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Favorite parts of tech support

iambrutus

Screw Blue
i found that my favorite part of "tech support" is the way that users will summarize the error that they see.

i had a user tell me that when she turned on her laptop this morning, that her "other" computer (external monitor) said something about a corruption driver. what she really had was a BSOD
 
Oh I had a great one. This lady would call us all the time. This was in the dialup only days. She had 2 phone lines. Instead of hooking her computer up to her secondary phone line, she had it hooked up to her main phone line, and had busy call forwarding set up to forward calls to her secondary line. I tried for years to explain to her that she was an idiot.
 
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Deety;1966924; said:
How do businesspeople in 2011 not know that Excel columns can be resized?
Every day I deal with people who are in positions of authority, yet whom I would not trust with sharp objects.

Some of it is just blind spots in human development, and some of it is that with the right looks and parentage you can go far in life even if you are an idiot.
 
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I had a funny one yesterday.

User: Can you come help me with my printer?

Me: What is the problem, Sir?

User: My printer keeps putting holes in the paper

Me: What do you mean by holes?

User: Every time I print something the page comes out with 3 holes down the side like you would see if you used a 3 hole punch.

Me(laughing already): Sir, did you put paper that already has holes in the printer's paper tray?

User: Ok, I figured out the problem, have a good day(Then hangs up)

LMAO
 
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Deety;1966924; said:
"Can you resend all that information? It's all messed up. Part of numbers are missing!"

How do businesspeople in 2011 not know that Excel columns can be resized?

The lack of knowledge on basic spreadsheet functions can be very frustrating indeed. I deal with this on almost a daily basis.

I was with a client one day, and we were looking at a spreadsheet together and they pull out a calculator and start hammering away numbers furiously. I asked them what they were doing, and they replied "I want to see what that column of numbers adds up to." I just closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and let them carry on with their needless exercise.
 
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The other thing that kills me is when an employee calls me to say their computer is broken, the "little lights" on the tower are on but the screen is black. 99.99999% I tell them to turn their monitor on and their "broken computer" is miraculously fixed.

There are serioulsly not enough Darwin Awards to go around sometimes.
 
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buxfan4life;1967889; said:
The lack of knowledge on basic spreadsheet functionscan be very frustrating indeed. I deal with this on almost a daily basis.

I was with a client one day, and we were looking at a spreadsheet together and they pull out a calculator and start hammering away numbers furiously. I asked them what they were doing, and they replied "I want to see what that column of numbers adds up to." I just closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and let them carry on with their needless exercise.
HA! That reminds me of a little issue I had with a coworker who was trying to save her job once. Rather than admitting she didn't know how to do her part of the job, she used BCC to make our CEO think she was requesting information from me and I was refusing to respond. Meanwhile, I was mystified because I'd sent the info, repeatedly, in every way possible, over the course of several months but every other day had an email chiding me for not providing it. I'd even walked it over several times and each time she agreed it was right and thanked me, and then I'd get another email demanding what I had just handed her. Since the CEO did not understand BCC, she thought I would know she was supposed to see the response, and couldn't understand why I would refuse to answer an email. Once I figured it out, it took me several hours to paste all my many responses into one very, very long email and explain what had happened, but it was awfully fun to watch the fallout.

I remember asking the CEO how she could have believed I was withholding information since I'd also featured it on a web page she had approved. That was the day I learned that while she suspected her computer might have "internets", she didn't know where they were or what to do with them if she found them, so she was making critical design decisions on pages she had never, ever seen. God Bless the VP of that organization for somehow managing to keep it afloat.
 
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Deety;1967938; said:
HA! That reminds me of a little issue I had with a coworker who was trying to save her job once. Rather than admitting she didn't know how to do her part of the job, she used BCC to make our CEO think she was requesting information from me and I was refusing to respond. Meanwhile, I was mystified because I'd sent the info, repeatedly, in every way possible, over the course of several months but every other day had an email chiding me for not providing it. I'd even walked it over several times and each time she agreed it was right and thanked me, and then I'd get another email demanding what I had just handed her. Since the CEO did not understand BCC, she thought I would know she was supposed to see the response, and couldn't understand why I would refuse to answer an email. Once I figured it out, it took me several hours to paste all my many responses into one very, very long email and explain what had happened, but it was awfully fun to watch the fallout.

