Fun With Tech Support



A tech support guy once told me that he got a call from someone saying that the computer screen just went black and the computer wouldn’t respond at all. The tech guy (starting with theobvious) asked the guy if the computer was still plugged in that maybe his foot had knocked the plug out of the socket. The guy on the other end of the phone said to hold on that he would be back in a minute with a flashlight because the electricity had just gone out in his building and he couldn’t see under the desk without the lights........
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A secretary in our office was trying to save her data on a floppy. She kept complaining that the 5& 1/4 was losing her data. Well, I was asked to investigate. I unwillingly approached the gallows. I asked her to show me what she did when she saved her data. She took out a new disk, inserted it into the drive, formatted it, saved her data, and removed the disk without a hitch. She then proceeded to peel off a new label, and carefully applied it to the disk. No problems so far..... She then took the disk, inserted it into the typewriter, scrolled it through the roller, and neatly typed her label. I found the problem on the first try.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- There is a classic one (which I hope is an urban myth) of the secretary working in an accounting firm who was told to make back up copies of the discs every night. Every night she carefully collected together all the discs and took them away to copy them. After six months the system crashed but no-one worried bacause they had back-ups, until the secretary brought in the huge pile of paper with a nice photocopied disc on each
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “What seems to be the problem?”
“It’s not working”
Eyes roll. “What’s not working?”
“My Mac”
< Five minutes of drawing the problem out of the woman deleted >
“Okay, to access the files on the disk click the mouse on the picture of the disk”
Pause. “Nothing happened. I told you, I’ve already tried this” Support guy makes as if he is strangling the phone. “Okay, do it again. Is the mouse moving?”
“Yep.”
“On the screen?”
“Yep”
“Now click twice on the picture of the disk”
Pause and the consultant hears to clicks again. “Nothing”
“Ma’am, double-click once more for me”v *Clink-Clink*
“Ma’am, are you hitting the screen with your mouse?”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A user came up and wanted to know why their 3.5” disk wouldn’t go into the Mac’s floppy drive. I check out the disk, noted that it was okay, and then walked over to offending machine, suspecting a hardware problem with the disk mechanism. As I moved to insert the disk into drive to test things out, the user interrupted me: “No, not that drive..... this one.” This drive, of course, turned out to be the CD-ROM
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- While I was working in a placement office at the University, we helped students write their resumes on computer. A student came up to me and said he had had problems reading the disk. I asked him to show it to me so I could see if I could recover the files, “Sure,” he said, and then he took the floppy disk out of his pocket and unfolded it.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- At my first real world programming position, we sent out updates on 8” floppy disks. To save time and energy, we put the following on the disk labels:
1)Insert disk
2)Press Control-C
3) type A:Install
We got a call from one of our users. She said, “I don’t know what to do. I inserted the disk in the drive, but then I forgot what the next step was.” This was a turning point for me. I finally realized just how foolproof things needed to be (We sent out paper copies with instructions after that).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I overheard this nice conversation one day in a computer shop:
customer- “I’d like a mouse mat, please.”
assistant- “Certainly, sir, we’ve got a large variety.”
customer- Looks at mats then asks: “But will they be compatible with my computer?”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A friend of mine works at Word Perfect in Orem, UT. He had a lady call up and tell him she couldn’t figure out how to install the program. He told her “Insert Disk 1 into the disk drive and type ‘Install WP”. He then proceeded to have her insert Disks 2, 3, and 4 in sequential order. She then stopped him to ask if it would be all right to remove the previous four disks because the fifth wouldn’t fit.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- We used to have people occasionally come in with their disks stuck in their computer because they believed “the best protection against computer viruses was to keep the cover on the floppy disk when you inserted it into the drive” :)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Our computer center has both PCs and Macs, and the most frequent stupid err is people who create a file on a Mac and try to edit it later on a PC. When I tell them that they have to use a Mac to edit their Mac files, they look at me and say, “But all the Macs are being used” Most of them eventually accept that they have to stick with one type of computer, but I have gotten into some extended arguments with a couple of stubborn users.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Of course, there are people that try to retrieve a file from the A: drive, when their disk is in the B: drive. The first time I can see, but after the little light comes on in the wrong drive, you’d thin they’d figure it out.......
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A woman came in and complained that she had saved a file earlier that day, but now she couldn’t find it.
University Assistant- “And which Mac did you use earlier when you saved it?”
Student “Oh, this same one”
UA “Perhaps it’s on the harddrive”
Student “No, some other assistant saved it on my disk for me”
UA Looks for disk icon, looks in drive, can’t find the disk “Where’s the disk”
Student “In my bag.....
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A lady once called my friend, who does tech support for a small company, and said she was having trouble getting to get her computer to turn on.
He asked her, “What happens when you turn the computer on?”
