WIL WHEATON dot NET: 1.5

Ha.

what???? the second to post? ok time to read the link. bbl

I did 4 years as tesch support for an ISP.. Ugh.. I could have made a fortune if I just invest in an asprin company! I'd be rich I tell you!!

But yeah, I have had calls like that before. One that I really remember, a lady needed her new computer hooked up. Kept getting a no dial tone error. Got her to finally realize that the cord wasn't plugged in and she couldn't find the one that came with the computer. I asked if she had another one in the house. She said yes. I told her to get it and plug in it where it says Line or Telco on the back of the computer. She said she did, but wanted to know what to do with the phone on the other end of the cord.

I have a Compaq that is about four years old. Recently the CD-ROM drive died, and since it was just before the 3 year warranty expired, I called Compaq tech support to request a repairman. The tech support lackey who "helped" me was, to say the least, very UN-helpful. "First we'll check to see if your computer is running at less than 80%. If it is, then all you have to do is close some programs and we'll see if that helps." Sez me, "Look, I know you're going down your techie-support sheet, but this is not a software problem. This is a hardware problem. The CD-ROM is NOT SPINNING." But, he insisted, so we went through the rigarmarole, which of course didn't work. Next was getting me to empty my cache, which I did NOT want to do and I told him so point blank. He said, "This will fix your problem." I said, "No, it will not. This is a HARDWARE problem and emptying my Internet cache won't do a damn thing. You need to get to the part where you send a repairman to my house to fix my **** CD-ROM." Then the nasty bugger really cheesed me off. He said, "Ma'am, we can do it YOUR way, or we can do it the RIGHT way." I slammed the phone down and called my local computer guy, who said "Yep, it's a hardware problem and I can fix it for you for $30." Those Compaq people are.... grrr. Buggers.

My god this first post thing is tiresome.

I hate customer tech support. When i had a part-time job in electrical retail i would tell customers to call me and save their £1/min fee.

and thats how i got my first Halo.

Lookit.

Shiny.

oooh go here www.thebrainstrust.com. Like the onion but british.

Sorry for the awful post.

I have 8 years tech support from software to hardware from end user software to server and ISP support. I am microsoft certified.

Feel free to contact me.

James

Agree on the first post thing. I need to make a filtr like the one at Fark.

I only WISH I had such an experience to share with you, but it's kinda hard to have a bad or pleasant tech experience if one cannot use the phone, you know what I mean? It's kinda like, I dunno, when my friends talk about music this, or music that, I always look at them with so much envy. *sigh* Oh well, at least it's not raining here this morning. Peace, out.

Sorry i meant www.Thebrainstrust.co.uk

*Puts on Doofus hat*

I used to build computers for a living (ah, remember the early nineties?). I sold one guy a new sound-card, and offered to install it for him, free of charge. Simple installation, no big deal.

He declined, insisting that he was an expert in computer hardware. He'd be taking care of it himself.

Doofus plugged the analog audio-input plug (the one that normally plugs into the back of the CD-ROM drive) into the FLOPPY-POWER PLUG FROM THE POWER SUPPLY.

Turned his computer on.

Smoke and fire.

Came back with his computer asking if there was anything we could do. Turns out, he destroyed EVERY PART IN HIS COMPUTER. There was nothing that was workable. Nothing.

Two thousand dollar 486-50 (hey, it was the nineties) down the drain 'cause chalked up to the dreaded I-know-what-I'm-doing syndrome.

Ah, yes, the joys of tech support. I worked in tech support for a DSL company. I don't have any particular stories, but I do have to say that people calling in found it hard to believe that a female could actually provide adequate tech support. They would get extremely pissed at me when I tried to tell them how to fix their computers and their broadband. If something needed to be done that I couldn't provide at that instance (like having the lines checked or something) then of course I didn't know what I was talking about, and please put me through to the real tech support, honey. Grrr.

Funny. I did tech support for an ISP and for Dell hardware for a little over 2 years. I seem to have blocked the whole thing out of my brain. So, I can't really give you any of my stories.

Dell has the best tech support!!! Anyways I do not think i had any bad tech support problems in the past thank god! Anyways when a woman picks up the phone I just thank god i hate talking to guys on the phone for tech support lol i dont know they just make me nervous LOL.

Back when I started school, I was one of the tech support people for the campus. One year we had just completed wiring all of the dorm rooms to the network, when I received a call from the Helpdesk stating that one of the students was having difficulties connecting to the network.

I went through the normal spiel of setting up the appropriate DNS, etc., but still no luck, so I used the old computers science motto K.I.S.S. (keep it simple, stupid). I asked her if she had the network cable plugged in and her response was, that yes, see did indeed have the cable plugged into to her computer and into the wall, but she had to use tape to keep it plugged in "because the hole in the wall’s too big." You see, she had tried to connect her computer's modem to the room's network jack.

If you want some more, go here:

http://rinkworks.com/stupid/

When I was doing tech support for Snappy, we had a customer that was legendary. Now, for those of you who don't remember Snappy, it was a parallel port device that let you take snapshots from any video device. Plug Snappy into your parallel port, connect your camcorder or VCR to Snappy, run the software, and go. Simple? Evidently not to this guy.

Anyway, the call went as follows:

"Snappy Tech support, may I help you?"

"My Snappy is not taking any pictures."

"It doesn't seem to be grabbing pictures? Has it ever worked for you?"

"No, it hasn't. I've been using it all weekend, and I can't get a single picture out of it. "

"Are you pushing the SNAP button in the
software?"

"Well, I'm starting by pushing the big blue SNAPPY button, and then I run the software. I even tried mounting it onto a tripod. You know, you guys sure missed the boat by not putting a tripod mount on the bottom of the thing."

??? This really got my curiosity up. There isn't a "Big blue button" anywhere in the software. And mounting the Snappy on a tripod?!

"Sir, could you describe for me exactly how you are using the Snappy?"

"Sure, I'm pointing the little gold pins at what I want to take a picture of, clicking the blue button in the Snappy, and then I plug the thing into my computer. The pictures never come out! It's broken!"

See - he was pointing the parallel port plug like it was a camera lens, and expecting pictures to come out. The blue SNAPPY button was the battery cover. Another classic case of RTFM.

I used to work for Mattel Interactive's Tech Support, for all of 2 weeks. In those two weeks, i probably have 20 stories. Just insane. My personal favorite remains the lady that called me saying that her 3 year old daughter had put glue all over the Barbie CD and wanted to know why it wouldn't work after she cleaned it.

Problem was she used a steel wool pad to get it off. //forehead smack

To paraphrase Clerks, This planet would be great if it weren't for the damn customers.

-Chris

I've been doing tech support for 8 yrs now. I currently work for an ISP you've never heard of but will soon. (We hope.)

