Funny and Humorous Technical Support Tales and Stories

Okay, I don't think it's exactly the kind of tale I'm supposed to talk about. But it DOES deal with technical support -- Microsoft Technical Support.

So, a lot of people believe that Microsoft is the devil, and it may be. But that's all everyone around here uses.

Anyhow, on with my story.

I was having technical trouble with my computer, that pertained to Windows 2000. So I decided to call Microsoft, since I couldn't find the solution ANYWHERE else. Well, I FINALLY get to talk to someone, a woman. She's nice, so I think it'll go well.

So I'm giving her the information, right? She waits a few moments, and says:

Woman: Alright, sir, I believe I have a few possible solutions to your problem.

Neither of us said anything ...

Me: Well, can I have them.

Woman: Yes. ............ Oh, I'm sorry sir, one moment. My computer seems to have frozen.

Now, no one wants to hear that. Especially when they call MICROSOFT for tech. support. They make the damn computers. Aren't they supposed to WORK!! =)

And that's my tale!

Just got a call from one of our support guys. He looks after websites. He calls me and asked to check why some text he typed into the admin area of the website is not saving. He said it took him ages to type it all in and was annoyed that it did not save. After checking the database I saw there was no record of him trying to save so I found out that he took more than 20 minutes to type it and the website session had expired and he got logged out. I told him that with any long data entry on the web he should put it in notepad/word first and cut and pasted it, because you never know what can go wrong. He then asked me if it was ok to just use the text file that was emailed to him instead. I asked him "did you just spend over 20 minutes copying from that text file into the textarea of the web page?". And with me trying to hold back my laughter he says "Yes".

I just had to troubleshoot a customer, who was trying to send an e-mail message for 3 days, "and still nothing worked, and everything was slow". The reason? She was sending a small movie - just 480MB.

I work at a UK based callcentre and we have tech support for many different computer brands and we also have multilingual support for customer throughout europe.

I had a call from a norwegian lady who had problems with Norton Internet Security and her lingual skills weren't the strongest.

C=Customer

M=Me

M: Welcome to the technical pc support, how may i help you?

C: Yes, hello! Ive f**ked my computer.

M: Putting customer on hold and laughing a lot and after that i helped the customer to solve the problem with Norton Internet Security.

So that is my day at techsupport, how was yours?

Back in the early '90s, I was a systems installer, flying all over the country installing Novell & Unix networks. I had installed a Novell network running on an IBM PS/2 server in an office on Hilton Head. Shortly afterwards, the customer complained that the server had started rebooting itself randomly, apparently for no reason. I called them and suggested several things, but nothing seemed to help.

Finally, my company decided to send me down to monitor the server for a couple of days. For two days I babysat the server, sucking down coffee & making small talk with the office staff, but the server never burped once. Finally, I climbed on a plane & flew back to Nashville. The next day when I got to the office, they told me that the customer had called right after I left to say that the server rebooted again.

I got on the phone with the customer again, and he was pretty steamed. I calmed him down and then asked him if ANYTHING had changed lately on the network. It was only at that point that he saw fit to inform me that he had run another drop for a computer that hadn't been installed yet and suddenly things became crystal clear. He had an unterminated network and every now and then the standing waves on the circuit were enough to cause the server to reboot. I had him take out the run and properly terminate the bus and he had no further problems.

I work doing techincal support for a prominent cable ISP, one of the best in the nation.

Last week I had a customer phone in with problems connecting. He had just performed a system restore and ever since he couldn't access the internet.

Originally, he was using RJ45 from the modem to the PC and the PC activity light on the modem was blacked out. Had him re-seat the RJ45, still nothing. He had no other RJ45 around. I brought the customer to the device manager and nearly all of the devices had question marks next to them (including the NIC). Needless to say, we only support the drivers for the USB connection, so naturally I had him switch to USB and he was able to connect.

This was not enough.

At this point in time the customer had already complained of having to scroll horizontially in Internet Explorer to view the entire webpage. This, he assumed was due to a problem with us, his ISP or he was looking for cheap support, but then again if he was that savvy he'd probably have fixed it himself. I had him press and hold down the CTRL key and then scroll downwards on his mouse wheel to assist him somewhat in decreasing the size of the page (knowing darned well his drivers were jacked up).

