Funny and Humorous Technical Support Tales and Stories

I love it when the exchange server goes down suddenly for 1 reason or another. There you are, working like a madman to fix the server and every minute someone pops around..

"i think the mail server is down" . geniuses...

So what do I do now ?? If the come up and ask "Is the mail server down?" I reply, "Yes it is, i've sent an email out about it".

They usually go off to check... I think once they reach their desk they realise and feel too stupid to come bother me again!

Stoffs

I went to college (lets call it the Really Crappy College or RCC for short) in Toronto, and let me tell you, there are a few people there that could make the caller from hell look like a brainchild. Not just students, teachers as well.

I'll start off with a girl named Janet. One of the tricks we learned at this RCC was that by switched the power supply to 220V it will not boot in North America. So, one day, we switched the power supply on the computer Janet frequents to 220V. Well, a half hour later, she proclaims her computer dead, and actually has someone verify this. Mike I think his name was. He was a network support agent. Weither or not he noticed the switch on the voltage I don't know, but suffice it to say, he said it was dead and needed replacing, removing himself quickly. Finally, we had the heart to sneak under and switch the voltage back, allowing her to finally log into Echelon and play her online games.

Also once we switched the keyboard with the station next to hers, and she spent the better part of an hour hard rebooting her computer and reseating the cable before asking to borrow another keyboard to see if it was her controller.

I think of all the people I knew at this RCC, Mr. Wister was the worst of all. He once told a student, who changed from a serial mouse to a PS/2 mouse and NT 4.0 didn't properly detect it, that in order for it to work, he had to completely format and reinstall NT. Which, considering it was a network download of all the files, took over two hours, wasn't quite a viable option. His accredation was that he held an MSCE, without taking the NT OS test, of course.

I think on of the techiest faults that ever happened was when Ross, our network administrator, decided to teach us about Linux. He was showing us how to build our own kernels with port forwarding and routering capabilities. An interesting class, but to our chagrin, none of our efforts worked. Until, that is, Ross realized he had set up some advanced security measures (as some of the students had been running port scans from the lab) that had blocked all return packets to non-registered (re: non-DHCP) addresses, including any that had been through a NAT. That same lab, one of the students assigned himself the ip address 10.0.0.1, which happened to make him conflict with the gateway. He almost broke into tears thinking he was the target of a class-wide DoS.

My final tale for this post includes those not of my class, but of a lesser class, and the "Hell Week" lab. Basically, the entire week was about tearing computers apart, and troubleshooting problems with limited resources. This should have been the entrance exam, as it would have saved many people the trouble and expense to find out they know nothing of computers. It includes a class that, not one, not two, but THREE people, after tearing down their computers and rebuilding them from scratch, mounted their motherboards to the cases without any motherboard pegs(motherboard stand-e-uppies if you're real oldschool). This caused two completely toasted systems and one fire. These people were not expelled, and probably now work for Dell.

A couple of years ago the software company I was working for put in a new CRM package for the phone support people. It was great - much better than the 18-year old mainframe app it replaced - except for a small problem. Some 'computer scientist' designed an algortithm that generated a random alphanumeric call ID number for each support call opened. It wasn't long before both the techs and the customers were complaining about some of the 'words' that were being generated by this algorithm, which contained up to 12 mixed characters, a-z and 0-9. Two examples:

1ezf00k

5lutzo0y

Even if they were technically polite we would get combinations like '1l0o1ll' (one-el-zero-oh-one-el-el).

"Sir? Your case number is s-0-w-1-i-x. Please write it down in case you have to call back"

They put an emergency patch request in - The same genius 'fixed' it by taking out all the vowels. What's wrong with a NUMBER?

A little backround :

I do tech support for a local software company, very familiar with networking, I run a home network 2 pc's with XP pro, a Lynk Sys 4 port router. My wife & I recently bought our first home. Since the house is wired for cable in every room, I didn't know where to put the 2 pc's. I thought I would be nice & make the "Cable Guy's" job easier - I explained to him to make sure the lines in the family room, basment, & spare bedroom are "Live" for internet. Since we just moved I didn't have the pc's

un-packed yet, I will hook them up myself, just be sure the lines are ready.

Story =0)

About a week later, I get around to setting up the computer, currently 1 p.c. has a bad hard drive so I was just going to use the 1 computer for now, & set up the other p.c. after I replace the hardrive. I set up 1 p.c. in the family room, ( thinking later I will make a private room with the other p.c. in the spare bedroom wich is upstairs on the 3rd level of the house.) I boot the p.c. t

The internet is DEAD - I test in dos (ipconfig)no IP. I make sure the computer is set to obtain - re-boot before calling my ISP's tech support. They send the "Cable Guy" out the next day. Since I was @ work, I had my best freind stay @ the house for his arrival. He was instructed to make the family room, Basment, Spare room live for internet (in case I decided to put the modem in the other rooms.) Confused by the instructions, he gets the one computer in the family room working with Internet =0) Then tells my friend, "He is going to have to hook the router upstairs with the other computer." So I have enough cable, he was nice enough to leave me about 25' of **PCT-DRS-6 CABLE** to run the wiring. =0) Again the rooms are already wired for cable, I just wanted him to make sure they were Internet ready. Luckily I work @ a software company & can cut the **CAT-5** cable to any length to hook up the router myself. =0) I still don't know if the other rooms have internet.. time will tell. Moral of the story, if the "Cable Guy" comes to your home, make sure your there.. =0)

10 Days ago:

Customer: When I go to my bank site, I can't type in the box where I need to enter my banking info.

Tech: You need to update your browser

9 Days Ago:

Customer: I upgraded my browser and I still can't get into my bank site.

Tech: You need to get a 128bit encryption for your browser.

8 Days Ago:

Customer: I now have the latest browser and when I go to my bank site I still can't enter my info.

Tech: I'm sorry but you'll have to call Dell as it might be a problem with your system.

7 Days Ago:

Customer: I spent 4 hours on the phone with Dell and they fixed everything and restored my system to when I bought it. I lost all my info and I still can't get my bank site working properly.

Tech: You'll have to take your PC to a technician and get him to fix it.

Today:

Customer: I took my computer to a tech and he wiped out everything on my system, reinstalled all my programs and charged me $200, and it still doesn't work.

Me: Okay, what happens when you go to the bank site?

Cust: I can't type in the little box.

Me: Go to dictionary.com and tell me if you can type in that box.

Cust: Yes, I can.

Me: Go to your bank site and try to to type.

Cust: Nope, it didn't work.

Me: Is your number lock key turned on?

Cust: WHAT! $%@&&^$%$%$##%@%#$@@#!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Me: Hello?

I use to work for a large computer manufactor, and one day I got this call froma lady that bought a computer 3 months go and change internet carriers about 4 times and could not log into the internet, the customer call AOL, MSN, COmpuserve to get the computer conected to the internet, also she told me that every time she pluged the phone cable to the computer her land line would die and they would be able to use it untill they unpleged the cable. so i have asked the lady where the cable phone was pluged, her response were it say internet, by that answer i new she was pluging the cable on the ethernet conection, couse those computer does not have atag that sy internet, so asked the lady to spell out that tag, and of course she spelded ethernet, so i told to the lady to pluge the cable on the conection that has the litle telephone on it, and she told that it wont work becouse everytime she talked to the internet providers they would tellher that the computer does not work, after talking with the lady for about 5 minutes she pluged the cable on the correct place, and she dial out, and conected to aol. I could tell that the lady felt shame, after 3 months calling the tech support of aol, msn, and compuserve could not figure out the problem.

