Funny and Humorous Technical Support Tales and Stories

I absolutely hate this, and it's becoming more and more common. A user will call and explain they are not able to connect their VPN. So I immediatly connect to a remote computer and test the VPN myself to make sure it's functioning. Then I log in to the firewall, and start opening a WebEX support session so I can troubleshoot with them. I ask them to try to connect to the VPN now that I am viewing the firewall log so I can see any messages that pop up there. The user then replies "Oh, I can't connect now. I'm driving. I was having this issue last night."

Why?? Why do you think I can troubleshoot something when you are driving? Why do you call me when you are driving? Though typically, a good thing that usually comes from this is by time they get back to whereever they CAN connect and have time to troubleshoot, it's not needed because it magically started working.

No kidding...

Yesterday I was helping a roommate out to look up some information regarding plane ticket prices. I told her to go to a specific website, and I told her how to get there. No "" = Me, "" = Her.

Go to the address bar and type in [site name]...

"You mean this thing here?" (cursor at top of screen across white bar)

Yes...

"And what, delete this and type it in?" (already site address there)

Yes... (slightly wide-eyed)

"Then what?"

At this point I'm thinking: Really? You've NEVER typed in a website, or anything else, before? Yet you use the computer here almost daily?

Hit Enter.

She looks all over the screen for it.

On the keyboard. (nearly laughing, almost couldn't resist)

Finally... "Oh! Here we go." Hits Enter. "I'm not very good with these computers, I don't use them that much..."

Yeah, obviously...wow...but how she got to other sites before, I'll never know.

So several users have called up in the past couple weeks, saying they have received a Quota warning email, and want to know what to do about it. Now, if they actually open the email and read it, it tells them they need to either delete or archive messages. But they don't read it, they would much rather call and ask.

So I basically open the warning email and read it for them. More often than not, I have to explain the concept of archiving email to them. Or explain that deleting thousands of 1-2 KB emails doesn't have anywhere near the effect as deleting the ten 40 MB emails.

Now, really, it wouldn't be so bad, if this was not the 4th time this month they've called about the same issue.

I used to work tech support for a major broadband internet provider. The provider I work for (although in a different department now) uses the phone jacks in your home to provide service. Anyway, while on a break one of my co-workers decided to share his idiot customer story:

~ Customer calls in saying her internet wasn't working, one of the basic troubleshooting steps we take is to verify that all cords are plugged in correctly. Turns out that the modem was not plugged into anything; it was in the customer purse(had to be a big purse the modems are the size of a phone book). The customer failed to grasp the fact that "wireless gateway" did not mean that she could take it with her and always have internet access, and had been carrying it around with her everywhere. My poor co-worker was stuck explaining to this bone-head that it needed to be plugged in at her house and "wireless" means that it provides wireless internet access... aka wifi. Stupid people should not breed

Okay, so I've been working on a few systems I got from the thrift store, most of which are too old or just plain broken to even bother with, so I've completely cannibalized them.

Well, one I was working on, just to see what it was, wouldn't detect the keyboard. It's a newer keyboard, and I know it works as it works just fine on all my other systems. Since I have a spare, I decide to connect that one, and lo and behold, it works. BUT...it ONLY works with BOTH keyboards connected. What?? I actually did some research, and it turns out a few other people have had similar problems. So why and how does that happen? Any number of unknown reasons. But every time I would hit Num Lock on either, both would turn on or off respectively. Well, that was certainly odd.

Though it turned out that system wasn't really worth keeping, so just like most of the others so far, I cannibalized it. But still...two keyboards to make it work? Something was definitely wrong.

I worked for a consulting company supporting small offices and plenty of home users. One morning a frantic call came in from a "frequent flyer" home user, and I was told that his CD-ROM drive would no longer accept a disc, and could I please come over immediately? Our minimum charge was $120.00, then an hourly rate thereafter.

When I arrived I was led to the basement office, while my frazzled end user was excitedly explaining that he needed to copy the contents of a CD to his hard drive, but the CD would no longer fit in the tray. Confused, I entered the office to discover that the guy's computer was upside down, and he was trying to load the CD into the underside of the CD tray!

$120.00

Just when you think you've seen it all...