Funny and Humorous Technical Support Tales and Stories

Back in 1995 I went to work for a company. I was going to build a Website for dealers of collectible items. It would have real time auctions and storefronts. These was a few months before Ebay started.

Anyhow I used NaviHost (previously GNN), which becames AOLPress to author and host the site.. I build the pages on my PC at the office and used a dedicated phone line for dial-up.

After launching the site and promoting it at $0 budget I was getting about 10,000 hits (Or 100 users-remember in thoose days any request for anything on a page was a hit) a day. I gleefully told my boss in hopes of getting more budget.

A week later I took a day off. When I got in the next day he called me into his office.

"Scott" he said "I like you, you are a good guy and I understand your trying to make yourself look good, but there is no way that you are getting 100 people per day to the site. In fact I don't think you are getting any.

"What makes you say that" I asked, kind of puzzeled since I look at the logs myself?

"Well yesterday, when you were gone, I sat by your PC the entire day and the phone never rang"

"What phone?"

"The one connected to the computer"

Scratching my head I asked" Why would the phone ring"?

"People getting to the site"

"Why would the phone ring to get to our site"?

"Well how else would they get to the computer"?

"Why would they want our computer"? I was baffled!

"To get the Webpage"

"Frank (My boss's name) you do realize that the website is in Virginia, not here" (I mean he was paying them a monthly fee)

"What do mean Virginia, isn't the web site here on our PC"?

"No"

"Then what were you working on the other day"

"The site"

"And was that not on this PC"

"Yes"

"Then why is it in Virginia"?( I think he thinks I was pulling a fast one)

"Because that is where the server is"

"Then why do we have a computer and a modem"

"To make the pages and upload them"

"Oh"

A month later I convinced him to get a seco

nd pc so that we could demo the site on the road. He agreed.

When there was to be a two week vacation and the office closed I asked to take the PC home to work on the site. He refused because I could them copy the site and keep it for myself. The pages on the web, the ones anyone can access.

Small wonder why the business failed.

I love reading all the other stories, at least I am not alone.

I do computer repair and troubleshooting as a side job and dont often run into many problems. On one occasion though I did not get paid for a job because I was told that I had done something illegal to there computer. Why else would they get the following message on their computer.

"This program has performed an illegal operation"

I run desktop support for the data/development center of a major Wall Street brokerage firm, and my responsibilities also include supporting the CTO's home netowrk. Luckily, he's a very nice person. I get a call from him one day, that the power went off and the server rebooted, and he doesn't know the password.

I give him the password I recorded, and that doesn't work. I then go through about 8 other possibilities, which all fail. I then FAX them over, just to be sure that nothing got lost in the translation. Still no good. I then hop into my car, drive over (It's only a few miles) and take a look. I log in after exactly 10 seconds.

Sure enough, he had the CAPS lock on. We both had a good laugh over it.

I am the office manager for a computer company. I do some troubleshooting over the phone and take the repair orders from walk in customers for the tech's. A gentleman came in one morning and said he needed his computer repaired ASAP because he used it for business. He gave me a note and told me his wife had written down everything that was on the screen when the problem happened so we should be able to have it sooner. After the customer left I handed the note to the technician on duty because I was laughing so hard I couldn't read it to him.

This is the exact contents of the note:

Total Files: 38

Clean: 11

Not scanned: 27

C:\> blah, blah, blah, RandMcN/MileMA, blah, blah

C:\> blah, @IF? pause

C:\> blah, blah, blah mileMA

C:\>

Abort, Retry, Fail ?

It is our opinion that the problem can not be determined by the information given...we were on our own! We did get his problem solved that day and did not ask for the translation of blah, blah, blah.

I was reading the instructions for a Japanese-made midtower case and had to laugh a bit when it referred to a pin that holds the rubber foot on as a "feets fixity".

Alrighty, bit of backstory. About two or three years ago, a friend of my mother's got a computer. As I was rather strapped for cash, being fresh out of high school and in the middle of tech school and JOBLESS, I readily agreed to help him set up and all. Ho boy. He was CLUELESS. He could start it, run AOL, print something, turn it off. That was it. He honestly was asking me to "Show him how to use the computer." I thought I had just signed away my sanity.

Fast forwards two years. With my patient guidance (and more than a few after-sessions ranting and banging my head against the wall) he's actually pretty computer savvy. He even recently diagnosed a problem all on his own, nailing it down to one of three things. I tried the two software ones, that didn't work, he got a new modem and had it put in (he owns a scrap company, and one of his employees is a supreme tech-head, that had pulled a few modems from a shipment they got.) It worked, he was happy! So, all's well, right?

Not quite. See, upon bringing it home, he mentioned he wanted some new speakers. The one he had worked perfectly, but they were really small and he had just gotten a new laptop, and wanted new ones. Knowing I worked at Target, and I was scheduled the next day, he asked if we sold them, and if I could pick him up a pair. Sure, no sweat. I do, we both get home around the same time, and he stops by on his way home.

"Wow, they're a bit big..."

Uh, wha? Yeah, they're for your system.

"Nooo, i wanted them for my LAPTOP!"

ZUH?!?

"Yeah, I'm gonna keep those for mine, and use these speakers for my laptop."

... Um... Okay. Every LOGICAL conclusion for what he said was... No, nevermind. I ask if I should take 'em back and get another set?

"Y'know what no, I'm going down to my condo in Florida next month, I'll just take 'em down and leave 'em there, I don't use the laptop that much anywhere else that I need speakers."

............. Well, at least he ADMITS that he's a bit of a ditz sometimes. I th

ink I need a drink.

This is not actually a tech support story, but incredibly silly to anyone who's worked at a computer store.

A few years back I worked in the hardware department of a major computer chain. That means my job was to trick the customers into buying the service plans that don't cover 90% of the problems with computers (i.e. software or PEBCAK).

So anyway, some guy walks in and wants to return a 20GB hard drive. He's got the receipt, so no problem, he gets his refund and leaves the store. The cashier who did the refund takes the box and dumps it on the cart of stuff to be re-shrinkwrapped (yes, they do that, if the plastic is brittle it was probably reshrunk in the store).

Being the curious and jovial fellow I am, I saunter over to the customer service desk and take a peek at some of the stuff people returned that day (it was rather slow). I look at the hard drive box, surprised that this particularly good brand of drive was returned. So I open the lid of the box and take off the protective styrofoam cover on the top.

