• a feminist (unregistered) in reply to shimon
    shimon:
    No, because makes me want to smash != makes me smash.
    Still, that reaction is unusually strong. Breathe deeply or something...
    shimon:
    I'll consider visiting you, maybe.
    Oh, I don't think they'll let you out to do that. Sorry.
  • (cs)

    On the one hand, Sheila can't be blamed for thinking that "any key" means any key.

    On the other hand, a person with even rudimentary problem-solving skills would try other keys before contacting tech support.

    It's a double-WTF.

  • Duke of New York (unregistered)

    The CFO in the first story is right. Anal-retentive password rules, and people who aren't annoyed by them, are the real WTF.

  • (cs) 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?

    Knock once for yes, or zero times for no!

  • (cs) in reply to RayS
    RayS:
    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

    Wait wait wait, I can't find the "TU" key! Helps!

  • Right (unregistered) in reply to Junkie
    Junkie:
    The *ANY* key story reminds me when I was a desktop support analyst.
    Maybe you shouldn't have been one.
    Junkie:
    <user> I have been right clicking the icons the whole time we have been talking! I don't understand! <me> Ok. I want you to wrong mouse click on the screen.
    Even though you and I aren't left handed, there is nothing wrong about mouse buttons set for a left-handed human.
  • Unscrewed By Dell (unregistered)

    Well, we can see what country Chris H. is in. If he were in any other country, he could have several 45-minute conversations like that with Dell and he still wouldn't get the screws he needs.

    Dell promised me they could provide better service than they did. They repeated that promise three times. They still couldn't deliver screws.

  • Meesa (unregistered)

    Reminded me of doing support back in the dark ages, where clients installed manually. On one call:

    me> okay, we need to create a directory for these file him> okay me> you're at the C-colon-backslash prompt, right? him> yup me> okay, at the command prompt, enter 'md' space lights him> tap-tap... tap... tap-tap-tap-tap-tap... tap... tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap... okay me> hmm... read to me the text on your command line

  • Jimmy Jones (unregistered)

    Then it they type 'a' it works.

  • Turing (unregistered)

    Knock.

  • (cs) in reply to No Pickles
    No Pickles:
    Various Pickles:
    Harddrive screws = more than likely M3x0.5 :D

    /thread

    0.5mm long? Those won't be very useful to hold any harddrive in place. they are actually 3mm long: http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/xpsM1330/en/sm/hdd.htm
    0.5mm is standard thread pitch for M3. It's usually omitted, though, so the screws are just specified as M3.

  • (cs) in reply to Jaime

    I work for a 100 billion dollar company and both our current and previous CIOs were females.[/quote]

    Before the sex-change surgery, right?

  • Groxx (unregistered)

    I've had similar conversations with Dell, AT&T (ooooh boy, have I had ones like that with AT&T....), Verizon, and HP.

    With Apple: within 5 minutes, I'd found the precise answer to a very specific, programmer-related problem, and found out how to launch the built-in video card diagnostics which told me my old laptop's video ram had died (a pretty rare occurrence). Other calls have been similarly technical and highly specific, and I've never been transferred, and never spent more than 30 minutes total, including rebooting my machine a few times.

    Support matters. I wish Dell would realize this. And effectively, no, that's not a bot. It's just someone in India with a hundred pre-translated sentences and zero computer-IQ. You can even hear the robotic-Indian accent in the chat log.

  • oheso (unregistered) in reply to Ben4jammin
    Ben4jammin:
    It would be like me taking my car to a mechanic, and when he tells me the timing belt needs to be replaced I reply with "nah that's not it...I'm gonna call the guy that sold me my tires"

    I've bought that t-shirt ...

  • oheso (unregistered) in reply to shimon
    shimon:
    I have yet to encounter a man with such mindset.

    I can see you've never dealt with stock brokers.

  • Bernd (unregistered) in reply to DishonestBob

    Yeah, all this vendor crap.

    On my Acer laptop I deactivated all programs/services with acer in it. After that everything was smooth, network was functional after hibernation, ...

  • Konstantin (unregistered)

    Yes, Dell's consumer support is horrendous. However, i have been happy with their bus. support for the most part.

    If you want some real WTF's switch to HP.

    for a year, all of their servers running their ILO remote management interface would randomly reboot and flood the event viewer with errors. It took them like 4 or 5 firmware versions to fix this problem and their troubleshooting involved in having costumers upgrade firmware on their machines.. then a few days later downgrade to 2 year old firmware since the upgrade did not work. They would not even admit there was a problem at first, or that it only affected certain OS's.

