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

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."
3  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

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

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

The Daily Funny - 26th April 2010

Not So) Heavy Brain

Video Game Store | Minnesota, USA

Me: “Hi, welcome to [store]! Anything I can do for you?”

(Customer puts a copy of a video game on the counter.)

Customer: “I’m returning this game; it’s not for me.”

Me: “What didn’t you like about it?”

Customer: “It was the stupidest game ever! I walked around a house for 10 minutes, went to the mall, then my kid died and the credits rolled and it was over!”

Me: “Uh…those were the opening credits.”

 

From www.NotAlwaysRight.com

HA!

The Daily Funny - 23rd April 2010

And THIS is why we had the GFC...

 

Brain On Recess

Electronics Store | Saskatchewan, Canada

(I am helping a customer apply for financing to purchase some items.)

Me: “Oh, I’m sorry. Your application was denied”

Customer: “Wow. I really didn’t expect that.”

Me: “Well, they’re a lot stricter with who they give credit to because of the recession.”

Customer: “The what?”

Me: “The recession.”

(Customer looks very confused.)

Me: “Hundreds of people foreclosed on their houses. The government had to pay billions of dollars to bail out the banks.”

Customer: *shrugging shoulders* “Hmm. Well, I must have missed that!”

 

From www.NotAlwaysRight.com

The Daily Funny - 22nd April 2010

Tales from the Voodoo Files

I was an AV nerd in school, and naturally, I ended up in computer support as an adult. One instance I remembered from my high school days was how I was unofficially "on call" whenever something broke in my school. "Get Grig, he'll fix that VCR/projector/film strip..."

I was in my Chemistry honors class. We had one room for lab work, and one room for watching films. This was an advanced class taught during the summer, so it was 5 weeks of six-hour classes. Sometimes, we had to watch like 5 or 6 films in a row, our classes were so accelerated. Typical of you education dollar at work, the films were antiques, some had been spliced hundreds of times, some so far they were actually missing the first few minutes of the film. Many of the films were old acetate, and were brittle and faded. They often broke in the projector, usually when loading. My professor finally had me do it, and I became this unofficial projectionist for the class. One day, one particular film was agonizingly brittle, yet for some reason the professor thought it was vital to see it. After a lot of swearing and cursing, trying to get this film to stop flipping the image all over the screen, I finally saw the humor of the situation, and became dramatic. I started hurling creative curses aloud, blaming evil spirits, and vowed I would drive the evil spirits away from the projector. I grabbed some ancient Chinese spirit bells the professor had hanging over the doorway, and waved them around, chanting gibberish, and making a big production out of it. Finally, after two minutes of this "act," I flipped the projector on, having some BS speech ready in my head about stubborn demons and would give up until a preacher was called.

But damned if it didn't work flawlessly. In fact, for the rest of the year, that projector never had any problems again.

Since then, on rare occasions, when nothing else has worked, I have tried this, with mixed success. Mostly failures. One spectacular failure happened at this retail place I used to work. We had this AT&T Merlin phone system that was constantly freezing. Since we weren't some big-name company (and only had two lines), it would take forever to get a tech on the site. After watching the techs work, I figured out how to fix most problems that occurred, and one day when it froze again, I was in a goofy mood, and told an employee I was going to chase evil spirits out of our phone system. I grabbed a "spirit rattle" (a wooden baby rattle we sold), and pretended to "work magic" on the system. I reset some switches, and the phone system came back up. Although this was meant purely as humor, one employee became very afraid of me, stating that I was working with "demons," and my boss bragged to everyone I had magic powers and "practiced witchcraft in the store." At first, I thought they were just teasing and joking with me, so I went along with it. But much later (after I left) I found out the head office had this in my file, with concerned comments from management about how to handle things with me in the future. I found my district manager was afraid he'd be turned into a frog. Some feared I was a member of a cult, and feared I'd pull a religious descrimination suit if they fired me.... or worse.

Since then, I have been more careful with my "magic." :)

Thanks to: Grig Larson

 

From www.TechTales.com August 1999

The Daily Funny - 21st April 2010 (2)

The Square CD-ROM

This is a true story!

On the Customer Service line for the ISP I work for, we got a call from an elderly gentleman who insisted that the software we sent him didn't work right.

It didn't take us long to find out why. He had taken a pair of scissors and cut his CD-ROM into a square so that it would fit in his floppy drive.

I guess he's never used a CD player either....

