• mzw (unregistered)

    In the last story, I kept reading Hell. They are the same, Dell is just specialized in hardware.

  • Yalpe Nismou (unregistered)

    You there Chris ?

  • bikeoid (unregistered)

    I'm the Frist "all idiot" to post!

  • (cs)

    i'm kind of siding with sheila

  • @Deprecated (unregistered)

    To complete ordering of your replacement screws, please press any* key.

    *: Any key except: shift, Alt, Ctrl, the Windows logo key, F1, F2, F3, etc... through F12, Fn, Esc, Tab, Caps lock, Menu, Arrow keys, Insert, Home, End, Delete, Page up, Page down, PrtScn, SysRq, Scoll lock, Break, Pause, F-Lock, Stop, Play, Prev, Next, FF, Rew, My Documents, My Pictures, My Music, Mail, Web, Messenger, Vol+, Vol-, Mute, My Favourites, Sleep, Calculator, or Backspace.

  • me_again (unregistered)

    If you expect space bar then tell them. Dell is trwtf always has been always will be.

    captcha: nulla - Field does not allow nulla values

    twrtf x2 post

  • Jason! (unregistered)

    I'm on Sheila's side, too. "Any Key" means ANY KEY, unless you happen to have some sort of innate knowledge of why some keys are "different". Much better to say "Press Enter or Return to continue".

  • Schobi (unregistered)

    Wow! I think that Dell made impressive progress on their automated support service. We might be looking at the first machine that actually passes the Turing test.

    I mean that's the only possible explanation.

  • (cs)

    That's a pretty darn rare event - someone who DIDN'T get screwed by Dell!

  • panzi (unregistered)

    Maybe "Agent (K______)" isn't a dumb employee but a very intelligent bot? Hm, but then he should have started the conversation with: "Have you tried turning it off and on again?" :P

  • (cs)

    That first story sounds made up. I mean come on, a female CIO?

  • (cs) in reply to Jason!
    Jason!:
    I'm on Sheila's side, too. "Any Key" means ANY KEY, unless you happen to have some sort of innate knowledge of why some keys are "different". Much better to say "Press Enter or Return to continue".
    that's all well and good until someone presses another key and complain that the app progresses without them pressing Enter.

    Far better to list every key that can be pressed to continue.

    "Please press A or B or C or D or E or F or G or H or I or J or K or L or M or N or O or P or Q or R or S or TU or V or W or X or Y or Z or ` or 1 or 2 or 3 or 4 or 5 or 6 or 7 or 8 or 9 or 0 or - or = or [ or ] or ; or ' or # or , or . or / or ( etc. etc. you get the picture) to continue."

  • SR (unregistered) in reply to Schobi
    Schobi:
    Wow! I think that Dell made impressive progress on their automated support service. We might be looking at the first machine that actually passes the Turing test.

    I mean that's the only possible explanation.

    I agree it's a bot, though I reckon it's some way short of passing a Turing test.

    Are you there Turing?

  • (cs)

    Reading this made my day : "the HDD itself might not be compatible with any screws".

    And the CFO is 100% correct.

  • Keloran (unregistered)

    I think the problem is not that it should have said press any key between a and z, i think its more like a moron pressing the shift key

    thought process used:

    1. any key
    2. press shift
    3. call support
    4. press shift
    5. call support
    6. press shift
    7. shoot self for being a moron
    8. press trigger
    9. not dead
    10. press trigger
    11. call support
    12. load bullets
    13. press trigger

    thought process needed:

    1. any key
    2. press shift
    3. press a different key
    4. worked
  • Dave (unregistered)

    TRWTF for 'press any key' is that the frontline tech support didn't resolve that almost immediately. Most people think 1st line is a technical position for support trainees, but it's actually a fairly demanding customer services job. This kind of thing is the result. The frontline person should have realised that they have only established that one key on the keyboard wasn't working. In that situation, I'd have asked which key it was right away, because it's just as likely that the user is pressing a mouse button, or a system specific volume control, or, for that matter, a light switch.

    99% of tech support is communication, and when that fails the results are usually comical but completely understandable and in no way a WTF.

  • Anonymous (unregistered)

    Support section please! These stories deserve a coloured header all of their own. I recommend terracota.

  • nimis (unregistered)

    Gaah! My eyes! The table... The cells. Have. Borders.

  • (cs)

    first sentence -> "the grumbled"...

  • (cs) in reply to Keloran

    It says any key, any key should work. This is basic systems design. In the vast majority of cases, the shift key should have worked. Every piece of software I've ever used seems to be able to capture it, so why shouldn't the POS POS software do the same?

  • Steve Urkel (unregistered)

    Did I miss something?

    The "any key" one I get - I agree that the message is a bit non-specific, but still, trying a DIFFERENT key should be the first thing anyone with an IQ over 50 would try.

    And #3 is indeed a pretty big WTF.

    However, #1 (blackberry) and #4 (dell screw support) just seem completely pointless. Where's the WTF there? Is there some sort of clever obscure joke hidden in there somewhere?

