Funny and Humorous Technical Support Tales and Stories

We were upgrading to our first computer (a 286) that had a color motitor. My son, then about 13, got to fiddling with the screen color settings and set all the options--background, foreground, etc., to Kelly green. A solidly green screen. And then called the tech support to ask how to fix a green screen (which of course nobody could imagine.) We were not familiar with the system at all, so there was no chance of remembering how to reset it blind, so we had to take it back to the service dept and have them fix it. Fortunately, there was no data entered yet to lose.

Before finding a job as a Web Designer with the Federal Government, I worked almost 18 months (of hell!) for a company that provided tech support for ISP's customers across North America. So I understand FULLY what the other techs on your site are going thru on a daily basis with some users. (Great website by the way!)

During my time there, there were several (l)users that almost gave me a heart attack. Like this one for example:

Me: Thank you for calling (ISP Name), my name is Fern, how may I help you?

Luser (angrily): How come there are always problems with you guys? I called yesterday with a problem, now I have another problem today?

Me: What seems to be the problem today sir?

L: Today, when I open Internet Explorer, it comes up with a message on the screen saying that the page couldn't be displayed. Why do you guys always have problems?

Me: Well, do you connect first?

L: All I do is open Internet Explorer and I'm connected.

Me: Do you hear your modem dial out when you open IE?

L: I don't know.

Me: Even if we're on the same line, I want you to open IE to see if it triggers the modem.

Customer opens IE like usual, and I don't hear any modem noise or modem attempting to dial on the line. He had IE3 and Windows 95. He was probably another victim of the autodial bug, where one day it would connect automatically and the next day it wouldn't.

Me: We'd have to help you connect another way. Do you have a shortcut to (ISP Name) on your desktop?

L: No I don't. I didn't need it before!

Me: You'd have to have one starting now. I want to double-click on the 'My Computer' icon.

L: (mumble) I already done this yesterday. I bet you want me to go to the Control Panel.

Me: No, I want you to go to Dial Up Networking. In there you should see the (ISP name) icon. I want you to click on it once...Select the 'File' menu and 'Create Shortcut'... Click 'Yes' when a message appears to put it on your desktop...Now go back to your desktop and you should see the 'Shortcut to (ISP Name)'...So the next time you're going to connect, dbl-click on it...Enter your usual username and password and press 'Connect'. After that you can open IE.

L (angrily): Why do I have to do all these steps to connect. I didn't have to do this before!!! Why do you guys always have problems??

Me (starting to lose patience): Sir, the problem you were experiencing has NOTHING to do with us. You're experiencing the autodial bug, meaning that IE won't connect automatically for you anymore. I showed you another way to connect, so you should be on your way!

L: Yah right (click).

Man, I'm glad I left tech support!

This happened around 1 year ago while working tech support for an ISP.

This lady spoke with a previous tech before she called back and spoke to me.

She had Eudora Lite as her email client, and wanted an email client that supported Mail Return Receipts (meaning when another user reads her email, it will send a confirmation to her saying that the other user received or read it). Anyways, the tech told her that her email client (Eudora) doesn't support Mail Return Receipts, so she had to download Netcape Communicator (I think it was version 4.5x) to have that feature. Then she should call back to help configure her mail.

Simple enough...Yah right.

A few hours later, she calls back and I answer. Here's how the conversation went (already in progress):

Her: ...so the previous tech told me to go with Netscape because Eudora that you guys gave me doesn't support it.. So I got an email address with Netscape, and I don't know what to write for the mail servers.

Me: Email address with Netcape???

Her: Yah! Like I told you before, it seems that your company doesn't support Mail return receipts. You guys installed Eudora on my machine.

(Actually, we didn't install it on her machine, but we suggested our customers who had problems with their previous email clients like Internet Mail, to download Eudora because it's small in size and most of the time efficient).

Me (puzzled): But...you didn't need an email address with Netscape. Because Eudora doesn't have that feature, probably that's why the tech told you to DOWNLOAD Netscape and then call us back to insert OUR mail servers in it.

Her: But, the previous tech said that you guys didn't support mail receipts, that's why I got an email address with Netscape. Now all I need to know is Netscape's mail servers.

Me: You probably misunderstood the tech.. I really don't know what Netscape mail servers are, if they have any. You could probably try mail.netscape.net or something, but it would probably be wise to call Netscape tech support.

After the call, I spoke with the other tech, and we both shaked our heads in disbelief. Of course, the user misunderstood completely what he told her.

Why do users have to complicate things!

More "horror" stories to come.

As i was at work on a foggy monday when as the day couldn't get worst i get a call from a guy ... as i pick up ....

Guy :Ahhhhhhhhhh!!!~!!! Ahhhhh!!!

Me: What !?!?!? whats wrong !~!

Guy: Ahhhh!~! Oh My God !!

Me: May I Help You !~!

Guy: There's a mouse on my desk !~!~!

Me: (i put the phone away and laughed for an hour

..... when i got it back he had hung up

...........till today i pray that wasn't a real mouse, or maybe that wasn't a prank !~!

I work for a university computer helpdesk.

A woman calls in saying she just started using Outlook 2000

but none of her mail was getting delivered. I went through

the standard trouble shooting, right outgoing server name,

typing right address....blah blah blah. All was well.

I asked her to to send an e-mail and tell me step by step

what she was doing. It turns when she saw the mail go into

the outbox she thought that was like trashing it and would

delete it before it finished processing and sending the mail.

I asked her to give it a chance to do its thing and

lo and behold IT WORKED!!!

"Blessed are they for whom computers are wonderous and

magical things...for then we will always have jobs."

I worked for the BIG GUN of the Laser fax companies doing in office support. installs, service, etc etc. I had a ticket to go to a home and install and set up a top of the line laser fax for one of the VPs of a bank. SHE worked from home and needed the fax to send the printed documents back to the office. (Ever heard of the computer based fax programs? Never mind, it is good business to sell a fax machine of this standard)

I found the house, set up the Take Names, Kick Butt, Haul A** fax and tested it, set in all the information, showed the owner how to read the book and left.

I happened to be in the office the next morning when she called in saying that the fax wasn't working. I got on the phone with her, and it goes like this:

Me "Hello Mrs. X, This is Me, what it is wrong with the Whiz Bang fax?"

VP "It is not sending the faxes to the office!"

Me "Ok, we tested it yesterday and you felt comfortable with it then, what is the error message? (This unit would print out an error message after each fax)

VP "Nothing comes out, I put the paper down like you showed me, dial the number on the key pad and push send "

Me "That sounds right. Then what happens? Does it take the paper and scan it in?"

VP, "Yes, and it puts it back in the other tray. "

Me "Miss VP that sounds right, try sending one to me and let's test it. My number is 555-1234, just send me anything and I will call you back in say 10 minutes? "

I get the fax from her with no errors, looks like an original just like it should.

I call her back

Me "Mrs. VP, I got the fax fine, what makes you think the fax isn't working?"

VP. "You couldn't have gotten it!!! The paper is still lying in that tray! "

Whew,, and SHE is handing money for major companies? Jeeze!

That is TRUE! Ben, in Fort Worth

I once worked for what was one of the top of the line Computer manufactures in the US. That is until we were bought out by a Korean Company that shall remain nameless, but the initials are SAMSUNG! J

We in business support were the last of the interior company to go, and the dreaded day was at hand. For the past several weeks, we had no name "what-is-its?" walking around trying to ask us all questions. These were the guy? That were taking our place, our sources!!! The last day we were not talking too many calls, a real down feeling. I decided about 10AM to take my last call, and go get a beer and some lunch.

Me: "XXX support. How can I help you today? "

Caller "I need to change some passwords in my server"

Me "Can I get your user ID or the company name please?" ( I can track them this way and see past problems)

Caller "Yes, this is Blah Blah at A BIG University in Southern California"

Me "Ok, Blah, I have your history in front of me. How can I help you? " (Realize I am talking to the head of the IS department of named University!)

Caller " We had a tech quit last night and I need to get into the server for the xxx department and reset some passwords and my log in password doesn't work"

Me, thinking, thinking, so, some one changed his password for Administrator on the NT server? Umm, Still thinking, still thinking, and this is my last day and a bunch of kids that can't spell NT are taking my job? Umm, ok, back to the call " Blah, you are the IS department head, is that right?" ( I knew it was, I had talked to him before)

Caller "Yea, this is Mr. Blah in the IS department "

Me, " And you make like $60,000 a year? And you are calling me on how to reset your password? Have a GREAT DAY!" CLICK!!!!!!!!!!

I Always wanted to do that!! All the techs standing around me, lost it!!!! I loved it! Wonder who he got when he called back? We were out of there!

True,, Ben in Fort Worth, Private consultant now. No more out of country companies for me!

I am a private consultant in a small Texas town. Got a panic call from my favorite customers. She told me one of the guys machine would NOT boot! Got an error saying No Operating System found! That sounds bad, but I know this guy and he "had" to have deleted some file or the other. Told her I would stop by early in the AM on my way to my current contract with a major company in Dallas and see what I could do.

Showed up at 6:30 AM and sure enough, it couldn't find the operating system. Fdisk showed NO Partitions! There was this one little annoying messing during boot that I couldn't read, but what the hell.

Did a mem check and a chkdsk and it was looking good. Didn't have my anti virus boot disk with me, but knew I had one at the office. Told him I would stop by that afternoon and check it out more.

Got back at 6:30 PM and the machine was up and running with windows 98 only! The boss lady had gotten impatience and called the computer maker and they had talked her thought a Fdisk, debug and reload!! Dammed, it was just Chernobyl! I could have cleaned it, April 26th! But it worked out ok, I charged her 3 hours on Friday to reload all his programs and do a restore from the back up tape..

Oh well, she tries!

I work for one of the major computer manufacturers. I can't believe how computer illiterate most people are. On any given day I get any number of calls where customers just blow my mind.

Anyway, here is my story.

I had a customer who called up to say he can't transfer his data onto his disk. I asked what error message if any did he get. Customer said he didn't get any error message. I asked him to insert the disk and go ahead and try to copy the info. I waited...I waited...He said nothing is happening. I had him click on the file, copy it and paste it on the diskette. Customer was very surprised that that worked. He really thought that it would copy by itself because its a SUPERDISK! Go figure.

My beau and I are both in tech support. He worked for a while at a major aerospace engineering firm. He had some really amazing calls, but his best one was from a user whose screen was locked up.

Everything, in fact was locked up. Nothing they tried to clear the system worked. Even from the Network side, they couldn't touch this system. They went out and took a look - the user had somehow created 10,000 printer icons. So many, in fact, that it had completely taken up the system's memory resources allocating space to printer icons. It couldn't do a thing.

The really scary thing is that this was the fellow in charge of the missiles.

I recieved a call from a rather bothersome customer one day.

Keep in mind that she only has the one phone line in her

house.

She CALLED me on the PHONE to tell me that she didn't have

a dial tone so she couldn't connect to the internet and

would I please come out and fix it. After 20 minutes of

trying to explain that she had to have a dial tone or she

couldn't have called me and that she can only do one thing

at a time on the phone line I finally told her she had to

call the phone company to get it straightened out. Sometimes

you just gotta pass em along.

She is the same lady who called me and asked for the mailing

address of the president. Not the president of the company

either. The president of the United States. I have to wonder

why she thought I would have that information just lying

around ready to hand out??

I've been building my own PCs for around 8 years and am currently the sysadmin of about 300 workstations and around 50 or so servers. The company I used to work for had a bit of a penny-pinching problem. They bought overgrown workstations and calld them servers. The 'tech' that builds them for a mom & pop computer shop down the street is aparently NOT aware of the differences between a PII-SECC and a PIII-SECC2. The clips that secure a SECC2 chip into a SECC retaining bracket are not present in any of the systems they had purchased from them. I found this out when investigating why one of the poor boxes was beeping it's head off and refusting to boot consistently. When I confronted the 'tech', he refused to admit that he had messed up severely.

His response was "You don't need no clips." And to prove it, he picked the system up and turned it on its left side.

The resulting CLUNK proved my point rather thoroughly.

I work as a Tech for a large ISP and had a user call because he was not able to access his email. I did some checking on the server, removed a poplock from his account, and telneted into his email account to inform him what email was hosing up and causeing the lock. In his incoming mail file was a 4.3 mb file, very large for a software email program to pull in. I informed him what email was the problem file, it was an attachment called, "My Balls".

The customer told me, "Go ahead and Delete 'My Balls'"....at which point we both started laughing. After deleting the file...I told him he was the only man...to whom had ever given me Permisson, to remove his balls. Again we had a good laugh. (btw, I am a female.)

hello tech support

hello i just want some advice

ok what about?

your engineers been around and fixed my computer

ok

he says i need a new part, but i dont know which one

what did he say?

i don't know, i was out, my granny let him in

what's your warranty number?

i don't have one, i didn't buy the computer from you

er, are you sure it was our engineer?

yes positive, but he should have gone to the house across the street and came to mine by mistake! i just want to know what part i need, can you ask him for me??

Apparently some users don't quite think their problems are serious enough to bother the techies with, so they make it sound worse than it really is...

I work as a Lab Monitor in a community collage; my usual duties are to ensure the printers are working, help new users set up their accounts, and call security if someone tries to steal a comuter. We do a fair ammount of trouble shooting however, as we're the only guarenteed computer literates visable in the room.

A user just came up to me, saying there was a big error box on the screen, and she couldn't get rid of it, and it happened every time she logged on. It sounded like there was a nasty problem with her account, might mean that her computer needed Windows re-installed.

I get to her computer and sure enough there's a big error box on the screen. And yes, it's impossible to get rid of. Fortunately it's not a Windows White Box Of Doom, just a Netscape 3 Javascript error. I explained to her that the webpage she was trying to open had been badly written and that perhaps she should use IE5 or netscape 4 to view it. Or avoid it entirely...

This tale happened to me 6 years ago, when I worked as system-analyst for the government as a free-lance somewhere in Europe. Although I was not used to give support I accepted to help him…

User: Hi Pascual, I have a problem with my desktop.

Me: Hi, XXXX (I knew him very well, He used to use the PC as a screen saver). What the problem is?

User: Computer's drip-mat doesn't work.

Me: (thinking, what the hell…), Sorry, I didn't get you.

User: The drip mat that's in the computer doesn't work. Till yesterday was working fine, but today doesn't work.

Me: I don't think your computer has a drip-mat…

User: Yes, why don't you come here and see it?

I walked through his office and I saw that what he said it was the drip-mat was the CD-tray. Of course the tray was not prepared to catch the drips of the drinks he was having in the office. Moreover, because he was using the PC as a bar he could have tried to play some music on the CD at the same time…

I work for an ISP and we distribute our software on cd.

One day a customer calls me up and wants to install the software and signup. Here is how it goes:

me:Ok now let's put the cd in the drive.

cust: uhm...where is that?

me:the cd rom drive on the front of your computer.

cust: what does that look like?

me It's normaly a drawer that pops out and you put the cd in it ther is a button next to it to open the drawer.

cust:ok I see the button and im putting the disk in (clink heard in background).

me: ok good now double click on the my computer icon and tell me what you see.

cust: ok 3 1/2 floppy A, mydrive C, control pannel, dialup networking.

me: Thats it!?! Where is the CD drive? Have you ever seen the cd drive in here?

cust: no. never.

me: describe in detail to me what you did with the cd.

cust: Well I did what you told me to, i pushed this button here, it says turbo, then i put the cd in this slot here on the fron of my computer.

me: the slot?

cust: yes it was a little tight. mabey cause have haven't ever used it.

me: I don't think thats a cd rom drive i think you just dropped the cd into the inside of the computer!!!

cust: oh no!

me: oh yes!

2 days later the customer called back with the cdrom extracted from their computer and a cd drive installed!

There's this pretty good web site that I visit frequently

that has stories from tech support people about the stupid

users that they have to deal with. Every month, there is

a story from a tech person who talked to the customer who

used their CD drive as a cup holder. Then there's a story

from another techie who talked to the customer who couldn't

find the "any" key. And then there's the techie who was

standing right next to the coworker who told a customer

"you're too stupid to own a computer." This really

happened to each one of them - they were all there.

And we think the customers are dumb...

