Funny and Humorous Technical Support Tales and Stories

Many years ago I worked for a campany that had a fair sized warehouse and office building within which was an already out of date PDP11 minicomputer that ran the whole company.

The office it was in comprised a room ten foot by twenty that contained the computer, the telecoms stuff, a big system printer, five VDU's and three small printers and other computer stuff.

On the wall of this room was one fire extingusher. A water fire extinguisher. With a "Do NOT use on electrical fires" warning.

One, there was not a corner of the room that DIDN'T contain some computer stuff.

Two, the only things in the room NOT electrical were people and the carpet. We never had a case of spontanious human combustion while I worked there, sadly.

T:Hallo! Mr Gerber at tech support. What can I help you with?

C: My computer starts when the phone rings!

T: I can help yoou with that! Restart the computer and press F2 to get out in BIOS Setup..., how is it going?

C: The screen is black and nothing happens!

....

T: Still nothing?

C: Just a black screen! Shall I try to restart the CD-player too?

I know my way around computers fairly well, enough to be considered the unofficial tech support of my group of acquaintances. My mother got her master's degree in nursing last year, and at our university, a master's in nursing requires that a thesis be written. My mother struggled with that for over a year, collecting data, writing and rewriting drafts, etc. One Saturday, she spent all day at campus typing out a draft of her thesis, and when she got home, she wanted to make a few changes to it. So I got off the computer. A few minutes later, she came into my room, asking me to come fix a problem for her.

Rolling my eyes, knowing it would be simple, I went with her back to the den and asked what the problem was. She just asked me, "Where's my thesis?" I asked her to be a little more specific, so she goes into a halfway wild account of how she put in her disk and opened up Word and tried to find her thesis on the disk and it's not there, where is it? I verified her story and saw that yes, her disk was blank. I ask her if she had maybe used another floppy to save her thesis to and she told me no, she took only that one with her.

By now, I knew she wasn't going to be happy with what I had to tell her. I briefly explained to her the difference between C: drive and A: drive, and asked if she was sure she saved to the floppy, or if she had just pressed the save button every time the save dialog came up. She said she just pushed save. Campus has their computers set to erase everything a user saves to them at every restart, and they have signs posted asking users to reset the computers when they're finished.

I told my mother that if she had just pushed save, then she saved her thesis to whatever computer she was using. She blankly stared at me and demanded I get it back and get it on our computer at home. I told her I can't do that, she saved it to campus computer itself, which she can't bring home, and I explained to her the computers "erase themselves" when they're reset. Still

uncomprehending, she got mad at me and told me to get her thesis back "right this instant." I yelled back at her everything I just said, and apparently it sunk in. She was pretty mad at herself, having just spent about 12 hours typing up the thesis. I think that is the only time I've managed to teach her anything about computers, that if she wants something saved to a floppy, she better make sure the save dialog has A: drive as the location to save to.

But still sometimes when I got on the computer, I'd see "mythesis.doc" in the file listing under C: drive and laughed, knowing my mother would probably blame the campus computers for not showing whatever changes she had made to her thesis when she saved it to our hard drive.

While on vacation I got a call from my boss who just can't seem to leave me alone when I leave the office. He was complaining that he couldn't burn a cd on his new computer. After about 1 hour of troubleshooting on the phone I couldn't figure out why it wasn't working. I asked the Boss if he even had a cd burner come with the system. He said "So that's why its not on the bill!"

Received the following email from a user today (obviously a bad row of pixels on the LCD panel):

Hello:

As you can see by this screen shot, there's a horizontal line running through my screen.. It's an .

This looks like a hardware issue. I will re-boot to see if it clears up, but would like to have it looked at.

(screen shot with no visible defect)

Sometimes they get so close to the clue...

Way back in '94 or so, when the internet was still more buzzword than not, I was hired as a system admin for a startup ISP. The staff consisted of myself, one guy who had the hang of HTML, the owner who did the accounting, and his wife, who acted as sort of secretary.

What that meant was I was the only one there capable of actually physically putting together systems, writing any custom software, configuring the machines, generating the install disks for users, making cables, and anything else 'technical'.

So, after getting the majority of my hardware in, and configured, it was time to sit down and write an accounting system - you know, so we can automatically enable and disable accounts, charge credit cards, expire users, etc.

I had been working on it for about 2 days solid, and was nearly done (that is, literally around 48 hours), but I was debugging some of the more tricky failure cases (inability to update servers, deactivation of current connections, filesystem cleanup) when my boss comes in to my office.

He's freaking out, literally pulling hair out (later I found out he was a cocaine addict, but lack of sleep had made this action rather unexceptional).

"One of the users," he says breathlessly, "one of the users, is having problems!".

Now, we're on a shoestring budget. Though I'd like to have completed this accounting system BEFORE we had users, he had gone ahead and given out free accounts to several corporations/buisnesses willing to pay up front for web page development. Thus, 'users' means 'paying corporate clients' which translates directly into 'if they're not happy, you're not going to get paid'. So, it was important. By the look of things, VERY important.

Having been in code mode for 40+ hours, I needed to shake it off to even interact with people. I told him I needed a minute, and saved my work, shut down all my windows, and walked out into the hallway where he was pacing and thumping the wall with his fist.

"Okay, what's up?", I ask.

"One of the users, he wants you to call him right away! It's an emergency!"

"What is it?!?", I ask, getting a bit excited myself.

"He can't seem to find a newsgroup about making clay pots.".

I thought about this for a second, and responded, "This is not my job," and went back into my office and locked the door.

(I quit less than a month later, to go back to college)

One day, I had a call passed to me - the problem was simple; the user simply couldn't install our software package. This one started out innocently enough - do

you have the set of 2 3.5" disks, yes. Is the power on, yes. Is the screen on, yes. Insert the disk labeled "disk 1" Where?

The customer had windows 95 on their machine, and I verified that their system - at least - claimed to have a 3.5" floppy drive assigned as the standard a: drive. I tried to describe the floppy drive to her in several ways, in hopes of getting her to find it, but to no avail. She managed to find the CD-ROM (on three seperate occasions, as if the eject button would magically do something else) but could not find any place to put the floppy disk.

Finally, she said, "Ah!" and said that she found a slot in the front of the machine, and that she had pushed the disk in, and that it gave "a little resistance". That sort of scared me, so I asked her to eject the disk just in case, by pushing the button underneath the drive that would pop out if the disk was correctly inserted. She said she did, and everything was fine, and replaced the disk.

Seems good so far....

..Baring the fact that the floppy drive politely asked to have a disk inserted when we attempted to access it. I was worried that she had simply placed the floppy into her cdrom drive (as she indicated she had tried that once), but she was very certain that wasn't it.

At this point, I just told her to bring the machine in, I'd do a free diagnosis of it, but it sounded like she had a bad floppy drive. I was explaining the legalese of the 'free diagnosis' (no free hardware, only points out problems, then you decide if you want to pay to have it fixed, etc), when she said something along the lines of "Oh! I found it!!".

Some sort of horrible noise came over the phone, and she came back on to say, "Oh! the computer crashed when I pushed the floppy in!". I assured her it was a likely hardware problem

, and she brought the machine in the next day, and the the lucky tech that got to work on it showed it to me.

The floppy drive worked fine.