It's busy here, phones always ringing... the other day, however, we kept getting a call and no one would be there. Over and over and over. It wasn't a fax, because usually we can let those go to voicemail and it'll stop the fax from auto-dialing. This happens from time to time, usually not a big deal, but really, when you say "Thank you for calling ISP name, may I have your login ID?" about 20 times in 10 minutes and having no one answer, it gets annoying.

I got the bright idea to do *69, and it gave me a phone number. I called the number and a very confused sounding woman answered. I said "This is *ISP name* technical support, have you been trying to call us?"

She said "You're the voice I keep hearing in my computer! I kept trying to talk to you but you didn't answer!"

She had put our technical support phone number in her Dialup Networking connection rather than a local dialup access phone number, thinking that would get her connected to our service. She kept hearing me through her modem speaker and ask for her login ID, and kept trying to yell into her computer to answer me.

I gave her the correct local access number, but before I could show her where to enter it, she hung up, so excited that she was going to make it work.

...and then proceeded to keep dialing the tech support line from her modem.

But since I knew this, I yelled into my headset: "Ma'am, please call us back at *our phone number* so we can show you how to set this up properly."

In the meantime, my coworkers (all 2 of them) are about peeing their pants with laughter, mainly because I kept such a professional attitude. (8 years of this makes you not even laugh at people anymore! Okay... well, not till you get off the phone with them.)

After yelling this about 10 times, she finally caught on and called, and we got her straightened out.

Yes. I am "the ghost in the machine." F34R m3!

Oh God! And how could I forget this call the other day!

"Yeah, my sewing machine won't connect to the internet."

::puzzled sound from me::

"I have a sewing machine with a modem in it, and it won't connect to your service."

Turns out, they do indeed make sewing machines with modems: http://www.berninausa.com/home.jsp

What next??

No really funny ha-ha ones, but my most memerable one was at 3am-ish when I worked 3rd shift (years ago). Very broken english on a computer that was configured in Chinese. It was a three hour called (which wouldn't have happened during the day, but we had a low call volume). But the call ended with the problem solved, so all's well etc etc...

Maybe this will actually be helpful! I JUST got off the phone with HP support.
My Computer takes 5 minutes to boot...daily.
HP had me do an entire Destructive System Recovery.
It didn't work but I still had to waste the time RE-installing everything!
Now, the problem is still happening so I called again (literally 5 minutes ago, how ironic) and they told me to do the destructive system recovery AGAIN! I said it didn't work the FIRST time...so now they're sending me CD's to re-image the computer!
I have no hope this will work either but they refuse to let me SEND it IN for repair!! (they said all they would do is what they're telling ME to do)

Anyone else have this problem? Ever hear of it?
Feel free to E-mail me in order to save me some aggravation!

I used to work for this little rinky-dink (Nationwide, even!) ISP in my home town as a sysadmin/tech support guy. It's amazing all the folks who were convinced we could do more for them than AOL. Now don't get me wrong, I don't use AOL, but there are some people who should stick with it.

This one guy in particular had a big problem telling which of his mouse buttons did the right-click and which did the left click.

me: Okay, I'd like you to right-click on Network Neighborhood --

him: But I've got a 4-button mouse.

me: You have a mouse with four buttons on top?

him: No, it's got a button on the side, with the thumb.

me: Okay, so I want you to use the right-most button on the mouse, click on the Network Neighborhood icon and select Properties with the Left button.

him: But I've got a 4-button mouse? Which button is which?

That's about the time I put him on hold and transferred myself outside to cry.

Oh I have FAR too many tech support stories to share. I've been doing support for 7 years now, and am currently a level 2 tech at apple... so I not only have "stupid customer" and "tech support gone horribly wrong from the customer's perspective" stories, I also have "first level agent utterly clueless" stories.

And I would have no idea where to begin.

[I enter a walmart in my home state of SC, in an attempt to return a PCI USB host adapter, receipt in hand. I proceed to the first cashier, Debbie.]

Myself: Is it possible to return this tonight mam?

Debbie: Yes anybody running a register can return it for you.

[I express gratitude and proceed to the rear of Debbie’s checkout line. When my turn in line arrives, I am informed that she will have to call a CSM. Why Debbie did not call one when I first inquired about the return, I have no clue. Five minutes later Julie, a CSM arrives.]

Julie: We’re going to have to take that to electronics to talk to Charlie about it. Come with me.

Myself: Wonderful.

[I am escorted to electronics, where I meet Charlie, the clerk running the register]

Julie: We don’t take back electronics, do we Charlie? [God forbid, she would know, being a CSM]

Charlie: Well it depends, I’m not sure if that is software or not, I know we don’t take back software. I can’t really tell if we can take it back or not.

Julie: We are going to have to check with Amy, our store manager.

[she proceeds to make a telephone page, afterwhich Amy arrives]

Julie : Can we take back electronics?

Amy: What is it?

Julie [reading box]: A USB, easier, faster, powerful thing

Amy: a-do-what?

Julie[into phone]: you know, a fast drive, makes your computer think faster….

Amy: Ohhhh yeah yeah I’ve got two of them. Well we aren’t supposed to take back any electronics, you know all the trouble we’ve been having, but go ahead this time.

[Amy leaves]

Julie: well we aren’t supposed to return anything like this really. Good thing you caught her in a good mood.

Myself [eyebrow raised]: ohh really?

Julie: Well we’ve been having a lot of people loading up viruses on these fast drive things and then bringing them back in. That can tear up a lot of people’s computers.

Myself: You don’t say?

Charlie: Yeah I had one I got that had a virus on it. I had to throw the damned thing away. You can get them on aol too when you check your email. I got smart though, I let my sister check all my email so she can figure out which ones have viruses for me now.

Myself: ohh yeah?

Julie: Yeah my cousin got a worm on her Aol that made her computer start smokin’. I just delete any email that says reply or forward now. Those are the ones that cause all the trouble. You’d better make sure not to open any.

Myself [extremely sarcasticly]: Ohh worry not, I just delete all of my email before I open it to be on the safe side. That is the only real way to be safe.

Julie: You know, that is a really good idea. I might have to start doing that myself.

Myself: So you must be the resident computer technician around here heh Charlie?

Charlie: Yeah everyone around here always wants me to fix their computers for them when they get a virus. I’m about to start going to school for it, but I need to get my GED first.

Myself: Well if I ever have any problems, I know whom to call now. Thanks for the help returning my Fast Drive there.