What I found, I shall keep in the splinter of my mind's eye for the rest of my days. I showed it to the cashier, and she only gasped.

For in this box was not a hard drive, but a ROCK, roughly the same size, shape, and weight of a real hard drive. Honest. And to drive the point home, the gentleman who returned it had graciously written "20GB" on the top of this rock in a black Sharpie.

I don't know if they nailed him later with a credit card chargeback, but I say kudos to him for giving us all a big laugh.

Quite a few years ago I was just starting my career as a Tech/Engineer and got a job working for a large UK defence company working in the avionic development and test department. One of my first tasks was to source a replacement mains voltage indicator bulb used on one of the power feeds. A typical 'newbee' task to see how I got on.

I found the bulb 10 minutes later in a component catalogue as a standard item, cost about 50 pence - I just ring up and order it, delivery in a couple of days, no problem? Hah.

I was introduced to 'The Procedure'. After filling in the order form and signing it, I obtained 3 more signatures from ever increasing levels of management within the Department. I then had to hand carry it around to the aircraft equipment stores to 'check it is not a stores item' - it wasn't which was not too surprising since even I knew that aircraft don't run on mains voltages. Then I wandered over the finance department for their signature 'to ensure our budget and cashflow was ok for the purchase'. Finally onto the goods-in department who placed the order (on another form) and added their signature as confirmation of order. A grand total of 7 signatures on one form.

Still fired up with the enthusasim of my new job I went to my Manger with this tale of inefficiency to see if something could be done and to my surprise he agreed it was a bit of a waste and came up with a solution that would increase efficiency enormously. He instructed that instead of just ordering one bulb, I should order 100. I left his office with the advice that since the quantity had changed, I needed to get the old order cancelled and raise a new order form.

Eighteen months later (having swiftly moved on) I had a task which entailed me visiting that department. I could not resist going to where I had stored these bulbs and counting them out....all 99 of them.

Not really tech related unless you count the car...

I had a customer call requesting help finding our shop, here are the results:

Me: Where are you now?

Customer: Near a Target store. (Just down the street from us)

Me: Which direction are you facing?

Customer: Forward.

Forward!! Not North, East, West or South but forward!!

Made me want to tell them to make a u-turn at the next signal followed by a u-turn at the next signal an so on...

D'oh!!

I got a call from a lady in reception saying "my email is broken" so i sit down at her computer, check her DNS and Gateway settings, make sure the program we were using to convert providers had been run and that she had the correct IP, all the network settings we had been fiddling around with lately. Anyway after a while I could find no settings out of place and was starting to get very baffled. I check outlook and it looked all fine, as did the connection to the internet.

I ask her: "when was the last time you got email"... "Oh about half an hour ago" she replies. Sure enough... noone had sent her any email.

Whilst working as first line support for a certain police force in 1994, I received the following call;

Me: Help desk how can I help

Policeman: The computer's not working

Me: What type of computer is it ( We had UNIX and PC's)

... Long Pause with a lot of banging in the background ...

Policeman: It's electric

Me: Is there anyone else that I can talk to ?

Not much of a tale, but when driving through my local McDonalds the other day, I saw a familiar sight. On the order display in the drive-through was the dreaded Blue Screen of Death. I didn't really look at it too closely, but I believe they were running Windows 2000. At least it didn't affect the other computers in the resturant, because my order was correct, and I could see several other displays working correctly when I got to the window.

I am a tech support person at work but the title covers my home life as well.

Last night I was called upon to fix a printing problem. The freind of the family wanted to print pages 4 and 5 of an online list. He was currently viewing page 4. He would goto the File menu and select print. Then he told it to print from page 4 to page 5 and nothing was coming out. The page he was viewing was only 2 pages when printed so pages 4 and 5 didn't exist. I think I gave us both headaches trying to explain the difference between when it meant webpages and when it meant physical pages and why they didn't match up.

I work for a cable company, supporting broadband service. Our hold message says, "A live person will be with you shortly to assist you." I answered the phone the other day and this woman says, "Oh, so you're NOT the live person who can help me?!"

Umm...I have a pulse, I'm pretty sure I'm alive...

I hate to think that people are still sexist when it comes to technical ability, but the only reason I can think of she would have said that is that I am a woman. Short of being outright insulted (a man once said, "You don't know what you're talking about, that's just like a woman.", after which my senior rep took the call and hung up on him, and another man told me to let him speak to "someone with brains") this had to be the rudest thing anyone's ever said to me.

When I worked at the helpdesk, I received a call from someone that went like this:

Me: Hello

Them: Yes, may I speak to Miller?

Me: Um... there's no Miller here.

Them: Are you sure?

Me: Yes. How do you spell Miller? (they had an accent)

Them: M-A-I-L-E-R

Me: Hmmmm... (start laughing to myself..)

Me: This person wouldn't happen to have the last name

'Daemon', would they? Did he return your mail?

Them: Yes! Do you know him?

Me: <I explain this to them and what the mailer daemon is>

Them: <embarrassed thanks, good bye>

I work for everyone's favorite target for spam and I have seen the deepest depths of idiocy. I have shared tales here and there on this site and shall probally continue to do so for a long time to come. Well here is the text of what happened this time.

This is after getting all needed info.

User: I just talked to you guys and got a new password, I signed on and changed it, but was kicked off instantly by someone signing on somewhere else, what kind of insane security issues do you people have!?!

Tech: Well sir, considering that you weren't signed on for but a moment, then it is most like the cause of a computer virus, not a security breach on our behalf.

User: That is crazy, there are no such things as computer viruses! I would never believe that, that's why I don't buy into Norton and McAfee's scams. That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard of!

Tech: (Stuned silence)

User: Now give me a valid reason for my password to be released or cancel my #$@#@$#%! account!

Tech: Well sir what you just said was the most ridiculous thing that I have ever heard... let me connect you to our cancelations dept. Please hold.

Now true... that was probally not the most professional responce I could have replied with. At the time the gears in my head came to a crashing halt. To not only think that viruses aren't real, but us techs would have nothing better to do but make them up caused me to falter in my normal line of thinking. A person who believes that there are no such things as computer viruses has no place using a computer. Ever.

I do not consider my self a computer tech because I am not one I just know enough to pass the A+ and a lot of the Net+ and fix computers for ppl I know. Anyways i have 2 stories to tell.

