Dumb Polish punter
I don't think that he was dumb because he was Polish, but he WAS dumb. I was answering a call at our other site, a good 20 minute walk away. I was going there because i'd received this call. "Hello, my mouse is the wrong way round, can you fix it". Now, rather than try and talk the punter through the hideous complexities of changing the right and left click order of his mouse in the control panel i thought i'd go and do it for him. I arrived and began to fix the problem, but was dismayed to see that the left and right clicks were in their normal place. I asked the punter about this and he said.."Oh no, the clicks are fine...but look the mouse is on the wrong side.". The mouse was on the left hand side of his keyboard and he wanted it on the right. I picked it up and put it on the other side. He said "Thank You". I stared dumbfounded. He was using a laptop too. What kind of pillock do you have to be to call IT to move your mouse from one side of your laptop to the other? I left the helpdesk that week and have never been back.
(inactionman, Fri 22 Sep 2006, 17:19, Reply)

Very nearly on topic
On Tuesday evening, on my way home from work (2nd day back after hols) I was half asleep but noticed the car was almost out of fuel. Dutifully went to Tesco and filled up for the 30 mile journey home.

I think you know what's coming. Filled the tank with £40 worth of bleedin' un-leaded instead of bleedin' diesel. I'd got over ten miles down the road before I realised why the engine was spluttering.

I left the office at 5pm and finally got home at 10.50pm having waited an hour for the AA, been towed back to York, missed last bus home, got train, change at bleedin' Doncaster with 40 wait etc. etc.

If you haven't been patronised recently and miss it, try facing a garage load of mechanics after doing a darn-fool thing like that. It's not the £150 for emptying the tank that hurts as much as knowing a tank full of fuel has been poured down the drain and I need to fill up AGAIN.

Grrrr
(Che Grimsdale Best before:, Fri 22 Sep 2006, 17:17, Reply)

My grandpa
My grandpa refers to his housemate's monitor as 'the television'. Bless.
(Pachey, Fri 22 Sep 2006, 17:16, Reply)

NHS
I work in the NHS and the amount of idiot fat women of a certain age who work there who have no bastard idea about computers is staggering. One lady had to be taught how to use a mouse (now you've got to double click...no, it's got to faster than that..no faster than that..)
And another lady wanted to know how to make her browser screen go bigger, so i told her to press f11
A period of silence is broken by 'i can't find the 11 key'
What the fuck thinks i. I wander over and she's holding down f and looking hard for the 11 key
'do i press 1 twice for 11?'
sigh
and the government wants all medical records to be kept electronically now.
i would hate to be in IT in the NHS
(Man Worm, Fri 22 Sep 2006, 17:07, Reply)

I must admit

the first time I had cyber sex it took 3 firemen to free my nob from the disc drive.
(Lt Columbo, Fri 22 Sep 2006, 17:04, Reply)

Not even that old...
I colleague of mine was having PC problems and asked for my help. I went and stood behind her and pointed to the screen, saying "Go to My Computer".

Just then she got up and walked away. I was confused for a few moments until I realised she was standing by my laptop, happily awaiting my next instruction.
(Stoopid_Faaka, Fri 22 Sep 2006, 16:59, Reply)

Tried to show Mrs Waxdart how to play doom once.
To look left and right she would turn the mouse - left and right, just as if it had little eyes that needed to be shown around the room. How cute!

Also on any game she ducks to get out of the way of bullets and things like that.
(waxdart hello., Fri 22 Sep 2006, 16:54, Reply)

A sticky end
My mum was having problems with her PC, so I went round to sort it out for her. The problem was immediately obvious: she had been pushing slices of jammy toast into the floppy disk slot for months, filling the machine with bread. I told her that this was bad and she promised to stop it.

The following week, she was opening the CD drawer and placing a freshly fried egg inside. Old people, eh?!
(frankspencer, Fri 22 Sep 2006, 16:52, Reply)

Giant Cursor
I used to get a daily phonecall from a director who complained bitterly about the fact he could hardly see the default cursor.
Each time I went to see him I made it slightly larger until after about two weeks of him moaning, I finally snapped and installed the biggest cursor I could find. His final remark was 'Its a little big isn't it!'

I didn't receive a single call after that :)
(a5972s, Fri 22 Sep 2006, 16:50, Reply)

Start Button
I remember when I got my first computer, me and my dad switched it on and tried to work out how to use it with windows help files.
We kept being directed to the start button, which we couldn't find. After a discussion with my aunt who worked in an office she said it was faulty and needed to be taken back to Trade and exchange centre where we bought it from.
The guy took one look and used the scroll on the monitor to make the start button visable.

