Naïve People
I work in a Lego store (the clue's in the name.. Lego, ok?)(Well, I say work, paid to play is more like it, w00!) anyway, the number of people who come up with damned questions.. "Do you sell Megabloks?", "Do you sell Playmobil?" Do these people not notice the hyauge sign saying Lego on the door? The fact that the shelves are stacked with the stuff? and that my iridescent shirt says Lego on it?!?!?! Damned customers, ruining my neatly stacked shelves. Grrr
( Sattamassagana, the LEGO-man needs to change his username's relevancy, Tue 30 Dec 2003, 1:37, Reply)

Essex Stupidity- the bourgeousie and their decadent toilet paper.
A good friend of mine works in a certain supermarket, mostly as a till-munky, like myself. On one memorable occasion, a middle-class woman began to complain about said supermarket's lack of white toilet paper. Calmly my friend explained that they only had peach, pink, whatever for sale, but the woman became more and more frustrated by the situation, becoming increasingly snotty... exasperated, and perfectly correct, my friend told her that "it all ends up the same colour anyway". She wrote a letter of complaint to get him fired, his manager put it up on the notice-board.

Similarly, at the rival supermarket where I while away my Saturday nights, we find people who are unable to find the painkiller medication even though it is directly in front of them as they walk in. Also, as i am too young to legally sell alcohol, i have to ask permission from staff members who are perhaps only 5 months older than me... seeing this, the customer ALWAYS responds "i am 18, honest!". it's really only funny the first 1000 times. this is without mentioning the customers who discover they have the correct change right AFTER i open the till...i know it's petty, but this is every saturday and sunday night... twunts.

Needless to say, retail is not a career my friend and i plan to pursue. no, we are just poor students...

not really stupid, but i feel this post needs less complaining and more funny. when my mother worked in a workshop that made dentures and sundry similar dental prosthetics, the impressions came with slips of paper with the dentist's notes on them. on one occasion, she came into work to find only one half of a set of impressions (possibly upper jaw). written on the accompanying paperwork was this- "unable to take lowers, Px (patient) wet herself"...

how would one go about explaining to the next person in the chair?

remember, be nice to the till-munkies... one day we shall rule the earth...
(underachiever, Tue 30 Dec 2003, 1:07, Reply)

The trouble is I.T. support now *expect* callers to be idiots and ask us stupid questions

Me (After spending 20 minutes paying to wait in a queue):

"I can't access any web sites over HTTP on port 80, but I can if I use HTTP on any other port. HTTPS, FTP, Mail and all other protocols are working fine and I can ping the web servers in question. Can you check if there is a problem with your transparent web cache?"

Blueyonder support:

Ok, can you tell me the status of the lights on your cable modem


I can't remember how many other pointless steps I had to go through before they'd give me the IP of their old proxy server, but it inspired (pearoast):

Telewest engineers were busy working on the latest server problem...


Needless to say there was a problem with their transparent proxies which they finally recognised and fixed a few hours later.
(Ravenous Bugblatter Beast This content may not be working. Please try again., Tue 30 Dec 2003, 0:57, Reply)

I work in the printshop of my students union
We had one 3rd year business student come in with a stunningly presented document. But at the last minute she decided to change her font size. It was at this point I realised she had done all her headers and footers manually on every page. Had drawn all her charts using coloured text boxes and had aligned all the fonts for these diagrams using spaces and returns.

One rather iritating repeat customer came in 20 minutes before final deadline and doubled clicked on "My Documents" to bring up his work. Needless to say the rush back home to get it on disk was'nt quite fast enough.

