Baffling logic
A while back a chap sent me this plea for my help:

Click for bigger if you must




So that's a screenshot of MS Paint, inside which is another screenshot. A screenshot of a screenshot. Some people... *shakes head*
( chart cat has an itch, Fri 25 Sep 2009, 5:52, 6 replies)

Everybody wins
Dickhead salesman comes in with a dead PC from home asking for a "favour". Quickly realise that death was caused by a shonky hard disk. Look up replacement price of disk (£500 at the time - 'twas a while ago) and tell salesman what it's going to cost. "fuck me that's expensive, anyway of getting it any cheaper". No problemo, old chap. I can get you a second-hand one for only £200. Bish-bosh, handshakes all around. Work late that night and go down to the secretarial area and swap the dud disk drive for the one out of the computer belonging to the biggest fucking cow that ever breathed air.

Saleman = happy.
me = £200 richer.
fucking cow = lost all her work, wasn't doing backups, gets the fucking sack.

That, my friends, is WIN, WIN, WIN.
( Linbox has a serious dunk habit, Fri 25 Sep 2009, 4:06, 14 replies)

Combining this week and last
My dad works in IT support. Currently doing networking stuff but at one stage a while ago his job title was Operations Support Officer.

Whenever anyone asked him what he did he'd tell them he was a bra.
(misskitty reeks of sex and turpentine; laudanum afternoons, Fri 25 Sep 2009, 3:55, 1 reply)

My mate works does a lot of IT work in the antarctic and he's told me a few stories...
Ok he's an American and i'm sure a lot of the Englsih hate the stereotypical yanks, that my uncle unashambly is. But he's a genius and has gone through a lot and works with a few guys incuding this one bloke.
So yeah he's an American, a typical Kurt Russel type of fella, dry, witty, a bit of a loner. Some would call him an alcoholic, he has a habit to spend many a night sipping spirits to ease away those cold and bleak antarctic nights, lodging away in his own hut away from the nocturnal activities of his colleagues. For years it's been like that. A calendar means nothing out there, unless you've truly seen the darkness and blinding light of the antarctic. Conversations run stale, a monotony is often developed to while away the hours and he keeps doing his job.

His job entails picking up parcels and supplies from drop points via tractor or helicopter from nearby allies in the antarctic. Although these are far and few, their closest neighbour being an Norwegian base many kilometres away.

So imagine his surprise when the Norwegians uninvitedly fired upon their base with automatic weapons from a helicopter. (A dog was also seen running from these lunatics). Bizarrely enough one of the Norwegians kills himself with his own explosives, further confusing the scientists and techies.
Unfortunately the remaining Norwegian open fire on them and managed to injure one of them in the leg. The commander of the American base managed to eliminate the threat of the Norwegian man but no answer was given as to the reason behind the dastardly attack.

His Commander, with advice from the rest of the crew decided to bandage up the mans leg and rest him until he's safe enough to support himself on crutches, in the mean time he sends a few of them to investigate the Norwegian camp. Risking bad weather and heavy winds he (being his own macho self) persuades the Doctor to come with him and find out what happened to the Norwegians.

Through the sleet and clouds he flies, and he's a shit hot helicopter pilot let me remind you, they arrive at the Norwegian base to find it in a sense of bleakness. No lights, no sign of life and a creepy whistling wind almost with a droning undertone of beating sinisterism.


So imagine his suprise when he and the doctor discover the mutilated and grotesquely deformed remains of the Norwegians, along side evidence of digging up a huge space ship type thing, aswell as the half burned 'thing' lying outside smouldering in the snow... It's face grotesque parody of a twin, one half open mouthed and snarling. Strange fur-lined tendrils reached forth from the 'things' unholy abdomen. Fur and flesh abhorently fused amongst chitinous blocks of insect exoskeletolal structure.

They took it back to base. Failing to realise that they had unleashed a deadly alien, shapeshifting parasite upon the occuptants of that lonely American base. Oh and the dog isn't actually a dog. It transforms into a clown.

Fuck i've just got confused with that clown film.

Sorry.
(mr-lizard Hell's teeth man!, Fri 25 Sep 2009, 1:00, 4 replies)

The case of the mysteriously disappearing printers
Many moons ago, when I used to do desktop support, I had one user in my office who was laziness personified. Every hour, on the hour, she'd be outside in the leper colony, sucking down nicotine for a good ten minutes or quarter-hour. At least three times a week she'd come up with a problem with her PC which would prevent her from doing anything, and since she wasn't able to do any work until her PC was fixed, she may as well step outside for yet more nicotine.

