Help Desk Horror

[LuLu]

These are stories from help desks around the country.

 

At 3:37 a.m. on a Sunday, I had just looked at the clock

to determine my annoyance level, when I received a frantic

phone call from a new user of a Macintosh Plus. She

had gotten her entire family out of the house and was

calling from her neighbor's. She had just received her

first system error and interpreted the picture of the

bomb on the screen as a warning that the computer was

going to blow up.

 

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Tech Support: "I need you to right-click on the Open

Desktop."

 

Customer: "Ok."

 

Tech Support: "Did you get a pop-up menu?"

 

Customer: "No."

 

Tech Support: "Ok. Right click again. Do you see a pop-

up menu?"

 

Customer: "No."

 

Tech Support: "Ok, sir. Can you tell me what you have

done up until this point?"

 

Customer: "Sure, you told me to write 'click' and I

wrote 'click'." (At this point I had to put the caller

on hold to tell the rest of the tech support staff what

had happened. I couldn't, however, stop from giggling

when I got back to the call.)

 

Tech Support: "Ok, did you type 'click' with the keyboard?"

 

Customer: "I have done something dumb, right?"

 

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One woman called Dell's toll-free line to ask how to

install the batteries in her laptop. When told that

the directions were on the first page of the manual

the woman replied angrily, "I just paid $2,000 for this

damn thing, and I'm not going to read the book."

 

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Customer: "I received the software update you sent,

but I am still getting the same error message."

 

Tech Support: "Did you install the update?"

 

Customer: "No. Oh, am I supposed to install it to get

it to work?"

 

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Customer: "I'm having trouble installing Microsoft Word."

 

Tech Support: "Tell me what you've done."

 

Customer: "I typed 'A:SETUP'."

 

Tech Support: "Ma'am, remove the disk and tell me what

it says."

 

Customer: "It says '[PC manufacturer] Restore and Recovery

disk'."

 

Tech Support: "Insert the MS Word setup disk."

 

Customer: "What?"

 

Tech Support: "Did you buy MS word?"

 

Customer "No..."

 

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Tech Support: "Ok, in the bottom left hand side of the

screen, can you see the 'OK' button displayed?"

 

Customer: "Wow. How can you see my screen from there?"

 

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Customer: "Uhh...I need help unpacking my new PC."

 

Tech Support: "What exactly is the problem?"

 

Customer: "I can't open the box."

 

Tech Support: "Well, I'd remove the tape holding the

box closed and go from there."

 

Customer: "Uhhhh...ok, thanks...."

 

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Customer: "I'm having a problem installing your software.

I've got a fairly old computer, and when I type 'INSTALL',

all it says is 'Bad command or file name'."

 

Tech Support: "Ok, check the directory of the A: drive-

go to A:> \ and type 'dir'." Customer reads off a

list of file names, including 'INSTALL.EXE'.

 

Tech Support: "All right, the correct file is there.

Type 'INSTALL' again."

 

Customer: "Ok." (pause) "Still says 'Bad command or

file name'."

 

Tech Support: "Hmmm. The file's there in the correct

place-it can't help but do something. Are you sure you're

typing I-N-S-T-A-L-L and hitting the Enter key?"

 

Customer: "Yes, let me try it again." (pause) "Nope,

still 'Bad command or file name'."

 

Tech Support: (now really confused) "Are you sure you're

typing I-N-S-T-A-L-L and hitting the key that says 'Enter'?"

 

Customer: "Well, yeah. Although my 'N' key is stuck,

so I'm using the 'M' key...does that matter?

 

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At our company we have asset numbers on the front of

everything. They give the location, name, and everything

else just by scanning the computer's asset barcode or

using the number beneath the bars.

 

Customer: "Hello. I can't get on the network."

 

Tech Support: "Ok. Just read me your asset number so

we can open an outage."

 

Customer: "What is that?"

 

Tech Support: "That little barcode on the front of your

computer."

 

Customer: "Ok. Big bar, little bar, big bar, big bar

. . ."

 

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And the best for last!!!!

 

Customer: "I got this problem. You people sent me this

install disk, and now my A: drive won't work."

 

Tech Support: "Your A drive won't work?"

 

Customer: "That's what I said. You sent me a bad disk,

it got stuck in my drive, now it won't work at all."

 

Tech Support: "Did it not install properly? What kind

of error messages did you get?"

 

Customer: "I didn't get any error message. The disk

got stuck in the drive and wouldn't come out. So I got

these pliers and tried to get it out. That didn't work

either."

 

Tech Support: "You did what sir?"

 

Customer: "I got these pliers, and tried to get the

disk out, but it wouldn't budge. I just ended up cracking

the plastic stuff a bit."

 

Tech Support: "I don't understand sir, did you push

the eject button?"

 

Customer: "No, so then I got a stick of butter and melted

it and used a turkey baster and put the butter in the

drive, around the disk, and that got it loose. Then

I used the pliers and it came out fine. I can't believe

you would send me a disk that was broke and defective."

 

Tech Support: "Let me get this clear. You put melted

butter in your A: drive and used pliers to pull the

disk out?" At this point, I put the call on the speaker

phone and motioned at the other techs to listen in.

 

Tech Support: "Just so I am absolutely clear on this,

can you repeat what you just said?"

 

Customer: "I said I put butter in my A: drive to get

your crappy disk out, then I had to use pliers to pull

it out."

 

Tech Support: "Did you push that little button that

was sticking out when the disk was in the drive, you

know, the thing called the disk eject button?" Silence.

 

Tech Support: "Sir?"

 

Customer: "Yes."

 

Tech Support: "Sir, did you push the eject button?"

 

Customer: "No, but you people are going to fix my computer,

or I am going to sue you for breaking my computer?"

 

Tech Support: "Let me get this straight. You are going

to sue our> company because you put the disk in the

A: drive, didn't follow the instructions we sent you,

didn't actually seek professional advice, didn't consult

your user's manual on how to use your computer properly,

instead proceeding to pour butter into the drive and

physically rip the disk out?"

 

Customer: "Ummmm."

 

Tech Support: "Do you really think you stand a chance,

since we do record every call and have it on tape?"

 

Customer: (now rather humbled) "But you're supposed

to help!"

 

Tech Support: "I am sorry sir, but there is nothing

we can do for you. Have a nice day."

[Anthony A]

Those are pretty funny but I wish I had transcripts from some of my conversations with some of the idiots at Dell. The customers don't have a monopoly on stupidity I can assure you.

[Matt_]

I think that most people (99.9% of worldwide population according to my personal estimations) are affected by stupidity, and it doesn't limit itself to the usage of computers.

 

I know an individual who bought on Ebay for 150 U.S dollars a URL to get the chance to win a laptop because he didn't completely read the description of the item on sale and thought it was an actual physical computer on sale.

 

I remind him of it each time we meet.

[Andavari]

I think that most people (99.9% of worldwide population according to my personal estimations) are affected by stupidity, and it doesn't limit itself to the usage of computers.

If there was a test for that I somehow think that statement would be found true!

[fireryone]

I've seen some of those before

 

One missed out on is:

 

The guy who broke his "coffee cup holder" didn't know it was a CD-ROM drive

[LuLu]

I've seen some of those before

 

One missed out on is:

 

The guy who broke his "coffee cup holder" didn't know it was a CD-ROM drive

 

LOL yeah I remember reading that a looong time ago in an email. I was like OMG how dumb can you be?! lol

[JDPower]

I've seen a few of them before too but did like the bar code one "Big bar, little bar, big bar...." lol