This conversation took place through email.
Customer: “I need something off the web, and I don’t have any way to use a browser!”
Tech Support: “There’s a browser called ‘lynx’ that you can use from a shell.” (gives a brief description of how to use it)
Customer: “What’s lynx? I need a browser!”
Tech Support: (again mentions lynx and says how to use it)
Customer: “I need a browser. If you can’t help me, get someone else to answer my emails.”
Customer: “Your sound card is defective and I want a new one.”
Tech Support: “What seems to be the problem?”
Customer: “The balance is backwards. The left channel is coming out of the right speaker and the right channel is coming out the left. It’s defective.
Tech Support: “You can solve the problem by moving the left speaker the right side of the machine and vice versa.”
Customer: (sputter) (click)
Tech Support: (snicker)
So, this chick that works in Tech Support with us, let’s call her Elaine, is doing training, and telling all the students what to do in case of a “one-zero” error. We pulled her aside to explain that that actually said I/O error (as in Input/Output) but she continued on with her teaching, explaining that it had to be a “one-zero” error, since computers communicate in binary code, so everything had to be either a 1 or a 0. I think its obvious who “1” and who is a “zero.” Duh!