Post your most annoying "Comptuer Guy" calls

[rutchtkim]

floormate: How come Microsoft Word dosent start up?
Me: How the heck should I know?
FM: I ran out of space to store mp3's so I deleted some unnecesary files.
Me: Oh?? What files would that be?
FM: Some office files that looked deletable.
Me: Was that a joke?
FM: No, can you fix it?
Me: Laughing and go back to my room.

 

[Mustangrrl]

I had one of the techs, actually referred to as the "Whiz Kid," come to my office to install a new program for me, so I blazed up my computer and typed in my network password and hit hit ENTER and I'm in... and the dude looks at me completely in awe and said "HOW did you DO that without CLICKING OK?!" Very disturbing.
~robyn

 

[Scootin159]

How about the people who don't believe that you can just hit "OK", you have to hit "Apply" and then "OK" supposedly.

 

[arigato]

Last week I get a call from the help desk saying a user needs a password reset for an app we use. I call the user to give them a new password. User swears she never uses that program and tells me the error message says something about a 'windows' password. I tell them that isn't my department and to call our help desk back.
Two days later, I get another call for the same user who is now locked out of the program she swore she never used. I reset the account and call the admin for that department who never tells the user I reset her account so the user calls me four hours later to ask if I unsuspended the account (to which I ask, why didn't you try logging in before calling me?). Two days later, I get a call from this users's supervisor saying she can't get into the program (that she said she never uses). When I ask what kind of error message they get when they try to log in, they won't/can't tell me so I try the account. Have no problem getting into the app so I call them back to say it's ok and tell them the password again. User's manager says 'oh, she thought it had number in it...' Obviously she isn't smart enough to change it on her own password and she was able to log into it two days before so what the hell was she doing?
I should also mention, this woman has worked in this department for years!

 

[SWScorch]

<< I gave my mom my old iMac so she could have something to surf the web with.. Now every once in a while I get something like:

"It's not working right, when I check my, you know, my email."
"What kind of problem are you having?"
"I don't know, it just doesn't seem to be working right. Can you just come over and check?"
When I come over and check, it's working fine, and she can't reproduce the "problem".

Sigh. >>



OMG, you must be related to me! I have lost count of the times my mother has yelled at me to check out her comp because she cant email, so I go down and its fine, and she has no idea what the problem was, only that it "didn't work." ARGH!

 

[Comp625]

There's a page full of these kinda stories here.

Linky Linky

My favorite has to be "My CD-Rom is eating CD's!!!"

 

[Derango]

<<
OMG, you must be related to me! I have lost count of the times my mother has yelled at me to check out her comp because she cant email, so I go down and its fine, and she has no idea what the problem was, only that it "didn't work." ARGH! >>



That happens to me as well...althought not as often. It seems every time one of my family members has a problem with their computer, its working fine as soon as I get there. Weird, huh?

 

[Haden]

User: Damned! Your video card doesn't work properly. Everything just crashes after several minutes!
Me: Ghmm, sure I'll check. Don't worry.
User: Ye, I tried everything, I even tried my old video card.
Me: And it works fine of course...
User: No! It crashes just like yours!

(It was problem with cpu cooler, thought his system has nothing to do with us, only new video card was bought from us)

 

[MistaTastyCakes]

I had to explain to my grandma for like, 45 minutes on how to make a shortcut on the desktop.

And about once a week or so one of my friends ends up calling me asking how to clear his IE history. I'm beginning to learn the pr0n habits of my friends and it's just kinda awkward and creepy.