My friend (who is now a sophomore in college at the age of 17) was describing their school's computer technition to me who shall hereby be known as "Mr. Technical"...

story 1) he is teaching a beginning computing class, since it is s'pose to be a non-technical class he decides to keep things simple. he informed the class that the picture above the words is called an icon, but they don't want to be technical so they will just call it the picture above the words. now you know where he got his name from.

story 2)apparently it is illegal to do a slow double-click on a filename to change the file name. guess the only way you are allowed to do it is to right click ) rename. thank you for that information Mr. Technical.

story 3) do you know what the del key does? he found out. he discovered that if you highlight everything in the student archive dir and hit del it will delete all the files in the archive. aparently took him thirty seconds to figure out that hitting the "cancel" button will stop the del. proccess. 3/4 of the archive was deleted and it took them over two weeks to get everything back.

may i ask why we pay these people?

I bought a laptop about a year ago, biggest selling point: "it even has a 100 mhz bus so you could upgrade your processor" didnt know you could upgrade inset processor (which almost all laptops had)

follup: apparently this could be upgraded, however there was no way he could have known it. i was having some problems and popped the top to have a look. noticed that the processor was upgradeable. inquired to my friend about this oddity and he told me that a few amd's are not inset into laptops and therefore can be upgraded. however, it was not noted in the laptop information...

I called up my isp to solve a problem i commonly have with them. M will be me and T will be techie in training

M. hey, need you to reload your server, my file has been corrupted again, password is bad.

T. I cant do that, sorry.

M. yes you can.

T. it wont fix it.

M. could you please put me on with a senior techie?

T. fine.

*click, ring, hello?*

M. hey, could you reset server for me? password corrupted.

T. why couldnt he do it?

M. i dunno, he wouldnt.

T. hold please.

M. sure.

T. oh, he was a trainee. next cycle will be in 20 min.

M. thanks. bye.

20 min later *click, his beep etc.*

who needs tech support?

Hi thanks for calling "Some southern based ISP", how can I help you?"

"Um....I think I did something to my computer."

"Ok, Ma'am...what is it you think you've done?"

"I...ummm...think I "accidently" downloaded something. I want it off my computer NOW".

"Ok, Ma'am...what is it that you accidently downloaded?"

(nervous pause)

"Uh....it's called SexMansion. (not the real name but something close) I mean, I don't look at stuff like that...this was totally accidental! I HAVE to get this off of here before my husband gets home!!"

(muffling laughter) "Oh, ok Ma'am...here is what you do. Go to add/remove programs and then just remove the program."

(a 15 minute foray into hell I might add! Customer was CLUELESS)

"It's still here!! Oh god, what am I going to do???!!!!!"

(sound of customer sobbing)

"Ma'am..if should be gone...did you click on uninstall?"

"YES!!!! I did! I'm not stupid you know!!! But it's still on my damned front screen!!!" (meaning desktop presumably)

"Ma'am, just right click and go to delete."

(sounds of typing) "Ma'am...did you right click on that icon??"

"I don't know what the hell your'e talking about!! I keep writing click over it and NOTHING is happening!! I HAVE to get this god*&^$@! thing off before my husband gets home...are you going to f&^%$#@! help me or what???!!!! What am I paying $20 a month for tech support if you won't help me!??"

(At this point I'm ready to tell this idiot that she doesn't pay for the tech support, since it's free but I bite my tongue between smirkings and continue...)

"Ma'am...you need to click with the RIGHT mouse button."

"Oh for Christ's sake! Why didn't you tell me?! I'm not a computer genius!"

(DUH!!!!!)

After the customer had FINALLY gotten thru the many lengthy instructions on how to remove everything, she hung up on me. No small loss, trust me. But when I got home, I decided to see what this site was about...

Interestingly enough, its an animal pornography site that once you download the program...it bills your phone number...ALOT!

Hmmm...

wonder what her explanation to her husband is going to be?

Maybe she just wanted to take up animal husbandry...literally

(smile)

Lysa Hilton

Tucson, Az

I use to work for an ISP and have had several interesting calls. Here's just a few of them.

This woman called in stated that she needed assistance installing our software so she could connect to the internet. I always try to start at the most simple spot, so I asked the woman if she had installed the software. She said no. I asked the woman if she had opened the software package. Again, she said no. I told her to open up the package and get the CD. When she finished that I told her to open her CD-ROM drive. I heard a familiar BEEP over the phone. I asked the woman what was happening with her computer. She said it appeared to be rebooting. I told her that the button she pushed was the reset button, and asked her again to open her CD-ROM drive. Again, another loud BEEP was issued. I asked very politely that she not touch that button again. After another 10 minutes of working with this woman and searching for a CD-ROM drive I discovered that she did not have one. *sigh* Sometimes you just wish you could throttle some people.

Another fun one was a guy calling up and shouting profanities that the CD we sent him did not function correctly. I checked his account and it was the third CD we had sent him. I told him it was unlikely that it was an "bad CD" and started walking him through the proccess to install the software. His CD-ROM wouldn't recognize the CD. I asked him if he had any other CDs that worked in his system. He said that he had only used his PC for playing audio CDs before. Then he asked the one question that solved the whole thing. "Do the CDs go in shinny side up or down?" While trying to stiffle my laughter, I said "down". He said "Oh, so that's the problem. I thought computer CDs were done differently than music CDs." Another ID10T problem.

One more:

Had a user call in that was upset that his keyboard was not functioning properly. I asked him what the problem was. He said that whenever he typed in his password the letters would not appear. I asked if he could type in his user name and he said yes. He said "It's the strangest thing. Instead of letters, these little stars keep coming up." After explaining that the password box was security protected and it was suppose to do that he replied, "Well how am I suppose to see if I'm typing it right or not?!?" and hung up. I guess it takes all types.

I work for a large ISP as tech support. I got this call from a guy who had just bought a new computer. It was a short call that went like this.

TS: Thank you for calling ***ISP. My name is Steven. How can I help you?

C: I can't connect to (***ISP).

TS: Can I have your e-mail address please?

C: I don't have an e-mail address.

TS: Sir, You have to have an account before you can dial in.

C: How do do I do that?

TS: You need to have the software installed on your computer.

I told him where to get the software and ended the call. It's amazing how many people think they can get something for nothing.

This is more of an end user story. I do actually respect

most tech support people. Did the job for 2 months and

realized people were not capable of simple thought when

faced with a computer. On with the story.

We moved to boonie land where ADSL has not yet arrived.

So being forced to use the alternative - cable modem -

I was not too happy.

Me: I've just got ****@h*me set up through my UNIX box and

was wondering what the DNS IPs were?

Techie: Those would be "pop3" and "mail".

Me: No, the DNS (very slowly) IP numbers.

Techie: yeah, "pop3" and "mail"

Me: No, I want the Domain Name Server IP numbers. NUMBERS!

Techie: we don't use those.

I later got lucky and got a techie who did know what was

going on. But I didn't know whether to laugh or cry 'cause

this poor techie sounded so serious.

User calls in, having trouble sending email. No biggie, I figure, I'll just walk her through outlook express to check settings, etc, you know the drill.

Well, it turns out that she'd turned the computer off (I didn't dare ask how she'd shut it down) because she thought the computer would take the phone line if it was turned on.

Me : "Are you at your computer?" (You'd be surprised how many aren't)

Her: "yes"

Me : "Is it turned on?"

her: "no"

.....

It went on from there. "Click on File." "Where? I lost it."

And so on.

Mostly, it was just funny how this lady not only took 22 minutes to almost understand how to send mail and how to open email officially (outlook considers it unread until you doubleclick it), but also thought that if the computer was even (i)on(/i), we'd get disconnected.

Hang in there, folks. This is the first one I thought worthy of a techtale, but I'm sure more will come.

I get a call from this guy who is a repeat offender in the problem department. He says that he can't log on. I check his account and find he's tried a few times and now it's disabled.

Easy enough... I enable it and give him a new password: welcome. Simple..... Friendly, you know.

So I tell him the new password and he types it in.

"No, doesn't work", he says.

"Unusual", I reply. Just in case I made some mistake I do it again. Set it to "welcome" again.

Still, he comes back saying it doesn't work. I ask if he's definitely typing it in correctly.

"Of course I am. How insulting!"

"Just making sure, sorry".

Now, this guy is at a far, far away site with no local tech support, so I have to stay on the line to fix it. So...... 30 minutes later......

We've tried different passwords and it's back to "welcome" for one last time. At this stage I'm trying not to grimace politely. I ask him one more time to type in welcome and press enter and try it slowly. Basically, I'm now listening to the number of key strokes he's making. It should be 8 including the enter key.

1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8.....9...... 9!?

"Hang on" I say, "Humour me and try again, this time, tell me the keys you're hitting as you're hitting them".

He agrees. (At this point he'd sign over his house for his log-on).

Anyway, I'll end this with how he spelled WELCOME:

W...E...L...L...-

Sick, isn't it!?

One of my regular customers called, just after I had built her a new computer.

"Which side of the CD should be 'up' in the drive"?

"Put the label up"

There isn't any label. It's just a fat CD that's shiny on both side."

What do you mean 'fat CD'?"

"Oh. Wait. There's two of them stuck together."

I was just beginning my job at Apple Computers taking support calls for iMAC's. During training there was a mentor sitting with me listening to my calls in case I had any questions.

One of the first calls I received went a little something like this.

Me: Thank you for calling Apple...what can i do for you today?

Cust: Yeah, I was working on my computer last night and I spilled a beer on the keyboard. I need to get a new one.

Me: I'm sorry sir, but that's not covered by warranty...you'll need to purchase a new one.

Cust: I know, I don't care, I'll pay for it, I just want a new keyboard.

I then processed the order to get him a new keyboard...at least he was honest :o)

A friend of mine recently got a really ancient black & white display laptop given him and contacted me to know where he could get software to turn the display into colour. He wouldn't accept that this is impossible, and as far as I know, is still looking!

I work in the sales department for a major Australian ISP that has been providing Cable connections for some time... like all ISP's, we get our share of doughy idiots, especially scince we also do satellite connections, primarily aimed at rural areas.... anyhow, there has been some confusion as to the cable internet connection using what is essentially cable tv infrastructure...

Cust: Yeah, I've heard you can now get the internet through your tv...

Me: well, thats not exactly true, you can get high speed connections through the same type of cable that pay tv uses...

Cust: No, i want it through my tv!

Me: What happens is we plug your computer into the fiber optic cable that cable tv uses to bring the internet to you at high speed.

Cust: I don't have a computer! Your sales representative told me that you can now get the internet on your tv! Are you telling me that you can't?

Me: No, thats not possible

Cust: Why don't you people get your story straight? I was told that it's possible to get the internet on my tv! i want you to tell your boss to get the story right! Your colleague told me that I can and now you are telling me I can't! Why?

Me: You cannot, and will not ever be able to acess the internet through a tv set.

Cust: Well, your managers will be hearing from me!

(hangs up)

I hope my managers get as much as a laugh out of you as i did, ya numbnut....

My cube neighbor, Simon, told me of this one...

A user who, when asked to close all his windows, put the phone down, and Simon was on hold for a few minutes...

When the user got back, he was short of breath and barely got out "Ok, all my windows are closed *pant* I don't know what that will accomplish, but I did as you asked."

We work at a free ISP... at that price, you get all the people who are too dumb to use a real ISP.

I'm a Tech Support for an ISP in the Southeast of this country. One day when I was on the phone, I got a call from a nice gentleman, telling me that he could not connect to the Internet.

Me: ... Ok, Sir. I would like to know if you actually could

dial out at all?

Customer: Dial out? What do you mean?

Me: ... Well, I mean, if you ever heard your modem making

the squeeching noise.

Customer: No. But my Mouse surely did.

Me: Tech Support this is Keith

User: Yes, I need to turn my modem speaker on high

Me: Okay, lets go into your control panel and double click on the modems applet

User: Okay, I'm there.

Me: Okay select your modem and click on properties -) then advanced and do you see where it says extra settings? Put in ATZL3 there.

User: Okay, now lemme see clik on this message and see if it works.

Me: What message?

User: Yeah, my modem was reading me my e-mails

Me: Really? What type of modem do you have?

User: It's a 3com I think

Me: And it reads mail to you?

User: Yeah, I download my mail, I click on this icon on my desktop and it just reads away!

I've worked in Network Administration for several years now, and have a favorite old joke I use whenever we're testing early releases of software:

Me: "Hey Joe- what's up?"

Joe: "Not much... Hey- I hear you guys just got in an early release of NT XX."

Me: "Yep, but it's not the full release. It's weird- Microsoft is calling it the 'Master' Beta Version."

Mind you- if Joe techie's not so quick on the fly, you get the most interesting responses, such as:

"Masterbeta? Huh. Do you think you could give it to me?"

Yeah, it's tawdry- but it's a laugh. :-)

I get a call from a nervous woman in her mid-30s and it goes something like this...

M = Me

C = Customer

M: Hello this is **** tech support, how may I help you?

C: Someone hacked into my computer...so I formatted it and now it doesn't down

M: Let's see. How did you format the computer?

C: Huh?

M: Well you just said you formatted the computer

C: Sorry, I forgot. Well I did it just like I'm supposed to

M: Could you please go into detail?

C: umm...OK but I thought you guys were supposed to know this stuff.

M: (mute, laugh, unmute) Our trackers seem to be down today

C: Fine. (mad now) Well I did it just like my friend said to do it!!!

M: How did your friend say to do it?

C: Just open the computer and clean the disk with Window cleaner!!

M: Open the "My computer" icon and run the program "Window Cleaner?"

C: NO!!! Why do I have to tell you how you format a disk?

M: M'am, but usually it helps to have more information

C: OK, no that's not how. I unscrewed the computer and then took out the big thing that I saw and wiped it with a CLEAN paper towel

M: (mute, laugh, unmute) I'm sorry, m'am, but that is probably why your computer doesn't work. I can help you get a replacement for the hard drive if you'd like, I'd just need the model and manufacturer.

C: OK, well it said 733MHz...and it was a square

M: (MLU) That'd be the processor

C: I know!! It gets really annoying because it's loud.

M: (knowing this is hopeless) The processor runs your computer.

C: But it was deleted after the hacker hacked in!!

M: How exactly did you find out that hackers were in?

C: Well it said that Gen. Failure was reading my hard drive

M: (MLU) Did it say "There was a general failure reading your hard drive?"

C: YES! Why do you not know? The hacker group!!!! Can I talk to your supervisor?

M: Hell ya!

[transfer]

Well, that's my story. I used to think that the stories here were made up...but now I know otherwise.

when my father was instructed to become a tv-engineer (hope this is the

right word in english), his instructor opened a defective (b/w) tv-set,

and revealed spiderwebs and the corps of a spider...

he commented this like that: "no wonder it does not work... see, the

electrician is dead...!"

my father introduced this statement to me, when we were working on our

car: "see why it won't work? the mechanic is dead..."

so i still use this statement whenever i find a dead insect in a computer

or any other gear, and it's worth laughter...

i work at the helpline of a local ISP.

one day i got the call of a user, who told me "i'm very

discontented with your internet..."

well i wasn't sensitized enough then to recognize those

"little hints"...

"sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't..."

so i went through all the configuration with him. it

should all have worked pretty fine, so i told him just

to start his browser, the intenet Xplorer e.g....

suddenly he mumbles rather parenthetic: "it now tries to

dial in again!"

i verified to him, that this is what the omputer should

do.

he replied: "why this?!? i thought i installed the program

the week before?"

i tried to explain that he can't install the internet, but

can access it by dialing in, but i don't think this

convinced him, as he said, he would think it over...

i guess, he expected a monthly update from us for this

"internet"...

one day at a local computer store, there's a youngster

(about 15 years old - not one of those who 've never

heard of such a thing called "computer" one should think)

with a modem in his hands who wants to now: "since we have

that modem, my friens tell me, it's hard to call me up.

could there be a coherence to this modem?"

the vendor and the other customers got a little bit

startled when we heard this, as we all guessed what the

problem could be...

so the vendor asked: "have you been online, when your

friends tried to call you up?"

"that might be..."

"well, your phoneline is busy while your online..."

"really?!? why did nobody tell me...?!?"

One of my co-workers took a call one day from a man who was claiming something was wrong with his Lexmark printer. She told him to go to the printer since she was going to walk him through the steps to get the network name, etc. When she asked him what the printer display said, he replied "It says READY and MENNIS (his words). After asking the rest of us what an error code of MENNIS meant (we had no idea), she asked him to spell it.

