Used to offer a "No Questions Asked"
pooter fixing service a few years ago. Many a sheepish bloke would arrive with a broken laptop or desktop, too scared to let the missis know about it, and be utterly mortified when the door was answered by a woman (me, that would be) who would say, "Hiya - alright ? Let's see what the trouble is then." It was invariably some porn related virus / malware / fuck up. As long as said activity didn't involve kids, I cared not a jot. Embarrassed the hell out of most of them tho. Mwahaha.

Worst IT newbie stupidity came from my dad tho.
Bought himself a pc. Managed to plug it all in correctly. He's on the phone to me as I go through the Windows 95 set up with him. I couldn't figure why all my instructions seemed to be gibberish to him, and why the messages on his screen were absolutely not what I expect to hear during the setup. We were getting no where fast. As I was a hundred miles or so away popping round to see what was up wasn't going to be possible.
"You're definitely using the left mouse button when I say "Click", right ?" I ask.
"Yup," says he.
After a moments head scratching I figure it - being a total newbie to computers, and having never actually even seen one up close before now, he has taken the mouse idea literally, and has it upside down with the cable pointing out of the bottom like a tail. Thus left button equalled right button.

I've never let him forget it.
(womanwhocanonlylivewithdogs, Thu 24 Sep 2009, 15:17, 1 reply)

A familiar tale...
...and one I know well.

I've had several instances with the 'upside down mouse' problem. Sufficient, in fact, to log it in the Knowledge Base DB.

That idea for a 'no questions' service is a cracker... I may borrow that one day.
(EffinDoubt is breaking glass on, Tue 29 Sep 2009, 12:49, closed)