#1. this happend about 4 years ago when i was 14. One of my sisters friends came over to use our computer to finish a project. When he got up for about 10 min to go to the living room to watch tv and take a break. When we came back the CRT was black (screensaver) and he asked me what was wrong and i told him that the CRT had run out of ink and that we would have to open it up and put in new ink cartridges and that he would have to find a way to save it with a black screen. so all of a sudden he looked like he was about to start crying his eyes started watering ( he had been there 3 hrs already and it was around 8pm). So just when he was about to call him mom to pick him up i decided to move the mouse and he looked at me and said look there is still some ink left in the screen!. ( this is a true story by the way such as the next one im about to tell)

A more current one is one that happend this year. My freinds and I are still high school students and for the average user at his age my friend knows a bit or 2. Anyways i wasnt expecting this from him beacuse he is smarter than me he is taking AP Calculus BC and AP Physics with calculus, but somehow he managed to pull this one off.

I was had just gotten back from buying computer parts to build (mojo) my computer and he came along and bought a 128 stick of SDRAM for his. After droping him of which he lived 3 min from me i get a phone call 5 min later. He is on the phone telling me his computer wont start, its making strange beeps, and it smells like burnt. At the time i wasnt as knowledgable about computers as i am now so i told him to call one of our other friends who knew a lot about it.During this time his brother finds out that the computer wont turn on and boldly says " Hey ..... it probably a virus in the RAM". So he just takes it to m

y other friends house because he knows that a RAM does not contain viruses. Then 20 min later my other frind who fixed it calls me laughing telling me yo check this out what happend is that he put in the RAM backwards so it melted the pins in to the mobo and he got lucky that it still works. I asked my other friend how he got it to fit in that way beacuse its designed not to he just said it was dark and i coulndt see it just fit. and now he only has 1 slot with 256mb of SD and no hope for a new computer anytime soon. LOL

I work as internet tech support, and got a call in that really was hilarious. A guy was trying to sign in to connect to the internet to browse the web, and was unable to do so. I found out he was really computer-illiterate, so I asked him several basic questions that were easy enough to understand, and on the last question, he answered that he had permanently deleted several programs out of his computer, because he thought they were causing a conflict with the ISP. When I asked him which ones, he rattled off several, and then he told me that he had also permanently deleted Internet Explorer with the Blue E out of his system, hoping he could get online without another server conflict. *HOLDING THE MUTE BUTTON, I LAUGHED TILL I THOUGHT I WAS GOING TO PEE*

When I turned the mute button back on, I told him that he would need to contact his computer manufacturer to get his Internet Explorer put back into his system, since that is a necessary component for any ISP in order to surf the web, and he had permanently deleted it out of his computer. He was happy for the information, and told me he had the number to call them. I said thanks for calling tech support and have a good evening. *chortle, chortle*

My friend decided to get DSL and signed up with MSN. After waiting over 2 months for his DSL mdem (Why do they call it that? It doesn't do any MOdulating or DEModulating.) to arrive, I decide to help him out by loaning him an extra Cisco 678 router that I'm not using currently. I hook the router up and establissh that the DSL signal is making it to his house ok, but the router will not work in Bridged mode. So I configure it to work in PPP mode and call MSN support to ask them for the static IP address, Default gateway, and DNS server settings needed to make the router work in this mode.

After I have given the support agent the account information, I tell her what information I need. She then asked me what a default gateway and DNS server are. I explained to her what they were and requested to be escalated. She gets a Tier 2 tech on the phone and I explain to them what information I need so I can configure this router. The Tier 2 tech quite abruptly informs me that they dont support my hardware and that I will need to call Cisco for the information I am requesting. As you can imagine I was quite shocked by this. Why would Cisco have any information about MSN's network specific settings. I calmly proceeded to explain this to the tech and was told the same thing again. I tried explaining to the technician that it was their network and that I didnt need help configuring the router, only their network specific information so I could get the computer online. I was met with the same response again. I asked for the call to be escalated to their Tier 3 support or someone who knew even the most basic information about how IP based networking worked. The tech put me on hold and a few minutes later, another technician came on the phone and told me that I would need to call Cisco for further help!?! This process went on for over 45 minutes and I steadily lost my patience with their support group. Eventually though they found someone in their call center who knew what information I was looking f

or and quickly gave me the 4 little IP addresses I was looking for. Needless to say, I strongly recommend that people do not use MSN.

I work at a university help desk. A student called because he couldn't connect to our dial up service. Upon investigation it was because he was using the same number he uses for AOL. (He seemed to think he was a genius for thinking to use the same number.) After explaining he couldn't log into AOL's system by entering in his Univ account information I gave him the correct number. This number and the AOL number had the same area code (410) and that is where the similarities stop. He took the correct phone number then asked "What's the difference between the number you gave me and AOL's phone number because they both have the same area code?" Hmmm. I was shocked at him being unable to understand this so I said "your phone number is 410, right? And my phone number is 410. But are they the same number?" His response of "uh, I guess not" lacked some major conviction. I was pretty scared because this college aged person is supposed to be part of the "future of America!" Hold on, it's going to be a bumpy ride.

A customer called 2 houres after picking up his new monitor at my shop..

him: good afternoon, I just picked up my new pc with monitor 2 hours ago, but I don't see anything! the screen's just black.

me: ok, sir, did you use the screws to attach the monitor cable to the pc?

him: yes

me: good. did you turn it on? both, pc and monitor?

him: yes. (sounds as if he didn't like my questions...)

me: ok, is there a green or a yellow light besides the power button of the monitor?

him: a yellow.

me: ok, standby mode.. is the pc powered on?

him: how can i check that?

me: any lights on?

him: no. what now? *sighing*

me: could you please tell me, how you attached the power cables?

him: well, the first I pluged into the power socket in the wall, and the second I into the two sockets at the back of the pc...

well, what more to say... ;o)

Being the only computer professional my friends / family know, this means I'm the defacto help desk for these people whenever they have a problem. I usually try to fix their problem but a lot of times I get them to call tech support as they're supposed to be familiar with their own products. After all, I did the tech support thing when I started and I knew my stuff so I figured these people would also know their stuff.

Well, I don't feel that's necessarily the case anymore as was demonstrated last week.