[By this point my return was completed, and I proceeded to leave electronics, feeling much more enlightened concerning computer viruses]

5 years ago, while working for a now-defunct software company that made website authoring tools, I had a guy call up who didn't know how to resize a window. You know, drag the corner of the window until it's the size you want. He was *that* much a novice.
Fast-forward 3 months: he's landed a $50,000 contract from a hospital to build their website. He's still using our software (which was NOT a particularly sophisticated package).
Fifty grand, and using a $49.95 product. I really felt like I was in the wrong business.

LMAO @ Major Murphy.

Oh, man ~ I just applied for a job at Stream International, which operates call-in centres for a variety of companies.
Yes, it's a last resort application.
They had me fill out a 37-page 'personality test', in which they asked some of the same questions twice. I'm sure I failed, and sort-of on purpose.

Last year I lived in an all-girl residence. For reasons that don't matter at all to this story, I didn't get the residence internet (resnet) hooked up right away. Now, for the second half of first semester, it worked pretty a-ok. Christmas break happens. I come back to find out I am _the_ only one in the entire building who doesn't seem to be on resnet. Now, after about 2 weeks of fighting with the bitch that does the tech work, I'm finally able to have somebody come in and look at the piece of crap. I tell her to come at 4, because ... it doesn't matter, really. I tell her to come at four. My classes are 30 minutes away from the residence, so at 3:30 when class gets out, I'm running to get back to res before the woman gets there and I'm not. I get there 5 to four. Four o'clock hits. 5 after 4. 10 after 4. Starting to panic, as their office is only open until 4:30. I call, and it turns out she went at a quarter to 4. I'm arguing with her on the phone and then she goes "Yeah, I have to call you back. The fire alarm is going off..." (I don't hear it, but sit tight and wait for her to call back.) So when she calls, I'm distraught and going into withdrawl without the frigging internet, and I start crying, blabbering something like "Why does this friggin' university hate me? What did I ever do to it? Blah blah blah..." Well, just so she'd never have to fight with me EVER AGAIN on the phone, she hops in her car and comes over to fix my computer, mumbling that she isn't even working anymore, and that she doesn't have to do it. Moral of the story: Crying gets me anything I want. Mum said it wouldn't work after I left home, but it looks to me like it does!

During my first day as a system specialist in a military hospital, I got a call that their terminal was broken. This was a VT320, a dumb terminal, little more than a monitor and a keyboard and a connection to the server. How could it break?

I got down to the ward, and sure enough, the VT wasn't working. I tried everything, and the VT just sat there like a stupid brick. This took me an hour.

One of the things that I noticed was that there was a pencil sharpener plugged into the same power strip as the VT. Strangely enough, it didn't work either. I think, "now I'm getting somewhere!"

So, I crawl under the desk and follow the power strip to see where it's plugged into the wall. The power strip circles behind and to the left of the desk. I keep following it until I learn that the power strip is plugged into itself. DUH.

I can't move the desk because it's too heavy, so I call the sergeant over and explain the problem. He's the one who's been complaining about this "broken" VT for the past few days. He turns a strange shade of greenish white, and assures me that the problem will be taken care of.

I check my watch, and this "broken" VT has taken up two hours of my time. From then on, the power cord was always the first thing I checked.

Brandi

PS Wil, I love your site! This is the first time I've posted, but I've been reading it for six months. You're so cool!

I run our tech support desk, as well as pull a shift or two. I do CAD support.

Here are 3 stories, 2 are mine, 1 is my bosses:

1) I had a guy worked for me who came in one day pretty pissed off at the world. A client called in with the worst questions, i.e. wanting to be 'phone-trained'. He told the client to "box up the computer and ship it back, you're too fuc#ing stupid to run this."
He was fired.

2) I was teaching a class to a group, and we had a PhD in the class who came in late. We started with basic familiarity of the GUI, and he put up his hand. He said: "I'm having problems with this keyboard." I came over to help, thinking it was a cord or something. He said "Why isn't it in alphabetical order?" I sent him home.

3) My boss has a classic story (an incident about 10 years ago) about a guy who was buying a PC and the CAD program, but couldn't understand the difference between Hardware and Software. Finally, the boss went to the PC, started hitting it, and said "HARRRRDDDDDDDDware". He then took out a 5 1/4" floppy, grabbed the ends, bent it in his hands back and forth and said "SOFFFFFFFFFFFTTTTTWare" This end user just recently called me wanting to know where he could get a used Hercules Card for his second 13" monitor.

I wonder about folks sometimes....

Heck yes. I worked as a lab monitor in a university computer lab for a year. I had people utterly convinced that the Windows dialog box "the program is not responding, it may be busy, etc." was a virus; that the Blue Screen of Death that NT4 and 2000 were so fond of doing was a virus; people printing the entire Red Hat Linux user manual on the printers and wondering why it took so long; people with masters' degrees and Ph.D candidates in engineering who could not comprehend the concept of "break up that literally thousand page print job into several smaller jobs because it causes the printer to vapor lock"; people who couldn't understand the notion of "no, I cannot bump your print job up in the queue, I don't care if you have class in five minutes - because guess what - so does EVERYONE ELSE in this lab ... and many more.

I work in tech support for a large ISP for most of the United States. Anyway I help my own fellow employees when they have a question or problem. THese probmlems include people who are to the point where takling into the tellephone seems moot to them adn they hold the recieve like Steven Tyler from Aerosmith and scream obscenities into it.

Anyway, to make a long story short, if you're calling technical support, please don't ask to speak to a supervisor unless you feel you were treated poorly (without manners) by the agent/tech you were speaking to. The supervisor can do LESS for you than the agent. You can yell all you want, and that supervisor will only be able to ask your agent questions for the answers you require, so you might as well stick with the agent.

Just a word to the wise. Good luck all!

This isn't one of my own tech stories...I seem to have blocked mine out too. Wonder why? *laugh*

I got this in email quite a few months ago, so it might be known by quite a few people already...apparently the gu who took this call got dismissed and is sueing the employer for 'termination without cause'.

"Technical Desk, may I help you?"

"Yes, well, I'm having trouble with Word Perfect."

"What sort of trouble?"

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

"Went away?"

"They disappeared."

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

"Nothing."

"Nothing?"

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

"Are you still in the program, or did you get out?"

"How do I tell?"

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

"What's a sea-prompt?"

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

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

"Does your monitor have a power indicator?"

"What's a monitor?"

"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?"

"I don't know."

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

"Yes, I think so."

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

".......Yes, it is."

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

"No."

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

"Okay, here it is."

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

"I can't reach."

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

"No."

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

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

"Dark?"

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

"Well, turn on the office light then."

"I can't."

"No? Why not?"

"Because there's a power outage."

"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?"

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

"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."

"Really? Is it that bad?"

"Yes, I'm afraid it is."

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

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

My only comment is that that comic is from nearly a month ago, not yesterday...

