Just thought this was funny :D

[Gizmo]

The following is an excerpt from the Wall Street Journal by Jim Carlton.

This was forwarded by P. Wyatt .

1. Compaq is considering changing the command "Press Any Key," "Press Return Key" because of the flood of calls asking where the "Any" key is.

2. AST technical support had a caller complaining that her mouse was
hard to control with the dust cover on. The cover turned out to be the
plastic bag the mouse was packaged in.

3. Another Compaq technician received a call from a man complaining
that the system wouldn't read word processing files from his old diskettes.
After trouble-shooting for magnets and heat failed to diagnose the problem,
it was found that the customer labeled the diskettes then rolled them into
the typewriter to type the labels.

4. Another AST customer was asked to send a copy of her defective diskettes.
A few days later a letter arrived from the customer along with Xeroxed
copies of the floppies.

5. A Dell technician advised his customer to put his troubled floppy
back in the drive and close the door. The customer asked the tech to hold
on, and was heard putting the phone down, getting up and crossing the room
to close the door to his room.

6. Another Dell customer called to say he couldn't get his computer
to fax anything. After 40 minutes of troubleshooting, the technician discovered
the man was trying to fax a piece of paper by holding it in front of the
monitor screen and hitting the "send" key.

7. Another Dell customer needed help setting up a new program, so a
Dell tech suggested he go to the local Egghead. "Yeah, I got me
a couple of friends," the customer replied. When told Egghead
was a software store, the man said, "Oh, I thought you meant for
me to find a couple of geeks."

8. Yet another Dell customer called to complain that his keyboard no
longer worked. He had cleaned it by filling up his tub with soap and water
and soaking the keyboard for a day, then removing all the keys and washing
them individually.

9. A Dell technician received a call from a customer who was enraged
because his computer had told him he was "bad" and "invalid."
The tech explained that the computer's bad and invalid
responses shouldn't be taken personally.

10. An exasperated caller to Dell Computer Tech Support couldn't get
her new Dell Computer to turn on. After ensuring the computer was plugged
in, the technician asked her what happened when she pushed the power button.
Her response, "I pushed and pushed on this foot pedal and nothing
Happens." The "pedal" turned out to be the computer's
mouse.

11. Another customer called Compaq tech support to say her brand-new
computer wouldn't work. She said she unpacked the unit, plugged it in,
and sat there for 20 minutes waiting for something to happen. When asked
what happened when she pressed the power switch, she asked, "What power switch?"

12. True story from a Novell NetWire Sys Op:

Tech support: Hello, this is Tech Support.

Caller: Is this tech support?

Tech support: Yes, it is. How may I help you?

Caller: The cup holder on my PC is broken and I am within my warranty period. How do I go about getting
that fixed?

Tech Support: I'm sorry, but did you say a cup holder?

Caller: Yes, it's attached to the front of my computer.

Tech Support: Please excuse me if I seem a bit stumped. It's because I am. Did you receive this as part of
a promotional, at a trade show? How did you get this cup holder? Does it have any trademark on it?

Caller: It came with my computer, I don't know anything about a promotional. It just has "4X" on it.

At this point, the Tech Rep had to mute the caller, because he couldn't stand it. The caller had been using the load drawer of the CD-ROM drive as a cup holder, and snapped it off the drive!

[HAL9000]

Sigh... tired of hearing about the cup holder being a true story.....

[RJ]

Yeah, but the cup holder thing ain't sooo bad.

When looking at 1, 2, 3, 6, 8, 10 and 11, well, I am wondering if people can really be THAT stupid.. . I guess since it was said that 12 is a true story it means the rest is invented.

And the guy in 9 is just too irascible and needs anger management therapy I guess

RJ

[mairving]

Still one of my favorites and of course, a true story.

A Microsoft Tech joined the army. On the first day of target practice they gave him a gun and some bullets. He looked at the gun and bullets and thought, I can see how this will work, and it appears I have everything I need. This should go smoothly.

