[RESOLVED] Yeah, right!!

[leed]

This has to be the most common and anoying thing.

" I got a quick question for ya "

They are never quick, this is when you know that you are on the phone for 20 minutes.

[JeanneD]

I know what you mean, I work in a company with 700 pcs and half the people have pcs at home too, so everywhere I walk people say "just the person I wanted to see...." or
"can I just ask you a quick question"...
Doomed.....

[Jobob]

Ain't that the truth!
I work with someone at school, and We have to LOCK ourselves in the room so we don't get disturbed.
We only walk down the hall During classes so not to get caught answering questions!
Also The guy I work with MUST use a different measure of time, He says "I'll be back in a few minutes" and 2 hours later he comes running in. One good thing happened though. When they replaced the internal phones they ran out of numbers, so our room didn't get one. That significantly reduced the amount of "I've got a quick question for you" call.

The only thing worse that a "I've got a quick question" call is the "See what you think of this" call.
They call up and say "My printer isen't working", then explain what's wrong. Then say "well I guess I'll just reinstall the driver." before I even say anything!

[jadinolf]

Here's another one:
"Can you fix my computer? It can't be much".

[oldman]

or the ones that bring in the computer after working on it themselves for three days and expect you to fix it immediately because they have to get the taxes done!!

[Jobob]

Or the ones who have been working on the computer there selves and they bring it in in a box because they can't get it back together.

Another one. (I did this). I was working on this computer with a friend. It was the worse case I had ever seen. You had to remove the Power supply to do anything. Any way we had taken it completely apart to get the harddrive out, Then after we put it back together we had At LEAST 10 screws left laying on the table. And to this day I can't find a hole to put them in???

[RHA7]

Whatever you do, NEVER, EVER get sucked into going over to someones house! Suddenly you have a annoying, impatient idiot, who expects you to teach them everything you know about computers! They're like "Slow down, I wanna see what you are doing. And "Go over that last thing you did again" Sheesh!

[ReBoot]

As part of my business, I do house calls. I generally charge double my shop rate for them. If I get one of those "slow down, what are you doing, let me watch" types, the rate just goes up and up.
Two things happen:
If they want me back again next time, they pay.
If they don't want me back next time, they bring it into the shop, and they pay.
Easy huh?

[lysergic]

Or it is always great when you are looking at the service order and it say install new harddrive, copy data over and make new drive master. Turn the computer on for that precheck and hear the hard drive make those wonderful sounds of death. Like they thought that installing a new drive would make it all better.

Just for once I would like to go a whole day without turning a computer on and the problem actually being what is on the form.

[WildTech]

Grrrrrr! Don't ya just love it when your buddy invites ya to the house for a brewski and when ya get there he greets ya with the old "Is your computer bag in the truck?" http://www.windrivers.com/cgi-bin/forum/redface.gifP~~~~~~

[RHA7]

Or how about those cheap old men, who never upgrade and won't accept the fact that computer models become obsolete in 6 months.

"I bought this game UNReal and/or Quake2 from this store and it dosn't seem to work on my computer, it must be something wrong with the program!" So i do an exchange for the software. Next day, same guy same complaint! "What type of computer you got?" I ask him. "A Pentium 60 with 8 meg ram." he replies. "A PENTIUM 60 WITH 8 MEG RAM!!?" I say. He says "I bought the computer 5 years ago , it should still be good"

[Darren Wilson]

I have the same sort of customers who buy a used system from me and expect to run recent games in the highest resoloution without buying anything extra. Also the customers who want the cheapest system ( and pick the cheapest parts ) then complain that it isn't fast enough for them and want a refund stating that they have been ripped off, when they designed the spec themselves!!!!!!

I am going to start charging consultancy fee's if they cary this on and they won't like the £ 80 per hour I'll charge!!!! http://www.windrivers.com/cgi-bin/forum/smile.gif

[jrobinson]

Then there's the one where they take five minutes to explain the problem, and it turns out it's not supported.

Our customers occasionally buy from a third party because it's a little bit cheaper, but then forget that we won't support (except for £££'s)

[storm]

hey this is great, a place to vent. (there are others of my kind) i feel better just reading this stuff..

storm..

