You asked for some, so here ya go!
**********************************************************
Customer: "I got this problem. You people sent me this
install
disk, and now my A: drive won't work."
Tech Support: "Your A drive won't work?"
Customer: "That's what I said. You sent me a bad disk, it got
stuck in my drive, now it won't work at all."
Tech Support: "Did it not install properly? What kind of
error messages did you get?"
Customer: "I didn't get any error message. The disk got stuck
in the drive and wouldn't come out. So I got these pliers and
tried to get it out That didn't work either."
Tech Support: "You did what sir?"
Customer: "I got these pliers, and tried to get the disk out,
but it wouldn't budge. I just ended up cracking the plastic
stuff a bit."
Tech Support: "I don't understand sir, did you push the eject
button?"
Customer: "No, so then I got a stick of butter and melted it
and used a turkey baster and put the butter in the drive,
around the disk, and that got it loose. Then I used the
pliers and it came out fine. I can't believe you would send
me a disk that was broke and defective."
Tech Support: "Let me get this clear. You put melted butter
in your A: drive and used pliers to pull the disk out?" At
this point, I put the call on the speaker phone and
motioned
at the other techs to listen in.
Tech Support: "Just so I am absolutely clear on this, can you
repeat what you just said?"
Customer: "I said I put butter in my A: drive to get your
crappy disk out, then I had to use pliers to pull it out."
Tech Support: "Did you push that little button that was
sticking out when the disk was in the drive, you know, the
thing called the disk eject button?"
Silence.
Tech Support: "Sir?"
Customer: "Yes."
Tech Support: "Sir, did you push the eject button?"
Customer: "No, but you people are going to fix my computer,
or I am going to sue you for breaking my computer?"
Tech Support: "Let me get this straight. You are going to sue
our company because you put the disk in the A: drive,
didn't
follow the instructions we sent you, didn't actually seek
professional advice, didn't consult your user's manual on
how
to use your computer properly, instead proceeding to pour
butter into the drive and physically rip the disk out?"
Customer: "Ummmm."
Tech Support: "Do you really think you stand a chance, since
we do record every call and have it on tape?"
Customer: (now rather humbled) "But you're supposed to help!"
Tech Support: "I am sorry sir, but there is nothing we can do
for you. Have a nice day."
***********************************************************
At 3:37 a.m. on a Sunday, I had just looked at the clock to
determine my annoyance level, when I received a frantic phone
call from a new user of a Macintosh Plus. She had gotten her
entire family out of the house and was calling from her
neighbor's. She had just received her first system error and
interpreted the picture of the bomb on the screen as a
warning that the computer was going to blow up.
**********************************************************
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'." (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.)
Tech Support: "Ok, did you type 'click' with the keyboard?"
Customer: "I have done something dumb, right?"
**********************************************************
One woman called Dell's toll-free line to ask how to install
the batteries in her laptop. When told that the directions
were on the first page of the manual the woman replied
angrily, "I just paid $2,000 for this damn thing, and I'm not
going to read the book."
**********************************************************
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?"
**********************************************************
Customer: "I'm having trouble installing Microsoft Word."
Tech Support: "Tell me what you've done."
Customer: "I typed 'A:SETUP'."
Tech Support: "Ma'am, remove the disk and
tell me what it says."
Customer: "It says '(PC manufacturer) Restore and Recovery
disk'."
Tech Support: "Insert the MS Word setup disk."
Customer: "What?"
Tech Support: "Did you buy MS word?"
Customer "No..."
**********************************************************
Tech Support: "Ok, in the bottom left hand side of the
screen, can you see the 'OK' button displayed?"
Customer: "Wow. How can you see my screen from there?"
**********************************************************
Customer: "Uhh...I need help unpacking my new PC."
Tech Support: "What exactly is the problem?"
Customer: "I can't open the box."
Tech Support: "Well, I'd remove the tape holding the box
closed and go from there."
Customer: "Uhhhh...ok, thanks...."
**********************************************************
Customer: "I'm having a problem installing your software.
I've got a fairly old computer, and when I type 'INSTALL',
all it says is 'Bad command or file name'."
Tech Support: "Ok, check the directory of the A: drive-go to
A:\ and type 'dir'." Customer reads off a list of file
names, including 'INSTALL.EXE'.
Tech Support: "All right, the correct file is there. Type
'INSTALL' again."
Customer: "Ok." (pause) "Still says 'Bad command or file name'."
Tech Support: "Hmmm. The file's there in the correct place-it
can't help but do something. Are you sure you're typing
I-N-S-T-A-L-L and hitting the Enter key?"
Customer: "Yes, let me try it again." (pause) "Nope, still
'Bad command or file name'."
Tech Support: (now really confused) "Are you sure you're
typing I-N-S-T-A-L-L and hitting the key that says
'Enter'?"
Customer: "Well, yeah. Although my 'N' key is stuck, so I'm
using the 'M' key...does that matter?
**********************************************************
At our company we have asset numbers on the front of
everything. They give the location, name, and everything
else just by scanning the computer's asset barcode or using
the number beneath the bars. Customer: "Hello. I can't get
on the network."
Tech Support: "Ok. Just read me your asset number so we can
open an outage."
Customer: "What is that?"
Tech Support: "That little barcode on the front of your
computer."
Customer: "Ok. Big bar, little bar, big bar, big bar . . ."
*****************************
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?"
**********
Customer in computer shop: "Can you copy the Internet onto this
disk for me?"
**********
I work for a local ISP. Frequently we receive phone calls that
start something like this: Customer: "Hi. Is this the Internet?"
**********
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?"
**********
Got a call from a woman said that her laser printer was having
problems: the bottom half of her printed sheets were coming out
blurry. It seemed strange that the printer was smearing only
the bottom half. I walked her through the basics, then went over
and printed out a test sheet. It printed fine. I asked her to print
a sheet, so she sent a job to the printer.
As the paper started coming out, she yanked it out and showed
it to me. I told her to wait until the paper came out on its
own.
Problem solved.
**********
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.
**********
Customer: "Hello? I'm trying to dial in. I installed the
software okay, and it dialed fine. I could hear that. Then I could
hear
the two computers connecting. But then the sound all stopped, so I
picked up the phone to see if they were still connected, and I got the
message, 'No carrier,' on my screen. What's wrong?"
**********
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
initialized."
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 initialize it?'"
Tech Support: "Er, what happened next?"
Customer: "After they were initialized, 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?"
**********
For a computer programming class, I sat directly across from
someone, and our computers were facing away from each other. A few
minutes into the class, she got up to leave the room. I reached between
our
computers and switched the inputs for the keyboards. She came
back and started typing and immediately got a distressed look on her
face.
She called the tutor over and explained that no matter what she
typed, nothing would happen.
The tutor tried everything. By this time I was hiding behind
my monitor and quaking red-faced. I typed, "Leave me alone!" They
both jumped back as this appeared on their screen.
"What the..." the tutor said. I typed, "I said leave me
alone!"
The kid got real upset. "I didn't do anything to it, I swear!"
It was all I could do to keep from laughing out loud. The
conversation between them and HAL 2000 went on for an amazing five
minutes.
Me: "Don't touch me!"
Her: "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to hit your keys that hard."
Me: "Who do you think you are anyway?!" Etc. Finally, I
couldn't contain myself any longer, and fell out of my chair laughing.
After they had realized what I had done, they both turned beet red.
Funny,
I never got more than a C in that class.
**********
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?"
**********
My friend was on duty in the main lab on a quiet afternoon. He
noticed a young woman sitting in front of one of the workstations with
her arms crossed across her chest, staring at the screen. After
about 15 minutes he noticed that she was still in the same position,
only now she was impatiently tapping her foot.
He asked if she needed help and she replied "It's about time!
I pressed the F1 button over twenty minutes ago!"
**********
Rich
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