One of the problems she frequently employed suffered was that the printers would disappear from her profile and she wasn't able to add them again. Never mind that I'd knocked up a "how to connect to a networked printer" document, complete with screenshots, and given it to her ages ago, no, she still professed complete ignorance about why they kept disappearing, and how to bring them back again.

I'm rather pleased with the solution I finally came up with, but at the same time a bit embarrassed that it took me so long to think of it.

I sat at my desk and remotely edited the permissions on the relevant Registry key to be read-only so that, try as she might, she could no longer delete her printer connections and pretend that "they just vanished".

So I foiled that little ruse but she still came up with plenty of other wheezes to avoid doing any work. When the company went through a round of redundancies she was, thankfully, one of the first to go. Evidently her boss also realised she was a lazy bint.
( flake has nothing against your right leg, Fri 25 Sep 2009, 0:20, Reply)

Not support as such
and possibly mentioned before, but utterly true...

~~lines of waviness~~back to early 90s~~beige keyboards & green screens~~

Many years ago I worked for a (tempera)mental old nutter. One day he was in his office behind the clear glass partition going absolutely raving batshit about something. He would have made Alex Ferguson, mid hairdryer rant, look pale and calm. Pens and cups were flying. Expletives were flying. PC almost went flying. After a couple of minutes, which seemed like longer in rage-time, came a cry for assistance.

"Get the FUCK in here, right fucking NOW!" he shrieks. He had a way with words, mostly like Chubby Brown on a sponsored curse-a-thon.

Wondering what I or someone had screwed up, I went in.

"Tony? What the hell's going on?"

"WHERE THE CUNTING FUCK IS THE BASTARD "A" ON THIS FUCKING BASTARD KEYBOARD?"
(randomstupidname would really like this signature field to be bigge, Thu 24 Sep 2009, 23:34, 4 replies)

User hands in laptop... IT find porn. Again.
I've been working in IT at a major University for several years now... and I've pretty much seen it all.

You'd think given that our University Professors are constantly pushing the boundaries of scientific research and modern knowledge they might actually have enough common sense to operate a desktop PC. You'd be wrong.

I have been called out to fix PCs that wouldn't start up. Only to find they weren't plugged into the mains.

I've had academics in my office complaining that gaydar.com won't load (an asian chap who we later discovered had a folder in his My Documents simply called MEN)

...and I've on several occasions been called out to fix faulty USB devices that were neatly and snugly plugged into network ports.

But the most disturbing case ever was a linguistic researcher with a faulty laptop. After messing around for a while trying to remove several viruses and spyware applications we decided just to back up and reinstall the damn thing. So we tell the user and set his files copying over to the server.

Before long I notice several unusual filenames in the copy dialog box. All seemingly related to hardcore bondage, and not your run of the mill blindfolds and fluffy cuffs stuff either. We're talking abandoned warehouses, metal cages and water torture (yes, I was compelled to look).

Que user dashing into the IT workshop - umm yes we're just doing the backup - oh I.. I.. I need to get something off there can I just... *sits down at laptop frantically trying to delete asian sl*ts in wet rope torture whilst his muff manna mounts up on our mainframe*

Yes, we had a full copy. In fact, I'm pretty sure Graham, who is paler than a bleach boiled cotton ball (probably never seen a splayed fanny in his life) took some home on a USB stick.

Now our general approach is to turn a blind eye to this sort of thing. If it's not illegal it's not our problem; and frankly it's all too common to find the pixellated traces of our users squish mit sessions stored on our hardware. But I digress.. finally the time came to hand his laptop back.

Deep breath, compose myself, professional approach; I start explaining to our cunning linguist how we'd restored his files and reloaded his laptop: whilst 2 feet behind him my colleague; wrists pressed firmly together, hands frantically wagging with teeth clenched down on a set of VGA cables pulls the kind of semi-orgasmic yet contorted faces that normally only leather whips and a high powered water jet can muster.

I have to admit I struggled not to laugh; and our swedish porn fiend knew. For after that he offered to take us out for beers on several occasions and would frequently arrive in the IT workshop for a matey chat. Presumably he thought that befriending us would lessen the chance we'd blab of his salty rope based pasttimes to all of campus!? Like hell.

