Fellow IT Guys... Enjoy!

[Tripp]

Originally Posted by str8edg

I almost choked...

I know it well, I worked tech support for Comcast for a few years. Not to thread jack but my one of my favorites is...

1 "what do now?"

2 "what does it say on your screen?"

3 "click OK to continue... what do I do?"

4 "would you like to continue?"

5 "yes"

6 "do you see a button that says OK?"

7 "yes... what do I do"

8 "what does it say on your screen?"

9 GOTO 3

I used to put the phone on mute and scream under my breath... "Just click the fuc&^%$ button" It became the mantra of the overnight crew!!

PEBKAC, brother PEBKAC

/This is what I do.

[Infin1ty]

Originally Posted by bonggoy

Or maybe they just not to familiar with computers, hence the need for a helpdesk.

Oh no, I mean I am pretty easy going and I have no problem if your not familiar with computers, but some of these people just lack some major common sense.

[moviewithnotitle]

PBKAC....I love that one, been saying it for years!

I have been in the Industry since 1996...did my time in Support 1 & 2. Never again! I used to get so annoyed I would weave a tapestry of obscenities the way other artists worked in oils or clay! I have since moved up to a Network Engineer position and have little interaction with end-users now!

I feel for you guys in the trenches though. You're the unsung heros!

[Infin1ty]

Originally Posted by moviewithnotitle

PBKAC....I love that one, been saying it for years!

I have been in the Industry since 1996...did my time in Support 1 & 2. Never again! I used to get so annoyed I would weave a tapestry of obscenities the way other artists worked in oils or clay! I have since moved up to a Network Engineer position and have little interaction with end-users now!

I feel for you guys in the trenches though. You're the unsung heros!

So true. I can't wait until I find a position in the networking department!

[zonedar]

And just remember, these smooth brain's votes count just as much as yours...

[Infin1ty]

Alright got some more for you guys... The ones today are probably going to be strictly HelpDesk stories, but we'll see. Once again these are all true stories.

Tech Support: "Ok Bob, let's press the control and escape keys at the same time. That brings up a task list in the middle of the screen. Now type the letter 'P' to bring up the Program Manager."


Customer: "I don't have a 'P'."


Tech Support: "On your keyboard, Bob."


Customer: "What do you mean?"


Tech Support: "'P' on your keyboard, Bob."


Customer: "I'm not going to do that!"

Overheard in a computer shop:

Customer: "I'd like a mouse mat, please."


Salesperson: "Certainly sir, we've got a large variety."


Customer: "But will they be compatible with my computer?"

Tech Support: "All right...now double-click on the File Manager icon."


Customer: "That's why I hate this Windows -- because of the icons -- I'm a Protestant, and I don't believe in icons."


Tech Support: "Well, that's just an industry term sir. I don't believe it was meant to --"


Customer: "I don't care about any 'Industry Terms'. I don't believe in icons."


Tech Support: "Well...why don't you click on the 'little picture' of a file cabinet...is 'little picture' ok?"


Customer: [click]

[Infin1ty]

Alright, I forgot the best one..

Customer: "My computer crashed!"


Tech Support: "It crashed?"


Customer: "Yeah, it won't let me play my game."


Tech Support: "All right, hit Control-Alt-Delete to reboot."


Customer: "No, it didn't crash -- it crashed."


Tech Support: "Huh?"



Customer: "I crashed my game. That's what I said before. Now it doesn't work."


Turned out, the user was playing Lunar Lander and crashed his spaceship.


Tech Support: "Click on 'File,' then 'New Game.'"


Customer: [pause] "Wow! How'd you learn how to do that?"

[Infin1ty]

And some more.

• Customer: "I'm having trouble installing Microsoft Word."
• Tech Support: "Tell me what you've done."
• Customer: "I typed 'A:SETUP'."
• Tech Support: "Ma'am, remove the disk and tell me what it says."
• Customer: "It says '[PC manufacturer] Restore and Recovery disk'."
• Tech Support: "Insert the MS Word setup disk."
• Customer: "What?"
• Tech Support: "Did you buy MS word?"
• Customer: "No..."

Email from a customer:
I've bought a stolen CDD3610 which didn't come with any software or cables. Could you please send that to me? I presume I do have the full 12 months warranty?

