Tech support -- stories from the front lines
 

As if that fat $7 per hour wasn't enough to lure you into the wonderful world of tech support, these anecdotes surely would make it worthwhile...

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A haughty caller to my Claris Works cue began haranguing me about the Claris Works she'd just bought. When her tirade abated enough for me to ask a few probing questions, she explained that the box promised a word processor, but there wasn't one inside. I asked her to insert the disk from the box into her computer.

* Customer: "Computer? I don't have a computer!"
* Me: "Ma'am, Claris Works requires a computer."

From here, she became irate. She dragged in two levels of supervisors, several lawyers, later, and I was nearly placed on the sacrificial altar. For what it's worth, we never laughed and always maintained a professional demeanor. The customer is always right.




I was teaching an email course to novice users -- some of them I was explaining how to enter contact information in the address book, so the program could "look it up" for them. Bad choice of words.

* Student: "So it'll look up phone numbers for me?"
* Me: "That's right."
* Student: "Does it have to be on the right page?"
* Me: "Uh, do you mean the right screen, or...?"
* Student: "No, I know it has to be my own computer screen. But when I hold the phone book up to the screen for the computer to look up the number, does it have to be on the right page?"



Once I overheard the guy in the tech support cubicle next to mine patiently explain:

* Tech Support: "No, sir...clicking on 'Remember Password' will NOT help you remember your password."



While visiting a network user's office to install a small program (we use Windows NT 4.0 here), he asked:

* Him: "Can you answer a question?"
* Me: "Sure."
* Him: "See the recycle bin? Does someone come round and empty it?"

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More:
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