My Aunt calls and tells me that their new computer, the really expensive top 'o the line model they bought from that three letter company Eye - Bee - Emm, isn't working. To be more accurate, the monitor isn't functioning. So instead of doing any troubleshooting, she passes the phone to my cousin who proceeds to tell me the problem. He also tells me that he contacted the help desk, only to have the tech in question tell him it was a hardware problem and the computer would need to be brought in for service.

Well, not being one to necessarily believe tech support they decide to call me for a second opinion.

Went through some troubleshooting and found the monitor was working fine up until it would get to the XP login screen.

Originally I thought it might have been a setting that had been changed, so I had them log into Safe Mode and reset the settings, but that didn't help.

So I made my way over to their house, I had to be in that area anyway, and 30 seconds later found the problem. The video driver was corrupted, a quick re-install of the driver and everything was fine.

Needless to say, my impression of the help desk has gone down a bit since then.

This time again a tale where it's the tech who makes it funny. I called my mobile phone service provider because I could not log in to my account on their website where I can get a list of calls I did. I explained the tech supporter that I always get the error that my account is not activated for using the account check.

Guess what she told me?

"We've already heard about this error and don't know what it is, but, well that's Internet!"

I don't think you can blame "the Internet" when some internal area on your website doesn't work!

We moved into a a new office building, during the move The company bought a new phone and voice mail system. The new system allowed for the employess to have a direct phone number. The company also kept the same 800 number and same main number. After the move one of the sales staff comes in and says, "that since we have moved I have noticed about a 70% decline in the amount of calls I get, can you tell me why people are not calling me?"

I had a service tech come over to the office to do warranty work on a computer. He needed to make a call and the area where he was working didn't have a phone so I gave him my cell phone.

I watched amazed as he puts it to his ear and a few seconds later gives it back saying: "There's no dial tone".

I used to work desktop support at a large government research laboratory. One day we received a call that a scientist could not retrieve eject a CD from his computer. I headed out to the user location. Upon arriving, I noticed immediately that he had placed a CD in the 5 1/4 floppy drive! I ended up using a screw driver to wedge the CD out of there...

A friend of mine, against my best wishes, got an eMachine to replace his aging....I never did know what his old computer was. Anyway, it was old enough that he didn't bring it to a LAN where the 2nd fastest computer (mine being first) was a 400mhz Celeron with no side panels. Anyway, after figuring out that "Ships in 1-2 weeks" at ***** (hint: think "jungle") means it will take 1 to 2 weeks to actually SHIP the box out of their factories, he cancels his order there and goes to Newegg to get his game and, while he's there, 256mb DDR (the only nice thing I can say about what he picked up). Anyway, he got the package the day before the even in question and I asked him how installation went. I was fairly confident he could do this, for one thing, he's refrained from doing all the thing teens do from killing brain cells (whole 'nother topic), plus I showed him where to put it. Boy how wrong I was.

His reply was something to the effect of "Well, I installed it, but the locking tabs look like they'd fit between the two notches on the DIMM" At this point, I figured it was the crappy eMachine motherboard. I wouldn't put it past them to use proprietary parts or just plain shoddy hardware (selling a Celeron w/ 128mb RAM with everything soldered onto the motherboard should be a felony, but I digress). So, I said I should check it out in person, make sure he didn't screw something up. Get there, pop open the side panel, and notice that's there's just the original 128mb DIMM installed, the other bank (yeah, only 2) is empty. I look down a bit and what do I see? Yep, a brand new 256mb DIMM from Crucial. Blind luck led it to fall down on the front USB cables instead of someplace where it would've caused more damage. I handled the installation from then on out, and now he has 384mb PC2100. Too bad I can't fix the rest of his system that easily....

I was at work, taking a look at some of the computers (most of which are pretty old). Some one decided that she would help me install some new software we had received. A few minutes later she asked me why it wasn't loading...if the CD wasn't pushed in far enough or what? I didn't quite understand what she was talking about, so I came over to take a look. I promptly burst out laughing. She had put the CD into the 5 1/4" floppy drive! I didn't really have the heart to tell her so I just told her that I'd take care of it later.

This was a call that I made to help someone (for free) that works where I do.

Her: Hello

Me: Yhis is Da???? What seems to be wrong with your computer?

Her: I don't know what I've done or how, but all of my games are gone.

Me: Do you mean the windows games?

Her: Yes.

Me: Like which ones?

Her: Hearts, Poker, Solitaire and Freecall.

Me: Do you mean Freecell?

Her: No Freecall!

Me: Ok????

Me: Do you mean that when you go to where the games are in the programs

menu, they are not there?

Her: Yes.

Me: Ok, Go to your desktop. You know what the desktop is right??

Her: Yes

Me: Ok, open My Computer by double clicking on it, and look for drive C.

Her: Ok. now what?

Me: Now open it by double clicking on it.

Her: Ok

Me: Now name the folders that you see.

Her: ..... Program files, Quicken, window

Me: Stop, Ok, you see the folder called Windows?

Her: Wait..........Ok, yes there is one called window...yes

Me: Ok, right click on the folder called windows and a small menu should come up.

Me: Then tell me what you see.

Her: Ok.....window....(I hear typing sounds)

Me: Do you see a menu yet?

Her: No..non at all.

Me: Ok put your mouse pointer on the folder called windows.

Her: Ok..now what?

Me: Right click on it.

Her: I can't seem to get it to work right.

Me: When you right click what do you see?

Her: Nothing.

Me: Well there should be something, even if you don't right click on the right folder.

Me: Wait...Do you know what I mean by right click?

Her: No...why?

Me: Forget it....Close all of the windows until your back at your desktop.

Her: You mean all of the windows? (she said it right this time)

Me: Yes (here is when I find out what the typing was all about)

Me: I hear a sound from windows. (you know the one that you hear when windows is

prompting you to tell you are about to change something that you shouldn't be)

Me: What was that sound? Did a

window pop up?????

Her: Yes...why?

Me: What does it say?

Her: Warning! "this change could impact one or more registered programs"

do you want to continue?

(She was trying to change the windows folders name to: "right click")

Me: Click on no!!!!

Her: Why?

Me: Because it will cause some serious problems.

Her: Ok, if you say so.

Me: Now do you see the desktop?

Her: Yes

Me: Ok, right click on the desktop, that means use the right button on the mouse, not

the left....ok?

Her: Ok. Now what?

Me: Now do you see where it says new?

Her: No.

Me: Read off all that you see from top to bottom.

