The most ridiculous thing you've ever heard from a customer

[FSwenson]

I have a number of stories to share, and I hope that others will be inclined to add more stories from their own lines of work.

First let me give you a little background:

I work in a college registrars office for a school called Eisenhower University - see http://www.eisenhoweruniversity.com. My division deals with prior learning assessment (PLA) and evaluation for people with work experience and/or previous college credits that they could turn into an Eisenhower degree. Every day our office gets calls and emails from all around the country, and I have the pleasure of speaking to a number of upstanding individuals who think they could get a Master's Degree in Engineering because they once "built a do-it-yourself radio kit." While we mail out degrees in many trades for work experience, we're not going to give you an Accounting Degree because your aunt was an accountant five years ago and you once "balanced your own checkbook." If you expect a university to grant you a degree based on work experience you should have actually, you know, worked in the field for a number of years.

What makes things worse is that the hippies at my university recently artifically lowered the PLA fees to ridiculous levels due to of some kind of "education should be free or almost free" mentality. That means my office gets bombarded with inquiries 24/7 from idiots with no any qualifications or work references at all, who want to trick us into giving them a degree.

- Story 1 -

Earlier today I had a call from a redneck wanting to apply with us. During the conversation this is what transpired:

Me: May I have your zip code please?

Him: Zip code? You mean 804?

Me: Oh, I'm sorry I meant your 5 digit zip code

Him: Hold on, HONEY!! WHATS THE ZIP CODE!!

Me: *pause*

Him: We don't know, I just want to sign up for the PLA program

Me: Absolutely. I will be happy to help you further; what state do you live in?

Him: STATE? the UNITED STATES!

- Story 2 -

Often we'll get clueless people who are so out of touch with technology that its laughable. Here's a snippet from a conversation with a 40 year old guy about applying for our work experience degree program online.

Me: What version of Windows are you running?

Them: Hold on, let me check.

Me: OK.

Them: They're thermal.

Me: I...I beg your pardon?

Them: The windows are thermal.

Me: ...

- Story 3 -

Last week a lady called in who was having trouble accessing her student account on our website. I don't know why she called our office, since tech support is a different division entirely. But after a little trial and error we were able to get her account fixed and everything squared away. The tail end of our conversation went like this:

Me: Well, seems like everything is working, is there anything else I can help you with?

Her: Yeah, don't use anti-perspirant! Wanna know why?

Me: Not really, but I bet you're going to tell me.

Her: Because it causes cancer! Look at the first ingredient, it's aluminum! It gives you the cancer!

Me: Well, that's good to know ma'am, have a good day!

Her: Wait!! Do you know why 9/11 really happened? George Bush ordered it! There were secret Nesara computers in the sub-sections underneath the WTC!

Me: Wow, amazing.

Her: I'm part of this secret agency tied to Nesara, and we're planning on overthrowing the government! Here's a few links you should check out, and tell all your friends about!

Me: Will do ma'am, thank you for calling.

Her: No no! Wait! Nesara Nesara Nesara Nesara Nesara Nesara Nesara Nesara Nesara Nesara Nesara Nesara Nesara Nesara Nesara Nesara Nesara Nesara Nesara Nesara Nesara Nesara Nesara Nesara Nesara Nesara Nesara Nesara Nesara Nesara Nesara Nesara Nesara Nesara Nesara !!!!!!

The call lasted about 40 minutes after I fixed her problem, and since I can't hang up on students I had to sit there and listen to these awesome stories. She went on and on about Nesara, and how I should watch the news because something huge was going to happen in the next few days. Of course nothing did. God I love my job.

[FSwenson]

I have more stories if you guys are interested. I'll probably be back later tonight since I have something important to do at the moment.

[stevepaa]

Sorry, but I started losing interest when I read from the website
"Eisenhower University's minimum requirement to be considered for the Master of Science degree (MS) is a Bachelor degree or equivalent and at least 3 years of work experience in a field directly related to the major or a combination of both work experience and college credits totaling a minimum of 6 years. Work experience considered may include military service.
It's simple: just complete our free, no-obligation evaluation form and submit it to us (you can also attach your resume if you'd like). Our evaluators are experts in prior learning assessment methodologies. They will assess your credentials and get back to you with a free evaluation of your skills, achievements, and experience within one to four days. If you qualify, you could have your degree in less than a month!"

You totally lost my interest when you used the term hippies derogatorily.

[Neilk]

Seems like a ploy to send traffic to his "university".

