Caller: “I just got to my vacation, and I haven’t had any reception! You sold me a defective cell!”

Me: “Where are you calling from, sir?”

Caller: “Hawaii!”

Me: “We do offer nationwide coverage, so you should be getting reception there.”

Caller: “I have reception now, idiot! I’m calling you on the phone!”

Me: “No need to call me names, sir. Where did you not have reception?”

Caller: “We sailed here from LA! We didn’t have any reception on the way! I had to pay a fortune for the cruise Wi-Fi!”

Me: “Sir, we don’t offer reception at… well… at sea.”

Caller: “That’s unacceptable!”

Me: “Sir, there are no cell towers at sea.”

Caller: “Then I am cancelling my cell plan! Your advertisements said nationwide coverage! I’ll find a competitor that can get me coverage on the sail back!”

I am working tech support at a cable company back in the day.

Caller: “What’s the name of that Adam Sandler movie that was on TV last night?”

Me: “I don’t know. I work in technical support. You’ve come through to the technical support line.”

Caller: “Yes, and I technically need support! What was the movie?”

Me: *Naively thinking I can quickly help* “What channel was it on?”

Caller: “I don’t know.”

Me: “What time?”

Caller: “I don’t know.”

Me: “Okay… what was it about? Who else was in it?”

Caller: “It was with him and a girl.”

Me: “That’s not a lot to go on.”

Caller: “Oh, also while I have you, who was Julia Robert’s third husband?”

Me: “I can’t help you with any of these. Please call back if you have a technical support question.”

Caller: “Y’all Hollywood, aren’t you?”

Me: “No… this is technical support for [Cable Company].”

Caller: “Yeah, but aren’t y’all all in Hollywood? Go get somebody who knows.”

I explained one more time and then politely hung up. I told my manager about the call, and he wasn’t surprised. Apparently, a lot of callers think the movies shown on the cable channel are made right next door to the call center. Crazy.

I worked as a tech support for a global insurance company. Our old manager retired. He was a cool guy, not a micromanager. We got this new one who was, right away, very confrontational. He was a “my way or the highway” kind of guy, even when we explained the bureaucracy of our company and processes. For whatever reason, he had it in for me; he went as far as making comments in front of everybody about replacing me.

At one of our employee review meetings, he said he was getting complaints of me “not smiling enough”, which I found very odd because I consider myself a likable person and I’m always joking with other users and employees, which I’ve found helps with the job.

He even went as far as to show me how to smile.

I proceeded to give out the most forced, creepy smile humanly possible every time I interacted with a user, every single time. People asked me what was wrong, and I always answered, “Following an employee review, I was instructed to smile more, so I’m smiling.”

I was doing this for a couple of days and after an interaction providing support for Human Resources, with the smile and the explanation, I went back to my desk.

A couple of minutes later, I saw the HR lady go to my boss’s office. They were there for like half an hour. After she left, my boss called me in.

Boss: “You don’t have to smile anymore.”

Me: *Sarcastically* “Aww, do I really have to stop?”

He just looked at me for a moment.

Boss: “That’s all.”

He left like a year later. No one, not even the other managers, liked him.

I work remote IT for a medical facility, which is a very high-paced environment. It can be rough some days, but generally, after I ask a few questions, I can do the troubleshooting I need to fix the issue. If not, I can send the case to a team onsite to get the issue resolved.

I got a call today that started out like this.

Me: “Thank you for calling. How can I assist you today?”

Caller: “The CPU was stolen!”

Stealing a CPU for one of these computers requires a lot of time and a lot of work because most of the computers in this location are locked in cages.

Me: “All right, do you see any dented metal or screws lying on the floor?”

Caller: “No. Why would that stuff be there?”

Me: “If a CPU was stolen they we need to unscrew the cage, the case, the fan mount, and potentially the CPU mount.”

Caller: “Well, the HDD (hard disk drive) is saying it’s corrupted!”

Me: “Okay, so is the CPU intact?”

Caller: “No, I’m telling you that the HDD is corrupted! Do you even work with computers?”

Me: “Uh… Okay, can you read off the error that the HDD is giving you?”

Caller: “‘Entering power sleep mode,’ and I can’t get it to show anything else.”

Yeah, so the CPU being stolen… I have no idea what that means. This “HDD” error just means that the computer isn’t getting a video signal. I document what actually is going on and get back to the call.

Me: “Okay, so, from the sounds of the error on the screen, it may be that the cable is loose or bad. Could you please check the cables for me?”

Caller: “Pfft, no, the CPU was stolen, and I already checked the cables!”

Me: “Could you try turning the computer on for me to check to see if any lights pop up?”

Caller: “No, I’m telling you…”

There’s a bit of a scuffle and some random worker comes on the phone.

Worker: “The CPU was stolen, and we need a tech up here to fix it.”

I try to do the same troubleshooting steps to maybe confirm that it is an issue with a cable or it’s not plugged in, but…

Worker: “Look here. I know more about computers than you do, and when I say that the CPU was stolen, I know it, and on top of that, our HDD is saying it’s corrupt!”

I mute myself, sigh, and smack my head.

Me: “Okay, I’ll send a tech over to take a look at it.”

Worker: “There, was that so hard?!” *Click*

Sometimes the only way to win is to lose. I checked back on the case a little bit ago and saw the solution the techs gave.

Techs: “Went to site, turned on computer.”

I work in IT for a large company in the financial industry that has several divisions. It also has quite a few detached agents that don’t technically work for us but sell our services. I don’t know what it is, but almost universally, they seem to believe they are God’s gift to the company and are very rude and impatient.

I get a call from an agent one evening because he can’t log into his laptop. This is a common occurrence and is usually just a simple matter of unlocking their account. This time is different, though. He has forgotten his password completely, so there is a whole long process to go through with lots of steps. He’s overall not the worst so far, but I can tell he’s getting impatient.

I have him restart his computer, and then the REAL issue reveals itself, which turns out to be an entirely different login than what he originally said it was. When I realize this, I tell him we’ll have to do a different process, and he drops this classy line.

Agent: “Can I just talk to someone who knows what the f*** they’re doing?”

Me: “[Agent], I’d just like to remind you that these calls are all recorded. If you continue to speak to me that way, I’ll end the call.”

Of course, he doesn’t apologize, but he does sort of huff dismissively. We finally get to the point where I’m telling him his new temporary password, which has a dollar sign in it, and he suddenly has no idea how to type that. I’m surprised that he, someone who allegedly uses a computer every day for his job in the FINANCIAL industry, doesn’t know how to type a dollar sign, but I tell him it’s SHIFT + 4.

Agent: “Well, okay, because there’s more than one dollar sign on a keyboard.”

I got him signed in and squared away and hung up.

Then, I closely studied my own keyboard to make sure I wasn’t the stupid one because, on a standard English US keyboard, there is definitely only ONE dollar sign.