Ooh me dad, not again!
My Dad rings me and says he's having trouble with his motherboard so another hard drive should fix it. Can't see how says I. Course it will, it does every time replies he. It turns out that he was going to take his mam from John o Groats to Lands end in really old car with no suspension using only B roads and dirt tracks in order to alleviate her indifference. Oooooooh not that kind of "Mother-bored" howled I. Yes says he. Not that kind of "Hard Drive" squealed I. Yes says he. Only thing to do in a situation like that is laugh. So we laughed. And we laughed. And we laughed. And we laughed. And we laughed. And we laughed. And we laughed. And we laughed. And we laughed. And we laughed.
(tinypod will never learn. Ever., Mon 25 Sep 2006, 22:20, Reply)

Some five or so years ago,
I was paying for some crime in a previous life by working as a programmer for a godforsaken insurance company in the 'sunny holiday resort' of Weston-super-Mare. We shared an office with the IT support staff and so got to hear about some of the more stupid support calls they received.
The company operated quite a large call centre staffed by the modern-day equivalent of indentured workers. As this job was very poorly paid, the quality of intelligence of these staff was not always top-notch. One support call, from one of the not-too-bright blondes went along the lines of this:

'Every time I type words into my computer, they keep falling off the end of the lines.'
The support guy, realising that this girl is obviously not au-fait with the concept of word-wrap, decides to have some fun with her, and tells her, 'The problem is, your keyboard is too close to the front of the desk and the letters are falling off the end of the desk. What you need to do is to push it back a bit.'
On a visit to the call-centre later that day, the It support guy walks past this girls desk, and bless-her, she has her keyboard pushed right to the back of the desk against the monitor. I can imagine he had a hard time keeping a straight face when walking past...
( man/child/goblin should be old enough to know better by now, Mon 25 Sep 2006, 21:30, Reply)

Old Habits
My father-in-law never saves anything on his computer because it is "untidy and might fill it up". I doubt he has ever created more than 30 Word documents ever, but none of them exists any more. It reminds me of the Dilbert cartoon where the pointy haired boss is told he can save disk space by using semi colons instead of whole colons.....
(gilesmthomas, Mon 25 Sep 2006, 21:30, Reply)

Fax Life
About 15 years ago, after leaving school, I started working for an engineering company as an apprentice. At work when I wasn't learning the trade, I was required to do some of the more menial jobs that the engineers were too lazy to do. So one quiet Friday afternoon, when the part of the office I was in, was pretty much empty (I think the engineers were attending a seminar on the future of Fan Coil Units, or passive cooling systems, or some other instantly forgettable subject), I picked up a phone call, after repeating the standard company greeting, and asking how I might help, the voice at the other end, stated, in a bemused manner, "Could you let Mr. Bloggs know, that we have received his fax detailing the preliminary plans for the 4th floor heating/cooling systems, in excess of thirty times now, with copies still being spewed from our fax machine, seemingly without end, which is becoming a bit of nuisance, as it is tying up the phone lines.". I took note of the message, and went to find Mr. Bloggs, who incidentally, was one of the company directors, a knowledgeable engineer, and also nearing retirement, to give him the message. I eventually found him in one corner of the building at a fax machine, industriously scanning pages through. I tap him on the shoulder to relay the message, but before I can say anything, he says "Do you know anything about these blasted machines, my secretary is on holiday, and I've been trying to fax this damn document for nearly an hour now, the only problem is that it doesn't seem to be working.", "How so?" I ask, "Well..." he stutters, "Aren't the pages supposed to get transmitted to the other end? It can't be right that the fax machine keeps spitting the pages back out again, they should disappear.". I tell Mr. Bloggs that the machine is working correctly, relay the message, whilst trying not to soil myself, and leave Mr. Bloggs to work out the rest.
(dunkindogdo, Mon 25 Sep 2006, 21:08, Reply)

My Grandma bought gay porn on-line - By Mistake!!!
My grandma in England decided one year to show her web savvie-ness by purchasing a book certificate on-line for my younger brother and sister.

She found a book store that sounded nice in Toronto - the Glad Day bookstore. Lovely - she thought, that sounds wholesome.

My parents duly went with the kids to buy a book at the store. Imagine their surprise when they realised the bookstore was located in the heart of gaytown.

