Funny and Humorous Technical Support Tales and Stories

My mouse wasn't working, So I picked up the mouse to find out that someone had put tape on the underside keeping the ball from rolling. Some guy was doing it and we both laughed. Mind you, this took approx 15-30 seconds for me to figure out.

So, I did the same thing on the computer sitting next to me. They should get a kick out of it...

I came in the next day and the boss said that some ass put tape on my mouse. I told him it was me and started to laugh. He looked at me all pissed off and said it cost him hours of work.

He told me how he rebooted the computer numerous times, downloaded the latest drivers, Anti-Virus software, etc, etc, then finally after several hours of lost work he finally found the problem.

Acme Claims: Acme Claims, how can I help you?

Health Care Provider: I am having trouble processing electronic claims. I am doing everything it says to do in the instructions.

Acme Claims: Have you called before?

Health Care Provider: No. This is my first time.

Acme Claims: Can you tell me what kind of computer you are using.

Health Care Provider: Yes, it's electronic.

Acme Claims: Thanks, but what brand is it?

Health Care Provider: Brother.

Acme Claims: Hmm. Can you tell me the model number?

Health Care Provider: No, I don't see it.

Acme Claims: Are there any labels somewhere?

Health Care Provider: Yes, here it is, It's an Electronic Brother Typewriter.

The company I work for at the moment (as a freelance programmer) sometimes updates their virusscanning tool during lunchtime. This way not many people will be bothered by it. A coworker found it very annoying, as he never goes out to lunch and he was. He complained to us that he prefers it if the tool will be updated when starting up your computer. I replied by saying that some people not always shut off their PC and so it was possible that your antivirus software was running behind a couple of days. He totally disagreed and said it is much safer if you do it at startup (I believe the tool also updates itself during startup, but sometimes the update is started automatically).

It was just a matter of discussion, no big deal, except... this person never ever shuts off his PC, I think not even during weekends. Het just hits CTRL-ALT-DEL and chooses Lock workstation. So his computer won't ever be updated if it only updates during startup.

A coworker and myself made some changes in an application and we were testing them, and most of it looked fine. As we were going towards the weekend, we decided to do some power testing on monday.

Now we don't work on fridays, but some of our coworkers do.

Returning on monday we continued our tests, and the program dumped in an entirely different place as where we made the changes. So we retrieved our first and simple testdata (from the week before) and started the program. Again it dumped. Wondering what was happening we asked if other people made some changes as well. Nobody did. So we had to read the logging and find the error ourselves. As this total application was pretty big, and we both were working there for only a few weeks, we didn't know all the code. Luckily we saved the testlog from the previous week, so we could compare the code that went wrong. To our surprise a whole bunch of code was removed from the program (not physically, but there were * in front, meaning it was a comment. So we asked who did that. One of the coworkers stood up, saying: Ooooh, that program. I looked at the code and found it not so good, it could be coded differently so it would work faster so I edited it.

This would be fine if he replaced the code, but he just deleted the lines he did not like, thinking the program would know what to do...

A long time ago, my brother burned a CD with backup-stuff.

One day he needed something from it. After that the mothercard went in smoke and all the computers in the network suddently shut off automaticly.

This happend on April 26, his birthday, wich is the same day as a japanese holiday. Turned out that my brother saved a virus on his backup-CD that triggered on his own birthday!

Poor brother, he had to buy an entirely new mothercard and throw away the backup, while the rest of the computers in the network only needed to be shipped for repairment, since the virus mest up the BIOS.

Some birthday, huh?

Luckily I am not a Tech Supporter, I work as a free lance programmer and can still remember when I got my first PC. Actually it was my dads but as he couldn't work with it, it was placed in my room. A Wang PC, EGA card with 16 colors, 20 Mb harddisk and a 5.25 drive. This was back in 1990.

On the second day I was just working on it, creating some directories, some files and deleting them. I wanted to get rid of a whole directory so I had to delete all the files in so I entered : del *.*

Alas, I was not in that directory and couldn't tell because my prompt was only saying on which disk I was working. So all my files in the root were deleted. Luckily I had pctools on floppy so I was able to undelete all those files but it took me quite some time.

Just shortly after that I made sure my autoexec made my prompt like $P$G to show the path I was working in, not only the drive.

Luckily I am not a Tech Supporter, I work as a free lance programmer. I'm quite handy when it comes to plumbing, carpenting or even lumberjacking, but I was always a bit afraid to touch the insides of my computer.

Well, in saving some bucks and after been assured by the techs at the store I thought I could install a cd burner myself.

Read the installation manual.

Switch everything off and unhook it.

Unscrew the case.

Plug in the burner.

Hook everything up.

Start the machine.

Sounds simple, fun is only starting right now --> no video.

So the first thing someone does when it's not working, complain to someone nearby, in this case my girlfriend who bought me the burner for my birthday. She suggest I take out the videocard and plug it back in. Nooooo, I never touched that so why bother.

Just checking every other thing inside the case and start it up again. Still no video. Gone into the livingroom to complain some more until my girlfriend is fed up with me. So I go back to my room and check everything again, start it up and still no video.

Finally I take out the videocard and plug it back in. Start it up and .... yes, video. Software installation went smoothly.

Gone into livingroom and said to my girlfriend I worked it out. Fine, she said, what was it.

Well, I just had to take out the (mumble mumble mumble).

At the beginning of this year I made the switch from ISDN to ADSL (should have done it earlier). The supplied cable was only 2 metres long and I needed one of 10 metres. Well, my ISDN cable stated cat5 and so did the cable supplied with the ADSL-box. So I figured I could use that one instead. This was very convenient because this was already in place, travelling from the living room thru the ceiling to my comproom.

Hooked everything up and then started to install the software. It couldn't detect the ADSL-box. Not knowing what to do next I called the helpdesk. I explained what I did and even said that I used the ISDN cable because it was in place already. The woman at the helpdesk couldn't help me out (women and computers....)

So I called the local store where I purchased my computer. I could tell the woman at the phone sure had a big grin on her face when she told me I need another cable (what did I say about women and computers....).

Went to the store to buy a new cable and everything worked fine.

But wait, the fun is not over yet.

I bought a new computer and linked them together with a spare ethernetcard I had lying around. Now linking win98 and XP can be a problem if win98 runs with a firewall. So they couldn't see each other. Called the same store and they told me to quit the firewall for now so the comps could see eachother. Works great.

The advised me to buy a switch box so I could hook all my computers (win98, XP and a laptop with XP) onto the box and surf the web on all three at the same time. I even bought an extra long cable to work on my laptop in other rooms (it had a built in ethernet so why spend some money on a wireless card).

Hook everything up, first problem, the comps couldn't see each other. Drove by the store so told them the problem and they reminded me of the firewall (Duuuuh).

Second problem, my laptop won't work. After cursing a lot, my girlfriend asks why my new extra long cable is lying on top of a closet. Stupid me, I put it

next to my unused ISDN cable and when connecting my laptop I accidentally took the wrong cable.

It's been awhile since I posted a tech tale here. After a few years of being on the help desk and help desk manager, the management decided I'd make a better programmer and booted me to another department where the phone rings maybe once a day. Yet, once a tech, always a tech, because even if clients are no longer calling you, friends and family will!