Only that's what we thought; as on our second night of drinking with the canny lingual-one he downed a few too many bovarian lagers and told us how he liked to sexually challenge his wife. Oh yes... therein lies a story for another week.
(empois, Thu 24 Sep 2009, 22:57, Reply)

Tech Support Bingo
TO liven up calls in tech support, we used to have a phrase that must be used in every single call at some point. One day I drew the short straw and got a really hard one. They were usually song lyrics. I had no way of working it in subtly so I just had to go for it;

Me: Right, I think what we need to do is, Justified Ancients of Mu Mu also known as the JAMMS delete the printer drivers.
Caller: Eh what?
Me: We need to delete the printer drivers
Caller: What was that about Ancient jam?
Me: Eh? I said printer drivers.
Caller: but...

One day I got a The The lyric and had to work in the phrase "she was lying on her back with her lips parted squealing like a stuck pig" which was tricky.
( I have run out of coke is a little sweaty, Thu 24 Sep 2009, 22:46, 2 replies)

Floppy disk drive
I used to work 1st line support when I was 17, for some cash while I was saving for university (to study Computer Science incidentally). This was for a large British Telecoms provider.

Two specific days come to mind.

My third day at the office, I got a call:

Muppet: "Hi, I have on of those disks to put in, and its stuck"
Me: "What sort of disk"
Muppet: "A floppy one, I have taken it out of the case and its stuck in the front of my pc"

I went through the usual stuff, pressing the eject button etc, to no avail. I ended up having to visit his workstation.

Suffice to say, he has taken the actual disk from within the floppy, and was trying to slide it in. To make matters worse, his PC didn't have a floppy drive, and he was in fact sliding the disk in between two empty drive bays.

Moron.

My second favourite was when a guy decided to put a new cover on his PC as his old one was dented. This would have been fine except for him not realizing that the power buttons didn't line up.

I would love to know how long he was sat there pressing the button before he gave up and called me.
(cronus89, Thu 24 Sep 2009, 22:22, Reply)

whoops
The first moment that springs to mind was putting together my family's new computer when I was a teenager, my parents dutifully handed it over to me, the resident computer genius - and said go to it. I was overjoyed =)

So, I unplugged everything so nothing would get shocked or messed up then opened up the old computer and the new, and out came the modem and the video card and sound card and the game card and the memory and the hard drive... all of which got transferred over to the new computer. Replacing or adding on as was appropriate.

I was proud of my technical savvy - even if it did basically add up to "pull things out of slot A and put them into slot B" =)

I even had to remove some of those metal plates they used to put in the back of things back then (instead of the screw on ones they have these days) they came off with a scary but satisfying ping that always made my teenage heart go all a flutter, but everything fit (with a little wiggling and jimmying and dancing about sucking one's fingers when necessary) and I closed back up the case afterward - and it was good.

Nice!

Then the peripherals too - disconnected the router, the scanner, the printer, the monitor, the camera, the speakers, the keyboard, the mouse, the videogame flight sim joystick for dad's flying games and the rudder pedals that went with it from them old and then hooked em all up on the new computer in the right place and to the right stuff, even taking a minute to add little quicky scotch tape labels on the cables to make it easier to deal with them "next time" around.

I was so pleased with myself I could have left marks on the ceiling.

At this point my father walked in and asked how things were going.

Containing myself to a professional level I said "Almost done!"

I was so fast and efficient, I was undoubtedly part computer myself.

I gathered all the power cords and plugged everything back into the power strip and then took the power strip plug and triumphantly plugged it into the wall.

And the printer came on!

But nothing else would.

Dad raised an eyebrow.

Ok... minor set back.

Checked each cable from all the non-working stuff and sure enough, every single one lead to the power strip... and the power strip *had* to be working cause when I plugged it in, power *was* going to the printer...

Dad leans against the door frame and watches me scrabble around on hands and knees to figure it all out.

Somehow I had a power strip with just one working port... maybe there was a fault and the printer was plugged into the first socket and from there on every other socket was broken? That would be Weird (especially since it was working a second ago) but...

I could check that... I'd just switch the printer plug with another one and if that thing worked, then I'd just have to replace the power strip (and not the whole new computer) and that wouldn't be too bad...

So I followed the printer's power cord from the printer down a merry wander around and through every other cord we had and then ... under the power strip? and ...

Wait a second.

I'd plugged plugged the printer into the wall. But... if the printer was plugged in there...where was the power strip plug then?

