LOL: Real tech support calls |
84 Comments |
Posted by Marc Saltzman at 10:04 PM | E-mail this post
Thanks to reader Bob Ortiz for this humourous email forward. It's a transcript of a handful of real technical support calls. So if you're ever feeling like you're not the most technically savvy person on the planet, you'll see there are those far worse off than you. Enjoy!
The following are a number of transcribed conversations to technical support departments:
--
Tech support: What kind of computer do you have?
Christine says: A white one...
===============
Customer: Hi, this is Maureen. I can't get my diskette out.
Tech support: Have you tried pushing the Button?
Customer: Yes, sure, it's really stuck.
Tech support: That doesn't sound good; I'll make a note.
Customer: No , wait a minute.. I hadn't inserted it yet... it's still on my desk.. Sorry....
===============
Tech support: Click on the 'My Computer' icon on to the left of the screen.
Customer: Your left or my left?
===============
Tech support: Good day. How may I help you?
Male customer: Hello... I can't print.
Tech support: Would you click on "start" for me and --.
Customer: Listen pal, don't start getting technical on me! I'm not Bill Gates.
==============
Customer: Hi, good afternoon, this is Martha, I can't print. Every time I try, it says 'Can't find printer.' I've even lifted the printer and placed it in front of the monitor, but the computer still says he can't find it...
==============
Customer: I have problems printing in red...
Tech support: Do you have a color printer?
Customer: Aaaah.....................thank you.
===============
Tech support: What's on your monitor now, ma'am?
Customer: A teddy bear my boyfriend bought for me at Woolies..
===============
Customer: My keyboard is not working anymore.
Tech support: Are you sure it's plugged into the computer?
Customer: No. I can't get behind the computer.
Tech support: Pick up your keyboard and walk 10 paces back.
Customer:! OK
Tech support: Did the keyboard come with you?
Customer: Yes
Tech support: That means the keyboard is not plugged in. Is there another keyboard?
Customer: Yes, there's another one here. Ah...that one does work...
===============
Tech support: Your password is the small letter "a" as in apple, a capital letter V as in Victor, the number 7.
Customer: Is that 7 in capital letters ?
===============
Customer: I can't get on the Internet.
Tech support: Are you sure you used the right password?
Customer: Yes, I'm sure. I saw my colleague do it.
Tech support: Can you tell me what the password was?
Customer: Five stars.
===============
Tech support: What anti-virus program do you use?
Customer: Netscape.
Tech support: That's not an anti-virus program.
Customer: Oh, sorry...Internet Explorer.
===============
Customer: I have a huge problem. A friend has placed a screen saver on my computer, but every time I move the mouse, it disappears.
===============
Tech support: How may I help you?
Customer: I'm writing my first e-mail.
Tech support: OK, and what seems to be the problem?
Customer: Well, I have the letter 'a' in the address, but how do I get the circle around it?
===============
A woman customer called the Canon help desk with a problem with her printer:
Tech support: Are you running it under Windows?
Customer: "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 printer is working fine."
===============
And last, but not least...
Tech support: "Okay Mickey, 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, Colin.
Customer: What do you mean?
Tech support: "P".....on your keyboard, Colin.
Customer: I'M NOT GOING TO DO THAT!!
If you enjoyed this post, why not subscribe to this blog via RSS? It's easy and you'll never miss another sync article.
Posted by Marc Saltzman at 10:04 PM in Satire
| Permalink
| Comments (84)
Jay on July 19 at 11:20 PM | Report abuse
ROFL!!!! LMAO!!!
Sooo damn funny.... especially for me since this sorta stuff happens to me in real life on a daily basis :P
dynamic on July 20 at 6:52 AM | Report abuse
LOL??? not much
Pierre on July 20 at 11:09 AM | Report abuse
Some older cases:
Then there was my professor in University, many years ago. With 40 staples, he stapled a 5.25" diskette I needed to the door, so he could go out.... When he returned, I was in a blue mood. He was so busy laughing, i though he'd lost his nut. He then explained he did that to get my goat: "...That was a blank, here is the real disk..." Talk about making my day!
