Funny and Humorous Technical Support Tales and Stories

I work for a high speed internet service, and this lady called in one day saying that she couldn't turn on her computer after downloading a file from an email, after about 10 minutes of troubleshooting the computer problem that we really don't support I came to the realization that it was a virus that had been accessed into her system. Well, she called yelling and screaming saying that one of our technicians broke her scanner!! I calmly asked the women to lower her voice and to slow down and explain what has happened to why she says that this technician broke her scanner. She plainly stated, that this technician asked her for when she was able to boot up her computer to run the virus scan disk..Well I really don't think that she understood what this tech said because she unplugged the computer and placed the whole computer on her scanner, and in doing so the weight of the computer broke the glass on her scanner!!!!!!

I'm not working in computer support any more so I'm not getting any new TechTales. I do miss them, so am frequenting this site often :)

I was taking a flight across the country and spent a few hours in the airport's executive lounge. They have computers there with internet access.

On their computers, AutoComplete is enabled on Internet Explorer. (This is the feature that remembers information you have typed into forms, and asks you if you'd like to use that same string again if you type the first few letters of it.)

On a hunch, I went to a search engine and typed "www" in the search box.

Of course Internet Explorer asked if I would like to search for "www.google.com", "www.yahoo.com", "www.hotmail.com"...!!!

My partner's grandfather knows enough about computers to be dangerous. Fortunately he only has access to his own computer.

One day he rings me up and asks if I could take a look at his computer to see why it is so slow. So I go over and fire up his computer. About 15 minutes later Windows 98 finishes loading. The desktop is cluttered with things like shortcuts to shortcuts to documents already on the desktop but that's not what scares me. He has so many things loading on startup that the system tray takes up about two thirds of the width of the screen. It's full of shareware and the like that he has downloaded. The main offender is some program that tries to keep X percent physical RAM free by moving stuff to the swap file. The computer only had 32meg of RAM to start with and he had set it to keep 60% free.

After uninstalling as mush as possible, clearing out the startup folder and using msconfig.exe to disable a few more things the computer was finally useable again.

This is'nt computer related but i used to work for Echostart (Dishnetwork) as an Advanced Tech and could go on for days about some of the calls i would get but here is one of my of my favorites:

Right after an earth quake in California a lady calls in:

Her "My receiver wont turn on."

Me "Can you please check to make sure the receiver is pluged into a working outlet?"

Her "I already checked that after I put it back up."

Me "Put it back up?"

Her "Yes,I came home from work and it had fallen off of my dresser durring the earth quake.I put it back together and made sure the connections where hooked up and it still wont work."

At this point i simply gave her the # for return autherization,I didnt feel like telling her we didnt cover natural disaster.

I have done tech support for quite a while. I have heard many things that defy logic and reason. One thing I can never understand though, is why a person would lie to the technition who is trying to help.

I work for a fairly large ISP (O.K. one of the biggest.)and it is almost impossible to get the same technition twice. Also, we only give support for our software and connectivity. I take a call where an older gentleman was booting into safe mode ever time. After reviewing the system it turns out to be a hardware conflict. Well, I apologised and informed him that he'd need to call his manufacturer to get this resolved. Well ten minutes later I get him again...

Tech: Thank you for calling A****** O*****, my name is Robert... (Usual opening, notice that his history pops up.)

User: Yes I called your technical support about an hour ago and tallked to this complete idiot. (Begin lie #1) He had this brilliant idea to contact my manufacturer. This idiot thought it was my system, but I called them anyway. Well I called them were off today. (Sidenote: First, It was the weekend but they have 24hour a day, 7 day a week tech support. Second, I checked his time on hold and was waiting roughly ten minutes.) What I need from you is to preform what you are obligated to do and fix my computer. The last guy only shirked his duty and wasted an hour of my time.

(Actual quote from this guy, apparently he didn't recognize my voice.)

Tech: I apologise sir, but what I told you before was accurate. (I hear a gasp in the background.) I informed you that you would have to talk to (Manufacturer) to resolve this issue, and there is nothing I can do for you.

User: (Begin lie 2) I already contacted my manufaturer and they told me it was an (My company) issue and you need to take care of it. If you don't know the awnser then ask somebody next to you.

Tech: Once again sir, I apologise, but no technition here will be able to help you. You need to contact (Manufacturer).

User: (Begin lie 3) Well I called them and they quoted me over a hundred dollars to fix this and...

Tech: (Having enough of this) Sir, you called me back within 10 minutes and you spent that time on hold. You have not even tried to contact your manufacturer. If you want this issue resolved you need to contact them!

User: I have had enough of this, give me your supervisor.

Tech: I'm sorry sir, but my supervisor will not be able to help you either.

User: We'll see about this, you are going to fix my problem with your F%$# software.

Tech: Once again sir, my supervisor will not be able to help you. You need to contact your computer manufacturer.

User: I'm tired of your lies, give me your F%$# boss right F%$# now.

Tech: Please hold.

I transfered the user to my sup. Who after I explained the issue told him the same thing. After cursing and canceling his account my supervisor came back to me. He told me that the guy was full blown irrate and wanted to know when AOL started refering users back to the techs they previously talked to at the end of their conversation.

I can never understand why they think we can help when they lie. Regardless of it's something small (I.E. Installing a program), medium (Adding new hardware) or huge (Adding firewalls, a printer, a scanner, reformated the hard drive). People, please, if you call technical support tell the technition the truth, listen to what they say, and believe them. If what they say breaks your computer, then you can get angry and have them repair it. Just listen to them to begin with. If you know nothing of computers then you do not have any reason to call the technition a liar.

I apologise for being so longwinded, but I'm sure all those technitions will agree that I'm right in this one.

Here's a slightly different tale from my last. I work for that large ISP (Think popular ISP to slam) and have taken a fair share of calls. One lonely day on the front lines this person calls up. It was a young woman connecting to us through a seperate cable service.

Tech: Thank you for calling A****** O*****, my name is Robert... (Opening) Waht seems to be the issue.

User: Yes, when I sign on to you it goes deathly slow. It doesn't pull up pages hardly and it takes just too long.

(At this point I check he settings and everything in the software is set up right. I test her cable and it is doing the same thing. We try uninstalling the software to prove it isn't us and then I begin the dreaded "refer to manufacturer" speech.

Tech: I apologise, but you'll need to contact your cable service. The issue is the cable modem is running slow and you need to have them correct that.

User: But my cable modem is fine, I just am going slow on your service.

Tech: I'm sorry, but your connecting at your cable at that speed. You need to have them take a look at that.

User: No I don't. The cable is fine, the issue is that your software is going slow.

Tech: Let's try this. (Walk her through the steps of going to the internet through the IE.) NOw as you can see it's going slow here. This is how fast your cable modem is connecting.

User: That's not it, this is because your software is messing up. Please will you fix this.

Tech: Ma'am, The reason your going slow is because your cable is not going that fast. Our service connects at their speed. We are piggy-backing on their system. They are going slow, so we don't have an option to go slow.

User: I don't understand. Cable is a fast connection. Your going slow. That means it's your issue.

Tech: Once again, your Cable connection is going slow. Our connection goes as fast as that connection. So if the cable goes slow, then we go slow.

User: I don't get it. Your software is the one going slow. That means it's something you can fix.

Tech: Again, ma'am, your connection to us is slow because your Cable is slow right now. They are the connection we are using.

User: That doesn't make any sense. Your the ones going slow.

Tech: Ma'am, your cable is like a train, and we are passengers on it. If your train goes slow, we all go slow. WE have no control over the train. You need to contact your "train" company to get the train going faster.

User: O.K... I still don't understand. I'll contact the cable company. I still think, though that if your running slow it's something you can fix. *Click*

Hmm... maybe I should drop the criptic technical terms like "piggy-back", "Cable", and "connection". I tried to make it as simple as possible and then people wonder why I talk to them like they are idiots. Don't blame the tech if he makes himself clear. We have no idea how smart you are with computers and considering that we take these kinds of calls, be thankful we don't talk to you in baby gibberish.

While working for a DSL provider that will remain nameless(hey i like my job) i've had a few interesting calls, heres a couple of the best:

Me: The best tech supporter on the planet...

EU:Pathetically clueless End (l)user

Me:Usual opening lines

EU:I've lost the internet!

Me:Excuse me?

EU:I lost the internet, its gone!

(turns out the user had been moving files around on his desktop and dropped into another folder)

A little background on this next call first...i was walking the user through making it faster to access the 'net(less clicks :) and we were rebooting the system...

EU: Cmon, talk to daddy, talk to daddy(at this point i had to scramble for the mute button, o how i love that little button :)

makes me wonder what his voicemail message sounds like ;)

well i probably need to take a call and be a productive employee now...

til we meet again

thx for listening

I work as a Residential Network (ResNet) consultant for a midsize Upstate New York university. (a hint as to who we are: our mascot is a large citrus fruit). Like most University tech support groups, we get very busy around the opening of school. I spent about 35 hours last week in the dorms, trying to help people with their problems, most of which were relatively easy to fix, like an RJ-11 plugged into their ethernet card. 2 of my most notable stories:

1) Client reports that her internet connection is not working, and the registration page isn't coming up. I go up to her room, and the computer is still in the big cow spotted box.

2) Client #2 has a laptop, with a PCMCIA ethernet card, and an external dongle. I was dispatching that day, so I sent a tech up to the client's room. The tech comes back about 10 mins later, nearly crying with laughter. Seems the client had plugged their ethernet dongle into their USB port. The dongle was pretty badly bent up, and had to be replaced. The most amazing thing is that my tech actually managed to hold their laughter until they got out of the client's room, and told the client (with a perfectly straight face) that the dongle would have to be replaced.

I'm working 1st/2nd line at the moment, due to a move across country, the answer is bovious to anyone with any experience, here we go ...

A floor support ( 2nd/3rd line ) phoned to raise a 'priority 1' call as both of the 2 printer servers in his building were apparently out as he couldn't print. I will point out now, this is an NT based network, running both thick and thin environments in tandem. The guy calls to raise the problem and is it is taken by a collegue who takes the guy who is at apparently a higher level at his word, not doing the usual checks ( well you don't do you ). Anyway the guys phones back 5 minutes later to cancel the call as he has only just realised that after changing his password in one environment then trying to authenticate onto the printer servers that he has suffered an 'account lockout' and had previously neglected to check with any other user in the entire building if they were affected, or to reboot or to even try another server connection to see if this was the problem, needless to say he's no living it down here, thought you'd be interested to hear it :o)

Walked into my supplier's office. Saw some diskette media on the wall-one nail through it, and no jacket on the media itself. Huh?? My supplier said that a lady came in wanting to know if he could see the error, because her computer had said that the diskette had an error, so she opened the diskette up to fix it. She couldn't find the error-could he find and fix

the error, and what would he charge for it?

I work as as help desk technician troubleshooting all in one devices for a large producer of hardware. One day a customer called in complaining that his "printer" won't stop beeping. So I asked him to power cycle the unit and he claims that he already has, but he humours me anyhow. Sure enough, I could still hear beeping over the phone *even during the power cycle*!

Not really convinced that he had indeed performed the power cycle I asked him if he had unplugged the power cord from the unit. He insisted that he had. Of course, I don't believe him and so proceeded to have him disconnect *all* cords from his unit.