[id10t]

I work in education technology, and have full access to our web based course delivery system, which about 25% of our classes use to some degree or another (syllabus only to fully online).

I once had a student claim that she had logged in, taken several tests, and gotten scores/grading results, but the system didn't record it. I ended up sitting down with her, her instructor, and one of the registrars and teaching 'em how to read web server logs, using logs from the date in question. I showed them what the logs look like as someone goes thru the process of logging in, accessing a class, accessesing a test, viewing questions, saving answers, and getting a grade. I then pointed out that there was *nothing* having to do with her username during that period, and *nothing* coming from the specific lab she claimed to be in.

She then tried to convince the registrar that I was lying or (and these are her exact words) "little green men came and removed my lines from the files".

Turns out that she was in cahoots with the student employee who did check-in/out duties for the lab she claimed to have been in....

[Dantilla]

Two posts, but only 50% of them have your website.

Not a very good troll, are you?

[tc-sacto]

You totally lost my interest when you used the term hippies derogatorily.

How else would you refer to a hippie?

I dunno, I thought the stories were funny.

[Jared at Pelican Parts]

Once when I worked at Pelican I got a call from a woman who couldnt figure out why the tire on her VW would not hold air in it. She had a hole in the tire. She kept filling it up at the gas station with air. Im not making this up...

[stevepaa]

Well, hippies tend to be entrepeneurs, artists, free thinkers, self employed, rebellious to authority figures and rules handed down from above.

[RANDY P]

Originally posted by stevepaa
Well, hippies tend to be entrepeneurs, artists, free thinkers, self employed, rebellious to authority figures and rules handed down from above.

Don't forget lazy, ponderous and drug addicted.

rjp

[tc-sacto]

Don't forget lazy, ponderous and drug addicted.

Those are the ones I remember while living in Santa Cruz, Ca.

[masraum]

Yep, troll, but good stories.

something important to do right now... like spam more sites for traffic for your school. I get emails every day telling me that there's a degree waiting for me.

I think I'd prefer to work for it, you know, the old fashioned way.

[stomachmonkey]

There was this time in band camp....

[campbellcj]

I got this call from somebody who is NOT a computer novice by any means and uses the web, email etc. almost daily...he was in a hotel room known to have broadband access at the time. Maybe he had just powered 5 martinis or something.

"How can I tell if I'm on the Internet?"

- Do you have the network cable plugged in to your laptop?

"I dunno...I think so"

- Why do you think you're not online?

"Well all I can see is this main window with some icons"

- Um, that's called your desktop. OK, well try starting up your web browser

- What's a web browser?

Arrrghh!!!

[bell]

can i have my 3 minutes back?

[Don Ro]

Originally posted by stevepaa
Well, hippies tend to be entrepeneurs, artists, free thinkers, self employed, rebellious to authority figures and rules handed down from above.

Speechless.

[svandamme]

can't hang up on students? maybe not
but the cable might have a bad connection , take that plastic clip thingie off the connector, put it back in the phone, next time someone calls , and you wanna shake him... tug the phone a bit...works like a charm..

[Tervuren]

I'll share two I've heard here. These took place on a Cruise Ship. They where told by the cruise director for the Constelation.

First one,

The guy was talking with a cruiser, who asked about how they fill the pool up. The Cruise Director told him they pulled the water from the ocean, and filtered it. The guest then said now he understood why the water was soo rough.

Front desk, an older lady comes up with an extremely determined and angry look. She slams her fist down, and goes into a nearly incomprenshible tirade. They call in the cruise director, who gets out of her, that she is extremely mad that she payed a lot of money for an ocean view room. All she see's is the parking lot! ... He told her to calm down, and give them about two hours, and they would fix it.(Ship had not yet left first port...)

[svandamme]

that last one is brilliant...


i would be tempted to stall her for 2 hours, then offer to go inspect the problem first hand... just to see the stupid look on her face when the parking lot is gone.

[FSwenson]

Uh, I don't know what crawled up everyone's asses. Eisenhower is a perfectly legit university that's accredited and pretty well known. The school also offers traditional classes, as well as a bunch of other programs.

Here's another antecdote:

As a teenager I worked in a Domino's pizza. One day some guy came into my work and asked if he could buy cupcakes and have us bake them into his pizza.

He was very fat and very serious.

And one more:

A few years ago I was working in the tech shop of a CompUSA. I had a customer give me grief for shaking a CD-R. He eyed me angrily and snapped, "Don't do that! You'll make all the data fall off!"