When we were switching from NT to XP...
...we had a couple of test machines set up with XP.
(Our changeover was a bit tricky because we use Oracle tools on our desktops.)

I saw my boss - who has worked in IT for 25 years - standing next to them looking puzzled so I asked him if there was a problem.
He told me he was trying to switch on one of the machines, but it didn't work.

I checked the mains socket. All working.
I checked the cables at the back. All present and correct.
I checked that the monitor was connected and on. All fine.

I asked him to try again to switch it on.

At this point I discovered what the problem was.

He was pushing the floppy eject button.

*He asked me not to tell anybody. I told him he must be fucking joking!
( finnbar has officially retired, Fri 22 Sep 2006, 22:57, Reply)

Where do I start...
A couple from my own experiences:

A colleague who 'swiped' a USB memory stick across the back of his PC in order for the machine to detect it...

A friends mum who back in the day challenged us to a Super Mario Kart competition and as well as pressing the right directional button, threw her arms right and smacked her unfortunate son in the chops...

I could go on!
(Fatty Thornton, Fri 22 Sep 2006, 22:03, Reply)

Was cautious about posting this
since half of you seem to think the stories on this QOTW are (a) made up and (b) just shit. But anyway...

My mother bought herself an iPod recently. She knew better than to try to do anything with it without consulting me (she tends to panic around the point when she has to take something out of its packaging for the first time), so she called me. I talked her through getting everything connected and charging it up for the first time. All went well. I said it would probably need about four hours to charge completely the first time.

Six hours later, she rings back. "It's only charged about a third of it!" she complains.

Puzzled, I ask her if she's sure. "Yes!" she says.

Worrying she might have bought a dodgy model, I ask her to describe exactly what she can see on the battery indicator. "It's only dark green on the bottom third," she says.

"Mum, is it green all the way across, from left to right?" I ask.

"Yes."

"Then it's all right. Your battery is completely charged. You read it left to right, not top to bottom."

I put the phone down and had a good laugh telling this story to my cleaning lady, who then revealed she had made exactly the same mistake when she first got her iPod.

Hmm, yes, actually you're right, it is just shit.
( Sonic the Hedgetrimmer doesn't care what you think, Fri 22 Sep 2006, 21:53, Reply)

not quite a computer but..
Picture my old dad, ten years ago. Sitting in his throne, remote on the arm of the chair as controls the remote he prods his finger harder as he gets more pissed of the it isnt working. "Dad thats our trishas calculator". I said.
(freddred, Fri 22 Sep 2006, 21:36, Reply)

The complexities of inkjet printers...
...whilst not a particularly complex subject did seem to be a bit lost on my dad.

My parent's old printer had finally given up the ghost and I bought them a new one and went round to install it for them.

Everything installed just fine and to test the machine, I did a full colour print onto 6x4 photo paper which came out looking very nice indeed - just like a real photo in fact.

Showed mum the print and she was suitably impressed.

Showed the print to dad, who asked where I'd got the photograph from. I explained that I'd printed it out just then on his new printer.

Cue baffled look and his response: "What, that's come out of our new printer? But it's only got red, white and blue ink."

Bless!!
( JugglerJAF It's curtains for you.Lacy gently wafting curtains, Fri 22 Sep 2006, 21:27, Reply)

When we found 6 ancient Toshy Satellite laptops in a skip
we felt we could spare one for my old dear, who was in her 70s and quite fancied trying that internet thingy.

We set her up with a spare modem and a name on one of our accounts and waited for it to blow over in a week or so.

Not a chance: she and her two pensioner brothers are all now on broadband on their posh laptops, sending email and photos to their respective families all over the world.

Silver surfers rule!
(Juan Quar is clinging to her front teeth on, Fri 22 Sep 2006, 21:18, Reply)

Pfffft! Syspro for dummies!
Oh no... Where do I start?