That is, it would have worked if the customer hadn't just pried apart the exhaust cutout on the back of the machine and jammed a floppy through the power supply fan and into what appeared to be at one time, important components.

Fighting the pressure to laugh that was threatening internal hemmoraging, I explained to the customer that it turns out the culprit was her power supply, and helped her select a new one. I did the install free of charge.

I figure anyone who runs through life this oblivious needs a break or two to get by.

Also, the 3.5" floppy setup disk one was in the cd rom tray.

A while back we got a call from a prof who complained that he was receiving a lot of spam, and requested that "Melissa", one of our student techs, come help him set up filtering. Now Melissa was just a freshman, but she had quickly developed a reputation for being very good with inexperienced users and for being our resident spam guru, so we didn't find it that strange that he requested her specifically. Melissa wasn't in until the next day, but he said that was fine.

So the next day Melissa goes up to his office to have a look at his spam. A few minutes later she comes running down to my desk and asks me if I can go help him in her place. It turns out that this spam he'd been receiving was very explicit pornographic material, and he had insisted on showing it to Melissa. She told him not to click on it, she could tell what it was for the subject line, and she was underage so she shouldn't be seeing it. However, he insisted on clicking on it, so she left his office and told him she would send up someone who isn't underage.

Now I'd rather not be alone in a room with a man old enough to be my father and an inbox full of porn, but there were no male first tier techs in at the time, and I certainly couldn't ask an underaged underpaid student to deal with that. So I brace myself and go up to the prof's office. It was less than five minutes between when Melissa left and when I arrived. When I get there, the prof is on the phone yelling at the poor student co-ordinator, who has no clue what's going on (the student co-ordinator is also a middle-aged man and Melissa was too shy to discuss porn with him, which is why she came to me). I interrupt and say I'm there to set up his spam filters, expecting that he'll back off. But he continues yelling at the student co-ordinator while I set up the filters. When I'm done, he hangs up with the co-ordinator and starts yelling at ME, because he wanted Melissa to help him and not anyone else. I pleasantly tell him that Melissa is underaged and both he

and our department could get in legal trouble for making her look at porn, and besides his spam filters are all set up. He coldly insists that he's registering an official complaint. She could easily have ruined his career with a harassment suit but instead chose to just walk away, and he's insisting we reprimand her for doing so. Plus he has a daughter exactly Melissa's age - how would he feel if someone showed porn to his daughter?

Now here's where it gets stupid. Our department has a policy where any time we get an official complaint, we have to tweak our policies or practices to prevent the situation from happening again, regardless of the validity of the complaint. So even though this prof had an underage girl come alone to his office, closed the door, tried to show her porn, and was basically complaining that she refused to allow him to do so, we had to somehow address this complaint. We couldn't remprimand Melissa, of course, so instead the genius department director makes a policy that we are not to hire freshmen, so as to avoid having underage students working for us. Yes, so all future employees will be perfectly legal to look at porn any dirty old men might throw at them.

A professor called in today to complain he was receiving three copies of all his e-mail. When we called him up, we discovered he was not only sending a CC to himeslf, he was also sending said e-mail messages to two addresses he also owned, which were being forwarded to (you guessed it) the same e-mail account. It took us 10 minutes to convince him that him sending those messages to himself was in fact the problem. To think, this guy had a PhD in Computer Engineering...

While this isn't really about tech support, I thought it was funny because the person involved was a government computer programmer.

We were visiting a friend who let us onto his pc to check something out online. When we were browsing, he noticed a handle on the front of our friend's pc. Without asking what it was, he reached out and pulled it. The pc didn't really like it. It gave us half a dozen error messages, then crashed. We rebootde, but nothing happened.

It turned out that the removable hard drive he'd tried to remove was also our friend's system drive. Oops.

I do tech support for a small isp.

one day I had a customer called saying he couldn't get online.

me=M

Him=H

M: what version of windows do you have?

H: I don't know.

M: ok..click on the start menu, does it say shut down or turn off the computer?

H: what's the start menu?

M: it's the button on the bottom left corner of the display.

H: the only button there says "start"

M: Right that's the button that brings up the start menu.

H: so what do you want me to push?

.....

cut to about 5 mins later:

I discover that he has a pre xp computer.

H: so are you going to help me?

M: Yes sure I just needed to know what version of windows you had, now double click on my computer.

H: I can't get online.

M: I know sir, I'm going to help you. now double click on the icon that say's my computer.

H: but I can't get online, can't you help me?

M: that's what I am trying to do sir, now if you just follow through with what I'm telling you we can get your settings all straightened out.

H: so your going to help me?

M: Yes!

H:

The guy hangs up on me and doesn't call back, as far as I can tell none of the other techs have talked to him. He must still be waiting for me to finish helping him.

A guy brings in his computer in the other day frantic that he cannot access what he calls his "ebay mail". I thought he meant his mail from ebay tranactions. I get the computer fixed up (bad HDD BTW). He comes in to pick it up and asks if I can make sure that it will access this "ebay mail". I say sure. I fire it up, and open up Internet Explorer and surf it around to demonstrate it working on the net. I open up outlook express to show the e-mail working. He gets a real funny look on his face and says "how did you do that?". I ask what he means. He says he wants to know how did I get to his mail. I said I opened up outlook express. He said thats not how he does it. His mail is "ebay mail" and you have to go to ebay to get it. I was thinking, maybe ebay had started doing html mail and I didnt know it. So I ask him to check his mail the way he does it for me. He goes to ebay.com, then clicks on the read mail button in internet explorer, opening outlook express. Then he turns to me and smuggly says "see ebay mail". Sadly, I do not own a gun.

I have worked more that 1 year for a large network of filtered ISPs as a tech support. It was turning out to be just an ordinary day....normal tech calls...then came this gem.

Me: Thank you for calling _______ Tech Support! How can I help you?

Customer: You better have a &$@#*&% solution to my *&%#@*problem!! I have nothing but trouble this week and I need my Internet back!!

Me: No problem, what seems to be the trouble?

Customer: Duh! I can't connect!! What the hell should I call for?

Me: Okay, what error message are you getting?

Customer: "no dialtone"

Me: Okay can we try connecting now? Do you have an available phoneline?

Customer: Yeah coz I'm talking to you on my cellphone since the damn phone company cut of my regular phone just a while ago.

Me: (phone on mute) HAHAHAHAHA!!!

Customer: Are you still there?

Me: Yes, yes I'm still here...uhhh...so you're telling me that the phone company cut off the line that your computer is hooked up to right?

Customer: Yes you idiot! That's what I told you a while ago!!

Me: Okay...the computer says "no dialtone right"?

Customer: That's what I *&^$@#* told you!!

Me: Okay..okay...pick up your regular phone...

Customer: Okay

Me: What do you hear?

Customer: ahhh...no dialtone...

Me: Does that answer your question?

Customer: (total silence..I can just hear breathing...)

Then he hung up....

Hi guys, first contrib from me, mainly because I don't want to repeat all the tales already here that have happened to me. Enough said, this one's rather simple, but we all have our go at (l)users at times, myself included, but you have to wonder at a major computer manufacturer (think recently merged with a 2 letter company beginning with "H") that labels a CD "Supports Microsoft Windows for Workstation NT 4.0". Now, I've heard of Windows for Workgroups, and I've heard of Windows NT Workstation 4.0 before. Maybe these guys were just a little confused?

