Unbelievable But True-Computer Skills/Tech Support

[cabinetman]

This may make you feel better about your computer skills.

Tech support: What kind of computer do you have?

Female customer: A white one...


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Customer: Hi, this is Celine. I can't get my diskette out.
Tech support: Have you tried pushing the Button?
Customer: Yes, sure, it's really stuck.
Tech support: That doesn't sound good; I'll make a note.
Customer: No, wait a minute... I hadn't inserted it yet... it's still on my desk... sorry....

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Tech support: Click on the 'my computer' icon on to the left of the screen.
Customer: Your left or my left?







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Tech support: Good day. How may I help you?
Male customer: Hello.. I can't print.
Tech support: Would you click on "start" for me and...
Customer: Listen pal; don't start getting technical on me! I 'm not Bill Gates.

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Customer: Hi, good afternoon, this is Martha, I can't print. Every time I try, it says 'Can't find printer'. I've even lifted the printer and placed it in front of the monitor, but the computer still says he can't find it...

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Customer: I have problems printing in red...
Tech support: Do you have a color printer?
Customer: Aaaah...................thank you.

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Tech support: What's on your monitor now, ma'am?
Customer: A teddy bear my boyfriend bought for me at the 7-11.

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Customer: My keyboard is not working anymore.
Tech support: Are you sure it's plugged into the computer?
Customer: No. I can't get behind the computer.
Tech support: Pick up your keyboard and walk 10 paces back.
Customer:! OK
Tech support: Did the keyboard come with you?
Customer: Yes
Tech support: That means the keyboard is not plugged in. Is there another keyboard?
Customer: Yes, there's another one here. Ah...that one does work..

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Tech support: Your password is the small letter "a" as in apple, a capital letter V as n Victor, the number 7.
Customer: Is that 7 in capital letters ?

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Customer: can't get on the Internet.
Tech support: Are you sure you used the right password?
Customer: Yes, I'm sure. I saw my colleague do it.
Tech support: Can you tell me what the password was?
Customer: Five stars.







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Tech support: What anti-virus program do you use?
Customer: Netscape.
Tech support: That's not an anti-virus program.
Customer: Oh, sorry...Internet Explorer.







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Customer: I have a huge problem. A friend has placed a screen saver on my computer, but every time I move the mouse, it disappears.


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Tech support: How may I help you?
Customer: I'm writing my first e-mail.
Tech support: OK, and what seems to be the problem?
Customer: Well, I have the letter 'a' in the address, but how do I get the circle around it?







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A woman customer called the Canon help desk with a problem with her printer.
Tech support: Are you running it under windows?
Customer: "No, my desk is next to the door, but that is a good point. The man sitting in the cubicle next to me is under a window, and his printer is working fine."

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And last but not least...

Tech support: "Okay Bob, let's press the control and escape keys at the same time. That brings up a task list in the middle of the screen. Now type the letter "P" to bring up the Program Manager"
Customer: I don't have a P.
Tech support: On your keyboard, Bob.
Customer: What do you mean?
Tech support: "P".....on your keyboard, Bob.
Customer: I'M NOT GOING TO DO THAT!



"I'M NEVER WRONG - BUT I'M NOT ALWAYS RIGHT"

[RodKirby]

Just love the "5 stars", and the "a with a circle around it"

[DonHo]

My son worked in tech support for AOL while he was in college. He had a lady call him and complain the she got the free AOL disk and followed the instructions but she still couldn't get on the internet. After going thru the usual questions he told her they needed to check her modem setup. She didn't have a modem Makes you wonder about some people, but at the same time I'm sure some of my woodworking questions make some of you guys wonder about me

DonHo

[jziegler]

My favorite one is the one about the broken "cup holder". Someone called Dell or Gateway about the cupholder that came out when they pushed the button on the computer snapping off. Of course, it was the CD ROM drive...

Sometimes I think that a license should be required to buy a computer....

Jim

[leehljp]

My favorite one deals with FAXing. Customer calls Tech support about the FAX software.

15 minutes and two times through with no results, the TS guy says:" I want you to tell me everytime, everything and every move your fingers make."

Customer: OK, I am picking up the paper. Now I am moving it to the screen. I am holding it in front of the screen. Now I am clicking "send"!

[mater]

Those were good especially the one about the password.

[BobSch]

"What hours are you open?" Asked the caller to the helpdesk.
"Sir, we're open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week."
"Is that Central or Eastern time zone?"