Loopy numerous sandwiches short of a picnic invoice person decides to select PRINT ALL invoices (each invoice is a a4 page, bear that in mind).
We have in the region of about 9 months worth of invoices stored, round figure is about 25 thousand.

I got alarm bells ringing when print server goes on a go slow, and when I check, theres somewhere in the region of about 900Mb of print jobs to do with this print job that the silly bint had decided to knock out.
SHIT! Kill server - KILL KILL KILL services, emergency fucking escape eject!
Takes me a while to delete all the spooled files and restart the server, whilst lots of people are screaming.

When I showed her the logs, her excuse?

"The computer did it all by itself."

Yes, Annette, but the logs here show that you pressed the wrong buttons.

"I DID NOT!! I KNOW HOW TO WORK A COMPUTER!"

She then proceeds to fuck a telephone off the desk.
Excuse? The curly lead just curled up by itself.

Mother of god.

Or... "My mouse isn't working"
Is it working at all?
"Yes, but its really hard to control, its all over the place!"
Hmmmn. I'll have a look.

Turns out they had decided to bring in their own mouse, and their cuntish manager had plugged it in for them. Seeing as their own mouse had about 2 years of dust, dirt and fag ash accumulated in it, I made the comment that 1, its not the original mouse, and 2, its rather dirty, you need to clean it!

Response? "Well, you are the computer man, aren't YOU supposed to clean it?"

Me : No. And walks off.
( Tesco Quality 60.825659, -0.788337, Fri 22 Sep 2006, 21:14, Reply)

different skills
My Nana can't send an email with an attachment, but she can......grow veg and cook her own food from scratch, wire a plug, remember everyones birthday, fill out a tax form, deliver a baby, drive a tractor.....
I can use emails, but I wish i had her skills and knowledge instead.
(turtles head is touching cloth poked a dwarf on the forehead at, Fri 22 Sep 2006, 20:57, Reply)

Hmm
I had some cocky helpdesk monkey on the phone to me and he took remote control of my computer. He said "if you see the mouse moving around, don't touch anything because its just me ok".

Needless to day, I held the mouse still as I didn't want it to fall off the desk.

I think he may have meant "the cursor" when he said "the mouse". Needless to say, I had the last laugh!
(Brian Blessed, Fri 22 Sep 2006, 20:49, Reply)

Sometimes I have to stop myself
when I decide to check my email while my computer is booting up in the morning.

I also sometimes have to stop myself from making a photocopy before I fax something.
( setimret likes his metaphors mixed, not stirred, Fri 22 Sep 2006, 20:33, Reply)

My Mum
has been using computers for over 20 years...from Digital Darkroom to Creative Suite 2...and she's never once made a picture of a magenta cock spunking on Rolf Harris.
( wotofco pissing in your swimming pool, Fri 22 Sep 2006, 20:25, Reply)

Nowt to do with computers but...
My mother said she fancied a Peugeot 206CC for her next car. I say that they're ok as far as I know but they have a major drawback which is they don't have any bootspace when the roof is down. There's a pause and then - "Can't you have a roofrack then?"
(hypostomus, Fri 22 Sep 2006, 20:20, Reply)

Something fishy's going on...
A couple of years ago, my gran got a PC. She'd never used one before, so I'd set it up how she wanted it (What colour background would you like? do you want it to make a noise when it loads up? Which screensaver do you want? etc) and written instructions on how to turn it on, how to send an email, how to load up Solitaire, etc.

That night, I got a phone call from her, and she sounded quite flustered.
"the_n00b, It's your grandma. I think some hackers are on my computer!" A bit strange, I thought, seeing as she was getting a modem the week after.
"What exactly is it doing, Gran?" "Well, it's just got pictures of fish and whales and things from that nice program with David Attenborough" "Remember when you said you wanted the Blue Planet screensaver? Just wiggle the mouse a bit."
(the_n00b, Fri 22 Sep 2006, 20:13, Reply)

Not really computers...
... but a guy i used to work with who was very old school told me that he couldn't send a fax because the ink cartridge on our fax machine had run out...
(Ghostlight, Fri 22 Sep 2006, 20:08, Reply)

At work we got an email virus alert from headquarters.
It described the threat, and if we suspected that our computer was infected, we were to disconnect from the network, and "do not email or tell anyone about the suspected infection. The IT department will contact you about how to remove the infection."

