'True' Tech Illiteracy Stories #2 


I had one user who kept asking *really* elementary questions, showing
no effort to learn anything on his own. After several patient answers,
I finally got irritated and told him to RTFM - and, of course, had to
explain the acronym. He meekly replied that he would. Two weeks later,
I got another message from him: "My wife says to thank you, but I've
been cover to cover through _The Joy of Sex_ and _More Joy of Sex_ and
still can't figure out how to get this program to run!"


A man called our Service Department and said that he'd just bought a
fax/modem from our store and wanted to know where in the manual he could
find his fax number.


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. It didn't work. 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.
 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 occurred 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 occurred 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 occurred 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 said 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 tech 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


A caller complained 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.


A man complained 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.


A customer complained 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 customer 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.


A customer said 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.


A Canon customer 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 received 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 grocery 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.


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!)


 ___  __  __  ___    __    _  _  _  _  ____
/ __)(  )(  )(_  )  /__\  ( \( )( \( )( ___) Suzanne Cook
\__ \ )(__)(  / /  /(__)\  )  (  )  (  )__)  
(___/(______)(___)(__)(__)(_)\_)(_)\_)(____) http://www.cs.utah.edu/~scook/