Funny and Humorous Technical Support Tales and Stories

Guy is asking to set up Outlook on laptop. It's asking for the orignal disc we did not provide him (Small Business Edition). We use Professional for our everything since it's what our company bought in terms of volume licences. Guy insists that we installed it using our corporate discs.

Guy: I don't understand why Office needs to install when it's already installed on the PC.

Me: It's a known problem with Office. When you install it without install all files (default install), it will work fine for one user, but when a new users logs in to use it, it will ask for the original CD again.

Guy: You're not listening to me. It's already installed on the computer! You guys installed it! I'll prove it to you that it's on the PC.

*I'm thinking to myself - "didn't I just explain to him... okay, whatever"...*

*Guy logs off new user, then logs in as himself... causing akward silence while all this is happening*

Me: I know what's going to happen, I see it all the time. You log in, it'll work just fine. I got it. But that doesn't change the fact that it's asking for the original CD that we didn't use to install it.

*Finishes logging in, then starting up Outlook ... yep, all fine*

Guy: You guys DID install it. It's not Small Business. It's whatever you put in it.

*Guy proceeds to go to Help-About on his own without me asking.... *

Guy: Oh... it's Small Business Edition.

*He sounds deflated that he's wrong*

Me: Right. And I see that it's also registered to Company XYZ. If we installed it, it would have said Company ABC.

*He goes back into defensive mode*

Guy: But you guys DID install it! We sent in the discs to you guys!

*Okay... even if we installed it, HE sent in his OWN discs... what did I just say earlier about it requiring the ORIGINAL discs we installed Office with?*

Me: If that's the case, it's still asking for the original disc that we used to install it. We don't have Small Business Edition. We have Professinal.

Guy: *very quickly* Okay, I'll go find the disc. *clicks*

In the Aramco Dhahran Saudi Arabia computer department office in the tower building in 1984 the manager showed me a letter just received from the IT dept of the Houston offices of Aramco, it said a floppy disk of data was attached - yes, it was attached - with a staple through the floppy.

I have been reading the stories here for a couple of day and I was reminded of a call from when I worked in a call center a few years ago.

I was fairly new to the company so I was nominated to work the overnight x-mas eve shift. I was getting ready to call it a night when I received the best call in my short lived help-desk career.

As I mentioned it was early x-mas morning and the call went something like this:

(m) = me

(c) = caller

(m) - normal greeting, how may I help you?

(c) - I just got a new computer for x-mas and I can't get on the internet

(m) - Ok, what type of computer do you have? (not really relivent, but curious)

(c) - (name of PC)

(m) - So what happen's when you try and go on the internet?

(c) - Nothing

(m) - So, nothing happens when you click on Internet Explorer

(c) - No, all I is a black screen

At this point you may have an idea of what has happened, but wait...

(m) - Oh, on you monitor do you see a green power light

(c) - No, it's orange

(m) - Ok, lets make sure the monitor is plugged into your computer properly

(c) - It is plugged into the wall

(m) - What about the other cable?

(c) - There was nowhere to plug it in so I thought it didn't matter

(m) - It should be plugged in to the computer part of you system

(c) - Is that what was in the other box? I though it was just spare stuff

(m) - Please hook-up you computer properly and call us back

(m) - Thank-you for calling ***cast, have a nice day

It may sound unbelievable but it really did happen