Tech Support: “How may I help you today, sir?”
Customer: “Hello…hey, er…I think I’ve got the wrong software installed in my computer.”
Tech Support: “Why is that, sir?”
Customer: “I bought this minitower system from you, and it came loaded with software called the ‘XYZ Desktop’.”
Tech Support: “Yes…?”
Customer: “Shouldn’t it be called the ‘XYZ Minitower’? I OBVIOUSLY have the wrong software installed in this computer.”
Once I went out to a customer site to investigate what was reported to be a grinding sound coming from the hard drive.
Customer: “Oh! I’m glad you’re here, I’m worried that my hard drive’s going to crash any minute!”
Technician: “Don’t worry. It’s not your hard drive. It sounds like it’s just the cooling fan.”
Customer: “Oh! Really? Thank goodness. Can you fix it? It’s really distracting.”
Technician: “Sure! No problem.”
I lifted the stack of interoffice envelopes that were stacked beside the system and turned them so that the tie strings were no longer hanging into the fan. All my calls should be this easy.
Excerpt from a student essay…
The government of England was a limited mockery. Henry VIII found walking difficult because he had an abbess on his knee. Queen Elizabeth was the “Virgin Queen.” As a queen she was a success. When Elizabeth exposed herself before her troops, they all shouted, “hurrah.” Then her navy went out and defeated the Spanish Armadillo.
Once I had a guy bring in two polaroid pictures of screen shots of his computer. He claimed they were “before” and “after” shots and wanted us to diagnose his computer problems by looking at the pictures. They looked the same to us — but we kept them and posted them in the back area with a $1000 dollar reward to anyone who could diagnose the problem that way.