(I’m a 28-year-old female and work for a computer store. I’m alone in the store when a middle-aged man walks in.)

Me: “Hi there, can I help you?”

Customer: “Are there any computer guys around here?”

Me: “Just me at the moment, anything I can help you with?”

Customer: *tries to look behind me to the stock room and repair area* “Well, aren’t there any computer GUYS here?”

Me: “No. Look, is there anything I can help you with?”

Customer: “Well um…I need this fixed.” *holds a multimedia jukebox*

Me: “Well, I work in repairs as well so just tell me what’s wrong with it and I’ll take a look at it for you.”

Customer: “Listen, I just need to talk to a computer guy! I did everything right. I put the hard disk in but it still won’t work. Just get a guy to fix it!”

Me: “Well, the most common mistake is when people forget to format the hard disk. I can have that fixed in five minutes.”

Customer: “Yeah sure. Get one of the tech GUYS to do it and call me when it’s ready.”

Me: “Sure, no problem.”

(I went back and of course he hadn’t formatted the disk. I fix it and call the guy who shows up immediately.)

Me: “Here you go. As I thought you had just forgotten to format the disk. I did that for you and it’s working fine now.”

Customer: “No, that can’t have been the problem. I KNOW computers.”

Me: “Well, this isn’t a computer, and it’s a common mistake to make when you put the hard disk in yourself. Anyway, I fixed it for you so everything should be fine now.”

Customer: “Look, isn’t there a computer GUY I could talk to?”

Me: *losing will to live and considering a sex change*

(Back story: the customer was getting a blue screen of death on their computer.)

Me: “Hello, thank you for calling tech support. How can I help you today?”

Customer: “I was wondering if you could tell me who General Failure is and why he is trying to read the C drive on my computer?”

Me: “Ummm… excuse me?”

Customer: “I said that some guy named General Failure is reading my C drive.”

Me: “How did you come to this conclusion?”

Customer: “When I booted up my computer I get a big blue screen that says “General failure reading drive C,” and I demand to know who this person is!”

Me: *stifling laughter* “Okay, if you don’t mind I am going to place you on hold for about ten minutes while I do an investigation as to who this person is…”

(I placed the customer on hold and told my co-workers. We laughed our a**es off for ten minutes.)

Me: “Thank you for holding. I have some good news and some bad news. The good news is I was able to find some information for you. The bad news is that I wasn’t able to confirm who this ‘General Failure’ is; I am sure he doesn’t work for us. The other thing is that your hard drive is fried, and I would advise you to try to pull any data you can off the drive and invest in a new one. Is there anything else I can do for you today?”

Customer: “Um… no, thank you.”

(Customer hangs up and we laugh our a**es off some more.)

(I am working for the electronics department for a well known retail chain when I was contacted by the customer service desk.)

Customer Service: “A woman is headed your way who’s exchanging a phone, can you give her a hand?”

Me: “Sure.”

(Sure enough, a minute or two later, the woman appears.)

Woman: “I’m here to get a new phone. The phone I bought had been used already; there were phone numbers in the caller ID.”

Me: “Alright, let’s get you a new one.”

(I walk her to the phone aisle and we pick up another phone of the same make/model.)

Woman: “Can you open it? I just want to make sure that it is brand new.”

Me: “Sure.”

(I proceed to open the box and pull out the phone.)

Woman: “That one’s been used too! Look at the numbers on the caller ID!”

(I now realize that she’s referring to the display sticker.)

Me: “No, that’s just a sticker they put on the phone to show that it has caller ID.”

Woman: “No, that phone has been used!”

(I then peel the sticker off the phone. Without saying another word, she takes the phone over to customer service to finish the exchange.)

(Over the phone…)

Lady: “Is there a way to see your menu before coming in?”

Me: “Yes, you can google the name of the restaurant and the first link should take you to a menu.”

Lady: “What’s… ‘google’ mean?”

Me: “It’s a search engine on the internet. It’s at google.com.”

Lady: “Just a sec…” *faintly* “Google… dot… com…”

Pause.

Lady: “It’s not working.”

Me: “Did you spell our name correctly?”

Lady: “I can’t even get to this ‘google’ page! Wait… how do you spell ‘dot’?”

Related:
She Uses The Google

(I work as a computer tech and do in-house calls. I get a call one day and go to the customer’s house to assist with her computer not coming on.)

Customer: “Thank God you’re here!”

Me: “What’s wrong with the computer?”

Customer: “It won’t turn on at all, not even the monitor.”

Me: “Okay…”

(I begin to look at it, and it won’t come on at all, the tower or the monitor, so I check the easy things first. I find her power strip unplugged from the wall and plugged into itself.  I plug it into the wall and the computer magically comes on.)

Me: “Okay, your problem was that your power strip was plugged into itself, and therefore did not have any power to the computer.”

Customer: “How do you think that happened?”

Me: “Well, I’m sure your foot got caught up in it and accidentally unplugged it from the wall, and then you saw a plug hanging there later and plugged it into the power strip.”

Customer: “No, I don’t think that happened.”

Me: “Well, I’m not sure as to what really happened, but that is what I think happened.”

Customer: “I think my cat did it.”

Me: “I’m sorry.”

Customer: “I think my cat got back there and got caught up in it and unplugged it.”

Me: “That’s possible…”

Customer: “But how did it get plugged into itself?”

Me: “I’m sure you saw it hanging there and plugged it into the power strip.”

Customer: “No, I’m pretty sure the cat did that, too.”

Me: “I don’t think the cat can or did do that.”

Customer: “Yeah, he did… He does all kinds of stuff like that. One day, I came home and he had turned the thermostat up.”

(She was pointing at the thermostat which was on a wall with no way for the cat to get to it… and it was digital, so the cat would have had to push the button several times. When I got back to the office and turned the work order in, all the coworkers laughed because under the problem description it said, “Cat unplugged power strip and plugged it into itself.” Since that day, every time we get a simple call we joke with each other and ask if the customer has a cat.)

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