Funny and Humorous Technical Support Tales and Stories

USER: "I can't get the internet to come up!"

TECH (that's me): "How do you connect?"

USER: "With

my Compeuter!!"

TECH: "OK... well are you getting an error message?"

USER: "NO! I'm not getting

the internet!"

TECH: "OK, what do you see on the monitor?"

USER: "I just have a black screen with

the WindowsXP thing moving all over, and it won't show me the internet!!!"

TECH: "Alright ma'am... Well

what happens when you move your mouse?"

USER: "OH!... he he" CLICK!

Microsoft decided to include a Popup blocker software into their Internet Explorer. However, not everyone noticed

the yellow bar at the top of the window which told them that a window that the site wants to open didn't open. Even

though I'm not a professional tech supporter, I've heard from people having this problem twice:

There were

two guys I knew from school who built a website together. They wrote me on ICQ first, sent me an E-mail and even

called me because they had no idea how to fix their Javascript problem. They had mailed me their code and it worked

fine in every browser I checked. Only on the phone when we did a step-by-step testing I found out what their problem

really was.

I heard one of the girls who lives in my student apartment talk to her father on the phone,

saying something about IP address settings. Finally she headed the phone over to me, and her father told me that he

could not access his router configuration page. Soon I found out what his problem was: Popup blocker!

By the

way, this guy is a computer science professor at university.

Some years back, working for a temp agency, i was hired by a company(i'll call it TLN), who raised my hourly price,

and placed me at another, the national railroad company (in Norway).

I was hired to do second line support

on NT 4.0, which they did NOT have. Their migration from Win 3.1 on a Banyan Vines network was a bit delayed. I

didn't have a clue about BV and noone had time to teach me the basics. I was basically just moping around, surfing

the net and doing a few reinstalls, hardware repairs etc for more then two months, before my being there could be

justified. (at about 110 U$D an hour)

The company that hired me (TLN) had also been hired to plan the whole

migration to NT. The plan they came up with was (of course) that the railroad company needed lots and lots of their

consultants, for server migration, application adaptment, network planning, support etc.. The railroad company,

being state run, said "bring'em in", budgets being a strange word to them.

Once, after the NT migration

started, I was reviewing a list of logged problems the 1.line had not been able to solve the previous evening, and

found one obvious "cleaning lady" (power cord unplugged). I was going to the same area for a priority case anyway so

i dropped in and plugged the power cord in. Turned out this guy was a software developer. A consultant from TLN, the

same company that hired me.

So here it is. A software developer who doesn't know a computer needs power, a

clueless 1.line support person who wasn't able to resolve this tough problem. People being paid to support systems

not yet installed. Nice migration planning by TLN who were just skimming money from hiring unskilled personnel

After 6 months in this position I didn't get my contract renewed. I had to leave with a few others. At that time

we had lots of work, but the IT budgets were cleaned out.

It's a strange job, being a techie.....

I was Regional IT Manager for a group of hotels in Dubai. All the properties had their individual General Managers.

Me as a person, I used to be really short tempered, in terms if someone asked me any sort of stupid questions, I

would just flip out. During those days, the General Manager of one of the properties was really close to me, and

always used to bug me for each and every stupid questions that he had. Once he called, when I was briefing my staff

for the week (The problem he had, had nothing to do with my department, it was the maintenance department):

GM : My Split airconditioner is not working. Why?

ME : What happened sir?

GM : My AC won't just work

anymore.

(I took a real deep breath and replied)

ME : Sir, what happens when you pick up the remote control

of the AC, point at the AC and try to switch it on?

GM : Nothing!!!

ME : Did you check for the batteries?

GM : Yes, I just replaced the old ones with new.

ME : Still its not working? Hmmmm..... Sir, I believe the

software of the AC is corrupted.

(This was the only way I could get back at him for each and every time he

bugged me.)

GM : What should I do now?

ME : Sir would you have the installation CD of the AC that came along

with it?

GM : No!!!

