A woman called the
Canon help desk with a problem with her printer.
The tech asked her if she was "running it under Windows."
The woman responded, "No, my desk is next to the door. But that's a
good point. The man sitting in the cubicle next to me is under a window,
and his is working fine."
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?"
I once received
a fax with a note on the bottom to fax the document back to the sender
when I was finished with it, because he needed to keep it.
Customer in computer
shop: "Can you copy the Internet onto this disk for me?"
I work for a local
ISP. Frequently we receive phone calls that start something like this:
Customer: "Hi. Is this the Internet?"
Customer: "So that'll
get me connected to the Internet, right?" Tech Support: "Yeah." Customer:
"And that's the latest version of the Internet, right?" Tech Support:
"Uhh...uh...uh...yeah."
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 filing cabinet...is 'little picture' OK?"
Customer: [click]
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. I crashed my
spaceship and now it doesn't work."
Tech Support: "Click on 'File,' then 'New Game.'"
Customer: [pause] "Wow! How'd you learn how to do that?"
Got a call from
a woman said that her laser printer was having problems: the bottom
half of her printed sheets were coming out blurry. It seemed strange
that the printer was smearing only the bottom half. I walked her through
the basics, then went over and printed out a test sheet. It printed
fine. I asked her to print a sheet, so she sent a job to the printer.
As the paper started coming out, she yanked it out and showed it to
me. I told her to wait until the paper came out on its own. Problem
solved.
I had been doing
Tech Support for Hewlett-Packard's DeskJet division for about a month
when I had a customer call with a problem I just couldn't solve.
She could not print yellow. All the other colours would print fine,
which truly baffled me because the only true colours are cyan, magenta,
and yellow.
For instance, green is a combination of cyan and yellow, but green printed
fine. Every colour of the rainbow printed fine except for yellow. I
had the customer change ink cartridges. I had the customer delete and
reinstall the drivers. Nothing worked.
I asked my co-workers for help; they offered no new ideas. After over
two hours of troubleshooting, I was about to tell the customer to send
the printer in to us for repair when she asked quietly, "Should I try
printing on a piece of white paper instead of this yellow paper?"
A man attempting
to set up his new printer called the printer's tech support number,
complaining about the error message: "Can't find the printer."
On the phone, the man said he even held the printer up in front of the
screen, but the computer still couldn't find it.
And another user
was all confused about why the cursor always moved in the opposite direction
from the movement of the mouse. She also complained that the buttons
were difficult to depress. She was very embarrassed when we asked her
to rotate the mouse so the tail pointed away from her.
Customer: "Hello?
I'm trying to dial in. I installed the software okay, and it dialed
fine. I could hear that. Then I could hear the two computers connecting.
But then the sound all stopped, so I picked up the phone to see if they
were still connected, and I got the message, 'No carrier,' on my screen.
What's wrong?"
An unfailingly polite
lady called to ask for help with a Windows installation that had gone
terribly wrong.
Customer: "I brought my Windows disks from work to install them on my
home computer."
Training stresses that we are "not the Software Police," so I let the
little act of piracy slide.
Tech Support: "Umm-hmm. What happened?"
Customer: "As I put each disk in it turns out they weren't initialized."
Tech Support: "Do you remember the message exactly, ma'am?"
Customer: (proudly) "I wrote it down. 'This is not a Macintosh disk.
Would you like to initialize it?'"
Tech Support: "Er, what happened next?"
Customer: "After they were initialized, all the disks appeared to be
blank. And now I brought them back to work, and I can't read them in
the A: drive; the PC wants to format them. And this is our only set
of Windows disks for the whole office. Did I do something wrong?"
For a computer
programming class, I sat directly across from someone, and our computers
were facing away from each other.
A few minutes into the class, she got up to leave the room. I reached
between our computers and switched the inputs for the keyboards.
She came back and started typing and immediately got a distressed look
on her face. She Called the tutor over and explained that no matter
what she typed, nothing would happen. The tutor tried everything.
