Computer support moments

[chainprayer]

I run all the tech support for our company's computers. I've seen so many idiot moments where I can't believe what the users are telling me. I would love to hear your IT horror stories to know I'm not alone.

Today I got to show dimwit that Excel isn't just for formatting text in a grid. They were amazed when I showed them that it could "do math stuff." *shakes head*

 

[CaoCao]

A teacher at my school tried to fit a firewire 800 cable into the USB slot for five minutes

Another teacher tried to put a 5.25" floppy into a CD tray

 

[Hellhammer]

Once a customer asked how big hard drive does she need to download the Internet. She meant the whole Internet, literally. She thought she needs to download all web pages to her computer. I had to explain her the situation like 20 times as she didn't believe me and kept saying that I'm just telling the salesmen talks. She really thought she knew what she was talking about.

It was a funny moment, it was very hard to be poker face in that situation.

 

[rprebel]

One of the law firms I used to do tech support for called me one day saying it was an emergency and they HAD to get a file that was on a floppy disk (this was 1995) to court in the next hour or Very Bad Things would happen to them. They couldn't get the file off the disk and couldn't figure out why. I rushed downtown, during lunch, and when I got there...the floppy was locked. I flicked the little plastic tab to unlock it, put it in the computer, and copied the file. The look on the receptionist's face was priceless. She thought I was some kind of wizard. She also wrote me a check for $50. I love law firms.

 

[chainprayer]

I had someone tell me that they have two versions of Windows installed and asked me to remove one.

...they had office 2003 and office 2007 installed.

 

[The.316]

"I have a problem with the coffee cup holder in my computer."

"Ive inserted the floppy disk into the computer, but the second one wont fit." Customer tried to force the disk into the drive, with the first one already in it.


This was about 13 years ago, when I worked for CompUSA. Ive had so many things said to me, but I just cant remember some of them.

 

[Lyle]

One of the law firms I used to do tech support for called me one day saying it was an emergency and they HAD to get a file that was on a floppy disk (this was 1995) to court in the next hour or Very Bad Things would happen to them. They couldn't get the file off the disk and couldn't figure out why.

You mean they were trying to copy a file to the floppy disk, right? Those tabs could write-protect the disk but wouldn't prevent you from copying a file off of it.

 

[rprebel]

You mean they were trying to copy a file to the floppy disk, right? Those tabs could write-protect the disk but wouldn't prevent you from copying a file off of it.

Honestly, I don't remember the specifics anymore. Maybe they were trying to get the file onto the disk from the computer. Let's go with that.

 

[yg17]

I spent 2 years working at my university's IT department while in school, and I had plenty of good stories back then but sadly don't remember much, but the one memorable one was handled by a coworker of mine. Guy calls in and says "Uh, there's smoke coming out of my computer. Is that bad?"

We had our fair share of computer illiterate students and professors. The professors had to be the worst. Some of them math, science and engineering professors, the smartest people you'll ever meet, but they were just completely computer illiterate. I never thought that someone that smart could have so much difficulty typing up and saving a Word document.

 

[Disc Golfer]

"I have a problem with the coffee cup holder in my computer."

This was about 13 years ago, when I worked for CompUSA. Ive had so many things said to me, but I just cant remember some of them.

Nobody said that to you, that joke has been circulating for as long as tray loading cd players have been around.

 

[Lyle]

Lord knows I've done a lot of tech support in the past but I don't remember any really just outstanding stories. The only one that's coming to mind is the guy who didn't quite understand the difference between operating systems and applications, and wanted to know if Windows was a replacement for Lotus. (To this day I'm still not sure if he meant Lotus 1-2-3 or Lotus Notes, but I'm sort-of assuming it's the latter.)

 

[steve2112]

In my formative years in the IT field, I worked at the help desk for a university, my alma mater in fact. Help desk sucked, but hey, everybody has to start somewhere.

One of the services the IT dept. from the university offered was cheap dialup internet access (late 90s here) to students, employees, and retirees. One day I get a call from a retiree who had just gotten a new computer from her son and had signed up for the internet service. One of the techs didn't want to deal with her, and pawned her off on me. We gave out cds and instructions on how to set it up, but some people just couldn't pull that off. I start trying to walk her through the setup, and nothing is working. I was going crazy trying to explain simple stuff, and she just didn't seem to get it. I had her check the CD, and it was ok and said "Windows setup cd". The light bulb went off after I had to explain the concept of "right click", and she told me her mouse only had one button. I asked her to describe her computer, and it was a pretty, shiny blue, and everything was all in one piece.

I finally got her to come back and get the Mac setup cd, but it didn't end there. Then came calls to setup email, how to do a word processing document, and more. And she would only talk to me. I felt like I had an elderly stalker. It all paid off, though when she actually showed up at our office one day. She wanted to personally thank me by giving me a huge bowl of home made chocolate chip cookies. I had fun reminding my coworkers that since they didn't want to deal with her, they didn't get to sample any of the cookies. And they were so delicious.