So much for the tech support in india.

Great job Guys.

I was trying to print something, and the printer wasn't printing. It wasn't giving an error, wasn't out of paper, it just wasn't printing.

I finally started pulling it open, to see if I could find something wrong, and I saw something shiny way down inside. I pulled out the toner cartridge, and there were two CDs way inside! It took some tugging and twisting to get them out. I put the toner cartridge back in, and everything printed fine.

I guess someone set the CDs on top of the printer, they fell down inside, and I inherited the problem. I've never seen a printer used as a CD drive before!

My uncle recently bought into the "new" high speed DSL that was finally offered in our little backwater town. He frequently transferred large e-mail attachments for his work and thought it would be nice to be able to download +3M attachments in under his usual 20 minutes. After signing up for the service over the phone, he recieved his starter kit (DSL modem, phone line filters, cables, installation CDs) via mail. He called me to set it up for him. After installing all the software and putting in the phone line filters, I connected the DSL modem. The power and ethernet light came on, but not the outbound connect light. Twenty minutes of power cycling and various other troubleshoots, I break down and call tech support. After having to power cycle the modem, I did the stupid thing. He asked me to try another phone jack. So I unplugged the modem, went downstairs, unplugged that phone, and pluged the modem into the jack. Unfortunately I unplugged the base station for the portable phone I had been using, and lost the connection. I laughed at my own stupidity, and when the tech called back, he laughed with me.

We continued to troubleshoot the modem, finally with him coming to the conclusion that the modem must be hosed and he would have a field tech replace the modem and verify it works. The local field tech I knew, and he recognized my uncle's name on the field report. He called me basically to make fun of the fact that I couldn't solve the problem. After some choice words and a few laughs (especially about me unplugging the phone) he headed out. The next day when I called him to ask how things went, he said he had no luck either. The modem just wouldn't connect.

Fearing it was the phone lines in the house (which didn't make sense since it's a fairly new house, built in the 90's) I ended up contacting Sympatico once again to see if there was anything else we could try. I made mention to the fact that I didn't think it was the lines, as since his neighbour had DSL through them and was able to connect fine. A different tech than I had originally talked to, he said he would look into the problem and call me back.

Twenty minutes later, he called back with the final solution to the problem: the DSL and phone switches they installed for that area all had registered connections. The DSL modem wasn't connecting because there was no available connections for it to connect to. So many people had been tired of dialup in that area that more than expected had switched to DSL, and a large enough router had not been installed.

Absolutely kicked over this, I finally relayed and explained what had happened. If all of this hadn't previously tried my patience, what my uncle said sent me over the top. He asked me, "Well, what's the billing department's number? I've been paying for this service since September and can't even use it?" He had originally involved me starting in mid-December, so he had spent almost four months paying for a service he couldn't use...

Love the site, when is there going to be an update?

This one is my favorite. I get a telephone call. "I'm sorry to bother you again but I'm having problems with my computer again." "Ok, what's the problem?" "Well, I STILL can't connect to the internet." (This was a problem she was having before, so I told her to run adaware, spybot, avg etc and call me back if she still couldn't.) "So did you run avg and adaware? Did that not fix it?" "Well, no, I haven't done that yet." "Well why don't you run those programs first and call me back if you still can't connect." Pause. "well, the thing is, I went to my friend's house last night because I needed to send an email. His computer doesn't connect to the internet either." Pause. "So?" "Well, we think the internet might be broken."

I'm not a tech support worker, but i know my way round a PC, so everytime one of my friends computers screws up, its always me that gets the call.

Having spent more than a few hours uninstalling porn diallers and spyware from nearly everyone's computers I thought it was time to get my own back...

On the day before april fools day, i sent them all an e-mail warning them that the local power station was cleaning the coils, so they were switching to the brushes at the bottom of the coils.

This meant that it would pick up the 'fat' electrons, and that these electrons could get stuck inside your processor because the channels in the chip were so small (say anything that sounds complicated like you really mean it, and anyone will believe you).

I then told them that the only way to save your PC from almost certain melt down was to go to an electrical/computer shop and ask for a 'fat electron filter' - a little device that goes between the plug and the socket and only costs about 50p.

I wasn't really expecting much of a response as most of my friends aren't that dumb... but i ended up getting 3 irate phone calls from girls who'd been laughed out of the shop.

I haven't had too many requests for help since.

My friend called me up in a mad panic, saying that her dissertation was on her friends laptop, but it wouldn't boot up, and she needed to get it handed in by that afternoon.

I happened to be near her house, so I called round.

She led me into her room, picked up the laptop and shook it in my face screaming obscenities at it, then slammed it down on the desk.

I tried to calmly explain that it was a fairly delicate piece of machinery, and wouldn't appreciate that kind of treatment.

There weren't even any lights coming on anywhere, and the buttons did nothing. I pulled out the battery, put it back in again, making sure it clicked home... booted up first time.

I can understand her logic though - her brain didn't seem to working, and my initial thought was to bang her head against the desk.

Ok, i've been doing this tech support thing for about a decade, now, mostly 'cause i can't afford to pay someone to fix my problems, and my friends know that i know what i'm doing.

Now, as a favor to my mother, I go help one of her friend out, no charge, because she can't get her printer to install. On the walk back to the computer room, i ask the usual quesitons. "Is it plugged into power, is it hooked up to the computer, have you installed the ink cartridges," etc. Of course i get all yes's. I sit down to a brand new HP, with a new Lexmark disposable perched precariously on top, and boot it up...

Ten minutes later, I can actually close some of the 27 programs it started. Why does HP set up their computers to start EVERYTHING on boot? Anyway, I finally get to installing her printer, and realize it's not being recognized. "Turn it on" i think, and push the button... no dice, no lights, nothing... I look down at the power bar and see the plug is in the general vicinity of the power strip outlet. Seems she let her 10 year old daughter plug the computer in, and she stopped when she felt resistance. Had to go watch cartoons or something. So i plug it in, turn it on and install the thing....

Then i spend the next 15 minutes explaining what a double click is, why these programs keep asking her to register, and that no, she dosn't have to be connected to the internet to use MS Word (I had to activate the demo she was using on the net, and she was watching).

why do _I_ get stuck with the nitwits?

The of most annoying thing ever has to be a user ringing you up asking you to come to there office to fix a problem only to find when you get there the user isn't there and the screensaver is passworded.

The most annoying thing is they ring back stating you haven't fixed the problem and there report had to be out yesterday yada yada yada.... [Keep calm take a deep breath]

Just exactly how do these people expect me to fix something when they use a screensaver password?

It's also not my fault the report wasn't out yesterday

what were the users doing all day? I think some users need to manage there time better!

I setup internet and e-mail account for a newbie and everything to working fine.

Couple of days later she rang me and told me she was having problems using an IRC program, I asked her what the problem was and she said she was getting missing file errors so I told her to bring it in and i'd have a look.

After a few seconds of looking I figured out that a friend had e-mailed her the executable file for the program and nothing else, so of course your gonnna get problems. I told her that it wasn't the full program and that she would have to download it or get her friend to e-mail her the setup program for it, she said ok she understood and went away happy.