• Tech Support: "Ok, let's put your operating system disk in the drive."
• Customer: "Ok...which way does it go in?"
• Tech Support: "The shiny side faces down."
• Customer: "Alright...um...which way is down."
• Tech Support: (rolling eyes) "Towards the floor."
• Customer: "Ahhh...so what way does the other side face?"
• Tech Support: "Are you kidding?"
• Customer: (outraged) "Hey! I'm not a computer genius, ok? That's why I called you!"
• Tech Support: "Ok, that side faces down too."

I'm a tech support engineer for a software company. I had a guy call up rather annoyed that the disks we'd sent him containing the latest version of our software didn't work.

• Customer: "The install fails half way through. I tried several times, and it always fails at the same point."
• Tech Support: "Did you see any kind of error message?"
• Customer: "Yes."
• Tech Support: "What did the error message say?"
• Customer: "It said, 'Please insert Disk 2.'"
• Tech Support: "Have you got another disk there?"
• Customer: "Yes."
• Tech Support: "Is it labelled 'Disk 2'?"
• Customer: "Yes, it is."
• Tech Support: "Insert that disk into the drive, and click 'OK'."
• Customer: "Wow, thanks! That's fixed it. It's installing now. What was it, a faulty disk or something?

Enjoy...

[DriftyGypsy]

Customer comes in with her daughter... daughters laptop won't boot. They bring in the power cord and laptop, I take them and plug in laptop and power cord... wow... boots immediately. Dead frigging battery, they didn't try and plug it in... yeah, here is your computer back.

[Infin1ty]

This was taken from a ticket made for a call someone got..

Problem Description: Client wants to know the MAC address for the computer. Advise client that I have no way of knowing or obtaining that information. Advise client that she would more than likely need to call Apple to see if they could point her in the direction of obtaining that. Client says that the MAC address is not a macintosh address. Client says that the MAC address can be obtained by doing an ipconfig /all. Client ended up disconnecting the call. During the call I believe I could hear someone else listening. Just before the call was ended by the client there was a something faintly said but I could not make it out.

Resolution: Advise client to contact Apple.

[str8edg]

Ya, how the hell can you get a MAC number from my windows machine?? Next you are going to tell me that everything has a MAC number... what Apple is trying to buy everything! They even bought Link systems (linksys) I saw on the bottom of my router that they got a MAC number now... I guess Apple is expanding!!

[Infin1ty]

My boyfriend and I were sitting in my dorm room, when there was a power surge, causing my computer to reboot. Unfortunately, it never got very far and popped up an error message about a missing file. Panicking, I reboot again, and the same thing happened. Foolishly, I decided to call my computer's tech support line, and after struggling with their automated system, I finally got through to someone.

• Tech Support: "Thank you for calling tech support. How may I help you?"
• Me: "Yeah, um, I just had a power surge in my dorm room, and my computer won't reboot. It's giving me the error message: [error message]"
• Tech Support: "Have you tried rebooting?"
• Me: "Yeah. Want me to try again?"
• Tech Support: "Yes, go ahead. Tell me when Windows comes up."
• Me: "Ok...it's giving me the same error message. It's not even getting into Windows."
• Tech Support: "Ok, let's try rebooting again, but this time, hold the button down for longer."
• Me: "Er...how much longer?"
• Tech Support: "About five seconds."
• Me: "All right. Holding it down now...ok, it's rebooting."
• Tech Support: "Good. Tell me when Windows comes up."
• Me: "Same error."
• Tech Support: "Ok. Let's try a hard reboot. Turn your computer all the way off, then unplug the power cable."
• Me: (??) "All right, it's out."
• Tech Support: "Ok, now hold down your power button and plug it back in. But don't let go of the power button yet."
• Me: "Er. Ok. Tell me when to let go."
• Tech Support: "Ok, let go. Tell me when Windows comes up."
• Me: "Same error message. Windows isn't coming up."
• Tech Support: "Ok, let's try looking at your BIOS."
• Me: "All right."
• Tech Support: "Reboot your computer, and when it's coming up, hit F1 as many times as you can."
• Me: "Can't I just hit it once?"
• Tech Support: "No, your computer should start beeping. I want to make sure it beeps."
• Me: "All right, it beeped. BIOS came up a while ago."
• Tech Support: "Ok, let's walk through some things...."

He proceeded to do nothing more than confirm there was nothing wrong with my BIOS. He had me reboot again, and, of course, I got the same error message.

