Everyone can work a computer

[Leah-Q]

Recently, I got a call from someone who turned off his computer whenever he found himself somewhere in Windows he didn't want to be. "I just turn it off when I don't like where I am," he said. Wonder of all wonders, scandisk found a score of lost allocation units and bad sectors.

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• Customer: "Hi, I was wondering if you could fix my laptop. It's under warranty."
• Tech Support: "What seems to be the trouble with it?"
• Customer: "My wife got mad and threw it in the pool."

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An man purchased a laptop from me. He called about a week later and said that it would no longer boot up. He brought it in, and I discovered that sixteen nicely drilled holes were in the bottom of the case. I asked him about it, and he said the machine was too hot sitting on his lap, so he had drilled these "air holes."
"Could that be the problem?" he asked.

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One day a customer called complaining that he just received his computer, but it won't turn on. When he first pushed the power button, the screen flashed and then everything died.
I couldn't do much over the phone, so I went to the customer's office. It was plugged in, everything was hooked up ok, but, sure enough, it refused to turn on. I decided to take it back and promised to deliver a new one as soon as possible. But when I went to pick it up, I couldn't.
Fearful of thieves, the man had fired some 24 inch bolts straight through the box, through the hard drive, motherboard, everything, locking it to his desk.
"Oh," he said, "I thought it was just the TV part that was important. Will my warranty cover this?"

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• Customer: "I need a new modem."
• Tech Support: "What's wrong with your current modem?"
• Customer: "The Internet light is not on."
• Tech Support: "Did you reset your modem recently?"
• Customer: "Yes I did, but what does it have to do with it?"
• Tech Support: "Well, resetting the modem wipes out your configuration profile, so we just need to reconfigure it."
• Customer: "Did you not hear me? The modem is broken, and I demand a replacement now!"
• Tech Support: "The modem is not broken. If you are willing to, we can configure it in about 2 minutes."
• Customer: "I want a new modem!"
• Tech Support: "We can't replace modems over a simple reconfiguration issue. All we have to do--"

CRASH.

• Customer: "Now it's broke! Replace the thing already!"
• Tech Support: "Ok sir, we cannot replace a modem that you destroyed, and your modem is past warranty, so you'll have to buy a new one anyway."
• Customer: "!*#$(*@#%!@&#$&*(!@#*$!@*^!@#$@" (Click.)

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I work in a call center for a large cell phone company that sells PDAs with phone functionality. I got a call from a customer who said her stylus had broken. I offered to transfer her to customer care, where they could order her out a pack of styluses. She said no, the phone had gotten "messed up." I asked what was wrong with it, and she said that when the stylus had broken, she'd tried to superglue it back together, then put it back in the slot before the glue had dried, and it got stuck in the phone. So she tried to take it out with a hammer and chisel.

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I work for a major computer retailer and heard a page over the intercom for an available salesman at the customer service desk. Most of the salesmen are a little apprehensive when they hear this, because you never know what you are about to get in the middle of. As I approached the desk, I saw a well-dressed cowboy and a desktop tower on the service desk. One of the customer service reps informed me that the computer he bought today was broken, and he needed a replacement. So I agreed and started toward the tower to take it back. The gentleman stopped me and said he just realized he had forgotten to get his CD out. Before I could say anything, he pulled out a pocket knife and went for it. Luckily, we got him to stop before he did any real damage, and I showed him how to hook it up to a power cord and eject it normally. Never thought I would see somebody try to knife a computer.

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While I was at college (back in the days of Archimedes computers), I often helped to teach new users the ropes while the teacher concentrated elsewhere. This one sweet girl was very new, and I didn't mind that she had no concept of the mouse, the screen, and whatnot -- she soon got good enough that I could leave her to do some task and help someone else. Pretty soon, however, she was tugging on my chair, and when I went to see what was going on, she said, "My bracelet is stuck in there."
Eh?
It was wedged into the floppy disk slot. Why? Apparently, the bracelet was annoying her when she typed, so she took it off. She found a small slot on the computer with a happy little door on it and just went ahead and shoved it in. Tech support had to rescue it by taking the thing apart.

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I used to work at a printing site that still used paper tape. One of the tape punches failed, and I'd removed the punch mechanism to look at it. It was a complex mishmash of springs, levers, and all sorts of things. Periodically, paper dust would build up and gum up the works, and we'd have to clean them out.
But at this particular time, my boss walked past, saw the problem, and said, "Oh! That needs cleaning!" and before I could say or do anything, he grabbed a spray can of PCb cleaner and sprayed the entire mechanism.
Now, this stuff dissolves anything that isn't metal, especially plastic. Sure enough, all the plastic components of the punch mechanism started dissolving. There was a loud ping as one of the springs snapped free of its plastic housing and flew across the workshop.
The thing just fell apart. It never went back into service -- there just wasn't enough of it left to repair.

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I used to work technical support and account services for a cellular phone company. One day an individual working for a construction company called and asked why we disconnected his service. I informed him that his service was fine and that his account was current, at which time I was informed that we had to have shut off his account because he couldn't power his phone on.
I began asking the usual questions, beginning with the model phone he was using. This often is a huge key to figuring out what the problem is, and it just so happened that he had the most problematic phone we had released due to its emergency yellow and black colors, looking vaguely like one of those water resistant portable cassette players.
We tried plugging it in, switching the battery, but it still wouldn't turn on. I asked him if it had been dropped or damaged before it stopped working. The answer was no.
I asked him if it had been exposed to water, and the answer was, "What does that matter? I have your waterproof model!"
I was sure I had struck the heart of the issue. It turned out that he was showing it off to his work buddies by throwing the "waterproof" phone into a bucket of water while he was joking around on the phone with the foreman.
I informed him that the phone was not actually waterproof, and that he would have to purchase a new phone due to the fact that our insurance policy did not cover damage from intentional misuse.
He explained that he heard a rumor that if you dry the phone out and replace the battery, they will sometimes continue working. This is sometimes true, so I asked him if the phone had been thoroughly dried.
The answer was yes -- he had put the phone into his clothes dryer with a load of laundry, which we then confirmed as the reason the face plate had broken off. He wanted an insurance replacement for his face plate, and I again informed him that our insurance policy did not cover damage from intentional misuse.

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When my sister and I were both living in the dorms at college, she would frequently come to me for tech support.

• Her: "Hey, can you look at my laptop? It's having a problem."
• Me: "Yeah, what's the problem?"
• Her: "Every time I try to type a letter, three show up, and none of them are the letter I hit."

I went to check it out. Sure enough, the problem occurred exactly as she stated it. As I was trying to think what the cause might be, I looked down and noticed a noodle under the enter key.

• Me: "There's a noodle in here. How did that get there?"
• Her: "Oh, I spilled soup on my keyboard. Does that make a difference?"

[rossable]

while working in a computer repair store we received a support call from one of our newer customers (an older gentleman) exclaiming that he was late for an internet date and needed to know how to make a carriage return in his email. we informed him to hit the enter key and quickly we heard a "ah!" from the other end of the line followed by an elated thank you. He is now happily married to a mail order bride.

[ianm]

Omg^

[drewbie_wan]

when i was working for a wireless internet company, someone called in claiming oour modem broke his computer and that it wouldnt turn on. After being called a bunch of names the guy realized he didnt have his monitor plugged in.