After firing his first round off at his target the man at the controls sent the targets down to where they were firing so they could look at their result. The sergeant looked at the Microsoft Tech's target and didn't see any holes.

“You didn't hit with a single shot”, the sergeant said.

The Microsoft Tech looked at the target, then at the barrel of the gun, back to the target. He did this for a while, then he put his finger over the barrel and pulled the trigger blowing the tip of his finger off. He looked at his finger and yelled to the guy in the control

Everything seems okay on this end, the problem must be on your end.

[HAL9000]

True story... I just won a billion dollars... time to check my bank account.

[Gizmo]

Hehe, got some phone line conversation's here too, check these out.

Here are some conversations that actually happened between help desk people and their customers.

Customer: "You've got to fix my computer. I urgently need to print a document, but the computer won't boot properly."
Tech Support: "What does it say?"
Customer: "Something about an error and non-system disk."
Tech Support: "Look at your machine. Is there a floppy inside?"
Customer: "No, but there's a sticker saying there's an Intel inside."

Tech Support: "Just call us back if there's a problem. We're open 24 hours."
Customer: "Is that Eastern time?"

Tech Support: "Ok, now click your left mouse button."
Customer: (silence) "But I only have one mouse."

Customer: "Excuse me can I use this disk? It has a hole in it.

Tech Support: "Do you have 3 1/2 inch diskettes?"
Customer: "No, I only have 3 of them."

Tech Support: "I need you to right-click on the Open Desktop."
Customer: "Ok."
Tech Support: "Did you get a pop-up menu?"
Customer: "No."
Tech Support: "Ok. Right click again. Do you see a pop-up menu?"
Customer: "No."
Tech Support: "Ok, sir. Can you tell me what you have done up until this point?"
Customer: "Sure, you told me to write 'click' and I wrote 'click'."

Customer: "Now what do I do?"
Tech Support: "What is the prompt on the screen?"
Customer: "It's asking for 'Enter Your Last Name.'"
Tech Support: "Ok, so type in your last name."
Customer: "How do you spell that?"

Customer: "I received the software update you sent, but I am still getting the same error message."
Tech Support: "Did you install the update?"
Customer: "No. Oh, am I supposed to install it to get it to work?"

[Vigo]

I am wondering if people can really be THAT stupid..

Although I, myself am guilty of preying on the truly ignorant and uninformed (and not only when it comes to computing) I'm trying to be little less critical in some cases...

After all. How many people on these forums know how to change their oil? Or fix a sump pump? Toilet? Copier?

You can drive a car every day and use a computer once a week and expect to know how to fix your computer but aren't responsible for the car.

If people use a computer daily they should learn how to use it properly and troubleshoot as many problems as they can. But you never know whose the butt-end of a joke. Ive used a stand alone fax machine only a few times in my life... dont know much about them at all. Same can be said for some computer users.

I feel stupid because I drive a car daily and I dont know what certain engine noises are tell tale signs that my car needs a tune-up. A mechanic would have the right to point at me and scold me for being ignorant. If a magic light popped up and said "Exhause manifold malfunction" I could understand what the three words define but have no idea what it really means. Some people feel the same way when they get an error prompt.

But people aren't perfect. You can't know everything, you can only attempt learn.

Something I'm trying hard to recognize.

Edit: Ommited origin of quote because its not what that particular person said that prompted my reflection- it was "poking fun" at computer illiterates in general. As I said, I'm not guilty myself.. but I'm trying not to be so critical of people who are ignorant in certain areas.

[jong2k4]

Not on the exact same wavelength as computer stupidities... here are waterpark phone message stupidities!

There's a telephone in the accounting office at the waterpark where I work... understandably enough, we do not consider ourselves the receptionists of the park and rarely check the messages that that build up on our phone when stupid people transfer irrelevant calls/messages over.

Recently, we looked up the command and password necesary to check the messages, and after sorting through over 300 messages, we culled quite a few interesting ones.