Well, I am currently a Field Technical Support analyst for a national store chain. I won't mention the name though ;) Anyway, I run in to this type of thing every single day. Not only from the employees in my stores, but also from people at the corporate Helpdesk!

I've had calls from the Desk stating a computer or printer won't power up, and arrived to the store to find the power cord sitting on the floor, unplugged. I've had calls stating that a cash drawer will not open on a cash register, only to arrive to the store to find that the store manager locked the drawer and forgot to unlock it when the register was in use...

I could go on all day with stories like this, but I don't want to bore everyone to death! LOL

And no offense to any Help Desk technicians out there, but sometimes my Helpdesk techs are worse than the people in my stores! That's why I like to call it the Help(less) Desk!

*Hides from angry Desk Techs* ;)

It took 3 phone calls to tech support at sympatico, before a guy told me that I couldn't use a cord longer than 3 feet for my internet connection. The first 2 guys had me jumping through hoops for hours.
HP and Future Shop suck. I dropped off my lap-top in August, telling them that the battery wouldn't hold a charge. They had it for almost 2 months. When my husband went to pick it up they said "Sir, we've discovered that your battery won't hold a charge." My husband was pissed. They told him to buy a new battery, when he asked them to point him in the direction of a new battery they told him they didn't sell batteries.
Complaint letters to both companies have gone unanswered.

Somewhat related...I used to work in collections. One day a call came in to our centre by a man outraged over his 6months of cable tv we claimed he owed. He stated that he had disconnected his cable tv. My co-worker asked him who had been to disconnect it. He said, no one, he unplugged the tv.

For six months while I was in grad school I worked for my local cable company doing customer support. On the whole the calls consisted of explaining to people how to make sure their televisions were on channel three and how to use their remotes. Until one day...

The caller, a very distraught woman, asked me if there was a cable outage. I asked her area and advised her that as of right now, no, there wasn't. I asked her what the problem was that she was experiencing, and she told me that her screen was "black". She told me that she had exchanged her cable box that very day for a new one and now it wasn't working. I asked her if she was certain that her television was on, and she *assured* me that it was. We ran through a large number of scenarios (me assuming that she'd plugged it in wrong or changed the channel or something), and finally I asked her if she could get behind her television and make sure everything was plugged in correctly.

She said yes, the cable was coming from the wall and into her cable box, and yes, another cable went from the cable box to the television -- all in the correct jacks. I asked her if the power cord from the cable box was plugged in to the wall and it was, verified that the outlet wasn't on a switch somewhere, and then I asked her where the television power cord was plugged in. She replied, "There is no power cord from the television."

Aha!

I patiently explained that there had to be one somewhere and she needed to find it. "No, there never was one. It's CABLE READY!"

Um, no. I explained what "cable ready" meant and that every television needed some power source to run. I asked her if her television was battery operated? "No, of course not. It's cable ready!"

At this point I was having a blast, knowing I'd have fun telling everyone later. I was actually debating asking her if her television was SOLAR powered when she then said "I know you think I'm an idiot, but I swear there never was a plug for this television." Well, yes I do, but my professional hat is on so you'll never know it. I asked her if there was a spot on the back of the television where a plug might come out of -- thinking it had a retractable plug for some reason. No. No, she swears, there's nothing back here.

And then I realized what happened. She had returned her cable box earlier that day -- and had returned her television power cord right along with it.

We managed to find her box in the back, pull her power cord off of it, and she sent her husband to fetch it (I'm thinking she was too embarassed to come herself). Case closed, but MAN, what a lot of work!

Cable ready . . .

My buddy got a good one...
Caller:I can't make this program work.
Sam: What is happening?
Caller: Well it says press any key to begin
Sam: So what is the problem?
Caller: My keyboard doesn't have an Any key

try http://www.techcomedy.com/

more tech tales than you should ever wish to know;)

One of my favorite calls, been taking them for three years now, but this one sticks in my mind.

Me: "Welcome to your ISP's support, can I get your e-mail address?"

Her: "Yeah my dsl isn't working again." ( ignored my request for e-mail address. )

Me: "Okay, can I get your e-mail address?"

Her: "Can you hold on?" (doesn't wait for me to say yes or no, she covers mouth piece but I can still her her.) "Why the hell did you unplug it? Plug it back in. See its blinking again you ass. You made me call and waste this guys fucking time."

I do tech support for an Webhosting company. Some of my more laughable AIM support logs are here http://www.nigma.info/MT/archives/000038.html and here
http://www.nigma.info/MT/archives/000037.html

Two tales, while I worked in a library computer lab at Case Western around 1989...

First, imagine a lab full of Mac SEs, all loaded with the obligatory fireworks screensaver. (AfterDark 1.0, perhaps?) Now imagine clueless users who've never seen a screensaver...

"The screen went black. My paper disapeared..."

"Damn it!" (pounding fist on table enough to move the mouse and wake the machine...) "Works every time..."

--

User comes to lab monitor... "I think there's something wrong with my disc."

Lab monitor takes the disc, holds it up to the light, opens the shutter (3.5" disc) and starts spinning the platter slowly while examining the surface.

"Yep, there's the problem. You've got a bad sector..."

Priceless.

In the 90s, I had just started working for a small software company which produced an ascii based program. I had done some work for our newest customer. I had just installed our software in the customer's computer system when I got the phone call. The customer began swearing a blue streak and telling me that our software had destroyed one of their monitors. In the interest of customer service and since I was the last one to touch the code, I immediately went to their site to solve the problem.

I arrived at their site extremly confused about how an ascii based program could have broken a monitor, but I was new so who was I to question the customer. I was shown the monitor while a group of angry customers gathered around to scrutinize my activity, sure enough the monitor was blank. I began the diagnosis. I checked the power light, it was on. I then checked the brightness knob and found it turned all the way down. Turning the knob, I told the gathered mob, "You have to turn the brightness up." Of course the text on the monitor immediately appeared.

(What is up with this? It doesn't help the story, but turning down the brightness on a monitor was an old fashioned trick to prevent burn in. You'd have to be an experienced computer user to know about burn in or this practice. I wasn't experienced, but I learned from people who were.)

After this incident there was a saying around the office, "Is this one of those situations where we have to tell the customer to turn their brightness up?"

Wil you have no idea how much Arena sucks without you. Well, maybe you do and you're laughing your ass off about it. Anyway just wanted to say that I love the site and I'll miss ya on G4.

I'll say this...Brandi, my boyfriend feels for you.

