Funny and Humorous Technical Support Tales and Stories

It's fun to fool users into thinking you can see them through the computer...

I've seen variants of this, but thought I'd share my version anyway...

M = Me

U = User down the hall

U: (intercom call) Hello, my monitor is dead. I jiggled the mouse, tapped the keyboard keys, and it won't come on.

M: ( Checking her telnet connection seeing that the PC was turned on and she was logged in from the day before). The problem is you need to turn your monitor on. Can you see that the little light is out?

U: I already tried that and it still won't come on.

M: I'll be right there.

I was so cock-sure that this was the problem, that in one smooth motion I walked up to her monitor, pushed the button, and it came on. On this monitor, you have to push a little harder than on some.

U: How did you do that? How did you know that's what it was?

M: I could see the light was out, and that you weren't pushing it hard enough.

U: (Looking around her for mirror, camera, etc). How could you see that?

M: Through the PC. It's pretty standard anymore.

That night, after she left, I turned her monitor off, just to play with her. The next morning I got the same call from her:

U: My monitor is broken again. I think that button is going...watch -- am I pushing it hard enough?

M: No, not quite. Try your thumb instead...good...now really lean into it...

U: (*pop*) That did it! Thanks!

M: No problem, and, by the way, blue looks good on you...

U: Thanks -- and, um, could you turn that off now? I don't want you watching me all day...

M: (Making a clicking sound) Sure, no problem. Just call if it happens again.

Many of you are familiar with the joke that there are 10 kinds of people, those that know binary number system and those that don't... this is a chat recording between me and a guy who falls into the latter category who didn't get the joke when I had it as my Away Message... now posted here for your amusement!

Yes, I know I am a real bastard sometimes.

1+1=10 woo math!

ME=me DF=dumb friend

DF: are their 9 type's of binary or what

DF: because I never waisted my time to learn

ME: no just 10 kinds of people

DF: well your joke only has two types

DF: see what meaning does it have

ME: yeah, 10 kinds of people

ME: that's the joke

ME: there are 10 types of people: 1 group understands binary, and the other doesn't

DF: so you have to say there are 9 other groups of people who do not understand. Is this a racial joke or a stupid joke?

DF: So the first thing that comes to my mind is that this has some type of racial thing behind it.

DF: so what exactly are the other 9 groups?

ME: what nine groups? there are only 10

DF: only 10 one of them knows binary and the other 9 do not. so what are the other 9?

DF: and it cant be "only" if there are more than the first # I gave you.

ME: where did this "9" thing come from?

DF: well the nine are the remainder

ME: There are only 10 kinds of people

DF: okay what are they

ME: there is one kind that understands, and one that doesn't which makes 10 groups

DF: okay you see you are missing what I am pointing at. yes 1 type knows binary but can you tell me what type of groups the other 9 are made up of.

ME: what other nine? there is only one group that doesn't know binary

DF: then what the hell did you start with 10 for. It makes no sense. you could have said yeah only one guy out of 10 knows Binary and that would be more understandable. But no you had to make it all crazy and out there

ME: woah chill dude, its completely logical

DF: you could have said yeah there are 2 kinds of people those who know binary and those who dont

DF: Well I see that but it was stupid logic

ME: you have 1 group that knows binary, and 1 group that doesn't, which gives you 10 groups

DF: no

DF: actually that gives you 2 groups

ME: yeah, 10 groups

DF: wait a minute read what you just said. isnt that a math error on your part

ME: no

DF: because 1+1 does not equal 10

DF: at least not in my text book

ME: yes it does!

DF: what the @#$%

DF: you are the one making math errors

DF: I can see a group of nine and a group of one adding up to 10 but that is just dumb to say because the joke is dumb to start with

ME: well nine plus one doesn't make 10

DF: what

DF:maybe in that binary crap but in my book it does

ME: sorry, let me rephrase that, 1001 + 1 /= 10

DF: okay like I said it is in Binary

ME: nine plus one doesn't equal two

DF: See I will never deal with that because no where in my life will it come up that I will HAVE to know it

DF: I will get teaching in more important things such as business, government politics, and science

DF: not some stupid code

DF:gosh we can sit here and argue about this for hoiurs

hours

ME: gee and what code serves as the basis for the world's telecommunications network?

ME: on which all business, government and science relies?

DF: well I do not know or care because I just push some buttons on my phone and it calls people

DF: no not actually

DF: if I want I can have a guy on horse back ride my letter across country

see I do not need to depend on it

ME: the Pony Express went bankrupt due to the telegraph you know

DF: I do

DF: but if I want to I can still get a bum to do it

DF: by promising money at the end and maybe some beer

We recently had our ISP switch owners. Once the internet was back up, my mom could get to her e-mail, but my dad couldn't get to his e-mail. Time to call support (Oh, the horrors).

DT= Dumb Tech

DT:

M:We're one of the customers and our internet is working. We have two e-mail accounts. One is accessible, and the other is rejecting the password.

DT: Did you change the PPPoE user name and password to.....

Me: It's the e-mail that's not working, not the Internet.

DT: Oh, hang on

I've been on hold again for about 20 minutes.

Yeah I used to work for a company about earths and linking.

Well anyways it was a normal day in the call center.

Until a gentleman called in asking how to install our software.

Me: Sir what comes up when you put in the disk?

User: Blizzard Entertainment.

I thought about this for a second and then finally went back to the call.

Me: Sir do you have the disk with you right now?

User: Yes.

Me: Sir can you read the name on the disk?

User: Yes.

Moment of silence.

Me: Can you read me the name?

User: Warcraft

Me: Sir if you are going to install ISP software you need to put in our disk marked, Name of ISP software.

User: But I don't want to install that... I want to install Warcraft! It won't install.

Me: Then you need to contact their tech support sir... that is not our software.

User: Why?

Again.. moment of silence.

Me: Because that is not our software.

User: So?

I was thinking.. this guy wants some tech support for free... and I don't get paid enough to help some moron learn how to install his game.

Me: So you need to contact them... they will have a full walkthru to install that software.

User: This is a bunch of Bullsnakes! (( I cleaned up what he said... use your imagination)) He then hung up.

Now just to see what kind of person this guy was I check the history on him.... he had called in 5 times... all asking how to install different games, Warcraft, Starcraft, and Sim Civilization were the newest ones.

Is it just me or do RTS ( Real Time Strategy) Games need some brain power to play?

also just to let you know I am not some heartless guy... when I first started we would get this lady who would call in almost every hour on the hour... she had nearly 100 calls to her credit by the time she got to me...

Now when she got to me this is all she said.

Me: Hello

User: ( inturrupts me) NO BODY IS HELPING ME! NO BODY IS HELPING ME!

Me: Well I will try to help out... may I get your email adress?

User: NO BODY IS HELPING ME! NO BODY IS HELPING ME!!

Me: and I will try to help you ... now may I have your email address so I can look up your issue?

By this time she gave the the email address at a speed the micromachines guy would be impressed at. Took me a couple tries but we got it... and when I checked her previous history this is what I got.

Tech: Hello, welcome to ___ tech support how may I ...

User: NO BODY IS HELPING ME! NO BODY IS HELPING ME!

This was the issue with that lady...

She was 70 years old.

She was senile.

She called every hour on the hour.

She didn't do anything else... but call us...

yeah.

No issue... she was online fine... but she just wanted to complain.

I used to work at an ISP call center... I now work at a major store chain in the computer dept. A place were you can get the best buy in our valley.

Anyways we all hate getting the phone because that means having to talk to people thinking that we are the people you will send the comp to if you need something done or to complain about some computer company...

So in short... getting abuse.

Well I was unlucky this past 4th of July to get stuck with it... at least till my lunch.

But right before my lunch I took a call that made me smile.

Me: Hello welcome to ____ this is _____ how may I help you today?

Customer: Do you sell propane?

Now we sell comps, tvs, stereos... everything under the sun... for electronics... but no bbqs or anything that runs on propane... no store in the US that this chain has propane in their store.

Me: No I am sorry we do not.

Customer: Are you sure?

Me: Yes very sure.

Customer: I don't believe you... can I talk to your manager?

Well I was going on lunch anyways so I handed it to one of the managers and listened in... and after a few yeses and nos... my manager said into the phone, " I am sorry ma'am but we do not sell propane and propane accessories... but you may want to talk to the guys over at strickland propane, boy howdy."

He then hung up and said, " Don't ever do that... " before he walked off.

Living in a rural area for three years I was really excited about my cable company finally upgrading their equipment to allow us to have cable internet. Being stuck with a dial-up at home when you have DSL at work creates at lack of interest in browsing from home at such a greatly reduced speed.

