tech support..... yes yet again.

[ragtopW]

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 diskettes. After trouble-shooting for magnets and
heat failed to diagnose the problem, it was found that the
customer labeled the diskettes then rolled them into his
typewriter to type the labels.


4. Another AST customer was asked to send a copy of her
defective diskettes to the technician. A few days later a
letter arrived from the customer along with Xeroxed copies of
her diskettes.


5. A Dell technician advised his customer to put his troubled
floppy back in the drive and close the door. The customer put
the disk in, asked the tech to hold on, and was heard putting
the phone down, getting up and closing the door to his room.


6. Another Dell customer called to say he couldn't get his
computer to fax anything. After 40 minutes of trouble-shooting,
the technician discovered the man was trying to fax a piece of
paper by holding it in front of the screen and pressing the
"send" key.


7. Another Dell customer needed help setting up a new program,
so the Dell tech suggested he go to the local Egghead. "Yeah, I
got me a couple of friends," the man said. When told Egghead
was a software store, the man said, "Oh, I thought you meant
for me to find a couple of geeks."


8. 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 he
removed all the keys and washed them individually.


9. A Dell technician received a call from a customer who was
enraged because his computer had told him he was "bad and
invalid". The tech explained that the computer's "bad" and
"invalid" responses shouldn't be taken personally.


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 happens. "The
"foot pedal" turned out to be the computer's 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?"


12. A customer called Compaq to inquire about her disks. The
customer had recently bought a new computer to replace her old
one. The only problem was her old computer had used 5 1/4's and
her new one only had a 3 1/2 drive. The tech explained that she
would have to copy the information from her 5 1/4's to her 3
1/2's. The customer thanked the tech and hung up. About an hour
later the same customer called and stated that her disk-drive
was making funny noises. After a few questions, the customer
told the tech that she didn't know how to copy and had cut the
5 1/4's to the same size as the 3 1/2's and put them in the
drive!


13. True story from a Novell Netwire Sys Op:

Caller: "Hello, is this tech support?" Tech Rep: "Yes, how
may I help you?"

Caller: "The cup holder on my PC is broken and I am within my
warranty period. How do I go about getting it fixed?" Tech Rep:
"I'm sorry, but did you say cup holder?"

Caller: "Yes, it's attached to the front of my computer. "
Tech Rep: "Please excuse me if I seem a bit stumped, it's
because I am. Did you receive this as a part of a promotional,
like at a trade show? How did you get this cup holder? Does it
have a trademark on it?"

Caller: "No I didn't get it from a trade show, but it does have
a trademark on it, '4X'"

At this point the tech rep had to mute the caller because he
couldn't keep from laughing. The caller had been using the load
drawer of his CD-ROM as a cup holder, and snapped it off!

[TropicalTroubador]

This list is *extremely* dated - witness references to 5 1/4" disks and Egghead Software (RIP). But people are still doing stupid things with computers.

I actually saw a computer once, where someone had installed a real cupholder into one of the drive slots.

One of my favorites is the tech support call where the user can't get the machine to start, and the tech asks the user to check and see if the computer was plugged in. The user replied that they didn't know, because it was too dark to see the power cord with the power off to the building.

[unclejohn]