I inform him of what is causing the problem with his resolution, but he starts to take shots at my technical expertise, meanwhile the company I work for has strict guidelines in terms of what we can do. It has nothing to do with whether or not I can help him, but everything to do with the fact his internet service was working and this was clearly an OS related issue. I try to refer him out.

No go, of course.

He starts to invent reasons for me to log in remotely to his computer (read: needs assistance setting up a mail client).

I willfully log in remotely to assist him with that issue and he has a hotmail acct set up as his main identity in Outlook Express which is erroring out because it is not set up properly (ie; not paying for the premium hotmail services). Now I inform him that hotmail now requires payment for him to allow transfer from his hotmail account to Outlook Express.

He refuses to accept that.

I then explain that in order for us to set up his Outlook Express with our email addresses he would have to delete the Hotmail identity so we could create one of his email addressses through us as his main identity. He refused to do so. I told him there was nothing more I could do at that time then and explained he still had access to our webmail application if needed.

Needless to say, after repeating myself multiple times prior, he still asks me to "fix the problems" on his computer while remotely logged in. Again I explained that it is something he would have to talk to his manufacturer regarding. To which he responds "well you don't have to tell me you are doing it" as if the actual remote session itself is not recorded. I respond again with the same response (referring him to the PC manufacturer).

Finally he reluctantly accepted the fact I was not going to lose my job, or get in trouble over his mistakes (had a virus before the system restore) and he gave up. Basically, he was looking for a way around having to pay his manufacturer for the support.

It would be great if I could give out my number to nearly each person I speak to daily and make some extra money on the side fixing their jacked up PC's.

I was on a call with a guy who told me he had a genitalia Celeron processor. Not a long story, but it made my office laugh.

I work as a network administrator at a high school in Australia. On day I get a phone call from a rather loud teacher demanding me to come downstairs to fix the printer in his class room. From a remote terminal I can see that the printer is not turned on, So after arguing with him for 5 minutes about there being no power to the printer I decide to go down to have a look. When I get to his class room I find the printer in the middle of the room, with no power cord or a computer to print from.

This teacher is on the IT Commitee at this school!!!

I have a part time job as I am still at school. Fortunately or unfortunatly as it may be, one of my collegues is our school pin up's Dad Two days after we installed a secure entry system the girls father walks in The system works when you hold a magnetic keyring against a small box on wall with a key symbol on it, he looks for the old manual lock which has been removed he has the old key in his hand spots the new box on the wall and holds his old key against the symbol of the key on the box and shouts "what the **** this ****** key dusnt fit

I allowed myself considerable time to laugh as solecy for the fact that his daughter will never look at me twice though I plucked up the courage to talk to her in the cafeteria to tell her this story - she says hi to me now - so you never know...

Working in the helpdesk for the governments oil company here in Norway waaay back in 1995 I got this call:

M=Me

C=Caller

M: Helpdesk, you're talking to Ove

C: Hiya, I'd like you to make a program for me

M: (want to answer; this is the "help"-desk, not the "programming"-desk, but instead says) I'm sorry, but we don't make programs here

C: Well, anyway, I want you to make a program for me that can remove all the old documents I don't need anymore

M: (curiosity tickled and wondering, did I get this right ?) You want me to make you a program that will go through your files and find the documents/spreadsheets/presentations etc. that you don't need anymore

C: Yeah, and delete them

M: Well, sorry to say sir, but so far we're kinda low on the future-seeing mind-reading program-front, but I'll let you know if I hear about anything like this

C: Hmmmfff, could you check with Eric (one of the other guys there), I think he could make it for me, heck - just transfer me to him and we'll get this done

M: Sure (and makes sure to listen in to conversation }:-)

Working in the helpdesk for the governments oil company here in Norway waaay back in 1995 I got this call:

M=Me

C=Caller

M: Helpdesk, you're talking to Ove

C: Hiya, my computer says "Non system disk or disk error..." when I start it, could you get up here and fix it

M: Remove the floppy

C: There's no floppy in it

M: Remove the floppy

C: (slightly miffed) I ALREADY told you, there's no floppy in it !!!

