Saturday, September 4, 2010

On Tipping

Firstly, a bit of context for this post: I'm Australian, so we don't have anywhere near as big a tipping culture as the good ol' US of A. Also, this is focusing on the restaurant industry and will most likely end up as a rant more than anything else. You have been warned.

Tipping.

WHY IS IT CONSIDERED MANDATORY IN THE US??? Why is the employee's basic wages allowed to be passed off to the consumer??? You run a business, you should pay at least minimum wage, not some bullshit token amount and expect the customer to make up the rest.

A defination of 'tip' per Wiktionary:
A small amount of money left for a bartender, waiter, taxi driver or other servant as a token of appreciation.

A "token of appreciation" shouldn't be mandatory. It should be a reward for good service. With tipping considered mandatory, service staff have less incentive to provide a better service. The reward should be supplemental to their wages, not a replacement of it. If you have a bad day and don't get tipped, you should still be able to afford to live.

Also, why is it that a chef, perhaps more important in the grand scheme of meal preparation, doesn't receive a tip? Perhaps because they wouldn't work for sub-legal wages and try to make their income livable by being nice to (sometimes) complete douche-bags.

Also, why is it that the waitress can be punished for any problems the chef has? If your dinner comes out half raw what do you do? Punish the waitress by leaving no tip (or a "minimum" tip, in the US) even though it was the chef's fault for putting out the meal too soon!

As you can (hopefully) tell, I'm against mandatory tipping. I think that a tip should be reserved for good service, with outstanding service receiving even more. I don't think I should be forced to tip when I receive average service. That's what your regualar wage should cover.

I know this sentence is going to be controversial, but if you're a waitress or such and trying to argue that tips allow you to have a decent wage otherwise you would be in poverty, then I say to you that you need to get a better job where your standard wage IS liveable, or at least find another employer who doesn't take advantage of his employees.

Opinions? Suggestions? Retaliations? Be the first to post a comment!

Paul.

Saturday, August 28, 2010

On Software Pricing

This post is inspired by an email discussion I had with my brother.

I recently had to upgrade my financial software ('education' version of Quickbooks turned out to be a trial version with the 5 day limit turned off, but the 250 entry limit left in there). This resulted in trying to find a suitable alternative to keep my spending on track. One of the alternatives was You Need A Budget (YouNeedABudget.com), which I'd heard glowing praises of on a couple of the personal finance blogs I read. For some reason I had to price of $30 in my head, but when I actually got to the checkout, it turned out to be $60. This gave me pause.

After thinking about it, YNAB is the first non-video game related piece of software that I've paid money for in quite some time! The main programs that I use (other than games) are iTunes (free), Firefox and IE (free), Steam (itself free) and Outlook (bundled with the computer, so having the appearance of free).

After so long buying only video games, the thought of spending full price on software seems rather odd, considering that I regularly buy games at large discounts, either through Steam sales, first week release sales, or just waiting until the price drops. Sometimes I don't even do that and the prices are already bargain basement, usually PSN and WiiWare titles! So while I was tossing up whether to buy it or not (I did), I came to the conclussion that since my copy of Quickbooks was essentially dead, it was either this or a couple hundred for a new version of Quickbooks.

Now things take an interesting twist! I found out yesterday that Microsoft released their last version of Microsoft Money for free (their answer to Quicken), after they decided to stop making it. Now, if I'd known that before paying for a YNAB licence, I would've downloaded that and tried it out, most likely ending up using it for realsies.

Quickbooks is full-on double entry accounting (what I'm at home with, being an accountant). Quicken is (I think) single entry accounting, but mostly just transaction recording. I'm fairly certain Money the same as Quicken. The recording aspect of YNAB is the same as Quicken, but it has a major focus on zero-based-budgeting, and comparing your transactions to a budget, with the emphasise on budgeting your paycheck going forward and trying to live that, rather than merely looking backwards at what you've spent.

So YNAB is going to be the best for me in the long run as I'll finally make an actual budget, rather than just roughly planning when bills are coming in and spending a bit less than I did before I started tracking my spending. This is opposed to one of the others that I'd be more comfortable with, being my accounting background - trust me, there's been a few concepts that I've struggled to get my head around in YNAB. But the thing is, I doubt that I would've gone with this new thing had I known about Microsoft Money a week earlier...

In summary: video games changed the way I look at software to such an extent, that I woul've used a product for free that was less conductive to my long term well-being, than one that I actually had to spend a chunk of money on which is going to set me on a better path for life.

Funny how things are all connected-like, isn't it?

Paul.

Thursday, August 26, 2010

A New Beginning

After this blog laying dormant for a while, and becoming a wasteland of re-posted stories before that (even if they were funny), I'm deciding to take this in a different direction.

Rather than being mostly games, I'm going with the over-arching theme of 'money'. Games will still fit in there with reviews (are they worth it?), where to get them cheap, etc.

To start with, I'm going to post once a week on weekends, I'm going to stop with the wishy-washy landuage, and I'm going to have opinions.

Let's see the start of a new beginning!

Thursday, August 5, 2010

The Daily Funny - 6th August 2010

No Title

I do tech support for a mid-sized regional ISP. Recently, I received a call from a very surly fellow who opened our conversation by saying, "This s**t ain't workin'." When I asked him to describe the problem, he said, "I just told you, Jack, the s**t ain't workin'!" I told him my name wasn't Jack, then once again asked the specific nature of his problem. After a few more rounds of this, I was able to ascertain that he hadbeen dialing in and getting busy signals each time. Now, our company provides several different types of dial-up accounts, some with different phone numbers, even in the same cities, so to try and pin down which type of account this gentleman had, I asked him what number his modem was dialing. His charming response? "I don't know what the h**l you're talkin' about, Jack." After counting to ten, taking a deep breath, and biting my lip, I said, "OK, please click on the icon labeled 'Dial ISP' and tell me what phone number you see in the window that opens up." He managed to do this, and rattled off a number totally unfamiliar to me. Then he tells me "But that's MY phone number!" I said, "Maybe that's why you're getting a busy signal, Jack," and hung up. He never called back to ask what our dialup number was, so I suppose he must have gotten around to reading the step-by-step documentation that came with our software.

Thanks to: Paul Dulaney

 

From www.TechTales.com May 1998

Monday, June 14, 2010

The Daily Funny - 15th June 2010

High School Dropouts Work On The Pharm

Pharmacy | Boston, MA, USA

(I work as a pharmacy tech at a chain pharmacy. I am also currently in pharmacy school and will be a pharmacist one day.)

Customer: “You should be ashamed of yourself!”

Me: “I’m sorry. Can I help you with something?”

Customer: “No! I refuse to be helped by a high school dropout! You should be ashamed of yourself for working where children can see you! You are going to make them think that it is okay to not have an education!”

Me: “Ma’am, I am not a high school dropout. I have a high school diploma and I am currently in pharmacy school working towards a Doctor of Pharmacy. I am going to be a pharmacist one day.”

Customer: “Stop lying! I have never heard of a pharmacist before. You are a high school dropout!”

Manager: “Can I help you?”

