A guy called and said, "My computer blew up!" But, really,
he had only experienced the 'starfield' screensaver.

When one person wanted to use with the mouse, they picked it up,
pointed it at the screen and clicked it like a remote control.

I was in the Univ. of Crete and a senior student asked me to move my disks
because they were close to her disks and they might catch a virus.

One night working at technical support, this old lady called and
told me that she recieved our disk and said that she's afraid of it.
Tech: Well, ma'am there is nothing to be afraid of. It's for your computer.
Cust: Well, I don't have a computer. The directions say "install and run".
I'm too old to run.
Tech: Ma'am could you please hold? (screams with laughter)
Tech: Ma'am I can insure you that you are ok.
Cust: Ok. Should I call the police?
Tech: No, ma'am, just throw it away.
Cust: Well, there is a silver thing that slides across and it
clicks. What is that?
Tech: It is safe to throw it away. It's for a computer, ok?
Cust: But is this a bomb?
Tech: No, ma'am, just throw it away.
Cust: Now?
Tech: Yes, if you like.
Cust: Son, you saved my life! Thank you and have a nice day.

Back in the days before pre-loaded software, a guy bought a computer
and received training from the computer store that sold to him. The
instructor made it clear that to use a new disk, you have to format
it first. Welllllll, this guy went back home, and proceeded to format
all of his program disks since they were new and he wanted to use them
(load them onto his harddrive). Needless to say, he had a *problem*.

I am in charge of Internet services at a University and people come
here to get their new internet account. Once, someone came in with a
3.5" disk and said, "Can you copy the internet for me on this diskette?"

One of my coworkers asked me, "If I had a color monitor, would my
printer print in color?"

I was teaching Excel and I kept telling the class that they needed
to have their pointer on the cell and then click the mouse button
to select it. One lady was having a terrible time until I noticed
she was literally pointing with her FINGER, and clicking the mouse.

Had a woman call and ask if we also taught "Don'ts" in the "Dos" class,
and she was dead serious.

A friend had to go over to a bank and set everyone's software up.
Since all the internet software his company supports runs under
MS Windows, he asked the manager "Do you have Windows?" The manager
stared at him blankly and said, "No, we've got air conditioning."

This happened about 10 years ago to my father who was the manager of a
company's publications department. A couple of data-entry clerks were
instructed to do a large amount of word processing for an urgent
project. By the end of the day, the work had been completed and the
clerks saved the files to 5.25" diskettes. To make certain that the
manager would find the diskettes, they neatly clipped them to the
source documents using their magnetic clipboards.

There was a fellow who set his type color to black, just after
setting the background color to black. Took him a couple days
of blind typing to get things back again.

Tech: Sir, I need you to click ONCE on your America Online icon.
User: Ok...clicka..clicka..clicka..clicka..clicka..clicka..clicka
Uh, 'invalid path'.
Tech: Ok, can you click on the icon ONE time for me?
User: clicka..clicka..clicka..clicka..clicka..clicka..clicka..clicka
Icon still says 'invalid path'.
Tech: Could you PLEASE CLICK ONE TIME, and ONLY ONE TIME on the America
Online icon.
User: Uh, just one time?
Tech: YES.
User: Ok.

This old man (probably around 75) was trying to figure out how to work
the new computers that the library has installed. He asked me to help
him, so I went over and told him he had to use the mouse to move around
the screen. After he got through laughing because it is called a mouse,
he asked how it works, and I told him, but instead of rolling it on the
mouse pad, he picked it up and started rubbing it on the screen.

A person couldn't get the fax to work. He was trying to hold a paper
up to the screen and hit enter!

One tech support person told a lady to insert a clean disk into the
drive. She washed it first.

I've heard of a man (PhD in heavy engineering!) who got the message
"Bad sectors on disk" and cleaned the disk up. With *glasspaper*.

I caught the end of one of those cable tv internet programs. In the
last five minutes, the host said, "Every week we get thousands of
pieces of e-mail asking 'How do I get online?'" Neat trick.

One customer held the mouse in the air and pointed it at the screen, all the
while clicking madly.

A customer was perplexed by an error that would appear every time he tried to
print. The computer would say, "Looking for LaserWriter" and after a while,
"Can't find LaserWriter." His solution? He turned the Mac so that the screen
faced the printer.

A new technician was sent to install a new video card. About the time they
began to wonder if something was wrong, the technician called. "I have the
monitor apart, I just can't figure out where to install the video card."

There was a new computer user who was religious about backing up his
hard disk to floppies once a week and labelling them carefully so he
knew exactly what they contained. To make them readily available, he
kept them in plain sight on the metal file cabinet next to his desk...
with refrigerator magnets.

I gave a disk to a secretary so that she could make copies for some
students. She wrote down the instructions on a memo, then PAPER CLIPPED
IT TO THE FLOPPY! It was a 5 1/4 floppy, and became creased and useless.

I installed a simple peer to peer network for a client with 2 PC's,
and a printer. Everything was fine for a while when I got a panic call:
User: Help me, I can't print or read so-and-so's files anymore.
Tech: Well, can she print and access the files?
User: No, she's not here today.
Tech: Well, go to her pc and try to print the file.
User: Ok, but I'm kinda busy and it takes so long for her PC to boot up
when I turn it on!
Tech: You mean you're trying to print to a printer hooked to her PC and
access files on her computer and it's not turned on?!
User: No, it's not on; does it have to be?

A client had sent in a floppy with a letter complaining that the software
didn't work properly. The software man called the client and suggested
that the client's secretary had sent the letter. "How on earth did you
know it wasn't me?" the client asked. "The floppy's stapled to the letter."

In class, we were told to load a BASIC program from a floppy disk,
run and use it. After using the program, a student sitting next to me
asked: "How do I put the program back on the floppy from the memory?"
She thought that loading a file erases it from the disk...!

I once had to pick up the Cobol training of a college intern. All of
her code had move statements to put the data back where it came from.
How do you explain this to someone without having them feel *really*
dumb?!

I just heard of a call from a user who called in to say that the
automatic cup holder (the CD-ROM!) on his PC stopped working.

One programmer was asked to write a program that faxed a document to
a client. He spent days trying to figure out why his program wasn't
working. He finally asked for help. When he ran the program and it
said that it was faxing the document, he walked over to the laser
printer and asked why it wasn't being printed?!?!?! After explaining
his mistake, I eventually found out that the machine he was working on
didn't even have fax capability! I'm not sure if he ever got it to work!

A clerk in CA tried to fax a document to NY. A while later, the CA president
received a phone call from the NY president. "You must have a problem with
your fax machine," he was told. "I have only received the first page of
your document. Fifty times!" In CA, the clerk was called into the
president's office. "Is there some problem?" he was asked.
"The fax machine must be broken." He responded. "I keep trying to fax
it. But no matter what I do, it just keeps coming back."

Cust: My program crashes; it has to be your compiler.
Tech: What's the code that's crashing?
Cust: I can't discuss it with you; it's classified.
Tech: Fine. Send us some code that causes the problem, but change it
enough that you're not violating any of your security agreements.
Cust: Okay.
Two weeks later, a video tape shows up in the mail. The tape starts
off with the camera out of focus, pointed at a computer screen. The
picture wobbles a bit, and a pair of glasses are held in front of the
lens. The customer moves in front of the camera and starts the program,
which promptly crashes. The question is, how do you trouble shoot this?!

Member: Keep getting a message when I launch the software.
Me: What does the message say?
Member: Something about a protection foot.
Me: Was it a general protection fault?
Member: Yeah that could not it! (actual words no typos)
Me: Do you know what module and address it occured at?
Member: Well in my living room at 1174 East 2nd street.
Me: No, on the screen did it give you an address like manager.aol at
000F:0f23?
Member: I already told you it accured in my living room!! (angry)
Me: Okay, do you remember anything else about the error message?
Member: Listen, are you gonna come over and fix my problem?
Me: No, we will do it over the telephone.
Member: Well, then what the @%*(#$ are you asking for my address for?
(At this point it has occured to me that members blood alcohol was
higher than his AOL version number so I explained our policy on
swearing at a tech and was sworn at more times and finally belched at!)

Tech: Okay, sir, to finish opening your account, I will need you to
provide a credit card number.
Cust: All right, hold on. (some rustling around) Okay, do you
have it yet?
Tech: Well, no, You haven't given it to me yet.
Cust: Sure I did, I just stuck it (the card) in this (3.5 inch) slot
in the front of this computer.

A customer called Compaq tech support to say her brand new
computer would not work. She said she unpacked the unit, plugged
it in, and sat there for 20 minutes waiting for something to happen.
When asked what happened when she pressed the power switch, she
asked, "What power switch?"

An exasperated caller couldn't get her new computer to turn on.
After ensuring the computer was plugged in, the technician asked
her what happened when she pushed the power button. Her response,
"I pushed and pushed on this foot pedal and nothing happened."
The "foot pedal" turned out to be the computer's mouse.

Compaq is considering changing the command "Press any key" to "press
return key" due to the flood of calls adding where the "any" key is.

