I took a tech support call. The woman started the call by informing me:

Customer: “I’ll have you know I’ve been working on computers for ten years! I am not going to be talked to like some child.”

“This is gonna go great,” I moaned internally.

Her computer was running slow. We ran through a few things.

Me: “Please shut down your PC and let me know when it’s off.”

About four seconds later:

Customer: “Okay, it’s off.”

Impossible.

Me: “Turn it on again and let me know when we get back to the desktop.”

Three seconds later:

Customer: “Okay, it’s back up.”

Me: “Ma’am, can you tell me exactly how you’re shutting down your computer?”

Here it comes…

She launches into a tirade about how she works on a computer every day at work and blah, blah, blah for about five minutes.

Me: “I understand, ma’am. I’m simply asking the steps to verify that you are taking the proper procedure for this computer.”

Customer: “Of course I am. I push the button on the computer.”

Me: “Is that the computer where you see the images or under your desk?”

Customer: “What do you mean? That’s a stupid question. The computer where the information comes up.”

I take a deep breath.

Me: “Ma’am, that’s not the computer. That’s your monitor.”

Customer: “What? You’re not making sense. That’s how we all shut down our computers at work.”

I explain that at work she doesn’t have a computer but a workstation on a network. I explain that turning off the monitor does not affect the PC at all. Then, I walk her through proper shutdown procedures, and we reboot her PC.

When it reboots, it installs several updates, including multiple driver updates.

Customer: “Hey! You fixed the colors!”

She never mentioned video issues.

Customer: “And it’s running smoother again!”

Our development team is working on a content management system for a corporate client. It is a big system that administered units produced in a variety of languages and applications and, as a result, requires careful user interface design and a lot of backend code.

We are doing a show and tell with our partially working system for a couple of corporate VPs to get their feedback on the design. We take a lunch break, and when we got back, the two VPs said they have something they want to show us.

They proudly present a series of PowerPoint slides that show where they want the buttons and pick lists placed.

Client: “There, see? This is the arrangement that makes the most sense to us. Can you do this?”

Me: “Certainly.”

Client: “You know, I really don’t understand why it takes your team so long to design these interfaces. We knocked this out in about an hour.”

The entire team sits there stunned until the senior programmer – a man of very few words – points to a button on the PowerPoint screen.

Programmer: “What does this button do?”

Client: “Well, clearly it administers the training and testing selected by the user.”

Programmer: “If I click it right now, it will do that?”

Client: “Well… no. Actually, it doesn’t do anything yet.”

Programmer: “That’s why it only took you an hour.”

A new coworker at the box office is being screamed at by an old lady, and he seems quite flustered. Since I’ve been with the theater a few years, I wander over and tell him to take five. I turn to the old lady. The entire time, she’s speaking with a raised voice and a VERY condescending tone.

Me: “What seems to be the issue?”

Old Lady: “I bought tickets online, but that brat won’t give them to me!”

Me: “All right, I’ll see if I can help. The website should have either texted or emailed you a QR code we can scan. Do you have that?”

Old Lady: “Ugh, no! I don’t have a QR code!”

Me: “Do you have a smartphone? You should be able to bring it up via email.”

Old Lady: “NO! I don’t need a smartphone!”

Me: “That’s all right. Did you write down the confirmation code for the tickets? I can print them off if you have that code.”

Old Lady: “NO, I DON’T HAVE SOME STUPID CODE! You know, this is ridiculous! I bought tickets online so it’d be more convenient, but you idiots aren’t being much help!”

Me: “So, no confirmation code. Do you have the card you used to buy the tickets online? If you do, I can just swipe that, and they should print out.”

Old Lady: “NO! I have three cards, and I don’t know which one I used! And I’m not giving you all three of my cards to swipe!”

Me: “Well, ma’am, I’m sorry, then. If you don’t have the QR code or confirmation number, and you won’t give me your card to swipe, I have literally no way of redeeming your tickets. I’m afraid there’s nothing else I can do.”

Old Lady: *Shrieking* “THIS ISN’T VERY CONVENIENT, YOU JERK! I WANT YOU TO CHANGE THE WEBSITE! I BUY TICKETS ONLINE TO BE MORE CONVENIENT! I DIDN’T KNOW I HAD TO BRING IN PROOF TO REDEEM MY TICKETS! YOU SHOULD JUST KNOW I HAVE TICKETS IF I COME IN AND SAY I DO! I’M GOING TO SPEAK TO YOUR MANAGER! I WANT YOU TO REDO YOUR WEBSITE!”

She continues on a tirade for several more moments before suddenly reaching into her pocket and throwing a piece of paper at me.

Old Lady: “Here! This was the only thing I brought in. It’s some stupid number the website emailed me!”

I enter the number into the register and her tickets immediately spit right out.

Me: *Handing her the tickets* “Ma’am… this was the confirmation number I asked you about.”

Old Lady: *Screaming* “HOW WAS I SUPPOSED TO KNOW THAT?!”

The website literally labels the confirmation number as “confirmation number.”

Me: “Ma’am… I really don’t know what to tell you.”