We also wrote a Fortran or Basic program on a dec 2020. It calculated peacefully for a copuple of hours (common in those days) , then proceeded to start printing.... For a whole day. On the weekend. Used up a crate of paper. All valid data too, needed for a govt Royal Commission. But the IT people were pissed! In their words, I got away with murder... (While I printed, no one else could print, these were batch jobs back then!...)
A friend once wrote a program that calculated for 16 hours, and then printed less than 2 pages of output, some heavy duty regressive math thing. The IT people wanted to murder him. While his job ran, the printer sat idle, since no other jobs could run. Apparently, they had given him "God" credentials accidentally when they set up his account. He should have realized that. claims he did not!
So computer "events" go "all the way back"....
More recently, a blind friend has JAWS on his PC. I went over to do some work, forgot to turn it off. He'd had the speakers cranked up LOUD to listen to streamed music... from another room. When the computer spoke, the voice was loud enough to nearly knock me out of my chair!
Liam on July 20 at 5:55 PM | Report abuse
And my Mom thinks she's bad with computers? LOL!
jdjd on July 21 at 12:16 AM | Report abuse
these are fake
mitch on July 21 at 12:20 AM | Report abuse
lol what newbs theyre all probably old farts to
InfinitM on July 21 at 1:01 AM | Report abuse
I think they are real I spent an hour on the phone with a guy trying to help him set up an account for online banking and after walking him thru it doezens of times it finally dawned on me that he had not put the @ symbole in his email address. then he had to go to his email to confirm the account well while I was trying to explain to him how to do that I advised him to look at the top right of the screen and he said :"screen ??? what is the screen ??? " true story .... one of the most frustrating phone calls I have ever had
Mickey on July 21 at 1:32 AM | Report abuse
I can SO relate! One call I had, from a customer 3000 km away, was "the power's off to my computer, is it on my end of yours?" Thank goodness those days are well behind me!
Greg on July 21 at 1:40 AM | Report abuse
No, these are all real. I'm the default IT in my office when the regular department isn't in, and I get worse calls than these on a daily basis. But the best I've ever heard is still for the woman who needed a new computer ... because the "cup holder broke off when she put her coffee mug on it"
I know these people!!! on July 21 at 5:40 AM | Report abuse
They all work with me!!!
Anna on July 21 at 6:32 AM | Report abuse
Some of them are probably older people who did not get the chance to experience these new technological wonders when they were young so give them a break. Also the one about the @ sounds reasonable if its your FIRST email. I am sure when I wrote my first email I had no clue what it was called or how to type it. But some of them are just plain stupid. If its related to a computer function its not really funny (everyone was once a newbie!) but when its sheer stupidity like forgetting to plug in your keyboard or asking about a "capital 7" then yes - but lots of them seem to be generally confused people (if you are not computer savy how do you know what is meant by a windows, the woman probably thought it was odd for the tech to ask her if she was running it under windows - but seeing as she knows nothing about computers, she just answered any question that might somehow pertain to the problem) Give some of these people are break
George on July 21 at 6:50 AM | Report abuse
It's no wonder that most companies have tech support in foreign countries. Would you want to deal with this all the time?
Jon on July 21 at 7:37 AM | Report abuse
I've heard about lots of funny things like these.Because of this kind of people,some serious customers doesn't get real tech support in time of crisis(When hardware is really defective) Very frustrating!!!
However,a friend told me:he used to work at Staples in computer department.A woman brought back it's entire desktop after one day of purchase saying the computer was defective.Tech support ask her what's wrong with the computer;her answer was:"When I've push F1 on keyboard,no one came to HELP me"
This is really funny!
Suzanne on July 21 at 8:10 AM | Report abuse
Newbies or not. I've worked in tech support before and some days/nights were just hilarious. They make for great stories is all. :)
I can't say I miss those days. It was nice reminesce here for a few minutes. :)
RD350LC on July 21 at 8:51 AM | Report abuse
Here is one that I have pulled off on our IT people. When I was asked to give a copy of the disk (5 1/4" floppy, you can use CDs now) to them for analysis, I made a photocopy of the disk and gave it to them. Once they reacted to this, I gave them the real copy that I had made.
brahahaha on July 21 at 9:04 AM | Report abuse
Back in the days when DOS was still around, one of my ex's aunts called me one day to ask if I thought her sons new computer was any good.
I asked her if it had Windows on it and the phone when quiet. Then after a bit of silence she came back on the phone and said she walked around the whole thing and didn't see any windows anywhere......lmao...got to love her.
Another good one from back in the day was when I got a call from a customer in panic. The error on the screen said that the keyboard was locked and it wouldn't work. So I said "Did you unlock it?" and the response was "You can do that?" Needless to say by getting them to turn the key sticking out the front of the computer, I was a genius for getting them running again.
Paul Robertson on July 21 at 9:08 AM | Report abuse
I worked tech support for an automotive company that built alternative fuel systems to allow vehicles to run on natural gas. A guy called, he had just bought a vehicle at auction and wanted to know where he could get fuel for the car. As I was punching up a locator, I asked him where he was calling for.
Ready for this,,,
"My office"
Paul Robertson on July 21 at 9:11 AM | Report abuse
To Jdjd:
Obviously you have never worked in any sort of a technical support position or you would know that these are probably true.
roganthis72 on July 21 at 9:26 AM | Report abuse
LOL!! I got a call once asking how to move down a line in microsoft word. She was a slight embarrassed when I started laughing.
mozart906 on July 21 at 9:38 AM | Report abuse
I worked for a company once that sold computers. One day someone called in the 800 # to order a system and wanted to know if it came with the TV and the typewriter!!!
techiegirl on July 21 at 9:46 AM | Report abuse
I have heard all of these and worse. I worked computer support, and digital camera support. Some good stories.
And even if people are newbies to the tech world there are some things called common sense, or just don't act like you know everything when you really don't. Admit that you aren't sure and us techs wont laugh (out loud at you) we'd be MORE than happy to teach you.
But I am sorry if you act like you know everything about computers and you make a simple stupid mistake then I am going to have a field day with you.
Himanshu D on July 21 at 9:47 AM | Report abuse
LOLL...this reminds me of time I was working in Citibank. I asked the customer if they can go to their respective bank and make a payment there. They guy says.."well, I don't own a bank, sonny. I am not that rich". My God!! People can be thick sumtimes huh
Crystle on July 21 at 9:49 AM | Report abuse
This was a good laugh - I used to work for T-mobile doing technical support for PDA's & Blackberry's and some of the calls were ridiculous.
Jade on July 21 at 10:07 AM | Report abuse
Congratulations! You've made me laugh for the day. I never realized people could be so funny over the phone with tech supports.
Jasmine on July 21 at 10:21 AM | Report abuse
Recently, I got this new mp3 player and I took it back to get an exchange because the headphones weren't working and the music started to bleep. The representative figured it out and still gave me a new mp3 player. So when I got the second new mp3 player, the same thing was happening again and my sister figured it out and said "Are you dum? You didn't plug it in all the way.". That's when I realize I made a fool of myself.
Jill O. on July 21 at 10:43 AM | Report abuse
there's a hilarious website filled with just transcriptions of customer service encounters called notalwaysright.com.....I used to work in telephone IT support and I believe these are all 100% real
Kaytee on July 21 at 10:43 AM | Report abuse
LOLz! If I had to talk to those people, I would probably be banging my head on the wall :P
Tech Support funny call on July 21 at 11:08 AM | Report abuse
My all time favorite tech support comedy video. Watch and enjoy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRBIVRwvUeE
Zalak Vyas on July 21 at 11:16 AM | Report abuse
Really Funny.. LOL.. My stomach hurts...
I have heared these kind of things.. but this article is awesome..
Pat on July 21 at 11:16 AM | Report abuse
Had a fun time reading this --
Ryan on July 21 at 11:25 AM | Report abuse
Here's one I got:
User: How do I create a new slide in Powerpoint
Myself: You see that big button at the top that says "new slide". Click that.
brahahaha on July 21 at 11:27 AM | Report abuse
hehe Have you ever seen someone try to use their mouse facing the wrong way (buttons under their palm)???? I have lol
Tim on July 21 at 11:31 AM | Report abuse
I must confess that, until recently, I couldn't figure out what PrintScreen did. Only taking a course in which it's mentioned let me know - I mean, I've never NEEDED it, but I would hit it periodically out of curiosity and then I just figured something wasn't set up right...
Bexx888 on July 21 at 11:35 AM | Report abuse
Too funny. I used to work in a call centre next to a tech support section, and hear their stories. I sold acne products and still had hilarious calls, not only from people who couldn't follow the simple directions on the bottle, but from people who couldn't work the website.
My personal favourite was a girl who called to let us knew there was something wrong with the website. She couldn't put in her credit card number, but she could put letters in the box. Long story short, she didn't have the number lock on.
brahahaha on July 21 at 11:46 AM | Report abuse
ahhhh the famous Numlock. You haven't done your time as a tech till you have gotten a call about that key. I even had someone that couldn't find the key labelled SPACE.
kc on July 21 at 11:48 AM | Report abuse
I used to work at a call center dealing with tech support for interenet digital phone and cable. on a hot day one woman called in to tell me her air conditioner wasn't working. i asked her if she was having problems with any of the services we provide her with. she said no i just want the air to work. when i told her she needed to call a different company she started crying and yelling at me to fix it.
Mike on July 21 at 11:53 AM | Report abuse
I have been a tech support person for quite some time. I can tell you these are real. I've seen and heard all kinds of stuff. After a while you stop laughing and just shake your head. People have NO common sense anymore.
Paul Stanford on July 21 at 12:16 PM | Report abuse
And you think these are funny. You have no idea what humour is.. What a waste of Bandwidth!!!
John on July 21 at 12:19 PM | Report abuse
Now, if they could just remove that 'wrong key' from the keyboard, and replace it with the 'any key', I'd be all set!
Mike on July 21 at 12:23 PM | Report abuse
I have 2 special ones that happened to me as a tech:
1 - ME: "Can you tell me what is written on your monitor?"
CLIENT: "V-I-E-W-S-O-N-I-C"
2 - CLIENT: "The computer doesn't start!"
ME: "Could you verify if the computer is connected to the power bar please"
CLIENT: "I can't, there's a power shortage and I can't see behind the desk"
And just to let you know, these happened from high positionned people at Air Canada!!!
Paul on July 21 at 12:26 PM | Report abuse
This is BRILLIANT!
I'm in the I.T. field as well, so I know how mindboggling it can be. However, I wanted to say thank you for giving me a good laugh and cheering me up. Very funny!
brahahaha on July 21 at 12:52 PM | Report abuse
haha Paul Stanford. You're one of the ones that called tech support about the missing "Any" key aren't you?:)
Ryan on July 21 at 1:02 PM | Report abuse
I guess I should also add to my last comment that Powerpoint is something our employees use quite frequently and the person who called in had been with us for quite a while too so it wasn't just a newbie calling for that.
Critical on July 21 at 1:04 PM | Report abuse
Oh my god! these people are complete idiots and should be transferred to the psych. ward.
Dan on July 21 at 1:34 PM | Report abuse
I manage an electronics dept. Ive heard some doozies! You have to be intuitive with these people. I had a lady come in and ask me what a W2 was. I asked her to describe it for me and realized she was asking me about a Wii!!! LOL
I had an old lady come in to the dept once after buying a TV and she asked me what the apple button does on the remote control. I pulled a remote out and looked for it but could not find it for the life of me. I asked her to show it to me and came to realize it was the power button.
Secret on July 21 at 1:38 PM | Report abuse
My boss came to the front desk in panic asking someone to help him immediatley. One of the girls had gone with him to see what the problem was. She came back laughing her head off and we asked her what happened. She said that he had told her that he kept turning the computer on and off but it wasn't working so she asked him if he turned his monitor on and voila lmao he is horrible with computers. He said he didn't know you could do that lmao.
Allana on July 21 at 2:10 PM | Report abuse
ok.. let me get this straight. i have years experience in computer. i work at a crummy call centre, and these people have jobs.. Seriously??
TRobertson on July 21 at 2:20 PM | Report abuse
Oh man this brings back memories, I worked for Epson doing Tech Support for all products and the stories I could tell.
Eli on July 21 at 2:37 PM | Report abuse
I work in the electronics department in a Walmart. This is the worst I have had, no joke.
Me: Can I help you?
Lady: I need this for that.
Me: I am sorry.
Lady: I need this for that.
Me: Okay... what is this?
Lady: You tell me.
Me: Well, what is that?
Lady: How am I suppose to know
cancan on July 21 at 2:45 PM | Report abuse
people are just dumb sometimes