I work for a dial-up ISP. Had a customer call in and we had to walk them through a manual setup. Not to bad normally, but this customer just didn't seem to grasp the concept of clicking the mouse with the right mouse button. To make a long story short we told the lady to right click on the mouse (told her an icon as well). With this she said just a second. While I was waiting she had gone and gotten a Sharpie and had actually written "Click" on her mouse. When she got back on the phone she was very upset that "Click" wouldn't come off of her mouse. Not sure what to say she got fed up and wanted to speak to a supervisor. Not sure what happened after that, but it makes you think about what we have to deal with. Oh the wonderful world of Tech Support.

At a house call the other day...

"Oh i cant get anything when i go onto the internet"

"Alright XXXXXXXX i will be down in about 20 mins"

When i arrived at the house, and had a look at what the problem was, all could be seen was the text and all the plugins and images had the traditional red X in a white square, on closer inspection however i couldn't work out what the problem until i looked at the advanced internet options in IE.

Everything seemed correct until i came to the Images / Plugin section. all the checkboxes were unchecked for the showing of images, and plugins, so upon rechecking all the boxes, AMAZINGLY, the plugins and images returned.

To the shock when i asked him how it managed to become unchecked, "Oh i dont know how it happened" my personal opinion at the time, was that he had gone in and was unchecking ones, because he is known to me to press random buttons to see how they work.

Happy Techin

Snake

I used to work for a big ISP company, and I used to answer phones queues. We had a script to go by, and tickets were logged by phone number. I am not sure whether this was an insult or a complement on my voice, but this often happened:

Me: Thank you for calling [ISP]. My name is Grig. May I have your phone number starting with the area code, please?

Cust: [BEEEEP!!] [BOOOOOOOP!!] [BEEEEEEEEEEEP!!]

Me: [going deaf with the loud tones in my headset] No no, please [BEEEEEEEEP!!] just TELL me your [BOOOOOP!!] phone number!

I'd get two responses:

Cust: Oh, sorry! I thought you were a recording...

or

Cust: ...FOUR!!! ...ONE!!! ...ZERO!!! (and so on, like I was a IVR unit or something)

I work for a very large computer hardware company, and worked on fixing

systems that were "custom installs" (that is, not the usual stock from our

cataloge). Most of my users were people who had specific business needs, and

not your average Joe Customer.

One call I got from a large greeting card company that bought over 200 diskless

workstations for one of their call centers. They complained they couldn't

install their telecom software because it had no CDROM. I explained they had no

hard drive, either, the order requested "diskless." "Well, who the hell ordered

that?" We traced down the approval line in their purchasing chain, and found

out that the original order was for "200 machines with diskettes" (I guess they

meant floppy drives). Doh!

Recently, we offered OS-free systems for those who wanted LINIX or something.

The ads used to say, "Save more: buy LINIX and get a reduced price PC!" (its now

changed to say, "Systems with no operating systems"). Basically, you get one of

our stock PCs with no Windows XP. This has caused all kinds of headache for

those who get them, and when they boot, they get "Invalid system disk" errors

(we don't format the hard drives for them, either). We shipped a custom order

where the rep said, "You can save $20 by requesting no floppy." Now, you CAN

boot off a CD, but you have to set that in the BIOS. And guess what? Default

BIOS is "Boot from floppy, then C:" I don't know beans about LINIX, and

customers call to ask about Redhat or Mandrake, and when I say we don't support

that, they get all ballistic. A few months ago, someone asked, "You mean it

doesn't even come with Windows 95?" No... you ordered "no operating system,"

dum@#$%. "But but... I wanted LINIX." LINIX _is_ an operating system, bozo.

Even *I* know that.

I used to run training courses on some pretty complex data communications adapters for PCs. I had a wonderful classroom set up so that the students could perform the whole task from installing the hard hardware through to configuring the drivers and doing something useful with. The PCs were Dell mini-towers and stood up wonderfully to several years of fairly ham-fisted students repeatedly inserting cards. These PCs lived on the floor beside each desk.

The first task of the class was to open the case of the PC and install the adapter. Often the students made life easier by lifting the system unit onto the desk, installing the card and returning it to the floor.

The second task was to install the drivers from a CD-ROM. Over the period I was running this course, I twice had a complaint that the CD would not go into the drive. The first time this happened, it took me about ten seconds to realise that if the student turned the system unit the other (correct) way up, all would work as desired.

Here I sit, unsuccessfully competing against these masters of technology in my search for new employment. There just ain't no justice!

I work as a sales/technician at a computer store and a while ago a customer who had bought a motherboard, CD-ROM drive, and power supply from us came in with his computer, telling us he (or rather, his son) can't get it to work. I explained to him the standard in-store labour rate and he agreed to let us look at it. So anyway, I took it to the back and grabbed a manual for that motherboard.

Plug it in, try booting. Turns on, no POST, no beep.

"Hmm."

Cracked open the case, checked the Reset switch connector (as I thought it was being held down). Hmm, connected properly.

Then I looked at the CPU. And laughed out loud.

The guy had apparently did not know how a ZIF socket worked, and evidently didn't check the motherboard manual either as it was clearly outlined there. Instead, he just placed the CPU on the socket and crammed the fan/heatsink assembly on.

Of course, since the HSF wasn't meant to be attached with the extra height of the CPU pins, it took a bit of trying before I managed to get it off and insert the CPU properly. Once I had done that, the system booted normally.

Anyway, I maintained my professionalism and returned the system to the customer, charging an hour's worth of labour. :)

Some other guy's computer wasn't working, so he had to work with me. Everything was going fine, until for no apparent reason he burst into laughter.

"What's so funny?" I asked.

"The thing above Inet!"

INet was a folder. I looked above it and saw the top of the monitor.

"What's so funny about the top of the monitor?" asked.

"No! It's the INet logo!"

I realised he was looking at the folder logo.

"What's so funny about the folder?"

He suddenly screamed "IT'S A FOLDER!!!!" and burst into laughter.

I really hope his computer gets fixed soon...

I was working my graveyard shift at a local ISP/NSP as a network eng, when one of our larger clients loses their T3. Right as I am calling the client, my phone rings, who should it be, just the person I was about to call. Asked him promptly if he had been doing work. "yes, I was updating my route maps" As I was going through asking him what he had done, he blurts out to another coworker, "yeah just put the other 12 pack in the fridge". I promptly suggested that he sober up and call me back after he was done playing drunken engineer.

One of our techs sent out a note and meant to end it with a standard closing of "sorry for the inconvenience." What was sent stated "sorry for the incontinence."

I finished swapping out a power supply for one of the customers downstairs and he took his computer to his office. I get a phone call 2 minutes later from him. My TV doesn't work. I said what. My TV doesn't work and it is plugged in right. I went down to his office and looked. The computer wasn't turned on. When I told him this he said but I didn't turn it off. I reminded him that he just walked the computer downstairs. Blank look on his face. I said when you carried it downstairs it was not on was it? Comprehension dawns. Oh, i didn't know I would have to turn it on I thought all I had to do was plug it in. With customers like that I will never be out of work.

