

Works), I got plenty of calls each day from people who

certainly knew their way around and in and out of cars, but

lacked even the most basic of computer skills.

So, one day I get the following call:

ME: EXXACT Help Desk, how may I be of service?

HE: (strong southern accent) Yeah, we got a problem with this

here printer.

ME: Can you describe the problem for me please.

HE: Well, it seems the printouts keep getting lighter and

lighter and lighter.

ME: When was the last time you change the printer ribbon?

HE: Printer ribbon? (laughter in the background from the

EXXON dealership)

ME: Yes, the Okidata (which was the printer that EXXON was

bundling with the EXXACT s/w) ribbon only last so long and

then you have to replace it with a new ribbon.

HE: Oh. We got one of those printer ribbons here (at which

point one of his co-workers hands him a new printer ribbon)?

Oh, just got one handed to me...how do I install it??? Oh,

never mind I just plug it in here. Thanks.

Now let me say that at this time (1990) my mother didn't know

squat about computers (and still not much to this day), but

I ran this 'question' by her, and sure enough, she figured

out that it needed a new printer ribbon...guess it comes from

all those years she spent typing on a typewriter.

I installed a modem on a couples computer, as they wanted to access the Internet. After completing the job and verifying that everything was in proper working order, I shut down Windows 95 and then turned of the computer.

About an hour later, I got a phone call telling me that the computer wasn't working. All kinds of thoughts ran through my brain, none of them good. What had I done to this new computer? I return to the computer owners house, sit down at the desk, press the power button, and the computer boots up. "Ooohhh" says the owner. "I've always wondered what that button was for" He was using his surge protector for turning on and off the computer.

I got a call today and I couldn't help but put the person on hold while I laughed hysterically..

Caller: I cant seem to get connected to the internet, What's wrong?

Me: Well let me check your account and see if everything is ok, (checked out account everything is ok) Maam everything seems to be ok with your account let's go ahead and start troubleshooting.

Me: Is your computer on?

Caller: Yes.

Me: ok let's go to your Desktop and get started.

Caller: Well I dont work on my desktop! I work on my computer, my desk is a mess why would I want to work on it?

Me: Hold on maam...... putting caller on hold. laughing my self silly.

ME: How can I help?

CUSTOMER: I can't connect my Compaq to the internet anymore.

ME: What exactly happens when you try?

CUSTOMER: When I tell it to connect, it says there is no dial-up connection available.

ME: OK - are you with the computer?

CUSTOMER: Yes I'm right by it.

ME: Double-click on My Computer.

CUSTOMER: How do I get to your computer?

Ok as impossible as this may seem. I was on a service call about 6 months ago.

A gentleman described to me "my CD-ROM won't open". So I went and checked it out.

I noticed many small children frolicking about his house.

I proceeded over to his computer and pushed the eject button

...no dice. about this time one of the kids started rabidl humping my leg

so I shook him off...this was the nightmare house....

I tried and tried again but the door wouldn't open so in exasperation I

Pryed the little son of a ***** open ......!!!...."excuse me...sir? do your kids

eat peanut butter an jelly alot?" to my question came the ever so white trash response

"Yeauh..."..."sir I think I've found your problem.." he follows that with

"Wel..kin yew fix it?".....

That's it.

I work for a large outsourceing company that does tech suppot for other larger companies. This guy called with a simple modem issue keep in mind through out this.

Me: (Opening)

Caller: Yea my dialing box ain't workin.

Me: Sir do you mean your computer?

Caller: No sir I mean the big white box that dials out, not the Tv screen with the words.

Me: Ok sir that is your computer. What exactly is it doing?

Caller: Not dialin no more.

Me: Ok sir when you say it's not dialing anymore do you mean your getting an error and if so could you read it to me?

Caller: I don't know about no error it's just not dialin, no noise no nothin.

Me: Sir did you make sure it's plugged into the wall?

Caller: You mean this damn thing has to be plugged into a wall to work. Thats stupid.

Me: Sir not the wall itself. The phone jack in the wall.

((Phone goes dead))

((Called caller back))

Me: Sir why were we disconected?

Caller: well you told me to plug it into the wall so I did and you want away.

Me: So you unplugged the phone and plugged in the modem correct sir?

Caller: No I thought you called it a computer not a modem.