Um, how are they going to know I'm infected if I'm not supposed to tell anyone?
( setimret likes his metaphors mixed, not stirred, Fri 22 Sep 2006, 20:04, Reply)

Ohhhhhh, I'VE GOT LOADS
Every day for 6 fucking years in my job I get this...

But by no way catergorise this as Oldies vs Computers; I get middle-aged peeps claiming to be MS Support Technicians asking me what an IP address is. I've spoken a 93 year old woman through a driver reg hack in 5 minutes for fuck's sake. I walked some poor old cow through reinstalling Windows 98 until 4 in the morning over the phone; got it all working too and connected onto the net.

There again, some of them do come out with so much crap. One granny said she was happy to get her monitor working again, even though the side panel had melted and she could see the wires glowing behind them. Screams of "TURN IT OFF!!!!!" followed very quickly.
One of the funniest ones I've had was one of the first ones I ever took, which involved me being shouted at by an arsey OAP getting probs with his dialup connection. I manage to calm him down, and as we're finally getting somewhere he drops the phone and screams,
"OH FUCK, MY SAUSAGES ARE BURNING!!!!!"
Me and me manager pissing ourselves laffing as this guys kitchen is burning down, plus we'd tied the phoneline open due to laffing.

Last week I had to spell "www" to someone.

I've had people clicking the monitor when I've asked them to double-click stuff.

I've had others typing in full phonetics ie "P for Papa please" becomes p4papa on their screens.

They're all assholes, not just the elderly. especially the pingers ie gamers who nag about getting 10 more ping from a game server; ffs get laid.

PS On a plus note, I made Do it Woman! while speaking to these; they drove me to it.
( Jeccius Steam Borderlands 2 junkie, Fri 22 Sep 2006, 20:02, Reply)

Hold it down boy......
I once worked on an IT helpdesk and was fortunate to answer the phone to an old biddy who worked in the shops dept, i had to remote on to her PC to fix outlook and here's what happened

Me: "if you see the mouse moving around, don't touch anything because its just me ok"

Her: "shall i hold it down?"

Me: "er, what?"

Her: "....if it moves around, the mouse will fall off the desk!"

Me: *laughs balls off*



Helpdesks are a place of evil.......
.
(Xyphious : Sinkin' Gin since '85, Fri 22 Sep 2006, 19:56, Reply)

I know these will sound like Urban Legends
But unfortunately they're true.

1) Spent 15 minutes the other day trying to explain to my mother that just because her laptop has a wireless card, when she takes it to the park it wont work, when she said the classic line "Oh! So the internet doesn't stay inside it then?"

2) Which button is the "On" button?
(She only has one button on the front of the PC)
(Anduril, Fri 22 Sep 2006, 19:47, Reply)

my mother
She got emailed some practices for work, so i dutifully printed and laminated them for her.

"oh wow, did they email it laminated?"
( Slippery Mick ‏, Fri 22 Sep 2006, 19:37, Reply)

Narrow the search down Mum
My mum told me the other day she had seen an unusual bird in the garden she thought she knew the variety of, but wanted to confirm it, so she went on google images and did a general search......for ......TITS!

