Funny and Humorous Technical Support Tales and Stories

Long ago I worked in a printer's shop, outputting film. It was in 93 or 94, so many of our clients still didn't do their own DTP'ing and we usually did it for them in a mixed Windows/Mac environment. We relied heavily upon QuarkXPress, which was available on both platforms.

One of the funniest things about Quark is the "Martian" easter egg: With an object selected, if you want to delete it, you press "delete", but if you press "Command" and "Option" on a Mac, instead of simply deleting the object, QuarkXPress plays an animation of a martian walking from the side of the screen and "blasting" the item away (in current versions the shortcut is "Shift"+"Option"+"Delete").

A Coworker, seeing this from his PC, asked how could he do it as well. Knowing that the equivalent to the Mac's "Command" and "Option" keys are the "CTRL" and "ALT" keys, I kept myself from giggling and said, changing the order so that he wouldn't catch on:

"That would be... 'Alt', 'CTRL' and "Delete' !"

Remember, this was before the task manager!!

Oh, the humanity!! The Humanity!! Good laughs, though.

In addition to running the network and providing L2 help desk, we also run the phone system at our company.

"Hi, this is [user] over in [department]...I spilled 7-Up all over my phone, and now the buttons are sticky. I was wondering if you had something to spray on the phone to make it less sticky. I poured water on it, thinking that would make it less sticky, but it didn't work."

At this point, I locked down my mute switch and burst out laughing. Fortunately, one of my coworkers was also on the line and without missing a beat, suggested she "lay off the soda for a while."

Apparently, though, someone thought they could. This is another one seen at Boeing Surplus in Kent, WA. You know, the place where I once reported seeing a Person of Asian Descent trying for over fifteen minutes to (futilely) fit mismatched power cords together?

Well, guess what? Same person, different year! This time, the fellow started out with a shopping cart crammed full of heavy stuff. Between the pair of big monitors, the workstation-class computer, and associated cabling and peripherals, I figure he had to have over 100 pounds in there.

Anyway, the store has this ramp -- a fairly steep one -- leading down from the upper level of their entryway to the driveway level. It serves two purposes; providing a pathway to roll carts down, and allowing wheelchairs to bypass the stairs.

I came out of the store behind this guy as he starts to push his fully-loaded cart down the ramp. He has a perfectly good grip on it from the backside, and there's nothing that's likely to fall out from on top. I have a loaded cart as well, and I'm waiting for him to finish with the ramp so I can use it.

When I saw what he was doing next, I wondered for a moment if I might be calling the paramedics instead. The guy stops abruptly, for no visible reason, works his way around to the side of the cart, and proceeds to try and guide it down FROM the side!

I tried to tell him "Hey, you really should get in front of that..." but to no avail. His command of English hadn't gotten any better since I last saw him in the power cords. He merely smiled, ignored my advice, and wrestled the thing halfway down before a friend of his came to the rescue.

I think, if I see this guy again, I'm going to follow him (disreetly) for at least a few minutes, just to see what other kind of lunacy he's capable of. ;-)

I'm a home tech,I got a service call to this ladies house because the computer would not turn on. So I got there and looked around and started checking the most common these for this problem.I found the problem I told the lady she said what was it..I said you didn't have the computer plugged she said yes I did..I said ok show me what you plugged in and she showed me the monitor.I asked you didn't plug the computer in.(showed her what the computer was.)she said well no I didn't plug that in because I figured it would get the power from the other one..I said no that's not how it works...I showed her in the manual of how to set the computer and it showed to plug the computer into an outlet..She said I have never felt so dumb in my life as I do right now...

I work with computers and find myself in computer stores quite often. Recently I was in a local all-tech-in-a-box store where a person was asking for a memory card for his Olympus camera. As this person was ahead of me I watched as the clerk was looking in the inventory and not locating the camera model.. after retyping the name 3 times I pointed out that 'Olympous' had only 1 'o'.

Afterwards, he went to a locked glass case where the memory cards and looking at it, the clerk proclaims they dont have the card . I butt-in again and point to the top shelf full of olympus memory cards, with OLYMPUS in nice large letters.

Thankfully he found my batteries right away (SIGH)

I was working in the support dept. for a software dealer. The owner had loaned out one of the laptops which had the application demo installed.

The customer phoned support and said, " I don't think I will be able to use this program as all I have is a black screen, I can't see what it's doing ".

I asked the customer if she had powered up the laptop. She then suprisingly exclaimed, "Oh, where is the power button?".

This was the same customer whom had previously asked me where the " ANY KEY " was located.

A year or so ago I was working in a pc shop in Australia which was also a small ISP (300 or so customers). All of us techs did everything from PC builds, to sales, to helpdesk.

One day we had a little old lady come in who was a semi regular. We all knew her, but not for bad reasons. She was actually quite bright, had done a number of basic computer courses in desktop publishing, M$ office skills, general computer use etc, and was more than capable of understanding instructions first go.

She'd bought the computer from us a year or so previously and had finally decided to get an Internet account so she could email her grand kids in the UK. So we set her account up on the spot, gave her our setup disk, and a brief 5 min lesson on how to use email/browse etc.

About 3 weeks later she came in to get some new ink for her printer, and to ask us a question. It seemed she was having trouble sending attachments. She said she could send to almost everyone, but had a problem sending an attachment to her granddaughter in the UK. After a bit of questioning about whether she got an error or anything, she said no, she didn't get that far, it was just that she couldn't actually attach what she wanted to send.

"What do you want to send?" we asked.

"Some photos and a necklace." she replied.

After a brief pause, during which one of the other techs had to go out the back of the shop to burst out laughing, I had to explain to her that she could only attach computer files.

It seems that her grandson told her to get an email account so she could email her grandkids in the UK and get a response within hours, rather than waiting for the almost 2 week turn around time for the post. He told her: "...email is just like real mail, you can send letters, make and send birthday cards, send photos and anything else you want to attach."

I wonder if i could get someone in Italy to email me pizza?

My son has a good used (checks out a-okay) Compaq Windows (95)...After several 1-800 calls to MSN tech-support over two days, to be connected to MSN internet as a brand-new subscriber, and still not connected...My son said, Dad the hell with MSN...Called AOL 1-800 and was connected to their internet service within 15 minutes or so...Hmmmm...

Now my sad story, but so true...

I have an excellant IBM windows (98) with new modem...After phone-talking with some of the young snotts at MSN tech-support to transfer from my old Compaq PC to my, new to me, IBM (98) over a period of MANY hours during ONE-MONTH and several ticket numbers, still not connected to MSN internet...I was told the modem is bad, replace it...I told them it's brand new...I took my PC back to Compu-Serv Service, nothing wrong with modem or your PC. I had this same PC checked out on (3) differant occassions by Compu-Serv, checks-out A-ok...Then I was told by MSN snotts, your outside/inside phone wires are bad, I had them replaced, still not connected to MSN internet...A week later I recieve a letter from MSN Corporation offering to cancel my (2) year $21.95 a month contract...Some days later a phone call from MSN Customer Advocate regarding my unbelievable problem...Now hear this...It took (3) diffierent MSN Customer Advocate Tech's about a week to get me MSN internet connected, at least for now??? Never the less I have filed a documented complaint to the Attorney General of Ohio...Anyone wishing to join my fight against MSN can send a letter to the Attorney General, mention my complaint file #224207 Thanks. Eddie Rieder, Jr.

I knew I'd hear this one sooner or later:

"But... I don't want a MODEM, I just want the INTERNET!"

As part of my store we sell cellular phones. We have an instruction sheet typed out telling people how to set up their voicemail. I added the customer service number so that when people couldn't use the temp password (which is ALL the time) they can call customer service for the carrier and have the password reset instead of calling us and making us call customer service for them.

I got a phone call today about setting up the voicemail so I called up my instruction sheet and read off the instructions to the caller - how to skip over the automated message in the beginning, how to enter the temporary password, and to follow the directions to set up their own password and message. Then I explain how to check their messages and I end with the customer service number in case the password won't work (which it never does, but there's nothing we can do about that, it's the carrier).

Not 2 minutes after hanging up the phone the caller is back.

M= Me

C= Caller

C= Um, there's a computer voice on when I call the number. How do I skip that?

M = That's when you press the star key. Then it will ask for the password.

C = And I enter the temporary code?

M = Yes.

C = The temporary code doesn't work. It said it's not valid.

M = Remember the customer service number I told you? You need to call them to have the password reset.

C = That tells me to enter my cellular number to continue.

M = That's right. Enter your number and follow the prompts in order to speak to a person. Then tell them you need to have your password reset.

C = Oh, okay.

Why do I bother even making an instruction sheet?

