Every once in a while I'd get a call from one of the retail locations I was supporting asking how to fix:
Coke Machine
Toilet
Automatic door

WTF? Call the vendor, or a plumber or whoever fixes the damn door.

/finally away from customer facing techsupport.

Zotfripper: 32oz High Life: "Can I turn on the coffee pot with my computer?"

Ok Nerds, why isn't this possible?

It's totally possible. Go ask you boss to buy the shiat to do it. I'll wait here.

I assume you will be using RFC 2324 - Hyper Text Coffee Pot Control Protocol (HTCPCP/1.0) (new window)

The worst is helping family with any computer problem. And if you're lucky they might pay you.

"I just spent 4 hours fixing your computer, thanks for the $10."

The Jami Turman Fan Club: "Hi, our computer is on fire. Can we turn it off?"

You laugh, but I've seen Unix commands which take this into account.

Link (new window)

Bag of Hammers: Rickenbacker: A recent favorite of mine. "My laptop won't connect to the VPN at home" Okay, is it connected to your router? "I don't have a router". Uh...okay, laptop plugged directly in to your modem then? *disgusted sigh* "I DON'T HAVE INTERNET! Just tell me how to connect to the VPN!".

Seriously. She thought the wireless card in her laptop magically connected to the internet. Not a 3G card, a wireless card.

Oh Jesus, we get that one all the time. And I deal with mostly Doctors, you'd think years of medical school would translate to a *smidgen* of common sense, nope. "Yeah, is this tech support? Yeah I'm on vacation in Barbados right now and my laptop won't connect to the VPN. I asked the hotel about it and they say they don't have internet here, can you guys send me one?"

got you topped on this one for stupid people who *should* know what they are doing...

Fresh out of college with a CS degree I get hired by a major oil company to fix one of their IT departments (because it was run by idiots)... here's one of my stories... I have tons.

I'm in Houston and I'm working with this woman in California via a remote desktop client (she's *in* IT and has been for 15-20 years now). While I'm showing her how to do some task she starts saying, "Wow, that's some awful glare coming through the window, I can barely see my desktop. Can you see the glare?"

Now, mind you, I assumed at this point she was asking her office mate (a 4.0 kid from Berkeley) if she could see how horrible the sun's glare was on her monitor... But then it went on...

" (name protected for my own sake here), can you see the glare?"

"The glare???"

"Yes, can you see the glare on my monitor?"

At this point, her office mate literally fell out of her chair laughing hysterically. I put the phone on mute and said "wow." It takes the woman a second and then she says...

"What? What's so funny?"

(her office mate explains to her I can't possible *see* the glare on her monitor in California from Houston)

"Oh. Really?"

/not making this up. I wish I was...
//this woman made more money than both me and the 4.0 Berkeley grad combined because she had been there so long.
///...which is why both me and her office mate eventually had enough of this crap and moved on... and also why our generation hates *most* boomers so much (not all of you guys, but you *do* have some of the dumbest rocks in the pile for sure).

Shakes tiny internet fist at ProfessorOhki

Just last week, i had a user call my help desk and ask how to open a CARDBOARD BOX!

Mikey1969: I got listed as the 'Best IT Guy Ever' when I recently fixed our 15 year old fax machine by picking it up about 3 inches off the table and dropping it. Been working like a charm ever since.

bboy had a pc around 1990 that required this fix. I think you might owe some royalties or something.

(user unable to get online)
Me: well, first thing to try is to remove the power from the cable modem for 5 seconds. The cable modem is a blue box, around 8 inches square.

User: Okay, I found it. Which cable is the power?

Me:, You can either look at the back and find the cable marked AC POWER or you can remove it from the wall plug end.

User: Okay, I see the cable marked AC POWER on the modem. Now, how do I know where the other end is plugged into?

(10 seconds of silence)

Me: I suppose you could follow the cable.

User: That's a great idea! Thanks!

Another time:

User: My connection is extremely slow. Has been for the last four days.

Me: Do you recall moving the modem or anything disturbing it?

User: Well, we did have an electrical storm, and I know that it was struck by lightning, but the smoke has all cleared up by now, so it should be back to normal, shouldn't it?

Back when I worked at a college help desk.

Email from Student: Where can I download some RAM?
Me: try www.download.com and search for RAM.
Student: Found it, thanks!
_______________________________________
The day we blocked MySpace and Facebook to check its impact on traffic
Student: I can't get to Facebook
Me: It's blocked until 5pm
Student: What are we supposed to do all day without Facebook?

Once every 3-4 months I'll get an e-mail from the secretary asking if the e-mail system is working.