We have had many others including classic Mac - PC confusion (this mouse has only got one button, where is the start menu?). But to get back the iritating customers we play the smugged fiver joke. When you get someones change, just before you had them the fiver you go "oh that ones smugged" and get them another from the till. They hardly ever comeback after that.
(el_meerkat, Tue 30 Dec 2003, 0:40, Reply)

working in sainsbury's
the entire back wall is yoghurts, as far as the eye can see, and some guy came up to me once and asked 'where are your yoghurts?' and i just kind of half turned and waved my arm towards the wall, a metre from me

other customers just ask for stupid things, like engine parts or 'special hats'

oh and a pikey woman came in and started attacking the staff with a used syringe, which is fairly stupid
(John Doe, Tue 30 Dec 2003, 0:15, Reply)

At the pub where I work, we don't take bookings,
yet we get numerous phone calls asking to book.
Here's one memorable one:

customer: I'd like to book a table please
me: i'm sorry, we don't take bookings
customer: but it's for tomorrow night
me: well I'm afraid we can't take bookings
customer: well, can't you put a reserve on a table for us?
me: no, sorry, we might be busy, someone else might need to sit there
customer: but there's eleven of us
me: well, if you ring up about half an hour before you intend to come, we'll see what we can do
customer: so you're letting us book?
me: no, i'm letting you ring back tomorrow to see if ther is enough space. What time are you coming?
customer: nine 0'clock
me: ok, but we stop serving food at half past
customer: do you need my name?
me: no thanks
customer: it's Smith
me: right
customer: so we're booked in for nine o'clock then?
me: no, like I said, we don't take bookings
customer: so why did you ask what time we were coming in then?
me: curiosity, I'm cooking it
customer: well, as you're the chef, what would you recommend?
me: another pub. bye
customer: you can't talk to me like that, i'm a shareholder
me: so am I. Bye
*hang up*


needless to say, they never rang back
( SarahRatt, Tue 30 Dec 2003, 0:01, Reply)

Virus checkers are there for a reason
Having previously supplied a machine to a customer six months previously, complete with a popular antivirus package, I was somewhat surprised to receive a call saying they thought they had a virus, moreso when the behaviour they described was that displayed normally by the infamous MS Blast virus.

So, I decided on a site visit. The PC was UTTERLY riddled with viruses, in all I found around 430 instances of virus infection. Most puzzling of all, the virus checker itself appeared to have vanished without trace.

Not seeing it in Control Panel~add/remove I asked if it had somehow been uninstalled, and to my surprise the customer said yes, he'd uninstalled it. I asked why.

"Because it kept popping up this large RED box in the middle of the screen." He said. The only red box the package produced was the 'You have a virus - what do you want done with it?' dialogue. "I got annoyed when the box kept coming up, so I removed the antivirus package to make it go away."

Some people thrive on stupidity. I doubled my fee, and went home.
(Snitter the Rat, Mon 29 Dec 2003, 23:58, Reply)

Ooh another one.
....Used to do student work on a one day a week basis for a food manufacturing company.

I got an urgent call mid-week asking me if I could come in ASAP because the SQL Server I was maintaining wasn't working.

When I got there I noticed the office had been decorated. I asked what had happened and they said that during the decorating they had decided to move the server.

They just unplugged it, moved it and switched it on expecting it all to work. I promptly logged in, had to restore all the network connections and get the whole thing up and running again. Took me 2 bloody days!
( beefandcheese, Mon 29 Dec 2003, 23:58, Reply)

A friend spent a summer working in a pub
a customer came in and ordered lasagne. A few minutes after ordering it, she beckoned my friend over from behind the bar. She had very carefully picked out the paste (i.e. the actual lasagne) from the food and put them on one side.

Her: What's this?
Friend: Lasagne.
Her: No it isn't.
Friend: Yes it is.

This escalated to the point where my friend and the chef in the pub were standing next to the customer trying to convince her that yes, that is actually lasagne on the plate. It's a pasta dish, dontcha know.
( HP hasn't been here in aaaaaages, Mon 29 Dec 2003, 23:22, Reply)

First post! but I had to
Not really a customer but a really stupid guy. I used to work as a clerk and I had to e-mail some documents daily to the manager. So once he came down to my office to check how I was doing. Depite not knowing the difference between a pc and a shoe box he proceeded to open up directories at random(including the windows one). He then accused me that I had deleted important stuff etc. After miraculously finding these missing files(whose shortcut was on the desktop) he then, for some reason, accused me that I had hidden them on the taskbar(yes the taskbar) and told me that I should never again play with such important documents. Oh this is the same guy who is famous around the place for throwing water on the monitor because it was 'overheating'. He's still a manager, I'm unemployed.
(Musk ox hygene inspector, Mon 29 Dec 2003, 23:20, Reply)

not a client
but today i spent a few enjoyable minutes setting the marquee screensavers on john lewis's display computers to say a variety of insulting comments.

very immature i know..
( dipdapdop, Mon 29 Dec 2003, 23:09, Reply)

Tech Support is Stupid
Or at least they need a broader knowledge base...