After a bit he claims to have finished and that his @#! unit is still beeping which I could hear as well. Again, I asked him if he's sure that he has all cables disconnected from the unit and he insists it's so. Then I ask him if I can put him on hold so I can check something out.

I accousted a supervisor and asked him if the units that we troubleshoot have any kind of power storage device that would allow it to operate without being directly plugged in. Of course the answer was no.

When I got back on the phone with the user I asked him to look for anything close to his device that might be the cause of the beeping. Grumbling about my apparent lack of intelligence he started looking. Sure enough, he found something. He had an alarm clock on a shelf just above his device that has been beeping for the past hour or so.

After he turned it of, the beeping went away! Amazing!!!

This happened today, simple problem. The customer only wanted to know our news server address. The funny part happening after the chat was finished.

Customer: Hey, i am wanting to go to the news groups and do not know the server info

Me : May I have the first and last name and the phone number including the area code of the account holder please?

Customer: name: xxxx xxxxxxx phone: 555-555-5555

Me : Thank you, the news server for your area is news-server.

Me : Are there any other technical issues we may assist you with?

Customer: You are a very nice person even though i am not talking to you thanks

Me : (insert closing script) Is there anything else I can help you with?

Customer: ok and i am so horny

Me : xxxxx, please remember, this chat support is for technical questions regarding your Road Runner Service. Is there something I can help you with in regards to that?

Customer: so i am typing to someone else.....

Customer: sorry i was typing to someone else....i am so flushed

When i boot my computer an error message appeared said "Press any key to continue...." but how could i answered that i dont have a keyboard...it makes me think twice..

This is true, it happened to me a few years ago. I was working part time in a computer shop that sold some systems, but mainly games.

The phone rang and I answered it, the lady at the other end seemed to be a little bit annoyed to say the least. I asked her what the problem was.

Lady: I have just bought a PC from your shop and it is faulty.

Me: What appears to be the problem?

Lady: Some parts are missing, it's not all there and it doesn't work.

Me: Ok, can you tell me what you think is missing.

Lady: Well, one of the keys on the keyboard isn't there.

Me: Which key?

Lady: The anykey, key.

Me: There isn't an anykey on the keyboard.

Lady: I know, thats what I'm telling you!

Me: No, you don't understand, there is not an anykey, on any keyboard.

Lady: There must be, I left a disk in the drive and it asked me to remove the disk and press the anykey. I can't find it.

I am usually appointed support techie at local LAN-parties because i have basic know-how about computers. The problem is that people drag their faulty machines down to these things and DEMAND that the crew fixes them.

It's not unusual for someone to come down with a fresh install and ask us to "fix his picture" without bringing the correct drivers for the GFX card. But this guy takes the price...

[Rocky] Could you help me get DC (Direct Connect) working

[Me] Sure, what's the problem

[Rocky] I can't connect

[Me] Do you get any error messages?

[Rocky] No

I check out the log, and it's filled of "Wrong password, Nickname allready in use"

[Me] Your nick is taken, you'll have to choose another nick

[Rocky] What's a nick?

GHAAAA!!!

[Me] the name you use when you are online, Nickname, Alias

[Rocky] Aaaah, a nickNAME, i know what that is

Gawd!

[Me] Ok, you'll have to switch your nickNAME to be able to connect to this hub

[Rocky] But i want to use Rocky

Yeah, like noone else would?

[Me] You will have to change your nick or try using another hub

[Rocky] But i want to use this hub

[Me] Then you'll have to change your nick

[Rocky] I don't want to

... Well, this goes on for 4 or 5 more rounds until i commence beating the guy with the nearest loose object i could find.

Later he wanted us to teach him how to rip DVD's, so a friend of mine gave him the URL to a one click rip program. But this whas too hard for him, first, actually going to the link and downloading the program was too hard, and then he wanted a simpler program (it just doesn't get simpler than specify DVD driveletter and output path).

If this guy ever asks me for help again, i will not be responsible for my actions. [Search, Kill, Destroy]

I work at a number of different locations with a book at each one. People write problems in the book, I work through the jobs listed.

So I get to work today and pick up my job book. One of the jobs is listed as "ASAP Please see xxxxx - URGENT". Normally people have enough sense to at least hint at the problem. This is at a school and nothing I look after is that urgent.

I go and track down xxxxx. Her problem? One of the computers in the student lab of 28 couldn't get net access. The solution was only slightly more complicated than putting the plug back in.

My sister went and reloaded her Word document when she accidently deleted some text from it. She didn't realise that Word, like the majority of Windows programs, has an Undo feature. She then got all cranky with me when I pointed it out to her, and said "I thought you knew about that" to her.

*sigh* You'd think they'd be smart enough take a look through the menus before they resort to reloading their document, or calling tech support. Wouldn't you?

Rohan _e_ii

One day I tried to connect to the internet via mum's account at our ISP. The connection failed, thinking that it might just be a temporary problem, and they'd have it fixed later, I just shrugged it off.

A couple of days later I tried again, no luck. Then we decided to ring tech support (a long distance call to Sydney, by the way). After waiting on hold for 10 minutes, we finally got through to a tech. Now, I already knew all our settings were correct, and I told the tech so. He then checked our account, and found it had been disabled. When I asked him why, he told me he didn't know, but told me to call the accounting department.

So I went and called the accounting department, and asked why the account had been disabled. It turned out that the credit card which mum uses to pay for the internet access had expired. When I asked why we weren't notified, the lady told us that a notification email was sent to us. Aha!

Now here's the problem: mum hardly ever checks her email, as she doesn't have the time or anyone to send it to. You'd be lucky if she checked it three, maybe four, times a _year_!

Anyway, we gave the ISP the new credit card settings and were reconnected the next day.

This just goes to show it pays to read your email!

Rohan _e_ii

I used to work as a hardware tech servicing cash registers for large retail chains.

One day I got a call that a register was on fire. After breaking a few speed limits to get to the store ;o) I was lead to the burning register which had been sectioned off from the public for their safety.

Calmly I walked up to the register and pull some red cellophane out of the keyboard which was fluttering in the air conditioning breeze!

Thank goodness no one had decided to use a fire extinguisher on it!

I once had a call from a rather delightfully well endowed young lady who claimed that her keyboard was faulty, it kept putting random spaces amongst her typing.

I couldn't find any problem when I tested the keyboard but anyway replaced it with a brand new one.

The next day I got the same top heavy lady with the same complaint. Extremely puzzled I asked her to type whilst I watched. Almost immediately I saw the problem, as she typed her breasts keep hitting the space bar.

Now the hard part, how do I tell her the problem?

Just then a cartoon light bulb appeared and I asked her to go get a cup of coffee for me. When she was away I wound her computer chair up a couple of inches and when she returned I stated that I had fixed the problem.

And sure enough, I never heard from her with that complaint again!

I used to be a hardware tech for a cash register company and once I had a call stating that a whole retail store was down.

AFter much discussion over the telephone I found out that the main server was powered off. Apparently a staff member had turned off the "room heater"!

I am not in support anymore, this story is from 1992 but I still remember it.

She called in having trouble with her Mac, it was slow, pictures doesnt show so I said it sounds like she have trouble with her RAM, she might need to get some more or close some stuff. She said she think it is something else so I went go to the Apple-meny /About Macintosh and see what it say where it say free memory.

She: I told you it was something else, it is NOT the memory.

Me: So what did it say about free memory?

She: it says Ok.....

Me: Laughter........

There are zeroes out there ;-)

I was taking a call from client with a Jamaican accent who was trying to change his e-mail font. I asked him what program he was using. He said he did not know what an e-mail program was and why he would ever need one. My supervisor overheard the conversation and told me to tell him to seek training as he was beyond help over the phone. Well, I thought I would give it a shot and he said to me after ten minutes of prodding that he was using "Lookout" I was assumed he meant Outlook. I managed to figure out that his problem wasn't the e-mail font, but the desktop font was too small for his liking. The user had five windows open, and I asked him to minimize them. He did not know what that meant, so I had to explain to him what the minmize button was and what it looked like. By using words like "the litte subtract button" he still couldn't understand and became impatient. So I finally said, well, if you can't minimize your window, you can't access the desktop. He then joyfully agreed with me and confirmed that he was indeed logged into Windows and said "now we're getting somewhere!" and then asked, "What's a desktop?" At this point I took a deep breath and had to explain to him what a window and desktop are and he told me to stop using the "big computer terms that technology people use to sound smart." I told him outright that aside from calling a window a rectangle box, that that's as simple as it gets! Now he was getting irate and told me that if I couldn't help him, then I shouldn't have a job and that he has called several times and never had a problem before. Again, I told him that I cannot help him because his computer knowledge was far too limited to help over the phone and he would need to know at least the basic functions of a computer. He then said that I'm just some "neo-nazi white boy and a brother would've helped him." I hung up shortly after that... and his account will be terminated soon.

This is not a story about stupid users, but it's amazing anyway: I made a house call to install a CD-ROM drive and troubleshoot some problems with a Mac, and the EU not only knew what the problems were, but she also had TechTool (a very very good diagnostics program) installed! Yes, a user who even knows half of what she's talking about!

A colleague of mine and I work together creating a backgammon site. As my colleague is the company's java guru, he is doing all the client-server stuff while I handle the php web page programming and database issues around it.

When I had finished some parts of the website, I integrated the "start game" button which brings up the current version of the biggammon client applet (not finished yet). The game board was already there, and you could move stones, but the lobby (i.e. where the players meet and can open tables) at that time consisted only of a full-screen button labeled "start game". Click it, and voilà the board, shiny and full-color with stones, counter etc.

Now I informed some friends that they could pre-test the site. Some hours later, I enthusiastically asked them whether they liked it. Both answered diplomatically "To be honest ... quite boring."

Me: "How can it be boring? You can join tournaments, view and edit profiles, upload nice little pics to your user account and even move the stones around!"

Friend: "Nope, it won't work. I saw no stones. My java won't work."

After some troubleshooting, we re-installed the user's Java Virtual machine ... no help.

Finally it turned out that their software was installed perfectly but at the point when they were supposed to press the big "Play Game" button, both of them didn't recognize it as a button (despite the label) and waited for something to happen ... they never got to the board.

Boring, I admit. They were thinking we simulated the board by writing "play game" on it. ;)

I've done tech support for pay in the past but, thankfully, not for a while now. Needless to say, this means that I continue to give free support to family and friends. This isn't(normally) too bad, but this one shows lack of competance or atleast followthrough in a tech.

My dad, who knows enough to ask for help, was trying to install a 2-port USB card in an old Gateway(Pentium Pro I believe). He had problems so called tech support for the card company. Some time later I get a call(long distance). Apparently said "tech" had him blow away the entirety of his BIOS. No writing down settings, no anything else. Tech apparently gave up leaving the box without the USB card working, device conflict messages from the BIOS on startup, and a plethora of windows messages. Two hours later(turn off unused LPT port that wouldn't share IRQ with USB card, remove modem that he hasn't used in a year... converted him to cable modem with a masqing gateway last year), and several windows driver config screens later I finally leave him with downloading and installing the driver(oh, sure... windows95 has the USB driver built in) for the card. He didn't get a disk, but I had him upgrade it to OSR2 back before he bought the card, so at least he won't run into that. And a driver install he can manage.

Why is it that after having him do something that drastic to an old resource-scraped box, this tech left him in the lurch?