A couple of days later she returned and said she still couldn't use it and sure enough after a few seconds I realised it was just the executable file again. Tried to explain again and got nowhere, connected her to the internet and downloaded and installed it for her. After all that she asked "so what was wrong with it?"

Aaaarrrggghhh!

This happened several years ago, but I still remember it like it happened yesterday. A customer came in to change her password because she could not remember it from over the three day weekend. We run Win2k on a very large network. I opened up usrmgr and then brought up her account, cleared out the password blocks and set the cursor into the password block. I told her "type in your password, hit the tab key, type in your password again, and then hit enter". She did this, but we got a mseeage stating the passwords did not match. So cleared out the blocks and had her do it again, same thing password dosn't match. She is a secretary and does alot of typing. This time I got behind her and watched as she typed in her password at the end of her password she used the numbers 1,2,3. When she typed in the password to verify she shifted her finger over one key and typed 2,3,4 so the password did not verify. She did the same thing four more times before I grabbed her finger and put it over the 1 key. It was also 10 minutes later and we had other customers waiting.

Same !@#$ different day. My Phone rings:

"Hello, i need help, my Mouse went mad! Suddenly it looked

different and now i cant work anymore."

"Well, is this different look the look of an hourglass?"

"Do you think i am stupid? No, its not!"

"Alright, i am going to connect myself on your computer by

NetOP..."

"Ah, there you are"

"There i am..."

"Did you klick the Middle-Maousebutton?"

"I dont have one. I got one left, one right and... a wheel!"

"OK, click your wheel again."

"I can click it?"

"You did!"

"No, i never did!"

"Believe me, you did!"

"No, i am totally sure!"

"Alright, could you please just click it?"

"*click* Wow, my Mouse is back!"

"Your Cursor is back..."

...

One afternoon I received a call from a user that had accidently deleted a file. Here is how the conversations continued...

User: I accidently deleted a file I have been working on all day. Could I get it restored?

Reply: I can do that for you. Do you want me to restore it from last nights backup?

User: I guess.

Reply: Well, when was the last time you worked on the file?

User: It is a new file. I started working on it today.

Reply: If you started working on it today, it won't be on last nights backup and I cant restore it.

User: Oh....well...would it be on tonights backup up then?

Reply: (Keeping from laughing too hard in front of the user) ...Ah, no it won't.

User: OK thanks.

At the company i work for we were upgrading all pc's and platforms. Accordingly we had to update all user accounts. In a small department within the company i was helping an associate with logging in on their new credentials. Our standard is the first letter of the first name followed by the last name. Her name was Paula Nuss. :-D We all had a good laugh bout that one... Hrm.. I wonder if she'll ever see this????

I received a call from a user who stated their mouse was not working. Not a big deal, I took a spare with me before going out to the call. When I arrived, I asked the client to show me what was happeneing. She stated that her mouse would only move half way down her monitor screen, then stop.

Puzzled, I asked her to show me.

The client moved the mouse down, at which point the mouse connected with the client's wrist-rest. She was repetedly banging the mouse on the foam wrist-rest of the mouse pad, causing the pointer on the screen to stop half way down monitor.

It is the only time I have ever had to leave the room so the client would not see me laugh.

Minites later I re-entered the office and explained that when the mouse reaches the bottom of the mouse-pad, she has to lift up the device, move it to the top of the pad, then continue scrolling.

Ok not a good writer but this just happend and need to tell the story

I have 2 colated servers hosted at another server locations

web and email

They offer these services

1 24 hour monitoring with emergency contact if anything goes wrong

2 I have 24 hour access to the building if needed for an emergency repair

We pay them good for this.

Note: these guys are technitions

I get a call around 2am from the Heads, There yelling that there sites have been down for around 6 hours with no emails.

I head down to the builing which is locked, They have one of those call boxes to get you in the builing, I use it and a technition ansers I explain that one of the machines whet down and I need in to look at it. I also tell him Im outside the builing. The call box instead of calling the office is calling another office 100 miles away because no one is in the builing Hence I had to wait 2 hours for them to get someone down to open the building

Theres your 24 hour access to the building problem

Finally after someone arrives I complain why was I not informed that the servers were down. And what happend to the 24 hour monitoring service

Heres the kicker keep in mind it was a technition I was speaken to

Sir did you not receive the email we sent to you (um how is it possible to get email when the email server is down)

I stood and weeped

Yes. I did pull my email and web servers from this company the next day

Some years ago (when Windows 3.x was new) I was summoned to the office of our company's president. Seems he was using Notepad to list his appointments; problem was everytime he opened it, the last changes he made were gone and he had to start over. Everyone remember Progman? Seems Takahashi-san had maximized Progman and had about 20 instances of Notpad open under it, each one slightly different than the other. Thirty seconds of user training and he was happy if embarrassed!

I am now working as a tech at a retail store and I cannot believe how many people buy an LCD monitor but cannot figure out how to power it on. Seems some of the manufacturers are putting the A/C plug in the video cable, not on the monitor itself. It is bad enough that induhvidual customers cannot figure this out (or RTFM) but we actually returned one as defective because the PC sales guy looked at it and said 'they must have made a bad one'. When he said 'they', I don't *think* he meant his parents!!

I am talkin to one of my friends and he tells me that he keeps on getting these stupid popups on his computer, and that his dad is going to take it down to PC World to get it 'fixed'. Tryin to hold back my laughter I told him that his dad could save a lot of embarrassment by downloading a free popup blocker. He was amazed that such a thing existed.

Him: I need help setting up my internet

Me: Okay, have you run our setup disk?

Him: I tried but it won't run.

Me: Okay, can you got to start, run....(interupted)

Him: Do I put the disk in shiny side up?(thankfully he had this moment of brilliance, other wise there wo uld have been about 10 minutes of wasted time as i would have had to have established that he put the disk in the wrong side down)

Me: No, shiny side down...

Him: oh okay, just a sec....

Not quite tech support but it fits the pattern and needs documenting somewhere - and here's by far the best place!

I had a job interview, it was an internal one so I knew the interviewing panel quite well. One of the questions was about locating information so I replied that I regularly searched the internet for PDF files for my boss. My boss and the I.T. guy on the panel were fine with this but the Human Resource guy was turning a funny colour and his jaw was a lot closer to the table than it should be.

The I.T. guy started to ask the next question, at which point the H.R. guy said "no, sorry, I can't let this go, WHY does Jacky want you to search the internet for pedeophiles?"

Oh dear....

(thankfully I still got the promotion - and now I ALWAYS refer to them as PDF's)

My brother (B=Brother) was helping someone set up a new computer they had bought. This person (C = Clueless) really knew nothing about computers.

She wanted winamp installed so my brother went to the site and got the latest version and installed it.

C: that's not winamp.

B: umm... what do you mean?

C: That's not what winamp looks like. I want the winamp I had.

So brother went ahead and checked her old computer and found it was a different version so downloaded the old version and put it on her computer.

C: That's not it either

B: What's wrong with it?

C: Well the playlist window was in a different position and it was bigger.

So brother moves and resizes the windows. after various iterations of this finally...

B: is that it?

C: Yeah that's it now!

The next step was internet. After setting up the internet he opened internet explorer it went to the homepage.

C: There's something wrong with it. There's no arrows

B: um.... arrows?

C: Yeah I can't move the page from side to side

B: The scroll bar?

