Boneheads

[klenard]

Have you ever had the stupidest person in the world come to you and ask for your help. I have a couple of them.

A lady asks me to help her, she says that her floppy is going bad and asks me if i can check it out. I say okey doke and i get the floppy.....works fine. I tell her that it is just fine and give it back to her. She calls up and says that the floppy still does not work. I tell her to bring in the floppy again and the disk she is using (thinking maybe her disk is bad). She brings in the floppy and a package of LS120 Superdisks.....
She said she bought them because they were bigger than regular floppies. I really wanted to laugh at her but..........

Another is a woman had bought a scanner (A Visioneer One Touch to be precise) And she said that it did not work. I asked her if the cables and stuff were properly attached and she said and I quote "What cables...."
She had thought that since it had buttons on the scanner that all she had to do is press the buttons and the image would Magically be sent to her computer..........

I wish there was a computer fairy.

[klenard]

I also like the people that do not understand the concept of device drivers.

" Why won't My modem work?"

"Have you properly installed the drivers for your modem"

"Why should I, Isn't it supposed to just work when i put it in?".

[SavagePenguin]

People have brought computers back to us because...

...when they go on the internet with thier new modem and try to make a phone call the line screeches and there's no dial-tone.

...ever since we worked on the computer they can't get on the Internet. We look, and there's no modem, only a network card. Their reply: "Oh, we just signed up for the Internet a few days ago."

...the CDROM we installed doesn't work when they put the CD in shiney side up.

...the sound card we installed doesn't work. Us-"Are our speakers plugged in correctly?" Them-"We need speakers?"

...their computer hasn't worked right since they got it back a few weeks ago. (Evidently I fell asleep in the workroom and in my sleep I tried to install Deer Hunter, Quake, Windows 98, Norton ScrewUtilities, tons of shareware, etc. on the poor 486 with a full 500 meg hard drive and 12 megs o' RAM. Silly me.)

[jeffbrown]

Had a lady in our company who's PC crashed, and she lost all of her data. Like really IMPORTANT data (that is the serious part). We asked her if she backed up, and she said, like this? Stood up and began to walk backwards. We then told her she lost all of her data, knowing it was gone.

[SavagePenguin]

I especially love it when people blame us for stuff they know they meessed up. Especailly when it's something pretty obvious, like mis-installed hardware/software or deleted files.

"So your computer worked fine for a few days then crashed? Let me see... ah... the computer fairies have apparantly added a brand new CDRW and put the IDE cables in upside down since it was in last. Those pesky computer fairies."

"Ah... I see a bunch of necessary files in your recycle bin. It's funny how your computer worked fine without them for three days before it finally croaked. They don't usually do that."

[NeuromancerIV]

Don't you love the customers who come in with damaged HD and expect you to be able to recover all their data? Then get hysterical when you announce you can't unless you send it off to a data recovery facility?
Me:
"You DO/DID make backups of all your important files right?"
Them:
"Was I supposed to do that?"

Stupidity I can deal with, it's not their fault no one ever told them these things. It's the ignorant ones and the liars that get me...
-------------
"I am the very model of a master of all things technical
With knowledge of NT,Windows,Linux,AST and Novell"
I know the history of VB,ASCI,Cobol,Basic and god forbid Pascal.
I can tell of all the fighting between IBM ,Microsoft, and Apple...."

(okay! I'll stop!! all apologies to H.M.S. Pinafore)

[MAYHEM]

How about one of my all time favorites:

"I just got a new sound card, and it won't fit in my modem."

------------------
Who the hell is General Protection and why is he messing with my comuter?

[shawnMt]

Actual quote from redneck customer over phone:
"This Compaq Presario has been nothing but trouble from day one."

Well, duh http://www.windrivers.com/cgi-bin/forum/smile.gif

------------------
Computer Geek + Football Freak - man I have issues :)

Paint your old laptop! (http://www.auwebdesign.com/shawnpages)

[klenard]

I have also had one where a woman called to complain about her bill, then the line goes dead all of a sudden. She calls back and apologizes for yelling at us and she did not realize that we had the power to turn off her electricity because of the bill. I was working for MicroSoft at the time......

[Sowulo]

I installed networking in a small office with two systems. I get a call a few days later:
Client: "I need you to come in a fix our network."
Me: "What's the problem?"
Client: "I can't access my data on the other system unless I turn it on first..."

[Damned Angel]

Had a machine returned a few yeary ago. The customer was absolutly livid because the monitor, cd-rom, floppy and case were not all the same shade of beige. In the end we sold them a black Aptiva for a higher cost.

[pcshark]

Phone support: OK, now turn off your PC.
Customer: You mean the hard drive or the TV?

------------------
R. Bret Walker, CNE

Wondering what videos to rent this weekend? Check out The People's Reviews (http://www.geocities.com/pcshark/b-e), movie reviews written for the people and by the people.

[thirdfey]

My favorite is the "i was doing this and i got an error on the screen"

"well, what was the error?"

"I don't know you're the computer person not me!!"

[Danrak]

I've been getting a lot of calls like this lately:

Customer: I'm getting an error on my computer can you tell me what it means?

Me: Sure can you read me the error thats on your screen?

Customer: Well I'm not at my computer right now but it was something about a fault or illegal opp, or something like that.



------------------
.·°Danrak°·.
The box said "Requires Windows 95 or better" so I installed Linux

[klenard]

Funny how most of the people we are refering to are women...........

Just an observation and not a sexist remark. To all the ladies out there.....I love all of you, just don't break anymore computers. hehe

[Nighthand]

I had a guy tell me he had a Dell PC with a burnt up power supply. he said it was smoking, the whole nine yards. I asked him if he had had a power surge or lightning strike: No and he was a tech for 10 plus years, blah, blah, blah. Suspecting foul play I had him ship the pc into me. Well, it smelled like smoke all right. I set it up on my workbench, removed the cover and found the hard drive sitting directly on the motherboard on top of the audio cable. The hdd had gotten hot and melted through the cable directly onto the motherboard and shorted everything. He had installed a repl hdd and screwed it into the chassis wrong. when it could not fit back onto the case he just left it on the motherboard.

[Revenant]

Just remembered a good one. We were installing a network into a local municipal building. While we were doing this, somebody came to get us "since we work on computers, right?" Took us to her computer. Anytime you opened a program, it would almost immediately close, hit start menu, immediately gone. After examining the computer for a few minutes, I had to bust out laughing for a minute or two. Someone had installed a MS Natural keyboard in the regular "under the desk" tray. Well, since naturals are a little taller than your normal KB, the ESC key was stuck underneath the lip of the desk. Pulled the tray all the way out, and lo and behold, it worked fine! Apparently, this had been giving them grief for a while... http://www.windrivers.com/cgi-bin/forum/biggrin.gif

------------------
What's this button d--

[RLD]

Talking of sticking keys, one day one of the sales guys asked me why the keys on the keyboard don't press down as far as they used to. It turned out he had been eating pies over his keyboard for the last year and there was so much pie crumbs under the keys that half of them could no longer be pressed down. I turned the keyboard upside down to shake out all the food - it looked like it was raining crumbs. I told him not to eat around his computer.