He replied "M-E-N-U-S...MENNIS!"

We love our job...

I work at the largest internet provider in europe, and am constantly on the phone with customers. Needles to say, one even more stupid that another. One, however, is worth mentioning...

me: goodmorning, XXXXX how may i help you ?

c: hi, this is the 5th time i'm calling you guys and i'm getting pretty tired of telling the same story over and over..

me: okay...let me look you up in our system...what's your username?

"customer gave me his user-id, and i saw the man wasnt lying... he must have been on the phone all day..."

me: okay, i see...hmmm...so your access is slow, HOW slow?

c: it's beyond slow...it looks like he isn't doing anything while trying to lookup a page, and just when you are about to give up, it does something small to let you know its still busy...

me: okay, lets ping...(told the man what to do...)

c: hey, now its working...

m: okay, now lets open a page with IE

C: working too....incredible....okay, i guess its working now...

(customer hangs up, i handle another 5 clients...)

m: goodafternoon XXXX how can i help you ?

c: ah, its you again....

m: ???? did i speak to you before?

c: yeah, i was the guy with the slow speed !

m: (remembering) Ah !! and??

c: as soon as i hung up it was slow again !

m: okay, lets try it again! (running trough same things)

c: now its fast again ! huh??

m: that's weird...did you noticed this when you called earlier? i mean before you had me on the line ?

c: why yes ! what could it be?

m: i guess your ISDN isn't properly installed...if you are using both lines, it works fine, but if not: crash!

c: and now what?

m: contact your ISDN-supplier!

c: oh...i'm gonna $#@#$%@^%^% sue those bastards!! this must have cost me a fortune!!

(true! the man was paying $1,05 a minute!)

m:you should do that sir! (i didnt like those people anyway!)

c: (hangs up)

our whole departement was laughing, since anyone was listening in by now...we never heard from this man again until we noticed a story about a lawsuit against that ISDN-supplier!

Silver

I was working at OfficeMax, and a customer called and was asking question about her computer.

We got calls about peoples computers and stuff all the time, but we weren't a Tech Support Company.

So finally I told this lady "Call the Manufacturer."

She said "Who?"

"The Manufactrer."

"Who's that?"

"The people that made your computer."

"Well, I bought it from you guys (OfficeMax)"

"Yes, but we aren't the Manufacturer. What's the name on the front of your computer?"

"I bought it from you guys."

I was working in a software/computer Store.

(Me)Hello***may I help you.

(Caller)My game does not work can you help me.

(Me)Sir, what happen.

(Caller)I was playing on my computer and the game just stopped.

(Me)Sir tell me what you were doing when the game stopped.

(Caller)I tried to clean my computer when I heard a crackling sound.

(Me)A crackling sound?

(Caller)My computer was dusty and I wanted to clean the dust out of it. I looked on the inside of the computer and saw all the dust. I then took some cleaner and sprayed it inside the computer. That is when I heard the crackling.

(Me) Sir, did you have your computer on?

(Caller)Yes and I did smell some smoke.

(Me)Sir, I hate to tell you, but I think you fired your computer. To get the dust out of your computer you should have use can air not and cleaner.

(Caller)Oh, no this computer is not mine it belongs to my friend who is a lawyer. Can you fix it.

(Me)Sir, you can bring it to our service center to let them check it out.

Later that night one of the service guys came to me and told me that some guy came to the window with his computer saying that some lady told him that his computer would be fixed if he used can air. Happy ending we were able to save his computer.

User: My computer froze.

Me: Have tried rebooting.

User: I turned the computer on and off several times.

Me: So, it just keeps freezing up every time you restart.

User: It is stuck in the same place every time I restart.

Me: How are restarting the computer.

User: The same way I do at home,I just hit the power button.

Me: Well what kind of computer do you have at home.

User: An Imac

Me: Well, what you have in front of you now is PC. Try hitting the power button on the box under your desk instead of the power button on the monitor.

User: Oh geez, that makes a difference?

I work in the computing centers of a midwestern university. One would imagine that, with such a large student body, and a reputable engineering department, we would have intelligent people workin gin the computing labs.

You would imagine wrong.

I've known some very sweet people, who are paid decently to help students do things like word process and websurf, who are truly inept.

Story 1) Co-Worker calls from another lab because the printer is not working. WE go through the standard fixes - did the student really send a paper to the printer, is it in teh print server, was the correct job selected, and so on. She gets a little frantic when I ask if the on-lie light is on the printer. "None of the lights are on!". Push the on-line button. Nothing happens. Is the printer on? "How do I check?"

Apparently swich-flipping is a novel concept.

Story 2) We're taught that, when dealing with I-mac computers, a paperclip will cure all ills. Generally true enough. I must, however, recommend that when the metal slide on a disk decides to stay in the drive, it is unwise to try to fish it out with a paperclip. Hosed a number of drives that way. On the plus side, it may make people re-think the purchase of more i-macs!

I got a call from a distraught user. She'd spilt coffee on her keyboard.

I told her not to touch anything, I'd be right up.

So, I arrived at her desk and she was gone. So was her keyboard.

I asked her co-worker where she was. She said she was in the kitchen.

That little worrysome voice in the corner of my mind made a little noise like "wibbubblyih!?"

I ran around to the kitchen and there was the user with her keyboard giving it a good old rinse in the kitchen sink.

"W-W-W-What.....are...you....doing?", I asked.

"Oh", she says happily, "I'm washing the coffe out of the keyboard".

Ah-hih......

Customer calls in:

Me: "Thank you for calling [blah]..." (the usual)

User: "I can't get out of the Norton screen."

Me: "What does it say? What buttons are there?"

User: "It says, no viruses were found...."

Me: "Click on the button marked 'Exit'."

Problem solved, but it's one that I never thought I'd run across.

Heck, despite the Tales to the contrary, I thought it was an Urban Legend, at least for my company.

Just goes to show, neh?

I work for an ISP and recently received the following (unbelievable!) call:

User: Do you have any local access numbers for New York City?

Me: Absolutely! We have quite a few.

User: Well, I know I picked 2 NYC numbers to dial into, but it keeps saying I'm calling Maine, and I refuse to pay long distance charges for using your service.

Me: Where does it say that you're calling Maine?

User: On the logon screen.

Me: (Obviously confused...) Can you read me exactly what it says?

User: Yeah, it says, "Dial Maine 555-5555 using brand X modem."

Me: (the light goes on...) Oh, I see! (stifling a snicker) It's not saying that you're dialing a number in the STATE of Maine...it's telling you what you have chosen as your primary or "MAIN" access number to dial. The STATE of Maine is spelled with an "E".

User. Oh. *click*

Not even a thank you???

Hello everyone. I work as the night shift manager for a small ISP. This site has helped me through many nights but this is my first contribution. I was walking the user from hell through setting up his email in Outlook Express. We get to the second screen in the wizard which asks for the email address. His email address is username2@domain.com.

Me : Ok, in the box for email address type your username@domain.com. Make sure you enter that in all lowercase letters with no spaces.

(after about 2 minutes of listening to his computer ding at him, I finally decide to tell him to click in the box before he tries to type)

User : Ok, I have the username in there, but it put in a capital 2. I just clicked on the 2 and it looks like a regular 2 in there.

(laugh, mute, in that order)

Me : That's fine, capital numbers are allowed.

User : Ok

Me : Click on next.... We're almost done.

I know that I've seen this same type of story on here before, and it actually takes a lot to make me laugh at a user normally (usually I just get mad), but this just caught me offguard.

I went out to find out what was wrong with my friends computer.

He said that it wouldn't start and just beeped at him.

I went out there picked up the keyboard from under some stuff and started his computer.

after booting into safe mode i restarted it and pressed a key and held it and showed him that you can't press keys on the keyboard while it is booting up.

turns out that since it happened earlier in the day he asked his wife to cancel the internet account.

I have just put down the 'phone on a "client" who was concerned that her external e-mails had not arrived at their destination. We had been having a small problem with outgoing mail yesterday, but it was resolved. I asked her to check the status of her message and she confirmed my theory that it had been "transferred" i.e. left our gateway and at the mercy of the 'net. I suggested that maybe her recipient's mail system was down and since she had contacted the sendee by 'phone, that she could ask them to have their server rebooted.The alternative was that the mail was floating around somewhere in cyberspace. She tried calling her friend, and then called back to say that that server was fine, so could we please reboot the internet instead.

OK...so I get the call from a competent "user" in December to remove a CD stuck in a PC. I arrive at the workstation

equipped with my Techy tool (paperclip) to remove the CD.

Viewing the PC I quickly deduce that in fact "No CD-Rom" exists in this PC. There is a 3.5 in. drive and two plastic slots glaring at me. Unable to cope with this mystery I ask for an explanation. It turns out that the Honours Grad scientist told the Masters grad to insert the Christmas Tunes CD in the PC. When the Masters grad replied that he couldn'y see a CD player the Honours grad sd. don't worry just shove it inside, it will play !! So that is exactly what he did ! I took the case apart and extracted the CD while the participants in this act of "brilliance" made alibi after alibi.

Case Solved Watson ........!

I have to share this, as its had everyone here in stitches:-

I just got called out to swap out a screen on a users' PC, and, as I was swapping it out, she said, (and I quote..)

"Wait, does that new thing know about my files and user details?"

I guess somedays, you cant win them all.......

After having line noise trouble with my new motorola 56k variable speed modem , I decided to contact my ISP support line. Querying the young man that answered as to whether I should script the modem down to say 44000bps or 40000bps , he replied " scripting what's that ? " Patiently I replied ... you know type in the extra scripting box for modems , I then gave him a few examples of what I meant and he still couldn't figure out what I meant. He then came back with the reply ... well our computers are down at present can you ring someone back later ? Stunned I tried later on and to date still haven't got through. I ended up scrounging pdf files and immersed myself in them for a few weeks. Good Old Primus .

Ok, I provide Tech Support for an ISP.

One day this cusotmer calls up with a bit of an attitude.

The Conversation was as follows:

ME: Thank you for calling --- Tech Support my name is Josh may I get your first name and last name please?

CUSTOMER: First, Last name.

ME: Ok, and can I get your username please?

CUSTOMER: username

ME: Ok, and how may I help you.

CUSTOMER: Are you guys having problems?

ME: Not any that I am aware of, why? What is your problem.

CUSTOMER: I can't connect.

ME: Ok, and what error message does the computer give you?

CUSTOMER: It just doesn't let me connect, I know the problem is not on my computer (getting very pushy) and that it has to be on your end. What is your guys' problem.

ME: Sir, we currently are not experiencing any problems with our service. Could you please describe to me what it is that you click on to try to establish your connection?

CUSTOMER: Look, I know all of my settings are correct and that the problem is on your end. Now what is your problem?

ME: Sir, I am more than willing to assist you, but there is nothing I can do if you will not cooperate. Now could you please describe to me what you click on to get connected.

CUSTOMER: I open Outlook Express and then click on connect.

ME: Ok, after you clicked on connect what happened?

CUSTOMER: It went into the program and then a screen popped up real quickly and then disappeared.

ME: Ok, in the lower right hand corner of the screen where the clock is, is there an icon that looks like two little computers?

CUSTOMER: Yes.

ME: Ok, what that means is that you are currently connected to the internet. The reason the screen just flashed up there momentarily is that it checked your email but there were not any new messages to download. From here you can create mail to send to people or you can open Internet Explorer and browse the Internet.

CUSTOMER: Ok.

ME: Is there anything else I can help you with at the moment?

CUSTOMER: No, I guess not.

ME: Well, if you have any more problems feel free to call back as we are open 24 hours a day 7 days a week.

CALL ENDED. *notice customer did not apologize*

In my career as desktop support/network admin I had a brief stint working for the countries largest ISP (Starts with A rhymes with smell =P ) Anyway I would have to say the funniest call I took goes a little something like this...

User: Everything doesnt look as pretty as it used to. Everything looks really fuzzy and ugly.

Me: (Thinking to myself that she just needs to change the color depth) Ok what I'd like you to do is to right-click anywhere on your desktop you dont see any pictures.

This led to about 45 seconds of silence.

Me: Did you do it?

User: Yes I did.

Me: Well what do you see?

User: I see click.

Me: You see click? (beginning to get confused) Ok why dont we try this again. Go ahead and right-click on the desktop for me please. (This leads to another 30 seconds of silence) Ok, what do you see?

User: (Beginning to get irrate at this point) I SEE CLICK!

Me: You see click? What did you do?

User: I wrote the word click on my desktop!

I had to put her on hold so I could burst laughing! Ever since then I made sure I was ever so careful as to how I worded things because you never know how literally someone might take you =)

I work for a place that does tech support for an ISP, one day I got a call that goes:

Caller: I can't send or recieve email!

Me: Do you connect to the internet?

Caller: Yes I Do.

We proceeded to check her settings. They of course were correct.

then out of the blue she asked, "Do you have to be on the internet to check email?"

At a E-Mail based tech support company we recived this e-mail request.

"I CAN'T FIGURE OUT HOW TO GET ON TO THE INTERNET."

Now my question is How did you send this if you could not get onto the internet?

I sometimes help our customers (in the graphic design sector) with their problems.

A woman gave me a call and asked why she couldnt open a picture in Illustrator. She had opened it yesterday, and it was fine then.

After trying several suggestions over the phone, I went over - coz she had a deadline and needed the picture.

What i found out was that she had opened it in Photoshop yesterday, and somhow managed to alter the image settings so that the size of it was 8*9 meters, and the total filesize was 8,4 GB!

Just a few of the crackers I've heard in my time with various ISP's:

Me: What operating system do you have?

Cust: Word 97

Cust 2: Hewlet Packard Deskjet

Cust 3: It's a mac.... i guess that's windows 98? It's pretty new... it might even be windows 99

Me: What email program do you use?

Cust: windows 98

Cust 2: Word 97

Me: (We have volume based plans, the natural question to follow me expalining this is as follows)

Cust: Well, its just for home use, not for business

Cust 2: My kids are 13 and 15, so how much will they need?

Cust 3: How many emails in 500 meg?

Other funny questions:

*Does (this isp) have better porn than (other isp)?

*Do you guys know what sites we look at?

*Can you get the internet with just a printer?

*Can you fax me the internet? (sure, you'll need about 55,000 tonnes of paper and a few hundred years)

*Will you download a picture for me and email it to me, i dont have internet access

*I'm a web developer, can you tell me, does (this isp) support HTML?

when will people who know nothing about computers stop trying to learn by getting internet access!!!?!!!?!?!

Hi... I work in tech support for a large German insurance company. Their HQ employees all have NT workstations with a Netware logon, and one day this happened...

I: Good Morning, my name's Mark Lankers, what can I do for you ?

User: Hi, my name's this-or-that, I just got into work after vacation, and someone must have changed my password while I was away, but there's nobody here that I can ask.

I: Did you give your password out to anyone ?

U: No...

I: Errr... so how exactly did you determine that your password has been changed ?

U: Well, I boot up, put in my password, and the machine says it's the wrong one.

I: So in the Netware Client, what UserID is put in there ?

U: Dunno, but it's not mine.

I: Ok, then type in your ID instead, then type in your password. Hit Enter when you're done.

U: Hey, it works. Did you already reset my Password ?

This very funny thing happened at the office a little time after they hired a suppossed new "communications expert". (He was actually specialiced in radio communications, but we assumed he would understand about LANs).

He was working at a building that is around 300 meters from the main building.

He called one day from and said:

Comm. Exp: "There is no network here".

Network Admin: "Ok. Let's see. Please go to the hub and see if the lights are blinking."

C.E.: "Ok. Hold on."

After a couple of minutes:

C.E.: "There is no hub"

N.A.: "What?"

C.E.: "There is no hub here"

N.A.: "Ok. That explains the problem but is very strange. Who could have taken the hub?"

C.E.: "I have no idea, but there is no hub here"

N.A.: "Are you sure? There is no hub?"

C.E.: "Yes. I'm sure. All there is is a white little box that says '3com office connect'"

....

Early last year, someone called our helpdesk, very annoyed. They told one of the Helpdesk team that Excel was broken.

"I can't type in a date! It just keeps giving me an 'Invalid date' message!"

"That's odd. What date are you trying to put in?"

"February 30th, 1999."

The Helpdesk Analyst couldn't get the user (a PA to a Financial Controller) to realise the problem with the date. The user threatened to complain to management.