Customer: “Yes! Your employee is lying to me! She says she is going to be a pharmacist! That job doesn’t exist!”

(The manager looks at our pharmacist who is near tears from laughing so hard.)

Manager: “Ma’am, see the man over there? He’s the one who filled your prescription. He is a pharmacist.”

Customer: “No he isn’t! He just counts pills! You don’t need school for that!”

 

From www.NotAlwaysRight.com

Monday, June 7, 2010

The Daily Funny - 8th June 2010

Customer's From Planet Mars!

I work for an ISP in New Zealand and I had a customer call who was quite clearly a native English speaker and yet I could swear he was from another planet. The conversation went like this:

Cust: I can't connect
Me: What phone number are you dialing
Cust: My username?
Me: No, the phone number
Cust: Oh, my password?
Me: No, the phone number
Cust: Oh - (gives home phone number)
Me: That's your home phone number sir, is that entered in the phone number field?
Cust: No it's in the dialing from field
Me: Okay, so what's in the phone number field?
Cust: It doesn't have one
Me: No, it will have one, it will have a phone number that you are meant to be calling
Cust: So you want my username?

Quite seriously this went on for several minutes until we found out that he had ONLY *52(disable call waiting) in the phone number field and nothing else...at all! Then we went thru and I asked him to put in the area code in the dialer and the phone number which he said he had done.

Then *52 wouldn't come up - even tho it was ticked so we went back to properties to find out he hadn't entered the area code even tho he said he had.

So, we did that.

Then we had to change the country code to New Zealand from USA and this took 10 minutes because he was looking in the Y's for NZ despite being told that it was alphabetical *almost groaning out loud at this stage*

FINALLY we got it sorted and he actually asked me WHY it hadn't worked!!!!! He was quite shocked when I said he hadn't been dialing any phone number.

Is it any wonder I am changing professions!

Thanks to: Blair Cooke

 

From www.TechTales.com May 1998

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

The Daily Funny - 3rd June 2010

This Is Why We’re In A Recession, Part 2

Retail | Duluth, MN, USA

Me: “Your total is $152.37.”

(Customer begins to write out a deposit slip from the back of her chequebook.)

Me: “That’s a deposit slip, not a cheque.”

Customer: “Oh, so I can’t pay you with this?” *confused look*

Me: “No.”

Customer: “Oh, well take it out of this then.” *hands me a roll of cash* “But don’t take more that $75 out of there.”

Me: *takes $75 out of roll* “And how would you like to pay for the rest of this?”

Customer: “Umm…” *confused look* “I have to pay more?”

 

From www.NotAlwaysRight.com

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

The Daily Funny - 2nd June 2010

Fighting Crazy With Crazy

Tech Support | Texas, USA

(Keep in mind that I’m male with a deep voice. We do not send techs to troubleshoot; troubleshooting has to be done on the phone, then we send a tech to replace parts.)

Me: “Thank you for calling ***. How may I–”

Customer: “Send me a tech to fix my computer.”

Me: “Well, what’s wrong with it?”

Customer: “It’s not working!”

Me: “Well, ok, but in order to get it working again, I would need to know what exactly is wrong.”

Customer: “I just told you it’s not working. Send me a tech to fix it!”

Me: “I’m afraid I can’t do that. I can help you perform some troubleshooting and–”

Customer: “Why the f**k can’t you just send me a tech?”

Me: “Well, like I said, I can’t do that. All I can do is troubleshoot with you on the phone to find out what’s wrong and then–”

Customer: “WELL THAT’S GREAT, A**HOLE! I DON’T CARE WHAT YOU SAY! SEND ME A TECH, NOW!”

Me, fake crying: “Why? Why do you hate me so much? Don’t you know how hard it is for a single mom with 5 kids to make a living?” *sob*

Customer: “???” *hangs up*

(I got written up for that. It was totally worth it though!)

 

From www.NotAlwaysRight.com

Thursday, May 27, 2010

The Daily Funny - 28th May 2010

I didn't hear you....

I had been having problems with an SGI machine not booting. It was reporting a SCSI device error on the boot disk. I placed a call with Technical Support at SGI, and before long an engineer rang back. The call went:

me: I can't boot the system - it reports (error).

Engineer: OK. Remove the disk. Can you tell me the  manufacturer and model type.

me: Hang on ..... yep, it's (make) and (model).

Engineer: Right. Bang the disk edge onto a desk.

me: Sorry?

Engineer: Bang the disk edge onto a desk.

me: OK (bangs disk)

Engineer: I didn't hear you bang the disk. Do it again, but harder.

me: Errr, OK (bangs harder).

Engineer: Harder!

me: (bangs the disk so hard that it puts a dent in the desktop - I'm not kidding you either)

Engineer: OK, that's better. Now put the disk back in and try.

Did this, and the machine actually booted OK. The disk was one of a faulty batch which suffered from sticking drive heads. A new drive was despatched, but in the time before it arrived on site, it was not unusual to see me smashing this disk on the nearest desk just to get the machine to boot!

Thanks to: Anonymous Tech Supporter

 

From www.TechTales.com June 1998

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

The Daily Funny - 20th May 2010

Start?

I work in Tech Support for a Major ISP. One day I recieved a call and a very good point from a customer!

Customer: *panicking* This is my first night at work alone and my boss told me to shut down the computer! They told me to shut it down using the shut down menu and to absolutely NOT under any circumstances push the power button because I'd lose information!

Me: *calmly* Ok so you need me to show you how to shut it down?

Customer: *now crying* YES!

Me: Ok, it's ok...no problem...use your mouse and click on the Start button in the bottem left hand corner....

Customer: *hysterical* I DON'T WANT TO START THE DAMNED THING I WANT TO TURN IT OFF!!!!!!!

Me: Ohhhhhhh ma'am that is how you shut it down...

*we continued the shutdown and she was calm by the end and she said...."why in Gods name did they do something so stupid as to put the 'end in the beginning'" I couldn't argue...*

Thanks to: Erin

 

From www.TechTales.com June 1998

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

The Daily Funny - 19th May 2010

Pane-ful Marriage

Retail | Phoenix, AZ, USA

(A customer who has just made a purchase comes back into our store asking for help; she’s locked her keys in her car. I go out to try and help.)

Me: “Ma’am, your window is open.”

Customer: “What?”

Me: “Your window. It’s open.”

(The customer reaches in and gets her keys, opens the door, rolls up the window, locks the car, throws the keys back inside, and closes the door.)

Me: “Um…”

Customer: “I know! I know! It’s just that I already called my husband to bring the second set! He’d have given me h*** if he saw the window was open!”

 

From www.NotAlwaysRight.com

Monday, May 17, 2010

The Daily Funny - 18th May 2010 (2)

The Temporary Offices (by Maxim)
I had left plenty of time to make the interview, and I was happy about that. The company's offices were on a side street in a run-down former-industrial park. Eventually, I found the unmarked door and buzzed my way in. After climbing some metal stairs I met the receptionist who asked me to take a seat. Turning around, the seat turned out to be a busted sofa with a grubby paint-spotted dust sheet over it, which I tried to interpret as a homely small-company thing.

