Recovering Help Desk Tech

[ThisOleMiss]

Once upon a time I took a test and for reasons known only to personnel, was hired and trained to be a help dest technician for a company that shall remain nameless but who's products show up in a cow print box.

Yes, Virginia, it is true, there are some really odd people out there, and many of them have computers. Here are just a few.

1. Client calls up, can't get aol on her parents computer. Says here computer at college doesn't have a problem dailing into aol, can't understand why this one doesn't. Only problem was, her parents did not have aol, or any other type online service. And she got into college.

2. Guy calls up with a microsoft problem. Problem is he doesn't have the product ID key for the software he's trying to install, meaning it was probably a pirated copy to start with. Refered him to MS, and he got really angry, said he knew both Jimmy Carter and John McCain and he was going to have us all arrested. That's when I released the call.

3. Women calls up, has spyware in her system, and it's reading her mail. Not her e-mail, mind you, her snail mail. I suggested she unplug the computer, put a sheet over the monitor, and take it back to the store for service as there wasn't a thing I could do for her.

4. I got several of these from folks who's system won't turn on "But it was working fine before the lightening hit'.

5. "My modium won't work".

6. "My computer says modem not found but I'm looking at it here on the desk"

Any more stupid customer stories send them in. I have hundreds more. And people wonder why I raise goats.

[SteveDallas]

Well I've had people tell me this was an urban legend, but no shit, I had a guy fold a 5.25" floppy to fit it in a 3.5" drive once. It was when I was in college, and I worked as a computer lab monitor. (I'm still in the computer support racket... 11+ years of IT in higher ed. Scary.) We would have people come in all the time back around 1989 or so, when the transition to 3.5" disks was happening for DOS computers, and they would have this document they needed to edit/print and they wouldn't know if they did it on a mac or a PC. Now you young'uns might find this somewhat understandable if you're comparing MacOS 9 or 10 and Windows 2000 or XP. But in these days, a Mac was a little box with a 9" black & blue screen wih pictures on it and a mouse, and a PC had green text (no graphics, well at least not if you were using WordPerfect), a "C>" prompt, and no mouse. They didn't seem to be easily confused with each other to me.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Yes, but. I've talked to various help desk techs at MS, HP, Dell, Comcast, etc and got off the phone wondering where they got that goat farmer

[Dagney]

I do help desk support every day....

But nothing tops this one...(and if you don't know, I support software that is generally used by Doctors...which makes this even more scary)

Gentleman calls in, advises me he's an "influential cardiologist from Erie" . Tells me he's trying to access our website, but he's having problem. I asked him what he had typed in his address bar.

Nuttin. (I am spelling phonetically here)

Well Sir, you can't get to the website without typing the address in the address bar.

Yes I can. I'm clicking on my mouse.

??

I have my mouse on this letter you sent me and I'm clicking on it, and I can't get to the website.

?!?!?!

Turns out this fine member of the medical community thought that if he put his mouse on a typed URL (on paper mind you) and clicked on it, he'd be able to access the website.

Well, I hated to burst his bubble...but it got worse from there.

I'm talking him through the process of typing in the url. (is the/ key THAT hard to find?) http://www.dp....

"How do you spell W?"

Pardon?

"How do you spell W?"

UM, Sir, it's the key between the Q and the E keys on your keyboard.

Sir, what do you have typed into your address bar?

http://www.deepee...(and this is where he was looking to spell W)

Yes, that was a LONG day.

(And in our next issue of the Day to Day trials of Dagney, I'll tell you all about my fine days of being a Primestar Representative - Wrasslin, rednecks, and illiteracy...wooodoggies!)

[zippyt]

I don't work on 'puters that much but some times i have to intergrate them with scales and scale systems . I am a command line commando from a while back , my first puter was a 386 16 mhz ,8 meg ram(that i added ) , and a 40 meg hd .

one of my all time fav tech problem is when a cust calls and says i have no display, first question is "is there power to the equipment ??" I have had to drive for 4+ hours just to say "sir you have to turn on the power switch first " his responce was " uhhhh your' not going to charge me for this are you ???" He was pissed when the bill showed up .

My next fav is when a cust calls and says that a rail car weighs about half what it should ( a full rail car should weigh approx 250,000lbs depending on the rail service ) Generly some bozo has pushed the lb/kg button ( 2.204 lb per kg )

but the all time best is when a farmer called and said "I mashed the button but the stomper didn't stamp" . Old style printers used rotating print wheels and a rising platten ( stomper )to print .
The secertary asked for a translation ( you had to know the dude , good as gold , but as country as can be ) . I talked him thru clearing the mouse turds out of the printer .

[ThisOleMiss]

This kid calls up and says "Eweebody thsays I tound funny in de tchat woom" He's doing this live chat thing with the microphone and has a lisp you would not believe. My sister, who still works at there, got that call. I was going on break, saw the name on the sceen, and nearly choked to keep from laughing, as that client was famous for calling up with the dumbest notions you've ever heard. She said the first thing that came to mind was "have you thought about speech therapy?" but refered him to his ISP for help.

About a half hour later, the guy sitting next to me gets a call from this same idiot. He put the phone on mute and screams "This has got to be the dumbest mother f***** who ever bought a computer. My sister and I, at the same time, say "Is is So-and-So?" He looks up, astounded. "How the hell do you know". After that he was convinced we were clairavoyant.