We never did hear about that complaint. Or the user, after a week.

I supported about 180 laptop field users and one of our more common calls was for fried modems (digital lines at Hotels would melt the cable to on board modem connector piece). Well we get a call from a user who is at home and can't get a dial tone on her laptop, I suspect another fried modem. I ask her if anything has changed on her machine at all, new software etc. She reply's no, nothings changed. So I walk her through all the diagnostics, different phone lines, different jacks, removing and resetting the modem connector etc. Nothing works so I ask again if she can think of anything, especially if it coincided with the problem. Becasue if not she'll have to send it for a replacment part. She says "well, our house was robbed last week at about the time the problem started" I say, yes.... and she says "when we got home they were in the house and best we can figure is that a guy was outside catching the stuff as another threw it out the second floor window, evidently we came home as the Laptop was being tossed out the window and the guy on the ground ran away when he heard us, because we found the laptop on the ground in the backyard". Before I can say a word it clicks and she says "maybe that was it!" Yeah could be... send it on in.

That one made my day.

Graham

#1

Thank you for calling ******* tech support, my name is *****, how may i help you?

Customer: (stuttering) i think i broke the internet.

For the record, all i wanted to do was break the ice so this guy could relax and...

"So it was you!"

(click!)

"hello? sir?...hehehehe oh well"

#2

my next call that evening was a lady who just needed a dialer configed. so the helpful techie that i am, i ask her to double click on the "my computer" icon with her mouse. To my surprise i hear a sound which can only be something tapping on glass and my customer franticly telling me that her computer is not responding. So calmly i asked:

"Ma'am? youre not actually tapping on the moniter with your mouse are you? oh you are, hmmm...are you doing it hard enough?"

This happened a few minutes ago, I work for a rather large ISP that services the nine states of the south and I do spanish call backs. this lady was upset because she was not able to receive her e-mail, after asking her some questions about what she was doing I start to do my thing. I check to make sure the servers and login are set correctly, everything looks fine, I login into her account and check her e-mail, comes up with 0 messages, so I am thinking something might be wrong in our servers that is not allowing for e-mail get to her box. I am ready to send it to our Network Operations to get her box rebuilt. I decide to make one more test and sent her an e-mail and ask her to send me one also. After I receive her e-mail the conversation goes like this:

Me: Did you get my e-mail?

Cust: No, its not here.

Me:Do you see a scroll bar to the right?

Cust: Yes.

Me: Scroll down please.

Cust: Oh there it is, along with the rest of my e-mail! Thank you!

I work for a medium-sized internet service provider that services the southern United States. I'm a senior tech, so I oftem wind up calling back people who are too irate to be handled by normal techs. Tonight I called back a man in Georgia who was upset that his modem would not connect him. About 5 minutes later I had his problem fixed and he told me a story that has got to be the funnienst thing I've ever heard. The caller had purchased a brand new computer 3 days earlier, and had just gotten home and set it up. He was just playing around in Windows 98 trying to see what the system could do. Eventually he encountered an "Illegal Operation, and his computer was going to shut down." At the same time, several miles away, a car ran into a power post and wiped out power to his entire town. Needless to say, the user was terrified that his computer had somehow caused the power outage. A few minutes later the phone began to ring, and naturally it was friends and neighbors trying to see if his power was out as well. He wound up spending the better part of the blackout apologizing to his friends for causing the power to go out. Imagine his relief to find out he didn't do it and his embarassment to find out that all his apologizing was for nothing. I'll bet he thinks twice before doing anything else "Illegal" with the machine!

My dad told me this one

Way back in the 70's, where computers were a fairly new concept, he used to teach computer classes.

One day, some of his students told him he was patronizing them. This puzzled him, since he was very conscious about communicating clearly and using plain terms, so he inquired as to what they meant

Well, as it turned out, they felt that he didn't use enough technichal terms

I work with computer support and help people with normal things like installing. A lot of fun things can and will happen when you install programs.

I had one who called in wanted help with installing Office 2000. We came to the part were it was going to optimize everything. I knew this was going to take some time so I explained to the c what he was going to do.

me: So the only thing you have to do is wait and when it says press next you'll do so. And then you'll press next, next, and finish.

The c started to yell.

c: Dont you use those ADVANCED computer terms with me &%#%&%/(/%&¤%#¤##&/(((/&¤##"%))½"%#%¤&(

After a while I had to hang up because he said a lot of not so nice things... If he thinks pressing next, next and finish is advanced why get a computer???

Me and my boyfriend used to work for an isp in sweden ( now work with other computer support helpdesk).

We had been working for avout a month and were really tired each night when we got home. One night I woke up hearing someone talking. I looked over and my boyfried were talking in his sleep. I should tell you that I hate being waked:) .

Me:Shut up.

Him : But I have to know what modem you have.

Me Shut up. I want to sleep. We are not working, I want to sleep.

I was getting really mad here and needed my sleep.

Him: But I need to know or I cant help you. Could you go to "My computer" "Contolpanel" And "Modem"?

Now I was really mad at him.

Me: I WANT TO SLEEP! I DONT WANT TO SURF: SHUT UP! i yelled .

He woke up and got mad because I woke him up. We started to fight and 15 minutes later we both fell asleep again.

So dont you all think that you dont bring your work with you when you go home :)

Zol

Im working with support on PC machines. And one day i get this funny question from a customer.

C: Hi i got some problems with my game here

Me: Well we dont have any gamesupport but what is it that happens ???

C: Well people in the game dies that not supposed to die.

Me: What game do you play.

C: Halflife

Me: And people in the game dies that not supposed to die ??

C: Yes.. The funny thing is that om my friends game it works like it should.

Me: Ok. but the game starts and you can runt it ??

C: yes but people dies that not supposed to die.

Me: I think you have to call the game support place because there is nothing i can do to help you..

We all heard about idiots. Those are the kind of people that should not I say it again so you all read it should NOT! have computers.

We have a few who was sent ISDN card ( an internal one) and they were going to remove the modem and put in the ISDN card instead. I work at software support and dont help out with hardware stuff.Well one guy called in having problem with installing the card.

C: Hi I cant get this to work. I removed the modem card and put in the ISDN. Then I ran the cd but it cant find the ISDN card.

Me: OK. How did you install the card?

C: I open the computer, took the modem out and put in the ISDN card. Then I put in the cd and ran it.

ME: Ok. Did you restart the computer after installing it from the cd?

C: No I haven't done it yet. Should I do that?

ME: Yes.

I sat there waiting for him to restart the computer. Waiting and waiting.

Me: Have you restarted the computer?

C: It wont start. He is dead. Nothing happens.

Me: And you are puching the power button???

C: Yes. I went to start finish and close the computer. Then I started it again but it is dead.

I sat there wondering what he had done. I started to get scared here. This was a real idiot and I knew he had done something that he was not suppose to do. But what???

Me: Ok. How exacly did you do when you put in the ISDN card?

C: I was surfing and it was so slow so I opened the computer. Then I removed the modem and added the ISDN card. And the ran the cd.

Me: You didn't close the computer before taking the modem out and Installed the ISDN card??????

C: Did I have to do that?? It didn't say that in the manual.

Do I have to say that he had to pay for the repair of the computer. And that they istalled the ISDN card for him :)

Zol

I recently finished working for a small consulting firm. We

did all kinds of custom software projects and systems administration.

Not only were we responsible for designing systems, we had to

support them as well. Of course id10t errors occurred regularly,

many of which ellicited a response such as:

- "Are you sure your CAPS LOCK key isn't on?"

- "Is the little red/green/yellow on/flashing?."

- "Did the cleaning people come in last night?"

That was an average day, but of course there are above (below?)

average id10ts.

There's many stories I could go on and on about. Some of my

favorites include:

- One of our clients was hit by a major power outage. The

electric company estimated it would be over a day before it was

restored. The accounting department was less than happy and

absolutely had to finish month-end reports. One of the VP's

was rather "computer savvy" - you know, the types you absolutely,

positively keep away from the server room. He took the Sparc

server downstairs along with it's fiber storage array - no small

feat in itself - and set it up on the floor of the warehouse. He

proceeded to plug it directly into a generator, no UPS, no

line conditioning, not even a surge protector. After the dust

settled the accounting department had to be told they would not

be finishing the month end reports anytime soon..

- Then there was the "certified network technician" who insisted his

75% packet loss couldn't be attributed to the unshielded cat5 running

in and out of the halogen lights in the ceiling.

- And my pet project, there was the local sys admin who was utterly

confused by the idea of subnetting his network. This was a small

business we consulted for and it

grew very rapidly and spread over several buildings. Setting

up individual networks not only made sense, but it was needed to

make it operate smoothly. The new admin was way too confused. So

he spent tens of thousands of dollars of his new IT budget to

put in switches, make fiber runs, and replace all of those "nasty"

bridges so he could run everything on one subnet. Ooops... two

weeks later he ran out of address space.

Ok, so I got sick of doing that. Instead I moved to a western

state that would let me spend the winter skiing. In order to

facilitate that I took a peon job at a local ski area. Of course

computers are everywhere and were unavoidable in my new vocation.

So one day I'm working a cash register. Not just any cash register,

this one runs SCO Openserver 5.0.5. Did I mention I'm SCO certified?

Did I mention we had just got 10 inches of fresh powder and I was

trapped working?

After I come back from lunch there's a message scrolling on the

screen similar to "*blah* superblock overwritten *blah*". This is

SCO parlance for "Something Very, Very Bad has Happened to Your Boot

Partition". However, as long as the machine is still running and

if you can log in it's usually trivial to fix. And in this case I

could. So I call the helpdesk:

Me: Hi, something Very Bad has happened. It says _insert message_.

Helpdesk: Oh, no problem, just turn it off and back on.

Ok, if you know anything about Unix, you know you simply don't power

off the machine.

Me: Are you sure??

Helpdesk: No problem, call us back at extension 555 if you have any

problems.

Me (knowing/hoping I will): Are you really, really sure?

Helpdesk: Go ahead.

Needless to say, the skiing was __so__ fine. There is nothing like

hitting the back bowls on a weekday when no one is around. The

irony: I still had a set of SCO recovery disks in my car.

After getting too stressed out at that job I transferred over to an

office where I could get some more ski time in.

Part of the office had terminals. They ran at 4800bps. It was

excruciatingly painful to use them. One day the tech came in

and I asked him why that was, he replied from page one of the IT

manual "Because that's the way it is". I mentioned if flow control

was used (software or hardware) they'd get much better results..

Then one day a new guy came in to hook up a new PC. For some reason

the cat5 network cable with the big fat RJ-45 connector wouldn't

fit in the wall jack. Wait for it... wait... that's right, he

plugged a phone cord into the wall and into the NIC. Guess the

PBX doesn't speak IP?

And finally, at one point this winter the IT department passed

around a list of "Do's and Don'ts". One of the key points was

to make sure all employees used the proper logon and that passwords

were kept secret. This was a major issue since the turnover rate

was quite high among the seasonal staff and they needed to keep

accounts in order. A few months later our copier was broke down

and I needed use the one in the IT department. I couldn't help

glancing into the server room.. where on a large piece of paper

hanging over the monitors was each and every administrator password

and root password. They pay these people?!?

Tech: Hello, what can I do for you?

X: (Crying) Smoke comes out of my power supply.

T: Just unplug you computer and buy a new one.

X: No that isn't the problem SMOKE comes out of the power supply!

T: Sir, you need to buy a new one, it's is seriously damaged.

X: (VERY LOUD)No, someone told me that I don't need a new one, there must be something else.

T: "After a few minutes I gave up". Sir, we normally don't tell this to our

customers but there exists an undocumented DOS-Command.

X: I KNEW IT!

T: Open your config.sys and type LOAD NOSMOKE.COM!

X: That doesn't work!

T: Hm I see, what version of MS-Dos do you have?

X: 6.0

T: Well, that's the problem, just call Microsoft and tell me how it goes!

(After 20 minutes he call back)

X: Well, I need a new power supply!

T: How do you came to that conclusion? (smile)

X: I called Microsoft and they told me that my fan isn't compatible with NOSMOKE!

T: (Laughing) Bye, have a nice day!

A few years ago I was working for a small Internet Service Provider in Italy and together with answering the phone and giving meaningful answers to meaningless questions I used to configure the connection to the Internet for our clients, usually for the "real beginners". One day a girl came and said "I bought a new computer and I want to buy the Internet" That's OK I said (I was used to this kind of tech terminology). I told her that I needed to configure the machine and I said, please come back and bring the computer to my office, but as previously people brought all the lot including monitors, printers and scanners too I told her "look, you just have to bring the case and your modem" she looked at me with a question mark printed on her face and I said "Just the case of the computer, the box I mean", the question mark disappeared and she left to go and get her PC. After a couple of hours I saw her coming upstairs with a huge cardboard box and from the fast

movements I started to be suspicious, when she gave me the box it was very light and it contained just a modem... I didn't know what to say and I asked "ehm... where is the computer?" and she went "You told me to bring the box and the modem, do you need something else?".

I really miss that job!

So one of my co-workers comes down to my office. "I need help," he says. "My computer's going crazy."

I followed him back down to his office to see just how crazy it's gone. "The hard drive is going nuts," he said, and I could now see that he was pulling up a very graphics/multimedia heavy site, and as soon as it got done loading, the hard drive calmed down. This, then, was normal.

"And it's beeping! It goes 'beebeep!'" Okay, this was NOT normal.

Just about that time, I heard the distinct "beebeep" of a chirping Nextel behind me. "There it goes again!" co-worker exclaimed.

I looked behind me, and saw that on the bench there, sure enough, there was a Nextel that someone forgot to take this morning.

Fix: removal of Nextel from office.

This isn't really a funny story, but it is strange:

While doing phone support for a major OEM, I recieved a call from a woman who kept having an error message appear on her screen during boot. It stated that something was wrong with the hard drive, and that she should check her device settings. After checking in her device mangler...err...manager, I discovered that her hard drive was formatted in FAT 12.! I wasn't even aware at that time that such a file system existed. While searching through Microsoft's Technet, I found that FAT 12 is used for formating floppy disks.

I was at a loss to explain how this happened, so I asked her if she had run a virus check recently, or if anything had recently changed. She replied that she hadn't done anything to it yet, as it had just come back from our service depot and this was the first time she had booted it up. I checked the validity of her story, and sure enough, somehow one of the service depot techs had managed to format her drive in FAT 12... Needlessto say, she was less than pleased when I told her we would have to reformat. :)

I asked a person to place their Win98 CD in their CD Rom drive once, and they responded, "Is that the black square one, or the round shiny one?"

Working for @home internet support, I got a call from an installer.

"Hi, I don't think this guy meets the minimum criteria for an install.'

'What's up,'I said,'486?'

'Nope.'

'(32 MB?' I tried.

'Nope.'

'What's up then?' I gave up.

'I asked him to show me where the computer was. He took me to a box. It was a Sony Playstation box. He just bought it.I said, 'NO, your computer...'. He says, 'yes, yes, computer...' and points to the playstation, which he had just purchased for us to hook him up on.

I am working for a quite large computer hardware manufacturer and got this hilarious one a few months ago:

Me: Welcome to *crappy computers*, how may i help you?

C: Uhm, I have a *model* with a 1.2 gig harddrive and now i've bought a 20 gig drive, but my computer can't find it.

(This was an old 60mhz pentium, mainboard only supported up to 2,1 gig drives)

Me: Uhm, sorry, but your computer only supports 2.1 gig drives. Besides, i do not support 3rd party hardware, i only support the hardware that came with your computer.

C: (yelling) OK, THEN I'LL THROW THIS GODDAMNED PIECE OF #$%^ OUT THE #$%^ING WINDOW, YOU @#$%^^&!!!!!

(click)

I work for in a Computer Helpdesk, and have done for a while...

Had this caller ring me up the convo went like....

ME: Good afternoon helpdesk, Jason Speaking!

Caller: Yes I'm ringing up about the industrial Strimmer.

ME: sorry, could you repeat that

Caller: I've an industrial Strimmer booked for saturday.

ME: You mean something to cut the grass with.

Caller: Yes.

ME: I'm sorry sir, this is a Computer Helpdesk

Caller: I guess I have a wrong number then :-) Sorry.

ok, I had to go for a walk to compose myself, couldn't stop laffing.

enjoy ppl

I often get the random idiots. Here's a great short one:

I was looking for a folder on this woman's computer. Here's part of the conversation:

"I'd like for you to open the Files folder please."

