Funny and Humorous Technical Support Tales and Stories

I worked with a client who has an outside IT Tech. They can't launch our software, so I dialed in to look.

I looked at two of their files and, sure enough, they were hit by one of the CryptoLocker variant. I told them to contact their outside tech to do a virus scan and to restore a good backup. I thought that would be the end of that.

A while later, she calls me back to talk to their tech because they didn't believe that they were hit.

I called their tech. First of all he doesn't see why he has to scan it because their antivirus is running all the time (AVG).Told him to just run a manual scan and, hopefully it'll catch it.

I then told him we need to restore the backup. He said that I can do that because he did a straight copy using robocopy and he gave me the locations.

Gee I wish I made $100 an hour.

Yes, it’s me again, with another winner from my mother. Sadly, I wasn’t at her house, so it was yet another phone call.

Mom: “I need to send you something.”

Me: “Why? We’ll be there Sunday.”

Mom: “It can’t wait.”

Me: “Mail will take longer.”

Mom: “On the computer.”

Me: “So, scan it, attach it, and send it.”

(I didn’t bother to mention that the instructions for each step was already in that little notebook I wrote out for her)

Mom: “Scan, attach and send?”

Me: “Yes.”

Mom: “Okay, how?”

Me: “Turn on your all-in-one.”

Mom: “My copier?”

(Brief explanation of everything her machine can do)

Mom: “Okay, I’ve got it on and I’ve got the paper in it like I normally do when copying.”

Me: “Okay, there should be a scan button on the front of it somewhere.” (Been a while since I’ve used it, so can’t tell her exactly where it is.)

Mom: “It’s printing.”

Me: “You hit copy instead of scan.”

Mom: “Oh. Should I try it again?”

Me: “If you want to email it, then yes.”

Mom: “Okay, shut it down….turning it back on….putting the paper back in.”

Me: “Mom! Why did you….nevermind. Now, hit the SCAN button.”

Mom: “Okay.” (there’s a brief pause) “It’s not doing anything.”

Me: “A box should pop up showing that it’s scanning.”

Mom: “All I’m seeing is my email.”

Me: “Get out of your email, what’s on your screen?”

Mom: “My cookies.”

Me: (thinking...and saying) “WHAT??”

Mom: “My kitchen, when the kids made Easter cookies.” (yes, her background)

Me: (trying not to cry) “That’s fine, mom.”

Mom: “Now what?”

Me: (explaining the scan button...again.)

Mom: “It’s too hard, I’ll just read it to you.”

A full 20 minutes later of her reading an entire page of information - front and back of the sheet - for only sentences that were truly important.

I’m seriously debating disconnecting our phone...

This happened about 25 years ago, but all the "any key" stories prompted me to add it. My Brother In Law bought a new computer, and was puzzled by the "press any key" message. He called me up (long distance) and said "it doesn't work if you press any key. He then listed the fact that the CTRL and ALT keys didn't work. My response was:

"You're right Jimmy; why don't you call Bill Gates and tell him?"

"Smart ass."

"How long did it take you to figure this out?"

"A couple of days."

"Good for you."

Back in 1982, I planned the purchase of my first computer. I discussed my plans with a few co-workers. One of them said "Let me know when you do so I can close my bank accounts."

The tech asked "Why?"

"Once Van (my nickname) has his computer working, he'll be getting in touch with EVERYBODY'S money."

About 6 years ago, I upgraded to Cable Internet over "bonded modem" dialup. The data rate was 5-10 MBPS, which absolutely blazed over the ~100 KBPS I got with two modems. For good technical reasons, I needed more than one IP address, and I noticed that my Cable Internet paperwork said I could get up to four extra IP addresses. I called sales and asked, and I was told: "Oh yes. The second IP address is $5, and each additional one costs $2, up to four extra IP addresses. "Sign me up for four extra IP addresses." We did the paperwork and I was told it would be ready in 72 hours. Four days later, I followed the instructions to add extra computers, using a 100Base-T hub, with the NAT device (improperly called a 'router" by marketeers) connected to one port, and the additional computers connected to the hub, for a total of five devices. Try as I might, I could not get more than one device to get an IP address at a time. I called tech support, and went all the way up tot he top support tier. After 30 days' worth of agony, I was finally given the answer: "I'm sorry sir, but there's been an error. Only business accounts allow multiple IP addresses."

Me: "???????????????!!!!!!!"

Tech: I'm sorry for all your wasted effort. I'll credit you with 30 days free Internet, and send you to the business account team if you want."

Me: "OK. Thanks."

Sadly, I couldn't get business service in my neighborhood (it required different hardware that wasn't in out area, but I have to admit that the techs really tried.

Back in the days of DOS 3.3, our company started buying IBM PC's for the engineering staff in our R&D department. My manger called me up to his office because his new computer was "acting weird." I went up to his office, and saw a slow dark bar moving across the screen from right to left. As a former TV technician, I recognized the problem. "Just let me check something."

I went into the warehouse area, where our test equipment was set up. I verified my memory that there was a 150 KVA power transformer mounted on the wall opposite my manager's computer.

