Now if only they had one for the stupidest reps...

Who's more stupid? The customers or the British for misspelling 'center'?

/ yes, I know.

wouldnt that be every call ever made to a call centre, BigDamn?

i quite like this one:

Customer: "I've been ringing 0700 2300 for two days and can't get through to enquiries, can you help?"

Operator: "Where did you get that number from, sir?"

Customer: "It was on the door to the travel centre".

Operator: "They're our opening hours".

That last one happens all the time.

Where's Sol Rosenberg when you need him?

Bah. The ones listed there are freaking ancient jokes.

http://groups.google.com/group/rec.misc/browse_frm/thread/2595c8dd8aee76e1/e7e 5180468d1d4be?lnk=st&q=%22I%27%27d+like+the+number+of+the+Argoed+Fish+Bar+in+C ardiff+please%22.&rnum=105#e7e5180468d1d4be

(or, for your cutting and pasting pleasure: http://tinyurl.com/yccvrh )

i worked a call center for a while. biatch about the reps all you want, you wouldnt trade places with them.

/lots of good stories though.
//lots.

Aha! And the entire collection from the Mirror has been posted here, five years ago:

http://groups.google.com/group/uk.rec.gardening/msg/d4d8dc9c9685b23e

Jeremy Armstrong had a deadline, got nuthin', posted his email.

Even though many of these are long known in the software world it doesn't make them untrue... I had a lady call up about a colour printer she wanted to buy and ask me if it also printed in black and white... Lovely people customers are.

FTA: "On another occasion, a man making heavy breathing sounds from a phone box told a worried operator: "I haven't got a pen, so I'm steaming up the window to write the number on"."

How does this qualify the man as an idiot?
Seems like a good enough plan to me I mean, I'm thankful for the text message option 411 provides, that way if the call disco's or something else happens, I can call the number back. It can be hard to remember a recited number.

From my experiences as a hotel clerk.

Me: your room is #433 its on the 2nd building 4 rooms down. You can park in front of it.

Customer: Is it on the first floor?

I mean have they come up with cars that can park 20 feet in the air while I wasnt looking?

iamoz:
From my experiences as a hotel clerk.

Me: your room is #433 its on the 2nd building 4 rooms down. You can park in front of it.

Customer: Is it on the first floor?

I mean have they come up with cars that can park 20 feet in the air while I wasnt looking?

Well, considering most places use the first digit of the room number to denote floor, I would expect room 433 to be on the fourth floor.

Stupid people abound regardless of which industry you're in.

The best question I was ever asked was when working front desk for a hotel. The lady comes up to me, same day that daylight savings time started and shows me her airline ticket for the next day.

"I'm wondering if you can help me? My plane is supposed to leave at 7am tomorrow morning. Now is that the old 7am or the new 7am?"

I looked at her blankly for a moment, the mind numbing stupidity of her question having short-circuited my brain before telling her it would be "7am".

In Kansas City I asked a convenience store clerk for directions. He told me I couldn't get there from here.

rcain: How does this qualify the man as an idiot?
Seems like a good enough plan to me

My motto has always been: "If it's stupid, but it works, it's not stupid."

My personal favorite was several years ago at the last company I worked at, I knew the most about computers out of anyone there, so I was the de facto IT guy (in addition to my regular job, of course). There was a woman who worked there who (you probably know the type) would consciously resist learning anything about computers. One day she told me her cursor was "stuck". Went to check it out, and her cursor was in the middle of the screen, her mouse was to the far right of the mousepad, and she needed to move the cursor more to the right. I've read the same thing on the internet before, and honestly wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't witnessed it.

/wouldn't believe the CD tray/cupholder story, except I've known people that ignorant
//and no, no $2 bills here

I suppose, rcain, someone doesn't know the number would reappear when the window was breathed on again.

Having done my time in a call center Im not surprised by these at all. I spoke to the people who thought their cd rom drive was a cup holder and the folks who wonder why their computer isnt working during the power outage.

We have our own collection of these.

People commonly ask "what's a browser" when we ask them to restart their browser.

I've had a couple people ask how to reboot their PC's.

I've had a couple that actually pull the plug out of the wall, and plug it back in to reboot.