BTW, the Computer Museum in Boston has "ANY" keys you can attach to
your keyboard. I have an "ANY" key as well as a "PANIC BUTTON" -
really messes people up when they try to use my computer.... :D

AST tech support had a caller complaining that her mouse was hard to
control with the dust cover on. The dust cover turned out to be the
plastic bag the mouse was packaged in.

Another Compaq tech received a call from a man complaining that the
system wouldn't read word processing files from his old diskettes.
after trouble shooting for magnets and head failed to diagnose the
problem, it was found that the customer labeled the diskettes then
rolled them into the typewriter to type the labels.

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

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

Yet another Dell customer called to complain that his keyboard no
longer worked. He had cleaned it by filling up his tub with soap and
water and soaking it for a day, then removing all the keys and washing
them individually.

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

At a Canon help desk, a customer called saying his bubble jet printer
was printing wiggly lines on the back of all his paper. When the
tech asked the customer to take the paper out of the printer and look
at the pack of them, he promptly mumbled something and hung up on her.

Another customer calling the Canon help desk complained that his
BJC-610 was not printing red. After the tech ran the customer through
a few unsuccessful cleanings, he asked the customer to remove the red
tank and see how much ink was in it. The customer then said "No, it
doesn't have any ink. On page 130 in the manual, it said to do some
extensive cleanings. So, I drained the ink and filled it with water
to clean it."

A woman called the Canon help desk with a problem with her printer.
The tech asked her if she was "running it under Windows". The woman
then responded "No, my desk is next to the door. But that is a good
point. The man sitting in the cubicle next to me is under a window
and his is working fine."

Tech: May I ask why you're cancelling our service?
Cust: Well, when I do database searches, I always get too long a
list of files to look at, no matter what keyword I put in.
Tech: (You know, if they just wouldn't put so darn much information
on the service, we wouldn't lose these customers.)

Cust: Well, I just want to know if I load this disk into my computer,
won't other people be able to get into my computer and access
everything I have in there?
Tech: No, that's not possible.
Cust: You see it on the tv all the time.

Cust: I was not aware that by dialing to a long distance #, that
*I* would be billed for it. I assumed that your service would
pick up the bill.
(heartfelt and concerned) I really think that it should be spelled out on
the disk that the customer has to pay for the long distance charges...

Cust: Do I need a monitor? I have everything else.
Tech: Yes, ma'am.
Cust: Why? That is the dumbest thing I've ever heard of.

I just had a call where the customer wanted to know if a modem and
mouse were going to come with the software. I told them that only
the disk is going to be in the start-up kit. They couldn't believe
we were going to make him pay for his own modem and mouse...!

Cust: Oh, my god, I just recieved this disk in the mail, I never
ordered a disk...Am I a member? Am I being charged for this?

A customer asked me where the software magazines are in the grocery
store. She thought I was familiar with her gorcery store.

User: My computer is not working.
Tech: Is it on?
User: Yes, it is on. I am not stupid.
Tech: Ok, did you try to reboot it?
User: You mean turn it off and on? I did but nothing changes.
The screen still looks the same.
User had been turning on and off the monitor for about a half hour
thinking it would fix the problem.

Got a call today from a gentleman who was upset because ABC's "This
Week with David Brinkley" show had run long, causing the first twenty
minutes or so of a sporting event to be pre-empted, and he had seen
AOL's blurb at the end of the show.
Tech: "Well, sir, ABC News does have an area on AOL but we're not
affiliated with them...I'm not sure I understand, why did you call
us instead of ABC?"
Cust: "Well, things like this sure don't make America Online look good!"

Cust: Wait, if there's so much info available on this service, are
you sure it'll fit onto this little slot on my computer?
Tech: (Sure just STUFF IT in there!)

I had a customer who had been trying to put his CD in his computer.
He could not figure it out, so he opened his system and was trying to put
it in a card slot....I spent 10 minutes explaning what his disk drive
was and that he did not, in fact, have a CD-ROM...I sent a disk to him
...explaned how it goes in the system...I mean that literally...when
I was finished, I went into the bathroom and laughed for about 5 minutes...
(I mean almost hystrical laughter :)

Cust: When I dial your service, the system asks me some questions
and then it kicks me off.
Tech: What were the questions that it asked you?
Cust: I don't remember.
Tech: Well, sir, if you don't remember what they were, I don't know
what the problem is and I can't help you.
Cust: So I need to call you and go through this again after seeing
the questions again?
Tech: Yes.
Cust: Can't I just keep you on while I call?
Tech: Is your modem on another line?
Cust: No, same line.
Tech: Well, sir, you can't do it.. kinda like someone picking up
the phone now and dialing while we are talking.
Cust: Can I at least try?
(He tried...TWICE!!!!!!) :::slamming my head on the desk::::

Tech: No, ma'am, I can not see you in front of your computer...now if
you could step in front of the TV... ;)

What certain internet service technicians would like to say:
"Actually, ma'am, you're absolutely right! we really *do* keep track
of every movement you make. From the moment you tear the plastic wrap
off that disk, our intelligence officers in Virginia keep you under
surveillance. Hence, we know exactly when you delete our software from
your computer and immediately cancel your account for you at that time.
Now *that's* service for you!

Heavy, throaty, not real-educated-or-bright voice from New York asks
me if the..."new tape, ya know, the plasticy thingie I got in the
mail...does that work even if I don't put it in my compoota??"
Tech: No, ma'am, the software does not work unless it is
installed onto your hard drive.
Cust: But this isn't soft...this is a small hard plastic square...
Tech: Yes, ma'am, that's called software, and you need to insert it
into the disk drive to use it...
Cust: Look, lady, I'm not stupid...this isn't soft..and I don't
appreciate you making fun of me...(hangs up)

Cust: If I want somebody to send a reply to my e-mail...should I
include a self-addressed stamped envelope along with it?

Cust: Look, look!!!!! Look what it's doing!!! Can you BELIEVE
this?? Why is it doing that??
Tech: (keeps saying: ) Sir, I can't see your computer, what is
it doing??
Cust: (keeps saying: ) WHAT??? Can't you figure it out??
LOOK AT MY COMPUTER SCREEN!!!!! You can see it, can't you?!

Cust: Well, I got one of your free disks in the mail, but I don't have a
computer... I just wanted to thank you for sending this to me.
Tech: (incredulously) Is that the only reason you're calling, sir?
Cust: Yes, I just thought that was really nice of you people,
sending me this disk. I really appreciate it!

Cust: Yes, I just want to know how to return this disk to you people.
Tech: Ma'am, the software is free. You can throw it out, give
it to a friend, whatever you want.
Cust: But my nephew recieved this in the mail and I don't want him
to be billed for it. Can I get credited for this?
Tech: We don't bill you until you actually install the software and
register as a user.
Cust: Can you get me credited for this?
Tech: Ma'am, we have not billed you for anything.
At this point, they insisted on being transferred to someone who
could credit her...!

Cust: I got a disk in the mail, and I don't have a computer... What
do I do with it?
Tech: Well, you could give it to a friend.
Cust: (apparently annoyed) And how do I do *that*?!
Tech: Just give it to a friend who might want to try our service.
Cust: Can I speak to a supervisor?
Tech: (couldn't help it) Why???
Cust: (exhibiting evidence of PMS now) *Because* I wanna speak to a
supervisor.
So she was transferred and the tech listened in a while. The customer
said that she didn't like the tech's answer to her question. For
some reason known to her and her alone, suggesting that you give a
disk to a friend is unprofessional.

Cust: (suddenly seeing the light) "OH!! You mean I need a modem
*and* a computer to get on the internet?!"

Got a call from some old lady today...She wanted to know if she was
going to be charged something for getting one of our disks in the mail.
I told her it was a free mailout. Then she says, "We don't even have
a computer! You know, it's really not a good idea to be sending people
these things in the mail when they didn't ask for them. That's pretty
rude." I said, "Well, most people don't seem to mind." She said
something else I can't remember and hung up on me.
Obviously this lady never took a marketing class in college......IF
she went to college at all. Now I wish I had thought to say to her,
"Ma'am, that's called 'advertising'."

Actually had a lady call up today asking if our software would run on a
Commodore 64! (Anyone still remember those relics?) She said, "I guess I
need to get a more updated computer". I replyed, "Oh, yes." (This lady
either believes in being REAL thrifty or she's poor). Then she asked me,
"What is Windows?"...I almost broke out laughing. I suggested she
go to an electronics store for more info. on getting a computer that
wasn't the cyber equivalent of rocks and sticks.

Asked caller for a reason for cancelling.
Told me he just moved and the phone jack in his new house is too far away
from the computer.

Cust: You sent me this diskette, are you gonna send me a computer
so I can run this?
Tech: Excuse me?

I had a man on the phone who could not install. Now after looking
everywhere for this error message I called RST (three times might
I add). The gentleman looked and asked "should I put the
disk in now?" Hello!! If that is not in the instructions then...

Lady calls claiming to be a new member. Nothing under the screen
name she gave, nada under phone num...zilch under her name...I
resorted to the credit card num... ZIP... nothing. I asked how long
she'd been a member, she said a few days. Finally, I asked her if
she's SURE it was AMERICA ONLINE she signed up for...and she said,
"yeah...well, it's called E-World on my computer, though."

