Is That The Help Desk?

 

• Another Compaq technician received a call from a man complaining that the system wouldn't read word processing files from his old 5 1/4" diskettes. The customer had stuck labels on the diskettes, then rolled them into his typewriter to type on the labels.
• Support rep gets a call from a user whose new PC is shutting down at random. User suggests the cause might be a virus-laden e-mail but then mentions that the monitor, printer and fax machine are shutting down, too. Are they all plugged into the same power strip? rep asks. "Yes, but that couldn't be it," user says. "I've had that for years."
• Another customer was asked to send a copy of her defective diskettes. A few days later, a letter arrived from the customer along with photocopies of the floppies.
• "The bottom half of all my printouts are blurry," user complains to support crew. He orders a replacement drum for the printer, but it doesn't help. Neither does a new printer. So he goes to her desk and asks her to print something. As the paper starts to emerge, she yanks it out of the printer and says, "See what I mean? Look at the bottom of this printout!"
• A Dell technician advised a customer to put his troubled floppy back in the drive and close the door. The customer asked the tech to hold on, and was heard putting the phone down, getting up and crossing the room to close the door to his room.
• Another Dell customer called to say he couldn't get his computer to fax anything. After 40 minutes of trouble-shooting, the tech discovered the man was trying to fax a piece of paper by holding it in front of the monitor screen and hitting the "send" key.
• Yet another Dell customer called to complain that his keyboard no longer worked. He had cleaned it by filling up his tub with soap and water and soaking the keyboard for a day, then removing all the keys and washing them individually.
• Boss's fast new CD burner needs the right media, so tech assistant asks the office secretary to order some recordable CDs rated at 40X. "Imagine my surprise later in the day," assistant groans, "to hear the water-cooler discussion about my trying to acquire 40 X-rated CDs for my department!"
• A Dell technician received a call from a customer who was enraged because his computer had told him he was "bad and an invalid." The tech explained that the computer's "bad command" and "invalid" responses shouldn't be taken personally.