"Okay I see the Files folder. Do you want me to click on it?"

No, lady, I want you to STARE at it all day.

I was trying to manually create a file type with this man. It took me 4 hours, no exaggeration.

ME: Type in Application Description in the Description of type section.

HIM: How do I spell Application?

ME: *Bang head against desk* "A-P-P-L-I-C-A-T-I-O-N"

HIM: Wait! Wait! Is that A-P-L? or two P's?

ME: Two P's, sir.

HIM: What next?

ME: Type .dum in the associated extension box. (Of course I hear six keystrokes.) Sir, use the period, don't type out the word 'dot'

HIM: Are you sure? That's right?

ME: Yes.

HIM: What's next?

ME: Now type in the MIME type application forward slash, the one under the question mark, x dash, the one up by the zero and then dum (application/x-dum).

HIM: How do I spell application?

ME (near tears): A-P-P-L-I-C-A-T-I-O-N

Setting up the action to perform and the associated application was almost impossible. I won't go into it. It's all just too painful but here is the reason this whole process took more than 4 hours:

ME: Now, click the ok button at the bottom of the window.

HIM: Oopse.

ME: Oopse? Oopse what?

HIM: I clicked on the cancel button, not the ok button. That's okay isn't it? I mean they're the same thing aren't they? The cancel and ok buttons?

He did this five times. Each time insisting the cancel button was the same as the ok button. Painfully, I would have to have him start all over again from the beginning and each time he'd ask me the same questions. When he finally clicked the ok button instead of the cancel button, the file type still didn't work. When I sent a technician out to the site, the tech reported that the application was spelled two different ways, the associated extension was .:dotdum and that the MIME type was apllicatin\xdashdum. The tech was there 15 minutes. We have a minimum of an hour's work. They were charged $130 for this man's stupidity.

So this salesman brings his company laptop in and says he can't get onto the Internet while on the LAN.

We've had a lot of problems with this and usually all it takes is to run winipcfg and release the DHCP lease and renew it again, seems there is some default routing information getting "cached" somewhere when switching between dialup and LAN.

To prove to him it was really geting online (he didn't log into a Novell server or NT domain) I fired up his browser and clicked on his bookmarks. What I saw shocked even me. There were about 30 bookmarks, so many that it practically filled the screen, and all of them that I saw were to porno sites - and most of those were fetish sounding URL's.

Man this guys face got red, he started muttering that his "son" must of been playing around with it again. I later learned that his "son" was about 6 years old - pretty heavy tastes for a 6 year old!

Later that year I was told to eliminate that users email account - seems they were let go because they violated some company policy in regards to web use. Hmmmm, wonder which one?

A caller from another state in a plant we support called one day, seems they just switched jobs and they had a different computer. The old one had one of those dam*ed "My Breifcase" icons on the desktop and this one didn't.

I quized her on why she needed it and she hem hawed around and kind of hinted that she needed it "for data". I've been doing IS work for 13 years and running Windows 95 since the day it was out - and I still don't know what the da*n thing is for.

I kept asking her if she REALLY needed it - it was our company standard to delete it from the desktop - less for users to screw with. She was confident she did. At this point in our company history we lacked any remote control software, so I had to talk her through getting it back. Luckily she knew which end of the mouse to use so about 15 minutes later we were through going through Control Panel, Add Remove Programs, Windows, actually deleting it and THEN re-adding it. etc. At last she proudly has a "My Breifcase" icon sitting on her desktop.

Guess what she asked next?

You guessed it.

"What do I do with it now?"

She didn't have a clue how to use it or what it was for! Her old PC had one and she was convinced this one should too.

Makes you want to scream doesn't it?

This one is long, but WELL worth the read.

I work as a Bench Technician for one of the (if not the)

largest supplier of computers to the retail marketplace.

A client had brought in a system for us to help diagnose

the problem. She had called our phone support with symptoms

of a dying hard drive. One of our phone techs sent her out

a replacement hard drive. She attempted to install the hdd

herself, but the new one was still displaying odd symptoms.

At the advice of phone support, she brought the system in.

After doing my initial evaluation of the internal components

comprising the hardware, I cracked the case to ensure that

all connections were fully seated. I noticed that there

were several coffee looking stains and was worried that this

one may go into out of warranty. After removing the side

panel, and noticed that it looked as though some of the

holes in the side panel had seen some slight acidic contact

with a liquid. There was also yellow residue in two of the

holes. As I got inside the system, I looked at the IDE

cables, and they appeared to have orange juice on them,

furthuring the thought that something was spilled in there.

Oddly though, the orange juice appeared to come in straight

from the side, as though a glass had been thrown into the

tower.

At this point the repair is out of warranty, so I start

doing a full inventory of the components and test for

functionality. EVERY component, save the modem, CD-ROM and

floppy drive had somehow been affected by the orange juice.

After totalling up the cost of the replacement MotherBoard,

Processor, Memory, Video and Audio Cards, Hard Drive Power

Supply and Cables, the total came out to be over 1000$ (US)

I called the client and informed her of my findings. I also

told her what I suspected the cause of the problem was, but

told her I was very curious as to how orange juice could

have just been thrown in there like that. She was quiet for

a moment and then said "I don't know what I'm going to do

with that d@mn cat."

I said "Excuse me, Ma'am?"

She answered back "Well, he has been spraying all around the

computer for a while, we just didn't think he had actually

sprayed inside the thing."

I had to put her on hold, then after a few seconds of

composure time, I picked back up and suggested she buy a new

system instead of attempting to salvage this one. She

agreed and I put her through to a salesperson.

Despite urine being sterile, I'm glad I washed my hands

after that one. ;D

My thank you to TechTales. You make my slow days go faster.

I am contracted out to do tech support for a major computer manufacturer, and i got a call that almost made me cry.

M: Thank you for calling ** ******** ****, My name is Dan, can I get your first name?

EU: Yes, it is **** ***** (Giving me her first and last name)

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

EU: Yes, it is *** *******.

M: Thank you. Can I get the model number for the computer?

EU: Yes, it is an *** (Giving me the model number for the monitor)

M: No, that is the monitor, can I get the model number from the front of the tower?

EU: I have no idea what your talking about.

At this point, i know it is going to be a fun call.

So, I ask the user to press CTRL+ALT+S on the keyboard, which brings up the support information on the screen, and i get the model number and the serial number from that.

M: Alright, ****, so what can i do for you today?

EU: Well, my computer will freeze up a lot. Can you help me?

M: Yes, lets just check the resources. Right click on my computer.

EU: Oh oh, it just locked up again.

M: No problem, hold down ctrl+alt+del to restart the computer.

EU: It isn't working.

M: Alright, then what I need you to do is to hold the power button on the computer.

EU: Which button?

M: The one on the tower.

EU: I don't know what your talking about.

M: Okay, i mean the computer, you know, the tower?

EU: You mean the thing in the desk?

M: Yes, the thing in the desk (Thinking that is how some of our users refer to the computer)

EU: Okay, i am holding it down.

M: OK, has it shut off yet?

EU: No.

A minute goes by, and i keep asking if it is off, the user says no, so i make sure she is holding the right button.

M: So, you are holding the power button right?

EU: Yeah, i am holding the page down key. Is that right? I also have end, page up, home, insert and delete.

M: (Almost crying) Okay, that is the keyboard, i need you to hold down the button on the computer.

EU: Okay, I have mode, and select, and some other buttons.

M: NO THAT IS YOUR MONITOR!! THE COMPUTER!!! HOLD IN THE BUTTON ON THE COMPUTER!!!

EU: I don't understand.

M: THE THING ON THE FLOOR, WHERE EVERYTHING PLUGS INTO!!!

EU: Oh, the brain?

M: (Sigh of relief, or submission, i don't know) Yeah, the brain, whatever.

EU: Okay, it is off.

After that, i helped her free up resources, and the call was over

The people sitting near me were laughing pretty hard as i was on this call, and trying to tell this ID10T what her computer was. I think some people should just kill themselves now, to make society a better place, but then I guess i would be out of a job, as would most people who write into this site.

Well I wasn't a tech supporter when this happened, I was 14, 8th grade at school. My DP-teacher had noticed that I was a little computer literate, and once in a while she asked me solutions for some simple questions, and sometimes she asked me to teach some not-so-intelligent students to use, say, excel.

It had been only two weeks since she had proudly teached us the principles of ##-DOS, when the following happened:

Teacher: J, I can't remember, could you remind me how to format a floppy?

Me: *???* Excuse me? Just put the floppy in and type 'format a:' (We used dos and windoze 3.1 then)

T: Yes, but I mean, that other way, you know?

Me: Mmm.. the other way.. yes. let me try to format it.

T: Here's the floppy.

Me: Oh. The Other Way. *typing* C:\) FORMAT A: /F:720

got it?

The thing I didn't understand, was why she got paid for being there (at school) but I didn't?

By the way, nowadays I work at a techsupport ;)

Don't you hate when a customer puts you on hold to get a more knowlegible friend to help out..... the more knowlegible freind just came on, and after explaining a few things (for the second time) to this supposedly net-savvy freind, it dawns on her....."oh, i need a MODEM, do i?"

Not a traditional Tech tale, but a tech tale neather the less.

I use a free ISP in Australia, *******, and at the moment, don't actually give very good service. Numourous busy tones, varying connection rates. But overall, the best in the country. Anyway, due to the fact that this ISP is free, they have a 1902 number help line which charges $2/min. Like most people, I'm not very likely to call any number that costs more then a local call without a good reason. Anyway, When the recent "Love Bug" hit hit the net recently, I was having trouble accessing anything. I tryed everything I could with the modem and connection but with no avail. So i found the number and gave it a ring.

(After useless introductions that cost me money),

Tech: "Hello, (ISP) John Doe Speaking, how can I help you?

Me: (Hurryed voice) Yeah, I'm dialing into the network, but I'm not getting any web access, are the servers down.

Tech: yes.

Me: (Silence) Oh, why, may I ask.

Tech: Thats none of your business.

Me: Excuse me? I'm using you ISP, this call is costing me a fortune and you can't tell me whats wrong with the Servers.

Tech: *Sigh* *Exaggerated Tone* WELL, if you must know, we have shut down our servers due to the love bug threat.

Me: (Kind Pissed off now) Ok. Were your planning to tell any of the members?

Tech: No.

Me: You were just going to let them ring this number weren't you.

Tech: Ummm. *click*

The call lasted 7 mins, and costed me $14. So much for a free isp.

P.S I was going to ring them back and ask when the servers would be back up, but would you? Funnily enough, I'm connected with them now to write this tale!

This lady tells me that she purchased these labels but they are 2 across instead of 4. So I began to help her to create a custome label. We are in Word97, and I began to instruct her to do this. We click Tools/Env. and Labels, In the Option to choose a label. I told her to go under the product number and choose the Work Saver 1/5 cut. She tells me that she does not see "choose". No ma, not the word "Choose" it is something I am telling you to do. Let me use a different word. Select the Work Saver 1/5 cut. Then she tells me that she does not see "Select". We are going back and fronth on the words I should use with her to get her to actually click on the "Work Saver 1/5 cut", and then she finally gets to the Work Saver and then I ask her to click Create so we can edit it for 4 across. Here we go again. She never did see her error in understanding.

I´ve worked in tech support for about 2 years and spent my first year with an ISP.

One day a woman called in demanding to get connected to the internet. Well, this beeing the "internet support" I started out asking if she had problems connecting.

She said "No, I don´t have any problems, I just want you to connect me to the internet."

So I switched to the "non-informed user" mode and asked if she had her username and password handy.

Turned out she did not have an account at all...

As if that was not enough she also had no computer, modem or idea of what the internet is all about, so I ended up giving a long and detailed explanation of why she would need a modem and a computer, and how the internet worked. All this in a way you would explain it to a 4-year old. (although a 4-year old would probably understand it quicker.)

After almost an hour of me playing teacher she confessed that her husband had a computer connected to the internet in his office and that she wanter her own connection to the internet because he would not let her use his.

I wonder why....

I was just on a call with one woman who professed to be computer illiterate.

Part of the solution for the problem was to end task a few background programs.

Me : OK, hold ctrl and alt, then push the delete key on your keyboard.

Her: where's delete

Me : (tell her)

Her : nothing came up

Me : try again

Her : still nothing

Me : OK...

Her : would it help if I turned the computer on?

Me : yeah, lets do that

Why do I bother?

This is not a helpdesk story but comes straight out of the classroom. When I was at school three years ago, just before graduating, we had this very stupid girl in our class that should have been thrown away at birth and not allowed to any school, but that appears to be how the school system works in Germany. Anyway, she had to give some presentation on a literary subject in class, gave a copy of her hand-out to everyone and went right along. After her presentation, my teacher said it was quite okay, but he had to remark that it is unusual, if not wrong to write names of rulers like Louis XIV in the way that she did: Louis 14. This had occurred some more times on her hand-out, so the teacher asked why she wrote the names like that. She then replied that she could not find the roman numerals on her keyboard.

Yeah.

We had to postpone the rest of the lesson because nobody was able to breathe normally after this.

I thought of selling her some kind of “roman numerals true-type font” for a very high price, but I thought that has been punished enough by Evolution, that has moved on some steps without telling her.

I work for software and hardware support for a large company and we get a variety of users from extremly savvy to NOT AT ALL, and then there is this one who falls in the should have left the computer in the box catagory.

T: tech support how can I help you?

C: I have a pile of floppy disks here that I want to copy onto my hard drive.

T: Ok what kind of disks are they?

C: Ohh they are just disks that you open up in your word processor, I just want to put them on the hard drive so I can throw them all away.

T: Ok that is fine, lets start off with the first set of disks and put disk one in the floppy drive.

C: Ok done

T: Next lets choose your Start button go to run and type in the word explorer.

C:Ok hold on just a minute I don't have a start button.

T: Oh ok are you in windows 3.1 or Dos?

C:Ummmm..no should I have my computer on for this?

T: Yes sir...lets start by turning the computer on.....

We can all see where the call went from this point!

I will never be able to live down having worked for Cox Communications.

The name there says it all. I did tech phone support for the

Cox@Home cablemodem service. A customer calls up one day and

has this to say:

"Yeah, my hard drive went down on my computer and now I

can't get my Cox up."

Blessed with a great measure of self control I managed to

subdue the hilarity into an ear-to-ear grin. The best part

is that the customer had no idea what he'd just said.

I had a customer not too long ago that was having some hardware problems with her WebTV unit, so I sent her to the WebTV tech support line, 1-800-GO-WEBTV. She called back about 2 minutes later FURIOUS.

Me) Customer service, this is Brian...

She) I don't know what kind of outfit ya'll are, but you ought to know better than to have given me that number.

Me) Ma'am? What number?

She) You know which number!

Me) Ma'am, all I said was to call 1-800-GO-WEBTV!

She) Try calling it now and see what you get..

Me) (after successfully calling their support #) Ma'am I got them on the very first try. What is the problem?

She) When I call that number, I get some phone sex thing and people are talkin dirty to me.

Me) Ok..let me try that again. (This time I called 1-800-G0-WEBTV..big change being the zero instead of an 'o' in 'go'..sure enough I get a phone sex service)

Me) Ok ma'am you are dialing the wrong number..I know what you did, you replaced the 'o' in 'GO' with a zero.

She) Are you callin me a liar?

Me) No ma'am, I just feel you are pushing the wrong buttons.

At that point she hung up on me, but I would have loved to seen the look on her face when she realized she was dialing the wrong number after all.

As I have a better than average ability with computers many people I know come to me with problems. Of all the mess-ups I've seen so far though this has to be the worst.

A friend of mine is signed up with bt internet, who give their customers off-peak unmetered internet access for a monthly fee. Earlier today they ICQed me in a panic, their phone bill had arrived and they had been charged for their calls.