One day when I get home I turned on my computer, loaded Outlook, hit send/receive, and get an error message stating that there are errors connecting to my e-mail server. Knowing full well that this is usually a connection issue with my internet provider I decided to take a gamble and try to load a web page. Again, no dice.

I phone my providers 24-tech support and inquire if there is any local equipment having a problem or if they have any equipment off line for testing purposes. The woman disregarded what I said and wants to go through the usual procedure, check tcp/ip settings, check my router, check their ability to see my modem, ect

After twenty minutes of checking things on my computer she proceeded to stun me with the following statement. Our equipment crashed at 1:00 and our technicians are now working to resolve the problem . If she knew that at the beginning of the call why were we checking settings on my computer?

Silence isn't so golden

I used to do a lot of modem support, i.e., when a UNIX customer had a problem with their app or system, I dialed into a serial connection via modem. Very common occurrence. One particular client just about made me crazy:

C(lient): Could you log in and make my report print wider?

M(e): Sure, no problem, I'll login now.

(So I dial-up, and am just about logged in when the connection dies. I call her back.)

M: Please reset the modem, I think it hung up on me.

C: Which one is the modem?

M: It's that little box on the table next to the server.

C: Oh, I know the problem. It was making a terrible noise so I turned it off.

M: (doh!) Please turn it back on -- that's how I connect. The noise is normal.

C: I don't like it. It's very annoying.

M: Well, it doesn't last long and it's not much worse than a fax machine...

C: Okay, I'll turn it on, but when you're done I'm turning it off again.

M: But it will only make the noise when I'm logging in...which I need to do...from time to time...per your request...

C: Well fix the noise, I really can't stand it.

M: Okay...

So I log in, fix her report. Meanwhile I learn that you can set the modem to 'silent' mode. Which I do. So, a month later...

C: Can you please make that report print the way it used to? I don't like landscape because my notebooks go up and down, not side-to-side.

M: Okay, I'm logged in now

C: I don't hear anything, here, I'll reset the modem...

(of course the connection dies)

M: (out loud) Doh!!

cu. calling reg. wireless router

cu. bought router year back and all at a shudden he lost internet

checked the connections - he has just given power to wireless router (no connection to cable modem ) - cu. though router will communicate wireless with modem

suprised how he is used internet from year

asked cust. that are there any changes recently done

he told his neighbour vacated the house and from that day he dont have internet connection :)

This is kind of a confession...

Several years ago, I was at a customer site for a few days. In the midst of various installations, I needed to download a driver. I asked the client for help getting to the internet, and was told they don't have internet access. Period. Well, I just happened to have one of those promo A-- (kind of like S.O.L., which I almost was) CDs with me. I installed it, and signed up with this ISP, which I believe involved a credit card. However, if I cancelled soon enough, I wouldn't be charged. Perfect. My company never helps (i.e., pays for anything), so no way in hell was I going to assume responsibility for my 'desperate' actions. Everything went well with downloading the driver, etc.

About a month later, I get a call from A-- customer service ("C"). Uh oh, I thought, they caught me ("M"). Unbelievably, this is how it went:

C: We have on record here that you cancelled your service last month.

M: Er, that's right...

C: Do you mind telling me the reason?

M: Well, um, I thought I needed it, but turns out I don't.

C: Could I interest you in 3 free months? Then if you still don't need it, you can cancel.

M: Well, my wife has it, so I really don't need another account.

C: Is she satisfied with her service?

M: Not really. The modem hangs up all the time, and it's very slow. Sometimes it won't connect for hours. I've tried to convince her to switch to another ISP, but she's loyal.

C: Okay, I'll ship you a new modem. That's often the problem.

M: You don't have to do that, I'm sure...(interrupted)

C: Okay, it's on its way. Please call A-- customer support if you have any problems installing it.

M: All right...thanks...

C: Also, I just marked your wife's account for 3 months free service.

M: Cool...

C: Is there anything else I can help you with today? (remember, she called ME)

M: Um, no, I think that's it...

C: Thank you for your business, and don't hesitate to call if you have any problems.

M: Thanks, bye...

Everyone should get a call like this one time in their life. The world would be a happier place...

Why buy it when you can make it yourself?

One day, many years ago, the company President came running into my office saying he needed the little bumpy thing replaced on his laptop right away, because his was worn through and wouldn't really work. This is roughly how it went:

M(e): Which little bumpy thing? Show me on my laptop...

P(res): Right there, in the middle (points to green nipple mouse).

M: Okay, I've never seen one wear out, I'll call around town, probably have to order one...

P: (emphatically) No! There's no time for that, I need it right away.

M: Okay, I'll start making calls...

So I call around town, and no one has them, let alone laptops. Very small, backward town. I can order them, but it's a Friday, and they won't get here for days. So I pull out a pencil, cut off the eraser, dig out a squarish hole in the middle with a little knife. Voila, a nipple mouse. An hour later, Pres. comes running over, checking on my progress.

M: Here it is (smiling, quite proud of myself).

P: (frowning) What's that. It's not green. It looks like an eraser.

M: Well, I fashioned it from an eraser. But it works perfectly well. Here, let me show you...

I pulled the nipple from my laptop and put this fashioned one its place. I showed him that the arrow moves around the screen just as well, and even the feel of it is about the same.

P: Okay...I'll try it...

Next morning I come in and the eraser/nipple mouse is sitting on my desk. I ask my supervisor if she knows anything:

S(upervisor): Yes, the President didn't like to use something that wasn't the 'real' thing, so I gave him my nipple mouse to use until the ones I ordered come in.

M: And what are you going to use in the meantime?

S: I can just operate the little square peg it's attached to. It's difficult, but he is the President after all...

M: But the one I made worked perfectly well...

S: Well I think it was the word 'fashioned' that he didn't like. You shouldn't be fashioning things. You should be ordering correct parts.

M: Fine, now I have a backup...

S: I'd prefer you don't use it. You don't know for sure if it should be used on a laptop.

M: Okay, I'll place it in my little museum of useless fashioned curiosities...

To this day, when I run into the Pres., he just looks at me, laughs, and says "Fashioned!" and walks off.

Visiting my mum a while ago I needed to check my email, so I asked if I could use my little brother's PC. "Oh" she says. "you'll have to go round to your sisters - he hasn't been doing his homework so I took the modem out so he couldn't get on the internet and left it round there."

"OK, I'll just pop round and get it" (my sister lived about a 10 minute walk away)

"You'll have to wait til (sister's boyfriend) gets home - I need the car to get to work just now and it's too heavy for you to carry."

*long puzzled pause from me*

"Mum, what *exactly* did you take out of his computer?"

"Oh you know, the modem - the big grey box thing."

Turns out she had taken the entire tower. She thought the 'computer' was in the monitor.

In Bellsouth DSL's do-it-yourself install kit, one of the screens is to set up a backup dialup account in case you are 'temporally' disconnected. Temporal means 'of or relating to the flow of time'

me: Thanks for calling --------, may I help you?

luser: Umm yeah... I need help finding a website.

me: Ok, what exactly is it your looking for?

luser: Ummm... yahoo dot com (this is exactly how he said it)

me: ...

luser: You there?

me: Ummm... yeah. Wow.

Recently, our division, which used to provide technical support to North American customers, picked up English-speaking South American customers as well. Our support software allows customers to read their logs. We received a very urgent message the second day: "Do not, under any circumstances use the common abbreviation "cu" for customer. It turns out that this is an abbreviation for an obscene Spanish word in more than one SA country and I just spent two hours explaining to a VP of a very important customer that the tech was not intentionally maligning him."

I have my own domain, which is my last name, strictly for friends and family. When people ask my e-mail name, I give them (not my real one) john@smith.net. They still need to write it down and half of them ask it again.

My older sister is a programmer, but works strictly on high-end mainframes that suport thousands of people using mission-critical applications. She doesn't even own a PC. When people find out she "works with computers" they always want her advice. She stops them with "Unless your computer takes up a full room and cost at least $1,000,000 I won't know anything about it."

The ex-COO of one of the companies I work for once tried to install his own Palm and cradle to his workstation for synchronization. After installing the software (he had local admin rights- something I regret giving), he connected the cradle and tried to sync. After the sync failed, he called me to help him. Well, I quickly discovered the reason that the sync failed. The cradle used a USB cable, and this guy shoved the USB connector onto a few of the pins in the COM1 port. In his defense, it was stuck on the pins snugly. It was quite hard not to laugh at my boss at that moment.

I've got 2 stories, both quite brief.

