Stupid Customers

Caller: “I hope this won’t take much time.”

Me: “It won’t, ma’am, it’s only a few simple steps. First of all, I need you to double click on My Computer.”

Caller: “Excuse me?”

Me: “Ma’am, our records show you running a Windows computer. Has that changed?”

Caller: “I don’t think so.”

Me: “Okay, now just double click on My Computer for me please.”

Caller: “How can I do that?”

Me: “It should be right there in front of you. Make sure all other windows are closed down and you should, hopefully, see it in the top left corner.”

Caller: “How am I suppose to click on your computer? You must be like hundreds of miles away!”

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Stupid Customers

Me: “Hello, Mrs. ***, how can I help you?”

Customer: “I’m very upset because you have my dog’s name before my last name here on this check-in sheet!”

Me: “Well, hat’s because we print out the pet’s first name and your last name so we know who the pet belongs to.”

Customer: “But this is horrible! It is though you are saying I am married to my dog! I’m not into bestiality!”

Me: “No, it is more that we are trying to say that you are like the pet’s parent.”

Customer: “You are saying that I gave birth to a dog?!”

Me:” No…I’m really sorry, but the computer prints out the pet’s first and the owner’s last name. It is part of the system and I cannot change it.”

Customer: “It’s the computer’s fault?”

Me: “Yes. I am so sorry, but I cannot change the program. It does this for every pet.”

Customer: “Then black out the name on the paper so nobody thinks I am married to him!”

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Stupid Family Members

My family gave my grandmother a laptop, and we were teaching her how to use it when she asked how to send an email to her sister in England. They had been sending postal mail to each other for decades, and she had heard that this “Er-Mail” thing was easier.

I pointed to the Outlook Express icon, and told her to put the mouse there. She picked up the computer mouse and placed it on the screen.

It was a long day.

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Stupid Students

In what seems more and more like another life, some 15 years ago, I was an assistant in a computer lab belonging to the computer science department of my university. The lab consisted of a bunch of 286 IBM PS/2s with only a 3.5″ floppy drive — they had to boot with an operating system disk and then put in the program disk, and so forth.

One day a student was having problems booting up the computer. I went to see what was happening, because she was becoming increasingly vocal about the quality of the hardware and the incompetence of the people (me) who were supposed to maintain it. I found that she was trying to boot off a floppy with no operating system. So I tried to tell her that she needed a DOS diskette to boot the computer.

* Her: “Why?”

* Me: “Well, because without the operating system the computer just cannot work.”

* Her: “But I don’t need the operating system.”

* Me: “I assure you, you do.”

* Her: “No, you don’t understand, I’ve already passed the operating systems exam. I’m preparing the coursework for simulation theory, so I don’t need an operating system. I already passed. Really.”

* Me: “I’m not talking about the exam. I am talking about the operating system for the computer.”

* Her: “Why on earth should I want to put an operating system on the computer when I have already passed the exam? I need to study simulation theory, not operating systems! The arrogance! Now you want to tell me what I should study? You don’t think I passed the exam on my merits alone? Huh?”

She stormed out of the lab and filed a formal complaint with the department’s secretary. The worst part was that I got reprimanded, because, apparently, the senior management didn’t know any better than she did. Yes, she graduated a couple of years later.

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