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Any time you feel dumb, don't worry. Check out the following excerpts
from a "Wall Street
Journal" article by Jim Carlton. Lots of people
are dumber than
you...
1. Compaq is
considering changing the command "Press Any Key" to
"Press Return Key"
because of the many calls asking where the "Any" key is.
2. 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.
3. Another Compaq
technician received a call from a man complaining that the system
wouldn't read word processing files from his old diskettes. After
trouble-shooting for magnets and heat failed to diagnose the problem, it
was found that the customer labeled the diskettes by rolling them into a
typewriter to type on them.
4. 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.
5. 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 then
heard putting the phone down, getting up and crossing the room to close
the door to his room.
6. 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.
7. 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."
8. 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.
9. 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.
10. An exasperated
caller to Dell Computer Tech Support couldn't get her new Dell Computer
to turn on. After ensuring that 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.
11. 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?"
12. True story from
a Novell NetWire SysOp: Caller: "Hello, is this Tech Support?"
Tech: "Yes, it is.
How may I help you?" Caller: "The cup holder on my
PC is broken and I
am within my warranty period. How do I go about getting that fixed?"
Tech: "I'm sorry, but did you say a "cup holder"?" Caller: "Yes, it's
attached to the front of my computer." Tech: "Please excuse me if I seem
a bit stumped; it's because I am. Did you receive this as part of a
promotion, like at a trade show? How did you get this cup holder? Does
it have any trademark on it?" Caller: "It came with my computer, I don't
know anything about a promotional. It just has '4X' on it."
At this point the
Tech Rep had to mute the caller, because he couldn't stand it. The
caller had been using the load drawer of the CD-ROM drive as a cup
holder, and snapped it off the drive!
Another well-known
one that I can add is the true tale of the user who called up
complaining that the instructions said to load the four
diskettes into "Drive A" but he couldn't possibly get more than two in
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