End Users: Some Assembly Required

[gunsage]

I haven't been receiving as many long, drawn out customer calls as I used to, but the ones I do are certainly...interesting. Here's one that happened the other day...

Does Not Meet Minimum Requirements

Me: "Okay ma'am, well, what seems to be the problem?"
Lady: "Well, I can't get online."

I run my diagnostics and can't see the computer.

Me: "Fair enough, I can't see the computer. What cables are in the back of the modem?"
Lady: "Well...there's the phone cord...the...black cable...and th-" *click*

The call dropped. I waited a few seconds, then called her back. You get a free cookie if you guess what happened.

Me: "Hello, ma'am? This is Sage again."
Lady: "Yes! Yeah, that was the power cord."

Silent lulz.

Me: "Right, well...what else is there?"
Lady: "Well that's it."
Me: "What, there's no other cables?"
Lady: "Nope, that's all of them."

My heart yearns for a day I can slam back some shots of 151 when this happens.

Me: "Well ma'am, without an ethernet or USB cable to connect from your computer to the modem, this isn't going to work."

Yeah...I spent the rest of the call telling her what she needed, where to get it, and keep correcting her (it's ETHERnet, not INTERnet). Oy.

[HawaiianShirts]

Me: "Well ma'am, without an ethernet or USB cable to connect from your computer to the modem, this isn't going to work."

You mean she didn't suddenly start complaining about it being wireless? Must have been a desktop.

Yeah...I spent the rest of the call telling her what she needed, where to get it, and keep correcting her (it's ETHERnet, not INTERnet). Oy.

Meh. Send her on into my store. I've often had people ask for INTERnet cables, but they've always meant ethernet, though I sometimes have to show them the difference between RJ-11 (phone) and RJ-45 (ethernet) cables before they recognize that what I've handed them is the one they want.

It's the other cable names that baffle me:
"cable cable" -- I think coaxial. They mean RCA composite.
"UBS cable"-- Can mean something for a printer, a digital camera, a cell phone, or an MP3 player. Can also mean a flash drive.
"SUB cable" -- See 'UBS cable.'
"Limewire" -- Peer-to-peer filesharing program? No! Something to connect a digital video camera to a computer.
"Computer cable" -- Your guess is as good as mine. I have to play 20 questions with these customers.

Any my all-time favorite: The guy who asked for a "wireless" cable. We guessed on just about everything in the department even remotely related to internet, whether cable or not. Never did figure out what he wanted.

[Samaliel]

"UBS cable"-- Can mean something for a printer, a digital camera, a cell phone, or an MP3 player. Can also mean a flash drive.
"SUB cable" -- See 'UBS cable.'
"Limewire" -- Peer-to-peer filesharing program? No! Something to connect a digital video camera to a computer.

Well, yes, USB cables are quite confusing. I can think of 3 different USB connectors on the top of my head. Regular USB cables, square USB (generally for printers and bigger devices) and mini USB (for cellphones, digital cameras and some MP3 players).

I think confusing Limewire with Firewire is funny, but at first I thought "Wait, that one's actually correct... Wait, never mind."

The others, though... They make my mind hurt. Please make the hurt stop.

[Broomjockey]

Well, yes, USB cables are quite confusing. I can think of 3 different USB connectors on the top of my head. Regular USB cables, square USB (generally for printers and bigger devices) and mini USB (for cellphones, digital cameras and some MP3 players).

Well, it's a little confusing, but it gets easier if you just think of it as "big device, big end, small device, small end."

[SteeleDragon78]

Well, it's a little confusing, but it gets easier if you just think of it as "big device, big end, small device, small end."

not always, i had an hp laser printer the size of a small engine with a square usb port. it eclipsed my mid atx tower quite easily. but that would be an extreme case. aside from mammoth equipment i would agree with your explanation.

[JustADude]

Meh. Send her on into my store. I've often had people ask for INTERnet cables, but they've always meant ethernet, though I sometimes have to show them the difference between RJ-11 (phone) and RJ-45 (ethernet) cables before they recognize that what I've handed them is the one they want.

It's the other cable names that baffle me:
"cable cable" -- I think coaxial. They mean RCA composite.
"UBS cable"-- Can mean something for a printer, a digital camera, a cell phone, or an MP3 player. Can also mean a flash drive.
"SUB cable" -- See 'UBS cable.'
"Limewire" -- Peer-to-peer filesharing program? No! Something to connect a digital video camera to a computer.
"Computer cable" -- Your guess is as good as mine. I have to play 20 questions with these customers.

Any my all-time favorite: The guy who asked for a "wireless" cable. We guessed on just about everything in the department even remotely related to internet, whether cable or not. Never did figure out what he wanted.

Gotta keep reminding myself that some people actually believe in the 'Magic Smoke Pixies' and don't want to know how to use a computer beyond making the pretty sounds and pictures come out. I can at least get most people to get the name of a USB cable straight by telling them what it means: Universal Serial Bus.