    Oh, they once dispatched a tech to go to Santa Cruz, when our Data Center and Office were in the Bay Area(about a 2 hour drive)

  • Jamie (unregistered)

    I'm on sheila's side! the shift key is a perfectly reasonable key to press when asked to press 'any key'.

  • SR (unregistered) in reply to halcyon1234
    halcyon1234:
    RayS:
    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

    Wait wait wait, I can't find the "TU" key! Helps!

    Post your shipping address. We'll send you a new keyboard.

  • Anonymous (unregistered) in reply to (username *)me;
    (username *)me;:
    Isp software is the worst, ick!
    You actually use that stuff? I've never had a software disk from an ISP that I actually needed to use; they generally just do some basic configuration and install a bunch of crapware that you never needed or wanted. I'd much rather configure the hardware manually and avoid all the crapware.
  • Anonymous (unregistered) in reply to AdT
    AdT:
    Apple would have sent iScrews that fit every diameter, automatically tighten themselves without user interaction and wirelessly backup the hard disk, only they would have been $30 a piece and would have installed iTunes on your MBR.
    And you're today's winner, thanks for your comment!
  • bk (unregistered) in reply to @Deprecated
    @Deprecated:
    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.

    Dammit, I pressed Reset and all my data... it's gone! I'm going to sue you!

  • · (unregistered) in reply to Anonymous
    Anonymous:
    (username *)me;:
    Isp software is the worst, ick!
    You actually use that stuff? I've never had a software disk from an ISP that I actually needed to use; they generally just do some basic configuration and install a bunch of crapware that you never needed or wanted. I'd much rather configure the hardware manually and avoid all the crapware.
    PPPoE support wasn't in 9x versions of Windows, so you needed to add it. Most ISPs would ship some rebranded third party software that only worked for some versions. The solution is to use a free third-party PPPoE implementation that does support those Windows versions. I believe raspppoe is the one I have used previously. Once had to ship it on CD - as well as a CD drive - because it required an update that didn't fit on a floppy and the poor user (my sister) was in another country.
  • grammer nasty (unregistered) in reply to SR
    SR:
    halcyon1234:
    RayS:
    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

    Wait wait wait, I can't find the "TU" key! Helps!

    Post your shipping address. We'll send you a new keyboard.

    To save time, and keyboards, could you just ship a whole new unit now? Ta

  • (username *)me (unregistered) in reply to Anonymous
    Anonymous:
    (username *)me;:
    Isp software is the worst, ick!
    You actually use that stuff? I've never had a software disk from an ISP that I actually needed to use; they generally just do some basic configuration and install a bunch of crapware that you never needed or wanted. I'd much rather configure the hardware manually and avoid all the crapware.

    NO I don't use that crapware! What you wrote is basically my sentiment(though a post or two down a user did give legitimate reasoning), but I did write that I was a noob at the time further on in my post. I must up my opinion based on experience, is was either that or basing my opinion on other peoples opinions....

    What really bothers me these days is that more essential software, like motherboard drivers, are starting to do it. NO gigabyte I don't want you to mess with my home page or install useless software, I want the devices to work properly!

  • (cs)

    You know, if we just had a time machine we could go back and solve this problem once and for all, by figuring out who the first guy was to use the term "press any key..." and smack him around until he changes it to "press the first letter of your name...".

  • grammer nasty (unregistered) in reply to GalacticCowboy
    GalacticCowboy:
    You know, if we just had a time machine we could go back and solve this problem once and for all, by figuring out who the first guy was to use the term "press any key..." and smack him around until he changes it to "press the first letter of your name...".

    That's fine until a smartarse complains that it works when he presses a letter that isn't the first of his name! "Press A Key" seems the best solution.

  • Anonymous (unregistered) in reply to grammer nasty
    grammer nasty:
    GalacticCowboy:
    You know, if we just had a time machine we could go back and solve this problem once and for all, by figuring out who the first guy was to use the term "press any key..." and smack him around until he changes it to "press the first letter of your name...".
    That's fine until a smartarse complains that it works when he presses a letter that isn't the first of his name! "Press A Key" seems the best solution.
    How about "Use a small child to paw at your keyboard to continue". A flailing child would undoubtedly hit one of the valid keys.
  • (username *)me (unregistered)

    To install this software please tear out all the keys on the keyboard not used to type the below using only one key per character:

    1 the 2 quick 3 brown 4 fox 5
jumped 6 over 7 the 8 lazy 9 dog 0

    snip

    Press any remaining key to continue....