When i was in year 7 (the first year of highschool here) the IT teacher relised i knew more about IBM Pc's than he did. (the labs had top of the line Apple Macs) so he asked me to look at the machine in his office as the Repair guy for our school district was all backed up. i said no problems and asked the problem. he tells me he getting currpoted data on the hard drive. i say no probs, thjinking of a virus. i walk into his office to see he had stuck magnets (including one Dirty Big Bar Magnet (it had to be 12" long) right on the side of his box.

i pointed out his error, than re-installed 3.1 for him.

needless to say i aced that class

I was helping someone add accounts to his newly installed linux box. He added the user and even added it to the wheel group fine. I told him to run passwd to set the new user's password, thinking he would know to put the user's name on the command line. Instead, he changed his root password and found he could not login. Ok, so it's my fault for not telling him to put the username after, but the conversation was rather interesting.

(00:04:39) Cu: you didnt change my passwds did you?!

(00:05:00) Me: I don't have any fscking access to it and you logged in after I left.

(00:05:33) Cu: who changed the passwds or how did they get changed ?!

(00:06:15) Me: wait one moment. try the password for the new user for root.

(00:06:40) Me: I think you did. Did you run passwd username or passwd?

(00:06:52) Cu: passwd

(00:07:01) Me: then you changed root's password.

(00:07:08) Cu: so I changed the root one to the account one and the acount one doesnt have a passwd

(00:07:12) Me: yes

(00:07:17) Cu: I am a dumbass

This particular client of mine is worth a few tales already and no doubt will be worth a few more. How do you spell cloooooooooo-lesssss !?

Anyway, this one time I am setting up a small network for his business and I ask him if he wants me to set up email. He says yeah, and I say how? He tells me to set it up so it works in this totally impossible way (he didn't want or need the expense of a mail server) and I tell him it's impossible and why, explaining his alternatives as well. He says he'll think about it and get back to me.

A week later he calls up complaining that he tried to send email and it didn't work... I carefully remind him that he hasn't given me the go ahead to configure his email yet and he says, "Oh. Okay." and hangs up, muttering that the network I set up is stupid because it can't even do email!

So I call later and ask him again about email - he has totally forgotten our convo about it and I have to explain everything again. He says he'll get back to me once he's made a decision.

A week later he calls me up, totally rabid and foaming at the mouth, saying that he wrote up a hundred important emails and couldn't send them! He's fuming, threatening not to pay for the network, swearing and screaming and saying that the work I've done is worthless and ruining his business!!

It's all I can do to remain calm at this stage but I kept an even keel for half an hour while I talked to him and explained that HE BLOODY WELL HASN'T MADE A DECISION ABOUT THE BLOODY EMAIL YET SO HOW COULD I HAVE SET THE BLOODY THING UP?? He finally calms down when I agree to come on a WEEKEND to set up the email, about which he finally agrees to make a decision!

Seriously, I used to think techs charged exorbitant amounts but no amount of money is worth this!

Here's another story about THAT client. I do some home work for him setting up ADSL. I install one of his line filters but he won't let me install the other one because the wall phone in the living room would then look "unsightly" - sheesh!

So he says he'll figure out a way to install it himself. I show him what he needs to do and he says okay.

A few days later he calls and says that ever since he installed the filter his ADSL won't work. Okay, I am SO LUCKY that I realised what this clueless guy had done IMMEDIATELY.

He'd installed the phone line filter right at the beginning of his line where it entered the house, filtering the ADSL line as well as the two phone connections! Duuuuuuuuuuuuuhhh!! It's a filter for ADSL signals! How on Earth is an ADSL modem supposed to send data through an ADSL signal filter!!!!!!

Jeeeeeeeeeeeeez, this is just too much!

One more story about this client then I'm going to bed.

He calls up about his ADSL not working. Apparently he has been on the phone with the ISP for days and they can't figure out the problem.

I try and troubleshoot a few things to no avail. Finally he tells me that he recently changed his password and a few days later it stopped working. I ask him if he changed the password in his modem configuration settings - he says he called the ISP to change the password and they did this remotely (?).

Oookaaaay... So knowing how befuddled this customer can be I get him to go into his modem config and show him how to change the password. Hey presto, someone buy me dinner I am such a genius. Not.

(Later on I call the ISP just to make sure that they have no way of actually changing passwords in modems remotely and they assure me that they can't, nor would they ever tell a customer that they could. Go figure. If this customer weren't so tight I would be a millionaire.)

Typical new students at university setting up accounts, for which we have very clearly written instruction sheets.

S = student, K = me

S: Hi, I need an account.

K: Have you got one of these flyers telling you how to set up an account?

S: Yeah.

K: Have you tried following the instructions on it?

S: It has instructions??

S: I tried setting up a new account, but it won't let me.

K: Okay let's go through this... under the entry where it says "If you have been given a password type it here. Otherwise leave this field blank" what are you typing?

S: My password?

K: So you've already been given one?

S: No.

K: Then leave it blank already!

S: The system won't let me set up an account.

K: Where it says "Type your birthday in the following format dd/mm/yy" what are you typing?

S: Um, dd/mm/yyyy?

K: !

S: I can't seem to set up a computer account.

K: When did you enrol in your course?

S: Um, about 5 minutes ago?

S: The instruction sheet says to first log in as "student" and leave the password field blank. Does that mean I log in with my username and use "student" as the password?

K: [I'm sorry but I just don't have the words... ]

S: I want to set up an account.

K: Have you read the information sheet about setting up accounts?

S: Yes but I thought you could just do it for me instead.

S: I want to log in to one of the computers but it's not working.

K: So what happens when you type in your password and click "Okay"?

S: I don't know... I've forgotten my password.

I was working as tech support for a small company. We had various problems with our Windows machines. One day the secretary asked me why these machines always had problems. I explained to her that there were bugs in the operating system. She asked me, "You mean to tell me that MIcrosoft would release a program with a bug in it?"

A customer called me today complaining of a connection issue with his dialup service, I first asked him what version of Windows he was using:

user: Office 2000

me: No, not what version of Office, what version of WINDOWS? Just click your start button and it will tell you on the left side of it on the vertical bar.

user: OK...Hold on...It says I'm running Windows98NT2000ME

me: Where did you get that from?

user: It's on a sticker on the front of my box....

I had been on the phone with this customer for about 20 minutes, he had been getting frequently disconnected. I ended up using an init string on his modem to fix it, he had Windows 98 so I told him to reboot the computer so the settings would take affect...

Twenty minutes later, phone rings:

User: Yeah, umm. You told me to reboot my computer...

Me: Yeah, what's the problem?

User: What exactly do you mean by that?

Me: I mean turn it off and then turn it back on...Just click Start, then Shut down, then Restart...

User: OK, I did that, but it doesn't turn off, it just says 'It is now safe to turn off your computer'

Me: Sir, see the power button on your computer?

User: You mean the dial I use for the volume?

Me: No, sir, that's your monitor. I mean the tower, you know, the 'box' on the floor?

User: Oh, you mean the modem?

Me: No sir, that is your computer, the other part is just your monitor. You need to press the power button on the computer..

User: *Sheepisly* Oh, I see....

this computer is 100 times more powerful than what they used to put a man in space, and I just had to help him turn it off...

Must have been a full moon tonight, the following tale comes from a luser who is probably one of the stupidest I have ever encountered...

Me: What is the problem?

