Me: “Hello, thank you for calling ***. May I have your phone number, please?”

Caller: “This thing doesn’t f***ing work!”

Me: “Sir, I’ll be happy to help you with that.”

Caller: “Just help me with this f***ing thing!”

(Eventually, I find out he needs help with a DVD remote.)

Caller: “The movie doesn’t play! It doesn’t do a f***ing thing!”

(I hear the crunching of plastic as he tries to push the buttons really hard.)

Me: “Okay, sir, so you’re pressing the play button and it’s not working. Correct?”

Caller: “Which one’s the play button?”

Me: “The one that says ‘play’ above it. It should be in the shape of an arrow that’s pointing to the right.”

Caller: “I can’t read any of this s***! I don’t have anything like that. There’s just one that points to the left.”

Me: “Sir, go ahead and turn the remote around.”

Caller: “What, backwards?”

Me: “Yes, so that the other side points at the DVD player.”

Caller: “Oh…it works now!” *click*

(My co-worker and I are sitting at the front desk, waiting for something to do, and this girl walks into our office.)

Me: “Hi, how can I help you?”

Girl: “Hi! I was wondering if you’d marry me?”

Me: “Wait, what?”

Girl: “Will you marry me?”

Me: “I don’t even know you.”

Girl: “Well, my name is ****.”

(She then goes on to tell me her favorite things, her hobbies, and the name of her three-year-old pug. She even showed me a picture of it. Then she expected me to tell her about myself. I didn’t say a word, but my co-worker decided to join in the fun.)

Co-worker: “His name is ****. He loves hockey, playing video games…”

(This co-worker happens to be an ex-girlfriend, which is why she knows so much about me.)

Girl: “Wow, I imagined you being so different.”

Co-worker: “Nope, he’s really that lame.”

Girl: “Never mind then.”

Also seen on: Not Always Romantic

(The power went out on campus. We have generator power in some parts of the school, particularly where I am. Then, an admin assistant calls…)

Me: “Help Desk, this is ***, how can I help you?”

Admin Assistant: “How can I shut my computer off?”

Me: “Okay. The beeping you hear in your room is a UPS. It’s going to keep your computer powered on for only about 19 minutes at best, so it’s good you called. Go into your Start menu and shut your computer down through the shut down option.

Admin Assistant: “Okay, where?”

Me: *explains how to shut down a computer*

Admin Assistant: “I don’t see where you’re talking about.”

Me: “Okay, do you see your computer screen?”

Admin Assistant: “No, it’s dark in here. It’s dark everywhere. The power went out.”

Me: “Yes, I know. It’s out all over campus. ”

Admin Assistant: “Yeah, so I can’t see anything in here. My computer is off.”

Me: “Okay… your computer is off? Then why did you call? What do you need?”

Admin Assistant: “I don’t know. I just wanted to know how to shut my computer down.”

(I’m not kidding. This really happened. I’ve read similar stories on other web sites. But this is actually what happened to me when I was working a university help desk. Computer Science department, no less.)

(While resetting a user’s password…)

Me: “Okay, the password needs to be at least seven characters long, has to have at least one upper case letter, one lower case letter, and one number.”

User: “What about an upper case number?”

Me: “…”

Related:
Ask A Stupid Question…
Ask A Stupid Question, Part 2
There Are No Stupid Questions, Just Stupid People
Yes, They Really Are That Dumb

(Yet another power cord/paint dispenser story…)

Me: “Okay, it’s not plugged in.”

Him: “It’s plugged in–it goes right to the back of the computer!”

Me: “No, that’s a serial cable, not a power cable.”

Him: “What’s this orange one then?”

Me: “That connects the computer to the network. It’s also not a power cable and doesn’t connect to the dispenser anyway. The one for the dispenser is black and has a three-prong plug on the end.”

Him: “Listen to me, young lady, I have been on this earth for 56 years and I know what a power cord looks like!”

Me: “Yes, well, I’ve been on this earth 34 years and I know that some things have to be plugged into an outlet to work.”

Him: …

Me: …

Him: “Oh. There it is. Okay, it’s working now. Thanks.”