For your amusement, more real life tech support calls

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I’ve edited out names, locations, company names, etc to protect the stupid.
These are actual calls sent to our help desk. Some are funny, others are just annoying. My comments follow a few of them.

Enjoy!

“Fax machine says replace cartridge and I don’t have another cartridge. I’ve taken the old one out and shook it and banged it and put it back in and it still doesn’t work. It worked yesterday fine so I don’t think it’s the cartridge.”

(Name) left a VM at 1:00 pm.
“We need a new keyboard.”
(No description of the problem, what kind of keyboard, where it’s located)

Hi I work for (Dept.) over at west annex and was wondering is you can send me some (Company) wallpapers or enter my Computer and put them on. If you have a variety could I get em I like alot of the wallpapers but don’t have any. Thanks in Advance.

Printer giving her problems when trying to print.

The fax machine is totally out of toner, and will no longer fax.

Help! I think my computer needs a new mouse, I’ve been fighting with this one for about a week.

(Name) is having problems with accessing an excel spreadsheet that she created - she had created a spreadsheet in MS Excel, and she then mistakenly opened the spreadsheet with MS Word and started to make a bunch of formatting changes. It then occurred to her that she created it in excel. Now, when she tries to open the file in excel, she gets an error stating, “The file format is not valid”.

(Name), a radiation oncologist at (company), called in regards to accessing the (company) system from his home. He referred to this as the “big memory system” that physicians can put their papers on. (I think he is talking about his home folder on (server) , but am not sure) He asked to have the latest software at his house so he can access it - he said that he is no longer able to send his papers into (server). He used to be able to do this off of a zip drive.

Please open a heat ticket to have the following screensavers removed from the following PC. I assume these were installed by the previous owner of the PC, so please do so discreetly.
(Name, location, ext.)
Win95

Alley Baggett Nude Screen Saver
Amber Smith Nude Screen Saver
Angela Little Nude Screen Saver
Anna Marie Goddard Nude Screen Saver
Ava Fabian Nude Screen Saver
Barbara Moore Nude Screen Saver
Barbie Twins Nude Screen Saver
Brooke Berry Nude Screen Saver
Brooke Richards Nude Screen Saver
Chloe Jones Nude Screen Saver
Cori Nadine Nude Screen Saver
Cristy Thom Nude Screen Saver
Donna Derrico Nude Screen Saver
Drew Barrymore Nude Screen Saver
Echo Johnson Nude Screen Saver
Elisa Bridges Nude Screen Saver
Geri Halliwell Nude Screen Saver
Gillian Bonner Nude Screen Saver
Jaime Bergman Nude Screen Saver
Jami Ferrell Nude Screen Saver
Jennifer Rovero Nude Screen Saver
Karen McDougal Nude Screen Saver
Kelly Monaco Nude Screen Saver
Kimberly Spicer Nude Screen Saver
Lisa Boyle Nude Screen Saver
Lisa Dergan Nude Screen Saver
Lisa Marie Scott Nude Screen Saver
Lynne Austin Nude Screen Saver
Maria Luisa Gil Nude Screen Saver
Neriah Davis Nude Screen Saver
Nicole Marie Lenz Nude Screen Saver
Patricia Ford Nude Screen Saver
Rebecca Ferratti Nude Screen Saver
Rebecca Scott Nude Screen Saver
Rhonda Adams Nude Screen Saver
Sea Legs Nude Screen Saver
Shae Marks Nude Screen Saver
Shannon Stewart Nude Screen Saver
Shauna Sand Nude Screen Saver
Sherry Konopski nude Screen Saver
Stacy Marie Fuson Nude II Screen Saver
Stacy Sanches Nude Screen Saver
Suzanne Stokes Nude Screen Saver
Suzi Simpson Nude Screen Saver
Tiffany Taylor Nude Screen Saver
Victoria Silvstedt Nude Screen Saver

“I’m one of those horrible people who don’t check my email ever. I can’t remember my password.”

I’m trying to get logged on, but it gives me a big blue screen with all kinds of crap on it.

(Name) is up in (remote location) and there is a new printer up here that is not setup properly. ‘There is no blinking lights or anything like that.’ (Name) said that someone from ITS has set this printer up since last Thursday and it is not working.
It’s an HP, but that’s all the info that (name) had.

(This person has been an ITS systems engineer for over 20 years. Apparently, quality of information isn’t too important to him.)

(Name) wanted to know if it would be possible to have a tech come to their area once a week to check to see if their computers were working. The reason for this apparently is that the therapists don’t have time when a computer is down to call and say that a computer is down.

From: (name)
Sent: Thursday, October 02, 2003 8:03 AM
To: ITS Help Desk
Subject: Monitor Problems

Could you send someone to take a peek at my monitor?
Thanks.

(This is another ITS individual who apparently doesn’t see the need to be explicit.)

Someone accidentally spilt coffee on the IBM CRT. It starting smoking and now won’t work. This is at the (dept).

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Great list!

Sure, some of those I can give a little slack – after all, if a newbie sees the Blue Screen of Death for the first time, I wouldn’t expect them to know what’s going on. But the way he said it sure was funny.

And that person who went on about the therapists not having time to report a computer being down. Oh, oh, can I handle the follow-up call?

“Gee, I guess if it isn’t worth your time to report a computer being down, you really don’t need it at all do you? I’ll have a mail boy come by and take them from you that way you won’t have to bothered with those pesky little computer-wooters!”

And that was just the most polite of the responses I thought of!

3

“Your password is J-as-in-john o h n 1 2 3 4.”

“K as in john?”

“J as in john.”

-=-

I support a webinterface to an electronic document storage system. Obviously they don’t need the CAD folk looking at the cost for the armament so there are a large number of permissions available.

“My coworkers can edit tha document.”

“They would have different permissions then you do.”

“Permissions?”

4

I have some punch lines ready to go when I get set up by my users (and it happens frequently):

“Can you install the Internet on my computer?”
“Sure. You’ll need to order a 10 exabyte hard drive, several dozen OC48 lines, an Oodle of processors, and a CD-ROM drive.”
“Wow, all that?”
“Yup. Where’s your computer located?”
“Under my desk.”
“Ooooo, it’s gonna have to move…”

“I lost my password.”
“Have you looked behind the monitor/in your purse/back seat of your car? They fall out all the time and end up in the oddest places.”

“My computer’s frozen.”
“I’ll bring the heat lamps.”

“My computer’s not working.”
“It’s probably that thing in front of the keyboard. Get rid of it.”

5

Ah, thought of another one I used a few weeks ago.

“This box came up on my computer that said blah, blah… OK or Cancel. Should I hit OK?”
“DON’T TOUCH IT!! IT’S THE HISTORY ERASER BUTTON, YOU FOOL!!”
Why yes, I have been watching Ren & Stimpy reruns lately.