My wife, a Ph.D student, called me at work in a panic that her PC at home suddenly died. She swore that all she was doing was typing on Word and not doing anything usual. Me being a veteran tech, knew better than believe that.

But of course, in accordance with Murphy's law, this is on the afternoon when the paper she is writing is due for a class. So after much crying, pleading, and begging, she talks me into taking an early lunch, driving home, and taking a look.

Sure enough, when I arrive the computer on and humming. The monitor on and humming - but the screen is dark. Looking in the back to make sure the monitor cable was connected, I saw that it was, yet it was ajar. I opened the tower and found that the video card had been yanked out of the motherboard slot.

Now I had the proof. I knew someone did something. I asked my wife if she moved the tower in any way. It sits on the floor under the desk, so I thought she might have somehow kicked it. She adamantly insisted that she did nothing of the kind. I pointed out that hardware doesn't just jump out of their slots. At the very least, *something* had to hit the tower pretty hard in order for it to.....

Halfway through that sentence, I stopped. My voice trailed off and my eyes narrowed on another suspect in the room. He was sitting calmy by the window, watching the drama with detached interest.

"Was Morris running around the desk when this happened?" I asked suspiciously.

Sure enough, Morris the cat had indeed been darting around the room, playing with a toy mouse. He had run under the desk and tripped over the monitor cord. The force had yanked the card

out of the slot.

The tower was fixed and moved to a more cat-proof location. My wife got her paper done (having saved it right before it came unplugged), and I went back to work with a new "No s***t, there I was..." story for my pals in the Tech. Support group.

Email Snippet:

" Please arrange for new pc (already configerated) to be installed in room 02 "

We had planned an e-mail upgrade during the holiday period. Our e-mail system was offline for the better part of the day (as planned) in order to accomodate the upgrade. This e-mail was received after the upgrade had been completed. It was sent at about 11am - that is to say, half way through the upgrade, by one of my own technicians

"Mark,

I seem to be having difficulty accessing the e-mail system. Is there a problem?

Cheers,

Greg"

Well - DUH!

also during a planned outage:

Receptionist: Is there a problem with the e-mail system?

Me: Er - yes, why?

Receptionist: I can't send e-mail to anybody

Me: We're upgrading the e-mail system today, did you not get the warning I sent last week?

Receptionist: No - I don't read e-mails from you

Me: Well that's hardly my problem - I sent 4 of them!

Receptionist: Oh - But I can't read them

Me: Er why?

Receptionist: Because the e-mail system's down

Me: ...

I mean, really!

Okay, this is really short

I work for a small town ISP and our customers tend to be on the backwater side. Well, one day this guy calls up quite upset that his internet wouldn't connect. Not a hard problem, but while he's babbling about how he can't connect to sites he exclaims "I can't even get to ebonybooty.com!!!"(XXX site, dun go there :P) Now, usually men are quite descreet when telling me anything of the sort because me being female often gets them very embarassed. I had to fight to not laugh but you can bet that immediately when I was off the phone we all had to go there!

Just a minor rant.

Yes, I'm female and I work in internet tech support. It's a small local ISP and we only have three girls in this department. My greeting is the usual 'thank you for callng blahblah tech support, how can I help you today?' and more often than should be I get asked if they can speak to a technition. Usually I let this go once with them and say "Yes, You're speaking to one, how may I help you?" but occassionally they will insist on speaking to a guy. Flat out. They tend to be put on penalty hold after that. fooey..

The time is many years ago before transistors and computers,

but there were "vacuum tubes" and Klystron tubes and

cathode ray tubes, discrete circuits etc. Our new tech

George, showed up in the lab ready to be a go-fer for the

design guys. "Hey George!, would you look around and get us

a Falopian Tube?" George dutifully walked to every other

department requesting the item. Needless to say there were

many guys that had never heard of one, as guys were dumber

then, but a few of them, after George left, rolled on the

floor with tears oflaughter. Poor George was never told.

(there werent many gals in tech those days)

I've been reading a while now, and trust me folx, the Lusers you've described are rank amateurs.

"CD Tray = Cup holder"? - Spare me....

"I don't want something SKUZZY in my computer!" - puh-LEASE!

Circa 1996, I'm handling Inbound Sales for Borland Software (Yeah! Borland! C++, dBASE, TurboPascal, Paradox.. you know the group). Anyway.. it's about 10pm Eastern (USA) time when this call comes in something like this:

M) Thank you for calling (Wha-wha-wha)... How can I help you?

L) uh, yeah. I'm calling to let you know one of your cars is on fire.

M) (BLINK!) I'm sorry, "one of our cars is on fire"?

L) Yeah.. here at the rail-road yard. This was the number to call in case of emergency like it says on the fence.

M) (Railroad...?!) Sir, this is "Borland Software". We don't have anything to do with rail roads in any way.

L) (Pause) Oh... Well... Who do you suppose I should call then?

M) (Deadpan) Sir, I would suggest 9-1-1.

Trust me - if we went out and hit people with a clue-by-four, a jury of our peers would grant us a Medal of Honour!

So I'm asked to write an article for the student newspaper ("Christ's Pieces", Cambridge uni, Michaelmas term 2003). Being quite a techy person I decide to write an article on computer security. The day before the paper goes on sale, I find a text file on my desktop that I'm sure I never put there. This file says "Hi man, sorry to put this on your computer but you might want to unshare your C drive".

I just dread to think what would have happened if I hadn't been warned of my idiocy *before* a large number of crackers and script kiddies became aware of my existence...

I got a great call a while ago from a woman using an AST Bravo with a 33MHz processor! I thought that was bad enough until she told me about her error message on bootup:

"Keyboard not found, press F1 to continue"

You've got to laugh... (Almost as bad as the 'any' key!)

Ever have one of those days where you know something is going to happen but you don't know when? I had that feeling one day. I work at a major Canadian ISP doing technical support.

One afternoon, right before my break, I get a call from a gentleman who was quite angry. He started by telling me that he scheduled the day off work a week ago for the date that we told him that his DSL would become active. I found that a bit odd, it's only the internet after all. He then proceeded to tell me that without a shadow of a doubt he should be able to get online right now or he was going to cancel his account.

I checked our systems and it said that it would become active today, but usually it can be anytime of that day, up to midnight. I told him this and he started yelling. I listened to him, even though I had the urge to ignore him and I'm VERY glad I did, unluckily for me, I had a man listening to my call for training. While the man was yelling he proceeded to tell me that the day he was quoted as it working "For sure" was tomorrow's date. The trainee was laughing at this point but I managed to keep my composure, I informed him that the date he just told me was tomorrow's date. He then called me a liar and I thought the trainee was going to wet himself laughing. I then had him mouse over the clock and leave it there. He immediately cursed loudly and slammed the phone down. I did my closing into dead air and then proceeded to say "and I think you're late for work sir.". The trainee and I laughed for 10 minutes, to this day we're good friends who don't support today's date.

