LOL: Real tech support calls
Thanks to reader Bob Ortiz for this humourous email forward. It’s a transcript of a handful of real technical support calls. So if you’re ever feeling like you’re not the most technically savvy person on the planet, you’ll see there are those far worse off than you. Enjoy!
Thanks to reader Bob Ortiz for this humourous email forward. It's a transcript of a handful of real technical support calls. So if you're ever feeling like you're not the most technically savvy person on the planet, you'll see there are those far worse off than you. Enjoy!
The following are a number of transcribed conversations to technical support departments:
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Tech support: What kind of computer do you have?
Christine says: A white one…
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Customer: Hi, this is Maureen. I can't get my diskette out.
Tech support: Have you tried pushing the Button?
Customer: Yes, sure, it's really stuck.
Tech support: That doesn't sound good; I'll make a note.
Customer: No , wait a minute.. I hadn't inserted it yet… it's still on my desk.. Sorry….
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Tech support: Click on the 'My Computer' icon on to the left of the screen.
Customer: Your left or my left?
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Tech support: Good day. How may I help you?
Male customer: Hello… I can't print.
Tech support: Would you click on "start" for me and –.
Customer: Listen pal, don't start getting technical on me! I'm not Bill Gates.
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Customer: Hi, good afternoon, this is Martha, I can't print. Every time I try, it says 'Can't find printer.' I've even lifted the printer and placed it in front of the monitor, but the computer still says he can't find it…
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Customer: I have problems printing in red…
Tech support: Do you have a color printer?
Customer: Aaaah…………………thank you.
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Tech support: What's on your monitor now, ma'am?
Customer: A teddy bear my boyfriend bought for me at Woolies..
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Customer: My keyboard is not working anymore.
Tech support: Are you sure it's plugged into the computer?
Customer: No. I can't get behind the computer.
Tech support: Pick up your keyboard and walk 10 paces back.
Customer:! OK
Tech support: Did the keyboard come with you?
Customer: Yes
Tech support: That means the keyboard is not plugged in. Is there another keyboard?
Customer: Yes, there's another one here. Ah…that one does work…
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Tech support: Your password is the small letter "a" as in apple, a capital letter V as in Victor, the number 7.
Customer: Is that 7 in capital letters ?
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Customer: I can't get on the Internet.
Tech support: Are you sure you used the right password?
Customer: Yes, I'm sure. I saw my colleague do it.
Tech support: Can you tell me what the password was?
Customer: Five stars.
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Tech support: What anti-virus program do you use?
Customer: Netscape.
Tech support: That's not an anti-virus program.
Customer: Oh, sorry…Internet Explorer.
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Customer: I have a huge problem. A friend has placed a screen saver on my computer, but every time I move the mouse, it disappears.
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Tech support: How may I help you?
Customer: I'm writing my first e-mail.
Tech support: OK, and what seems to be the problem?
Customer: Well, I have the letter 'a' in the address, but how do I get the circle around it?
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A woman customer called the Canon help desk with a problem with her printer:
Tech support: Are you running it under Windows?
Customer: "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 printer is working fine."
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And last, but not least…
Tech support: "Okay Mickey, let's press the control and escape keys at the same time. That brings up a task list in the middle of the screen. Now type the letter "P " to bring up the Program Manager."
Customer: I don't have a P.
Tech support: On your keyboard, Colin.
Customer: What do you mean?
Tech support: "P"…..on your keyboard, Colin.
Customer: I'M NOT GOING TO DO THAT!!
ROFL!!!! LMAO!!!
Sooo damn funny…. especially for me since this sorta stuff happens to me in real life on a daily basis :P
LOL??? not much
Some older cases:
Then there was my professor in University, many years ago. With 40 staples, he stapled a 5.25" diskette I needed to the door, so he could go out…. When he returned, I was in a blue mood. He was so busy laughing, i though he'd lost his nut. He then explained he did that to get my goat: "…That was a blank, here is the real disk…" Talk about making my day!