Other people's keyboards are disgusting.

[RoboG4]

A friend asked me to look at his computer because he was getting a HD full error when trying to save mp3's. He said he knew it wasn't full because he had a 8gig drive. It was a Dell running 95', and the 8gig drive was formatted into 4, 2gig partitions(don't you love fat32), the C: partition was full, and the other three were empty. I simply had him move all the music files to D:. http://www.windrivers.com/cgi-bin/forum/smile.gif

[Jgold47]

These are all too true. My favorites are the ones where some gal brings her husband/boyfriend etc. computer in, and has no clue what is wrong with it, only that she was supposed to bring it in, you cant find anything wrong with it, and they raise hell.

my other fave are the jimmy the neighborhood tech/brothers an aerospace engineer/ son is MSCP and they couldnt fix it, or they know exactly whats wrong with it etc... and you fix it in 3 seconds and they get so pissed

Tech work sucks.

other peoples vacuums are gross

[willieray]

two weeks ago a guy comes to my shop.... His mobo was toasted so he bought a new micron pc. (nice unit if ya seen it 6pci's etc..)
and has me slave his old hd in it so he can use his VERY IMOPORTANT files and proggies... well, i was off for a couple days and when i came back the micron was on the bench. Customer states the DVD failed. One of the other techs tried to boot.... autoexec.bat gone.... config.sys gone..... what the hell? So the tech restores the unit. The guy comes back in and tells us as he transferred his files from the slave drive to the new hd, he had deleted them... I asked why and explained what a great backup the secondary hd was. (i got a funny look from him and two words "back up?"). luckily ontrack recovery ware saved over a gig of the stuff he lost, but what a log head!

[klenard]

Don't you know..............
Everyone knows someone, who knows someone, who's mother's former boyfriends, ex-roomates sister-in-law knows a computer tech who told them their computer is broken. So they give it to you to fix......

You have to be smarter than what you are workin with.

[This message has been edited by klenard (edited September 18, 2000).]

[Indigo]

User calls me. Says when he clicks on his word doc is starts to erase his text. I walk to his office. He clicks on the doc, it erases his text. I tell him to move that huge *** phone book off his space bar. Dumb ***...

Anyone else of fan of "Your Companys Computer Guy".. on SNL..Move! Its all sooo true...

[xtech-isme]

Originally posted by klenard:
Have you ever had the stupidest person in the world come to you and ask for your help. I have a couple of them.

A lady asks me to help her, she says that her floppy is going bad and asks me if i can check it out. I say okey doke and i get the floppy.....works fine. I tell her that it is just fine and give it back to her. She calls up and says that the floppy still does not work. I tell her to bring in the floppy again and the disk she is using (thinking maybe her disk is bad). She brings in the floppy and a package of LS120 Superdisks.....
She said she bought them because they were bigger than regular floppies. I really wanted to laugh at her but..........

Another is a woman had bought a scanner (A Visioneer One Touch to be precise) And she said that it did not work. I asked her if the cables and stuff were properly attached and she said and I quote "What cables...."
She had thought that since it had buttons on the scanner that all she had to do is press the buttons and the image would Magically be sent to her computer..........

I wish there was a computer fairy.
I sold a computer system that had two hard drives. Got a call and was buyer was raising Hell. I told the buyer from time to time to clean his drives from the old junk programs.
Yep! you guess it. Buyer took hard drives apart and put them thur the dish washer.
Duhh! Why won't my computer work??

[Snock]

Where I work, we recently rolled out a bunch of new machines and installed internet drops. One lady called us up and asked why she couldn't get on the internet.

Me : "Is there a cable running from the back of your machine to the wall jack?"

Her : "Yes, it's connected with a grey cable."

Me : "Follow the cord to the back of your computer. Do you see where it plugs in?"

Her : "Yes."

Me : "Do you see the little lights? Are any of them on?"

Her : "I see the lights but none of them are on."

"Drop should be good," I say to myself. "Must be the patch cord or the card..."

Me : "I'll be right over."

When I got there, the NIC was plugged in with a phone cable, which she brought from home.

Did I mention that her patch cord was sitting there nice and neat in its little bag on top of her machine? For some reason the vendor's people never plugged it in.

Me : "Oh, here's your cable."

Her : "That's not mine."

Me : "Yes it is. Besides, it doesn't matter whose is whose. We have a ton of these."

And here's the line that tops it all off...

Her : "But those aren't the right kind of cable."

[Interex]

Heard this one in the shop a few times:

Guy gets his computer repaired and takes it home. 30 mins later he calls back rasing hell, saying that the computer he picked up wasn't his. Everyone at the shop is freaking out and the owner is pissed! So we tell him to bring the PC back. He comes in and we notice that the case has a retractable door on the front that is closed. The tech pulls down the door and the customer turns 10 shades of red! Turns out that after the repair the tech had closed the door. Customer had never noticed he had a door on his PC since he bought it, 2 years ago.

You never forget that look on customers faces when you embarrass them like crazy!

[KillMe]

One time, while I was looking for drivers or something on the net, my boss comes up to me and asks, "What is this?" He was holding one of those little business card CD's or whatever. They're CD's that are more or less the shape and size of a regular business card. "A CD." I answered. He then looked back at this man standing next to him and said, "You might have to try to get it out with pliers or replace your floppy drive."

As it turns out, this gentleman had tried inserting the little business card CD into his floppy and gotten very well stuck in there.

------------------
"Life. A Wheelchair ride to hell."

[Pyroate]

I can't count the # of times I've worked on disgusting laptop keyboards but last week took the cake.

A man brings a laptop in and says that it won't boot (dammn the thing smelled like a brewery) After many questions the truth came out that it was his wifes and while she was at work he was looking at porn and when his wife came home it would not turn off fast eneough so he dumped the beer he had been drinking on it to kill the image.

(I gues after all those photos the CPU needed a drink)

[pann50]

Funny how most of the people I talk to, being an Ops Manager of a computer manufacturer and repair shop, are men who thought that they knew what they were doing and REALLY messed up their systems. Most of the women I talk to acknowledge that they don't know and start with an open mind. By the way, I am a woman, and have 20 years experience with computers, building, programming, relational database applications, and business management of computer operations. Most of the guys I talk to in computer stores (not mine own store) are smirky, self-important, nerdy wanna-be's passing out wrong information, and/or disinfrachising women, who happen to be the fastest growing market segment for computers.....
Originally posted by klenard:
Funny how most of the people we are refering to are women...........