ME : Sir, without the CD the AC wouldn't just work. Somebody has to reinstall the AC

software and yes please do ask them for any antivirus for the AC, so that it doesn't get corrupted again.

GM :

And who would do that?

ME : The Miantenance department sir, they are the ones taking care of these issues.

GM

: Thank you so much.

ME : Anytime sir.

After this he was convinced that the AC was actually working on

softwares and the software has to be installed from a CD in order to start working again. He actually had a quarrel

with the maintenance department and eventually they had to look for the installation CD, which they never found

until now.

My staff members whom I was briefing and were present during the whole conversation, were infact

rolling on the floor looking at the stupidity of a person who is such a high position, and yet has no idea about

anything.

I just got of the phone with a lovley old lady who wanted our head office address in chertsy england so she could

write to them in order to advertise a flat for rent in the area

she wanted to advertise to my company

S****ng as she feels we are a proffesional lot

I work for a company that makes software for automobile dealers.

Our software allows you to save a deal in

two modes:

Pending, which means that the vehicle is still available for sale.

Sold, which means that

the deal has been finalized and the vehicle is no longer available.

A customer called me with two

questions:

1) How do I change this pending deal to sold?

We told her how to do this when she got the

software.

2) I used the Remove Pending Deals and now the pending deal is gone!

What part of REMOVE

doesn't she understand? We also give the user a warning box that states if he/she continues, it will remove the

deal. Does she want it in big bright flashing letters?

I got out of the computer support business. In my new job (in a medical lab) we have a couple of servers and things

hooked up to instruments and stuff that basically process and analyze data. So the computer on my desk is a huge

honking thing, dual P3 processors, the works, old but reliable. And it has a UPS, a large heavy old thing on my desk

as well. Its not even hooked up to the computer. Supposedly, its there so we can continue working if the power goes

out. Like that would even be possible without all the other instruments and computer in the lab. But the management

thinks its important, and won't let me remove it, or actually connect it to the system.

I have the dubious honour of being the resident hardware & PC problem fixer in a software house. My alleged

colleagues claim to have degrees, some of which relate to computer programming. With the exception of our clerical &

sales staff, they are all employed as "software engineers" ... or at least that's what their business cards say.

This morning I got a visit from one of these alleged "software engineers" with a problem on his ancient

Gateway PC. It would not boot and was saying it could not find his hard drive. A peek at the BIOS and quick check on

the cables confirmed he had a problem. OK, remove the drive and try it in my PC. Same result.

Cause of

death: The drive electronics were fried, probably something to do with the quarter inch of dust and carpet fluff

coating it on all sides and completely filling the power supply.

I explained to the (ab)user that he would

need to vacuum out his PC and fit a replacement drive, and then restore his data from his backups.

No

backup, of course, so could I get the data back off his fried drive.

I explained again to the luser that an

ancient drive with fried electronics could only get its data recovered by one of the big (and expensive) forensic

data recovery companies ... at HIS expense.

"Can't you just put it in your machine and read the data off

it?" quoth the luser. (This guy has a degree and has been on our payroll for over five years ... and has just

watched it not work in my PC)

"What part of 'It's a DEAD DRIVE and I can't get ANY data off it' don't you

understand?"

"But you could try one of those data recovery utilities." Persistent little "bleep"

"NO!

It's a DEAD DRIVE. It is kaputt. It cannot be read. Go away"

"I'll get Xxx (our Network Admin) to try"

"He will send you back to me, so don't waste his time and mine"

... Five minutes later...

"DynoRoddy,

can you explain to him what 'It's a DEAD DRIVE and we can NOT get ANY data off it' means?"

"No, not without

breaking the law"

I eventually booted it ... with my steel toecap.

For all those who get the "I have windows 97" customers, Win 97 really did exist for a while.

Windows 96 is

SP1 for Win 95

Windows 97 is SP2 for win 95 (not sure but I think sp2 was included in office 97)

What

happens is when windows was booting it says either

Windows 96 or Windows 97, but when you acually look at the

control panel, system it says what it acually is - Windows 95.

Sometimes the user has a legitimate reason

to be confused.

