[BenignDesign]

I'm starting this mostly because I want a place to share these little nuggets of fun with people who can appreciate them - there's always Facebook, but my friends list is mostly family and non-techies and entertainingly nerdy nuggets of geekdom are generally lost on that crowd. So I'm putting this here for your enjoyment and kind of hoping it turns into a "What are you working on today?" kind of thread. Post your amusing anecdotes! Let us laugh at each others headaches!

Here's mine:

Got this email from one of our English professors today:

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I've been trying to get on Towson University's Online Writing Center site for three days and Internet Explorer keeps telling me it's waiting for towson.edu. The little blue circle just spins and spins and spins. Eventually, it takes me to another website with a white page that says, "ERROR The requested URL could not be retrieved." I think someone hacked our system and now the internet has stopped working. I don't know why it's taken you three days to fix this, but can you get it fixed today, please?

I don't work for Towson University, but apparently someone over there has managed to destroy the entire internet.

[Kilorn]

I was on the phone with a customer at a site trying to get a Star TSP700II thermal receipt printer installed and configured properly to work with the POS. After trying a few different things, I heard the printer suddenly start printing and not stopping. It did this a few times and burned through almost an entire roll of paper in a matter of minutes. I asked the lady I was on the phone with what was actually being printed out and she said:

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"A whole lot of alphabet and numbers."

At this point, I had already dealt with the lack of intelligence and general knowledge from these people long enough and told her that her printer has died and needs to be replaced. I told her to call us back when she got a new printer that we could actually make work. She hasn't called back as of yet.

[DarenR]

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Vendor x can not access the application because their internet is not working can you fix it for them?

do i look like an isp? I create the application not the internet.

[NeoTifa]

I create internet.

[fromTheSprawl]

BenignDesign, on 11 October 2012 - 07:47 PM, said:

but apparently someone over there has managed to destroy the entire internet.

Oh no, they Googled Google!

[WolfCoder]

My favorite is still "I put the CD in my VCR but I still can't see the pictures on it."

[e_i_pi]

We are having a fun little game of tennis with one of our clients at the moment...

Original request:

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Let all user's be able to see everything in the system

Next request:

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Whoa, people can see everything, this is a privacy breach. Make it so that they can only see their Department and sub-Departments

Next request:

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Users are complaining, make it so that they can see their Department, sub-Departments, and the two Departments above

Next request:

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Users are still complaining, make it so that they can see their Department, sub-Departments, sibling Departments, one Department above. FIX IT NOW! THEY ARE COMPLAINING TOO MUCH!

...or as I like to call it, "We have no f&%^ing idea, and are just reacting to the latest feedback, rather than looking at what our business requirements actually are".

[fromTheSprawl]

e_i_pi, on 12 October 2012 - 01:55 AM, said:

...or as I like to call it, "We have no f&%^ing idea, and are just reacting to the latest feedback, rather than looking at what our business requirements actually are".

Every time I face this type of situation, I hug myself and whisper "It will be over soon".

[CharlieMay]

Glad I don't have to deal with this type of stuff any more

Had a guy call in and tell me his printer wasn't working. I started off with "Is it turned on?" Because, yea, I had been burned by that one before. But this guy was good. He promptly replied with "I don't know we just lost power 10 minutes ago and it's not back up." So thinking this would be simple, I replied, "well, that's the problem your going to have to wait until the power is restored. You can't print if the printer doesn't have power." Sadly, for the next 15 minutes, I had to explain that the laptop he was running was running off its battery and just because it was still running didn't mean he could print to the printer that didn't have power. I think he still thinks to this day that just because it was hooked to his laptop via a parallel cable that he should have been able to print.

I also had a co-worker (our IT guy to make it worse) ask me to help him with a problem. We had just gotten a color inkjet (New high-tech equipment for the time) and he handed me a flyer and asked me if I knew what the problem was. I looked at the flyer and didn't see anything wrong. In the process of this he had explained that he had changed out the ink cartridge twice with new ones and the problem was still there. He then replied, "Look at the picture on the screen and then look at the flyer." I still didn't see a problem. He then very slowly (so as to make sure I could follow) pointed to a white area on the screen and then pointed to the same area on the flyer and said "See... this is white... and this is yellow..." The flyer was printed on yellow paper. At that point I handed him the paper and proceeded to tell him he was a fucking idiot. Never let him live it down.

[CharlieMay]

I guess I should put one up from the other point of view.

I had to call IBM support once because of an OS\2 Workstation had lost communication with the Server and no matter what we tried we could not get it recognized. While on the call, the support guy told me to type Net Accounts Role: Standalone. I did and then he said "give me a second". I can't remember exactly what I was doing (over 10 years ago) but I typed something at which point he very abruptly said "What did you just do?" when I told him he then said "Sir, you called me because you have a problem that you can't solve, I can solve that problem. In order for me to help you solve this, you need to do what I say and only what I say to do. Would you like to follow my instructions, or would you like to end this call and solve this yourself?" I think that was the smallest I've ever felt in my life.

[BenignDesign]

How did you manage to get the only knowledgeable phone tech on the entire planet?!?

[alias120]

Gotta love when you ask them which version of IE they are running, and the response is "XP".

Or better yet, asking which version of Windows they are running, and the response is "I don't use Windows, I use Firefox".

[Lemur]

I once had a lady insist that she could use a phone splitter instead of a router or switch because an ethernet cord is "just a glorified phone cord." She proceeded to break her ethernet card beyond repair, and blame me for it.

[raghav.naganathan]

My friend calls me up and says,"Hey dude,my Skype is not connecting.What do I do?". The first thing I ask him is "Are you connected to the internet?". He then gets surprised and exclaims "What? Does Skype need a net connection?"

*mega facepalm*

This post has been edited by raghav.naganathan: 11 October 2012 - 11:28 PM

[NeoTifa]

Well, I'm not in the computer industry, I'm actually like in the construction industry, more specifically HVAC. I got customers all the time in the school district I commissioned like

them: "omg I'm freezing in here can you turn up the temperature?"
me: "ma'am, it's 75 deg in here..."
them: "well I'm cold, and you guys made it to where I can't turn it up!"
me: "okay." *walks off
person down the hallway that is fed by the same air handler snags me
person: "omg, it's a blazing inferno down here, can you turn it down? It has to be like 90 deg in here!"
me: "says right here it's 75 deg"
person: "well I'm hot"

OMFG!!! I can't set the temperatures to please everybody's body thermostat! Especially if a big chunk of the hallway is being fed by the same air handler! asdfjkadsfljsdjflksjdfklasj!!!!!!!!!!!