C: I guess

This one perplexed him for a moment until he realized that her old computer only supported a resolution of 800x600 and with the new video card and new monitor he had it set to a higher resolution and so since the whole width of the page was visible the horizontal scroll bars went away.

He tried to explain to her that this was because of the higher resolution and that a higher resolution was better but she was adament that she wanted her scroll bars back.

So he saved his breath and changed the resolution to 800x600.

Some people just don't like change.

Caller collected his newly built PC from my shop. The next day I received a call from the computing newbie

Caller: The pointer is stuck right over on the right of the monitor screen and I can't get it back over to the left because of the mouse position.

Me: (??????????)I'm afraid I haven't got a clue what your trying to tell me.

Caller: The problem is that the pointer is stuck right over on the right edge of the screen but the mouse is right over on the left edge of the mat, so I can't move the mouse anymore to move the pointer to the left, because the mouse will come off the edge of the mouse mat.

Me: (All thoughts of dieing laughing are replaced by sheer disbelief) Lift the mouse completely clear of the mat, move it to the right hand edge of the mat and then lower it onto the mat.

I !@#$ YOU NOT!!!

About 2 years ago I was working as a PC/AV service tech for Best Buy. I was standing at the tech bench one day borred from how slow business was that day. Standing there starring into space i couldn't help notice an elderly man come in stubbling over himself as he hauled in his PC and monitor together. He immediately walked over to get a cart and placed them both in. He walks over to the bench and begins to tell me what the problem is. The problem has nothing to do with the monitor and i am puzzled as to why he brought the monitor in with him. i kind of feel bad thinking maybe he didn't know we have extra monitors used to fix PCs at the store. But I ask him why he brought the monitor in...

me

is there a problem with the monitor too sir?

elderly man

no but i couldn't get them apart

so i look down and sure enought the monitor cable is snug into the video card on the PC. I think to myself bent screw or something...as i start to unscrew the connector from the PC...

the elderly man gasps

"IT UNSCREWS?!"

While working on getting my computer tech degree, I was assigned to a school district as an intern (I got paid but not by the school district) and was working in the tech dept. I was assigned to handle a call of a keyboard not working. I took a spare keyboard with me and went to the school site to the kindergarten classroom. The teacher was ecstatic to see me so fast and dropped everything to talk to me. I asked her if anything had been spilled on the keyboard (noticing the very clean desk, a very rare thing in a classroom) she promptly and in a sharp tone told me that nothing had spilled. I replaced the keyboard and went back to the shop with her old keyboard. I walked in and the L2 tech asked if it went ok... I tipped the keyboard over and spilled coffee on the floor of the tech center and said (in my best whiney (l)user voice) "I didn't spill anything in there!" --And these are the people teaching our children???--

Last year, my dad called me for some support on a pc I built him. He was having one of the strangest problems i had ever heard of in the 10 years I've been supporting pc's.

His computer was randomly turning on.

His wife doesn't use his pc, as she has her own, so I knew it wasn't her leaving it turned on. I went through every possible setting I could think of, including the automatic timers in the bios, which I had disabled.

AS soon as I called him back, he told me his computer just turned on again and it clicked. I had sent him a list of settings to turn off in his bios for better performance and he turned on the wake-on-ring function of the motherboard. Everytime his phone rang, his computer would turn on.

This is an email that I received from a user that had problem with the keyboard.

My keyboard is all sCrewed up and I Tried replaCeing IT wiTH a differenT one buT iT seems To be something inTernal. Looks funny HuH! UpperCase works buT noT lowerase on The leTTers ThaT are obiVous. geT wiTH me wHeneVer you geT in. Thanks!

Turns out it was not the keyboard, but was a problem with M$ Office 2002, hence why the keys would work in UPPERCASE.

I have a customer (I'm the only one who does in-home tech calls in my small, rural town) does not "trust" harddrives. No, sirree, those harddrives crash, doncha' know! So he keeps all of his data (he writes books) on floppies...a huge drawer full of floppies, all carefully labeled and filed.

After giving up trying to explain the usually short shelf life of floppies and the advisability of investing a nominal sum in a CD writer, I used his ancient machine's Recovery CD with its one option: wipe it clean and start over. The system was hosed beyond all salvation due to an amazingly heavy virus and spyware load.

After getting the system up, running, online, updated, etc., I grabbed one of the free anti-virus programs off the net for him. I told him the basics about viruses and his new AV software, including instructions on how to scan every every one of his floppies manually before opening any files on it. I showed him how it's done and had him scan another just to make sure he understood the process.

We agreed he could handle it from there. We were wrong.

Later that day, after he'd waited through a floppy scan or two, he decided that he could go ahead and access files on an unscanned floppy because "then it would be all opened up and the antivirus program could scan it better" (meaning faster). There hadn't been any problems until after the fifth or sixth disk...each of which had a different virus infecting it.

This is the same guy who, after what I thought was a pretty thorough lesson in how to use his new scanner, called me because "the scanner won't put the picture in liquid form." The scary part: I understood immediately what he was telling me (wanted to email a picture and tried to send the scanned image directly from the scanner to an email message...without scanning past the "preview" stage so, of course, without saving it as a file first - a saved file is "liquid form").

This was a while back, when we still had 5 1/4" drives. However, 3 1/2 drives were common, and we had them both in the computers at my university. Anyways, I'm sitting there working away when a girl comes over and asks me if I can help her, her disk isn't working. Ok, I'll look, I said. Go on over; she had folded her 5 1/4" disk in half and shoved it in the 3 1/2" drive.

Just shoot yourself before you hurt anyone else.

Customer phoned in and complained that he couldn't get the toner bottole into his copier. "What seems to be the problem?" I asked. To which he replied, get ready....

"Every time I open the door to put the toner in, the control panel tells me to shut the door."

A local school has a 53-year-old Chinese Engineer who tries very hard NOT to have anything to do with the Teachers in the school, as there's a structured process to request training etc.

One day he was asked by a teacher - for the fourth time - how to get something working on her PC. (In his opinion, this fault was user based, and wasn't able to be replicated by him.)

His reply?

"Well, I usually find that almost any computer I use works fine, nearly all the time. So see Ms Xxxxx or Mr Yyyyyy, and if that doesn't help. try this: Sit in front of the computer monitor. Place the index finger of each hand, in the outside corner of your eyes and push upwards. Next squint into the monitor. With any luck, the computer will think it's me, and should work fine! Works for me!"

I was once passed a call asking:

Can someone please configure the Kensington lock attached to my laptop? Do I need drivers to be installed?

We were a bit puzzeled! This customer had never seen one before, and didn't know how to use it. We let her off, but could not forgive the IBM helpdesk for logging it in the first place.

Id like to say that DIY computer construction is not the way to go for some people.

One of my friends decided that he would save himself some cash and build his own computer. He ordered all the parts by himself and put them all together.

Somehow in the process of starting the computer the motherboard fried spectacularly. He immediately called me over to get him out of this problem.

I took a look at the charred motherboard and gave him the bad news. Thankfully nothing else was damaged, but in the process of dismantling the computer for him I noticed something odd... the CPU was sitting ON TOP of the ZIF socket. He hadn't opened the socket when he put the CPU in.

Beats me how the thing was still in one peice, but all the pins were in perfect condition. I cant even figure how he got the Heat Sink on there!

