the trouble with computers

[CathyI8205]

A woman called the Canon help desk with a problem with her printer. The tech asked her if she was "running it under Windows." The woman responded, "No, my desk is next to the door. But that's a good point. The man sitting in the cubicle next to me is under a window, and his is working fine."

Tech Support: "OK Bob, let's press the control and escape keys at the same time. That brings up a task list in the middle of the screen. Now type the letter 'P' to bring up the Program Manager."
Customer: "I don't have a 'P'."
Tech Support: "On your keyboard, Bob."
Customer: "What do you mean?"
Tech Support: "'P' on your keyboard, Bob."
Customer: "I'm not going to do that!"

Overheard in a computer shop:
Customer: "I'd like a mouse mat, please."
Salesperson: "Certainly sir, we've got a large variety."
Customer: "But will they be compatible with my computer?"

I once received a fax with a note on the bottom to fax the document back to the sender when I was finished with it, because he needed to keep it.

Customer in computer shop: "Can you copy the Internet onto this disk for me?"

Customer: "So that'll get me connected to the Internet, right?"
Tech Support: "Yeah."
Customer: "And that's the latest version of the Internet, right?"
Tech Support: "Uhh...uh...uh...yeah."

Tech Support: "All right...now double-click on the File Manager icon."
Customer: "That's why I hate this Windows - because of the icons - I'm a Protestant, and I don't believe in icons."
Tech Support: "Well, that's just an industry term sir. I don't believe it was meant to-"
Customer: "I don't care about any 'Industry Terms'. I don't believe in icons."
Tech Support: "Well...why don't you click on the 'little picture' of a filing cabinet...is 'little picture' OK?"
Customer: ?click?

Customer: "My computer crashed!"
Tech Support: "It crashed?"
Customer: "Yeah, it won't let me play my game."
Tech Support: "All right, hit Control-Alt-Delete to reboot."
Customer: "No, it didn't crash - it crashed."
Tech Support: "Huh?"
Customer: "I crashed my game. That's what I said before. I crashed my spaceship and now it doesn't work."
Tech Support: "Click on 'File,' then 'New Game."
Customer: ?pause? "Wow! How'd you learn how to do that?"

I had been doing Tech Support for Hewlett-Packard's DeskJet division for about a month when I had a customer call with a problem I just couldn't solve. She could not print yellow. All the other colours would print fine, which truly baffled me because the only true colours are cyan, magenta, and yellow. For instance, green is a combination of cyan and yellow, but green printed fine. Every colour of the rainbow printed fine except for yellow.
I had the customer change ink cartridges. I had the customer delete and reinstall the drivers. Nothing worked. I asked my co-workers for help; they offered no new ideas. After over two hours of troubleshooting, I was about to tell the customer to send the printer in to us for repair when she asked quietly, "Should I try printing on a piece of white paper instead of this yellow paper?"

A man attempting to set up his new printer called the printer's tech support number, complaining about the error message: "Can't find the printer." On the phone, the man said he even held the printer up in front of the screen, but the computer still couldn't find it.

And another user was all confused about why the cursor always moved in the opposite direction from the movement of the mouse. She also complained that the buttons were difficult to depress. She was very embarrassed when we asked her to rotate the mouse so the tail pointed away from her.

An unfailingly polite lady called to ask for help with a Windows installation that had gone terribly wrong.
Customer: "I brought my Windows disks from work to install them on my home computer."
Training stresses that we are "not the Software Police," so I let the little act of piracy slide.
Tech Support: "Umm-hmm. What happened?"
Customer: "As I put each disk in it turns out they weren't initialised."
Tech Support: "Do you remember the message exactly, ma'am?"
Customer: (proudly) "I wrote it down. 'This is not a Macintosh disk. Would you like to initialise it?'"
Tech Support: "Er, what happened next?"
Customer: "After they were initialised, all the disks appeared to be blank. And now I brought them back to work, and I can't read them in the A: drive; the PC wants to format them. And this is our only set of Windows disks for the whole office. Did I do something wrong?"

This guy calls in to complain that he gets an "Access Denied" message every time he logs in. It turned out he was typing his username and password in capital letters.
Tech Support: "OK, let's try once more, but use lower case letters."
Customer: "Uh, I only have capital letters on my keyboard."

Email from a friend: "CanYouFixTheSpaceBarOnMyKeyboard?"

 

[TwoTanks]

I think I work with all of these people.

This is my favorite:


This is actual dialogue of a former Customer Support employee:

"Ridge Hall computer assistance; may I help you?"
"Yes, well, I'm having trouble with WordPerfect."
"What sort of trouble?"
"Well, I was just typing along, and all of a sudden the words went
away."
"Went away?"
"They disappeared."
"Hmm. So what does your screen look like now?"
"Nothing."
"Nothing?"
"It's blank; it won't accept anything when I type."
"Are you still in WordPerfect, or did you get out?"
"How do I tell?"
"Can you see the C: prompt on the screen?"
"What's a sea-prompt?"
"Never mind, can you move your cursor around the screen?"
"There isn't any cursor: I told you, it won't accept anything I
type."
"Does your monitor have a power indicator?"
"What's a monitor?"
"It's the thing with the screen on it that looks like a TV.
Does it have a little light that tells you when it's on?"
"I don't know."
"Well, then look on the back of the monitor and find where the power
cord
goes into it. Can you see that?"
"Yes, I think so."
"Great. Follow the cord to the plug, and tell me if it's plugged
into the
wall."
".......Yes, it is."
"When you were behind the monitor, did you notice that there were
two
cables plugged into the back of it, not just one?"
"No."
"Well, there are. I need you to look back there again and find the
other
cable."
"....... Okay, here it is."
"Follow it for me, and tell me if it's plugged securely into the
back of
your computer."
"I can't reach."
"Uh huh. Well, can you see if it is?"
"No."
"Even if you maybe put your knee on something and lean way over?"
"Oh, it's not because I don't have the right angle - it's because
it's
dark."
"Dark?"
"Yes -the office light is off, and the only light I have is coming
in
from
the window."
"Well, turn on the office light then."
"I can't."
"No? Why not?"
"Because there's a power failure."
"A power... A power failure? Aha, Okay, we've got it licked now. Do
you still have the boxes and manuals and packing stuff you computer
came
in?"
"Well, yes, I keep them in the closet."
"Good. Go get them, and unplug your system and pack it up just like
it
was
when you got it. Then take it back to the store you bought it from."
"Really? Is it that bad?"
"Yes, I'm afraid it is."
"Well, all right then, I suppose. What do I tell them?"
"Tell them you're too stupid to own a computer."

TT

 

[CathyI8205]

That's great! I think that guy used to work here.

 

[Fly N Dive]

A relative of mine used to work tech-support for a telephone company and has many very funny stories. Here is an example

A lady calls in to ask how to fix her dial-up modem, now the telephone company doesn’t support the modems (not part of their service) but the lady thought that because it was connected to the phone line it was the phone company’s responsibility, and would not be told otherwise. So finally the tech support rep told her to open the Microsoft paint application.
“Ok, now make a medium sized green square”
“Ok”
“Now make a blue circle about the same size as the square, but make sure they don’t touch.”
“Ok”
Now make a red triangle connecting the circle and the square, now exit the program, click don’t save, restart the computer and everything should work. Thank you for calling _____ tech support have a nice day.”