Also had a lawyer call up, wouldn't give his name or the serial number off the computer. He had the side off the box installing a new video card and his daughter had spilled a glass of milk inside the thing. Therefore, it was all our fault because if we had sold him a system with a decent video card in it to start with he wouldn't have had the side off the machine and his daughter wouldn't have spilled milk into it. Gotta love a trial lawyer.

And try explaining to an irate redneck we didn't support third party software. I swear if I had one redneck I had two dozen call up for the same reason, their NASCAR racing game won't run. Maybe because it says on the box you need Windows ME or above and more than 65megs of ram. And get all bent out of shape when you tell them that, and then you find out they got the computer from their second cousins ex wife cause her new boyfriend bought her a dell.

My favorite was this one call from Kentucky. Over a period of a week four people had 'worked on' the system and no one could get it to work. Couldn't none of them tell me what the others had done. Big old family of inbred tweakers. Fortunatly all their warranties had expired and I told them the only way to fix it would be to send it in for service out of warranty. Didn't like that idea at all, especially when I told them it would come back with all their data erased. My god, think of all that country music downloaded from kazaa that would be destroyed. They told me they were going to buy a dell and hung up.

More Later

[hot_pastrami]

I worked as a supervisor at a PC tech support call center for several years. I got to talk to a lot of interesting people when customers would be unhappy with the tech's advice and ask to speak to a supervisor.

I remember we had to explain to a customer how to add a SIMM memory module to his motherboard. He finally got it when we explained that he needed to slide the memory into the slot at a 45 degree angle, and then "push it to point straight up, like closing your pickup truck's tailgate." Click! Went right in.

Another time we were troubleshooting what seemed like a bad CD-ROM. It wouldn't access discs, and we checked everything we could think of, even making sure the disc was label-side-up. So I told the tech to send them a new CD-ROM. The tech got back on the phone and told them, "We need to send you a new CD-ROM, so take the CD out of the drive..."

The customer interrupted the tech to ask "All of them?"

The tech dove back into troubleshooting and discovered that CD-ROM drives work better when there aren't 2-3 discs stacked on the tray.

But one of my favorites, and techs learned to use this to ditch customers, was the old "Ok, unplug all of the cables from the back of the computer" routine. 99% of customers were using the phone right next to their computer, which was connected through the modem. They unplug that cable from the modem, and they are immediately transferred to the dialtone department.

[OnyxCougar]

I did HSI tech support for 2.5 years and my favorite has got to be this:

He calls and we spend 15 minutes trying to get him to verify either his account number or the last 4 digits of his SSN. He don't wanna do it, because we are going to steal his identity, we shouldn't have it anyway, where'd we get it, it's illegal to steal it, he didn't authorize us to ask anyone for it. After explaining 3 times that he gave it to us when he signed up for television service (this is the local cable company), he finally said the last four digits. What a way to start the call. Finally we get to it:

"What seems to be the problem, Sir?"
"All my pictures are upside down."
"Pardon?"
"I said, ALL MY PICTURES ARE UPSIDE DOWN!! Damn, are you deaf?"
"No, Sir, I thought that if you screamed in my ear it would help me understand what you meant a little better. When you say all your pictures are upside down, do you mean just your picture files or your desktop and operating system files as well?"
"I don't know nothin' bout none of that. All I know is that all my pictures is upside down, and I want you to fix it."
"Sir, are you aware that we are your internet provider and not your computer manufacturer?"
"Yes, I'm aware that you are my internet provider and not my computer manufacturer. What is your point?"
"The point, Sir", gritting my teeth, "is that if you are having a problem with the computer, you need to call the people who made it. We didn't make it."
"But you made the internet, didn't you?"
"...No, Sir, we didn't make the internet. We are providing the internet to you through the cable TV lines."
"Well, I get it from you, don't I?"
"Yes you do."
"Well, y'all are giving it to me upside down!"
"......what?"
"I said, all my pictures are upside down! Can you put a MAN on the phone that know's what he's doing?"
"Excuse me?"
"You want me to scream it in your ear again? I want to speak to a man. One that knows what he's doing."
"Sir, I will not transfer your call to another technician. There is no such thing as us giving you the internet upside. dow......Sir? Let me ask you this: Are you running Windows?"
"Yes. XP."
'Sir, what corner of your screen is the green start button?"
"Upper right corner."
"Mhm. And where on your monitor is the power button?"
"Upper left corner."
"Mhm. Sir, Let's try this: Pick your monitor up and turn it over."
"............what?"
"Your monitor is upside down." (Much use of the mute button as I giggle my ass off.)
"It can't be, if I turn it upside down I'll break the satellite dish, won't I?"
"Satellite dish?"
"Yeah, my monitor came with a satellite dish."
"......" (I couldn't figure this out.) "Sir, is the dish plastic?"
"yeah."
"Same color as your monitor?"
"Yeah, so?"
"Sir, that's not a satellite dish. It's the stand that holds your monitor up off the desk."

*click*




One of the funniest tech-support sites I've ever seen is

http://chroniclesofgeorge.nanc.com/tickets1.htm

I laughed so hard I cried.