When my boyfriend first got out of college, he worked for a state's Department of Personnel (I won't mention which one) at their help desk. One weekend there was a thunderstorm, which created a power surge that fried a few computers. The department then told all staff to unplug their computers over the weekend to ensure this wouldn't happen again. One Monday he gets a call from someone in the building, saying that his computer won't work. So he goes up to check it out. Looks at all the plugs on the computer, presses the power button a few times--nothing. So he asks "Have you plugged in your computer yet?" and the guy says yes. So he gets under the desk to take a look. Turns out the guy's computer was hooked up to a power strip, and he had PLUGGED THE POWER STRIP INTO ITSELF. Not wanting to make the guy feel like a complete idiot, he quietly plugged the strip into the wall and turned the computer on.

The best part is that five minutes later he got another call...same thing.

He told me the story that night with a "for THIS I spent 4 & 1/2 years studying computer engineering in college" look on his face as I laughed uncontrollably.

We've since moved to another part of the country, where he now spends his days yelling at a company who can't get a simple membership database up and running. Sometimes I think he still wishes he was working at that help desk.

Leah -- I feel your pain. I worked for over two years in a university computer lab, and not even Macs or PCs, but VT100 terminals hooked right up to the Unix system. Bigass line printers, even a plotter.

None of which is relevant to this story, which took place about two weeks after I started working there. The weather was bad, so I was glad to be spending the evening with my toasty-warm computer equipment and fast Internet access in the 24/7 facility.

I was glad, I should say, until the sump pump in the wall behind me failed. Sheets of water started coming out from under the platform I was standing on . . . the platform where all our computer cables were kept.

Naturally, this concerned me.

I called the main admin and told him I wanted to close the lab. He said, "I'll be down there in a few minutes; it can't be that bad." A few minutes pass. He walks into my room, gets about two steps in, and realizes he's standing in a puddle. "Close the lab and get the hell home," he says.

So I make the rounds of the three terminal rooms and tell the users they have 15 minutes to close their work, that the lab is closing because of flooding in the printer room. "OK, I just have to print my thesis," I hear more than once. "The printers are already off -- there's water flowing through the cables, and I'm playing it safe," I tell them, occasioning screams of anguish. But mostly, they pack up and leave.

Not so the guys playing Xtrek on the Sparcs. I went in there three times, giving them 15, 10, and 5 minute warnings, and finally walked in and told them that the lab was now closed, and anyone who was still in there 60 seconds later would get to talk to the campus police on a trespassing charge. It wasn't until they got to the door and realized that their Birkenstocks were getting wet that they realized I wasn't kidding about the flooding.

I considered flipping the circuit breakers to the room and telling them the water must have gotten into the wiring, but I was pretty sure they would have all hung around until the power came back on. Textbook obsessives, they were.

It was around 1996, and our family got our first computer. A nice and fast Packard Bell P75 with a whopping 8 MB of RAM. For some reason, after installing a game demo, the computer refused to load.

As I seemed to understand the computer the most, I got elected to call Packard Bell tech support.

After waiting on hold for a few minutes, I get connected to some guy who (in retrospect) seemed to know what he was doing. Somehow, some files critical to the operation of Windows 95 were corrupted. So he decided that reformatting the computer would be the best option.

After instructing me how to get into the DOS prompt, he tells me to type stuff like ("Ok, now Dan, type in 'f' for furry, 'o' for octopus") and so on.

I was having trouble keeping up, and told him so, so he went a bit slower.

Then he asked me to repeat back what I typed.

I diligently replied:

"f for furry o for octopus" and so on.

He didn't laugh too much, but he quickly corrected me.

My boyfriend just started doing tech support for Cablevision's Optimum online. His away message on AIM reads "@work helping all the STUPID people.
:p" and that is ALL I hear about all night when he gets home. Im getting a headache from his job and I am not even the one on the phone.

My husband does tech support/computer maintenance on the side. he works full time for a shitty retail company and goes to college nights. he can build computers, networks, etc. you name it and he can fix it. anyways, one of his least favorite computers to work on belongs to his dad. his dad is an electrical engineer. although he works on billion dollar air craft and other computer related things every day, the man does not know shit about computers. bless his heart, he tries so hard, but if you're running win 95 cause you're too cheap to upgrade, don't call us if you're now having problems with office 2000 on your win95 os.
and, derek once had a guy who had a problem with his cup holder-yes, children, he was using his cd-rom disk drive for a cup holder and was pissed when it broke.
some people should not be allowed to abuse appliances like that.

Well...there's tons of stories after working in tech support for over three years now...I especially like people that want to make me believe they are using Windows 97 on their computer... ;-)

I've actually had someone ask me where the "any"-key was. For real!

I maintain a network in our office. I had just finished setting up the wireless network on a new laptop, handed it to the owner. Walked back to my desk.

Not even 10 minutes later, the owner of the laptop came to see me. It seems his network wasn't working. I took the laptop, turned it on and it worked just fine...I wasked him to show me what he had done. It seems, his laptop (running win xp) crashed after 20-25 copies of IE had been opened....

ugh.

Hi Wil,

Does it count if your ex uses you as his own personal tech support line just because "you know more about computers" than he does?

I keep getting phone calls and paged "911" when his "sound doesn't work" (speakers are off) or when "he can't get online" (modem not hooked up right).

To his defense, he's not stupid, just incredibly absent-minded... but still...

-Jocelyn

If you want to find more material in this genre, see http://www.livejournal.com/community/customers_suck for a continuously growing treasure trove of it. It's of varying quality, but there are some real gems. Note that it's not mostly from computer technical support people, but there are some of those, too.

Wow. I've applied for low-level tech support jobs in the past...suddenly I'm very glad I didn't get them. :) Although I work as a tax preparer now, and I'm an endless source of stupid customer jokes. I think the whole concept of taxes just pre-scrambles the brain.

Oh boy! And I thought *I* was the only one who had the problem of the ex calling me constantly asking computer questions! Ugh!

My ex has worked in many offices, for companies that have their own tech support people. But does this matter to her? Of course not! Anytime she has a problem with her work computer, instead of calling her own tech support people, she calls me! Yea, no matter what time of day or night I get a call. She even told me she considers me her own personal 24-hour on call PC support tech.

But okay. Anyway, she called me just the other day, as a matter of fact, complaining that her keyboard wasn't working, and that she was going insane trying to figure out why. Since this was her home PC, my first thought was that she was moving things around and unplugged it, and didn't plug it back in. So I asked her to make sure it was plugged in. She said it was. I told her to reboot her computer and tell me about any error messages. She does this, but says there are no messages, but still, her keyboard isn't working. I asked her to check the cable to make sure there are no breaks or exposed wires, and she says the cable is fine. Then I asked her to unplug the keyboard and look into the connector, to make sure there are no broken pins. She says all of the pins are fine. At this point I'm thinking that there might be a problem that can't be fixed over the phone, and I tell her I'll have to come by sometime and look at it. This whle process so far had taken about 30 minutes. It was only then she asks me "Could the fact that I spilled Coke all over the keyboard have something to do with it not working right?"

