Stoopid Calls/Comments from comp users... novice or otherwise...

#1 · 06-03-2002 06:00PM #1

I know this is probably a Technology thingie.. but since most of the people who post here are working in the IT industry or are being educated to do so...

So I guess it could be classed as general...

Now I've heard all the ones about the coffee cup holder not working and the foot pedal (mouse) not functioning...

But since we've come up with some classics about Dublin Bus.. I figured that we could do the same about people who dont know about computers... and more so dont want to know about computers...

This is not a crack at people who dont know about them, more like those who dont want to know about them... and refuse to learn...

We'll see how it goes...

Lucifer · 06-03-2002 06:21PM

have a look at Computer Stupidities

i think you will find more than you need there!

ykt0di9url7bc3 · 06-03-2002 07:33PM

i had a guy who thought that the sounds of the modem handshaking was breaking his pc and wanted to know why he couldnt get on line

Cake Fiend · 06-03-2002 08:57PM

I've had a few people in the cafe getting freaked out by 'Illegal Operation' errors (often with 50 pr0n windows open)
Quite comical at the time

Blitzkrieger · 07-03-2002 02:14AM

Shortly after I installed my CD-RW drive a few years back, a mate asked me why he couldn't find any of the files he saved to CD. The muppet only had a CD-ROM drive. :rolleyes:

jaggeh · 07-03-2002 05:04AM

ive had a few doozies

american couple call me over and are asking why their internet isnt working, after explaining for 5 minutes on why they shouldnt put their street address into the address bar all was good.

oh and then theres always the guy who gets sent the dodgy power point porn attachment, and he cant shut it down, that always cracks me up.....especially when a hot chick is sitting next to him

Occidental · 07-03-2002 10:36AM

During the late 80's we did a project rollout for 250+ users using Eizo 15" monitors. The monitor was slightly unusual, in that it had a three way switch on the front which changed the display from colour to amber to black & white. Despite the fact that we explained this to every single user, in the first year we had over 80 support calls for faulty screens only displaying in amber or black & white, including one senior manager who wanted the whole lot replaced as we had obviously installed a faulty batch.

Among many others, have also been called out to fix a faulty screen, to fined the user had a plant beside the monitor which was actually growing through the bottom of the casing and out of the top. She was most upset to loose half her plant when I replaced the monitor.

Bard · 07-03-2002 02:00PM

someone actually rang me once when I was doing tech support and told me that their coffee-cup holder was broken. I felt like reaching down the phone and... .... .... eh... nevermind

bonkey · 07-03-2002 03:17PM

In a slightly different vein....in my last company, we had a guy who was basically a trainee. By the end of his "training period" he knew his stuff, but some of that was only because of the windups we got him with.

My favourite.....

He had stacked a set of new computers which werent to be installed for a few days. We asked him to turn them through 90 degrees, so that neither the floppy bay nor the vent at the back was facing the door...because the draft from door to window would bring excess moisture through the pc, shortening its life and potentially damaging it.

He turned the pcs.

My all time fave, though, was another employee trying to figure out why none of the pc's hung off one particular gang-block was working. Turned out that she had the gang-block plugged into itself. When this was held up to her with no explanation other than "here's the problem" she stared blankly, not understanding why something was wrong. After all - everything was plugged in, wasnt it???

jc

Terminator · 07-03-2002 03:32PM

Not strictly technology related but still in the customer / customer services mould:

Used to work in Buy and Sell

Got this call from a woman down in the country :

"6 Golden Labradors For Sale, erm, their mother is a female"

Also a call from a guy selling "a shotgun and two hunting dogs" - needless to say that didn't get past proofing

And the people who'd leave messages on the answer machines - they were a gas crack "is this the operator ... helloooooooo ... ah feck yahs!!"