Yes, my grandma had managed to find the only gay bookstore in Toronto selling gift certificates on-line.

So they left the kids sitting on the steps while they went in and explained the situation to the manager, who very kindly agreed to give them the money back.

I dread to think what she'll buy next. She's now armed with a kick ass laptop, a credit card and a willful childlike naivety.
(Peelmytangerines, Mon 25 Sep 2006, 20:39, Reply)

I used to work for a company that worked for AOL...
...and it was our job to refer people and send out discs and whatnot. Anyhoo, this man who sounded in his fifties rang up in a terrible rage shouting that his computer had accused him of being a criminal and engaging in illegal acts while using AOL. Obviously what had happened was that he'd crashed the browser with the usual "illegal operation" type of message had popped up and he'd taken it at face value.

Old cunt wouldn't be talked out of it, either...



Also while at the same place I worked with a chap called David who was a bit deaf (not ideal for working on the phones, and meant he talked far too loud) and we took a call on another contract for a PC manufacturer. The caller wanted to buy a gaming PC and spend about £3000 on it, so Dave hits the mute button on his phone (or thinks he does) and says "This bloke wants to spend £3000 on a PC!", which the caller irately picks him up on. Dave's wonderfully honest excuse was "I'm sorry, you weren't supposed to hear that.". Duh.

Also, to the poster below, I know all about Scottish people and their letter "JYE".
(DrDerekDoctors, Mon 25 Sep 2006, 20:37, Reply)

Old Scottish Guy
rings up for help....spelling out his username as something like "gobber"....I'm searching on this and can't find anything on it.

Me - "Is that G for Golf?"
Scots bloke - "No, it's G for Jemima for god's sake!"

Fecking stupid accent twat. No wonder you're all tight, you can't speak mun.
( Jeccius Steam Borderlands 2 junkie, Mon 25 Sep 2006, 19:54, Reply)

not all the oldies are thick
One works here, and done a magical trick.

Before he come into work, he setup www.logmein.com on his home comp; a magical website which I'd recommend to most peeps (remote access via a web browser). He'd set it up to keep an eye on his downloads in the house from work.

He happens to glance at the remote viewing screen, and notice that his daughter's in the house on Messenger talking to one of her mates. So for a laugh, he types in some jumbled letters into her text box. She deletes them, then types to her friend that she might have a virus.

He types in quick as a flash "NO YOU HAVEN'T."

The computer went off in about 8 seconds.

When he got home from work later she was apparently terrified and hiding upstairs in her bedroom.

He pissed himself laughing the next day in work telling us. When I become a dad, I wanna torture me kids just like him :D
( Jeccius Steam Borderlands 2 junkie, Mon 25 Sep 2006, 19:34, Reply)

Ummm
A lady who worked with my mum had a really good way of screwing up computers - she wasn't that steady with her hands and would randomly click, doubleclick or drag stuff all the time while using the mouse.

Also I used to go and sort out the PCs for the women I worked with at Boots, but sadly never the ones who I fancied.
( emvee cruor deo cruoris, Mon 25 Sep 2006, 17:59, Reply)

Back in the mid 80's
I worked for a while as a sales rep for a office machines company. Shortly before the PC was a reality, we used to sell Olivetti word processors (ETV 300). They were like a PC base unit which had 1 big old 7" floppy drive (literally floppy). (360K per disk) They cost about three bastard grand each and you had to link them to an Olivetti typewriter (ET 111 or 115). We had just installed 6 of these at a big estate agents in Huntingdon UK.

Shortly after the installation we had several callouts to the same woman who was complaining "the disks were not remembering the documents". It turns out she had terrible hand writing, and her boss had told her to type the disk labels so he could file them properly. The silly cow only stuck the labels on the disks first, then fed them through the plattern of her typewriter. It was then the company decided to take us up on our offer of some ludicrously expensive training sessions, which I also ran.

