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I speak of the Tech Support people, those unsung heroes of the technical turmoil that surrounds all of us in this challenging world of the 21st century. I make no claim to the following Terror Tech Tales being original – many of them have been “doing the rounds” for years. But they can all handle re-telling! Terror Tech Tales Often the early days are the worst. Customer: “Do I need a computer to use your software?” TS: “Aagh!” Followed by: TS: “I need you to right-click on the Open Desktop.” Customer: “OK.” TS: “Did you get a pop-up menu?” Customer: “No.” TS: “Ok. Right click again. Do you see a pop-up menu?” Customer “No.” TS: “Ok, sir. Can you tell me what you have done up until this point?” Customer: “Sure, you told me to write ‘click’ and I wrote ‘click’.” Should have got a medal! Software problems can sometimes lead to a greater awareness with the general public. This is an actual conversation that occurred between a customer and a Tech Support operator. (He later got fired for his responses!). TS: “May I help you?” Customer: “Yes, I’m having trouble with WordPerfect.” TS: “What sort of trouble?” 12  Silicon Chip Customer: “Well I was just typing, and all of a sudden the words went away” TS: “Went away?” Customer: “They disappeared.” TS: “ So what does your screen look like now?” Customer: “It’s blank; it won’t accept anything when I type.” TS: “Are you still in WordPerfect or did you get out? Can you see the C: prompt of the screen?” Customer: “What’s a sea-prompt?” TS: “Never mind. Can you move your cursor around the screen?” Customer: “There isn’t any cursor: I told you, it won’t accept anything I type.” TS: “Does your monitor have a power indicator?” Customer: “What’s a monitor?” TS: “It’s the thing with the screen on it that looks like a TV. Does it have a little light that tells you when it’s on?” Customer: “I don’t know?” TS: “Well, look on the back of the monitor and find where the power cord goes into it. Can you see that?” Customer: “Yes, I think so.” TS: “Great. Follow the cord to the plug, and tell me if it’s plugged into the wall.” Customer: “Yes it is.” TS: “When you were behind the monitor, you may have noticed that there were two cables plugged into the back of it, not just one. I need you to look back there again and find the other cable.” Customer: “I can’t reach it because I can’t see it because it’s dark.” TS: “Dark?” siliconchip.com.au This story is dedicated to those fearless men and women who, every day, brave dark and stormy phone calls from the unknown, un-named, ill-informed, querulous public; to those who, with no regard for their personal safety nor deep intrusions into their mental sanity, face hurt, shame and embarrassment in their quest to answer the challenging questions they are thrown. Customer: “Yes the office light is off, and the only light I have is coming in from the window.” TS: “Well, turn on the office light then.” Customer: “I can’t, because there’s a power failure,” TS: “A power... a power failure? OK, we’ve got it licked now. Do you still have the boxes and manuals and packing stuff your computer came in?” Customer: “Well, yes I keep them in the closet.” TS: “Good. Go get them, and unplug your system and pack it up just like it was when you got it. Then take it back to the store you bought it from.” Customer: “What do I tell them?” TS: “Tell them you’re too $<at>#^%&! stupid to own a computer” D-u-m-b stupid! Some companies face angry (read ‘dumb’) customers more than others. Compaq Computers had a bad time a while ago. Here are some incidents. At one time Compaq considered changing the command “Press Any Key” to “Press Return Key” because of the flood of calls asking where the “Any” key is. One Compaq technician received a call from a man complaining that the system wouldn’t read word processing files from his 5¼-inch diskettes. After trouble-shooting for magnets and heat failed to diagnose the problem, it was found that the customer labelled the diskettes then rolled them into the typewriter to type the labels. Another customer called Compaq Tech Support to say her brand-new computer wouldn’t work. She said she unpacked the unit, plugged it in, and sat there for 20 minutes waiting for something to happen. When asked what happened when she pressed the power switch, she asked siliconchip.com.au by Barrie Smith “What power switch?” And Dell Computer had a bad run some time back. Back in the days when floppy disks were floppy and drives had a “door” to close, the technician advised a customer to put his troubled floppy back in the drive and close the door. The customer asked the tech to hold on, and was heard putting