Is That The Help Desk?

 

• "Everything on my laptop is turning blue," user complains. Support rep hustles to the scene and finds user has attached the laptop to a video projector. The wall you're using as a projection screen is painted light blue, support rep patiently points out. "I know that!" user snaps. "I'm not stupid. Just fix the thing so it projects white!"
• Layoffs are coming, so an insurance company ranked all employees for future termination. "To maintain secrecy, they shredded the printed spreadsheets with the ratings," says an employee. "Unfortunately, the spreadsheets were printed in landscape mode, so the shredder blades separated each employee and rating, by name, on his own strip of paper. After I came across them in the recycling bin, I knew each person's rating - all 126 of them."
• An individual who plugged their power strip back into itself and for the life of them could not understand why their computer would not turn on.
• A user's PC is flickering and rebooting. It checks out fine for support tech assistant so he tells the user, "Do what you normally do." She sits down and goes to work - and the system soon reboots. "The fourth time, I noticed she was tapping her foot to the music on the radio", tech says. "Her foot was hitting the power strip on/off switch just enough to cause the system to reboot."
• Important HR reports must be shredded - they have confidential data, boss tells IT rep. Since most of these reports are just for reference, why not just save the printing and keep them on disk? rep suggests. "No, they must be shredded," boss insists. Well, why don't we hook the shredder to the back of the printer for the unnecessary reports? rep jokes. "Sounds great!" says the boss. "How much will it cost?"
• A distraught young lady weeping beside her car. "Do you need some help?" She replied, "I knew I should have replaced the battery in this remote door unlocker. Now I can't get into my car. Do you think they (pointing to a distant convenience store) would have a battery for this?" "Hmmm, I don't know. Do you have an alarm, too?" I asked. "No, just the remote 'thingy'" she answered, handing it and the car keys to me. As I took the key and manually unlocked the door, I replied, "Why don't you drive over there and check about the batteries as it's a long walk."
• It's a tech's first day on the job as a quality control analyst in the operations centre. She boots up her workstation, and the splash screen proclaims the department's slogan: "Committed to Excellence." She points out the misspelling to her boss. "Yeah," boss says, "it's close enough. Everybody knows what they mean."
• When this executive's PC stops working, support tech patiently explains that the executive really shouldn't have deleted critical Windows system files. But a week later, it happens again. And when tech asks why, executive explains, "Oh, I needed to make room for some big spreadsheets, and my files are much more important than those. Why doesn't the computer still work?"
• This Army hospital commander likes voice-recognition software for dictating notes, so he assigns three IT staffers to get it working. "One was from India, one from the Far East and one, though born in the United States, had a strong Southern accent," reports support crew member. "They took turns reading the training paragraphs to the system. For some reason, it never worked right."
• For two years, this company's purchasing agent has bought printer supplies from the same outfit: Tech rep says "the prices are high, a third of the refurbished toner cartridges are no good, and she never sends them in for credit." So tech finds a better, cheaper supplier and management declares to be the preferred provider. So why are invoices still coming in from the old outfit? Purchasing agent admits it's because she likes the candy the first supplier sends with each order. "For this invoice alone, that bag of candy cost us an additional $204."