• Tech Support: "Ok, let's try bios one more time."
• Me: "All right."
• Tech Support: "Now, when it's rebooting, I want you to hit the F1 key as many times as you can. It has to beep for this to work."
• Me: "I really don't think my computer 'beeping' has anything to do with the problem."
• Tech Support: "I think I know a little more about computers than you do, ma'am."
• Me: "All right, fine, I'm hitting it. My computer is beeping."
• Tech Support: "I don't believe you."
• Me: "...Excuse me?"
• Tech Support: "I think you're lying. I need you to hit it as many times as you can. This is very important."

Finally, I gave up on the guy and made my boyfriend finish the call. About half a minute into the call, my boyfriend gets a really funny look on his face and ejects the floppy disk that was in the drive. He rebooted it, and it worked fine.


I suppose this doubles as a stupid user story too, but you'd think a tech support person would have checked for that early on, instead all the other dumb things he had me do.

This one was just too good not to post.

[gvarsity]

One of the things that blows about being IT savvy is you end up having everyone from family to almost complete strangers asking you to fix their computers. I've gotten pretty good at finding nice ways to say no over the years but you really can't say no to your parents. Unfortunately my parents live 2000 miles away and we have to do it over the phone.

Recently my dad was trying to install some basic software. I sent him a link to a website with pictures of the process so he would have a visual aid while I talked him through it over the phone. As I was talking him through the procedure I told him to double click on the icon. He said he did and nothing happened. We went through this a couple of times and it still wouldn't work and I was completely confused. Then I realized he was clicking on the picture of the icon on the webpage. The funny part was when I pointed that out he was at least savvy enough to immediately understand and be embarrassed.

[Infin1ty]

Originally Posted by gvarsity

One of the things that blows about being IT savvy is you end up having everyone from family to almost complete strangers asking you to fix their computers. I've gotten pretty good at finding nice ways to say no over the years but you really can't say no to your parents. Unfortunately my parents live 2000 miles away and we have to do it over the phone.

Recently my dad was trying to install some basic software. I sent him a link to a website with pictures of the process so he would have a visual aid while I talked him through it over the phone. As I was talking him through the procedure I told him to double click on the icon. He said he did and nothing happened. We went through this a couple of times and it still wouldn't work and I was completely confused. Then I realized he was clicking on the picture of the icon on the webpage. The funny part was when I pointed that out he was at least savvy enough to immediately understand and be embarrassed.

Man I have this one neighbor who just will not leave me alone. He actually has gotten to the point where he stops people in the drive way to tell them to have me call him, so I can fix his computer. Luckily with work and school I'm almost never home, but really its getting extremely annoying.

[Infin1ty]

Pretty good...

When I was in college, I needed to connect to the school's network from my own computer in my dorm room. I knew there was a dial-up number that would allow me to log in and run limited commands. All I needed to know was the number. So I called the help desk.

• Me: "I'm trying to access the University's network from my computer in my dorm room. Can you help me?"
• Help Desk: "Which lab are you in?"
• Me: "I'm not in a lab. I'm in my room."
• Help Desk: "Then you're not on the network."
• Me: "But I want to connect over the phone line. What number do I need to dial?"
• Help Desk: "You need to call [phone number of help desk]."
• Me: "No, that's your phone number. I need a dial-up number for the computer."
• Help Desk: "I don't understand. What are you trying to do?"
• Me: "I want to connect my computer to the school's network through the dial-up."
• Help Desk: "Why don't you use a computer in the lab?"
• Me: "That would defeat the purpose of having a computer in my room."
• Help Desk: "Well, your computer is not connected to the school network."
• Me: "I know! I want to use my modem to connect."
• Help Desk: "What's a modem?"
• Me: "Never mind."

• Customer: "When my computer boots up, all I get is a black screen that says, 'boot2/'."
• Tech Support: "What operating system are you using?"
• Customer: "I'm using Windows 98 and NT 4.0."
• Tech Support: "Ok, I'm the Mac tech. The Windows tech is gone, but I can try to help you."
• Customer: "Ok, what should I do? I've reformatted the hard drive and have fresh installs of both operating systems."
• Tech Support: "Sir, have you put any cheese or mustard in your a drive?"
• Customer: "What? Did you just ask me if I put cheese or mustard in my floppy drive?"
• Tech Support: "Yeah, we've had that happen a lot lately."
• Customer: (staring blankly at roommate, who was laughing uncontrollably on the floor) "I think I'll wait for the PC tech to get back. Thanks for the help." (click)