A guy called me the other day and only had one question...
"What is cybersex?" As if that wasn't a shocker in itself, he
wanted to know where he could get cybersex.
Do you think people call AT&T to find out what phone sex is?

Cust: I got one o' these here disks of yours. Is this one a those
new home security systems, that all I have to do is put it here
in my winda and it'll scare away burgulars?
Tech: No, sir, this is for a computer. Do you own a computer?
Cust: Well, hell, what do I need with a computer? I just got me
one o' them 45-inch big screen tv's. I don't need no computer!

Tech: What's your screen name?
Cust: Uh...jai pee gee aie semicolon see arr tee and the tee is underlined.
Tech: HUH????

Cust: I just got your software in the mail....when are you sending
the computer?
Tech: You don't have a computer?
Cust: Nope. But I have the software, just send me the computer and
you've got a new member.

Cust: I get "receive no carrier from modem".
Tech: Where is that music coming from? Sounds like I am on hold.
Cust: From my phone line.
Tech: There is your problem. You have line noise. You have your
radio station coming through your phone line.
Cust: OK...I will try and log on when the station goes off the air.

Can you believe it...someone wanted to know how to get to the
internet through a Brothers Word Processor with Windows 95 & a
Boca 2400 Modem!!!!!!!
Tech: Does it have a hard drive?
Cust: What's that?

We here at AOL know instantly when, if, and how you erased it from
your hard drive so we could stop billing you. Duhhhh, which way
did he go, George, which way did he go?

Man: "Uh, I'm trying to send e-mail to my daughter and she's not
receiving it..."
Tech: "Okay, sir, what is her e-mail address?"
Man: "I don't know... she doesn't even have a computer...can't I send
it to her post office?"

Cust: Yes, does my e-mail go directly to my answering machine
when I'm not online?
Can I just check my e-mail from another phone on my answering machine?

Cust: Yes, I just got this disk in the mail for ten hours. Does
it give me e-mail?
Tech: Yes, ma'am, it does.
Cust: Well, can I have my answering machine hooked up so that I
can just check my e-mail from my answering machine?
Tech: Well, no, ma'am, it does not work that way.
Cust: Now, you listen, young man, there is no reason for you to get
smart with me!
Tech: No, ma'am, I understand. I was just trying to explain to you
how it works.
Cust: Well, young man, you have to understand in my day this stuff
did not even exist.

Man: My account was supposed to be reactivated yesterday and it
hasn't been yet.
Tech: Well, sir, we are showing that your account was reactivated
yesterday at 12:30.
Man: Well, it wasn't because I re-installed the program and I keep
checking, but my old screen names are not showing up on my computer.
Tech: Have you tried to sign on yet?
Man: No, I was waiting for my screen names to show up...

Why is it that customers, and I mean a lot of them, don't understand
why you need a modem to get on the internet...??
Cust: Do you really need a modem?
Tech: Yes, ma'am, you do.
Cust: Do you really, really need one?
Tech: Yes, ma'am, I am afraid that you do.
Cust: WELL, THAT'S DUMB!!!! (hangs up)

I got _two_ calls in my first two weeks as a service rep from prospective
users who had lost their registration certificates. Not knowing what the
heck the computer was asking for, they'd typed in something at random--and
happened to hit on actual screen name/password combination of an active
account. (The 'stupid customer' story here, I think, is the active members
who used their screen name for their password.)
They thought their 'free trial' was great . . .

Don't you love those great customers who throw away their passwords and
registration numbers...Who think that customer service reps. are
responsible for there stu....I mean honest mistake :)

An elderly woman asked, "Do I need to call my phone company each time to let
them know that I am going online?" I am sure that the phone company would
appreciate her calling so that they could hold all her calls. Yeah, right!

Tech... Thank you for calling. Are you currently a member?
Timid Voice...I just got your diskette today.
Tech... (obviously a little girl) How can I help you, honey?
Timid voice... It won't fit my computer.
Tech... What kind of computer do you have?
Timid Voice... A Talking Whiz Kid....

Cust: How much is it for a modem at 14.4?
Tech: We don't sell modems here, sir.
Cust: It says right here on this software pack '14.4 at no extra cost to you.'
Tech: It means it doesn't cost you extra to connect to a high speed modem.

Customer: I just got your software in the mail, and what I wanted
to know was... Will I be charged if I just look at the software...
I mean, I don't even have a modem yet....

If I had to hear this man tell me ONE MORE TIME "We ignorant about
this sorta thing...whut duya mean by that?" I was gonna flip.
I was like, "3.5 inches sir. Do you have a tape measure?"

Cust: You cancelled my account yesterday.
Tech: All right, how may I help you, ma'am?
Cust: Was that the reason my C:\ crashed?
Tech: No, ma'am, your hard drive would not crash because of your
account being cancelled.
Cust: Are you sure?
Tech: Yes.
Cust: Ok...I knew that...

Tech: Yes, ma'am, we require a credit card or checking account in order
to sign up on our service.
Cust: Well, I saw on the news that I should NEVER give out my credit
card info!
Tech: Well, ma'am, we have to have a way to bill you.
Cust: No OTHER service does this!
Tech: No, ma'am, the others don't allow you to use a checking account.
Cust: No honest company would ask me for my credit card info!
Tech: (I sure hope she doesn't Catalog shop! ;-)

Tech: (asks for phone number)
Cust: I don't give out my phone number!
Tech: Alright. How may I help you, sir?
Cust: How much for your internet service?
Tech: (gave out prices)
Cust: If I own the software why do you keep charging for it?
Tech: Well, sir, the software is free, but you are charged for being online.
Cust: YOU CONNECT YOUR COMPUTER TO THE PHONE LINE?!
Tech: Well, sir, you do use a modem to dial online.
Cust: I WILL NEVER HOOK MY COMPUTER TO MY PHONE!!!! :::::CLICK:::::
Tech: (Feeling a little paranoid are we?)

Cust: You sent me a Mac software disk in the mail; I need one for DOS.
Tech: I'll be glad to send one to you, ma'am...should that be a 3-1/2
or 5-1/4 inch disk?
Cust: Uhhh...how are they different?

TOP TEN IDIOTIC QUESTIONS FREQUENTLY ASKED BY AOL CUSTOMERS
10) "Which is the registration number and which is the password?"
9) "Can I speak with Ricki Lake?"
8) "Why do I need a modem if this is just a ten-hour free trial?"
7) "Why do I need to enter my credit card number if this is just a
ten-hour free trial?"
6) "My screen name? What the heck is a screen name???"
5) "I've been billed for the last six months?? But I thought my
first ten hours were free!"
4) "How did I become a member when I never signed anything?!"
3) "I gave my friend your 800 number, so why can't I have ten free
hours credited to my account?"
2) "Why isn't there a local access number here? There's almost a
thousand people living in my town!"
1) "HOW'S THAT WORK???"

I sold an external Apple CD drive along with an Iomega Zip to a customer who
was fairly new at computers. She was going to connect both external SCSI
devices to her desktop Mac. I made sure that she would have the proper SCSI
cables for these two devices. I tried to describe the process over the phone
before she received the hardware, but I realized that it is difficult to
picture how to create the SCSI daisy chain. I waited until her hardware
arrived and I called to see if she was having any difficulty getting them
connected. She said "No, everything is fine. My husband just went out to the
local computer store to buy a Daisy Chain." And after he returned:
"Salesman said they only have the PC version available right now but would be
happy to special order a Mac version."

In my house, my parents want me to put a sticker on the phone when I'm
online. So, one day, right after I get off, the phone rings. From her
bedroom, my mom asks, "Are you still online?"

One of our techs got a call from the archetypal clueless customer - no matter
how detailed her explanation was, it just wasn't detailed enough for this
guy. Every time she asked him to open or close a file, she had to describe
the process. After 40 minutes (half of which was spent describing how to use
the Mac operating system), she decided to just give up and let someone else
step up to bat. "I'm going to refer this to a senior technician," she said.
"He'll be calling you right back." "But that won't work," the customer
protested. "There's a three-hour time difference, and I won't be here in three
hours." Later, when she was telling this story to the rest of us, someone
suggested that she should have responded: "Oh, but he already called you three
hours ago - the call should be coming through any minute now!"

A very irate customer called the Apple support line for problem demanding on
site service. It was an obvious software problem. When I explained how to
fix the problem, he started yelling and screaming at me: Don't you tell me
this is a software problem!!! I've been using Macs for over 15 years and I
know what I'm talking about. (Macs came out in '84. This call was in '94.)

Customer: I just purchased a PowerMac 8500/120 and an external gigabyte
drive. Can I put all my files programs and folders on the external drive?
Me: Certainly. You can keep anything you want on the external drive.
Customer: Good, because I don't want to keep anything on the internal one.
Me: Why not?
Customer: I don't really know, it just looks better that way.
Me: Don't you feel like you're wasting a gigabyte drive by doing that?
Customer: Hmmm. You have a point there. I never thought of that.

It works fine until I take the CD out of the machine and then I can't get
it to run. Does the CD have to be in the machine?????

