Just last night...
...while I’m busy lurking away in the background here, racking my brains trying to think of a decent story from my time in Tech Support (because some of the stories sound SO like Urban Legends), my ‘phone rings.

I scoop it up – “Yey-lo?”

“It’s not working!!” yells my (obviously quite irate) mother.

Deep breath,

“Pray tell, what’s not working, dear mater?”

Turns out she’s trying to ‘draw’ (read ‘write’) data to a CD-R. So I put my best helpdesk head on, and tried, several times, to talk her through it. During this time I was met with such wonderful phrases as:

Mum: “Where’s the ‘Start’ button?”
Me: “It’s the one you just pressed to open ‘My Computer’”
Mum: “Oh. You meant that one. I think I’ve just turned it off.”

Me: (slowly) “Now, put the CD in the CD drive.”
Mum: “Which one’s that?” (fair point as her PC has both a CD and DVD drive)
Me: “The one with CD something-or-other written on the front.”
Mum: “Well, I can’t see that.”
Me: “Wha…?”
Mum: “I haven’t got my glasses on.”
Me: *faints*

50 MINUTES this took. And all she wanted to do was write a data CD for her boyfriend to put pictures on his work PC. When she could’ve just given him her digital camera and a USB cable and have him copy them that way. But no. And why not?

He’s a fireman, and she didn’t want her digital camera going in to a burning building.

What scares me is that she’s a senior manager in the NHS and works with computers every day… No wonder that new system is so up the ‘chute…

Length? Sorry, I’ve been using it as a cupholder…
( Devil_In_Tights the *real* DiT!, Tue 26 Sep 2006, 12:30, Reply)