When we first got our DSL, Windows XP had just been released, and we had several computers in our home we planned on networking behind a router.

My husband did all the work on the network, and he is competent, he works IT for a local school board... anyway, at the time we hadn't actually bought the router, so we had a proxy running linux. After several failed attempts to get connected to the internet, we had determined that the modem itself was faulty, and called to have it replaced.

The tech support guy I ended up talking to first wanted me to verify that it wasn't working, and asked me what OS I was running. I told him he could have his pick of 95, 98SE, XP, or Mandrake, and I would hook the damn thing to whichever machine he wanted. So, we started with the 95 machine.... then 98, before we end up on the XP machine.

Now, I know XP is great in that it doesn't need the idiotic software that the DSL provider sends you, but the guy on the phone can't seem to grasp this concept, and we're no closer to getting a new modem, so I go ahead and try to install the software anyway, which promptly informs me that it requires 95 or 98 to run, and won't install. This seriously seemed to irk the tech guy who keeps telling me that we should have the XP disc, that it says so in our account information.

So 3 days pass and we've gotten a new disc in the mail, this time for XP, and I've called them back daily which only results in repeating this entire ordeal over and over again. (I even tried asking for a supervisor) So, I call them back and ask for the original tech I'd talked to and we install the software and the modem still won't connect.

Meanwhile this guy keeps asking me if I've recieved the help emails he's been sending me...

Anyway, by this time we're right pissed, as we don't want to switch to cable (we live in an apartment building and it's pure shit), and this guy is of no help at all.

So he wants to start the entire process over again, except this time, he's telling me to hook the modem to this or that machine and adjust settings and whatnot, and I'm sitting on the couch making grunting noises into the phone and watching TV, after giving up all hope... finally this tech guy gets pissed and tells me he can't figure it out, that the modem must be broken, then slams down the phone and hangs up on me.

So now I'm fuming, I call back and ask to talk to the supervisor of the first person I get on the phone and explain what's just happened. He refers me to his supervisor, who refers me to HIS supervisor, who ends up referring me to a guy who works in billing to have them send me a new modem. A few minutes of casual conversation and explaining the situation and the billing guy says "You hooked it to the linux machine and it didn't work? Obviously the modem's broken..."

So now I call the billing department for tech support....


Holy... I ramble too much, sorry :)
(Ecclesia, Mon 29 Dec 2003, 23:08, Reply)

More Supermarket Madness
At Morrisons where I used to work they hang the bananas off plastic hooks, so you end up with a big 'wall' of bananas for the customers to choose from (anyone who's shopped there will know what I mean). One day I was behind this 'wall' in what we called the 'backup' where all the wastage, re-wrapping etc goes on.
Customer (from outside): "'scuse me, have you got any bananas?"
Me (most sarcastic reply I can think of, thinking he must be having a laugh): "no mate, they're all sold out"
Him: "Eh? All gone? At this time?"
Me: "You mean the yellow ones? Loose?"
Him: "Yeah."
Me: "You mean those things in front of your face?"

He then muttered a few expletives and quickly walked away. Almost as good was the old bloke who came up and said (what I thought was) "Have you got five bananas?". So I found a bunch with five bananas on it. "There you are, sir." He hands them back, saying they're not right, they're not five bananas. I pick up another one and count them, one, two, three four, five. "Five bananas." "No, no, five." I'm confused by now. "There's five bananas there, sir." "Yes, I know how many there are", came the reply, but I want five bananas". Suddenly it clicks. He's asking for FYFFE bananas.