I have a brief article on testing email setup on a UNIX box that I send out to customers as needed. It begins as follows:

To check that email is working correctly, send yourself an email from the command line as follows:

support:/s> mailx -v SAMPLE@domain.com

Simple instructions, right? After twice explaining to customers the meaning of "send yourself an email", I edited the article to say:

"send yourself an email from the command line as follows, inserting your email address in place of SAMPLE@domain.com"

Ok a little back ground.

I'm a level 2 tech for this software company that deals with "educational" programs. Our program is network based and will run from a MAC "server" or windows server.

I took a call the other day from a customer after they spoke with one of the better level 1 reps.

First thing out of the customers was a 30 min rant about how much our program blows.

After taking this abuse with a grain of salt. I started asking simple question which was not hard for the customer to answer due to their being a "NETWORK TECHNICIAN". First we made sure that all of the updated were installed correctly and the workstations were updated as well. All of that checked out fine. So at this point I'm really confused every thing seemed to be correct. Then I started asking about the "server". The customer informed me that she is running Mac Os 9.0.4 as the server. I asked if there was Apple Share IP installed (if you don't know that is the software that makes any Mac a server) but of course she did not. Once I heard that I was beyond upset. I proceeded to explain to this "NETWORK TECH" that the software has to have a server to run correctly. She then changed her story and told me that it was work on 5 computer but if she tries to connect any more she gets errors. So I continued to explain peer-to-peer networking and how you can only have 5 concurrent connections at once.

Now I can forgive a lot but when a "NETWORK TECH" doesn't know that Peer-to-peer network can not handle the same number of connections as a sever I have just one question.

Where do I turn in my resume, cuz your about to be out of a job.

Me: "What error message does it give you when it doesn't work?"

Him: "Yes, I did restart my computer."

Back in the late 80's, I was a mainframe programmer for a hospital. I took a lot of pride in my work, and made it a regular part of my routine to walk thru the employee areas of the hospital to make sure my efforts were satisfying their needs. Well, actually the nurses were cute, and would often give you lots of attention if you could make their job easier!

Now to enjoy this story, you have to understand (remember) the technology in place 15 or 20 years ago. Most enterprise printers were still fanfold/fanfeed. Paper would come in boxes (equal to about 6 reams) of paper that were all connected via top and bottom with perforations, and the sides of the paper had the tractor guides which could be removed via perforations. So if you had a 10 page report, it would come out as 1 long paper that had to be separated via perforations into 10 separate pages, and the tractor feed guides removed.

So one day I see the nurses cutting a big report with scissors, and then doing lots of taping. Well, this gets my curiosity up, so I go over to see what they are doing. As it turns out, the printer had gotten misaligned, and was printing TOF (top of form) in the middle of a page, spanning the perforation with print, and printing BOF in the middle of the next page. So they would tape the perforation to keep it from separating, then they'd cut all the sheets in the middle. I walked over there, adjusted the printer for correct TOF, and they all hailed me as some kind of genius. They had been cutting and taping for months, and didn't think it could be fixed, so they never bothered to report the problem.

Years ago I was given 8 different, (urgent) tasks to do by another project team. It would have taken me about a month to do them all, so in an effort to keep the customer happy I asked my manager to go back to them to prioritise them, so that I would be able to do them in an order that would meet their needs, and not give them the most urgent things last.

Fairly simple request really, or so I thought.

I got back to my desk after lunch to find that 6 of the 8 tasks were labelled as #1 priority.

When I took this back to my boss AGAIN he said he couldn't go back to them again, because "it would look like we don't know how to organise our own work" (his exact words) and that I should give them equal priority.

So like a good, obedient employee I did all 6 tasks simultaneously, and it was 3 weeks before they saw ANYTHING instead of getting one or two completed each week.

Result - One Cheesed off customer who didn't have a leg to stand on.

One morning last week we arrived at work to find our email was down. We're a software company with a fairly complicated network, and we're in the process of major changes, so hiccups aren't unusual. When the email came back up a few hours later, one of the first ones I received was sent to *all* from a coworker who's been in three different technical positions since I've been here... so you'd think he maybe has a little common sense as well as basic computer knowledge. The email's content? Email is down and internal IT has been notified.

I work for an ISP supporting DSL installations. Customers get a self-install kit with all of the equipment, software, and instructions. Here is a call I got one day.

Cust: I'm looking at the installation instructions, and it says 'To get started, insert the CD-Rom into the CD drive of your computer.' What do I do?

Me: Insert the CD-Rom into the CD drive of your computer. (DUH!!!)

How do people this stupid survive day-to-day?

I am from Denmark, and therefore my english is not 100% correct.

My mother's sister bought a computer some time ago.

I installed Windows 95 on it, and every was okay.

Then someday she calls me sounding rather panical.

She tells me that the computer is asking for a password on startup. I couldn't quite understand, because the computer wasn't installed with any password.

I then told her to read exactly what it prompted. She replied "No boot disk detected. Insert a bootable disk and press any key". She misread the last part a the computer wanting a password. I told her to take the floppy disc out of the floppy drive and press enter on the keyboard ( I said enter, because I was afraid to say any key ;) )

Of course It then booted correctly...

Many years ago, I worked in tech support for a software company. I got the job because of my college degree in programming rather than technical knowledge (e.g., none), and the company was supposed to train me, but didn't do a good job of it. Their trainers didn't know what they were doing! As a result, I stumbled through months of not providing very good tech support. I finally ended up training myself. I still have nightmares about it to this day.

As much as I want to forget the fact that I once worked in tech support, it seems nobody else has. Recently, my best female friend contacted me the Former Techie about her husband's computer problem. He was frustrated and upset, swearing up and down (good thing I wasn't offended!). His major problem was that he couldn't get the computer to boot up into Windows XP (not even into Safe Mode), because he'd run a Microsoft patch, which had messed up his entire system. His friend had done the same thing on his own computer, and this friend had thrown out the computer, because it was "no good" anymore.

Other than helping friends, I haven't been doing much work in tech support recently (I'm doing more Web dev and graphics), and my knowledge of current systems is rudimentary at best (I have a kludged-together Pentium III which runs Windows 98). There were only two suggestions I had...try the rescue disk that came with the system, or reinstall Windows XP - one of those was sure to resolve the problem! I assured my friend's husband that his computer was not at all permanently destroyed. My best male friend, the techie who set up my kludged-together system, subsequently arrived at the house and confirmed both my diagnosis and suggestions.

With this added assurance from Superstar Techie, my friend's husband got off the phone with me, even MORE upset and enraged. The reason? He wanted to have an excuse to buy a NEW computer. Understandably, he was so upset that he didn't want to mess around with this thing, even though he'd recently sunk s

everal hundred into upgrading it.

I called a day or two later. The rescue disk had worked, and he was now semi-happily surfing away - with one exception - he couldn't find where his program was saving his newly downloaded files. More cursing, more frustration for him, and I finally calmed him down enough to run a search for a specific file, whereupon he found a direct match. Then I talked him through creating a shortcut on his desktop to the proper folder. But I was particularly pleased when he told me that my previous tech help had saved him quite a bit of credit card debt, because he'd just paid down his cards and was about to charge another computer to them when he'd thought this one was a goner! I was so happy to hear I'd saved him from wasting his money, I definitely didn't mind having been called into tech support service again.