Her: Well, I got a new computer from a friend, well, it's used, and it has a bunch of AOL stuff on there, I tried dialing up, but it didn't take me to you, it took me to AOL. I have an account with you, so I don't know why that happened...

(HATE TO SEE HER PHONE BILL...)

Me: OK, we can uninstall the AOL stuff..What version of Windows is on your computer?

Her: Well, it came with Windows 95, but I just put 98 on it.

Me: You upgraded it?

Her: I think so...I just put the CD in, will it still be there next time I turn the computer on?

Me: Can you tell me what it says on the CD you put in your drive to upgrade?

Her: Yep, it's blue and it says (ISP NAME)...

Me: Ma'am, you didn't upgrade Windows at all, that was an IE upgrade...

Her: Oh...

(MEANWHILE I DETERMINE THAT SHE HAS WINDOWS 98 ON THE COMPUTER ALREADY...UNINSTALL AOL, WE'RE ON OUR WAY)

Me: OK, you need to restart your computer...

Her: You mean turn if off?

Me: Yes, you'll have to...

Her: I can't do that

Me: Why?

Her: The person who had it before me has a password to get into windows, I don't know the password, so if I turn it off, how can I get back into Windows?

(I THEN EXPLAINED TO HER THE NONEXISTANT SECURITY IN WINDOWS 98)

Her: Oh OK..

(CALL ENDS)

Meanwhile, the phone starts ringing off the hook at my ISP, but they keep hanging up...I knew right away what the problem was..

I called the customer back, asked her if she was having trouble connecting and she said that she was dialing up and it wasn't working.

Me: What number are you putting in your dialer?

Her: XXX-XXXX

Me: Ma'am, that isn't our local access number, that is the number to our tech-sup

port line...

I'm a technical support person that deals with imaging of operating systems and deployment.

A network administrator from a fairly large company calls in. The first bad sign of the call was before I could get his name from him he felt compelled to state that he had his MSCE. After which he starts swearing at me and complaining about how all of the computers at his job are not functioning after deploying an image that he just created. Apparently he took an image of one computer and deployed it company wide without testing the image.

Guess that will be one less network admin.

Prior to my current incarnation as a political journalist, I owned a couple of small computer shops.

A chap bought the parts for a new system from me. I was slightly concerned at the time that he, perhaps, lacked the technical knowledge to assemble them, despite him telling me he knew all about computers (don't they all!!). I went through it all with him step by step, and off he went, clutching his purchases.

The next day, I get a phone call telling me it doesn't work. What a surprise. So I ask him to bring it down, and tell him I'll take a look at it. He arrives, complete with system, and while I'm unscrewing the case, he tells me all about his 'experience' with PCs etc.

When I get the lid off, I take a look and there is nothing obviously wrong, other than the cards seem not to have located in the PCI & ISA slots properly, so I slacken off the screws that hold them in, and the problem becomes apparent.

The customer has taken the motherboard out of the box, and screwed it directly to the chassis, with no spacers or insulators. To my surprise, after removing it and inserting the spacers, the motherboard still works.

Feeling benevolent, I said I'd only charge him 5 quid for it, at which point he begins to argue with me, because I didn't explicitly tell him that you can't screw a motherboard directly to the chassis, and refuses to pay. I give up and let him go.

The next day, when he realises he can't figure out how to boot from the CDROM drive, he comes back, hands me 30 quid, and asks me to finish the machine for him....

And people ask my why I left IT :)

Mark

I used to do support for an ISP and naturally got a variety of memorable calls, but this particualar call sticks in my mind each time. I received a call from a lady who was having problems connecting to our service, so I told her I needed her password to verify her account settings. She hisitated, I could tell something was wrong. Maam, I reiterated, I need your password to verify your account settings, may I have it? Again she was resistant. Then she asked me, "If I tell you, promise you will not laugh". I assured her I would be professional and show no levity. The she utters, "Erection". I paused. Could you repeat that I replied. Again she spoke, "The password...erection". I gasped trying not to bust out laughing. Then she says, "Please, I am so embarrased. My Husband came up with that one."

Please note: It was hard to finish the call because the entire time I was muting the call and laughing. So much for professionalism. Oh, BTW..when the call was over the entire Support Center knew the password. LOL!

Being the most tech-savvy member of my extended family, I naturally get called upon for whatever computer problems may arise. My aunt is a wonderful person but isn't very bright when it comes to computers. At the time this took place, I was living about 1.5 hours away from her. She called me and said "I'm unable to print." I walked her through a good 30 minutes of the standard cable checking, rebooting, attempting to print a test page....you know the routine. Finally I said that I didn't have anything going on that weekend and offered to travel to her place to see what I could uncover.

When I got there I began doing the same things as I had instructed her to do, then I tried reinstalling the printer drivers. None of this would allow the printer to start printing. That's when I found out that this all started happening when she got a new ink cartridge. I pulled the new one out of the system and performed a miracle in not laughing out loud. It seems she had not only removed the sticker that said "Remove this before installing" but *also* the adhesive that contains the information that the printer uses to interact with the cartridge. For those of you that have never tried removing one of those, by the way, it's no easy task. I popped a different cartridge into the system, powered up the printer, and printed without problem.

...at least I got a free meal out of it.

After reading February's edition, I had to add these harmless, but fun co-worker pranks:

#1. Clear tape over the mouseball.

This one works especially well on people who don't type well:

#2. using a pliers or something, gently remove keys from the keyboard. Put them back in different places. Kudos if you hit letters from their password, so they can't even see what they'r'e typing when they try to log on. It's really fun to watch them carefully type in the wrong keys.

As a Field Technician for the last 20 years, I have seen my share of stupid users.

My favorites were always the Court Reporters. They often took their systems home with them to complete their work. One common call usally went like this.

T:Hello this is Ken With XXX, I see you placed a service call that your PC is dead.

CR: Yeah, it was working at the office, but when I brought it home it wouldn't work.

T: Are you working in the kitchen or the living room?

CR: In the Kitchen.

T: OK follow the power cord and make sure you didn't plug it in by the toaster (snicker quietly)

CR: Oh wait, I forgot to plug it in! Sorry.

The sad part is that they had to call the help desk in order to place a service call!

I was working as a Project leader with a tech company supporting a Major Food retailer when This story happened.

I get woke up at the sick hour of 0500 with a top priority call for a store where one of my team had just installed new controllers. The call comes in as Replace Token Ring in alternate controller. I drive out to the store and soon determine that both of the controllers are configured as master controllers. Calling the help desk I explain this to the person on duty she asks if I have replaced the TR card yet. NO, that is not the problem! So, with my usual pre-coffe wit I decide to show her that if I leave the master turned off that the alternate comms just fine. I then go to the Master (which had been comming just fine prior to this) and turn it on. Surprise! It beacons. The Helpdesk person says: "Oh, it must be the token ring card in the master then." Finally at 1300 after calling all over the country to find the change config command, since we are not supposed to have that function, I am closing the call, explain that the cure was what I had stated 7 hours ago and could have been done in 5 minutes, and the HD operator asks: "So did you change the token ring card and cable?"

