Stupid Customers

I do tech support at a computer parts vendor and system builder. I take calls from dealers and other technical professionals. Last week I had a call from a woman who began her call by giving me a long listing of her credentials, beginning with her four years at MIT, covering her ten plus years of service in the tech support departments of various technology corporations, and ending with her forming a successful computer consulting and repair service. Then she asked her question:

Customer: “Do I have to plug in this new power supply to make it work?”

Stupid Customers

A man attempting to set up his new printer called the printer’s tech support number, complaining about the error message: “Can’t find the printer.” On the phone, the man said he even held the printer up in front of the screen, but the computer still couldn’t find it.

Stupid Customers

I had been doing Tech Support for Hewlett-Packard’s DeskJet division for about a month when I had a customer call with a problem I just couldn’t solve. She could not print yellow. All the other colors would print fine, which truly baffled me because the only true colors are cyan, magenta, and yellow. For instance, green is a combination of cyan and yellow, but green printed fine. Every color of the rainbow printed fine except for yellow. I had the customer change ink cartridges. I had the customer delete and reinstall the drivers. Nothing worked. I asked my coworkers for help; they offered no new ideas. After over two hours of troubleshooting, I was about to tell the customer to send the printer in to us for repair when she asked quietly, “Should I try printing on a piece of white paper instead of this yellow paper?”

Stupid Customers

Customer: “THIS MONITOR DOESN’T WORK.”

Tech Support: “What seems to be the problem?”

Customer: “THIS MONITOR IS MISSING A PIN!!”

This guy had a 14 inch monitor. As with most, the monitor cable’s plug was missing a few unnecessary pins. I explained that this was normal and, in fact, a good thing.

Customer: “I PAID FOR A MONITOR WITH ALL THE PINS. I WANT THEM ALL!”

………….