Anytime you feel dumb, don't
worry. Check out the following excerpts from a Wall
Street Journal article by Jim Carlton and you'll realize there
are lots of people in the
world far, far more idiotic than you could possibly be.
1. Compaq is considering changing the command "Press Any Key" to "Press Return Key" because of the flood of calls asking where the "Any" key is.
2. AST technical support had a caller complaining that her mouse was hard to control with the dust cover on. The cover turned out to be the plastic bag the mouse was packaged in.
3. Another Compaq technician
received a call from a man complaining that the
system wouldn't read word processing files from his old 5-1/4"
disks. After
trouble-shooting for magnets and heat failed to diagnose the problem,
it was found
that the costumer labeled the diskettes then rolled them into
the typewriter to type the labels.
4. Another AST customer was asked to send a copy of her defective diskettes. A few days later a letter arrived from the customer along with Xeroxed copies of the floppies.
5. A Dell technician advised his customer to put his troubled floppy back in the drive and close the door. The customer asked the tech to hold on and was heard putting the phone down, getting up and crossing the room to close the door to his room.
6. Another Dell customer called
to say he couldn't get his computer to fax anything.
After 40 minutes of trouble-shooting, the technician discovered
the man was trying to fax a piece of paper by holding it in front
of the monitor screen and hitting the "send" key.
7. Another Dell customer needed
help setting up a new program, so a Dell tech
suggested he go to the local Egghead. "Yeah, I got me a couple
of friends," the
customer replied. When told Egghead was a software store, the
man said, "Oh, I
thought you meant for me to find a couple of geeks."
8. Yet another Dell customer called to complain that his keyboard no longer worked. He had cleaned it by filling up his tub with soap and water and soaking the keyboard for a day, then removing all the keys and washing them individually.
9. A Dell technician received
a call from a customer who was enraged because his
computer had told him he was "bad and an invalid". The
tech explained that the
computer's "bad command" and "invalid" responses
shouldn't be taken personally.
10. An exasperated caller to
Dell Computer Tech Support couldn't get her new Dell
computer to turn on. After ensuring the computer was plugged in,
the technician
asked her what happened when she pushed the power button. Her
response, "I pushed and pushed on this foot pedal and nothing
happens." The "foot pedal" turned out to be the
computer's mouse.
11. Another customer called
Compaq tech support to say her brand-new computer
wouldn't work. She said she unpacked the unit, plugged it in,
and sat there for 20
minutes waiting for something to happen. When asked what happened
when she
pressed the power switch, she asked "What power switch?"
12. True story form a Novell NetWire SysOp:
Caller: "Hello, is this
Tech Support?"
Tech: "Yes, it is. How may I help you?"
Caller: "The cup holder on my PC is broken and I am within
my warranty period.
How do I go about getting that fixed?"
Tech: "I'm sorry, but did you say cup holder?"
Caller: "Yes, it's attached to the front of my computer."
Tech: "Please excuse me if I seem a bit stumped. It's because
I am. Did you receive this as part of a promotional, at a trade
show? How did you get this cup holder? Does it have a trademark
on it?"
Caller: "It came with my computer, I don't know anything
about a promotional. It just has '4X' on it."
At this point the Tech Rep
had to mute the caller because he couldn't stand it. The
caller had been using the load drawer of the CD-ROM drive as a
cup holder, and
snapped it off the drive!