"I think my daughter lost her swimsuit at your park. I think it was lost in the men's changing room."

"I think I lost something/some money/something valuable at your park.... could you call me if you find anything?" (we actually have almost as many of these as we do legitimate lost and found questions.)

"I lost my dentures as I was going down the waterslide..."

"Hi, I know the water park opens at 10, because that's what your website says and that's what the sign posted on the door says, I just wanted to make sure it, like, opened at 10."

And my personal favorite....

"Is this an answering machine? I can't believe you guys transferred me to a ****ing answering machine!" (this went on very colorfully for a little while. She lectured us on many topics, through the ****ing answering machine, and we all learned a lesson.)

[ja83]

Originally posted by DBG 6. Another Dell customer called to say he couldn't get his computer to fax anything. After 40 minutes of troubleshooting, the technician discovered the man was trying to fax a piece of paper by holding it in front of the monitor screen and hitting the "send" key.

WOW, I know this one has to be fake, I mean come on man!

[Byte 2.0]

Actually if you ever work a help desk you will believe people can be that dumb.

I have talked to some Highly educated ID10TS

Giving people a simple instructions like plugging in a phone cord to the wall jack then the other end into the DSL modem will stump most people I talk to.

[tigstah]

i used to work for circuit city's answer city line.
there was one night i answered a call. a guy on the other end wanted some assistance on connecting his dolby pro-logic receiver. so we begin, he tells me his hookup, when i asked him to test of course things didnt sound off. so i go into my troubleshooting mode, asked what type of speakers he had. uh oh. he informs me they were in his garage, and he clipped the ends off. i said what did the end look like. he goes to tell me it was a rca plug...real old speakers. so i have to inform him his speakers are not rated and will be blown if connect to that stereo, i told him he need 8 ohm speakers and those speakers were probably 4 ohm. oh he had a brilliant idea....since i spliced the ends...can i stick it the electric socked to boost it up to 8 ohms.....my first instict was for him to "go ahead", i'll hold on. but i couldnt do that.....so i explained to him, that he needed to return to the store and purchase some more modern speakers.....
we had a good laugh at the call center

[Gizmo]

Just to add to this thread, I remember when I called up tech support when the connection through our router/modem had gone down suddenly.

The following morning after this happened, (the event happened at exactly midnight) I called up tech support after completely uninstalling and then reinstalling the router and resetting all of the configurations and settings. I was working on my mum's PC at the time because she had a phone next to it that I could use.

The tech ran through some steps which I happily went through and did and sorted out everything, even switching the settings in 'Internet tools' back to their defaults and so on and so-forth. Finally the tech I called had run out of ideas and asked me which part of the UK I was living in. I proceeded to say that I was in Whitstable, in Kent, in the UK, which then led him to say, "Oh, no wonder I can't get you to connect, the connection server in your area is down until this afternoon"

[WhatsThisBoxFor?]

I found this true story, you might have heard it before, but it is the funniest thing ever, enjoy:

I work as an unpaid tech aid at the Macintosh cluster at a school. One day I stepped out to do some repairs on a teacher's computer. When I came back, I discovered some kid had got his tongue stuck in a CD drive.

[Gizmo]

LOL!!!! Yeah I read that somewhere, very funny though. Kinda makes me start to think, "Why was his tongue even there in the first place?"

[Designer]

You can't be too hard on people that are computer illiterate, we all started somewhere, although these posts are very funny (like the mouse dust cover/bag). How someone get their tongue stuck in a CD-ROM tray is beyond me, there are some seriously strange poeple out there.

[TwoRails]

Originally posted by Vigo ...After all. How many people on these forums know how to change their oil? Or fix a sump pump? Toilet? Copier? ...

Actually, probably quite a few, but I hear what you're saying.

I set up a machine for an elderly relative a couple years back. After firiing it up, I invited her to come sit down. Her first question was, "Which piece is the mouse?"