RasTa · 07-03-2002 04:13PM

my uncle rang me up the other day asking how does he recive e-mail
he thought that his phone rang everytime he recived an e-mail for sum strange reason and i had to go on explaining to him for 20mins how his e-mail came threw

Irish_Ranger_IR · 07-03-2002 04:37PM

I worked in a call center, and asked a person to go to My Computer....there was a pause for a few minutes, waiting on the user to open my computer, so about 4 or 5 mins have passed waiting, I said Hello....she said yes, I asked her again to go to my computer, she siad how, I said its a picture of a computer on the top right hand of the monitor, she said oh yea, sorry, I taught I had to go to YOUR computer.....

OMG.........that was a long call, i tell you.......

Lemming · 07-03-2002 04:44PM

When I worked in Philips (EAS) on their IT support desk a year or two back, we used to have several "usual suspects" who would come in with mobile phones that were knackered and ask us to fix them cause we were IT support.

We usually stared at them to figure out if they were actually being serious before breaking our a*ses laughing at them. It got so bad we put up a4 pages around the IT office reading

"This is NOT the IQ dept. Please form an orderly Q"

Or the muppet who was trying to fax stuff and kept wondering why streaks were appearing, and when I opened up the fax machine it turned out she was faxing stuff WITH WET TIPEX on the paper

seamus · 08-03-2002 01:49PM

As no doubt some others received today...this came into my mailbox, addressed to konqueror@yahoogroups.com (The konqueror game mailing list). I'll post it word-for-word.

can u help me get my password back
i change it and it not working
the reason i change it because some1 else know what it is
and he plan 2 ruin my position r 2 increase his place
so plz help me get my password back

I don't think this guy will have much of a position to ruin

:D

Hobbes · 08-03-2002 02:08PM

Best one I ever had was from a guy who had just enough knowledge to mess things up.

(Person shall rename nameless).

He called me to tell me he had a corrupted drive and was there anyway to fix it. So I go out and have a look at it.

After a bit of chatting I realise what he had done was taken his second drive files and copied them to the first drive (in a subdirectory), then installed the new drive in place of the second and formatted and copied back the files.

Should work right?

Well somehow the bright spark had actually managed to copy all his files as "shortcuts" intead of files.

Get's better, for some reason (escapes me) he had put the older drive back in and copied the files back from the C: drive, so he didn't even have his old files (At least that's what I think he did considering he swore blind that they worked all along).

Xterminator · 08-03-2002 02:38PM

When I was working Tech support for the Yanks ..

I got a call from a guy who swore every time he turned on his pc, he got a pain is his nuts.
Now at first i thought he was taking the micky, but he was serious. He claimed that his testicles hurt when he sat on front of the comoputer, (with the tower on the floor i presume).
So he told me he went to his doctor, and his doctor told it it could be radiation from the computer?!!
So he was calling to complain that the radiation from his pc was hurting his testicles, and he planned to sue the company. H was so serious, i had to to put him on speaker, so we could all hear, and eventually it actually went to our safety dept!

Another time i go a call from a old sounding woman, who couldnt connect to the internet. Afer a lot of pd, i asked her would she mind reseating the modem ina different slot on the motherboard, even though shed never opened a computer before (company policy). So She took the instructions, but is taking ages to do this.
I didnt mind. I was on an 11 hr shift anyway .. so what the hell.
When she eventually managed toi do it, she apoligiesed profusely for how long it took, explaining to me she was 86 years old, and had only had a hip replacemnt operation a week agao, and was feeling very stiff, and that because the computer was on the ground, she had to lie on the ground to open it and reseat the modem!

X

ToxicPaddy · 08-03-2002 02:55PM

Jeez that sounds like a call that would try the patience of a saint but nice one for sticking with it...

I had a call like that... some guy gave his parents their first PC as a 50th wedding anniversary gift... like c'mon.. couldnt he think of something more sensible... Only in the US...

But anyway, the wife was on one phone, her husband was on the cordless and everytime I told him to do somethin with the PC she's repeat it.. like so..

"Did ya hear that Merv, he said....."

In the end they started arguing and I just said that I'd log their call gave them a ref number and to call back when they were finished.. very funny though...