  • Drew (unregistered) in reply to erewhon
    erewhon:
    The real WTF is the first-line support moron who can't tell when a user is having keyboard input issues, and asssumes that a replacement keyboard is required. Keyboards are usually the LAST thing to go wrong on a PC, not the first.

    As someone who used to work for a company that did hardware and software support for Franchise restaurants, this most certainly is not always the case. I've heard of everything from pizza dough to mushrooms being jammed into keyboards. Sending them a new keyboard is a reasonable idea, the first time.

    Luckily, I was on the software development end of this company and I only had to deal with the users during upgrades.

  • Alan (unregistered) in reply to GalacticCowboy
    GalacticCowboy:
    You know, if we just had a time machine we could go back and solve this problem once and for all, by figuring out who the first guy was to use the term "press any key..." and smack him around until he changes it to "press the first letter of your name...".

    "Hello Support, my name is Özlem Çelik."

    CAPTCHA: tego, as in "One coffee-tego please"

  • (username *)me (unregistered) in reply to Anonymous
    Anonymous:
    grammer nasty:
    GalacticCowboy:
    You know, if we just had a time machine we could go back and solve this problem once and for all, by figuring out who the first guy was to use the term "press any key..." and smack him around until he changes it to "press the first letter of your name...".
    That's fine until a smartarse complains that it works when he presses a letter that isn't the first of his name! "Press A Key" seems the best solution.
    How about "Use a small child to paw at your keyboard to continue". A flailing child would undoubtedly hit one of the valid keys.

    Bug report closed.

    Reason: Could not reproduce.

  • Anonymous (unregistered) in reply to (username *)me
    (username *)me:
    Anonymous:
    (username *)me;:
    Isp software is the worst, ick!
    You actually use that stuff? I've never had a software disk from an ISP that I actually needed to use; they generally just do some basic configuration and install a bunch of crapware that you never needed or wanted. I'd much rather configure the hardware manually and avoid all the crapware.

    NO I don't use that crapware! What you wrote is basically my sentiment(though a post or two down a user did give legitimate reasoning), but I did write that I was a noob at the time further on in my post. I must up my opinion based on experience, is was either that or basing my opinion on other peoples opinions....

    What really bothers me these days is that more essential software, like motherboard drivers, are starting to do it. NO gigabyte I don't want you to mess with my home page or install useless software, I want the devices to work properly!

    You're absolutely right about this and it drives me mad. Driver software should contain drivers - not a bunch of stupid helper apps and persistent services that do nothing other than put an icon in my systray (an icon that I don't want!). And don't even get me started on the Realtek HD Audio driver. That thing installs more files than Windows and for what? So it can overlay a bunch of DSPs that I absolutely do NOT want in my audio stream messing with my sound quality! Of course, nVidia wins the crummy driver wars with the 130MB monster that is required for all nVidia graphics cards. I used to love the concept of their "Universal Driver Architecture", back when the universal driver was 10MB or so. Now that it's balooned to 130MB it just doesn't seem like such a smart idea anymore.

  • (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".
    My biggest problem is with developers who are clueless enough not to know how to check if, indeed, some -- any -- key was pressed on the keyboard. It has always been relatively easy. If the POS system is DOS-based (some of them are), then all you need is to do a single I/O read from the keyboard controller (or two). All the info you need for that is in, say, the good old techhelp.exe -- that's an old gem of a TSR with all basic interrupt and I/O port data for the PC.

    Alternatively, all decent OSes will give you access to raw key press data -- for all keys, including all the multimedia keys, etc.

    So, TRWTF is, in this case, the developer of the installer. And this problem is so widespread you'd hope that the developers would wisen up by now. But no, they seem none the wiser, and that's what's sad...

  • (cs) in reply to Jaime
    Jaime:
    amischiefr:
    That first story sounds made up. I mean come on, a female CIO?
    I work for a 100 billion dollar company and both our current and previous CIOs were females.
    You're just saying that because you're a woman. I bet you sit at home watching the kids while your husband works.
  • moz (unregistered) in reply to halcyon1234
    halcyon1234:
    RayS:
    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

    Wait wait wait, I can't find the "TU" key! Helps!

    Are you blind or something? It's right there between the "WUN" key and the "FREA" key!

  • Al G. (unregistered) in reply to Alan

    Just had to be a smart guy didn't you? ;)

  • CS Hater (unregistered)

    Generally, consumer-level tech support sucks all around.

    ISPs. Cable. Phone. Cell. and of course, computer (DELL, HP, Gateway, whoever).