User: "I need a new computer."

Me: "What's wrong with the one you have?"

User: "I'm getting a lot of SPAM on that one."

I truly thought said (l)user was joking. I even got a little depressed when I realized he was serious.

Now normally, I am more than happy to help people and have done so with many thanks. Every so often I receive that caller that from their tone of voice, you can tell that they believe they are more intelligent and do not have the time of day to deal with you and try... in essence, the executive control freak type. Please bear that in mind when reading this.

HelpDesk: Help Desk, how can I help you?

Caller: Yes, what time is the lab open until?

HelpDesk: Um, what lab are you referring to?

Caller: The campus computer lab ______

HelpDesk: Well, this is the Help Desk, we don't know the hours of individual labs. Have you tried calling that lab?

Caller: Yes I have, but surely you have to know when the lab hours are. Students would demand to have the right to know when a lab is open so they don't come down for nothing

HelpDesk: Well, I don't work there and there are dozens of labs on campus including that one, which is why they all have their own numbers to contact them.

Caller: So you don't know?

HelpDesk: Unfortunately not, have you tried calling the switchboard? They might know.

Caller: *frustration in voice* Forget it, can you tell me how to setup my internet connection?

HelpDesk: Sure, have you claimed an account before?

Caller: What's an account?

HelpDesk: Your account is what you use to access your e-mail, the net, all the campus labs etc.

Caller: Oh yes, I have that.

HelpDesk: Okay, then what you would need to do is download the dial-up software we provide at...

Caller: Okay, now what do I do with that?

HelpDesk: You would run the program, and enter the information as it asks you and you should be up and running.

Caller: Interrupts - Do I have to do that everytime?

Helpdesk: No just once it will create a connection to the internet on your desktop.

Caller: Now how do I set that up?

HelpDesk: ... that is how you set that up.

Caller: No, I mean with my computer.

HelpDesk: You mean how you physically hook the connection up?

Caller: Yes

HelpDesk: Oh, okay.

HelpDesk: If you could look behind your computer and tell me if you see two phone jacks one called line ther other phone or icons that look like a phone and something else.

Caller: I don't follow.

HelpDesk: It will say line where you will need to plug the line in.

Caller: Okay.

HelpDesk: If you have that, then make sure you plug the line into where it says line and then into the phone jack into the wall. Make sure you have a direct connection with nothing impeding that such as a fax machine.

Caller: What line?

HelpDesk: The phone line.

Caller: What do you mean by impeding the line?

HelpDesk: Make sure you have the line running directly to the computer to the wall with nothing in between such as hooking up a fax to it.

Caller: *Patronizing tone* What do you mean by line?

HelpDesk: The phone line that you will plug into the modem where it says line and connect the other end to the phone jack in the wall.

Caller: I still don't know what you mean by the word line, are you saying I have to call the phone company and get a new whole line.

HelpDesk: Not at all, I'm saying you need to have a line plugged into where it says line on your modem to the phone jack in the wall.

Caller: You mean a physical piece of wire? Like a phone cord.

HelpDesk: Not quite... a phone cord isn't one wire it actually has several wires... and that's not what you need.

*Time to explain the background here... now, we have been instructed to call it a line, because that's what it is... a phone cord we call what hooks the speaker/receiver to the cradle. The line is always what hooks up from the phone to the wall. A phone line is straight and a phone cord is spiraled. I didn't want to get into RJ connection types and such, this caller was just

looking for a fight and for me to end up agree with her...

Caller: Well then it's not a line at all is it, it's really a phone cord.

HelpDesk: ... sure.

Caller: Well isn't it?

HelpDesk: Whatever you want to call it is fine by me.

Caller: I thought I had to call the phone company to get a whole new line installed, that's what I call a line. You know what you dial to reach someone.

HelpDesk: You mean a phone number?

Caller: No, that's their line.

HelpDesk: Well, whatever you call it make sure it's plugged into where it says line and goes to the phone jack.

*I didn't want to explain that her house is wired with phone lines which ultimately lead to more lines outside her house going right back to the phone company*

Caller: Why are you calling it a line?

HelpDesk: Because it is a phone line. You're connecting the phone line to where it says line. The phone cord is what connects your phone to the speaker and receiver with the phone cradle.

Caller: That's not a phone cord.

HelpDesk: Like I said, whatever you want to call it is fine by me.

Caller: Fine, thanks.

You can call it a cord, you can call it a line... but if you're looking for help... don't expect to get any if you're hung up on nomenclature with a technician who makes it his job to know what the difference is when it comes to connections. Would you tell a doctor that he operates on you with a knife? Then argue with him because he calls it a scalpel? I don't think so... keep that in mind the next time you call a technician.

When my part of the world finally advanced out of the dark ages in 2002, the cable company finally made one way cable available (as compared to the more conventional two way).

When inquiring on the phone about the new service I asked him, "Why only one way cable?"

"Because its faster."

I suppose the dumfounded silence on my end of the phone at this response impressed upon him that I wasn't an AOL user and he went on to explain how they needed to upgrade the lines before offering 2 way cable.

U: "It's asking for a floppy disk but I don't have one."

Me: "Yes that disk contains the rights files needed for an installation."

U: "Well I'm trying to install the but It says I don't have a floppy disk in the machine."

Me: [with a slight sarcastic tone] "So you don't have a floppy disk, correct?

U: "No I don't have a floppy disk."

No the penny didn't drop then so I told him to shine the hoof of the donkey and take the next elephant to planet la la.

Aarooga.

I was doing a service job tonight for some regular customers. I tend to have a chat to my customers to pass the time while I am doing my work. It usually is to do with IT related things. Anyway, tonight we were discussing broadband. In particular I was talking about ADSL - the main type in Australia. While explaining how it all worked, my customer pipes up and says:

Me: "So basically, its a digital service in which the voice data is carried along a low frequency, while the internet data is carried along a large high frequency" (Simplified)

Customer: "Oh right. You know, the germans figured out how to carry data along phone lines in the 1940's"

Uh... Hmmm... OK, well believe what you like, I'll just do my job.

This goes back to the days of dos 2.0 ( and yes I am That Damn old)

I was working for Egghead University teaching and consulting on various DOS programs and one day got a call form someone who had taken a class in WordPerfect . The caller was having problems installing Wp on his machine and he was hot. Since we both trained and sold software. we asked him what the problem was . (Word perfect was a program that you copied all 5 floppys(the old 5 1/2 inch ones)disk onto the hard drive once disk at a time.) he stated that he had followed the directions and tried to get the disk to copy but his floppy drive must be bad as he could only get 4 of the required 5 disk in to the drive at once and the 5th one kept bending. we all got a better laugh out of that the the people looking for the any key.

I used to do software support for Fortune 500 Companies. One of these so called companies used MS Office, but they were not allowed to use Access. I guess the great techs at these companies didn't know about it so decided no one else should either.

Anyway, the poor (l)users at this company would call us up with Excel questions on a regular basis.

M: me

L: (l)user

M: Thank you for calling Software Support.

L: I have a question about Excel.

M: Ok. How can I help you?