I went back, explained the problem, and we set the computer up against a different wall.

Recently I worked for a company which had a very large server room with emergency backup power. While I was configuring a test server, one of the server room guys was working on the emergency power system. I asked him: "How long is the backup power good for?"

"1 hour on batteries, and 48 hours on the diesel generator."

"Is there emergency power for the air handlers?" [The cooling system blew an absolute gale of icy air to keep the servers cool]

"Um. No. I guess nobody thought of that."

About eight years ago, I was working in Microsoft's Developer Support organization. One of the services we offered was a "mini-consulting" contract where one of us would write a program for a customer. I was asked by the customer to write a program which would trawl their entire network and determine what kind of machine was at each IP address. While designing this software, I realized it would have to test many addresses at once, or the normal 2 minute time-out would require days to walk through the address space. I asked the customer's rep "How powerful a computer are you going to run this on? I want to know how many threads I can launch at once."

"I have four servers with 32 CPU's and 32 GB of RAM each."

[Some people have all the luck]

Many years ago I was a supervisor for the electronics lab of an R&D Department. I was tasked to help identify which circuit breakers in our "warehouse area" were wired to which breakers. The breaker panel had over 100 breakers in it, and switching each one on and off was a no-no. My brand-new supervisor insisted on helping me.

I opened the first outlet, put on my high-voltage gloves and shorted the hot and neutral wires. My supervisor flinched at the spark, and then at the loud click from across the room. "Bruce, could you go get the number of the breaker that just tripped?"

About 30 years ago, I worked as the lead tech/supervisor for a major fuel-injection manufacturer. One day I was looking at one of the portable oscilloscopes and noticed that the ground pin had been wrenched out of the power plug. When I asked, I was told that one of the engineers was trying to use the oscilloscope to look for spikes on the incoming power, a 3-phase 220-400 system (European standard, most of this instrumentation came from the UK), and connected the 'scope to one phase and the scope ground to another phase. When he turned the 3-phase power on, the ground lead burnt through in a second. So he pulled out the ground lead. This ended up putting 220 VAC on the case of the 'scope. He got a bad shock when he touched the 'scope, so he stopped. When I tried to explain to "Mister Ed" that he was doing a dangerous thing, he said "How else could I have done it?" I tried to explain that he could have used "differential mode," which is designed for exactly that situation, or just put the ground lead on the neutral leg. He refused to discuss it.

A day later, I told this story to my manger, who almost wet himself. He had a dual degree in Mechanical and Electrical Engineering (although his EE training focused on "valves" (tubes)). He immediately told the chief engineer, who called "Mister Ed" into his office ad gave him written orders not to modify any test equipment in any way or be fired.

I read this story in a book about the days when computers were room-sized:

The US Navy had a prototype battleship with a state-of-the-art computer handling the navigation, communications, weapons, and engines. The computer crashed in the middle of the ocean, leaving the ship with a basic Morse-code radio and small emergency power and engines. The ship radioed their base asking for help. Several engineers from IBM arrived on base and studied the systems in detail. They radioed tests to be performed to the ship, awaiting the results. When the results came in, the engineers closeted themselves for several hours. When they came out, the chief engineer had the following instructions: "Go to panel 25A and replace the wire between [two connection points] where it has been gnawed through. Probably by a mouse. Probably a gray mouse."

The response was: "Replaced wire. All systems now online."

PS: The mouse WAS gray.

I was called by a man who needed a new computer. So, being the one-man PC repair/shop, I ordered him one. About 3 days of use, the hard drive went bad. My policy stated "if it didn't work, I refund AND replace!" So then the new drive works and fails, this time in 2 days! I go out and take a look at his PC, see that he had a HIGHLY magnetic desk with several hundred souvenir magnets applied to it. I give him a new desk, hard drive OUTLIVES HIM!

Many years ago I worked as a repair tech in a retail store, the company sells PCs, Macs, printers etc. One day, the sales staff were busy and a guy had a "tech question" which the idiot floor manager was unable or better yet, unwilling, to answer so he called me out.

Floor Manager: Hey, we are all busy here, can you help this customer with his technical question?

Me: "Sure, I will try..."

Customer: "Do you have any black floppy disks?" (ah I think "idiot floor manager is too lazy, and floppy sales don't generate a commission, lets ask a tech!")

So, I bring the guy to the area were the floppies are kept, check and, "nope, just these ones", pointing to a box of multi-coloured floppies.

Customer: "No, not good, I need black ones so the text does not change colour."

Me: "Ummmm... what?"

Customer: "If I use a blue floppy all the text saved would be blue!"

so how to convince a complete idiot this is not true...

Me: "Ah, I see your problem, no need to worry, only the outside of the floppy is coloured, the inside is black so all text will remain black. If you need to write in another colour your software saves a special code so the computer knows it is a different colour."

Customer: "Are you sure?"

Me: "Yes very sure, we have to save all our documents in black, and we never have a problem with these floppies"

Customer went off to buy them, and one of the other tech who heard everything says to me "I never would have believed you if I had not heard that"