As I sat there I surveyed piles of binders on top of cardboard document boxes on top of filing cabinets, acting as a wall to delineate the reception area. Soon enough I was brought to the meeting room, which allowed me to survey trailing chained multi-way AC outlets across the bare concrete floor and network cables dangling from the exposed AC ducts, the unfinished brick walls and yet more piles of documents acting as walls.

The interview went mostly okay and I aced the programming test. But then, near the usual "any questions" question, things took a turn for the worst.

"So, I can see these offices are temporary," I asked, "when are you expecting to move?"

He gave a confused look. "What do you mean, "temporary?"

"Well, with the trailing wires and piles of binders—"

"We've been here two years," he interrupted, "we designed the decor this way especially and I think it's quite stylish."

Somehow the interview wrapped up very quickly and I never heard back.

 

From http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/I-Guess-So,-Computer-Skills,-and-The-Temporary-Offices.aspx

The Daily Funny - 18th May 2010

I Don’t Work Here Does Not Work Here

Supermarket | Texas, USA

(I work in a library, but I had forgotten to take my name tag off after work when I went shopping.)

Customer: “What aisle is baking powder?”

Me: “Huh? Oh, I think it’s that way somewhere. I’m not really sure.”

Customer: “Well you’d better find out for me. Isn’t that your job?”

Me: “Oh, no, I’m sorry. I don’t work here.”

Customer: “Yes you do! You have a name tag on!”

Me: “Oh! No, I’m sorry, I work at the library, I just forgot to take this off.”

Customer: *very angry* “I don’t want excuses! Just tell me where the d*** baking powder is!”

Me: “I don’t know where it is. Go ask someone who works here.”

Customer: “You’re going to tell me or else!”

Store Manager: “Can I help you folks?”

Customer: “Yes! Your employee here is being very rude!”

Store Manager: “Sir, he doesn’t work here. Is there something I can help you with?”

Customer: “Oh!” *turning to me* “Well why didn’t you say so?”

Me: “I did. You were being a moron!”

Customer: *turning back to manager* “You let your employees curse at customers like that! I want him fired right now!”

 

From www.NotAlwaysRight.com

Sunday, May 16, 2010

The Daily Funny - 17th May 2010

Taking It Down To The Wire

Call Center | USA

Customer: “My computer says I didn’t pay my internet bill and it won’t let me do anything. I just paid my bill!”

Me: “Well, lets take a look and see what is happening with this.”

Customer: “I make my living off the internet! Hurry up!”

Me: “Ma’am, I’m afraid my records show that you don’t have internet as one of your services through this company.”

Customer: “I pay a lot of money every month for this d*** service! You need to fix this and fix this now! I have been a customer of yours for years!”

Me: “Can you please read me the message that is appearing on your computer monitor?”

(Customer reads me message.)

Me: “It appears that you indeed do not have internet service through us because the message you just read included someone else’s wireless account number. Ma’am, you are using someone else’s internet service.”

Customer: “Why did you shut me off then?”

Me: “We didn’t shut you off. We shut off someone else’s account for a delinquent balance and that was the account that you were stealing internet from.”

Customer: “Well, just turn it back on then. I need my internet.”

Me: “I can turn it back on in one of two ways. One: you pay for your own internet. Two: you pay for your neighbors internet to be turned back on so you can continue using something you aren’t supposed to be.”

Customer: *hangs up*

 

From www.NotAlwaysRight.com

Friday, May 14, 2010

The Daily Funny - 14th May 2010

Tech Support

I was working for a computer company about 4 years ago, when I got a call from a woman with a printer problem.

Woman: My printer won't print anything.
Me: (After verifying that it was turned on and plugged in correctly) Let's try to print something.
Woman: O.K. I'll try to print, but I've been doing this for an hour.
Me: What are you printing from?
Woman: Windows Write. SEE! It's doing it again.
Me: What's it doing?
Woman: It won't print. It just cancels the job.
Me: O.K. Click print again, and tell me exactly what you see on the screen.
Woman: It says 'now printing page 1' and the only thing I can do is hit 'cancel'!
Me: O.K. Hold on... What does it say at the top of the window?
Woman: 'File', 'Edit'... OOOH!!!! IT'S PRINTING!!! What did we do??
Me: We didn't hit the 'CANCEL' button this time!!

Needless to say, she was QUITE embarassed!

Thanks to: Dan DeLuca

 

From www.TechTales.com July 1998

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

The Daily Funny - 13th May 2010 (5)

You don't know Jack

4th Level manager calls in from New York City on Christmas to the help desk in Poughkeepsie to report that his laptop was stolen he had left a 7500$ thinkpad on the seat of his car in NYC with the window open and wants the help desk to call 911...

Thanks to: Anonymous Tech Supporter

 

From www.TechTales.com July 1998

The Daily Funny - 13th May 2010 (4)

A quick one...

As a PC support person for a chain of retail stores I used to get a lot of strange calls from store managers about their PC problems. The following one really takes the cake.

me: Helpdesk.
mgr: Hi Rob, how are you?
me: Not bad (recognising voice) How's it going?
mgr: Pretty good, pretty good. Weather nice up there?
me: Yeah, quite nice. What can I help you with?
mgr: Oh right. Look, our PC's screen is on fire.
me: WHAT?
mgr: There's 3ft flames coming out of the top of the screen. What should I do?

I realised he wasn't kidding when I heard one of his staff being hysterical with a fire extinguisher in the background. All credit to the guy for remaining calm in the face of adversity, though.

Thanks to: Rob

 

From www.TechTales.com August 1998

The Daily Funny - 13th May 2010 (3)

Where's my email site?

Customer calls in. "I can't get my email, where is it, how do i get it?"
Me:"Well sir, how are you trying to get your mail?"
Customer: " Ok, I'm at my browser thing (IE3) and I click on 'File', then 'Open', then I type in my email address, and it says it cannot find it....................."
Me: "Ok sir, do you see a button called 'Mail', click on that, then click on 'Read Mail'..........What do you see?"
Customer: "...............What's this, I've never seen this screen before.........Oh............Wait.........There's some messages for me in here, how did they get in here?"
(Like a lot of you, my desk has large dents in the edge from repeated head beating.........)

Thanks to: Tim Cooper

 

From www.TechTales.com August 1998

The Daily Funny - 13th May 2010 (2)

A hex on the printer

Shortly after installing an application I had written for a customer, the customer's support manager (a former plant engineer with IT aspirations) called me to say that the printer was printing garbage on the shipping documents. Unable to diagnose the problem over the phone, I told him I would be there (an hour's drive away) at 6:30 the next morning to look at it myself.

The moment I got there I realized that the last person to turn on the printer had been holding down the line feed button at the same time; the printer was in hex dump mode. I explained to the aspiring programmer that we could either teach the warehouse operators to read ASCII hex or we could simply turn the printer off and back on.

Thanks to: Anonymous Tech Supporter

 

From www.TechTales.com August 1998

The Daily Funny - 13th May 2010

Dead Mouse

I was working HelpDesk for a Utility Company, and I recieved a call from a woman in one of our outlying offices.

Her: Our computer has a dead mouse. Do I call you?

