Joys of working as technical support...

[_Bat_]

There is probably another thread somewhere similar to this, but not found it yet.

Anyone got any crazy or funny stories from either personal experience or experience of a friend working in IT Support?

I think we have all had the not plugged in or not switched on types. But my uncle was telling me about a call he got a few years back. It went something like this:

Caller: "Hi, my computer isn't working"
Uncle: "Okay, what exactly is wrong with it?"
Caller: "It won't turn on"

*My uncle then proceeds to go through the usual questions in trying to figure out exactly what was wrong. As you all work in IT, there is no point in detailing them*

Half way through the conversation and after about five minutes, my uncle heard his technical colleague talking on another phone saying "you'll just have to wait for the power to come back on then".

This made my uncle wonder if 2+2 really did equal 4. He asked the user on the other end of the line:

Uncle: "Are the lights working in your office at the moment?"
Caller: "No, why?"
Uncle: "Has there been a powercut by any chance?"
Caller: "Yes, there has."
Uncle: :crybaby:

[GrumbleDook]

We had issues with power on Friday ... we have to great a load on one particular phase and it is causing that phase to overheat as it enters the school (some pillock decided to cable up a heap of electric heaters in mobiles to the same phase ... which happens to be the same phase that a large number of computers are on!)

We had to turn *all* computers off and wait for the Central Networks techie to turn up ... and so we get a heap of silly questions ... here are a sample.

"You know we have to turn the computers off ... is that going to affect the internet for everyone else? I think you might have to speak to the council to tell thim if it does"

"I know you have turned all the servers off too but can you just turn them back on for 30 seconds so I can check that I have remember to email someone to say that we have no email?"

"Why can't we just turn off all the heating on so we can have computers in the main school?"

"Does that problems with power explain why there was no hot water in the toilets?" - No ... that was because you can't remember which one is hot and which one is cold (I was in there when he originally complained about cold water to wash his hands).

"It's ok if you turn power off completely ... the laptop is still on battery so I can still show my powerpoints to the kids" - erm ... aren't you going to use a projector too? - "Yes ... is that a problem?"

And there were more ... too many more to mention ...

[pete]

Well, there was the ICT teacher who didn't realise you could double-click on a file and have the associated application open it. He'd been opening the program, then using the open dialogue.

The same teacher asked a visiting salesweazel how he managed to switch between programs so quickly on his laptop. Said teacher hid his unfamiliarity with Alt + Tab by proclaiming he was "mouse-orientated". And yes, the salesweasel did baffle him with sales talk and get him to buy crap.

The times I've rescued usb cables from nic ports, and the usb drive someone managed to insert into a serial port.

Oh, and a client used to call nearly every week to complain their server was "broken again" - they powered it from a switched 4-way adaptor that was left out in the open, and people occasionally stepped on the switches .

[alonebfg]

i found one monday a person came up to ma and asked be why the cable i had given them would not plug into the home network port after looking into it found out the were trying to plug rj45 into a telephone socket thinking they would get onto the school network but it wold not fit.i said they would have to contact bt and get broardband he then told me they had it but it never works then i asked about filters and modem and they told me they did not have one but there phone line keeps playng up. ( after laughing for 3 hours i helped them set it up)

[mrcrazy04]

I once had a family friend phone me up because their broadband wasn't working, after about 10-15 mins of questions (usually with "I don't know" answers) I worked out that they hadn't actually ordered broadband, just bought a wireless router from PC World, plugged it into the phone line, put the AOL CD in their PC and expected it to work!!