Oh the joys of being computer saavy...

I would have to start my own website for the stories I have from Roadrunner cable modem tech support.

I work for an ISP, cable company. Can't really say which for fear of losing my job. I've got plenty of stories to tell and I can't really decide which so I'll just go with one that's freshest in my mind...from about an hour ago: Ok, so this lady calls me up and she's already pissed because she's been on hold for 20 minutes or so she says, which is kinda funny considering the longest call waiting which is a stat we have says 4 minutes. Ok, so I get her on the line, she complains about hold time and then proceeds to grill me for 10 minutes about how it's MY fault that there's a dozen pop-ups on her screen. She keeps saying how she pays so much money for this service and there's nothing we can do to get these things off her screen. She even goes so far as to say she shouldn't have to pay for these ads and she wants a credit to her account for having to view them. I basically told her to piss off only not in those words. Told her I can't block those pop-ups anymore than I can stop advertisements on TV. I finally got her to shut up by pointing her to google.com and doing a search for pop-up blockers.

God I hate being nice to these people... If I hear one more time how I have the patience of a saint I'm gonna burst.

I'm no Computer expert but I and my brother are always trying to help teach my mother how the computer runs and she always freaks out when I say the word "Crash" She thinks I am saying that her computer is broken or has a virus. "Good frickin grief" :S

THERE IS NO ANY KEY YOU WEIRDO!

I spent 4 years in tech support before going into business for myself as a trainer. Although I have many stories of my own, this is one of my favorites...

A few years ago on NPR, there was a segment on tech support. At the end, the reporter asked the techie about his funniest call. I am recreating this from memory, so some of the details might not be exact...

He had a woman who bought a new computer. She unpacked it, set it up, then called because the power cord was too short.

He had her measure it and it was indeed too short. He couldn't believe his company sent such a cord, so her had her go through the box of couple of times. He also made sure it was indeed a power cord and had her plug it into the back of her computer.

Finally, he thought of something. But he was afraid to ask her, as he didn't want to insult her intelligence.

He said, "Ma'am, did you take the twist tie off the power cord?"

Dead silence on the line, then "No."

"Ma'am, can you take the twist tie off the power cord, unravel the cord and let me know if it is long enough?"

Needless to say, his job was done. He also said that the call taught him to assume nothing!

RASA said:

"Turns out, they do indeed make sewing machines with modems: http://www.berninausa.com/home.jsp

What next??"

WOW! i just checked out that link and i'm positively flabbergasted. so much that i don't even dare ask what's next....

I did PC support for S0nY for 3 years. I once troubleshot a cd drive that WOULD NOT read a cd.
long story short, 45 minutes later I asked the question that I should have asked 45 mins earlier. "You're putting them in shiny side down right?" She had seen it the other way on TV and in magazines and thought that shiny side up was correct. AAAAAAAGH !

My most memorable support call was from a blind man who needed help installing a SIMM in his computer. He said he always did the work on his own computer, but he couldn't figure out how to get the memory chip installed.

After a minute of trying to tell him, and asking again if there wasn't someone nearby who could help out, I got a great idea. I went to our tech bench and walked him through installing the chip with my eyes closed. I described the notch on one side of the SIMM, and talked him through finding the sockets on the motherboard.

Most even slightly cynical people who I tell this are convinced that he was messing with me, and seeing how far he could get me to go. I'll just keep my happy thoughts though, and revel in the good karma that I gained from my tech support days.

Yes, I did several years as a help desk person. I still have unresolved issues about this period in my life, and my counsellor might let me go public about it soon...

Rich Hermes- I'm probably one of your people that you've talked to, since I use Tampa Bay roadrunner and I've called tech support about nine billion times!

My friend recently moved to a location where his DSL service did not provide access. Therefore, instead he went with the Time Warner Roadrunner cable service. He had been dreading the installation for days, knowing that some half-brained tech was going to be touching his system. I laughed and told him to just remove the hard drive to prevent the imbecile from doing anything stupid. We decided to give them the benefit of the doubt and left the drive intact. And it’s a good thing we did...

The day comes for the installation and not one, but two techs come to "install" the cable service. This, of course, consists of plugging in a USB modem and hooking up the cable to it. The first thing the tech does when he sits down at the computer is tell my friend he does not have enough memory to install the BS Roadrunner software (aka. crappy corporate branded browsers). My friend literally laughed at the hapless tech before asking him why 512 MB of RAM was insufficient.

They also claimed his brand new USB cable modem (with the Windows 2000 logo on the box) would be unsupported because of his use of "third-party software." Oh, I did not realize Windows 98 was a Time Warner product.

After the techs left, we formatted the drive and used the service, sans the additional useless software, without a hitch.

It just goes to show that sometimes the voice on the other end might be a moron too.

teehee.

never done the tech support job professionally, just for friends as my level of computer geekdom continues to grow and blossom into full flower.

First time replying to the blog, so i have say how cool WWDN is.
It is tre-cool. Yes. Cool like... like... well, like something very cool.

For instance, the Help Desk comic over at Keenspot. good fun. just follow the linkylinky.
(i also heartily recommend sinfest)
-matt

Although I primarily do technical writing these days, I have had a little experience as both a consultant AND a customer, so, to some extent, I can see BOTH sides of this kind of situation.

My most recent tech-support problem was just a few days ago. I was trying to refill the ink cartridges in my Apollo P-2250 printer, a nice little unit which, up to that time, had given me good service. Unfortunately, it uses the HP #20 cartridge, which is one of the WORST cartridges from a refilling standpoint! Anyhow, after I had finished refilling the #20 black cartridge (I thought!--it later leaked out ALL the ink!), I read in the refill kit manual that I should run several cleaning and test cycles to make sure everything was OK.

The problem was that this printer came out just before Windows XP made its debut. While XP does have built-in drivers for this printer, none of the other utility software works under Windows XP. Worse yet, HP has now discontinued making Apollo printers, so there will be NO software updates, especially since my printer is long since out of warranty (which also means no support as far as HP is concerned!).

Although they explained that the printer would do an automatic test run any time a new ink cartridge was inserted, I was so offended by the sheer corporate arrogance that fairly oozed and dripped out between the lines of their email and their online help facility that I decided to scrap the Apollo entirely and purchase a used (but still supported!) Lexmark Z52, which I found on eBay. To put it mildly, the long and short of it is that HP has not only lost me as a customer--they have made a mortal enemy of me! I will not hesitate to recommend AGAINST using ANY of HP's products under any circumstances from now on!