Oh.

Oh... no =(

Yep.

As my father looked on I had to change the plugs around - demonstrating clearly and unmistakably how I had managed to plug the power strip's power cord into itself.

It looped right around and made a nice circle.


In my defense - there were *a lot* of power cords. It could have happened to anyone.

Of course the fact that the power strip and it's plug were beige and every other power cord was black... didn't count in my favor.

When my father saw what his "genius" boy had done he laughed himself silly. He had tears in his eyes he was laughing so hard.

And then went and told my mom and my brother. Loudly. They ran over to see. He may have called the neighbors. It definitely came up in conversation the next time my girlfriend came over.

...

For the record, when I switched the plugs and plugged it in, everything came up perfect. First try.

well, first if you don't count that printer plug in...

Apologies for length, but it was a surprisingly long power cord on that printer...
( Allisade would love to hear from you, Thu 24 Sep 2009, 22:19, 3 replies)

Sticky Keys
Being a long-serving button monkey, I've got loads of stories of idiot users but I'm going to tell you about one of my boo-boos...

I got a call from someone who had spilled coffee on their computer keyboard and was now getting beeps every time that they pressed a key.
I said that they could let it dry & it might be OK... unless they had sugar in their coffee.
Of course, they did.
"Oh dear" says I "It's game over for that keyboard".
"Is there nothing I can do" they ask.
"Well..." I said "Whilst it's still wet, you could try running it under the tap to flush the coffee out and leave it somewhere warm to dry overnight".
Happy with that, they hung up & I think no more of it.

I get a phone call the following day from the same person, now saying that their computer wouldn't even boot up now.
Half-way through booking a replacement keyboard, I get the question "Should I have taken the battery out before running it under the tap?"
Yep... I had instructed a user to soak their laptop.

Needless to say, I handled the laptop replacement personally.
In the call log, I put that there had been a roof leak and that was what had caused the water damage.

Lesson learned: Get ALL the facts before recommending a course of action!
( BubaMan 3 conspiracy nuts walk into a bar... Coincidence?, Thu 24 Sep 2009, 21:07, 3 replies)

Installing a network at a small company
While me and my mate are clearly still busy a secretary says "hey, this isn't working!"
"Oh yeah," says I, "I haven't installed the chair yet. It'll work if you stand up." and she stood up.
( CowJam, Thu 24 Sep 2009, 20:05, 1 reply)

No funnies
I taught English to a group of guys from the telephone support dept. of a national energy supplier. Normally, in the first lesson of a course, I don't really plan to have much of a lesson. I usually have more of a fun general chat / get to know each other time. The first lesson with this group went something like this:

EAGER TEACHER FULL OF JOY & ENTHUSIASM: Hi, my name is Mr ComplexStuff, I'm your new English teacher. Today is our first day so I'd like to get to know you and your interests so I can plan the course to best suit you and your needs. *points to first student (who looks like he's not seen sunlight in years and is still dressed by his mother)* So, what have you been doing today?

ANEMIC LOOKING GEEK: Er... nothing.

EAGER TEACHER FULL OF JOY & ENTHUSIASM: OK, a quiet day at the office. Tell me what you did at the weekend. Did you go out?

ANEMIC LOOKING GEEK: Er... no. I just stayed at home.

TEACHER FULL OF JOY & ENTHUSIASM: Fair enough, I had a quiet weekend too. What did you do at home? Do you have any hobbies.

ANEMIC LOOKING GEEK: Er... no, not really.

TEACHER BECOMING RAPIDLY LESS FULL OF JOY & ENTHUSIASM: OK... no hobbies? You don't play any instruments? You don't belong to any sports clubs?

ANEMIC LOOKING GEEK: Er... no.

TEACHER TRYING TO MAINTAIN FACADE OF JOY & ENTHUSIASM: Do you play games online, perhaps? Do you like watching DVDs?

ANEMIC LOOKING GEEK: Ermmm... no.

TEACHER FAILING TO MAINTAIN FACADE OF JOY & ENTHUSIASM: So, what DO you do when you're not working?

ANEMIC LOOKING GEEK: Nothing much. I sleep.

TEACHER MAKING MENTAL NOTE NOT TO ASK THE ANEMIC ONE ANY MORE QUESTIONS ABOUT SOCIAL ACTIVITIES: OK, we'll come back to you. *points to next student whilst trying to regain excited tone* What can you tell me about your job?