Just an observation and not a sexist remark. To all the ladies out there.....I love all of you, just don't break anymore computers. hehe

[furlong47]

I'm a chick who actually knows what I'm doing but I'll be the first to admit, 99% of the girls I know are computer illiterate...I live in an all-girls dorm, and I install network cards, when I tell them to bring their computer over half the time they drag over the card...and a monitor. So many people here have computers that they bought *on the way to school* at *WAL-MART* or even on the freakin' home shopping network, then they wonder why it's a piece of crap.

[WebJedi_Master]

I used to do some technical support at the ISP that I work at. I have dozens of incidents like this but for the sake of space I'll give you the 3 best ones...

1. I had a call from an older client who had just
been set up with an account. He was having difficulty sending email.
I asked him if he was in front of his computer, and if so perhaps we
could fix the problem in a few minutes. (I thought maybe he had
just entered in the wrong email server address for sending mail or something.)
He says he's not in front of the computer, but he'll go turn it on right now.
I hear the sound of the phone being put down, and some shuffling. There is complete
silence on the phone for 5 whole minutes.

I sort of presumed he'd tell me when his computer was up. Figuring that he was
likely done, I asked: "are you in front of your computer?" His answer: "No, would you
like me to go in front of it?" WHAT??! What was he doing for the last 5 minutes?

To add insult to injury, just after I told him to click on the "start" button to
get into his email program, he tells me: "this is too complicated for me, talk to my
daughter".

2. A customer comes in to inform me that she hasn't been able to get on the internet for "a while".
Upon investigation of the matter it turned out that she hadn't switched from
our old access number to our new one. The old access number had been shut down for almost 3 months.
They hadn't been on the internet since. But they were still paying the month fee for the account.

3. A customer called to inform me that he had moved and we would need to change his phone number. Huh?
I told him that there were no changes he needed to make either on our end or his provided he was
still a local phone call to London. He seemed to think that we had some record of the home
phone numbers of our clients, and we used a type of callback security for authentication. I informed
him this wasn't the case, and he could effectively dial in from anywhere in London without changing
anything. This took a minute to sink in. Then I was asked: "Then how do
you know it's me that's dialling in and not some other guy?" I explained as politely as I could that
that's what the userid and password are for.... (sigh)

------------------
BREAKFAST.EXE Halted...
Cereal Port Not Responding

[Macintrasher]

customers are full of crap sometimes. about two months ago i did an upgrade for this lady, two weeks after she picked up the pc she called me telling me she had all these vxd's errors and that they were there since day one. so i asked her why she waited all this time to contact me, she replyed "i don't know, i guess i didn't want to bother you...". the best part is that she wanted me to fix all the errors over the phone and when i told her i couldn't do anything unless she brought me the pc, she became upset and hung up!

[furlong47]

Forgot my favorite story...of this week anyway...a girl asked me to come over and configure her system for the network...said she already put the ethernet card in herself. I went over and there sits her case, open and running, and I ask her if she unplugged the thing to put the card in. She just stared at me dumbly.."You have to turn it off?" Duh...she's lucky she didn't get fried!!

[ktaylor]

Here's one for you:

How about when they call/come in extremely mad because their computer doesn't work properly and state that it was just in last week for repairs. The kicker is 1) when they say last week they mean three months ago and 2) they are completely unrelated issues (first call - install modem, second call - new software they just bought doesn't work on 486).

[wire_wiz]

How Long does it take the solder to dry????

[Interex]

haha!!! Thats a good one, wire!

[xtech-isme]

Dumbest's question?? How come my new harddrive don't work, I only drop it on the floor.;
Why won't my keybroad work, I only spill coffee over it?

I dumbest's goto to some big company, walk in
to check what is wrong with their machine. Find everbody from company is puting their two cents in. Well,it is this no it is that, excuse me, Have you check to see if it is plug in. Reply, what in the hell do you know about it, we have this degree and that degree and etc.. Walk over to machine take cable and plug in wall outlet. Leave bill exit stage left laughing my *** off!

[izzyr]

Ok..here's a good one. I'm in the computer room and we get a call from the HR. dept. "MY floppy has a virus. Can you please look at it?" Sure no problem I reply. So I go up and ask where the infected disk is at. Well the person who had the disk opens her drawer very carefully and pulls out a plastic bag with a floppy in it. She wanted to "be very careful" and not let the infected floppy pass the virus to other floppies!!!!

[LukeMcAllister]

Along the same lines I sold a Lady a computer who then brought it in saying there was something wrong with the CD-ROM, I checked it out and ran some Cheesy PC-Check diagnostics on it - Nothing, I asked her to bring in some CD's she was having problems with - thinking they would be scratched up or something. She brought me NEW, BLANK, CDR's! She wanted to make her own CD's with a CD-ROM! And she was mad that the "idiot" at wal-mart told her they would work!

[exec2r]

:WHAT!!! $53.00 + 10gig HD, This isn't a chargeable matter.
:Sir we spent 3hrs recovering your HD info
:Its Maxtors HD, they should pay you, not me.

Why do I need a phone line to connect to the Internet, isn't that what the modem is for?

Can you hack into the FBI and edit my file? I’ll pay you $100

WTF are you talking about, I just bought this 486 at a garage sale for $450, you can't tell me its not Serviceable <pause> I’ll sell it to you guys for $430

:My video looks grainy; I think my HD is bad
:Sounds more like your video drivers
:I Didn’t think about that, but I took my HD apart because I thought there might be some cob webs inside, My vacuum cleaner scratched these circle things, can I still use it?

[exec2r]

[Fav Questions]
Do you sell Warez
How long is 1ms?
How do I download the internet?

[Fav Statments]
You mean all the power cables are the same?
The Recovery CD Erased all My Info
Hard Drive's can just go bad?
Give me a copy of Win98 i'll bring it back.
Walmart told me I could access the FBI's database, but I can't find the icon on my desktop.

[Gabriel]

Originally posted by pann50:
Funny how most of the people I talk to, being an Ops Manager of a computer manufacturer and repair shop, are men who thought that they knew what they were doing and REALLY messed up their systems. Most of the women I talk to acknowledge that they don't know and start with an open mind. By the way, I am a woman, and have 20 years experience with computers, building, programming, relational database applications, and business management of computer operations. Most of the guys I talk to in computer stores (not mine own store) are smirky, self-important, nerdy wanna-be's passing out wrong information, and/or disinfrachising women, who happen to be the fastest growing market segment for computers.....


I don't think the guys are vicious or Male Pigs (as a male myself). I trully think that man and woman end-users are equally stupid. I can't count the times i would rather support a female end-user (which is almost always nicer than male one).
I myslef had worked/laughed and supported with female support-personnel and believe me i know better.

Not to offend anyone
Gabriel

[Gabriel]

Few Tech Laughs (excuse me for not mentioning names):
a. A company's Frame-Relay connection broke up, a senior personnel comes to me after a few minutes and asks me - "The is no Navigation?" - (I.e IE5 states Navigation Cancelled when there is no connection.

b. i drove 45Min to a branch office after they told me MS-Word 97 is not installed in the computer. whe i look at the CRT i see the application Minimized...

c. I once thought the statement about the Broke "Cup-Holder" (CD-TRAY) was a joke, last week i was amazed to find that it is entirely true...

d. Believe me - no joke -> a user phones me and ask why he can't edit Word processing. when i arrived his office i nearly go a Heart-attack... the guy used Tip-Ex on his Screen!!!!

e. a user Question - If i will wash my hdd will it work better?