Me: Yes, I'll be happy to help. What program are you using?

Her: We're using WordPerfect - why?

Me: That could be important...have you rebooted since the mouse died?

Her: Yes...several times, that mouse must have died weeks ago.

Me: Is the mouse connected tightly to the back of the computer?

Her: Yes, it's stuck pretty good.

Me: You might need a new mouse...or it might just need a cleaning. Could you turn the mouse over, do you see the little black ball underneath it?

Her: What?!?

Me: Is something wrong?

Her: Turn it over? Look at it's WHAT? I am NOT touching that thing!!!

Me: Why not?

Her: Because it's a DEAD MOUSE, that's why!!!

Me: Ummm...huh?

Her: A REAL, LIVE, DEAD MOUSE!!!


It turns out that a real live mouse had tried to climb inside the PC through a loose panel, gotten stuck and died...

Thanks to: Walt Smith

 

From www.TechTales.com August 1998

The Daily Funny - 12th May 2010

Is there a linguist in the house?

I'm still in the far east doing tech support, getting calls at odd hours. I'm beginning to get calls from people who's english is slightly - well, not great... It feels like you're in the middle of some giant pratical joke!

User calls up first thing in the morning:- Hello, my pc is not right
Me (thinking : Oh no, not another one) : Ok sir, what seems to be the trouble
User - It is not working, it is not right
Me - Okey dokey, what operating system are you using?
User - What is operating system
Me (not liking this game any more - blow this, lets just wave the magic wand, and REBOOT!) - Ok sir, could you reboot your machine please
User - How do I do that?
Me - If you press the on / off switch on the front of your machine, it should restart
User - What is the on off switch
Me - Do you have any circles on the front of your box sir?
User - Yes, three
Me - Okey, could you press the one in the middle?
User - Yes, it goes to the left
Me (okey dokey, we've found the contrast control!) - If you could press the one on the right
User - Screen go dark (YYYYYYEEESSSS!!!)
Me - Ok, If you could push that button again, everything should be ok
User - Ah, machine ok now goodbye

I can't wait to get back to England - other techies may find this purial, but you don't know how useful English speaking sysadmins are til you suddenly find about five that don't...

Thanks to: Anonymous Tech Supporter

 

From www.TechTales.com August 1998

The Daily Funny - 11th May 2010

Go Flush

Pet Store | Connecticut, USA

Me: “Hello! What can I do for you?”

Customer: “I need some more goldfish. I keep losing them.”

Me: “You lose them? How do you lose your goldfish?”

Customer: “They keep escaping when I clean the tank.”

Me: “I’m afraid I don’t understand. How do they escape?”

Customer: “Well, when I clean the tank I put ‘em in the toilet. When I come back, one of them’s always swum down the hole!”

Me: “I’m going to need to go over a few things with you before I sell you the fish.”

 

From www.NotAlwaysRight.com

Sunday, May 9, 2010

The Daily Funny - 10th May 2010 (6)

Hosers

I work for a ..respected computer manufacturer. A co-worker of mine had a customer call for tech assistance with some software. He told the customer that he need to press Control-A to perform a certain function. The customer responded that it wasn't working. This went on for about 25 minutes, The tech restating that he needed to press and hold the Control-A.

He then realized the problem. The caller was Canadian, and he WAS holding Control, eh.

Thanks to: Anonymous Tech Supporter

 

From www.TechTales.com September 1998

The Daily Funny - 10th May 2010 (5)

Pesky Power Surges

I just heard this from the tech next to me:

"I'm sorry sir, but I haven't heard of a power surge adding an icon to someone's desktop."

Thanks to: Anonymous Tech Supporter

 

From www.TechTales.com September 1998

The Daily Funny - 10th May 2010 (4)

CEO ??!!

While working for an International Chemical Company we were called by a CEO..

'Why has the company E-mail system been down for a two weeks??' (It was based on a big central server)

Gasps of disbelief - down for 10 Seconds and 600 users scream. We sent someone to investigate....

and discovered that the power lead had falled out of his PC!

Thanks to: Anonymous Tech Supporter

 

From www.TechTales.com October 1998

The Daily Funny - 10th May 2010 (3)

Double Click??

I'm a secretary at a local ISP, and occasionally take a tech call or two myself. This was overheard in the office.....

Head Tech: "Ma'am, I'm sorry but I just can not help you until you learn how to double click."

Thanks to: Anonymous Tech Supporter

 

From www.TechTales.com October 1998

The Daily Funny - 10th May 2010 (2)

Thanks for the Help (NOT!)

This happened to me way back when an XT was top of the line.

My uncle had purchased an lovely XT with CGA monitor and no hard drive, and the damn thing did not work from day one. After running for more than 30 minutes, it would crash. We would take it in, leave it for a day or two, then pick it up, with their assurances that it was working, only to have it crash again. This went on for several weeks. We figured that they weren't really doing anything but leaving the system on their shelf, but the kicker came when we brought it inone Tuesday evening and were told that we could pick it up the next evening. We dutifully returned the next evening, and asked the tech if they had solved the problem. Very solemnly, he replied that they could not duplicate the issue, even after 72 hours of running continuously! Needless to say, we were impressed that he was able to compress 72 hours of running time into 24! When we pointed this out, he turned red, and begin to stammer and stutter. We asked for the system back and took it to another location, where they promptly identified the problem as a cracked motherboard and replaced it immediately.

Thanks to: Phoenix

 

From www.TechTales.com October 1998

The Daily Funny - 10th May 2010

Cool........

About seven or eight years ago I worked in an area that was next to one of the big server rooms where the big mainframes that tracked parts on the manufacturing line did their thing. Come about January, it abruptly got very cold in our area--to the point where several people were walking around with their coats on all day. Repeated calls to facilities maintainance did no good whatsoever.

We finally found the source of the problem by accident. Turns out the thermostat that controlled our area was in the server room (?)---and they had recently relocated one of the mainframes directly in front of it. So the thermostat thought it was about 150 degrees in our room all the time.....

Thanks to: Maddy

 

From www.TechTales.com October 1998

The Daily Funny - 9th May 2010

Childhood Dream, Meet Retail Nightmare

Fabric Store | Los Angeles, CA

(We often get fashion design students in our store to get samples of fabric for school projects.)

Student: “Can I get some swatches? I go to the *** fashion school and need them for a class project.”

Me: “No problem. That’s the school I went to.”

Student: “Oh, cool! What do you do now?”

Me: “… I work here.”

Student: *their dreams crush before my eyes*

 

From www.NotAlwaysRight.com

The Daily Funny - 8th May 2010

Paint Strokes Of Genius

Pawn Shop | Virginia, USA

(We have a small version of the Mona Lisa for sale.)

Customer: “How much is that?”

Me: “15 dollars.”

Customer: “Is it the original?”

Me: “No.”

Customer: “Oh. I’m trying to get my hands on the original.”