Another fine story

I get a call for a store across the state that is not getting satellite communication and HD requests that I replace the Comm adapter in the controller. I drive the 2 hours to the store, run all of my diags and determine that my system is fine. Remembering that that area had been hit by fierce winds in the previous couple of days I decide to look at the dish on the roof. The collecter is pointing 90 degrees from the horizon, (straight up) as I live nowhere near the equator, I figure that this is why there is no comm. Call the helpless desk and explain to them the problem. HD operator says: "That's one of the new vertical mounts, replace the comm board and cable" Needless to say after two trips to the store they finally called the satellite company to look at the dish, and r

estored communications.

I work for a small ISP. I had a man call in who said he was having some problems getting online. After some questioning I found out some interesting info. He told me he was just switching from his previous ISP.

He said, "Well, I can connect to you, but there isn't anything that says,'Welcome to (ISP name)! Where would you like to go?' There is just your webpage."

I explained that he should use the address bar to go to different web sites.

Gee, I wonder what ISP he used to go through?!?!

I work for a cable isp, and I've been wondering....where do people get the word "mode-diem"?! Who has ever pronounced it that way to these people? Even after I say, "Can you please unplug the MODEM?" They'll say, "The mode-diem? You mean that box thing on the floor?"

I had a customer bring in his system complaining that it would no longer boot properly. He said that he'd just upgraded his RAM, so this was an obvious place to start looking.

I popped out the RAM, and immediately noticed the problem, he had installed the modules backwards. Now, SDRAM is keyed so normally it cannot be installed backwards. But this genius had snapped off the pins so that he could force the modules in backwards.

I turned the modules around and inserted them properly, and, low and behold, it worked perfectly.

I used to do internal support for a large financial company. I had this conversation one day:

M: Me

U: User

M: (walking through reboot process)

M: Please press "X" to boot your operating system

U: I don't have an "X"

M: You don't have an "X" key on your keyboard?

U: Oh, that "X", I thought you meant a different "X"

What I want to know is how many X's this lady had floating around.

hey,

I thought I'd share this one.

Went and saw a friend I aint seen in about 3 months. The

last time I saw him I built him a new computer. Nothing

special, but decent enough.

So, when I get there, I discover that he'd visited a certian

PC shop (Where in the World?). Aparently he'd been having

problems an went to get it fixed.

The techy there decided it was the motherboard. So instead

of installing a new motherboard and sending the guy on his way,

he managed to convince him he needed a new motherboard, processor

RAM, hard drive, sound card, grahics card and case.

Efectively a new system. Costing him upwards of 500 quid (he

never did specify exactly).

The real kicker was he gave back all the parts. Except the

heatsink. I managed to put the computer back together

with a new heatsink, and reinstalled windows.

You'll never guess what? It worked absolutely perfectly.

Hmmm. Remind me never to go to that store.

I was on the phone with a customer of the standard level of lesser intelligence the other night. I halfway listened to her problem, figuring it was probably a dumb settings issue anyhow.

Me: What type of computer do you have?

Customer: I don't know....

Me: Well, did you buy it at a store like Best Buy or something?

Customer: Ummmm, I think so...

Me: It should be written on your to...I mean box somewhere.

Customer: Oh! I got it! It's a 48x12x48!

I'm currently enrolled in this course at my local college for tech support. One day while in class my teacher was setting up a computer with NT on it. He told me to plug in the power, keyboard, mouse and etc. When I finished he made a presentation in the front of the class describing how NT looks like. When he booted up the PC to show the class it displayed a keyboard error. He asked the class "okay, who plugged in the keyboard?". I replied saying it was me. He turned to the class saying "Now, this is your classic example of a code 16 problem". Now me being a newbie to computer terminology didn't understand what a code 16 was. So I asked him and he replied "The problem is 16 inches away from the screen. So I guess I'll be seeing you here again next year.".

I work for a small ISP, mostly troubleshooting IE, OE, and basic connection issues for Dialup and DSL customers. People naturally ask us questions about anything under the sun though because they assume we're all computer geniuses...

Customer: I have another problem I think you can help me with... I put one a them GeFORCE 4 cards in my machine, but now every time I go to play one of my games it opens in just a small window, not a maximized one..It did that before I put the GeFORCE card in too..

Me: OK, did you replace an existing video card, or did you have on board video?

Customer: Huh?

Me: Where did you plug your monitor into the computer before you put the GeFORCE card in?

Customer: Oh...I think you just solved my problem..

Me: What do you mean?

Customer: I guess I should probably plug my monitor into the new video card....

Oh yes, and to 'Sammy D' who wrote about his fun getting Imac support, I would like to point out that the story is a lot of croc. Firstly, 13 years old and using Macs for a decade?! Yeah right. And also, if your computer is out of warrenty - DON'T GO ASKING FOR FREE SUPPORT!! This is the sort of call all techs hate getting, when the customer has to pay because they are out of warrenty but swears about it. Grow up mate.

I literally just had a user leave me a message asking me to call because, and I quote:

"...I can't read any floppy disks, it says something about c:\ and gobbledegook being full, so obviously something is wrong with my CD-ROM. Can you call me please"

Which of his drives has a problem? sheesh.

This is a tale from back in the day when my dad was still fixing TV sets. A friend of his had been called on just such a mission, and had repaired the machine and left it running fine... or so he thought.

Some time after that, the woman whose set he'd fixed called to complain that the light next to the "power" knob wouldn't go out. Dad's friend replied by telling her to turn the set off. She answered that it was off, but the light was still on. He told her to unplug the machine. She insisted that it WAS unplugged, and was, in fact, sitting in the middle of the floor five feet from any source of power, yet the light was still on. He told her to wait a few seconds to see if the light would go out on its own, only to be told it had been shining this way for several hours now. At this point, Dad's friend decided he needed to see this for himself, so he hotfooted it over there for a look.

Sure enough, the TV was sitting there in the middle of the floor with the power light shining merrily away. Curious, he opened the box up to see what was going on. He found...

...his flashlight. When he had repaired her set last time, he had set his light down and forgotten it. It had spent the last day or two sitting there shining!

A user at my work had problems with her computer screen. I looked into the problem and found that it was caused by a broken power supply. I suggested that she could lend a spare screen while I was repairing hers, when she said:

- But then I wouldn't have the same icons on my desktop!

I recently went of a training course for InstallShield (the software that lets you write software to install software) and at one stage of the course, the Trainer was showing us how to make a setup routine start up automatically when a computer reboots and also how to make a machine reboot.

He created an example on his laptop which was hooked into a projector. The first thing this program did was write a entry into the registry of the PC to make the same program run again at start-up. The second thing it did was reboot the machine without any prompting. Anyone see the flaw in this yet?

Well if you haven't already worked it out, what happened was the program ran, did what it was designed to do and then rebooted the machine. The Trainer then logged back in (this was an XP machine). At which point the program ran again, wrote to the registry again and rebooted the PC! This went on for about five itterations whilst we were watching and waiting to move on to the next step. The Trainer tried various things but couldn't stop his program from rebooting his PC and was on the point of giving up.

I then suggested that I take a look. I logged on as a user with no admin rights and the machine DIDN'T reboot itself - the program needed admin rights to write to the registry and so failed as the regular user. However, the entry to make the program run again the next time an administrator logged on was still in the registry and the only way to remove this was by editing the registry... as an administrator. Catch 22! Fortunatley there is a trick in Windows 2000 and XP - right click on a program whilst holding the shift key down and you get an extra option in the pop-up menu - "Run As..." This lets you run a program as another user, e.g. an administrator. So using this with "regedit" I was able to remove the entry from the registry and log back in as the administrator without the program running and rebooting the machine again.