Las a joke - HARD-DISK?! Gee lady i missunderstood you...

[ShadowWynd]

We had a father and his grown son drive across town to pick up their computer at our shop. When they arrived, we could not find their computer. We tore the shop apart looking for their computer. Since they were a vaguely regualr customer, we figured that this job was done "off the cuff" with no service ticket (a practice we hardly ever do).

After about 20 minutes, the son suddenly says, "Father, I do not think I have delivered the PC yet."

The joker hadn't even brought the thing in. One would think that during the 30 minute trip across town he would have remembered this.....

[CobraTekMax]

Originally posted by Gabriel:
I don't think the guys are vicious or Male Pigs (as a male myself). I trully think that man and woman end-users are equally stupid. I can't count the times i would rather support a female end-user (which is almost always nicer than male one).
I myslef had worked/laughed and supported with female support-personnel and believe me i know better.

Not to offend anyone
Gabriel

I agree 100% with this statement. I would much rather deal with females than males when it comes to service. When a guy picks up his computer, then screws it up two weeks later by messing with DLLs, VXDs, and driver files, he'll call back in and scream at whoever answers the phone that we didn't fix his computer right, and that he's going to turn us into the BBB, etc. A woman will at least call and be honest. "I was trying to get a bit of space freed up so I could install Word Perfect, and I found all these DULL files (DLL) and since they were dull, I deleted them and now my computer won't boot up." And of course, the female is more than happy to pay, while the male thinks we're out to rip him off.

And furthermore, there are quite a few good women in our business, in fact, we even have one who just started working at our shop last week. I must say, I'm pretty impressed with her. If I'm not careful, I might be working for her before too long. http://www.windrivers.com/cgi-bin/forum/smile.gif

[jvalliere]

My favorite type of customer is the one who thinks they know computers because they know some words.

Example: "My monitor has 24 bits of gigaram on it's floppy. Is that fast enough, or do I need more CPUs?"

It's funny to listen to them, they mean well, but trying to figure out what they want can be a pain.


The most common mistake is calling the tower unit or the box itself the "hard drive."

Customer: "Do you want me to bring just the hard drive in?"

Me: "No leave it in the case and bring that in, you don't need the monitor, keyboards or anything."

Customer: (Bringing in tower unit in original cardboard case) "Sorry I'm late, it took me awhile to find the case you were talking about"


I did say case didn't I?

------------------
I keep hitting escape...Why am I still here??

[freds]

You might get a kick out of this one:

I was working as the tech, manager for a small pc parts distributer. These were a bunch of young "we know everything" guys. They had an in house built by their best dude and they wanted some additional memory put in. As is my practice, I always run the mach. before I open it. It was a mini-tower and it ran vertically but would not post when placed on the horizontal. Noteing this to one of the owners, I opened it up. Guess what, they had the board suspended in the case with twisty ties and no stanoffs or screws. I asked why and they said they had built a whole bunch like that and never had any come-backs.

[DesertEagle]

While I was in Field Service, I went to one guys house and before I can ask him where the machine is, he starts in with "I went to Harvard and graduated summa cum later " or whatever it was. After about 5 minutes of this, I looked at him and said "Oh, then you don't need me to fix your machine then, I only went to New England Tech, I couldn't afford HAHVUHD". He kept going on an I asked him why he felt I needed to know where he went to school. I told him I am here to fix his machine and the sooner I get started the sooner he gets it back. While working on it, (He apparently tried to upgrade the harddrive and put the cable on the wrong way) he kept blabbing about his umpteen degrees. Turns out he can't even get a job with all those qualifications, he costs too much !!

[Hlodh]

Oh my God yes, my dad. Here's a typical conversation after I volunteer to help my dad out with his computer:

ME: "Well, Dad, it's gonna take a long time to work all this stuff out."
DAD: "God *deleted*, I really wish this were fixed by now."
ME: "Er, yeah. I just need to install this driver..."
DAD: "Here, let me in there. I don't think you're doing this right."
ME: "Uh, okay..."
DAD: "Now, where was that driver?"
ME: "I was just about to take care of that. You have to trust me if you want this thing to get back up and running, OK?"
DAD: "OK, well, I must be stupid then. I'll just be in the other room, sulking and feeling sorry for myself." <Slams door.>

[ten minutes later:]

DAD: "Do you want me to fix you dinner?"
ME: "No, thanks."
DAD: "Are you sure? I have so much stuff here I could make."
ME: "Real sure."

[After I arrive home, there is a message on the answering machine.]

DAD: "I guess you must be avoiding me or something. But I figured I should tell you that my autoexec.bat and config.sys are gone. What did you do? Is this maybe why my computer doesn't work anymore?"

*ARRRRRGGGHHH!*

**watch the lingo please**

[This message has been edited by shawnMt (edited September 19, 2000).]

[Nighthand]

"Press any key to continue"

[drewber]

heh, I didnt know so many people out there had to deal with my sister.... Heres one cnversation that stays vivid in my mind.

< my phone ringing>

me:Hello

Sister: Thank God your home! I cant get on
the net!

Me: Well whats the error message.

Sister: Well it said 24

Me: Unfortunatly thats a windows error and i
dont know the numbers off the top of my head can you read me the EXACT text of the error.

Sister: Says cant connect

Me: No, The Whole error message like it is EXACTly on your screen

sister: CAnt connect 24

me: Well i cant help you

sister: Why not?

me: cant connect 24, ive been doing this since before window 95 was a gleem in bill gates eye, and i have never heard that error.

sister: well cant you walk me though a total diagnosic of the system?

me: well your paying for hte call, i have 30 minutes before i have to leave i will see what i can do.so put your cusror over the my computer icon and click the RIGHT mouse button, not the one of the left. (i forgot she was left handed)
sister: ok, my computer window is open

me: ok, now click on (i hear about 500 keys being pressed and 50 mouse clicks)

before i can fisnish waht im saying my sister butts in...

Sister: oops im lost


nuff said 30 minutes later and i still didnt even get to the device manager to see if windows even reconized the mode, lucily after several phone calls i got her to get us a copy of pc anywhere, i can dial straight in if i have to, pying for hte long distance call is worth not having to tell her waht to do =-)


sorry my post is so long

[brew12]

A story I overheard at the shop goes like this. Lady calls in and says she has trouble with the backup she creates every night on two floppy disks. She backups the data and in the morning all the data is missing. After several attempts to troubleshoot the problem over the phone we drive up to the site in Wyoming 3+ hours away. Turns out that after the backup she was attaching the two floppies to the metal file cabinet with a large magnet, dohh!