M: Remove the floppy please

C: I told you to get up here and...(sound of bending, pushing button and the "sshhhff" of a diskette popping out of FD)...wait a second, *click on keyboard*, nevermind. I managed to fix it MYSELF thank-u-very-much, so now you don't have to get up her *hangs up*

M: Well, golly gee whizz, I wonder how you did that }:-)

Ove

A co-worker had a dialup customer several days ago. Obviously, after not knowing what version of Windows they have, co-worker gives them a penalty reboot.

Co-Worker: Ok, what version of Windows does it say you have?

Customer: I have Microsoft Windows 24%

Not sure how to interpret that. Windows 1924? Windows 2.4?

Nearest we can figure (as no other information was presented) was it was Windows 98/ME and was doing a scandisk and happened to be at 24%, but it could be most anything.

So I just moved into my university residence room, and tried to get connected to the network. I wasn't overly surprised when it didn't work, so I called the student tech to get some help. He checked my settings, and said he would go to the network administrators as everything seemed to be ok from my end.

As I have a laptop I was able to go on-campus and take advantage of the wireless, and there are open-access computer labs, so I was able to check my e-mail, check the course notes & assignments on the class websites, apply for my co-op jobs (all of which I NEED to do) without too many problems. However it gets annoying to have to do this on campus, I'd like to do it from my room as I was supposed to be able to do.

After about a week without hearing back from the student tech I sent an e-mail. I heard nothing so I sent another... then tried calling again. He gave me the number for the level-two tech, and I called that. That same day I get a call back from the level-two tech, saying that he's re-enabled my port, could I please try connecting again. When he discovers it works perfectly after he does that he then asks for the name of the tech who sent me to him, as I oughtn't have been sent up to him for something that trivial.

If all it takes to get paid as the student "tech" is checking that I followed the pretty pictures in the brochure showing what my settings ought to be, and then refer me to the level-two tech instead of actually looking into the problem, maybe I ought to apply next term.

Years ago, I was starting a job with a national company that outsourced tech support. During the first six weeks, they gave us training on windows 95 as well as the software we would be supporting.

Getting bored, I decided to read ahead. I realized they would be covering file sharing in the next day or so. Then a great idea dawned on me. Sitting across the room from me (with his back to me) was a newby that I felt could take a joke. When he went to lunch, I snuck over to his computer and shared out his hard drive. To add to the fun, I let the guy sitting next to me in on the joke.

When the victim returned to his desk for lunch, he opened the app we were all being trained on and followed along with the teacher. Meanwhile, I was on the other side of the room, navigating to his desktop and creating folders with profane titles. Sooner or later, of course the trainer asks everyone to close all their windows and go back to their desktop.

The look on his face when he got to his desktop! OMG I wanted to pop a gord. We were laughing so hard we had tears coming down. He couldn't drag those folders to the trash fast enough! All the while he's saying, "What the???" Of course, he didn't know we were the culprits so we played this out for hours. At one point, he was dragging the folders to the trash yet the new ones we were creating were popping up faster than he could get rid of them. We started giving the folders names like, "You cannot win", "stop deleting us". LMAO

Eventually he caught on that it was us. I guess our fit of laughter gave us away. He couldn't wait to do the same to someone else. "How did you do that? I gotta do this to someone else" was his reaction.

Sort of an anti-tech tale.

While working as a network manager I received a new computer that HAD to be installed bythe company supplying it.

The tech installed it without much fuss, but had a lot of trouble with the mouse not tracking properly. He fiddled a bit and left saying he'd haveto get me anothermouse that wasn't faulty, as this one obviously was.

I waited until he'd left, then turned over the complimentary mouse mat so it wasthe right way up, showing his company logo...

Hmmm...

Im not a tech ...But i know My way around computers.

I was on Msn when my friend ( who i will not name) needed help.