  • Anish (unregistered)

    "Amazingly at that moment, the software support staff became disconnected from the conference call. "

    Why did the support staff became disconnected? Did they figure out what happened and hung up?

  • white tentacle (unregistered)

    Can't manage to find the "any" key on my keyboard...

  • justsomedude (unregistered) in reply to white tentacle

    You see, on these hyper advanced POS keyboards, the shift key is a mechanical device instead of an electrical one. The entire circuit board under the keys is shifted 1/2 button width to the right, exposing a new set of contacts for each key to interact with. It's not detectable because it's genius!

  • Micirio (unregistered) in reply to Anish
    Anish:
    "Amazingly at that moment, the software support staff became disconnected from the conference call. "

    Why did the support staff became disconnected? Did they figure out what happened and hung up?

    I'm sure they hang up to hide their laughter from the client.

  • Anonymous (unregistered)

    Sheila is an idiot. Not because she pressed the SHIFT key, any novice could make that mistake. She is an idiot because after the SHIFT key failed to yield any results, she didn't bother trying any other key! If I'm told that I can press any key on the keyboard but the key I've chosen doesn't work, I think to myself "oh well, lucky there are still another 104 keys here to try". Anyone with an ounce of common sense would surely come to the same conclusion. To escalate the problem so high and threaten to dump the entire unit without bothering to try one of the other "any" keys is just plain retarded.

  • Bumbowler (unregistered) in reply to Steve Urkel
    Steve Urkel:
    However, #1 (blackberry) and #4 (dell screw support) just seem completely pointless.

    In #1 the wtf is that there are stupid people out there. I know, right?

    In #4 the wtf is that it took him 45 mins to get screws out of dell from someone who probably didn't speak English as a first language whilst he was afk for considerable times. I know, right?

  • Anonymous (unregistered) in reply to amischiefr
    amischiefr:
    That first story sounds made up. I mean come on, a female CIO?
    That's exactly what I thought! A female CIO and a woman who doesn't like red shiny things - there is no way this is for real.
  • //Rumen (unregistered) in reply to SR
    SR:
    Schobi:
    Wow! I think that Dell made impressive progress on their automated support service. We might be looking at the first machine that actually passes the Turing test.

    I mean that's the only possible explanation.

    I agree it's a bot, though I reckon it's some way short of passing a Turing test.

    Are you there Turing?

    They may as well be bots.... 99% of them know nothing about computers. Most of the customer support centers hire from temp agencies and I believe one of the requirements for the position is to have absolutely no common sense at all.

    Being an asshole and apathetic gets you 'brownie' points as well....

  • (cs) in reply to amischiefr
    amischiefr:
    That first story sounds made up. I mean come on, a female CIO?

    Except that it was a female CFO, which is definitely plausible.

  • Various Pickles (unregistered)

    Harddrive screws = more than likely M3x0.5 :D

    /thread

  • weff (unregistered)

    There could be an entire separate section on this site for hilarious Dell support chats.

  • pbrown (unregistered)

    I don't see why anyone would want those cheapo Dell screws. You should use Monster Cable hard drive screws, which improve hard drive data fidelity by 30%.

  • Anonymous (unregistered) in reply to Anonymous

    #1 - Re-reading the first story, it looks like its a female CFO, not CIO.

    #4 - After spending all that time, should have just gotten all the screws

  • GP (unregistered) in reply to me_again
    me_again:
    Dell is trwtf always has been always will be.

    No, in the early 90's Dell and Midwest Micro were two of the best PC suppliers there were.(I'm sure there was a third one that was good too, but I never can remember the name). At some point, Dell decided to compete with Gateway for Lowest Common Denominator status.

  • (cs)

    I kind of wish I'd done it via chat so I could show you guys...

    Not too long ago we had a tape drive fail in one of our servers. It threw a media error and couldnt eject via software commands, etc. Basically the drive was hosed. This much was obvious. However, upon contacting dell they insisted on sending us a new tape and a cleaning tape. I told them "theres no way all 10 of our tapes went bad simultaneously" but he wouldnt have any of it. It was definitely in the realm of possibility that all 10 of our 1 year old tapes failed all at once.

    Obviously after we got the new tapes and it didnt work he sent me a drive to replace it and that worked just fine.

  • (cs) in reply to Steve Urkel
    Steve Urkel:
    The "any key" one I get - I agree that the message is a bit non-specific, but still, trying a DIFFERENT key should be the first thing anyone with an IQ over 50 would try.

    Maybe she did try a different key: the shift on the other side. And when that didn't work, maybe she tried caps lock, and then maybe all four controls and alts and then perhaps numlock and scroll lock.

    The fact that there are at least 9 keys on any given keyboard which are usually invalid choices for "press any key" makes it a pretty bad idea to use that instruction.

  • Tim (unregistered) in reply to panzi
    panzi:
    Maybe "Agent (K______)" isn't a dumb employee but a very intelligent bot? Hm, but then he should have started the conversation with: "Have you tried turning it off and on again?" :P
    Surely, "Tell me more about your motherboard."
  • JB (unregistered)

    Lol Dell tech support. The funny thing is the guy could've gone to his local hardware store, bought 4 of the correct size screws and had the HDD secure in half the time of tat chat.