Made Dads day that did!
(turtles head is touching cloth poked a dwarf on the forehead at, Fri 22 Sep 2006, 19:36, Reply)

My Gran couldn't even turn a computer on
But then she has been dead twenty years.
( Colonel Dracula Two manky hookers and a racist dwarf, Fri 22 Sep 2006, 19:28, Reply)

Speakers
I used to work as a Java programmer for a subsidiary of IBM in Indianapolis. We wrote software to manage large corporate networks - servers, PCs, printers, what have you.
One day my phone rang, and the caller ID showed an area code of 514 (which I happened to know is the area code for Montreal). The guy said (in the thickest French accent I've ever heard, and yes I've been to France and Quebec several times each) that his speakers weren't working. I was confused, since our software had nothing to do with multimedia, and I wasn't a tech support employee. I asked if he meant that his speakers had stopped working when he installed our software, and he said yes. I asked how he got my phone number, and he replied that it was printed in his manual. Oh, no, I thought - some software manual has accidentally been printed with my phone number, and I'm going to get tons of these calls!
To cut to the end, he didn't have our software at all. The manual he was referring to was the manual for the speakers. They were manufactured by a company called Klipsch, which is headquartered in my town, and their phone number is 1-800-KLIPSCH and by coincidence my phone number was 1-317-KLIPSH (317 being the area code for my town).
You probably had to be one of the people crowded around my desk listening to this conversation on speakerphone to find it funny, but it took about 20 minutes and had several of us with tears streaming down our faces.

Click "I like this" just because I'm not making it up, and you haven't heard it before.
(chase, Fri 22 Sep 2006, 19:27, Reply)

Issues with my parents and technology
I live in Bristol, about 35 miles from where my parents live, I've done numerous 70 mile round trips to fix such major problems as:

1. Deleting pictures of last years holidays off their digital camera

2. Deleting icons off the front screen

3. Installing a new wallpaper (took ages that one ! *sigh*)

4. Informing my Dad the shiny side needs to be down for the pc to read the CD

Perhaps though, the best thing they did was go on a 2 week holiday to Cyprus and take the instruction manuals for their mobiles so they could learn to text me ! :)

However I'm no geek, I bought a new network card and daren't fix it myself incase I fuck it up :(
(Laxly, Fri 22 Sep 2006, 19:19, Reply)

Technological illiterates (or is that ignorant) ??
Man, the tehnological illiterates (or is that the technological ignorant) really f_ck me off!!

I have so many numerous accounts.

(1) An office colleague you knew I am “good with computers” asked me about anti virus programs. Turns out her Norton AV (which is turd), had expired, and encountered a virus it could not delete. She concludes with “Well, besides that Panteneman, the PC works perfectly fine apart from that virus warning window”. This very same person ALSO tried to delete Norton to stop the error message coming up.

(2) Know a friend of a friend that was a potential IT genius, that jacked in anything to do with PC’s whatsoever, flogged the whole f_cking lot. ALL OF IT. Reason: he was distracted to death by his father who was PC illiterate.

(3) Giving Panteneman Snr my old PC and running a wireless network. Buy him Windows For Dummies. Help him but repeatedly dog him to death and tell him to RTFM, but to no avail. He is all “I don’t care, only want to go online, print my photo’s and don’t need to know anything else”. Well, why didn’t you continue with going to the library and use the PC’s there?

(4) Panteneman Snr’s inane purchase of “PC reliant gadgets”, like a PDA. Man I hate those f_ck_ng things!! – ironic seeing as he can’t be arsed learning how to use the PC.

(5) Miss PossibleFuturePantenegirl’s mother, who is 70 something and finds anything powered by electricity plain baffling, such as getting Miss PFP to record programmes of TV but never watch them. Switching a mobile phone off directly after a call, defeating the object of using a mobile phone. Also forgetting to enter the region code of where she wants to ring. I actually had a vivid nightmare about her mobile phone ignorance where I drempt she was answering my calls with the phone display side facing outward. Miss PFP actually said I woke her up “Sleep swearing and arguing”…

(6) Have dim b_stards in work repeatedly ask me mobile phone related questions, and completely ignore my advice. Such as advising the dim bint in (1) to get “x” mobile and contract, to get a sh_t one with a contract that’s twice the price. Then say I gave her bad advice and her phone bills are sky high.

