Stupid Tech Support

Once I went out to a customer site to investigate what was reported to be a grinding sound coming from the hard drive.

Customer: “Oh! I’m glad you’re here, I’m worried that my hard drive’s going to crash any minute!”

Technician: “Don’t worry. It’s not your hard drive. It sounds like it’s just the cooling fan.”

Customer: “Oh! Really? Thank goodness. Can you fix it? It’s really distracting.”

Technician: “Sure! No problem.”

I lifted the stack of interoffice envelopes that were stacked beside the system and turned them so that the tie strings were no longer hanging into the fan. All my calls should be this easy.

Stupid Tech Support – I was interning at a local ISP…

I was interning at a local ISP and every once in a while got to take a tech support call. I probably only took about five at the most. Here’s the best one.

Tech Support: “Tech support.”

Customer: “Yeah, every time I get on the Internet and leave my computer, I get disconnected.”

Tech Support: “How long are you away from your computer?”

Customer: “About 10-20 minutes.”

Tech Support: “Sir, if you’re idle for more than 15 minutes, we disconnect you.”

Customer: “Well don’t disconnect me!”

Tech Support: “It’s not us, sir — it’s the servers, they do it automatically.”

Customer: “Change it, then.”

Tech Support: “I can’t.”

Customer: “Yes you can!”

Tech Support: “Sir, I’m not allowed to.”

Customer: “I pay for this service, and dammit, you’re going to change it!”

Tech Support: “Sir, I’m not allowed to change it. Bottom line.”

Customer: “And why not!?”

Tech Support: “Because I’m not the administrator.”

Customer: “Well tell him to change it!”

Tech Support: “I can’t do that either. The administrator hates me.”

Customer: “Why?”

Tech Support: “Because I won our last Nerf tournament.”

Customer: “Nerf tournament?! I pay you guys to play with toys?”

Tech Support: “We do it in our spare time.”

Customer: “I want to talk to your supervisor!”

Tech Support: “Sorry, but my supervisor is the administrator, and he’s busy.”

Customer: “Well, I’m going to rat you out about your little Nerf gun secret!”

Tech Support: “Tell the owner — it’ll give him more of a reason to come down here to play with us.”

He hung up.

Stupid Tech Support

I work in the technical support department for a national ISP. One day, I was listening to the conversation of a tech next to me talking to a very frustrated woman. Apparently she had been having trouble getting online with our software, and the previous tech had her go into Dial-up Networking to create a new connection and get her online, so she could then download our software. That, amazingly, had been successful, but she was calling back to complain that when she had finished downloading the software and opened the CDROM drive, there was nothing in there.

The tech replied, in his thick Australian accent, “Ma’am, this is not a vending machine.”

Stupid Tech Support – Then I used the pliers…

Customer: “I got this problem. You people sent me this install disk, and now my A: drive won’t work.”

Tech Support: “Your A drive won’t work?”

Customer: “That’s what I said. You sent me a bad disk, it got stuck in my drive, now it won’t work at all.”

Tech Support: “Did it not install properly? What kind of error messages did you get?”

Customer: “I didn’t get any error message. The disk got stuck in the drive and wouldn’t come out. So I got these pliers and tried to get it out. That didn’t work either.”

Tech Support: “You did what sir?”

Customer: “I got these pliers, and tried to get the disk out, but it wouldn’t budge. I just ended up cracking the plastic stuff a bit.”

Tech Support: “I don’t understand sir, did you push the eject button?”

Customer: “No, so then I got a stick of butter and melted it and used a turkey baster and put the butter in the drive, around the disk, and that got it loose. Then I used the pliers and it came out fine. I can’t believe you would send me a disk that was broke and defective.”

Tech Support: “Let me get this clear. You put melted butter in your A: drive and used pliers to pull the disk out?”

At this point, I put the call on the speaker phone and motioned at the other techs to listen in.

Tech Support: “Just so I am absolutely clear on this, can you repeat what you just said?”

Customer: “I said I put butter in my A: drive to get your crappy disk out, then I had to use pliers to pull it out.”

Tech Support: “Did you push that little button that was sticking out when the disk was in the drive, you know, the thing called the disk eject button?”

Silence.

Tech Support: “Sir?”

Customer: “Yes.”

Tech Support: “Sir, did you push the eject button?”

Customer: “No, but you people are going to fix my computer, or I am going to sue you for breaking my computer?”

Tech Support: “Let me get this straight. You are going to sue our company because you put the disk in the A: drive, didn’t follow the instructions we sent you, didn’t actually seek professional advice, didn’t consult your user’s manual on how to use your computer properly, instead proceeding to pour butter into the drive and physically rip the disk out?”

Customer: “Ummmm.”

Tech Support: “Do you really think you stand a chance, since we do record every call and have it on tape?”

Customer: (now rather humbled) “But you’re supposed to help!”

Tech Support: “I am sorry sir, but there is nothing we can do for you. Have a nice day.”