I was holding a training session with all 6 secretaries in the board room with all their machines plugged in in front of them and I was explaining to them how the functions work. Now the typewritter had an AUX key (unique back then). To do anything like save, print etc you held down the AUX key and pressed 'P' for Print, 'S' for Save, 'B' for bold etc etc. Now if you just held down the AUX key for a couple of seconds, a full page of info would eventually load telling you all the AUX functions, so I said, "Don't worry if you forget all these, there is a page of information to remind you if you press the AUX key and wait".
The same fuckwit put her hand up and asked, "Where's the WAIT key?". I've heard this told recently only updated to fit a fat handed PC twat but I swear that is where it came from.

Oh and just for the nerds....
Soon after this the first Olivetti PC arrived, the M20. It didn't work and they lost a fortune then they came up with an IBM compatible called the M24. It ran at a staggering 1.44MHz, had a 10 megabyte winchester hard disk, a hercules green screen or you could have amber or grey/white text and the Olivetti version of MS-DOS 2.1 and 64K RAM. This bit's good. You could also order a parallel printer cable for a mere £120 extra. Epson had just released the dot matrix printer which ran at about 97db and about 40 characters per second. A complete PC/Printer package would cost you about £5k.
( Captn Hood-Butter is not dead yet., Mon 25 Sep 2006, 17:45, Reply)

Got a call at work from my girlfriend...
...I'd just built her a computer, and she was at home playing with it.

"It won't turn on, the screen is blank"

Thinking I must have forgotten to turn on the power switch on the back of the PC, I tell her that there is a little switch on the back, and to press it.

She puts the phone down and toddles off.

I hear a enourmous BANG!

A shaky quiet voice comes back on to the phone.

"I think I broke it.."

Racking my brains to try and work out how she cuold possibly have blown up a PC just by turning it on, I have a look on the back of my work PC to see what she would have seen.

Oh shit.

"Which switch did you press?"

"The little red one"

"The really really little red one?"

"Yes"

"The one that says 240/110V on it?"

"Stop shouting at me, you said the little switch!!"

Lesson: Always make your instructions as unambigous as possible....
(inflateable, Mon 25 Sep 2006, 17:36, Reply)

The net is a filthy place for a granny...
When I got my first computer at age 8, I was showing my nan what you could do. I went on to a search engine and asked my nan to think of somethign to search. She is very into history,so she asked me to type in 'queens'. You can guess what popped up....
(Miharu, Mon 25 Sep 2006, 17:15, Reply)

My mum had never used a computer before...
so I bought her one for her birthday last year.

She told me she had no idea what to do with it so I set it up, showed her how to get on to the internet, and left her to it for half an hour.

I got back to find her looking rather confused. She was squatting over the keyboard pissing all over it, with the mouse shoved up her arse, and the words "YOUR ALL CUNTS" were smeared on the monitor in her own excrement.

Old people and computers, eh? Tsk!
.
(Ali Bongo 9000 Ali Bongo 9000, Mon 25 Sep 2006, 17:13, Reply)

Let's See...
Oldies Vs technology? Hmm - I wonder if I count as an oldie now. After all, I'm 46 this week... (Jesus! Where did the time go?)

Many moons ago I was walking into a new supermarket with a mate from work. As we approached, I noticed an infra-red sensor above the door. Go near it and it would kindly open the doors for you. As we got nearer I raised my arms and twiddled my fingers to set off the sensor. Of course, the door opened (would have picked up my body heat way before my wiggling fingers) and I went inside. And then I looked back.

Behind us were two little old ladies who were shuffling up to the door looking decidedly edgy. Then they lifted their arms and started wiggling their fingers towards the sensor exactly the way I'd done it - they had obviously seen me enter and thought this was the way it was done.

Well it made me laugh...

Cheers

P.S _ See. Not even a wee bit of computer jargon in sight.
( Legless Mister Stabby - shanks for the memory, Mon 25 Sep 2006, 17:00, Reply)

another one !
Wooo... two posts on the same QOTW go me !!

Just remembered another one by me mate who had his own little support/resale business for a while, he drove 80 miles..... to turn a CD over and the snotty old woman who had called him out got real stroppy when he still (quite rightly) charged her the full amount for his services, "oh im sorry i didn't realise you were dense... no charge madam" bollocks !

length ? dunno... will tell ya tomorrow ;o)
(maxumus HEY!.... diddly dee, de de de de de de, Mon 25 Sep 2006, 16:56, Reply)

Old and not so old
Two for you here,

1) My dear old mum, when using the PC she will look at the screen to see where the pointer is, then look at the mouse then move it a bit and then check the screen again to see where the pointer has gone. And repeat until the pointer reaches the intended destination. Aww bless.

