VeeshanVault

I know a bunch of you work in Tech Support. I'd like to hear some of the funnier "moron" stories you have to tell. On the flip side, I called tech support today and these are excerpts from my conversation:

Me: My account has been flagged as disabled on the network for some reason, could you enable it please? I know my password did not expire or was not put in 3 times incorrectly.

Tech: Let me check to see if your password expired.

Me: ...

Tech: Your password should be fine.

Me: Yup, besides that would be a different error.

Tech: I'm going to get you to check your network connection.

Me: Sure...Green light, looks good. Besides I can surf if I bypass network login.

Tech: Could you check the cord between your computer and the jack near it in the wall? Make sure they are plugged in.

Me:...

even thou you knew what it was, OMGIAMRETARDEDCAUSEALOTISTWOWORDS of times they are obliged to ask about the simple stuff. It's a time saver on their part, and an annoyance to many

You laugh! I was troubleshooting a guy who could not get to our mail server.

Customer: Im sick of this I have been trying all morning to get my mail, If this is not fixed in 30 min I am leaving.

Me: Sir im sorry your having this problem, Are you currently connected to the Internet?

Customer: Of course not thats my problem the modem wont dial!!

Me: Sir is your modem a External or Internal Modem?

Customer: External

Me: Is it turned on?

Customer: Of course it is, Im not stupid!!

Me: What lights are on, on the front of the modem?

Customer: None!

Me: please turn on the modem or plug it in.

I once did a 150-mile round trip to plug someones monitor in.
Got me out of the office though

vn_Tanc wrote:I once did a 150-mile round trip to plug someones monitor in.
Got me out of the office though

hey man that is a perfect service call. stop off for a nice lunch and there is half your day =)

Wow...so many to choose from.

Personal favorite was the moron whose system would not power on. Turns out the dipshit had the power strip plugged into itself.

Had a user with a laptop who lost power and called us to find out why. He had his power cable plugged into the exhaust fan's vent.

Have had several users who called in at work that had major errors on their machines. Turns out they were trying to open the Anna_Kournikouva_naked.EXE Good move on their part to open that at work.

Have had users call to get links back from their favorites when they have been migrated to a new machine or Windows upgraded. The best was the guy who called complaining that we did not put the bookmarks to his Escort sites and Adult Friend Finder.com He actually went to our managers on that one. Mysteriously he stopped working here shortly after that.

There are literally hundreds of morons who forget their passwords, don't have equipment plugged in, delete their own files etc daily. I need to keep a journal of them someday.

Ooh yeah and the one guy who decided to move office without telling anyone and tried to plug his terminal into a piece of twinax cable hanging from the ceiling in an unfinished building.
Then expected it to work.

My buddy used to have this one ID10T who liked to "tweak" the routing tables in his office router. He had like 3 subnets, static routes, but a LOT of traffic. His "solution" whenever somebody higher up complained about slow response was to fuck with the routing table, which would bring his whole network down.

One time he called in 3 times in one week. On the last call, my buddy told him "All right <doofus>, your network is up again. If you mess with the router again, not only am I not going to fix it, I'm gonna fly out there and break all your fingers." He wasn't kidding.

When I worked IT, we did a profile on all of the support cases. It was really funny how most of the problems came from the finance department that were all males. We later found they were trying to open BrittneySpears.com. .com as in .command. thx jackasses. I didn't report it, but I told them that if they do it anymore, that I was going to report it. Sure enough two weeks later, one of their machines goes hay-wire. I find the same damned problem. Got his ass fired, simply because the annoyance was greater than any amount of nicness I could possibly have.

One of my most frustraiting was luckly one of my first which I learned a great deal from... kept me from being REALLY frustraited later...

So this is 1994, the ISP I have gone to work for after leaving my counseling position has each of us doing a little bit of everything. One Saturday morning I get a call...

Customer: My Netscape dosen't work (Note Netscape was beta at this time)

Me: OK lets take a look, give me a second to bring things up... How are you doing this morning sir?

C: Pissed off 'cause this shitty software you gave me won't work...

M: Well hopefully we can get that resolved quickly

C: You better or I'm coming up there and you can keep this stupid Internet stuff and I'm taking the computer back to Sears as well... (note at this point I should have known...)

M: Ok, double-click on Ne...

C: I've done that it just comes up, N spinning but nothing comes up...