    Quite a few years ago we got my daughter an HP laptop for high school graduation for her to take to college. about 4 months or so into school, her screen goes completely dead.

    The amount of time she spent talking to the tech support guy, trying to get him to understand that her screen was dead and all she needed to do was send it in for repair, was excruciating.

    THEY JUST DO NOT LISTEN! Their training should include a very simple concept: If the issue goes off of our standard decision tree, then send it to someone more knowledgeable right away.

    Instead, this idiot kept asking her to click on things to troubleshoot the problem. WTF? If she doesn't see the boot-up screen, something is definitely gone and no amount of phone-work is going to figure it out.

    I just have no patience anymore. If the person on the other end doesn't show some understanding of my issue within 10 seconds (give or take), then I'm asking for my issue to be elevated.

    Luckily I don't have to contact tech support much.

  • Homer (unregistered) in reply to CS Hater

    Once they start to listen, they get promoted to second level support.

  • (cs) in reply to vt_mruhlin
    vt_mruhlin:
    My favorite part of the whole thing:
    11/12/2009 02:58:06PM Agent (K______): "You may Now close this window" 11/12/2009 02:59:48PM Agent (K______): "You there,Chris?"

    At first, I thought this was a phone conversation, and Agent (K______) was mindlessly stepping through a wizard. I guess I should give people the benefit of the doubt.

  • sino (unregistered) in reply to pbrown
    pbrown:
    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%.
    Awesome. :D
  • (cs) in reply to pbrown
    pbrown:
    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%.

    Yeah, those hard drive screws from Monster Cable are made with nitrogen instead of oxygen, so there's no chance of oxidation on your valuable data.

  • (cs)

    "I bought my DSL modem from home" She lives in an electronics store and doesn't know this stuff?

    WTFs all around in the broken keyboard issue. 1) Why would shift not work? 2) Don't say "any key" if you don't mean "any key". 3) There is no three. 4) 3 replacement keyboards and she doesn't think to try a different "any key"?

  • Franz Kafka (unregistered) in reply to Anonymous
    Anonymous:
    grammer nasty:
    GalacticCowboy:
    You know, if we just had a time machine we could go back and solve this problem once and for all, by figuring out who the first guy was to use the term "press any key..." and smack him around until he changes it to "press the first letter of your name...".
    That's fine until a smartarse complains that it works when he presses a letter that isn't the first of his name! "Press A Key" seems the best solution.
    How about "Use a small child to paw at your keyboard to continue". A flailing child would undoubtedly hit one of the valid keys.

    How about we expect that computers require some level of training. "This is a mouse, that is a monitor, this box is the actual computer, and when someone says any key, that usually means a key that generates a letter". Other stuff like the difference between slash and backslash and how when the tech saps to type m-d-space, that's usually three keypresses would also be nice. I can see this being 10 minutes of instruction with 30 minutes of Q&A.

  • Pete (unregistered) in reply to Keloran
    I think the problem is not that it should have said press any key between a and z

    But looking at my keyboard there is not a key between A and Z, Z is just below and to the right of A and the gap is too small for another key to fit in there...

  • Homer (unregistered) in reply to DWalker59
    DWalker59:
    pbrown:
    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%.

    Yeah, those hard drive screws from Monster Cable are made with nitrogen instead of oxygen, so there's no chance of oxidation on your valuable data.

    Instead you get nitrogenation.

  • thesolution (unregistered)

    Press any key matching the regex .

  • Homer (unregistered) in reply to Pete
    Pete:
    I think the problem is not that it should have said press any key between a and z

    But looking at my keyboard there is not a key between A and Z, Z is just below and to the right of A and the gap is too small for another key to fit in there...

    Try your house key - I bet you can jam it in there good.

  • (cs) in reply to grammer nasty
    grammer nasty:
    GalacticCowboy:
    You know, if we just had a time machine we could go back and solve this problem once and for all, by figuring out who the first guy was to use the term "press any key..." and smack him around until he changes it to "press the first letter of your name...".

    That's fine until a smartarse complains that it works when he presses a letter that isn't the first of his name! "Press A Key" seems the best solution.

    That's fine until a smartarse complains that it works when he presses a letter that isn't "A"!
  • (cs) in reply to amischiefr
    amischiefr:
    Jaime:
    amischiefr:
    That first story sounds made up. I mean come on, a female CIO?
    I work for a 100 billion dollar company and both our current and previous CIOs were females.
    You're just saying that because you're a woman. I bet you sit at home watching the kids while your husband works.
    I'm a dude. Die in a fire.

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