 

From www.NotAlwaysRight.com

Thursday, May 6, 2010

The Daily Funny - 7th May 2010 (5)

No Title

It's always good fun listening to a customer who has already diagnosed their own problem, and has /no/ desire to discuss anything with you. Especially when you finally get to the truth of the matter:

Cust: Your Internet's broken.
Tech Sup: Ah, right, broken in what way? You can't connect?
Cust: Of course I can't, it's not working, and you just need to get your servers working again, since I /know/ it's your end causing the problem.
Tech Sup: (slightly baffled) Oh, okay. What's the actual error message you're seeing?
Cust: Oh, something about a dial tone, just fix it!
Tech Sup: Dial tone? Uh huh.. So, if you plug a phone into that socket, does /it/ get a dial tone?
Cust: I can't.
Tech Sup: Sorry, you can't what, exactly?
Cust: Plug a phone in.
Tech Sup: Why not?
Cust: Well, it went BANG, and sparks came out of it, and now it's all fused to the wall....

To this day we are baffled as to what this person thought our servers could possibly have done that would make his modem cable fuse to the wall...

Thanks to: Anonymous Tech Supporter

 

From www.TechTales.com November 1998

The Daily Funny - 7th May 2010 (4)

Trust No One!

This is a long one

It was about 10 minutes after closing time and I was getting ready to leave the computer store in which I had been working as a part-time computer saleswoman/tech support since November 15 (it was now December 20, 1997). The things you do to get more money to buy useless Christmas presents!

The phone rang. I should have just kept walking out of the store but I answered.

ME) Hello this is (my name) speaking, the store is currently closed but if you want to leave a message..

CU) I don't *@#%^ care that the store is closed. I bought this *@#%^!*$# printer from you guys and it doesn't work and I need to print a *@#%^!*$# important document tonight!

(Definitely in a bad mood, so I will cut the *@#%^!*$# from the conversation)

ME) What is wrong with your printer?

CU) It doesn't print! That is what is wrong with it!

ME) Are all cables plugged in?

CU) Yes, YES!

ME) Is the printer's power on?

CU) Of course it is on!

ME) I am to assume that you followed all the instructions in the manual, right?

CU) Manual? I am not an idiot. I don't need to read a manual to install a printer. Anyway, why am I talking to you? I want to talk to a tech support guy.

ME) I am the tech support sir!

CU) No you are not!

ME) Yes I am!

CU) You are a woman!

ME) Yes, that too.

CU) I want to talk to somebody who knows about computers.

ME) I know about computers! ( I have been working with and on computers for a long time know, not to mention that during the week I am a software engineer ).

CU) Get off the phone and let me talk to a man!

I should have hung up.

ME) Sir, the store is closed and I am the only tech support person here.

CU) You are a woman!

The conversation was going nowhere and my shoes where hurting, I wanted to go home. I turned around and saw Brian (name changed for privacy). Our cleaning person!

ME) Hold on sir! I thing I can get a man on the phone.

I called Brian and convinced him to help me with this bigot.

BRIAN) Hello sir, my name is Brian, what can I do for you

Note that at this point the bigot is no longer swearing.

CU) My printer doesn't work Brian.

ME) Ask him if he has installed the drivers that came with the printer

BRIAN) Have you installed the drivers that came with the printer?

CU) No drivers came with the printer.

BRIAN) No drivers came with the printer.

ME) Hmm.

BRIAN) Hmm.

ME) Ask what model of printer he has.

BRIAN) What is you printer's model sir?

CU) I don't know. And I don't care what the model is, I want to make this thing work! (Frustrated)

BRIAN) He doesn't know, he wants to make his printer work.

ME) Ask him his name and the name of the salesperson that helped him in choosing the printer.

BRIAN) Sir what is your name?

CU) Bob Smith (name changed for privacy)

BRIAN) Bob Smith

ME) Ok. (As I typed his name in our record database to check his most recent purchase)

BRIAN) Sir, do you remember the name of the salesperson who helped you with your purchase?

CU) I didn't have a salesperson help me. I knew what I wanted and I paid for it at the customer's desk. I don't trust salesperson!

BRIAN) Nobody helped him. He got the printer by himself.

ME) Great!

BRIAN) Grea..!

ME) Brian, tell him that there is nothing he can do tonight. (As I looked at the database)

BRIAN) Sir, there is nothing you can do tonight. May I suggest for you to come tomorrow?!

CU) Why?

BRIAN) Why?

ME) Because what he purchased is not a printer... It is a fax machine. And to be used by a phone. Not a computer.

BRIAN) Sir.....

Thanks to: Anonymous Tech Supporter

 

From www.TechTales.com November 1998

The Daily Funny - 7th May 2010 (3)

Magic Email?

This happened several years ago while I was working as a graphic production artist and de facto help desk/tech at a small graphic design firm in Greenwich Village. The owner of the company ("Bill") is a complete technology idiot. This is exemplified by this example.

He was going on a trip to China to pick up his newly adopted son and wanted to take his PowerBook with him so that he could stay in touch with us in the office. So I diligently investigated the telephone and electrical specifications of the area he'd be staying in, purchased the appropriate adapters, set up a simple AppleScript which would switch some software settings for him while he was out there (all he'd have to do is double-click the script and it would take care of the rest), and wrote him extremely simple instructions on how to plug things in. (This is a guy who would regularly print a document ten or eleven times before calling me for help, at which point I'd discover he had again disconnected his ethernet cable...) I walked him through the whole process, twice, to make sure he had it. Reasonably convinced he was set, off he went.

It should be pointed out that at the time our office was running on a QuickMail system, and I had our mail server configured to accept a remote access dialup for just such a contingency. And for those who don't know about QuickMail (be thankful), it's a proprietary system which is EXTREMELY sensitive about its connectivity and gets very cranky if it can't find a server.

A couple of weeks later he returned, mildly disgruntled, and angrily curious as to why we (the office) didn't return any of his emails. I immediately checked the server log but couldn't find any emails from Bill, nor could I find any record of his PowerBook dialing into our system.

After a little Q&A I discovered what had happened. Bill got on board the plane on the way to China -- with his PowerBook. Once he was in flight he turned it on (getting two error messages, one about network connectivity being lost and the other about not being able to find the QuickMail server, which he simply dismissed without a second -- or first -- thought), launched QuickMail (again receiving an error message, which he dismissed), composed some new messages, attempted to send them (again receiving an error message, which he dismissed), closed QuickMail (AGAIN receiving an error message, which he dismissed), and shut down his PowerBook.

Not enough?

When he got to China he never bothered to hook up the PowerBook, making all of my preparatory work useless. Though he did (again) on the plane ride home try to send us more email...

Thanks to: Steve "Mac Guy" G.

 

From www.TechTales.com November 1998

The Daily Funny - 7th May 2010 (2)

Yell and Scream, see results!

It's ME! The guy with the tales from down south...this one comes from SOUTH DAKOTA...A real nice guy called up...it goes as follows:

User: I cancelled my account and I want on the internet RIGHT NOW!
Me: Sir, I'm sorry, but we are just technical support, we cannot activate accounts from our end. You'll have to call Customer Service in the morning.
User: I can't call them in the morning, you do it!
Me: Sir, I can't! We do have have that access!

** Meanwhile, something clicks in my head....this guy TOLD me he CANCELLED his account! Duh, no wonder he can't get logged in...This guy isn't overly bright, or too damn stubborn to listen...