Then this afternoon a customer comes back because she's getting a recording on her phone when she dials a number. She gave me a list of numbers she's tried to call. She cannot remember what the message is or which number she got the message on. The numbers are long distance from her cellphone, so to check I dialed the numbers first without an area code.

I got a "number cannot be completed as dialed" message. I asked if she dialed the area code. "Of course I did, I cannot call anyone without dialing the area code" she says. I called all of the numbers she had on her list with 1+ area code and all worked. Then I called our store with 1+ the area code and it all worked. I don't know why people cannot admit that they did not dial the number correctly.

I was seasonal Tech. Support for H&R BLock's Online Tax Product(OTP). Which was a "do it your self" tax program that helped prepare your taxes online for 19.99. Well, towards the end of the program there is a standard screen that comes up for everybody that says something along the lines.

SUMMARY.

You have not yet finished your taxes. We will notify you when your done. ect. ect.

Then there is a "Next" button to proceed to finish them.

Well, this lady apparently quit the program on this screen.

So she called me up asking when her taxes were going to be done. When I found out what she had done I informed her that that was standard message that everyone gets, she just needed to press the "Next" button.

So she had been waiting around for 2 weeks for someone to call and tell her, her taxes were finished for a "DO IT YOURSELF" program.

Working for a large ISP in Canada for two years, I have had my fair share of silly calls. Onle really sticks out.

T: Tech(ME) C: Client

T: Thank you for calling _______ helpdesk, how may I help you?

C: Hi. I am trying to view a web page and it only loads half way.

T: Hmmmm.. Let's try a couple things....

{ I go through clearing cache, test the page he is trying to get to, etc.. etc.. )

T: Try again.

C: Same thing.

T: What color is the part that is missing? White? Grey?

C: It's not one color. It's clouds.

T: Sir, do you see three buttons at the top right corner of the window?

C: Yes.

T: Click the middle one. (Maximize)

C: It's fixed! Wow. You are good. Thanks!

T: (mute) Sigh. (Unmute) No problem. Thank you for calling ______ helpdesk.

Beside other weird, funny and dumb things that can happen with Consultants, storys we all now already (thanks to this site), we had this brilliant guy who thought it would be a great idea to send a database file per eMail - it's size was 13 GIGAbytes.

Need I say more...?

I have been working for a large 2 letter computer company as a tech for nearly 6 months now (never buy one of **'s computers) and I finally got a truly interesting and rare call.

i just got off a call with a guy about his crashed hdd.

it was still good but it needed to be recovered so i offer him cd's for it as per standard procedure. he wants his hdd replaced free of charge but there is nothing wrong with the drive, i tell him the drive is fine but he insists that he does not want to work on a drive that has crashed before.

i can understand that.

anyway he then proceds to tell me that there is a large amount of buisness info stored on this computer :) (i love my job) and asks quite nicely that we pay for the retrieval of the information before formatting the drive. i tell him no we dont do that.

then he asks if i am a employee of ** (DUH!!! if you call ** tech support then i work for **) well any way he tells me that he is an employee of ** too. :)

i have heard that one before...why do people think that we treat our own idiots better then everyone elses idiots??

so i continue to quote policy untill he caves and takes the recov cd's. before ending the call i ask what the guy does for our company and he tells me that he is a CEO incharge of media, cable and satalite comms...

i say sure and he hangs up. so with nothing to do after the call i decide to do some reaserch...checked google for the guy and sure enough i found him... and an engineer too... :P

this leaves me with a few thoughts

1. if he is a CEO then why does he call public tech support for his own company

2. if he is a CEO then he can afford to buy his own HDD

3. if he is an engineer then he should know when his hdd has crashed

4. if he works for ** then he should know NOT to but ** computers

I'm an Electronic Sales Assosociate for numerous products. My main goal is to sale stuff but I end up being a tech at times... Ok well this happened last year:

Me ---> Me

Grumpy Old Man ---> GOM

An old grumpy man is in the Customer Service Department trying to return a Compaq Bundled computer set, monitor and computer together. He explains to me in a rude way that he has tried everything to get it to work and he's traveled many miles to bring it back for an exchange.

Conversation:

Me: Sir what seems to be the problem.

GOM: You sold me a piece of sh!t computer, and I want you to replace it for me.

Me: Alrite Sir, let me go ahead and check the computer and see what the problem is-(rudely interupted)

GOM: I've already had a d*mn Compaq Technician personally come to my house and check out the system, he said that the monitor port is defective!

Me: Ok Sir, but the store policy on even exchanges is that I must check the system before we proceed with the exchange.

GOM: I just want to replace the godd*mn system! Is that too much to ask!

Me: This shouldn't take too long, let me just hook this up real quick.

So I take the bundled system into my department and continue with the troubleshooting while the GOM proceeds with the nagging and cursing. It gets reaallllllyyyy annoying, he's like an Energizer Bunny!

I notice that the computer is using a video card, and not integrated. So I hook everything up correctly and turn everything on. IT WORKS, WOW, NOTHING WRONG! HMMMMmmmm....

Me: Sir, I think the Technician misunderstood and plugged into the wrong port.

GOM: (long pause)

GOM: So I guess the Compaq guy was a dumb sh!t.

Me: Well we all make mistakes. It doesn't look like anything is wrong with your computer, just remember to hook your monitor cable into this port (I show GOM). Have a good day.

`fin

The highlight was after GOM had left another customer who had watched the whole thing came up t

o me and congratulated me on keeping my cool and being professional. Just remember, if you are tech support, you can make thousands of customer happy, but the 1 you smart-ass off to will ruin your whole reputation.

I work as a support engineer and one morning I got a call from one of our clients saying the server keeps losing its connection to the network.

After trying the usual tests (everything seemed OK) off I trot (we offer on-site support). First question: "when did this start happening, and have you made any changes to the system/network etc. since"?

"Last Friday, and no, nothing has changed" he assures me.

So I examine everything (difficult as the server was up and didn't lose connection while I was there) and decide to change the cable as a precaution. Three hours later, the same guy on the phone.

To cut a long story short, we ended up changing the NIC, cable and switch, reinstalling TCP/IP and were about to reinstall Windows when the guy says "Oh, I don't know if you noticed, but last Friday I had a power strip mounted on the wall behind the desk (out of sight) and it's connected to the Fridge in the corner".........

Problem sorted, the fridge was drawing power from the same strip the switch was now plugged into and sending it down periodically. He got charged a substantial amount of money for the privelege!

A corporate customer calls and said the recently installed and successfully activated Windows Server 2003. The rebooted the box and now they are getting a blue screen with the text "Mode Not Support" I asked them what the additional STOP codes or text was on the screen. She says that is all that is on the screen.

By this time I'm thinking our dev group did a very poor job with that error message! I ask her can she boot into safe mode. She asks "this thing has safe mode"?

There was my first clue.

So I said press F8 when you boot and you will get the boot menu. She states should I log out or resart? I said ohh you are in the GUI. She says nope, I am at the desktop with the blue box.

There was clue number two (doesn't know what GUI means).

I ask her to check the display properties. (Mind you I had to walk her step-by-step through the process.) I ask what her monitor refresh rate was set at. It was at 85. I said lower it to 75 and hit apply.

With that she screemed "You got rid of the blue box!" followed by, will I be charged for this incident?

I work for a company that does supoort and sales for other company`s now i am not a tech supoorter, but i know enough about computers to laugh at this one. One day I was sitting around on my break and a tech supporter walked in to tell his tale.

C: client

T: tech supporter

T: Hello thanks for calling _______ My name is ______ can I help you.

C: yes my husband is not home and I wanna fix my problem before he arrives.

T: ok madame, what si the problem.

C: well, I broke the coffee holder and I can`t fix it!

Morale of the story a cd rom drive is NOT a cup holder!!!

I work in support for a large cellular phone company in the U.K.

Me: (Opening lines)

Caller: My mobile phone doesn't know what I want to do!

Me: ... (okay, that makes 2 of us) ... Well, what are you trying to do?

Caller: I don't know!

Me: I don't know what to say. Please call back when you know what you want to do.

Caller: Aren't you going to help me?

Me: ... (I'm not a psychiatrist or a baby-sitter)... Thank you for calling (company name), goodbye.

I do level 2 tech support for a regional ISP. Most of the time it's the (l)users that just don't get it, but this time it was the tier 1 tech. The customer was just calling in with a simple login password error. The agent checked their login password and proceeded doing extended troubleshooting for the issue. This agent then escalated this call to a co-worker of mine for furthur assistance. He got the customers information and found out it was a login password issue. We always start with the basics before doing the level 2 steps and he went to the test machine to check the password.