Mog32Kupo: Yesterday I had:

Lady with new computer I just deployed:
"Oh, there are files and programs missing from my new computer"
Me: "Sorry about that, what is missing and I can track it down"
Lady: "I'm not sure, but I know they're missing"


/why...why, lord?

I"m in the process of moving quite a few folks to new pc's and laptops. I haven't had that one yet, but the project is in it's early stages.

From last week:

User: I can't email u­ser_nameoohay­c­om, so I changed the address to u­ser­n­ameoo­h­a­y­co­m and that's not working either. What should I do?

darthlanny: My favorite call was someone who had heard of this thing called Ethernet, so they figured their computer could connect to the internet from anywhere through the ether.
(I swear on a stack of bibles it's true.)

I had a job with a small company that put car dealership inventory online. One dealership put one of their salesmen in charge of all online traffic so he needed a laptop. We recommended one and when he got it, I helped get him online at the dealership. When I finished with the wireless settings, he asked if he could get online wirelessly at home, I told him that he could with a router. He asked what a router was and I explained it to him. It took 20 minitues to get this guy to realize that he could only get online at home, if he had internet. He figured hey, it's wireless I can get online anywhere.

/Always hated those fking intel commercials

cowgirl toffee: LeroyBourne: I knew computer techies and IT guys were booze hounds, now I know why.

Job requirement?

Judging by some of the stories in here, and linked ones, I'd have to be living at a .05-.07 to be able to put up with the lunacy.

My mom used to call me 3 times a day with questions about her computer. Finally, I told her to put her questions into YouTube; and they will help you. Best decision ever! Even if I occasionally have to go home and restore her computer.

My favorite story, however; my dad calls me at 5 am (he gets up at 4:30am every day)

Dad: hey, iheartscotch; my speakers aren't working. Can you help me fix them?

Me: sure dad; Are the speakers plugged in?

Dad: yeah

Me: are they on?

Dad: yeah, I see the light

Me: are the speakers connected to the computer?

Dad: *russle russle* yes

Me: ok, is the sound on?

Dad: what do you mean?

Me: you can turn off all sound on your computer

Dad: how can I tell if my sound is on?

Me: go to the time in the bottom right hand corner of the screen; go to the little speaker icon; open it and see if anything is muted.

Dad: yep, that was it, how do you suppose my sound got turned off?

Me: no idea

/ my dad wasn't always so helpless; he taught us how to use dos

Taking another seat on the CSB Bus....

I've worked on repairing computers, and even in an IT Dept for a Gov agency for a while, over the past 14 years (since `98). It is truly amazing how blatantly ignorant people can be.
I used to be very civil and kind... but, as I work for myself now, I take so much then say to hell with it and say exactly what I feel.

I have seen some of the dumbest asshats do some of the stupidest stunts. People that NEED their computers back ASAP, sooo very important, so I pull an all-nighter (one lady dropped off two computers, one had crashed, started using the computer for the kids to do her banking and it crashed the next day) and needed them back "right away"... Fixed the next morning... she didn't show up for THREE months. Needless to say still got charged for immediate service. Then once carried down, she takes them one at a time and TOSSES them in the back of her SUV. I thought for sure I would get a call that one or both didn't work when she got home, due to a thrashed hard drive or even breaking the CPU cooler(s) loose.

Then, there's the people who know nothing about computers, and start to tell YOU how to fix it... I just say, "Then why did you call (or come by) me if you know so much? You can fix it yourself!" Which usually shuts them up.

And, (best for last) one guy, after I fully restored his system (and upgraded RAM) I had everything ready to just be plugged back in... he calls when he gets home and starts asking about his Verizon DSL disc. Do I need to install everything on this disc? I told him he should already be set up, and that's just extra stuff A.K.A. bloatware you don't need... is the system all set up? Yes. Open up a browser and check your email, weather, whatever... he does and it works fine. He STILL keeps asking, repeatedly, if he needs to install everything on the disc to get online. I tell him he has already told me he was online and been to multiple websites and checked his email.. what more ONLINE do you want?!? You wanted more RAM because it was slow before it crashed, if you go loading a bunch of programs you don;t even know what they are, it will just slow down again... but, it is your computer, so do what you want, entirely up to you.. install away.
This guy keeps on, and on... me saying SAME things... will not let me off the phone.. keeps asking about getting online.. installing junk... I finally lost it and started cussing and told him if he wants me to come beat the f'n shiat out of it with a baseball bat, I'll be glad to do it if that's what he wants, I'll even do it for free BUT there will still be a $20 home service call charge to come to his house to do it! FINALLY got to him.
Figured it would be the LAST time I spoke with him - nope. I've repaired his stuff at least 3 more times and sold him a laptop... and, he wants a laptop I have right now that I am fixing (new screen) and upgrading. lol