My tech support guy has more. Need to track him down.

http://www.prometheus-music.com/audio/techsupt.mp3

Sorry, no HTML here. Cut it and paste.

alhazred Wow...I thought that only ever happened in a Dilbert cartoon.

Oh - there's the time I was on the phone with a potential customer who wanted to send in a layout idea for his website.

He said he had some links, menus, etc., written down, from some ideas he'd gotten online.

I asked if it was in digital format.

He said yeah, its in Word.

I asked if he could send it to me.

He asked if he should print it out and go to the drugstore down the street and fax it to me.

Caller: "In the user guide it clearly states I need to unplug the fax machine from the wall socket and telephone Jack before cleaning. Can you give me his number?"

Obviously the guy doesn't know jack. I wonder if he knows squat?

Most of these stories are not so much "stupid" people as just plain lazy people. It's just easier for them to ask someone else the stupid question then to pause for a second, think about what they are asking, and realize the question is stupid.

I had a user complain about his machine "eating" diskettes (back in the day).

After some time on the phone, we realized that the machine wasn't simply destroying data, the disks were actually disappearing from the device.

On inspection, it became apparent the customer was slipping the disks through a gap between a bezel and the disk drive, rather than directly into the drive itself. Thus, the machine had several 5 1/4" floppies lying inside the case. Rather bizarre, so I now believe ANYTHING.

Heck, my Dad used to use a mouse with TWO hands. What's NOT possible?

I used to work at a pet supply store. Two of our favorites, both of which we'd heard more than once:

"What kind of food does my dog eat? He's little and black (or whatever description)."

"How much does a 20-lb bag of dog food weigh?"

call..BR549

We have our own collection of these.

People commonly ask "what's a browser" when we ask them to restart their browser.

If you're not a computer person, this isn't a dumb question. The word 'browser' isn't mentioned anywhere on the screen or in the program. If a mechanic asked you to retighten your serpentine pulley, would you know how to do it?


I've had a couple people ask how to reboot their PC's.

Again, not a stupid question for a non-computer person.

I've had a couple that actually pull the plug out of the wall, and plug it back in to reboot.

We've got a Mac at the studio where this is often the only way to reboot the stupid thing once it has hung. And it needs lots of rebooting.

psssycho, that was YOU? I've seen that story reprinted for several years now.

nice to know the original source

/rolls eyes

At least it's not India...

One set of grandparents have dumb questions about computers, but they never, ever use them, save to "do the e-mails", another set of grandparents know more about computers than I do, because they work in office environments where they use computers all the time.

The moral is that unfamiliarity is not stupidity.

//Publishing chain e-mails should be punishable by death.

I wouldn't necessarily put this in the 'stupid user' category, but I remember the time one of the branches of the company I was working for logged a call saying that they couldn't connect to the internet since they'd had the new Windows installed. The company was midway through upgrading from Windows 3.11 to Windows 95, but we couldn't find any record of this site having been done yet.

It took a site visit to establish that they'd had new windows put in (ie the glass things that let the light in), and during the work their network connection to the outside world had somehow been cut.

True story? Well my boss told me it was, but I've always been sceptical.

Ripside

I've had a couple that actually pull the plug out of the wall, and plug it back in to reboot.

I used to have a branch chief who would do that to his office work station every day. Absolutely refused to learn anything more than the bare minimum you needed to turn the fool thing on and off (if that much) and type on it.

bronzeglory: "What kind of food does my dog eat? He's little and black (or whatever description)."

Kinda depends what size/health your dog is, right??

My cat eats specialized cat food...and my X-dog eats specialized dog food based on age/weight...

/Unless the owner just can't remember what his dog HAS BEEN eating...

I like to act dumb just to see the person on the other end catches it:

Me: Could you tell them that John Subeski called?

Operator: Sure. How do you spell that?

Me: T-H-A-T

Operator: Thank you.

I have gotten call backs from confused people asking for Mr. That.