I wanted to eliminate the obvious so I checked their dialup number. As I use the same ISP I knew what it should be. Obviously as a I soon found out re was using the ISP's standard expensive data line, not the free one (sigh)

His defense: "It didn't say that on the CD"

Hi Everyone. I work for a small local isp doing tech support. Today a lady called me saying that when she tries to type in her username in Internet Explorer to get her email via the web, she gets a box saying "Type the internet address of a document or folder, and Internet Explorer will open it for you". Her username was gosomething. She states that she is able to type the g, but as soon as she gets to the o, the box comes up. Not knowing what the heck she is talking about, I figure it is a problem with Internet Explorer. I tell her to try typing her username into the address bar and a search field. Again, when she gets to the o, the box comes up. About to give up and have her call the manufacturer, I decided to try it myself and see if for some reason her username is causing a problem on that site. So I hit CTRL-O to get to the page and it hits me. "Maam, please press both of your CTRL keys on you keyboard to make sure nothing is holding them down." It turns out she had a crumb or something stuck in one of the CTRL keys and when she got to the o in her username it would bring up an open window. I use this shortcut probably a hundred times a day, I just never took the time to read and remember the message it displays. All in a day's work....

My very first tech support job was about 5 years back

when customers were still charged on an hourly ammount based on how long they used the service. Customers could find how much time they had spent online by fingering their account with a little sofware applet included in our set-up disk. I guess I didn't realy realize how female customer could potentially react to this because my very last call for this company went something like this:

Me: Hello this is Jason with Bah Customer Support how can I help you?

Caller: Yes I'd like to know how I can see how much time we've used this month.

Me: Well man you'll have to finger yourself.

Caller: [Gasp!!] [Click]

Needless to say it was the tech support call I took for that company.

Sittin' here in the techroom, I recieved a call from 18 year old guy who couldn't get online because he had a message on his voicemail was messin' with his internet connection. I simply told him to check and delete his voice mail message and that should do the trick. The boy replied that he didn't have the code to access his voicemail and the only person who had the code was his momma, which he informed me, was going to jail for awhile. The kid begged and begged for me to get into his voicemail and delete the message and I, trying to restrain my laughter, told him I didn't have any access to his voicemail. Nearly at the point of tears, he told me that he hasn't been on the internet in almost two days and continued to beg. After a few minutes I was able to convince the lad that I had no power to help him...

...sorry kid, you better call the warden...!

The following exchange took place after walking a customer through the un-installation of a particular program...

User: OK. Now it says "You must restart Windows to complete the un-installation process." How do I do that?

Me: Just hit the "OK" or "YES" button on that screen and it should restart Windows automatically.

User: I don't have an "OK" or "YES" button.

Me: What buttons DO you have?

User: Just one...

(silence)

Me: And that is?

User: "RESTART WINDOWS"

(long pause - waiting for him to realize what he just said and GET IT...but sadly, he doesn't)

Me: Sir?

User: Yes?

Me: Let's hit THAT button.

User: Oh, O.K.

It makes me wonder how he even dialed the telephone number to reach me in the first place!

I work for a tech support company in ga and I just started my 7th day when I got a customer asking about a product that we do not support.

Me: Sir we do not support that product you need to call them by calling 1-800-product

Him: What number do I call?

Me: after laughing for a minute on mute....you call 1-800-product sir. thank you for calling click

I work as TS for a fairly large free ISP. Just got off a call that really... well... you see what THIS would make you feel like. =) I was trying to get this guy to ctrl alt del and bring up the close program box. First of all he didn't know what "control" meant or where to find it. I explained in detail the layout of the keyboard and he finally found it. I said "hold down ctrl and alt at the same time and press delete once". Once again, he couldn't find the alt key so i told him where it was. I asked him if he knew where the delete key was-- he did. So i said alright lets try this again (getting a bit frustrated at this point) "Hold down the control and alt keys and press delete" (silence) he says "I don't think i can do that, son" I waited a couple seconds to see if he was just screwing with my mind-- nope. I finally said "Ok sir, with your left index finger press the control key and hold it down. With your left thumb, press the alt key down. Have you done that and are you hold those 2 keys down at the moment?" "Yes i sure am" he replies. "Great, now with your right forefinger, press the delete key once". (silence) "Have you done that, sir?" His reply "Son, i just can't do that i'm afraid." (totally frustrated now) "And why is that sir? Its quite easy really." "Well, i only have one arm...." At this point i felt about a half an inch tall... needless to say i was a bit shocked and apologized... after showing him how to do the 3 finger salute with one hand, the call went flawlessly.

Be careful what ya say-- it could just come back and bite ya in the a** =P

Nico

Our sales reps use a specialized software app with home-grown databases instead of some common format like BTrieve. The database indexes are not stable, and we get all sorts of weird errors, which we correct by rebuilding the indexes. Some of our reps have been using the system for so long they know that there are only a few fix commands. They just don't know which one to use.

The helpdesk is open 12 hours per day, weekdays, but someone is on call evenings and weekends. Our phone system is set up so that callers can mark calls as emergencies, which page whoever is on call. Last week it was my turn.

Tuesday night, I was sitting in class when I got paged. Stepped out and called in to check the message. A rep was at a customer site when he'd gotten a database error. He decided to fix it by running Defrag. (Well, I guess it might help to have the database's corrupt indexes in sequential sectors.) In the preliminary tests, Defrag reported it found disk errors and wanted to run Scandisk. He didn't know what to do.

I would have been happy to help, but he didn't leave a telephone number where I could call him back. Fuming, I went back to class. Five minutes later, I was paged again.

Same guy. He'd decided to click on the button that would run Scandisk and would try to solve the problem himself. Still didn't leave me a phone number.

Now tell me, since when is "you don't need to call me, I'll handle it," an emergency?

Me: ##### Tech Support How may I help you?

Cust: I cannot get my program to work right

Me: Please double click on My Computer

Cust: How am I supposed to click on your computer from over here?

Oye Vey!

I am a CNE handling internal support as well as contracting with various clients. I got a call from one of our larger customers (a city government) with an application problem (Excel I think). The city's internal support personnel couldn't figure it out so they called me.

Customer: Hi Scott. When I try to enter a date in this one field it won't take it. Do you think it is a Year 2000 problem?

Me: Can you enter anything into that field?

C: No. And the cursor keeps jumping around. It won't stay in the same field so I can type. What's causing that?

M: Have you rebooted?

C: Yes, and the problem is the same.

M: Are you trying to use the keypad on the right side of the keyboard?

C: Yes.

M: Try entering the date with the numbers that are above the letters.

C: Where?

M: Above the letters, near the top of the keyboard.

C: Hey, now it works. How did you fix it?

Never a dull moment in this business. Thanks for the great site.

I had a user that was a total pain in the arse. He thought he "knew" everything and went out of his way to prove it on many occasions. Of course he was usually wrong and had totally goofy ideas - even when he was proven wrong he would come up with some coka-mammie reason why he was "right".

One day I had one of Windows many error dialogs popped up, an idea struck!

I ALT-PRINTSCREENED the error dialog and pasted it into Paint, I then cleaned it up a bit and saved it as a BMP to a floppy.

After hours I walked over to the users PC and copied it to his \Windows folder. I then opened his desktop properites and made it his wallpaper - centered. I shut the machine off and went home. I purposly came in late the next day and this user was in the hall pasing back and forth. After "listening" to him and acting like I really cared we meandered over to his PC and clicked around a bit.

"SEE" he practically screamed, I can't get it off, I've rebooted at least 6 times and it still comes up. I did a sysedit and poked around acting like I was looking for something. "Well" I said " looks bad, I'll have to take it back to the shop with me." I toted the PC back under my arm and plopped it on the bench and promptly got busy doing anything else I could find to do. He must of come around 6 times to see his PC just sitting there on the bench, complaining how his work was piling up. After about the 6th visit I thought I had milked it for enough and hooked it up and removed the wallpaper.

The user comes back and I make a big stoopid sounding excuse and he accepts it hook line and sinker. He goes back telling everyone how bad off his PC was and if HE hadn't taken care and backed everything up religously the whole company could have gone under.

I "shared" the details of my prank with a few other guys who worked around him, they almost laughed till they puked. They still roll their eyes and choke when ever the guy brings the subject up.

Not really a tech tale, more like a Bad ISP tale...

The ISP I joined had absolutely no clue whatsoever...

regularly they'd do some sort of stuff up to block my

login, or disconnect users after three or four minutes

instead of our supposed two hours, etc etc. Also,

according to them I managed to use my 180 hours in 3 days.

I'm still trying to figure out how they stuffed that up.

Then came the day I gave in and phoned their tech support

after they'd been stuffing around with my webpage space

for about two months. Part of the convo went like this:

TechGuy: I can't see what the problem is, tell me again

what you're trying to do?

Me: (patiently) I'm trying to upload my webpage using a

FTP client and..

TechGuy: What's FTP?

Then I received a bill where I was overcharged $156 in

apparently unpaid accounts. I showed them my receipts,

told them to cancel my account and switched ISPs that day.

just a few minutes ago I got a very frantic caller this is how it went

EU: my icons are mutliplying and i just ran a format and it still does the same thing

ME: tell me what you did

EU: everytime i clicked on an icon it just multiples it self oh my god theres 50 of them now..

(several reboots later....)

EU: its still multiplying what do i do now

me: tell me exactly what you do...

EU: well first i press down on this CTRL button and then i click an icon and i drag it.

LOL he had no idea that he was copying the shortcut everytime he moved the cursor...

5 mins of explaining and another happy Id10t customer....

-richmond

I work in a tech support for a printer company, and just today I received a very nice call. After the call I took a loong break. By the way: We don't have mute buttons, if we put the customer on hold he/she will hear music.

Customer called because her printer wasn't printing correctly. Communication problem. She had called earlier and the given solution was to change the printer cable. Now she had changed the cable and she called back because it didn't solve the problem.

We started to troubleshoot the problem, and printer seemed to be ok. Printed the test page just fine. Anyway, there seemed to be no connection between the printer and the computer. We went to bios and everything was just fine. We did lots of things including testing the printing from dos and such stuff.

All the time she had a noisy child with her and i barely heard what she said. In addition, I had to guide her through every mouse click. Lots of fun.

After about 45 minutes I doublechecked that everything was ok: ..everything seems ok? and you have the papers correctly in your printer? and no lights are flashing?

"Yes, everything is just fine..... Hey, wait a second."

..few seconds pause...

"I didn't have the printer cable connected. Now it's ok and we can continue. What do we do next?"

I ended the call pretty quickly, because she was about to buy a new computer during the same week...

Jukka

I'm "the" computer science teacher at a small college.

One day, the computer maintenance crew were all unavailable

and I got a frantic call from the Vice President's office.

The printer wouldn't work, they had tried everything and

had to have a report printed immediately. They had been

looking for the maintenance guys for an hour or more.

I slowly walked over there, thinking that I don't have

access to the equipment storage or repair equipment, so

what can I do? It looked like a serious lose-lose deal

to me. I was going to look like an idiot, like all those

other computer teachers in these stories.

Until I plugged the power cord into the wall, then I looked

like a genius....

I've been working in the web design industry going on 5 years now, and it seems that no matter where I go, I get pulled into tech support no matter what my job description is. Anyway, here's my story.

Several weeks ago, I got a phone call from a very distressed user:

Me: This is Shane, what can I do for you?

User: You can fix my damned computer.

Me: Alright, can you be a bit more specific?

User: Yes, I'm having a problem with Internet Explorer.

Me: And what's the problem?

User: The "home" button never seems to work.

Me: What happens when you press it?

User: It just takes me to MSN.

Me: (explain how to change home page)

User: Ok great, thank you.

I got a call from the same user the next day.

User: What you told me yesterday didn't help.

Me: Your home page has changed back to MSN?

User: No, that's still the same, but when I press "home" it's still not sending a copy of the web page to my home address.

Me: Well...

What rocks do these people crawl out from under?

Oh, I have MANY stories from then. I was regional tech support for a Major computer company...meaning I lived in hotels and out of a suitcase. LOVED IT. I was one of the very first women in the technical end of computers.

Back then we had card readers and sorters. Big things about 4' and wide 4' tall and 2' deep. Much of the work was done from the rear. These things had belts larger than the one in most cars.

Companies Always had safety things posted inside machines about not getting (guys) ties caught in the equipment. If they leaned over a machine to look at something their ties could get caught and dragged through the hardware.

NO cautions at all for women. I had long hair... and guess what? I slung my hair back and then leaned into the back of the card reader to check something. Sure enough suddenly my hair got caught in the belt and pulled a nickel sized plug right out of my head. YOU TALK ABOUT HURT ! ! !

To make matters worse, then I had to take the whole belt assembly apart to get the hair out. :(

Next time I'll tell you about getting zapped with 600Volts and I don't remember how many amps in a line printer.

Visit my site. http://bobbye.cc

I work for a helpdesk servicing a large government agency down under. I ofter get calls for "Notice Lotes" problems. One day I was in a good mood and got a particularly uncheery fellow on the other end of the phone complaining anout Notice Lotes. I made a joke like "Oops Ha Ha I sometimes call it that too Ha Ha"

His response: mmm

He didn't get it!

I love my job!

I work as sysadmin at a University College. Most of the teachers here are really good with computers, but some of the staff is not quite as proficient.

Usually I am the first one to arrive in the mornings, and this morning was no exception from the rule. The phone rang and it was one of our favorites in administration claiming that "the internet was broken and I had to come at once". This is usually the key phrase for trouble with her browser and I went to her myself. I found her surfing away in her office and congratulated her on her Internet's quick recovery, only to hear her claim that it was still broken and I had to fix it right away.

Telling her that her surfing seemed to work properly did not appease her, and she was quite irritated when she typed in an URL and triumphantly pointed at the 404 she got.

-See, it's broken, now you fix it.

I proceeded to tell her that if she can see all the rest of her sites, maybe the problem was that either her URL was not the correct one or that the other server was down, and in either case there was nothing I could do to "fix the Internet".

I believe that she still thinks that I simply refused to fix the Internet just to spite her. I tried to explain that the information on the Internet was not stored locally on her computer, but I don't think she accepted the thought.

In my former job, I worked afternoons doing desktop support

at a large law firm. One day I came in an hour early, so

I could defrag all the Win 95 machines while the lawyers were

at lunch. I left a 'trouble ticket' on each desk, letting

the occupant know I'd been there, the reason, and that they

just needed to hit 'OK' when they returned from lunch, and

they could get back to work. I was worried about insulting

some lawyers, but I thought the trouble tickets were a good

idea, as there might be some who weren't familiar with the

defrag program...silly me. I got more than TEN calls, all

with the same question: "My computer says it's done, and I

should select 'OK' to exit...what should I do?" They were

uniformly AMAZED when I suggested they select 'OK' to exit.

I worked parttime afternoons, doing tech support in a large

law office. I'd arrive at 1 pm most days...just in time to

receive a panic call from my "lawyer of the day". EVERY DAY

some poor fool's laptop would lose power and slowly die, and

he'd be pacing in front of the elevators, waiting for me to

arrive...and EVERY DAY it would turn out that he took his

laptop home the night before...and did NOT reconnect the

power supply when he brought it back in, so of course the

battery was running down by lunchtime. Hmmm, you think maybe

one of them should have READ those emails I sent detailing

the proper way to connect and disconnect the laptop...

I am putting this up just after I took this call. Man was I pissed. I was about to go postal, but rather now, I shall nuke Miami.

I work for an un-named DSL service that has service in Miami.

I answered the phone normally and on the phone was a person in Miami that spoke somewhat broken english. Everything went pretty well until we got to the point where we needed VPN and would have to reinstall it, DUN, and the modem drivers.

First, I took him to the Network control panel and had him remove the modem driver. I then told him to close the window and told him that he would be asked if he wanted to restart. I told him to choose no. When it popped up, he asked if he should restart. I told him no. He restarted.

Next the computer booted up, and the computer detected the modem. I told him to exit out of all those windows, and he did. We needed to install the modem driver CD, and I told him to do so. He put in the Win98 install CD. A window came up asking him if he wanted to install/upgrade windows. I told him to exit those windows. He did so.

Now, this is where it gets juicy. I asked him that he needed to take out the Win98 CD and put the modem driver CD into the drive. He was like "Properties?, Icon?, Symbol?, I do not see that on my screen." I told him that it was not on his screen, and that it was an actual physical object that he could hold in his hands. We went through this several times and eventually I got fed up and asked him if he would like me to send someone out to help him.

So I did.

:)

I've worked Help Desk / Field Suppport for more than 10 years, just when you think you've heard / seen it all!!!

T=Field Tech U=User with Attitude

T "IS support how can I help you?"