[doubeleive]

GOD HELP US!!! PLEASE!!!!

[jbar1]

Seems we all have the same stories to recount. I Have found in my 20+ years that women are much easier to work with and CPAs are the worst. Women seem to listen and I have yet to see a man write anything down that I explain. women seem to be quick to admit that they havn't a clue but if they make notes they can get through what ever the problem, and the ususally do. Ican spend 15 or 20 minutes explaining a procedure to a man only to have him call me in an hour or so and ask "just what was it I had said" women admit they don't know and the men seem to think they are rocket scientist. Besides women are much nicer to look at and smell better

------------------
If life is a bitch then what is death? I believe I will take the bitch!

[Snock]

Quick reference sheet for common problems...

PROBLEM : Computer won't turn on. I have tried everything and it just won't come on. What can I try?

SOLUTION : Try turning on the surge protector.

PROBLEM : Mouse is broken and WILL NOT work right, period. I demand a new one.

SOLUTION : Clean the rollers.

PROBLEM : Brand new HP ink cartridge won't print. It's BRAND NEW! I am so mad at Wal-Mart for selling me a bad ink cartridge.

SOLUTION : Remove blue tape from nozzle.

PROBLEM : Hard drive is broken, since the machine says that it's an invalid system disk and needs to be replaced.

SOLUTION : Remove disk from floppy drive.

PROBLEM : I've got the wrong kind of CD drive. My CD's won't fit in there.

SOLUTION : In this case you actually would have to buy a part, because no CD will ever fit into a 5 1/4" floppy drive.

[klenard]

Here is some more:

Problem: My computer won't turn on.

Fix: It won't because God hates you.

Problem: I can't dial into the internet.

Fix: Probably because the government has seen what you been looking at and frankly, they are a little disturbed.

Problem: Customers having abdominal pains.

Fix: Oops, sorry i did not realize my foot was that far up his ***.

Problem: Customer has headaches.

Fix: I guess i should stop hitting them with their computer.

[gren]

Norton Virus Ruined My Day.

One of the most stupidly traumatic days I had was some time a go, when I was working at a local college. It was summer and the college had a 'Introduction To Computers' type course. More often than not, the majority of the people in these remedial computer classes are adults, and one of them happened to be a English Professor (Tenured, 35 yrs exp, Trustee, etc, etc.) Anyway, he pops in his disk and bam.. virus detected. He goes to another machine and same deal. He proceeds to go to the President and Vice President and tell them all the computers in our labs are infected with viruses. *ack*
The hellstorm that rained down apon the IT department was insane. People flipping out, Memo's flying all over the place, the whole nine.

Turns out, the guy assumed that the machines themself had the virus when all along it was the machine's anti-virus detecting a virus on the disk. For some reason, the computers couldn't clean it.. so no matter where he went, he got alert and thought it was the computer. I hate to call what he did stupid... but people seem to flip out when they ignorantly come to sudden conclusions have a coniption. "Oh, My God! Virus, Virus! We're all doomed!

The funniest part is half of these people probably deal with viruses unknowingly at home and just don't know they're there because they have no virus detection.

-Gren

[MePHeSTo]

I swear this is a true story...

It was a slow day and this guy came in with this clone PC that was wid eopen without a cover. He said he just built it but couldnt figure out where to connect the monitor. After taking a quick look into the chassis, i told him, "You need to install a video card." He just gave me a pale look and slowly walked out

[tobrien]

I work for a large corporation and received a call from a manager who's PC locked up. I asked him to shut down and reboot. He asked me if he should shut down the computer or the modem. I said, "the PC". He called me again and said nothing changed and that he was still locked up. I went down there and found that he was of the belief that his monitor was the computer and his PC tower was a modem. I rebooted his computer (not just turn off/on the monitor) and he was ok. What a BOOB! Hahahahahahahah!

[cyberhh]

My favorite is still calling Packard Bell tech support (only at the demand of my boss) and having the Packard Bell technician walk me step by step through setting fire to the mobo. When he heard what had happened he hung up and could never get a response from Packard Bell.

[movieguru]

Well i just had the stupidest person that i've ever come across the other day.

A customer called me up and asked me if we had a 10 gig harddrive...i said yes.

He asked if it could be split up into 2 partitions...i said yes.

Then he asked if 5 gig partition could be put in one computer and the other 5 gig partition put into another...i said ummmm....no

------------------
Roll The Credits Bob :)

[Ehoba]

Everyone thinks that their ISP (not their stupidity) is responsible for their internet problems. Here are few things..

Dumb Customer: "I can't connect to the internet! It must be something at your end. I had my computer friend come out and he said everything was right!"

Me: "Okay ma'am. We'll just run through some settings. What's the username that's listed in the dial to window?"

Dumb Customer: "It sayez D-E-F-A-U-L-T."

Me: "(Excuse me while I pound my head on my desk.)"

Another woman called up wanting to know why her sound wasn't working for her son's video game. WTF?! It's an ISP, not Gateway Country. Anyways, it seems that her volume control was muted. Go fig.

[klenard]

All i have to say is


HOORAY FOR BOOBIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Mr. Twister]

I had one moron tell me he could not access his personal folder on a mapped drive. He had been trying to access it through the network from a dialup connection at home. He got madder and madder, till he came in Monday a.m. and reported to the CEO of the company that "Those guys are screwing up the Network again!" I went to his desk-site in his office and asked him to show me the problem. The mapped drive was intact, his department folder was there, but he could not see his personal folder within, therefore, the Network guys screwed him and must have deleted it. That's when I showed him how to scroll the window horizontally to see the rest of the files within the folder, including his own.

[SavagePenguin]

Originally posted by klenard:
HOORAY FOR BOOBIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oddly enough, that was my motto even before I began working on computers. I think I adopted that motto at around puberty.

[mienna]

I have had a "economically disadvantaged" lady insist to me that our store had sold her the "cheap" version of windows and we were holding back the "good" versions for our white customers. After this, I just transferred the call back to our sales manager and told him that he could deal with this lady.

[Renée]

Originally posted by klenard:
I have also had one where a woman called to complain about her bill, then the line goes dead all of a sudden. She calls back and apologizes for yelling at us and she did not realize that we had the power to turn off her electricity because of the bill. I was working for MicroSoft at the time......

Oh my GOD, that is THE stupidest thing I've heard yet. It'll take me days to get over that one...




------------------
GeekGirl
------------------

[Renée]

Originally posted by movieguru:
Well i just had the stupidest person that i've ever come across the other day.

A customer called me up and asked me if we had a 10 gig harddrive...i said yes.

He asked if it could be split up into 2 partitions...i said yes.

Then he asked if 5 gig partition could be put in one computer and the other 5 gig partition put into another...i said ummmm....no



OMG...what could I possibly contribute that could compete with this?

These stories are unbelievable! I thought *I* had some serious Id10t errors in my time, but these really take the cake!