L: Well, I want know how to link sheets from different workbooks.

(At this point I'm thinking I had a rather useful (l)user on the phone. My mistake.)

I give the explaination how to link sheets.

L: Should I mention that each workbook has 20 worksheets a piece and that I want to pull info from different cells from different sheets and have it go to different places?

At this point the only thought I had was "You wanna do WHAT?!?!?"

I told him we did not support advanced formula construction and to call MS.

I hope those guys had fun. :)

I worked at a mom and pop type computer store for several years. We had one customer who was insane.

She called one day to ask how to spell a word. I tried to explain the spellchecker to her, but after a few seconds I realized I was wasting my breath. I told her how to spell the word hoping to end the call. But no, she said she didn't think I was spelling the word correctly, and asked to speak with someone else.

At this point I informed the user that we were not a dictionary service, and while we'd be happy to help with computer problems, we could not help with spelling problems. Then I hung up.

30 seconds later, she called back to tell me that I have "problems dealing with women" and should take that up with mom or my sister, not her. Also, she said I had refused to fix any computer problems she had and that was not what she was paying for. She offered to play back the recording she had made of our previous conversation as proof.

I worked at a mom and pop type computer store for several years. We had one customer who was insane. Same store, same customer as before.

She called one of my co-workers to complain that her monitor was dead. After several minutes of troubleshooting, checking power cables etc... the tech asked her if there was a large button on the front of the PC? If so, Press it!. Yes, the computer was off. How she managed to use a PC every day, and just forget to turn it on, while remembering to turn on the monitor, I have no idea.

Apparently though, she was not satisfied with the level of customer support she had just received. She informed my co-worker he had "issues with old people" and should seek professional help.

I worked at a mom and pop type computer store for several years. We had one customer who was insane. Same store, same customer as before.

When this person first took home their PC, they called looking for help setting it up. Ok, walked her thru plugging things in and turning it on.

It booted to Windows 9x desktop, and she then asked "Now what?" Yes, she had purchased a computer and wanted to know what to do with it. We asked why had purchased a PC in the first place. Ironically, instead of being a smart-alec answer, this helped her remember what she was trying to do and off she went.

----

Now, this same user used 1 program, MS word. That's all she did. We came to recognize her voice. One day I picked up the phone to hear:

me: Service, how can I help you?

her: There's a big black bar.

Now, I knew who she was, and I knew she was in Word. My guess was she had managed to move a toolbar around into the center of the screen. A few minutes of the typical tech-to-idiot conversation didn't get us anywhere. Suddenly she said "oh, it's all fixed".

What is the "big black bar?" The world will never know.

Well, I use to do tech support for MS. Generally the calls were 'do this, to that' and problem fixed. However, one day..

Me = duh?

Cust = another duh?

Me: Thank you for blah blah blah blah..

Cust: Yes, I can't connect to the internet.

Me: Any error messages?

Cust: Yes. (typical no dial tone messages - yadda yadda)

Me: Ok, let's try the following :

(Took customer through the typical troubleshooting, as well as the more advanced trouble shooting steps, to no avail aside from discovering it was a hardware problem with the "new" modem)

Me: Looks like the problem is hardware. Did you install the modem yourself, or is this an OEM machine?

Cust: (surprisingly he knew what OEM was) I installed the modem myself. This is an older machine.

Me: Ok, what I suggest you do then, is take the modem back to the shop, and have it replaced.

Cust: Ok, I removed the modem. I should take it back to the store?

Me: (noticing that there wasn't nearly enough time for this archaic machine to have shut down) Umm, did you shut down the machine before you removed the modem?

Cust: ....Was I suppose to?

I'm sure you can guess that the mute button found itself being quite useful, that day, as I kept thinking about this call, and how one could be so ignorant as to do such a thing. I remember the customer describing to me the stench of burning electronics, before mentioning that he had heard the sound of crackling electricity as he pulled it out. I had the customer shut down the machine and informed him that he may have caused even more problems with the machine.

If nothing else, this call kept me humored for the remainder of the day.. :D

Funny stuff, eh? ;)

I do tech support for HP Pavilion computers. I had a customer call in that needed some resources freed up on their PC, so I started to take them through the msconfig startup items.

I told the customer to click on their start menu, then click on run, and type in "m" as in mary, "s" as in sam, and then "config" all one word. Then click ok.

He clicked ok, and said nothing happened.

So I asked him to read back to me what he had typed.

He said, "Ok, it says 'marysamconfig, all one word'"

This past two months, I've been leading a team of helpdesk people providing support to techs making retrospective upgrades to just over 1000 BillExpress sites. One of the many unpleasant procedures to lead a tech through when things go wrong can a factory reset and reconfiguration of a site's router.

Two weeks ago, I had one of my team members come to me asking me to have a word to the company supplying the on-site techs. He had been asked to plug in a keyboard and mouse to start reconfiguring a router and when asked by my helpdesk operator to click on Internet Explorer, he said "I can't see where that is". When asked what was on the screen, he replied "Oh, I don't have a screen plugged in. You didn't tell me you wanted a screen as well."

Unsurprisingly, this tech was pulled off the project pretty quickly.

This is genuine... you can't make stuff like this up.

I used to work as a field service engineer for a large company and, one day, i found myself in the office sitting with the tech guys who do 1st and 2nd line support for the engineers on site.

There was an old boy called Dave who really only got a job as an engineer cos his son was quite high up in management - he had no experience in the field. As is usually the way, he was thrown out with only a week or so's training, so it's not suprising he screwed things up quite spectacularly, quite regularly.

Anyway, he phoned 1st line and detailed his problem...

Dave: I'm trying to swap out a monitor and the data cable on the spare is too short

Support: What do you mean it's too short?

Dave: Well, the data cable goes down the back of the cupboard to the base on the floor, and this one doesn't reach.

Support: It's the same model monitor?

Dave: Yep

Support: But this one's data cable is shorter?!

Dave: Yep

Support: Well, i thought all data cables were roughly the same length... so how long is the one on the spare?

Dave: About a foot

Support: Eh?! A monitor with a foot long data cable? That's not possible. Are you sure it's the same part you're swapping?

Dave: Yes it is, i'm looking at it!

[Then follows a brief exchange of part numbers and descriptions]

Support: Sorry Dave, but it doesn't make sense. Why put such a short data cable on a monitor?! There's no way it can be only a foot long.

Dave: Look, i'm f*cking looking at the f*cking thing and it's only a ¨f*cking foot long!

Support: Fair enough Dave... it must be a wrong part in box.. send it back and i'll order another one.

Dave: Right then

10 minutes later, Dave calls back

Dave: Cancel that part request - it's ok now

Support: Why, how did you resolve it?

Dave: Oh, the cable had been tie wra

pped... it's long enough after all.

hmmm

How could ANYBODY, never mind an engineer, not notice that a cable has been tie wrapped?!