2) My mate is 27 and an IT support manager. A few years ago with his first mobile phone he complained for weeks that no one ever called him. We had all tried to call and send texts but told him we never got replies.
Asking if his phone was ok he said "yeah i leave it on standby..." So i checked this out, his phone was turned off. oh dear, he thought this meant it was on standby. And yes we did mock him, lots.
(Fishbone-didi, Mon 25 Sep 2006, 16:52, Reply)

To all those bitching about this weeks QOTW
1) you're on a website. Moaning that "there's too much about computers" on a website that predominantly revolves about humour made by having a fairly decent knowledge of computer software is a bit thin
2) There's been plenty of QOTW such as "what's the worst thing you've done on drugs?" Drugs make me sick. The idea of it makes me want to hurl, but I don't bitch and moan and take the high horse, because other people seem to enjoy it.
3) If you don't like something, why spoil it for everyone else? Keep quiet, sit on your fingers for a friday, or do some work. Hell, think of a good QOTW and email it to the team. If you have, and it hasnt been asked, it was obviously shit so you're not as funny as you think you are. You may in fact be the office Colin Hunt.

Oh, and my mum found my old Commodore 64 in the loft with all the cassettes. Finding the album sleeves slightly reminiscent of early 80s heavy metal and the like, she slaps Eidelon into the family stereo and turns it up full whack, expecting some thunderous guitar noises. The all-out data screech of her hi-fi trying to read a commodore data tape made her punch the stereo so hard it broke.
My mum's 'ard.
( Grrrmachine the indifference engine, Mon 25 Sep 2006, 16:38, Reply)

yawn
at 38 i'm an 'oldie' by some people's standards i guess, conversely i meet a lot of people fresh out of school with fuck all idea of how the world works.
currently retraining to be a nurse, it's amazing how many fresh-faced young girlies have no idea how to manage basic email stuff, let alone bulk emailing, cut 'n' paste etc etc
still it's nice to look at their tits while they're leaning over watching my screen.

your mother never complains about length
(bollox, not again, Mon 25 Sep 2006, 16:15, Reply)

Once got called by a customer
about a computer that wouldn't start up.

Drove 30 miles. Turned the power switch on round the back. Faffed around for 2 hours to make it look like I did something. Charged them 300 quid.
(Half of Stephen Fry's right buttock pissed on your dog on, Mon 25 Sep 2006, 16:12, Reply)

Laptop lapdance
I was working as a tech support guy at a univerisity. My main duty was to be on call to help out students in the halls of residence who had computer problems in the evenings.

One night, I was sent to a room to deal with a non-responsive laptop. I knocked at the door and saw that it was already ajar, so I walked in. It was steamy inside and I smelled the scent of a freshly showered girl.

"Excuse me! I'm here to fix the laptop" I said.

"It's by the window. I'll be out in a minute" said a female voice.

I sat down to turn it on and was just checking all the cables when a thumping R+B track started up just behind me. I half turned and saw an utterly stunning blonde framed in the bathroom doorway. She was wearing a metallic gold bikini, every millimetre of which she filled with curves. Her hair was wet and hung in heavy tendrils about her shoulders.

She started to move in time to the music. My mouth went dry and my nether organ began to throb at the sight of her magnificent breasts straining at the material. Her nipples were erect. Her hips swayed to the beat, her stomach undulated and she approached me with slinky steps.

"Forget the laptop" she said. "I'm entering a lap dancing competition at one of the clubs in town and I need to practise. Just sit there."

I sat rigidly as she turned her back, spread her legs and bent to touch her toes. Her undercarriage, sheathed in tight lurex, presented a mound which hinted strongly at a full Btazilian wax. Then she rolled her hips in my direction.

As the music throbbed, she turned, she jiggled, she bounced and she wobbled. She straddled my legs without touching me and thrust her fulsome cleavage just a hair's breadth from my lips so that her perfume washed over me. I felt like my schlong would burst forth from my jeans and hose her with my ardour.

Finally the music ended and she smiled. "Marks out of ten?"

