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

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I just reposted this story about a week ago. It was orginally posted six years ago, back when I used to sell satellite dishes.

I’m at work. The phone rings, I answer, and this woman starts talking about how her satellite won’t work.

Me: “What’s the problem?”
Her: “I can’t change channels, and the Discovery Channel is gone! I can’t get it!”
Me: “Okay, well, let’s see if we can’t fix it. Open the door on the front of the reciever and pull out the card.”
Her: “What card?”
Me: “On the front of your reciever there’s a little door. Open it.”
Her: “Oh! Okay. That little credit card thing?”
Me: “Yes. Pull it out.”
Her: “Okay. It’s out.”
Me: “Now unplug the reciever.”
Her: “What?”
Me: “The reciever. The Box. Unplug it.”
Her: “Where? On the back?”
Me: “No, unplug the power.”
Her: “On the back?”
Me: “No. Pull the plug out of the power outlet.”
Her: “Oh! Okay! I pulled it out. Nothing happened. The green light is still on.”
Me: “Are you sure you unplugged the right thing?”
Her: “Yes, I’m sure.”
Me: “And the power is still on? It’s functioning WITHOUT POWER?”
Her: “Yes.”

At this point I knew I had either a complete idiot on the phone, or her reciever had been possessed by demons.

Me: “Are you SURE that you pulled the right plug?”
Her: “Yes, I’m sure. It’s the thin white cord, right?”
Me: “No, ma’am, that’s your phone line. The power! Unplug the power. The electric! You know, that thing on the wall with slots where you plug in a cord to make something run?”

(Long pause) Her: “Okay, I got it.”
Me: “The green light is out?”
Her: “What green light?”
Me: “The green light on the front of the box that says if it’s on or not.”
Her: “Uhm . . . . I don’t see any light.”
Me: “Okay. Now, let it sit like that for five minutes, then put the card back in, and plug it back in to the POWER outlet, okay? If it doesn’t work, call me back.”
Two point three seconds later, the phone rings. It’s her.

Her: “Uhm, did you say to put the card in BEFORE I plugged it in, or AFTER?”
Me: “Put the card in, and then plug it in.”
Her: “Oh! Okay! I plugged it in. It’s not working.”
Me: “Did you put in the card?”
Her: “What card?”
Me: “The card that you took out of it! The little crdit card thingy.”
Her: “Oh, that? No.”
Me: “Put it in.”
Her: “Where?”
Me: “In the slot on the front of your box.”
Her: “What slot?”
Me: “THE SLOT YOU TOOK IT OUT OF. ON THE FRONT OF THE BOX!”
Her: “Oh! Okay. There it goes. It’s on now.”
Me: “Good. Now try to change the channel.”
Her: “It won’t change. I’m stuck on the Discovery Channel, now.”
Me: “Okay, try changing the channels by pushing the buttons on the front of your box.”
Her: “What buttons?”
Me: “The buttons that are on the FRONT OF YOUR BOX! There’s one that says CH and has an up arrow, and one that says CH that has a down arrow. Push one of those.”
Her: “I don’t see any buttons.”
Me: “No buttons?” ALL of the boxes we have have channel buttons on the front of the box. “What kind of system do you have?”
Her: (long silence) “I don’t know.”
Me: (giving up) “Well, maybe you don’t have buttons. I’ll call a technition, and see if we can’t get someone out there to fix it. I’ll call you back.”

I called the installer, and he sighed. “I remember her . . . Oh, GOD! Well, tell her I’ll be there tomorrow.”

I called her back, and relayed that information. “But what will I do tonight?” she asked. “I can’t be stuck on the Discovery Channel! I hate the Discovery Channel!”

Then why call and bitch that you can’t get it? “I’m sorry, ma’am,” I said, but it’s 4:30, and everybody’s getting ready to go home. There’s nothing we can do for you tonight."

I could hear the panic in her voice as she sputtered on and on about how she couldn’t watch the Discovery Channel all night. “There’s nothing I can do,” I said, “Sorry. Have a nice evening,” and hung up.