One man called because he was concerned with the warnings he had read about
installing his printer. So, I asked him to do was to restart his Mac and hold
down the "shift" key, until he sees, "Welcome to Macintosh...Extensions off".
After the second time of the message failing to say, "Extensions off", I
said, "Sir, are you holding down the key that says 'shift' on it, (I had
mentioned 'shift' several dozen times by now)...His reply was, "No, I'm
holding down the long one in the middle... the space bar". After two more
tries, we finally got the extensions off, so I asked him what disks had
come with his printer. I figured out which he needed to insert, and asked
him to insert it in his disk drive.
"Where would I find that," he wanted to know.
"OK, sir, what kind of PowerBook do you have?"
"It's a 310."
"Sir, that's your printer, what kind of PowerBook do you have?"
"Its a 530." (at this point I gave up this questioning simply assuming he
meant one of the 500 series)
"Ok, the drive would be on the right hand side."
"There's no place on the 310 that this disk seems to fit."
"Sir, that's because you need to insert the disk in your Mac."
(It took several minutes to get the disk in right and everything).
"Sir, when you bought this, did they tell you that you would need to get a
software update from HP before this printer would work with your computer?"
"Yes." "Did you?" "No." It was downhill from there.

About six years ago, I was starting to get into 4th Dimension (on the
Macintosh) and was setting up a multi-user database for a client. I got
everything setup as a single user system for the customer because they
didn't want to allocate resources to the database until debugging was thru,
etc., etc. So, all was fine and dandy as a single user system. The customer
called me back three days later and was very frustrated trying to get multi-user
working. Everything seemed okay in his setup, but he couldn't use both
"machines" at once because the other user kept "messing up the screen."
Turns out that he just plugged two keyboards into the same Macintosh and
thought that meant multi-user.

I had a secretary with a three letter power-on password. She forgot it after
our one week vacation over the Christmas/New Years holiday (She must have
been partying it up pretty well). I keep a master list of passwords locked
in a file cabinet, organized by building, room, and initials. Next to her
three letter initials, was her three letter password. Need I say more.

The customer kept saying that the disks we sent were unreadable.
We decided to go back and start from scratch, in case they had missed
something obvious (you know, is it plugged in?). First, we asked, "so, what
kind of Mac is this?" "I don't know", the customer replied, "just a regular
one, I guess, it says 'Dell' on the front, does that help?" Yes, you got it,
they were trying to use the Mac disk in a PC and, of course, it was
unreadable. Now, the disk says "Macintosh Version" on it, but the customer
just wasn't aware of the differences between Mac's and PC's (thinking,
evidently, that a Mac was just another type of PC). The problem was SO
basic, none of the regular tech support people had been able to catch it.

I once had to deal with a user who was upset because they could not edit
their document. I asked her what application she was using, she said
WordPerfect for Windows. I asked her what the problem was, she said she had
loaded the document into the computer, was able to see and read the words,
but she could not edit the text. I was puzzled until she told me she had
scanned in the document; we do not have any OCR software, and she had
inserted the bitmap image of what she had scanned in into the file. I tried
to explain, but she did not listen. I could only shake my head as she
scanned it in again, and kept on trying...

CUSTOMER: Where can I get a BIOS upgrade for by 286 computer?
TECH: The unit should have been shipped with the latest bios.
CUSTOMER: Well I upgraded the processor myself, and my computer won't work.
TECH: What did you upgrade the processor to?
CUSTOMER: I upgraded it to a 486DX-50.
TECH: Sir... The 286 chip is soldered on the motherboard!
CUSTOMER: I know, I took out my handy soldering iron and took it out and put
the 486 on myself.
TECH: Sir, the 486 is bigger than the 286.
CUSTOMER: I know, I had to use quite a bit of solder to solder the extra
pins together.

A call came in and the customer said that his computer was acting funny. The
customer said that he shouldn't be having these problems, because the
computer was reading that it was "Ok". The tech pondered a moment, and came
to the realization that the display actually was "zero K"-the customer's
disk was full!

One user was having problems getting the 3.5" disk into the disk drive. It
would only go about half-way. I proceeded to check to see if there was
already another disk in the drive and also used a paper clip to see if
somehow the drive had gotten into the down position. I was stumped...until I
looked down at the disk and realized that she had put the
disk label completely on the front of the disk. In the process she had
literally "taped" the metal door shut so it wouldn't open when she tried to
put the disk in. After laughing for a couple of minutes, I told her what she
had done. (I found out she had labeled a whole pack of the disks that way).

The computer was having problems reading a disk. I checked the disk and
found that it had a coffee ring on it. I asked who set their coffee cup on
it and one guy raised his hand. I asked why, and he said "Well, I didn't
want to hurt the table."

Some of our older systems have two different card cages in them: one for the
proprietary system bus (processors, memory, major I/O controllers), and a
Multibus cage. The cards that go into the system card cage are much larger
than Multibus cards; you'd think a person could tell the difference.
We had one customer where the sysadmin was prone to do his own hardware
debug. He managed to fit one of the system disk controllers into the
Multibus one time, despite the fact the board stuck out a good four inches!

Caller: You've sent me a disk but it doesn't seem to fit into the drive. It
seems to be an inch too long.
Me: In order to make the disk fit into the drive, you have to make sure that
the metal shield is towards the computer, and that the round wheel is
downwards.
Caller: Ahh. That's better, but it still doesn't work.
Me: You have to push the disk in until the blue button pops out.
Caller: Oh God, now it works! How come you can't read that anywhere?

When I started working here, I got myself all the computer accounts I
needed, etc... including an e-mail account. I was given my passwords for all
systems except e-mail. After about a week, I called up the appropriate
person to find out what the problem was, and was told that my password had
been e-mailed to me.

Back when the PS/2 first came out I was setting up a bunch 'o machines for a
Big Eight accounting firm here in Chicago. Management at the company did not
want their users having floppy drives because that was just another hole for
a virus to enter their network. The funny thing about those old PS/2's is
that the front of the CPU had the disk slot and eject mechanism even if
there was no drive in the bay (later fixed, of course). Thus, we send e-mail
out to everyone describing this anomaly and put tape over the disk slot.
Needless to say, nearly every CPU had diskettes laying on the motherboard
after only a month!

I thought my old SE was having some major problems one night. I mean I kept
looking at the screen and periodically it would jiggle. I ran Mactools, I
ran RAM checker software. I just could not figure it out. I looked for
electrical interference, everything. I could not get it to do it
consistently at all, it was very intermittent. After 30 minutes of struggling
with this, I called my older brother who is an Apple certified technician. I
asked him, and he went through the promptings. Then he noticed that I was
eating some chips. He asked "How long have you been munching?" I said "about
45 minutes or so." He said, "Stop munching." Every time you chew something
crunchy the monitor will appear to jiggle. He was right. Boy was I embarrassed.

I have a Mac friend that convinced the IBM people at his company that when
the token ring network went down, it was due to someone removing the cable
and the token falling out. He actually had businessmen on the floor looking
for it. I think he eventually said he found it himself to avoid getting lynched.

I work at the computer store on a campus. A few weeks ago, we had a customer
call in and ask the following:
"I'd like to buy the Internet. Do you know how much it is?"

A few months ago, a lady started to call our Tech support department over and
over again. She couldn't get a DXF file to import into our 3d program. After
exhausting the Tech Support pool, I was asked to see if I could help this
lady. I promptly asked her to send me the file that she wanted to bring into
our 3d program. After receiving the file I looked at it and found that it was
a 2d DXF file. I called this woman to inform her that she could not import a
2d file. She responded by screaming that she wanted her money back if our
program couldn't automatically make a 3d object out of her 2d CAD drawings.

"Yes, well, I'm having trouble with WordPerfect."
"What sort of trouble?"
"Well, I was just typing along, and all of a sudden the words went away."
"Went away?"
"They disappeared."
"Hmm. So what does your screen look like now?"
"Nothing. It's blank; it won't accept anything when I type."
"Are you still in WordPerfect, or did you get out?"
"How do I tell?"
"Can you see the C:\> prompt on the screen?"
"What's a sea-prompt?"
"Never mind. Can you move the cursor around on the screen?"
"There isn't any cursor. I told you, it won't accept anything I type."
"Does your monitor have a power indicator?"
"What's a monitor?"
"It's the thing with the screen on it that looks like a TV. Does it have a
little light that tells you when it's on?"
"I don't know."
"Well, then look on the back of the monitor and find where the power cord
goes into it. Can you see that?" [sound of rustling and jostling]
[muffled] "Yes, I think so."
"Follow the cord to the plug, and tell me if it's plugged into the wall."
"Yes, it is."
"When you were behind the monitor, did you notice that there were two cables
plugged into the back of it, not just one?"
"No."
"Well, there are. I need you to look back there again and find the other cable."
[rustle rustle] [muffled] "Okay, here it is."
"Follow it for me, and tell me if it's plugged securely into the back of
your computer."
[still muffled] "I can't reach."
"Uh huh. Well, can you see if it is?"
"No."
"Even if you maybe put your knee on something and lean way over?"
"Oh, it's not because I don't have the right angle-it's because it's
dark in here."
"Dark?"
"Yes-the office light is off, and the only light I have is coming in
from the window."
"Well, turn on the office light then."
"I can't."
"No? Why not?"
"Because there's a power outage."
[ARGH!]

