(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 receive a phone call from a user who is trying to get admin privileges on his computer and he needs assistance with getting the update for those privileges.)

Me: “Sir, I need you to open a program for me called Command Prompt. To open it, can I have you click on Start?”

User: “I am the engineering lead for three departments and have a degree in computer programing. Do not patronize me and assume I don’t know how to open Command Prompt. I have it open now.”

Me: “All right, sir, can I have you do a Group Policy update?”

User: “Okay.”

(Wait…)

User: “The command failed.”

Me: “Okay. Just to verify, what did you type in for the command?”

User: “’Update.’”

Me: “Sir, let’s try this instead: ‘gpupdate /force’.”

User: “’gp/force’.”

Me: “No, sir.” *I spell it phonetically*

User: “’gpupdat /for’.”

Me: “Like this, sir.” *spells it again*

User: *angrily* “There. I got it.”

Me: “All right, sir, now we need to restart the computer.”

User: “Why?”

Me: “For the group policy to apply, just like you learned in programming.”

User: “We didn’t use Command Prompt in programming.”

Me: “…”

(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?”