And this guy was training me?!?! Suffice it to say that

taught us what NOT to do! Oh, and did I mention that the PC was set to the German language and I don't speak a word of that language so I had to work out what all the menu items were in English!!

This guy (let's just say Mr. Macey), phones up the other day after unpacking his pc.

Me: Good morning, Tech Support how can I help?

Macey: Ahh ahh, hello, I've just bought a pc from your shop. I've set everything up according to the instructions and it all appears to be working well. But! there appears to be a problem with the mouse that was included...(silence)

Me: Erm..Ok sir, what problem is there with the mouse?

Macey: well it appears that the pc doesn't recognise it. There's an arrow on the screen and it won't move when I slide the mouse. It's plugged in properly in the rear of the case and the optical light isn't on.

Me: Hmmm, could you tell me what model mouse you have?

Macey: sorry but that information isn't displayed anywhere.

Me: Ok, look on the bottom of the mouse and see if the optical eye is damaged in anyway.

Macey: It appears that the lens has been broken or it's actually fallen out.

Me: that's strange, we've never sold broken one's before?...

Macey: Looks like all the circuits have fallen out as well, all that's left are 2 wheels inside.

Me: Did you say 2 wheels?

Macey: yeah, they must have..

Me:(Cuts in) are you sure that you've checked that all the items in the packaging have been taken out? Have another look.

Macey:(Few minutes later) I've found a disc and ball.

Me: Place the ball into the hole in the mouse and screw it up with the disc.

Macey: is that it?

Me: erm..yup

Macey: ahh ahh, thanks

Me: have fun sir.

Earlier I had an interesting conversation. I was working with a CU who was having a basic browser problem, so I took them into the DUN, and found that they had no connection set up. So the following conversation took place.

Me: I thought you said that you were already setup through us?

CU: Yes. I signed up with you guys two months ago.

Me: Well I don't see any refference in our notes of anyone setting you up, so how did you get this computer set up.

CU: Well I paid for it two months ago.

Me: (Mute then laugh) Well, unfortunitly computers need to be configured to know how to connect to the internet, the computer doesn't automatically know when you've set up a connection with the ISP.

CU: Oh, so thats why I haven't been able to get on for 2 months.

Scary stuff, she had been paying for two months and it had never occured to her to call Tech Support sooner to see why she wasn't getting connected.

First-time post, so here goes. . .

At the computer shop where I work, one of the sales folks out front typically gets all the calls, and then tells a tech what's going on with the user before handing the call over. Well, both of the sales folks were busy, so I had to grab the phone.

Me: Hello, ***** Computer Services & Netroom, Kyle speaking.

User: Hi, my e-mail won't go both ways.

Me: Err. . .ok, are you saying you cannot send or receive e-mail?

User: I guess.

Me: Ok. . .what operating system are you on?

User: I don't know (child screams at another child).

Me: Click on the st-

User: It's Windows.

Me: Ok, what version?

User: I don't know. . .wait, it's 98.

Me: (sits down at testbed 98 machine) Ok, could you please open Outlook Express.

User: Ok.

Me: Click on the "Tools" dropdown.

User: My computer's not on.

Me: You should probably turn it on.

User: OK. . .(I proceed to wait five minutes for her machine to boot, in that time, I look up the official tech support for the ISP we sell).

Me: Ok, open up Outlook Express.

User: It's giving me an error.

Me: What does it say?

User: I closed it.

Me: Oh. . .well, then, press the-

User: Outlook froze up.

Me: Yeah, I figured that was going to happen. Press the Control-Alt-Delete keys.

User: Where's the delete key?

Me: It's in the little group of keys above the arrow keys.

User: Found it. . .nothing happened.

Me: Ok, press and hold the Control Key. . .now, the Alt key. . .now, tap the Delete key.

User: Ok, I have the screen.

Me: Ok, select an item in the box that is not Explorer or Systray, and click End Task.

User: I don't see that.

Me: You hit Control-Alt-Delete, right?

User: What about all this smut I'm getting?

Me: Uh, I thought you said you couldn't get any e-mail.

User: Yeah, well, I go through to delete it, and I end up seeing it all.

Me: (wondering when the porn folks started putting pictures in e-mail) Well, you can

set up a spam filter for an extra two dollars a month.

User: Why should I have to pay to stop the stuff you're sending me?

Me: (wondering when I became an e-pimp) Ok, ma'am, have you been able to close out any programs?

User: The Windows Task Manager froze.

Me: (Windows Task Manager? Oh, crap, it's Windows XP) Tell you what, I believe the problem you're having has to do with setting individual to your computer, and the tech support folks at 1-800-***-**** will help you sort that out.

User: Ok, I want to set up that smut filter.

Me: Ok, we'll activate the spam filter here, but you have to set up parameters on the web-based mail site.

User: You mean it won't just work?

Me: We don't want to accidentally filter out things you want.

User: I don't want any smut.

Me: Perfectly understandable, but you have to tell the mail server that yourself.

User: (sets down phone to scream at children, returns) How much would I have to pay you to set the smut filter up?

Me: Ma'am, we don't set up the spam filters. Each user has to do that manually.

User: Fine, I'll get the tech support people that you're referring me to to set it up.

Me: Very well (knowing that there's a better chance of me ice skating through hell than this lady will have with tech support), thank you for calling ***** Computer Services & Netroom, have a nice morning.

User: (screams at children)

Me: (hangs up)

After this, I laughed until I cried, because I knew I had experienced my first TechTale. . .

~Kyle

Last night, a guy called us at the Help Desk no less than 5 times for the most unbelievable problems...

First call, he was convinced a thunderstorm had gone into his computer and changed his dialup settings. This one alone almost warranted a smack upside the head.. Second call, he called back, wondering why a lady is on the other end saying, "This number cannot be completed as dialed, please dial a 1 and the area code." We inform him of what to do to correct it. 3rd call..... He asks us if it's OK to include a 1 before the area code. Fourth call (and fourth time into the system), he calls us, asking why he still can't dial up. We determine he didn't put in his username/password, but instead put in his *real* name as the username, and his home address as the password. Again, we tell him what to do to correct it. The last call was the clincher... He called us wondering why there wasn't a scroll bar on the side when he was looking at his Outlook Express inbox. The reason? There weren't enough messages for a scroll bar to appear. The last one made us think for a second, before determining he's dangerously close to having his Help Desk priveleges revoked.

This was not a problem but was damn funny. Client calls our internal support desk and requests help installing an application. Its a communication software, and like any software there was a license agreement. Now I could tell this was going to be a long call cause the gentleman, who was somewhat elderly, would read each screen that appeared. Now along comes the license agreement. And before I could interupt him, he begins to read the license agreement. I was taught by my parents, never interupt someone while they are talking. I have stuck to policy all my life and was not about to break it. So I let him read a while. I fgured sooner or later, he would have to take a breath and I would get to say something. But this gentleman was obviously exprienced at ready long text because he took quick short breaths and continued reading. Well ok, so I hit my mute and listened for a while. After some time I decided to go get a soda down the hall. Came back and he is still reading. Walked over and talked to my coworker for more time and came back and he was still reading. Talk moe with my coworker and explained to him what was happening and he got a laugh. Came back and he was still reading and sounded like he might be coming up to the end. Sure enough 2 minutes after I last returned to the phone he finished. He spent the last 25 minutes reading the license agreement to me. I quickly said, click the agree button. 5 more minutes and the software was installed. My whole helpdesk got a good belly laugh out of it.