A few years ago, I was the sysadmin (and only IT person) for a manufacturing company in Tennessee and responsible for migrating the company from a Sys/36 running MAPICS (IBM software) to an NT LAN and Fourth Shift software. During the hw/sw implementation, I was creating and testing EDI maps using Gentran:Mentor software. This involved pulling old transmission files from the Sys/36 to a PC, converting them to a format the PC could read, running the data through the map and comparing the file to each trading partner's implementation guide. Very time intensive. I was working under a tight timeline - had one week to test and modify 30 maps - so when the Controller called me early one morning to tell me that her printer had quit printing, I told her I would look at it as soon as I came to a good stopping point.

She called back in an hour and I put her off again. When she called for the third time an hour later, she told me that the president of the company had been waiting for this report all morning and it was critical that she print it now.

I stopped in the middle of a test session and walked the length of the building to her office. I glanced at the LaserJet printer connected to her PC as I walked in the door to see what error lights were on. Quickly diagnosing the problem, I told her it would work better if she would put some paper in the printer. She turned three shades of red and begged me not to tell anyone...

Love the site!

I have worked with the same company for over ten years now. There is a lady in the office who has been here even longer and uses a computer every day. To this day whenever her mouse gets to the edge of her mousepad, instead of picking it up and moving it over she frantically moves her hand back and forth until the cursor gets away from the edge of the screen.

Also, an annoyance of mine is techs that post saying the computer box is not called a 'cpu'. Guess what, you have a computer system that includes a monitor, keyboard, mouse and cpu. The cpu is the central processing unit that contains a microprocessor. It is actually a misnomer to call the microprocessor the cpu which, unfortunately, is becoming common place.

Well, I guess not all of us can be super-duper techs.

Just got a Christmas card in a couple of days ago (from a supplier), and taped it to the wall outside my office.

Just this morning, I was on my way back into my office, and I noticed that an older dot-matrix printer, that's located on the outside of my office was making a horrible grinding noise, and the paper was going in sideways. Guess what was in the printer?? The card! It had fallen off the wall right into the printer, making it jam.

OOPS!!

Next time I'll make sure to tape the cards on the other side of the wall!!

When I worked on an Internet Support desk with my bother-in-law he received a call from a lady having problems with her internet connection. When he asked what type of Windows she had, she replied "double glazing." She immediately realised what she had said and laughed saying: "You think that's bad, in my last call I was asked what was on my drive and I said a Ford Escort!" :-)

It is sometimes nice, to come across people, who are at least informed about the subject, so you needn't give them instructions like: "Hold the mouse with your right hand, than move it so, that the pointer on the screen is right over the icon, then use your right index finger to click..." But sometimes it can only make the things more complicated. Or more ridiculous. As a non-profiting tech supporter I have certain computers under my controll, of which I have physically seen only a few. This one was fortunatelly physically reachable, so when I spoke to this man, I was glad that it is.

This PC owner is belonging to the people who understand the maintanance and administration of their home computer a bit, so I became a short overview of what he has done and what's the problem. The computer was not giving out any sounds, when playing a wave or MP3 it was absolutelly silent, and there came no sound out of it when the CD player was playing a CD. The owner told me, that he has reinstalled the sound card drivers several times, now that it is perfectly configured, how he installed everything possible from the package comming with the sound card and what configurations of volume etc. he had done... That was a real mystery, only because of the fact, that the system wouldn't let you to play anything, if the sound card wasn't installed properly .. so I decided to go over, to see, what happened. To be really honest, it took me about five minutes of hard investigation, until I realized, that even the computer and sound-card were installed properly, there was something missing. I didn't believe my eyes when I had to face the matter of fact - there were no loudspeakers. I asked the owner where the loudspeakers are. He told me, that they didn't have them and that the sound output form the soundcard should be bridget straight into the internal speaker, or not?

I work in a corporate the supports computer systems for a Franchise. Basically we're dealing with people who uses computers, but knows nothing about them. In our HelpDesk we support everything from hardware, to software, and WAN networks.

Of everything, the hardest calls - and to this day I pull my hair out when I get such a call - are calls dealing with power or phone lines. I seriously do not understand what these people are thinking, they seem to think that computers has this magical bubble of electricity and they do not require a plugin.. here's an example of a call I'll get..

ME: HelpDesk this is _______ how can I help you?

Caller: This is _______ at ________, one of my computers aren't coming up.

ME: Ok, not coming up? What exactly do you mean by that?

Caller: The modem (they actually mean the tower but they call them modems often times) will not power on, I hit the power button and nothing comes on.

ME: Ok, so you hit the power button and nothing happens, fantastic. Ok, well have you tried checking the actual plugin to see if it's even plugged in or coming lose on the back of the computer?

Caller: No

*NOTE*. Ok, maybe it's just me but if I had a TV, Radio or something that didn't power up... I would make sure it's plugged in and try another outlet.. obviously these people don't. I could never understand why they would have to call a helpdesk to be told to check the power cable and change an outlet.. moving along

ME: Well, ok if it's not getting power then either the outlet on the wall is dead, the power cable itself went bad, or the power supply in the computer is bad. We will need eliminate these things till we know for sure what it is, what I need you to do is on the back of the computer find the power cable and follow to where it plugs in.

Caller: Ok, give me a minute..

(for the next minute or so I listen to huffing, puffing, cursing in the background while they're looking around)

Call

er comes back to phone: Ok I'm back..

ME: Ok.. find the power cord?

Caller: No, there is no power cable on the computer.

ME: There's no power cable on the computer?

Caller: No, there's nothing on there going to any outlets or anything.

ME: Uhh, ok.. so your computer there has on way of getting power to it? Did someone take a power cable off of it?

Caller: No, it was working just before I called, I went to reboot and it just went dead

ME: Ok.. so nobody ever took a power cable off the back of that computer as you were rebooting?

Caller: No sir.

ME: Ok, then there has to be a power cable feeding power to the computer.. perhaps look on the floor and see if it's unplugged.. it's just a regular power cable that goes from the computer into a power source.. and it'll be the only cable on the tower itself that will plug into a power outlet or power backup..

Caller: Ok, hold on for a moment...

(caller lays phone down, sit and listen to them in the background as they say outloud to themselves how they're not a computer tech... I never realized that power and electricity was only for computers)

Caller comes back to phone: Ok, I found it and it plugs into the modem.

ME: Plugs into the modem?

Caller: Yes

ME: If the power cable plugs into the modem, then that is a problem within itself and even then I see that entirely impossible for a plug of that size to fit into any ports of any kind on any modem...

Caller: I don't understand then what you want me to do.

at this time I'm frustrated

ME: How so?

Caller: So ok, what do you want me to do.

ME: Well, like I said we need to find the root of the problem, need to see if your power outlet is bad, if the cable is bad, or if the power supply in the computer dead. I need for you to follow that power cable and plug it into another power outlet.

Caller: It won't fit into a power

outlet.

ME: Yes it will, it's just a regular power cable.. there's nothing special or unique about it. The power cable goes from the computer and will either hook directly into the wall or go into a Battery Backup unit, it's just a regular power cord.

Caller: Uh oh...

ME: Uh oh what?

Caller: I think I did something... I began pulling at some wires and now every computer went off.

Basically you get the point.. I just don't understand why people do not understand the concept of power.

