Funny and Humorous Technical Support Tales and Stories

I got a call this week from a user. This was not a new employee; they’ve been there for years. They stated that their screen was black and they couldn’t see the mouse move. My first response: “Is it turned on?”

Their answer: “I’m not sure. I don’t know how to do that.”

After a few minutes which allowed me to get my giggle-snorts under control, I paid a visit to their cubicle. They were milling around outside the door of their cube, not sitting in their chair, waiting for me to do my “magic” and make their computer work. I pointed at their chair and commanded, “Sit.” They did. I pointed to the power button on their PC and said firmly, “Push that.” They pushed the button and held it in so hard that it stuck. I jiggled the button to unstick it and said, “Don’t hold it in. Just push and release.” I walked away as the splash screen was loading, afraid that I would start laughing again.

Wow. Just wow.

I worked at Microsoft as a Developer Support Engineer for twelve years. That means I helped programmers who were writing Windows programs.This is a classic example of the misroutes I often had to deal with. Bear in mind that our team routing document clearly stated that we were only to be contacted if the customer was writing a program which used various listed networking technologies.

Me: "Microsoft Developer Support; this is Rich."

Tech Router: "I have a customer who's having trouble with SIDN."

Me: "So the customer is writing a program that uses ISDN for networking (this was common ten years ago)?"

TR: "He says he's having trouble with his ISDN."

Me: "Is the customer writing a program?"

TR: "I'm not sure."

Me: "Did you read our routing document?"

TR: "You do networking, right?"

Me: "We help programmers who are writing networked programs. We do NOT do general networking."

TR: "I don't know."

Me: "Put the customer on."

TR: [Brings customer on and does intro.}

Me: "[TR] please stay on the line until I determine if this is our issue."

I take 90 seconds questioning the customer and determine that he can't log into MSN's ISDN service.

Me: "[TR], you need to take the customer to queue number [extension], where they can help him get his MSN ISDN working."

TR: "Can't you help him?"

Me: "No; our team has no access to the accounts and settings for MSN; that's a completely different division of the company."

TR: "Can you handle the reroute?"

Me: "No; I can't route outside our division. You need to do that. Thanks you. Have a good day."

TR: "Thank you." [Click]