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Midimusic.org.uk Computer Humour, Tech Support

5.7 Calls From Hell

These are the calls from people without a clue.

I see a horrible call ahead, and the customer is quite irate already.

A former professor of mine was receiving a Javascript error when trying to view a particular web page. In trying to determine why he was having the trouble I asked what browser he was using.

I never did find out what browser he uses.

Great. Great start to a call. He wanted to install the Internet connection software we have, so I had him insert the CD. "It ain't workin'!" was all I heard for about two minutes of trying the drive and checking to see if it was really there.

He inserted the CD in the drive correctly, and then his computer froze.

There was no one on the line for a moment. Then he spoke up again.

This woman calls in, having a problem with her video card. Her initial rundown on the situation seems like she would know what she was talking about. But no.

I sent a JPEG from my recent vacation to my mother as an email attachment. I then telephoned her to see if she was able to view it. After attempting to get her to use the 'File/Open' command in Netscape, I realized that my 'Open' dialog was different from hers, and so I couldn't talk her through it. But I tried to determine which OS she was running.

We have one customer who is notorious in the tech support department. We all dread getting a call from her. She is truly stupid when it comes to a computer.

This whole conversation of two commands took almost an hour. I have no idea how this lady ever made enough money to buy a computer. It amazes me how someone can forget the alphabet. She's nice, but she's amazingly dumb.

A customer wanted to set up his computer to download something from the Internet. So I spent a nice chunk of time walking him through downloading Netscape and the Plugin Pack and rebooting.

I spent still more time configuring TCP/IP for the LAN for him.

I spent still more time with him configuring access through the firewall and setting his preferences. Netscape started fine at this point.

I spent still more time with him explaining how to enter a URL.

He gave me the address. I tried nslookup and whois on it, but they came up empty.

A customer called complaining that his display wasn't working. (It turned out to be that his monitor was out of sync.)

Twenty minutes later I found out he had a monitor that was only capable of VGA, and then I spent another ten minutes trying to explain why he needed a better monitor to display higher resolutions.

Twenty five minutes later....

I wanted to cry.

Suddenly I hear the modem attempting to dial in.

(beep click click)

I got a call from an older lady who stated that after installing our software, her mouse would not work. After further questioning, I learned that she got a message when booting the system that a device was not found. I had her power off the PC, disconnect, and then reconnect the mouse. After rebooting, the mouse functioned fine. But instead of thanking me, she asked me sourly, "Why did your software unplug my mouse?" I attempted to explain to the lady that that was not possible and that all it waswas a loose connection. It wasn't good enough for her. She put her husband on, who asked, "Why did your software decide my computer didn't need a mouse?" Again, trying to explain the loose connection was of little use, and he wanted another number to call to return the software.

That turned out to be the cause of her system locking up. It wasn't really locking up, it was just going so slow it seemed that way, and she never waited long enough for it to finish processing her reports.

He tried. Twice. Ugh.

My boss sent an update of our current program via modem to all of our online customers, with instructions to call in and be walked through the upgrade if they needed it. He had to leave the office for a few hours, so he gave me instructions on how to start the upgrade once they had downloaded it.

I got a call while he was away. Details you should know: the lady who called me for instructions was not the person who was operating the computer. That person was on the other side of the room, and everything had to be relayed through the lady on the phone. For reasons of brevity, I won't bother typing out every sentence being repeated several times back and forth.

I spelled out the command exactly and got her to read it back to me before she hit Return. But she got the same error.

Needless to say, that took a while to straighten out. Anyway, it turned out the upgrade wasn't in the directory at all.

Sigh. Someone had transferred the download to disk in order to install it on a second computer, handed it to her, and told her to call us. Apparently it never occurred to her to get the program on the computer somehow before calling.

Ten minutes later...

This call took more than 45 minutes, in case you wanted to know why there are hold times on support numbers.

We get the CD playing with AudioStation, but there's no sound. The volume level turns out ok, and the sound's not muted. I endure a three minute profanity/threat combo. Country music blares. The rest of the conversation takes place shouting over it.

I used to work as a salesman for a computer wholesaler a number of years ago. I got a call from a woman who was fit to be tied. She found out that the person who sold her the computer bought it from our company and called us to complain.

I never anticipated her answer.

She tells me the whole story again.

After that, I spent twenty minutes talking her down from a seething boil to a cool simmer and finally got her off the phone. I imagine this woman aggravated the poor slob who sold her the computer until he caved in and gave her our number. Nice guy.

This was my slowest caller ever:

Direct and to the point, but just a touch vague. So I prodded him for more information about his problem. I waited a moment, thinking that he would continue on his own. But he didn't. Shuffling. Stepping down stairs. This guy has a 386-25 with 2 megs of RAM loading Windows. It takes about five minutes to boot up his machine. Pause. Pause. I slowly drop my head to the desk. Finally, I get him to start our application and wait three minutes for the software to load. I'm now fifteen minutes into this call, and I normally average three and a half.

Alarm bells go off in my head. The user doesn't have a POP account.

A user calls from Chicago. (We are in central Illinois.) She wants to register for classes via our online registration system. In the course of the discussion I discover that:

  1. She is definitely "Not A Computer Person" (tm).
  2. She is at her friend's house, but her friend is not there.
  3. Her friend has a computer, but she doesn't know what kind.
  4. She has never turned it on.
  5. She thinks it has a modem, but she is not sure.
  6. She has never logged on to any of her university accounts.
  7. She has never used any terminal software and doesn't know what type her friend has.
She was deeply upset that "no one will help her." Sadly, I was also unable to do so. I mean, what do you do?

I once received a call from a woman with a heavy, throaty, not-real-educated-or-bright voice from New York. She asked if the...

I spent about ten minutes trying to navigate him to the beginning of the blank line so that he can type in a single line of text. He seemed to completely lack comprehension. The man understood English, but there was something he seemed to be failing to grasp.

My patience with such customers was wearing thin. After a short pause: And after an excruciating 30 minutes of how to make an alias and reminding him that he truly did have a System Folder (or, as he called it, an "Envelope") and where it was, we got his new software on the Launcher.

Ten minutes later he called me back and told me how he had written down my directions to the "Systems Envelope" so he could put more programs on his Launcher. One of the programs didn't work, however, and after another 45 minutes of sheer hell, I told him we needed to send him some new floppies.

If I had a button on my phone to administer electro-shock to this man, I would have.

(Rustling and jostling heard in the background.) (Rustle, rustle.) This woman was good friends with my supervisor. She's now also my wife.

Fast forward about five minutes to when Sysedit is finally up and the system.ini is being displayed. However, the user is unable to find the comm.drv line in 14 attempts of going down the list line by line for the first 12 lines. The other techs have been listening to this and are almost on the floor laughing. Yep, you guessed it. Repeat the whole File->Run routine right down to being unable to type in "comm" in the search-for line. Almost 10 minutes more to find the line -- seventh line down. Bingo! Home stretch now. Have the user comment out that line and put in Windows' driver back. I'm grateful now for using SysEdit. Restore the backup SysEdit automatically makes. Try changing the line using DOS Edit three times. Each time is the same -- device driver error.
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