We didn't have any. We had mountains of windward island ones but they weren't good enough for him. So he got no bananas.

If I may go on, here's another one. Working at another supermarket where you can put your produce on a scale and it automatically prints a ticket after you press a button with the name of the item and a picture on it, a bloke comes up to me and says "we've been charged £1.80 a kilo for these bananas, when it says 98p a kilo over there." He'd pressed the button for plaintain (looks like a banana, but isn't), which we hardly ever sell and so warrants only a tiny button, missing BANANAS, the biggest selling line in the store, which has a great big eff-off button all to itself. I explain this. "That's bloody confusing that is, they ought to get it changed", says the silly old git.

And that's just the bananas. Don't get me started on the grapes...
(fourplusone, Mon 29 Dec 2003, 22:58, Reply)

So, so many to choose from...
I've spent many hours dealing with the untold goonery of users needing IT support. I seem to find that the higher up in the organization you go, the less common sense there is. Maybe there is less oxygen there. Examples include:

The director who complained that someone had stolen his mouse. I go to his office, and sure enough his mouse mat is vacant. So I check the back of the PC, and follow the mouse cable to... a piece of paper 4 inches to the side of his mousemat. The guy put in a support call because he didn't bother to tidy his desk

The MD who complained that the keyboard wasn't working properly. He had the handle from his coffe mug pressing down on the CTRL key

The user who didn't have a CD drive in her PC, so she posted the CD in between the blanking plates on the front of the PC

The user who complained that her keyboard made a clicking noise whenever she typed on the right hand side of her keyboard. It turned out that the movement of the keyboard was tapping on the side of a coke can on her desk

The user who used Windolene to clean his monitor, and was surprised when the coating on the screen went all manky

The innumerable users who complain that they need a new mouse, because they don't realise that mice need cleaning occasionally

The user who had a sticky keyboard that smelled strongly of sweet coffee. "You've spilt coffee on this keyboard" "No I haven't" "But it smells of coffee" "I thought that it would be OK when it dried out".

I'm sure that there are plenty more buried in my mind, I've tried so hard to forget...
(Cheeley - which is what makes time travel possible, Mon 29 Dec 2003, 22:56, Reply)

it's not there
I've had variations on this theme quite a few times. But the 'pink lady' (who had to have her holiday apartment website drowned in pink!) was the best...She was absolutely insistent that her new website wasn't there. What's more, she kept telling me that not only was the website not available, but that "it doesn't come up with ask Jeeves at the bottom like my friends website". She just couldn't get it into her head that you type the web address into the address bar, not the search engine page that her IE started up with.
Same woman also kept trying to get me to change where the "page breaks" were on her web pages. turns out she only looks at a website after printing out the whole thing!
(teasus likes tea, Mon 29 Dec 2003, 22:42, Reply)

All time classic was
Working in Network Support dept of a large civil service department in Bristol, call routed through,


User: "I've deleted the internet".

Need I say more ?
(Waisted Fred I say who Sir, you Sir?, Mon 29 Dec 2003, 22:41, Reply)

I work in a bar...
and the amount of story's of stupidity could quite easily out number any techy!

eg 1:

One night we have no draught soft drinks on due to problems with the mixer.

this was one hell of a night:

punter: I'll have a vodka and coke please
me: sorry we have no coke, or any fizzy soft drinks
punter: I'll have a vodka lemonade then please
(I lost count of the number of times I had this conversation)

eg 2:
me:sorry no smoking by the bar mate.
*me goes and gets drinks*
punter: did oy say nah smokin by tha bar?
me: yes mate
punter: where's your sign then?
me:right in front of you mate
*me picks up sign waves in face, puts back in same position in front of punter... looking smug*
me: besides I'm legally obliged to tell you under the numerous disabilities acts


eg 3:
punter: does it come with chips?
me: yup
punter: i'll have a portion of chips as well then please
me: eh?

thats just a few of the nightly antics!
(south, Mon 29 Dec 2003, 22:38, Reply)