User: YOU DO IT...DO IT NOW!
Me: *groan* Ok, sir, I cannot do it...you will have to call Customer Service...
User: I already told you, I can't call them in the morning...
Me: Sir, may I ask why?
User: I have no phone...

** Where the hell is he calling from then? Needlesss to say, he hung up...good riddence...

THE NEXT NIGHT...

Me: Tech Support, (Insert Name) speaking, can I have your login userid please?
User: xxxxxx@isp.net and that last technician that I was talking to last night promised that he'd have the owner call me personally and he never did...what's his name? I want him fired!!
Me: Well, sir, that last technician that you were speaking to last night was me...and I NEVER promised you that...(instant BURN, you think he'd give up by now...)
User: @!@#$%^%*&&*&(*&^%$$#^%^*& (Plus other things!)

** So, he yells and screams, I speak with a supervisor and I get the go ahead to transfer him to a supervisor who has to PAGE the owner of the ISP and have her activate the account right then and there...at like 10:00pm HER TIME! The next day, I get called into the office and told that this user had received ONE MONTH FREE for ***HIS*** troubles!!!!!

How's that for justice? You do a lot of yelling, tell me you cancelled the account, tell me what you think of me in 'nice' terms, scream at the supervisors, get personally put through to the owner of the ISP and receive one month free for your troubles?!?? Wish I could do that...

I never id get in trouble for that...but if for any reason I happen to be linked to my stories, I MIGHT...=) Let's hope not...we all know the users never visit here!!!

Thanks to: Anonymous Tech Supporter

 

From www.TechTales.com December 1998

The Daily Funny - 7th May 2010

They're welcome to you.

I work as part of an email problem solving team for an ISP. Our customers send us emails detailing their problems, and
we answer them. At least, thats the idea.

This conversation took place over the course of a number of days, with emails going back and forth. These are EXACT
quotes of the ENTIRE emails sent and received, minus the header information and the 'thank you for mailing's.

Mr X
"Sort it out. Its not working."

Support
"Please detail the problem you are having, with any relevant error messages; and we should be able to assist you straight away."

Mr X
"Its in my computer."

Support
"Are you getting an error message? We need to know what the problem is before we can help you with it."

Mr X
"There is an error message. I click OK."

Support
"What is the error message? We cannot help you if you are not able to tell us what the message says. If you can give
us some more information, we will be more than happy to assist you with this problem."

Mr X
"You guys are useless. I'm changing Service Providers."

Thanks to: Rob

 

From www.TechTales.com December 1998

The Daily Funny - 6th May 2010

Coffee is the fuel!

I was network manager at large (and prestigious) scientific establishment when I got what is probably my funniest call.

The background was that one group were experiencing ‘wobble’ on their monitors, due to a bandly installed 3-phase supply nearby. While waiting for the electricians to come back and fix the fault, we provided them with some surge/RF protected power strips which appeared to reduce the effect.

Me: Hello, ( ---- ) group; how can I help?

User: This is Professor Somebody. Look, one of your people has installed a coffee-pot on my computer and I want it removed!

Me: (bemused) Did you say ‘coffee-pot’?

Prof: Yes, and it’s interrupting my work. I want it uninstalled!

Me: (very bemused) Is this a screen-saver or something?

Prof: What!? No, it’s a ‘COFFEE’ ‘POT’! A POT you make COFFEE in, and my computer won’t boot unless the damn thing’s plugged in!

Me: (astoundingly bemused) Um... (pause) Um... (pause) I’ll be right up, okay?

Suprisingly the user was quite right, his computer would absolutely not boot unless the coffee-pot was plugged in and turned on. Of course it was nothing we had done. Apparently this professor had noticed the shiny new power-strips of the other group, found out that they ‘reduce screen wobble’ and had promptly ordered the biggest and most expensive model from the same manufacturer for no reason other than greed. This particular model had one bright red ‘master’ socket and four white ‘slave’ sockets; when whatever was plugged into the master was switched on, all the slaves were switched on, and vice versa. Of course the big red socket was just perfect for this professor to plug his personal little coffee-maker into, hence the only way for his computer to receive power was to make lots of coffee (I work in a similar manner).

One quick swap of the mains leads and the problem is solved. Not only was the professor not embarrassed by the incident, he was overjoyed to have a ‘computer operated coffee-pot’ (ie. he now has to turn the computer on to make coffee) and took every opportunity to show it to everyone who visited!

Oxygen is just wasted on some people!

Thanks to: Syn O'Nym

 

From www.TechTales.com December 1998

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

The Daily Depressing - 5th May 2010

Wrong Number?

The ISP I work for was revamping and changing some of the phone lines. The phone company we had been working with wasn't very reliable so we were slowly getting rid of those numbers and adding new numbers using a different phone company. We knew this would cause problems with the customers so we made certain that 2 months before the changeover, emails were sent to all the customers letting them know of the changes to come. Then when we got the new phone numbers, we emailed again letting everyone know the new numbers. As it grew closer to the change over, another set of emails went out once more giving the new numbers and the date of the change. Finally, the day before the change, one more go around with emails to every customer.

The first week of the new phone numbers was awful. We had over 80 calls an hour and this is a small ISP! No-one read their email.

I answer the voice mail for the company at night so when they close, it's all up to me. I remember one customer read our email, which in itself was amazing, but for some obscure reason told me "Yeah, I read it, but I didn't think it applied to me" Now why in the world would he think that?

I had another customer leave a message who was furious. "I've been calling for 3 days and the line is just busy all the time. What's wrong with YOU PEOPLE"? You have no idea how much I dislike those two words. I phone him back and asked him what number he had been dialing and sure enough, it was the old number. I told him that the number had been changed and before I could tell him what the new number was, he started arguing with me.. "No, that's impossible...the number did not change"

I was a little shocked and unsure of what to say. "Well, I'm sorry sir, but yes the phone number has been changed and here it is." So I gave him the new number. Then I told him I would walk him through putting that number into his dial up networking, so I began the process...Click on My Computer, Dial Up Networking, etc. Finally I get to the part where he clicks on properties and can type in the new number. After I do that I ask him to go ahead and try to connect using the new number. That's when he tells me that he did not follow my directions because he knows there is no new number and he wants to know why the number he is dialing will not work. I'm flabbergasted. I have no idea why this person will not accept the fact that the number was changed. Finally I'm just about to give up and I ask him why he won't even try the new number. His reply: "I didn't give you permission to change my phone number so I know it can't be that."
 
Oh great!!! Now not only is he being ridiculous but it turns out that the problem really wasn't even that he was using our old number...He was dialing his own phone number and wouldn't believe that there was a new number because he didn't authorize anyone to change his home phone number.

It's calls like this that make me want to set my hair on fire and run naked through the streets. (grin)

Thanks to: Mary Maurer

 

From www.TechTales.com December 1998

The Daily Funny - 5th May 2010 (2) ;)

No Title

I work for a Software development Company. Our programs are database programs that keep and manage data, most of the users of the system are HIGHLY dependent upon the data that the system contains. Our users are typically entry-level and not always computer literate.