 

[gar598]

customer: Helpppppppppppppppppppppp I can't connect to the internet,
me: well when did you turn in your resnet information
customer: umm 2 hours earlier
me: it takes 8 hours to process your application
customer: I don't care, I want it now
me: umm i'm sorry miss but you will have to wait
customer: leaves in anger
me: hehe bye

 

[Slapus]

this isn't a story because i'm a "computer guy" but was funny to my friends and i nonetheless

one day in school, my apparently dyslexic (as we learned later) biology teacher took our class into the library to use the computers for research on an upcoming project. so we're all on the internet looking up information on whatever the hell we were doing the project on. so my friend, who is no idiot with computers and knows his way around them quite well asks a question about the project. so the teacher comes over, and as she reaches my friend a pop-up ad appeared on his screen. he quickly killed it, as per habit for anyone who spends time on the internet.

teacher: (angry/confused tone)what did you just do?!
friend: ...i closed the pop-up ad
teacher: what?
friend: it's just an ad so i closed it.
teacher: you need to take your time on computers. i have a learning disability (no, this is what she actually said i am not making this up) and it's best for me to take my time when using computers.

so then my friend receives a 10 minute lecture about how you should take your time and be careful with computers

 

[TallBill]

<< How about the people who don't believe that you can just hit "OK", you have to hit "Apply" and then "OK" supposedly. >>

OMFG... Everyone at my work hits apply! WTF!!!

 

[20_MuleTeam_Borax]

This isn't a "Computer Guy" call, but . . .
The head administrator for the school district I attend does not know how to type. She was teaching my entire Fed. Govt. class how to email one day (so we could email our senators), and she's up there hunting and pecking away. I am not making this up.

 

[LoneWolf1]

A friend of mine tells me his computer hasn't worked for months, so I decide to take a look at it. I hit the power button, it starts up for a couple seconds and then shuts down. After checking that everything is hooked up properly, I try it and the same thing happens again. After that, I check the power supply and the voltage selector was at 220. I flip it back to 110, hit the power button and the system boots up without a problem. I then go thru to check the system to make sure everything is running properly and come to the conclusion that his CD-Rom is NFG. I sell him a spare one that I had lying around, and had him in awe of the fact that it only took about 10 minutes or so to swap drives.The fool thought it was going to take me an hour or two to do the job

. Easiest money I've made in a long time.

 

[Magicthyse]

Speaking as another one 'in the business', I can firmly lay the blame of what you consider idiotic call-outs in one corner:

Us.

That's right, I blame ourselves. We don't explain things well enough to people who have better things to do that fiddle about with computers or have no interest in computers - remember, that they have no interest in how it works, all they want it to do is work in the way that they have been shown how to work it (clear? uuuuh). After all, you don't have to have an engineering degree to drive a car, right? And they don't give you messages like 'driveshaft underrotation error'.

After all, people are being sold computers as consumer items these days. They're told by idiots in our industry that they are as easy to work as a washing machine. The fact that they very clearly aren't is not the buyer's fault.

If they call you up with a stupid question, I keep telling my techs, it's your fault for not explaining it or idiot-proofing it correctly in the first place. 'Vertical Sync error' for example as outlined on one of the replies here - put yourself in the mind of a regular joe, how the heck does he know what that's about?

The problem is of course that too many of us are not regular joes. We're geeks and are divorced from the mental workings of a regular person. We tend to treat non-geeks with considerable contempt when it comes to computer stuff. Even people who were non-geeks, once they get IT-skilled, seem to adopt this habit. That's not fair. Can you do whatever the client does for a living? I very much doubt it for the vast majority of cases.

Put yourself in their shoes, I keep telling my staff - then you provide better support and can adopt a non-contemptuous attitude, and they clamour for our services - which means more money for me so that I can buy all my geek toys...

 

[Gooberlx2]

we have a 85-90+ year old lady who calls in atleast once a week about how she can't "connect to the internet". (well she connects fine but can't receive email) So we take her through like we have 113 times before (i'm not kidding, that's how many notes we have on this lady and they're always the same thing) and reset the email servers or completely redo her email acct. (as she has deleted it). Lastly, we, in a futile attempt, ask of her, "Annette, PLEASE don't change those settings anymore."

What really gives us a kick is when she falls asleep on the phone.

It's okay though, she's a sweet old lady.

 

[Transition]

<< Speaking as another one 'in the business', I can firmly lay the blame of what you consider idiotic call-outs in one corner:

Us.