This is an older story that I've waited to tell because it might just get some people in trouble.

I was 19

and running a media center at a university. One day a visiting professor from some place in Europe needs some help

printing his document on our laser printers, because part of the page keeps getting cut off. My boss and the

professor have no idea what is wrong. I think about it for a bit, and realize that his document and computer are set

up to print on A4 size paper, not 8.5x11" stuff that is standard around here.

I guess he felt like doing

something extra nice in return, because he left some bottles of beer for me the next week. The really classy

microbrewed European kind, with drawings of naked woman on the labels and stuff. The drinking age is 21 where I

live, and I was kind of worried that someone would find out and cause problems.

This story is from a friend who is an electrician...

He was on holidays visiting some relatives on a farm

in rural Australia when the neighbour of his relatives found out that he was an electrician. They asked him for help

as they had installed some new power points in their home but they wouldn't work, would he come and have a look at

them.

He went over to their house and pulled one of the outlets off the wall, only to find that there were

no wires connecting to the backs of them. These people had bought them from a hardware store, screwed them onto the

wall and just expected to be able to plug things in and use them.

(Here are a few goodies from my time doing ISP tech support.)

User: My laptop is wireless. So why do I have

to plug it in?

Tech: Please look on the back of your cable modem and tell me the number on the

sticker marked MAC address .

User: But I don t have a Mac, I m running Windows.

User: My

modium ain t workin .

Tech: What type of internet connection do you have?

User: A DSL modium.

Tech: What

model of DSL *modem* is it?

User: A Net-o-pia modium.

Tech: Can you tell me what lights you see on the

*modem* now?

User: Enter-net link is on, enter-net traffic is blinkin

Tech: [beats head on desk]

Tech: OK, I m showing that you have cablemodem service. Do you have any other devices, like a wireless

router, connected?

User: Yes, I got a wireless.

Tech: What type of wireless router is it?

User: A

Linsky.

Tech: Is that a Linksys wireless router

User: That s what I said. A Linsky.

Tech: !

Happened a few years ago.

My computer was plugged into the building UPS as I did most server maintenance.

One day I am working away when my computer shuts down. Shuts down? The other people in the office are still

running off raw power. After a few minutes my computer starts to boot. I RUN into the server room and sure enough

they are all also re-booting. So why did the UPS power go off when raw power was working?

A few phone calls

later I finally got an answer from the building electrician.

It seems they were trying to find out which

breakers on the breaker panel controlled which plugs. They did this by flipping the breaker, then seeing what still

worked.

I sent a really nasty letter through management explaining that the U in UPS stood for

Uninterruptible.

Oh yes, it took us several days to get the WAN stable again.

While im not really tech support as such, I do have to deal with plenty of immensely ignorant people with some

min-bogglingly stupid porblems.

One that comes to mind is similar to others i have read about.

Woman

comes up to my desk claiming to have a problem with her floppy disk. This is a problem we get alot due to some of

our floppy drives being defective.

The incident goes thusly..

I go to her pc..click on the floppy

disk drive.."No Disk in Drive"..ok that usualy happens..

Me : "Ok looks like the Pc cant read the disk ill

just check the disk itself"

........

.......

.......

Me : OK...where is the

disk?

Idiot : Oh its here in my hand-bag

Me : Stragely enough the disk need sto be in the drive for it to

work......

Me : /cry Walk away in digust

Other instances include our long distance calling booths

which, as you can imagine attacts alot of people with the manners and the english language skills of an ape.

Our system is simple, and we have posters to show them but alas stupidity prevails...

Woman goes into

phone booth and as we can see on our monitor she isnt using it right and she comes out with a problem. I go to her

booth and notice that the poster displaying the method (not like its hard or anything) is gone form that booth so i

show her the one on the wall outside.

Step 1 : Dial the number

Step 2 : Wait for Answer

Step 3 :

Press * to talk

Simple right?

So she goes back in a dials..walks out of the phone booth and up to

the poster i showed her and presses the images of the * button on the poster......

Stupidity 1

Faith in

humanity 0