G = Elderly lady

Me = myself

I was answering our company's internal IT-helpdesk calls a couple of years ago when i got this call:

G : Hello, can you help me ?

Me : ..Um, yes of course. *that woman sounds OLD...*

G : There's something wrong with my television.

Me : OK, so you mean that there's something wrong with your monitor, what's the trouble ?

G : No,no. I said television *YES, so ??!?!* but anyway, it's all black and there's no picture.

Me : OK, well, have you checked the cables ?

G : Yes.

Me : Well, do you see ANYTHING on the screen ?

G : Yes, there's some green text on the upper-side of the screen.

Me : What does it say ?

G : There's some numbers and some letters but they don't make any sense. And the remote control does absolutely nothing.

*Remote control ??? At this point I realize that it really IS a tv, and she's staring at an empty teletext page*

Me : Where did you get this number ? This is the company XXX's internal support for PC's, we don't do TV's..

G : You guys have the WWW right ?

Me : Well if you mean a webpage, yes, most companies do.But why did you call us AND where did you get this number ?

G : Well the last time I saw this black screen, there was a lot more text and I remember seeing company XXX's name there so I figured that you guys can help me with this so I called your switchboard and they forwarded my call to you.

Me : OK, mam, I think the only person that can help you right now is your janitor *grinning*, so try to reach him as fast as you can, OK ?

G : Good advice, I'll do that !

Me : Great ! Bye !

And then I went to give hell to the new lady at the switchboard :)

I'm not official tech support, but like many others, I'm the most knowledgeable about computers in the office, so I spend a fair amount of time fixing various problems. As a non-profit group, most of our computers are not precisely top of the line, which adds another layer of difficulty to the average troubleshooting session.

The real problem, as ever, is the users-- at least, one of them, anyway. Most of my co-workers are sensible, reasonable people. Cici is, to be blunt, an idiot. Not only that, but the worst kind of idiot-- the kind who's convinced she knows everything. This is an example of how these things go.

Me: So the problem is...?

Cici: We have a virus. Something to do with the cache.

Me: Because...?

Cici: There aren't any pictures on the computer.

Me: (blinks, looks at the desktop, where there are both icons and wallpaper) No pictures...?

Cici: On the OS.

Me: Show me?

Cici: (long-suffering sigh. She pulls up IE and points.) See? No pictures.

Me: That's the browser. Not the computer. Not the OS. The reason there aren't any--

Cici: I know that!

Me: (I'm used to her. I ignore her.) --any pictures is that someone's turned off the show pictures option in the--

Cici: (dismissively) No, it's a virus in the cache. We need to reboot.

Jane (supervisor): Uh....

Me: (I continue to ignore her; lean over; and pull up options, then check show pictures. Reload. Pictures appear.) Someone turned it off so the page would load faster.

Cici: Oh, I knew that.

Me: I don't doubt that for a moment.

To make matters even *more* irritating, she'll latch on to a word and then run it into the ground, blaming problems on things like SDRAM which "you have to defrag or it doesn't work" and so on. She's fooling nobody but herself as to the accuracy of her diagnoses, as is typical for this type.

Every conversation is like that with her. There's a problem; she comes up with some bizarre "explanation" for it; then insists my fix won't work; then when it *does* work, says she knew it already. One day, though, I snapped.

She insists on installing much too much software on these low-end computers-- everything from PowerPoint to idiotic Internet tools. One day, she installed Eudora, then couldn't get it to work because she couldn't get the setup right; basically, she refused to admit that her password might be case-sensitive; instead, she claimed the problem was with the LAN....

Me: We've never had a LAN.

Cici: That's ridiculous. You have to have that, or the token ring won't boot.

Me: Token rings don't-- okay, never mind. We don't have a LAN. If your password has uppercase letters, you have to--

Cici: I know how to do this. You have to reboot the computer. (Rebooting is one of her favourite solutions.)

Me: No. You don't. Listen, you said your password was your son's name?

Cici: (long-suffering sigh) Yes.

Me: And at home, you capitalize it?

Cici: *Yes.*

Me: Then you have to do it here. It's the same--

Cici: (condescendingly) At *home*, I use Outlook. This is *Eudora*. It's *different*. I'm telling you, it's the LAN, and we have to--

Me. Shut up!

Cici: What?

Me: Shut. Up. And. Listen. There is *NO* goddamn LAN, there is *NO* goddamn token ring. You're typing your goddamn password wrong. Now, you called *me* to fix the problem, now I'm *fixing* the $#%@ing *problem*.

Cici: You don't--

ME: SHUT UP!

And up she shut. I typed in the password. Ran Eudora. It worked. I think she was *going* to say she knew it all along, but realized she would be taking her life into her own hands.

Ever since then, she's been a lot less forthcoming about her computer "knowledge".

A little background first.

I'm a tech who has been around and rember the punch cards the first Apple and first PC. I''m pretty knowledgeable on what makes most things tick, and have been involved in software companies and circuit board design and worked for a few ISP's also.

One of the most asked questions when working Tech support for an ISP is when new users call in and ask "Is the internet broken?" or they say "Your internet is broken. I can't get on it!!! Can you fix it for me?"

I recently had a hard drive crash, actually lost two of 5 hard drives and an operating system on one machine. It happened to be a Mac (first major disaster ever for a MAC on my end), have had many in the past for PC's. I was able to save most of my apps and Preferences, so when i replaced the system and move applications and preferences back everything worked well except for some settings in the IE version for the MAC. After countless hours of trying to figure out why things were not coming back like they should, I broke down and called Microsoft for tech support. Yes I paid the $35 dollars for the support and was a bit upset about having to do so, but i needed some of the logins and passwords back to some sites I had in the IE preferences.

When I finally got through the lady that answered the phone did help me find the solution with some trouble locating the obscure information on the problem, and I was not upset about the money spent as I was still laughing and had been for a long time as when she first answered the phone she answered it with:

"Welcome to the internet!! ... short pause.... I mean Welcome to Microsoft, may i have your trouble ticket number please?"

Needless to say i was rolling on the floor just about and thinking well at least we know who to blame when the internet is broken!!!!

At the University I work for, we have quite a few emeritus faculty who have dial up accounts. They'll have these accounts for the rest of their natural lives and can use them in any (legal) way they so choose.

One 'gentleman' who called in has become the bane of our Help Desk. The mere mention of his name has sent some of our Tier 2 people running for cover. One day he called in, and I was the unlucky person who had to take his ticket from our system. He had a problem where he was unable to dial up. I did the standard stuff, such as check his account, etc. The type of dial up account he had was one where $100 was allotted, and every time he would dial in, a certain amount would be deducted based on how long he was on and what he did, like some places in the day that would rent out processor time. This $100 is completely ficticious, it only exists in the context of the account.

I called this gentleman up, and he begins going on the whole song and ance about how he got a new computer 2 months ago, and had a free MSN account for 6 months with it, and could not dial up to that. I tried to explain to him that we don't support MSN. I *tried* to get him to dial in through the account he had with us, but he insisted that he wanted us to fix his MSN account, even though he would lose it in a few months. And he was getting quite irritated about it all while this was going on. I finally convinced him to dial in, and he was able to get in fine and do all the things ne needed to do, but (big surprise) he still wanted to use his MSN account, which he swore up and down about being free. I told him he had a free account with us for life.

Here's where it got interesting. He proceeds to tell me that he doesn't want us to get billed or charged for any of his time online. It took me a few seconds to register what he exactly had said, but when I finally realized what he said I spent the next 35 minutes trying to tell him his account with us was free for life and the $100 he got monthly into his account was totally ficticious. It didn't physically exist, and the odds of him ever seeing that $100 for real was about as good as finding Jimmy Hoffa. Did he believe me? No. I eventually gave up, since he did mention there was one other Tier 2 person he liked working with, and I said he was working the next day.

And I thought I would mention as a side note.... This gentleman was once an economics professor.

Im new to the business part of computers, having used them in some form since the 70s. When I opened a shop I knew I would deal with all kinds of beginners, but I was never prepared for the customer who proudly announced they chose me to build their computer.

The customer asked me what music-stealing program he should use. I replied "Audiogalaxy".

Him - "A-U-T-O"

Me - "No, A-U-D-I-O"

Him - "Hold on, let me get my wife, I'm illiterate"

Me - "Ummmm, Okay..."

Her - "Okay, what was the name of that program?"

Me - "Ummm, Audiogalaxy..."

Her - "Honey, Type A, then U,..."

Me - "I thought he handed you the phone because he was illiterate!?"

Her - "He is, but I'm blind."

Me - "Please return the computer for a full refund."

sales@skunkarific.com

I'm a teenager who knows computers in a neiborhood of old people. So my mother tells me to go to this guys house and help him save a document. i figure well how hard can it be. So i go over there and he has a advertisement he typed up in wordpad running. so he says

Neighbor: "how do i make this up all the time"

having no idea were he is going this one i retort with a sharp "what"

Neighbor:"i want it up all the time"

a shot in the dark

me: "do you want to save it"

Neighbor:"if that'll do it"

i click save as then he busts out the pen and paper

me:"what would you like the name to be"

Neighbor:"well i already have it save under my documents"

me:"ok, so what do you plan to do with this document"

i read the document druing his ramblings and it was an advertisement for ocatane booster.

me:"what do you plan to do with this document"

Neighbor:"Well i want people to call me about my products"

me:"so you want this on the internet?"

"i suppose i could make it a webpage but without any marketing tactics i dont htink anyone will find it"

Neighbor:"what if its on AOL"

i just ignore that one

Me:"i suppose i can put this on the net but no one will ever see it"

Neighbor:"Ok yeah tell me how to make it a webpage then" as he gets the pen and paper ready

Me:"there is no way i can explain to you how to write a webpage"

Neighbor:"what about ebank"

me:"email?"

he starts to get annoyed

Neighbor:"no that thing were everyone auctions stuff"

ME:"ohhh ebay"

Neighbor:"yeah how do i get people to buy it"

luckily my mom is a ebay user, even though i could easily help him make an account i was ready to get the hell out of there.

" so i said call my mother and left"

That guy had to be the worst communicatr alive.

I mean he wanted to know how to put this thing on ebay so he asks "how do i make this up all the time"

Background!

Ages and aeons ago, when I was in high school, I took a word processing course to fill a credit. The course was exceptionally easy (for me) and I not only passed with an A, but I finished all of the work two to three days ahead of the rest of the class.

The computers we were using were running MS-DÖS 3.30 and dos 3.33, which was already outdated by three versions. Some of the computers had two floppy drives, some had only one. The computers with two floppys had 3.33, the others had 3.30.

One day, the teacher decides to copy some diskettes. Now, the files on the diskettes, for whatever reason, included a command.com. Whoever wrote the software wasn't thinking to clearly, because it wasn't a command interpreter. Needless to say, the EULA wasn't too keen on making multiple copies for any use. But that's beside the point.

The teacher's method to copying the files was to put the source disk into one floppy drive, and the destination disk into the other floppy drive. She would then copy all the source files to the root, and then copy from the root to the blank diskette. Obviously, this is like going from Philadelphia to New York via San Francisco.

Having copied all of her files, she assumed that the computer was 'used up', and moved to the next computer with two drives to make another copy. This process repeated itself for 15 minutes until she ran out of computers. Now, in the meantime, the students whos computers she was happily destroying started to wonder why they couldn't access anything. So, being the intelligent user of DOS I was, (and being finished with my work) took a look at things.