U "My mouse won't work"

T "do you get any errors at bootup?, is it plugged in?, etc. etc"

U "NO"

U "NO"

U "NO"

U "Look you guys' are supposed to be such geniuses just get down here and fix it NOW!!"

Tech goes to user's site (1 hour drive) - Greets user, observes Post-It note stuck to bottom of mouse. Peels off Post-It note, tests mouse (works fine) Advises user that you can't stick things on your mouse. User replies with tons of attitude.

"Well how am I supposed to know that I'm not a technician"

While working for a LARGE East coast bank I received a call from the onsite DSM (Data Security Manager) to come up to the Vice Presidents office because his new PC wasn't working properly. I had just installed the PC and taken out his laptop because he never took the laptop out of the docking station and a remote guy needed a laptop to take with him in the field. Upon arriving at the VP's office I spot the DSM just outside his door with the strangest look on her face I'd ever seen, as I passed her she mumbled "don't" that's all just "don't". I entered the huge fancy office, leather sofa and chairs, wood paneling, real cherry desks, and credenza, etc. and observe the VP trying to use his new PC. He was pointing the mouse at the monitor as if it was a remote control and clicking it frantically, all the while swearing and cursing all the "New Technology" that never works. What could I do? Obviously this guy had always used the eraser head on his laptop and never learned how to use a mouse, although you'd think..... So I said "Oh I see the problem Mr. Smith these new mice work differently you actually have to leave them on the desk top and slide them around to make them work. Well, I guess hearing that was just the last straw for the DSM as I could hear her running away giggling her head off. I don't know if the VP ever knew what was so funny.

Tech Support: I.T. Support Center can I help you?

Customer: Yes I seem to have lost a lot of my emails and I need them restored.

Tech Support: Ok, do you have any idea how they got deleted?

Customer: No, I had about 50 of them that I had wanted to read and I put them in my "Deleted Items" folder and now they aren't there anymore.

Tech Support: You put emails that you wanted to read in your "Deleted Items" folder??

Customer: Yes, so I would be able to find them.

Tech Support: Ok, (snicker) I will have an Email Administrator give you a call

"my computer went black"

sir can I get the serial #

"Ican't see it"

sir if you'd open the door on the front of the tower it's right there

"I can fell the tower I can't see it"

sir ... do you have any lights??????

"nno"

sir......have you checked your breaker???

"no it's to dark"

sir.? do you have any power?!!!!!???????

"no"

well why are you calling me???????????

"well my computer went dark!"

sir would you please call your power company

*****true call, some people shouldn't own a computer*****

My wife had to have a modem installed on her book keeper's computer. She ask the IT department at the engineerig company in the building to do the job for her. The IT manager came rather than sending one of the techs. (Let me point out that the IT manager is a MSCE.) He told her that the modem couldn't be installed because the printer, HP laserjet IIp, was using the port. My wife called me and told me the problem. I laughed and said that the dummy was trying to install the modem to a parallel port. I said that she had to go back and explain the the IT manager the difference between male and female.

I work for a national computer retailer in their call center. We provide basic support on the machines we sell (in store & via catalog), but primarily our house brand - mostly win98 boxes. Most of our customers are less than brilliant so when i pick up the phone each time, I don't expect much. The other day I get a call:

Me: May I have your reference or order #?

T: Hi, I'm So-n-So, a technician from Pac Bell. I'm at one of your customer's houses working on their machine and am having problems.

Me (a bit perplexed that a tech is calling me & annoyed that he can't follow instructions): Ok, may I have the customer's reference #?

after looking it up, I see its a mid-range system & the notes state he's having problems with IE5.

Me: what problem are you having with IE?

T: Its stuck in a loop of some sort.

Me: what does it say?

T: It keeps taking me through a wizard to set up a connection. I'm installing a DSL so he doesn't have a connection.

Me: I'm sorry, did you say you're the TECH? Is this the first time you've setup IE with your service.

We provide NO support for anything outside of our system - the foreign DSL included. However, I decide to walk him through screen by screen. I can't say I know much about DSL, but when we got to the screen that asks for the cust's existing username/password, the "tech" insisted that the cust did not have one because he's a DSL customer. I asked him to explain to me how an average cust gets connected (one with IE already to go), which he couldn't do. At this point I was past annoyed & past the point where we provide support so I put him on hold to get my supervisor. I was about to transfer him so my supervisor could have some fun when he hung up. Knowing that he gets a paycheck from Pac Bell & can't configure IE is just sick.

>From Building Maintenance Help Desk Europe's Largest Office Development - Worringly Enough, a government site.

Help Desk: Good afternoon, Property Maintenance.

Caller: Hello, I've just been to the toilet and there's a problem in there.

Help Desk: Ok, what exactly was the problem?

Caller: Well, it's the soap.

Help Desk: The soap?

Caller: Yes, the soap, it er...... didn't smell right.

Help Desk: I'm sorry, could you say that again?

Caller: Well, the soap it uh ..... smells like it's uh gone off. Could somebody change it for fresh soap? I didn't want to wash my hands with it if it had gone off. Things aren't fresh if they've been left too long.

Somewhat bemused, I just agreed with what the woman said and ended the call. One of the cleaners changed the soap, if she was confused at why the nearly full soap dispencer was being emptied only to be refilled, she was totally mystified when I asked her to sniff the soap.

Help Desk: So what does it smell like?

Cleaner: Er, soap.

A Bellsouth Internet Tech recieves a call from a lady who

said she needed help connecting. When asked what the problem with connecting was she responded - I understand international telephone dialing codes but I need help getting the number for Scotland Yard I need to talk to them. can you give it to me? ( Internet, International, Guess they both start with int ) - must have been a freind of James Bond.

Customer wanted to know if she could print a projection report for next month showing, in detail, what tasks each individual was going to do for the month.This was to be done before any work orders are generated,with no one assigned to anything,for tasks that aren't regular p.m.'s!?I forgot mp2's clairvoyance module,my fault.

I used to work as the lead technichian for a big retailer in Ohio. A lady brought in a printer that was completely jammed and would not feed paper. She wanted her money back. Since she had bought it the day before I needed to verify that it was really defective. I turned it upside down, two marbles and a G.I. Joe leg fell out. Viola ! It worked fine after that.

A lady brought in a Mac 6xxx ,if I remeber correctly, saying that it would not power on. OK so I check it in and started testing it and it definately didnt work. I opened it up and noticed an overwhelming smell of urine, the system board was fried. I called her with the repair estimate and she freaked. I explained that it needed a new mother board and I told her about the smell. She started laughing and admitted to me that she had a party and that someone, that had passed out, woke up and mistook it for the toilet. After I hung up the phone I have to say I laughed about it but to this day I cant understand why she was so surprised at my repair estimate

A guy who claimed to have a PH.D., in something, was confused about the operation of his CD-ROM

He asked me if he needed to rewind his CD's after he used them.

I asked him if he needed to rewind his records.

That was the end of the conversation

Well, well. I used to work as admin for a NT network. This

one isn't really a tech story but good nonetheless.

For starters: Local calls in Germany aren't free.

Allright, there was guy sneaking up to me, obviously with

some kind of question.

Me: "What's up?"

L(user): "I'd like to ask you for a favour."

(Warning bells and red lights on)

Me: "What kind of favour?"

L: "Well, I don't have time because I need to go to a

customer. Could you download StarOffice 5.1 for Linux?"

Me: "Wait a minute. We don't use Linux here. It's for you

at home, right?"

L: "Of course."

Me: "Why don't you download your private stuff at home?"

L: "Do you know how much that would cost?"

Me: "Ummm...I think the company is paying you every month."

L: "So what. When you're done downloading, burn it on a CD."

Me: "Let me guess, on a corporate media, right?"

L: "Sure!"

It went rapidly downhill from there. I explained to him in

very easy words that the answer is no. Among other things

my response was dealing with his tongue and my butt. ;^)

Some guys have a weird understanding of "property".

Here's two from the secretary department.

A secretary (mentally blond) was calling me, demanding my

presence. I walked to her desk to see what was going on.

S: "I just had an error message on my screen!"

Me: "What did it say?"

S: "I don't know, I clicked it away."

This happened a few times until I made it clear that calling

me again without having the error message still displayed

would result in terror. ;^)

Here's the second one....same woman.

S: "Look, this machine is so slow!"

It was a P133 with 32 MB RAM, running NT as OS. A glance at

the taskbar revealed the reason for the snail pace. It was

running Winword, Excel, Powerpoint (each with a huge file)

and seven browser windows. While I was swallowing this, she

said "I'll reboot now", performing the mouse clicks. Of

course it takes a while to shut down everything but Blondie

quick ran out of patience.

"See, this is taking forever!" she snapped, pushing the

reset button.

It wasn't a surprise that NT performed a chkdsk after that.

"Now look! Man, this box is slow!"

One born every minute.

Another one.

A guy was hired as Onsite admin. He was quite good at Unix

but unfortunately one of the kind you have to lock into the

basement without a telephone. Not only that he preferred to

wear Jesus-like sandals without socks when working in a

banking environment (and we're not talking a small bank

here), he had the habit of yelling at his colleagues no

matter who was standing near or far.

So it didn't take long until the bank demanded to take out

this guy. He was transferred to our Development.

At first, a phone call.

F(reak): "From now on I will work in the Development."

Me: "And?"

F: "I've decided to use the product Netscape as mail client."

Me: "Marc Andreessen will be happy to hear."

One week later.

He's coming up to my desk.

F: "Hello."

Me: "Yeah, hello. What can I do for you?"

F: "Netscape is crap. Windows is crap too."

Me: "I see, another command line hero."

F: "I'm not a command line hero. I am a very competent

man and know exactly what I want."

(He was dead serious. No joking at all.)

Me: "And now?"

F: "Give me a Unix machine."

Me: "Um, I don't have any. I'm NT admin. You developers

care about the Unix stuff."

F: "I want a Unix machine!"

Me: "Ok, wait."

So I picked up the phone and called one of the Dev guys.

D: "Yes, hello?"

Me: "Admin speaking. You got a spare Sparc around?"

D: "Yeah, there's an unused Sparc I. But it's slower than a

486, nobody can work with that."

Me: "Hold on a second."

I turned around to report this to Mr. Freak.

F: "No problem. I am good, I can work with that."

Me, talking into the phone: "Ok, he..."

D (interrupting): "Wait! Is this that sandal guy?"

Me: "Uh, yes. In the flesh."

D: "Damn! Where did they find this idiot?"

During the following weeks I enjoyed daily reports coming

off the Development about this freak yelling at his Sparc I,

the coffee machine, the staff and the toilet.

Finally he was fired. Took the management long enough. ;^)

Sad but true....I work for an ISP and this is my story:

(ring)

Me: Thanks for calling blah,blah, how can I help you?

Customer: Hey Mike, I need some help.(I knew this guy) I cant seem to get connected.

Me: Allright, no problem. Let's go to the device manager.(I wanted to see if his network card was working) Go ahead and right mouse click on the my computer icon.

Customer: OK (a second of silence, then I could hear him typing on his keyboard)

Me: Umm....what are you doing?

Customer: I'm trying to WRITE "mouse click" on the desktop, but it's not working, how do you do it?

Just as he told me, I took a big sip of coffee...needless to say I spit the coffee all over my monitor and keyboard and my Dockers. I was laughing and chocking so hard, I couldn't proceed with helping this guy, I told him I'd call him back and hung up.

**The kicker,....this guy was my very own brother!

A client of mine emailed to exclaim that they had opened another office. They wondered what I though of PC Anywhere as an option to access the files on the main office computer.

Knowing the level of computer knowledge of this particular client (and their small budget) I thought it might be a quick solution. But I thought it wise to clarify how it worked.

I emailed them with the basic instructions: yes, PC Anywhere would work, you'd just have to have a phone line available at each PC, a modem at each PC, and that the PC at the main office couldn't be used at the same time as the remote office was using it etc. etc.

They responded quickly that they were glad they had spoken with me before going ahead. They hadn't realized a phone line would be involved. Further probing indicated they thought that the computers would just "communicate" automatically, 20 kilometers away from each other.

Somebody ought to patent that kind of technology.

I work for a small ISP in the east, and we get some pretty crazy callers sometimes. One story that sticks out is about a user that signed up and called us to walk her through the setup of her mail account.

(H)= her

(M)= me

The call went something like this...

(M): Hi this is ***, how can I help you?

(H): I signed up today and need to be walked through the setup of my mail account. My name is *** ****.

(M): O.k. Go ahead and open up outlook express and go to tools, accounts, and then select add and click on mail. Type in your first and last name and then hit next.

(H): Now its asking me for my email.

(M): O.k. That is going to be the username@OOO.ppp. Remember that it is going to be all lowercase letters and no spaces.

(H): Okey - dokey.

(M): Could you read back to me what you put in there?

(H): Sure. That's prettypussy@....

What fine upstanding citizens we encounter in this business. Geez.

So, a contractor for my company needed to run a quick fix on his PC using a CD that the company provided. The problem we ran into was that his CD drive wasn't reading the CD. We know it wasn't the CD because it worked in another drive. After cleaning both the drive and the CD, and attempting to use an external CD Rom, he was still unsuccessful at resolving the issue. Frustrated, he calls me and asks "Couldn’t we just delete what I have now and load it again? Everything I need is on this CD anyway. Is that a viable solution?"

Let’s think about this. I need you to run a quick update

using the CD, but the CD just does not want to work in your drive. So, if that doesn’t work, you want to delete EVERYTHING and reinstall it using the same CD. I mean, naturally, of course it makes sense that if you can’t use the CD to run a simple update, you would most certainly be able to use the same CD to reinstall the program. HELLO! The CD ISN’T working in your machine. What, does he just think he can spread a little creamny ranch dressing on the CD for good luck and it will magically install the software for him?

I am not a tech but I am usually the most computer literate person at the company I work for. This happened about 5 or 6 years ago.

A sales rep from *t&t Internet Services came to our office to demonstrate his companys software and service since my boss was bent on the fact that our company needed to be on the internet, at least for e-mail from clients. To make a long story short, this sales representative had no idea what he was doing. He was about 45 years old and looked like he's been with the company for a while. I had only been on the internet about 1 year when he came to visit us.

I had installed his software on the secretarys computer for his demo so we could all gather 'round and watch.

- he didn't know what HTTP stood for or why you had to type it in the address bar of the browser.

- he couldn't answer any questions about how many e-mail addresses we could have per account or how we could put up a simple company web page for customers to go to to e-mail the correct department.

After all of this, my boss decided he was going to use this reputable company anyway and asked the rep to install his software on his machine. (I had left the room to make a few phone calls) I returned a few minutes later and passed by my boss's office. I noticed the rep hunched over the computer tower (we had all ZEOS' 486/66). I asked what's wrong and he asked me if we had a pair of pliers he could borrow. I asked what for and he said he couldn't get the CD out of the drive. I went over and pused the button on the CD drive but there was no CD there. He made a comment to the tune of something like " oh, that's the CD drive!"

Idiot had put the CD into the 5.25" floppy drive! I promptly told him to please move away from the computer and let me install his stupid software. I was responsible for maintaining the computers in the office and didn't want him screwing them up!!

Why oh why don't companys make sure their reps know at least the basics before they go out to make sales calls????

PS LOVE the site!!

here's some jokes

Top 10 WAYS TO TELL IF A REDNECK

HAS BEEN WORKING ON YOUR COMPUTER

10. The monitor is up on blocks

9. Outgoing faxes have tobacco stains on them

8.The six front keys have rotted out

7. The extra Ram slots have Dodge truck parts

stored in them

6. The numeric keypad only goes up to 5

5. The password is "Bubba"

4. There is a gun rack mounted on the CPU

3. Thereis a SKOAL can in the cd-rom drive

2 .The keyboard is camouflaged

and the #1 way to tell if a redneck has been working

on your computer...................

1. The mouse is referred to as a "critter"

does this compute?

MEN think computers should be referred to as females,

just like ships,because:

No one but the creator understands their internal logic

The language they use to communicate with other

computers is incomprehensible to everyone else.

The message bad command or file name is about

as informative as if you

donot know why I am mad at you.

I am certainly not going to tell you

Your smallest mistakes are stored

in long term memory for later retrieval

As soon as you make a commitment to one,

you find yourself spending half your paycheck

on accessories for it

Women think computers

should be referred to as male here is why:

They have a lot of data,but they are still clueless

They are supposed to help you solve problems,

but half of the time they are the problem

As soon as you commit to one,you realize that,

if you had waited a little longer,

you could have obtained a better model

In order to get their attention,

you have to turn them on

A big power surge will

knock them out for the rest of the night.