About a week ago I went into the university computer lab, which is pretty much empty during the holidays. There were 4 helpdesk staff present, other than that I was the only person in there. There are about 150 computers.

From about 50m away from the door, the place was stinking of ozone. The helpdesk staff were discussing the smell, saying things like "I think someone's smoking outside" and "It must be the workmen"(There was building work going on nearby).

After about 20 minutes of them sitting discussing this, I took a brief look around for the offending system, which was given away by the smoke coming out of the CRT. I wrote a small note saying "Monitor broken - do not use", turned off the monitor then left.

The other story is something that amuses me greatly. My friend, who is reasonably competent with computers had a unique way of going to webpages - first opening IE, then clicking on the address bar, typing "www.google.com", then putting the address of the page into Google. I never quite understood why he didn't figure out that Google was an unnecessary step.

Just had a user walk up and ask me for a new keyboard. No problem, right? I'm walking over to where we keep them and he mentions that it's for his laptop cause a couple keys aren't working.

Me: Why aren't they working?

Him: I spilled coffee on it this morning and I don't have any other keyboard.

M: Ok. can you bring the keyboard to us?

H: Yes, but it's been working fine.

...Time Passes...

H: here it is. (He's holding a new dell laptop)

M: It's still on?

H: Yes, but all I need is a keyboard that works.

M: (turning off said laptop) This is a laptop and all your data is stored in here. How much coffee did you spill?

H: Oh, not much... an ounce... maybe 2? But it works.

M: You need to leave this with us. Now. Running this with coffee spilled in it is Very Bad. (I could smell the coffee burning in it).

H: But the keys aren't that sticky.

OMFG. Where is Darwin when we need him?

I work in the IT department for a medium company. A user called the help desk voice mail saying that she needed a new mouse because hers was broken. Since she was across town I called first to troubleshoot a tiny bit. She said that the red light was not lit, but she was in a lab and could not go check on it now. I told her to check to make sure that it was plugged into the pc and then call me back later.

four days later I ran across the ticket and called her to follow up. Turns out the mouse is now working. Why? THE COMPUTER HAD BEEN TURNED BACK ON! (She blamed the cleaning people.) I have to wonder if she even looked at the monitor screen.........

Ages ago I set up a backup procedure for a non-networked pc. I provided typed detailed instructions to a woman in the office as how to perform the backup task. She calls me up sometime after with an error message that indicated a hard drive had crashed. When I get there, I ask her, "so you have been doing backups, right?"

Her answer no, I have not been having any problems.

i made the mistake of letting my x-wife hold on to MY PC for me after the split, a couple weeks later i go over to were she was staying and try to use "MY" PC. now keep in mind i told her NOT to download anything with out calling me to verify the program; of course she didn't listen.

me- me

x-wife- x

me- uh, (name with held) what the hell did u do?!

x- what?

me- you downloaded a trojian onto my computer!

x- the only things i downloaded was online poker and some horse program. (keep in mind i told her 1000 times what a trojian horse was)

me- a trojian horse?

x- yea that was it.

turns out she thought she was downloading the brad pit movie troy from a pop-up. no wonder i divorced her!!!

Working at FETC in Orlando a couple years back a little old lady came up and asked what we were working on. We told her we were students who were developing a website that would track the conference and asked her if she wanted to give it a try. She reluctantly said yes, grabbed the mouse, picked it up off the table and used it like a TV remote. Then told us that it appeared one of us had broken it, put it back down, and walked away.

A friend of mine told me this one.

He was sitting in a university computer lab that apparently had slow internet access. Someone sitting a few seats down from him must have thought that the net needed encouragement, because she was heard saying "Go internet, go internet, go internet..."

First excuse my poor English, i am a support engineer from Holland.

One of my customers called. He has a home office, not possible for us to visit him.

He told his printer did not work. Typically the users own a MFP wich has problems with XP SP2. So i send him a patch. No result.

I ask if anything has changed. No, nothing.

I ask if he has een parallel or USB connection. HUH?

I ask what kind of cable is between printer and CPU. A round one....

Turns out: his USB cable is plugged in a UTP port. It fits perfectly. I was triggered when he told me he tried to put it up side down, but that didn't work either.

First, I'd like to thank for this site. Very nice ideas on how to deal with various situations.

I am a Windows programmer, but sometimes I (have to) do tech support for friends (some know about computers, some not), and recently have had this "hot-plugging" tale.

So, an user tells me that his printer is not working (he is having trouble to install it) *.

We start troubleshotting, it went like this:

(M = ME

C = Fool, er, customer)

M: Are you sure the printer is on?

C: Yes.

M: Does it make noises when powered up? (some - if not most - printer models move the printing head to a given place when you turn them on)

C: Yes.

M: Is it plugged on the computer?

C: No, I just plugged it but the PC does nothing.

M: Did you plug it *with the PC turned on*?

C: Yes, why? Any problem?

M: YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE DONE THIS!

Turn off the PC now, connect the printer, and hope for the best (that your parallel ports are not fried).

The user thought that ANY hardware is hot-pluggable.

* Actually, older Epson printers have a dangerous install procedure:

- You have to plug the printer in the parallel port when the PC is turned off.

But you have to plug the power only while installing, when the software asks you for this. I found this to be a great source of DANGER, specially since the Portuguese translation of the software tells "conectar o cabo no conector" - "plug the cable into the (power) connector" in English.

Even though the install program shows a BIG picture of an outlet and POWER cable, I think that there is a margin for error.

Hi,

I phoned someone in our local pc shop to fax me a quote for a pc&monitor. I know most of the people in this shop, however this lad seemed to be new there since I had not spoken to him before. We agreed on a PC/Monitor and I asked him to fax me the quote so I could get it signed and orderd.

After about 5 minutes the fax started ringing and sure enough it was from the computer shop. I was just about to leave my office as the fax went of again. It was exactly the same document I just got, after about a minute, the same fax came through, again..... and then it came through again. After receiving 6 or 7 copies of exactly the same document, I called him and told him his fax machine seems to be broke, he just replied "I know it's broke, the paper I'm trying to send keeps coming out at the bottom!!" Outch!! ;-))

Apparently he had never used a fax before and nobody had shown him how such a "mystery machine" works (and how the paper is supposed to go down a phoneline ;-))

cheers

ron

I work in an office where almost everyone is clueless about computers and technology. My boss was dissappointed in his new mini digital camera because it wouldn't take close-ups. Then I showed him the macro button.

Anyway... we have a basic peer to peer network here. One co-worker had a .dwg file he couldn't open. He put it in his shared docs folder and I picked it up.

While another clueless worker listened in I told the first one that I could convert the .dwg file to a .dxf and put the new file in his shared docs folder.

Clueless chimes in, "Why don't you just put it on a floppy disk for him."

Me - Why would I put it on a floppy disk when we have a network?

Clueless - I don't know. I don't know this stuff.

There should be compusory technology training in schools, but I think our schools mostly teach ignorance.

In order to get ADSL2+ and 24Mb downstream service, one shouldn't have a line longer than a maximum of 2.5 kilometers from the exchange to the customer. If the cable is any longer, the speed drops to under 8m and that's due to how the DSL-technique works.

This customer had previously called in, complaining that he wasn't satisfied with the 16mb download speed that he had gotten out of his newly upgraded DSL-line. The person he spoke to at the supportcentre didn't think the speed wasn't all that bad considering the customer was 1.4 km from the exchange, but told the customer to check with the people over at the fixed telephony services to see if the customers line was bad in any way.

The rep over at techsupport for telephone lines didn't find anything special about the customer's line, but there was a small sign of resistance present on one of the cables from the exchange to the customer. Nothing that would have any effect on the customers telephones, nor his DSL-connection. Anyhoo, the techrep decided to assign a technician go out to see if he could find something wrong with the customer's connection.

When the technician gets to the exchange, he notices an earthing problem on the customers cable, and decides to rewire him, to another exchange, over 6 kilometers away. Now the customers line is working perfectly and no resistance to be found.

When I get the customer on the phone, his average internet speed has dropped to under 2mb/s...! Naturally the customer isn't all that happy about the sudden drop from an average of 15-16mb/s all the way down to 2!...

Obviously, my reply to the customer should have been "I see your lines are too long to be running our ADSL2+ service, I'll downgrade you to 2mb/s to match the length of your cable... But I had a go at having the technician go out again and put the customer back on his old connection. So after a couple of days I call the customer back to check that everything is allright and the customer is all happy, getting his speedy 16mb Internet back. Good I think.

