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Funny IT support stories

category: offtopic [glöplog]
 
Just had quite a classic incident here. A woman had come in to collect her laptop - she'd managed to drop it down the stairs, so the techies here had just restored all her stuff from backup after repairs.

So she was telling us she'd bought a new 1TB drive for backups. The conversation went like this:

Her: How big is 1 terabyte?

Techie: Umm...

H: You know those old 100MB floppy disks?

T: You mean zip disks?

H: No, not zip disks. Floppies. (A floppy was produced at this point, she handled it and confirmed that was the right one).

H: How many floppies would fit in a terabyte?

T: oh... umm... getting on for a million?!

H: A million? How big is a million floppies?

T: what?!

H: How big would it be? Would a million floppies fit in this room?

T: wtf? why?

H: I need to know how big it is for my backups.

T: i've no idea if a million floppies would fit in the room! Work it out yourself

H: I need to imagine how big it is. Have you got any in stock?

T: No, nobody uses them any more!

H: I'm going to collect a million floppies. I'm going to make a teragigadactyl. (She's flapping her arms at this point - i think she was referring to a pterodactyl dinosaur)

She was totally serious through all of this, the rest of us were in stitches :D
added on the 2012-03-14 17:23:27 by psonice psonice
:D
Quote:
"Word Perfect Technical support; may I help you?"
"Yes, well, I'm having trouble with WordPerfect."
"What sort of trouble?"
"Well, I was just typing along, and all of a sudden the words went away."
"Went away?"
"They disappeared."
"Hmm. So what does your screen look like now?"
"Nothing."
"Nothing?"
"It's blank; it won't accept anything when I type."
"Are you still in WordPerfect, or did you get out?"
"How do I tell?"
"Can you see the C:\ prompt on the screen?"
"What's a sea-prompt?"
"Never mind. Can you move the cursor around on the screen?"
"There isn't any cursor: I told you, it won't accept anything I type."
"Does your monitor have a power indicator?"
"What's a monitor?"
"It's the thing with the screen on it that looks like a TV. Does it have a little light that tells you when it's on?"
"I don't know."
"Well, then look on the back of the monitor and find where the power cord goes into it. Can you see that?"
....."Yes, I think so."
"Great! Follow the cord to the plug, and tell me if it's plugged into the wall."
....."Yes, it is."
"When you were behind the monitor, did you notice that there were two cables plugged into the back of it, not just one?"
"No."
"Well, there are. I need you to look back there again and find the other cable."
....."Okay, here it is."
"Follow it for me, and tell me if it's plugged securely into the back of your computer."
"I can't reach it."
"Uh huh. Well, can you see if it is?"
"No."
"Even if you maybe put your knee on something and lean way over?"
"Oh, it's not because I don't have the right angle-it's because it's dark."
"Dark?"
"Yes-the office light is off, and the only light I have is coming in from the window."
"Well, turn on the office light then."
"I can't."
"No? Why not?"
"Because there's a power outage."
"A power... A power outage? Aha! Okay, we've got it licked now. Do you still have the boxes and manuals and packing stuff your computer came in?"
"Well, yes. I keep them in the closet."
"Good! Go get them and unplug your system and pack it up just like it was when you got it. Then take it back to the store you bought it from."
"Really! Is it that bad?"
"Yes, I'm afraid it is."
"Well, all right then, I suppose. What do I tell them?"
"Tell them you're too stupid to own a computer."
added on the 2012-03-14 17:39:30 by psenough psenough
An client of mine who provides interim financial management solutions for very large companies (FTSE 100) phoned me up one day.

"Ruairi, I'm in terrible trouble!"

"What's up?"

"Half my screen has disappeared!"

"OK, can you see the Start button and the time?"

"Yes. It's Excel, half the screen has gone!"

"OK, can you see the Microsoft Excel title at the top and the X to close the window at the top right?"

"I can only see the Microsoft Excel part."

"Uh, ok, have you moved the window to the right or something?"

"How do I do that?"

"Click and hold the left mouse button at the top of the window where the blue strip is, then move the mouse to reposition it."

"Goodness me you're a genius, I don't know how we'd cope without you!"

This is after using PC's for around 15 years. Amazing! :)
added on the 2012-03-14 17:43:55 by rc55 rc55
I was working in a Computer shop back when I was studying, repairing PCs. We were selling more and more wireless keyboard/mouse combinations (mostly Logitech) at that time and many people had problems connecting them (quickly press button here and there and there, blaa).
One day a customer came in, a bit angry about his wireless mouse not working. I asked him the ususal questions about connecting, drivers and shit, but it all seemed ok. He had brought the mouse along and while talking to him I played around with it, noticing it was really light-weight. I opened it up and it didn't have batteries in it.
Me: "Your mouse doesn't have any batteries in it. It needs batteries to work..."
Customer: "Oh, but I thought it was wireless?! I already put batteries into the keyboard. Isn't that enough?!..."

To date I still can't follow his logic...
added on the 2012-03-15 15:01:59 by raer raer
You think that's bad? We have a really, really thick techie here. We had him setting up a bunch of IP phones, and told him not to bother plugging in the power adaptor, because we're using power over ethernet for phones. All well and good.

Then he was asked to connect a wireless access point we had spare up to a PC that was too far from any network points, so it could access the network.

He came back complaining that the access point was broken and wouldn't power on. Somebody else went down with him, and found he hadn't plugged the power in.

"But isn't it power over wireless?"

That same guy once complained his DSL at home was slow. I suggested polishing the ends of the network cables, as dirt on the connectors can slow down the data.. and he believed it :D

Last one on that guy: Once he was complaining that he'd been having headaches for a few weeks. We suggested that he might want to see a doctor about that pretty quickly, and get a scan done.

His reply: "Nah, I've had this before. I saw the doctor that time and they did a brain scan, but they couldn't find anything". He wondered what everyone was laughing at :D
added on the 2012-03-15 15:18:36 by psonice psonice
I've got a friend back in the 3DFX Voodoo days. We both had Voodoo 1 cards. When Voodoo 2 cards came out on the market, I told him about these. He responded: "I don't bother buying those. There will probably come a patch soon that upgrades my card."
added on the 2012-03-15 21:56:42 by fluor fluor

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