 

[StephenCampbell]

I had a client who was constantly afraid that if she did two things at once on the computer, it would explode. The software update window popped up while we were backing up some Quicken files to a disc, and I suggested she do the updates, and she said something like "while we're doing the quicken? You sure it won't explode my quicken?" She brought up fears of exploding several times throughout a one hour session.

 

[Rodimus Prime]

Nobody said that to you, that joke has been circulating for as long as tray loading cd players have been around.

What is really sad is tech support really does get calls like that. It seems so stupid and no one should think that a CD/DVD drive is their to hold cups but alas people really are.
This little tide bit of information comes from a cousin of mine who worked in tech support. He flat out said those crazy stories you read on the internet are fairly true and he has more than once had to put someone on hold so he could start laughing.

 

[robbieduncan]

I had a client who was constantly afraid that if she did two things at once on the computer, it would explode. The software update window popped up while we were backing up some Quicken files to a disc, and I suggested she do the updates, and she said something like "while we're doing the quicken? You sure it won't explode my quicken?" She brought up fears of exploding several times throughout a one hour session.

I remember back in the day doing anything else whilst burning a CD resulted in a coaster almost all the time...

 

[Intell]

I occasionally change what our HP Laserjet printer says on the display. I also in help desk sometimes. So on the days I do help desk I have a little fun. My personal favorite is "out of white toner replace cartage".

 

[cuestakid]

A teacher at my school tried to fit a firewire 800 cable into the USB slot for five minutes

Another teacher tried to put a 5.25" floppy into a CD tray

As someone who works in IT, I have to say the firewire cable into USB is freaking awesome!

I can't top that

 

[steve2112]

When I was working helpdesk, another fun customer I encounter was truly crazy. He was a grad student in the school of business. The first encounter started fairly normal. He wanted an account on our Unix server. The problem was that the school of business had their own servers, and required their students to use their servers. I explained this, and he got really upset. I finally told him he had to take it up with the business school, since it was their policy. A few weeks later, he called demanding access to the "hard drive" on our Unix servers. Somehow he had decided that we had a test bank stored on our servers that TAs could use to generate tests, which we did not.

Later, he took to doing things like emailing in a trouble ticket about a PC in a lab saying stuff like "A PC in the library computer lab has a broken disk drive, but I'm not going to tell you which one. You are the smart people. You figure it out." I also got a ticket he had opened up complaining about various MS Office products. It was stuff like "The menu layout sucks. The toolbars suck. Why does your program suck so much?"

We eventually had to get a restraining order against him after he verbally berated one of our student workers. He was prevented from contacting us in any manner. I know he eventually got kicked out of the master's program he was in, and I think he eventually got kicked out of school completely.

 

[Corndog5595]

Once I had to write down detailed instructions on how to compress a folder into a zip file for my teacher.

Other funny tech failures and funny moments? Every powerpoint presentation that my biology teacher made. They were all so horrible.

 

[R94N]

Another funny tech failures and funny moments? Every powerpoint presentation that my biology teacher made. They were all so horrible.

It's the same at my school, but to be fair they probably don't have a lot of time to make them look pretty. But they are nearly always awful

 

[steviem]

I occasionally change what our HP Laserjet printer says on the display. I also in help desk sometimes. So on the days I do help desk I have a little fun. My personal favorite is "out of white toner replace cartage".

Someone at my old work did this. He replaced 'ready' with 'insert coin' on all of the hp printers. That was really annoying, I googled for about 5 minutes and changed them, I don't remember the specifics, but I knew who it was, either from logs or from just seeing his weaselly little face... But developers will be developers... Lol

 

[cherry su]

Someone thought Mac OS X was a program that installed on top of something else. I was like O_O

 

[-aggie-]

“Do you have Yahoo?"

 

[roadbloc]

== CLICK OR PRESS ANY KEY TO END THE PRESENTATION ==
"...um... guys, what do I press now?" - My old english teacher.

Oh and the hilarious, "I wouldn't invest in a Macintosh computer system if I were you. They don't have the ability to multitask." - The moron who somehow got employed at PC-Friend.

 

[jav6454]

This was back 2 years ago. I went to my Aunt's for vacation. My cousin had a school project which made her do a presentation. Her project is on engineering stuff I am currently studying. I get unwillingly drafted to help her; nonetheless payment was good a ol'e In-N-Out burger. Now, on with the story....
>Go in high school
>Need a computer for quick fact check on UNO's engineering program
>All computers are 21.5" iMacs running Windows XP
>Ask the IT guy why spend so much on Macs just to run Windows
>He says its because Macs don't get viruses
>mfw he said that