FAT GUY WITH LITTLE BEADS OF SWEAT ON HIS FOREHEAD, GREASY HAIR AND A SEE-THROUGH MOUSTACHE: Ermm... not much...

*pregnant pause as teacher dies a little inside*




Seriously, the whole group of 8 adults (aged 18-30) took all of about 3 minutes to go through their entire social lives, interests, hobbies, jobs and career goals. they did NOTHING. A more unimaginative, uninspiring, insipid human beings I have never met.

If that group were a colour, it would be beige.
(ComplexStuff Was confused by life on, Thu 24 Sep 2009, 19:56, 4 replies)

The wrong cartridge
We had an ink-jet fax machine in the office and one day its cartridge ran dry. Our helpdesk guy headed into the stationery cupboard and emerged after a few moments with a brand new cartridge in his hand, then spent a few minutes trying to install it without success. When he finally admitted defeat he looked at the cartridge and noticed that it was emblazoned with the brand name “Brother”, whereas the fax was manufactured by Ricoh, so the two were clearly incompatible.

Now, what would a normal person do at this point? Surely the sensible thing would be to put the Brother cartridge back into the cupboard and find a Ricoh cartridge instead. The IT guy however decided to spend several minutes looking at the old and new cartridges side by side from various angles in order to try to spot where they were different. After a while he saw that the only difference was a small plastic lump on the top of the Brother cartridge, which he proudly pointed out to all of us. Then, as an idea clearly dawned on him, he dashed out of the office and returned with an angle grinder which, for some reason, he kept in his car. Surely he wouldn’t, we thought.

He disappeared into the kitchen and after an initial whirr from the grinder we heard his scream, then he ran into the office covered in ink, the wildly squirting cartridge still in his hands, crying “MAKE IT STOP!” as he ran towards our pristine white shirts and suits.
(nasalhair The Twix guy!, Thu 24 Sep 2009, 19:41, 8 replies)

Dedicated vs. General
As the administrator of a mixed radiology PACS system, I was responsible for more and better technology than the hospitals general IT support staff -- and they hated it. While they were stuck working on Windows '95 machines with floppy drives and 15" CRT's, I had huge, high-resolution multi-lcd systems with blazing multi-processor workstations on a gigabit-by-copper subnet. I also had a rack full of servers in 'their' server room, with a couple Terabytes of spinning storage.

Of course, I was serving up 10Mb x-rays & 500Mb CAT-scans to Radiologists making $5.00 per minute, who needed the data to make life-or-death decisions.

The radiologists and other imaging staff had my cell phone, and were admittedly spoiled -- I usually responded in person in less than 5 minutes to any issue, and could solve most problems immediately over the phone. Such service didn't come cheap, though -- I was paid more than the director of IT.

During a budget crunch, said IT director sold administration on his plan to take over my responsiblities, thus eliminating my position.

Cue me being let go, and Radiology descending into the hell known as general IT support. Not only didn't the IT guys know my systems hardware, they had no idea how dodgy and custom the software was, and the hand-holding Radiologists required.

About 6 months later, I ran into one of the radiologists and he told me this tale: His system froze up, with only 1 monitor (of 4) working, and it was sideways. He re-booted to no avail, then called IT. After being put on hold for a couple minutes, he was run through the standard gauntlet of re-booting (again), etc. Then he was told that they'd dispatch a tech.

Disgusted, pissed, and already out 30 minutes (at $5.00/ minute), he headed off to the doctor's break room to get a bagel and coffee. On the way there he saw the IT tech, and watched him go into a secretaries office. Poking his head in, he interrupted the tech to inquire about his issue. The tech told him "Yes, Dr. -- I've got your call here. After I fix Miss's printer issue, I've got to check the fax in accounting. Then I'll be right down."

The entire radiologist group quit the hospital the next month, however the new group the hospital hired was cheaper, so I guess result for the hospital.
(danalan Pretty good, for an amateur., Thu 24 Sep 2009, 19:36, Reply)

Back compatibility?
...don't I wish.

Anyway, the year, my reader, is 1989. Or so -- I was stoned a lot then. See, I worked as a student assistant in a computer lab at a local community college whilst I was getting my own degree (in English, which I never got.)

Why was an English major working in the computer lab? Because my best friend was also my boss was also my dope dealer was also my roommate.