------------------
GeekGirl
------------------

[Jgold47]

Walmart really seems to be the devil. Another favorite is the look on peoples faces when you explain the magic car ride fixed the problem instead of just telling them that they are *deleted* idiots http://www.windrivers.com/cgi-bin/forum/smile.gif

**Please watch your language**

[This message has been edited by shawnMt (edited September 20, 2000).]

[Todo]

These are really some great stories. I had a good time reading through them. I thought I would add one myself. A customer brought a computer in the store. Said wouldn't get any video, but knew about computers enough to build most of it. Well, turns out had the power to the motherboard the wrong way, instead of black wires on the inside. I fixed it, and video came right up.
Its good to see a fellow Charlotte on here (Renee)

[Frostbitte]

Heheh, this one just happen today at work.

ONe of my fellow techies was about to leave for the day and gave me a run down on some guy's computer and printer. Says it has Windows 2000 on it and can't install the printer. No 2000 drivers for it. Simple enough. My fellow tech even got an exchange printer that WOULD work with Win2k since the customer only bought the first printer a week ago.
Anyways, I look at the work tag and see Manager approved. Oh goodie, my first red flag.
The customer comes in and I explain the situation. He has no clue what a driver is or what I'm talking about. Second red flag. He agrees to the exchange and I get to work on his unit. Well, the printer doesn't come with Win2k drivers, you have to download them. The file is 29MB. Whoo hoo. Maybe I could use his network card in his machine to download them. Forget it. Half the devices in device manager have yellow exclamations on them.
I finally get the drivers on his machine and while I'm extracting them I get an error. Not enough disk space. Apparently he has less than 10MB of disk space left. I think good god what is this yahoo doing? I ran disk cleanup getting rid of all kinds of junk and get the drivers installed.

The moral of this story is....Be wary of Manager approved work tags. That and customers who install complicated operating systems and don't know what a driver is.

Another story...

This guy phones in and another fellow tech takes the call. He bought a machine from our store a week ago and installed Win2k on it. Well of course most of his devices didn't work because they needed different drivers. The bonehead had to be told this several times and that we only support the operating system the machine was sold with. He gets all irate and says that WE should've made a system disk for him so that he could install Win2k and screw everything up. Well, we thought it was pretty funny. Gee, it's not like we have enough work to do, we'll get right on making that disk for ya, big guy!

Another story.

Ever get a call from someone who's just recovered their system and it asks them to put in the product key...so they end up trying to put in the product key for MS Works or whatever and phone in and complain that it doesn't work and that it's our fault they can't find it? Or how about when someone phones and askes if we can give them a product key over the phone so they can install their pirated version of Windows. Yeah, gonna' happen. I can't believe that they still get mad when we tell them that by doing so is illegal. That one stumps me.

Hmmm, I could go on. http://www.windrivers.com/cgi-bin/forum/smile.gif

Frostbite

[CJK]

"I heard a popping noise from my computer?"

"I can't access my data on the server!" "Is the server on?" "Oh, the server has to be on?"

"Do you get power surges?" "No, but we accidently unplug the power chord alot." "That's why your harddrive gets corrupted." "Is there anything you can do to prevent it?" "Quit nocking the power off!"

"Do you fix computers on your spare time? I only live 2 hours away."

The so-called network administrator tells me after I get done installing the network: "I don't know how to use nt, is it easy?" I wonder why they have lots of problems?

[Frostbitte]

Ooh, ooh, ohh. Another common bonehead story I encounter often....

Since our tech dept is THE busiest in our region it usually takes between 4-8 days before we even look at it depending on how busy it is.
Well, this never sits well with the customers who "run a business" off the machine or whatever. Fine, I can understand that. What I don't understand is when we do fix the unit and call the customer to come pick it up, the damn thing sits on the shelf for a week. Run a business my ***. Probably just miss their porn. http://www.windrivers.com/cgi-bin/forum/smile.gif ANd believe me, some of the stuff I see as desktop wallpaper. Geezus.

Any similar stories?

Frostbite.

[CJK]

I heard my computer pop. Is that bad?

[PitaBred]

Hehe. I love tech calls...
ME: Now, click on the 'Advanced' button...
THEM: It's not there
ME: Yes it is. Look in the lower right of that window.
THEM: Nope, not there.
ME: I promise you that it is...
THEM: Oh, THERE it is... I thought you meant the other right.

Or
THEM: "You mean that you need a 3D card/more RAM to play/use this game/program I got?"
ME: "Yes, it says so on the box..."
THEM: "Why don't they TELL me these things!"

------------------
Quantum Mechanics: The dreams stuff is made of

[Decibelman]

I went to setup a new pc for a member of the agency that I work for. This is a brand new person that just got hired so we set up a drop for there new desk and proceded to install the nic. the new employee was standing there waiting the whole time. so as to being there they saw us turning the machine on and off many times. So when I get back to my desk I see a trouble ticket sitting on my desk from "ya you guessed right the new person" well It said that they could not turn the computer on so I call them up and ask if them if the computer is umpluged they say no and I asked them to unplug the cord and plug it back in just to make sure it was seated properly and then try and turn the computer on again they said just a sec and I hear them say "computer turn on, computer, COMPUTER DANG IT TURN ON!!" I am thinking Oh my my what is this world coming to. and when they came back to the phone they said it would not turn on still I said you cannot tell it to turn on and they said well how come that works in "Star Trek".....
Gee I wonder.

"Keep on rockin' in the free world"

[RLD]

Sometimes you have to feel sorry for the stupid people.

"But I bought it brand new five years ago!"

It's really hard to tell this elderly lady that her machine is worth next to nothing and there is no way that her grandsons can play new games on it without replacing almost all of the hardware.

[Agent45]

One of my favorites is the "Virus Mentality" I see in some of our customers. I can understand a customer getting hit by a virus (PrettyPark? AOL Password Stealer anyone?) once. Twice within as many weeks is stretching things. But when I see this one computer come in for the FIFTH time in a month with the exact same virus, I just have to break down and laugh. Each time we remove a virus from a system, we explain to the customer how to go about getting and updating anti-virus software on their computers. Some just don't seem to get it. And naturally, its OUR fault that they keep opening those attachments...



------------------
****
Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend.
Inside of a dog, its too dark to read.
-- Groucho Marx
****

[Fig]

Stupidest question.. I can’t say I think my boss reads this. .hehe..

Id love to tell you all about them but who has the time between users calling you adding to the list.

As I type this.. not the stupidest but still dumb..

User24 (yea I number them its soo much easier to put them down when they get bothersome. no risk of attachment)

User: I was looking through my email and all of a sudden all the email from the last few days disappeared (BTW this user blames me for everything.. fix flicker in CRT.. what happened to the report I saved(in the wrong spot))
Me: ok getup... walk to computer ... Click on sent date to sort the other way ... Duh..

remember 2 wrongs don't make a right...
But 3 lefts DO.

