Me: “Thank you for calling [tech support]. How can I help you?”

Customer: “I need to return this phone. I don’t use it.”

Me: “Okay. I see you are still under your buyer’s remorse period and–”

Customer: “Yes, take it back.”

Me: “So, you have the original packaging and the receipt?”

Customer: *proudly* “Yes!”

Me: “Great, and is there any damage to the phone?”

Customer: “I ran over it with my car.”

Me: “Well, then. Unfortunately, ma’am, we can’t take it back.”

Customer: *irate* “But it’s still within the first 30 days!”

Me: “Thanks for calling. How can I help you?”

(I hear a loud banging noise over the phone.)

Caller: “Sorry, I dropped my phone.”

(More banging.)

Caller: “Oh, no! I dropped my remote. Hold on.”

(A few minutes later…)

Caller: “I got my remote now.”

(More banging.)

Caller: “My batteries just fell out.”

(More banging.)

Caller: “Are you still there? I dropped my phone.” *call drops*

(I am in my office when a user comes running to my door.)

User: “Help! Help! Help!”

Me: “What’s wrong?”

User: “Yahoo took over my Firefox!”

Me: “Wait. What? Yahoo did what?”

User: “Yahoo. It took over my Firefox! Come look!”

(We go to her desk and I sit down and launch her Firefox browser.)

User: “See! No more Firefox! It’s Yahoo.”

Me: “You still have Firefox. You just accidentally made Yahoo your homepage.”

User: “Please, just fix it!”

(Back when they were common technology, we sent out a software update on four floppy disks.)

Customer: “The computer says it’s unable to read disk two.”

Me: “Can we start the installation again just to check it is the disk that is the problem, please? Put the disk in the drive and type ‘a:update’. Then, press enter.

Customer: “Okay. It says it’s unable to read disk one now.”

Me: “I’m sorry. Did you try that with disk one or two?”

Customer: “Both.”

Me: “No, sorry. Just then, not earlier. Was the disk in the drive disk one, or two?”

Customer: “Both. Both disks are in the drive. Why? Was I supposed to take the first one out before putting the second one in? It didn’t say to do so, just to insert disk 2.”

Me: “You’ve got two disks in the drive at the same time? That must’ve been difficult to manage.”

Customer: “Not when you hit the second one with an encyclopedia.”

(An older gentlemen calls the technical support line. He’s whispering.)

Me: “Thank you for calling [internet service provider]. How may I help you?”

Caller: “There’s an armadillo on my porch.”

Me: “I am sorry sir, did I hear you correctly? You said you have an armadillo on your porch?”

Caller: “Yes, it just keeps staring me down through the patio door.”

Me: “Sir, have you tried calling animal control?”

Caller: “There’s no time for that! I am deathly allergic to armadillos.”

(There is a long pause while I try to figure out what I can possibly say next.)

Me: “Sir, I understand you are frightened. But, you do know this is [internet service provider] you are calling?”

Caller: “Of course! My grandson sent this to me. I downloaded it with your internet!”

Me: “Pardon me?”

Caller: “My grandson mailed this to me with your internet this morning.”

Me: “Sir, I do not mean to offend you. But, I am going to repeat what’s going on, so I can better understand the situation. Your grandson sent you an image this morning in your email of an armadillo. And now that same armadillo is on your porch, staring you down?”

Caller: “Yes! That’s what I’ve been telling you this whole time!”

Me: “Sir, the internet does not work that way. The armadillo on your porch was not placed there by us. You need to call animal control.”

Caller: “I guess getting [internet service provider] to help me was too much to ask for!” *hangs up*

Me: “Hello. How can I help you?”

Caller: “Yes, I just have a quick question. How can I tell if my mouse is wireless?”

Me: “A wireless mouse doesn’t have a wire.”

Caller: “Listen, I don’t have time for techno speak. Just tell me how to figure out if mine is wireless or not.”

Me: “Look at your mouse. If there is a wire connected to it, then it is not wireless.”

Caller: “You don’t have to be a smart a**.”

Related:
Wireless, Clueless & Hopeless, Part 7
Wireless, Clueless & Hopeless, Part 6
Wireless, Clueless & Hopeless, Part 5
Wireless, Clueless & Hopeless, Part 4
Wireless, Clueless & Hopeless, Part 3
Wireless, Clueless & Hopeless, Part 2
Wireless, Clueless & Hopeless

Caller: “I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m not a technically savvy person.”

Me: “Well, that’s fine. We should be able to get this working. Can you go ahead and click on the start menu?”

Caller: *pause* “Start menu?”

Me: “Yeah, the little button on the bottom-left of your screen. It’s either a circle with the logo or a rectangle that says ‘start’. It’s right there on your taskbar.”

Caller: *pause* “Taskbar?”

Me: “Yeah, the little bar with all the icons right at the bottom of your desktop.”

Caller: *pause* “Desktop?”

Me: “You know what? I’m just going to connect to your computer remotely and do it myself.”

Caller: *pause* “Thank you?”

Me: “Thank you for calling [company]. How can I help you?”

Caller: “Hi, I am trying to find out how much RAM I have on my computer.”

Me: “Okay. An easy way to find this is to right-click on the my computer icon, and left-click on properties.”

Caller: “Oh, okay. Now what?”

Me: “You should see a box pop up with information about the computer on it.”

Caller: “Okay, but nothing happened.”

Me: “Nothing at all? What do you see on your screen?”

Caller: “My desktop.”

Me: “Alright. Well let’s try this again. What happens when you right-click on the my computer icon?”

Caller: “Nothing.”

Me: “Is the computer on?”

Caller: “Yes.”

Me: “Can you tell me, step by step, what you did?”

Caller: “Sure. You asked me to write click on my computer, and I didn’t want to write on my brand new computer, so I got a sticky note and wrote ‘click’ on the note. I stuck it to the screen, over the my computer icon.”

Me: *pause* “Oh. Okay. Well, by saying right-click, I meant pushing the button on the right side of the mouse. When you do this, it makes a clicking noise, so we techies call it ‘right-click’.”

Caller: “Oh, wow. That makes sense!”

Related:
Right-Click, Wrong-Click, Part 2
Right-Click, Wrong-Click