By this time I was hiding behind my monitor and quaking red-faced.
I typed, "Leave me alone!"
They both jumped back as this appeared on their screen.
"What the..." the tutor said.
I typed, "I said leave me alone!"
The kid got real upset. "I didn't do anything to it, I swear!"
It was all I could do to keep from laughing out loud. The conversation
between them and HAL 2000 went on for an amazing five minutes.
Me: "Don't touch me!"
Her: "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to hit your keys that hard."
Me: "Who do you think you are anyway?!" Etc.
Finally, I couldn't contain myself any longer, and fell out of my chair
laughing. After they had realized what I had done, they both turned
beet red. Funny, I never got more than a C- in that class.
This guy calls
in to complain that he gets an "Access Denied" message every time he
logs in. It turned out he was typing his username and password in capital
letters.
Tech Support: "Ok, let's try once more, but use lower case letters."
Customer: "Uh, I only have capital letters on my keyboard."
Email from a friend:
"CanYouFixTheSpaceBarOnMyKeyboard?"
My friend was on
duty in the main lab on a quiet afternoon.
He noticed a young woman sitting in front of one of the workstations
with her arms crossed across her chest, staring at the screen.
After about 15 minutes he noticed that she was still in the same position,
only now she was impatiently tapping her foot.
He asked if she needed help and she replied "It's about time!
I pressed the F1 button over twenty minutes ago!"
Just a nice little
story to remember and think of when you think that your computer hates
you!
This is a story from the Word Perfect Helpline which was transcribed
from recording monitoring the customer care department.
Needless to say the HelpDesk employee was fired; however, he is currently
suing the WordPerfect organization for "Termination without Cause".
Actual dialogue of a former WordPerfect Customer Support employee(now
I know why they record these conversations).
"Ridge Hall computer assistance; may I help you?"
"Yes, well, I'm having trouble with WordPerfect."
"What sort of trouble?"
"Well I was just typing along, and all of a sudden the words went away".
"Went away?"
"They disappeared."
"Hmm. So what does your screen look like now?"
"Nothing."
"Nothing?"
"It's blank; it won't accept anything when I type."
"Are you still in WordPerfect or did you get out?"
"How do I tell?"
"Can you see the C: prompt on the screen?"
"What's a sea-prompt?"
"Never mind. Can you move your cursor around the screen?"
"There isn't any cursor: I told you, it won't accept anything I type".
"Does your monitor have a power indicator?"
"What's a monitor?"
"It's the thing with the screen on it that looks like a TV. Does it
have a little light that tells you when it's on?"
"I don't know?"
"Well, then look on the back of the monitor and find where the power
cord goes into it. Can you see that?"
"Yes, I think so".
"Great. Follow the cord to the plug, and tell me if it's plugged into
the wall."
"Yes it is"
"When you were behind the monitor, did you notice that there were two
cables plugged into the back of it, not just one?"
"No."
"Well, there are. I need you to look back there again and find the other
cable."
"Okay, here it is."
"Follow it for me, and tell me if it's plugged securely into the back
of your computer".
"I can't reach it."
"Uh huh. Well, can you see if it is?"
"No."
"Even if you maybe put your knee on something and Lean way over?"
"Oh, it's not because I don't have the right angle It's because it's
dark."
"Dark?"
"Yes the office light is off, and the only light I have is coming in
from the window."
"Well, turn on the office light then."
"I can't."
"No? Why not?"
"Because there's a power failure."
"A power.... A power failure? Aha, Okay, we've got it licked now. Do
you still have the boxes and manuals and packing stuff your computer
came in?"
"Well, yes I keep them in the closet."
"Good. Go get them, and unplug your system and pack it up just like
it was when you got it. Then take it back to the store you bought it
from."
"Really? Is it that bad?"
"Yes, I'm afraid it is."
"Well, all right then, I suppose. What do I tell them?"
"TELL THEM YOU ARE TOO FUCKING STUPID TO OWN A COMPUTER."
