I work in tech support. This is far from the worst, but this is a memorable call I got from a user.
User: “Sometimes our printer runs out of paper. What can we do about that?”
In the user’s defense, she probably meant, “The paper runs out during a report, and we can’t reprint it after reloading the paper,” but that’s not what she asked.
And the solution still should have been obvious — load paper before running the report.
I worked at the help desk at a community college computer lab for a few years and encountered all sorts of stupidity; this one stands out above all the rest.
A middle-aged woman walks over to my desk and wants help opening a document she saved on a 3.5-inch floppy the other day. No problem. I follow her to the computer she was using. We get all sorts of problems with people and their disks here, so this is pretty run-of-the-mill. We sit down at her computer, and I open the disk.
It’s blank. Not only is it blank, but it’s a brand-new unformatted blank.
Me: “This is a blank disk; it’s never been used. Are you sure this is the right disk?”
Customer: “Yes, it is; I bought it yesterday. I was in the other lab and they said they were going to erase all those computers that night and I needed to save my work to a disk.”
Me: “Well, this disk is empty. It’s never had anything saved to it. Are you sure you saved it to the disk?”
Customer: “I did! I put the disk in and clicked save.”
Yup, I know what happened now; she never actually saved it to the disk.
Customer: “They must have erased my disk! They said they were going to erase everything on those computers that night, and they erased my disk!”
Me: “Did you leave your disk in those computers overnight?”
Customer: “Of course not! It was in my bag at home! They must have erased it!”
Me: “That’s not physically possible. There is no way they could do anything to your disk when you have it at home in your bag. You must have not properly saved your document to the disk. Would you like me to format this disk and show you how to do it for next time?”
The customer screamed, flipped the keyboard over, and then promptly stormed out.
I receive a call from a user in an absolute panic.
Caller: “My spreadsheet has malware!”
I get to her desk, and she’s on the phone. She stands up so I can sit and work. Sure enough, her Excel sheet looks weird. I glance up in the upper right corner and see a blue “W”.
A lightbulb goes off.
I check the filename, close WORD, open Excel, and reopen the file.
She turns around…
Caller: “Hey… you fixed it.”
She opened an Excel spreadsheet inside of Word and her first thought was, “Yup, must be malware.”
I work in face-to-face tech support for a telecommunications company. This involves troubleshooting mobile broadband devices (and laptops), setting up email accounts, syncing mobile phones to computers, and giving tutorials on how all this sort of stuff works.
This guy, probably in his late twenties to early thirties, comes in with his laptop and USB broadband modem.
Customer: “I need this looked at. After about an hour of using it, I start to get really bad headaches.”
Me: “Don’t you think it would be a much better idea to see a doctor about this instead of coming to a [Company] store?”
Customer: “No! It’s my USB modem, and there could be no other explanation. You have to test it for gamma rays.”
Me: “That’s not possible.”
Customer: “I have a Bachelor’s degree in IT, and I know what I’m talking about.”
I am getting annoyed with him. I have appointments to get through and I’m running late from previous ones and don’t have time to put up with his crap.
Me: *With a straight face and neutral tone* “Sir, you are wrong, and you’re obviously lying about your degree in IT because if you did have one you could not be this blatantly dumb. Stop wasting my time and take your matter of health to the doctor instead of coming to bother us.”
Thankfully, that was enough to make him leave!
A tech support call comes in. She tells me her problem and I can only offer the easiest solution:
Me: “You just have to reboot your computer, ma’am. It crashes sometimes.”
She calls back immediately with the same issue.
Me: “Wow, it must have crashed again, ma’am. I’m sorry, but please just reboot again.”
She calls back, so I go to her desk in person.
Me: “Can you show me how you’re rebooting your computer?”
She turns the monitor off and on again.
Client: “See, it’s still happening!”