A customer called my helpdesk complaining that the printer he had bought wasn't compatible with his computer. So i began the process of checking all the hardware which seemed to be perfectly fine. I than began checking the connection between the printer and the "computer". Apparently it was a USB connection, checked he had the right port on the printer then asked which port he had it on the computer.

"well its not plugged into the computer, its plugged into the back of the monitor". The monitor? Whats he doing plugging it into the monitor?

"Well there's nowhere to plug it in on the back of the computer, but I've managed to get the plug to fit into the aerial socket on the back of the monitor". Quite confused at this point I asked the customer what kind of computer he had.

"Oh its one of these new Sky Digital computers". And the penny dropped.

"You mean a digital TV reciever?"

"Yeah thats the one, now why wont my printer work?"

(aka Waiting for Windot NT)

So there I was, working for a government department. In fact, I worked for the head office, which consisted of the IT department and two thousand managers. Guess which part was assigned the lowest slot on the totem pole? Hint - it wasn't the managers.

Yes, there I was, working for tech support, which was treated as the lowest scum of the low scum that was the IT department. If a manager walked past Rat Shack at lunchtime and thought "Hey, that looks shiny...", we would be guaranteed to be shouted at to support whatever the hell it was before the day was out.

Training? That was for other people.

We used PCs scavenged from parts no-one else wanted. One of our workstations ran at 100% all day every day just deleting porn from users' home directories. We were not allowed to have floppy drives installed in our machines, as that was against policy. If we needed a build disk (Ghost? What that?), we had to walk upstairs to the machine room and use the floppy drive in the main file server.

This was not a happy IT department.

The fileservers in question ran NT, and as they would spontaneously commit suicide after about ten days' runtime, they were rebooted every week. On Tuesday nights, to be precise.

Access to reboot these servers remotely was not part of our job description. Scripting their weekly reboot would require enough red tape to strangle half the senior executives (oh, happy thought!). Therefore, some low-ranking IT bunny (ie, someone from tech support) had to stay back after 6pm and perform the required button-pushing.

In multiple buildings. In different city blocks. One. Server. At. A. Time. And we had to wait 10-15 minutes until each machine came back up again to verify it was not deceased this week.

Overtime, of course, happened to other people. As did company cars.

When it came to be my turn, my reasoning went like this:

1) If a server dies on reboot, I have no authority to do anything o

ther than try another reboot anyway.

2) The backups, for what they're worth, do actually work.

3) If a machine is toast, it's toast. And no-one in IT will care much, as it's only managers who will be affected.

So, I brought down all the servers in Building One in a ripple pattern - shut down, reboot, wait for NT to start, do next one. Then I hurried over to Building Two and repeated the process. At the end of the Great Circle, I came back to Building One, and logged into a workstation. Yup, I can access the file system on each of the servers, except the ones in the last building. Ah, here they come now.

Usual time to perform this unnecessary task: two to three hours.

My time: Thirty minutes.

Wednesday morning saw a new unofficial procedure being adopted by the techs. And the managers remained, as ever, oblivious.

Next time: a Perl Script Called Buffy.

My uncle called me one day to ask "How would someone get Internet Explorer on their computer if they don't have it?" What do you mean? I asked. Well if they deleted IE, how would they get it back on? He replied. Well, if they are lucky enough to know someone with the setup file on floppy, then they could do it that way, otherwise, reinstall windows. To which he replied, "What if they don't want to reinstall? I said, What did you do? I deleted IE, I don't want it, I want to use Netscape, he states. "I have the install on floppy, I'll bring it over."

Why do people do these things.

Side Note: This is the same person who tells me I don't know what I am doing and that everytime I get on the computer at his house I break it. Hello, supporting computers is my job, been using them since 85, were have you been.

This was something that happened to one of my friends. A lady called in for tech support for her internet connection saying that her "coffee cup holder" no longer works. After about 10 min of probing the tech found out she was talking about her CD-ROM Drive! It would not open anymore, she had been using it as a coaster for her coffee!!

I don't remember what it's called, but I believe that the UN has an environmental arm. That organization should kill all of the idiots. They are using Earth's precious oxygen and polluting carbon dioxide. Down with the idiots!

IT departments should have more power. Like policeman, they should have a pad of "tickets" on them. However, these tickets can fire anyone for being an idiot. Or arrognt, abusive, disobeying, or just plain bad.

Not a call I received, but a person right next to me....

Tech: Thank you for calling the xxxxx helpdesk, my name is xxxxx, may I start with your national store # please?

[obligatory customer listing store #, we confirm where they're calling from...]

Tech: And what can I do for you today?

User: My computer says "Abnormal shutdown detected. Press C to continue, or S to continue with selective recovery, only if advised to do so by the xxxx helpdesk"

Tech: Have you tried pressing C to continue?

User: Nope, I saw it and figured I should call you."

Tech: Since you have a low-level contract, if I tell you to press C to continue, this will become a billable call ($35 charge for procedural calls - things they should know how to do)

User: Ok....

Tech: Again, if I tell you to press C to continue, this will become a billable call

User: That's ok, my manager already knows

Tech: Press C to continue...

User: It works! Thanks!

tech actually creates the ticket (if the user would've picked up on the hints, no ticket would've been made), labeled as procedural, and the manager will be really pissed when he sees it :)

I run a computer consulting firm and use my cable company for a broadband connection. Any and all calls to them when something goes wrong have become no end of amusement for my wife, as they frequently become a training session for the techs I call and end without resolution.

For instance, one afternoon I can no longer check email on one of the websites I am running. I can connect to the SMTP server but not the POP3 server. *Sigh* Time to dial the tech support for the cable company, as I can connect from remote systems not on their network, but not from any one their network.

tech: "Tech Support, my name is *****, how may I help you?"

Me: "hey there. I need some help solving a problem. I cannot seem to connect to my POP3 server to recieve mail. This account is on my webservers, not on yours. But it works from systems not connected to your network."

Tech: "Well Sir, let me look at this. What is the name of the server?"

Me: "It's mail.*******.com"

Tech: "well, that's not one of our servers. You need to connect to our servers to get your mail."

Me: "I'm not checking mail on your servers, I am checking mail on MY servers, and you appear to be blocking the connection."

Tech: "No Sir, it plainly says right here in the tech manual that you have to connect to our server to get your mail from your site."

Me: "By magic maybe?"

Tech: "Sir? I am not sure I follow."

Me: "How does your server know to get my mail off my server? Magic?"

Tech: "No Sir, we have it programmed that way."

Me: "And do you provide this service for everyone?"

Tech: "Oh yes Sir!"

Me: "Must be a large bill for storage there. Well tell the wizards to fix my mail. Thank you so very much."

It took another 3 calls over 2 days to finally get someone who knew what I was talking about and could fix the issue. They had mistakenly put a access control list on the router in my area that b

locked access to all POP3 servers except thiers. *Sigh* And the fun never stops.

I don't work for a tech support company. I work for a major cinema in Sydney Australia, but when taking calls we do get some real idiots. Lord of the Rings 3 has just opened here and I was in the box office attempting to juggle calls and customers, and one of the most common calls I took would go like this:

Caller: Hi, when is Lord of the Rings on today?

