My first IT role is as a help desk technician for a large agricultural company. It involves driving around to a lot of different sites to troubleshoot antiquated desktops and printers. It also involves helping a lot of farmer-types who can barely even operate a computer.

I receive a ticket from an office secretary.

Secretary: “Yesterday, my boss, [Boss], said his computer won’t turn on. He’s not in the office today; he’s semi-retired and only comes in once a week. Can you please come and look at his computer? I have a key to let you into his office.”

I drive to the site and [Secretary] lets me into [Boss]’s office. I find a desk with a monitor and a mouse sitting on it. The mouse is plugged into the monitor via USB. The monitor has only one other cable connected — a power cable plugged into the surge protector below the desk.

I look around the room to make sure I’m not missing anything, but that’s it. That’s his whole setup.

I go back to [Secretary]’s desk.

Me: “Do you know if [Boss] takes his computer home with him?”

Secretary: *With a confused look* “No, that’s his computer in there. Does he have the wrong one?”

I realize I will have to break the news to this nice woman that the surge protector isn’t a computer. I go into full bedside-manner mode, a skill I really had to work on for this role.

Me: “Oh, I only see a surge protector in there. Is it possible that [Boss] mistook that for his computer? It would seem his computer is missing from the room, which explains why the monitor isn’t getting a signal.”

Secretary: *Looking shocked* “You mean that’s not a computer? But that’s what his setup has looked like for months. No wonder he’s been complaining about it this whole time!”

After this incident, [Boss] continued to insist that the surge protector WAS his computer and that it HAD WORKED FOR HIM BEFORE. It wasn’t until we had him come into the office and we provided a thorough explanation of what a typical computer setup SHOULD look like that he conceded and allowed his secretary to purchase him a new one.

We never figured out what happened to his old computer.

Client: “My computer is frozen!”

Me: “What screen is it frozen on?”

Client: “The first screen, where it says, ‘Push Ctrl+Alt+Del to log in.’ I can move the mouse around, but when I push those buttons, it does nothing”

Me: “Is your keyboard plugged in?”

Client: “No, it’s a wireless keyboard.”

Me: “Have you changed the batteries?”

Client: “This thing takes batteries?! I thought it ran on satellite power.”

I used to love “Bring Your Kid To Work” Day because it gave me the perfect opportunity to gently tease the college-educated adults I work with. I would deliberately take the paper out of the printer, for instance, and watch a bunch of eight- to ten-year-olds get super excited.

Child #1: “Miss! Miss! There’s a red light on the printer!”

Child #2: “What’s wrong with it? Maybe it says.”

Child #3: “Look, the screen says it’s out of paper!”

Child #4: “Is there more paper? Look, here it is!”

Child #5: “Let’s make sure it’s the right size.”

Child #6: “Look, the screen has directions for putting it in!”

I would let them refill the machine, and afterward, I’d tell them that a number of their parents had trouble doing exactly the same thing. Those parents would come to me in a panic because the machine had a red light, ignoring the clear error message and directions on the screen. The kids adored this, and it also happens to be true!

Client: “Could you email me the first page of your proposal again? I printed it all out, but then I wrote all over the first page, so I need you to send it again.”

Me: “Do you still have the PDF file you printed it from?”

Client: “Yes.”

Me: “So, maybe you could just print that file again?”

Client: “Oh. You can do that?! Since when?”

In the mid-1990s, I work in tech support for a Swedish company that manufactures and sells a system for time registration (employee clock-in and out) and computer software to handle the data. I have some calls that I will never forget. Remember, the computer is quite new, and most of the users have no experience. Most customers can handle the computer and hardware (the clock), but then there is this customer.

Customer: “The clock doesn’t work properly. I get an error trying to get the data.”

Me: “You must reset the clock.”

Customer: “How do I do that?”

Me: “First, you go to the clock.”

Before I have time to tell her the next step, I hear a clatter as she puts down the headset and footsteps when she walks away toward the clock.

A couple of minutes later, I hear steps again and an embarrassed client asking:

Customer: “What am I supposed to do with the clock?”

Another day, I get a call from the same customer. The computer, running MS-DOS, is locked.

Me: “You must reset the computer.”

Customer: “How? I have never done that before.”

Me: “Just press Alt-Control-Delete.”

Customer: “Wait, what?”

Me: “First, press and hold ‘Alt’ on the keyboard.”

Customer: “Okay.”

She puts the headset down, walks away, and comes back. I hear a lot of giggling before she picks up the headset again.

Customer: “Okay, and now what?”

Me: “Excuse me, but what exactly did you do?”

Customer: “Just what you said! I got two colleagues to help me press ‘allt’ on the keyboard.”

The Swedish word “allt” sounds like “alt” but literally means “everything”. She and her colleagues pressed everything on the keyboard.

These two calls weren’t the worst.

The customer is having issues with the data, and we need to clear a folder of files to restart the process. Remember, this is pre-Windows, so everything is like only using the command prompt in Windows.

Me: “Okay, can you see the text ‘C:\[application]\[data folder]’ before the blinking cursor?”

Customer: “Yes!”

Me: “Are you sure?”

Customer: “100%.”

Me: “‘C:\[application]\[data folder]’ before the cursor?”

Customer: “Yes!”

Me: “Okay. Type ‘DELETE’ and press enter.”

I hear clicking sounds and a long beep.

Me: “What happened?”

Customer: “A message appeared: ‘Unknown command or file name’.”

I get a bad feeling.

Me: “Are you sure that ‘C:\[application]\[data folder]’ was just before the cursor?”

Customer: “Yes!”

Me: “Really sure?”

Customer: “Yes! I’m sure. ‘C:\[application]\[data folder]’ was five lines above the cursor!”

Me: “Can you please read the whole line where you typed ‘DELETE’?”

Customer: “A ‘C’, a colon, a slash, and an arrow pointing right.”

So, the line said, “C:\>”.

Me: “Okay. You have to tell the local IT crew to send someone to reinstall your computer. You have just managed to wipe the root folder.”