Just shows its not just oldies that have problems with technology.
(purplefairy, Fri 22 Sep 2006, 16:45, Reply)

My Grandad

He's shit with computers
(Lt Columbo, Fri 22 Sep 2006, 16:43, Reply)

nan vs the computer
my nan had just got a computer and she was on microsoft word and she
wanted to know what was wrong because one of her words had been
underlined in red so i told her it was a spelling mistake and
to RIGHT CLICK to see how the word should be spelt.

next thing she shouted its not working. so i went over to see what
was wrong and pissed myself laughing

she'd wrote CLICK in the middle of the page.

aww bless her
(i eat crayons, Fri 22 Sep 2006, 16:38, Reply)

To save time later...
Let me present the Snopes collection of computer urban myths.

Instead of the usual girth gag, I'd like to see a QotW about the scariest people you know.
( calgacus Non sum qualis eram bonae sub regno Cynarae, Fri 22 Sep 2006, 16:37, Reply)

Teedyay
"RUBBISH IN, RUBBISH OUT"

I say this to lUsers a lot.
( Actually i was skiving on, Fri 22 Sep 2006, 16:36, Reply)

Seeing as we have some old stories here..
.. let me just dive in with an older one (not mine, obviously):

"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question."
-- Charles Babbage (1791-1871)
( teedyay, Fri 22 Sep 2006, 16:31, Reply)

I Feel Like.....
Cassandra. Tells the truth but doomed for people not to believe me...For the record, all of my tales are essentially true but may be a wee bit exaggerated for comedic effect. Except the ones that are obvious jokes.

And Denty? My drinking, fighting pulling partner of yesteryear? He's the head of the maths department at a public school. Not seen him in donkeys...

OBTale

As a techy I've had to deal with the problems that have since become Urban Legends. The woman who photocopied her floppy disks when asked to make a copy. A guy who managed to jam *3* 5 1/4 inch floppies into his drive at the same time, the exec who was trying to fax a document by holding it to the screen and hitting the fax button in Word. Yup - I've had those and many, many more. The next tale happened at my last place of work.

I was working on 2nd/3rd line in a service desk and every once in a while the firstliners would put a call through to me that they couldn't deal with or if they didn't know which team it was supposed to go to. So one day a call was put through to me from the Headmistress of a local school.

"Hi - you're speaking to legless, what seems to be the problem" I said

"It's the children’s computers" this incredibly posh voice bleated "They're riddled with pornography and it keeps popping up all over the screen"

"OK - exactly what kind of pornography?" I asked

"COCKS!!! BIG BLACK COCKS!!!" screamed the head excitedly.

I corpsed. Hit the mute button and wet myself...

BTW - might have told this one before. Your memory starts to go when you reach my age.....

Cheers
( Legless Mister Stabby - shanks for the memory, Fri 22 Sep 2006, 16:31, Reply)

Granddad and the Internet
My granddad was thrilled about getting a PC. He soon picked up how it worked and within weeks he was surfing like he was in Hawaii.

Unfortunately, his hard drive was confiscated by police after his browser tended to alight rather too frequently on sites such as "Lolita Love Buns", "Boy Ass", "Prime Kindergarten Poon" and "Barely Pubescent".

He's in prison now. So much for progress!
(frankspencer, Fri 22 Sep 2006, 16:20, Reply)

I have lots of these as I'm a business systems, erm, bloke.
Newly employed older bloke in the office: "Hey, Actually, could you see what I've done wrong here, I'm using the test system to try out deleting (insert complicated bus. sys stuff here) and it's not showing up?" One glance at his screen - "erm, you've done it in the LIVE system". Consequence: 120 users get to twiddle their thumbs for half an hour while young'uns (me) take charge and fix it. This has happened several times now. I really want to stop him using the live system, but then we would have to to his entire job for him.


Vaguely unrelated . . .

In the pub as soon as people hear that you do IT, they start asking about their PC problems.

I always avoid a tedious conversation by saying "Unfortunately, if your computer's any smaller than this ... " (indicates the size of 10 filing cabinets / the moon) " ... I won't really have much idea." It's almost true.
( Actually i was skiving on, Fri 22 Sep 2006, 16:18, Reply)

Oldies Vs IT helpdesk...
I work on the IT Help Desk for a large university and with it being freshers week at the moment we are frustratingly busy answering the same bloody questions from the new students who haven't read the instructions we've given them. So you can imagine I was quite surprised to get a call from a fairly old gentleman who starts his conversation with something along the lines of...

Him "Hello I'm ringing about my elderly father, he's 95 and at first he had planned to be buried, then he decided that he wanted to be cremated..."

Me (alarmed) "Do you realise you've called the IT Help Desk at Blah University?"

Him "Yes."

Me "Um... Ok... How can we help?"

Him "Well, he wants to change his will to donate his body to the University Medical School and I was wondering if there are any health restrictions on this..."

Phew! My mental image had been of him standing next to a dead body contemplating whether to bury, burn or (Psycho style) wear his old pops wrinkled cadaver. I gave him the medical school number and bade him farewell.

It was my favourite call of the day, although I'm still not sure why he rang an IT support number...