Please forgive me if this post is a little long, but I had to give you the details in order to explain the nature of the problem. I'm sure that anyone who has had problems with either HP or Compaq (which of course are now one and the same!) will understand what I mean. HP STINKS!!

Me: "Well, you have a 10 GB drive. And you only have 4 MB left. You have over 6 GB of MP3s. You should probably get rid of some."

CoWorker: "What if I partition the drive? Will that give me space?"

Me: "Must ... control... fists.. of... death..."

Um.
I don't get it.
Oh wait - now I do!
Wait.
I lost it again.

I was part of a dotcom (the smart one, the rest were suits that knew nothing) and the ISP hosting us kept saying that our space was ready to go.

It wasn't

I spent a few weeks on the phone, trying to convince them that it wasn't active. They gave me several new passwords and every time I attempted to log in, it wouldn't work.

About a week before the launch, I called them and went all mad at them - "my *beep* space doesn't work. you *beep* been giving me *beep* passwords for *beep* weeks now and it still doesn't *beep* work".

Needless to say, we launched without a dotcom and got someone else to talk to the ISP.

A few weeks after the launch, I got a phonecall from the ISP. They said "You were right. The webmaster apologieses"

I should have pushed it further, but the site was uploaded that night and all was well.

when i was head programmer at International software systems, we had a lady who worked at a credit union for 10 years on the same computer, at the same desk, doing the same job. Her complaint was that the computer was very slow, and refused to open the programs anymore.

We suspected that it was low on memory, so we asked her to reboot the computer. She refused, saying she didn't know how to. We explained that all she had to do was hit the switch on the side of the box on her desk, then hit it again in a few seconds. She refused, as she had never done that before. She wanted us to fly fa tech from our office in SC to Manhattan to reboot a computer, and the problem was that it had never been rebooted in all the time she had had it, except for power outages and the like. This woman wasn't eighty, and worked on a computer at the second biggest credit union in the world doing their accounting. makes you want to bury your money in a can in the back yard, don't it?

Dalton.

Hey Dalton,

Stop scaring me with your credit union horror stories. With W all ready to bomb Iraq into the stone age, I am tempted to stuff my mattress with my greenbacks as it is...

-Jocelyn

i just love the tech support people who do not speak english. That or i can't understand their accent. Then they get mad at you because you dont understand what they are saying

Was that cartoon really that funny? Or any of these stories for that matter? Feh.

So I thought of a tech "help" story that I had somehow forgotten until I began reading all the ones here. First of all, let me say I do customer support for a credit card company, so I know all too well how frustrating it can be to deal with a customer who thinks they know how something works better than the trained professional. On the other hand, when I don't have any fucking clue what a customer wants of me, I'm the first to admit it.
(Side note: Never, ever, ever, ever, ever call your credit card company and ask "What's this late fee??" if you don't want a sarcastic answer.) Anyway...
So about three years ago broadband service became available in my neighborhood. (I live in Missouri. Pity me.) I didn't have a decent computer at the time, so I didn't bother with getting it for about a year. I finally got a new Mac two years ago and decided it was time to move on up.
I call and arrange an appointment for a tech to come "install" my cable modem for me. I had an iBook and was running OS 9 at the time. I know that the only requirements are for someone to bring me a cable modem and plug it in. I also know full well that whatever tech I get is going to be baffled, but I play along, thinking that they've been at it for a year now, so they probably know what they're doing. So I make my appointment for a month from when I was calling (gotta love AT&T) and wait.
The day arrives. I was given a window of roughly four hours in the afternoon in which the guys would arrive, so I'm running errands that morning and arrive back at my apartment about 45 minutes before the start of the four-hour window. The tech guys are already waiting for me, acting extremely huffy that I'm not home waiting for them.
Already, I know it's going to be a bad experience.
My second clue is when I realize that there are not one, not two, but three tech guys along for this. Again, let me reiterate. Macintosh. Open modem box. Plug it modem to cable outlet and ethernet connection. Done. Three guys. Three. Three.
As I let them in my apartment, Tech guy #1 seems my computer on my desk and says,
"Great. A Mac." (I'm thinking whew.) "I fucking hate Macs."
Okay, now I have friends for whom those would be the ultimate challenge. Spoken in the street on in a store, those words would at the very least trigger a 15-minute diatribe on why Macs rock. Those words spoken in their own homes would probably result in tech blood painting the walls.
I try to be a little more sanguine, so I just laugh it off, say "yeah," and let it go, hoping I can get them out as quickly as possible.
Two hours later, Tech Guy #1 is still sitting at MY seat at MY desk scratching his head, after my repeated offers to take care of the installation and his snide little remarks about how I wouldn't know what I was doing. Tech Guys #2 & #3 have never moved from their positions on my couch where they've been watching Mtv the entire time, except when one got up to use my bathroom without asking. The two couch monkeys have been joined by Tech Guy #4, who showed up about 30 minutes into the ordeal without any summoning whatsover. I guess he was just in the neighborhood. These three guys have never once offered to help Tech #1 nor have they performed any duties in the installation. I still to this day have no idea why they were there.
About another ten minutes go by with no results and my final attempt to get the guy to let me sit down and fix things. (By the way, his problem was he couldn't figure out the TCP/IP window. There are maybe five places to enter data in the entire window, and only the client id has to be filled in by the user because AT&T requires it. Everything else will fill itself in given a chance. I kept telling the guy this, but does he listen? No.)
I'm fed up. I refuse to get angry with these guys because I know what it's like to have their job. I know they deal with pissy know-it-all customers all the time and after a while it becomes automatic to dismiss whatever the customer is saying. So I excuse myself to go into my bedroom to make a phone call.
Five minutes later I come back into the living room with two cordless phones and hand one to Tech Guy #1 while I listen on the other. A man on the other end begins to berate him over how long the job is taking, orders him to allow me to access my own computer immediately and instructs him and his coworkers to report back to the office within 10 minutes where at least one of them is going to lose his job. When Tech Guy #1 asks who this is, the man on the phone screams, "My name is Cooper! I'm a Team Leader at AT&T's central offices in New York! I've already spoken to your office manager there in Springfield, and let me tell you, he's even more pissed off than I am that you've wasted this gentleman's time with your idiocy! If it was in my power to do so I would fire you all over the phone! If I have to repeat my request for you to report back to your office I will damn well FIND a way to fire you over the phone! Now move!"
Cooper then began to apologize profusely to me for my inconvenience and to assure me that this sort of discourteous service was not typical of AT&T's commitment to the customer. He then offered me three free month's of service if I would just withdraw my request to cancel my cable modem service. As he was saying all this, Tech Guy #1 was hanging up his phone, gathering his friends hurriedly together and apologizing to me as he left my apartment.
As soon as the door closed behind them, I couldn't help laughing out loud. The guy on the other end of the phone was my best friend Corey, who invented "Cooper" (we're both Twin Peaks fans) on the fly and gambled correctly that the guy he was speaking with wouldn't have any clue where AT&T's home offices were located or how the chain of command worked. I thanked Corey and told him to come on over to check out my new high-speed internet connection, which I was sure to have installed by the time he made the five-minute drive to my apartment.
-WE

hi wil,

just started my first tech support job a few months ago. and i got a few rippers last week... check this one out: http://www.techcomedy.com/users/submitted_content.php?nick=d
my ears were bleeding after that one.
ah, the joy.

d.