We also wrote a Fortran or Basic program on a dec 2020. It calculated peacefully for a copuple of hours (common in those days) , then proceeded to start printing…. For a whole day. On the weekend. Used up a crate of paper. All valid data too, needed for a govt Royal Commission. But the IT people were pissed! In their words, I got away with murder… (While I printed, no one else could print, these were batch jobs back then!…)
A friend once wrote a program that calculated for 16 hours, and then printed less than 2 pages of output, some heavy duty regressive math thing. The IT people wanted to murder him. While his job ran, the printer sat idle, since no other jobs could run. Apparently, they had given him "God" credentials accidentally when they set up his account. He should have realized that. claims he did not!
So computer "events" go "all the way back"….
More recently, a blind friend has JAWS on his PC. I went over to do some work, forgot to turn it off. He'd had the speakers cranked up LOUD to listen to streamed music… from another room. When the computer spoke, the voice was loud enough to nearly knock me out of my chair!
And my Mom thinks she's bad with computers? LOL!
these are fake
lol what newbs theyre all probably old farts to
I think they are real I spent an hour on the phone with a guy trying to help him set up an account for online banking and after walking him thru it doezens of times it finally dawned on me that he had not put the @ symbole in his email address. then he had to go to his email to confirm the account well while I was trying to explain to him how to do that I advised him to look at the top right of the screen and he said :"screen ??? what is the screen ??? " true story …. one of the most frustrating phone calls I have ever had
I can SO relate! One call I had, from a customer 3000 km away, was "the power's off to my computer, is it on my end of yours?" Thank goodness those days are well behind me!
No, these are all real. I'm the default IT in my office when the regular department isn't in, and I get worse calls than these on a daily basis. But the best I've ever heard is still for the woman who needed a new computer … because the "cup holder broke off when she put her coffee mug on it"
They all work with me!!!
Some of them are probably older people who did not get the chance to experience these new technological wonders when they were young so give them a break. Also the one about the @ sounds reasonable if its your FIRST email. I am sure when I wrote my first email I had no clue what it was called or how to type it. But some of them are just plain stupid. If its related to a computer function its not really funny (everyone was once a newbie!) but when its sheer stupidity like forgetting to plug in your keyboard or asking about a "capital 7" then yes – but lots of them seem to be generally confused people (if you are not computer savy how do you know what is meant by a windows, the woman probably thought it was odd for the tech to ask her if she was running it under windows – but seeing as she knows nothing about computers, she just answered any question that might somehow pertain to the problem) Give some of these people are break
It's no wonder that most companies have tech support in foreign countries. Would you want to deal with this all the time?
I've heard about lots of funny things like these.Because of this kind of people,some serious customers doesn't get real tech support in time of crisis(When hardware is really defective) Very frustrating!!!
However,a friend told me:he used to work at Staples in computer department.A woman brought back it's entire desktop after one day of purchase saying the computer was defective.Tech support ask her what's wrong with the computer;her answer was:"When I've push F1 on keyboard,no one came to HELP me"
This is really funny!
Newbies or not. I've worked in tech support before and some days/nights were just hilarious. They make for great stories is all. :)
I can't say I miss those days. It was nice reminesce here for a few minutes. :)
Here is one that I have pulled off on our IT people. When I was asked to give a copy of the disk (5 1/4" floppy, you can use CDs now) to them for analysis, I made a photocopy of the disk and gave it to them. Once they reacted to this, I gave them the real copy that I had made.
Back in the days when DOS was still around, one of my ex's aunts called me one day to ask if I thought her sons new computer was any good.
I asked her if it had Windows on it and the phone when quiet. Then after a bit of silence she came back on the phone and said she walked around the whole thing and didn't see any windows anywhere……lmao…got to love her.
Another good one from back in the day was when I got a call from a customer in panic. The error on the screen said that the keyboard was locked and it wouldn't work. So I said "Did you unlock it?" and the response was "You can do that?" Needless to say by getting them to turn the key sticking out the front of the computer, I was a genius for getting them running again.
I worked tech support for an automotive company that built alternative fuel systems to allow vehicles to run on natural gas. A guy called, he had just bought a vehicle at auction and wanted to know where he could get fuel for the car. As I was punching up a locator, I asked him where he was calling for.
Ready for this,,,
"My office"
To Jdjd:
Obviously you have never worked in any sort of a technical support position or you would know that these are probably true.
LOL!! I got a call once asking how to move down a line in microsoft word. She was a slight embarrassed when I started laughing.
I worked for a company once that sold computers. One day someone called in the 800 # to order a system and wanted to know if it came with the TV and the typewriter!!!