She replied, “The screen just stays black”
He then asked, “Is the computer plugged in?”
She replied, “I took it to a repair shop last week and they apparently fixed it so it doesn’t need a power cord anymore”
He asked, “Is the computer a laptop computer?”
She replied, “No, but they never gave me back the power cord so they must have fixed it so it didn’t need it”
He said, “Go back to the repair store and get back your power cord. They just forgot to give it to you.”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A salesperson hoping to demonstrate to a skeptical corp. how easy it is to use Windows tells him, “Just point and click. Point to the application you want and click on the mouse button.” So the exec takes the mouse, lifts it, holds it like a TV remote, points at the screen and clicks the button.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A foreign gentleman came in needing help using a word processor to write a letter. I took him to a computer and gave him a brief overview of its capabilities and commands and left him at a point where he could just start typing. He looked, at me puzzled. See, he didn’t know how to type. Not just that, it was like he didn’t even understand the concept of typing (the ‘s’ key puts an ‘s’ on the screen). Eventually I ended up typing it for him because it was easier than arguing with him.
Another gentleman came to us frantic. The day before he had saved a very important document on the hard drive of one of our computers and he could not find it. He was yelling at me that our lab employees must have deleted it and we need to have more respect for users, etc. I helped him look for his paper on his computer, but when I couldn’t find it, I explained our policy (that we don’t delete anything off the hard drives until it is seven days old) and that we can’t control what other users might do with a document left on a computer. He was not happy. Then in a sudden flash of genius, I asked him, “You weren’t using this particular computer, were you?” to which he responded, “No, I was using one in the other room.”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- We once had an elderly female user (the type that technology passed by) who would get very angry with the machine, generally when it would do EXACTLY what she had instructed it to do. Her usual response was to bang the mouse down on the desk. Obviously, it didn’t take long for the mouse to break. We analysts knew what she was doing, but she always denied it when the tech came to replace the mouse. Finally, one of the techs took a mouse apart on her desk as part of the replacement process. Says he, “You hit this mouse pretty hard.” The reply, “Oh no, I never did anything, it just broke.” To which the tech responded, “Well ma’am, as you can see by the value on the inpact capacitor here, this mouse has been subjected to a very bad force. Probably caused when someone picked up the mouse and dropped it or banged it on the desk.”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- There was a big, athletic-looking guy fooling around with one of our IBM Printers. He was opening it up, shaking it a little, and trying to jam a paper into the manual paper feed. When I asked him what the problem was, he said, “Your copier isn’t working.”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “Remove the sleeve, and insert the floppy disk into the drive”
[HOURS OF TECHNICAL SUPPORT LATER]
“You know-- these vinyl covers they put on disks are really hard to get off.....”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [45 MINUTES OF TRYING TO FIX A TERMINAL INCLUDING KILL AND FULL SHUTDOWN UNIX PROCESS]..... Oh- wait a second...... Oops, the intensity was just down. I have a login prompt now”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A customer (wife of an obnoxious history professor, none the less) comes into the store with a Mac which I had just replaced a bad drive in a few days previously. She complained that it wasn’t working again, implying that I didn’t fix it right the first time. So, I get out the diagnostic tools, but can’t find a thing wrong with it. I then checked some of the diskettes she brought in with it, and find that they are loaded with viruses. After cleaning the diskettes, I explained that her computer probably got the virus by trading diskettes with someone who’s computer was also infected. She then got a very sullen expression on her face and asked me, “Can a person catch this virus from their computer?”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- On another occasion, a lady came into the store, apparently interested in buying a PC. After surveying the models on display, she walks over to one and points at the monitor and keyboard saying, “I need one of these, and one of those..” She then points to the CPU and continues, “but I don’t think I need one of those”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This one just happened. User walks into the office. “This disk doesn’t work.”
Computer-literate non-staff: You’ve covered the disk slot with the label.”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- On my previous job, a user needed a program but didn’t have a modem: so I told him I’d overnight him a diskette. He then asked if I could fax the diskette to him! If I didn’t need my job I would have told him I would, but Dominos was faxing me a pizza and he’d have to wait a bit. :)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Customer: Where can I get a BIOS upgrade for my 286 computer?
Tech: The unit should have been shipped with the latest BIOS.
Customer: Well, I upgraded the processor myself, and my computer doesn’t seem to work.
Tech: What did you upgrade the processor to?
Customer: I upgraded it to a 486DX-50
Tech: Sir,..........the 286 chip is soldered on the motherboard!
Customer: I know, I took out my handy soldering iron and took it out and put in the 486 myself
Tech: Sir, the 486 is bigger than the 286
Customer: I know, I had to use quite a bit of solder to solder the extra pins together.
Tech: Sir, I have to put you on hold for a second.