[Pogi]

I swear on a stack of bibles AND my dead father's grave that this was actually said...

Part of my job as a system operator is to order the computer paper used throughout our division. When our vendor changed, it was obvious to everyone because the color and imprinting on the cartons obviously were different from the old vendors'.

When her IBM 4230 printer developed a printhead problem, I got a complaint from a department secretary who told me there was something wrong with the "new cheap paper, it's making our printer print invisible". I still don't know how I kept from laughing in her face.

[This message has been edited by Pogi (edited September 20, 2000).]

[rb_electronics]

This is one of my favorites and it happend just last week...

Customer buys a cd-rom and I ask if he would like me to install it for $10.00 he said no any idiot can do that in 10 minuets so I proceed to show him the jumpers and where pin 1 is on the ide and send him on his way...3 hours later... ring ring.. I can't get the old drive out I removed "both" screws and it won't budge.. told him to look on the other side oh my 2 more screws... 4 hours later ring ring, I plugged it in but the machine wont boot, possibly bad cd-rom ?? I asked nicely if pin one was correct on the cable, "sure it is I know that" but after looking he put it upside down.. than while on the phone we booted the machine it said Primary HDD controller error... again asking the dumb question, did you set the jumper just like the old drive ?? well "NO" I thought since it was a new drive it would automaticaly set the jumper for me... DUH the computer fairy can't move jumpers.. So now I vow to try to have people not install there own hardware even if I have to do it for free

EVEN I can mess this one up posted new topic instead of reply... NEED MORE COFFIE !!!



------------------
Wadda you mean I lost all my information !! It has been making that noise for 2 months and working fine..

[3fingersalute]

Originally posted by rb_electronics:
So now I vow to try to have people not install there own hardware even if I have to do it for free



We offer to install any hardware we sell, for a charge, nothing gets installed from free (with the exception of RAM). If a customer decides to install it themselves, that is fine, but I absolutely refuse to help them on the phone.

Of course, this has offended a few people, caused people to curse at me and get pissed, but hey, I tell the all the same thing:

No, we will not install hardware for free. Get in your car, drive down to the local GM dealer and buy a new muffler, then ask them if they will install it for free. Or maybe try to buy a new roll of carpet from Johnny's Flooring and then ask why he don't install it for free if you buy it from him.

Will these places hold your hand and walk you trough it on the phone if you decide to install your muffler or carpeting yourself??....I didn't think so? So you think I should help on the phone?...I charge to install it, but if you want me to babysit you on the phone while you do it, that should be ok, because it's not really using my time or what?

Why is it only in the computer trade that people think everything should be done for free????



------------------
WHERE DO YOU WANT TO GO TODAY?......Not that it matters, because Micrsoft will crash on the way there!!!

[Frostbitte]

Why is it only in the computer trade that people think everything should be done for free????

Preach on, brutha'. I totally agree. The most often excuse I hear is.."Well, I bought it at your store!". "Yeah, so what?" "Well, you guys should be able to help me over the phone, yadda, yadda..."No. Nope...uh-uh. No, sorry.".....click.

Hehe, I had one guy try to get me to install some stuff for free since we already had the case open and were fixing it. After telling him no several times he openly admitted trying to hussle me into doing it. What an ***. http://www.windrivers.com/cgi-bin/forum/smile.gif

Frostbite.

[ibennetch]

oh my these are funny to read. I've got one from my brother...seems he got some game in the cereal box that he wanted to try, I let him use my laptop while I was out...it started making "funny noises" he says...musta just been the drive reading the disk, his cdrom isn't as noisy as mine, and he got all scared that the disk was bad. He proceded to take it out and poke holes in the disk 'cause he thought it was already bad.
<><

[BullTech]

I had a customer once who was really just complaining about tech support in general. He was trying to sound erudite and educated by saying " I find it hard to believe that a large company such as **** has such...such...Myopic technicians" I sat there for about 5 seconds and said "Well yeah...I wear glasses" He hung up. http://63.236.72.252/cgi-bin/forum/smile.gif

------------------
"There are Three types of lies. Lies, damn lies and statistics"-Mark Twain

[blknyt]

As a female tech, I was suprised to read earlier that most of the supposed "boneheads" are female. I have to maintain that the vast majority of idiots that come into the shop where I work are of the male persuasion. Like the guy who likes to practice his DOS commands like "fdisk" and "format c:". He's done it at least 5 times in the past 3 months. Or how about this guy, and I quote, "Yeah, I'd fix it myself because I've been a technician for 10 years but the FBI has forbidden me from working on computers anymore. Now, could you add some more megabytes to my computer."
Deliver me.

CQ

[blknyt]

As a female tech, I was suprised to read earlier that most of the supposed "boneheads" are female. I have to maintain that the vast majority of idiots that come into the shop where I work are of the male persuasion. Like the guy who likes to practice his DOS commands like "fdisk" and "format c:". He's done it at least 5 times in the past 3 months. Or how about this guy, and I quote, "Yeah, I'd fix it myself because I've been a technician for 10 years but the FBI has forbidden me from working on computers anymore. Now, could you add some more megabytes to my computer."
Deliver me.

CQ

[Jallentino]

The worst is parents, they call you every day......and no matter how many times you explain it, they still cant tell the difference between a CPU and a monitor...
I actually had my mom call one time and said, i keep turning my computer off and on but nothing happens, the lights light up but nothing shows on the screen. "mom, turn on the monitor"...............

[protechpc]

My favorite is the "I used to be in the business" customer. Our store is within driving distance of Miami (FL) where there are about 1,000 pirates, eh,... distributors that will sell you their mother if the price is right. You can actually go door to door and the further down the street you go, the lower the price. Needless to say, many of these "pros" are closed the next time you go there. Nonetheless, I get the "expert" that comes into my retail store, and expects to pay the "Miami" price. Typically I get "Heck, I can buy that for only X dollars in Miami!" My response? Don't let the door hit you in the butt on the way out!! Of course, they (some) run down there (1 hour drive one way) and then attempt to install the "whatever" themselves. You guessed it! Back they come into the store after they have screwed up the PC beyond belief. No probelmo!! Our normal rates for repair are $89.99 flat, or if you tried to fix it first ........ $150.

I love pride and stupidity.....it makes me a lot of money.



------------------
I'd rather be fishing -- at least the fish don't ask questions.....


www.protechpc.com

[turgon01]

I still like when you tell a customer they have (had) a virus and explain that it is also going to be on there floppys. Two day's later there they are and expect you to fix if for free.

Customer: But it's the same virus! Why do i need to pay for the same thing twice?

Me: I told you so!!!!!! Now pay or I have an extincive collection on A disk in back that I can replace that on with.