I looked down at the spreading jiss stain on my crotch and she giggled.

"That's a ten!"
(frankspencer, Mon 25 Sep 2006, 15:42, Reply)

Technophone/phobe
My sis got her very first mobile phone a tad after the rest of the UK did - she had resisted as long as possible but there is only so long one can hold out to peer pressure.

She got herself a pay-as-you-go one, which was fine and dandy for her purposes. She even managed to make and receive calls on it with little effort and was quite smug about it. However, the first time she needed to buy a top up card, it all got a little bit confusing.

She bought said card in the nearby supermarket fag kiosk and then once she'd paid, stood at the side of the kiosk trying to top up her phone.

The kiosk attendant kindly offered to help her with this when he spotted that she had removed the battery from the back of the phone and was trying to stuff the top up card in next to the SIM.... bless.
(Mad McMad, Mon 25 Sep 2006, 15:42, Reply)

I was helping...
...my mother send an email the other day. When she'd finished, I logged on and looked at some drunk girls on a hen night sucking off strippers.

That was a great wank.
(misteroz, Mon 25 Sep 2006, 15:37, Reply)

My duties include IT Support and Sysadmin...
...so, best advice I can give you is 'don't get me started' - it would fill entire pages, professional and spare-time engagements alike and the bile would drown us all. So, oh SO fucking many IT fucktards out there, and a surprising number in jobs that depend on them being able to operate a computer.

Besides, from the sounds of things on here this week, any techie-type anecdotal writings would go up like a lead balloon anyway. Not suprised in the least to see that disasterprone is foremost amongst those bitching about everyone else whilst/because of having nothing to add of any relevance himself. Consistency can be a good thing - just not in his case.
(thatblokeoverthere not quite as much an arsehole as I thought, Mon 25 Sep 2006, 15:25, Reply)

nothing makes a qotw like
a load of sad retards whining about the question.

*insert comment that implies my life is better than yours*
*laugh a spitty laugh mumbling "that'll show them, the sad bastards"*
*brush the crumbs off my gut and go back to wanking over hentai*

edit: of course, legless will have a cracker whereby he used his granny's wooden leg and an ATX power connector to liberate north korea or something. watch this space!
(stoat on the road to nowhere, Mon 25 Sep 2006, 15:24, Reply)

Never reveal your proffesion...
I used to work for Yamaha, and got in with a guy who used to be of all things a mechanic to Mike Hailwood (very famous racer from the 70s). Jerry was a great bloke, liked a drink and at 5 I would nip over to the repair shop he ran for a couple of beers and a skive.

The problem was after once going to his house and sorting out the family PC he started giving my number out to all and sundry as the genius who could fix anything which got fucking annoying (much like Simpson's moaning - see below). The worse was getting called up whilst in Prague and repeatedly telling someone to fuck off as I was paying more for the call than they were (on the mobile) but the other was a chap who rang me while I was making dinner. I was fairly narked of course and started a diatribe, when he pipes up to keep it short as not only does his internet not work, but he was having to call me on his mobile and thus it was expensive because his land line was out. And of course without his cable TV not working as well he was bored.

I then asked him to actually think about the common denominator here, or how strange it was they all came down the same little wire and from the same company. I then suggested he go away in short jerky movements and call the local cable operator.

Some people simply will not think - they just see a problem and call some poor sod like me, just because I chose to make a career out of it. I wouldn't mind but I don't work on PCs proffesionally anyway...
(Waynster James Joyce is fucking my sister!, Mon 25 Sep 2006, 15:22, Reply)

me mother-its all gone blank!
mothers new PC bought with advice from the nice man in Politically Correct world-they're not laughing at you, oh no they're laughing with you; they set it up, did passwords, dial up, home page etc. dear old mum does some emailing (hello son, this is my firts email-not counting the one to your sister and the doctors for a new prescription....) then went for a cuppa.
I arrive later in the day and arrived as mum was saying: it all went blank...&....he waggled the mouse.
thankfully he wouldn't accept a tip from her for 'fixing it'
i don't work in IT for a university-(that is just a malicious rumour)...where girlies leave webcams running whilst they 'entertain' or go for showers...oh no.
(mickturate if i could be arsed i'd be bored, Mon 25 Sep 2006, 15:11, Reply)