I work in an emergency response office/call center. At first it was just those machines for the old folks (those "I've fallen, and I can't get up." devices you see on tv some times), but then the powers that be realized that since we're active 24/7 that we should also handle all the other phone calls that our company gets. 90% of the calls we get can be handled with an answering machine or the phrase "You need to call back during regular business hours." (those are the people who can't seem to figure out how to use the automated clocking in system, those who call at 2am Saturday night/Sunday morning for a job and all the human resources questions that we can't answer).

Most of the calls I get are people who have problems with the ERS machine (the "I've fallen..." machine). There was one old lady, her grandson rearranged her furniture and hooked the machine up the wrong way. I get this problem alot and told her to just pick the machine up and switch the two phone cords. She refused, told me that it was a job for an electrician.

I had one old woman call me up at 2 am over the ERS machine. She had just laid down to go to sleep when the storm knocked out her power (The ERS machines have battery back ups that last for 32 hours). I asked her what she wanted. She told me that since she was paying us for our service that it was up to us to restore power to her home. I then explained to her that we were staffed by nurses and not electricians. She asked "Well, what should I do?" I asked, "Weren't you already going to bed?" I ended up calling the EMS in her city and told them about this dippy woman and that she wanted EMS to head out there and light some candles. I was told by EMS that they don't do that. I asked, "then could you just send someone out there just to check up on her. You know, some hollow empty guesture to make her think that we're doing something?" he did it.

Sunday night around 11 pm this guy called us, said that he had fallen and couldn't get up. Now, we are NOT EMS, we are a call center that only takes care of the state. People think that we are EMS. Even though they are told quite clearly in writing and by voice when their machines are installed, we are NOT EMS. They NEVER listen. Anyhow, this guy fell and couldn't get up. He got me through the ERS machine and I called his local EMS and they sent someone out. Now, EMS never gets anywhere in under 20 minutes. I've been doing this job long enough to know that. If your address is outside of town it will be longer. If none of the homes on your street have numbers because you tell everyeone who visits "It's just 4 houses down from the old Johnson place.", EMS could take an entire HOUR to get there (and that's not our fault, next time put those bloody numbers on your house so they know where to go). Five minute after I called EMS I got another call from him, asking if I had called EMS. I said, "yes." he said, "Then were the hell are they. I've been down here for a half hour. I called you a half hour ago, they are not here yet. You are a lazy son of a biatch who needs to get off his ass and get me off this floor!" I told him that according to the log, the call to EMS was 5 minutes ago, and I don't have the ability to change the time on the log. He's calling me a fat lazy bastard who isn't helping him out. I looked on his medical profile, saw the word 'obesity' and suddenly realized why he couldn't get back up. Oh, this bastard was an asshole. Telling him that it takes time to the ambulance to get there and that there wasn't more that I could do at this point wasn't doing any good. It was my fault that he fell over. It was my fault that he couldn't get back up, and it was my fault that he was fat. When EMS did show up they helped him up, he called back and told me that we were useless and to tell my boss to cancel his contract and pick the machine back up because we were a giant waste of money. I spent the rest of the night hoping that he'd call back saying "I've fallen and I can't get up." so I could say, "Sorry, you cancelled your contract a few hours ago. There isn't anything I can do for you."

There was the old lady who's grandson was over and he liked how when you pressed the button on the machine someone would start talking. The old lady told me that she would try and stop her grandson from pressing the button, but the grandson's parents would stop her because they didn't ever want to tell their children 'no' or 'stop'. When I treatened to call an ambulance the next time the machine was pressed and that they, not me, would be charged a fine for a false alarm, the calls stopped coming through (honestly, I don't know if that would be worthy of a fine, but that was enough to scare them into making their kid stop playing with the machine). That threat did not work for the old man using his necklace button (remote for the machine) as a cat toy.

I worked for IBM's Thinkpad Support group when Win95 rolled out, and we had to get Win95 training before we were put on the Win95 Support queue. After I had that training, it took a while before I got my first Win95 call (I was also on the Thinkpad support Que, and IBM had issues with MS having Win95 preloaded on their boxes). After about two days being on the queue, I received my phone indicated that I was receiving a call on the Win95 queue. I was very nervous, as I was not sure how well I would be able to answer any questions I received. I answered the call, and a college kid starts talking to me. He had just bought a new Thinkpad that was preloaded with Win95. He had been messing around with it, and he was having a problem ... Solitaire was dealing him the wrong cards.