M: Ok, is your modem dialing?

C: Hell I don't know

M: Do you hear anything beeps, tones etc... when you launch the browser?

C: Listen, quit takin' that computer jargon and fix my Netscape.

M: Alrighty, sounds like we probably have a problem with the ini... with getting your modem to dial. In your Internet Program group there should be a file called Trumpet Winsock

C: Let me find it... ok

M: Ok there should be a configuration file called "I don't remember"

C: Got it

M: Ok double click on it and it should launch Notepad

C: It did...

M: Ok, what kind of modem do you have?

C: What?

M: What brand of modem do you have?

C: I don't know it's in the computer...

M: What kind of computer do you have?

C: Packard Bell, top of the line...

M: <snicker> Ok sir, those come with a pretty standard modem in them, scroll down in Notepad until you see a line that says "Init string"

C: ....

M: .... Got it?

C: Hold on...

M: ....

C: Ok I'm there...

M: Can you read me what it says?

C: <He reads back standard setting>

M: ok, can you also put &k at the end of that?

C: done

M: Ok, save that and close out... then launch Trumpet and lets try to get connected then we will launch Netscape.

C: Ok

M: If trupet is up, pull down and selct Dial... (I don't hear anythnig) Is you modem dialing?

C: Nope, your software sucks!

M: The modem that came with the computer is internal right?

C: UH?

M: I mean the modem is "in" the computer right? you don't have anything external from the PC, right?

C: No

M: Ah then we need to make sure the modem is on, is the modem turned on?

C: I don't have a modem

M: You don't have a modem?

C: NO that isn't what I said! I said I don't see a modem here, just a keyboard, mouse, monitor and printer.

M: ah... so you have a lot of extra peices but not an external modem. Your modem must be internal then.

C: Yup says so right here on the sticker, Internal 14.4...

M: Great! <sigh> well it should be working, lets check your phone line to make sure that is plugged into the computer correctly...

C: Are you just stupid?

M: Excuse me sir?

C: I SAID ARE YOU JUST STUPID?

M: I don't think so sir, why would you say that?

C: WELL DUMMY, IF THE PHONE LINE WAS PLUGGED INTO THE COMPUTER I COULDN'T BE TALKING TO YOU NOW COULD I!!!!!!!

<pause>

M: Actually Yes you could and I'll walk you through how to do that, can you hold for a minute?

I immediatly put the guy on hold, went outside and SCREAMED at the top of my lungs then had a smoke. The guy eventually turned out to be one of our best customers and brought us a bunch of business. He wasn't just stuipd, he just had never been exposed to computers before. However that day I learned that just like in Hardware troubleshooting, ALWAYS start in the beginnigng, no matter what they "say" the problem is.

Marb

Kilmoll the Sexy wrote:Personal favorite was the moron whose system would not power on. Turns out the dipshit had the power strip plugged into itself.

rofl that is unreal. how do these people dress themselves?

Back in the day when I worked at CompuServe, I had one customer who let me know she was "Very disappointed that we had resorted to false advertising" and that she was a lawyer considering litigation upon learning that the 3.5" disk in the access software box did not, in actuality, contain the complete Lexis/Nexis Law Library and 41 other databases.

Another customer was equally disturbed that we assumed he would have a computer.

LOL - just remembered another one. Remember old 5.25" disks and how you could often use a hole puncher on the edge to enable one to be usable on the other side? We had a guy who used a hole puncher in the middle of the disk. Just snapped a big quarter inch hole in the middle of the plastic, ruining the media and was mad at US that it wasn't working.

This happened yesterday.

C: My mouse stopped working on my laptop that you just delivered.

M: Ok...I'll be right up.

*few minutes later at her desk*

C: See I keep moving my fingers on this pad and the mouse thingy won't move.

M: You do realize that you have an external mouse connected to this laptop. The pad won't work if this is plugged in.

C: OH Wonderful. Thank you very much!

*She unplugs the mouse and uses the pad.*

*I roll my eyes and start to leave.*

C: Oh are you the person I need to talk to about my modem connection too?

M: What's wrong with that?

C: It just isn't working.

M: Did you get your can of Dial-Tone from the support center? Get that and everything will work great.

C: Wonderful. Thanks again.

*She starts dialing the support center and I run down the hall before I burst out laughing.*