the phone down, getting up and crossing the room to close the door to his room. Another customer called to say he couldn’t get his computer to fax anything. After 40 minutes of trouble-shooting, the technician discovered the man was trying to fax a piece of paper by holding it in front of the monitor screen and hitting the “Send” key. Yet another customer called to complain that his keyboard no longer worked. He had cleaned it by filling up his bathtub with soap and water and soaking the keyboard for a day, then removing all the keys and washing them individually. One technician received a call from a customer who was enraged because his computer had told him he was “bad and an invalid”. The tech explained that the computer’s “bad command” and “invalid” responses shouldn’t be taken personally. An exasperated caller to Tech Support couldn’t get her new computer to turn on. After ensuring the computer was plugged in, the technician asked her what happened when she pushed the power button. Her response, “I pushed and pushed on this foot pedal and nothing happens.” The ‘foot pedal’ turned out to be the computer’s mouse. Then IBM had a bad trot. . . One customer had trouble installing software and rang for support. May 2009  13 Customer: “I put in the first disk and that was OK. It said to put in the second disk and I had some problems with the disk. When it said to put in the third disk I couldn’t even fit it in ...” TS: “When you see the screen command say ‘Insert Disk 2’, you have to remove Disk 1 first. Don’t let a Mac user ever tell you they never need to contact Tech Support. Here’s one anecdote from the Apple orchard. TS: “At 3:37 a.m. on a Sunday, I had just looked at the clock to determine my annoyance level, when I received a frantic phone call from a new user of a Macintosh Plus. “She had taken her entire family out of the house and was calling from her neighbour’s. She had just received her first system error and interpreted the picture of the bomb on the screen as a warning that the computer was going to blow up!” Apple Tech Support sometimes faces the unfaceable. TS: “What operating system are you running?” Student: “Huh?” TS: “Do you have a Mac or a PC?” Student: “Um, I don’t know.” TS: “Ok. What does the screen look like?” Student: “It’s yellow.” Me: “Ok. What does it say on the computer CPU?” Student: “What’s that?” TS: “The big grey box.” Student: “It doesn’t say anything.” TS: “Never mind that ... do you have a little ‘Start’ button at the bottom of the monitor?” Student: “Monitor?” TS: “The thing that looks like a TV screen sitting on the grey box.” Student: “Oh! That! No. No start button.” TS: “Ok. Is there a little apple symbol anywhere on the screen?” Student: (very puzzled) “Why would I have fruit on my computer?” Today’s computers are easily capable of multi-tasking but sometimes the public expects too much. A senior telecommunications administrator at one company recalls a request from a user looking for another coffee holder for his computer: “I asked him what he meant by another coffee holder and he said, ‘You know, the one that 14  Silicon Chip pops out of the PC.” He thought the CD-ROM drive was a cup holder. Sometimes the support goes to extremes — in the mind of the caller. TS: “OK, let’s press the Control and Escape keys at the same time. That brings up a task list in the middle of the screen. Now type the letter ‘P’ to bring up the Program Manager.” Customer: “I don’t have a ‘P’.” TS: “On your keyboard.” Customer: “What do you mean?” TS: “’P’ on your keyboard.” Customer: “I’m not going to do that!” Computer companies aren’t the only ones to face perplexing calls either. A woman called the Canon help desk with a problem with her printer. The tech asked her if she was “running it under Windows.” The woman then responded, “No, my desk is next to the door. But you have the answer — the man sitting in the cubicle next to me is under a window, and his is working fine.” Even simple problems can perplex customers. Customer: “I have a huge problem. A friend has placed a screen saver on my computer, but every time I move the mouse, it disappears.” And: TS: “Click on the ‘my computer’ icon on the left of the screen.” Customer: “Your left or my left?” Sometimes the customer wants the process to be real simple. Customer: “One of my friends gave me an ImageWriter printer and a keyboard. He said he gave me all the cables, but I can’t figure out how to connect them. Am I missing something?” TS: “Well, a computer would help.” Customer: “You mean this keyboard isn’t a word processor?” TS: “No ma’am, its just an input device.” Customer: “Then I need to buy a computer, right?” TS: “Yes.” Customer: “Do you think