When I was temping in an opticians...
I used to get asked at least once a month why I wasn't wearing glasses.
(Watermelon, Mon 29 Dec 2003, 22:33, Reply)

Argumentative customers

Was standing in an isle stacking a shelf in middle England’s supermarket of choice when a female customer taps me on the back, I turn around and await her stupid question (I’m expecting something along the lines of 'where do I pay for this')...and I wait...and I wait...she just stands there looking at me:

me: Is there anything I can help you with

still saying nothing she points to a product on the shelf, a little confused by this I mutter 'sorry?'. At this point the once silent woman erupts:

Her: WELL I CANT REACH IT CAN I? HOW AM I SOPPOSED TO REACH THAT SHELF, HOW DO YOU EXPECT ME TO BE ABLE TO DO MY SHOPPING IN THIS STORE? THIS SHOP IS HIGHTEST

me: would you like me to reach that for you madam?

Her: WELL I CANT REACH IT CAN I?

(I pass her the product and contemplate pointing out that we are in a city center and that space is at a premium, decided not to get into an argument, have regretted that decision ever since)
(Stuzo, Mon 29 Dec 2003, 22:19, Reply)

The Data Brick
I used to work for a company who provided computing services for a large UK food consortium. Our department worked with one of their branches, responsible for bread and morning goods - a well known brand.

Every day, each bakery had to transmit their sales and orders to the mainframe, held at our offices.

One time a particular bakery up north just couldn't get it sent. We were on the phone with them for ages and ages, and they eventually called in their data processing manager, who was off that day.

She came on the phone and tried all the usual things, then said "Hang on while I check the data brick". We were left puzzled over what the hell she was talking about. When she came back to the phone, she said "Ahh it's all sorted now, it should arrive soon.". We asked her what she did.

Back in the day, every bakery had a 2400 baud modem. At the appropriate time they'd call the mainframe number and once they heard the screech of the modem at the other end they'd press the DATA button on the modem. This particular bakery thought the whole concept was stupid and in need of automating, so they placed a brick - a whole brick - next to the modem and slid it forward until it depressed the data button. Now, all they had to do was dial the mainframe and it would take over.

Of course, on this day the cleaners had moved the brick when dusting the computer room down, and the dp manager was off that day. Because no one else had any idea this even had to be DONE, no one knew anything about it.

I still chuckle when I think of the data brick...
(kiwanotree Meh, Mon 29 Dec 2003, 22:06, Reply)

i never dealt with clients
i have no job and no souce of income
( Sunshine Elephant, Mon 29 Dec 2003, 21:35, Reply)

Working for the Civil Service
A user calls me on the IT support helpdesk-

User: Whenever I click on something, it highlights as normal, but then when I click on something else, everything else on the screen highlights up too. I think I need a new keyboard or computer or to have Windows reinstalled or something.

Me: Wiggle the shift key round a bit first

User: Oh, it's fixed now. I suppose you think I'm really stupid eh?

This was one of our more intelligent customers
(scruffboy, Mon 29 Dec 2003, 21:02, Reply)

Blockhead
I was doing a vox pop for my local newspaper on a rundown playground. I got some quotes from this youngish bloke and so the photographer with me asked to take a "head and shoulders" shot of him. The bloke turned around, presumably so the snapper could get a shot of his head (not face) and shoulders (which can't be seen from the front of course).
(phoggy, Mon 29 Dec 2003, 20:39, Reply)

Hmm
A few years ago at my old work, I had a call from a user complaining that their screen was "all wobbly" - the actual displayed image, not the hardware.

He said this only started during the recent hot spell (it was early summer at the time) and he thought the screen was too warm. I said I'd be over (to our second building), and took a spare screen with me just in case.

On entering his office I spotted the problem.
It was summer. It was hot. He'd got a desktop fan. And put it right on top of the screen, running on maximum.

I moved the fan over to a filing cabinet and all was well.
:)
( Sandman-uk, Mon 29 Dec 2003, 20:25, Reply)

These aren't the same,
...but they're based around stupid people so what the hell.