I served as hardware support for about 1100 computers on one of our famous US Aircraft Carriers for about 5 years. Of all the stupid trouble calls we recieved probably the best was when a LT with a degree in computer engineering no less, called us up to have a look at his system. The initial complaint was that the system would not power on. Of course with his degree and all, this guy proceeds to tell us he believes the system has a faulty power supply so we decided to crack the case and have a look inside. Now, before I move on you have to know that Navy vessels use salt water to combat fires onboard. These pipes the saltwater runs through are called fire-mains and run throughout the ship and sometimes spring leaks. Our first indication of what could be wrong was when we discovered a giant rust spot on top of the computer, which happened to be sitting directly under a valve for the fire main. Upon further inspection, we discovered a salty residue covering the entire top of the CPU. When the case was actually cracked, the entire motherboard and power supply were encrusted with about a half inch of sea salt! We asked the LT how long the fire main had been leaking and he replied, "about a month". Now, first of all we were amazed that the system ran for an entire month with salt constantly soaking it's innards, but really.... HOW IN THE F*** could someone with a degree in computer engineering not know that saltwater dripping into a computer over a month is BAD?!!!!

So I was recently doing an upgrade for a client. He had Windows 98, and wanted upgraded to XP so he could use his printer (I looked, couldn't find a 98 driver anywhere). So anyways, I brought the machine home to do the clean install.

I copied the entire drive to my computer (about 2 gigs of data out of a 20 gig drive), then partitioned his drive into 2 partitions... one about 2 gigs for the backup. So I install XP and copy the backup back to his drive. The partition for the backup has a volume name of BACKUP.

So the system is set back up at his place, booted and everything was fine. I showed him how I set up his partitions... open My Computer, and click the BACKUP partition. He wanted me to WRITE IT DOWN. WTF? Did you have other people take your notes in college (this guy was probably 50)? Take your own damn notes. Plus, it's labeled BACKUP. Doesn't take a rocket scientist....

So he then takes this floppy and puts it in the machine that he brought "from the office." Whatever. So he goes to explore the floppy and he DOESN'T KNOW HOW. How the hell did he get anything on the floppy in the first place? So he clicks Start, Run, "now what?" "A:" I say. So now we're looking at a window with an IE shortcut named "Windows." Odd, I thought, what the hell could that be for? He double-clicks it and it takes him to the MS Windows page.

"I guess that didn't work, did it?" He says.

"How the hell should I know?" I'm thinking. I have no idea what on earth he's trying to do. I just said "I don't know."

So he takes out the floppy disc and proceeds to FLIP IT OVER!!! He's about to put it back in and I just tell him it doesn't go that way. Apparantly he was trying to copy his Favorites from the machine at the office.

I have been reading these and having a great laugh. But it got me thinking, and I decided I just have to share! I have been working for the last four years for a computer support company and it never ceases to amaze me how stupid people can be when it comes to computers. Even people who, according to their education level, should have better sense.

One of our major clients is a law firm. I get a frantic call one day from the IT person there about a lawyer who is having problems with their laptop. They cannot enter any data with their keyboard. It just keeps beeping and will not respond. The IT person tells me that she does not have time to deal with it and asks if I could come down to look at it. She also warns me that the user is very irate and wants the problem fixed immediately!

Like a good technician, I rush down there to troubleshoot what I am thinking may be a loose connection on the laptop keyboard or maybe a stuck key. I am very sympathetic with the lawyer, who looks down her nose at me and proceeds to tell what garbage the laptops are that we sold them and yada yada yada. As I sit at the lawyers desk, I notice that the laptop is on a docking station. I think to myself, that's odd...........I don't see any peripherals (i.e. keyboard, mouse, moniter) around. Why would she need a docking station. I check the back of the docking station and...........sure enough there is an external keyboard plugged into it.........but where is the keyboard. I trace the wire from the back of the docking station, under hundreds of strewn papers (why can't lawyers clean up?), down the side of the desk..and.........into the bookcase? Yup, there is the external keyboard. Inside the bookcase with 3-4 books toppled over on top of it, holding the keys down!!! I remove the books from the keyboard. Magically, the laptop now works.

The funny thing is that the lawyer no longer had anything to say! I'm not sure where she got her education from. Maybe she should have attended more of the "how to use common sense" classes and less of the "how to be pretentios" classes!!

Caller: I was moving my keyboard and I hit the bottom of my tabletop. The Pause/Break key popped off and now I can't find it. I have searched everywhere. Can I order a new Pause/Break key? How much will it cost?

Operator: Type ping, hit the space bar.

Client: Space bar? Where is the space bar?

Operator: It is below the C, V, B, N, M keys on the keyboard.

Client: I don't see a space bar, what does it say on it?

Operator: It doesn't say anything, it is the biggest key on the keyboard.

Client: Oh, you mean the thumb rest!

Client: There is nothing on my monitor.

Operator: You mean your desktop is black?

Client: No, it isn't black.

Operator: What color is your desktop?

Client: Tan, but what difference does it make if my desk top is tan or not?

We recently installed a VOIP phone system throughout the company...

One day I got a call from user "john" that user "jane" phone did not work and would I come look at it.

On my way over, I was stopped by several users claiming user "jane" was inquiring if their phone was working.

I got to her desk and picked up the phone to re-set it when coffee spilled out and ran down my arm. This was a lot of coffee. I calmly asked her if she spilled coffee in her phone and she said "oh, can that hurt it"?

Call to Help Desk

Caller: I've just bought a Word processor from yourself, when I got it home and opened the box, to find no disks in here.

Operator: No problem Madam this sometimes happen, please return it to the shop with your receipt.

Caller: Just before you go could you tell me why I have a record inside the box?

Operator: Silent ha, ha, ha - What's your Program CD, it has your Word Processor on it.

Caller: So sorry, When I bought it 10 years ago it came on 25 floppy disks.....

I work in a library, part of which includes helping people out on the Public

Access Computers. In order to reduce wasted printouts, people send their

documents to print, and they get sent down to the main computer behind the

esk where they are sent to the printer to print. All was well, it was quite

easy for us to print the documents from our end - it was simply a case of

opening the 'FinePrint' folder, selecting the computer, and 'opening' a '

document', selected a few options, and printed. Simple, and besides, not many people print stuff out.

I went on holiday for a week, and when I came back, the PAC's and the main desk

computer had been upgraded from Win 2K to XP (mistake IMO), and the software with

it. All was well; the system for putting the customers onto the PAC's was

pretty much the same. However, things started going awry when someone wanted to

print, as the 'FinePrint' system had been got rid of, and a new controller put in.

All was fine, I selected the correct computer from the list, checked the box

next to the document name, and went to print. I looked at the screen, and

couldn't see an option anywhere. So I looked in each of the menus, (including

the 'View' and 'Window'), but couldn't find anything that would allow me to print

these documents. Not put off, I opened the drawer and pulled out the manual, but

bizarrely there was no index or contents entry for printing documents.

Strange. Hmmm. I called over one of my colleuges to show me how to do it.

Unfortunately, she hadn't had to print anything off at all, so she didn't know.

But she had a look around the interface to see if she could see it. Nope.

