Re: DEAR TECH SUPPORT
Tech Support: "Customer Support, this is David, may I help you?" <br />Customer: "Hello, yes, it's me." <br />Tech Support: "Oh, it's me too." [chuckle] <br />Customer: "No, Esmie. E, s, m, i, e." <br />Tech Support: "Oh, sorry." <br /><br />--------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br /><br />Tech Support: "Type 'fix' with an 'f'." <br />Customer: "Is that 'f' as in 'fix'?" <br /><br />--------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br /><br />Customer: "How do you spell 'Internet America'? Is there a space between 'inter' and 'net'?" <br />Tech Support: "No space between 'inter' and 'net'. It's spelled normally." <br />Customer: "Ok. A-M-E-R-I-C-K?" <br />Tech Support: "That's A-M-E-R-I-C-A." <br />Customer: "I-C-K???" <br />Tech Support: "'A' as in apple" <br />Customer: "There's no 'K' in apple!" <br /><br />--------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br /><br />Tech Support: "Tell me, is the cursor still there?" <br />Customer: "No, I'm alone right now." <br /><br />--------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br /><br />Tech Support: "Are you reading an error message to me?" <br />Customer: "No, I'm reading an error message to you." <br /><br />--------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br /><br />Tech Support: "Do you have 3 1/2 inch diskettes?" <br />Customer: "No, I only have 3 of them." <br /><br />--------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br /><br />Tech Support: "Type 'A' and press Enter." <br />Customer: "Didn't work." <br />Tech Support: "What did it do?" <br />Customer: "Nothing." <br />Tech Support: "Hmmm...I'll send you a new set of diskettes." <br />The problem happened again.<br /><br />Tech Support: "Hmmm...send me the diskettes back." <br />They ran perfectly on my machine. I had her print her config.sys and autoexec.bat files, etc. No problems. I called her back.<br /><br />Tech Support: "Type 'A' and press Enter." <br />In the background, faintly, I heard these "tickety-tickety" sounds. <br /><br />Tech Support: "What are you doing?" <br />It turned out she was typing, "Type A and press Enter." The error message at the bottom of the screen apparently didn't count as "doing anything." <br /><br />--------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br /><br />Tech Support: "I need you to right-click on the Open Desktop." <br />Customer: "Ok." <br />Tech Support: "Did you get a pop-up menu?" <br />Customer: "No." <br />Tech Support: "Ok. Right click again. Do you see a pop-up menu?" <br />Customer: "No." <br />Tech Support: "Ok, sir. Can you tell me what you have done up until this point?" <br />Customer: "Sure, you told me to write 'click' and I wrote 'click'." <br />(At this point I had to put the caller on hold to tell the rest of the tech support staff what had happened. I couldn't, however, stop from giggling when I got back to the call.)<br /><br />Tech Support: "Ok, did you type 'click' with the keyboard?" <br />Customer: "I have done something dumb, right?" <br /><br />--------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br /><br />In the late 1970s, my father worked in the technical support department of a computer company. This was the most memorable of his calls.<br /><br />Customer: "Right, this computer's gone all crazy. It's blinking, beeping, and doing all sorts of stuff!" <br />Him: "What were you doing with the computer at the time?" <br />Customer: "I was dusting it." <br /><br />--------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br /><br />The lady was using a power strip to plug her computer and other devices into. Windows was completely frozen, and she was unable to shut down the machine by using the power button. She mentioned the power strip, so I told her to flip it off. She said, "Ok, I gave it the finger. I feel better." <br /><br />--------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br /><br />Tech Support: "Click on 'cancel'." <br />Customer: "'Capital'?" <br />Tech Support: "'Cancel'!" <br />Customer: "It only says 'ok' and 'cancel'." <br /><br />--------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br /><br />Customer: "It tries to log in and then gives this error number. I forget what it was...uhm...six one something? Or was it seven...? Four something? Or was it--" <br />Tech Support: "Ok. Open up 'Dial-Up Networking'." <br />Customer: "Ok. I double clicked on the icon on my desktop. It's now dialing." <br />Tech Support: "No sir. Click on 'cancel'." <br />Customer: "What? There's nothing here that says 'connect'. There's just a 'cancel' button." <br />Tech Support: "Click on 'cancel' please!" <br />Customer: "Oh, now it says it couldn't connect due to an error..." <br />Tech Support: "Click on 'ok' please." <br />Customer: "...of type 619. I can't click on 'cancel'. There is an 'ok' button." <br />Tech Support: (sigh) "Click on 'ok' then." <br /><br />--------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br /><br />I was showing a new user how to change her password. She was typing the new one in slowly and said to me, "I hope you're not reading my password." I replied that I was the system administrator and didn't need her password. She replied, "That's good to know. I wouldn't want you accessing my stuff." <br /><br />--------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br /><br />I work in a computer lab for the business school of a large university. While most students have their own login name for our network, some students that rarely use the lab can use a generic student login that does not require a password. One such student came up to me at the help desk.<br /><br />Student: "I'm trying to log in as student and it's telling me 'access denied'." <br />Me: "Did you read the instructions posted on the front desk?" <br />Student: "Yes, and it's still not working." <br />Me: "Did you just type 'student' for the user name with no password?" <br />Student: "Yes. Is 'no password' one word or two?" <br /><br />--------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br /><br />Recently I overheard two co-workers, the first of which was training the other one.<br /><br />Co-Worker #1: "A boolean variable has two possible values: true or false." <br />Co-Worker #2: "Umm...true?" <br /><br />--------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br /><br />I used to work in tech support for a company in Sweden. Once a guy called and started talking in English. Well, I speak fairly fluent English, so this wasn't a problem. So I spoke English back, and we started troubleshooting his problem. After a little while I started to suspect something was up with this guy, because he didn't always seem to understand what I was saying, and he often fumbled for words.