Turns out, she had sucessfully destroyed every 3.33 Command.com in the room. Obviously, grabbing a 3.3 Command.com isn't going to help, so I started running all over the school looking for the one other computer that had 3.33. The teacher had no clue as to what was wrong.

So, by the end of class, I had fixed all the computers and avoided a major crisis. I was rewarded with an 'A' on whatever I had been working on... WHICH WAS NOTHING, because I was already done.

Throughout the course of the semester, I spent more time fixing her foul-ups than than doing the work. At the end of the class, she gave me her business card. She did freelance computer work, building and repairing systems. She told me that if I ever needed a good reference, I should just call her.

The business card was very indicative, too. It had all her contact information, and a very nice picture of a computer, turned upside down.

Sometimes customers call and throw highly confusing cryptic though simple sentences at me that leave me baffled.

The other day I had to decypher the following:

She: "Can you make appear usernames in the calculation tool that you installed for us?"

Never having "installed" a "calculation tool" (but having coded various completely different things for them), I had to meditate about this one.

Turned out that, in the web traffic statistics tool my colleague had set up for their corporate website,

she wanted to list in-house access by employee names. Of course, her way of telling this was 100% precise to her.

;)

I realize that this isn't computer related but it's no less humourous.

I work for a manufacturer of security locking products as a technical support representative. Our most popular products are electromagnetic door locks. Once these locks are connected to a power supply the door is locked by magnetism. Generally the lock gets switched off in order to open the door.

A new customer called us one day stating that he thought our magnetic locks were exactly what he was looking for to solve a problem. The rep that took the call gave him some information and told him where he could source the item he needed in his area. All's well right?

A week or two later the customer calls technical support to say that he has received and installed the new lock but his door won't stay locked. The rep goes through the usual suspects and asks the customer if he has checked the voltage on his power supply to make sure that it is turned on. The customer seems confused about the reference to a power supply. After explaining what the power supply does and how it works the customer seems to understand much better. However his reply was that he would not need a power supply for this installation because the lock was a magnetic lock and should hold the door closed just fine as it was. The tech rep got everything straightened out in the end (much to his credit). It caused everyone else to ask "Assuming he was correct and the lock would hold the door closed simply by magnetism....how did he plan on getting the door open again?"

Having installed a cd-rewriter in our computer at home (With my help), my dad figured he knew what he was doing. So when my Auntie bought a cd-rewriter from Staples (the clue should have been in that she "Got it cheaper because it was marked wrong") I had to go to work at Tesco (I'm a student, I need the money), so he went up to do it himself. An hour later, it's not working.

He called me at home.

"I've got a message, 'Detecting IDE device...not found, Primary master hard disk failure'. That's it. "

Okay, all the cables are in the right way around?

"Yep"

Has she got a boot disk?

"She's got this 'Recovery program' that we're trying..."

NO!!!!!! That'll wipe the hard drive!

"Well, it's not working anyway..."

I'll have a look later. Leave it for now.

I go up later, and take the case off. Three seconds later I've spotted the problem: The cable is the wrong way round. Swap it round, put the case back on, boot it up, install the software, and go down the pub.

I could accept him putting in the cable the wrong way around, except for the following facts:

1) He's taken the old cable out without looking at the orientation of it.

2) He knows the pink one is pin 1, but has ignored the little number 1 on the m/board.

3) He's managed to put the cable in the opposite way around to the hard drive cable next to it.

Idiot.

I few years ago I had to keep helping a kid down the street, who was a friend of my next-door neighbour, with his computer.

He was running DOS on a 386 at the time. The problem was whenever he got a "insufficent memory to run this program" error message, the ID10T would go and delete stuff off his hard drive trying to get more memory. He would then come to me and complain that he deleted heaps of stuff and he still didn't have enough have enough memory to run the program. The way he was going and deleteing stuff, I'm surprised he didn't delete something that would stuff up his computer.

No matter how many times I told him, he just couldn't get it into his thick skull that his hard drive and memory were two different things, and that deleteing suff wouldn't give him any more free memory. I kept trying to modify his autoexec.bat and config.sys files to get more free memory. Not usually having much luck either.

Boy, was I glad when he finally stopped bugging me for help every week!

Rohan _e_ii

Ok, this is a case of where the customer got one on me. I work as tech sopport for a large national broadband service and so of course I receive a call from sub who is having connection issues.

Thru the course of our dialogue, and with time waiting on his comp to restart our chit chat turns towards processors. I told him of how I had built my own computer and was very happy with it. Then the customer is like really, what kind of processor did ya use. I told him I went with a AMD 1GHZ processor. Customer then asks why not an Intel? I told him of how I used both types of processors before, and for what I do, I could not see the difference so I went with the cheaper. Customer goes "Really? I am the head for Marketing Anylyst for Intel and this is good to know"

I took about 5 seconds for what he said to sink in and I felt two inches tall. He baited, he cast, he reeled me in.

I had just setup a machine for my g/f sister (basically an upgrade, kept their old monitor keyboard etc.)

They were going to go buy some other new parts (too much money obviously). So they ended up finding a mouse and keyboard that they liked and got them, brought them home and plugged them in.

Needless to say, it didn't work. So I've come round and had a look, booted up and I noticed the keyboard lights were acting funny (from prior experiance I know this is when its plugged into the mouse port) so I check round the back and they'd plugged them into the wrong port.

So I told them and they said 'Oh is that why the plugs were coloured' Doi!!

I have one Mysterey for all of my fellow techies out there... HOW, WHY, AND HOW AGAIN, DO CUSTOMERS COME TO BELIEVE THEY ARE RUNNING WINDOWS 97 ?!

I know this one isn't regarding tech support, but..

I was remembering my days in high school, a guy I knew, names Isaac, we called him Ike.

Anyhow, we were told in programming class to decide on a task to be completed using either the Turing or Visual Basic languages. The task was to be realistic, challenging, and must work by the end of the semester...

Needless to say how stupid Ike was to have decided he would program Artificial Intelligence to learn on its own... yup, an ai, something thousands have been working toward for countless years... and he decided he would be able to do it in a couple of months.

It's also needless to say he failed the course miserably.

It goes to show just how the education system sifts out the weak ones eh?

Seen on EFnet Irc Channel #Babylon5

(names changed to protect the insane)

(user) Brb, my glue gun is melting my printer.

My dh works for a law office, and a reasonably dignified and corporate one at that. The IT department in this city consists of Highly Abused and Underpaid User Support (HAUUS), my dh who takes care of the meat and potatoes, and an IT manager - who is responsible for figuring out new and inventive ways to justify his position with the IT related cause of the day.

One day, it was porn.

Manager told dh to install a program and use it to create a report detailing who was checking out porn at the office, and in what quantity etc... for Manager to take to the Managing Partner to recommend sanctions, reprisals, spankings and general disdain.

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" said my dh. "These people work hard and long hours and there is going to be a certain amount of porn-hounding when recent college graduates who have no time for a girlfriend are working till 2am on a nightly basis."

"Just do it." said Manager.

So he did. DH monitered internet usage for a week, and then created a report detailing who was looking at what and when. Surprisingly, there was very little porn-hounding. Only around 8-10 people had been on a pornographic site at all and only 1 went on them every night or spent an amount of time there worthy of concern.

The Managing Partner.

Needless to say, the much-vaunted report was never brought to his attention.

OK I do internet support now but used to work for a once major now dwindling PC manufacturer.

I got this call & it was one of those where you just wanted to reach thru the phone & choke the person on the other end.

This guy calls in & proceeds to tell me that he moved from Los Angeles to Chicago & mailed his system to himself thru UPS... ok fair enough. He then begins to stress that he is a software engineer & tells me that when he recieved his system in Chicago he loaded windows on top of itself in case any files fell out during shipping.......ok red lights & sirens started going off like mad here.......the OS that was installed on his system was Windows 98SE the error message that he was getting was an NTKERN error (you only get this type of error with Windows NT not Win 98) as I explained to him that i could not assist him with Windows NT as it is not the supported OS on his system it turns out that not only did he load windows on top of windows which is never a good idea as it causes more problems than it fixes but he loaded Windows NT over the top of Windows 98SE (yah software engineer my a**) needless to say he got to pay for the resolution of that issue!

TS: me

EU: end user

The user was having browsing issues so I had him type a test site into the browser's address bar. He chose his e-mail site.

EU: I think something's wrong.

TS: Why, what are you seeing?

EU: Naked men.

TS: What site are you at?

EU: Hotmail.com

TS: Did you spell it "MAIL" or "MALE?"

EU: OHHHH!

I would like to have seen the look on his face for that!

I do work for my dad on his computer every now and then(read: ALL THE TIME).

Setup:

I'm trying to walk my dad through modifying his bios settings on the phone, so he'll boot from the win2k CD. I spend about 25 minutes describing the details and he affirms with "uhuh" and "ok" after I tell him every step.

The Meat and Bones:

So I call him up the next day to see how its going. This is the call:

Me: Hey, how's the install going?

Dad: I can't do it, I don't remember how to do the BIOS thingy.

Me: Remember the conversation we had yesterday, where are the instructions I gave you?

Dad: I didn't write them down.

(Now comes the 10 seconds of stunned silence from me.)

Me: You didn't write them down? Then why did I give you those instructions yesterday.

Dad: I dunno.

(So now I go through and re-explain it to him and I make sure he writes it down)

Me: Ok, after that the installation is pretty self-explanatory, just follow the instructions on the CD.

Dad: There aren't any instructions on the CD, just your writing and some numbers.

(10 more seconds of stunned silence)

Me: The instructions in the program dad, the instructions in the program.

Also, at the company I work at as a tech, a guy called up having install problems. The tech on the line told him that the install problem was caused by line noise. Needless to say that tech is not there anymore.

I work as IT support in a number of schools. I'm usually only at each school once a week.

At one school they had won a new computer in a competition and were setting it up to replace an old one. The teacher doing the setup asked some students to take the old one to room x and set it up in there.

I show up the next day and am told stories of the old computer blowing up and blue sparks coming from the back that lit the room up. I always take stories like this with a grain of salt beacuse you'd be surprised at how some smoke coming from the monitor can turn into the whole computer being on fire depending on who is telling the story.

So I go into room x to look at the computer. The teacher in there starts telling me the story all over again. I check the back of the computer to see if there are any signs of the blue sparks. What I find makes me take a step back just in case. The power socket on the power supply has been shattered and the metal around it forced inwards. The now rather exposed active connection in shattered socket was resting against the side of the power supply. This was sending 240V (we use 240V in Australia) straight to earth via the case. The plastic front panel probably saved whoever turned it on a trip to the emergency room.

It turns out that the students that had moved the computer had left the power cable plugged in and had at some stage dropped the computer. It had landed back to the ground and the still connected power cord shattered the socket and dented the casing but stayed connected. The students didn't tell anyone about this and proceeded to hook it up in the other room.

I've just put down the phone on this guy, and I hope anyone this dumb is unable to breed.

I used to work for Tech Support in a large ISP, but moved over to Sales to broaden my experience. I thought I'd be pretty free from the general ignorance out here, but it seems even sales-people get the weirdos.

Customer:"My name is John and I'm so p***ed off! The username and password you gave me doesn't work!"

