As a solution developer I have come to hate users...
Especially the ones who ring me on my direct line (I AM NOT THE HELPDESK!!!) asking how to get rid of 'this thing that looks like a paper-clip with eyes that keeps on asking me stupid questions'!!???

ooh and the lazy bustards who also ring me (note to self - get name removed from IT phonelist) saying 'the printer doesnt work and i have tried everything' and when I do send a helpdesk guy down they find out it has just run out of paper.

Users should all be shot




uuuh.. then i wouldnt have a job i supppose.
(Tabilda Been away a LONG time *grovels*, Mon 29 Dec 2003, 10:34, Reply)

I used to work for a very well known high street camera shop
and possibly one of the funniest questions that you would receive from people you were trying to flog a digital camera to was "Where do you put the film?"

They would always stare at the camera after this in the same way primitive man would have stared at fire.
( HickyVicki, Mon 29 Dec 2003, 10:32, Reply)

training fuckwits
I have several stories that will highlight how stupid clients can be but I will leave you with only a couple.

1) the single most annoying question I get asked at least once at every course that I teach to these "users" is "what's a web browser?"

2) If that isn't stupid enough, I had one women on a course who got so wound up that her PC wasn't logged on that she missed the first half an hour and started booing when we got to the first set of excercises! and then turned round and had the audacity to tell me that she wasn't normaly that stupid!!! pah
(a monkey's not just for christmas, Mon 29 Dec 2003, 10:32, Reply)

I'm a GP
Half of the world still believes they need antibiotics to cure trivial self limiting viral illnesses. Oh how I laugh each and every day as I spend 35 minutes explaining this to the latest punter, increasing waiting times for everyone else. Ahahahaahahahah. (Twitches Herbert Lom style)
(It doesn't always sting when you piSSSS., Mon 29 Dec 2003, 10:30, Reply)

One time I was developing a huge website for a europe-wide campaign
It was still in development, so it was running on a little linux machine in our office (which had a shoddy network serving 600 people), but access wasn't restricted, so clients, etc. could check it out...

So they went right ahead and had a vast press conference announcing the launch of the website, and the whole office network grinds to a halt while several thousand journos try to look at the website. The server almost exploded from the strain....

My dad's the worst with computers. One time he told me "I don't understand the point of the internet, why not just use a modem".

He's also trying to get me to patent his great idea for a screen you can draw directly on - much like a tablet PC or about 1000 other devices on the market. I keep trying to explain that they already exist and that he's not likely to compete with a multi-billion dollar company which actually has electronics expertise, but he won't believe me.
( dr_fonz, Mon 29 Dec 2003, 10:27, Reply)

ok here's two:
stupid person #1 wanted to know what to do when his mouse cursor had reached the middle of the screen but his mouse had reached the end of the table. The icon he wanted to click was a few inches to the right of the mouse cursor.

"Oh dont worry" he said, "I've figured it out myself..." and then continued to roll the mouse down the table leg.

----------------------

stupid person #2 reported that her machine had lost all power.

It turned out she had the mouse on the floor under her desk... and was trying to get power to the pc by pumping said peripheral with her foot, a la sewing machine/car accelerator.

oh how we laughed.
( biscuits_alive taste my rainbow, Mon 29 Dec 2003, 10:25, Reply)

Stupidity
I had installed a new computer in the home office of a client. A few days later I had a call from the wife.
"the screens gone black, I was writing a letter and the screens just gone black"
I said "describe what you can see"
"Well, the screens black and there's a windows logo"
I thought maybe the PC had reset itself, so I asked
"are there any green scrolling lights" (Win Xp Home)
She said "no, just this windows logo floating around the screen"
I said "wiggle your mouse"
"oh" she said "its come back, bye"
(teksonic, Mon 29 Dec 2003, 10:20, Reply)

I work in
a certain office superstore named after small bits of metal that hold paper together, and..well cambridge people are stupid to put it kindly. i work on saturdays (cos im a dirty student) and atleast once a day we have some clever genius who tries to look like he knows everything, so he doesnt look stupid and ends up looking even stupider, the other week this guy comes in and says "i need a printer"
... i take him to the printers

"do these do colour nowadays?"

"yes, they do" i assured him

"will they work with any computer?"

"within reason" i tell him, "but if your computer isnt too old it should work"

so the guy buys the printer, a cable and about a centurys worth of printer cartridges.

so i carry on with my daily duties (stading around not doing much and talking to people), about 3 hours later the guy comes back and come up to me, printer box in hand, and says "i think my printer is broken, the ink is leaking, can you check it for me?"

by this time im a bit suspitious of the multicoloured stains on his sleeves, so i open the box, and it is flooded with a black resevoir of ink, holding back my laughter, i asked him how he put the cartridges in his printer, and he went on to tell me how he poured each colour down the paper feed. the poor bastard had used about £150 of ink and a £70 printer.
(Mutey, Mon 29 Dec 2003, 10:16, Reply)

More Memory ... ?
When visiting a relation not too long ago, a guy asked me something that his brother had told him.

