A site of nerdery, life, geekism, and monsters
Posts tagged tech support
looking up
Jul 14th
Best call I’ve had in awhile:
“Don’t worry ma’am, people often leave their Caps Lock key on when they type their password, and since you see only asterisks you can’t tell. It’s a common mistake.”
“Honey, if it’s true that we all learn from our mistakes, I’d be the smartest damn person on the planet.”
“Can I use that as my email signature?” http://feeds.feedburner.com/ThisIsWhyYourHoldTimeIsSoLong
stupidity follows you home
Jul 13th
Our company has people answering the phones 24/7, which makes sense because our clients don’t shut down after 5 or over the weekend. This means that occasionally you have to work the weekend or have an on-call night. This Saturday was my turn for being on-call. This means you get to take home laptop with all of our programs on it, and a cell phone so that people can call you. You’re allowed to fall asleep, but you have to wake up when the phone rings, or else the call goes to your supervisor and you don’t want that to More >
can you sense the emotion
Jul 8th
Our work logs have to be sanitized for things like opinions and potentially degrading language in the event that our records get requested for legal reasons. If a client has an issue with our support, the first thing a supervisor will do is pull the work log, and you don’t want comments in there like “end user is a dumbass and shouldn’t be allowed near a keyboard on a typewriterâ€
Here is the fairly factual version of events:
7/8/2009 7:11:24 AM shadowed computer determined that log was a excel file electronic inquiry july 2009.xls found file in w:\ where it should be More >
computers suck
Jul 2nd
“Dear Computer Fixing Person,
For the love of God, my work computer is dreadfully SLOW. Like glacially slow. It makes lots of whirring noises and gets really upset when I want to use Quickbooks and (italicized) Excel at the same time. I am currently at the top of the company list to get a new computer, but The Controller always (italicized) blames the pace on the weather. I often call The Controller and tell him I am about to drop my computer in The Marina.
Peace love and good things to you,Marnie*”
Dear Marnie,
First things first: right-click on your My Computer icon, and More >
are you using a typewriter?
Jul 2nd
“Hi, I need my password reset”
“OK, we can do that for you, what screen are you logging into right now?”
“Huh?”
“I need to know what program you’re logging into, so I know which password of yours to reset, so can you just tell me what you have on the screen?”
“I’m not logging into anything”
“Oh, um, well, on the computer, what do you have up on the screen?”
“I’m not at a computer”
“….Then what password do you need reset?”
[getting angry] “My password”
“Ma’am, I’m confused, I have several passwords to different programs that I can reset for you, but I don’t know what you’re More >
thank you EA for your help
Jun 10th
Marnie Elizabeth challenged me to obtain email’s to EA Tech Support for their new game. I don’t think she realized that I actually do know everyone in IT (and by the way its pronounced “it”, not I-T). After a few quick calls to my friends, I received several incidents from their support logs.
Case: 575802User complaining that during rollerblading game, she followed the instructions and put on her rollerblades. Soon after, user skated through her TV, causing it to crash to the floor and cause sparks that set her cat on fire.Advised to get a new TV, a new cat, and a More >
lucky day
Jun 10th
So far today, we’ve had some people who shouldn’t be let near a calculator, let alone near a computer. I wish I could say I want more of these so that I have more to write about, but I really don’t want more of these. The best are when the customer makes up their own jargon to describe what the issue is, and you spend most of your energy trying to figure out what they mean. As always, I wish I had the energy and the creativity to make this stuff up:
client: “Hi, my computer has no ping so I More >
no, really
Jun 8th
There are several questions that get asked frequently, alongside my standard responses:
user: “So what should I do with this broken computer?”tech: “Do you have any stacks of paper that need to be held down, or doors that need to be held open?”
***user: “The computer won’t turn on this morning; what should I do?”tech: “The computer wants you to go home and sleep later. Talk to you in a few hours!”
***user: “What should I do with this old keyboard?”tech: “Rearrange the letters to form inappropriate words.”
***user: “What should I do with this old mouse?”tech: “See if it catches cats.”
***user: “Why would More >
someone call starbuck
May 28th
The ending may not have actually happened, but I’m not placing bets either way. This call was taken by a tech that I sit next to, and I only got to hear his half to start. I asked him to give me the other side.
“Thank you for calling the service desk, how can I help you?”
“Oh my god! The computer is telling me that I’m a robot or a virus! What do I do?”
“Ma’am, its OK. You are not a robot or a virus. Look….see, its just a website”
“But it said I may be a virus or a robot!”
“Google is More >
arithmetic
May 13th
“How can I help you?”
“Well, its asking me to change my password, and I don’t want to. Every time this happens, I spend about 30 minutes fighting with it to choose a new password. I have one that nobody will guess, and I want to keep it.”
“What is your current password?”
“laUren57″
“You could make it laUren58 or laUren56, you know, just change one part of it”
(as realization that he’s wasted hours of his life sinks in) “……huh, I guess I could….” http://feeds.feedburner.com/ThisIsWhyYourHoldTimeIsSoLong