A customer saw me handling some floppies, and remarked: "How do they get the
words small enough to fit on there?"

I tried sending email to 1.404.123.4567 but the emailer wouldn't let me."
That's a telephone number!

This lady bought a computer from us, about a month later, she came in and
asked us to install a soundcard which can support CD-ROM drives. So we
installed a SB PRO for her... Then about a week later, she brings the
machine in, and starts ragging us out because her CD-ROM isn't working, and
"It wont eject the disk" I look at the computer... "But you don't have a
CD-ROM drive!?" she points at the 5 1/4" disk drive and says "What kind of
computer salesman are you? Can't even recognize a damn CD-ROM drive when you
see one?" Seems she had decided her 5 1/4" floppy drive was in fact a CD-ROM,
and since the CD fit in quite nicely, it HAD to be a CD-ROM. She figured we
messed up her sales order, so she wanted us to install the soundcard so she
could use her "CD-ROM". Long and short of it... The drive was destroyed, the
CD was destroyed... And all the technicians were laughing for a few hours...

I am a software installer for a large healthcare information systems company
that produces products for the AS/400. On a recent install, shortly after
going live with the product, I needed to copy a new file to the live
environment. In order to do this I needed to have all the users off the
system. Rather than just shutting it down, I sent a message to all the
terminals that read "Please sign off by 17.15. If you do not sign off
voluntarily, your job will be terminated. Thanks." I sent the message and
about five minutes later, I received a call from the most irate ICU nurse I
have ever talked to. She demanded to know who I was and who I worked for. I
explained to her that I was employed by the hospital to install their new
system. She basically ranted and raved for a couple of minutes and told me
that my message was the most obnoxious and rude message she had ever read.
She then hung up on me. I asked two of my colleagues to read the message and
both of them thought I was quite polite. After all, I did say "please" and
"thank you." I had the system down for about an hour and then brought it
back up. I called the emergency room to make sure that the fix I had put in
was working. The nurse informed me that it had but then asked me if she was
going to be fired. "Excuse me?", I said. She asked again, "Am I going to be
fired?" I told her I didn't know what she was talking about and then she
told me that she wasn't the only one worried. She then explained she had
been on the system when it was taken down and she thought that meant losing
her job! I couldn't believe it! I explained to her that the term "job" was a
computer term meaning the program you were currently in. It suddenly dawned
on me why the ICU nurse had been so rude and why, I found out later, the
nursing supervisor and the head of Information Systems had been beeped! I
sent out a message over the system apologizing. The next morning, I ran into
the CEO and CFO of the hospital who thought the whole thing was hilarious
and took to calling me the Terminator. They told me that anyone that stupid
deserved to be fired.

A customer called in at MicroSystems Warehouse and said he needed to speak
to a tech immediately. He said, "Are the SIMM slots located in the back of the
computer?" I asked him if he needed help installing the chips. He says, "No.
I installed them and the computer just isn't recognizing them." I said to
him, "Where did you install the chips?" He says, "I removed my sound card
and put them in there."

The computer service tech where I work told me he got a call from a
secretary complaining that the floppy drive in her computer wouldn't work. He
went down to check it out and found that she was putting the disks in WITH
the plastic dust sleeves still on them. He asked her why on earth she was
doing that and she said, "Well, I didn't want my computer to get a virus."

I was working at a company that manufactured inter networking hardware for
minicomputers, providing in-house support for other employees of the
company. One day, a user buzzed me on the intercom and asked, "Is the
computer down?" Since I was reading and did not actually know the answer to
her question, I sat up quickly and began typing on my terminal to see if the
computer had crashed when I wasn't looking. It hadn't. I replied, "No, it's
up." "Well, I can't log on," was the reply. When I got to the user's office,
I checked the obvious things; the terminal was plugged in and turned on, the
keyboard was plugged in and the lights showed "online". I reset the terminal
- no effect. I checked the terminal settings (baud rate, parity, etc.), all
correct. Finally, in desperation, I craned my neck around the back side of
the terminal and noticed that there was one and only one cable running into
the rear of the box - the power cable. I asked the user where the other
cable was (the serial connection to the mini) and was told, "Oh, it's over
here. I moved my terminal this morning. Is this thing important?"

Knowing something about computers made me the department computer "Geek".
That meant that I had to help install nearly all the Macintosh software for
a large radiology department. It was fun to go to everyone's desk and get
them up and running. One secretary really like to chew winter green lifesavers.
I told her the old story about seeing phosphorescence when the candy is crushed
by her teeth. She had heard about that and had even tried it out in front of a
mirror in a darkened room. I smiled and said, "Chewing lifesavers in front of
your monitor will get the screen to jiggle." She looked up with opened eyes
and while grabbing here purse she said, "We'll just see." She popped a life
saver in her mouth and LO and Behold! the screen jiggled (for her).
She was amazed and I grew several levels of esteem after that incident until
she caught me in the hall later and wanted to know why no one else could see
the screen jiggle when she chewed her candy.

Me: "Hewlett Packard Customer Service, this is Sergio, can I help you?"
Customer: "Yes, I have a deskjet that I need to have repaired"
Me: "We make several deskjets ma'am -- do you know what model yours is?"
Customer: "It's a Hewlett Packard!"
Me: (suppressing a sigh) Yes I know....umm, could you tell me if your deskjet
is color or black and white?
Customer: (pause) well....it's beige!

At 3:37 a.m. on a Sunday, I had just looked at the clock to determine my
annoyance level, I received a frantic phone call from a new user of a
Macintosh Plus. She had gotten her entire family out of the house and was
calling from the neighbor's. She had just received her first system error
and interpreted the picture of the bomb on the screen as a warning that the
computer was going to blow up.

One particular day like any other, an older woman purchased a Macintosh
dragged it home. A little while later we received an angry phone call from
the woman. Apparently, she had set her whole system up without incident
until she came across the mouse pad we included at no extra charge. "Which
side" she demanded, "of the mouse pad faces upwards???" Despite the brightly
colored red company logo emblazoned on one side of the pad, the woman
scolded us for not including appropriate instructions.

A kid called our Service Dept for an LC he had in for repair. The hard drive had
gone south, and he needed quotes on replacements. He wanted to know if he could
get a hard drive with a CD-ROM drive built into it....

Them: Hi. I'm tryin' ta print somethin' and it's crashin' da fu**in' rip.
Us: Which rip?
Them: da fu**in' rip man, dis progreeam fu**in' sucks.
Us: No no no. What kind of rip is it sir?
Them: Well, it din't reeeally a rip. It's just a fu**in' printa.
Us: What kind of printer might that be?
Them: Some HP color printa somethin c.
Us: OK. And what kind of a file are you trying to print on it?
Them: I got dis drawin' here, it's got some pitchas I imported into it, and I
arranged 'em all pretty like by pastin' inside a buncha rectangles. An' I
wanna print 'em on the printa 'cuz I gawt it fer real cheap, like two hunnerd
dollas, fer buyin my computer and I wanna see if it woiks. I got deez pitchas
a my family, and I put 'em inta some rectangles. I scanned da fu**in' pitchas
on my new scanna.
Us: How many pichas, errr, pictures did you scan, sir?
Them: Ten.
Us: And how big are they?
Them: Oh about an inch or two square each.
Us: No no ... in terms of memory how big are they?
Them: Oh 'bout 2 or three memgabytes each. Some are smawlla.
Us: Lemme get this straight. Your sending a 20 megabyte file with almost a
dozen overlapping high resolution files pasted inside scanned images to
a cheapie color printer you got for $200, and you expect it to print?
Them: Sure. Why not?

When I was working for a software company, one day I got a call from a customer
wondering if we had WordPerfect for the Gameboy. I said "No, but I'll call you
when it comes in." Sometimes it's better to go along with the customer and not
ask any questions. :)

At a local office superstore where I used to work a man was looking at
various computer systems. I approached him and answered his questions
about the machines. After telling him that the model he was looking at
had a fax/modem. He twisted and turned looking at the computer from all
angles with a perplexed expression on his face. He then asked me, "So
where do you feed the paper in?"

I am a tech for HP Calc support and I got a call last week from a lady
who wanted to send in her husband's calculator to be "overhauled". When I
asked her what was wrong with it she replied "Oh, nothing, it works fine, he
just wanted to get it looked at and have some upkeep maintenance done on it."
I guess she wanted the 10,000 calculation tune-up.

Him: "Yeah- I got that there version 3.1 of your program and it don't
run on my Macintosh 7500."
Me: "Yes sir. That is correct. 3.1 is not compatible with the PCI
Power PC Macs. You need version 5.0 or later."
Him: "Yep- I got me one of them version 5's too! It runs fine! Right
quick too!"
Me: (stifling laughter at his imbecility) "Well sir, you have the
upgrade, so what's the problem?"
Him: "Well, I just want to know when you're gonna make the 3.1
version run on Power PCs, 'cuz we've been using the 3.1 version years
more than the 5.0 and we like it just fine."
Me: (trying not to scream into the phone YOU STUPID IDIOT!!!)