Me:"Ok, John...what exactly are you doing?"

Customer:"None of the websites I try and go into work with this password!"

Me:"Er...John..."

Customer:"What?!"

Me:"We gave you a username and password to dial into *us* - it has nothing to do with anybody else's websites. Which sites are you trying to get into, by the way?"

Customer:"Why didn't you tell me that before?!" *CLICK*

I still have no idea which sites he was trying to get into by using his ISP dialup username and password...but I can make a pretty good guess...

This one goes the opposite way.

I'm an electrical engineer at a small semiconductor facility. I needed to install a network card in a Win3.11 system which I hadn't done before. I saw that Win3.11 was supported on the box so I decided to call tech support.

Me - I'm trying to install one of your network cards in Win3.11 and am having trouble finding the right drivers.

TS - OK, sir. First you need to double-click on My Computer.

Me - Um, this is on a Windows 3.11 system.

(Slowly)

TS - Yes sir. Go to your desktop and you should see an icon labeled My Computer.

(Becoming irate)

Me - This is not Windows 95, this is Windows 3.11, there is no such thing as My Computer. Can you get someone that has worked on computers prior to 1995 please.

(Very Slowly)

TS - Ok sir, just click on the start button on the bottom left of your screen.

(Click)

I'm not a tech but I am a sales exec. for a very large international reseller, which means that I get trainings and certifications from the major manufacturers. I don't for a second think this makes me any kind of expert, but try telling that to my family, to whom I am the guru they run to for every PC problem they have!

My brother-in-law called me the other day because he couldn' figure out how to open the case on his new PC to install a new memory stick.

This is how the conversation went:

Him = We'll call him Dave

Me = Me

Dave: I can't open the case! I've looked everwhere and the damn thing is riveted on!

Me: Ok, first, who's the manufacturer?

Dave: Compaq 6000 series

Me: Ok, Dave, the case is not riveted on...

Dave interrupting me: I'm telling you, I've searched this whole thing and there's no screws, nothing! I can't even see where there's a crack in the case to open up or anything.

Me: Look, Dave, see the indent in the side of the case? The side slides off by lifting the latch in the back. Just lift the little half circle latch and the side pulls off backwards. (Note: Compaq made the cases and components so that they would basically be installed and pulled without having to use any tools, suposedly idiot-proof.)

It goes on for a bit like this, with me exlaining to him exactly what to do a few times until he finally gets it. He's very thankful - while I'm sitting there thinking that he's now going to try to install memory and he couldn't even get the case open - and he says:

You know, I saw that latch, but I just thought it was to keep the case from hitting the wall behind it.

I work for in Tech Support for a major computer retail chain. Earlier in the day we had a customer purchase a system from us, but when he got it home it wasn't working. He contacted our phone-in Tech Support and told them that his modem wasn't working. They told him that he could exchange it and that should take care of the issue.

When he came into the store to return the system he raked everybody that he talked to over the coals. He eventually left with his new system only to call in and talk to our manager about his 'modem issues." The manager came to me asking for assistance (I'm walk-in tech support and am not supposed to take phone calls). As the managher continued to converse with the customer we found out that the problem wasn't that his modem wouldn't connect. The problem was that neither computer would turn on.

I suggested several basic items to check. At the same time I put his first computer up on the bench and powered it on with no problems. I had him make sure his cables were plugged in correctly, and then move the power cable to another plug on his surge protector. We tried to plug directly into the wall, and at lastwe tried the power switch on the back of the power supply-all to no avail.

When I finally asked if he was pushing the power button, the manager told him to make sure he was pushing the button on the front of the computer. I could tell the answer when she got a smile on her face. We ended the session when he couldn't figure out why it was telloing him Windows needed to be set up.

A few years back, I worked for a major computer retailing outfit in my home town of Belfast, Northern Ireland. One morning a woman brought in a fax machine which she had purchased the previous day and threw it on the counter in quite a temper, claiming that it didnt work.

The woman was moaning about us wasting her time and selling her faulty goods and we did our best to keep her calm while we set up the fax machine to test it. We took a letter of the notice board behind the counter and fed it into the fax machine (it was one of those models that you feed the document in the top and it comes out the front) and keyed the number of our managers office. The page slowly made its way down through the machine and out into the tray, at which point the woman exclaimed, in a high state of discontent:

"See, I told you it didnt work, its still there!"

I recently started a job for an "Office Superstore". Now I work in the electronics department. Everything was going well until one day I got a call.

Me: Hello, this is Brandon, how can I help you?

Customer: Yeah, uh, Hi . . . I am looking for a system to use with my computer.

Me: As in an Operating System sir?

Customer: No not that, what do you call it? . . . . Oh yeah the Window thing.

Me: (annoyed)Microsoft Windows sir?

Customer: Yeah thats it

Me: Which version did you need sir?

Customer: I dunno

Me: Well how old is your computer sir?

(About a minute passed, then a response)

Customer: Eighty-Three

(I paused for a few seconds)

Me: Sir, as in 1983?

Customer: Yes

Me: Ok once again, as in 1983 A.D., like the year?!?!?

Customer: Yeah thats it, its for my Laptop

(Still amazed that I was having this conversation I continued)

Me: Ok sir, just let me verify this one more time. You want Microsoft Windows, for your 1983 Laptop?

Customer: Yeah, how much is it?

Me: Sir we would not stock an operating system that is compatible with that.

Customer: You got Windows right?

Me: Yes sir we do

Customer: Well just give me that

Me: You are not understanding me sir, the chances of you finding any software for that laptop are extremely grim. It is impossible to find Windows for it.

Custmomer: My friend says there is a version, he sold me the laptop

Me: May I ask how much you payed for it?

Customer: Yeah I payed $250

(Ok, our Phone is on a pole, in the store, so I banged my head on it a few times)

Me: Ok, you payed $250 for a 1983 Laptop?

Customer: Yeah, it was a great deal

(I became very annoyed)

Me: Sir you have been ripped off. If I were you I would go find your friend and get your money back.

Customer: All I wanted was the Window system. You do not need to get smart about it.

(click)

(I had to go into the back and relieve some stress after that one)

While on the help desk I recieved a call from a very irate employee. "My printer hasn't worked for months and you guys have done nothing about it". I asked who he has spoken to in the past and he did not know. I explained we do not have a big button down here labeled "Fix John's Printer" and I would have to look at the problem from the begining. I went to his PC after hours and it printed fine, no problems. The next morning I went to see him and I said "John, can you please show me exactly what you are doing". John explained what he was doing on the PC, so far no problems, he then got out of his seat and walked away and yelled at me "See, nothing is comming out", I have to advise him, "John, that's a fax machine"

After a while of trouble shooting over the phone why yellow was not showing up on a employees printouts, and changing the ink cartridge several times I decided to go to their desk to examine the problem. I had to stop myself from smacking them over the back of the head when I found they were printing on yellow paper.

Towards the end of our upgrade from Windows 3.1 to Windows95 I got to a rather irate users PC, lets call her Carol. Carol demanded to have her computer left as 3.1 but after me insisting on the upgrade she argeed. I upgraded her PC after she left in the evening and shut it down when I finished. The next morning I recieved a call from Carol very anoyed.

Carol : "This upgrade hasn't worked, my computer is stuffed"

Me : "Can you tell me what has hapened"

Carol : "I've turned on the PC and the lights come on but the screen is still blank"

Me : "Have you turned the monitor on as well?"

Carol : "Of course I have, Im not Stupi.... Oh, Thanks"

click.

One of the Directors in a firm I'm working for has been running Windows 98 on his laptop. We have been trying to upgrade this to Windows 2000 for ages, and have finally agreed a date to do this with his secretary. She then blurts out....

“But he's a really busy man, is there any chance you could give us a loan keyboard while you are upgrading it?”

“Wha? Eh? erm, how would that be of use?”

“Well, he's got his screen, and uses the keyboard on the laptop. If you take the laptop away he won't be able to type, will he? But if you give him a spare keyboard, he can carry on while you do the upgrade.”

And this lady proudly claims her son is a PC engineer.

This one is short and sweet:

Technician: Okay, now click on "My Computer".

End User: How the heck can I click on your computer?

I work for (X) DSL tech support company. A customer called in saying he can pull web pages with his dialup modem, but not with his DSL. The customer was a doctor and thought that he knew everything. We were doing all the basic software troubleshooting and after all that he still wasn't able to pull any pages. I finally gave a call to one of my line techs to run a line test. My line tech said that there appeared to be alot of interference on the line. I checked back with the customer to have him unplug all of his phones to run a line test, but the customer then had a fit about that and refused to do it. I tried to explain to the customer that the requirements of a phone line to pull web pages with a dialup modem are NOTHING compared to a DSL. The bandwith range that DSL uses is much higher than that of a dialup modem and needs to be very clean in order to pull pages. The customer then went absoultly crazy trying to tell me that I don't know what I'm talking about. The call ended up with nothing accomplished because the customer simply wouldn't listen. I then thought back to the beginning of the call when the customer told me that I was really good at troubleshooting, and then it ended with him yelling at me because he would not let me help him.

So the next box in line to go on the bench is a Compaq whose ticket claims it just needs a new modem. Okay, easy enough. Right?

Right?

Uh, no.

First thing I notice when I get it on the bench: the power supply that's in there obviously does not belong there. Half the fan is obscured by the case, and an AT power switch is poking through a jury-rigged hole on the back. Unshielded, I might add. I know for a fact that this particular model takes an ATX power supply.

Something told me that before I so much as plugged this thing in, I needed to look inside.

OH DEAR GOD.

As soon as I get the case off, the other tech falls off his chair laughing. After I put the outer case down and look for myself, I see why.

No, that's definitely not the right power supply. Or the right motherboard--/that/ appears to be held in place by a piece of cardboard wedged between it and the chassis. And then, /then,/ I see exactly what had the other tech laughing so hard.

JESUS! JESUS ON THE MOUNTAIN WEARING A CRASH HELMET!

The hard drive is dangling from a random support in the chassis, held by electrical tape.

I laughed. I laughed until tears squirted freely from my eyes. I had to laugh, or I would have screamed.

Other tech and I root around for the webcam we have stashed somewhere, so we can get pictures of this.

Boss #1 comes out of his meeting. I wave him over. He makes a face that utterly defies description and runs to get me his digital camera so we can get /better/ pictures of this. I express my reservations about so much as plugging the thing in, let alone trying to fix it. He agrees and suggests I write up a release for the customer to sign if she decides she still wants me to work on it.

I attempt to call customer. Line is busy.

Customer finally returns call. I tell her in no uncertain terms that there is no way in Hell I am working on this computer unless she signs the release, and then proceed to tell her exactly /why./

"Oh my God," she says when I am done. Apparently, she's never looked in it.

She comes to collect it rather than have us attempt surgery on it. She looks in it and is as horrified as I was.

I finally demand to know who worked on it before us, so that I may go and poke his eyes out with a spork. She says her sister bought it from a flea market.

Moral: Do not buy computers from flea markets without looking inside the case first.

I was asked a few minuted ago to take a look at someone's computer, they couldn't get internet access. We connect through a proxy that requires authentication. I asked her if she was getting the password prompt so I could try and see how far she was getting. She said she was but no pages were loading. I tell her I'll be there soon (the joys of being an on site tech) and try a few pages from my own machine, no problem.