[TJG]

A couple of my favorite phone calls:

About 10 years back, a couple neighbors decided to run a network between their homes. They were using coax cable, and each has his computer setup in a room in the back of their houses. They run the coax out their window, over the yard, across the alley to the other's yard and into the window of the other's house. In the midst of troubleshooting, the garbage truck comes through the alley, snags the cable in it's tire and takes the computers for a ride. The support call ended there.

The second was one a friend and former co-worker took. The customer calls in and says that when he flushes the toilet, the computer reboots. After confirming he actually heard correctly, he troubleshoots the unusual problem. The customer ends up flushing several times throughout the call, and sure enough, the computer reboots every time. Eventually, when the guy flushes the toilet, my friend notices another sound. He asks what it is. Turns out, the customer lived in a rural area, and had a well. He had an electric pump to draw up the water. Everytime he flushed, the pump kicked on, and drew enough power to cause a brief brownout, and the computer would reboot.

[gsmittle]

I heard one once about a woman who complained that her printer smeared the bottom half of every page. The tech came over; printer worked fine. This happened several times over the course of a few days. Finally, the tech went to her cube and asked her to print a test page. After the page was half printed, the woman pulled it out of the printer and said, "See!"

This one happened to me when I worked tech support in a high school. A teacher called me saying she couldn't get her Mac to start up. I suggested she try reaching around the back and make sure the power cord was securely plugged in. She spent some time explaining that she was no dummy and had checked the power, made sure it was plugged in, etc. I asked her to humor me, so I heard footsteps walking away from the phone, then the startup chimes. Then the phone hung up.

Just so you don't think it's only women, here's another when I was at a private-sector job. A sales guy in New Jersey (I was in Missouri) FedExed his laptop to me. Then he called, ranting and raving about how the screen was a screwed up mess; all he could see was a faint negative image. I adjusted the contrast and FedExed it back to him with a piece of duct tape over the contrast adjustment.

g.

[crokett]

My favorite one is the one about the broken "cup holder". Someone called Dell or Gateway about the cupholder that came out when they pushed the button on the computer snapping off. Of course, it was the CD ROM drive...

I worked as a lab tech at one point. I actually had the following conversation:

<phone rings>
moi: "_______ & _______ computer lab"
femal caller: "This is _____. You dropped off a new computer last week"
moi: "Oh, that was Mike"
fc: "Oh ok. Is he there?"
mike "this is mike, what's up?"
fc: "well I wanted to tell you that the computer ok but the cup holder cracked. I have to drink coffe out of styrofoam cups - my mug is too heavy"

At this point mike mutes the caller and looks at me. I shrug then pop open a CD drive on a machine in the lab to load an OS. I point at the tray. mike shakes his head. I nod. mike unmutes the call and tells the caller he will be down later. he brings some tools and a replacement drive. he comes back laughing with the old drive - cracked tray complete with coffee stains. he kept it.

[jziegler]

I worked as a lab tech at one point. I actually had the following conversation:

<phone rings>
moi: "_______ & _______ computer lab"
femal caller: "This is _____. You dropped off a new computer last week"
moi: "Oh, that was Mike"
fc: "Oh ok. Is he there?"
mike "this is mike, what's up?"
fc: "well I wanted to tell you that the computer ok but the cup holder cracked. I have to drink coffe out of styrofoam cups - my mug is too heavy"

At this point mike mutes the caller and looks at me. I shrug then pop open a CD drive on a machine in the lab to load an OS. I point at the tray. mike shakes his head. I nod. mike unmutes the call and tells the caller he will be down later. he brings some tools and a replacement drive. he comes back laughing with the old drive - cracked tray complete with coffee stains. he kept it.

Wow David,

Sounds like you had a great tech support job there... And the funny thing is that the story has circulated so much that it must have happened many other times too... I guess that it's good that most computers sit under the desk now, makes the CD drive less of a target.

I'm glad I've never worked computer tech support. When I was a field engineer for a film audio company, at least support calls were usually with intellignet, technically minded people. Well, there were occasional projectionists.....

Jim

[jbalders]

A couple of head shakers from work:

User: Every time I do ____ an error message pops up
Help Desk: What does the error message say?
User: I don't know. I didn't read it, I just clicked OK

-----
and recently from a highly paid programming consultant:

User: How do I log in?
Help Desk: Ok, you need to press CTRL-ALT-DEL to get to the login prompt
User: Does my keyboard have those keys?
Help Desk (to me, later): no, we just put that screen there to keep you from logging in correctly. It's a test. If you can't figure a way past it, you don't deserve to get paid.