User calls up the Internet Help Desk (ME), says the Windows 98 remember password feature somehow forgot her password, but she doesn't remember it to put it back in.

For security reasons we can't tell people their passwords, so if they don't know them, we have to reset it.

I am looking at her password, lets just say it's "4rlkku90"

Me: "Do you have ANY idea what you password could be? A guess?"

User: "No, I really don't."

Me: "Ok, we can reset the password for you. What do you want the new password to be?"

User: "Oh, lets make it 4rlkku90. That way it matches the rest of our passwords!"

Me: "OK"

Why didn't she say that as a guess if that's what they use for all their passwords??? And why wouldn't she have tried it first? Makes me wonder.

A couple years ago, before Compaq merged with another company, I had occasion to call their tech support people because of a mysterious error message I was getting at power-up. The support rep advised me to use their recovery CD to delete a disk partition. This didn't sound right to me, but I know nothing of the mechanics of disk partitions and gave her the benefit if the doubt.

Me: But won't that delete stuff from my disk?

Rep: No, deleting the partition will just remove the "wall" between the different sections of the disk. It will not remove any data.

Me: That doesn't sound right. Are you sure?

Rep: Yes, please do it.

Hmm. The second time a warning message popped up that said that I was about to DELETE DISk DATA I told the rep she almost cost me a partition's worth of data. She seemed nonplused. I resisted the urge to complain to her and her higher-ups.

My dad couldn't get on the internet, it said 'Invalid

Username or Password.' Hm, maybe that MEANS invalid username

or password. He is blaming me, WHY DID YOU MESS UP MY COMPUTER?!?!

WHY DID YOU GIVE OUR PASSWORD TO YOUR FRIENDS[never did]?!?!?! I HAVE IMPORTANT

WORK! [porno]. I go take a look, ooh the caps lock is on!

I press the caps lock and yay it works.

Again, one day my dad was using the laptop and suddenly,

wierd symbols were appearing instead of letters! Some

letters got punctuation, some got numbers, and some got

other letters. He was like 'WHY DO YOU DOWNLOAD SO MUCH

STUFF ONTO MY COMPUTER?!?!?! WHY DID YOU GET A VIRUS ON

MY COMPUTER?!?!?!? THANKS TO YOU DOWNLOADING ALL THIS STUFF

WHICH YOU SHOULDN'T YOU GOT MY COMPUTER ALL SLOW, AND YOU GOT

ME A VIRUS!!!!!!!!! um ok i go take a look ooh the num lock

is on i press it yay! it works. note: on laptop the numpad

overlaps the letters.

My english teacher came up to me, WHAT IS WRONG WITH MY

COMPUTER?!?!?!?!?!??!?!

i go take a look. it says the screen is locked. i say,

um maybe the screen is locked? she was like oh ya and then

she called the technician and yah he locked it so that he

could fix something. um... read what it says?

I go to a friend of mine who has a mom in the computer field.

since i have a generic PCMCIA ethernet card i give it to

my friend and ask if her mom could take a look at it and

tell me what company it was. The reply the next day?

It is a notebook web chip. It is the company FCC.

?!?!?!?!?!??!??!?!?!?! you call yourself a computer engineer?!

fcc means federal communications compliance and it is printed

on the back of almost all hardware

I am a network admin and all around general computer guru, and my mother-in-law, God love her, is well aware of this fact. She calls me often with her computer questions and has listened, at great length, to my own tech tales. One day, she was having problems with this web cam she had just bought and since they had free support, she thought she would call them because she is always calling me and she didn't want to "bother" me with a problem if she could have someone else help her. So she calls the company and the tech answers the phone:"

T: "Hello, tech support, how can I help you?"

MIL: Yes, hello? I'm having an ID10T error. Can you help me please?

Well, needless to say the tech was flabbergasted. In response, he said:

T: Ma'am, do you know what that term means?

MIL: Yes, it means I'm an idiot. Will you help me anyways?

Apparently, my mother-in-law has been paying attention when I tell my tales.

hello this is the shoe company how may i help you?

ill like to buy soem new shoes through the computer

what kind will you like?

size 6 sandle wear that sort of stuff

we will send it right away to your house

what would be your address?

selda_so_worth_it@hotmail.com

how long would it take to come through my computer and out through the holes?

CONPONY:(GOT PISSED OF AND PUT THE PHONE DOWN)

Once as a contrator for military site, I supported an old Broadband networking system, used by accounting group in the Air Force.

A secretary in a remote building called to report that she was unable to connect to her LAN.

I checked password, and it was current, so I asked, "What does it say on your screen right now?"

"Nothing." was the reply.

"Do you see a cursor?"

"No."

"Is there a green light on you monitor?"

"No."

Well what about your PC? Is the green light on it?"

"No."

"Well can you look under your desk and see if the power strip has been turned off, or unplugged?"

"I can't see under there. The emergency lighting doesn't shine that well."

"Emergency lighting?" I ask.

"Yeah, the power failed in the building, and all we have is emergency lighting."

I suggested she take a break, and try the LAN connection again, after the power came back on.

I do some volunteer work for an organization that assembles old Pentium IIs, 486's etc. for people who can't afford a computer. Most of the volunteers that I work with know what they're doing, but there's always a few.

One day I was fitting CD-ROM drives into C*mp*q desktops (who ever designed those cases should be forced to use a 9600 baud modem for the rest of their life) and I found that several CD-ROMs had little stickers or pen marks on them indicating that they were bad drives. As I was too lazy to go searching for other drives, I started putting them in machines and testing. A bunch of the drives were perfectly fine, once I moved the jumper from the single position. It's a good thing no one decided to throw out these 'bad' drives.

This one is a classic example of a know-it-all kid. This kid must be like 10 years old, and he tells me to watch out, I might get shocked since I didn't pull to power cord after doing some work on the computer. Is this kid a total idiot? I am nowhere near the power supply, which is the only thing in the entire computer that could give me any appreciable current or volts.

jms * BlackFox * Omega0

http://spots.flatland.com/jms/index.html

The mother of my daughter's friend just picked her up from an overnighter. I was working on getting a few older PCs running for a client when she arrived, and she noticed the computer part in my hand as I opened the door. She asked me if I fixed computers, which I reluctantly admitted to doing.

It seems she has an e-machine, still under warranty, with a bad CD-ROM drive. The computer sees it, but it will not read any CDs put into it. So she did the obvious thing and called their tech support line.

Guess what they told her to do....

Backup all her data onto floppies and use the system restore CD.

I looked at her, horrified by what she had just told me. I told her tom immediately call them back and that a certified technician has diagnosed the CD-ROM drive as being bad and to send her a replacement.

I want to know how the tech thought she could use a system restore CD in a drive that wouldn't read CDs?

I received the following e-mail in my Help Desk Queue regarding a printer that the end user wanted me to look into. It is quote for quote what the end user wrote....

"It's saying it's out of paper and won't process any of the jobs. I can check it for jams and see if that helps. Can I print to another color printer or do I need permission?"