Two things:

1) My husband and i used a UNIX shell until 1998. (i do miss that thing). Eventually, with a better puter, we switched to a regular account. it didn't work, it didn't work, it didn't work. Tech support guy is going over the settings with me (all as he said they were supposed to be), yet no one could figure out what the hell the problem was. He was an @-hole to me, too... condescending, etc. I demanded our usual tech guy, who understood the UNIX stuff. He was out for the day. Called back next day, he's there, and LO & BEHOLD- *someone* forgot to switch us over. I called back and talked to the other guy and told him what a dumb F** he was.

2) Not puter related, but phone support: I worked at an answering service for a few months once. one of our clients was the local cable company. Oregon storms are *windy*, and tend to knock cable out, so working the phones overnight during a storm tends to suck. Customers are livid when they cant have their cable (the usual complaint is "what am i supposed to do? I can't watch TV!" to which i usually answered, "i dunno, talk to your family, read a book, go to sleep, i don't care.."). So this one woman calls, screaming at me, right off the bat, "Turn my cable back on right now, i know you can". Thing is, i can't. The cable office is 6 miles away, ok? I don't even work for the cable company! Tried explaining, she doesn't care or understand. After about 20 minutes of unbelievable abuse that i really just didn't deserve, she threatened to call the cops on me because i "wouldn't" turn her cable back on. I laughed out loud.

I don't know if this is going to be read...so far down. But anyhow, I actually have a good tech story.

I live in South Jersey and we have Comcast. I'm really lucky here. When I had ordered cable, I expected to have to wait eons to have it installed. Nope. They were out in less than a week of me placing the order. And the guy was a sweetheart too...he even told me how to config my other computer so I can share the modem. Technically, he shouldn't have done this...they would prefer I buy 2 modems.

Also, whenever I have an issue, even if it's just a computer problem, I call Comcast. They're tech help knows their stuff. They route the calls to Canada, but even so, they answer the phone right away, and actually know what they're doing. My brother-in-law has had the same experience with them. He called them when he was networking his computer and they stayed on the phone and walked him through it. They even told him exactly what brand of router to buy...so it would be easier.

I love Comcast. :o))

sorty Wil, all I have is the tme I called the police, for a guest, to register a noise complaint regarding the noise from a carpet cleaner / truck... when asked to describe the noise... I said it sounded like a "jet engine"
the police dispathcher then told me to call the FAA... because the oplice don't handle "jet engines"

(I dropt the phone)

see ya

It's the attack of the ID-10-T computer problems!

Most of these are all what we in the field call the ID-10-T errors. I'm sure that many of my fellow PC Support Techie guys and Techie girls out there know exactly what an ID-10-T is. For those that don't, well, take a piece of paper and write it out:

ID10T

There are lots of those ID-10-T problems running around out there. ;}

Funny, I was flipping through the cable and for some reason I noticed Wil on CMT. I discovered it was a thirty minute commercial for a 3D system. It made me think to check the blog.

I used to do tech support for Dell. I had one customer call and wanted to be able to resize a window to a custom size. Thinking it would be easier to show her rather than explain we fix problems and are not a "how-to" desk, I began.

She couldn't find where the mouse cursor became two arrows so she could click and drag. I was at this for almost twenty minutes before I put her on hold, went outside, had a cigarette, and came back in.

I continued to baby-sit this particularly clueless user until she figured out how to do the resizing on her own. The call took forty-five minutes.

And she wasn't even the stupidest person I ever spoke to.

I'm a computer/web design instructor. I teach all types, those that have years of programming experience, and those that are literally afraid of computers.

I had a Windows 2000 class (application level, here is a desktop, this is your my documents folder)...so anyway, I was showing them how to use their mouse, and the lady actually picked up her mouse and laid it on the monitor screen.

Oh, this comic brings back memories. I work for a cable internet provider, and did my time on the phones. We get people all the time ... "I'm a network admin"...."I'm a sys admin"....I have my degree in comp sci". They think that the person they are speaking to isn't able to help them.

Typical conversation...

Me: Lets try bypassing the router and going directly to your computer to see if we can get you back online.

Them: It's not going to work!

Me: Oh, you tried this already? Ok, lets try something else. Go to..

Them: No! I didn't try it, I just know that my router is working fine! I'm a network admin, I should know! (yelling).

Me: Humor me and lets try.

Them: Ok, but it isn't going to work.......

Me: ....I can ping your computer now.

Them: I STILL don't think it's my router.

Me: Ok, is there anything else I can help you with?

Them: Click.

This happened to me several times a day. It's enough to make you go mad.

Here's a Tech story you might like, Wil. My website has a counter from Fastcounter. When I signed up for it, Microsoft didn't yet own it and have it under their bCentral name. Anyway, last year, I wanted to get into my counter stats page, but it wanted me to convert my bCentral account into a .NET passport.

Well, at the time, I was running Mandrake 8.1, and using Konquerer to do my surfing. So when it wouldn't let me even start the conversion process, I called up Microsoft and began to gripe. I told the tech on the phone that I couldn't click the "Next" button, and he asked me what browser I was using. "Konquerer" I said. He said "What?" And of course, I told him that it was a Linux browser that came with KDE. The rest of the call was me telling him why I simply refused to use IE, and wouldn't boot into Windows just to convert that account. He tried his best, but couldn't sell me on the idea. Eventually I compiled Mozilla and was able to do the conversion, and called that tech back to tell him that I had managed to get the job done while staying in the Linux environment. I'm sure that went over well with him and his superiors, since I ended the call with "Thanks for all your help. Long Live OSS."

Errrmmmm. Is it just me or does that cartoon look like Jonathan Frakes (!)

Waaaay too scary!

Back in 1991, I had just started working as a contractor for Helpdesk support of a US Government agency. I wasn't on the phones yet; I was familiarizing myself with the systems when we had not one, but two different calls from field offices in different parts of the country with the same problem:

They had put carbon paper into their laser printer to get a second copy of the printout.

Seems that many of these offices had just upgraded from a daisy wheel (!) printer, and they had been used to using the carbon paper. Of course, when used in a laser printer, the ca