(7) Be the IT custodian for my sister in law. Last time I was there there was 52 viruses discovered by NOD32 and endless piles of spyware. One of the spyware components was actually a waterfall screen saver. Upon deletion, she was gutted her screen saver was gone. Like, HELLO?? It was spyware you thick bint!

And to conclude, the techno illiterate also haunt my sleep. Miss PFP vividly recalls this little snippet of sleep ranting.

One night I woke her up, mumbling “You’ve got it on the wrong setting, it sounds sh_t!!”

Replying a few seconds later (to the normal observer to seemingly nobody)
“Seeeeee – told you it sounded sh_t!!”

Length? The chicks like my girth....
(Panteneman Isn't entirely sure why he bothered on, Fri 22 Sep 2006, 19:08, Reply)

oh god
its not even funny

I work in for an isp and these are some of the gems i have had from the oldies (or at least the over 30s)

my wireless router wont work!
have a look at the front, what colour is the wlan light
light ? there are no lights!!
well where is the router then?
it is still in the box you sent me. its wireless so i wont need to plug it in obviously.

my email wont work
ok, do you get any kind of error messages?
no there is nothing on the screen
ok, is it just email that is broken or is your Internet connection down too?
what do you mean?
well can you go onto google and search for something for me?
no
why not?
well I'm not technical so i don't know how to do anything apart from email
ok well go to the blue "e" on your desktop
no, i cant
why?
well the screen is black and the lights are still off from this power cut.

my Internet connection is down
have you tried re-booting your router?
no i cant possibly do that you are not listning to me.
is there someone else i could speak to who is more technical
no just send someone down and get it fixed now.
he ended up complaining to every manager i had an eventually paid someone £300 to turn his router off and on again.
( chuff monkey I AM him, Fri 22 Sep 2006, 18:14, Reply)

My mum is old.
My mum once asked me 'which button do I right click with?'.

I wanted to die.
(gmo, Fri 22 Sep 2006, 18:13, Reply)

Not so much computers as Mobile phones
I work for the retail branch of a large multi-national mobile phone network. I've had to deal with all manners of weird and wonderfull enquiries. Here follows a selection.

Old man- Do you have car chargers?
Me- Yes, For which model?
Old man - A fiat punto!

Old woman- How do they know where to ring me?

Old man- Why wont my phone Ring?
Me- You need to turn it on Sir?

Also I have seen old people talking to Atm's telling them how much money they want!
(Adaminho, Fri 22 Sep 2006, 18:02, Reply)

PLEASE
stop with the piss-taking/ironic/'this QOTW is shit' replies. On every cunting QOTW. It's annoying.
( idonthaveafunnynickname Drink-Aware? Sure. I'm aware I want another drink., Fri 22 Sep 2006, 17:43, Reply)

Dangerous things consoles...
When myself and my brother managed to get hold of the mighty N64 back in the day, after watching us playing it a bit my mum took a liking to playing mario (and other similar games)

Sounds quite good, apart from one fact, as soon as she grabbed hold of the controller the couch became a dangerous place to sit, as mario slid down a hill dangerously close to the edge and my mum frantically waved the controller in the opposite direction in the hope of getting him to go the other way
You became a bit wary sitting next to her when someone was playing after getting clocked on the side of the head by a frantically wved controller once or twice...

Somehow I can tell she will like playing with the Wii (and the living room will become a warzone of swinging controllers yet again)

David
(442, Fri 22 Sep 2006, 17:42, Reply)

My OH repairs computers for a living
The other week an older customer came in to collect his repaired computer only to find it was not ready. He ranted and roared and complained for quite a while and when he eventually ran out of swear words he asked why.
"Very sorry mate, but when I asked you to bring the computer in I did not mean the monitor!"
(whiskas loved by 8 out of 10 cats, Fri 22 Sep 2006, 17:40, Reply)