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Name changed to protect the stupid. This is way back from when I did dial-up ISP tech support.
Earl was a crazy old man who told one of my coworkers that he was a retired podiatrist. He called us. A lot. If a week went by without a call from Earl, we would start to wonder if something was wrong.
1) In my first encounter with Earl, he had a problem getting connected to the internet. We fixed it. Then he couldn't get his email. Fixed that. Then he had questions about home networking. The exact quote was, "I have a CAT5 cable. What do I do now?" Earl was not pleased to learn that we did not support home networking. I did give him some sites with info on the topic to shut him up.
Meanwhile, my supervisor is going nuts, making faces at me and sending emails wanting me to get this guy off the phone and take more calls. Not much I can do since I have to keep going as long as they have questions.
Next Earl wants me to help him set up his wife's Juno mail account. That's DEFINITELY not supported. He argued and argued. Finally my supervisor made me hang up on him. Only time I ever had to do that in that job.
2) Later on, I had to call Earl regarding another issue. He told me he was busy cooking eggplant and I had to call back!
Not really suck, just seemed kind of funny and bizarre at the time.
3) The manager of our department (we'll call him Dan) had met Earl once at a trade show in Earl's city of residence. So naturally Earl felt a deep connection to Dan. I asked Dan what Earl looked like and he say, "Basically what you would expect. He's very tall and skinny and has a crazy look in his eye."
Well, Earl was having a lot of problems one week and wanted to talk to Dan. Dan knew jack shit about computers for the most part and would be of little to no use, but I would have been happy to pass Earl off to him. Unfortunately Dan was out sick for 4 or 5 days in a row with some sort of cold/flu thing. Nothing life threatening.
So I told Earl, Dan's out. Earl wants to know why. I said, well, I don't really know and it's none of my business. Earl says, "Oh. I hope everything's okay. OH! Is it COLON CANCER?" I'm just floored by this. As far as I know, Dan's never had cancer and I don't know where this connection is coming from. I said, "I haven't heard anything like that, no." Earl says, "Are you SURE it isn't COLON cancer?" WTF? I told Dan that Earl was worried about his colon, and we had a good laugh.
Earl also has a son who sounds and acts just like him over the phone. They, of course, signed up everyone they know using the referral program so they could get a ton of free internet. These people were not as painful as Earl, but really close sometimes.
Earl was a crazy old man who told one of my coworkers that he was a retired podiatrist. He called us. A lot. If a week went by without a call from Earl, we would start to wonder if something was wrong.
1) In my first encounter with Earl, he had a problem getting connected to the internet. We fixed it. Then he couldn't get his email. Fixed that. Then he had questions about home networking. The exact quote was, "I have a CAT5 cable. What do I do now?" Earl was not pleased to learn that we did not support home networking. I did give him some sites with info on the topic to shut him up.
Meanwhile, my supervisor is going nuts, making faces at me and sending emails wanting me to get this guy off the phone and take more calls. Not much I can do since I have to keep going as long as they have questions.
Next Earl wants me to help him set up his wife's Juno mail account. That's DEFINITELY not supported. He argued and argued. Finally my supervisor made me hang up on him. Only time I ever had to do that in that job.
2) Later on, I had to call Earl regarding another issue. He told me he was busy cooking eggplant and I had to call back!
Not really suck, just seemed kind of funny and bizarre at the time.3) The manager of our department (we'll call him Dan) had met Earl once at a trade show in Earl's city of residence. So naturally Earl felt a deep connection to Dan. I asked Dan what Earl looked like and he say, "Basically what you would expect. He's very tall and skinny and has a crazy look in his eye."
Well, Earl was having a lot of problems one week and wanted to talk to Dan. Dan knew jack shit about computers for the most part and would be of little to no use, but I would have been happy to pass Earl off to him. Unfortunately Dan was out sick for 4 or 5 days in a row with some sort of cold/flu thing. Nothing life threatening.
So I told Earl, Dan's out. Earl wants to know why. I said, well, I don't really know and it's none of my business. Earl says, "Oh. I hope everything's okay. OH! Is it COLON CANCER?" I'm just floored by this. As far as I know, Dan's never had cancer and I don't know where this connection is coming from. I said, "I haven't heard anything like that, no." Earl says, "Are you SURE it isn't COLON cancer?" WTF? I told Dan that Earl was worried about his colon, and we had a good laugh.
Earl also has a son who sounds and acts just like him over the phone. They, of course, signed up everyone they know using the referral program so they could get a ton of free internet. These people were not as painful as Earl, but really close sometimes.