Her: Ok, Open, Send To, Cut, Copy, Create Shortcut, Delete, Rename, Properties.

Me: There is not one that says New?

Her: No.

Me: Are you sure that your clicking on the desktop?...I mean RIGHT CLICKING!?

Her: Yes!

Me: If you were right clicking on the desktop, in the menu you would see NEW!

Me: That tells me that you're not!

Me: Do you know what the desktop is!!!(now I'm getting mad because of her ignorance)

Her: Yes. It's where My Computer is.

Me: Yes..right...My Computer is an icon. Were you clicking on a icon?

Her: Yes, I guess?

Me: Well the desktop is the background picture that you see, not the icons.

Her: Oh...Oh..ok.

Her: Now what?

At this point we lost the connection for some odd reason. Oh well.....

I had ,had enough at this point. At work the next day I just told her that she would have to re-install them again. (thank god she didn't have a windows 95 disk)

I take billing calls in an incoming all center and at my break I switches omputers to one closer with to my team. i boot the computer up log into the ssytem with no problem then when i go to log into the tool we use to take calls i encountered an error i had never seen before. Add operator looping is what it said. I tell my supervisor it wont let me log in he said exit out try again so i did three times. Their is a coorect way and a wrong way to log out of the tool you can click logout button or the x in which case you may get an error, but not the one i had. I log out correctly like i always do then get told to call our IT team. they guy who answers kinda laughs and says your done for the night. He does a series of things to the computer boots me out of the sytem to log in and the same thing happen. Asks for my supervisor and he tells him i had to sign out wrong and that local IT could not do anything else and call national. After soending about 50 mins with local i call national who after getting my login checks the system and tells me nothing is wrong and since this happened when changing computers to try different computer. After expressing doubts about this because if it was this surely IT would have told me when i first got on the call like they usually suggest he assures me this will fix it. I change computers and PRESTO on taking calls in minutes. I almost called IT bak going all it took was another change in computers. Done for the night? Sheesh

A while ago I used to work for a Dutch Free Internet Provider. We supported Internet on phone (dial up) and mobiles (wap).

I think one day it was my lucky day...

A team leader came to me. He just had a 15-minute complaint call from a customer complaining that he just bought a brand new Nokia Communicator (old combination of PDA and phone) and he inserted his old simcard from our partner network, and the settings for the WAP connection were not in his phone.

As background: these settings are stored in the phone and not on the SIM. He did not buy a special prepared phone. The team leader also informed me the customer wanted to WAP and email with his nokia. Because of our infrastructure two different network connections had to be made for each service: a WAP connection for WAP (makes sense) and a dial up data connection for the e-mail.

Anyway, I was asked to call back this customer and help this customer enter the settings. When I started a callback I did not know for the next one-and-a-half hour I would be talking to a complete nitwit!

When I called him he already started telling the settings were not in his phone, and it took me great trouble explaining him I was calling him to help entering these settings. So I started the list of settings. Since I had no experience with these phones and no call script the conversation went “What do you see?”, ... “choose uhm, the 2nd”.... and guessing where we were. It took about 5 minutes to explain what I meant with the question “What do you see on the screen”, showing already this customer doesn’t really know what he was doing.

So first I set the settings for the WAP connection. I walked him through the connection settings, and the wap browser settings. Then I added the dial-up settings for the e-mail. The customer took a while to open the new connection window, but I did not suspect anything bad because of this, because most things took a while for this customer.

All I had to do now is set the wap-conne

ction as default so the browser would use this one. The e-mail program was already set. So I ask the customer to select the wap-profile. The trouble started.

“I don’t see this profile name here anywhere”. I checked, checked and double-checked. It just disappeared. Having no experience with this phones, I assumed it was something I did and offered to re-set this profile. So I ask the customer to create a new profile again.

“Hold on”, he says, thinking he was keeping his phone clean and not have unnecessary settings stored. “I have to delete the other profile first.”

I tried stopping him, yelling NO, but the damage has already been done. 45 minutes of work just have been deleted and had to be set there again.

some years ago my mother overheard part of a conversation i was having with my (moderately) computer literate farther about different BIOS makes... upon hearing this she turned to my farther and asked in a stern manner "who's Amy Bios?"

i was in stitches for quite some time!

The Helpdesk Gets Physical

*ring* *ring*

"Hello! Local ISP, how can I help you?"

"Well, I was sorta hoping someone could walk me through taking a leak."

"Okay... well, do you have to go now?"

"Yes, I do."

"Okay... well, are you on male or female equipment?"

"MALE-CLONE..."

"Okay, the first thing we want to do is find your fly."

"My what?"

"Your fly... it opens your pants. It should be in the front of you. Look

down."

"I see shoes."

"No, sir... look sorta in the front of you... like just below your stomach.

You should see some metal on your pants. That's your fly."

"The round thing?"

"Well, that's your button... let's open that, too, while we're down there.

The fly looks like alot of little metal things sideways."

"Oh, okay... got it. "Okay, sir... can you grab your willy?"

"No."

"Do you see your willy?"

"No."

"Okay... what do you see?"

"I see white... just white and some lines."

"Do you have underwear installed?"

"No."

"Sir, if you can't see your willy, and you see only white... I think that

you may have underwear installed. We are going to have to uninstall your

underwear to take a leak."

"Well, my friend was the last one to use my fly... he might have installed

underwear."

"Okay, sir... well grab the white part and pull down... keep pulling until

you see your willy."

"It's stuck... it won't go down."

"The white part? Or your willy?"

"My willy."

"DON'T pull down on your willy, sir... just the underwear... we only want

to get to the point where we can see it."

"Oh... okay, we're there..."

"Okay... now look around the room... do you se

e anything made of

porcelain?"

"I see a little penguin on a shelf..."

"Okay, sir... you're in the living room. Go to the bathroom. We can't take

a leak until we are in the bathroom. The bathroom will have a lot of tile,

maybe some carpeting... yours might have mirrors or some soap in it. Some

people have showers in their bathrooms."

"Well, I'm downstairs... I think the bathroom is upstairs..."

"Okay, well, let's go upstairs."

"I can't walk."

"Okay, sir... temporarily reinstall your underwear... then go upstairs...

then uninstall your underwear again..."

"That was the white part, right?"

"Yes, sir... that's correct."

*pause*

"Okay, I'm upstairs..."

