I was the manager of a large computer manufacturer’s tech support center. One of the brands was sold through third parties, and one of the partners we had made a deal with was one of the most popular Shopping Channels. Usually about a week after they had a run with our product, we would get a large influx of calls from people needing some help with something.

One of the newer techs got my attention and asked me to help with a customer they were having a problem diagnosing with a computer that wouldn’t display anything.

Me: “Thank you for holding, sir. My name is [My Name]. I’m one of the Senior Technicians here, and I’ll be helping you resolve your issue tonight.”

Customer: “Okay. I was getting a little frustrated that the other person wasn’t figuring out the problem.”

Me: “No problem at all, sir. That’s why they escalated to me. We’ll get this straightened out for you as soon as possible. I haven’t been involved with your troubleshooting, so I’m just going to start off with some basic questions to get them out of the way.”

Customer: “That’s fine. I just want to get this working.”

Me: “First, I want to make sure that the power cord for the tower is seated properly seated. Would you please pull it—”

Customer: “THIS THING TAKES POWER? THEY NEVER SAID THAT! THIS IS FALSE ADVERTISING!”

Me: *Confused* “I just want to make sure I understood you correctly. You don’t have the power cord connected to a power outlet?”

Customer: “No! [TV Shopping Company] never said this thing took electricity when they were selling it.”

Me: “Sir, I don’t understand. Is power an issue?”

Customer: “Yes. I only turn my generator on during the weekend for a few hours, and I watch [TV Shopping Company] to order things I’d have to go into town to get.”

Me: “Okay, well, you’re going to need to call [TV Shopping Company] and return this computer as it absolutely will not work without power. Also, a good rule of thumb, for the future, all electronic devices will require a power source to work, so if they don’t specifically state that they’re battery-powered, you should probably just assume they require power to work.”

From that point forward, I discovered how this ended up happening. He lived in the Alaskan wilderness, and every few weeks, he would go to the trading post where he had his stuff delivered.

I still remember “This thing takes power?” as the most unexpected response I’ve ever heard. So, try to remember this when a tech support person asks you a basic question you think is silly. There are very good reasons to start at the very beginning, and almost anyone who’s done any sort of troubleshooting can tell you that some of their most frustrating experiences turned out to be something simple that they just took for granted at the beginning.

A client needed desktop support; Word crashed, he hadn’t saved his file, and he couldn’t find any auto-recover data.

Me: “It looks like the auto-recover feature was turned off.”

Client: “That doesn’t sound like something I would do. I’m sure it’s turned on.”

Me: “I’m looking at your preferences right here; ‘Save auto-recover info’ is unchecked.”

Client: “Yeah, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t do anything like that, so there must be auto-recover files somewhere. Keep looking.”

I work as a tech support guy in an elementary school. One day, I was asked by an older female teacher (probably fifty-five or older) why her projector wasn’t working and if I could come take a look.

I arrived and found that it wasn’t even plugged in.

Me: “Where is the plug?”

Teacher: “I don’t have it.”

Me: “Oh, that’s okay. I can probably get you a new plug, but I need to find one. I’ll be back in about ten minutes.”

But she wasn’t having any of it. She insisted that I make the projector work wirelessly and wouldn’t take no for an answer.

Me: “That simply isn’t possible. Wireless electricity hasn’t been invented yet.”

She refused to listen. Then, she took out her phone.

Teacher: “If my phone can connect to the Wi-Fi wirelessly, why can’t the projector?”

I had to explain that Wi-Fi and electricity are different things, but she became angry and started threatening to report me to the principal.

I tried to remain calm and explained the situation to her again, but she refused to listen and accused me of being incompetent.

Eventually, I had to leave the classroom without solving her problem. It was a frustrating experience, but sometimes there’s just no way to make things work the way people want them to.

I later spoke to the principal and explained the situation to her, and luckily, she understood that the teacher’s request was unreasonable.

I work as a tech engineer for primary schools. Here I am, about three years ago, just promoted to Network Engineer from a service desk position, sent out to set up new Wi-Fi access points (APs) for a customer. The ticket states that their alarm system is fickle and I should steer clear of it.

No biggie: five APs. That’s about an hour of work, including configuring SSIDs and checking if they are placed conform to Sitesurvey. I send commands into one and… no connection. I check the IP I got from the DHCP server and it’s off.

Off to the patch cabinet, and lo and behold: in a world where 90% of all primary school devices use Wi-Fi, and 10/100 switches are a thing of the past, I find a 1000mbit fiber switch, functioning as a core switch to a stack of 10/100 UTP switches. Our firewall can be found here, as well, but no devices I can think of that could produce a second DHCP server.

So, I set a static IP in the subnet I got from this rogue DHCP server, and I manage to find a Gigaset VoIP box. I log in with the default credentials, and to my shock, it’s actually running a DHCP server and functions as a PPPoE modem toward an Internet connection no one heard of.

This is where the fun starts. I turn off the DHCP function and start configuring my APs. Halfway through, the alarm sets off. The customer is angry because I changed something. I’m flabbergasted.

I decide to go the “make the customer happy” way and go and fix it right this time. So, first things first: how is this alarm system configured? Luckily, VoIP and the alarm were installed by the same provider. Sadly, this provider sold all their alarm customers and all their VoIP customers to another third party. Both were unaware of what was actually installed due to a horrible handover.

The alarm company luckily can tell that they only have systems using IP to manage, and all they should need is a specific open port to the outer world. This goes against the interpretation of our customer, who is 100% sure the alarm uses a phone connection.

The VoIP company doesn’t have any information on the VoIP box I found and decides to just send someone to handle it and document everything to make sure this doesn’t happen again.

Since the VoIP box isn’t in use, doesn’t contain any SIP information, and can’t be found, I decide to remove it from the network. These old switches, lacking proper ARP support, make this an old-school “let’s ping this and pull cables” search. But after eliminating this bugger and resetting the alarm and the actually used VoIP system, I’m finally ready to continue configuring the APs.

Done? No. The party that installed the APs neglected the request to remove the old ones from above the ceiling plates, probably due to a lack of documentation. (Note: we were not in charge of the old APs).

So, I track them down and remove these APs, which are covered in crusty mouse droppings. Never have I been so happy with a bar of soap and hand sanitizer.

When packing my stuff to leave, I hear the school head on the phone with one of our Relationship managers, complaining about the fact that I managed to set off the alarm and shouldn’t have touched it.

IT in primary schools is usually sub-par, but this school took the cake and complained about me after I fixed most of their issues, while not even being there for troubleshooting

Twice now, a client has loudly complained that he can’t complete his work because he is on a Mac and can’t right-click. I explain to him that if he holds “Control” and clicks simultaneously, it will provide the same options as right-clicking.

These instructions stump him, so I have to go and point out the “Control” key on his laptop. He looks blankly at the keyboard.

Client: *Indignantly* “Obviously, but where is ‘Click’?”