This is what happened:

Tier 2 - Level 2 who knows what they are doing

Newbie - New agent just out of training class

Newbie - (yelling from her seat down the row to Tier 2) "I just checked that password"

Tier 2 - (not realizing she is talking to him, he continues going on to the test machine)

Newbie - "If thats the call I just escalated the password is good"

Tier 2 - (realizing shes talking to him) "Ok." (as he continues checking the password)

Newbie - "I just checked it. Its good."

Tier 2 - (getting annoyed) "Ok. I am still going to check it."

Newbie - "You don't need to I just checked it."

Tier 2 - "Ok. I am still going to do my job and check it."

Newbie - "But I just did."

Tier 2 - (getting aggrivated and noticing the password is not going through which means there is a problem with the password) "What city did you dial in to, to check the password?"

Newbie - "___________" (a city that is not a local access#)

Tier 2 - "Thats not a local access #"

Newbie - "I meant ________"

Tier 2 - (now getting smug) "Actually no. The local access# is ____________"

Newbie - "But I checked it in ________" (our program to check e-mail passwords, but not login passwords)

He notices the password is invalid and went back and informed the customer that he just needed to reset the login password. The customer was upset that he had already spoken to the previous a

gent who told him the password was valid. Tier 2 informed the customer that the agent checked their e-mail password and not their login password. He then reset the login password and since the customer was upset he went to the test machine to make sure the login password was now active.

At the test machine the agent who escalated the call noticed the login password now went through. He indicated that he had done his job before escalating and that the Tier 2 should of trusted him and done his job. Now Tier 2 was pissed. The supervisor explained to the newbie agent to follow his troubleshooting steps and that it was not a good idea to tell a tier 2 how to do his job.

I am currently a tier 2 tech on an ISP account, I will share some of my previous techtales after I must share this one from working previously at a home depot. I feel for anyone who gets this guy if he calls in for help with his PC.

I was working as a cashier on a very cold day. When I started at Home Depot I had begged not to be put in outside garden just for this reason (that and i had not a clue about plants) Older guy comes to the register with batteries totalling no more than $4.00. He doesn't have his Home Depot card with him and insists I find a way to look it up. 10 minutes later still not being able to find him in our system, him getting more and more angry I try to start up convo to make him not unhappy so hopefully he wouldnt make a complaint about me later. he tells me he is a minister for a church. about 20 minutes goes by and i appologize up and down for not being able to find him in our system and tell him i will have to call our CC company and see if they can find him, I do this only to discover this guy actually has a lowes card, not a home depot card. Can we say going senile? this guy went on and on and on about how he always pays his bill on time etc etc and he remembers the orange. when i tell him he has an account with lowes, not us he starts yelling screaming and swearing at me and then runs out the door with the batteries. Dr jekyl Mr. Hyde

Having moved into a new building,

we received a call from an Internal user,

requesting a can opener.

A can opener? I asked.

yes a can opener the User repeated.

Sorry we don't have any can openers here.

Can you go and check just to be sure,

someone told me to try the servery.

Ma'm, we are Computer Operations, this is the support

line, we have a server room, if you are looking,

for a can opener we do not have such, perhaps

check with the cafeteria.

Turns out the User had been asking co-workers,

if anyone had a can opener so she could open her

lunch, someone suggested for her to check the servery.

Our building has a servery (kitchen) on each floor,

she decided to call the common building support line,

asking for us to check for a can opener.

we get all sort of calls ... this one was the best yet!

Later we learned this User ended up on long-term

disability, appearently had some 'issues'.

She was also observed one day trying to scan into

the building but her badge no longer worked.

gotta wonder ...

Received the following email from a user:

Could I please have a new mouse or some glue for the ball of my mouse? The ball has become disengaged and while it still works, it's somewhat aggravating. I have to be careful not to lift the mouse from the pad, or the ball will fall out.

----- Original Message -----

From: Yvette Trenton

To: Technical Support

Sent: Thursday, May 15, 2003 4:18 PM

Subject: Help!

Dear [insert tech support person's name here],

It is 4.30 pm and I simply cannot get the school report system to come up on my computer as I have nearly finished them am in a STATE!!!!!! PLease would you come over tomorrow????This is an emergency!

Thanks!

Yvette ( and yes, I am a computer idiot! )

----- Original Message -----

From: Yvette Trenton

To: Technical Support

Sent: Friday, May 16, 2003 8:13 AM

Dear [insert tech support person's name here],

Sorry, false alarm! Thanks

Yvette

I work for a ISP and I have had some many calls I could mail about but this one takes the biscuit

ME: ***** tech support, ****** speaking, how can I help you

Us: I am having problem with email

ME: Whats the problem you are having

US: I can't send email to any of the big companys

ME: What email addresses are you trying to send to

US: www.namofcompany.com/contactus.html

ME: (Mute Button) ARE YOU A F**** RETARD(Mute button off) That is not a valid email address

US: (User getting annoyed at me) Well what is then!

ME: For example johnsmith@m******.com

US: Oh...

ME: Thanks for calling

I have a second job working on nightshift. People in my hometown know I am somewhat of a computer guru so I get a LOT of people asking me to fix/repair their computers. There is a lady at my work place who has a daughter that needed a flatbed scanner installed.. This daughter is an adult with children of her own. The lady lived to far for me to travel so I told lady (her mother) to bring the box and the scanner to work and I would install it and test if got $20.00

I installed, tested it, all was well.. The next night the mother tells me the scanner is not working. So send suggestions of things to try, repeated for that entire week and part of the next. Just as she is about to send it back to me for more work, her mother suggest on the phone that she try scanning a picture instead of the page. Suddenly the lady (the daughter) on the phone gets very ... very excite.. MOM!! IT WORKS IT WORKS!!!

Then her mom ask what she was trying to scan before the picture. She replies, OH,, a blank sheet of paper..

When her mom, a 66 year old grandmother told me why it wasn`t working she was laughing so hard she could barely speak..

It turns out the daughter was *intentionally* scanning blank pages thinking this is what she was suppose to do.. This shows apparently some people buy tech-gadgets and have NO IDEA what they are for. "I just wonder if she ever tried to Xerox copy a blank sheet of paper- or fax one maybe?"

I live about 2 miles from my parents house. The neighbor across the street is a computer savvy 78 year old lady. Or at least she seemed to be. One morning my parents call me telling me the lady`s computer will not come on at all- no power.

She checked all the plugs and everything was still plugged in and no circuit breakers have been tripped. So I drive over there to see what I can do. Upon arriving.. I look under the desk, bend down and flip on the on/off switch to her surge protector. The reset button on the surge protector was not tripped.

She had bumped the button to off with her foot..

I must say she was well pleased that the computer was not fried. She insisted to pay me $25.00 for a 2 mile trip and less than 30 secs to fix the problem. I didn`t want to take that much money from a neighbor who I had known for 25+ years, but she was very insistant. So, I got $25.00 and a heck of a laugh on the way home.

I recieve a call from a former work associate of a factory I worked at many years ago. He knew I was now a computer tech so he had a problem that needed my attention.

He tells me that his computer is stuck at the "splash" screen of the Gateway 2000 logo. I tell him to press ESC to try to get past the Logo screen so he can read any P.O.S.T. warnings. He said it would not make the logo screen go away. I tell him to look behind the computer and make sure everything is plugged up. He *assures* me that it is. I end up driving 75 miles "round trip" to his house and back. I walk in... see the keyboard lights (caps/numlock/ect) not lit-up. I reach behind the computer tower and push on the PS/2 mouse connector,, press F1 and the computer boots.. He looked at the back to see if everything was plugged up, but he did not even touch a single one of the cords. The mouse cord was "Barely" in the hole. I could see it immediately and tell it was about to fall out. I got paid $40 for labor (my long drive wasted" and another $25 for the gas and milage. He is a hunter so he also tried to give me several lbs of deer meat.. I declined.

I am a computer tech- but it is only a part time job in no relation to my full time job. I usually use my own home to repair pc`s or travel to the persons house. Since I have no actual store/shop I have found it best for me to work out a deal with other local shops. I buy parts from this one specific shop and they give me good deals since I am a regular customer. While in their shop the other day, the head tech comes up to me laughing.. He says they have just changed their policy.. If you build your own PC you do not get an in-store warranty on the parts. He said for now on they will have to use the manufacturer of the part for the warranty. I asked him why. He told me that man came in and bought all the parts to build his own computer and assured them that he knew what he was doing (claiming he was an expert). He said he had repaired so many pc`s for other people that building one was a peice of cake. A few days later the man calls and says the motherboard he bought was bad and he wanted his money back. The store head-tech persuades him to bring in the pc before he dismantles it to remove the motherboard. The man agrees. Upon returning to the store the tech opens the case.. And to his shock.. The man did not use the stand-off that come with the motherboard "and case" Instead the ENTIRE motherboard was mounted down by "bread-ties" laying the othersides bare circuitry flat against the metal surface of the case.. Yes.. I am talking about the plastic coated wires you use to tie up the wrapper around a loaf of bread... *FRIED MOTHERBOARD!!!* And he wonders why? Yea.. some expert he turned out to be.. Thank God this wasn`t one of MY customers.