Customer walks in and says "My radio is broken!"
So of course I would ask, "Have you checked the batteries?"
"Yes. I'm positive they are fine!"
As part of what I was trained to do, I had to check the batteries anyway.
This made the customer rather irate, but I simply informed them that it was
procedure to check the batteries. I check the batteries and they are deader
than a door! And I politely point out that the batteries are, in fact, dead.
Upon replacing them, I show them that it was the battery problem. And their
response: "But the package says that they are good until January 1998!!"

Me: What can I help you with?
Customer: I'm having trouble with file transfers. I've read the manual,
but nothing seems to be working.
We check the procedure the customer was using. Everything was fine. Check
the users settings. Everything was fine. I asked "Have you had any
other problems connecting with this system?"
Customer: "Connecting?"
Me: Yes, other than trying to transfer a file to this system, do you have
any other problems after connecting to the remote system?
Customer: I just start your program and try to transmit the file. You
mean I have to call the other system first? How do I do that?

CALLER: I just installed the Faxcilitate fax software and have lost the manual.
ME: It's on the MicroPhone LT disk.
CALLER: Oh, well, that disk is locked away and I can't find it right now.
(Pause.) It doesn't seem to be on the America Online disk.
ME: No, Ma'am, it's on the Microphone LT disk.
CALLER: I can't find the manual anywhere.
ME: Yes, Ma'am, it is not a printed manual. It is a file on the Microphone LT
floppy disk.
CALLER (to someone in the office): Can you get me the key to... (Long pause.)
OH! It's on the Microphone LT disk!
ME: Yes, Ma'am.
CALLER: Thank you so much. You've been so very helpful.
One question: Does Snapple offer a HEMLOCK variety...

Last night, I had a woman on the phone who was trying to get her Mac's DOS
card to see more memory. Not only did she change her story 10 times, but she
kept restarting the Mac, over and over. I would say, "Let's change this
option in PC Setup now, ok?" BONG! "Ma'am, why did you restart your Mac?"
"I wanted the changes to take effect." "Please don't restart until I ask you
to, ok?" "Ok." Anyway, we'd go back into the PC Setup, change something, and
then, inevitably, BONG! I got so pissed off, I finally said to her, "Ma'am,
you shouldn't restart so much, you're going to burn out your restarting coil,
and that's not covered under Apple's warranty." She got so scared, she didn't
even want to restart her Mac ever again. She even told me, "Thank you so much
for telling me that, I don't want to burn out my coil."

My friend Duane was on duty in the main lab on a quiet afternoon. He noticed a
young woman sitting in front of one of the workstations with her arms crossed
across her chest and staring at the screen. After about 15 minutes he noticed
that she was still in the same position only now she was impatiently tapping
her foot. He asked if she needed help and she replied, "ÒItÕ's about time!
I pushed the F1 button over twenty minutes ago!"

Customer calling tech support:" I just called about half-an-hour ago and the
person I talked to said he'd mail me a new disk with new software on it. Where
is it? I'm still waiting for it!"

A tech was trying to determine what kind of modem a customer had because the
connection with his modem wasn't very reliable. In a terminal program, he had
the member type ATI3 (which usually gives some indication of the modem's
manufacturer or speed). And the tech asked, "What does it say now?" The member
responded with, "AT&T Data/fax modem 14.....Wait a minute I see the problem
right here, I use MCI not AT&T."

Me: Hi, this is Me at Megalith. Can I have your name and phone number?
Customer: (Resentfully) Now where would I find *that*?!

The graphic artist at the company I recently joined had been using a
Macintosh for about three years. Aware that I knew a lot about computers, he
came to me with his questions. He couldn't understand why, after he scanned
a graphic and placed it in the folder holding his Adobe Illustrator
application, the graphic didn't automatically become an Illustrator file.

"Thank you for calling America Online. How can I help you today?"
"I'd like to upgrade my tickets to first class from coach"
"I think you are looking for American Airlines!"
But after a 20 minute hold in a telephone system that repeatedly asks about
computers and modems and connectivity....you'd think he would have gotten
the idea.

When I was setting up a service call with Apple computer, the woman was
getting my info. She asked if I had another way of being reached other than
by the phone number I gave her. I said that I could be reached by e-mail.
She asked for my address. I gave it to her. Then, she wanted the phone # for
my e-mail address. Instills confidence, doesn't it?

User : I'm having problem with my modem account. Tech support : okay, tell
me exactly the part you are having problem with. User : Well, I think you
need to give me an account. Tech support : Well, what kind of account do you
need? A e-mail account, unix account, or novell account?
User : I need a carrier account.
Tech support: What do you mean a carrier account? User : When I try to dial
in, it tells me "no carrier." Can you give me a carrier account?

From my former job as a sales engineer at a major computer retailer: There
was the woman who bought a modem for her Mac IIsi. She called and wanted to
know how to use it to do virtual reality.

Last week, I installed a computer for a co-worker. It was the very first
computer she had ever used.
She called me early the next morning. She said her monitor was fuzzy looking
and wanted to know if she needed to buy an antenna for it.
I told her no, it was cable ready. :-)

I delivered and setup a PC in an office, gave some small training, and
agreed to follow up a week later. When I returned, the monitor was off the
top of the PC and a typewriter in its place. The secretary felt the PC made
a better typewriter stand than her desk.

From Usenet: (1) New to the net, I would like to send a message to somebody I know
in England. I know his E-mail address, but it seems to be incomplete or
erroneous :it's "Joshua 24:15B". Does it mean something to anybody?
(2) That's not an email address! It's a Bible verse!

I used to work for MacWarehouse as a tech support rep. One day a gentleman
called who had never had a computer before. He was trying to set up his new
system. I tried and I tried but I just couldn't make him understand where to
plug the cables in. Finally I looked up the details on his order. He had
ordered top of the line everything - Monitor, Keyboard, Printer, Modem,
Scanner, speakers, CD-ROM drive, external hard drive....except - he had not
ordered the COMPUTER itself. No wonder the cables would not plug in anywhere!

User sees a suitcase called "System" which took up lots of space but had
only a few things in it, so they moved out the fonts and sounds and threw
the file away.

While on the phone to a customer regarding a problem with a LaserWriter, I
finally managed to work out that she had the printer cable in the Comms port
instead of the other. As she needed to use the printer port, I asked her to
remove the cable from the phone port and place it in the printer port. Mere
seconds later the phone line went dead...

In response to a question about a printer that keeps reinitializing itself,
a technician said "That's normal. If you haven't used it for a while it lays
low, then initializes itself." One technician asked, "What do you mean,
initialize printer? I don't know what that means. If it's on the front panel
but not on screen, has to be a network problem." Another said, "If you
switch from one program to another, you must reinitialize the printer each
time". One was sure it was a network problem; when I wouldn't crawl under
the desks to check the termination, he said to check with our network
consultant. I was then disconnected after 5 minutes on hold...!

My father works for a multinational company and he is the manager of a
project that implements a new sales support system in the entire region he
is operating in. When he wrote the instructions to the sales
representatives on how to do this he got the letter back from one of the
regional offices with complaints. His original instructions read like this:
From the File...-menu, select OS-Shell. This will make your screen look like
this: C:\SPS\WIN Now type DOWNLOAD to ..............etc etc
The hand-written remark on the sheet of paper was "These instructions are
incorrect and cannot be followed! Right after C:\SPS\WIN, a strange bracket
> pops up and it WILL NOT go away!"

Tech: Okay, So your monitor is not working, the screen is blank and no
matter what you do it stays blank? Do you see that button on the
bottom right hand side of the screen? Press it. . .
Great, talk to you next time!

I ran the computer department for a collection company and one day a
user walked up to me and told me she had received a payment in that
day, but her screen wasn't flashing to notify her (the right corner of
the screen normally would reverse color and flash 'Payment Received').
Then she went on to tell me that she was pretty sure the bulb was just
burned out and needed to be replaced.

Another time, there were several employees complaining about having
a screen that showed green lettering when they wanted amber screens.
One employee got mad at me because the manager told her that to change
the screen color, all we had to do was put a 'orange fuse' in.

A customer called up the company that made her hand-held scanner,
complaining that it wasn't scanning correctly. After several minutes of
hardware and software questions, the tech asked what exactly the person did
to scan. "Well," she said, "I simply put it on the side of my head and drag
it down." (And she wonders why the "brain scanner" can't find anything!)

The client had unplugged the power cord, one of those "high density, high
resistance air connections," and wondered why the machine wouldn't start.
I had them follow the electrical cord, power supply, the thing you plug into
the wall, from the back of the computer to the power strip. Then, I had them
follow the power strip cord around, and it was plugged into itself. I calmly
suggested that it would work better if it was plugged into the wall.

