• (cs)

    I'm curious why a tech would ever have a user manually change the address for the homepage in IE? If they wanted no homepage, they'd click the "Use Blank" button, otherwise you'd have the user navigate to the page they want to be "home" then go to the options and click the "Use Current" button. I can think of only one or two exceptions. But then again, I'm really not into torturing the native-languagely impaired.

  • spellingnazi (unregistered) in reply to Ben4jammin
    Ben4jammin:
    Right, but if you are calling about the same issue 47 times a day, I mean come on. Is there any realistic chance that budget money came through since you last called an hour ago? I admit that giving a solution that could result in damaged equipment should result in a reprimand, but firing them on the spot seems a tad much.

    When I read that, I got the impression that she was purposely calling in order to pass on the frustration of having to constantly reboot. "Squeaky wheel gets the grease" and all that. It was kind of surprising when the punch line came along and, no, she just need proper instruction on how to shake bytes out of her machine.

  • Rick (unregistered)

    Here is the Dilbert comic referenced earlier:

    [image]
  • (cs) in reply to ThomsonsPier
    ThomsonsPier:
    Please learn the difference between 'less' and 'fewer'.
    The distinction between the usage of 'less' (amount) and 'fewer' (number) is an artificial one made up by the same self-important twits who tried to impose Latin grammatical usage on English.

    (Similarly for the words "amount" and "number". Not so for "difference" and "distinction". The former means actual differences, while the latter refers to how something is categorized.)

    Here's some news for you: English isn't Latin.

    Here's some more: there's no such thing as a grammatical "rule" -- only observed accepted usage.

  • SarcasmFTW (unregistered) in reply to Ben4jammin
    Ben4jammin:
    Sean:
    Ben4jammin:
    ah yes, the eternal challenge of deciphering "user-ese". And putting technical stuff into terms they can understand. And trying to get them to perform actions that are second nature to most techs, but not most users. My wife is a talented physical therapist that can go into great detail about bones, muscles, and treatments but could not tell you the difference between a log off and a reboot.

    Yes, the good times trying to explain to a user that turning on their monitor is, in fact, actually different than turning on their computer.

    Or trying to explain that a reboot doesn't mean hitting the power button on your monitor.

    Or trying to explain to someone that when their monitor says "No Signal" it usually doesn't mean that it's broken, just that it's either unplugged or the computer is off. In one specific case I spent about an hour on the phone with a lady getting her to resolve this problem by actually hitting the power button on the server rather than the toggle button on the LCD on the front of the server (yes I'm aware that having non-technical people turning servers on and off is far from ideal, but there's really no other solution sometimes)

    One of the most impressive feats I have seen recently is when our infrastructure manager got a non-techie in a remote location (6 hours away) to completely configure a linksys router from scratch. Unfortunately, she had been told to do a "reboot" that turned out to be factory reset. He got her connected to it, and got the configuration set to re-establish their access...all over the phone. I would have bet my own money against this working.

    See, that is your first mistake. I always bet other peoples money. It is way more fun, and far less costly.

  • IT Girl (unregistered) in reply to sss

    Yeah, well you do have to keep in mind that Microsoft is also made up of the brilliant minds that put the shutdown option under a start button. That was a fun one to deal with when it first happened.

    Me: "Okay, I need you to reboot your computer, go to Start, then Shutdown"

    User, "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard, do you even know how to do your job, why would you want me to go to Start to Shutdown the ... oh, you're right, there it is."

  • Ie (unregistered) in reply to Steve H
    Steve H:
    Code Dependent:
    Peter Pedant:
    ThomsonsPier:
    Henceforth, winipcfg shall be known as winpig whenever I use it. Which is never.

    Please learn the difference between 'less' and 'fewer'. rereads for instance of Muphry's Law

    And learn to spell "Murphy"?
    Nope. But maybe learn to research stuff you're about to criticize.

    And learn to spell 'criticise'.

    This is my favorite troll thread in a while.

  • IT Girl (unregistered) in reply to undrline
    undrline:
    I'm curious why a tech would ever have a user manually change the address for the homepage in IE? If they wanted no homepage, they'd click the "Use Blank" button, otherwise you'd have the user navigate to the page they want to be "home" then go to the options and click the "Use Current" button. I can think of only one or two exceptions. But then again, I'm really not into torturing the native-languagely impaired.

    I considered the same thing when I read that, but judging by the dates referrenced in some of these comments, my guess is that the incident occurred before the option to "Use Current" was available in IE.

  • Downfall (unregistered)

    Some of these aren't really WTFs. Not much is measured in KB any more, so it's understandable that a casual user would not know what the abbreviation stood for and make a reasonable guess. Similarly, the worker at least knew about winipcfg and how to run it. If those are truly two of the best 'wtf' support stories out there, then computer users must have gotten much smarter while I wasn't paying attention.