Thanks to: Rei

 

From www.TechTales.com September 1999

The Daily Funny - 21st April 2010

Old McDonald

Old McDonald had a farm, and on this farm he used Corel(tm) QuattroPro to track his livestock:

Corel Tech: Thank you for calling corel classic support, how nay i help you?
Old McDonald: I'm having a problem with QuattroPro 7.
Corel Tech: OK, and what seems to be the trouble?
Old McDonald: (sounding quite irate) Well, I'm using it to keep inventory of my dairy herd, and this piece of crap is not updating properly.
Corel Tech: How do you mean?
Old McDonald: Well, one of my cows died yesterday, but she's still on the listed on the spreadsheet. I thought this was supposed to update changes to inventory.
Corel Tech: OK, Did you check the cable between the cow and the computer?
Old Mcdonald: (sounding perplexed)There is no cable between the cow and computer.
Corel Tech: Well, then there must be some sort of wireless link? Infrared or something?
Old McDonald: Not that I know of. What are you talking about?
Corel Tech: Well, if the cow is not connected to the computer, how would the computer know it was dead?
Old McDonald: I don't know, it's just supposed to update changes to my inventory. You're the technician, you should know how it does that. I just want the damned thing fixed.
Corel Tech: (insert lengthy explanation of why the computer has no idea that the cow is dead)
Old Mcdonald: Well then I want my money back, if it doesn't do what it says it's gonna do. (Still has no understanding of why his expensive, high tech computer can't see something as obvious as a dead cow.)

Thanks to: El Puerco Loco

 

From www.TechTales.com October 1999

The Daily Funny - 20th April 2010 (2)

Excessive Softwear

A member called in complaining that she couldnt launch our program A****** O***** due to low hard disk space. On checking the ammount of free space on her computer, we found she had 27 MB free on a 4.0 GB hard drive. On going into her C: drive, she had 129 (!!!) copies of our software installed on her computer. Forty minutes later and MUCH deletion, we finally got the 2.67 GB of space being used by our software freed and she now has one copy of the software and will not be trying to run the program from her CD.

Thanks to: Rachel

 

From www.TechTales.com November 1999

The Daily Funny - 20th April 2010

A-B-C, Easy As D-U-H

Bookstore | Massachusetts, USA

Customer: “Hey, can you help me find this book?”

Me: “Sure.”

(He holds up a piece of paper with the title and author of a book on it. I find it on the shelves and hand it to him.)

Customer: “Thanks! How’d you do that so fast?”

Me: “Well, I’ve worked here awhile, and the books are all in alphabetical order by author’s name.”

Customer: “What do you mean?”

Me: “Alphabetical order. Like the alphabet song? You know, A’s before B’s?”

(He looks confused, but then widens his eyes.)

Customer: “The letters actually go in that order? I thought that song was just to remember them all!”

 

From www.NotAlwaysRight.com

The Daily Funny - 19th April 2010

Not Seeing Or Believing

Optometrist | Wichita, KS, USA

Customer:  ”Something’s wrong with my vision.  I’m not seeing well at all.”

Me: “Did this happen suddenly, or gradually?”

Customer:  ”When I woke up this morning, everything is blurry!”

(I look up her file, and see that she had had an exam and purchased glasses in the previous month.)

Me:  ”So, even with your new glasses, everything is blurry?”

Customer:  ”Well, no.  It’s fine with my glasses on.  But I have worn them for a whole month!  Shouldn’t my eyes be better by now?”

Me:  ”Ma’am, the glasses make your vision better, but only if you are wearing them.”

Customer: “What kind of a quack doctor do you have there? Thanks for nothing!”

 

From www.NotAlwaysRight.com

The Daily Funny - 16th April 2010

Barking Up The Wrong Tree

Video Game Store | Southampton, UK

Me: “Good morning, [game store] how can I help?”

Caller: “Can you tell me what’s coming out over the next three weeks?”

Me: “Which format would you like, sir?”

Caller: “All of them.”

Me: “You want all the releases for all the formats for the next three weeks?”

Caller: “YES!”

Me: “Okay… on PS2, we’ve got Yakuza–”

Caller: “Boring.”

Me: “Um…we’ve also got The Godfather–”

Caller: “That sounds rubbish.”

Me: “Um…there’s Reservoir Dogs next week–”

Caller: “I don’t even LIKE dogs. Why would I play that?!” *hangs up*

 

From www.NotAlwaysRight.com

The first couple make it bleedingly obvious that it's some kind of prank, but the last one makes it bleedingly obvious that it's an idiot on the other end...

The Daily Funny - 15th April 2010

Fix the net!

