(I work at the IT office in the city I live in. I’m female. I get a call from a city-funded kindergarten:)

Me: “IT office.”

Kindergarten Teacher: “Hi, we have a problem with the computer here. The Internet isn’t working.”

Me: “I see. Let’s see if there’s a way we can get this fixed over the phone, so you don’t have to wait for me to get to you.”

Kindergarten Teacher: “Look, is there no way you can just send someone over?”

Me: “I’m the person who usually goes out into the field. The reason I’m taking calls right now is that it’s still early in the morning, and no one else has arrived yet. These problems are very often easy to fix, and it would be a shame for you to wait until I got to you, only for me to restart your router, which you could easily do yourself and have Internet within minutes.”

Kindergarten Teacher: “But you don’t understand. We’re all women here, so we don’t know anything about computers. Just send one of the guys out. They’ll be able to fix it.”

(Having no words, I ended the call. The kicker is that I didn’t end up getting to that Kindergarten until hours later. Needless to say that all I did was restart the router, and they had Internet minutes later.)

Customer: “I got an angry call from someone saying I left a note with my number on their car after I hit it, but I didn’t do that.”

Me: “I’m sorry to hear that happened, but this wouldn’t be a technical problem with your service if someone left a note with your number somewhere.”

Customer: “But I didn’t do it.”

Me: “If we’re talking about a physical note that was left, this isn’t a matter of bad caller ID or anything like that. Someone either lied on a note they left or the caller misread the number.”

Customer: “But isn’t that weird?”

Me: “It is weird, but your phone is fine in this instance.”

(I am working nights at a help desk for hotel guests that need assistance connecting to WiFi. The customer can’t get online because the laptop’s WiFi is off. I calmly try directing their attention to the FN key (function key) + the key with WiFi signal on it (F6).)

Me: “To enable WiFi simple press and hold the FN key Then tap F6.”

Customer: “Don’t get impatient with me, sir.”

Me: “Oh, I’m not; just letting you know how to turn on your WiFi.”

Customer: “Let me talk to your supervisor!”

Me: “Okay… I can help if you would simply press the—”

Customer: “Supervisor!”

Me: “Okay, one moment…”

Supervisor: “This is [Supervisor]. How can I help?

Customer: “Your tech is being rude and telling me to press the FN key over and over. It’s unprofessional!”

Supervisor: “Do you see the space bar?”

Customer: “Yes.”

Supervisor: “Look three keys to the left; what does it read?”

Customer: “Oh, my god, I thought he was telling me to press the ‘effin’ key! I’m so sorry.”

(I work for a university tech support. I only troubleshoot things involved with our site. I get calls all the time about people complaining that their Internet is not working. This customer in particular is very stubborn about me fixing their Internet. She tells me that she can’t get our website to load up, and that she gets a ‘page cannot be found’ error.)

Me: “Okay, ma’am I’d be glad to help. Can you try going to Google for me.”

Customer: “Okay… I get the same error.”

Me: “Okay, that means your Internet has gone down on your computer or from your Internet service provider.”

Customer: “But the Internet on my phone works just fine! I just need your site to load up for me, so fix it!”

Me: “Well, ma’am, I can’t fix your computer for you because that goes outside our scope of support. You will need to contact either your computer manufacturer, who can then tell you what option to look for to get your Internet back up, or call your ISP who can do the same thing.”

Customer: “But it is just your site I need; why can’t you fix your own site? Every time I call you guys you send me somewhere else and never do your jobs!”

Me: “Ma’am, my job is to troubleshoot our site when something is not working properly. Even though our site is not working on your end, every other site that you go to is also not working. Are you going to call every website you are trying to get to and have them tell you the same thing I am?”

Customer: “If I need their site working I will call them. Now, fix this.”

Me: “As I have told you, I can’t fix this. What you are asking is essentially like going to Wal-Mart and complaining that the electricity at K-mart is out. They are not going to be able to do anything to get that fixed. If you don’t have any other questions I am going to disconnect this call.”

Customer: “Get me your manager!”

Me: “I’d be happy to if there was one available. They are in meetings. Besides, they will say the same thing I’m telling you and you will have your day wasted to hear the same thing again. Call your ISP or computer manufacturer and I promise you will get this fixed.” *click*

(I am the only IT support in an office of 35. It is day one of our conversion to a new email spam filter. Some staff don’t adapt well to change.)

Supervisor: *irritated* “I am expecting an important email and I haven’t received it and it’s not in my junk list.”

Me: *sending a message to ISP* “Supervisor missing important email and still cannot login to new spam filter page to check.

ISP: “Okay, let’s see if we can resolve this spam filter issue once and for all today.”

Me: *sending a message to various staff* “Please attempt to login with your FULL EMAIL ADDRESS (e.g. yourname@organization.org) and EMAIL PASSWORD, not network password.”

Staff Member #1: “I DID use my full email address and it didn’t work.”

Me: “Let’s try adding the @organization.org part and tell me what happens.”

Staff Member #1: “OH! Okay, it works now.”

Staff Member #2: “I saw those emails about trying to log in and I didn’t know what to do, so I didn’t do anything.”

Me: *thinking* “So instead you forced me to hunt you down via phone and walk you through it.”

Staff Member #3: “Nope, can’t login.”

Me: “Will you share your credentials with ISP so they can test from their end.”

ISP: “We have no problem logging in with these credentials from this end.”

Staff Member #3: “It works now!”

(I go to the supervisor, after two hours of these inane individual conversations with 18 staff members.)

Me: “Everyone but you can successfully log in to the new spam filter page. Could we please double check that you are using your FULL EMAIL ADDRESS, as in yourname@organization.org, and your EMAIL PASSWORD, not network password?”

Supervisor: “I AM using my full email address and email password. Still don’t have that important email!”

ISP: *to me* “Can we get the sender to verify the date/time/address sent. Unlikely but possible it was mis-routed. We could try tracking from this end if we had some more details.”

Me: *to Supervisor* “Do we know for sure this important email was sent? Can you give me the contact name and phone so I can verify?”

Supervisor: *to me* “I will contact him.”

ISP: *to me* “Can you please attempt to observe Supervisor login to new spam filter and verify he is using the correct credentials?”

(Supervisor enters “first name” and “password”)

Supervisor: “See, it doesn’t work!”

Me: “Okay, but how about if we use your FULL email address? Can we try adding the @organization.org part?”

(Logs in successfully.)

Supervisor: “Well, I never had to put that part in before!”

Me: *thinking* “What part of ‘FULL EMAIL ADDRESS’ did you not understand?” *actually saying* “”Well… now you do. And now you know it works.”

(Hours pass…)

ISP: *to me* “Any news on the missing important message? We’d like to clear this trouble ticket.”

Me: *to Supervisor* “Any update on verifying details about this missing email?”

Supervisor: *to me* “I have sent a fax and an email message and haven’t heard anything back.”

Me: *thinking* “What the h*** is wrong with using a TELEPHONE?”

(Later I am talking to the big boss.)

Big Boss: “I don’t like the new spam filter interface as much as the old spam filter. And are you going to do some staff training on how to use it?”

Me: *eye twitches*