Oh boy, this is a winner.

Today I had a customer bring in their computer so I could set it up for thir new ISP. No problem, right? WRONG.

The setup was smooth, I just poped in the disk and it set itself up. I cant believe I'm getting paid for this! Went to log on and I get "Invalid username and/or password."

What?

So I proceed to try it different ways. (capitalize the password, add the @xxx.net to the username, etc.) No Luck.

Finally I got fed up and called the ISP to confirm the username and password. They're right! He tells me to try them and call back. What the hell.

Then it's modem troubleshoot time. I know this isn't the problem, but i humor the ISP tech support anyways. I still can't log on???

Yay, I get to call Tech support again. Here's how it went.

ME - It's me.

TS - ISP tech support.

TS: Hello, XXX dialup support, how can I help you.

ME: I'm setting up a dialup account for a customer through your ISP and I am getting an invalid username and/or password error.

TS: Can I have the logon name of the customer?

ME: Sure, its XXX.

TS: OK, the reason you are getting that error is because the customer called yesterday to have her account temporarily shut off because she was taking her computer into the shop for repairs.

DOH!!!

Me and the ISP tech support had a good little chuckle over that.

1: My father-in-law came to my husband, rather worried. "Don't use the computer today."

"Why not?"

"There's a virus going around, and I don't want our computer infected."

"But we don't have an Internet connection..."

2: After being reassured that MSN Messenger won't pop up porn ads at them (as the rest of the Internet allegedly willl if given half an unfiltered chance), my mom and brothers gather to try it out.

Me [from college]: Hi

[nothing]

Me: Anyone there?

[nothing]

Me: Who's there? [going over any problem they might be having, as anything can and does happen to them...]

Them: Amazed Mama

Me: Amazed? Why?

Mama: I can't believe I

Mama: m talking to you

Mama: I'm going to let you talk to your brother.

[Whereupon exit Mama. I sit wondering what I did.]

Bro: 'ello

Me: What was that?

Turns out she was so astonished at actually seeing me typing to her, she panicked and decided just to watch from then on. I considered asking my brother to describe what she was wearing, then pretend I could also see her through Messenger... she would never have touched it again. :)

I work in tech support for a state run hospital. Our employees are in vital need of computer training...

and this is why... HR mentioned to us that they wanted us to watch an employee at the hospital (a Doctor). They wanted to check his computer activities. Apparently, they have been getting complaints about him hacking into other's computers. Seemed strange, because I know this Doctor and he doesn't know the first thing about computers...

Well, after a bit of checking, it turns out that several users were getting that NT 4 "Doctor Watson" error and reporting Doctor Watson to HR. Poor Doctor Watson did not know what was going on and why everyone was mad at him. It took a while to explain to several employees why he was not at fault.

It was a Friday afternoon and the sun had just started to set. Of course I am guessing about all of this since I have no windows in my office. I received a help desk support call from a user who was frantic. "The power is out on the entire floor! I am sitting in the dark!" she said. I tried to clam her down and get the infomation needed to report the problem. "Where do you sit." I inquired. "3rd floor, room 123." she said. I sat and thought a moment and asked her to do me a favor. "Please stand up and wave." She did and yelled "The lights are back on." I explained to her that I saw her and turned the lights back on. "Next time it happens just stand up and wave to me and I will turn the light back on for her." I said. She thanked me and went back to work.

She did know there was a motion activated light system and I was in a different building.

Well this is not quite a computer tale but it does have to do with support

A yung woman I work with came into work late one day saying she had a flat tire on the way to work this morning. I offered to give her a lift back to her car after work and help with the flat tire. "Well it might not be flat after all." She said. "It is only flat on one side, but sill round on the top."

The call starts off with "I'm a law student, I have this paper due tomorrow morning and it's imperative that I email it tonight, and I can't get online."

Oh, right. Now that I know this is important, I'll actually help you, rather than give you the runaround we reserve for people who don't really need their internet connection.

You don't know your error message, even though the problem has supposedly been occurring for fourteen hours. You've called us before, so you are aware that this is generally the first thing we ask. You want me to call you back on your cell phone, stating that "I can never get through to you people." It's 6.45 am. I know damn well that you were not in the queue long enough to so much as hear the company name. Why? Because me and the only other person here were both free for calls.

It's too bad that you're so close to tears. Maybe if you a) took your head out of your rear, b)had called us when the problem started, rather than when it started to threaten your academic career (yes, we are 24 hour. I don't really get paid to surf the net), c) paid attention to what popped up on your screen on the off-chance it might be related to what you were trying to do, this would be a less stressful experience for you.

Upon taking a closer look at the account, I notice that I've dealt with you before. You were the person who had been suspended for late payment, did not want or were unable (still not sure which) to pay immediately by credit card, and yet could not comprehend that I couldn't unsuspend the account until your repeatedly-misdemeaning ^$# forwarded us the money owed. And left this until the day before your paper was due. Way to learn from your past experiences, sweetheart. I pity your future clients, because yours will probably be the worst-organised defence in history, since you'll have left all your preparation until the night before the court date.

I have built a small paid4surf-company with some friends. Now, of course there's support to do. Once some guy contacted me on my ICQ, telling me that the money he had earned by using our surfbar had disappeared. "No problem", I said, "I can check your account. Could I have your eMail-address, please?" The eMail-adress is the login name for our system and I needed it to check the database. But he didn't want to give it to me, maybe his parents told him not to do so in a chat. Instead he asked me over and over again what the problem could be and asked me if I could please solve it for him. "I'd really like to", I said, "all I need for that is your eMail-account." He told me once that he had to go to the toilet and 20 seconds later he typed in "I'm back." Very fast, isn't it? Then, after maybe 15 minutes of ICQ chat we had not come further. Now, he wanted to call me on the phone but refused to use the service number of our company but asked for my 'normal' telephone number because he could call this number for free. As I really wanted to help this poor guy I gave it to him and he called me. Well, after some minutes on the phone he finally agreed on giving me his eMail-address - not typing it into ICQ where I could have done copy&paste but told me on the phone. Finally I could check what is wrong with his account and solved the problem.

Back in the 70s I worked for a large company's data processing department, where its billing data was stored on many of those classic 9-track open reel tapes. One day there was a job problem in Operations, getting I/O errors on one of the billing tapes. Somehow, about two inches of the dark oxide had come off the tape. Undaunted, the operator took a felt marker and colored in the missing area. Finding that didn't work, only then did he call Tech Support.

My boyfriend's mom decided to buy a home PC so her husband could get email from his kids.

My boyfriend and I helped them get it all plugged in and we got them signed on to an internet provider.

For the next week, we got daily phonecalls from the stepdad about one thing or another he was having problems with, such as downloading.

One morning, the stepdad called and said, "I can't get to my email!" My boyfriend was really fed up, so I said, "I'll take this one." And I drove over to the house.

The stepdad takes me into the 'office' and I sit down at the computer and start signing on to their ISP. As I'm doing this, I'm asking him questions.

He can't get his email, he keeps telling me.

I'm checking his file cabinet and sent mail and everything and finally I turn to him and say, "Jim, the reason you can't get to your email is because you don't have any!"

He thought as long as he signed on to the internet he would have mail waiting for him.

(This was a couple years ago--wanna bet he has spam every day now? LOL!)

Since I work in tech support for a major computer manufacturer, I rarely need to call in for tech support. However, there was one time.....

I was having trouble logging into MSN through the software that came loaded on the computer. I had even debugged the drive and reinstalled all the software with the same problem. The MSN server could not log me on. However, I could hook my laptop to the same phone line and using the exact same software on the laptop could log into my MSN account just fine, so therefore I knew it was not an MSN problem.

Being totally stumped at this point, I called tech support and got a very nice, helpful young lady and we quickly decided to ditch the MSN software and just use a manual connection to MSN which worked just fine.

At the end of the call, habit kicked in and I said "thank you for calling *ell, is there anything else I can help you with?"

We both busted out laughing. I'm sure that call just made her day.

I just realized how widespread computer illteracy is.....listen to and enjoy this short tale about "spam"....

