I work in internal IT for a retail company. A lot of our support is password resets. I had this conversation with a user the other day.

User: “I need my ID for [program].”

Me: “Are you looking for your username or a password?”

User: “My user ID. I can’t sign in.”

Me: “What are you using for the username right now?”

User: “My employee ID”

Me: “It doesn’t use your ID; it uses your company email.”

I read the user his email.

User: “Oh, let me try that.”

A few seconds pass.

User: “It’s still not letting me in.”

Me: “What are you using for the username?”

User: “My employee ID.”

Me: *Headdesk* “It doesn’t use your employee ID; it uses your company email.”

I read the email address again.

I ended up also needing to provide him with a temporary password because he’d forgotten it, but it took another five minutes because he kept trying to use his employee ID as the username instead of the company email. The page itself also says that the username is in this format: firstname.lastname@[Company Website].

I just recently decided to buy a new gaming laptop and a virtual reality system. I decided to get the Oculus Quest and HP Pavilion laptop. I go to the store and ask the person helping me:

Me: “These will work together, right?”

The employee assures me it will work. I get to the checkout and feel like I should double-check with a second employee.

Me: “These two items will work together, right?” 

The second employee also assures me that these will work together. I get home and set it up. I get into the game I want to play and find out that I can’t see half the things other people can see. I talk to my very savvy computer friend and he tells me I need a different cord. The next day, I go buy one. I get home and it still does not work.

I decide to take EVERYTHING back the next day. There’s a new employee in tech support there that I bring the stuff to.

Employee #3: “Oh, yeah, this computer is not compatible with this VR.”

I asked about refunding, but since the VR is a wearable item, I couldn’t get a refund. They did take it and give me a full store credit.

I then went through a two-hour process of getting the right VR and computer. I had to order it in. I wish I had just gone straight to tech support instead of just a regular employee. It took a week, but now everything is good.

I am contracted by a client to provide technical and site support to their numerous facilities. The issues reported are often very simple to resolve, such as disabling a pop-up blocker for a certain site to be accessible. This seems to be the case for a link one caller reaches out to me for.

The following conversation occurs after I have authenticated her. This caller works in the medical field.

Caller: “I can’t access [link]. I go to the page the link is on, but it doesn’t work.”

Me: “Okay. To clarify, when you say it doesn’t work, do you mean that nothing happens at all? Or that a blank page opens? Or do you receive an error message?”

Caller: “It doesn’t work. I just click on it and it doesn’t work.”

Me: “So it does not open a new page?”

Caller: “No. It doesn’t work. I see the support number show up, but otherwise, it doesn’t do anything.”

Me: “Okay. So, it sounds like it isn’t opening the pop-up. You might have a pop-up blocker enabled. We can check that. What web browser are you using?”

Caller: “I don’t think I have a pop-up blocker.”

Me: “All right, we can double-check to make sure that isn’t the problem. Can you tell me which browser you are using”?

Caller: “Which what?”

Me: “Web browser. For example, are you in Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, or Edge?”

As usual, I proceed to describe the appearance of the icon for each browser.

Caller: “I don’t know. I’m accessing it how I always do.”

Me: “When you initially open [Site], do you click on an icon that says [Site] on your desktop, or do you open the Internet and go to the website that way?”

Caller: “I am opening it just like I always do!”

Me: “Yes, ma’am, I understand that. Unfortunately, I do not know how you typically access it, which is why I am attempting to clarify so that we may more effectively troubleshoot and resolve your issue. Can you describe to me what you see at the bottom of your scree—”

Caller: “It’s exactly how I always open it! I’ll just figure it out myself!” *Hangs up*

Good luck!

Related:
This Job May Require Telepathy

Back in the day, one of my customers was the cafeteria at a local hospital. At the end of every shift, they would run reports on those long folio folded perforated ledger sheets with the green and white stripes. If you are over fifty, you know exactly what I’m talking about.

These are continuous feed via a tractor mechanism to a dot matrix printer. The sheets are 8 1/2 x 14 legal size so the printer is huge.

One day, I get a call.

Caller: “The printer won’t stop screaming when we print reports!”

Me: “Screaming?”

Caller: “Yes, screaming.”

In a hospital. It is disturbing patients, apparently.

I go out there, run a report, and d***ed if the printer doesn’t start screaming like it is a peacock being murdered!

I do all my checks and am about ready to pull out my screwdrivers — machines fear me when I get out the screwdrivers — when I look down the paper feed path and see…

An Aspirin.

As the paper went through the tractor feed, it dragged along the aspirin and vibrated it against the plastic feed guide at JUUUST the perfect frequency to sound exactly like a woman’s scream.

I removed the aspirin and it was just as quiet as you remember dot matrix printers to be.

After explaining what had happened, I offered the aspirin to the office manager. She declined.

Caller: “Outlook is deleting all of my emails on its own!”

Me: “Could it be a keyboard issue?”

Caller: “No! I swear it’s only happening on Outlook!”

I’ve never heard of anything like this, but my go-to fix for weird issues is creating a new mail profile in the control panel.

As soon as I get the mail profiles window, it’s repeatedly trying to delete her existing profile. I ask her to unplug an external keyboard if she has one:

Caller: “Oh my God! I had my wireless keyboard on the bench next to me, and had set something on the delete key!”

I’ve heard funny stories of this happening but never dreamed I’d run into it myself. After entertaining my coworkers with the story, I learned this same user once slammed her laptop lid closed with a pen on the keyboard, shattering the screen.