That's right, I blame ourselves. We don't explain things well enough to people who have better things to do that fiddle about with computers or have no interest in computers - remember, that they have no interest in how it works, all they want it to do is work in the way that they have been shown how to work it (clear? uuuuh). After all, you don't have to have an engineering degree to drive a car, right? And they don't give you messages like 'driveshaft underrotation error'.

After all, people are being sold computers as consumer items these days. They're told by idiots in our industry that they are as easy to work as a washing machine. The fact that they very clearly aren't is not the buyer's fault.

If they call you up with a stupid question, I keep telling my techs, it's your fault for not explaining it or idiot-proofing it correctly in the first place. 'Vertical Sync error' for example as outlined on one of the replies here - put yourself in the mind of a regular joe, how the heck does he know what that's about?

The problem is of course that too many of us are not regular joes. We're geeks and are divorced from the mental workings of a regular person. We tend to treat non-geeks with considerable contempt when it comes to computer stuff. Even people who were non-geeks, once they get IT-skilled, seem to adopt this habit. That's not fair. Can you do whatever the client does for a living? I very much doubt it for the vast majority of cases.

Put yourself in their shoes, I keep telling my staff - then you provide better support and can adopt a non-contemptuous attitude, and they clamour for our services - which means more money for me so that I can buy all my geek toys... >>



Well said.

 

[VirusDub]

My worst experience has been with my sister in the past couple of days. She bought a new Gateway laptop in the summer, but wanted to get it as cheap as possible. That means no floppy and no CD-R. She wanted me to install Win2K on the machine, but I told her it would cause a lot of problems. She insisted I do it, so I did. It worked for about a week, or so I thought. She called me on Thursday saying that she needed to print two papers by Tuesday, but she had no printer drivers. I told her to get a friend to burn a CD. Conveniently, none of her friends have burners. So I had to burn a CD with printer drivers on it and mail it to her, rush delivery, $25. Stupid crap.

 

[Brutuskend]

ARGHHH Well I just got off the phone with my latest PAIN IN THE ASS.

(This is a LONG story)

A friend of mine got shipped a BUNCH of computer parts by mistake. Case's, motherboards, CD roms, NIC's, Modems, pretty much everything needed to build 6 computers minus CPU's, memory, hard drives and Video cards.

Because of Oregon law saying if someone sends you something you didn't ask for you don't have to pay for it, he decided to keep all the stuff! (it turns out that someone that used to work for him years ago had ordered something from these guys at one point, and the company goofed up and send him this stuff by mistake because they got the customer order numbers messed up. They asked him to ship it back, and he told them to stuff it!)

Anyway, a friend of a friend of his has a computer store. And they cut a deal where he will trade him all the stuff he doesn't need (extra case's M/B's etc.) for the stuff he's missing to build a working computer. I keep 1 case for myself for building the system for him (GREAT DEAL FOR HIM!) Three of the M/B's are ABIT KT-7A raid mother boards and three are Intels, so I tell him that the one too keep is the KT7. I take one case for his computer and one Abit board home. He takes the extra stuff to his friends friend.
Now it get REAL interesting!

A few days later I get a call from my "friend" he say's the computer guy claims that the two other Abit boards he takes are BAD, and that I should give him the one I kept so he can take it to his friends friend to check out. Which I do. A day or so later I get the word that it's BAD as well. (I've build MANY computers based on Abit boards, and NEVER gotten a bad one).

Now all along we have been telling this guy that I am going to build they system for my friend. He keeps saying "OH that's OK, I can build it for you!" I keep telling my friend "Don't let him, I'll do it for you!" So now a month or so go by and we still haven't gotten the parts back from this guy.

{What I told him to get from this guy was a matching set of hard drives 10 or 20 gigs (for a raid 0 array) a AGP Video card (at least 32 megs) a Athlon CPU (1 gig or better) and all the ram the board will support (since ram at the time is DIRT CHEAP)}

So finally my friend gets tired of waiting for the "Parts" and goes to the guys shop. The guy says "Well I went ahead and built it for you, NO CHARGE!" My friend picks it up and and brings it to me (as I asked him to do so I could check it out for him). First thing I notice is it's a different case. I start it up and it has 64 megs or ram and a 1.3 CPU. I open the case and it has a different motherboard NOT the abit it was supposed to have! And although the board will support a AGP Video card he has put some POS PCI Video card in it. It has a 6 gig and a 10 gig H/D, NOT matching drives (which is a moot point now anyway since THIS board does not have raid) and one of the drives hasn't even been Fdisked or formatted! I tell my friend that this is totally unacceptable, and he should take it back and get what was agreed on! BTW: ALL the parts are USED parts, as far as I can tell.