My mother wanted to check her e-mail. OK, no problem, right? Well, as soon as her messages were delivered to her inbox (we use Outlook Express), my mother saw one of the messages with the customary "Spam Alert:" before the actual header, intended to warn the user of a possbile spam e-mail. Spotting the "spam alert:" title, my mom remarked:

"Spam? Delete that-we don't eat spam in this house!"

My friend and I couldn't stop laughing...

I work for a dial-up ISP. Today I had quite an interesting group of (l)users. The first one started the call with: "man, I'm an idiot, I can't make this damn thing work."

m:"Alright sir, what's the problem?"

him: I'm a big idiot. I'm a professional wrestler, and I can throw somebody against a wall, but I can't check email. I'm just an idiot, and I want you to cancel my service."

(I was thinking, finally, a user who knows his place.)

He just kept on telling me how stupid he was, and even after I offered to automate the whole process (I mean, he did have XP) he just said no, he needed to cancel, and I refered him to customer service.

A few hours later, I had a lady calling me ready to kill. "My computer just connected to somebody else's! What's going on here? (Dial up service) "So no one's using my computer? No ex boyfriends are gettign my stuff or anything? What about this virus alert? (Our webpage alerts you of the most common and recent viruses, and always blinks.) And how do I do email? (explain away, by this point, the earlier irrate lady has clamed down, since I sound like "such a nice young boy") Well, hot d@mn, I'm gona be able to do email now. People are gonna say, that old 81tch, she can finally do email, and she only had internet five months - thanks sir"

I don't mind working when it's so entertaining

I write comm software for a living. A week ago, my mail client started having difficulty communicating with my ISP's server. Telnet in and discover that in reproducible circumstances the server (which does claim to be POP3) is not sending back a +OK or -ERR response. I sent them mail: Described what was happening and how to reproduce it, described what _should_ be happening and included a link to the IETF's online copy of RFC 1939.

Response? "We don't support your e-mail client."

Yes. That much is obvious.

A user sent the following e-mail message on the morning that the phone system went down company-wide:

"Apparently the phones are affecting my CD Writer. The CD will run but there is no sound/voices. Janet is not in yet, so I can't see if it is also affecting hers. I'll let you know when the phone lines are back on if it will work then. Just wanted you to be aware that I'm having problems. Thanks."

Customer: My cable modem is not working?

CSR: What lights are on, on the cable modem?

Customer: Yellow.

CSR: I'm sorry, Could you please tell me what lights are on on the cable modem.

Customer: What does it took like?

CSR: It is a white box about 12 inches tall and it says Surfboard on it.

Customer: What am I looking for?

CSR: The light's could you please tell me which ones are lit and which are blinking.

Customer: Ohh okay...Power Reicieve Send and Offline are lit.

CSR: Okay..(Hint: the light says "ONLINE") What operating system are you running?

Customer: AOL

CSR: Windows 95, 98, ME, XP, NT, 2000 or MAC?

Customer: How do I find out? Ohh.. wait I think it is Office 97.

CSR: (Assumes Windows 9.x) Please click on the Start button.

Customer: Where do I find that?

CSR: In the bottom right hand corner of your screen.

Customer: OHH there it is.

This conversation continued for about 15 more minutes as I explained to a customer how to release & renew thier IP with WINIPCFG

Before I left my previous job as a phone jockey, I warned my coworkers that the mute button on the cheap headsets we were using had problems. Apparently my warning was not taken seriously.

A year later, one of my former coworkers related to me the details of an interesting phone conversation. Here it is, as close as I can remember.

Caller: I was just being helped by (tech 2), can you tarnsfer me to him?

Tech 1: What is your name?

Caller: The name is ****** Kasuker.

Tech 1: Hits mute button. Hey (Tech 2), I have a lady on the line for you. She says her name is Kasuker and you were helping her earlier.

Tech 2: Laughs Kasuker? Sounds like #$%sucker to me

Tech 1: My god, how did this lady make it through High School with a name like that?

Tech manager: On her knees.

Enite department: Laughs loudly

At this point Tech 1 discovers that the caller has overheard the entire exchange and threatens legal action. Surprisingly no one got fired. The department was already a bit shorthanded and got off with a written apology. Both techs and my former manager confirmed the story.

This isn't exactly about tech support, but is funny none the less.

I run a computer company on a low budget so was on eBay searching for equipment. I found a good deal, so I emailed the seller asking if the item was guarenteed against DOA. When I got a reply, it said "What is 'DOA'? Please explain." People, if you don't know what DOA is, you probably shouldn't sell electronics!

I work with a company that does voice tech support for one of the larger ISP's.

I thought I heard everything until one day I was at work talking to idiot after idiot per usual when this gem came in.

M-me

L-user

==========================================================

M-thankyou for calling xxxxx tech support, my name is bob how may i help you....

L-i just recieved your software in the mail today and i need help installing it

M-ok have you placed the cd into the computer

L-yes but it isnt working

M-do you mean its not running or not installing

L-not running

M-ok try taking the disc out and putting it back into the computer and see if it starts to run

L-i cant take the cd out

M-how come

L-its stuck

M-what do you mean its stuck

L-its kinda of half in the slot and half out of the slot

M-what do you mean half in and half out

L-the cd doesnt fit properly, it'll only go in half way

M-it'll only go in halfway?

L-yeah the slot was very small and i had to force the cd into the slot

M-you had to force it into the slot?

L-yeah and it wont come out

after a few more minutes of this stimulating back and forth i finally figured out the customer had actually managed to jam the almost half the cd into the floppy disc opening

M-Ok if the cd is stuck and won't come out you are going to have to take the computer in to a repair store and have them remove that cd

L-will it cost money to do this

M-most definetly its going to cost money

L-well i think xxxxxx should have to pay for this to be fixed

M-why is that m'am?

L-because the cd you sent was to big to fit into this little hole!

Just goes to show some people shouldnt own computers!

Earlier today I was doing a 802.11b/ethernet install for a client, and I set everything up like normal. However, the network COULD NOT find the modem. I spent three hours doing the install, trying everything: setup CD, web setup (the network is based on a LinkSys router), various windows network setup, all on two different computers and at least two times each. Finally, right when I'm about to give up, I decide I'll unplug the cable modem and plug it back in...and what do you know, it worked! My new motto is "When in doubt, pull the plug!"

So I just started working for this financial company in midtown new york city. Besides the fact that IT is severely understaffed, I get to handle about 90% of the calls to the help desk.

Among the help desk department's responsibilities is setting up users to log on for the first time. This wouldn't be such an issue if the primary prerequisite for working at this place was aparently a pulse. I imagine that the interview process goes something like this:

Interviewer: "I'm just looking at your resume here, and I see you've been a zombie for some time now"

Interviewee: "That's correct, that shouldn't be a problem though, since I'm going for a sales position and sales people generally aren't supposed to have a heart."

Interviewer: "I'm terribly sorry, but we do require you to have a pulse to work here, it's part of the dress code - NEXT!"

Interviewee #2: *drools on himself*

Interviewer: "So ... do you have a pulse?"

Interviewee #2: "I am a banana!"

Interviewer: "you're hired!"

You think I'm kidding? Besides the usual idiocy that just comes from a lack of common sense (ie "so do I put my password in the password box?"); I get people that call the help desk and can't spell the name of the company. I've gotten two of these in as many weeks! But this guy today took the cake.

I told him to go to the company's intranet site, and besides not being able to spell the company's name, taking 5 minutes to type in the url after I spelled it out for him, not being able to find the backslash key, and not being able to type the password set for his account (clock52) he also couldn't spell his name.

*twitch* *twitch*

(A kinda of kinko's store)A client asked me to come to his computer and help him with something. He said the problem was that he was unable to get the mouse cursor to the top of the screen. When I got there he showed me what he meant. He pushed the mouse to the end of the mouse pad and hit the computer case right in front of it effectively stopping his ascension up the screen. He didn't know to lift his mouse up and bring it back to the bottom of the pad to move his cursor higher.

You try and not laugh in his face.

This probably pales in comparison to some stories on here, but I thought it was pretty pathetic at work one day when I was walking a user through the removal process for a piece of software. I told them they had to go to the Control Panel and use the Add / Remove Programs wizard... Let's just say I had to tell this user that her Start button was located in the bottom left hand corner of her screen about 5 times before she responded "Oh, you want me to click that green button that says "Start" on it?"? No, Lady, I wanted you to tell me my horoscope, of course I wanted you to click it!

I've gained a bit of a reputation for doing various computer work for people in the western Texas city I live in. One of the things I've done is building computers for people. I can get away with building a whole state-of-the-art system for just under $500, as my sources are pretty cheap. A friend of mine (proud owner of the coveted item known as "A Clue") who I'd built a computer for went and reccomended my services to the mom of another friend of mine.