<snip>

She called me back twice before I left, once to ask when the appointment was, and once to tell me that it stormed last night and that might be what messed up her system. Yeah, lady, it was a state-wide storm, and we live in the same town. I saw it. Sheesh!

<snip>

I call the installer back, give him her phone number, and he goes out to her house. It takes him less than five minutes to discern that she has the batteries upside down in the remote.

2

**Lissa ** - that sounds exactly like many of the cable customers I’ve spoken to over the years

How’s this - Hurricane Gloria (1985) hadn’t even left the area and the phones were ringing off the hook.
cust: When will my cable be back on?
me: do you have electricity?
cust: no - but my battery operated TV is working and I want the cable

or

in 1980, the expanded basic service was, coincedentally $19.80. in 1981, (with prior notice) it went to $20.50.
A cust had faithfully been paying $19.80 until Jan of 1981 when she started paying $19.81
.
.
.
.
because the last line of the bill said “Balance due from Jan 1 thru Jan 31 1981”

3

I work in medical billing. While it’s easy for me to snicker at what patients say when they call in and make demands, I can completely understand why medical bills are intimidating — and why insurance is damned confusing. It’s a shame more people don’t actually read their insurance policies or follow the instructions their insurance gives them.

Note: not all of the anecdotes here apply to every state in the U.S. Our local laws do not require us to obtain insurance pre-authorization for every procedure, for instance; your state may vary.

The amusing threat:
patient: “Well, if you want to get paid, you’d better call my insurance and take care of this for me! I don’t know why they’re not doing what I paid them to do, but it’s not my responsibility to do anything. I don’t have to tell you my insurance information, you just have to bill them! It’s the law, I know my rights.”

The even more amusing threat:
patient: “Go ahead and send me to collections! I’m not paying this bill. If you send me to a collection agency I’ll sue you!”

The highly amusing threat:
patient: “I’m from Oklahoma and I’m a lawyer and I know it’s illegal to send me a bill!”
us: “You’re not in Oklahoma.”
patient: “And I know [name drop] in state government!”
us: “Good. Maybe they can educate you on what the laws are in this state.”

The lazybones:
patient: “I don’t have time to sit on hold with my insurance company. Can’t you call them for me?”
us: “You don’t have time to sit on hold for one phone call; what makes you think I have time to sit on hold for a hundred other people every day who don’t want to call their insurance companies?”

4

Nothing comes to mind for me to personally add (amazing, after eight years of phone support), but anyone who likes these types of stories shouldn’t miss Computer Stupidities and the sadly defunct, but still brilliant Operators Standing By.

5

And in an interesting bit of serendipity, my son the waiter called while I was reading this thread, to share this story with me. Seems he just had a customer who wanted breadsticks to go. He told her they come in orders of six or twelve. She said, “Oh, no, twelve is way too many. Just give me two orders of six.”

Really makes you wonder what was going on in that brain.

6

This one is from today.
For the last 4 years, I’ve worked as a SAP Functional Consultant. That means I’m part of a team that goes to customers’ factories and offices, installs a very complex program which can be used to manage the whole business (no it doesn’t make decisions yet, sorry, and no it can’t replace mechanics or secretaries, and no it doesn’t make coffee), prepares it to work and trains the users.

One of the features we’re installing for the current customer is Planned Maintenance; you can prepare a “strategy” (a list of frecuencies, prioritized) and assign the frecuencies to lists of tasks - you don’t assign the priorities directly on the list of tasks (don’t look at me, I didn’t program that bit). When two frecuencies happen at the same time (eg “weekly” and “monthly”), the program looks at the priority to decide which one to do. It does tasks assigned to the one with the highest priority; if both frecuencies have the same priority, then it does those tasks assigned to both of them.

The engineer who designed the current Maintenance Plan (for the only department which has one) does not understand this. He keeps asking, “is 1 higher than 2, or 2 higher than 1?” We keep telling him “2 is higher than 1, 3 is higher than 2, and so forth”. We’ve put it in the manuals. We’ve put it in the slides for the courses. We’ve written it on the blackboard. He keeps asking the same question. Today he said “well, to me 1 always comes first!” Well, yes honey, but “first” and “higher” aren’t the same thing. Can someone take this guy back to first grade, please?

