technologically challenged

1. Compaq is considering changing the command "Press Any Key" to "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 (5-1/4") diskettes. After troubleshooting for magnets and heat failed to diagnose the problem, it was found that the customer had 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 photocopies 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 going across the room to close the door.
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. 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.
8. A Dell technician received a call from a customer who was enraged because his computer had told him he was "bad and an invalid". The tech explained that the computer's "bad command" and "invalid" responses shouldn't be taken personally.
9. A confused caller to IBM was having troubles printing documents. He told the technician that the computer had said it "couldn't find printer." The user had even tried turning the computer screen to face the printer - but his computer still couldn't "see" the printer.
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 happened." The "foot pedal" turned out to be the 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?"

Why we should feel sorry for people in Tech Support

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 then responded, “No, my desk is next to the door. But that is 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: “Can you copy the Internet for me on these memory cards?”

I work for a local ISP. Frequently we receive phone calls that start something like this: Customer: “Hi. Is this the Internet?”

Some people pay for their online services with checks made payable to “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 file 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.” PC 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?”

Tech Support

Customer: "Your sound card is defective and I want a new one." Tech Support: "What seems to be the problem?" Customer: "The balance is backwards. The left channel is coming out of the right speaker and the right channel is coming out the left. It's defective!" Tech Support: "You can solve the problem by moving the left speaker to the right side of the machine and vice versa." Customer: (sputter) (click) Tech Support: (snicker)

****************

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 colors would print fine, which truly baffled me because the only true colors are cyan, magenta, and yellow. For instance, green is a combination of cyan and yellow, but green printed fine.

Every color 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" construction 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! (YEE-HAW!)

*****************

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 Soft-ware 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 teacher over and explained that no matter what she typed, nothing would happen. The teacher tried everything. By this time I was hiding behind my monitor and quaking red-faced.

I started to type, "Leave me alone!"

They both jumped back, silenced. "What the . . . " the teacher 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.

***************

I have a friend who just bought a computer and was instructed to load a program by typing "
A:" and then the name of the program. My friend told me it would not work because his keyboard was no good. He said he couldn't type the "dot over dot thingie" and that every time he tried to type the "dot over dot thingie" he kept getting the "dot over comma thingie" no matter how careful he was to press only on the very top of the key. When I taught him about the shift key, he thought I was a genius.

*****************

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 user name 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 and 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 pushed the F1 button over twenty minutes ago!" ****************