(I’m a young woman working with all men at a well known retail store that also provides tech support. We are always extremely busy due to understaffing, and I am usually the only person helping customers checking in and out their computers. This client is a man in his 60s.)

Me: “Here’s your computer, sir. I’ll turn both of them on for you to look at. It looks like this one had a few viruses.” *points to laptop which is about six years old* “But this other one, due to its age, is running as fast as it can.” *points to laptop that is about fifteen years old* “The tech that worked on it said there’s nothing else we can really do for it, so he suggested to replace the unit.”

Client: “This is ridiculous. It was running just fine before!”

Me: “Well, the computer getting older and the speed is limited by its age. I’m sorry, but I can’t speed it up any more than it already is.”

Client: “Do you have a car?”

Me: “Yes, I own my own car.”

Client: “I’m sure that if there was something wrong with it, you’d just throw the whole thing away, now wouldn’t you?”

Me: “Excuse me?”

Client: “That’s what’s wrong with your generation! One thing is wrong, you throw it all away!”

Me: “No, sir, I wouldn’t throw my car away because one thing is wrong. I would replace the broken part to make it work again. Since it says here in our notes that we attempted to call you multiple times about your computer and that you declined any more work done to it aside from diagnostics and virus removal, there’s nothing more we can do to your computer without replacing parts or scrapping it.”

Client: *grabs laptops* “I’m not replacing them! They’re in mint condition!”

Me: *wipes dusty hands on pants* “Have a nice day!”

(The German word for “commandment” is also used as an auction term.)

Coworker: “Hello, this is the IT service of [ISP]. How can I help you?”

Caller: “Hello? Please, help me. You have to help me.”

Coworker: “Certainly, ma’am, what seems to be the problem?”

Caller: “I can’t see my commandments! I can’t watch them!”

Coworker: “Commandments? Like… your auctions on eBay?”

Caller: “eBay? What is this? What are you talking about? Please help me.”

Coworker: “Uh, why don’t you explain to me which commandments you mean?”

Caller: “Commandments! The Ten Commandments. It goes on Kabel-1 at two pm!”

Coworker: “Oh, the movie! Let me see what we can do. Please tell me your customer number first…”

(It was a long call. It turned out the elderly lady was disabled and really wanted to watch her movie that day, as it was Good Friday. My coworker was able to find out the problem wasn’t in her devices so he transferred her over to the TV services support. She blessed him. Sometimes religious customers aren’t that bad.)

(I get a call in the second level about a customer who’s calling for the sixth time today because her Internet isn’t working. The first level coworker doesn’t explain what she’s found out about her problem, only warns me that the customer is really irate.)

Me: “Hello, this is [ISP] tech support. I hear your Internet isn’t working.”

Caller: “That’s right! I can’t go online, and you guys haven’t called me back! I spoke to [Coworker] today at 09:30 and he said you would call me and then you didn’t! This is outrageous!”

Me: “Ma’am, [Coworker] indeed did try to call you, repeatedly. It says in the ticket that at first you didn’t pick up and then the line was constantly busy.”

Caller: “Nonsense! I would have known if anyone had called! You’re just lying!”

Me: “I really have no other way of knowing if he called, only his notes. Let me just look at your line now and try and get you back online.”

(This calms her down, especially after I have to tell her to hang up so I can check her line. I see right away that her DSL signal is there and there are no other problems in the line that could prevent her from going online. It remains to check if her router dials in, so I call her again.)

Me: “Good news, ma’am. Your line is up and running.”

Caller: “Bull-s***! I’m still not online!”

Me: “I wanted to see why that is. Can you describe me once again the lights on your router?”

Caller: “The upper one is on, and the one all the way down is also on, but the others are off.”

Me: “Can you tell me again what model router you’re using?”

Caller: “It’s [Model].”

(Note that it is a brand that our ISP stopped selling about six years ago and it’s not been in support for more than a year, so I can’t connect the customer with the device support hotline.)

Me: “All right… So, the upper light means the device is on AND that it gets a stable signal. The lower light is the Wifi symbol; it means the device’s wireless network is active. So all we need to do is try and log your account in again. Sometimes the devices just erase them. I usually don’t do this, but I’ll make an exception just this time for you.”

Caller: “Okay, tell me how to do it.”

Me: “First, can you tell me how your computer is connected to the router? With a cable or wireless?”

Caller: “I don’t have a computer.”

Me: *after a slight pause* “How do you use the Internet?”

Caller: “With my iPad.”

Me: “All right, that should do it. If you could please get the iPad and open your browser—”

Caller: “Browser? What is that?”

Me: “The program you use for the Internet.”

Caller: “That’s Google. You should know this! Are you stupid?”

Me: “…”

(We couldn’t get her online. I gave up after I realized she had no idea how to open a website with Safari, which I somehow managed to locate. I got yelled at the whole time.)

(I work for a large cell phone provider.)

Me: “Thank you for calling [Cell Phone Provider]. This is [My Name]. How may I assist you today?”

Caller: “Yes. Every time my phone rings and I try to answer it, my phone shuts off. It happens every time.”

Me: “Well, that is pretty odd. Let me see if I can figure out what the issue with your handset is.”

(After spending almost an hour trying to look up account info and diagnose what could possibly be wrong with this woman’s phone with no luck, I am about to give up and replace the phone.)

Me: “So that I can write up in your account what exactly is happening so we can replace your phone, what button are you pushing when trying to answer the phone?”

Caller: “The ‘Push When Ringing’ button.”

Me: “I’m sorry, which button?”

Caller: “’Push When Ringing.’ You know? P-W-R.”

Me: “I think I know the problem…”

(I work in IT. We have to dispatch techs to sites when needed, and I will often send out six to seven techs in a day across the US. I have a coworker approach me about one I had worked with earlier in the day.)

Coworker: “Hey, [My Name], do you remember that dispatch you sent earlier, for that place, about that problem?”

Me: “Well, with all that detail, how could I forget?”