Unfortunately, it was just us two who were working that morning. Fortunately,

someone else who works there came in to return their book, and we asked them to

show us. She took one look at the screen, and clicked the button that said

'Print These Documents'. This is a brief show of what the screen looks like:

+----------------------------------------------------------+

| PRINT MANAGEMENT SYSTEM _ X |

+----------------------------------------------------------+

| |

| The Document List is Here when a computer is selected |

| |

| |

| |

+----------------------------------------------------------+

|+--------------------------------------------------------+|

|| PRINT THE SELECTED DOCUMENTS ||

This is a true story told by one of my college lecturers. He recently sold a computer to an older gent he knows who decided that he wanted a computer. My lecturer built the computer from bits he had, checked it to make sure it all works and such, and gives it to his friend, plugs it all in for him and leaves, making the mistake of saying 'any problems just call me'...

Sure enough, the guy phones my lecturer up later that evening and says 'That computer you sold me isn't working'.

My lecturer replies, 'Well, what's it doing?'

'Nothing.'

'Nothing?'

'Yeah, I turned it on, and it's not doing anything.'

My lecturer is getting worried at this poing, and asks his friend, 'well, is there anything on the screen?'

'Yeah, there's a blue screen with loads of little pictures in the top left hand corner...'

To which we said after we were told the story: 'here's what you do - you put the computer back into the box because you're too stupid to own a computer...'

I do tech support for laptops and some people just don't understand that I can't know everything. I get a lot of calls where the customer seems to think that I know everything about their computer. Including where files are located, what picture they're looking at, and other various details.

I just had another one of those customers that insisted that I knew all of their ISP settings. He was trying to set up his brother's internet. He kept insisting that I knew his username and password. I explained to him that I couldn't possibly know and that he should ask the owner of the computer or call his ISP. He was quiet for about 5 minutes so I had assumed that he was getting the settings from somewhere. And of course he comes back on the phone and asks me again what the settings were.

I was getting a wee bit frustrated since I had already been on this call for half an hour and explained that I couldn't help him at least a dozen times. Finally I offered to transfer him to the ISP where they would be able to give him the information. After another 5 min goes by where he doesn't say anything. Eventually he tells me that he doesn't know who the ISP is.

Apparantly his brother was sold a laptop and ADSL modem, but never signed up for service. He just assumed that it would come with the laptop and was told to call us if he had any problems. How fun!

I'am not a computer tech but I am good with computers and often help my friends when they encounter problems.

A coworker of mine asked me for help.

I walked to his PC where he showed me a folder on his desktop. He was saving all his work inside it.

Me: what's the problem?

Him: How big is that folder?

Me:(check properties) It's 2.1 Mbytes.

Him: can you make it bigger for me please?

Me: What??????!!!!!

I found out 1. he was confused about a folder's size and free HD space.

2. He thought 2.1Mb was the size limit of his folder or something....

Years ago I worked for a small reseller. A lady brought her Win98 PC in because AOL would dial out, connect & load the junk page but not browse the web. I later found out it was a specific problem with winsock that I ran into quite a few more times. But this was the first time I had encountered it so I took a deep breath & called AOL "support".

OK, you've seen those credit card commercials with the person whose card was stolen speaking in the voice of the person who stole it? And you've seen the one with the Japanese lady who card was stolen by "Larry"? This AOL guy sounded a lot like Larry.

I described the problem & asked if there was anything in the TCP/IP settings I should look at.

He says "The AOL service has nothing to do with TCP/IP".

I say "Hey, there's somebody at the door, I'll call back".

I hang up & start dialing again. The lady asked me why I did that. I just told her I could tell he wasn't experienced enough & wanted to try somebody different.

(please don't put up the name of the company (Dell) even though I have left due to disability)

1. The Budgie:

cust: Hello, the touch sensitive screen isn't working on my new laptop. I visit junior schols putting on a magic show and selling DK educational programmes. My budgie is trained to demonstrate how easy this kids learning programme is by touching certain parts of the screen at my command. Is there some sort of sensitivity setting I need to set or do I need to get the screen replaced under warrenty it's only a week old.

Me: Our laptops don't have touch sensitive screens!

Cust: Yest I thought there might have been that problem when I poked it a bit hard and some parts look like broken glass and leaking fluid.....

------------------------------------------

2. The Suicide:

Cust: I have been writing a book for 7 years now and all my writings and research are on my laptop. It's now gone dead. I'm at my wits end and if you don't fix it right away I'm jumping off the roof where I'm standing now......

Me: Er couldn't you just get down from there and we'll do a bit of testing and see if we can help.

....The conversation went on and while talking her down from the roof I discovered the laptop was out of warrenty by 5 years. The problem was the battery was flat!

Cust: yes the battery now only lasts about 30 mins after charging all night.

Me: You can get a new battery model number (....) from our sales dept.

Cust: (in an angry tone)and that's the best advice you can give?????

Me: Or you could try ringing (...............) goodbye and hung up. The number I gave her was for a free councelling service for people who were suicidal!

---------------------------------------------

(The next 2 were taken by a colleague who sat in the cubicle next to me, he was known for his short temper and caustic wit! I listened in and can verify these calls)

3. Box it up:

This angry chap rang up shouting down the phone and making nasty insinuations about the staff and computers they sell!

Cust: *&%$@# computers, totaly f#@**% useless, don't f@*&% work!.

Techie: Please could you describe the problem as best you possibly can without using bad language as we're not paid to take abuse, and any further abuse this call will be terminated!.

Cust: Can't get this stupid thing to work, took it out of the box, assembled it as per instructions and it's dead

Techie: Ok lets do a checklist on the connnections

Cust: I wanted a wireless system, I specifically wanted something without wires that I have heard about.

Techie: Ok.....so you didn't connect the power, keyboard, monitor, mouse, network card.....?

Cust: They're all in the box, I thought you'd made a mistake and put them in the packaging as optional. I wanted a wireless computer...

Techie: Ok could you please put all the parts back in the boxes as they came, seal them tight and have them delivered back to us enclosing a note "I'm too f**king stupid to own a computer" (the techie them hung up!)

----------------------------------------------

4. The System Admin?:

Cust: I ordered 30 laptops which came but they're not connecting to our network

Techie: Ok whick operating system is on the laptops and what is the server running on?

Cust: Look your laptops aren't connecting, I don't have time to sit here going through 30 laptops troubleshooting them send out a team of technichians pronto.

Techie: Sorry can't do that till we determine what the problem is, have to have some idea where the problem lies before we send out engineers, and they only come out for hardware problems.

Cust: I'm the systems administrator, I studied 4 years for my job, I get paid 5 times whatever you get paid and don't have time for this s**t.

Techie: well could you at least tell me how you're trying to connect the laptops to the server?

Cust: Look I don't have time to argue, get me the manager...

techie: Sorry, they'll give you exactly the same line as I have given you, we need to do some troubleshooting first, let's just do any one of the laptops at random and see if we can help.

Cust: One...ok. (sounds of cardboard box being torn open) ok I just turned on the power button and it's dead, that's one that needs replacing straight away, satisfied?

Techie: Did you just take it out of the box? the battery would be flat purposely because it's brought in cargo. Anyway connect the power lead and we'll go from there.

Cust: ok connected, ...power coming on.... (sounds of win NT coming on) Ready!

Techie: ok connect the network cable to the pcmcia card and the other end to the router.

Cust: What's that?

Techie: The pcmcia card is the network card that slots into the side of the laptops.

Cust: ok found the card, what's a router?

Techie: (gives explanation of a router)

Cust: we don't have one of them....

Techie:...? then how do you connect to the server?

Cust: What's a server?