----

User: My computer stopped working. It just turned off, and I can't get it to turn on again.
Help Desk: Did anything happen to it? What were you doing when it turned off?
User: I accidently splashed a little coffee on it, but it didn't get that wet
Help Desk picks up the laptop and finds the thing drenched in coffee. It had to be an entire cup's worth.

[LinuxRandal]

Jeff, thumbs up with the bofh reference!

Last week, I got a frantic call, "bring your disk and fix my computer". I wanted to know how they got the number of where I was at. Unfortunately for me, the persons responsible for him getting my number (I really need the NO I will not fix your computer shirt), asked him if he tried, typing Help. He responded yes, so they said "have you tried, help please?" I have no idea of their conversation, but the inference I get, was he tried F(ix)Disk, to both the regular hard drive, and the restore drive. He couldn't understand, the the disk that says Works, wasn't a fix disk, etc.
His mentally challenged son (we sometimes wonder which is smarter) asked if I could fix the colors and his cable modem. I said no on the modem (connection problem and no time) but fixed his color (simple control panel setting). I noticed a tremendous lag on his pc, and checked out the specs: Cyrix processor, 56mb memory, something like a 3gb hard drive, and a cable modem hooked directly to it. And his father has the dsl modem in the next room .
Today, I had someone come in, that had been complaining for MONTHS that their computer was too slow. They finally fixed it, with a new mouse (old one needed a cleaning, NEVER been done, and LOTS of pets)
Computer won't boot, out of space: my reply "do you ever look at the adult mater on your computer, or just new stuff on the net?"
"We can't get this program to run, can the two of you fix it?" Our reply "Why, didn't you get the program written in YOUR langauge (English, not German)?"
This is a few of my many stories, that either happened directly to me, although I know lot's more. Family in both IBM and friends and family in APS (bought out by Lacie)

[ryan.s]

My favorite one.

Tech: "Ridge Hall computer assistant; may I help you?"

Caller: "Yes, well, I'm having trouble with WordPerfect."

Tech: "What sort of trouble?"

Caller: "Well, I was just typing along, and all of a sudden the words went away."

Tech: "Went away?"

Caller: "They disappeared."

Tech: "Hmm. So what does your screen look like now?"

Caller: "Nothing."

Tech: "Nothing?"

Caller: "It's blank; it won't accept anything when I type."

Tech: "Are you still in WordPerfect, or did you get out?"

Caller: "How do I tell?"

Tech: "Can you see the "C" prompt on the screen?"

Caller: "What's a sea-prompt?"

Tech: "Never mind. Can you move the cursor around on the screen?"

Caller: "There isn't any cursor: I told you, it won't accept anything I type."

Tech: "Does your monitor have a power indicator?"

Caller: "What's a monitor?"

Tech: "It's the thing with the screen on it that looks like a TV. Does it have a little light that tells you when it's on?"

Caller: "I don't know."

Tech: "Well, then look on the back of the monitor and find where the power cord goes into it. Can you see that?"

Caller: "...Yes, I think so."

Tech: "Great! Follow the cord to the plug, and tell me if it's plugged into the wall."

Caller: "...Yes, it is."

Tech: "When you were behind the monitor, did you notice that there were two cables plugged into the back of it, not just one?"

Caller: "No."

Tech: "Well, there are. I need you to look back there again and find the other cable."

Caller: "...Okay, here it is."

Tech: "Follow it for me, and tell me if it's plugged securely into the back of your computer."

Caller: "I can't reach."

Tech: "Uh huh. Well, can you see if it is?"

Caller: "No."

Tech: "Even if you maybe put your knee on something and lean way over?"

Caller: "Oh, it's not because I don't have the right angle-it's because it's dark."

Tech: "Dark?"

Caller: "Yes-the office light is off, and the only light I have is coming in from the window."

Tech: "Well, turn on the office light then."

Caller: "I can't."

Tech: "No? Why not?"

Caller: "Because there's a power outage."

Tech: "A power... a power outage? Aha! Okay, we've got it licked now. Do you still have the boxes and manuals and packing stuff your computer came in?"

CUST: "Well, yes, I keep them in the closet."

Tech: "Good! Go get them, and unplug your system and pack it up just like it was when you got it. Then take it back to the store you bought it from."

Caller: "Really? Is it that bad?"

Tech: "Yes, I'm afraid it is."

Caller: "Well, all right then, I suppose. What do I tell them?"

Tech: "Tell them you're too stupid to own a computer."

[gjbivin]

The elusive "Any" key