Two stories come to mind:

1) We had a mainframe computer on which the serious computer geeks learned to program in COBOL and FORTRAN and all those other archaic languages. It had been donated by a company that shall remain nameless but whose initials are IBM, and was 'experimental'.

Read, it was a piece of shit. One day, it just decided to stop compiling programs. No one could figure out why; computer technicians, my boss, and everyone from the guy who taught welding to my boss's girlfriend were beating on terminals, peering into the guts of this monstrosity, and otherwise trying to figure out what the hell was going on.

Nothing worked. The next morning, my boss walked in in a suit jacket. (This rarely, if ever, happened.) I figured out why when he pulled his 9mm pistol out from his waistband, set it on the main terminal, and said, "All right, fucker, compile."

And it did.

2) One of our students came in, an older gentleman who was going back to school. He was gray-faced, shaking, almost crying, and clutching a manila envelope. He went in my boss's office, and about twenty minutes passed. He then came back out and, wobbly-kneed, left the lab. Five minutes passed, then my boss came out, with a look that seemed to waver between hysterical laughter and tears -- and showed me what was in the envelope.

See, the guy had just upgraded from a computer with a 5.25" disk drive to a computer with a 3.5" disk drive.

And his wife had decided to be helpful.

And trimmed nine hundred dollars worth of software down to the new size.

With a pair of pinking shears.

I hold this example up as a definition of 'justifiable homicide'.
(springjack The King Of Pygmy Marmosets!, Thu 24 Sep 2009, 19:24, 4 replies)

I have a cousin
He lives at home with his rather odd family and has some rather odd habits including not shaving, having rather long hair and being a bit odd as he speaks in a rather high pitched accent.

He recently broke his leg.
(mr-lizard Hell's teeth man!, Thu 24 Sep 2009, 19:24, 14 replies)

The FD pissed himself laughing......
I worked for a smallish company running their ERP system. I was on a managers grade and so felt quite happy dealing with middle management buffoons and batting my own corner.

One fine morning we get quite a few calls saying that folks have:

1) Been kicked off the ERP system
2) Can't access anything on the network
3) Can't print

Well what d'ya know, they're right, and furthermore I can't access anything either. There must be trouble in the computer room. Quick.. to the batmobile...

I walk briskly down to the computer room at the far end of the building, along the major office corridor and am lambasted by a horrible bitch of a product manager, complaining that she can't print an important document. She was one of those who always had an urgent problem and would never let it go.

Just for the record, I can't access some major business critical servers and no fucker on the network can print least of all her. I gave her a polite brush-off explaining that I don't know what the trouble is and I'm just off to have a look. Placated... for now.

I enter the combination for the computer room and open the door and was astounded to see water trickling THROUGH the network cabinet and ALONG the network and power cables. Everything was still powered up but it was slowly getting fucking soaked!!!

Ah well thinks I, at least I know what's wrong.

I didn't wanna touch it while switched on, and in any case needed to get the rest of the department to drop everything and HEEEEEEEELLLLLLP!!!!!!!!!!

I calmly exit the computer room, deftly batting away the mocking comments from the jokers in the office like : 'hurr hurr, he's bust it...' and wander back along the corridor to raise the alarm and get every geek in the building mobilised to help.

Then the self important cow pounced. She had chosen precisely the wrong moment to give me a telling off for our previous exchange (literally 60 secs earlier) and tell me that she still couldn't print, it was very urgent and what was I going to do about it? (Her office was opposite the FD's - smashing bloke, very chilled)

'I'm sorry but you have two choices: I can stand here and waste my time talking to you or I can go and fix the major server problem in the computer room. It's up to you....'

I was so annoyed I just glared at her waiting for a response.... She was agog... Absolutely flabbergasted... The spell was broken when the FD who had witnessed her reaction started guffawing loudly.

I turned on my heels and sorted that shit out.... She never bothered me again.

Length? Probably a 17 hour shift.
( TheFinch is getting to grips with the complex plane on, Thu 24 Sep 2009, 18:25, 1 reply)

Way back, when I was a sprightly 20 year old
I worked at Comet. I'd initially applied to work in the computer department, but being the sexist place it is and even though I was better qualified than the moron they did employ, I was given a job in admin instead.
Said moron used to come to me if there were any customer issues with their brand new '486 machines (yup, that long ago) and ask me to deal with it.

Got a call one day from a customer who was trying to install Windows '95.......