She went on another tirade about how we weren’t “convenient,” insulted the other cashier and me one more time for good measure, and stormed off.

There is an unfair stereotype in university IT that the older the professor, the worse they are at technology. This is entirely untrue because absolutely nothing seems to correlate with how comfortable a professor is with technology — age, intelligence, diligence, and certainly not degree. I’ve observed a slight statistical correlation with the field they’re in, but it’s shaky at best.

So, I try not to judge anyone until I’ve seen them actually at a machine. But on one particular occasion, I regret to say I fell prey to assumptions.

We had received word that a new professor was starting, and they actually stopped by to introduce themselves to our team. If you want good service from IT, boy, is that a way to leave an impression. They were young, humble, and they just emitted this impression of intelligence — all the signs of a user we could give a computer to and never see again, which is just how IT likes it.

And on top of this, when we asked if they had any special requests for what they wanted on their machine, they specifically asked for Chrome. My estimation of their ability went sky-high. I had dreams of future tickets, easily resolved, aided by their wonderful ability to assist with troubleshooting.

That is, until the day they got their new computer and reported their first ticket: they still wanted Chrome installed.

I was, frankly, baffled. Not only was Chrome set to the default browser on our image, but I had taken an extra step to log in as the user and put the icon on a prominent position on their desktop, since they had specially requested it. It could not be any more installed.

But weirder things have happened before. Maybe some serious problem had happened with their new machine and Chrome was somehow deleted.

I was so baffled that I asked if I could see the machine in person, and they brought it by right away. I watched as the user logged in and clicked on the Chrome icon on their desktop, successfully opening Chrome.

There were no triumphant sounds of understanding or a sheepish apology. Instead, they kept going.

Now, Google likes to change up the contents of the default tab when you open Chrome. This particular design prominently featured a button saying something like, “Learn more about what you can do with Chrome!”

The professor continued to click on “Learn More About Chrome,” click the link, “Download Chrome,” and point.

Professor: “See! It says that you still need to download Chrome.”

I admit, troubleshooting this problem had me stumped.

Eventually, I managed to convince the professor that if they visited literally any other site on the Internet, they would be just fine. They went away satisfied.

That afternoon, I started to write a feedback email to Google:

Me: “Bug found: user can still navigate to ‘Install Chrome’ page even if Chrome installed.”

But ultimately, I decided against sending it. It was out of the ticket scope, anyway.

Ticket closed!

I am currently studying to become an IT Specialist and have become the go-to guy for my girlfriend’s friends and family with anything tech or computer-related.

Her father asks me to make his laptop “go faster”. The laptop was quite old and loaded with bloatware so I decided that it would be best to swap the HDD for an SSD and re-install the operating system along with the most important to him applications – all free of charge.

Before I start, I inform him of my plan.

Me: “What do you want to keep?”

I ask this a few times.

Girlfriend’s Father: “I just want my documents, photos, and music files, I don’t need anything else.”

I proceed with my plan and before I can get started, I already encounter a problem: he has forgotten the Windows login details, including his password. After scratching my head for a couple of hours and managing to successfully guess the password, I am able to log in and make a backup of all the files.

I then swap the hard drive (with a spare SSD that I had which I also didn’t charge him for), re-install the operating system, run all the updates and install a couple of basic apps such as Chrome and a media player.

I then copy all the backed-up files onto the laptop and even take some time to sort through some of the files to remove duplicates and the like; he has 60GB of music, half of which are duplicates.

I was happy with the end result, the laptop is running much faster, is not making a loud noise, and does not have tons of apps running at startup. Satisfied with my work I give the laptop to my girlfriend to give back to him, thinking that I will get at least a pat on the back or a thank you.

The next day I get a phone call:

Girlfriend’s Father: “What have you done to my laptop?! Where is all of my music?! Where is the Amazon Music App?! Where is Thunderbird?!”

Me: “Hi, I have kept all of your music, documents, and photos as you requested, they are saved in the respective folders.”

Girlfriend’s Father: “But where are my apps?! Where are all my desktop icons!? I had Windows Music Player on my desktop and now it’s not there!?”

Me: “Do you remember our conversations where I asked you more than once if there were any apps or anything else that you wanted to keep, otherwise it would be deleted?”

Girlfriend’s Father: “Yes, but that’s not what I meant! I just wanted my music, my documents, and my photos and now I don’t have Windows Music Player and all of my Amazon music is gone!”

Me: “Windows Music Player is still there, as it comes pre-installed with Windows and I will be happy to re-install Amazon Music and any other apps.”

He calms down and agrees. After meeting with him and installing Amazon Music and Thunderbird we encounter a familiar problem: he has forgotten his login details.

After explaining to him that there’s not much I can do unless he remembers his e-mail address, he gets annoyed and demands that I put everything back to the way it was.

Already frustrated at the situation and the wasted time I swap the drive back and gave him back his laptop. Shortly after I broke up with my girlfriend. Just over a year later, I received a message from him asking if I still remember the password to his laptop…

Related:

Laptop Flop, Part 31
Laptop Flop, Part 30
Laptop Flop, Part 29
Laptop Flop, Part 28
Laptop Flop, Part 27