After we hang up, I decided to have a look at how the customers line is responding and his line is now blinking grounding errors left and right... Indication his regular phone isn't working correctly

Well, just as long as the customer is happy. The customer isn't always right, but the customer is never wrong.

The company I work for provides customers with cellular sercices and this was back in -93, when text pagers was all that.

The manager of the customer services had just aquired a brand new Motorola alphanumeric pager and had one of the guys at CS set him up with a connection and pager number. The boss was all happy and disappeared into his office, eager to play with his new toy.

After a couple of minutes the CS-rep decided to play him a prank and sent him a message "Battery low"... and sure enough, the manager approaches him a few minutes later complaining that the new beeper said it was out of batteries.

The CS-rep gave him a pair of brand new batteries and the boss wandered back happily to his office. A few minutes passes...

"Battery low".

Soon enough the manager is back at the reps desk.

-"Well, the beeper must be faulty then, I'll have it sent in for repairs" the rep said and tossed the pager into a paper box on the desk.

A month later, the manager comes back, asking if there are any news about his pager. The rep,having forgotten all about it, takes the pager back from the box, where it's been laying for the past month untouched, hands it back to the manager and says "oh yes, it was returned yesterday, I even installed fresh batteries into it, it should be working fine now."

The manager goes back into his office with his now "repaired" pager.

Two minutes later: "Battery low!"...

Reading one of the short blurbs back in April about a "one of the biggest cable ISPs and their "Mac illiteracy" makes me think back to my own experiences with the aformentioned monopoly...

I had just purchased one of my company's computers after we upgraded our entire company to all PCs. It was actually a fairly new Mac, not even a year old, and had all of the upgrades, running off of an OS X Panther platform. For those not familiar with Macs, they DO NOT support windows, but they still have a Microsoft Office version where all programs are virtually identical except for Outlook. They, instead, use a program called Entourage. They also have their own mail program. I was already using the monopolys cable modems both at work and at home, but needed to know how to configure my mail for personal use at home on the Mac. I had until then been working off a PC laptop. The call went something like this:

T(ech): How can I help you?

M(e): I need to use my mail on a new computer, but I'm not sure which program to use. (Give him system info above)

T: Your going to have to tell me which version of Windows you use.

M: I don't have Windows, I told you I'm using a Mac.

T: I understand that. But in order for a computer to run, it has to have an operating system. That would be Windows.

M: No, I have OS X. It's the Mac platform.

T: Operating System?

M: Whatever. Sorry. Operating System. Yeah. This doesn't support Windows.

T: Ma'am, we don't support Linux. That's what Macs use.

M: Okay, no. I am running Mac OS X. Not Linux. I have never even used Linux. I used to work on this very same system at work. We used your service. It connects to the internet fine. I always got my email. It works. I just need to set up my email.

T: (mumbling) Maybe Unix...

M: (getting frustrated) I don't know what Unix is either! It works, I just need to know how! Please!

T: Okay, I'm going to have to put you on hold a sec...(click)

I am now on hold for about five minutes while I tear apart the house looking for our IT guys number at work. Couldn't find it. Tech eventually comes back...

T: Okay, figured out the problem. You just have to set up Outlook.

M: You mean Entourage.

T: No, I mean Outlook. Do you have Microsoft Office for Macs?

M: Yes, but that has Entourage, not Outlook. The purple "E".

T: No ma'am. The BLUE "E" is Internet Explorer. It should be an orange square with a sort of clock thing in the center if you have the latest version...

M: (feeling myself losing him again) Okay, Macs DO NOT have Outlook. We have Entourage. With a pretty PURPLE "E" as the logo. Don't ask me why, but they do. I used it at work all the time for my mail.

T: Oh, problem solved! Not Outlook, sorry. Outlook Express for Macs! It didn't come with your machine. You're going to have to download it.

M: Wha? Okay, fine. Where do I go?

Techwad directs me to sites, and I am reading the system requirements. They CLEARLY say that it is something along the lines of OE 6.0 or some other outdated version, and are no longer for use past OS version like 8. Mind you, in OS X, the X is a roman numeral 10. I try to explain that its not the right version. He interrupts and has me download it anyway. I try an install. Shudder...

M: It's not working.

T: Why not?

M: (you dumb mother...!) My system doesn't support it! This version of OE is outdated!

T: What OS do you have?

M: OS X!!!

T: Well your system needs to be upgraded to 8 or 9.

M: I HAVE 10! OS X is OS 10! I have version 10.3!

T: Oh...(long pause and some more clicking)...Well then to configure local and personal email, you will need to use iMail.

M: (talking through my teeth) Can I please have a different tech now please???

I finally get someone else, and I configure my personal email account just fine. I can't help but think all this would have went much faster if I had hung up and tried to get someone else. But who knows with this company...After all, it is a monopoly, why bother to learn anything???

I didn't personally received this call, but I heard the recording. Boy, that was hilarious.

So, this guy calls in stating that he needed a replacement for the "cupholder" on his desktop computer. (Huh? But we don't sell computers with cupholders... as a matter of fact, I don't know of any company that does that..) After asking a couple questions, we figured out that the "cupholder" was the optical drive's tray. Of course, we don't cover parts damaged by misuse - thanx God ignorance is not an excuse.

What I would like to know is: if you have a whole desk to put your mug on, why the hell would you want to place it on the computer?? Geez...

I work at the help desk of a major university in upstate New York, and every August when the students come back, there's lots of traffic, especially with the freshman. I'm working on the phone line and this girl calls:

Me: Hello, this is Haddon at Computing and Media Services, how can I help you?

Girl: Yeah, my laptop won't turn on. Its been on for a while, but it suddenly turned off and it won't turn back on.

So I'm thinking maybe its overheating or something, but to be safe, I ask her a bunch of questions just to make sure.

M: Ok, when you try and turn it on, what happens?

G: Nothing.

M: It doesn't beep or get almost to Windows or anything?

G: No.

M: Ok. How long have you had it?

G: I bought it a week ago.

M: Ok. Can you just make sure its plugged in and that the charge light is on?

G: It doesn't need to be plugged in. It has wireless power.

After barely managing to get a "Hold on" out, I lunge for the mute button and commence laughing.

M: Wireless power?

G: Yes...wireless power. Is there something wrong with the system in this building?

M: M'am, there is no such thing as wireless power.

G: Yes there is. It says right on the laptop that it has wireless power.

M: M'am, there's no such thing as wireless power, and even if there was, we don't have it installed on campus.

G: Obviously you don't know what you're talking about. I asked my RA and they said there's wireless here, and if you don't know then I guess I need to speak to your supervisor.

At this point, she puts her hand over the mouthpiece (which does nothing to prevent me from hearing her) and begins to lambast me in very flowerly language.

I told my supervisor that if he got us pizza, I'd give him a laugh. He agreed and I transferred her to him. About five minutes later, he erupted in laughter. He ended up transferring her to his boss, because she refused to take no for an answer.

It turns out that her father bought the laptop from a friend of his who worked for Dell, and he was told that it had 'wireless', which he assumed meant wireless power, and tossed the power cable.

Best call ever.

I work for a telecom company that provides basic web hosting if you have DSL or T-1 connection. When the line is provisioned, they have to go to a special group that sets up these hosting accounts (like sales people who don't get commission). Their hours are limited, but normal sales people can work beyond what the group's hours are.

Now, sales people, in order to get the sale, they'll try to do stuff for the customer or they will give them info that is not entirely correct. Once in a while, they'll call in and actually find out about the features on a plan or about the platform itself.

However, I had a call from one of the sales people, and the call went a little like this...

Me: Thank you for calling, can I get your domain name please?

Sales: Hi, this is Mr. Sales Guy, how are you doing?

Me: I'm fine, what can I do for you?

Sales: I am setting up a customer with a new T-1, and I already left a message with the new account group to get the hosting account created since they were closed. My question is can you access the hosting account?

After a split second where I had to suppress the need to be a smartass (especially after 3 long days of nonstop support issues), I just answered him...

Me: Unfortunately, we can't access it until a hosting account is created.

Sales: Ok... thanks... bye (click).

Sometimes I feel bad for the customers when I get sales "engineers" (a term that I haven't stopped laughing at for over a year now) that try to act smart.

(please just note me as anonymous - thanks).

I had been seriously thinking of retiring from on-site technical support when the following happened:

A customer calls me up and says his computer has stopped operating. I arrive at the site five minutes later. I glance over the computer, see that the powerbar's plug isn't plugged into the electrical outlet, but before I can mention that, the customer launches into a tirade. He spews on for about five minutes, blaming me for everything wrong, suddenly stops, takes a deep breath, and yells out "Haven't you ever heard that saying, 'The customer is always right' especially in my own house?!"