[mzcpu]

I am so fed up with the people who buy their systems at Best Buy and Circuit City etc and then want me to come and fix them and support them, they ask how much I charge and the price goes up and up because they think its rediculous..ha

[plyrn0m0re@aol.com]

I can relate to ALL of you... I have a COUPLE of things here...
#1... On Site Service... A customer wants me to come over and fix her computer... I told her $50 /hr... I got over to her house, and although she was QUITE cute... she wanted to fix the computer herself, and have ME step her through it. A person who's computer knowledge is AOL, Office, and more AOL. I told her $80 /hr, and she nearly flipped.. I explained to her that for her to fix, and me to explain, is teaching, which is $80 /hr... and she paid me $50 /hr... just to reinstall her AOL, b/c she was using AOHELL and it crashed her AOL. Loser..

#2... Where I currently work, I come in around 10 am... Everybody else comes in at 6.
It is not a computer store, it is a stock brokerage firm. (I know, I know, but I needed a job, BAD. And the pay is GREAT). Anyways... I come into work, and I see the fileserver open with 4 people crowded around it staring at it like a monkey doing a math problem.. They said the server crashed overnight, and now won't boot b/c the floppy drive is bad... They disconnected the floppy CONTROLLER through BIOS, and got it to boot. After they got it to boot, THEY decided to do a tape backup, and they are wondering why the tape doesn't work anymore?? Hmm... Tough one there... THEY DISCONNECTED THE FLOPPY CONTROLLER WHICH IS WHAT RUNS THE TAPE!!! ARRGHHHH!!!! And one of them was A+ certified!! Scary isn't it.

#3... I was working for a computer store, and a customer bought a Creative Labs VooDOO II accelerator.. He said he would install it himself... (God help up all)... He brought in the computer 2 days later saying that it had stopped working, and that it should be repaired under warranty... The computer was open when he brought it in, and I took one look at it, without even turning it on, and said: "Your warranty is void". Customer says "Why", and I said "Because you hooked up the SLI cable between the 2d video card and the 3d accelerator, and that he had fried AT LEAST both cards... Upon Diagnostics, he had fried his video card, voodoo card, CPU, the PCI slot the accelerator was in, and the AGP slot the video card was in... He also Smoked his MONITOR somehow... And he said that he fixes computers ALL the time for his friends... I HOPE he was joking with me. He was out a $3000 computer, mainly b/c he friend his p-2 300 when it had JUST came out, and his 19" Monitor!! Sucks TO BE HIM!!

#4.. I do have to admit, that I had a NICE customer once though... Her hard drive had crashed completely, and she had to buy a new one... She was very polite about it all, and when I went to give her the old 6.4 GIG hard drive back, she said "What is this for", and I told her she could send it back and get a new one, and she told me, since I did such a good job, I could have it. :-) She made my day... gave me a 6.4 maxtor when they were goin' for about $340. I sent it back, and maxtor send me an 8 GIG drive instead!! I didn't complain. ;-)

That's it for now, but i have ALOT more to post...

[shawnMt]

"So, how old is you computer ma'am?" "Oh, not old at all" I've learned that means AT LEAST 2.5 years. Its funny that I'm reading this today cause about 9:30 this morning a lady calls me and says her cd rom won't come out. Ok- so I'm thinking tray is stuck, no power, ect... I ask her a few questions, then tell her to hold the eject button down for just a sec and let it go... (silence) "there is no eject button." So I go thru a few more questions, and it turns out the cd will not come out of the JEWEL CASE! Also she was the type that got offend at my every question (because I'm supposed to be able to see thru the phone, of course.)I LOVE the way they expect me to understand exactly what they are doing/seeing over the phone.

[ellingtond]

True story. Clients employee calls from home. . . .seems his computer won't boot up. I asked what was the last thing he did. He tells me that he was trying to free up some space on his hard drive so he deleted some files. OK, I figure, that gives me a place to start. "What folders did you delete files out of?"
"Oh no!" he replied, "I didn't delete any files out of folders, I knew that would be bad. I just deleted files out the main, C: directory."
"OK," I had to ask, "How did you determine which files to delete and which files not to delete?"
"Easy," he replied, "I double clicked on the file, and if it said THERE IS NO APPLICATION ASSOCIATED WITH THIS FILE, I knew I could delete it."
After I stopped rolling on the floor, I helped him replace his config.sys and command.com.

Steve Martin had a bit where he sang: "I see people going to college for 14 years, studying to be doctors and lawyers, and I see people getting up a 7:30 to go to work at the drugstore to sell Flair pens. But the most amazing thing to me is, I GET PAID FOR DOING THIS!"

[alioops]

Got this in my email yesterday.... hope you all enjoy.....
http://www.windrivers.com/cgi-bin/forum/smile.gif

Rules for living, from the technical support people ...

