File This One Under “Extra Stupid”

(I work tech support for a software company that provides digital signing services. We often send customer’s documents to their email addresses, as they often accidentally delete or lose the documents. My coworker recently got off the phone with someone and they sounded upset. A moment later, the phone rings again, and I take the call.)

Customer: “Hi. I need you to send me this document again. [Coworker] sent it to me, and it’s all wrong. Send it again, please.”

(I look into the customer’s account, find the document, and check it over. It looks completely normal to me, so I send it to her email again.)

Customer: “No! This is all wrong. I just want the document, not all this other stuff!”

Me: “Ma’am, I’m not sure I’m following. What do you mean by ‘other stuff’?”

Customer: “ALL THIS OTHER STUFF! ON THE SIDES IT SAYS, ‘FILE,’ AND, ‘EDIT,’ AND ALL THESE OTHER THINGS! I JUST WANT THE DOCUMENT, BY ITSELF. PLEASE SEND IT OVER BY ITSELF!”

Me: “Ma’am, I only sent you the one document; are you referring to the buttons around the sides of the document, with options for what to do with it?”

Customer: “Yes! I don’t want all these buttons; I only want the document.”

Me: “I apologize, ma’am, but that is completely normal. Your computer has to use a program to open the document. It sounds like you are using [Very Common PDF Viewing Program]. Those buttons are standard. I cannot remove them.”

Customer: “It never did that before! I don’t want my client to be able to edit the document.”

(This went on for a while, and eventually she got the drift. She was pretty nice, just extremely confused.)