This woman was a standard hillbilly type. Now let me tell you a thing or two about hillbilly types. Hillbilly types are friendy, kindhearted, hardworking people who rank about average on the intelligence scale. They are smart enough to know what they don't know. They know when to step aside and let the smarter person work their magic. And they are *always* teetering on the edge of boundless insanity.

So I'm on this woman's old Gateway Craputer, vintage 1997, and we're on the Internet selecting parts. We had our list of acceptable motherboards narrowed down to 2. One was $50.76 and the other was $45. I did not really feel we should go with either one of these, because they were both slow and cheaply constructed. I reccommended one that costs $51, but she maintained that that was out of her price range and she could NOT afford to pay a few cents more than the $50.76 board that was somehow in her range. Looking back, I see now that I should have recognized her True Absurdity Potential just then and forked the job off to a local Wal-Mart. But, stupid me, I stuck with it.

I had prior experience with the $45 motherboard. It was designed for Windows NT and refused to run Windows 98, no matter WHAT. You could swap every other part of the computer, replace the BIOS chip, and whine at the manufacturer to no end, but the board still could not boot 98. It woud simply whine about not being able to find even one single component, and then get stuck it a reboot loop which would deteriorate more and more until the computer just shut down. According to the manufactu

rer and several people on the Net, this board would only work with NT-based OSes (like XP). I don't know why, that's just the way it is. I explained this to the woman and she said that XP would be alright. I detected... something... something terrible in her voice, a disturbance in the force. I felt as if a huge portion of my fate changed just there. I asked her over and over again if XP would really be OK. I explained to her what this entails, what the consequences would be, and what would change, and she assured me that XP was most definitely alright.

The parts came in the mail, and I assembled the computer and brought it to her house for setup. I asked her for her Windows XP install CD. She disappeared into another room for a moment, and came out proferring... a Windows 98 cd. "XP", I say. "I need you to bring me an XP CD."

"I changed my mind."

No. NO. NOOOHO! Not now. Not today. I humor her. I tried to install it. The usual results. I ask her again for an XP CD. She refuses. I tell here that, as I said before, 98 will NOT work on this computer. She still refuses. I install 98 and leave it to her to discover that it won't boot. Later that night, I get a call from her. She does me a great favor by letting me know that her computer won't work. I sigh, promise to order something to let her use 98 on her frickin computer, namely XP, but I didn't tell her that. I order the alternate OS (and foot the bill, having to pay one more cent would drive this woman overboard, and my friend has to live with her) and install it for her. I install it, configure it to look and act more like Win 98, transfer her files, set her Internet account up (Get this: She wouldn't give me her password to set up her E-mail. I had to poke through tons of logs and data files before I miraculously dug one up that happened to contain the password.), and tell her how to use stuff. So now she goes posting messages all over the Internet whining about how she has to surf in safe mode (lies, her client software wouldn't even st

art in safe mode) and hw she has to squint to see anything, and when she finally does focus on it, it DISAPPEARS CLEAN OF THE SCREEN. Holy CRAP. I knew XP was kinda silly, but that's just, um, PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE. In a couple days, I get a call from her demanding that I switch her back over to her old computer right away. Why? Maybe she misses her Gateway crashing on her every hour, on the hour, and going into a reboot loop whenever she presses the "tab" key. Maybe she misses the fresh scent of flaming carbon being absolutely NOT blown out of the back of her power supply by a non-functioning fan. Or maybe she just finds the fact that her old 500MHz processor is melting the printed circuit board around it exceedingly entertaining. She drops the old computer off on my back porch. She tells me to "set it up" and then screams for half an hour. It IS set up, but whatever I open it up to give it a once-over before I bring it back.

Inside was the saddest, most evil thing I have ever seen.

Out of spite (spite for what? I don't know, the computer I built was, like, perfect, and she never told me why she didn't like it) she had absolutely MANGLED the computer with a paint scraper or something. Not even Gateway deserves that. And all day long, she's sending me E-mail (on her new computer that "won't turn on") whining about how spiteful I am, how I'm trying to ruin her life, and TRYING TO CONVINCE ME that I INTENTIONALLY PUT A VIRUS ON HER COMPUTER. At one point she sent a message consisting of 7.2 megabytes of crying faces. I dragged the computer to her place and asked her to please jump off a precipice at her nearest convenience. I never hope to see her again.

It's sad how poor most people's reading comprehension is. I was in an office store once, marvelling at the crapidity of an eMachines model they had there, when this guy waks up to it, looks at it, and mutters "eMac Machines... Wonder who makes that." Then he points to the "Made for Windows 95" label and says "Oh, Macrosoft".

I swear...

I called Microsoft tech support because Windows XP would crash whenever I tried to type in the activation code that XP uses to prevent piracy. Three different MS techs blamed it on the floppy drive without collecting any further information. The end.

This guy in either Office Depot or Office Max, one of those two, is looking at the USB cables. An employee is standing next to him, writing something on a clipboard. The guy asks the employee if they sell USB cables here. "Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh... nope" says the employee.

Ok, it's been a few years since this event occured and I've changed jobs a couple of times so my tale can be told . One of my responsibilites at the job I was at was to handle the anti-virus system. I installed the software on the computers and kept the software up to date. For testing I kept a floppy disk with examples of various virii that the users had been infected with. The floppy was clearly labled "'s virus zoo. Do not use". Well, over a weekend one of the Network Administrators above me was doing some consulting on the outside. Part of the job was to install anti-virus software on the client's computers. Now, instead of going down to the store and purchasing the software the N.A. came in over the weekend, rooted through my desk looking for the install CDs, found my "zoo" disk, and went on her merry way. Monday morning I was called into a meeting with my director. The N.A. went to the director complaining about my disk infecting all of her client's computers. Keep in mind, the N.A. came in over the weekend and took a clearly marked disk from my desk intending to install software that she didn't pay for on her client's computers and told all of this to the director. Guess who got in trouble? You guessed it, me. Only one example of why I left that job.

Working at my company's help desk, we have to put up with plenty of stupid users, but the idiot in office number 42 takes the cake. His problem history file is 10 pages long, no kidding. We have never had a week without a call from him. Here's the worst one from last month.

M = me

I = idiot

M: Help desk, (me) speaking.

I: Yeah it's (idiot) here, I've got a problem.

M (on mute): (groaning) On no. Not him again!

M: What is it this time?

I: My computer won't start.

M: Is the power cord plugged in? Is it turned on?

I: Yes, and yes.

M: Is the monitor on?

I: Yes.

M: What happens when you press the power button.

I: I get the usual grinding sounds, and then nothing happens.

M (knowing he won't have a chance of doing anything correctly over the phone): *sigh* I'll come and take a look.

I take as long as possible to get there (who wouldn't?), and when I arrive I take a look at his computer. Sure enough, it does what he said. Thinking the bios settings might be stuffed up, I go to open the case to use the clearing jumper, and notice a computer magazine on the desk. On the cover it mentions overclocking. "Uh Oh," I think to myself, "Has he done what I think he's done?" I open the case and smell burnt plastic. Sure enough, the processor's burnt to a crisp.

"What have you been doing?" I ask the moron.

"Well, I saw this magazine in the newsagent, and thought I could get my computer to start everything faster by following those steps in the magazine."

"And what did you do?"

"Well, I hit delete when it started, and when I got those options, I turned them all the way up to make sure I got the most speed."

"I see. Well Congatulations. You've just fried your processor and cost the company about $1000. I hope management makes you pay for it."

I storm out before he has the chance to reply.

When we replace his computer (which he doesn't deserve)

, we put a randomized password on the bios and a padlock on the case. We haven't had any hardware calls from him since, although we're still worried about him wrecking yet another floppy drive (he's up to 3 so far). We all look foward to the day he get fired. The sooner that day comes, the better.

On a recent trip to meet a net friend in Swansea, the students she lived with proudly showed me their arrangement for sharing their cable internet connection with all their PC's.

I took one look at the hardware. They had a 10/100 cable router. Excellent I thought, connect the router to the hub with all the other PCs, and tell it your username, password, dial up number or whatever, and tell your PCs to use it as their default gateway. Net shared. Easy.

Not these guys.

They'd connected all their PC's to a hub, then connected a "server" to it. The server contained a second network adapter connected to nothing but the 10/100 port on the router. The server then ran WinXP (VERY unreliably) and used the router as a modem, bridging the net connection to the other NIC and subsequenty onto the other PCs. It blocked the whole hallway.

The system crashes almost daily and whenever they want to make a WinMX download, they have to queue the job on the server as long as they haven't exceeded their disk quota!