To which I replied, "So what in the hell am I doing here?!" I picked up my stuff and left the customer staring at me in astonishment.

Once I was back in the office, I retired - 20.5 years of psychotic people is more than anyone should have to put up with - Within half an hour, all of my company's on-site policies were changed.

I work for a hometown Internet provider (no big names here, just a good wholesome company). We provide support for internet connections ranging from your snail speed dialin to t1's, VoIP and almost every conveivable email and browser problem you could think of.

One day I get a call from a Woman, she starts of the conversation like this - "I know you dont handle this type of stuff, but your tech support has answers for everything"

At this point Im bracing myself for the worst.

She then says "I need to know where the CCC (Consumer Credit Counseling) is?"

Stunned and totally dumbfounded... I must have muttered a "huh"?

The lady sensed this in my voice and continued on, "Im in debt and need help, I think I need to file bankruptcy."

I then explained to her that she had reached "...." ISP, and that we would have no information on that.

She then asked "Is bankruptcy bad, and does it take as long as they say it does to get out of it?"

I apologized that I would not be able to assist her and told her to hold on, I quickly looked the phone number up for the CCC online and gave it to her.

To this day I never knew why she called us (The ISP) and not information.... to get this info?

"tiny"

I think my worst support calls come from other Sys Admins who think they know more than I do about my area of expertise. This is one of them:

S = Sys Admin

M = Me

M: Tech support, how may I help you?

S: I need help editing a file on UNIX.

M: Okay, where's the file?

S: In my home directory. I'm logged in as 'root' because I don't have privs to get to the shell as myself.

M: (trembling slightly) Okay...I'll walk you through it.

S: I tried "cd \home" but got an error message.

M: Okay, this is different than DOS. Type "cd"...

S: (he always repeated everything I said) Okay, "cd"...

M: ..."forward slash"...

S: ..."back slash"...

M: No, "forward slash".

S: Okay, "back slash"...

M: Um, no, I really mean "forward slash".

S: Okay, "forward slash"...

M: Alright...then..."home, and another forward slash"...

S: ..."home, then back slash"...

M: NO! "Forward slash!" (beginning to lose it)

S: Right, "Forward slash"...

M: Good, now, "john" and "Enter"

S: ..."john" and "Enter". Now what?

M: Type 'vi '

S: I don't know 'vi'. I want to edit it in Word.

M: UNIX doesn't have 'Word'. I'll walk you through 'vi'.

S: Nah, never mind. I just remembered this particular file is on my PC. Thanks anyway! *click*

M: (listening to the dial tone while pretending to hold a knife) Slash...slash...slash...

It took me 5 years in tech support to learn that many customers don't want the problem fixed, they just want an empathetic soul. This actually happened:

M: Me, the cold-hearted technical purist

S: My co-worker, the empathetic touchy-feely

C: Customer having a bad day

M: Tech support, how may I help you?

C: My system is so slow I want to kill someone!

M: What program are you running?

C: What difference does that make? I'm not getting anything done!

M: Well maybe what you're running has something to do with...

C: I do this every day! It's always slow! I can't stand it!

M: Okay, I'll log in and see what...

C: How's that going to help? That's what they always tell me, and it just gets slow again! Let me speak to Mary!

M: Fine...(I transfer her to my co-worker, who's desk is right next to mine. I have to extrapolate the customer's part of the conversation based on what my co-worker says).

S: Hey girl, what's up? Having a bad day?

C: You said it. This thing is like molasses!

S: I hear you. That sucks.

C: Yeah...boss is yelling at me, thinks it's my fault.

S: Loser. He needs to get a life.

C: Aint that the truth! Everyday it's like this.

S: Same here, it's all, "hurry up", like I don't have 10 things to do at once!

C: Really? You go girl! If we were in charge it'd be different!

S: Definitely. Well, hang in there, just try to take it easy.

C: All right, thanks for hearing me out. Not like that idiot dude you work with. He could have cared less.

S: Yeah, he's got problems. Too serious. Thinks he can fix everything.

M: Excuse me...?

S: Well, call me later if you want, bye!

C: Bye, thanks!

M: So...you didn't even fix her problem, did you...?

S: What problem??

Not really a tale, more of a compilation. I work for a large OEM doing tech support, and when I'm setting up a service call for a repair tech to go onsite and replace a part, I generally like to know where to send him/her. So here are some of my favorite answers (all of them real answers either I or a colleague have received) to the question, "Where is your computer physically located?" and the answers I wish I could give...

1. Right in front of me.

Oh, good. I was afraid it was running around somewhere in the yard.

2. We have more than one location.

I didn t know that our PC s could exist in more than one location and/or dimension at a time. Wow.

3. I don t know.

Let s see, awareness of one s own surroundings I think that s number three or four on the checklist scientists go by when determining if an animal has intelligence, isn t it?

4. Well, it used to be at my office, but now it s at my home.

Good job, looks like you ve somewhat mastered the above question. Somewhat.

5. P.O. Box blah blah blah

It fits in there?

6. Here s the MAC address of my network card

I know we re living in the Digital Age and all, but come on

7. It's a laptop, it goes where I go. If I go to the bathroom, it goes to the bathroom.

Well, I guess that s more convenient than changing its diapers.

8. idiot@myisp.com

I don t think I can MapQuest that, sorry buddy.

9. It s on Main Street.

That s just a bit vague, wouldn t you say?

10. We re in the Orange Building.

Oh, of course! I know where that is. It s right next to that street with the asphalt and the signs. I found it with my ESP.

It's not really that HARD of a question... is it?

During an interview for a job I met with the secretary at the front desk, I was just wasting time when I asked her a little about the position. She told me that the job entailed using a particular software program that would be used in my day to day...however, they had been experiencing problems with it because it "disapeared" off the computer, so after about 2 seconds of searching I found the proggy right where it belonged and made a shortcut to the desktop,they were blown away...after the interview was completed I drove home, there was a message on my machine, telling me that I was hired...After 3 years of "working" (with) them, amazing them with the simplest of things, ie. rebooting,ziping files...etc..I am making 60k a year...

I used to work in a team of 3 techs doing on site support for a large travel company. One of the techs was, well, less than competent.

I got a frantic phone call from him one day. He'd been given a 128MB stick of RAM to upgrade a users machine from 192MB (a 128MB stick and a 64MB stick) to 256MB. He wasn't sure how to do it. I explained that if he took out the 64MB stick and replaced it with the 128MB stick then, voila! 256MB of RAM and a happy user.

I got a second frantic phone call about 30 minutes later. He'd removed a stick of RAM, and replaced it with the 128MB stick he'd taken on-site, but the machine was still reporting only 192MB!

*sigh* He's still working there, I have a new job now.

I used to work for a large computer retail store. I was once yelled at for selling a woman a defective mouse pad. She strode through the store, brandishing it like a weapon and demanding I give her a replacement. I did. I even gave her a red one instead of a blue one, just in case the colour was causing the defect.

She came back the next day, furious, because the new mouse pad was also broken. I told her that I wasn't able to troubleshoot anything without actually seeing the system. Luckily she had the computer in the car, and brought it in. I set it up, and the mouse didn't work. Why? Well, not the mouse pad, that's for sure. Her son had removed the ball from the mouse as a joke.

A company I used to work for had the username policy of using the surname and first initial. I was most amused at having to create user accounts for Leon Too and Kellie Wan.

My favorite nimrods have always been managers and I/S people, because you'd think they know their jobs. This one caught me off guard because he was the head of an I/S department with a sizeable staff:

Me: Tech support, how may I help you?

Him: I can't get my modem to connect. I need help troubleshooting.

Me: Okay, read me the settings you're using. (He reads these to me). All right, they seem okay.

Him: I know, it was working until yesterday.

Me: Then it could be your dip switches.

Him: I don't think so, I don't let them near this modem. Do you think it could be one of these little toggle thingies?

Back in 2000 I was working for Dell's at home tech support. Well, my Mom was having some issues with her HP computer. She'd been working with one specific tech for awhile, but no joy. She'd been keeping me up to date on all of the fixes they tried, so I had a pretty good idea of what wasn't working. She had software problems (GuardDog), hardware problems (mouse, scanner, printer), and her system was pretty well useless. Finally I told her that weekend we were going to finally fix her computer, this had been going on for about a month, and we were both tired of it. Told her to grab all of her software and have it ready, and be prepared to sit with me on the phone for a few hours. The tech from HP had her running restore from HP's handy dandy little restore cd, but never tried to flatten the hard drive without said handy dandy little cd. Walked her through flattening it to the point of needing to repartion, rebuilt it from the ground up. We had joy. Never had that issue again. I just chalked it up to a tech who was over-trained on using HP's toys. Sad part was, he told her he had two other customer's with the same problem.... And he was a level 2 tech.