He wanted to to install the game "1nsane". which runs on windows 95/98...

This is the short onvo I had With him

m= Me

u=lUser

U = Dde can you help me

m = Sure whats wrong ?

U = I cant Install insane.

m = Guttin .. It a great game ... what going wrong ?

U = I dont know it just wont work.

m = What windows do you have ?

U = There isnt any windows im on the computer in my brothers room.

m = fag!. Im going to assume that you have xp, search for a insane windows xp crack.

*close chat window*

You would think that some people these would be able to read the specs on the box and know what is ment by Windows when talking about computers.

I work for OK State U as a computer support tech. My office phone happens to be one digit off from the Bursar office. I get lots of misdirected calls--most folks believe me when I tell them I'm not in charge of their campus account.

Occasionally I do get the oddball caller. This type waits for me to finish saying "Physical Plant CIS, this is Mike" (sounds nothing like "Bursar's Office," right?) before rattling off their email address, mother's maiden name, SSN, or credit card number! Sometimes it's hard to convince them they have the wrong number.

I worked at an electronics service company as a dispatcher for our technicians (In corporatespeak, they were referred to as Customer Engineers, or CEs for short.). One day, I was informed by several of our CEs that the wireless messaging system we used was down. I placed a call with our Help Desk to get this straightened out. Our Help Desk was outsourced to another country at the time, and this led to some interesting situations. Thia call went something like this:

Me: Yes, I'm calling because my CEs are reporting that the wireless messaging system is down.

Help Desk: OK, One moment ...(sounds of typing)...I'm sorry, how do you spell "CE?"

All hopes for a speedy resolution were immediately dashed.

I work for a cable ISP. Theres no such thing as a dull day at the office. Heres a story that could get us all killed.

Me: Thank you for calling ____. Your speaking to _____. can i have your account number or telephone number plz.

007: No You can't!.

Me: Sorry sir. I require your account number or telephone number to access your account.

007: Well u can't have them. I shread all documents & my number isn't listed.

Me: Is your telephone number one of ours?.

007: Yes!.

Me: Well sir it's ok to give me the number because we own your Telephone service. And won't share this information!.

007: Well if you own it why are you asking me for it.?

Me: Because sir we own alot of numbers. guessing yours wouldn't work!

007: Can't u get my account with somthing else.?

Me: Let me try. Can i have your email address or personal address?

007: No i don't give that information out over the phone.!

Me: Never mind let me try fix!!

(Descovered the modem was broken)

Me: Sir your going to require a technician! I need some details to book you one.

007: I Guess u can't help then! (SLAMS PHONE DOWN)

Me: ("LEFT THINKING HOW HARD LIFE MUST BE AS A SPY")

Over this past winter break, my mother and I went on a cruise for some mother-daughter bonding. Pretty sweet. The ship had a computer lab with Adobe Photoshop Elements that was open for guests to use to edit their pictures.

Now, a bit of history about my mom. She's an accountant, and has been using computers since she switched colleges to be at UCLA when it got one of those card-reading monstrosities. But, she's mostly focused on specific applications. She can make Excel, Lotus, Quicken, Turbotax, etc. dance in ways that would take me decades to figure out, but she can be a leetle bit shaky on computers in general.

Mom's also a bit high-strung and prone to panic. She listens to a computer talk show and reads a few magazines, and knows enough to know that she should be very afraid. Which is wonderful, since with her insistance that nothing be downloaded, nothing be clicked, all suspicious mail be deleted unread, and the machine be disconnected from the internet as soon as whatever neccessary work is finished, there's almost no. physical. way. she could ever get malware infections. Yay!

But It's also terrible, because if I do anything on the computer without explaining what I'm doing, why, reassure her multiple times (and she still won't believe it) that even though it's not the exact paranoid steps she would take or is something she doesn't understand that it won't destroy anything, she's very quick to assume that her daughter, a comp sci engineering student who also works at her college's advanced tech desk, is omfg going to break teh compyooter!

...fun.

But while she's panicky, she's usually *fairly* computer literate. So it was a complete surprise to me when she walked through the Adobe "open file" menu, selected one of her pictures, had it open smoothly, and went into total panic mode.