Sad thing is, they were computer science degree students and had never heard of linux, let alone Smoothwall or IPcop.

Recently a cute little hottie transfered from Operations over to the HelpDesk. It became very apparent by the end of her 1st week of taking calls, she had very limited support experience aside from Mainframes. She took a call from one of our Lab Chemists who had recently ordered a new 48x speed burner, so the following was entered into the description field: "Install new cd-RIDER for Latitude LABtop" I guess since it was IN the LAB it became such. I can't wait to get this new high speed cd-RIDER out on the open road! I wonder if it has a V-Twin?

Not really tech support.. but...

A few months ago, for a reason that is not important to this, I had to fly out to my grandma's house (with my parents). We (me and my parents) were staying at her house to save money on a hotel..

Well.. when I got there, I knew her computer wasn't working.. She said it gave her a 'blue screen' and failed to work (and wouldn't turn back on). Well I went to where it was, pushed the power button. Had it ask me to choose if I wanted to boot to CD or hard disk. I choosed hard disk, and it booted right up. I think she just leaves it on all the time, and doesn't restart it, and with the system tray that takes up like 3/8ths of the taskbar. Well.. that thing can't be to stable.

Secondly: I needed to get online, so she told me how.. Now she has a cable modem, and uses AOL.. and she was still having AOL dial in to get online.. I fixed that setting without telling her.

Now a few nights later: At about 11:45pm, when I was half asleep, she came and woke me up, and 'yelled' at me.

G = grandma

M = me

Pretty much like this (I don't remember exactly word for word)

G: I want my old mail back! Where did it go! Bring it back!

M: (groggy) What do you mean

G: I clicked the mailbox icon, then old mail, and its empty! And I want it back!

M: Its gone. I can't get it back.

G: I want it back.

M: I can't get it back.

G: YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND! I must have it back.

M: YOU CAN'T HAVE IT BACK. AND NOW I AM GOING TO SLEEP!

G: I WANT IT BACK!

M: (puts pillow over ears)

Now... I know I didn't behave too well in that.. But A. I had already had 4 days of dealing with her (other things) and B. I had a long day, and I was pretty much about to crash.

And on another trip out there:

I am on her computer, trying to write email.

G: I want my printer icon back

M: Huh?

G: The little icon that shows down there (points at system tray)

M: That only shows when you print

G: No its alwa

ys there

M: No it only shows when you print. Watch

I then fire up notepad, enter a few words, and hit print.

The icon of course appears there for a second before going away.

G: Oh.. I never look down there besides when I am printing

We have a client/server type application here on my site

that experiences a delay between the client double-clicking the icon, and the app firing up.

As a bored techie, I had counted the seconds many times and

got to the stage where I just *knew* exactly when the app would start.

So I install a new client on a user's PC, double-click the icon when she's not looking, then get her attention by saying "Right, that's all done now."

Then with a flourish I click my fingers at the screen, and instantly the window appears like magic.

The look on her face was worth a million dollars!

I manage the tech department for a newspaper. I get some pretty wacky calls, but this one topped it for me. I got a call from an individual in accounting. She said her screen went black while she was in the middle of entering some payments into our A/P system. She had stopped typing and was looking something up, and *bam* nothing on the screen. I assumed basic intelligence (first mistake), and walked over to her cubicle...

and I...

Moved her mouse...

and the....

screen came back on...

"How'd you do that?" she asked...

I figured that rather than teach her the basic principles of the "screen saver" technology, I would make this easy...

"Just move your mouse at least once every five minutes, and you shouldn't have this problem again," I muttered as I fought off the desire to fall on the ground laughing.

My mother happens to be a senior English teacher at [college name censored to protect the guilty]. She is Not A Computer Person (tm). Nor are most of the English department, since no-one ever bothered to train them.

As none of them really knew how to use computers, my mother had a brainwave - she could store all her stuff in the Recycle Bin! Just hit 'delete'! It's so simple! It can even be sorted by date (just like every other folder)!

This would be funny in itself, but she's also convinced every other member of the English department to do the same thing. Seriously. They don't think there's any risk of the Recycle Bins being emptied, since the whole department is in on it, but I wonder what will happen when one of them needs to actually delete something...

The IT department's not up to scratch, either. There are no password restrictions, which is painful, but not funny. What is funny is that staff routinely login to the attendance databases (on computers accessible to the class)then go to lunch. The students can change their attendance records without entering a password, or indeed bypassing any security whatsoever. The scary part is, this has gone on for years and no-one's changed any records!

I work for a large ISP known by the fitting acronym of BS. Figure it out.

Got a call recently from this guy, where I could hear from the sounds on the TV that he was listening to some motorsports race. Whoops, stereotyping there. Anyways, I had this guy open up Internet Explorer. Once he did, he got all upset and then read me this: "Internet Explorer is not curently your difficulty browser...would you like to make it your difficulty browser?"

hehehe, I dont think IE was his difficulty...he should learn to read. :p

Hello,

I am an assembly programmer, but I used to be a system administrator for a long time. Seems like people were pretty convinced of my capabilities, so it comes that companies which I never got in touch with before occasionally get my phone number from someone and call me up, asking for help. Fortunately, almost all of these problems are more complicated things, it looks like they call me as a last ressort. I'm usually quite happy at that, I enjoy the challenges and the extra money is fine.

However, recently something happened that I didn't really enjoy. Sure, it's so stupid that it's funny, but if you're the guy bringing the bad news it can be a little embarassing.

Anyway, there was this company, I would say "medium sized" (a 4 story building with quite some people in it) and a really desperate department chief in it, calling me for help since they really needed "their company computer", as he said, to work again soon. He told something strange about oracle and database indexes, but totally mixed up some things. They aren't a computer company and this guy wasn't a computer guy, so he had difficulties to explain, but they surely needed their database. Anyway, what he told me did not make things clear at all, particularly I remember him saying that they somehow tried to "cat over their zero index", which quite confused me since I've never heard of the expression "cat over" or even of a "zero index". I thought it would be worth a look, so I agreed and came over to the company.

The guy I spoke on the phone with was pretty nice and respectful when we met, however still very desperate. He told me that the guy administrating the database system has left the company and that they didn't make any support contract with someone else yet - just why should they, everything was running fine until the fateful day X. (I wondered, however, how an oracle database could run fine over a longer period of time without anybody administering it at all).

I said I would be pretty optimist

ic about figuring the case out myself and they let me into their computer room. It was a room with one nice HP Server, 4 processors, a hell lot of RAM and a huge RAID array, running Oracle on Linux. I was told, that that server and the database within actually contained all the huge amounts of data that the company was working it, so things were getting critical now.

I looked at the console monitor and already thought "Uh, oh", since it basically said that it could not boot from harddisk - no boot block could be found. Well, anyway, I thought, don't propagate any panic situation yet, that doesn't mean it absolutey must be a big problem. Just continue investigating. However, I remembered the things about the database indexes and was confused, how that could be in connection with a bad bootblock. Maybe a coincidence, I thought, but I preferred asking the department chief guy when the problem actually showed up and what they did on the database.

He told me pretty precisely: The database was encountering a near-to-major slowdown (for whatever reason) in the past few weeks and working with it became pretty sluggish, so they had to seek for a solution. Instead of hiring a professional DBA or something like that, by hazard, the guy speaking with me got to chat with someone on a webchat while being at home who seemed to know quite a bit about databases and tried to help him. That's where he got told to "cat over the zero index of the database" and he even got precise information from the chatter on what to type in at the prompts.

I still was confused about the strange "cat over zero index" thing (thought he might still be mixing up things) and still was not convinced that that might have anything to do with the boot block, but I asked if he could tell me what he actually typed in. He could, since he was at home while chatting and wrote it onto a paper sheet, to bringt it into office next morning and type it into the database server console.

So he rushed into his office, grabbed a shee

t of paper and handed it over me. I was baffled. More than that, I was really astonished. I didn't think THAT could happen for real, but apparently, it did. People familiar with Unix will now resign and cry when they will read the following line, the line the department chief was asked to type in:

cat /dev/zero > /dev/sda

Yes. Really. No joke. For those, wo have no clue what that means: it means to wipe out the complete first SCSI disk. In this case, the "first SCSI disk" was not only a SCSI disk, it was the whole RAID array. No additional disks or arrays connected, just this very important RAID array containing system, database and everything - and now being covered by zeroes completely from the first byte of the first disk to the last byte of the last disk. Vanished, gone, blank, virgin again.

I must have looked very, very shocked and even started to look pale. Needless to say, that the department chief who hired me to actually bring him GOOD news like "it work's again, no provlem" did not really like the expression on my face and got more and more nervous. He kept on talking, telling that the guy in the chatroom said that it would take a while and the database would be unusable during that time span (the truth was: the database would not only be unusable forever but simply gone) - no doubt on it: the guy in the chatroom played a really crude joke, probably not knowing that it would affect a whole company.