Litle background here. I was working for an outsourced tech support company for Dell, and my company also had a contract for Earthlink. Well, Earthlink decided that they didn't like our company, and not to renew their contract. OK fine. Instead of laying off the 100+ techs, my company decided to retrain the whole lot of them for Dell. OK fine. Then they decided that the Level 2 Earthlink techs should be Level 2 Dell techs. OK fine. If all of them had more than (l)user knowledge of computers, this would have been ok. But no..... I was handeling Level 2 callbacks for customers, and got this one that had some real interesting issues, sounded like he had major viruses on his puter, but we couldn't prove it. The way his system was acting I was suspecting a BIOS resident virus (yes it was a WAY older system). I called him up, walked him through a few things, decided to give our internal Help Desk a call. I explained to this clueless (l)user what I had tried, and when I checked for the BIOS resident viruses I knew of I came up empty. She proceded to chew me out for wasting her time and the customers time, because there was and had never been a BIOS resident virus. (Chernoble anyone?) I got her name again, and hung up on her. I then walked over to our resident tech guru and explained what had happened. He told me of a few more things to try, agreed that my diagnosis sounded right, and went and found the clueless (l)user who had chewed me out. Apparently she had transferred from Earthlink, had never done hardware or OS tech support, and thought she was God's gift to all of us poor dumb slobs who HAD been doing this stuff for a while. She got a *real* quick lesson on what not to do from him. :)

I am the defacto tech support guy for every computer neophyte with a 20 year old PC that i know. I am sure you guys know the drill. This one question I got from a neighbor tops all. Apparently she had formatted her C drive mistakenly and called me in to help. I asked her if she was running any backup software and she responded "No, but I will buy anything if I can get my MP3 files back!"

It took me quite a while to convince her that buying backup software after the fact would be of no help. However, it took long enough to convince her that I regretted bringing it up.

Background: I am a network technician, MCSE -certified (don't laugh-- I actually DO know how to do stuff with computers), with about 15 years experience, and I solve about 95-98% of all techncial problems I am given to handle by clients.

I have a room-mate (FLC) who is neither the brightest light in the chandelier technically, or in fact, overall. She sent me an email that complained about a a mutual friend's email system (we'll call him WAJ).

Just to explain, he had created a website & email address on a webserver company's system that sends out "boxtrapper" verification emails. In case you don't know what a boxtrapper email is, it requires first-time senders to verify their email addresses by issuing a reply to the email, (clicking "reply" then "send"). this stops spammers from spamming, since they use open relay systems to send out millions of emails at once, and would never verify such a "boxtrapper verification" email. If you wait too long to reply to the boxtrapper verification email, ie., more than 24 hours, you're blacklisted. Voila! the spammer is locked out. The blacklist can be edited, however....

Cast:

FLC: Not very smart roomie

WAJ: boxtrapping email account owner, & mutual friend

me: me

Comments in square brackets are, obviously, comments. ie., [comment]

First conversation:

WAJ: [via email] hey guys send me an email to waj@boxtrapperemail.com [not a real email]. My new website, "www.wajboxtrapper.com" is up [not his real web address]

Two days later:

me: Hey, FLC, did you get WAJ's email?

FLC: yes.

me: Did you send him an email?

FLC: yes, I did, and I got back an email saying "This email requires verification".

me: What did you do with it?

FLC: I deleted it.

me: WHY?????? [She often deletes emails for reasons no-one can fathom. WAJ and I have tried to explain to her she has 250 MB of space on her Hotmail account, she won't soon run out of space. But, no, that has made no difference, she deletes 'em anyway]

FLC: I didn't understand what to do with it.

me: How long ago did you delete it?

FLC: Well, I got WAJ's email two days ago so I sent out an email to him that day, and right away I got the reply that requested verification.

me: So when exactly did you delete the email request for verification?

FLC: Two days ago.

me: You realize you've been blacklisted from sending emails to WAJ at that adress?

[The rest of the conversation consisted of her making up bull@#$% excuses as to why she did that. Too boring beleive me]

But it gets better.

Next day:

WAJ: Hey John, I noticed that FLC is on my blacklist.

me: Can you delete her name off the blacklist?

WAJ: No.

me: Ummmm, WAJ, our friend JIH uses the exact same system at the exact same webhoster company. [In fact JIH TOLD WAJ about the site!]. He showed me the boxtrapper system and he got me blacklisted and then deleted me off the blacklist.

WAJ: Well, you can't edit the blacklist.

me: Well how did JIH manage to do it?

WAJ: I don't know. All I know is it's impossible.

me: But WAJ, JIH DID IT!!!

WAJ: But it's not possible.

me: So how did JIH do it?

WAJ: I dunno.

me; In other words, you don't know how to edit the blacklist in cpanel do you?

WAJ: ummm, well, um, no.

But it gets beter still!

Later that same day:

me: FLC, apparently WAJ doesn't know how to delete your name from his blacklist.

FLC: so what?

me: Don't you understand, you are BLACKLISTED from sending WAJ any emails at his new email address.

FLC: Does that mean I can never send him emails at all?

me: Don't you think he still has all his old email accounts?

FLC: He does?

me: Well he only told you about a NEW email address, didn't he? He never said he was changing his email address!

FLC: I thought he was changing his email address. It said so in the email!

me: FLC, I received the SAME EXACT EMAIL as you did. [bringing it up on screen]. there. See? It's a NEW email address! Not a replacement.

FLC: oh.

So I try to fix the problem by generating a new email to waj@boxtrapperemail.com for her on her email, which does indeed generate a verification request, which I dutifully reply to.

But now it gets yet better still (or worse, depending on how you think about it).

FLC, having a memory like a sieve, decides that SHE will fix the problem (forgetting that I tried to too). So she emails me this:

"Hi John,

There's something screwy going on with WAJ's e-mails and I don't know what it is.

FLC"

SO I ask her, "what do you mean?" and we have the following conversation (edited for brevity):

FLC: The emails that I send to waj@boxtrapperemail.com keep bouncing.

me: Bouncing? Show me the emails taht rejected your sends to WAJ.

So I look. I look in her inbox. No bounces. I look in her sent items. No bounce. I look in her trash. No bounce.

me: So where are the bounces?

FLC: Well, they're not exactly bounce emails.

me: then what are they?

FLC: I keep getting these emails that say "Re: This email requires verification"

So I look againm in her hotmail inbox. And her regular ISP inbox. Yep. There are four or five emails saying things like "RE: RE: RE: RE: Re: This email requires verification".No let me correct that. There are four or five in BOTH her email accounts. Nine replies from the boxtrapper system in total.

So I look at them. And this is what they say (for example):

"Subject: Re: Re: Re: Your email requires verification

verify#AE1ePy0RjOcqYDnMtXZBo42TC3rx96bK

This message is a reply to a boxtrapper verifcation message.

No action is needed on your part"

THey were RECEIPTS acknowledging her initial reply to the verification system. But SHE thought they were repeat requests for verification (becasue she didn't bother to aactually READ them).

So she kept replaying to them. And they kept saying:

"Subject: Re: Re: Re: Your email requires verification

verify#AE1ePy0RjOcqYDnMtXZBo42TC3rx96bK

This message is a reply to a boxtrapper verifcation message.

No action is needed on your part"

But SHE kept replying to the automatic email server response sytem, and IT kept replying to HER!

I expect thius bit of repeat lunacy would have carried on for days and days, generating dozens of emails with hundreds of "re: re: re: re;" strings in them, had I not told her:

" This message is a reply to a boxtrapper verifcation message. No action is needed on your part"

DUH!

JJW

Just had this happen today, and I seriously wonder why any married man would give his wife access to the credit cards without first finding out if she's a big spender or not.

Several days ago, a woman came in to purchase a new computer from the store I work in. After much debate, she selected a used model that had the performance she was looking for, complete with monitor, keyboard, etc, for around $500 complete with an extended parts/labor warranty. When it came time to pay for it, though, we hit our first brick wall.

Apparently, she'd purchased over $2000 of furniture on her credit card the day before and wasn't sure if it would take the computer purchase. Sure enough, it was declined. She then handed us another card, which was also declined. She then handed us an ATM card, which was declined since the purchase was well over the usual $300 limit on such a card. We asked her if she could write a check, but she told us she didn't have her checkbook with her. Finally, we explained that she could put a deposit on it and then return the next day with her checkbook to buy the computer. She agreed, handing us her first card again and asking to put a $300 deposit on it.

