Computer Stupidities

[John A]

Heh, this is my latest website I visit when I'm bored:
http://www.rinkworks.com/stupid/

It amazingly has huge numbers of stories from tech-support guys trying to fix people's computer problems. My fav:

• Tech Support: "Ok, let's put your operating system disk in the drive."
• Customer: "Ok...which way does it go in?"
• Tech Support: "The shiny side faces down."
• Customer: "Alright...um...which way is down."
• Tech Support: (rolling eyes) "Towards the floor."
• Customer: "Ahhh...so what way does the other side face?"
• Tech Support: "Are you kidding?"
• Customer: (outraged) "Hey! I'm not a computer genius, ok? That's why I called you!"
• Tech Support: "Ok, that side faces down too."

That kept her occupied for a couple of minutes, while I told my colleagues what was happening and we had a good laugh.

Sadly enough, these sorts of things happen here at DaniWeb in the forums all too often. Hmm, maybe I should make my own collection of funny DaniWeb threads... :cheesy:

[Dave Sinkula]

My long-running favorite is still the "foot pedal" one.

[Nick Evan]

My long-running favorite is still the "foot pedal" one.

Or another classic: "Who is General Failure and what is he doing with my computer?"

[The Dude]

Yes,classic!!

[Stuki]

This one beats them all...

I had this conversation recently with a lady who swore she had been using computers since forever.

• Tech Support: "All right. Now click 'OK'."
• Customer: "Click 'OK'?"
• Tech Support: "Yes, click 'OK'."
• Customer: "Click 'OK'?"
• Tech Support: "That's right. Click 'OK'."
• Customer: "So I click 'OK', right?"
• Tech Support: "Right. Click 'OK'."

Pause.

• Customer: "I clicked 'Cancel'."
• Tech Support: "YOU CLICKED 'CANCEL'???"
• Customer: "That's what I was supposed to do, right?"
• Tech Support: "No, you were supposed to click 'OK'."
• Customer: "I thought you said to click 'Cancel'."
• Tech Support: "NO. I said to click 'OK'."
• Customer: "Oh."
• Tech Support: "Now we have to start over."
• Customer: "Why?"
• Tech Support: "Because you clicked 'Cancel'."
• Customer: "Wasn't I supposed to click 'Cancel'?"
• Tech Support: "No. Forget that. Let's start from the top."
• Customer: "Ok."

I spent the next fifteen minutes re-constructing the carefully crafted setup for this lady's unique computer.

• Tech Support: "All right. Now, are you ready to click 'OK'?"
• Customer: "Yes."
• Tech Support: "Great. Now click 'OK'."

Pause.

• Customer: "I clicked 'Cancel'."

And people wonder why my mouse pad has a target on it labeled "BANG HEAD HERE."

:lol: :lol: :lol: What's the foot pedal one?

[Jaseva]

Customer: "I clicked 'Cancel'."

That's great! :lol:

Also wondering what the "foot pedal" one is..

[Dave Sinkula]

:lol: :lol: :lol: What's the foot pedal one?

http://www.rinkworks.com/stupid/cs_mice.shtml

An exasperated caller said she couldn't get her new computer to turn on.

* Customer: "I've pushed and pushed on this foot pedal and nothing happens."
* Tech Support: "Foot pedal?"
* Customer: "Yes, this little white foot pedal with the on switch."

The foot pedal turned out to be the mouse.

[Infarction]

My grandma has horrible luck with computers, too. She's always had a Mac and I've never had one, so I just claimed I didn't know how to fix them (mostly a true statement anyways). So she consistently takes it to my aunt and uncle, who also have several Macs. Apparently my grandma has a habit of cleaning up her hard drive by deleting any file she doesn't recognize... including system files. :mad:

[Jaseva]

I told her that if she were ever working on a computer that locked up so badly the mouse couldn't physically be moved on the mousepad, she should get up and run.

LOL :lol: I laugh every time I read this.

[The Dude]

This thread is awesome!

[Nick Evan]

I once had a customer who bought a computer in components and tried to assemble it himself. The complaint was: it's not working, so I went there.
When I booted the computer it didn't do anything so I decided to have a look inside....

Apparently reading the manual was to much work for this man, because he had spouted the cooling-paste directly into the socket, then he put the CPU in (without opening the socket) and last but not least he had managed to fit the cooler onto this mess. This was quite an achievement since he didn't open the socket and the CPU was just lying on top of it..
: CPU destroyed (all the pins were bend), MOBO full of paste... But I had he good laugh.

Niek

[mattyd]

Last year my girfriend's Mother was beginning genealogical research into their family history. She was fairly new to the Internet and was advised to start by searching via Google for keywords; she used Google and could not "find what she was looking for!"; this she concluded was due to the fact that the "person at Google" who was supposed to answer her questions about Spain and Cuba family-lineage, etc, was actually a racist against Hispanics and was purposely not answering her correctly purposely :eek: -- she was not joking. My girlfriend tried to explain to no avail that there was no one on the other end actually looking up answers but it was all automated. Her Mother never believed her. :-|:cheesy::cheesy:

Matty

[Mushy-pea]

I read an article in Computer Shopper once (that mag where 70% of the pages were adverts) about one of the staff writers trying to install NT 4.0 on their home PC. This was in the days when NT 4.0 was the "only serious OS available for PCs". He was concerned about the stability of Photoshop and wrote:

Perhaps Photoshop will be capable of biting NT hard enough to draw blood and lock up the keyboard.

Back then, I thought a computer keyboard could really be locked by the OS so you couldn't press the keys. However, I do remember seeing computers in my dad's office in the early 90s that had manual locks on the case. You could actually turn a key to block keyboard input, as a security measure. Anyone else seen PCs like that?

Steven.

[jbennet]

my proliant server has that feature. I can lock the ps2 keyboard/mouse by turning the key

[Mushy-pea]

Well, it's no wonder you were a Prolient fan. What a useful feature.

Steven.

[jbennet]

yup. thier also built like tanks (my rack lives on my landing and took a tumble down the stairs once. not a single byte of data was lost)