I’ve got quite a few, but I’m still cracking up over his offended look when he said that “1 comes first”.

7

Me: “So, when your home sale closes, the equity owed to you will be $XXX,XXX. That’s the equity less blah blah taxes, blah blah expenses, blah blah the payoff of your current mortgage”

Senior VP At A Major Worldwide Financial Institution That Starts With A “D” And Is Germanic In Deriviation: “I have to pay off my mortgage when I sell my home?”
:eek:

VCNJ~

8

Wait, you’re saying that a task with a Priority 3 would be done before a task with Priority 1?

I can see why he complained.

9

Maybe I’m just getting older, but it seems like a lot of first-year University students are getting stupider.

I had one piece of work that came in a couple months ago, looking for lumber.

“I need wood,” she said.

Wood is a pretty wide umbrella at my shop. There’s easily about 20 different kinds.

But, I’m used to vague requests here, so I said, “Sure, what kind?”

“I dunno, just wood,” She said.

Great. So after having to show her nearly every kind while she hemmed and hawed over them, she finally realized which one she needed. She picked out 3 pieces and started to head out the door.

“Hey, wait, I just gotta ring those through,” I said.

She looked at me in disbelief. “You mean I gotta PAY for this??”

I couldn’t believe it. “Well, yeah. We can’t give away stock for free.” I said.

“Well, forget it then” She said blithely, dropped the wood on the floor and left.

WTF? Really, WTF was she thinking?? :confused:

10

Yeah, that would confuse me too.

11

Sheesh. :smack:

12

I’m with lno and your engineer on this one. In what alternate universe is Priority 1 not the highest priority?

13

I’d have been strongly tempted to provide a 2x4 upside the head to that particular doozy. :eek:

14

Just an FYI: Lissa didn’t start this thread; a spammer did that. But, since these threads tend to be pretty amusing, I decided to keep the thread in view and removed the offending poster. At that point, Lissa–being the second poster in the thread–moved to the head of the class.

Congrats, Lissa!

15

If he’s learning to use SAP, that’s going to be the least of his complaints before his year is through.

16

That’s easy: when you set something as priority 1, what do you set if you want something to be even more important? It could happen.

Setting it with higher priorities as higher numbers means you have plenty of room to make things more important. Just use a bigger number.

If you did it with 1 as your highest priority, then you leave it up to the operator to leave himself a cushion between priorities… say, give the user a GUI that says Immediate 20, Urgent 50, Important 75, Routine 100, Periodic 250, and so on; and then accept manual input if you want an in-between priority somewhere.

We do this all the time with insurance codes: we start at 10 (for primary insurance) and 20 (for secondary) because eventually somebody will cancel their secondary and get a new one; or they’ll retire and Medicare will be bumped up to primary status; or something of that sort. Then we can insert insurance 15, or 5, or inbetween somewhere.

17

Fish, it makes more sense to me now that you’ve explained it that way. Presumably you’ve tried that logic with the constantly confused guy too?

18

Not quite the same sort of story, but ridiculous nonetheless…

A friend of mine, Sam, was working at his university’s computer help desk a few years ago. This was one of those schools that gives free laptops to their students. Therefore, there was a pretty standard way of solving computer problems. You could basically plug the problematic laptop into a machine and it would tell you what was wrong, and Sam could just fix the and send the laptop back home with the student. Each laptop had a student ID assigned to it, also, so you could log who brought in their computers for repairs.

One day, a guy came in with a “broken” laptop and handed it to Sam. Sam plugged it in, and the ID came up. “Are you S. Tolen?” asks Sam. “Yeah, Steve Tolen,” says the guy. Sam notes that not much is wrong with the laptop, punches a few keys, fixes the problem, and sends the guy home.

Sam’s supervisor comes out a few minutes later after checking the repair log. “Who was just in here?!” Sam: “Uh, why?” “Because that laptop is stolen!”

You see, the IDs were printed first-initial-last-name, so when the laptop came up as STOLEN, Sam thought…

:smack:

19

What if you set something as priority 1 and you want something less important?

20

Can’t you just make it go to 11?
[Sorry if that’s too obscure…] :wink: