3 IT Helpdesk request from the same user

[Fritz]

Tues, 1158: Please send someone to fix my computer. I cannot respond to e-mails, I can't send new messages, and the speakers will not work.


Tues, 1200: That's the first time I have been able to send a message today . The speakers still don't work.


Wed, 0651: I now have country and western music being pumped through my speakers! I think that this computer has lost it! Help!

[Fritz]

One More

Code 130 (Mr. X) and 130A (Mr. Y) have no computer capacity this morning. Mr. Y's computer has completely locked him out. Mr. X's speakers, however, are playing music without any connections. (Also, Code 130B, yesterday afternoon, was unable to send any e-mail. All attempts to send ended up in the Drafts box, & could not be sent from there, either. That problem seems to have stopped, for now at any rate.)

[Bee]

The speaker thing actually happened to me once. I hadn't hooked the speakers up to the computer yet and I went to a website and suddenly music started blaring out of the computer. It took me a few seconds to realize there was a speaker in the monitor. For about 5 seconds I was completely dumbfounded. :D

[Dutch]

I've heard speakers play (albeit in low volume) that weren't powered on...haven't figured that out yet....must be sucking some power from the CPU power supply.

[Fritz]

ah, I just found the chain of e-mails to be funny.

[Daimyo]

I've seen speakers can play at very low volume from interference if they're really near to a radio tower.

[CAsterling]

My favorites from where i currently work.

Me : Forgotten Password, please reset it.
Helpdesk : You need to log on to the intranet site and request a reset from there.
Me : How to I get to it if I can't logon to my PC
Helpdesk : Sorry but this is our policy
Me : I can't logon to request a password reset, please help
Helpdesk : Your other alternative is to call your Senior Vice President and get to to authorise us to change the password.
Me : Thanks, I think I'll just sit here for a few weeks unable to work until I can remember my password.

or Yesterday one of my colleagues had this discussion.

Colleague : We sent you a fix for the problem that crashed your system (system in question being a major company wide mainframe - fix in question we wrote 2 years ago when we identified the problem, but client hadn't applied maintenance in 2 years).
Client : I know, but to prove the fix works I want to recreate the problem so I prove I can do it, then apply the fix and recreate it again to see if it has really been fixed.
Col: You want to crash your companies whole system on purpose, why ?
client : Because I like to prove to myself that I understand everything
Col : OK, feel free to do this, but I suggest you discuss with your manager first, as he may be interested in your unscheduled crash of all your systems.
Client : He doesn't need to know
This went on for 20 minutes before he was finally convinced it was a really bad idea :confused:

Hope that client doesn't visit this site :D

[wade moore]

Casterling; I'll defend the first one, as it's crucial for security...

Beyond that, I know the help desk woes.. I'm on my 5th year now, been at this place for 4 months and it's the largest Windows 2000 Domain based network in the world and has much more growing to do.. it's quite interesting, and you get quite the interesting user now and then..

[TZone]

I’ve been doing support for several years now and my best story came early and hasn’t been topped yet. I took a call from a sweet elderly lady that worked in a satellite office. Nice as she was, she was simply bewildered by the computer. She told me she was having problems with excel. After attempting to resolve her issue over the phone, I gave up and asked her to email me the spreadsheet. After walking her through how to attach messages, it finally arrived.

Lo and behold, there were absolutely no formulas! Pages and pages of information had been entered and calculated manually. She had basically been using excel the whole time as if it were notepad – doing the math on a 10-key she had beside the monitor on her desk.

[Easy Mac]

I get the radio interference thing with my speakers. Its getting worse each day, kinda pissing me off. I thought Cambridge made good speakers.

[Maple Leafs]

Recent helpdesk experience:

Me: My computer just blew up.
Helpdesk: OK... can you describe the problem?
Me: My computer exploded.
Helpdesk: Do you mean it crashed, is it just displaying error messages?
Me: No, it exploded. There were flames coming out of it.
Helpdesk: Your computer is on fire?
Me: No, we put it out. It's still smoking a little bit.
Helpdesk: We'll send someone over.

