Greetings that you KNOW mean bad things...

[Impetrix]

Scary Greeting Lady: "Hi, I'm a retired English professor on vacation, and I'm having trouble connecting to the school..."



I walk her through going to google.com and [schoolname].edu. She definitely has an internet connection, but then she starts insisting she "can't connect to [her] Firefox."

It turns out, she's used to a two-step process:
1.) Double-click on the Firefox shortcut on her desktop
2.) When the webmail page (which was apparently her home page until this weekend) opens, log in.

Hence, webmail = "Firefox"

I'm not certain if she was running the browser Firefox at that point, as there was no Tools=>Options menu to reset the homepage. She seemed content to type in webmail.[schoolname].edu once she learned that it was where she got her "Firefox", though.... heh.

So it eventually worked out... but oh dear, that is a very, VERY scary introduction. Retired, english department, on a new network, out of the state.... SCARY!!

[qaxons]

I'd've started twitching immediately, but then after I figured out what she meant, explained what firefox was, and how to get it onto her laptop <.< Cause, I'm a mozilla whore.... I only use MSIE when a site flat out requires it, and I only use those sites like... once every six months.

[Shabo]

You know there's a few extensions for FF that place a IE rendering engine into the FF browser, right? I use IE tab so I don't have to leave my beloved FF. Works like a charm.

[gunsage]

"Lady, there's a very simple reason you can't access your webmail via Firefox. See, what you want to do is relocate your homepage to goatse.cx."

[technical.angel]

Oooooo.... That's mean!

[Impetrix]

Yyyyeeeeeah, there's this little thing called my job... I'd kinda like to keep it.

By the time I managed to understand what her issue was, there was no way I was going to be able to help her reset her home page over the phone. I tried at first, but her menus didn't match the actual, normal-definition Firefox, and having her figure out what browser she was actually using right then was.... not a working proposition. So, she was content to type in the address to her "Firefox" each time, and I was ecstatic to get off the line.

Also, Gaxons: She had Firefox installed, or at least she thought she did. It just didn't open to the webmail log-in page anymore, which she had conflated with the word "Firefox". The "Tools" menu contents she listed didn't resemble IE, either, so I think she may have been opening Mozilla instead somehow. Dunno.

[sld72382]

Five opening script responses by clients that indicate the call is going to sh!t pretty fast:

1. When you ask for the first and last name, they say it in a rude / asshole-ish tone.

2. When you ask them for the make/model of computer they have, they say "don't you have that already?!"

3. When you ask them on how you can be of assistance they shout "just look at this piece of junk's service records!"

4. When I say my opening greeting on tier 2 and they immediately say, "You are now the 5th tech and not only is the virus still not gone but my computer is running worse than before!"

5. Once I finish my opening lines, I get a "the previous tech was rude and refused to help me!" Usually, the person has a carry in service plan and did what he/she is supposed to do - refer to the store for service. Of course, because of that the tech was "rude."

[HawaiianShirts]

My store recently changed the structure of the phone system. All calls go to Customer Service first for some specially-trained employees to take. So I already know that any call coming to my department is either something Customer Service couldn't handle or a co-worker calling about his schedule at the busiest time of the evening.

Any call that begins with, "I bought a computer from you guys *X amount of time* ago..." is a bad call. Usually, I can't help beyond telling them to bring it in, telling them they should have been transferred to the techs instead of me, or telling them there's nothing the store can do to help. Or I have to tell them that, no, we don't carry a replacement battery for their laptop--I can order one, but I don't have them on-hand--which is not what they want to hear because they need it NOW NOW NOW.

The worst calls for me, though, begin thusly:

Caller: Yeah, I'm having problems with my wireless.

A- The customer is "borrowing" from their neighbor, thinking that wireless is free to everyone, and is confused why they can no longer connect (neighbor either moved or suddenly secured the network). B- The customer is "borrowing" from their neighbor, thinking that they're being clever to get internet for free, and wants to improve their reception. Or, C- Customer actually has a problem with the computer itself or their internet connection and is only attributing it to the wireless router, which they got from us, and which I MUST be able to magically fix.

[Captain Kidd]

You know there's a few extensions for FF that place a IE rendering engine into the FF browser, right? I use IE tab so I don't have to leave my beloved FF. Works like a charm.

IE Tab, great extension 99.999% of the time. But there are one or two times that it doesn't work completely. Surprise, surprise, some of microsoft.com pages are said problem areas.

[edible_hat]

Speaking of universities, here's one I saw in a computer magazine:

IT department was called to a lecture theatre because "the projector's not working". Techie gets there to find the projector projecting a blank screen. Techie clicks the mouse, the slide show that was running ends, and the screen goes back to the main Powerpoint window. The scary part is it was a C++ (programming language) lecture.

[smileyeagle1021]

Also, Gaxons: She had Firefox installed, or at least she thought she did. It just didn't open to the webmail log-in page anymore, which she had conflated with the word "Firefox". The "Tools" menu contents she listed didn't resemble IE, either, so I think she may have been opening Mozilla instead somehow. Dunno.

ok, for those of us normal geeks rather than uber geeks, what is the difference between firefox and mozilla... I always thought firefox was short for mozilla firefox... am I wrong?

[JustADude]

ok, for those of us normal geeks rather than uber geeks, what is the difference between firefox and mozilla... I always thought firefox was short for mozilla firefox... am I wrong?

Firefox is the browser by itself, while 'Mozilla' is actually the project's entire suite of apps (Firefox, Thunderbird, etc) as a whole.

[Impetrix]

Whoops, I actually meant the older "Mozilla" browser from before Firefox. Basically, Netscape with a dinosaur logo. We still have it on at least some of our images, so if she was using a computer bought through the school (which many of the facstaff do, especially those who like the idea of not having to think about what to buy/knowing we know how to fix it), it's possible she opened the wrong shortcut.

[JustADude]

Oh! That's still Firefox, but before the new version they didn't package it separately from the rest of the stuff.

[matty]

Scary Greeting Lady: "Hi, I'm a retired English professor on vacation, and I'm having trouble connecting to the school..."

So, you're a retired English professor. And that is relevant because?!

If I may make an observation here, about when a group of "strangers" meet - for example, you are travelling on a group tour, or going to audition for a TV quiz show, or getting to know each other for a volunteer project - those sort of things.

Well, most people in these situations aren't desperate to tell you what they do for a living and have a general discussion instead, waiting until later to fill you in on the details.

However, in my personal experience, and I do emphasize that it is just my own experience, school teachers, or more to the point, head teachers/principals, will tell you what their occupation is at the earliest opportunity. They manage to work into the conversation - "Oh, talking about that, I'm the principal of XYZ High School and this happened blah blah blah".

I truly don't understand this, but perhaps it really is just my own experience.