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Your Favorite Support Anecdote
Most of us have had the unfortunate opportunity to have worked tech support at some point, whether it was for a paycheck or for a relative. The Register has offered up a vote for several of their favorite support stories but I'm sure there are many more out there to be had. My favorite horror story was while working a tech support call for a governmental employee, when asked to take her mouse and click on the "start" button all I could hear over the phone is what I later found out was the user banging her mouse against the monitor. What other horror stories have people seen from the trenches?
Maybe he just never encountered some pathetic loser who would actually call up his ISP and spend hours requesting a new IP address just to avoid an IP block due to being an asshat on slashdot. Perhaps he assumed that, if you're calling tech support, that something was actually *wrong* with your service. I'll forgive his ignorance in this case.
Anyway, I got my new IP address after escalating it to his manager. And here I am! Yay!
Yeah, we're all better for it.
Let me guess: You were IP-banned for language?
The grass is always greener on the other side of the light cone.
I discovered what I call the Rinkworks site a few years ago. It doesn't get updated very often, but because it's edited, the content is usually pretty good.
I love the comment at the top of the "Computer Stupidities" page:"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question."
-- Charles Babbage (1791-1871)
I haven't lost my mind; it's backed up on a CD-R somewhere
I remember working in tech support and I got this call from someone who wanted a new IP address issued. We don't assign new addresses on a whim, sometimes people use this trick to get around blocks for bad behaviour (e.g., see Wikipedia), and experience has shown that half the time the user calls back with the same problem a day later anyway (e.g., it's not software, it is a hardware problem, or USER ERROR), so we have a bunch of standard questions that are asked before making any kind of switch.
You should have heard this guy! Impatient. Demanding. They went ballistic and started calling me a retard for asking. So sorry, sir. By your command, sir. They pay me $5/hr to serve your every whim, sir. The best part is the reason for wanting the switch: their IP apparently got banned from some on-line forum. Yeah, right. The phrase "Not our problem" comes to mind. It would be like calling the phone company expecting to get a new number because yours got blocked by some other customer for harassing phone calls.
But, they are a paying customer, and the customer is always right, so, I told them that kind of abuse wasn't necessary, and once they calmed down, I guess they called my manager and got what they wanted in the end. Good for them. I just wish they weren't so rude about it. It's not the end of the world if they can't post to an on-line forum for a couple of days.
Sheesh, they do not pay enough for the kind of verbal abuse people sometimes have to put up with in tech support.
OK, I don't get it. What's interesting about this anecdote? It sounds like the customer did exactly as requested.
Girl from HR with large chest walks in to department and says "I'm sorry to bother you guys but I really need to get these out!" Talking about her newest pamphlet.
Look you immature arseholes, this is why women hate dealing with IT departments. Why the fuck do you have to compare a perfectly reasonable request to complete and utter idiocy just because the woman happens to have <GASP> boobies!
Yes, I get the double entendre. How fucking hilarious. Obviously the woman needs to be ridiculed for her stupidity. It's not as if "get these out" is an extremely common phrase heard through offices every day, is it?
I'm a bloke and articles like this make me embarrassed to work in the IT field because, quite frankly, the reputation it has as being full of fuckwits with no social skills and a fear of women is well-deserved. Grow the fuck up and stop making the rest of us look like dickheads.
Hardly indicative of a stupid user. That is one of the BEST examples of HORRIBLE UI design out there. Unfortunately, it's so incredibly common a problem that just about EVERYONE forgets about the first time they ran into it and what a leap it was to find the magic switch that fixes it.
Just because you know the workaround doesn't mean the problem doesn't exist, or that someone faced with the actual problem who does not have knowledge of said workaround is an idiot. I have a feeling 'this guy' probably doesn't hold you in the highest regard, and rightly so. There are stupid users, but there are also arrogant IT staff as well. The latter is much more likely to cause problems than the former.
No Comment.
Are you sure she's not just too scared to ask, in case she gets her head bitten off again? (winky)
We had this customer who was irate that his new computer was acting up and it was new I built it myself. No reason for it to be acting so strange. He brought it in we checked it out seemed fine.
He comes back complaining again. We replace the entire PC. He leaves happy for 2 days. Then he comes back demanding a refund.
We tell him if there is something wrong with the PC we will make it right. Leave it with us and we'll throw everything we got at it. He does. His wife comes in an hr later. "Can I see my husbands computer for a minute, I just need to check one thing.?" Sure come on back. She presses Shift Ctrl ScrollLock or something similar & up pops this EVIL unnoticable Screengrabber. She quickly scans through the last 3 days worth of pics. Instant message from her teen daughter, Web surfing of her hubby 3 pics a second. Gobbling up space & cycles. If she doesn't check it daily & dump it fills the harddrive with 1280x1024x32 Pics. I explain to her it is unnecessary to grab so many, 1 every couple of minutes is more than sufficient. She asks me to promise I won't tell her husband. I promise she tips me 50 bucks and promises to bring me a bottle of wine (her Idea).
Later that same day.
The owner (who has dealt with the husband only on more than one occassion since the sale.) checks in with me to see if I found the problem. I calmly explain the situation, and the promise. He asked me "Did she make you promise not to tell me?"
Obviously I can not and did not make that promise.
"Well then, I never promised her shit. But I did promise her husband I would find out what was up & fix it." Cue him Dialing.
Later that same day, Hubby comes in pays us for all our service (3 hrs on site. 3 trips to the shop) and tips me 50 bucks.
Still Later
She comes in like a rocket right passed the counter into the bench area Slams down a shiny bottle of wine & says thanks a fuckin lot.
My boss says thank you come again.
The husband still shops there service & purchase.
Moral of the story: If you are gonna spy on your kids do it with your loved one.
Opened the wine on my wedding day. Wife loved it.
OSGGFG - Open Source Gamers Guide to Free Games
Don't know how you got insightful there but I had to refute what you said.
.....
1. There is rarely a need to see the extension on a file, if the OS doesn't recognize it then feel free to poke around.
What about how lookOut Express hides the extensions too and the user receives virus.txt.exe
Hiding extensions is a dumb idea WHEN THE OS DECIDES WHAT TO DO BY THE EXTENSION.
Type unto others as you would have them type unto you.
That's another think 5.25" disks got wrong: using a notch taken out to enable writing...
"Back in the day" for "us in the know" we viewed this as a feature. Why? Because we could buy single sided disks that were cheaper than double sided disks and make them double sided by punching a hole on the second side.
Oh, and that worked with 8" floppies as well.