A clients ordered an Quadra 840AV, but they did not want the internal CD-ROM
which comes standard in that box. No problem, I took the CD out before I
delivered it to the customer. However, I did not have the blank bezel with
which to cover the opening. I set the system up for them, and told them I'd
be back to replace the bezel. I returned later, opened up the case to install
the new bezel, and found several post-it notes. They had been put in there
because she thought that the original CD bezel, with its long slim opening,
looked like the trash recepticles they have on ATM machines.

One time a guy phoned me to complain that Norton Utilities failed to recover
his data, after he had switched off the computer before he had saved his work.

Problem: User cannot access the disk drive (A: 5.25 1.2 megabyte)
Cause: User put the 5.25 inch diskette in the tiny gap between drives A:
and B: and then attempted to close the drive A: door.

Problem: User is having problems with diskettes. 5.25/1.2 megabyte
Cause: User took the "Remove diskette from sleeve and insert into
drive" literally and sliced open the protective cover of the disk, inserting
the disk media into the drive.

A service tech rx'd a onsite call that was about 75mi. away. Symptom: no
lights, no display, nada. His first ? to the lady was 'have you verified
that it is plugged in to a working AC outlet'. She ripped his lungs out over
the phone! He said OK and jumped in his van and drove the 75mi. When he
walked around the counter, he noticed one of those wedge shaped plug
inserts that allows you to plug in half of your house in one plug AND it was
at about a 45 degree horizontal angle. He laid his hands on top of the
CRT and stated loudly "If you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, BE HEALED"
and at the same time kicked the plug in the wall while slapping the top of
the CRT. LO and BEHOLD, everything went beep, PRN cycled the paper, and
everything was OK. He pulled out his service book, wrote on the ticket "I
healed it", and left.

Well, I had one event happen to me, where one lady had just bought a Apple
IIc and complained that she was having problems with her monitor, so we told
her to bring her monitor in, and we'll check it out. So she brings her monitor
in and we plug it in, and it works without a flaw. We tell her that the
monitor isn't the problem, and to bring her CPU in. She stares at us
blankly, and asks, "What's the CPU?" Joe explains that it's the piece of
equipment that all your devices plug into. So about 20 minutes later, she
returns, and walks in carrying the surge supressor. When we explained to her
the item that we needed her to bring in, she replied, "Oh, you mean the
keyboard!" And to make this all the more interesting, she was a gradeschool
computer class instructor.

We had a customer who constantly complained that his floppy disk drive
didn't work. When we asked him to start the machine up, he pulled from
his briefcase an A4 clip file, which he opened revealing all of his floppies.
He'd clipped holes in them so that they could be stored in his clip file!

An office was using 5 1/4" floppies as its main storage medium. Eventually,
they began to fail to read. Fortunately, they had asked the secretary to
make copies of all of the important disks, which they now asked her to fetch.
She returned with a folder in which were dozens of photocopies of the disks.
This was not much help!

Someone e-mailed me and said that he thought that I could help
'im...he wanted me to tell him how to hack into a phone company's
computer or something and find out someone's unlisted number! I
think this person has seen Hackers a few TOO many times...!! :)

A while back, I sold a copy of a popular word processing application to
a customer. It wouldn't install, and would fail on the first disk. I
instructed her to bring it back in for an exchange. She did, and we
did. After a couple more times of the same thing happening, I offered
that if she would bring it back, I would install it on the store's system
to insure it's operability, with the provision that if it fails, we fully
refund her. She agreed. We tried to install. I opened the box to find
the 5.25 disks trimmed by about an inch on either side. Yes, you guessed
it. She had purchased what was then the standard, a 5.25" version, and
had tried to "make the disks fit" in her spanking new PS/2's 3.5" drive.

When my friend was working in Escom Sales, there was a guy who bought
WinWord. Around one hour he said that *the dang thing ain't working*.
Moreover, he told to my friend that the whole computer is broken. The
guy had been installing it. After he finished with the first floppy, he
got a screen message, saying, 'Please insert disk into into Drive A:\'.
So, he did. But, without removing the first floppy...He refused to
admit that it was his fault because there was no message saying 'please
remove disk one first' The thing which is still puzzling me is, how on
earth did he push a second disk into a drive???????????????

Friend of mine does tech support and was called by an anxious customer
because his computer wouldn't read his floppy disks. When she arrived
at the man's home, she found out the reason was because he was folding
5 1/4" disks in half and putting them in the 3 1/2" drive... She was able
to remove all five disks he had put in there!

I was teaching a user about windows, told her to move the cursor up to
the menu line...move the cursor to the menu line... move the mouse up to
move the cursor up to the menu line... (nuthin happening...) so I look
over her right shoulder and she had raised the mouse UP about a foot OFF
the desk!!! aaaarrrggghhh

I got a call from a woman whose system was displaying hardware errors.
She said that this was related to a call they made a month ago. I
researched the call she mentioned. Both calls were regarding massive
hardware failure, but the error messages were different and there was
nothing else in common. I tried to call her back, but there was no answer.
Three hours later, she called me. There were different errors now, and
some of the supercomputers weren't working at all. I promised to contact
a hardware specialist immediately. "By the way," I asked, "why do you
think it is related to the other call?" "Oh," she said happily, "in both
cases, the air conditioning had failed and the computer room was over 150
degrees." That's the only time I ever let out a bloodcurdling scream in
public. And she still refused to turn off the computers!

For a computer programming class, I sat directly across from someone and our
computers were facing away from each other. A few minutes into the class, she
got up to leave the room. I reached between our computers and switched the
inputs for the keyboards. She came back and started typing and immediately
got a distressed look on her face. She called the teacher over and
explained that no matter what she typed, nothing would happen. The teacher
tried everything. By this time I was hiding behind my monitor and quaking
red-faced. I started to type... 'Leave me alone!' They both jumped back,
silenced. 'What the..' The teacher said. I typed, 'I said leave me alone!'
The kid got real upset, 'I didn't do anything to it, I swear!' It was all
I could do to hold my water! The conversation between them and HAL 2000
went on for an amazing five minutes. 'Don't touch me!' 'I'm sorry, I didn't
*mean* to hit your keys that hard.' 'Who do you think you are anyway?!'...
etc... Finally, I couldn't contain myself any longer and fell out of my chair
and about peed myself. After they had realized what I had done, they both
turned beet red! Funny, I never got more than a C- in that class...

Common mouse problem: User doesn't pick up mouse and put it back in
the middle of pad, ends up running mouse along walls of partition...

"I paid $5000 for this computer; I shouldn't have to read the manual!"

My personal favorite happened when I was at IBM, and one lady ran
from within her home directory: rm -r .*

A professor was telling his class about his new students (freshmen).
When he asked them to comment all their programs, this is what he got:
- "This program is very nice"
- "This program is very difficult"
- "This program is very interesting"........

A friend worked for a company that made IC's. Every few months, their yields
would go down to about zero. Analysis of the failures showed all sorts of
organic material was introduced in the process, but they couldn't figure out
where. One evening, someone was working late and came into the lab. There
he found the maintainence crew cooking pizza in the chip curing ovens!

A huge travel agency in Florida (a major booker of Caribbean cruises for
blue-haired retired ladies) recently bought an IBM 3090 to run the reservation
database. When the deal was consummated, the proud new owner asked IBM to
install it in a big glass room right behind the receptionist's area so all the
customers could see the flashing lights and spinning tape reels as they walked
in, a testimony to the modernity of the agency. Good idea, except there are no
blinking lights on a 3090. So the service manager offered to build some. They
hired a theatrical designer to come up with a suitably futuristic "set", got
curved glass walls to minimize reflections, and installed the mainframe behind
the "real-looking" facade. The customer declared that it was exactly what he
had in mind, regardless of what the actual computer looks like.

The Met office is now using fax machines to give local authorities early warning
of severe weather. The Hampshire emergency planning office said: "Rather than
having to rely on telephones, for instance, where lines are at risk in bad
weather, we are encouraging the wider use of fax machines."

An office technician got a call from a user. The user told the tech that her
computer was not working. She described the problem and the tech concluded that
the computer needed to be brought in and serviced.
He told her, "Unplug the power cord and bring it up here and I will fix it."
About fifteen minutes later, she shows up at his door with the power cord.

Our computer (a Unisys thing) has periodic maintanence done on it once a month.
This particular morning the Unisys techies were stumped. The computer was on
but nothing happened on the console (Keep in mind that this computer has 150
terminals on it). After three hours, at $96/hour, one of the techs turned up
the brightness on the monitor.

A CI (Computer Illiterate) reads in the manual that when you save something,
it creates a file. The person saves what he/she is doing, then gets up, walks
over to the file cabinet, and flips through the files, trying to find the new
one.
A CI who follows baseball reads that his computer has 640K memory. The CI
then spends five or so hours trying to figure out how the computer can pitch a
strike-out.
A CI refuses to use a laser printer because he/she fears it will burn a hole
through the paper.
A CI buys a home computer with a hard disk. He/she unpacks the computer,
sets it up, then calls the place he/she bought it from, complaining that there
were no disks in the box at all, hard or floppy.