    That being said, I really liked the last story.

  • Farmer Null (unregistered) in reply to Zagyg
    Zagyg:
    Bappi:
    Zagyg:
    DaveAronson:
    WinPig is already a product, for swine herd management. See this link.
    Interesting company name. Why not go the whole hog (pun intended) and call yourself awkwardsoft or crapsoft?
    What's wrong with Agrosoft? It's a perfectly good name for a company that makes software for the agriculture business.
    Indeed, but a much more common interpretation for agro than agriculture is aggravation (at least in the UK, where the website trades)

    I've never understood that. "Aggro" conforms to the spelling of the original word and preserves a useful distinction (i.e., we're talking about people who annoy me, not farmers.)

    Also ,the double-G spelling gets used in most online game discussion, and if anyone abbreviates it's MMO RPG chatters.

    Meh, English pop culture.

    Signing off from Nebraska, where we have a lot of agriculture and aren't lazy enough to drop a useful doubled letter.

  • Homer J (unregistered)

    WinSpiderPig...WinSpiderPig...does whatever a WinSpiderPig does....

  • Island Usurper (unregistered) in reply to rfsmit
    rfsmit:
    The distinction between the usage of 'less' (amount) and 'fewer' (number) is an artificial one made up by the same self-important twits who tried to impose Latin grammatical usage on English.

    (Similarly for the words "amount" and "number". Not so for "difference" and "distinction". The former means actual differences, while the latter refers to how something is categorized.)

    Here's some news for you: English isn't Latin.

    Here's some more: there's no such thing as a grammatical "rule" -- only observed accepted usage.

    Wait a minute. You're saying that the difference in the meanings between "amount" and "number", and "less" and "fewer" is artificial, but the difference in the meanings between "difference" and "distinction" is not?

    Congratulations. You sound like a self-important twit.

  • (cs) in reply to Tom
    Tom:
    Thank god I'm not the only one who thinks WinPig is a kick-ass name for an application.

    Except that it is a memory hog and runs like mud.

    (Shall I get my coat?)

  • nedbrek (unregistered) in reply to jdavidbakr
    jdavidbakr:
    Andrew:
    WinPig is fine, just whatever you do don't use WinBearPig.

    Half Windows ... half Bear ... and half Pig.

    I'm pretty sure Windows is all pig...

  • Glow-in-the-dark (unregistered) in reply to My name
    My name:
    Addison:
    A friend of mine once told someone their network was down because all the 1's got stuck in the cable. He got them to unhook all the wires and straighten all the kinks out. Meanwhile he reset the router. When they turned their computer back it everything worked fine.
    That's an old joke. Scott Adams (author of Dilbert) claims to have done the same thing. Shaking the computer to reboot reminds me of when Dilbert and Wally gave the Pointy-Haired Boss an Etch-A-Sketch instead of a laptop.
    There's an ever better one (or more appropriate to the context, take your pick): when the PHB complains about a broken network, Dilbert convinces him that the token fell out of his token ring network so the PHB ends up crawling around the floor looking for it..

    There was a phase where I could have sworn Scott Adams was around taking notes somewhere close - it was almost uncanny how he tracked the nonsense happening in the place where I was working at the time (v large telco - stupidity was an essential asset in career planning).

    Captcha - appellatio:

    1 - is that a general call (appel) for .. umm. OK, forget it. 2 - if I start with the apple, the rest will be stopped by NSFW filters..

    Ducks and runs away quickly ..

  • Mr.'; Drop Database -- (unregistered) in reply to nedbrek
    nedbrek:
    jdavidbakr:
    Andrew:
    WinPig is fine, just whatever you do don't use WinBearPig.
    Half Windows ... half Bear ... and half Pig.
    I'm pretty sure Windows is all pig...
    Yeah, some religious groups refuse to touch it.
  • (cs) in reply to Zagyg
    Zagyg:
    DaveAronson:
    WinPig is already a product, for swine herd management. See this link.
    Interesting company name. Why not go the whole hog (pun intended) and call yourself awkwardsoft or crapsoft?
    Whole Hog is a line of stage lighting control panels.
  • (cs) in reply to Rick
    Rick:
    Here is the Dilbert comic referenced earlier:

    [image]

    When one of my bosses returned after a 4 month 'sabbatical' (aka nervous breakdown and only after 18 months of running our division) we replaced his notebook with the department Etch-A-Sketch. Asset tag, RJ45 jack and all.

    Bless him, he came over and said his password didn't work. He'd drawn a picture tho.

  • Dave's not here, man! (unregistered)

    Obligatory story:

    A friend told me about a friend of his who was doing IT support over the phone. She got a call from (by the accent) Texas, about a computer not working. A few questions led her to the conclusion that the power cord was unplugged.