Another month or so goes by...

He finally gets the computer back. (once again after we told him I was going to build it, and just wanted the parts agreed upon)
First off I open the case, same NON Abit board, but now it does have a AGP vid card. (S3 savage 4 YIPPEE!) I push the power button and it pops out of the case front! (I'm getting REAL pissed!!) I reach in and mess with the button till it snaps back into place in the case front. I start the computer and it now has a 1 gig CPU not the 1.3 that was in there. It has 128 megs or ram.......... and now it has matching Hard drive's (though STILL no raid support) TWO SWEET 3 gigers!! (YOU GOTTA BE KIDDING ME!!??) To top all this off, NO driver disk for the mother board, no drivers for the modem, no drivers for the video card, no drivers for the on board sound, and NO manual for the motherboard! NOW I'M REAL PISSED! I tell my friend to take it back and make him make it right! He say's he's tired of dealing with the guy, so I say I'll go talk with the jerk!!

I go to his shop and confront him. "Why didn't you put the Abit board in?" he says "They were all bad, so I tossed them out!" (WTF!!??)
"How come you didn't RMA them?" he says "OH I couldn't..." (BS!!!) {Anyone ever heard of anyone NOT being able to RMA BRAND NEW STILL IN THE BOX Abit Mother boards!!???}
"How come you only put in 128 mags of RAM?"
Him "It's so expensive"
Me "Price watch has 128 megs listed today for $7!"
Him "No they don't"
Me "Look in their site!!"
Him after looking "Well I'll be, they do."
Me "Look this whole thing has been total B.S. you and I both know that 3 gig drives are worth next to nothing!"
Him "Well he said he wanted matched drives"
Me "yeah, for the RAID that the Abit supported, this M/B has NO raid support, so what good does having matched drives have?"
Him "Well I just gave him what he asked for!"
Me "Well I can get a 40 gig right now at costco for $119."
Him "Well I'll give you $50 back on the 3 gigers if you want to go that way."
Me "OK"

So I get a 40, stick it in and take the 3's back.

I set up him system and give it to him.
The power button pops out.
I take it home, take the whole thing apart, and fix the power button.
He wants to save the files off his old computer.
I go to his house, take the drive out of the old system I built for him, put it in the new computer, move the files, and reinstall the drive in his old computer.

AOL 7.0 won't work in XP.
I go back to his house, setup a dual boot with XP and 98se so he can use AOL.
98 has no drivers for the Modem the guy installed.
I take the Modem out of his old system and put it in the new one.
He sells the old one to a friend. The modem will not work (NO DRIVERS) Now he wants me to install a new modem for THIS GUY!

My friend wants to buy a CDR calls me at work several times asking stupid question.
He buys one from AOL and wants me to walk him through installing it. (WHILE I'M AT WORK)
He installs it wrong and NOW he wants me to come over and fix it!!

ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Finally I just tell him today.
"Look most people get at least $65 and hour for Tech support. You have gotten WELL over 10 -20 hours so far for FREE. And all because of ME trying to fix this other guys screw ups. I told him LAST time that he had already gotten MUCH more out of the deal than I had. And that I needed a High Pressure clutch and pressure plate for my car. (He own's the VW shop I used to work at) But he didn't seem real into giving it to me. (He said he would sell them to me at cost)

So today I re stated that he was getting over on me BIG time.

We'll see if he wants to kick down the stuff I want today, if NOT.

"NO SOUP FOR YOU!! NEXT!!!!"

BTW: I didn't condone his keeping the stuff that was sent to him in the first place, so maybe this is all Karma coming down of him, and me by association.......................