"Okay... now do you see any porcelain bowl-type things?"

"Well, there's two..."

"How tall are you sir?"

"5'4"."

"Okay... go to the one where it's lower than your willy."

"Okay... I'm there."

"Okay... now make sure that you are pointing toward the porcelain bowl. Now

just go."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, when it pops up... just hit okay."

If I hear my supervisor mention an "OBDC" link one more time, I am going to slap him silly.

My father once knew his way around a computer when Windows 3.1 was the big thing. He hasn't kept up with changing technology and frequently deletes files he "doesn't think he needs."

Recently he started receiving email from someone with a single letter difference from his own. Rather than popping an email back to the sender, he decided to spend a good hour on the phone with some poor tech agent insisting they correct this problem now!

I'm helping a client download an update to our software. She already has an attitude about her. On top of that, she's chewing in my ear...

Anyway, we get the file downloaded, she double clicks on the program and wonders why it doesn't start. I tell her to reboot the computer to free up memory, but she doesn't want to because she's running a huge print job.

WELL, GEE, DO YOU THINK THAT WOULD CAUSE THE UPDATE TO NOT WANT TO RUN?????????

I work for a major telecom company it rimes with lint. Well anyway I was working the helpdesk and i get a call from a VP wich is very odd as they have a different number to call for support so they do not have to deal with the common analysts who went to comunity college instead of Harvard. Well He calls and says his computer will not start. I go through the standard when did it happen yada yada yada. Well he tells me that i need to dispatch a tech to his office.

I politely let him know that i maybe able to remote to him and he says no. just send a tech to his desk. After filling out the helpdesk ticket which for director and above it gets dispatched at a sev 1 level which means the tech drops what he is doing to haul butt to solve this problem. as it turns out the VP's EA had turned the monitor off and the guy could not turn it on, or did not check. the sad part is this guy has a masters degree and makes about 20x my salary. Oh well at least i can turn my pc on :-)

I am sure anyone who has done tech support long enough has heard these calls, but here goes:

I used to work as a kind of 'jack-of-all-trades' at an electronics reseller, from network admin, warranty repair on computers, tech support for the office, and of course, phone based tech support for users who were tired of hearing Compaq's default response: Quick Restore

Lady calls me up, saying she is having problems with Windows, so I say no problem, ask if she is in front of her computer. She is, so I tell her to go to device manager blah blah blah. Now, understand, I can hear her saying umm hmm, and uhh huh, okay, okay on the phone, so I assume everything is going well. About 2 minutes into this call she stops me and says "Wait, do I need to have my computer on for this?"... My response: "Um... yeah..."

Second one is a guy is explaining to me a problem he is having, blah blah, I ask if he is in front of the computer (a question I ALWAYS ask, because half the time, they are not). He says no, he's at work, but just tell him, and he'll write it down. I think thats a little weird, and ask would it be easier if he called me when he got home. He assures me that it will be okay, he'll just write it down. I get about 5 minutes into suggestions for things for him to try and see if it fixes the problem, when he says "umm, this seems a little complicated, is it okay if I call you when I get home, and in front of the computer?". I reply "yes, thats fine sir" and hang up. He called me back later, and we got it sorted.

Just FYI to all... Computers are not toasters, or fans, or microwaves. Thats about it.

It's near the end of the night and this customer calls who sounds like an elderly lady. She says she's not sure if she should call me or Microsoft©. I'm feeling nice so I ask the what the problem is, after all if it is a MS©© problem then the call will be over real soon.

Her Solitaire©©© is frozen up.

I'm feeling real friendly so I decided ($35 a problem if she goes to M$©©©©) so I ask a few questions and it turns out that it's not frozen up, it's just over. The game is over, she lost. She ran out of cards up top and now she's wondering why when she clicks on the green circle nothing happens. I explain what has happened and she goes away happy.

I notice a number of Tech Support Horror Stories about techs from "that two-letter company." I can think of only one of those -- HP -- and I have one of their laptops.

Shortly after I bought it, the modem "disappeared" while on a road trip, cause a great deal of anxiety! When I phoned Tech Support, I got a very pleasant female tech (with no Asian accent) who walked me through options until we needed to remove and reinstall the modem, which I did (luckily I had a Phillips screwdriver at hand). She was very professional and, since I was smart enough to follow her instructions, we solved the problem.

A few months later, one morning the machine wouldn't boot -- it just came up with a diagnostic screen. Panic City! I phoned again, got a male support person this time (again, with no Asian accent) and he talked me through options which culminated with a "hard reset." Problem solved!

Let's hoist a glass for the techs who know what they are doing and take good care of us!

I work for an IT Consulting company and I have to deal with Tech support at the large Computer mfg. The one in particular, De**, has the best idiots I have dealt with. I had to get a new system board for a client I called "idiot support" and told them what the problem was. They told me I could not get a new board until I wen through some troubleshooting with them. After 2 hours of waisting my time they decided I needed a new hard drive. I told them that the hard drive was ffine I needed a new board. They sent me a hard drive. I replaced it and when the same problem came up I called them back. I explained to them what had happened last time. Once again we went through the same 2 hour TS and they decided to send me a new power supply. (There is no arguing with these people) Once I got the new power supply I had to call them back with the same problem. This time I made a comment that eventually we will rebuild this entire computer. They thought about it and decided to send a new (refurbished) one. My client went from a 500mhz to 1.5 ghz and many options he did not have before.

The other time I delt with the same company I told them we had a bad HD and they had me remove it. I pulled it out and informed them about broken pins on the hd. They told me some of them have missing pins. When the "idiot" came back from confirming his statement he told me that mine was not suppose to be missing pins, so he would send me a new system board. I said great can I get a hd too. He questioned it and made me do some troubleshooting before he would send me a ne HD. I guess he wanted to hide his screw up.

I think that they hire just anyone off the street to do this job. So how can they call anyone idiots?

This is pretty much straight from my notes. I managed to get through this call without laughing or having the customer ask me if I thought he was a moron. (but he knew)

Error : no dial tone

Not plugged in, explained that it needs to be plugged into the phone jack to use the internet. -- "Oh is that what this cable I have in my hand is for?" No kidding, that's almost exactly what he said.

Explained to customer that there's no phone jack in the monitor, but there is one in the computer.

Customer plugged it into the phone socket instead of the wall socket on the computer.