I have laughed hysterically at some of the stories on these pages, and lived thru more than one similar experience, but today I got a call that tops them all. EU calls in, asking where his replacement E tower is. Now, we all know E Machines rule, right? (sarcastic grin) This man is screaming at me about how he paid THOUSANDS of dollars for his computer, and even more for an extended warranty, and he wants his computer fixed NOW. I ask him to please hold so I can find his last call ticket (nope, he couldn't provide me with the number, of course), but instead of putting him on hold, I hit the notorious mute button. While I'm diligently running searches, attempting to help this 'gentleman', I can hear him in the background, telling his wife what a complete and utter moron he has on the phone, and how he's gonna "make me cry" so that I'll fix his computer today. As soon as I heard that, I sent the supervisor on duty a quick e, asking him to plug into the call I was on, just so I'd have a witness, more than anything. EU is still going off in the background about what a stupid bitch I must be when I couldn't even run a search and get it right, blah blah blah. I finally found his old tickets, and clicked back on the line with him. According to the last ticket I found, we had just delivered a replacement E Tower to him less than a week ago, and according to the ostech's notes, the system worked fine, and eu was happy. Now, eu is changing his story. Says the system NEVER worked, and the ostech knew that, and we were just trying to defraud him. I again ask him to hold, and I again hit the mute button instead. As soon as I did, my supervisor clicked over onto the second line on my phone telling me he's heard it from the second he got my email, and just draw it out... try to catch this guy in a lie. Well, it didn't take long. EU says that his modem isn't working, and that it didn't work from the day the tower was delivered. He also refused to troubleshoot with me... told me that he had an on-site warranty, and he expected a

replacement computer NOW. No more stalling on our part. I informed him that according to his policy, troubleshooting steps had to be done and documented before our parts department would allow us to send out a replacement tower. Nope, he wasn't gonna stand for that either. The guy goes off, screaming at me, questioning my technical ability, my parentage, and anything else he could find to rag me about. Supervisor is still listening, eu is still screaming at me, and I'm grinning on the other side of that phone. This guy is slowly hanging himself, and doesn't even know it. Finally, I ask him to please hold again, so I could call our parts department and find out what other options we had to offer him at this point. Back on mute he goes, and then the truth comes out. He starts screaming at his wife, even worse than he'd been screaming at me. Seems his wife had been vacuuming, and accidentally pushed the vacuum just a little too far behind the computer table - RIPPING THE PHONE LINE AND PORT FROM THE MODEM! Busted!!! My supervisor clicked back in again, and told me he'd heard enough to void the guy's warranty. Intentional damage isn't covered, and when it's compounded by a big fat lie, then that's enough to get his warranty completely revoked. Sup told me to give him 2 minutes to get to my cube, and he'd plug into my phone directly, so that he could speak with the man, because we both knew it would end up being a sup call as soon as I told him we wouldn't support the damage, and that we were requesting our corporate office to immediately revoke his warranty. EU is still screaming and gnashing his teeth at poor wifey in the background, along with threats towards me and the company I work for. Sup shows up, plugs into my phone, and off mute the guy goes. I interrupt his tirade to tell them that I'd had him on mute, I'd heard what he said, and that it was my duty to inform him that the damage would not be covered under his warranty. Oh my, but I heard words come out of his mouth that I've never before heard in my li

fetime! He told me he was gonna call the Better Business Bureau on me, so I spelled my name for him to make sure he got it right. That seemed to upset him even more, for some reason. He finally demanded to speak to my supervisor, after telling me that it was just my word against his, and the customer was always right. He also told me that he'd have me fired before my shift was over. He then screamed at me again to get my supervisor on the phone. About that time, my sup cleared his throat, and eu went dead quiet. I would imagine that a puddle began forming around his feet at that very moment... then my sup introduced himself, and repeated what I'd already told the 'gentleman'. Computer wouldn't be replaced, warranty would be voided. EU told sup that I was making it all up; I was nothing but a liar. Sup then informed eu that he'd been monitoring the call all along, and also had it recorded, just for future reference.

The next sound sup and I heard was a dial tone in our ears. We noted in the ticket everything that had been said on the phone, and immediately forwarded the ticket # to our corporate office for immediate action. And they say you can't have any fun at work!!!

I am a tech for a rather large internet company and all the time I get callers complaining that they have lost their favorite places...well...I now know of their plight, but that is not the beginning of my tale, I must tell on myself. I was backing up my harddisk to reformat and load a different OS on to it. In the process of burning the CDs it changed the file attributes to read-only. Not knowing this I just dropped the files back into the correct folder. Naturally it would not read the file since you cannot change a read only file, the internet software just came up with the word "empty" when I tried to access my favorite places. Two days later, I was trying to access another file I burned to CD and it gave me "Cannot save file. File is Read-only" error message. Only then did I realize the error in the attributes of the files. I am proud to say after debating for hours with a fellow tech I finally solved the case of the unreadable read only files.

I am not a full time tech guy, but I do keep the network

running at my workplace, look after various computer probs,

and troubleshoot problems for friends and relatives.

A relative of mine told me of a baffling event - not a problem

so much as a curiousity. It seems her monitor had taken to making

sounds when the speakers were turned off. I asked if the speakers

were attached to the monitor, no, she said, they were on the desk.

I asked her if she had unplugged the speakers, and she said yes,

the sound came when the speakers were off and unplugged! The monitor

was making sounds! `Impossible' I thought. On the weekend I finally

got to see the mysterious computer. I fired up a .wav file,

and it blared through the speakers. I turned off the powered

speakers, ran the file again, and there it was, noise! I noticed it

was coming from the speakers (where else?) but softly, as the amps now

had no power. She unplugged the power supply and said `See, it's

unplugged but it still makes sound! I think it's coming from these'

and pointed to a couple of innocent bits of moulding under the monitor.

SIGH.

OK...most stories tell of distraught and clueless users. This is a story about a tech - ME.

I work for a fairly large Free ISP. I received a call late one night from an elderly gentleman. The call went a little like this:

(Greeting, blah blah blah)

Me: Ok, sir, if you would be so kind as to double click the My Computer icon.

C: I don't see that.

Me: You don't see the My Computer icon? Are you using Windows 95?

C: Yes.

Me: (becoming quite baffled) Are you sure you don't see the My Computer icon at the top left of your desktop???

C: (irritated now) No. I don't see it!!

Me: (thinking I'm smart now) Is your monitor on sir?

C: (Hacked now) Yes, it's on. Do you think I'm stupid or what? I know what I'm doing!!!!!

Me: No sir. Not at all. Let's double check to see if you have the My Computer icon.

C: I know I have it. I just can't see it...I'M BLIND!

Dang...I felt about 2 inches tall after that call!

I had a caller phone and inform me that she was moved to a new work area.She phoned to inform me that her monitor was flickering at a frequency that was making her sick to her stomach.I asked caller if anything was different about her new set-up (I.E.)layout of her desk any new components on Computer. She says no. I ask her if she has any electrical devices on her desk like a pencil sharpener or a lamp etc. etc as I have seen these things run interference with the monitor before. She again replys no. So I am thinking maybe her monitor is really broken or something. So I send email to her local tech support to have a look at her monitor. When the resolution came back I just about feel off my chair. Resolution said: Dizzy had a electric fan running full plow on top of her CPU sitting right next to you guessed it the monitor. When I talked with the Tech support guy he says to me you should have told her to shake her head at the same frequency so she could read the monitor. What a clown. Sound like Dizzy is depriving some small village of a perfectly good idiot.

A lady called tech support early one morning from a law office. She'd arrived early for work because she had to get out some important files for her boss and quick. She called in a total panic because she 'couldn't see her screen' and informed the tech that he'd have to bring a new monitor immediately.

The tech asked if the green light was on, indicating that the monitor was turned on. The lady told him, 'no.'

The tech, knowing that the desk sat in the center of a room with nothing behind the computer to block the view of it, asked the lady to check the plugs. That possibly the cleaning people had inadvertantly pulled a plug loose. She told him that she couldn't see the plugs. When the tech asked why she couldn't see the plugs, had someone moved her computer, she informed him that, 'no. The computer hadn't been moved. There are no lights in the building.'

Got a tech support call from a movie rental store manager early one morning. The computers in the store booted off floppy disks. This morning the manager couldn't get the computer to boot and asked for help.

The tech talked with the manager for quite some time, trying to explain what to do. The conversation went something like this....

Tech: Remove the disk from the drive.

Mgr: I can't.

Tech: Why not.

Mgr: You told me not to.

Tech: I'm telling you to do it now.

Mgr: I can't.

Tech: Why not.

Mgr: You told me to NEVER remove it, no matter what.

Tech: I'm telling you now that it is okay to remove the disk from the drive.

This went on for about 5 minutes....

FINALLY the Mgr. removed the disk.

After several more questions it was determined that someone had inadvertantly put a wrong disk in the machine the night before. So the Tech FINALLY got the manager to get the correct disk. Then the conversation continued as follows:

Tech: Insert the disk in the drive.

Mgr: Which way?

Tech: Pick the disk up and turn it over until the label is on top. Then insert it into the drive.

Mgr: It doesn't work.

Tech: Did you turn the disk over?

Mgr: Yes.

Tech: Then put the disk into the drive.

Mgr: It doesn't work.

Again, this went on for several more minutes. Finally a second tech came in and overheard the conversation and started trying to get the first tech's attention. He took a disk in his hand, turned it over, then turned it over again so that he was holding it exactly as he'd originally been holding it. .........This was what the manager was doing.

Tech: Lay the disk on the desk. Is the label facing up?

Mgr: No

Tech: Turn the disk over so that the label is facing up and lay it back down on the desk with the label facing up.

Mgr: Ok

Tech: Now, pick up the disk, and without turning the disk over any more, put it into the drive.

I do warranty service for a major computer manufacturer in multi-vendor support, meaning we handle computers made by other companies as well as our own.

I get this call one day for a major mail-order computer company which shall remain nameless but they have "Country" stores all over the US.

The call decription says :Replace CD-Rom Drive, read/write errors.

I arrive at the customer's house and ask if they have recieved the part and ask them if they have a CD-Rom or a CD-RW because the call says "read/write" error. (I'm opening the box at this point) The Customer says, "Nope, just a CD-Rom I don't know what's up with this stupid thing, I was on the phone with tech support for 45 minutes, and the guy couldn't help me so they sent this drive."

I unpacked the CD-Rom and asked the customer to explain to me exactly what the problem was. She says, "The CD-Rom works just fine, but whenever I play an audio CD it changes tracks every 10 seconds."

Stifling laughter I ask her, "Every 10 seconds EXACTLY??" She says "Yes, every 10 seconds." Sure enough I open her CD-Player and see that it is set to "Intro" mode with an interval of, you guessed it, 10 seconds. I unchecked the Intro mode and it worked great. i told her to just send the new drive back.

She says as I'm leaving, "You know the young man I talked to on the phone kept telling me, 'this is a really tough one, I've never seen THIS before!'"

Gotta love it.

More to come . . .

-Guy P.

Although I fortunately don't have to deal with Tech Support at my job, sometimes friends call me for a piece of advise...

friend: I've got a problem with my computer and I'm afraid I broke something

me: What's wrong?

friend: Well, I was just working on this document... then I left for 10 minutes to the kitchen to get a drink... when I came back, the screen was black, and there were small colorful windows flying all over it. what should I do?

me: (prepared for the worst) ummm.... did you try to move the mouse?

friend: no, I'm afraid I'm damaging something

me: well, then try it now.

friend: (moving mouse) hey, it worked, the windows are gone. Thank you so much!

me: you're sooooo welcome.

... I should start taking lots of money for that.

While I was working on a contract for a local industry, I used to be involved in PC Support. I was one of 3 people responsible for the maintenance of 320 PCs (various brands) and servers. Not to mention fibre optic networks, token ring, etc etc etc.

My contract was on it's last day, and I was getting all my gear ready to leave.

The phone went as I was saying goodbye to my fellow techs. And it was our most irate user in the same building.

Me: PC Support, blah here.

User: "I started my printer up about 5 minutes ago and it's making a funny smell."

Me: "Oh okay, well - hang on a second. I'll need to order part number (enter BS part number here). Please leave your printer off until it arrives"

User: (click)

No thankyou or goodbye. She just hangs up. Leaving me silently fuming. With that, I got up and said goodbye to everyone, got in my car and left.

About 2 weeks later, I caught up with one of my fellow techs who told me that the user came running up the stairs with a mad-as-hell look on her face carrying a box of 5 air freshners. Needless to say, they all cracked up with laughter.

Apparently the funny smell was a combination of the printer warming up and a nearby rubbish bin.

I have never gone back either. :) Revenge can also be fun.

One bright and misty morning I receive a call.

User: I can't log on

Me: Ok ma'm, what is your username please?

User: it's *********

Me: ok ma'm, now what error message do you receive when you type in your username and password?

User: error message? i don't get any error message, my screen is black.

Me: Ma'm, is your computer on?

User: Oh....*click*

Obviously she didn't realise that in order to log on, the PC had to be on!!!

...The Customer which called me and asked;

"How do I get space between the letters?"

The call could have been two-three minutes shorter, hadn't it been for me being so puzzled and thinking that it was a veeery difficult problem...

...Eventually I understood the plain sillyness, and said; "The long one at the bottom of your keyboard?!"

Customer: "Oh, ok, thanks..."

Jeeezzz...

This was a service call I took early in my career as a "Techie". Got a warranty service call on an IBM Aptiva computer, said the system would not boot. A power supply was sent out to the customer location and I was sent to install and test it.

When I arrive onsite, I notice there is a scanner attached to the computer that uses it's own SCSI board. I also notice that while this house is a disaster area, the CPU of the system is IMMACULATE. You'll see why in a minute.

The quality seal is cut in half on the cabinet of the CPU, and I ask the customer casually if anybody has ever opened the unit before as I am removing the screws to get inside. I am told quite emphatically "no", nobody has ever opened this unit since the day it was purchased.

I get the cabinet opened and find a number of problems. 1) There is a quarter of an inch of cola sloshing about inside the CPU. 2) Said cola is also dripping freely out of the power supply. 3) There is no ribbon cable connecting the floppy drive to the motherboard, I mean it's not even in the CASE. Gone, history, finito.

I casually asked the customer if anybody had spilled anything on the computer recently, and am again told emphatically "no" and when I pointed out that somebody had to have spilled something on the unit due to the preponderance of the evidence, I'm told that he has no IDEA how that could have gotten in there!

It gets better . . . I also asked the customer AGAIN if anybody had ever messed around inside the CPU. This time I'm told rather rudely "NOBODY has EVER opened up the case on this computer till you just did!".

I then pointed out the SCSI board for the scanner and asked how this board got into his computer since IBM Aptivas do NOT come with that hardware installed. He feigns complete ignorance yet again. By now I'm becoming extremely annoyed with his attitude, and sarcastically ask him if his floppy drive is working ok. Smugly he tells me it has always worked fine for him. I then told him, "that's funny, cause unless your computer is using some new infra-red technology that I'm unaware of, your floppy drive doesn't even have a cable connecting it to your motherboard.

Well, THAT finally flips him over the edge and he freaks out. He calls his daughter (who looks about 15)into the room and makes her fess up to goofing around with the computer, and spilling coke on it. After that I also had to politely inform him that his damage to his machine was NOT covered under warranty and he would have to pay for all of out services. Of course he already knew that, hence the whole charade.

Geez, talk about not owning up to a mistake!

This is one of those ones where you kick yourself afterwards for not having seen it coming.

This lady calls up saying that she cant connect etc.All that i could get

out of her was that there was a box that always comes up and if she clicks on it " everything

goes away" and that it had duration on it.For 5/ 10 minutes she failed to give a clear description

of what had happened or what she could see infront of her, but only repeated that a box comes up and if she clicks on it everything goes away.

My first guess was that the screen that comes up when you click on the two computers by the time had come up

so i tried to get her open up a browser but she couldnt find netscape or ie. After painstakingly

describing her desktop to her and that she should see a picture on that screen w/

connect to xxxxx( her dialer) on it i finally managed to get her to see and click on it.

her next words were "yes, that box has come up again"............ words failed me