End of CSB Time

Gilligann: me "yes that's the problem. Your computer is not a foot rest. Don't do it again"

FARK YOU MY COMPUTER IS AN AWESOME FOOT REST



/the fan on top keeps my feet cool in the summer

trappedspirit: I wonder what percentage of "customer from hell" type lists are completely fabricated because usually people enjoy the feelings of superiority you get from reading them. I'm just wondering,

I can't speak for anyone else, but in a previous job, I literally had a customer come in with a CD stuck in a 5.25" floppy drive.
In my current job, about once a week, I get a call from one of the retail locations I support, regarding something obviously not tech-related. Freezer not working. Sink in in the bathroom clogged, etc.

These are great, I feel like I need to share my own favorite from an offsite employee we had just hired about a year and a half ago:

Employee (sounds upset on the phone): Hello? Hi, I have a virus on my new work computer.
Me: Nothing popped up on our systems, what makes you say that?
Employee (still shaken up): I was working on my personal computer and Norton popped up with a virus warning. I was an idiot and had my work computer sitting right next to it when I got the virus!
Me: ...Where are you sitting right now?
Employee: I'm in my office at my home computer, I turned off my work computer and called you.
Me: Ok. This is what I need you to do... How close is your kitchen?
Employee: It's downstairs.
Me: I need you to take your work computer down to the kitchen. Put it on the counter or the kitchen table, just as long as it's nowhere near the infected computer. You might want to put your iPhone or any other computers you were using in your office down there too.
Employee: Got it. Ok.
Me: Once you do that, run a virus scan with Norton on your home computer and then wait an hour or so to be safe.
Employee: Ok, thank you so much!

I got a nice thank you email at the end of the day saying I had fixed his problem.

StaleCoffee: itstehpope: Broadwing managing to delete their entire BGP table.

hahahaha.

We got into an argument with MCI that one of their routers was causing a loop. They refused to investigate it, said it wasn't their problem. One of our engineers logged into the router and fixed it and sent them an email suggesting they change the default login info.

I had a similar thing happen with IBM last night. Long story short, we had a hardware failure on a device that costs roughly $250,000. They flew in a part from Atlanta (reluctantly), and they sent out their guy, and he was prompt and friendly, but relatively useless.

After I essentially had to reprogram their device (they sent it out with old incompatible firmware and then plugged it into our production hospital environment) to get it to work with our latest firmware (which *still* is not compatible according to their programmers), I managed to do the CS IT superhero thing and pushed it to work while upgrading it to a fully supported level (All while throwing it back to factory defaults, resetting the factory passwords). After I was done and everything came online beautifully (Thank you God)... The IBM rep said this...

"Hmm... I guess *I* know who to call next time."

/why we pay them for support, I'll probably never understand.

X-boxershorts: "Xerox"...


Yikes....I used to repair old STAR networks hardware too.

Anyone remember open air belt driven hard drive platters?

fark, I'm too goddam old.

I remember those,.I even remember core. One of the first machines I worked on had a whopping 16K of memory and a 13 Meg harddrive. That was considered pretty spiffy at the time. It was about 30 ft long, 7 ft tall and 3 ft deep.

//get off my lawn, sonny

Mikey1969: I got listed as the 'Best IT Guy Ever' when I recently fixed our 15 year old fax machine by picking it up about 3 inches off the table and dropping it.

Coincidentally, this also works on frozen hard drives.

/rescued a dying one last week

32oz High Life: "Can I turn on the coffee pot with my computer?"

Ok Nerds, why isn't this possible?

http://www.tomstore.ca/usb-rechargeable-tea-water-heater-coffee-warme r -cup-black-p-7744.html

Unoriginal_Username: Mog32Kupo: Yesterday I had:

Lady with new computer I just deployed:
"Oh, there are files and programs missing from my new computer"
Me: "Sorry about that, what is missing and I can track it down"
Lady: "I'm not sure, but I know they're missing"


/why...why, lord?

I"m in the process of moving quite a few folks to new pc's and laptops. I haven't had that one yet, but the project is in it's early stages.