< at this point the Tech laughed so hard he almost fell out of his chair>
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A lady I was helping couldn’t get her computer to turn on. I grilled her with the usual obvious questions: Did you turn the switch on? Did you plug it in? Did you turn on the switch on the power strip? She was sure she had done everything right. I was sure she neglected to plug in one of the power cords into the power strip. So, I went to investigate and she was right, she had plugged everything in to the power strip..... including the power strip’s own power cord- talk about a ground loop!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A woman called the shop where she had bought a PC and complained that it didn’t work properly: Everytime she switched it on the screen was filled with characters.
Two technicians were sent out and were met by a woman with breasts about twice the size of Dolly Parton’s and glasses about two centimeters thick. They asked her to switch on the computer. This she did, and then leaned over the keyboard to read what was on the screen....
The problem was quickly solved.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ontrack Data Recovery in Minnesota specializes in recovering data from hard drives damaged by natural or man-made disasters. Here are a few true stories from Ontrack’s files:
> One customer guessed that maybe his hard drive didn’t work because it had been “sitting in a snowdrift by the barn for awhile”
> Another customer, concerned that he would void the warranty if he disassembled the hard drive by removing the screws, used a hack saw instead.
> An Ontrack representative told a customer to pack his hard drive in peanuts for protection during shipping. The drive arrived the next day, not in foam peanuts, but salted ones.
> Another drive arrived smelling fresh and clean, wrapped in Bounce fabric softener sheets. The customer had been told to pack it with anti-static material before shipping. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- We had a customer call us once, saying that they were having problems getting their new disks to work in the machine. It turned out that the customer thought they had to trim the 5.25” disks down to fit in their 3.5” drive.... fortunately the 3.5” drive wasn’t damaged....... --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- And another user was all confused about why the cursor always moved in the direction opposite the movement of the mouse. (when she moved her mouse left, the cursor went right, etc.) She also complained about how hard it was to hit the buttons. She was quite embarrassed when we asked her to rotate the mouse so the tail pointed away from her... --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I remember when my new Amiga arrived (way back in ‘86!). I had a class to go to, but my roommate was kind enough to set it all up for me. When I got back from class, he was having a great time playing with it. His only problem was using the mouse. Turns out he was holding it in his hand and rolling the ball with his fingers! I don’t even remember how he was coping with the mouse buttons. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I was working for a computer retailer in Denver when my supervisor received a phone call from a very irate customer. According to this man, he had purchased his computer two days before, had read the instructions, and had performed a backup of the hard drive exactly as instructed. The problems started the moment he reformatted his hard drive to test his backup. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A computer kept crashing, and every time service was called, it worked fine. It turned out that one of the users would come in, sit down at the console, and put his papers and stuff on the top covering the cooling vents. When it crashed, he’d pick up his stuff and leave, removing the evidence. Service people didn’t figure this one out until they decided to watch him work to see why it crashed. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The dumbest question we’ve ever gotten had to be from a student who walked in one day with a troubled look on her face. She explained that the little lightbulb in her screen had burned out, and she wanted to know where she could get a replacement bulb for it...... --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Taken from the Sydney Morning Herald 15 Jan 1990: “A [Sydney] reader recalls his time in Zimbabwe, when computer setting was installed at the country’s main commercial printers. A supervisor from the hot-metal printing days had always used a mallet to jog the linotype machines back into action, and found that old habits die hard. The result? A technician flown in from Johannesburg to repair a badly bruised computer.” --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A friend of mine worked as a computer operator in a company with a large IBM computer. One day, they called in the repairman for a ‘faulty console.’ When the repairman arrived to check out the problem, he noticed that some of the keys of the console keyboard were stuck down, in the shape of a closed fist. His comment: “We can fix this, but it will not be under warranty.” --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A Dell technician received a call from a customer who was enraged because his computer had told him he was “bad and invalid.” The tech explained that the computer’s “bad command” and “invalid” responses shouldn’t be taken personally. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Another Dell customer called to say he couldn’t get his computer to fax anything. After 40 minutes of trouble-shooting, the tech discovered the man was trying to fax a piece of paper by holding it in front of the monitor and hitting the ‘Send’ key. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yet another Dell customer called to complain that his keyboard no longer worked. He had cleaned it by filling his tub with soap and water and soaking the keyboard for a day, then removing all the keys and washing them individually. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 techinician 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. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Another customer called Compaq tech support to say her brand new computer wouldn’t work. She said she had 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?” --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- True story from 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 get that fixed? Tech: I’m sorry, but did you say a cup holder? Caller: Yes, it’s attatched to the front of my computer. Tech: Did you receive this as part of a promotial 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 promotial. It just has a ‘4X’ on it. At this point the Tech Rep had to mute the caller, because he could not take it anymore. The caller had been using the load drawer of the CD-ROM drive as a cup holder and had snapped off the drive.