Plugged into the wall OK, but it wouldn't fit in the computer, turned plug so it would fit in to the socket.

Sent customer happily on his way.

Not a computer tale but one that we all may be able to relate to.

My auto mechanic called to tell me what was wrong with my A/C and also regale me with the story of an engine replacement job he was doing on another truck. This particular model requires that the transmission be removed prior to lifting the engine out of the compartment. A job that would normally be finished in a relative short time took 4 times as long. Anyhow the remanufactured engine is installed and testing begins....

Him: Hey want to hear something funny?

Me: Sure

Him: Well you know that other S-10 with the new engine? The oil pressure is fine at start up but once it reaches operating temp the pressure drops below specs.

Me: That's not funny.

Him: I'm going to have to drop the oil pan and take a look at the pick up and pump.

Me: That's not funny.

Him: You have to pull the engine to drop the pan down.

Me: Now THAT'S funny.

BTW if it's the pump it means that the rebuilder didn't bother testing.

Some random day, in computer store.

Client before me (cuuuute 20-ish girl) : her

Vendor : him

her : "Can I connect my PC to my TV so that I can watch movies?"

him : "Yes, if your graphics card has a TV-out..."

her : "Can you tell, do I have a graphics card?"

him : "..."

Me and my bro (14 at that time) had to storm out the store to burst out laughing.

I've been a tech for about 6 years (an old timer) and I have one question:

Why?

I want to know why our companies spend hours and hours and lots of money (on materials and personnel) developing manuals that idiot users never read.

In my job, I should (in theory) only be answering L2 or L3 cases, but I must spend about half of every day answering questions like "How do I get to the Admin GUI?" (Did you try actually reading the message that displayed when you started the software, telling you the exact URL?) and other truly intelligent questions.

My company has managed to write a very comprehensive administration manual, and I swear I get at least one question a week from someone who "claims" to have read the manual from cover to cover, and can't find a description for question X. I open up the file (a PDF), do a search, and within less than 3 seconds, I've found the reference the customer was unable to find.

I despair for the future of humanity sometimes, because these jerks are supposedly smart people, with high end salaries (I support a software that is used by network admins, webmasters, etc.), so you'd think they could figure out how to at least check the reference material before crying to tech support.

My other favorite gripe, along these lines, are the wimps who just installed the software, and are going through the motions, click on one of buttons, and a) the wrong thing happens, or b) nothing happens. Rather than check the reference material, or click on a help menu, or (heaven forbid) try clicking one of the other three buttons available, they submit a Priority 1 case (wakes me up in the middle of the night) to ask me why clicking the "Restart" button makes the software unavailable for 10 seconds (Gee, because it's restarting?).

I know one day I'm gonna crack, and just start yelling "RFTM!! RTFM!!".

For those interested:

http://www.ocabj.net/archives/kb/Q209354.asp

I'm still in tech support (for a software company) but years ago I used to work for an ISP. Now this was about 6 years ago, so users were even more naive about computers than they are now.

Myself and another co-worker loved to use Star Trek terms when talking to completely clueless computer virgins. They would call us up with the standard list of complaints, and if they were humble and realized they needed our help, we were nice to them.

But if they were arrogant or snotty, not realizing that even though they were doctor's or lawyers, THEY CALLED US, meaning they needed our help because they didn't have the requisite knowledge to fix their problem.

So after they gave you what they thought was a very complete description of the problem, you'd say something like "It sounds like they're may be a problem with the modem's EPS conduit linkup." and they'd reply "Is that serious. I just bought this modem...". Another choice one is "I think you'r e seeing an eye-dee-ten-tee error."

eye = I

dee = D

ten = 10

tee = T

ID10T

We'd occasionally throw in "chair-user interface errors" for the truly lost.

It was amazing how you could get them to think they're system was hosed by using some cool science fiction error!

I worked at campus tech support for three years before moving on to bigger and better things (namely my internship in a feild where I will never again have to do end-user support!).

A friend who also used to work at the Help Desk ran into me at one of the campus labs one evening. He complained that his student web account wasn't working properly and he should stop in at the office one of these days to have it looked at. Since my former employers never took away my access (for various reasons), I tried to reset his account.

It no longer exists. That *would* explain the problem, yes.

So he decides to call in to the Help Desk and have a little fun.

He says he's having trouble getting into his account. The guy on the other end (a really nice guy-- one who would appreciate this joke) goes through the normal troubleshooting, ie:

Tech: "what browser are you using"

Evil Friend: "Browser? What's a browser?"

For about 15 minutes.

Evil Friend finally decides enough is enough....

EF: "Um, does it matter that I'm on a Mac?"

T: "A Mac! Yes! That is different!" (different versions of IE and Netscape for macs and PCs, etc)

EF: "Yeah, also, my account doesn't exist any more."

T: "How do you know that?"

EF: "[yours truly] looked it up for me. It's [Evil Friend]. Just make a ticket to have my account re-created when you get a chance."

T:"[Evil Friend]! You bastard! Thanks for the laugh. I will get you."

Who says tech supporters have no sense of humor? (we do, it's just rarely used for anyone's benefit).

I'm a consultant, and I don't like working for lawyers. On the whole, they are rude, and slow to pay - not to mention I've had my share of them being just deadbeats. However they do make my job entertaining at times!

I did some work for one lawyer who had just opened his law office. He had informed me he was a computer expert, but he didn t have the time to set up a computer for himself (funny he never had a client while I was there and his secretary spent most of her time reading magazines). I had set up a computer and a printer for him, and got his secretary working on the computer. The following day he called me and said something was wrong with the computer. He claimed the computer wasn t configured correctly because he stuck a floppy disk from his home computer and the office computer told him there was a virus on the disk, and he knew his home computer didn t have a virus on it. I asked him what sort of anti-virus software did he use at home, and he said he didn t have any he thought it was a waste of money. So much for the computer expert!

A couple of weeks later, he called me to say his ink jet printer had run out of ink, and he had bought a new cartridge and after he put it in, it wouldn t work. He decided it was the print driver (expert opinion again I suppose). I asked him if he removed the blue tape off the cartridge before he inserted it (he had watched me put in the first cartridge, and I had warned him about that). Of course I did I m not stupid! he replied arrogantly. Then he went on to insist I drive to his office immediately because he had some important documents to print out and he knew it was the print driver that was messed up somehow.