That's the beauty of our setup... We do large scale graphic printing and frame/structure tension fabric. With the exception of our Design team, almost everybody can run through our Citrix desktops, so I have some Macs to install software on, and I have to install Solidworks for our Tech Design people locally, but almost everything else is run remotely, so quite of ten a redeployment is the Citrix client, the user's printers, and Office, unless they are already users who prefer the Crtix install. My biggest worry is copying over any work files they have stored locally. The RIP computers run local software, too, but that's it. It was a mess getting this all set up, but 4 years into the project, it runs pretty smoothly now.

User: How do I type in all caps?
Me: Press the caps lock button.
User: I tried that. It's putting everything in caps except for the first letter of every sentence!

I used to work the non-business hours shifts when I was in college for a local ISP. One weekend back in 2000 (or 2001) I was on duty with another tech Named Kevin. At the time I was doing NOC stuff as well so I wouldn't answer the phone first. Phone rings and Kevin answers it. It's an older guy who can't get to the O'Reilly Factor website. Easy.

The guy swears up and down that the website is down, so naturally the first thing Kevin does is pull up the website himself and see if it's down or the customer is having problems. It's up. Customer says it's down. Other sites are up, this guy just can't get to the one he really wants. So his internet/computer is working. (At some point Kevin put the guy on speakerphone so the rest of us can be entertained. There were only two of us on duty plus a couple others just hanging out and BSing.) So Kevin finally asks the guy to spell the URL he's trying to get to, letter for letter: he's putting the ' in o'reilly instead of "oreilly". This obviously does not work, so the website must be down.

Kevin and the guy proceed to get into a hilarious argument about this. The customer is insisting that because the ' is in his name it absolutely must be in the URL. To do otherwise would be sacrilege or something. Kevin keeps trying to tell the guy you can't use an apostrophe in a URL and every time he asks the customer to retype it the customer loudly says "o APOSTROPHE r e i l l y" as you can hear him press each key over the phone. And thus the site is down because the URL won't take the one true holy spelling of O'Reilly.

As this is transpiring over speakerphone the rest of us are trying hard to stifle our laughs because this is serious business to the customer. Eventually towards the end of the call Kevin picks up his CRT monitor with the website on screen and sticks it into the phone, "showing" the customer that the website is indeed up if you use the correct URL. As he's doing this and rubbing the monitor face on the phone he's telling the customer he's looking at the site right now and he should be able to see it too.

I don't recall that the customer was able to resolve his issue with spelling "o'reilly" as "oreilly", but the angry monitor-into-phone scene capped off an already hilarious episode of support call theater.

I'm an account manager at a financial software company. This is a client relationship/financial position that I do deal with IT quite frequently on resolving issues. The problem is many people at my client office believe I can solve their IT problems as well. One lady forgets her password daily, eventually locking herself out. When she requests a system generated one to be sent to her she can't seem to grasp the reason she has to change it on her first login. She then goes on to biatch about the requirements needed for a password.

I get lots of people reporting our website running slow (it's a web based service). My first question is are you having issues with other websites as well. 99.9% of the time it's their internet.

Last week I got an email saying one of their users couldn't get access to some unknown product. I actually went to their IT to figure out what they were talking about and it happened to be some customized desktop platform they had recently rolled out internally. How they thought I could help them I have no idea.

I go drinking with some IT and infrastructure guys every so often and they always have good stories. I only get these dumb questions every now and then, but they make me realize why IT people are such good drinkers.

Mikey1969: est IT Guy Ever' when I recently fixed our 15 year old fax machine by picking it up about 3 inches off the table and dropping it. Been working like a charm ever since.

Someday I'm gonna write a book called 'How to Fix it Like Fonzie'.

My other motto is 'If you can fix it, force it, if you can't force it, fark it'.

A long time ago in my younger days I punched a server once and it started working.

//possibly knocked some dust loose, never really bothered to figure out why it started working again, felt I had a good story and I'd just leave it at that.

zobear: Mikey1969: I got listed as the 'Best IT Guy Ever' when I recently fixed our 15 year old fax machine by picking it up about 3 inches off the table and dropping it.

Coincidentally, this also works on frozen hard drives.

/rescued a dying one last week

I've heard about that. I got a farked up one to work last fall by freezing it, grabbing what I could until the errors started up again then putting it back in the freezer. Took a couple of hours, but I was a hero....

I'm in my third year of an IT security degree. Since I deployed to Afghanistan and had to put the degree on hold, when I came back, I had to reapply for the program under the new requirements. One of the new prereqs was basically a "computers 101" type class. I tried getting out of it, but was told no, it must be taken by all students. It's pretty much me and a class of old people, soccer moms, and ghetto types. As mind numbing as the class is, after reading this thread I just hope that every stupid question they ask, is a bullet an IT help desk is dodging in the future.