Quote: * Customer: "I think I broke the Internet!"
* Tech Support: "So it was you!"
* Customer: (click)

Quote: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."

Quote: * Me: "I can't seem to get this download to complete. What might be causing it?"
* Tech Support: "What operating system are you running?"
* Me: "Windows NT."
* Tech Support: "Well, you have to be running Windows 98 or better in order to download it."
* Me: "Ummm, I am. I'm running Windows NT4, SP5."
* Tech Support: "Are you on a PC or a MAC?"

Quote: * Customer: "Do you know about this RAM stuff?"
* Tech Support: "Yes sir, I can help you with RAM."
* Customer: "Well, your program uses 12 grams of RAM, and this computer you gave me only has 10 grams of RAM, so you need to send me another 4 grams of RAM."

At this point I was speechless. I wasn't sure which was worse, that this guy couldn't do basic math or that he had the term so twisted. However, our calls were recorded so I couldn't say what I really wanted to.

* Tech Support: "Uh, sir, that computer has plenty of RAM to run the program."
* Customer: "Just send me the grams of RAM I've asked for!"

Quote:Customer: "I am not happy with your service, I have just had my line enabled for broadband, but there is no difference in it!"
Tech Support: "I am very sorry about that. What speed are you getting?"
Customer: "Speed? What do you mean?"
Tech Support: "The download speed on your computer. Is it faster or slower than dial-up?"
Customer: "I don't own a computer and have no interest in owning one. What has that got to do with broadband?"
Tech Support: "Broadband is for high-speed Internet. What did you think it was for?"
Customer: "I thought it just improved the quality of my voice calls. Oh, I was wondering what this black box with all these wires you sent me was for."
Luckily for her, she was within her 14-day cancellation time limit, or she'd have been tied into a 12 month contract.

Quote:Well, I had one event happen to me, where one lady had just bought a Apple IIc and complained that she was having problems with her monitor, so we told her to bring her monitor in, and we'd check it out. So she brings her monitor in, and we plug it in, and it works without a flaw. We tell her that the monitor isn't the problem, and to bring her CPU in. She stares at us blankly, and asks, "What's the CPU?" Joe explains that it's the piece of equipment that all your devices plug into. So about twenty minutes later, she returns and walks in carrying the surge supressor. When we explained to her the item that we needed her to bring in, she replied, "Oh you mean the keyboard!" (On Apple IIc's, the CPU box and keyboard are part of the same unit.) And to make this all the more interesting, she was a gradeschool computer class instructor.

Quote:I own a computer store. One day, two policemen came into the store and told that they owned a 486 and a 286. They asked if a 486 and a 286 could be assembled together into a 686. I replied to the dumb request by asking them if two 200 horsepower police cars can be used to make up a 400 horsepower Ferrari. The policemen didn't get it and replied angrily that altering car engines is strictly forbidden by law.

Quote:I was an editor for my high school's newspaper for a couple years. The newspaper and the yearbook staffs shared a computer lab, because it was too costly to keep separate ones. The yearbook advisor (a little off her rocker) was convinced that we newspaper students were sneaking into the journalism room at night, removing all the memory from the computers, and selling on the black market for a higher price. The reason she believed this is that we always got type 11 errors (Mac), and she thought that since they had to do with memory and the computers were fairly new, one of us had to be physically doing something to the memory. She finally went and told the principal. He, not being much smarter than she, proceeded to tell our newspaper advisor about our "illegal activities," and she laughed him out of the room. The only thing that really happened is that the yearbook lady finally had a police officer come in and lecture us about the harm of stealing school property.