I guess they're so used to people vastly overstating the problem ("it died", "it blew up") that it took a while for them to understand that I meant it.

[RPI-Fan]

At my school, they just got a ton of new computer (new one for every teacher). Of course, the teacher who have for study hall got a defective one (new out of the box).

She had her husband (another teacher) look at it, and with his moderate computing experience he said it had a fried harddrive. So she calls the tech administrator, saying "My computer's harddrive is fried, could you get that fixed?"

He answers, "I'll send someone tomorrow".

The next day, a Dell guy works on the computer for well over an hour. The moment he walked in the door, the teacher of course said, the hard-drive is fried - look at that". He messes with the monitor for most of the time, and then checked the power cords for the rest of the time. On the way out the door, the technician says "I don't know what's wrong".

The next day, he's in there again. He fuddles with the monitor some more, then calls for about an hour to Dell's tech office. He talks with fancy numbers for a while, then opens up the case. Looks for about a minute, then packs up and walks out the door.

On his way out, the teacher asked what was wrong with it.

He answers, "the harddrive's fried".

[TZone]

To be fair to Dell – they outsource their on-site support so it’s a crap shoot who you will get. We once got a kid who looked no more than twelve years old come in to replace a motherboard. I about lost my lunch when he asked to borrow a screwdriver - he didn't bring one! After a few hours he just gave up and left the motherboard with us.

Another time, I was talking on the phone to a tech in our San Francisco office - I was working out of LA. She was working for a large company that billed her out at $100 an hour. This was in the early 90s. I asked her to move an icon from one window to another – this was Windows 3.11. When she asked me how to do it, I told her to hang up the phone and go home. We never used the company again.

Just like in any field, there is the good and the bad. The bad is just overwhelmingly more funny.

[astralhaze]

Originally posted by RPI-Fan
At my school, they just got a ton of new computer (new one for every teacher). Of course, the teacher who have for study hall got a defective one (new out of the box).

She had her husband (another teacher) look at it, and with his moderate computing experience he said it had a fried harddrive. So she calls the tech administrator, saying "My computer's harddrive is fried, could you get that fixed?"

He answers, "I'll send someone tomorrow".

The next day, a Dell guy works on the computer for well over an hour. The moment he walked in the door, the teacher of course said, the hard-drive is fried - look at that". He messes with the monitor for most of the time, and then checked the power cords for the rest of the time. On the way out the door, the technician says "I don't know what's wrong".

The next day, he's in there again. He fuddles with the monitor some more, then calls for about an hour to Dell's tech office. He talks with fancy numbers for a while, then opens up the case. Looks for about a minute, then packs up and walks out the door.

On his way out, the teacher asked what was wrong with it.

He answers, "the harddrive's fried".

You sure it was Dell? If it was at a school it probably was purchased under relationship while I work in consumer, but we only send techs out with parts and they are they specificaly, and only, to replace that part. The troubleshooting is done over the phone. Also, as TZone says, the technicians that Dell uses are not Dell employees, they work for seperate companies and are outsourced. Regardless, that technician just didn't want to have to do anything.

[mckerney]

Originally posted by RPI-Fan
On his way out, the teacher asked what was wrong with it.

He answers, "the harddrive's fried".

"How much did that cost?"

"$800, I'll send a bill."

[Draft Dodger]

customer: I have a question
me: okay
customer: if I ever unplug my computer, will I lose all my data?

[Daimyo]

Originally posted by Easy Mac
I get the radio interference thing with my speakers. Its getting worse each day, kinda pissing me off. I thought Cambridge made good speakers.
The quick and dirty solution is to wrap all your wiring in aluminum foil. If that doesn't work wrap the speakers in it too (as much as you can without covering where the sound comes from). The aluminum foil will provide an electrical shield.

[wade moore]

Here is probably the funniest, atleast one of the funniest things I've had happen..

Caller: My computer won't do anything.
Me: What do you see on the screen now?
Caller: It's just black and it won't do anything.
Me: What happened before it went black?
Caller: I went and hit shut-down, and then it turned black and won't do anything.
Me: Ma'am, can you hit the power button please?
Caller: Wow! Look! It's doing something!