I’ll need a monitor, too?” Some people want to make simple tasks, like making backups, even simpler. A system administrator for a company remembers when files were small, hard drives were small and backups were made with PC Tools which could be done using less than ten 3.5-inch disks for all the most important directories. One day the CEO of a company was asked by the administrator if he had done his monthly backup of his computer data. He said he had, and had even been able to improve the backup process. He’d discovered he didn’t have to change disks if he just answered ‘Yes’ to all the “Is it ok to overwrite this floppy disk?” prompts. He was overwriting backup disk #1 with the data for backup disk #2, then overwriting that with the data for backup disk #3, and so on. Boy, it sure saved on floppies. And then there are people who go looking for trouble. This sounds ridiculous, but it actually happened to a Tech Suport person in a chain computer store. Customer: “Hi, I’d like to buy a virus.” TS: “You really don’t want a virus on your computer. siliconchip.com.au What you need is anti-virus software.” Customer: “No, my son told me I need a virus, and that’s what I’d like.” TS: “No worries. You don’t need to buy a virus – you can just connect to the internet and download one.” It’s not just computers that give problems. Peripherals are in there too. A customer called in with modem problems. TS: “Ok, we’re going to check your modem settings. First thing we need to do is make sure all programs are closed.” Customer: “How do I know if everything is closed?” Me: “Make sure all windows are closed.” Customer: “But I’m in the basement. I don’t have any windows here.” Sometimes there are quick fixes. One operator had a call from a customer who was complaining that when she typed, the wrong letters came up on the screen. After some investigation, it was revealed that she had pried off all the letter key caps off her keyboard and rearranged them in alphabetical order. Keyboards can be a forest of trouble. TS: “Now press the spacebar.” Customer: “Return bar?” TS: “No, space bar. Space.” Customer: “I have an Enter bar, Return bar, and a Shift key?” TS: “No, space. Space bar. The long horizontal key.” Customer: (confused sounds). TS: “OK. See your c, v, b, n, and m keys?” Customer: “Yes...” TS: “Right under them.” Customer: “Oh.” Then some people have trouble with the most basic things in computing. TS: “Ok, Bob, type a capital ‘B’, then press enter.” Customer: “A capital B?” TS: “Right, capital ‘B’ as in Bob.” Customer: “Capital ‘B’ as in Bob?” TS: “Exactly. Capital B as in Bob!” Customer: (long pause) “That’s the one with two loops, right?” TS: “Now let’s type in the password where it says password.” Passwords can be a puzzle. Customer: “My password is HSD13....” siliconchip.com.au TS: “No, don’t tell me your password, just type it in. And remember, those letters are in capitals.” Customer: “And the numbers, would those be capitals too?” We all know the dos and don’ts of computing. One of these is never to eat or drink near a PC. This plaintive call for help was mailed to a Tech Support desk: I spillced coffcee cincto my kcey boardc.c As a rcesulct, c’s gcet inctermixcced with cwactever I ctypce. Plcease replace mcy kceyboard. ccthanks. Help for the Help Line The question I ask is: how do the tech support people cope? When asking tech support specialists on how they got through the average day of dumb questions, the results were interesting. In order to remain sane, they often resorted to surprisingly unorthodox ways of dealing with the constant barrage of obnoxious users and technical foulups. Here’s one. “When taking technical support calls, always be sure to have a dice with you. This will become your single most valuable tool in diagnosing customer support issues, regardless of the technology or problem. Simply listen to the customer describe the issue, roll the dice, and Bang! — problem solved. Each number on the dice corresponds to the appropriate advice: 1. Reboot computer. 2. Format hard drive. 3. Reinstall software. 4. Cycle power. 5. Update required. 6. Return for repair.” Next time Rememember, the next time you call Tech Support the voice on the other end of the line may be a real person just like you with a wife/husband, family, dogs, a car, a TV, a digital camera and heaps of techy gear that he or she occasionally needs help with to get it running properly. And these days, occasionally, they might even understand the English language. NEXT MONTH: We’ll have a look at the more serious side of Tech Support and how the major companies deal with the biggest SC problem of all – the loose nut on the keyboard. May 2009  15