When we first got this computer (1997/8?) the bloke at TIME Computers was ranting and raving about how great the PcTV card was and after a while mentioned that it could record. We asked him how much it could record and what the quality would be like. He told us that we could easily fit a couple episodes of Eastenders onto a floppy disk and that the quality could greatly exceed that of your average TV screen...

We took the computer back many times during the ... however many years we owned it without upgrading it and had to run multiple "option 7"s (wipe all folders referenced to in the registry and start again - still not convinced it did anything since it seemed to be able to reinstall Windows95 from one floppy disk). One time we took it in after the hard drive had totally buggered itself and was refusing to do anything. We got it back after about 7 weeks, drove the bastard back home from Slough, set it all up and turned it on. All looked promising until suddenly, in large ASCII-art styled letters we saw "BURN". We didn't know what the hell it was, but it didn't seem to let us exit it so we went on with the program. It basically was a big, scary, beefed up version of ScanDisk which went on for about a day or so then came to the conclusion that the hard disk had a major central fault and the computer would have to be reburnt. Imagining our computer, followed by our house, going up in a towering inferno we unplugged the thing and carted it back off to Slough. Turned out the fuckwits had loaded one of their diagnostic prgrams, run it and done bugger all about it. Someone had obviously just gone "Oi oi, what's this computer doing sitting about here, eh? It's got a name on it... better get it back to the owners, eh?" and told us it was all fixed. So we got it back again after a while and all was fine. Until it bust itself again a month or so later.
(qdamik, Mon 29 Dec 2003, 20:06, Reply)

Stupid client
I used to work for a print firm and among our clients was a well-known media company. I'll not say which one but the name rhymes with "loiters." We used to do business cards for them and sometimes we'd do cards with foreign text on the reverse. One day I faxed the English front and Japanese reverse of a card over to this director's secretary. This woman is best described as someone who looked down on us suppliers and loved to point out our errors to us, so it was no surprise when she phoned and said, "the cards are wrong". She didn't say what was wrong, such was her way but after much coaxing, she said, in her best holier-than-thou voice, "well, they're too big." I calmly explained that we enlarged the cards for clarity when faxing foreign text, to which she replied, "well, they're still wrong, aren't they?" For a couple of minutes she was talking to me like a patronising teacher saying, "now, what do you think is wrong with them?" before I finally gave up and she told me: "They're supposed to be double-sided." I tried to explain that a double-sided fax machine hadn't been invented, in my most patronising voice and was tempted to ask if her fax machine was okay for blank paper. If not, I'd love to fax some over to her. But I didn't
( <>Dog www.stevelaker.blog, Mon 29 Dec 2003, 20:01, Reply)

i once had the "anykey" call
A girl on the front desk of a very high brow top client retailer, employed obviously for her more physical contribution to the customer experience.
"please can you help me, i clicked on something and now i can't find the anykey it wants me to press."
I made the special effort based on this call to make her very own "anykey", and glued it next to F1. Same girl who could not grasp the concept of right mouse click, amongst other attempts, rotating the mouse 90 degrees.
Nice Tits though
( Ulic hissing slightly, Mon 29 Dec 2003, 19:47, Reply)

Not a client but
I used to work for a media company (sounds like empty bell) went roundt his old dears house as she had complained that her internet wasn't working. When i got there she had the mouse under the table and was standing on it like an old sewing machine.
(RalphWiggum, Mon 29 Dec 2003, 19:40, Reply)

there was the time i werked in the spar
and all the tills were like networked mini pc's running a stripped down version of windows

one day at about lunchtime (busiest time of the day) and the tills went down.
I went to the back office where the manager explained the the engineers would be out in and hour and we would have to do everything manually until then
Being a simple till monkey at the time, i was horrified at the prospect of having to figure out how much things were and add everthing up without a barcode thingumy, so I sidled over to the server, waggled the mouse and hit the reset button
Bis bash bosh, all the tills were running within 5 minutes
( VampireMonkeyOnSpeed a super sexy sexual sex terrorist sex, Mon 29 Dec 2003, 19:34, Reply)