Techie: Could you please give me the name and number of your personel administrator?

Cust: why?

Techie: Because they need to be shot for hireing you and you don't deserve the job of system admin because you f**king clueless!!!. (Click....!)

It turns out that the guy who had the job of system admin had spoofed his way in. All went well because workers only saved work on hd's in their own computer, and previous chap had set them all up as shared!. He just did nothing until they needed to actually connect something to a server, which he had never seen or ever updated or turned off!. What he really wanted was someone to come in and do his job of setting up the new network for free!.

-------------------------------------------

5. Moulten laptop!

This customer rang me asking if his new £2,500 top of the range laptop system was under warrenty. I replied yes, but only if there's some mechanical fault that comes up in the next 3 years and it's due to faulty parts. He told me the laptop wasn't closing properly, the screen - lid was a bit askew. Fine I agreed, we'll get an engineer to come out and replace that tomorrow. "Er.."the customer said, "there's a bit more to the story, you see I tried to straighten it out by putting it in front of a blast heater for a few minutes so the plastic would be pliable. I came back ten minutes later to a lump of dripping moulten bits and pieces, can I get a replacement under warrenty?!!!!"

I have many more tech support stories but not enough time to tell them all. I'll post some more later if you'd like?

I did occasional volunteer tech-support for a lumber manufacturer my mom worked for back in about 1990. The most computer-savvy person there was someone I wouldn't trust with a toaster, but that's another story.

They had a CAD designer working for them for about 3 months, designing a new plant. He had very specific demands for computer equipment, and the owners gave him carte blanche. When he left, the office manager tried to get the laser printer they bought for him to work on their token-ring, and finally with several of their 386 DOS boxes, all to no avail. She called me, and said she had a broken laser printer I could have, if I wanted it.

I asked her what was wrong with it, and she said it wouldn't communicate with the network or their PC's, adn she figured their contracted engineer had worked it to death. Hoping for a simple fuse or toner cartridge, I agreed to pick it up later that afternoon.

I had a hard time not laughing when I got there, and saw the brand-new printer. It had a few thousand pages on its odometer, and the "Apple LaserWriter II" tag on the corner was still shiny.

So I took it home, and sold it to a Mac-user friend for $500.

I work for a small community college preparing multimedia presentations, instructional Cds etc. for distribution to students and instructors etc. We had a student worker (computer technician major) working for us last semester. I handed her a CD master of French language lessons, and asked that she make 50 copies of the disk before she left for the day. I showed her where the disk duplicator was. It just happened to be nest to the Zerox machine. Yes, you guessed it. She put the master disk on the zeroz machine and made 50 paper copies of the face of the disk.

Normally I am a system administrator during the week but because so many people

Where sick because a flu epidemic was on the lose I was helping out on the helpdesk

When I answer a call from a guy at the office who clamed that there was music coming

Out of his monitor. Because we didn t installed audio on our computers I told him that s impossible sir ! He was very persistent about it and kept on saying that there was music coming from his monitor. When I wrote down where he was in the office I told him that I would come down and take a look.

When I arrived a few minutes later I took a look at his monitor and he was right I could here the music to. A bit wondered that it was not possible I picked up the screen to take a look when I noticed a small radio behind his screen that was on.

The guy got a red face and said a damn I forgot about that thing

A friend of mine asked me to look at his computer because it couldn't find the hard drive and boot into Windows. When I got over there, the problem had mysteriously rectified itself. It ran Windows fine.

I asked to look inside the machine to be sure the IDE cable was connected properly. He picked up the machine (while it's on) and thumps turns it over on its side, THUMP. When I'm done looking, he picks it up and sets it right side up, THUMP.

I think if you treat a machine that roughly, you're bound to have problems with it.

Our helpdesk once printed out a copy of a service call they received from a (l)user and hung it on the door to their office space:

"Men's room on 2nd floor is out of toilet paper."

I work on Vancouver island, where the mos potent dope inthe world is grown. We have a few outlying islands notorious for growing this stuff, and we had one user in the shop who must have been smoking a bit toomuch.

She brought her computer in to the store to have the printer drivers installed. So we phoned her up onher island home, some 20K away to tell her the work was done and she asked us to wait a moment. Then she came back and complained that the printer still wasn't working and that we couldn't be very good at our jobs because she still couldn't print and that she wasn't going to pay for such bad service and that we should be shot , and on and on - you get the idea.

Ittook us 5 minutes before we could get a word in edgeways to tell her that the computer, which was sitting in our shop, needed to be hooked up to the printer for it to work. She was rather sheepish when she came in to pick it up the next day!

I used to work in a call centre environment for an ISP. I had the lovliest woman call:

Customer: "Thank you so much for the CD, it arrived in the mail today"

Me: "No problems - how can I help today?"

Customer: Well, I've put the CD in, but I can't seem to make it go. It doesn't run the setup program like it says on the cover".

So I thought about it briefly, figured that maybe the CD ROM drive didn't do autorun or whatever..

Me: OK, open up the My Computer icon - what drives do you have listed?

I always asked instead of assuming what drive letter would be assigned - after a while on a phone helpdesk, you learn not to assume anything.

Customer: Well, there's the A, B and C drives.

Me: No D drive?

Customer: No

So I thought about it... it had been a really long time since I'd come a cross a computer with an A, B and C drive listed. So, A was a floppy, and C would be the hard disk. Well, it used to be that B drive referred to a second floppy disk. Hmm.. but a 3.5" floppy drive would never be able to fit a CD... that's when the light bulb blinked on.

Me: Did you put the CD into the B drive?

Customer: Yes

Me: And does it have a latch that you have to turn down before the disk is in properly?

Customer: Yes

I nearly started laughing out loud, and I'd had too much experience to be losing it like that :) But I just couldn't resist the next question:

Me: Have you been able to remove the CD?

Customer: No... I tried with the pliers but I can't get it.

She was an older lady, really nice and polite. So I gently explained what the situation was, and said we'd send out another copy, and in the meantime that she should head down to the repair shop..

well I worked over 3 years as helpdesk for an ISP.

I got lots of good stories to tell but let me start with this one:

a lady calls, is behaving as she would be a big buisness mam. well after some time and searching for her surename in over 800.000 accounts(she did not know her username or something else of her "buisness account") I find it....for private users a 8 years old dailin account.

well the lady had a "state of the art" 3 years old win98 pc....which I found out after starting up system in the control plannel and letting her read it....do I have to mention this lady was not able to right-klick on the workplace cause left and right meant nothing to her?

oh well.....we try out her dailup connection....and the error message and code tell her and me even more that she got no modem installed.

well now comes the best, she tells me I am dump as hell and oldfashioned....SHE would not need a modem any longer in times of wireless lan and internet over the satelite....

and then she tells me I should just get this damn error to vanish.

something in me shorted out at this moment.....I installed a standard modem with here (without the hardware...just the driver), configured a dailup connection...and then explained her that she got only one phone line...and that if she would like to go online she would have to end the call first.

but before she did I told her to call microsoft and gave her the expensive pay per minute nummber of M$ if there would be any further problem with this M$ software modem which driver she had just installed from the MS win98 cd. its all very experimental sill...and normaly I would not be allowed to help her at all...and that she should insist on MS fixing it for her.

well she agreed to that, thanked me a lot...and so a two hour phone call ended.

User @ remote location: My screen is blank.

Tech Support: What model monitor do you have?