I remember asking the CEO how she could have believed I was withholding information since I'd also featured it on a web page she had approved. That was the day I learned that while she suspected her computer might have "internets", she didn't know where they were or what to do with them if she found them, so she was making critical design decisions on pages she had never, ever seen. God Bless the VP of that organization for somehow managing to keep it afloat.

Yes, you definitely feel my pain. :biggrin:
 
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Tech support: What kind of computer do you have?
Customer: A white one.

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

Tech support: Click on the 'my computer' icon on to the left of the screen.
Customer: Your left or my left?

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

Customer: Hi, good afternoon, this is Martha, I can't print.
Every time I try, it says, 'Can't find printer.'
I've even lifted the printer and placed it in front of the monitor,
but the computer still says he can't find it.

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

Tech support: What's on your monitor now, ma'am?
Customer: A teddy bear my boyfriend bought for me at the 7-11.

****************************
Customer: My keyboard is not working anymore.
Tech support: Are you sure it's plugged into the computer?
Customer: No. I can't get behind the computer.
Tech support: Pick up your keyboard and walk 10 paces back.
Customer: OK!
Tech support: Did the keyboard come with you?
Customer: Yes.
Tech support: That means the keyboard is not plugged in.

****************************
Customer: I can't get on the Internet.
Tech support: Are you sure you used the right password?
Customer: Yes, I'm sure. I saw my colleague do it.
Tech support: Can you tell me what the password was?
Customer: Five dots.
****************************
Tech support: What anti-virus program do you use?
Customer: Netscape.
Tech support: That's not an anti-virus program.
Customer: Oh, sorry... Internet Explorer...
****************************
Customer: I have a huge problem.
A friend has placed a screen saver on my computer,
but every time I move the mouse, it disappears.
****************************
Tech support: How may I help you?
Customer: I'm writing my first email.
Tech support: OK, and what seems to be the problem?
Customer: Well, I have the letter 'a' in the address,
but how do I get the little circle around it?
****************************
This one and the next are our personal favorites!
A woman customer called the Canon help desk with a problem with her printer.
Tech support: Are you running it under windows?
Customer: '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 printer is working fine.'
****************************
And last but not least!
Tech support: 'Okay 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!
 
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Just had this one within the past year:

Him: My Outlook won't open.
Me: What do you mean your Outlook won't open?
Him: My Outlook won't open. I double click it and nothing happens.
Me: Did you check Task Manager to see if it's running?
Him: Yes. It shows up in Task Manager, but I don't see it on the screen.
Me: Do you have two monitors?
Him: Yes.
Me: Do you have something else opened and maximized on your other monitor, like Remote Desktop?
Him: *long silence* I'm a dumbass. Sorry I bothered you.
 
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Boss called me today when I was at lunch:

Boss: I need to scan something and send it urgently, the scan folder is not working.
Me: What do you mean it's not working?
Boss: It scans, says it scanned but when I go to the folder all the scans that are there are from last year.
Me: Click the sort by date button.
Boss: *hangs up*
 
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Had a user open a ticket with our HD yesterday demanding that we configure a new laptop for her because the display on her current (almost brand new) laptop was bad. This was at 4:00pm yesterday and I am the late tech (Til 5:30), but I'm a nice guy so I imaged a laptop for her and given her position I installed what applications I assumed she would need. I had called her and left a voicemail, and emailed her as well to let her know that I would have a laptop ready for her when she got here (she was off site). I fuckin sat around waiting until 7:30 last night and she never showed up or called me back.

I get here this morning at 8:45am and I have voicemails and emails out the ying yang harping on me to give her a new laptop. So i'm already pissed that the lady wasted 2 hours of my time last evening waiting around for her to not show up (which she tried making some lame excuse up on the fly "oh my phone was dead" when I asked her why she didn't return my calls yesterday).

So anyways I give her the new laptop and configure her profile up on it, and when I get her broken laptop I open it up and turn it on and there are two giant thumb prints on sides of the display and the display is just all distorted. So yeah she clearly damaged it herself. To make matters worse, I turn around to see if she needs anything else and oh gee what do you know - she has her thumbs pressed up on the new laptops display in the exact same spot jerking it around. At that point I politely said "That right there is most likely the reason this laptop here in my hand has a bad display" and instructed her on proper "display adjustment techniques" - /sigh

And yes the damaged laptop comes out of our departments budget, not hers. lol
 
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