* Don't write anything down. We can play back the
error messages from here.

* When a tech says he's coming right over, go for
coffee. It's nothing for us to remember 481 screen saver
passwords.

* When you call us to have your computer moved, be sure to
leave it buried under half a ton of postcards, baby pictures,
stuffed animals, dried flowers, bowling trophies and
Popsicle stick art. We don't have a life, and we find it deeply moving
to catch a fleeting glimpse of yours.

* When you call the help desk, state what you want, not what's
keeping you from getting it. We don't need to know that you can't
get into your mail because your computer won't power on at all.

* Don't put your phone extension in your e-mails to the help desk.
We need to keep an eye on the address book performance.

* When tech support sends you an e-mail with high importance, delete
it at once. We're just testing the public groups.

* When a tech. is eating lunch in his cube, walk right in and spill
your guts right out. We exist only to serve.

* When a tech is having a smoke outside, ask him a computer question.
The only reason why we smoke at all is to ferret out those clients who
don't have e-mail or a telephone line.

* Send urgent e-mail all in uppercase. The mail server picks it up
and flags it as a rush delivery.


* When you call a tech's direct line, press 5 to skip the bilingual
greeting that says he's out of town for a week, record your message
and wait exactly 24 hours before you send an e-mail straight to their
director because no one ever returned your call. You're entitled to
common courtesy!

[shawnMt]

A good point was made 2 posts back: we get paid to do what we do. When Im having one of those days where I fry everything I touch, I try to think about that. When I graduated HS (in 93) my parents bought me a sparklin new Aptiva 486. I knew nothing then, but I had it completely apart whithin the week. I tore that thing up every way you can imagine, but I didnt have any "computer friends" so I had to fix it every time. Of course, I caught the bug and here I am. Ive been a tech for about a year and a half. Before that all I did was play 'puter, sell them at OfficeMax, and go to school to study for my MIS deg. Thats pretty much still what I do (exept now I get paid to play with them!) There will be crappy days but try to remember how happy you were when you got that first job and realized "these idiots are actually gonna PAY me to do this!"

[JeanneD]

just had another one..lady bought a used pc from me that I told her I would warranty for 90 days...she calls me 1 week before that time to tell me the pc is completely black, all the lights are on but nothing...and by the way it hasn't been able to be turned off since she got it...I say Huh? , maybe bad switch to myself, worked fine for me...but she never called before this till it died.
I run right up there, and yep, it's black...try diff video etc, nothing (not even realizing at that point that I had just naturally shut it off no problem at all) She says how come it will never shut off, I have to pull the plug out of the wall? I said I just shut it off! Granted, button was white and flush with case, but if you just look......but she was pushing the cdrom buttons, then when it didn't shut off, yanking the plug with no shutdown or anything. I said, didn't you notice the cdrom tray going in and out? and why didn't you call sooner? Had to replace MB and drive was wiped, had to redo from fdisk up, OS and all apps.... UGH...of course she expected it to be warranty work...



[This message has been edited by JeanneD (edited June 12, 1999).]

[Lil_Wolf]

Lady calls me at my shop saying that the new 80$ cd program that she bought is in the computer and that she can't get it out.
so my mind starts to run through all the possabilities of whats going on.

I asked her if she hit the button of the rom and replied that there was none.

"No button for the tray?" I asked her. She replied that there was no tray door on the drive, only an open slit, also stating that she had the push the cd go get it in!

Okie I thought, it must be a rom like on some compaq's.. but what about the button......

I asked her again "are you SURE there's not a button???"
"No, only a little lever that turns downwards!"
After hearing this I hit the floor. apparently she had SOME how jammed the CD into her 5 1/4 floppy drive!!!

I didn't have the heart to tell her she was out 80$ of a CD program when she asked if I could fix it....

just goes to show you how AMAZING people can be with their computer............

------------------
*What you want and what you get are TWO DIFFERENT THINGS!*

*There are some people that just don't deserve computers!*

[murphy1]

yup, and there are some computers that just don't deserve the people they get either!

[heyyou]

i have lost friends over computer ,i had one guy that would tell his nabors to send ther systems to him to be fixed and then call me @2:00 am for just a quick question , after the second time i told him to buy a book
now that he has read windows for dummys he is a computer tech.

[Krandia]

Okay how about the quiestion,,
What does that do... After you try to answer that quiestion..They come out and say..But Why? How Come..and whats the purpose of that!!!Or But Why Cant I do it this way..Instead Of That Way..