Most Ridiculous Reasons to Call Tech Support

[Great Unknown]

Because the fire alarm is going off. It's one thing to report a malfunctioning networked device, but a plain old fire alarm? Everybody out of the gene pool!

[Geek King]

It does if it's a laptop keyboard where the numeric "keypad" is overlaid on the QWERTY keyboard (U becomes 4, I becomes 5, O becomes 6, etc.)

Also, some keyboards turn the numeric pad off and use it as arrow keys. I ran into this alot working in places that did a lot of number input.

[tollbaby]

It does if it's a laptop keyboard where the numeric "keypad" is overlaid on the QWERTY keyboard (U becomes 4, I becomes 5, O becomes 6, etc.)

Ah! Thank you I didn't know that

[Wenchie]

A real estate agent called me (tech support for her Multiple Listing Service) to ask where the closest post office to her is.

Ummm.... we list houses for sale. I am not a phone directory or a map service.

[ctown28]

I got one, I had a call from a guy that had a customer that only spoke Polish, he needed a translator. I will admit that when I asked why he called the technical support desk he laughed and admitted he needed a starting point, I referred him to out HR dept

[ParkingWitch]

a metric fuckton of crap loading at startup and asked him about it. His response, "I forgot how to remove it

I just have to ask "How do I remove stuff from Startup?"
I have WindowsXP Service Pack 2 on a Dell Dimension 2400 Celeron 2.40GHz 128MB of ram.

[technical.angel]

1. Start->All Programs-> Startup
2. Get Spybot -> go to advanced mode->tools-> system startup-> remove only the stuff that you know what it is
3. start-> run-> type msconfig-> enter-> startup tab-> once again, only remove stuff that you are familiar with.

[Impetrix]

Addendum: if you DON'T know what something is, it's a good idea to google it. You'll wind up with a lot of sites reviewing things as good or bad (liutilities, geeksquad, castlesomething-or-other are trustworthy sites, along with a bunch of others to many to enumerate)

You also can get HijackThis!, but then you have to be even more careful about ONLY, and I do mean ONLY, getting rid of actually-bad stuff. It's a pretty powerful tool, and as such is very very good when shooting the bad guys and very very bad when shooting your foot.

[sms001]

There is, only it is under the "send to" selection. When you send to desktop, it creates a shortcut.

Good lord. I've had my "Send To" pared down to two selections for so many years that I'd completely forgotten about it. You're absolutely right of course. Thanks.

[Post restoring original rclicks:]

(Heck, it even SAYS 'create shortcut' in the context menu.)

[technical.angel]

castlesomething-or-other are trustworthy sites

Castlecops.com

And, with Hijackthis, the best resource to use is www.hijackthis.de

[sms001]

Same woman who would send herself her own pictures through email in order to save them on her harddrive...

(shhhh. I watched my wife do this from her phone for two months before I thought about both her Mac and her phone having bluetooth. )

[princess4life]

I used to work ordering computers equipment and software for a companies staff. A quick break down someone would need a computer, keyboard, mouse, or software they would notify me, I would order said appliance and then have someone install it when it was delivered.

I recieved a request for an ergonomic keyboard, so I ordered it like always and had a local tech "install" the keyboard. I then recieved a call from the requestor.

R= requestor

R: I need to return this keyboard and get a new one this one doesn't work right.
Me: What do you mean it doesn't work right?
R: The space bar on the left side doesn't have the right sound when I hit it.
Me: It doesn't make the right sound?
R: yeah it doesn't have the right cush I need a different one I can't work with this one.
Me: When you hit the spacebar on the left side it moves the curser a space though?
R: Yeah, yeah it does I can type fine with it but it doesn't make the right sound.
Me: I am sorry I can not return a keyboard to the distributor because it doesn't make the right sound when you hit it.
R: it doesn't have the right cush and I want a new one.
Me: I can order another keyboard but your department will be charged for both the keyboard you have now and the new keyboard.
R: That's not fair this one doesn't work right and needs to be returned.
Me: I can't return it so you will need to submit another request for a keyboard and have your manager approve the additional cost.

Well he ended up complaining all the way up to the head of operations who is on site with the requestor. He had the requestor bring him the keyboard and show him what he meant by not having the right sound/cush. I recieved a call from the head of operations saying to order another ergonomic keyboard for the requestor because after trying the keyboard himself he liked it and was going to keep it for himself. The charge for the new keyboard could be charged to him.

[trunks2k]

When I was doing tech support we used to get calls that a printer was out of paper.

Person-"The printer in Building B, floor 3 in West Point is out of paper"
me-- "That's nice. Annnnd???"
Person-"And, I need to print something"
Me--"Then put paper in it"

[MystyGlyttyr]

Wasn't the most ridiculous so far as stupid, it was the most ridiculous in the "how the hell did you do that?" category.

Mainly along the lines of my boss somehow managing to embed printer paper into the INK CARTRIDGE.

[Geek King]

Wasn't the most ridiculous so far as stupid, it was the most ridiculous in the "how the hell did you do that?" category.

Mainly along the lines of my boss somehow managing to embed printer paper into the INK CARTRIDGE.

I could see this. I've seen printers that you can reboot to clear the jam warning, then send another sheet through and jam it up worse. Lather, Rinse, Repeat, and you get a paperjam that requires pliers to clear. If it happened in the wrong place, I could see paper in the cartridge.