"My brother says that if you put more memory in your computer it slows it down ... is that true?"

Avoiding laughing I explained that this couldnt be possible ...
(FortyFour, Mon 29 Dec 2003, 9:55, Reply)

not my client, but that of a friend
so they're going out to clients' homes to fix their various computing problems. At one house, they discover that the hard drive is watermeloned beyond the telling of it, so as they unplug the computer they tell the client "we'll have to take it to the shop and replace the hard drive - one of the bits inside, it'll be about £XX."

Client says "yeah, that's fine," then points to the monitor and asks if they can leave that bit there, because it's the bit that they've done all their work on.
( Batsgirl, Mon 29 Dec 2003, 9:52, Reply)

Problem Server
Our company supplies small LANs to our clients, and we retain admin rights & remotely support the servers (not that we don't trust them or anything...)

Support keep a score of the daftest calls received. Winner at the moment is this one:
"We've got a problem with the server!"
"OK, can you tell me what's wrong?"
"Well, it's overheated & set light to the curtains. What shall we do?"
"Errrr.... get a fire extinguisher?!"
(keef, Mon 29 Dec 2003, 9:43, Reply)

Colour monitor
I was helping my uncle with his computer on which the monitor wasn't showing any red colours (It was watermeloned basically). He had already rung some "expert friend" and told him the computer had run out of red. His friend told him to buy a new colour printer cartridge and he had taken the back off the monitor to see where he could fit it.
I mock but then he's a successful dairy farmer and I'd probably be just as cack-handed when it comes to milking a cow.
(gibletwarrior, Mon 29 Dec 2003, 9:37, Reply)

I really ought to know better
Since I'm now an internet developer, but not all that many years ago I used to work in a laboratory and didn't know all that much about computers.

I bought my first ever computer with a modem from some guy who built them himself on the cheap, installed freeserve, plugged in the modem and was raring to go. But the modem wouldn't, couldn't dial in.

So, I call tech support and the guy is running through all my modem config and stuff, can't figure out what's wrong since it all seems to be correct. So he asks me to try it again and I say "hang on, I'll need to swap the cable back" and he says "what?" and I say "the phone cable: I just took the cable out of the phone and plugged it in the back of the modem". Well, how am I supposed to know you need a special modem cable if one isn't supplied with the PC, I ask you?

Since becoming an IT person myself, my best ever tech support moment was asking someone what the filename of a file they were trying to access was which resulted in an embarressed silence followed by "what's a file?"
(MattDP (Squiggle), Mon 29 Dec 2003, 9:31, Reply)

User willingly broke laptop screen
Caught this "episode" from the corner of my eye when visiting a department.

We just rolled out anti-virus software through our network, (login script type thingy) Post install the software requests a scan of the hard disk and asked the user to confirm in the form a big button in the middle of the screen, about 4 inches by 3 inches, saying "Click here", the user did (with his index finger). After a couple of attempts pressing his thumb against the screen (so all the elements burnt) the user was getting a bit frustrated, decided to use all his force. Hence a "pop" sound and laptop, not fit for work.

The icing on the cake when this "middle" manager looked around to see if anyone had seen his embarrassing hand-fistedness catches me shouting "You idiot!"
(Coffee Monkey, Mon 29 Dec 2003, 9:17, Reply)

Keyboard joy
I used to work for a major high-street bank and my final 18 months was spent as a network administrator within one of its departments. One day I answered a call from one of the clerks who reported a problem with his keyboard, specifically that he couldn't get pound signs to appear. Aha, thought I - he's got his keyboard set to "English - US" or something, so I went to help.

When I arrived at his desk I asked him to show me the problem so I could confirm my suspicions. "Well, whenever I try to get a pound sign I keep getting a number 3," he said. "You *are* holding the shift key down when you press it, aren't you?" I asked. He looked blankly in my direction, turned to his keyboard, and lo and behold a pound sign appears on his screen.

It gets better though... As I walked away, head in hands, somebody ran over to me. "Do you know what he's been doing to get around it? Whenever he's had to put prices in letters he's either put 'You will be charged 15 GBP for this...', 'You will be charged 15 pounds for this...' or, more often than not, he's left an extra space, printed the letter out, and drawn a pound sign in in black pen."

I left a couple of months later. I couldn't stand it any longer.
(nasalhair The Twix guy!, Mon 29 Dec 2003, 9:03, Reply)

The client is always right.....riiiiiight
We managed to sell some software recently, and the client/user insisted on instaling it himself. Despite my suggestions that his IT guy do the install, or better yet, I could do it for him, he was convinced in his own ability. Fine.
I called up the day after to check on how things went, but he seemed somehow less sure of himself than previously, and mumbled something about how you had to know the little tricks to get things working these days, before he hung up.
3-4 days later their IT bloke calls me asking if they can, "erm, have another copy of the software, please". It turned out the user had put the pc on the floor so the CD drive was in a vertical position, and glued the CD into the drive tray to stop it falling out before the tray moved back inside the case.
(put your finger here, Mon 29 Dec 2003, 8:58, Reply)

Name that password
I have a client who is the most stupid person you could ever meet in your life. Her name (changed to protect the stupid) is Jane Warnes.