Drive to his office (40 miles one way) and yes, Mr. Computer Expert had left the tape on the new cartridge. Well you re not going to charge me for this are you? Yeah right, I do this for fun!

Another lawyer liked to brag about how fast his 286 computer (this was a while ago) was because he had the foresight

to buy a math co-processor for it. He loved to boast about how much faster it was than anyone else s computer because of that. He had me upgrade his computer memory and I noticed the math coprocessor slot was empty. Either the company who sold it to him forgot to put it in there, or they saw him coming!

But my favorite story was back in the 80 s when 5.25 floppies were still the norm one layer who had spent big bucks on IBM PS/2 with the 3.5 floppy drive. Someone had given him a program, and it wouldn t work on his computer. Turns out they had given him the program on 5.25 floppy, and he had carefully trimmed the disks down to fit

About five years ago, I was working tech support for an ISP that is no longer in business. A (l)user calls in because she keeps getting a "No Dial Tone" error. She only has one phone line and she's talking to me on it, so I start out pretty sure the problem's not with the phone service. I have her trace the phone line from the wall and discover that she's plugged the modem into itself. No problem! I've had a few of these, so I explain that she's going to have to switch the phone cords after we hang up.

Me: Before you disconnect any phone lines, let me explain the whole process, because when you disconnect the line from the wall, the phone will hang up.

Her: No it won't. I have a cordless phone.

Me: (after a moment to let my brain stoop down to understand what she's thinking) Humor me. I'll explain the whole process, then you can switch the lines around and if you are still on the phone with me, you can laugh at me. If not, we'll be disconnected and you'll know how to finish.

Her: Ok.

Me: <I explained the process (in as foolproof a manner as I could think of) and made sure she understood how to do it.> Now go ahead.

Her: Ok. I'm unplugging the cord now.

Working for an international computer company, I normally take more than normal run of the mill ISP calls. This guy, I should have referred to AOL for some laughs though.

M = me

C = dumb customer

M- Thank you for calling ____ (regular introduction).

C- How do you know if someone has hacked into your computer?

M- You probably won't until it's too late. How can I help you today?

C- My computer is running slow, it's brand new, and last week I heard a knocking sound when I was online. Is that my computer trying to tell me someone is hacking me?

At this point I figured it was AOLs instant messenger greeting when a buddy signs on. So I decided to confirm it.

M- Sir, do you have AOL?

C- Yes.

M- Do you have instant messenger?

C- Yes.

M- When you heard the knock, did a buddy of yours show up on your buddy list?

C- Yes.

M- Sir, the knock you heard and probably will keep hearing are the people you put on your buddy list signing on to AOL. It has nothing to do with someone hacking your computer, computers don't tell you if there is an intruder unless you get software to do so.

C- So, is that why my computer is running slow also?

M- *press the mute button Laugh my *** off, and proceed to disable the ton of programs he had added to his system.

me: ok enter your email address in, thats user.name@ntlworld.com

him: Wheres the "dot" key?

me: its the full stop button

him: ahh the full stop button

*5 minutes pass*

him: wheres the full stop button?

you dont even want to know what happened with the @ key

Background, I live with my bf and I am also the only person in our household who knows about computers. So, I go home one night and the bf yells at me that my computer is making strange noises and I need to make it stop RIGHT NOW because it's startling him and making him make mistakes on the project he's working on. So I check out my computer and the speakers are turned off..hmmm..... Later that night I go ahead and turn off my computer and leave it off while I'm at work.

I get back home from work and he starts yelling about my computer again. Now this time, there is no way my computer is making noises, I explained that it was impossible for my computer to make noises while shutdown completely. So I tell him to yell for me upstairs (our two pc network is downstairs) if he hears it again. Sure enough I hear this yell again a few minutes later. This time I think to go look at *his* computer which is in another room downstairs. I move the mouse to clear the screen saver and saw his Yahoo! Instant Messenger icon blinking merrily away on his computer. Apparently someone had been trying to send him a message through the program for two days and the sound he was hearing was the little notification of message sound he had setup himself on his computer. So I solved his "strange noise" problem by de-activating any and all warning/notification sounds on his computer.

i used to help out at a college with tech support to get credit on our course, unfortunatly the college decided that the insurance was going to cost too much incase they got sued on any "bad decisions" so we got told we would have to stop providing tech support after the end of the month due to the current insurance running out.

of course we decided to live the last few days to the full and to H*ll with the users, after all the users are the same teachers who are refusing to continue paying the insurance.

so one day we got this call. (note we did all support over msn)

(m)=me

(db)= teacher

m: hi this is the class ** tech support

db: hi ive tried to connect to the internet and got a error message

m: right what does the message say

db: unable to connect there could be several reasons

1) you do not have an isp

2) the internet is broken

3) you are trying to go to a site

db: so if the internet is broken why arnt you fixing it.

(at this point im thinking "what the hell?"

m: what version of windows is this?

db: i dont know i left my computer for 2 minuites and someone must have up graded it

(now im really suspicious it takes more than 2 min to change system on our computers)

m: well if you got to the start menu it says it down the left side

db: ok its (finally a user who knows where the start menu is) Windows RG

(ok now ive caught on as they left the room one of the students started the joke up in full screen)

m: (not caring) right well ill send someone down to fix it, could you just tell me do you have any important files saved on the computer

db: yes ive got the class schedule for the next term in my documents

m: (cant beleave my luck) well can you check its still there please.

db: ITS GONE, where did it go.

m: well when we upgrade computers we tend to format the hard drive first to lose any unneeded files

db: Buts its the schedules for the next terms work.

M: but you should be ab

le to use your backup of the file shouldnt you, you do have your own backups dont you, after all everyones been making there own backups since the network backup went down (a total lie as it was humming away in the next room)

db: what do you mean the network backups down, no-one told me.

M: sorry but we did sent a message out to all concerned.

db: but what do i do about the schedule it took hours to type up.

m: well go into word now and lets see if you can type it up again now.

db: it wont let me type anything except MILK SPONGE and then says its preformed an illegal operation.

m: well try shutting down the system and starting it up again

db: ok its giving me alot of errors though

m: dont worry about them just keep clicking yes or ok

db: ok its down What the?

M: youve been had thank you for messaging the people you are shutting down.

**User M signed off

(we've all seen it at http://www.deanliou.com/WinRG/ i just never thought id see someone conned by it)

Matthew hill