Then I get the ones that argue about how Cereal doesn't start with an S.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

I can at least get most people to get the name of a USB cable straight by telling them what it means: Universal Serial Bus.

Then I get the ones that argue about how Cereal doesn't start with an S.

For the latter people, USB can also stand for "unusually short bus", which they appear to have taken many a trip on.

[earl colby pottinger]

Mini USB - Company lock in?

The main problem with USB is so far I have access to four digital cameras, and between them they have three different mini-USB endings. (HP, SONY, KODAK and OLYMPUS).

It seems there is no industrial standard for the mini end. It comes in 5 and 8 pin ending (I have no idea why they need 8 pins when there is only the standard four contact USB plug at the other end (grounding? shielding?))

And even the shape is changed, one of the cables has little flanges on the sides of the plug so it will not plug into port that otherwise look the same.

A lot of grief would had been avoided if the camera end was of a standard design.

[Apallo]

End Users: Some Dis-assembly Required

I thought this might be a bit better.

[sld72382]

I once had a client that paid for tier 2 to correct a problem with her brand new desktop not connecting to her wireless router. Right away I asked this question once I saw she wanted to make it wireless, not just wired to the router:

SLD: Did you make sure to purchase a wireless card or adapter with this desktop PC?
SC: No, why would I need one?
SLD: *Looks up client's purchases.* It appears that you did not buy any sort of wireless adapter, whether it be a USB adapter or an internal card. You'll need one for this desktop to access the wireless router.
SC: No I don't, the salesperson told me it'll work!
SLD: *Looks up computer model on both our site and the vendor's.* Ma'am, I'm sorry you were misinformed but this model does NOT have wireless, you have to add it, I just looked on two sites. If you want, you can buy the adapter and call us back to continue service....
SC: You know what, refund my money, and I think I'm going to return everything and lodge a complaint against the salesperson!
SLD:

In her defense, the salesperson should have known that (at the time) no desktop we sold came with wireless. However, what is she going to do, return it and buy from a different place and get mad at them as well for telling her she needs to buy something additional?

Yeah...I spent the rest of the call telling her what she needed, where to get it, and keep correcting her (it's ETHERnet, not INTERnet). Oy.

This brings me back to a call I was on a long time ago. My boss (not my current one) was overhearing the call:

SLD: *Has to correct client several times.*
Boss: *Asks me to put client on hold for 2 minutes.* Stop correcting the client so much!
SLD: Is there anything wrong with it?
Boss: Yeah, you could fail an audit for it!
SLD: Why would the auditors care?
Boss: They consider it rude.
SLD:

[gunsage]

Words cannot describe the sillyness just unravelled before me. I just got a call from a CSR that went to the tune of this...

Me: Yup.
CSR: Booo.

Me: "X Company, level 3, this is Sage speaking."
CSR: (in the most monotone, deer-in-headlights voice possible) "Hello Sage this is CSR from X call center. I got a cold transfer from our level 2, something about the customer doesn't have an ISP* or something and we don't deal with that here and I saw that she was getting ready to-" (I'm almost snoring by this point) "-remove her digital phone service so that modem isn't active anymore so I added the digital phone code** for it but it still won't work so-"
Me: "Okay, wait...what's the phone number?***"
CSR: "Oh, it's XXX-XXX-XXXX."
Me: (I start bringing up the account information and already recognize the problem) "Okay, what it looks like here is the data occurrences are set up incorrectly in the balancing screen."
CSR: (blank, monotone, and sounding utterly confused) "...Okay.****"
Me: (sighs, immediately fixes problem by correcting occurrences) "Alright, what I did is swapped the occurrences to match up so the correct data field is going to her wireless modem and virtually no data is going to her phone modem."
CSR: (again...blank, monotone, and sounding utterly confused) "...Okay."
Me: (check diagnostics, good boot file for wireless modem) "Alright, it has a good boot file now, so she should be golden."
CSR: "...So she should have a working ISP now?"
Me: (it's taking everything I've got to contain my laughter at this point) "...Yes, yes she should."

*ISP is short for Internet Service Provider. I know that's not what she meant...she got the terminology mixed around. However, if it were to be taken literally, it would mean she wasn't our customer. :P
**There's a special on and off code you must apply to digital phone modem combos in order to specify whether or not there will be an Internet occurrence. That's right...she thought she could fix the problem by reapplying the code. D'oh!
***She rambled AAAAAAAAAAALL THAT without so much as giving me the phone number. Classy. And way to assist me with multitasking.
****This is relevant because while the CSRs, our level 1 group, aren't responsible for much, THEY MUST KNOW THIS SYSTEM. I don't expect them to know ANYTHING about ISP tech support or digital phone tech support, but they MUST KNOW how to operate in the billing system.

Explanation: This is for those of you who aren't very technically inclined. The primary reason I was shocked by this is this is her job. She needs to know the billing system like the back of her hand. I'm more or less chuckling that she substituted IP, as in IP address, with ISP. In any case, it looks like I'm in for a fun day. :P