I get to her computer to find she's just left. No problem, the compute's still logged in as her I fire up IE. No password prompt. It wasn't getting to the proxy. Easy to Fix, just enter the right IP address.

Wht did she have to lie about the password prompt? This isn't the only time either. People lie about their error messages, weather or not they've changed anything, their password etc....

WHY??? It only means it'll take longer to fix the problem. And then they'll complain if it takes longer than expected.

I can't remember the exact quote but this is from a friend:

You can tell the guy who's been troubleshooting too long. He's got a shotgun in his toolkit.

Life working for a multisite company can be fun or a real pain in the #%@. We had a small site in Geneva with five users and a small server. We had as usual a really smart user who knew everything that there was to know about pc’s and networks.

Always first to be on the phone with any error and explaining to anyone who would listen that he should run our global network from Geneva as we were all idiots in London. But like most things arrogance can lead to embarrassment. One morning upon arrival to the Office I have a call from our friend which went something like this.

Good morning our server has crashed and no one can work here. I have the CEO of the company with me and he thinks you all Idiots too! And it is making a really strange beeping sound you bought crap equipment too.

Ok let me take a look and see what is happening. I log on to the server (Novell in those days) and yes it is bleeping and hardly running at all. So I try to load monitor a Novell program that could tell me what was causing the problem. As I typed this is what I saw L O A D , I now knew what was up. I could hear the guy continuing to bad mouth us to the CEO who was over there. So I said ‘ I think I have it’ But I need the CEO to help me solve the issue as it was crucial to get things just right’

‘Ok I will put you on to him’

CEO ‘ Joe here says you are all idiots over there and I am inclined to agree with him!’

Me ‘Well sir let us see what we can do together to solve this. Please ask Joe to point out where the keybord for the server is’

CEO ‘Where is the keyboard for the server? I see it now’

Me ‘Good is there anything on it or lying against it?’

CEO ‘ There is book there. What should I do?’

Me ‘Remove book from space bar and give it at speed to the owner!’

Suddenly silence and all is well with the Geneva server and book is thrown at Joe! The CEO was always impressed that I had figured the problem out from a 1000 miles away. So we did not have too much $#%@ from management from then on.

Hi I work for a large IT consulting company and currently I'm assigned to supplement the IT staff for one of our local government agencies.

In typical government style, out of our 8 person IT team the only 3 of us who know anything about computers or programming are outside contractors. On top of that, the EU's have invented whole new levels of cluelessness. Here's some of my experiences with them.

PAGE LETTERS?!?!

One of the EU's came to me because the page numbers were messed up in her report, so after going to her workspace (Why, oh why is she only 2 cubes away from me)

Her: See! It's putting an "i" in for the page number. Why doesn't it have a "1"?

Me: This is your Table of Contents and that's a Roman Numeral.

NO SOUND

The same EU came to me because she had attached headphones to her PC and the CD seemed to be playing but there was no sound. I opened the volume control, and unchecked the "Mute All" button. Amazingly she now had sound.

CORRUPTED SPREADSHEET?

Another EU had a 12MB Excel spreadsheet she was certain was corrupted because it came up completely blank when opened. After looking at it for a bit I unhid the worksheet and thus "miraculously" recovered her data.

$600 PAPERWEIGHT

I ended up teaching one of my co-IT the basics of using Photoshop. She and our supervisor wanted to work with some graphics for a presentation so I asked if we had anything like Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro. It turned out she had a shiny new copy of Photoshop 7.0 just sitting on her desk because she didn't know how to use it.

ME THE MIRACLE WORKER

A couple months ago the entire department got new PC's. Thanks to some of my co-IT 2 users ended up without backups of data that had also (for unknown reasons) been deleted from their old PC's [not formatted or reimaged, the files were just deleted]. After my co-IT and then the regional help desk couldn't help them, I was asked if there was anything I could do. I went to Google, and searched on "undelete" and a minute later downloaded Drive Rescue (tm). Another 20 minutes and I had recovered about 98% of what was lost and became known as a miracle worker. =)

I worked Tech Support, under contract, at a company that was seriously screwed up. My company was hired to straighten out their computer mess.

"Mess" is an understatement; they had seven different networks in seven different departments. None of the networks were talking to each other. On one of them, their e-mail program was a WordPerfect Office app from the '80's. Each department had their own little fiefdom of computer people; basically, the "Admin" in any given department was the computer hobbyist in the department, and these "Admins" tended to rule over their little networks as if they were their first-born.

They didn't cooperate with us a whole lot, but that's another story.

One of the "Admins" for a particular network wasn't very fond of the network; turns out he was a MacAddict forced to work in a PC world. Only one department (Graphics) in that company had Macs, and he wasn't in it.

So. One day I get a phone call from Mr. MacAddict (MMA):

ME: What can I do for you?

MMA: I saw you with a Macintosh today...

ME: Yep. It's almost ready--just installing some more RAM. It's not even yours--what do you want?

MMA: Do you fix very many Macs, or replace them, or something?

ME: Not really--Graphics is only six people large, and you gotta admit, Macs are pretty reliable.

MMA: Well, I have a Mac at home, and if you get any spare parts or anything, I want them.

He does, does he? I should do one of the biggest a-holes on the planet this favor?

ME: Sure. No problem.

Hey, I told him what he wanted to hear--not what I was going to do. Sometimes it's easier that way.

I work for a catholic college in Australia and it never ceases to amaze me the total LACK of knowledge some supposed professionals have in Computing areas.

Take for instance our newly instated Head of IT. No matter how I explain it they cannot comprehend that the reason they cannot do the thing they wish it because its TOTALLY IMPOSSIBLE.

If a student produces a link inside thier webpage with the link address H:\mypoxywebpage\ or c:\my documents\web\ that it is IMPOSSIBLE to view the total contents of that page because the linked items DONT exist in the same places in diffrent computers and diffrent logins. But NOOO apparently this is (Just not good enough). Appearently I should make a script that detects student idiocy and fix it.

Or another item when they double left click on a file why doesnt it automatically open in the SPECIFIC application that they wish it to. YES .mpg SHOULD open in Video Studio INSTEAD of Media Player and YES .gif SHOULD open in our Animation Program INSTEAD of a proper Graphical Editing Program.

All these problems (basic computer operations) are not suitable and should be fixed.

God knows I would hate them to actually have to use File - Open or teach the students PROPER html coding.

A company I was writing a website for sent me an email saying

Please find attached 2 pdf files that are scans of our publicity pamphlet"

I respond saying nothing was attached to the email,

they send back an email with 2 VERY low quality JPEGS

I write back with my estimate and tell them the images the sent were too low quality for me to crop out the graphics to put on their site, so I'd either need a hard copy of the pamphlet or a better quality image file.

They are going to send me the Illistrator file that the print the pamphlets from.

Why do people always complicate things?

A client brings their computer to me to have the hard drive changed. When i tell them it's going to cost $x - $25 rebate for his old drive that he doesn't want, he says "The sales guy down at ABC computers told my it would only cost $y"

I reply "I would think that price would be for the drive only, not including the labor to install the drive or transfer your information off the old drive. You are getting a better deal here, since we are charging $x-10 for the drive itself, and our labor prices are slightly lower than at ABC"

by then I've opened the case, have the second drive conneted as a slave and boot from a ghost disk. after about 5 minute my client wanders back in and informs me that ABC computers told him it would only take a couple minutes to change the drive

"Sir, the job of replacing the drive only takes a couple minutes, but it takes a while to transfer your data"

"I don't have any data, all I have is the internet and a few little games"

(yeah right, old drive was a 10gig that had about 20 megs free, that's not just a few little games...)

"but each game contains files that need to be transfer, or else you'll loose them"

"but I put them on my computer"

at this point I'm in desperate need of a cigarette, we go on like this for about 10 minutes before I convince him that the imaging is necessary.

once the imaging is complete, I boot into windows, everything looks good, reboot using PQmagic to resize partitions, since my version of ghost left the extra space unformatted

"I thought you were done"

"I just have to resize the partitions, otherwise you won't have access to most of the new space"

"ABC never said anything about doing anything like that"

at this point I'm getting fed up with the ABC stuff.

"Sir, if you were so impressed with the offer from ABC computers, why did you come here?"

"Well, I talked with them discussing what (yet another company) said. They told me that they needed to close early today and wouldn't have time, I tried to schedule a time, but they seem to be too buisy all the time. Aparently it's going to take them 3 days to re-format all their blank floppies."

now knowing exactly why he came to me, I printed his bill, and quickly ushered him out. I called a friend working at ABC computers and asked him if that guy had been there that morning. the response "Sorry I thought you taking the day off. My boss doesn't like the time that is wasted with the id ten t error, and encourages us to send those cases to our competitors."

AARRGG! with friends like that, who needs enimies?

While I do not officially work tech support, I am computer literate and everyone asks me about tech related issues.. for free of course!

One day my boss' son came to work with him and brought his Gamecube, intending to play it while my boss worked.

A little while after showing up for work, my boss comes into my office and said, "We can't get my son's gaming machine to work, can you come and take a look?"

As I stepped into his office, before I even looked at the console, I immediately asked, "Is it turned on?"

My boss then asked his son, "Is it turned on?"

The son relied, "Nope." He then turns the Gamecube on and it worked perfectly.

I never really understood why companies such as HP and Compaq hid access to their system's BIOS screens. This story explains why they do. Simply put, users are stupid! Now, on with the story...

Work provides my boss a laptop, which is mostly used by his son to play games. One day my boss says to me that the computer won't boot into Windows properly. I try it, and it boots perfectly. I leave and go back to my office.

A little while later my boss comes back into my office and said it happened again, can I come and take a look. I go back and sure enough, it's not booted into Windows but is at the BIOS screen.

I asked the son, "Do you push any buttons while it was booting?"

He replied, "Nope."

Knowing he did, I asked again, "Are you sure, you didn't push any keys while it's booting?"

He again replied, "Nope."

I then have him boot the laptop. Sure enough, as it initially boots it says, "Push F1 to enter setup" and the son hits F1.

I then asked the son, "Why did you push F1?"

He replied, "Because it told me to."

I then asked, "Did you want to enter set up?"

He relied, "No."

I then replied, "Then don't push F1" and walked back to my office.

At my first job we had a server that was setup to handle customer billing and to perform a bill run once a month. The bill run would take about 20 hours to run.

One guy was in charge of this server. This was his entire job.

One day the building had a power failure for about twenty minutes. All of the servers were plugged into UPS's so everything should have been fine.

It was found out aterwards that during the power failure the bill run had failed. The server was running but the run had still failed.

The operator of the server came up with the theory that the computers had caused the server to crash because they were logged in and shut down during the power failure due to them not being plugged into UPS's. Management made a quick decision to run out and buy UPS's for every PC (about 20 or so).

After all this I walked into the server room and noticed two power cables from the server. One of these was running to the wall outlet and the other to the UPS.

I pointed this out to the operator.

It turned out that the second power cord ran to an external SCSI hard drive for the server.

The server continued to run during the power failure, the hard drive took a nice crash though.

OK back to managers again.

The company I work for is apparently a technology division for parent company, I cannot tell you

what we do for fear of implicating myself, just to say we have a number of programmers and

mutliple sites that need maintaining and 100 or so PC's.