[Geddes]

just got the omst comical phone call in ages from a customer who installed IE 5.5, and it told him that he did not have ennough space. his magic may of creating space was to move everything on the c drive with a + simbol in explorer to the d drive and then reboot and run the hard disk auto detection utility in the bios. for some reason. and then wonder why it wont boot but comes up with missing file errors. then he tells me it was his mate that told how to clear space. with mayes like that I would nail myself to a flaming cross.

people really do worry me sometimes......


still considering a beer just outside london

[TheLow1]

My favorite is this, My stepfather works for a non-profit agency that works with mentally handicaped folks. Somes times they get donated computers that need alot of work. I usually donate my time to sort through the machines. I make sure not to take anything slower than a PII running Win95. A lady in the condo complex I live in said she had some machines I could "buy" from her. I went through my speach on what I was looking for and so on. I get home yesterday and I find a list of what she has "For Sale" two 286's running DOS 5.0. This lady acctually thinks she is going to "sell" them. I was rolling on the floor laughing from her letter as my wife came in from the mailbox. I handed it to her (Non-computer person) and she said "That won't run Windows 95 well enought for them, will it?" My wife, walking void of computer knowledge redemed herself at that moment.

[dwaine]

Had a lady bring a system back tell me that all the files were messed up. Thinking of a quick fix I asked her if she ran defrag. She told me no that she manually put them back and now her system would not boot up. When she told me she had taken all the .dll and put them in a dll folder, she did that with all the files on the computer. When I asked her how she found the hidden files, she wouldn't tell me. After getting the system back up and running we charged her $75.

[ruckc]

Originally posted by MAYHEM:
How about one of my all time favorites:

"I just got a new sound card, and it won't fit in my modem."



My favorite is "This program has performed an illegal action".

The customer asked "What did I do illegal, i didnt break any rules."

[goldmeier]

I sold a computer system that had two hard drives. Got a call and was buyer was raising Hell. I told the buyer from time to time to clean his drives from the old junk programs.
Yep! you guess it. Buyer took hard drives apart and put them thur the dish washer.
Duhh! Why won't my computer work??[/B]

I am surprised they knew ehere to find the hard drive!!!

[goldmeier]

I get particularly annoyed by the users who tell me there printer does not work. I show up and find out that it is turned off.
Another one is that a program is stuck and nothing types, only to find the Number Pad is turned off.

[Gumby]

It really is amazing. We had a little old lady come in last week wanting us to copy her lotus 1-2-3 (version 1.0 I guess) from 5.25 to 3.5 so she could run it on her (of course) new presario. She wanted us to do this because her "computer wizard" grandson wanted to load it onto her newer machine for her. I told her I could do it but by the time you pay my labor charges to set up a machine with a 5.25 and copy the disks you could buy the latest version of 1-2-3 and that the old 1-2-3 might not run on the presario. She said for us to do it. So I do and charge her 1 hour of labor. Soon enough she is on the phone saying she is getting runtime errors and wanting her money back. Too bad the computer wizard grandson was an idiot.

But hey, idiots write my paycheck

Gumby

[stucko]

I do phone support and got a LADY tech on the phone who had numerous certs. CISCO, CNE, LINUX Certs out the butt. And didn't like M-Soft.
The first few were her, I then said I was MCP and working on Solaris. She said WOW you must be good.
After making me mad because she wanted the boss I thought the bast thing to do was bring the machine back to factory since it was 4 days old. Had her read through all of the pop up windows and such. ONE said the information loaded would be gone, She read it all. At the end of the call she wanted the OEM number and was told I could not give her that. She got mad and told me she spent 3 days loading all the software on the machine and I deleted it without telling her. Also I wouldn't give her the number.
She called back a few days later and told a different tech, My Employee, that she talked to someone real stupid there named #$#$#$
I had to laugh about remembering the call.
Just shows there are ways to make our jobs fun.

[MTUHyperTech]

I had a lady bring back an iMac because it wouldn't go on the internet. So i explained that the "i" stood for internet. So it of course was defective and my fault as a salesman. Go figure.

[Digi-Recon]

I love reading these stories. I feel much better about the LUsers I deal with. I do Sales and Service, so I get to see both ends. Also, just because other have brought it up and I can't resist, I've seen an equal share of a-hole male and female users. It's sometimes hard to tell if they are just by looking, so I treat them all the same in the begeinning and adjust as needed.

------------------
From the dark of night, comes... WHAT DO YOU MEAN INVALID PAGE FAULT!!

[Macgyver_111]

I am i college now, but in high school that was this one network admin who ran the network there. I was always correcting his errors. Here are a few of the worst boneheaded things he did.

Network card was not workings
Bracket bend not fitting fully into isa slot.

Computer wont boot right
He had mixed parity and non parity ram in a pentium.

one of the worst was a computer that would work for a while then quit. he send it in to be fixed. they took it a part put it back to geting it now worked fine.

one week later it stoped working, he sent it in again. same thing worked fine after being put back together.

finaly he ask me to look at it. tryed a test boot nothing took the cover off pulled out and old mitsumi cd controlor hit power and it worked fine.

had an short in it worked fine for awhile after reinstall.

idiot .......problems dont just dissapear like that.

[Macgyver_111]

opened a computer once to find only two peices of plastic for stand offs and the only thing holding the board in place were the isa cards.

[Mr.James]

I once had a guy phone up because he'd spilt coffee all over his keyboard and it wouldn't work. I told him to rinse it with water and leave it to dry for a few days and if he was lucky it might work. He called back the next week and said it still wasn't working. I then asked what type of keyboard it was, he replied "Laptop"

------------------
Cheers,
Mr.James

[Mr.James]

We got a monitor in once with the fault "Green Screen". We stuck it on the work bench flipped down the front panel and turned up the Red and Blue settings. Well whaddaya know, Perfect.

We then turned them back down to their original levels and sent it back as repaired.

This monitor bounced back twice as a re-repair before we stuck a sticker to the front panel.

RTFM

Didn't see it a third time.

------------------
Cheers,
Mr.James

[LORE]

In general, people are good at heart, but what is it about there computers that brings out the mean lieing caniving in them? I mean, Some of the nicest people will come in and have me fix there computer, but no matter how hard i try, i can't get them to be honest with me about what happened. Is it pride, emparesment? whats the deal. If you go to the auto machanic because something is wrong don't you say, it started after hitting a pot hole or curb, or what ever happened? If you go to the doctor with a broken arm do you tell him you woke up and it was broke, and you have no idea how it happened? NO!!!! So why do people insist on lieing to us about there stuff. Don't they realize if they are honest we can help them fix it better.

------------------
We may be through with the past, but the past is not through with us.

[Mr.James]

We had a server that kept going down every night about 6:30pm - 7pm. My job was to work out why. I had all manner of logs being kept and monitoring stuff on it all to no avail.
I stopped back one night and waited. Nothing.
Next night, Still nothing. Third night the cleaner poked her head round the door. I aked if she cleaned the server room every night?
"When you're not here".
So you don't unplug that socket (The one nearest the door) and plug your hoover in then?
"Nope"
Funnily enough the server never went down again after that.

------------------
Cheers,
Mr.James