Recently, she could not get e-mail due to a lost password, so I looked up the password on my support database, & it was "jwarnes".

I told her the password & she said, "just a minute, I won't be able to remember that, let me find a pen".

I was about to say, "but it's your name", then thought better of it, as it might have complicated things.
(RichardInSydney would like to know why teh date & time is, Mon 29 Dec 2003, 7:34, Reply)

Managers...
I was showing the General Manager how to clean the gate of the projector justg in case they ever needed to do it. This invloved dipping a cotton bud (QTip) into a bottle of alcohol, then rubbing it on the gate.

Anyway, this dumbfuck asked "what do you do when the alcohol is lower than the cotton bud can reach?"

He'd honestly missed the whole concept of tilting the bottle - what a tosser!
(JaffaMused local in the So.Cal, Mon 29 Dec 2003, 7:23, Reply)

Clients Are Stupid
I once worked for a small company many years ago, and one day a new young temp was bought in to help out in our department.
Half way throught the day she asked me to help her out with a problem she was having with the Fax machine, I said ok, show me the problem?

Temp - Well, I'm putting the paper in like this.... and I'm dialing the number like this..... and when I hear the tone I'm pressing send, like this......

Me - And, OK, so what seem's to be the problem?

Temp - Well...... the paper keeps coming back to me!!!
(Keniff, Mon 29 Dec 2003, 5:02, Reply)

Clients Are Stupid
I once was DJing in a club, on this massive stage (about 6 feet off the ground) for a few hundred
E/Piss Heads, when I watched this man (with a great amount of struggle) climb up on stage and stagger's towards me.
While rummaging through his pockets for a sweaty crumpled up fiver, he ask's "Uuuuuggghhh, al'wight mate? Ow Much are two bottle's ov Becks then?"

Brilliant!! :-)
(Keniff, Mon 29 Dec 2003, 4:18, Reply)

Ye Olde Dumbass Revhead
I was running a small computer sales and repair business some 15 years ago, and was asked by one of my clients who was a distributor of car parts to visit one of his retailers. So I head down to the outskirts of Melbourne to this crappy stinky parts shop and speak to mr grease-monkey about his problems. He advises me that his tape backups have stopped working. So I take a look at the drive, give it a clean, frig around for a while and finally admit - yep, it's knackered - I'll be back in a week with a new one.

A few days later I get a call from him.

Bruno: "Hey Vaggs, this tape drive you fixed is even worse now - it's completely eating my tapes."

Puzzled, I say:

Vaggs: "What are you talking about, I said I'd be back in a week - what do you mean it's eating tapes?"

Bruno: "Well I've put three tapes in it so far and they just keep disappearing?"

Vaggs: "Huhh??" - At this point I was completely intrigued - "This isn't possible Bruno, what exactly are you doing?"

Bruno: "Oh, well hang on, I'll do it again"

-- shuffling noises heard in the background, a few tapes clatter to the floor as he obviously pushes a heap of crap around on his desk --

Bruno: "Ok, here I go - I'm putting in the tape now"

-- [TINNY CLUNK] --

Bruno: "Hear that?"

Vaggs: (Attempting to control laughter) "Bruno mate, you realise I removed the tape drive from your computer don't you?"

Bruno: "Oh - I thought the hole looked a little bigger".

I replaced his tape drive a few days later and fished out four tapes from his PC....
(Vaggs, Mon 29 Dec 2003, 4:12, Reply)

I used to work in theatre box office
and had a litany of stupid questions thrown at me all the time, like "What time does the 8 o'clock show start?" and "Do all the seats face the front?", but the two best ones I had were:

*A woman who would only buy tickets to a Stevie Wonder concert if I could 100% guarantee he really was blind

*We had one of those hypnotist blokes in doing a show for a bit ('when I clap you will think you are a chicken' type of thing). A woman rang after seeing his show wanting his phone number bcause she wanted him to come and "make (her) give up smoking". I tried to explain the difference between a stage magician and a qualified hypnotherapist. She just got angry with me.
( HairyCanary as Ann B. Davis as Alice, Mon 29 Dec 2003, 2:26, Reply)

Previous Job
One previous job was as shop assistant in Game, Wigan.
We reguarly had people coming in who didn't deserve to own a PC.
Every single day someone would try to return a game saying it was faulty, typical conversation went like this:
Them: My game is faulty.
Me: What seems to be the problem with it.
Them: It won't start.
Me: Ok... (looks at game box), What Spec Pc have you got?
Them: Eh?
Me: What specification is your pc?
Them: What do you mean?
Me: What bits are in your pc, you know Processor, memory that kind of thing.
Them: Dunno... Ummmm its a packard bell.
Me: Riiiigghhhttt...

The Should be a Potential PC owner test, the amount of times I had to hold back from slapping the customer with their own game I can't even count.
(Capt_Carl, Mon 29 Dec 2003, 2:06, Reply)