Technophobia
(True Life Incidents)
A secretary in our office was trying to save
her data on a floppy. She kept complaining that the (single sided) 5 & ¼ was
losing her data. Well, I was asked to investigate. I unwilling approached
the gallows.
I asked her to show me what she did when she
saved her data. She took out a new disk, inserted it into the drive,
formatted it, saved her data, and removed the diskette without a hitch. She
then proceeded to peel off a new label, and carefully applied it to the disk.
No problems so far.
She then took the disk, inserted it into the
typewriter, scrolled it through the roller, and neatly typed her label. I
found the problem on the first try.
A user called the PC Support line of the
university having trouble with her Mac. It was handed off to one of the Mac
guys...
“What seems to be the problem?”
“It’s not working.”
Eyes roll. “What’s not working?”
“My Mac.”
<- Five minutes of drawing the problem out of
the woman deleted ->
“Okay, to access the files on the disk click
the mouse on the picture of the disk.”
Pause. “Nothing happened. I told you, I’ve
already tried this.”
Support guy makes as if he is strangling the
phone.
“Okay, do it again. Is the mouse moving?”
“Yep.”
“On the screen?”
“Yep.”
“Now click twice on the picture of the disk.”
Pause and the consultant hears the two clicks
again. “Nothing.”
“Ma’am, double-click once more for me.”
Clink-clink.
“Ma’am, are you hitting the screen with your
mouse?”
While I was working in a placement office at
the University, we helped students write their resumes on the computer. A
student came up to me and said he had problems reading the disk. I asked him
to show it to me so I could see if I could recover the files, “sure.” he said,
and took the disk (5 ¼” floppy) out of his pocket and unfolded it.
On my previous job a user needed a program but
didn’t have a modem, so I told him I’d overnight him a diskette. He then
asked me if I could fax the diskette to him! If I didn’t need my job, I would
have told him I would, but dominos was faxing me a pizza and he’d have to wait
a bit.
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 doesn’t seem to 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.
Tech: Sir I have to put you on hold for a
second.
The Tech laughed so hard he almost fell out of
his chair.
In my first real job, I was not only
responsible for programming but I also did customer support and training. Our
company used to sell time on our computers so very small companies that
couldn’t afford computers at the time could do their bookkeeping, etc. One
day, a new woman came in to use the trash-... I mean TRS-80.
She fumbled about for about 10 minutes but I
paid no attention to her.
Finally she came out & grumbled something about
how the computer wouldn’t turn on. I grilled her with the usual obvious
questions: Did you turn the switch on? Did you plug it in? Did you turn on
the switch on the power strip? She was sure she had done everything right. I
was sure she neglected to plug one of the power cords into the power strip.
So, I went to investigate and she was RIGHT,
she HAD plugged everything in to the power strip... including the power
strip’s own power cord - talk about a ground loop!
A woman called the shop where she had bought a
PC and complained that it didn’t work properly: Every time she switched it on
the screen was filled with characters.
Two technicians were sent out and were met by a
woman with bosoms about twice the size of Dolly Parton’s and glasses about two
centimeters thick. They asked her to switch on the computer. This she did,
and then leaned over the keyboard to read what was on the screen... The
problem was quickly solved.
We had a customer call us once, saying that
they were having problems getting their new disks to work in the machine. It
turned out that the customer thought they had to TRIM THE 5.25” DISKS DOWN to
fit in their 3.5” drive... fortunately the 3.5 drive wasn’t damaged...
And another user was all confused about why the
cursor always moved in the direction opposite the movement of the mouse (when
she moved her mouse left, the cursor went right, etc.) She also complained
about how hard it was to hit the buttons. She was quite embarrassed when we
asked her to rotate the mouse so the tail pointed AWAY from her...
I remember when my new Amiga arrived (way back
in 86!). I had a class to go to, but my roommate was kind enough to set it
all up for me. When I got back from class, he was having a great time playing
with it. His only problem was using the mouse. Turns out he was holding it
in his hand and rolling the ball with his fingers! I don’t even remember how
he was coping with the mouse buttons.
I was working for a computer retailer in Denver
when my supervisor received a phone call from a very irate customer.
According to this man, he had purchased his computer two days before, had read
the instructions, and had performed a backup of the hard drive exactly as
instructed. The problems started the moment he reformatted his hard drive to
test his backup.
First revision of user manual includes:
·
Insert disk A
·
Press ENTER
·
Wait for reply LOADING
EXECUTED
·
Insert disk B
Following a complaint by a user, the second
revision reads:
·
Insert disk A
·
Press ENTER
·
Wait for reply LOADING
EXECUTED
·
Remove disk A
·
Insert disk B
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 responded, "No, my desk is next to the door. But that's a good
point. The man sitting in the cubicle next to me is under
a window, and his is working fine."
Customer in computer shop: "Can you copy the
Internet onto this disk for me?"
Customer: "My computer crashed!"
Tech Support: "It crashed?"
Customer: "Yeah, it won't let me play my game."
Tech Support: "All right, hit Control-Alt-Delete to reboot."
Customer: "No, it didn't crash-it crashed."
Tech Support: "Huh?"
Customer: "I crashed my game. That's what I said before. I crashed my
spaceship and now it doesn't work."
Tech Support: "Click on 'File,' then 'New Game.'"
Customer: [pause] "Wow! How'd you learn how to do that?"