A person has just gotten a new printer. She plugs in the printer, walks
across the room, tries to print something with no connection to the printer, and
then wonders why it doesn't print.
Person turns on the computer without a keyboard plugged in. When she turns
on the computer, the computer finds out that there is no keyboard attached and
it gives a "Keyboard Error" message. She then asks, "Why did it give me a
keyboard error? There isn't even a keyboard attached?!

While trying to diagnose a problem over the phone I told the user to type out
his autoexec.bat file.
He said it said "File not found".
I told him to do a 'dir'. I asked him if he saw autoexec.bat listed.
He said, "Well it says autoexec, then there's some spaces, but no dot, and
then it says bat."
I said type this in "type autoexec.bat".
Again, he got "File not found".
I asked him to tell me exactly what he typed.
He said, "I typed just what you told me: 'type autoexecdotbat'."

A major corporation bought a Cray to use in R&D. On a tour of the department,
an executive remarked that it was a lot of money for such a small machine. The
engineer countered that it did calculations 100 times faster than their old
machine, allowing them to things they only used to dream of before. Impressed,
the executive remarked it could probably calculate a huge spreadsheet of his in
under a second. Sadly, the engineer informed his boss that Lotus didn't make a
version of 1-2-3 for the Cray. At this, the executive remarked, "What do you
mean, it's not PC-compatible?"

A lady on the airplane strikes up a conversation with the fellow sitting in
the next seat, "..and where are you going?"
"I'm going to San Francisco to a Unix convention," he replys.
"Eunuchs convention?" she questions. "I didn't know there were that many of
you."

Computer Firm Accused Of Creative Bookkeeping
Federal regulators allege in a lawsuit that 16 former executives of MiniScribe
Corporation altered company books and disguised bricks as computer disk drives
to inflate the company's profits.
The action filed Wednesday by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

I heard this story from someone who worked for a French company, they had a
problem with a program on punched cards written for them by a US subsidiary.
The programs never worked when loaded in France but the US systems house swore
blind that they did at their end. Eventually, in exasperation, someone followed
the working set of cards from the US to France. At French customs, they
observed a customs official remove a few cards at random from the deck.
Apparently, the French customs are entitled to remove a sample from any bulk
item (such as grain), so a few cards from a large consignment shouldn't matter,
should it?

Then there's a former supervisor who sat down to use a Mac in the office. Put
his floppy in. Didn't mount. Put another floppy in. Same problem. Tried three
or four times before asking for some help. You guessed it. No floppy drive. All
the floppies were just falling into the Mac, where they had to be retrieved
later by the guy the supervisor called. They taped up the hole.

As a student I was working in the computer shop nearby to make some pocket
money. One day came an old man who asked, "I don't know about computers but
I'd really like to learn. How do they work?" The vendor didn't know where to
begin and said, "Well...the computer is a machine and you speak to it to
make it do things, like graphics, games.." The the man bend over the keyboard
of the nearest computer, examine it and says, "Well?? Well??" and after a minute
says to us, "Well I'm talking to it and it's not responding!!!" No, it was not
somebody who wanted to make a joke. He eventually came back a few times and then
bought a computer having learn the very few steps of basic (how to insert a tape
and type LOAD then press PLAY).

There is a story that a few months after the British government decreed that all
schools should have a BBC micro, an engineer was called out to one school that
had just got a disk drive. They arrived to find a tape cassette jammed in the
drive and an eight-year-old standing there saying "I told her not to do it" (of
the teacher).

A friend who was in field service for Burroughs, and is currently at Unisys,
tells of the time he went to do some routine PM at a customer site. As he was
getting ready to button up the hardware, he asked the girl who was the operator
for the machine in question to queue up the system status report to the printer
so he would have it by the time he was ready to leave. The silence, nothing
printing, was quite noticeable. Seeing that the printer was off line, he asked
again if she would run the report. "Oh, yes," came the response, "it'll be
printing in a moment. I'm just waiting for the phone to ring." "I beg your
pardon?" "I'm waiting for the phone to ring so the report will print." Mildly
curious, he inquired what arcane influence the telephone had over the system
printer, and piece by piece the story emerged. About 6 months previously, when
she was a new hire, the DP manager had asked her to queue up a report. He was
going to another building, and for some reason didn't want the thing to print
until he got there, so he told her to keep the printer off line so that he could
phone her when he was ready. "As soon as the phone rings, press the online
button, there, and let 'er rip." This she had duly done, and from that day
forward, whenever anyone had called asking for a report, she had taken the
printer off line, queued up the report, and waited for the phone to ring.
No-one at the customer site realised what she was doing, because whenever anyone
would call the machine room to ask where a requested report was, she would say,
truthfully, "It's printing right now."

Recently I received mail from a student who said "I have a 'ps -ef'
running and can't kill it. The process ID keeps changing. Please help".
(this must be a Heisenberg uncertainty 'ps', where the act of observing
the system changes its behavior).

----------------------------

The Nine Types Of Users

El Explicito:
"I tried the thing, ya know, and it worked, ya know, but now it
doesn't, ya know?"
Advantages: Provides interesting communication challenges.
Disadvantages: So do chimps.
Symptoms: Complete inability to use proper nouns.

Mad Bomber:
"Well, I hit Alt-F6, Shift-F8, Ctrl-F10, F4, and F9, and now it
looks all weird."
Advantages: Will try to find own solution to problems.
Disadvantages: User may have inadvertently translated document to Navajo.
Symptoms: More than six stopped jobs in UNIX.
Real Case:One user came in complaining that his WordPerfect document
was underlined. When I used reveal codes on it, I found that he'd set
and unset underline more than fifty times in his document.

Frying Pan/Fire Tactician:
"It didn't work with the data set we had, so I fed in my aunt's recipe
for key lime pie."
Advantages: Will usually fix error.
Disadvantages: 'Fix' is defined VERY loosely here.
Symptoms: A tendancy to delete lines that get errors instead of
fixing them.
Real Case:One user complained that their program executed, but didn't
do anything. The scon looked at it for twenty minutes before realizing
that they'd commented out EVERY LINE. The user said, "Well, that was
the only way I could get it to compile."

Shaman:
"Last week, when the moon was full, the clouds were thick, and formahaut
was above the horizon, I typed F77, and lo, it did compile."
Advantages: Gives insight into primative mythology.
Disadvantages: Few scons are anthropology majors.
Symptoms: Frequent questions about irrelavent objects.
Real Case:One user complained that all information on one of their disks
got erased (as Norton Utilities showed nothing but empty sectors, I suspect
nothing had ever been on it). Reasoning that the deleted information went
*somewhere*, they wouldn't shut up until the scon checked four different disks
for the missing information.

X-user:
"Will you look at those...um, that resolution, quite impressive, really."
Advantages: Using the cutting-edge in graphics technology.
Disadvantages: Has little or no idea how to use the cutting-edge in
graphics technology.
Symptoms: Fuzzy hands, blindness.
Real Case: When I was off duty, two users sat down in front of me at DEC
station 5000/200s that systems was reconfiguring. I suppressed my laughter
while, for twenty minutes, they sat down and did their best to act like they
were doing exectly what they wanted to do, even though they couldn't log in.

Miracle Worker:
"But it read a file from it yesterday!" 'Sir, at a guess, this disk has been
swollowed and regurgitated.' "But I did that a month ago, and it read a file
from it yesterday!"
Advantages: Apparently has remarkable luck when you aren't around.
Disadvantages: People complain when scons actually use the word
"horse-puckey".
Symptoms: Loses all ability to do impossible when you're around.
Must be the kryptonite in your pocket.
Real Case:At least three users have claimed that they've loaded IBM
WordPerfect from Macintosh disks.

Taskmaster:
"Well, this is a file in MacWrite. Do you know how I can upload it to MUSIC,
transfer it over to UNIX from there, download it onto an IBM, convert it to
WordPerfect, and put it in three-column format?"
Advantages: Bold new challanges.
Disadvantages: Makes one wish to be a garbage collector.
Symptoms: An inability to keep quiet. Strong tendancies to make
machines do things they don't want to do.
Real Case: One user tried to get a scon to find out what another person's
E-mail address was even though the user didn't know his target's home system,
account name, or real name.

Maestro:
"Well, first I sat down, like this. Then I logged on, like this, and after
that, I typed in my password, like this, and after that I edited my file, like
this, and after that I went to this line here, like this, and after that I
picked my nose, like this..."
Advantages: Willing to show you exactly what they did to get an error.
Disadvantages: For as long as five or six hours.
Symptoms: Selective deafness to the phrases, "Right, right, okay, but
what was the ERROR?", and a strong fondness for the phrase, "Well, I'm
getting to that."
Real Case: I once had to spend half an hour looking over a user's shoulder
while they continuously retrieved a document into itself and denied that they
did it (the user was complaining that their document was 87 copies of the same
thing).

Princess (unfair, perhaps, as these tend, overwhelmingly, to be males):
"I need a Mac, and someone's got the one I like reserved, would you please
garrote him and put him in the paper recycling bin?"
Advantages: Flatters you with their high standards for your service.
Disadvantages: Impresses you with their obliviousness to other people on
this planet.
Symptoms: Inability to communicate except by complaining.
Real Case:One asked a scon to remove the message of the day because
he (the user) didn't like it.