Me: Tech Service how can I help you:

Customer: They told me at the home office that you would help me get my program running on my new computer.

Me: Sure, Do you have the old computer running.

Customer: No I don't have the old computer, I sold it two weeks ago.

Me: Did you do a backup of the program before you sold it?

Customer: No but I did take it to the computer store and had their technician erase everything on the computer before I sold it.

Me: Why did you do that?

Customer: I did'nt want the person who bought my computer to see my customers.

Me: How can I restore your program if you did'nt do any backups of the data?

Customer: Can't you just send me a new program?

Me: Sure I can send you a new program but all of your data is gone, it will be a blank program.

Customer: Are you sure? Maybe I could talk to another technician, may be he can retrieve my data!

Me: Sure thing let me give you his number, maybe he can fix it, have a nice day.

And I did give him to another tech, I gave him to the Marketing Manager that trained him on the program.

Thanks to: Anonymous Tech Supporter

 

From www.TechTales.com January 1999 (last couple were actually from February 1999, page was labelled incorrectly)

The Daily Funny - 5th May 2010 (2) ;)

Balls Away !

Picking up the phone, I hear a secretary scream :

she : (my name) ! The ball has fallen out of my mouse !

She got another mouse.

Thanks to: FRaNKy

 

From www.TechTales.com January 1999

The Daily Funny - 5th May 2010 ;)

A Father’s Love Is Very Console-ing

Video Game Store | Scotland, UK

Customer: “Excuse me, could you give me some advice please?”

Me: “Sure, how can I help?”

Customer: “I was looking to buy a Nintendo 360 for my son.”

Customer’s Son: “Dad! It’s an Xbox360!”

Customer, to me: “This is how much help I need. Would you please?”

 

From www.NotAlwaysRight.com

Monday, May 3, 2010

The Daily Funny - 4th May 2010 (2)

Tale of the Tape

I was working at a Pro Audio shop a few years back here in Toronto, when I received a distress call from a doctor who
had purchased a cassette deck from us and was having trouble
getting his cassette into the machine.

The conversation went something like this:

ME: "First, open the cassette door. There's a button
just to the left of the window. Press it."

DOCTOR: "OK, the door opened".

ME: "Good. Now slide the cassette into the door, with the end with the tape exposed going first".

DOCTOR: "It doesn't fit".

ME: "Is there a tape in there already?"

DOCTOR: "No."

ME: "Are you inserting the end with the tape first?".

DOCTOR: "What do you mean 'tape'?"

ME: "Look at the cassette. At one end you can see
the audio tape exposed."

DOCTOR: "I don't see it."

ME: "Describe the tape."

DOCTOR: "Well, it's rectangular, about the size of a deck of cards".

ME: "OK. Are there two holes on it?" (thinking it might be an 8-track tape) .

DOCTOR: "No."

ME: "Where did you get the tape?"

DOCTOR "I just bought it at (record store withheld)".

ME: "Sir, you have to REMOVE IT FROM THE CASE!!!"

Thanks to: RNoel

 

From www.TechTales.com January 1999

The Daily Funny - 4th May 2010

I work in the entertainment department of a huge store. I was restocking CD-Rs when a middle-aged woman came up to me.

  • Her: "Excuse me, but what is in those colorful boxes? I'm looking for toys as a present for my nephew, and I just know he'd like a colorful box like that."
  • Me: "Well, the toy department is upstairs, b--"
  • Her: "...and in case they're jack-in-the-boxes, could I get one custom made, because I bet you don't have the color combination I'd like anyway."
  • Me: "They're...not jack-in-the-boxes, ma'am. They are CDs."
  • Her: "Oh! Kind of a big box for a CD. Does it come with lots of leaflets, or is it just air? I hate that way of--"
  • Me: "No, no, no, you see, there's ten CDs in one box."
  • Her: "Ten?! Oh my goodness, that's a lot of CDs. What kind CDs are they?"
  • Me: "Well, we have CD-Rs in these, and CD-RWs over here. These ones are scratchproof, so they cost a little more--"
  • Her: "Oh, I don't know about these modern things so much. Have you got any jazz?"
  • Me: "Excuse me?"
  • Her: "See, an old person like myself, I haven't even heard of scratchproof music before. I like jazz."

I tried to hold my poker face for every cent of my hourly wage.

  • Me: "No, these CDs are empty. We have jazz over th--"
  • Her: "Yes, I was over there, and there was nothing new. I already have them all at home. But do you have any jazz in these bulk boxes?"
  • Me: "No, ma'am, I'm afraid we're all sold out of the jazz ones."
  • Her: "Well... this box is $8.99, and at the jazz section I'd pay more for only one CD!"
  • Me: "That's true, but these are empty, as I--"
  • Her: "This is a pretty good deal, ten CDs for less than a tenner!"
  • Me: "Undoubtedly, but--"
  • Her: "I'll take this!"
  • Me: "Ma'am, the CDs are empty. You won't hear anything."
  • Her: "Oh?"
  • Me: "I buy these myself all the time, and there's nothing on them."
  • Her: "Maybe your volume wasn't loud enough. Or you had unplugged your speakers?"

When had she become tech support to me?

  • Her: "I'll buy these. This is very cheap. You are a good salesperson!"
  • Me: "Thank you, ma'am, but--"
  • Her: "I'll just have to see if my nephew listens to scratchproof."

I took a long, long break after that one.

 

From http://www.rinkworks.com/stupid/cs_cdroms.shtml#2

The Daily Funny - 3rd May 2010

Not About To Start A Revolution

Retail | Barrie, ON, Canada

(A young female customer is paying for a work order. Her friends are nearby.)

Me: “The tech also recommends a tire rotation.”

Customer: “Oh okay…is that something I could get a friend to do?”

Me: “If they’ve got a jack and the lug nut key, sure.”

(Her friends come over.)

Customer: *to another young female friend* “I have to rotate my tires.”

Customer’s friend: “I thought they did that when you drive?”

 

From www.NotAlwaysRight.com

Thursday, April 29, 2010

The Daily Funny - 30th April 2010 (2)

Wrong drive sir.....

I had an elderly gentleman call me up with a problem: he couldn't get his program to install. I got all the necessary data: kind of computer, hd size, etc. It was a brand new P2 350 with a 8.4gig hd. I figure: if it's brand new, he can't have filled up the hd yet, go through some other stuff, the whole nine yards. Nothing.

I'm about to tell him that I've got no clue when I hear our sysadmin muttering something about damn tape drives. I think, what if this guy isn't installing off a CD or floppy? I ask him about this program he is installing, and what the drive looks like that he is putting in into. (Having just read tech tales and hearing about people putting CDs into 5.25" drives)

It turns out that this guy was trying to load a program he wrote when he went to college in like the 60's or something. Specifically, he was trying to run it off of PUNCH CARDS, which he was feeding to a 3.5" drive!

And I thought that punch cards were too big to fit in a 3.5". Oh well.

Thanks to: MJH

 

From www.TechTales.com March 1999

The Daily Funny - 30th April 2010

got paper?