I had been doing Tech Support for
Hewlett-Packard's DeskJet division for about a month when I had a customer
call with a problem I just couldn't solve. She could not print yellow. All
the other colors would print fine, which truly baffled me because the only
true colors are cyan, magenta, and yellow.
For instance, green is a combination of cyan
and yellow, but green printed fine. Every color of the rainbow printed fine
except for
yellow. I had the customer change ink cartridges. I had the customer delete
and reinstall the drivers. Nothing worked. I asked my coworkers for help;
they offered no new ideas. After over two hours of troubleshooting, I was
about to tell the customer to send the printer in to us for repair when she
asked quietly, "Should I try printing on a piece of white paper instead of
this yellow paper?"
This guy calls in to complain that he gets an
"Access Denied" message every time he logs in. It turned out he was typing
his
username and password in capital letters.
Tech Support: "Ok, let's try once more, but use lower case letters."
Customer: "Uh, I only have capital letters on my keyboard."
Compaq is considering changing the command
"Press Any key" to "Press Return Key" because of the flood of calls asking
where the "Any" key is.
AST technical support had a caller complaining that her mouse was hard to
control with the dust cover on. The cover turned out to be the plastic bag the
mouse was packaged in.
Another 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 technician advised his customer to put
his troubled floppy back in the drive and close the door. The customer asked
the tech to hold on, and was heard putting the phone down, getting up and
crossing the room to close the door to his room.
Another Dell customer called to say he couldn't
get his computer to FAX anything. After 40 minutes of trouble-shooting, the
technician discovered the man was trying to FAX a piece of paper by holding it
in front of the monitor screen and hitting the "send" key.
Another Dell customer needed help setting up a
new program, so a Dell tech suggested he go to the local Egghead. "Yeah, I got
me a couple of friends, "the customer replied. When told Egghead was a
software store, the man said, "Oh, I thought you meant for me to find a couple
of geeks."
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 the keyboard 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 an
invalid". The tech explained that the computer's "bad command" and "invalid"
responses shouldn't be taken personally.
An exasperated caller to Dell Computer Tech
Support couldn't get her new Dell 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 happens." The "foot pedal" turned out to be the computer's mouse.
Another customer called Compaq tech support to
say her brand-new computer wouldn't 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?"
Tech Support: "OK Bob, 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, Bob."
Customer: "What do you mean?"
Tech Support: "'P' on your
keyboard, Bob."
Customer: "I'm not going to
do that!"
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Overheard in a
computer shop:
Customer: "I'd like a mouse mat, please."
Salesperson: "Certainly sir, we've got a
large
variety."
Customer: "But will they be compatible
with my
computer?"
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Tech Support: "All right...now double-click
on the File Manager icon."
Customer: "That's why I hate this Windows-
because of the icons. I'm a Protestant,
and I don't believe in icons."
Tech Support: "Well, that's just an
industry term sir. I don't Believe it
was meant to-"
Customer: "I don't care about any 'Industry
Terms'. I don't believe
in icons."
Tech Support: "Well...why don't you click
on the 'little picture' of
a filing cabinet... are 'little pictures'
OK?"
Customer: [click]
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Customer: "My computer crashed!"
Tech Support: "It crashed?"
Customer: "Yeah, it won't let me play
my game."
Tech Support: "All right, hit Control-
Alt-Delete to reboot."
Customer: "No, it didn't crash... it
crashed!"
Tech Support: "Huh?"
Customer: "I crashed my game. That's what I
said before. I crashed
my spaceship and now it doesn't
work."
Tech Support: "Click on 'File,' then 'New
Game.'"
Customer: [pause] "Wow! How'd you learn how
to do that?"
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
I had been doing Tech Support for
Hewlett-Packard's DeskJet division
for about a month when I had a customer
call with a problem I just
couldn't solve. She could not print
yellow. All the other colors
would print fine, which truly baffled me
because the only true colors
are cyan, magenta, and yellow. For
instance, green is a combination
of cyan and yellow, but green printed
fine. Every color of the
rainbow printed fine except for yellow.
I had the customer change ink cartridges.
I had the customer delete
and reinstall the drivers. Nothing
worked. I asked my coworkers for
help; they offered no new ideas. After
over two hours of trouble
shooting, I was about to tell the customer
to send the printer in to
us for repair when she asked quietly,
"Should I try printing on a
piece of white paper instead of this yellow
paper?"
And another user was all confused about why
the cursor always moved in the opposite
direction from the movement of the mouse.
She also complained that the buttons were
difficult to depress. She was very
embarrassed when we asked her to rotate the
mouse so the tail pointed away from her.
An unfailingly polite lady called to ask
for
help with a Windows installation that
had
gone terribly wrong. Customer: "I
brought
my Windows disks from work to install
them
on my home
computer."
Training stresses that we are "not
the
Software Police," so I let the little
act
of piracy
slide.
Tech Support: "Umm-hmm. What
happened?"
Customer: "As I put each disk in it
turns
out they weren't initialized."
Tech Support: "Do you remember the message
exactly, ma'am?"
Customer: (proudly) "I wrote it down. 'This
is not a Macintosh disk.
Would you like to
initialize it?'"
Tech Support: "Er, what happened next?"
Customer: "After they were initialized, all
the disks appeared to be
blank. And now I brought them
back to work, and I can't
read them in the A: drive; the
PC wants to format them.
And this is our only set of
Windows disks for the whole
office. Did I
do something wrong?"
^.^