User: I can't see the model number. We have been without power for about 1/2 hour and there are no lights.

........................

Same user (several days later): I turned on my screen and there is no login showing.

Tech Support (wiser now): Did you turn on you computer?

User: Oh! Do I have to turn on the computer too?

An executive storms to my boss, that the new Compaq iPaq we gave him doesnt work worth a darn. He can tap and tap on the screen and nothing happens. And oh by the way, he adds, your computer staff are lousy at their jobs. My boss walks over, picks up the iPaq and realizes right away what the problem is. The new iPaqs came with a hinged plastic protective cover over the screen. The idiot hadnt removed the screen.

A woman, tells me that her keyboard is not working. She has rebooted her computer several times, without any success. Going over to her desk, I realize right away what the problem is - she was typing on a keyboard connected to a different computer, which was off at the time

Tech support phone rings, Fubar1971 answers it...

Fubar1971:Good Morning Tech Support, this is Fubar1971....

User: Fubar1971, did you steal my keyboard?

Fubar1971: No, if I was to REPLACE your keyboard, I would have left you a better one to use.

User: Someone stole my keyboard, are you sure it was not you?

Fubar1971: No, I did not take your keyboard.

User: Well I need a new keyboard then.

Fubar: OK, I will be in your office in 5 minutes

4 minutes and 30 seconds later

User is no where to be found, and the office is locked

30 minutes later after asking every person except the All MIGHTY himself to let me into the office, I go back to the tech department.

Phone rings

Fubar1971: Good afternoon tech support This is Fubar1971....

User: I thought you were going to give me a new keyboard?

Fubar1971: I tried, but you locked up your office and could not be found.

User: Well I figured since I couldn't use my computer I would go to lunch.

Fubar197: Well how am I suppose to replace your keyboard when you lock your office and nobody has a key?

User: Oh, I didn't think of that. Well I'm here now, can you come down and install my new keyboard now?

Fubar1971: Well, I'm in the middle of something right now, (Setting up new linux email server), but I can be there in about an hour.

User: HOUR!!!! I need to check my email. This is totally unacceptable

Fubar1971: I'm sorry, but that is the best I can do. You can always check your email from another workstation, or try using the internal web interface....

User:HANGUP

5 minutes later

Phone Rings

Fubar1971:Hello?

Fubar1971's BOSS:Foo, what the hell, I just got an irrate phone call from User's boss that you refuse to install a keyboard.

Fubar1971: No, I tried to this morning, but the user locked the office and went to lunch. When they returned, I was in the middle of installing the new email server and instructed them I would be there in an hour and they should try using a different workstation until I get there.

Fubar1971's BOSS: Well they are pretty upset, I need you to go down there and take care of it now.

Fubar1971: What about the email server?

Fubar1971's BOSS: You'll have to stay late and get it done afterhours.

Fubar1971: Fine

Fubar1971 goes back to the office to install the keyboard

User: It's about time

Fubar1971: silence

User: See, my keyboard is missing, I still think you stole it

Fubar1971: NO, I DID NOT STEAL YOUR KEYBOARD!!

Fubar1971 pulls the keyboard drawer out to feed the keyboard cable through to the computer, and what does he find... THE KEYBOARD!!

Fubar1971: Is this your keyboard

User: Why yes, how did you find it?

Fubar1971: All I did was pull your keyboard drawer out.

User: Well, why was my keyboard drawer closed? Did you close my keyboard drawer?

Fubar1971: Have a nice day

I had a user in the group I support call me because she was having problems dialing into work from home. This process required the user to dial into work with a modem, then use an authentication program to verify employee identity. She had already called in a support ticket to our company wide tech support, but I told her I would give it a shot. After talking with her for about 5 minutes, I realized her problem was that she did not have the authentication program, and that she was actually clicking on another dial up network settings icon as the second step, so in essence, she was trying to dial in twice. I told her to bring the PC in, and I would put the authentication program on it, and make sure it all worked in the process.

Well, after she spoke with me, the company wide tech support people called her back and told her to bring the PC in for them to look at. So she brings it in the next day, gives it to them and then gets a call from them around lunchtime. They tell her that the modem is bad and she needs a new one and that if she can go out during lunch to get one, they will install it for her. After she tells me this, and I tell her to NEVER take anything to the company wide tech support, I tell her to tell THEM to leave the PC the way it is and give it back to her, at which point I will take a look at it.

When I get a hold of the machine, it is in a far worse state than before she took it in. I ended up having to reinstall RAS, reinstall the modem (the drivers for it had been removed, I assume in anticipation of getting a new modem), and then finally install the authentication program. Once I have all this installed, everything works like a charm. The tech support guy is in disbelief, asking what I did to make it work, since the 'modem was broke'.

All I say is that the next time he works on a modem from work, that he makes sure and puts in a 9 before the phone number, as that is what is required to dial out on a work line, which she did not originally have since it was a home PC. I can only assume that if the new modem did not work because of this, that it would have been a motherboard issue at that point . . . . :(

There are about 150 users where I work, and the building is large with users scattered all over the place. Recently, we started installing the SanDisk 8in1 Card Readers for a number of users to retreive data from their digital cameras. They look rather futuristic, and to a non-technical person they have no idea what they are.

Being a rather large place, when a user calls for help, it usually takes 5-10 minutes to get to the users location. In many cases, by the time they call, and I get to where they are

located, the problem goes away by itself. Rather than try and explain this, I tell the users that I have installed proximity detectors around the building, and when I am close by, the computer senses my presence, and starts to behave normally.

After using this line a number of times over a period of weeks, I am a bit surprized to hear a few users repeating this! "Just call for help. When xxx shows up, 99% of the time when he gets close by, the problem will be gone once the proximity detector on your computer is acticated!"

A while later, someone asks "What are those things you have been installing all over the building?" - referring to the SanDisk card readers. I tell them with a straight face "You kmow those promity detectors you have heard about? THAT's what they are!" I could not stop laughing - it just made my day it all came together.

While working for a small agency which provided social workers for the community I all things computers for the agency. I had one social worker who would magically turn off all the toolbars on her web browser and call me every day to ask how to find a particular web site. She would get irate with me when I suggested turning the toolbars especially the address bar back on as her goal was to create a desktop shortcut to every website she wanted to go to.

I never won that battle so by the time she left she filled her desktop with website links and was too either to embarrassed to ask me how to sort it, or didn't know you could, so at least I didn't have to deal with that too.

I was working at a freight forwarder as basically their entire MIS department, so I handled all the hardware, software and networking for the whole company. They had a PC that was running PC Anywhere. One of their clients would periodically dial into this machine to upload shipment information. I got a complaint that the client was unable to dial into the machine. When the client tried to dial in, he just got repeated rings and no pick up from the PC. So I went back to the warehouse to check to make sure the PC's modem was properly seated. When I got there, I found the PC had been moved. When I asked what was going on, they had re-arranged the office, and told me (I kid you not), "We had to plug the phone cord into another outlet because it wouldn't reach to the old one." It took everything I had to keep from busting out laughing on the spot.

We had some electricians in the computer room running some new power feeds from the UPS to the network racks. About an hour into the process, all the machines suddenly stop. No response from anything. We go running into the computer room, only to find the whole place darkened. The electrician had finished up, and since he was ready to leave, he hit the "doorbell" to be let out. The big RED "doorbell" that was the master power shutoff!