Declined. We tried the second. Declined. Then the ATM with a $100 deposit. Success! That wasn't the end of it, though. Once the $100 was accepted, she asked if we could get another $100 out of that card, which we did. We then got yet another $100 out of it. That's where it died, but she decided she would try to squeeze every dime out of her credit card, and therefore we continued to juggle cards until 90% of the computer was paid off across two or three seperate cards. After that, she agreed to come in the next day and pay the remainder of the deposit in cash.

Two days later, we get a call from her husband. He's fuming, angry that his bank had hit him with several overdraft charges. I explain to him that his wife had asked us to swipe the card multiple times, but he insisted that her story was different. Apparently, he'd been told that we lied to her and claimed that the first two attempts didn't go though (despite the fact that we handed each receipt to her in succession that showed successful transactions on them). He then expected us to compensate him somehow for the money his bank charged him. I'm still wondering if we'll ever see the money that's owed to us.

Here's my take on it. His wife probably misuses their credit cards a lot. She probably didn't want to get in trouble this time, so when he confronted her about the charges, she pushed the blame on us.

I swear, when I'm getting married I'm signing a prenup that prevents my wife from jointly accessing my money.

Had a doozy in our computer shop a few weeks back.

We offer service on computers. We diagnose and repair problems, software and hardware related, etc. Well, one woman brought a computer into our store and asked us to fix it. The computer was mistakenly checked in as warranty work, so at the time the woman was told that her diagnostic and hardware repairs wouldn't cost her anything.

In truth, there was no warranty on the system as it was not purchased through our company. This, however, wasn't the real problem. We replaced some of her memory that had gone bad, not knowing that it wasn't warranty work at the time. After the paperwork was straightened out, though, we realized our mistake. Unfortunately, we couldn't charge her for work she hadn't approved, so we gave her the RAM and labor at no charge. However, our diagnostic process also revealed that her hard drive had failed. As it happened, she came into the shop later that day to see if the computer was ready to be picked up. At that time, we explained the mistake to her and told her that we would have to charge her to repair the hard drive since the computer was not truly under warranty. She was a bit miffed, but agreed to the work. One thing led to another, and before it was finished, we'd dumped over four hours in labor and over $100 in parts into this computer, all of which was quoted to her and approved.

Despite this, when she came to pick the computer up, she wanted to know why she had to pay over $300 for the repairs. She felt that our initial mistake entitled her to free labor and parts (she wasn't grasping the fact that she had, in fact, received 256MB of RAM at no charge). In her words, "When a business makes a mistake, they comp the work.". I'm sorry, but I've never heard of any business offering free goods/services for making a mistake that, in itself, didn't cost the customer anything. Now, if she didn't want to pay the fees, she really, really shouldn't have agreed to the estimate in the first place. We ended up losing a customer that day, but in all fairness, I doubt we're the first ones to have lost her.

Another tale from me.

Just had a luser complain to me that "Outlook isn't receiving mail".

And so I checked all the configurations and was thinking that something strange was happening, as nothing seemed to be wrong.

And thusly this conversation happened:

M = me

F = fool, er, user

M: So, this doesn't seem like an e-mail client problem.

How is your Internet connectivity? *The first thing I should have asked!*

F: What Internet connection?

M: The connection you use for downloading e-mail.

F: But I am not connected right now.

M: But how do you expect to get e-mail without an Internet connection? (the luser used dial-up)

F: But the Internet connection is for BROWSING THE INTERNET, damn! Not for receiving e-mail.

M: (wants to hit the luser with a hammer) Try connecting to the Internet and checking mail.

F: NO! I don't want to connect to the Internet.

M: OK, call back when you manage to get your e-mail working while you're offline.

I wonder how does he wishes to receive e-mail without an Internet connection. Telepathy?

Please write guesses here: [__________]

"The sad part of giving help over the telephone is that you can't so easily come to a luser' home and rip his/her heart out." -- adapted from the book "The UNIX-HATERS Handbook".

Yet another tale.

From tech to me (even though I'm not a tech, I'm a PC hobbyist):

Another computer tech told me that he was trying to fix a CPU whose fan was just too noisy.

So, I suggested, as a workaround, to put a little bit of oil on the fan.

The other tech told me that he would try this.

Then, a few days later he told me "But this doesn't work, the fan is now dead".

I asked him how he had done this and he told me:

- I got a bottle of automotive oil (thanks god he didn't use GREASE. I think that even cooking oil would be OK) I had in the garage, opened it and dipped the fan on the oil.

I told him: Oil on the fan, not "Fan on the oil".

He: ...

... I guess somebody is poisoning the water!

This is not a personal story, but was told to me by our head IT guy for our building on campus.

So he said he was sitting there one day, updating the images for our multimedia and design computers when one of our professors come in. She majors in Communication Skills and essentially... her word is right and everyone else's is wrong because she's so smart and grand. She looks at him and says, "oh there you are! I've been looking all over for you".

Naturally the IT guy is thinking, "damnit, what do I have to fix now?" when all of a sudden, she pulls out a stapler.

Prof: "My stapler is jammed, I was wondering if you could fix it?"

IT Guy: "Are you serious?"

Prof: "You are the tech support guy, aren't you?"

So he grabs the stapler, takes out his knife, pops out the jammed staple (a simple task which I think anyone with half a brain could perform) and hands it back to her.

IT Guy: "Here you are... professor."

This is a variation on the perennial "My computer won't start... we just lost power" techtale.

A user in the 200 mile distant branch office for which I'm responsible called: "My desktop just died". His clock, plugged into the same power strip was working, leading me to suspect the computer's P/S. I asked him to unplug the unit and try it in another office.

He called back later to tell be they were having a brownout. The emergency lights were on (his office has a window, and he was probably not using his room lights). Just enough voltage was being supplied to power the clock and the phones!

As we work in a gov. agency, we has strict policies about how much time an "utzer" spends surfing the web and the pages they visit as well.

once upon aa time there was a fresh utzer just a few days on that desk, wich houses the last ( and only ) impact printer in the agency;

Me(M); Tech suport desk, how can i help you?

Utzer(U); Hey can u help me, there's something wrong with my internet.

M; was is it? can't you see any page?

U: no it's ... something else, can u come by?

M: Ok, i'll go.

@her desk;

M: what's the problem?

U: you'll see, i don't want any trouble with you guys.

M:Why trouble?

U: Oh! remember that online time policy? the one that says something about spending too much time on the internet?

M: yeah.

U:Well, my printer has been "ON-LINE" all day and i don't want to be charged for this.

( god knows it was really hard to hold the laughing just front of her )

ps. the translation may be innacurate, since englisch isn't my first language, sorry by the inconvenience.

Tech support can sometimes cause bigger problems than the users.

Occasionally I clean up old files on our server, those temp files, .bak files, old save folders (sometimes with my initials, old, or sav as the filename).

A few days after doing this once, I bounced the fileserver only to have a problem when it came back up. Seems our anti-virus wouldn't run. Well, we use Symantec Anti-Virus on our server... SAV for short, which is installed into a folder called SAV!!!

The only thing that SAV'd my butt having to reinstall & configure was having good backups. I don't name saved folders as SAV anymore, that's for sure.

Quite simple, I had someone call me and ask if 'mouse mat' was one word or 2?

please kill me.

I'm a Financial SysAd (not technical) but this one is good.

Someone in my office fielded a call from a user who couldn't figure out how to perform a certain function in the financial system. He kept telling the user to "press the OK button" and the user replied "I did, but nothing happened". Because the user was right across the hall (and a known challenge), he went over to help her in person.

She was literally pressing the OK button with her finger on the screen (honest to God!!).