    She told the customer that he might have "one of them new polarized plugs", and suggested he unplug it from the wall, turn it over, and plug it back in.

    "Yep, that fixed it all right!"

    ...I always thought that was an interesting way to solve the problem without having to outright tell the customer he was an idiot.

  • Colonel Angus (unregistered)

    So... what if her baby had a byte stuck in it?

    We're shakin' a baby now! Shakin' a baby!

  • (cs) in reply to Dave's not here, man!
    Dave's not here:
    Obligatory story:

    A friend told me about a friend of his who was doing IT support over the phone. She got a call from (by the accent) Texas, about a computer not working. A few questions led her to the conclusion that the power cord was unplugged.

    She told the customer that he might have "one of them new polarized plugs", and suggested he unplug it from the wall, turn it over, and plug it back in.

    "Yep, that fixed it all right!"

    ...I always thought that was an interesting way to solve the problem without having to outright tell the customer he was an idiot.

    No ground contact on that plug, huh?

  • Melissa (unregistered)

    One of my coworkers talked a non-technical client through the process of replacing her computer's PSU. We all thought he was crazy for even trying, but when the scheduled call time arrived, she'd already gotten the computer out from under her desk, and had the requested tools at hand. It took less than half an hour and worked perfectly. The lady was the perfect client, what can I say.

  • KP (unregistered)

    Back in the day of DOS applications, and supporting them over the phone we would have to check the free disk space on the drive, and that was easiest to do by getting someone to type "DIR ." from a command prompt.

    So aurally picture the phone conversation:

    "Type 'D', 'I', 'R'"

    taptaptap

    "...Space star dot star"

    taptaptaptaptapclicktaptapclicktap*

    "..Enter"

    tap

    Hmmm. I'm thinking that was a lot of tapping... they were usually typing "DIRSPACE*.*". After a while, I listened for the clicks and corrected them before they could hit enter...they thought I could see over their shoulders because before they finished typing I'd say, "no, no, not "DIRSPACE...".

    Another time we had a guy that we were telling to hit the space key to get past a "Hit Space to Continue" dialog. He (literally) swore that he was hitting the space bar... after a couple of minutes of trying that we got him to tell us where on the keyboard his space bar was (as it didn't sound like a spacebar over the phone)... his spacebar was just beside the Q key, above the caps lock.

    We usually had people that were use to swearing for every second word, but we had to keep our conversation polite. The people calling in knew this, so they would pepper their conversation with expletives just to goad us.

    One time I had a guy phone up and he was right p1553d off, he says, "This f_cken printer you guys sent me doesn't work"

    Without missing a beat I responded in a very polite tone, "which f_cken printer did we send you?"

    ... it caught him off guard, totally defused his anger, and he had to chuckle a bit, and the fact that his printer didn't work wasn't anymore the worst thing that happened.

  • Bob (unregistered) in reply to Island Usurper

    Yes there is a difference between "less" and "fewer". "Less" is for continuous stuff and "fewer" is for discrete stuff. Integers are discrete and real numbers are continous.

  • Bob (unregistered) in reply to KP
    KP:

    One time I had a guy phone up and he was right p1553d off, he says, "This f_cken printer you guys sent me doesn't work"

    Without missing a beat I responded in a very polite tone, "which f_cken printer did we send you?"

    ... it caught him off guard, totally defused his anger, and he had to chuckle a bit, and the fact that his printer didn't work wasn't anymore the worst thing that happened.

    This reminds me of the following XKCD comic: http://xkcd.com/90/
  • (cs) in reply to Tom
    Tom:
    Thank god I'm not the only one who thinks WinPig is a kick-ass name for an application
    At least it beats FailSwine.
  • Bob (unregistered) in reply to Steve H
    Steve H:
    And learn to spell 'criticise'.

    The English suffix derives from the Greek suffix -ιζειν, (-izo), or the Latin -izāre. OED and wiktionary agree that the -ize spelling is backed up in this case If it was 'analyze' then the spelling analyse would be backed up by the etmyology.

  • (cs) in reply to Code Dependent
    Code Dependent:
    Peter Pedant:
    ThomsonsPier:
    Henceforth, winipcfg shall be known as winpig whenever I use it. Which is never.

    Please learn the difference between 'less' and 'fewer'. rereads for instance of Muphry's Law

    And learn to spell "Murphy"?
    Nope. But maybe learn to research stuff you're about to criticize.

    HA that's funny. I had never heard if this law, but the similarity to "murphy" makes it so that mentioning this law is bound to produce an example, a self fulfilling prophesy of sorts, as it did in this very thread.

  • The Fake WTF (unregistered) in reply to Tom
    Tom:
    Thank god I'm not the only one who thinks WinPig is a kick-ass name for an application.

    Actually, it's Microsoft's new memory manager.

