Funny and Humorous Technical Support Tales and Stories

Customer cannot connect remotely with SecurID token - error message about unable to validate the remote servers I.P - meaning they have no internet connection

After a couple minutes of checking her account etc

I then asked her to go to a website to check her passcode

Me: Ok, can you go to ########.com?

Customer: Ok

Me: Is it loading?

Customer: Yes

Me: ok... Does it ask you for a passcode?

Customer: No it does not ask for a passcode but it says disconnected

Me: Are you in internet explorer on ######.com?

Customer: Oh I thought you wanted me to open Outlook

Me:*facepalms*

After 2 minutes

Customer: Oh thats not loading

me: Ok could you try bbc.co.uk?

Customer: bbc?

Me: Yes

Customer: Could you spell that for me?

Me:*puts customer on mute and sighs* B for Bravo, B for Bravo, C for Charlie .co.uk

Customer: Ok that is not working either

Me: Ok it appears that you have no internet connection, can you reset your router

Customer: Router? I don't know if I have one, I will ask my husband. *hangs up*

A friend has an old PC that their kids use for homework and games, but not much as it takes forever to do anything. I had a look and found they were running Windows XP on a machine with only 256 MB of RAM, and a completely full disk.

I found a GB of old (but working) RAM, and offered to go round and fit it (free of course). Friend said, "No need, we've deleted some files so there should be plenty of memory now".

Ever try explaining the difference between RAM and disk to someone who doesn't understand computers and doesn't want to? Maybe I should just say it needs more pixie dust.

So in our company, we're running a test on the next version of our integrated inventory/sales/shipping software, to which we're planning to upgrade some time in the next month or so. As the two main guys in the warehouse, my supervisor [who I'll just call "Boss"] and I do most of the testing as far as the inventory and shipping goes. So that it doesn't interfere with the live system, we have to remote login to the testing server in order to actually run the new stuff. This happens today:

Boss: Okay, we still need to test if we can print the extra shipping labels from the system.

Me: OH, duh, forgot about that! Okay, let me just set the printer to be shared like I did for the product labels.

*I go through the steps, it's showing up, but it can't be accessed by anything but the computer it's hooked directly into*

Me: Huh... I don't think the permissions are set up right for this login.

Boss: Okay, so should I put it in as a bug report?

Me: What? No, it's not the new software that's the problem, for whatever reason we can SEE the printer in the shared directory, but we can't access it through other computers, just the one it's hooked up to.

Boss: Well, that sounds like something we'll have to get fixed before we go live.

Me: ... Boss, I just said, it doesn't have to do with the test software. It has to do with the share permissions in Windows.

Boss: Well let me go get [the IT guy] to look at it.

*I consider this a solid plan, because I haven't gotten the transfer to IT I've been gunning for and thus can't do anything more advanced than what's already been done*

[IT Guy]: So, you guys aren't able to print anything?

Me: No, we can print, but when I go to share this printer it can be seen in the shared directory but we can't access it from other systems.

*We spend about 10 minutes looking over it, testing it with my computer, the remote login, and the other computer in the warehouse. We can run off a test page on some things, but can't remote-print with the software on any system except where it's hooked up*

Boss: So I guess I'll have to file this as a bug report right?

[IT Guy]: No, it doesn't have anything to do with [software] it's all in Windows.

Me: Right, I think the permissions aren't set up correctly.

[IT Guy]: Yeah, it's either that or the printer pool isn't set up in Active Directory properly.

Me: Ah, good point.

Boss: Well, we should check to make sure the other printers still work.

Me: *blank look* ..... Why wouldn't they?

Boss: Well if the test system's messed up we need to know.

*It was at this point I stopped trying to explain the difference and just pointed out that the product-label printer was still fine, and [IT Guy] was able to fix the other issue; Boss *still* thinks it had to do with the test software, no matter how many times we pointed out that even computers on the live setup wouldn't use it properly*

A few years ago I was just after installing a digital x-ray scanner in a dental practice, and had started training the staff there how to scan x-rays into it. (It was similar to this machine http://www.physiodent.com/Durr_VistaScan_Plus_Ceph.html)

One dental nurse was late and missed almost all the training and asked me to quickly explain the whole thing again! So, knowing that the rest of the staff knew how to operate it, I decided to play a small trick on her (for making me go through the whole thing again.)

I briefly explained that she inserts the x-ray in the middle and "because it is voice activated," (it of course wasn't)I told her to just say "Scan!" and the machine would do the rest. The other staff were looking puzzled at me because I hadn't told them this interesting piece of information.

As she leaned forward saying "Scan!" and nothing was happening, I looked at the rest of the staff and winked to let them know I was kidding, and they started grinning.

Since nothing was happening when she said "Scan!" I told her to speak a little louder. So there she was repeating "Scan!" at the Non-voice-activated scanner, until the rest of the staff started laughing out loud....she start laughing too once she realised I was kidding...and I could hear her later telling patients about how silly she felt LOL