"It's not working! I told it to open the file, and there's only one thing there! Where's the rest of them?"

Eh?

I sort of looked at her blankly, and set about explaining the odd fact that a single .jpeg file contains one picture, as a general rule. Apparantly I need to be aware that there is different terminology used elsewhere, such as in the accounting circles she travels in, and files often contain more than one item. She specifically mentioned Excel here, so I think she's refering to the presense of tabbed worksheets? Maybe? I dunno? Folder != File... I think... but it seems that I'm closed-minded.....

That particular incident was eventually followed by my relaxation at teatime (Folks always hate on british food, but scones + cream + tea + more cream + sugar = nummy) being disturbed because "all her pictures from City2 were gone!"

Turns out she was in the directory \\Pictures\City1\City2(mispelled\. She wanted to be in \\Pictures\City2(mispelled a different way\.

...once I pointed this out, I was shooed away because I was trying to mess up her system. This system had multiple copies of pictures every which where, as when she couldn't find a picture, she re-downloaded it off the memory card into a different folder spelled differently. Some were sorted by day, some by city, and the 'system' was often switched around mid-folder. Eventually she made a cd of all the ones she'd actually edited, and left the whooole mess behind.

...However, this IS indicative of her real-life organizational skills, so I don't know if this relates to an inability to use Windows Explorer, or is just a continuation of known traits....

Don't get me wrong, I love me mum and am ecstatic beyond belief that she treated me to this cruise. That said....

Cust called back and was very, very mad at me. Cust said that she spent 4 hours trying to follow my directions. Cust told me that I didnt know what I was talking about. Cust said that she didnt understand how to install windows at all. She told me that my directions where hard to follow. This is the email that I sent to the cust:

!!WARNING!!

DOING THE FOLLOWING STEPS WILL ERASE YOUR HARD DRIVE AND YOU WILL LOSE ALL OF YOUR INFORMATION!!

Turn the system on. As the system comes on you will see a screen that has Dell's Logo on it. When you see this screen start pressing the F12 key at the top of your keyboard. If done correctly you will come to a new screen that says "One Time Boot Menu". Now that you have got to this screen, put in your Windows CD. Now look in the list for, IDE CDROM device or something similar. Use the Up and Down Arrows to highlight the CDROM. After highlighting the CDROM, press Enter. A new screen will pop up and ask you to press any key to boot to the CD. If you have done this correctly you will come to a blue screen with loading files at the bottom. If you do not get this screen, restart the system and try again. After the file's get done loading, it will ask you to: Press Enter to install windows, or Press R to use recovery console. You will need to Press Enter. The next screen will ask you to press F8 to agree with Microsoft. Then the next screen will show you two or more Partitions. One is a FAT and the other is NTFS. If it does not say NTFS then it is damaged and it doesn't recognize what it is. Now use the Up and Down Arrows to highlight the NTFS partition or the partition that is not recognized. After you highlight it, press the letter D to delete it. After you press D you will then be asked to press L. If not then don't worry about it. After that partition has been deleted, you will have some un-partitioned space. Now highlight the un-partitioned space and press Enter. Sometimes it will ask you how big do you want to make the partition. It will say something like. EXAMPLE: Use 500 MB's out of 1000 MB's. What you will need to do is, use the maxim amount that you can. In this case it is 1000 MB's. Now it will ask you to do a Format. Format using NTFS. Do not use NTFS Quick. After the Format is done it will then start to install windows. After windows installs it will be time to install the drivers.

How is that hard to understand? come to find out, when she was trying to hit the F12 key. She was pressing F+1+2 keys....

I work for FedEx, as a domestic customer service representative. As some of you may know FedEx has purchased Kinkos and uses them as shipping facilities. I had a total braindead moron call in citing that he was the recipient of a package and that he knew his brother had taken it to FedEx and not Kinkos because the "internet told [him] so". No amount of explaining could get him to understand that a Kinkos is in fact FedEx because that's not what the "internet told [him]". Don't you all wish the internet could tell you what to think?