Me: "How can I help you, sir?"
Cust: "I'm trying to load Windows but it's not loading"
Me: "Ok sir, let me go over the instructions with you"
Cust: "Ok"
Me: "Now, I assume you've put the CD in the CD drive?"
Cust: "Yes"
Me: "Blah blah wibble, right, is it loading now?"
Cust: "Yes"
Me: "Ok, you do realize it's going to take about an hour to load, so why don't you call me back in an hour"

15 minutes later........

Cust: "Yeah, hello, it's me again"
Me: "Hello sir, what can I help you with?"
Cust: "I still don't have Windows on my computer"
Me: "Well sir, you have to wait for the program to finish loading"
Cust: "I don't want to wait that long, so I took the CD out, so why isn't it loaded yet?"
Me: "........."
( Batshitmentalist is sane for once, Thu 24 Sep 2009, 18:20, Reply)

Prolly bindun.....
But in my experience, IT Support consists of "turn it off, turn it on"

aka, a three-pin reset.
( Sallyrsm, Thu 24 Sep 2009, 18:14, 3 replies)

Parents + computers = headbutt desk repeatedly until the sweet grip of unconsciousness takes you
My Dad is one of the most intelligent people I know. He's a pretty decent mechanic, he explained to me how an internal combustion engine, in painful detail, set up a rather successful business and is generally considered to be a pillar of the community.

Computers are definitely his weak spot.

For a while I was getting quite angry at tales of the "freelance IT consultant" who was sorting out the company IT and, eventually, building and installing a computer in his home. The guy was clearly screwing them over. I think the home PC (which was about the same spec as the cheapest Dell you can buy) with a tiny, crappy monitor and a dodgy copy of Windows was about £700.

Anyway, the home computer kept breaking or developing faults (probably porn-related viruses - I didn't want details) so eventually the guy asks them to bring the computer to him as he can't diagnose the problem remotely.

My Dad - along with his other half, who I thought was fairly bright - unplugged and picked up the monitor, leaving everything else behind ...

I get the feeling the bloke earned his money somehow!
(Penguins_Made_Me_Do_It is a dolt ... and she don't care, Thu 24 Sep 2009, 17:57, 1 reply)

Standard IT Support Answer
if it doesn't work - just switch it off and back on again - usually worded as "Power it down and back up again" by the more pretentious
(Zuffle farts silently in lifts then leaves the warm aroma, Thu 24 Sep 2009, 17:55, 5 replies)

Just one off the top of my head
Before becoming a flash bastard and breaking into design, I used to do IT support. One of the most memorable support calls was from one of the women in accounts:

Bird: Is there a problem with the network?
Me: I don't think so, why?
Bird: My keyboard isn't working!

Yes love, because we plug keyboards into the server. Turns out she'd kicked the mouse plug out the back of the PC...
(Ghostlight, Thu 24 Sep 2009, 17:25, 2 replies)

One thing I will never ever live down where I used to work ..
.. was when a client had troubles playing sound on her laptop. As the office she worked in was in the business park next to ours, I walked over there and had a look myself. Now, the laptop had a world of problems with it beforehand, so I was ready for the worst.

I go over there and have a look. Audio settings, look okay. Drivers working, check. Headphones don't work neither, can't be speakers then. Sound isn't muted. I re-install the drivers with the latest version, nothing. What the hell is going on?

After 45mins worth of diagnosing, I decided it was probably a hardware issue of sorts, backed up all of the client's files, sorted out a loan laptop and got the laptop shipped off to Boshtiba for repairs.

A week passes and we get the laptop back! Blimey, that was quick!

I opened the lid and had a read at the repair notes. I see nothing on the list. Oh, wait, somebody has angrily wirrten in the notes:

"Turned volume wheel up on the front, works now"

... "Ohhhhh fucky fuckstockings!"