After the command finished, it still didn't work, and someone had the bright idea to reboot the machine somehow, to let the database start up again. Obviously, he must have pressed reset or something like that, since there clearly was NO way anymore to properly shutdown a system that just finished existing. However, that didn't care at that stage - everything was already lost so even throwing the server against the wall to play squash with it wouldn't have caused much more problems (except for the resulting hardware damages, of course).

During my work, I learned t

hat working on a problem would be more painless if you don't just freak out and yell "OH MY GOD, WE'RE ALL F*****!", since that at least gives you a lot of panicing people which are all standing behind your workplace and unwillingly issuing pressure und desparation. Pretty unmotivating. After all, at this moment I could NOT be sure that everything was lost: they must have backups, somehome? Indeed, there was at least a DLT tapedrive connected to the HP server. After booting up the machine with one of my rescue CD-ROMs, just to realize the RAID array really being empty and innocent again like a new born baby, I told the guy that I couldn't estimate the situation yet and asked him if the DLT tapedrive was actually in use, or if they had any other backups somehow. He said yes, the previous database administrator (that has long been gone) set up a backup system.

"Fine", I said. "give me the tapes". He said there would be only one tape, apparently with a daily full backup on it (bad backup strategy, but okay) and that it should be in the tape drive. Fine, I thought, and tried to access the DLT drive from my rescue system. Don't ask me how, don't ask me why, but this tape was as freaking empty as the RAID array got later. Since it's very unlikely that the tape got zeroed out by whomever, it was a pretty easy conclusion that the tape actually never got filled. The backup system didn't work. I asked him about three times if he's really damn sure that THIS REALLY IS the damn only tape where the backups were supposed to be made or if it's the wrong tape, if there are other tapes, if ANYTHING. It was the ONLY tape existing (except for three new tapes, still packaged), the ONLY one used and the ONLY last ressort that failed.

I had to tell him what happened. He almost cried, I saw it. I was feeling like that kind of guy appearing in several different mythologies, that kind of guy having the unthankful task to bring over the really, really bad news.

Boy, what a mess. I refused to get fully paid for

my visit, just some small money for the time I stayed there, being dimensions below what a normal visit with a solved problem would have cost. I didn't see the point in getting paid for telling someone that they really have a big, big problem out of a damn joke.

I directed them to the company that established the database system in first place and beat into their had to sign a support contract and to care for really reliable backups, no matter what. I don't know how they cope with the lost data, the probably had printouts and employees typing them in over marathon sessions.

This is a dirty job, I hate it sometimes. But after all, someone's got to be there doing it. And if not me, who should? ;-)

I been working for a rathe large DSL company for couple months now, pretty much heard and seen most of the normal stuff. In the months I have been there I have picked up a rep of being pretty good with the really really dumb ones who call. One this day I got a call from a customer got thier info, asked what was the issue. H = him M = me

M: How may I help you sir

H: I cant get online, I bought this new disk thingie and it doesnt let me log on.

M: What disk thing would that be sir?

H: I dunno

M: Do you put small square discs in or big Silver discs.

H: Yea the Silver disks.

M: Ok sir so you got a new CD-Rom Drive and your trying to install our DSL software?

H: Well let me explain, this kid was saleing this disk thing and I liked it but I didnt buy the whole thing because my PC is bigger then his, But his disk thing was faster then mine so I got it.

M: ok sir so what is the issue? You cant install our software? or is your CD's not working?

(At this point I am thinkign either he cant install our software or He has a problem with his CD-ROM wich I would refer him to his OEM or the kid he got it from)

H: No its asking me for a User Name and Password and I dont have it.

M: So you are at the Log in screen and cant log in?

H: No the Disk is asking me for a U/P.

M: Sir CD-ROMs dont ask you for user names and Password

H: Well this one does. It has this Windows 2000 Screen.

M: Sir the Disk thing you been refering to is it the Tower, large box some lights has a CD rom, you plug your monitor in etc... ?

H: YES!, but I kept my computer becase it was bigger.

M: So you kept the thing that you see everything on?

H: Yes.

M: Sir the item you bought is the actual computer, the thing you kept is your monitor it is only used to show you what the box has in it.

H: Oh so this is just a TV and thats the actual computer?

M:Yes sir.

H:oh...

M: BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA /tell every tech near me

M: ok Sir so you cant get on your DS

L, do you need me to reset your DSL password? or You cant get on at all?

H: Cant get on at all.

M: ok Sir go to Start,

H: I cant get to the start thing its asking me for a password I cant get to my main screen.

M: Ok sir then you need to contact the person u bought the computer from to get the password, or you can try hitting cancel and see if it by passes and goes to your desktop.

To make the story short Ends up the PW is solid and he cant bypass the log in screen, and I send him back to the kid he got the computer from.

In the End it was your classic Chair, keyboard interface error, that guy shouldnt own a computer.

I was just hunting for cooling fans on one of those search engines that's designed specifically to find products in online stores at the lowest possible price. I appreciate their services, but this is just silly. I found some DDR heat spreaders with fans on their website. For those who don't know, a DDR heat spreader is basically a copper strip heatsink that clamps onto your memory chips and redistributes the heat so things don't get too hot. But this particular heat spreader has a particularly amazing power: The description claims that the built-in cooling fan "overclocks your system".

I sincerely hope that this was a misunderstanding on the part of the person who wrote the sales blurb rather than blatant false advertising. Please.

Ok 2 tales here, the 2nd one isn't really a tech tale but still had me scratching my head.

1. We had just recieved new compaq desktops with NT4.0 on them. The IT guy brought one down for our office manager and was setting it up. Now he had been in the manager's office for quite sometime, going on 1 1/2 hours. I know that it does not take that long to set the computer up and setup the network connections, so I walk into the office to see what's going on. I see the IT guy and my manager huddled over the computer, with manuals strewn all over the desk and workspaces and smoke coming out of thier ears. I look over thier shoulders to see what is going on. What I see is the login box with "administrator" in the login box and they were trying every password they could think of and any thing that looked remotely like a password but could not log in as administrator. Now remember they have been at this now going on 2 hours. I ask if I could give it a try. They agree. I walk over and press enter with the password field blank, and it logs in. I just walk out smiling as they sat there slack jawed! :)

2. I now work at a remote location, and I get updates once a month on video tape to keep current on what is going on in the company. I just recieved one the other day, and one of my coworkers comes into my office, picks up the tape still sealed in the mailing packaging, and asks me if it is the new tape. I answer "yes". Then he asks, while he is holding it completly sealed in packaging, "Have you watched it yet?" I just sat there with a blank look on my face, and he asks me again "well have you". I answer "Umm, it is still in the packaging." Then he gets mad at me for pointing out his stupidity and storms off.

This is not a tale of tech support, but back when I was interning at a large government company (Roughly 1100 people)...

I had just finished designing and implementing a system to display a listing of the software that was allowed to be installed on user's machines without going through compatibility testing. (This list is about 300 long, and changes every few days)

One component of the system belonged on the web, so I spoke with the web designer / admin in regards to putting that component (a simple php script) onto the system. She just looks at me blankly, and says: "PHP? What's that?". Now from a normal user, this can be tolerated, but given that she is the sole web person for this company of over 1000, I think she should have been dimly AWARE of php scripting... it's only the industry STANDARD!... Turns out this place is a microsoft shop - all she knew was asp...

Of course, given office politics, I had to redesign my system so that my script was generated locally (ie not through the server), and what php.exe outputted was infact asp code, that the almost clueless web person could put happily on the server, and run... blechh...

Office politics... That's why this little system (1-2 weeks work, one person) utilised SIX different programming/scripting languages... All I can say is that I'm just glad I don't have to support it anymore.

, and I later found out that the server couldn't handle them.

I'm a CADD operator at a small engineering firm, but I double as the IT guy. I'm used to the question "Is the Internet down?" when someone can't reach a site, but I had a VP who took the cake.

He had a laptop, to deliver presentations to the clients, and so would bring it home every night, then back in in the morning. This meant that he spent the first 15 minutes of every day plugging back in his printer, trackball, network cable, power supply, filter , etc. At least once a week, I'd get a panicked call from him just before lunch that the laptop had crashed.

Turns out he would plug the power plug into his laptop, then the"filter" that was shipped with it, then the final cord to the power strip. With three separate components, he wouldn't connect something solidly, but the laptop would work fine for the first 3 - 4 hours.... Until the battery ran out!

We finally got him a docking station.