The mute button saved my job that day.

TheDirtyNacho

I've had a couple people ask how to reboot their PC's.

Again, not a stupid question for a non-computer person.

You don't have to be a computer technician to see the "ON" switch on the from of the case. Of course the word "restart" would help, but pulling the power cable out is just idiotic.

And regarding "web browser" (which is how we normally refer to them in customer service correspondence): Not quite the same as a serpentine belt, which most people will never see.

If you're surfing the web, and sending email, you oughta know what a "web browser" is, or be able to work it out in your head somehow. The name is pretty self-explanatory - our response to "What's that?" is always:

''It's what you "browse" the "web" with.''

Then they always write back and apologize for being stupid.


Another fun one are people who think their email address is their AOL username.

"John" for example.

AOL tainted a lot of people's thinking about how things really work.

I swear techno-phobic people lose about 50 IQ points when they sit in front of a computer. Some of the smartest people I know act like they're mentally challenged when they're using a PC. Its like they get nervous, or scared, and their brain goes blank.

Just last week I took a call where a guy was having problems with his printer.

He kept saying that the power light was on, but the printer was not doing anything, so I asked, "Did you send it a job?"

He replied, "Oh. No, let me do that." And I can hear the printer kick on and start printing (it was a dot matrix printer).

I barely managed to disconnect the call before I started laughing.

Ripside: You don't have to be a computer technician to see the "ON" switch on the from of the case. Of course the word "restart" would help, but pulling the power cable out is just idiotic.

As mentioned before...Sometimes that is the last resort when a machine is massively locked up.

I've had to do this on several Macs/PCs in my day.

The Onanist
Kinda depends what size/health your dog is, right??

Exactly. It wasn't the people that would ask what kind of food they should get for a specific problem; it was more the idea that if they have a miniature poodle, then we should know what they've been feeding. Often followed by, "Well, can't you look it up? I always pay with a credit card," or a nice description: "It's little and brown." Thanks. Very helpful.

Then they always write back and apologize for being stupid.

Never! It's either "oh well, I knew it was something simple as that, but couldn't be bothered. I'm too important to learn all the technicky gobblygook" or "well, don't talk down to me like that, you need to work on your attitude". Apologies? Ha.

The first time i heard the "you can't get here from there" line, it was spoken by edith bunker on All In The Family like 30 yrs ago.

replaced the serpentine belt on the wife's 96 explorer a week ago. took 20min. no googling required. teh google helped a lot though when replaced all of the instrument cluster light bulbs the next day.

HH all - cheers

Great Janitor did you decided if you're going to move onto that other job yet? (remember you from a thread a day or two ago)

The Onanist

99.9% of the time (IME) holding the power button down for 4 seconds (on anything since a P4) will power down a locked up PC. If it won't then thereare problems with the machine (or the apps their using).

I personally explained this to a member of id Software's team back around 99 or '00, after his .plan explained he was tired of having to pull the plug. He was very grateful.

I haven't had to pull a plug once since Windows 2000/XP came out.

I have to have the dumbest users evar. Most of them don't even know what the CPU is, they think if I say reboot your PC they think of the monitor.

I've seen a lot during my days, even a developer back in the dot com days asking for pagefile.sys to be deleted because it was taking up so much disk space. I was the network and firewall admin for the same company and the helpdesk guys asked for some help with a sales guy not being able to get to any network resources one connected to VPN. After asking him multiple times if he installed anything or if anything changed and spending a good hour with all of us on the phone I started checking his routing tables (NT at the time). There was something weird in them and he finally admitted he installed some sort of backup software and that assigned an IP address that conflicted with our network and was creating a routing loop. What a moron, could have saved us a whole bunch of time if he would have just told us what he had done.

Had lady here, not too long ago, spill coffee in her keyboard. My boss comes, "can you look at this, I think she has a virus". (It was typing all kinds of weird characters) I ask her what happened and of course she said "Nothing". I replace her keyboard, told my boss to come to my desk and I turn it over and coffee comes spilling out. It's like taking care of children.