Me: Sir the modem is the part that dials but don't worry about names did you plug it in?

Caller: Yes and now it'll dial. So why wasn't it working.

By this time I had someone split into my call and we were both laughing our arses off.

When I first started college, I had a COBOL instructor who had a

peculiar gift with COBOL programs.

Often, when a student's program wouldn't compile and the instructor

couldn't find anything wrong in the code, he'd wiggle his fingers

over the keyboard, say "magic fingers!" After that, 9 times out

of 10 the program would compile!

CALLER: "My computer froze in your program and I haven't

gotten ANY work done all morning."

ME: "Have you tried CTRL+ALT+DEL?"

CALLER: "Of course I have, it won't work."

ME: "Okay, what I need you to do is just turn your computer

off and then--"

CALLER: "My computer is already off! It's been off ALL

morning and it's STILL frozen in YOUR program!"

Oh please shoot me now...

I received a call concerning a user having monitor problems, I proceeded over to his cubicle and the monitor was black.I checked the power cable, the monitor cable to the unit and they were both properly connected. The user had received a new monitor 2 days before and the on/off switch was placed a little different, so he pressed it softly and when nothing came on, he was worried. I just pressed it again and the Win95 screen came up. The user embarrased said" sorry, man, I drank too much during the weekend"

Once in my younger days(last year when I was still 20,

in fact), I worked in a PC store doing tech/build. One day,

this genius who was from the Mid-East, I think, who could barely

even speak English, called up about his machine which had frozen.

Here is the basic dialog:

Me: PC Innovations, tech support, this is Paul, how can I help you??

Genius: Yes, my computer is locked up and I cannot do anything

with it.

Me: Well, sir, your only option is to reboot.

Genius: No, no! I have important document that I have been working

on all morning, and I have not saved it! I need you

to help me save it!

Me: Sir, your computer is locked up, there is no way you can possibly

save your document. The only thing you can do is restart your PC.

[Approx. 5 minutes more of this and then . . .]

Genius: Well, okay. How do I restart my computer. I cannot

move my mouse to the start button. The mouse doesn't

respond.

Me: All you have to do is press the reset button.

Genius: I don't see a reset button.

Me: Well, it should be on the front of your computer.

Genius: I don't see one. Is it under a menu?

Me: No, sir, it is on the FRONT of your COMPUTER, NOT your SCREEN.

Genius: Oh, you mean the keyboard. Let me see . . . No, I still

don't see it.

Me: Sir, on the front of your BOX, there is a button labeled reset.

Press it and your PC will restart.

Genius: OOHHH!!!! Well why didn't you say it is on the box

in the first place.

Needless to say, some of the cynder blocks holding up the side of the

building needed replaced a few minutes later;^) . . .

I've been helping my cousin's mother-in-law with various net stuff lately. Recently she asked me how she could update her email program. She said that she'd downloaded Internet Explorer 5 and that her old email program (Eudora) still hadn't changed. I assumed she meant that IE5 was calling Eudora for its email usage (I haven't had experience with IE5) so I directed her to download.com and told her to download a newer version of Eudora.

After a little while, I got an email back from her. Following is a cut/paste direct from the email.

"I went to www.download.com and Eudora pro down loaded. Took about an hour

Location:ftp://ftp4.qualc...042/ep42demo.exe

Saving C:\ProgramFiles..ram\ep42demo.exe

anyway I don't see any difference is it running...do I have to open

something?????

My e-mail program still looks the same"

Apparently she'd merely been downloading the files (IE5 included) and then running the old version of Eudora again. I told her "Yes, you do need to run the new version of Eudora."

My partner's mother now has a computer for 7 or 8 years now.

She called me and my partner something like 10 times a year

about he same problem. Her document she is working on all day is gone.

By now we know she forgot again that Shift-F3 switches between document 1

and document 2. Yep, still working with WordPerfect 5.1.

If all problems would be this easy, I would be rich.

Fortunately, she's a very nice person, always nice to chat with her

on the phone, and she's grateful for me helping her to find her document.

Techies as we are, we can confuse ourselves every now and than...

Some customers had the same problem, though.

Some years back it was considered wow to have a pc with both a 3.5 and a 5.25 inch diskdrive.

