Technical Support

[bino]

This is a true story from the WordPerfect helpline. Needless to say the helpdesk employee was fired; however, he/she is currently suing the WordPerfect organization for "Termination without Cause".

"Word Perfect Technical support; may I help you?"

"Yes, well, I'm having trouble with WordPerfect."

"What sort of trouble?"

"Well, I was just typing along, and all of a sudden the words went away."

"Went away?"

"They disappeared."

"Hmm. So what does your screen look like now?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing?"

"It's blank; it won't accept anything when I type."

"Are you still in WordPerfect, or did you get out?"

"How do I tell?"

"Can you see the C:\ prompt on the screen?"

"What's a sea-prompt?"

"Never mind. Can you move the cursor around on the screen?"

"There isn't any cursor: I told you, it won't accept anything I type."

"Does your monitor have a power indicator?"

"What's a monitor?"

"It's the thing with the screen on it that looks like a TV. Does it have a little light that tells you when it's on?"

"I don't know."

"Well, then look on the back of the monitor and find where the power cord goes into it. Can you see that?"

....."Yes, I think so."

"Great! Follow the cord to the plug, and tell me if it's plugged into the wall."

....."Yes, it is."

"When you were behind the monitor, did you notice that there were two cables plugged into the back of it, not just one?"

"No."

"Well, there are. I need you to look back there again and find the other cable."

....."Okay, here it is."

"Follow it for me, and tell me if it's plugged securely into the back of your computer."

"I can't reach it."

"Uh huh. Well, can you see if it is?"

"No."

"Even if you maybe put your knee on something and lean way over?"

"Oh, it's not because I don't have the right angle-it's because it's dark."

"Dark?"

"Yes-the office light is off, and the only light I have is coming in from the window."

"Well, turn on the office light then."

"I can't."

"No? Why not?"

"Because there's a power outage."

"A power... A power outage? Aha! Okay, I know what the problem is. We've got it licked now. Do you still have the boxes and manuals and packing stuff your computer came in?"

"Well, yes. I keep them in the closet."

"Good! Go get them and unplug your system and pack it up just like it was when you got it. Then take it back to the store you bought it from."

"Really! Is it that bad?"

"Yes, I'm afraid it is."

"Well, all right then, I suppose. What do I tell them at the computer store?"

"Tell them you're too stupid to own a computer."

[Khun Jean]

This reminds me of my early days in the computer business.

The conversation was almost exactly the same up until the "Does it have a little light that tells you when it's on?"

"Yes it is on"

After that i go silent for a while.

"Did you do anything to the computer since the last time you used it?"

"No i just turned it on and it does nothing"

"When you press Caps lock, the little light on your keyboard goes on and off"

"Yes"

"Well at least your computer is working, it is probably you monitor."

After checking cables and make sure they were connected correctly we finally figured it out. It took almost 20 minutes.

The cleaning lady cleaned the monitor the night before and while she did that she turned both brightness and contrast to their lowest settings.

Afterwards we both had a great laugh and the next times i got a question like this it was the first thing i asked.

Never happened again of course.

[penzman]

I worked for an internet provider and a woman called one of our guys and explained that she was constantly having problems with her connection. She thought we may be able to make it easier for her if we sent her a cd with the internet on it...

[phazey]

Heh, reminded me of the story about the office worker, who no matter what, could not get her backups to work after she labelled them. Turned out that she was feeding the disks (old 5 1/4 ones) into a typewriter to print the label........

[pedro01]

I worked in tech support many years ago...

A woman brought a floppy disk to me complaining that it wasn't working - I stuck it in my drive & it made a horrible churning sound.

"Did anything happen to this disk ?" I asked. "Well, I did spill coffee on it" I got back.

Had to replace both drives in the end - hers and mine...

[Insight]

We had a classic a month or so ago. We sell satellite communication equipment and software which runs with the gear. Of course, how well the software runs depends on the strength of the signal.

A client called us up and told us he was seeing the message "No Signal".

We told him to check all cables and connections, still no joy - the message was still displayed.

We sent out a new antenna cable to them. They tried the new cable, still no joy.

After a second lengthly (expensive) support call over a satcom link, we eventually discovered what the problem was...

The monitor cable was unplugged.