General Manager was appointed to look after said division midway through 2001, and it was

doubtful of his experience and skills because our industry is quite specialised, he apparently

came from IT industry in asia somewhere, so one would think his computer skills for the easiest

of tasks at adequate.

This is where he just verified what we had thought all along, he had a printer on his desk that

he could never get working, so the problem was put to me being the the guy that built our

network, did all the support when (L)users had problems etc.

PC has no parallel port, printer has parallel, and he has used all USB ports with stuff I'm not

sure if know how to use.

Wanted a quick easy solution, so get a spare USB hub with a parallel interface from office out

back, unplug one USB device move it onto hub as the only reason we need this is for a parallel

device on PC.

Voila, problem solvered. Printer works, all the other stuff works. We are a technology company

after all.

Problem occurs around two to three weeks later, can't remember as it was no real big drama, but

phone rings and GM says "IT Dude can you come to fix what you screwed up the other week?"

"Keh? You saw everything was working before I left" I said "What seems to be the problem?"

"The printer you apparently fixed for me, she no print?"

Go into the office, sit at PC send print job to see what happens, nothing! He was right she no

print, (this is where I made fatal flaw number one, you will find out in a sceond), check all

cables to PC, to hub and to printer, in that order, when the problem hit me in the face.

I stand up and walk quickly out of the office and say "I'll be back in two seconds" his reply is

"Is it that bad?", "No I'll be back in a second".

Walk back into office sit down turn to printer and fill the paper tray with paper nad

miraculously it starts to print, get up walk out past very embarrased GM and say "They work heaps

better with paper in the tray"

This printer had been in his office for at least six months, and only has a small paper tray, 150

pages or something, so wondering how much actually gets achieved in this little world of his

because I am unaware of anybody else refilling it, is usaully get called to fix the photocopier

as well?

Did I happen mention we are a technology company?

I went to visit a friend, I have worked on her old computer previously, and she tells me a friend is coming over, some computer science student, to install Win98 on her computer. "Not on a 486sx20" I tell her. She gets this woman on the phone to talk to me. "Don't you know this thing is way under specs?" She had no idea what was in the computer, in spite of the label in front. "Didn't you see how slow it loads 3.1?" The point was lost on her. "Why don't you try WIN95" I ask. She didn't have 95 on floppies, she had 98 on floppies. I told her Win98 checks the system requirements, and just won't install on someting that slow. I should have let her come over, if just to see how many floppies Win98 has.

Faced with this news, she soon made a wise choice (relativly speaking) to get a new computer from one of those popular nationwide companies

Hi. I work as 1st through 3rd Level it support for a stockbroking firm. One of the Brokers just called me to tell me he couldn't get the dollar sign to work, he kept getting a 4. I went over to see what the problem was(thinking faulty shift key), only to find him pressing Caps-lock! I mean REALLY!

I've been doing phone support for about 6 years now, so I've pretty much seen everything. Callers expecting us to walk them through fixing their printer, even though they're calling from the lobby payphone, etc. This one came from a recorded call played during training for a major national ISP run by everyone's favorite corporate megalomaniac. If you don't think it's real, you haven't been doing tech support long enough.

BG:

It was an existing ticket, and the customer was calling back because the instructions given by the last tech didn't work. The client's parents were coming home soon, and she needed to get the computer back running before they got back. It was some kind of connectivity problem, and the tech had asked her to double-click on our Icon and try to connect.

EU: I'm really annoyed at the service, and I need to get this fixed (blah blah blah)

Tech: Well, what's the problem?

EU: The last tech asked me to double-click on the icon, but now the monitor's all black, and there's broken glass on the desk.

Tech: Huh?

EU: I think I double clicked too hard.

Tech: Huh?

EU: I clicked with the mouse, and it didn't do anything, so I clicked harder. And now the monitor is all black.

Tech: I think the last tech meant that you double-click using the left mouse button, not to actually hit the screen with the mouse.

EU: Well, he should have been more clear. Now what am I going to do? The screen is all black, and I need to get this fixed tonight.

Tech: The monitor doesn't work if the glass is broken, you'll need to buy a new one.

EU: But they're coming home in the morning!

My day job involves supporting AIX and Solaris boxes

running our library management software. This gives me

lots of tales to share with the A+ Certification class I

teach at a local college (and a few to share here), but

last night one of my students gave me a good story for

a change:

I gave a "show and tell" test, holding up various pieces

of hardware and asking the students to give me a complete

description of each piece. One item was a USB mouse, and

one of my brighter students gave me 5 sentences of detail

about it - hot swappable, can connect up to 127 devices,

expected to eventually replace serial and parallel, on and

on, with only one problem: After controlling my initial

outburst of laughter, I explained to the gentleman that

it was a "USB" device, not an IUD device!

This one belongs to my coworker... lucky him!

A customer has "linked" the root account so that it goes

directly into our software, and he's explaining to the

system administrator on the SUN box how to fix it:

HIM: Log in as "user" and su to root

CUST: Log in as root?

H: No, as user.

C: And the password is root?

H: No, login as user, using user's password.

C: Login as root?

H: Login as user, with user's password!

C: OK, what's the password?

H: {Looks it up in our records.}

C: OK, now su - ?

H: No dash, you don't want root's path.

C: What's that mean?

H: You don't want root's path, so you can remove root's

profile.

C: I don't understand.

H: Just leave off the dash.

C: OK, I'm root.

H: Now, type "cd {space} / and then type "rm {space}.{that's

a dot as in the punctuation mark}prof ..."

C: {interrupting him} You DON'T have to spell out commands

for me. I'm a UNIX guru!

Back around 1995, I was in college. We were learning How to create simple batch files in Dos. Not a big deal really. Well our computer lab was used by several different classes, and our class was probably the most knowledgable. When I had some spare time I created a batch file that would display (In ANSI graphics) a message on the monitor that said

"The protective covering on your monitor has degraded to dangerous levels. Please step back 4 feet as radiation levels may be at high peaks"

it had a few more "mumbo-jumbo made up techie things about how it was very dangerous to use this monitor"

Any person who ever used a computer should be able to see it for what it was, a joke, because it sounded so ridiculous.

Anyways, as our class was exiting, and the next class (graphic designers or something) were coming in. I quickly ran the batch file so the screen was up. My friends and I walked away, but kept our eye on my machine.

Sure enough as everyone is beginning to sit down, one girl pauses, reads the screen, slowly starts to back away, the guy beside her looks at her monitor and moves his chair as far away from her computer as possible. She raises her hand asking "ah... sir..." in a worried voice.

My friend came to her rescue and cancelled the file so that dos was up, and then loaded windows for her.

One day an end-user reported to me that she is having a problem sending an email to her boss' personal email address (this email belongs to another network that is already beyond my scope). I sent a test message to her boss and the mail system replied back that the account of that domain is not existing anymore. I also tested the login name of her boss by surfing the web based facility of their ISP and it worked! The only thing weird here is eventhough the email account is existing, my server replies that the login name is not existing. I also checked my mail server and it's working smoothly! The end-user keeps on insisting that something is wrong with my mail server so I think on how to prove that she is definitely wrong. After a few minutes of thinking I decided to send a test message with a delivery report to the root account of that domain. The test message result was successful! So I called up this end-user telling her that the problem is in the account of her boss. I instructed her to send a test message with a delivery status to the root of that domain (e.g root@domainnameofherboss.com) and told her to wait for the delivery status. After waiting, she said in a very loud voice: "see?? Message is undeliverable!!!!!!!!!!!!" . After that, I patiently told her to forward the error message that she got and she indeed forwarded the message to me.

After a few seconds my mail client alerted me that I have a new mail. I opened it and it's from that end-user. It goes something like this:

Mail cannot be delivered to "ruth@domainnameofherboss.com". Username cannot be found.

HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

Two stories of Stupid Users:

1. User IB calls to inform us of her problem:

Me: Hello, MIS, how can I help you?

IB: I need to change my password for email.

Me: No problem, did you fax in the form for an email password change? [this is how its reset at my job]

IB: Yes.

Me: No problem, lets go to telnet and I will walk you through the process. [the mail server is run in UNIX and changes are made by the user by telnetting into the server].

IB: I can't.

Me: Can't? Why not?

IB: The computer isn't on.

Me: The computer isn't on? Why not?

IB: I don't know, the screen is just black with an arrow on it.

[folks - this is a f**ked computer. You need to reformat the HD, if it is even working. Don't you think a person would call in with this problem and not start the call by asking about changing their email password?].

2. Me: Hello, MIS, how can I help you?

Secretary: I need help creating folders.

Me: What program are you in? [I had to ask since I was certain that she must be in some program that had a complicated process - this couldn't just be creating folders on the desktop or in "My Documents, right?]

Secretary: No program, just on the desktop. [what?!? How hard could this be?]

Me: No problem. Let me tell you what to do.

Secretary: No, I want Lou.

Me: Lou is on vacation until next week, but I can walk you through it. It's really pretty easy.

Secretary: No, it's for Mr. LG, he wants Lou.

Me: It's really very easy. If you don't want me to walk you through it, and you may just want me to send someone else since you want someone to come to your office to help you. It really does only take a few minutes and any of my technicians could show you quickly.

She passes this message onto her boss. Suddenly the phone is picked up by LG:

LG: Look here - I want Lou! I'm a betting man and I can tell you that certain horses just work better with certain jockeys! I want Lou and I am willing to wait!

[With that he slams the phone down.]

Secretary: We want Lou.

[Now folks, what kind of office is this? The secretary has no idea how to do a simple Windows task and the boss is unable to learn a simple task from anyone but my highly paid, highly trained technician. Oh well.]

During the summers I voulenteer in a University computer lab. I help the few people that come in and show them how to fix things, so nothing realy to bad happens except.....

(Everything said by me will have a ")" in fornt of it.)

One August afternoon I was helping a common user on a mac, showering her how to make webpages when I hear, "Sir, Sir" It was a professor that i have seen around the University quite alot, but i never had the need to tlak to him, untill today.... I turned and asked this gentialman to

)"Please hold on, I'll be there in just a second. Please allow me to finish helping this young lady out here."

The man got furious and starts exclaiming at how "I need help now, I work here and pay your salary and I should get help now!"

Now I didnt want to be an @$$ and say that I dont get paid, but being a good sport I tell the girl I'm with to Hold on while i help this guy.

He screams at me "Your stupid Zip drive is broken, its way to big for my floppies and wont read any of them!"

)"Did you try to refresh and reopen the Zip icon in the My Computer area?"

"YES, your computers are broken, Ive tried it on 4 other computers here and none will accept it!"

)"Can I take a look at the disk and see if there are any problems w/ it?"

"It's brand new, it wont be broken!"

)"Sir please let me see your Disk to see if that is the problem."

"Ok, but its NOT the problem"

He takes me to the computer and I glance down and look at the disk, I see a rather strange looking Zip disk in the Zip drive, then it hits me, This man has a PhD given me heck and screamed his brains out at me about his "Zip Disk", but it turned out that all he had was a Plain Vanilla Floopy disk that he had spent 20 mins trying to cram into a Zip drive. I tell the guy what i had just found out, he got angry once agian and screamed, "The box said it was a Zip disk."

)"Sir, can i see the box?" He showed me the box, and yes it did say it was a "Zip", or the full phrase was "Its a Zip to use."