I installed the 3.5 disk drive myself (as b:-drive), taking of the cover panel of the tower PC.

It was not a close fit, leaving some space between the drives.

It happened quite often I lost a 5.25 inch diskette.

Not ready reading drive a:

Well s**t, did I put the diskette into the void again...

Until some 4 years ago, my company supported other companies

in creating CBT (Computer Based Training, courseware as in educational software).

Most of our customers were smart people, and they could handle a computer quite well.

Not all of them, though. There's this one, I can tell several stories about him.

He's smug, he thinks he's a good programmer, better than me, because he has

been using a computer for over 10 years and I was just a beginner (at that time,

a mere 5 or 6 years).

He always has been a good customer, I mean, he bought every product we had,

bought full support with it, always paid his bills in time. He's quite a nice guy,

so for support you go the extra mile. But every now and than, you say, he's dim.

One day he visited us for some support. He was developing a new courseware-product

and needed some assistance with some calculational subroutines. He brought his notebook and a

portable printer. At our office, he installed his stuff and, after some time, complained

his printer again didn't print. I gave it a try and indeed, got the message that the

printer was nog connected properly. He said that happened quite often and the only thing

that helped (not always, but most of the time) was to shut down, disconnect everything,

connect everything again, start up, and voila, it worked.

The poor notebook... one way or another, the plug socket was completely deformed.

The plug from the printer fitted both ways (normal and upsidedown). Yeah, now he remembered,

the first time he connected the printer, it was quite hard to get the plug in the socket...

Another time, he had some problems with some subroutines we wrote for him.

He was adapting them, because some things had to be changed, and some other things had to be added,

and he could do that himself, he thought.

After some time, we asked him to mail the subroutines to us (no Internet yet, but

we were connected to CompuServe, and I'll try to remember some of the strange things he

managed to f**k up with his connection...). So he did.

It was terrible. We knew he wasn't the mastermind programmer he claimed to be, but wat he

had done to our code was a disgrace. He just switched whole blocks of code, putting the defines

definitions at the end, end collecting a couple of if-endif and loop-endloop statements,

leaving the inside useless, etc etc. He was treating the code like it was magic. Like, let's see

what happens when you move this code down a few lines, maybe it does than what I want. No, now it

doesn't work anymore.

He paid us for the 3rd course in structural programming we had to give him. For a while,

he did understand the difference between a variable, a command and a constant. After a while,

his admiration for our programming skills made hime believe in magic again and he forgot what we

teached him.

Other people thought we did a good job at teaching,

so we had to believe it was just him not being fit to be a programmer.

Now he doesn't program anymore. He's a manager of a employment project.

It's just like reading a chapter of Dilbert.

Doing support for companies that create CBT with our toolkits

(by the way, that was up to 4 years ago), every now and than a client

had to send us one or more of the files they were working on.

Quite often I had to ask them to send me the files, not just

the file names. Most customers immediately understood and fixed

their error.

But one time a customer was quite surprised. He thought I just

could work on his computer. I explained him that was not possible

and that if it would be possible for me, it would be for others too,

and that might bring in some security problems. he was stunned about

all the things those computer engineers thought of when they built the

computers, they even thought of good security protocols. I didn't tell

him that wasn't exactly what those engineers had in mind...

In English you have this joke about a semi-colon taking

less diskspace than a colon.

In Dutch we have something similar: a colon in Dutch is

called 'dubbele punt' (double point).

Not all Dutch are skilled writers, so it happened quite often to me

that while doing helpdesk service, a client typed C.. instead of C:

when I told them to go to the C:-drive.

Since over 4 years we create and maintain websites for companies.

We have our own server room, internal network and several types of servers.

But we don't provide access. We have good relations with several access providers,

and we recommend those to our customers who want to have Internet access

as well as a website.

It happened really often (but it's getting less and less now)

that a (potential) customer didn't know the difference between an access

provider and a presence provider. It's all Internet, isn't it. I can

explain the difference in many ways, and most of the time that helps

to educate the masses.

But on a rare occasion, and I really hate those, the potential gets suspicious,

and is not interested in our info. He (it's always a he) thinks that since we

don't provide access, we don't have a good connection or no connection at all

(explaining about 'right on the backbone' doesn't help). Sometimes independance

is a burden.