(Length one. Relevancy nil.)
( e.m.m.y. foxtrot uniform charlie kilo india tango, Fri 22 Sep 2006, 16:17, Reply)

I liked the vote for president before censorship took over
I bought my gran a pc and said b3ta doesn't censor things and is funny.

she looked, and laughed, and became aroused by Rob. Then, after seeing frankspencers remark about censorship she looked back at the answers and saw they'd changed.

she called me and complained. I said b3ta would never censor things; they are open to all!

i won't check back the answers (I have a life when I leave the office), but cannot believe b3ta would censor or suppress a comment, esp if they'll (thankfully) provide a showcase for steve irwin and richard hammond pics.

god bless the uncensored and free speech of b3ta, that's what i say.
( disasterprone "Pyjamas caused the Holocaust", Fri 22 Sep 2006, 16:05, Reply)

Versus my arse
Bill gates is coming up 52 (not a geek, just googled his DOB) that's old in my book and he's the fekkin daddy of all things computrified.

As for this wankstained question....

"My grandad fought in both world wars. He was awarded the victoria cross for bravery and single handedly took down a batallion of nazi tanks. When he was little, kids entertained themselves by hitting eachother with sticks. He was 45 before he owned a telly. But why the dopey old cnut can't configure the settings to get optimal performance from his wireless broadband router and integrate his new powerbook with his home network I just don't know - stupid bustad!!
My grandmother was a classical pianist and played around the world for royals and dignitaries, but the dosy ol biatch cant even work the megamix digi-dj application she ripped off kazaa last week.

I really enjoyed QOTW until now.
(Greencloud Wanted to go fishing on, Fri 22 Sep 2006, 16:03, Reply)

my brother...
another one who reckons he knows a lot about computers.

came home from work one day saying he got a new computer.

me: why's that?
him: the old one exploded
me: any idea why?
him: the fan was making loads of noise so I stuck a paper clip in the back

after a bit of gentle probing (arf) it was revealed that it was power supply that he stuck the paper clip in.....
( Vipros. clever got me this far, then tricky got me in, Fri 22 Sep 2006, 16:02, Reply)

I'm an IT Tutor. I used to work in a
community learning centre, where any old jobsworth could walk in and do a course. Mainly they were pensioners who were fed up of their 4 year old grandson showing them how to do things.

Tales that stick in the mind:

* The old boy who came in and sat in front of a workstation that had a monitor, but demonstrably no keyboard, mouse or tower, and then complained that it didn't work.

* The elderly lady who, when asked to print three copies, completely failed to delete the 1 from the Number of Copies box, and thus printed 31 copies of a 6 page document.

* Another elderly lady who turned to me, held up a small, two buttoned pointing device, and let forth the immortal cry, "Nick, me mole's not working."

Gawd blessem, every one.
( sunny_jimbob, Fri 22 Sep 2006, 15:58, Reply)

Being the resident geek in our house
I get called on to deal with any problems anyone, usually my mum, is having with their computer. The first time she used Word and typed the words "Dear whoever", Mr Clippy appeared on the screen as he does.
"Maladicta!"
"What is it?"
"There's a pervy-looking paperclip on the screen! Is it one of those viruses and how do I make it go away? It's leering at me!"

She also thought for a time that if you type www.bbc.co.uk into the To field of an email, it would email the BBC. Bless.
( Maladicta, Fri 22 Sep 2006, 15:51, Reply)

I shattered both my wrists 2 months ago,
and have 4 inch scars down each wrist following the operations and pinning.

I couldn't use a pc for 2 weeks; still, at least I didn't order my gran a DH0010000100000111001 component when really she wanted a DH00100001001001110011! Phew!
( disasterprone "Pyjamas caused the Holocaust", Fri 22 Sep 2006, 15:50, Reply)

hospital computer
Hospital ward computers often aren't computers at all, they're just monitors and keyboards attached to something somewhere somehow.(what I think the technological fraternity may refer to as 'dumb terminals'? Or was that, like, about 5000 years ago?)

As most people know, nurses cannot exist without tea and coffee, and due to clumsines/tiredness/rushing about it often gets spilt, often onto the keyboards. A pain.

What you might not know is that bedside oxygen supplies and those suction tubes that you use to suck up people's dribble are spot on for cleaning all the coffee out of the gaps.

(and then we turned it upside down to dry out on the radiator *ahem*)
(clapper, Fri 22 Sep 2006, 15:50, Reply)

Paintbrushes bad
My step dad had one day decided that the fan on our very old desktop was too loud and that the dust needed to be removed.

He went to the kitchen and got a paintbrush and proceeded to wipe the dust off the motherboard and everywhere else. Not realising that it would completely fry the entire computer.

That I could understand, but doing it again a week later to the stereo was just a frickin joke.
(kitnel it's probaby infectious, Fri 22 Sep 2006, 15:49, Reply)