I went back to the girl who was paciently waiting, and once the guy left, we both erupted into a mass hystera laughter that still hasnt subsited.

Which only goes to show Phd's dont mean anything when common seince is lacking!

I'm sure this has been told before, but I was asking a customer to type in a web address to download a file.

Her home page is YAHOO. So when I ask her to type in the address, she types in the address but she types it in the SEARCH BOX and she gets a message that it can't be found.

I asked her why she did that. She tells me that that's how she's always gotten to websites.

OH BROTHER

This is a reverse of the usual story. It has to do with uninformed tech support staff at Ch*rt*r P*p*l*n*.

After nearly 6 months of testing in my city, they finally started to offer static IPs. I got my IP, configured my network, and fired up the mail and web servers. Everything worked great.

Flash-forward three months: I get home from vacation to find that nothing seems to work. I can't access the internet, my mail server hasn't received anything new in days, and absolutely no traffic is getting past the router. I called tech support.

"Sir, we don't offer static IPs in your area."

"Yes, you do. According to the local techs, I was the 6th person in the city to switch to a static IP."

"Sometimes it just looks like the IP is static because it doesn't change for a long time."

This went on for some time before I told the guy he didn't have a clue what he was talking about and hung up. I changed my router's setup to get its configuration via DHCP and discovered that I had a new IP. WTF?!? Static IPs are not supposed to change and, despite what the clueless tech-drone said, I most certainly had a static IP.

So I start going through my email. About 12 hours up from the last entry is a message from Ch*rt*r. They had apparently decided to change upstream providers in my city. "If you have trouble accessing the internet, unplug your modem, wait a few minutes, and plug it back in."

What they failed to comprehend is the fact that people with static IPs will have to do a whole lot more than that. Reconfigure the web server, mail server, DNS, routing, etc. I called the local office the next day to complain and they said, "Yeah. That was a problem for some people." No appology for the 12 hour notice, no appology for the lack of communication with tech support. Nothing. When I pointed out that they shouldn't be charging me for a static IP if they were unable to actually provide a STATIC IP, they seemed unconcerned. I dumped them for DSL not long after. Of course, that's another story.

If it had only happened once or twice, I wouldn't think much of it but it's amazing the number of times people have come to me saying, "It doesn't work!" and I fix the problem by either plugging in the device and turning it on or just turning it on. Even better is when the non-functional device doesn't exist.

1) "My printer doesn't work. I keep trying to print this report and it gives me an error message."

I walked in, looked at the printer to see if there was an error message on the display, saw that the status lights were all off, and pressed the power button.

2) "I can't log on to the network."

I walked in, saw the dark monitor with the flashing orange 'power' light, and pressed the power button on the computer.

3) "My printer is broken. Yes, it's plugged in and turned on!"

I go look and see that it's plugged in. To a power strip. Which is turned off. And unplugged. "I'll call the printer guy to come look at it."

A few minutes later. "Um...You don't need to call the printer guy. The power strip wasn't plugged in."

4) "My computer isn't working."

I look under the desk. There's no computer. "There's your problem."

"Oh, yeah. I forgot Fred's working on it. Nevermind."

Tech: Thank you for calling Blank Communications, how can I help you today?

Client: I am having problems with my computer. Is it ok if you can call me back on my portable so that we can test it while you are online?

Tech: No problem sir, what is your phone number? I will call you right back.

Client: Sure, my number is 999 999-9999, I will wait for you to call me.

Tech calls the sub back on his portable and gets nothing. So the tech calls the sub at home.

Tech: Hello sir, I did call your portable but did not get through.

Client: Oh...does my phone have to be on in order to receive a call...I never knew that! I swear I never have to turn my phone on to get calls!!!!

Tech: ~+!_@)#($*%&^

In the organisation where I used to work, I had to call out an engineer for a warranty repair on a PC which had integrated everything on the motherboard. The PC company itself will remain nameless, but because of incidents like this is, new computer equipment is purchased elsewhere.

The engineer arrived, took the lid off the PC, then disconnected everything and took out the old board, put the new board in and connected up the cables. He then powered up the system, and lo and behold the BIOS started beeping error codes and the PC refused to boot, with absolutely nothing on the screen.

He then got on his mobile phone and called his supervisor, saying that he had been supplied with a duff motherboard, and told me that somebody would come with a replacement board tomorrow. I pointed out to him that the RAM was not plugged into the new board, still being on the old one. Once this was transferred and plugged in it was fine.

Here is my experience with a co-worker who just didn't quite get it... I'm sure most people can relate!

I work at a small ISP help desk. When I first started, myself and my co-worker (we'll call her Sue) basically started this help desk. It used to be out-sourced and the ISP was going to switch to our current internal help desk.

I have a few disadvantages in the workplace... I'm young (21) which some may view as irresponsible although I'm not, and I'm female.

Anyway, This co-worker of mine, Sue, had a higher position than I (for reasons unknown to me. Read on and you'll see why!) and supposedly had more experience/education than I. She's a very nice person and I enjoyed working with her, but sometimes I wondered if she had EVER worked with computers before!!!!

One of the first things we had to do was build the PC's we would be useing, which is one of my favorite things to do, so I jumped right in there. Sue, on the other hand, kinda followed along with what I did and later mentioned that she had never built a computer before. Ok, it's a little odd for a Tech to have never built a PC, but I guess that's not too big of a deal.

I had my system built and was working on installing Windows 2000, but Sue couldn't get her computer to power up, no POST, nothing. I looked it over and didn't see anything wrong, so she tore it all apart and built it again while I finished installing.

Sue finally got a POST and was trying ot install Win2K when I went over to see how she was doing. She couldn't get the PC to boot off the Win2K CD. We made sure that it was set to boot off CD before HD, which it was. I suggested using a bootable floppy disk and using DOS to setup Win2K, or maybe the CD she was using was really scratched.

I gave her the Windows CD I used to install. When she took out her "Windows 2000" CD, I almost died trying not to laugh! It was an Office 2000 CD!!! I wasn't able to say anything because I was trying not to laugh! She put in the REAL Windows 2000 CD and it worked perfectly. Amazing! Who would have guessed!

Our supervisor came over at that point, checking on how she was doing w/ her problems installing and she said, "It was a bad disk!"

A few months passed, Sue ended up getting a nasty virus and had to format/reinstall. Luckily, she "saved" a folder of pictures she didn't want to lose onto a floppy disk. When she told me that, I was a bit confused, because she said there were a lot of pictures that she saved on a floppy. "How is that possible," I wondered... Then I found out...

She had created a shortcut to the picture folder on the floppy! She tried to open it while I watched, feeling quite bad that she was in a higher position than I! Needless to say, she got an error that the path to the folder was invalid.

The really bad thing was that she didn't understand why it wasn't working. I mentioned that it was a shortcut to something that you formatted off your hard drive, but, of course, Sue didn't listen and said, "It must be a bad disk!"

What! Is "bad disk" always your excuse? Honestly! How horrible is that! I have now learned that she is an MCSE! Apparently you don't actually have to understand much of anything about Microsoft to get that certification. You don't even have to understand the difference between Office and Windows.

I used to work for a telecommunications company in their IT department. The Help Desk would dispatch me with a radio and I'd go fix whatever was wrong.

The help desk guy noticed that if the radio was used near a monitor, that the monitor would get all jittery from the RF noise. He was greatly amused by this, and one day asked to borrow my radio so he could see what would happen when he used two radios near a monitor.

He takes my radio and puts it on one side of the monitor, and takes his radio and puts it on the other side, and presses the transmit button on both radios simultaneously. The monitor winks out, never to function again.

Ooops. It was okay though, we just sent it back to Compaq as a defective monitor and they replace it. No big deal.

When the new monitor arrives, the help desk guy is talking about what he did to destroy the original monitor, and in so doing, demonstrates with two radios. Destroying the new monitor in the process.

Doh.

I work with a local tech support company in Chino Hills, CA called UPD/Unlimited PC Designs and one day at school, a teacher knowing my position had asked me for some help printing. She said she couldnt print off of her District Computer so i went ahead and looked over the cables and connections, then, a couple seconds later realized she had never turned on her printer. kablowie?

End user: My system is froze!

Me: Ok, let's reboot your system.

EU: I'm not computer literate! Send someone out here to fix this now!

Me: Ok, no problem. Can I get you to turn your computer off and back on for me?

EU: Ok.

... time passes.. these people are on 233s or something....

EU: Uhhh.. there's a *VIRUS* on my computer!!!

Me: Oh? Did you get a warning from Norton? What does it say?

EU: Theres this little scrolly bar at the bottom thats moving... it says... "Starting Windows 98..."

This story is over 10 years old, but since then when I get asked the "any-key" question I have the correct answer ;-).

We uppgraded a server to Novell 3.11, and it was among an lot of things IP-gateway for an application used by a group of administrators. they used DOS, and typed a command to start the communication.

Well in the starup was the usual "press any key to continue", so they pressed a key and got a locked computer... I tried it, got a locked computer...., well there was no updates from the company or Novell, so we sat down and tried all keys.

"Press any key..." locked computer..., repeat.

Then we found it, one key was ok to press, everything worked.

So for some months back then F10 on the keyboards had the label any....

And I still press the F10 when I am asked to press any key;-)

Our users all use MS Outlook to get their e-mail from an Exchange server on our LAN. This is a government-run agency, so we've tried to keep everything pretty intuitive.

One morning, I had a user call me complaining that a bunch of his folders in Outlook are missing. Now, unlike smaller-scale mail servers, Exchange stores its mailboxes in databases that can't be easily deleted or changed, unless done by the clients themselves. So I'm thinking that he may have accidentally deleted one or more folders from his mailbox, and will need a restore from tape.

Just to be on the safe side, though, I said, "Are they contained inside another folder?"

He replied, "They were in my Inbox."

Ok, maybe his Inbox view got collapsed by accident. "Have you tried expanding your Inbox to see if they're still there?"

His reply: "Huh?"

As I roll my eyes, "Click on the little 'plus' symbol to the right of the Inbox in the folder view."

Again, "Huh?"

Sighing, I told him I'd be right there and went out to his desk, where he was logged in and looking at his Outlook. Sure enough, his Inbox has a 'plus' sign to the left of it, indicating it had folders inside of it and it was collapsed. I clicked on the plus sign.

His eyes went wide. "Wow! There they are! How'd you do that?"

The scary part is, part of this person's job is to teach other people how to use their computers. Shoot me now.

Technician: "May I have your mailing address so I can complete our records"

Customer: "No ! I called because I can't connect, not because I want the whole world to know where I live"

Technician: "Ok, how can I help you ?"

Customer: "I just told you, I can't connect"

Technician: "Ok, lets go through it so I can get your error message"

Customer: "Why it's just going to give the same error message and won't work"

Technician: "How am I going to help you if you don't coorperate"

Customer: "You are the technician, why can't you help me ?"

Technician: "I am trying to help you, but you are unwilling to coorperate, how can I assist you when you won't provide any information or won't help me help you by going through my troubleshooting steps."

Customer: "*sigh* what is that suppose to mean !?!"

Technician: "Well from the information you gave me, either you phone line is toasted, your modem is fried, or your system's core files or corrupted. Until you are willing help me help you, you are just wasting my time and yours."

Customer: "Fine ! I will just try agian tomorrow and see if it works."

*click*

Technician: "Thank you for calling :-D"