Nothing to do at work, so I'm sending these in as I remember
them. This one's from my time doing internet support:

Customer: What the hell is wrong with your internet?
Me: Our internet? What page are you trying to reach on
our site?
Customer: www.aftonbladet.se (major swedish newspaper's
site, _definitely_ not a page we were in any way affiliated
with), and it says it can't find the page! I demand that you
fix it right now!
M: Well, not to be impolite (lie), but that's not one of our
pages.
C: What? You proved me with internet, right?
M: We provide you with internet _access_...
C: Right! And it's broken, so I suggest you fix it _right_now_
or I'll take this to the press!
M: (pinging server he's trying to reach, can't get through.
Tracerote, find out that for some reason access is through
a finnish server, which is not responding) Well, it seems like
you're being routed through a finnish server, and for some
reason it is down at the moment. I suggest you try later.
C: WHAT? THAT IS NOT ACCEPTABLE! I DEMAND THAT YOU FIX IT!
M: Sir, if you have a problem connecting to the net I can
help you, if not I suggest that you try waiting a little while.
C: I want to talk to your supervisor! I have influence you know!
I'm paying you guys for my internet, and you _will_ fix it!
M: (being overly helpful as lunch is drawing near and I need
to get rid of this asshole) Sir, I just found the phone
number for the finnish company owning that server, if you
like I could give it to you so you can call them.
C: You mean I have to call Finland for you guys!?
M: No sir (looking around frantically for a supervisor,
but they've instantly all gone for lunch when they heard me
talking to this customer), we have nothing whatsoever to do
with that server. We are _not_ the internet, we just give
you access to it.
C: THAT'S A LOAD OF %¤&#%&/" BULLSHIT YOU &¤&/#%(, I'M GOING TO
#%/¤&#/ SUE. I HAVE INFLUENCE YOU KNOW, YOU'LL ALL BE
VERY SORRY!
M: I already am sorry I took this call. Thank you and
good day. (hang up)

Thanks to: Rickenbacker

 

From www.TechTales.com March 2000

The Daily Funny - 14th April 2010

Cant open picture

I sometimes help our customers (in the graphic design sector) with their problems.

A woman gave me a call and asked why she couldnt open a picture in Illustrator. She had opened it yesterday, and it was fine then.

After trying several suggestions over the phone, I went over - coz she had a deadline and needed the picture.

What i found out was that she had opened it in Photoshop yesterday, and somhow managed to alter the image settings so that the size of it was 8*9 meters, and the total filesize was 8,4 GB!

Thanks to: Jabba The Hut

 

From www.TechTales.com May 2000

The Daily Funny - 13th April 2010

Product May Require A Certain Level Of Manurity

Garden Store | Vancouver, BC, Canada

(A customer lifts bag of steer manure onto the counter.)

Customer: “I’ve got a question. What makes steer manure different from mushroom manure?”

Me: “Well, steer manure is made from the droppings of–”

Customer: “Wait. You said droppings? As in waste?”

Me: “Yes. Manure is made from decomposed waste.”

Customer: “So…What exactly is a steer?”

Me: “It’s just another name for a cow.”

Customer: “So steer manure is…oh, God. Oh, God!” *leaves without buying the manure*

 

From NotAlwaysRight.com, and technically it's from a castrated bull, not a cow...

The Daily Funny - 12th April 2010

Password dysfunction

I was helping someone set up his computer, and he wanted to log in with a password ...

Now you have to understand he's got somewhat of a rebellious attitude and goes for the shock effect ... so when the computer asked him to enter his password, he keys in "penis"...

I nearly fell off the chair from laughing so hard when the computer replied:

*** PASSWORD REJECTED. NOT LONG ENOUGH ***

Thanks to: Anonymous Tech Supporter

 

From www.TechTales.com July 2000 (ish)

The Daily Funny - 9 April 2010

Computerless Win95

Found this'n in an old clipping I'd saved from a local paper, and I swear to God it's true. This is from back when Windows 95 first came out.

A local store had received a number of tech-support calls to the extent of, "I just got Windows 95, now what do I do with it?" The response "Open the package and put the CD-ROM in your computer" elicited a reply of, "Computer?"

Apparently these poor schmucks had gotten so swept up by Microsoft's hype and marketing campaign for Windows 95 that they just somehow assumed they NEEDED it, even though (1) they didn't own a computer, and (2) they didn't even know what Windows was.

Thanks to: Anonymous Tech Supporter

 

From www.TechTales.com August 2000

The Daily Funny - 6 April 2010

Like Himself, His Answer Was Full Of Crap

Retail | Oregon, USA

Me: “Thanks for coming in today, sir. What can I do for you?”

Customer: “I can’t get this thing to work! I set up the password and now I can’t remember it.”

Me: “Alright, that’s an easy fix. Let’s go to the site to reset your password.”

(I guide the customer to the correct site and we get to the option to answer a secret question of the user’s choice. The question: ‘Am I a s***head?’)

Customer: “Hmm…” *types ‘No’*

Computer: “I’m sorry, the answer you have selected is incorrect. Please try again.”