Sigh... you should have to have a license to use a computer just like with a car..

[astralhaze]

Me: Okay, now we need to put any cd in the cd drive. Any cd at all.
Caller: What's a cd drive?
Me: Where you put the cd's in(!?!?!?!?)
Caller: Ohhhhh, ok.
Me: Okay, now we need to put a floppy disk in the floppy drive.
Caller: What's a floppy disk?
Me: They are three and half inches long and they have metal on one end of them.
Caller: Okay, I have some of those. (which begs the question how she could manager to buy them without noticing what the fuck they were called)
Me: Okay, go ahead and put one in the floppy drive.
long pause
Caller: It won't fit.
Me: It won't fit? Are you putting the side with the metal in first?
Caller: Yes, I am, but it won't close.
Me: It won't close!?!?!? :confused:
Caller: Yes, it won't close.
Me: Are you putting it in the floppy drive or the cd drive?
Caller: What's the floppy drive?

JESUS!!!!

[astralhaze]

Originally posted by Daimyo
The quick and dirty solution is to wrap all your wiring in aluminum foil. If that doesn't work wrap the speakers in it too (as much as you can without covering where the sound comes from). The aluminum foil will provide an electrical shield.

That reminds me of a story I heard around the office. Like any outrageous second hand story I can't verify how much truth it contains. Anyway, apparently this ummm...what's the PC term these days? special? person called in and was absolutely convinced their was an alien in his computer. So, the tech convinced him that if he wrapped aluminum foil around the monitor the alien wouldn't get out. Worked too, the guy was satisfied that he wouldn't be attacked by the alien.

[CAsterling]

Another couple of quick stories from work.

Caller : Your software just abended
Me : What was the abend codes
Caller: gave codes
Me : I'll send you the fix

10 minutes later he was back on the phone.
Caller : This fix you sent me is 3 years old.
Me : I know, we created it when we first discovered the problem
Caller : But that means we haven't put any maintenance of for 3 years
Me : probably
Caller : How do I explain to my boss I haven't applied maintenance for 3 years ?
Me : <No answer>
Caller : Please tell me how I explain my lack of maintenance !!!!!
Me : sorry I really can't help - what I wanted to say was 'Because you're lazy and an idiot'

and

Caller : I have a problem with software'x'
Me : Sorry we don't support that software, it belongs to another company.
Caller : I know, but they aren't very helpful and you guys are, so I thought I would call you first and see if you could fix it.
At which point I couldn't stop laughing.

Everybody in the industry probably has hundreds of these stories, but I must admit they make doing tech support less painful, and for a few short moments make the job fun again.

[Tarkus]

Okay, here's the funniest I've ever heard, although I did not experience it myself, and I'm just writing as I remember it.

Help Desk: Can I help you?
Caller: Yes, I keep typing but I don't see anything on my screen.
Help Desk: Is your monitor turned on?
Caller: I think so. It was working fine a few minutes ago.
Help Desk: Okay, we need to check if everything is properly plugged in.
Caller: How do I do that?
Help Desk: Look behind your computer and see if all the connections are secure.
Caller: It's difficult to do that, the computer is up against the wall.
Help Desk: Well, is there any way you can look behind the computer to see if everythig is plugged in?
Caller: I tried but it's too dark, I can't see anything.
Help Desk: Can you get some more light back there?
Caller: No I can't, we just had a power outage a few minutes ago.
Help Desk: Lady, let me tell you what to do. Box up the computer and return it to where you made your purchase.
Caller: What do I tell them?
Help Desk: Tell them you are just too stupid to own a computer.

Now believe it or not the woman complained and the Help Desk person got fired! :eek: I'd have given him a medal. :D

Tarkus

[wade moore]

Tarkus...

Good story, but that is one of THE two urban legends of tech support (the other being the guy using the cd-rom drive as a cup holder for his coffee)

[Alf]

Originally posted by wade moore
Tarkus...

Good story, but that is one of THE two urban legends of tech support (the other being the guy using the cd-rom drive as a cup holder for his coffee)

tarkus story is really a urban legend, but I can really imagine someone using the cd-rom drive as a cup holder...