My ex-boss and collegues just pissed themselves laughing at me for a good 10 minutes before concluding:

"You utter twat"

Cheers!
(MrNorm, Thu 24 Sep 2009, 17:22, 2 replies)

Users , eh?
I was IT support for way too long and I learned several key lessons which I have taken with me into later life:

1) It is genuinely amazing just how often 'switching off and on' is actually the solution.
2) Users have never pressed anything.
3) It was always fine last time they used it.
4) Floppy disks don't work when users wrap the label over the shutter.
5) IT support are the scum of the earth, the lowest caste of humanity and should be talked to as such.
6) All men are programmed to look at pr0n on computers.
7) Drinking Lucozade near a keyboard from a plastic cup will stick the keys together!!
8) Dropping a bowling ball on an IBM laptop will leave a perfectly round dent that is almost imperceptible to the user.
9) It is not 'an' internet.
10) It generally does not make IT support easier by deliberately causing network problems...which is principally why we don't do it on purpose, you muppets.
11) Be shitty to support=get slow service. Wear a low cut top=prompt service.
12) We will read your emails and monitor your web usage.
13) Swapping from a 16mbit token ring network with Netware 4.11 and Windows 98 workstations to a 100mbit ethernet Win2K network running Win2K workstation will not make things better, I don't care what anyone says.
14) 80% of users have the following password: password
15) The others use the name of the pet in the photo stuck to their monitor.

Sorry for lack of funnies but I was in IT support and consequently am a dull shite.
( number5 has been fighting tramps and losing., Thu 24 Sep 2009, 17:12, 5 replies)

Back in the days when I did mundane technical support over the phone..
.. I came across a particular moron who had a faulty network port on his motherboard. Being out of warranty and not wanting to overcomplicate things with a PCI card, the client decided to go and buy a USB network adapter.. "No harm in that" says I.

Of course, being a moron, he had no idea what to do when Windows asked him for the driver CD.

Moron: "Okay, a box has come up .. If you have a CD , insert it now"
MrNorm: "Okay, not a problem. Do you have the CD that came with the adapter?"
Moron: "Yep, a little one. I'm just putting it in now.. It's a bit of a loose fit"
MrNorm: "?! .. Okay. If we wait a few seconds, Windows should start installing the drivers"
(Few seconds later)
Moron: "Nope, nothing"
MrNorm: "Er, alright then, could you go to My Computer, right click on the CD drive and click 'Eject'"
(Moron clicks and the tray pops out)
MrNorm: "Moron, you see the tray that's just opened on your computer?"
Moron: "Ah yes, it's just opened"
MrNorm: "Did you put the CD in there?"
Moron: "No, the one below it"
MrNorm: ".. So, the floppy drive then?"
Moron: "Oh .. Yes. Does it not go there then?"
MrNorm: "Not since the 90s, no."

I had to wait for 15 mins while our contender for "Spanner of the year 2008" went off looking for two cutlery knives in the kitchen to fish it out. Of course, using something that is generally used to cut things to fish something out .. When he finally got it, he had scratched the CD so much that the computer couldn't read it anymore.

He ended up going to buy a new adapter, as it was one of those SinkyPlinky ones you can never find drivers for online. I quit not long after that.

Cheers!
(MrNorm, Thu 24 Sep 2009, 17:07, 2 replies)

Direct action
You may find that alot of IT support calls are frustrating because people just don't try, whether its power cycling a device that doesn't work before you pick up the phone, or simply looking at the 'out of ink' light busily winking away at you from the printer perched on the edge of your desk. Here is the opposite.
A company director with a unit at home for out of hours work (playing FIFA and downloading songs) wanted to upgrade his graphics card for better.... spreadsheet and pie chart viewing with his sons. We talk this over with him and agree that he can do this from his own pocket, so he does. He buys a nice card, brings it home and sets about upgrading the box himself. Now PC cases have changed over the years, from the impossible to open with hidden screws and levers, to the 'I scooped it of the desk and it fell open'. Dell are particularly good the latter and for anyone spending a few minutes around one of their PCs and is remotely inquisitive the thing will fall open like a much loved jazz mag at the centerfold.
However (and you knew there was a however, right?) when you expect a PC to open with a screwdriver, and you spend a good few minutes circling said PC, prodding, poking, swearing, brandishing, this then leads into Jabbing, Stabbing, Levering, WEDGEing, BENDing and eventually snapping random pieces of plastic casing off with a bent screwdriver whilst spittle flies and the kids depart the house least they be blamed. Maybe, just maybe this is the time to stop, and give your support guys a call. The sheepish call the next day was a delight. The evidence (sadly binned now or there would be a picture) carried into work under a cover was priceless. The culprit can take a joke very well, and dishes out twice as many as he gets under usual circumstances. However this time, faced with stiffled mirth and altogether too much 'coughing' we were informed to "Just facking fix it!" and off he trompted.
(Szetak fears the wurst! (Saus-o-phobe), Thu 24 Sep 2009, 17:06, Reply)