  • Dave (unregistered) in reply to JB

    Well, if you're going to be like that, he could have bought an identical, dead hard-disk off ebay for a quid or two, and reported to Dell that the disk dropped on the floor as a result of not being screwed back in by their support guy. Then flog the replacement they send.

    Meanwhile, duct-tape, not screws. Screws are for girls.

  • (cs)

    Sheila was a frustrated manager at a small chain style restaurant...

    WTF is a "chain style" restaurant? One that caters to cenobites?

  • (cs)

    Modem: a device you connect between a phone line and a computer enabling you to dial up to the internet from your computer. You can use it from multiple locations but may have to change the phone number on the computer if you try to use it abroad or through a switchboard that needs a prefix for external lines.

    DSL Modem: a device that you connect between a phone line and a computer enabling you to connect to the internet from your computer. It only works if your phone company has enabled the exchange end of your phone line.

    Yeah of course all users should be born with this knowledge. It's soooo obvious.

  • (cs) in reply to JB
    JB:
    Lol Dell tech support. The funny thing is the guy could've gone to his local hardware store, bought 4 of the correct size screws and had the HDD secure in half the time of tat chat.

    Local PC repair shops always have tons of screws as well, and most will give you them for free.

  • (cs) in reply to Keloran
    Keloran:
    I think the problem is not that it should have said press any key between a and z, i think its more like a moron pressing the shift key

    thought process used:

    1. any key
    2. press shift
    3. call support
    4. press shift
    5. call support
    6. press shift
    7. shoot self for being a moron
    8. press trigger
    9. not dead
    10. press trigger
    11. call support
    12. load bullets
    13. press trigger

    thought process needed:

    1. any key
    2. press shift
    3. press a different key
    4. worked

    I'd say something more like this could have worked just as well:

    1. any key
    2. press shift
    3. call support
    4. press shift
    5. support asks "What did you do"
    6. tell support pressed shift key
    7. support rolls eyes knowingly, politely suggests space bar
    8. worked

    TRWTF would be employing dumb monkeys on the support desk.

  • Andy Cunningham (unregistered)

    I can really sympathise with the Dell customer's frustration. I spent a long time with my new laptop trying to get to the bottom of a memory problem on my Win7 laptop. Virtual memory usage was gigantic, but no processes on the task manager showed they were using lots of memory.

    Dell didn't find me any solutions at all. Although they did suggest that I upgrade the computers RAM to the 100GB+ that was required! Attempt number 3:

    11/26/2009 09:45:38AM Andy Cunningham: "i am getting warnings popping up about low memory" 11/26/2009 09:46:12AM Andy Cunningham: "on the previous session, Brian advised me to change the Virtual Memory settings to use a manually defined page file size" 11/26/2009 09:47:36AM Agent (): "Thanks for providing me the information." 11/26/2009 09:47:54AM Agent (): "What exactly happen after adjusting the virtual memory?" 11/26/2009 09:48:24AM Andy Cunningham: "the virtual memory usage has kept increasing" 11/26/2009 09:48:56AM Andy Cunningham: "eventually it hit the maximum page file size of 32GB (!) and started having problems / programs crashing" 11/26/2009 09:49:17AM Andy Cunningham: "I managed to increase the maximum page file size upto 100GB, and it's started running again now" 11/26/2009 09:50:00AM Agent (): "May I know if you are still receiving the pop about low memory?" 11/26/2009 09:50:23AM Andy Cunningham: "no that part has been resolved by increasing the page file" 11/26/2009 09:51:15AM Agent (): "I see. Andy, the correct way to resolve your issue is to upgrade your computer's memory." 11/26/2009 09:51:31AM Andy Cunningham: "no it isn't"

    Eventually, I discovered for myself that Dell's WLAN helper utility was constantly opening file handles (was upto hundreds of thousands of open handles) and this was using the memory but not showing as memory use in task manager.

    Killing the process fixed the issue, but since it's still happening with the latest version of the software, I'm guessing they didn't follow up on my bug report for the software.

  • DishonestBob (unregistered)

    I lived that Dell story, only it was on the phone and with Microsoft support about their Xbox Live content.

    ...

    So maybe I didn't quite live it, but the hopelessness is still there.

  • Chain Style Guy (unregistered) in reply to Zylon
    Zylon:
    WTF is a "chain style" restaurant?
    +1. That was my first thought, too.
  • DishonestBob (unregistered) in reply to Andy Cunningham
    Andy Cunningham:
    Eventually, I discovered for myself that Dell's WLAN helper utility was constantly opening file handles (was upto hundreds of thousands of open handles) and this was using the memory but not showing as memory use in task manager.

    Ooh, sneaky.

    See, my first instinct is "gotta be the Dell crap." But hiding it like THAT, beyond the purview of task manager, is just... dastardly.

  • mypalmike (unregistered)

    "And is your DSLAM in the hotel room with you also?"

  • Quirkafleeg (unregistered) in reply to Various Pickles
    Various Pickles:
    Harddrive screws = more than likely M3x0.5 :D

    /thread

    No no no. \\\\ thread :-)

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