I used to do tech support at a large company that made printers when I got this call

me: thank you for calling *****copany name here**** my name is ******name here**** (gatheredcust info) what seems to be the problem?

cust: my computer keeps giving me an 'out of paper' error message whenever I try to print (already some can see where this is headed)

me: alright, that can be caused be several problems, first lets see if your printer itself is working properly, (instruct cust to do a self test on printer) now, is the printer pulling in paper to print?

cust: no, there's no paper in the printer, should I put some in?

me: yes lets do that (cust puts paper in printer) good, lets try to print from the computer

cust: (shocked and amazed) it worked!!!! you fixed it!!!! what was wrong with it?

Thanks to: Ciel

 

From www.TechTales.com March 1999

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

The Daily Funny - 29th April 2010 (3)

20 ways to annoy a customer

1. Speak in a robot voice and say "beep" after every sentence.
2. Whenever a customer asks you a question say "I will have to consult my supervisor on that."
Cough loudly throughout the call.
4. When customer asks you for your name reply with "You may call me lord of the underworld."
5. Hiccup after ever other word.
6. After every sentence quietly say "Man I have to pee."
7. Loudly eat an apple.
8. Breath loudly into the mic.
9. Speak in a Swedish, German, French etc...accent.
10. Ever get tired of talking to a customer? Try this: say "Ummmmmm....bye."
11. While telling the customer the fix hit the mute button during the important parts.
12. Slowly move the mic away from and towards your mouth while talking.
13. At the beginning of the call burp loudly.
14. Sniff your nose every 10 seconds.
15. Sing the fix.
16. Every time they say (your company name) cluck like a chicken.
17. Every time they say something reply with "I have a cat."
18. Sneeze several times every time they say the word problem.
19. Yawn in the middle of every sentence.
20. Use several ethnic accents over the course of the conversation. Switch between accents in the middle of a sentence. If you feel daring switch between accents in the middle of a multisyllable word.

Thanks to: Kathryn

 

From www.TechTales.com March1999

The Daily Funny - 29th April 2010 (2)

Some People

Okay, I've taken some strange calls before, but I laughed


Me: Thank you for calling -------, may I help you?

User: Yes, my brother-in-law just informed me that my system is a FAT32 file system. I don't know who programed that into my computer but I want them to come change it to THIN32!!!!!!

The user kept going on and on and would not believe me that it could not be changed to say "thin"

Some people!!!!

Thanks to: Megan

Urgh... Explain that it's an acronym, and doesn't actually mean anything in-and-of itself, otherwise b!tchslap that mofo!

From www.TechTales.com April 1999

The Daily Funny - 29th April 2010

A Not So Bitter End

Pizza Place | Spokane, WA, USA

Customer: “Are you in charge of the salad bar?”

Me: “Of course. I make sure all the food is fresh. Was something wrong?”

Customer: “Your dressings are too sweet!”

Me: “We buy our dressings pre-packaged, but it is possible that something went wrong somewhere along the way. Which one was it?”

Customer: “The dressing!”

Me: “They are all too sweet?”

Customer: “Are you retarded? The dressing is sweet!”

Me: “Is it red, orange, white, or brown?”

Customer: “The brown one is too sweet!”

Me: “That’s the balsamic vinaigrette. It shouldn’t be sweet at all, but I will pull it and put out a new container of dressing for you.”

Customer: “Thank you! Was that so difficult?”

(I begin to pull the only brown dressing we have and she stops me.)

Customer: “My God, you are so retarded! You’re pulling the wrong d*** dressing!”

Me: “You said the brown dressing, right? I am pulling the brown dressing like you asked.”

Customer: “Not that dressing, you idiot, this brown dressing. You are so stupid!” *points to dessert bar*

Me: “You mean the chocolate pudding?”

 

From www.NotAlwaysRight.com

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

The Daily Funny - 28th April 2010 (2)

Frustrated

In my role of supporting "users" ... I was trying to walk one user (so-called "best they had in PC skills") through a process on the phone ... (skipping to the fun part)

me : Okay... now hit the back space key.
waiting .... in silence ....... & waiting .......

me : What happened when you hit the backspace key?

user sounding near tears : I'm looking on the back of the keyboard and I can't find any space key here!!

me : uh - I'm on my way to your office
(can only imagine how fun it would have been if I had needed to continue "remote" assistance)

Thanks to: Anonymous Tech Supporter

 

From www.TechTales.com May 1999

The Daily Funny - 28th April 2010

Keyboard Trouble

As a Help Desk Manager I saw a puzzling problem report from a user.

PROBLEM: When he typed the letter on the screen was different from the key that they pressed. A few examples only confussed matters as there seemed to be no relation between those typed and the results. Couldn't be coffee, no eating or drinking at the desks.

SOLUTION: Dispatch the hardware engineer.

He returned about ten minutes later to get a spare keyboard and chucked to himself. When he returned from the call we got the full story and a look at the keyboard he had replaced.

CAUSE: The user, being new to computers, had difficulty locating the keys on the keyboard. His solution to this was not to learn to type, he prised all of the letters from the keyboard and rearranged them in alphabetical order to make them easier to find!

Thanks to: Anonymous Tech Supporter

 

From www.TechTales.com June 1999

Monday, April 26, 2010

The Daily Funny - 27th April 2010 (3)

Faulty Dongle

Int the late 80's our company was developing a niche market application. AS the market was so small we felt that we had to add a dongle to maximize our revenue. So we sent off upgrades to our users with a dongle required to make it work.

A few days later we got a call from a client. He was real mad that the software would not work anymore. We asked what the problem was. He informed us that although he had plugged in the dongle into one oh the machines in his department, seven other machines there would not run the new upgraded software and that his staff were now going to be behind schedule on a very important project as a result unless we could fix it there and then.

Needless to say we had to explain in subtle detail that he had only purchased one licence. We really wanted to tell him he was like a bank robber ringing up a bank to complain that he did not get enough money in a robbery

Thanks to: Anonymous Tech Supporter

 

From www.TechTales.com July 1999

The Daily Funny - 27th April 2010 (2)












From www.Dilbert.com

http://dilbert.com/fast/2010-04-24/

The Daily Funny - 27th April 2010

Aisle Be Watching You

Grocery Store | Long Island, NY, USA

(I’ve misunderstood a question and directed the customer to the wrong aisle. I’m trying to tell her the correct aisle.)

Me: “Ma’am, I’m sorry. I thought you meant something else. What you’re looking for is actually down aisle 8. It’s the last item on the right.”

Customer: “I don’t believe you, and I’m too tired to look for it.”

Me: “Ma’am, I can verify that it is in aisle 8. There is a display a few feet away so you won’t have to walk all the way down there.”

Customer: “What is the store phone number?”

(The customer dials the store number with the phone in front of me. It’s on speaker phone so I hear ringing on her end and then ringing on my phone. I pick up the phone and look right at the customer standing no more than a foot away from me.)

Me: “Hello [store name].”

Customer: “Yes, hi. I have a question about a product you sell. What aisle is [product] down?”

Me: “Aisle 8. Last item on the right.”

Customer: “Thank you.” *hangs up, looks at me* “At least she knew what she was talking about!”

 

From www.NotAlwaysRight.com