Me: (Wishing they'd go to our website for these things, that's what it's there for, and quit bugging me on the job) Well, its on every hour on the half hour, for example, 9:30, 10:30, 11:30, 12:30, and so on.

Caller: So what times the next session?

Having worked as SysAdmin on a 10 user NT LAN and Service Manager for a consumer electronics shop I have made more than my share of support calls to hardware and software vendors. And as an avid reader of Tech Tales I know how to not make an a** of myself when someone it trying to help me. So now that I am working at a Bingo hall as a caller (dropped out of tech; long story) I have a bad habit of ripping the phone out of peoples hands when I find out they are on line with tech support.

One day our ATM was down AGAIN! 2nd level tech was phoning back because first call with our session manager did not solve the problem, and I took the call. Seems unplugging and plugging in the power cord hadn't solved the problem. Well, that was step 1 in his instructions to me and I politely asked "Unplug it from the UPS, not the wall, right?" So the problem was solved, but the two of us were chained to the phone waiting for it to boot up so he could clear the call. As I saw the BIOS screen for a 486/sx with 4 meg RAM come up then OS/2 loading I started chatting to kill time. The session manager and then the owner dropped by from time to time to see how things were going, only to hear me going on about 30 pin SIMMs (I use one as a key fob and offered to install it in the ATM to speed it up), Linux kernels that run in 4 meg, and 300 baud VolksModems for VIC20s (remember the good ol' days of BBSs?)

After the ATM was up and running the owner thanked me for my hard work and God for having me here when the 2nd level tech called. I didn't have the heart to tell him the thecnobabble had absolutely nothing to do with the service call.

I've been a computer tech for years, but I'm now in the cellular industry. I was hoping to get away from the "shouldn't have a piece of technology people", but those dreams recently blew up in my face.

I saw a voice mail on the line and checked it out. This is what the message said, "Hi there. I purchased a phone there a on the 24th of December, and now on Boxing day, it's already saying "Battery Low"! I don't think I should have to get another battery for a product I only purchased a few days ago! please call me back at,...."

Can you imagine her surprise if I called back and told her that batteries were about $75!!

Rick

It was 1996 and I was at university taking the obligatory computer class and looked at the woman next to me who seemed to be having a lot of trouble reaching the mouse.

When the lecturer asked her why she didn't move the mouse closer to her, she replied 'because the cursor runs off the end of the screen'.

Without a word he picked up the mouse and put it closer to her, sadly, several classmates did the same thing.

When I was working for a large tech-support company, I received a call from a user that could not retrieve a file she had deleted.

I tried to explain that if she deleted the file without making a backup first, there was nothing I could do to help her.

She refused to listen to me and kept demanding to know where the file went. She kept saying that she knew it still existed and wanted to know where it was.

After several minutes of this I explained the situation:

"Ma'am, according to Einstein, all energy is simply transferred to another form. So, that means that the file is somewhere in this universe, but not on your computer!"

She hung up after that.

I got off the phone with my step-dad-in-law a bit ago. I've posted sagas about him in the past. He knows just enough to totally screw up his computer, but not enough to fix any minor problems. This tme it wasn't his fault. He called me because he'd tried to send some email and received an "SMTP Server Down" error message. Not having a clue what that meant, he called his service provider (rhymes with "Bombast"). The tech person there asked him what browser he was using (IE on an XP computer) and told him that he needed to uninstall and reinstall IE because "Micro$oft causes that error all the time." He was calling me to walk him through that process. I told him to shut his computer down for five minutes or so (hoping, of course, that the server would come back up in that time), restart it and try sending a message again. If that didn't work, call *Bombast* back again, pray to get a tech with more clue and just ask if they were having any SMTP server problems. He hasn't called back, so I'm assuming the server automagically healed. The part that really got me though, was that while he was on the phone with the tech, they had him shut down IE and go online with their browser. She asked if he got his incoming mail, he said "yes" and she proudly told him, "See? That *proves* that it's an IE problem!" I asked him if he'd gotten his incoming mail while still up on IE and he said, "yes," but she hadn't asked him that. I then reexplained the concept of POP and SMTP servers for the fourteenth time. Erk!

I used to support half a building of mac users, and while we'd have our share of oddities and daft people, the most common thing I'd find is users just wouldn't listen to instructions.

One particular time I remember was a manager on the floor above me who wished to boot from CD. They'd called, and I tried to run them through the process for booting a CD on a mac. Reboot the mac, with the CD in the drive, and hold down C all through the boot process. It's pretty simple, but it didn't work. I ran through a couple more times, making sure I told him expressly to hold down the C key and not take his finger off. (This is something I've figured from experience needs to be done, otherwise people just let go any time they feel like it)

Still no booting.

I take the lift up to his floor, and go to his machine to see what was happening. I watched him reboot the mac, with the CD in, as I'd asked.

Then he tapped the C key gently

tapped it

and of course it booted up into the Mac OS install on the machine.

I demonstrated to him that he needed to hold it down - and I did that, held down C on the reboot and it booted happily from the CD just as he needed. I told him again that he needed to hold down C continuously

His response?

"Well that's what I did"

no idea whatsoever.

Around 1998 I used to work for Microsoft in the UK at one of their partners offices (ICL/Fujitsu), I was on the Operating Systems support team and received the following call for Windows 98.

M=Me, U=User

M: Welcome to Microsoft Technical Support, may I take your SRQ number

(followed by confirming users details)

M: And how may I help you Ms Whatever (this was a female caller, not that it matters)

U: I've noticed some wierd windows that I can't close on my screen

M: Ok can you talk me through the steps you took to get these wierd windows

U: I went into display properties in control panel and then went to the appearance tab and on that tab are these little windows and I've tried clicking on the little X but they won't close

M: (Double-checking on my screen that I'm not about to make a fool of myself but leaving that entirely to the user) Errrr, they're not "real" windows, they are just an example of what they will look like if you change the settings.

U: Oh, I feel so silly now, you must think I'm really stupid?!

M: Not at all, it could happen to anyone

(I so should have agreed with her on her last point!)

--- After hearing the famous "your too stupid to own a computer" story I never thought I would actually have anything like this happen to me, users never cease to amaze!

Around 1998 I used to work for Microsoft in the UK at one of their partners offices (ICL/Fujitsu), I was on the Operating Systems support team and and a collegue of mine received the following call for Internet Explorer.

C=Collegue, U=User

C: Welcome to Microsoft Technical Support, may I take your SRQ number please?

(followed by confirming users details)

C: And how may I help you Ms Whatever (this one could only have been a woman I swear)

U: I'm not going to mince my words but I've been looking at lesbian porn and I need you to delete the evidence before my husband gets home!!!

C: ---- Silence, followed by my collegue putting user on hold and telling as many people in ear-shot all about it and every one of us proceeding to pi*s ourselves with laughter whether we were on the phone or not.

--- After hearing the famous "your too stupid to own a computer" story I never thought I would actually have anything like this happen to me, users never cease to amaze!

I just had my boss come in to ask why a webpage was taking so long to download. (The problem was with our firewall, but that's not relevant). He said, and I quote;

'It used to load a lot quicker when I was using Windows 97'

This guy is the head of Corporate Services for local government by the way.