Not an urban legend

[Akasa]

Back when scanners were new I took the following call. IT really happened and its been bantered around as a joke for years afterwards, but I swear to God this call had me stumped for a while!

This woman calls in telling me she can't get her fax modem to work. She scans the paper("I put it on the glass and the light shines through!") and tries to send the document.
(Here I am thinking .doc when she says document, oh the fool I was!)
So I have her walk me through the steps.
Scan paper, check.
Start up fax modem program to send fax... hey you can't send a fax while on the phone with me!(Modem makes noise, but something could be wonky...)
Run diagnostics on the modem, everything reads right, customer is adamnant that it doesn't work...

Go over steps again.
Choose file to send, use program to choose file...
What do mean what file? The file made when you scanned in the paper!
...
It HAD to have made a file! Lets do a search, what would you have named it?
...
Ok, lets take down to basics, you put the paper in the scanner that you got with your computer, right?
...
What scanner?!? How the hell are you scanning the files in if you don't use a scanner?
Wait a minute... Glass and light... The monitor?! The tv looking thing?! (Oh you have got to be kidding me!)

I then explained to her what a scanner is, how it works, and if she wanted to fax anything it had to be in some kind of file format on her computer.
I was doing head desk by the end of the call! The guys on the floor of course made fun of me for thinking the customer had a scanner, but the company never put that kind of info in the database so we were flying blind as to what the customer recieved with their computers.

[depechemodefan]

So she just put the paper on the monitor screen?

[Amina516]

WOW.

[earl colby pottinger]

None are urban legends

For some reason the general press keeps insisting that some things are urban legends, that people don't do such dumb things.

Sorry, but I have seen most of them really done in real-life.

Broken CD-Trays used as coffee trays - check, too many to remember the count.

White-out on monitor screen - check, but only once.

Kid feeding food into slot - check, twice, once a sandwich into a VCR, other cereal into a computer.

Credit Card to make an internet payment - check, but the repair was done by the tech beside me.

Power Supply in water - check.

Operating server floating on water - check.

And too many others.

[mharbourgirl]

Aye, earl, most of those 'urban legend computer stupidities', well, they aren't.

Highlighter/whiteout/pen on laptop/monitor/terminal screen. Check.

Credit cards inside the case. Check.

The CD-ROM coffee-cup holder...too many times.

Stack of pancakes in the VCR. Peanut butter sandwich in the VCR, UNDER the pancakes. 7-year old kid grounded until retirement age? Check.

Dead bugs, spiders, rodents, and various bacteria farms. Check.

Bird's nest. Swear to (deity/sacred thingammie of your choice).

Yeah, that was an.. interesting job. And fixing hardware wasn't even why I got hired in the first place. Never, EVER let people suspect you have skills that could be used for free.

[crazylegs]

Credit cards inside the case. Check.

Hang on.

All the others I can kind of see why they'd do such a stupid thing, but this one beggars belief, they rammed a CC into the computer (somewhere) while trying to purchase goods on the internet as they believed some magic pixie would transmit the data to another magic pixie so it would be paid for...?

[earl colby pottinger]

Think about it

All the others I can kind of see why they'd do such a stupid thing, but this one beggars belief, they rammed a CC into the computer (somewhere) while trying to purchase goods on the internet as they believed some magic pixie would transmit the data to another magic pixie so it would be paid for...?

Think about it, unless you are ordering something over the phone when else in normal life do you say or type the number on your credit/debit card? You don't! Usually you swipe a reader or place it into a slot somewhere. New computer users (or new to internet commerce) assume the same for their internet transactions. After-all there is a slot between the drives. It must be there for a purpose, and so they shove it in.

Additionally, I have seen loose change from kids using the computer as a piggy-bank, and bills from customers trying to pay cash over the internet.

[lordlundar]

Hang on.

All the others I can kind of see why they'd do such a stupid thing, but this one beggars belief, they rammed a CC into the computer (somewhere) while trying to purchase goods on the internet as they believed some magic pixie would transmit the data to another magic pixie so it would be paid for...?

Not quite. Look at your machine, most specifically around your removable media bays (optical like CD/DVD, Flash bay, etc.) See how there's a little gap around the drives? Well, some people think that it is a credit card reader, so they slide it in and lo and behold, it fits! Then they can't get it out...

I think the saddest part is that there are still people who think we make this stuff up.

[LostMyMind]

Yeah, those poor innocent souls who still think the world not that dumb. *crush* Oh lookie, another cynic born.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

I've said it before and I'll say it again:

There needs to be a mandatory intelligence test that one needs to pass before owning a computer.

[Lachrymose]

Just to clarify something:

Just because something is an urban legend doesn't necessarily make it untrue. Many are very real, or at least rooted in reality.

[Broomjockey]

Actually, the fact that it's an urban legend means it specifically isn't true. It's an apocryphal tale the details of which are continually shifting for the audience.

Now, just because something's an urban legend doesn't mean something similar can't happen to someone. The reason urban legends persist is because they're made up to be plausible.

[Lachrymose]

From the definition at Snopes:

http://www.snopes.com/info/ul-def.asp

"A common mistake is the equation of 'urban legend' with 'false' (i.e., "Oh, that's an urban legend!"). Though the vast majority of such tales are pure invention, a tiny handful do turn out to be based on real incidents. What moves true tales of this type out of the world of news and into the genre of contemporary lore is the blurring of details and multiplicity of claims that the reported incidents happened locally, alterations which take place as the stories are passed through countless hands. Though there might indeed have been an original actual event, it clearly did not happen to as many people or in as many places as the various recountings of it would have one believe. "

So, in a way we're both right. It doesn't necessarily mean it's false, but it usually means it blurs the reality and fiction.

[earl colby pottinger]

The problem

The problem of the above definition is that it tries to claim that 'urban legends' based on real events are events that rarely happen in real life.

This however does not match my personal surveys. Whenever I went on training courses I would meet other techs (many from all over North America) and most have experienced that same type of events.

So again, the claim is that urban legends are either false or often rare events, but every tech I have talked to, and the posts on this BBS confirm they to occur very often in real life.

If something is happening often then referring to it as an urban legend if wrong.

[Broomjockey]

So, in a way we're both right. It doesn't necessarily mean it's false, but it usually means it blurs the reality and fiction.

The problem with using a definition from snopes is they're using it as they're approaching it.
Actual dictionary definitions from dictionary.com (which includes entries from Websters and the American Heritage Dictionary)

Urban Legend: A story, which may have started with a grain of truth, which has been embroidered and retold until it has passed into the realm of myth. ...
or
An apocryphal story involving incidents of the recent past, often including elements of humor and horror, that spreads quickly and is popularly believed to be true.
or
a modern story of obscure origin and with little or no supporting evidence that spreads spontaneously in varying forms and often has elements of humor, moralizing, or horror.

The trick is, I said "similar things can happen to someone." The use of the word "legend" in the name makes it a story. The only reason that some true stories are called urban legends is because people can't believe their true. Snopes can say the true ones, or ones based on truth, are still urban legends, but calling a bull a cow won't get you any milk.