<br /><br />Right then, I heard a door open in the background, and a voice said, in Swedish, "Ready to go to lunch, Sten?" He answered in perfect Swedish.<br /><br />I put the customer on hold and tried not to spit my coffee out from laughing so hard. When he came back on the phone, he spoke in English, and I spoke in Swedish. After about five more minutes of him following my instructions, he said to me in English, "Hang on. I can't understand Swedish. Please speak English." The rest of the conversation was in english. <br /><br />--------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br /><br />I work for an ISP. After two calls totaling 45 minutes with one customer, I asked him to bring his computer, in and I would configure it myself. He was a bit skeptical, so I assured him that he did not have to bring in the whole computer, just the CPU -- no monitor, cables, mouse or keyboard, just the CPU. He was not sure which part was the CPU, so I told him, "Just bring in the box -- the part with the CD-ROM drive and floppy drive." I explained this twice. Later he arrived with the cardboard box that his computer came in. I asked him where the computer was, he replied, "I thought you just needed to look at the box to see what model it was." <br /><br />--------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br /><br />A lady struck up a conversation with me on an airplane. <br /><br />Her: "And where are you going?" <br />Me: "I'm going to San Francisco to a UNIX convention." <br />Her: "Eunuchs convention? I didn't know there were that many of you." <br /><br />--------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br /><br />I'm working as a tech support person at a Finnish newspaper printing and publication house, and we have several reporters that submit their files via a dial-in modem line directly to our layout system.<br /><br />Once one of the reporters wanted to call the tech support because the modem wasn't answering his calls, but the call was answered by a computer illiterate.<br /><br />Reporter: "It seems that...eh, modem's out again." <br />Computer Illiterate: "Oh, just a minute. I'll go look for him." <br />He proceeded to page the whole company through the central P.A. system.<br /><br />Computer Illiterate: "Mr. Modem, Mr. Modem, there's a call for you." <br />My co-worker intercepts, trying hard to keep a straight face.<br /><br />Co-Worker: "Mr. Modem is on vacation. He won't be back till August." <br />The computer illiterate returns to the phone and tells the reporter that our modem is on vacation till August. <br /><br />--------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br /><br />Working as an ISP phone tech, I get calls from a good deal of customers who think I have ESP:<br /><br />Customer: "I have a problem. OR, I have a question." <br />Long pause. <br /><br />Me: "Yes?" <br /><br />--------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br /><br />Tech Support: "May I ask who's calling, please?" <br />Customer: "You're joking." <br />Tech Support: "No, I need to know so I can log the call. What's your name, please?" <br />Customer: "You're joking!" <br />Tech Support: "No, really! I need to know." <br />Customer: "No...." (chuckles) "My name is Yuriy Jokin. I'm Russian. I know what my name means in English. It's very confusing!" <br /><br />--------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br /><br />I took a call from a customer who sounded like quite a nice old lady. Querying the customer database through the serial number, I found the customer's name to be "Carol" and her surname to be impossibly long and presumably Eastern European. Fortunately -- or so I thought at first -- she didn't want tech support and was only calling to claim a free software offer that was a part of the packaged bundle. I checked on the issue and the offer had expired a good three months before.<br /><br />Me: "I'm sorry, ma'am, but the offer has expired." <br />Customer: "What?" <br />Me: "This offer has expired, ma'am, I'm sor--" <br />Customer: (her soprano turning into a growling contralto) "What do you mean it has expired? I've got the right to get my free CD! I paid for it! You will give me my CD." <br />Me: (explained again) <br />Customer: "Oh yeah? I'll talk to your supervisor, then." <br />Sure, escalate the call, but she wasn't going to get it. I told her so in the nicest and sweetest of the tones I'm capable of.<br /><br />Customer: "I'M NOT TALKING TO YOU ANY MORE. GET-ME-YOUR-SUPERVISOR!" <br />Wow, talk about getting emotional. I called my supervisor who would take the escalated call and try to talk some sense into her, but he failed. The call escalated a second time as the area supervisor took the call and once more as the shift supervisor took over.<br /><br />I couldn't believe it. There we were, all four of us sitting in a row, listening to the call that -- for an encore -- got escalated once more. A customer satisfaction specialist took the call and didn't do any better.<br /><br />We decided to roll it around once more and patched her through another tech, who finally placed and solved the ACTUAL problem.<br /><br />Tech Support: "Your name is Carol...what? Oh sure, yes SIR...sure, I'll fix your entry in our database right away." <br />Or hanging jaws nearly hit the floor. "Carol" was A GUY -- even though he sounded like a Powerpuff girl -- and we had all been calling him "Ma'am" all along. The whole company laughed at this for almost a week. <br /><br />--------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br /><br />This happened to me several years ago. The phone rang and I picked it up. It was my wife, Kitty, on the other end. She informed me that she was having problems printing out a report on the computer. The system was locked up and would not respond to the keyboard or the mouse.<br /><br />I told her reboot the system. She did. I heard the printer go through the startup cycle. I asked her to describe what the computer was doing.<br /><br />Her: "The computer is on, the monitor light is on, and the printer is on!" <br />Me: "What is on the screen?" <br />Her: "A box with the instruction: install Kickstart 2.0x." <br />Me: "Kickstart? When did we get an Amiga?" <br />Her: "About six months ago? What's the problem?" <br />Me: "We have an Atari, and we've had it for 18 months." <br />Her: "What???" (high pitched squeak) "Sorry, wrong number!" (click)