After setting up a new Dell laptop for one of my customers, I started setting up the All-in-one printer that came with it. While it printed fine, the scanner part made horrible grinding noises and the scanner head wouldn't even move when trying to copy or scan anything. I checked over and under the device and found no locking mechanism of any kind. Figuring that a gear was stuck, I called the Dell corporate support line, was instantly connected and ran through the problems with a nice very understandable Texas accented support tech. After my description of the problem, he said exactly what I had figured, that one of the gears had gotten stuck. After giving him the serial number, he informed me that the pc was purchased through the consumer department and I would have to go through consumer tech support in order to get it RMA'ed. He even transferred me. After 25 minutes on hold, a very un-understandable indian accented tech came on the line and I explained the problem again, explained what the corporate support tech had told me, and what we needed to do. He reponded that before he could have the printer replaced, we would have to run through some troubleshooting steps. He asked if I had installed the drivers, and after I replied that I had, he asked that I reinstall them. I'm starting to get angry at this point, but figured I was getting paid hourly, so what the hell, this is what customers get when they don't follow my advice and order through the corporate department. I reinstalled the drivers, and low and behold, the scanner still makes the same racket and nothing happens. The tech asked me to scan a page into the Dell Super-Idiot-Proof scanner software and all I get is a black page. Next he askes that I get some Windex and clean the glass of the scanner. I'm getting furious now, and reply, "sure, problem." I put the phone on the desk, go to the bathroom, get some coffee and come back telling the tech that the problem is the same. He has be run more pages through the scanner, which I do, ignoring his advice on what settings to change in the mean time. As the pages are running through the scanner, the grinding noise is changing, getting worse until I hear a loud Pop. Then the scanner head moves as it should and I can scan and copy pages. I really want to be done with the phone call so I say to the tech, that I'd fixed it. He reponds back, "so that last change fixed it?" Not wanting to explain any more, i just say, "yeah, sure" and hang up. After I did that I realized that the tech and his manager were probably laughing at me saying that the helped another dumb american install a printer driver.

Many years ago, I was performing third shift tech support for a discount hotel chain, lets call it Blue Roof Inns.

One day, I took a call from a female desk clerk deep in the hills of Kentucky (with a thick country accent.) She was very angry.

"Your computer is making a powerful racket, and I can't take much more of it!"

I hear a beeping, fire-alarm-like noise in the background. "That does not sound like a sound a Unix server should be making. Can you tell me what the noise is coming from?"

"Its comin' from unner da front desk, I tell ya! And the customers are complaining."

"Could you look under the desk and see what is making the noise?"

"Its the 'puter, and I can barely stand to get near it from the noise." (I really can't do the drawl justice with a keyboard...)

"Can you describe the computer to me?" At the time, the company was using basically a glorified desktop PC running SCO unix.

"Its the thing with the wires coming out of it, and the little screen on it"

"Can you tell me what the screen says?"

"One Oh Four: P W R O L O A D"

I realize that she is looking at the UPS, and that someone must have plugged something else into it. "That is the uninterruptible power supply for the computer, and it is complaining that you have tried to pull too much power from it. Can you look and see if there is anything other than the computer that is plugged into it?"

"You mean like an electrical cord?"

"Yeah, you can't use those orange outlets for anything but the computer."

Brief silence. In the background: "Paw! Paw! The Hep-Desk says ya gots ta unplug the band-saw, Paw."

"I'm sorry, did you say band-saw?" More Silence.

"I've looked, and there is nothing plugged in except the computer, and its still making that awful racket."

"Press the reset button."

"Oh, that's better."

Apparently they had decided to do a little remodeling overnight, and "Pa" picked the wrong outlet for his band-saw. How they would not have noticed that the alarm started right after they turned on the band-saw, I do not know...

I also did not get a good explaination of why the customers would be disturbed by a UPS alarm, but not a band saw. Go figure.

so, like many other ppl on this site, i am the tech support for my extended family, so one day my sister calls me up frantic "mendy, i have a very small problem with my computer" so to make a joke of it i said "ok, a small problem just pull the power cord, plug it back in, and itll be fine" so my sis says whadya mean i didnt tell u the problem yet, so i laughed and explained i was joking, but being that she said it was a small prob. 99 percent of small problems will go away by doing that, so then she tells me the problem "i walked away from my computer, my 2 yr old did something and now its asking for a password, but the keyboard wont type nething and it wont reboot either" sure enough i told her to pull the plug reboot, and it went away :-)

I used to work in the DSL tech support field. In a department of 200 techs (most have CCNA's), you would think that we all have basic troubleshooting skills, wrong! So one day, this hot shot fresh-off-a-CCNA-course type guy was hired. He sat right behind me. A call came in, DSL connectivity issue of course, he obtained the IP address from the user and pinged the address. He got no replies so he got up, walked up to a supervisor who happened to be right in front of me and said, "I think there's a problem with MY network connection, i checked under the desk and it is connected to the wall jack but I still can't ping the user". Long story short, he couldnt ping the user because the DSL connection was down(something he is supposed to try and resolve, duh!) but he checked his OWN network connection instead. Needless to say, I did not see his dumbass back at work ever since!

My room-mate, who is not the brightest of the brightest, when asked what the current version of Windows was, replied "Windows 2006?"

When I asked her if she was aware that this was 2005, and asked again what version of Windows was out, she again replied, "Windows 2006".

I then asked her what her computer was running and she replied (correctl) "Windows XP". Asking her a final time what the latest and greatest version of Windows was, she then replied, "Ah! Windows 2006 XP!"

Like many of the posters here I've worked in tech support, I happened to be doing support for a large California ISP. Recently our company had taken a lot of customers from a smaller one that had decided it wanted out of the internet game. To say that these customers are eclectic would be putting it mildly. Many of these folks had computers that were less than secure and the company we had aquired them from wasn't very strict about certain things.

Our abuse department is usually pretty quick about locking user accounts when we spot them trying to spread virii via port scanning and other methods. If the customer isn't home a message is usually left on their machine to have them call us back.

Me > Hello and thank you for calling Blahblah internet support!

Customer > Hey there! Mister Clicky Clicky is Sperming Spam all over the internet!

Me > *shocked silence*

Customer > Hello ya there buddy?

Me > Uhh, yes sir, could you please repeat that?

Customer > Mister Clicky Clicky is Sperming Spam all over the place and apparently you guys don't like that!

Me > Well... err, spam is bad. It sounds like you've got some form of a spamming virus on your machine...

I then gave him the basic run down on how to clean up his box, after the call had ended I had to take a ten minute break. I wasn't sure if I should laugh or cry!

I am a Systems Support Specialist for a small resource company that subcontracts for the state. I report only to the head regional coordinator who is also in our office. Part of my job description includes tending to the typical ID10T errors of our staff and I am pretty used to employees panicking with small issues.

We have one employee that had gotten the mistaken impression that he outranks me and expects me to drop whatever I am doing to fix his (brand new) "broken' laptop. (Did I mention he is also prone fits of hostility when he doesn't get immediate attention?) I usually spend a great deal of time with him explaining how to send email, log on to our database, and how to use MS Word. One day he interrupts me saying that his computer has a black screen and demands that I fix it NOW.

I told him very calmly that I would be with him in a few minutes and he would have to be patient. He insisted that he could not get his work done and I needed to fix the monitor portion of his laptop. He walks off muttering how he NEVER gets any help. I dropped what I was doing, get up, and walk up behind him at his desk just in time to see him smack his USB mouse into the side of the laptop and his default Windows logo SCREENSAVER disappear. He then turns around and smugly tells me that he didn't need me -- he fixed it already.

I'm not sure, but I think he's just working with us until a good fast food job opens up.

This is from my mom (I've taught her well):

My mom's boss had locked the TV screen in the office, but had showed her how to change it.

As a favor to a coworker, my mom was going to show her how to change it as well.

Well, the woman grabbed the mouse first, so my mom told her to double click on the main screen.

Well, she double clicked all right - she clicked the right and the left side - twice - at the same time.

I work in a Library part time, and part of the job includes helping people out with computers if they have problems (the woman I usually work with prefers to give these problems to me as I've got a proper computer qualification). However, in the three years I've been there I've never come across a problem which they obviously have in other libraries in the county...

The logging on system works thusly: the user types in the number that appears on their borrower card (now they also have to type in their PIN, but that's only recently)

I was at another library breifly because I was lost and needed to check out Multimap, and got on the computer to find that above the floppy disk drive was a label that read: 'This slot is for floppy disks. Please do not put your Library Card in here'.

I begin to wonder how many borrower cards they've had to get out of floppy disk drives...

My company is so frugal...

We are running IBM printers (vintage 1975) in our warehouses that are printing shipping packing lists. These printers are run by a controller that is older than the printers themselves. They are so old, that they do not have a hard drive and run with a 5 1/4" floppy, which of course is impossible to copy (God forbid we had a spare copy or even a drive in the company to copy one in) with no back-ups or spare equipment, caked in warehouse dust, just waiting for the opportunity to go to printer heaven.

My new Director, in inquiring to the main I.T. division as to what we would do should one of these controllers were to fail, with a loss in business of $100,000+ per day and of course the vintage of these things making replacement parts impossible to obtain. Like maybe a modernization replacement plan? She was told, "Yeah so? There are 20 more of these units being used in the company, they haven't failed yet." In other words, no plans when they fail.

These things are going to fail all at the same time...