  • Alan (unregistered)

    I'm quite surprised (and impressed) that the refinery worker in the I Love You story didn't just immediately confront (read: beat up) the guy the message was purportedly from. Nice to know that despite being "gruff" he wasn't a total redneck.

    (BTW Don't flame me for political incorrectness - I'm bi so I can actually comment with some experience.)

  • Nigel (unregistered) in reply to Ken
    Ken:
    Steve:
    It's probably just me but something about the whole "My Computer" thing has always struck me as a bit, oh, I dunno, maybe childish, like a petulant six-year-old saying "Mine!" when a playmate asks to share a toy.

    It isn't necessarily even your computer -- the computer could belong to your company or be a shared computer.

    As I said, it's probably just me. Let the abuse begin.

    No, definitely not just you. I fully agree, and it has always annoyed me... along with My Documents, My Music (ha, the RIAA must hate that too), My Videos etc etc. I think Windows 2008 Server does away with some of that nonsense, and hopefully 7 will continue this trend. I know they are moving away from the "documents and settings" folder to the "users" or "user" folder. Far be it from me to say something good about microsoft, but I kinda like where this is going...

    Microsoft has gone away from "my" prefixes with Vista and by extension Server 2008. I hope they don't go back with 7.

  • Alan (unregistered) in reply to Alan

    (Also interested to see that no-one touched this story with a barge pole grin).

  • foxyshadis (unregistered) in reply to Ken
    Ken:
    No, definitely not just you. I fully agree, and it has always annoyed me... along with My Documents, My Music (ha, the RIAA must hate that too), My Videos etc etc. I think Windows 2008 Server does away with some of that nonsense, and hopefully 7 will continue this trend. I know they are moving away from the "documents and settings" folder to the "users" or "user" folder. Far be it from me to say something good about microsoft, but I kinda like where this is going...
    I'm sure Server 2008 does away with all of that, given that Vista already did last year and 2008 is based on Vista's interface. It's nice, although some people still habitually say "you mean My Computer?"
  • EvilBunny (unregistered) in reply to Tom

    haha :) true.. could also be the code name for Vista :P

    EB

  • Drone (unregistered)

    My favorite support call ever:

    Me - Your printer needs electricity before it will work. You need to plug it into the power outlet and not just into the computer. Elderly woman - OK, I'M UNPLUGGING MY REFRIGERATOR NOW. Me - ??!?

  • Bob (unregistered) in reply to Nigel
    Nigel:
    Microsoft has gone away from "my" prefixes with Vista and by extension Server 2008. I hope they don't go back with 7.
  • Bob (unregistered) in reply to Nigel
    Nigel:
    Microsoft has gone away from "my" prefixes with Vista and by extension Server 2008. I hope they don't go back with 7.

    I rename my My Documents, My Pictures, etc. to Documents, Pictures, etc on my Windows XP computer . And then install linux. And then symlink the Linux documents, pictures, etc to the windoze ones.

  • (cs) in reply to Bob
    Bob:
    I rename my My Documents, My Pictures, etc. to Documents, Pictures, etc on my Windows XP computer . And then install linux. And then symlink the Linux documents, pictures, etc to the windoze ones.
    If you're doing a symlink anyway, why bother with the rename? Does it bother you that much?
  • (cs) in reply to jdavidbakr
    jdavidbakr:
    Andrew:
    WinPig is fine, just whatever you do don't use WinBearPig.

    Half Windows ... half Bear ... and half Pig.

    Vista!
    Drone:
    My favorite support call ever:

    Me - Your printer needs electricity before it will work. You need to plug it into the power outlet and not just into the computer. Elderly woman - OK, I'M UNPLUGGING MY REFRIGERATOR NOW. Me - ??!?

    To free up an outlet for the printer. Then if it works, move it somewhere else and plug the fridge back in.

  • John (unregistered) in reply to KP
    KP:
    Back in the day of DOS applications, and supporting them over the phone we would have to check the free disk space on the drive, and that was easiest to do by getting someone to type "DIR *.*" from a command prompt.

    So aurally picture the phone conversation:

    "Type 'D', 'I', 'R'"

    taptaptap

    "...Space star dot star"

    taptaptaptaptapclicktaptapclicktap*

    "..Enter"

    tap

    Hmmm. I'm thinking that was a lot of tapping... they were usually typing "DIRSPACE*.*". After a while, I listened for the clicks and corrected them before they could hit enter...they thought I could see over their shoulders because before they finished typing I'd say, "no, no, not "DIRSPACE...".

    Another time we had a guy that we were telling to hit the space key to get past a "Hit Space to Continue" dialog. He (literally) swore that he was hitting the space bar... after a couple of minutes of trying that we got him to tell us where on the keyboard his space bar was (as it didn't sound like a spacebar over the phone)... his spacebar was just beside the Q key, above the caps lock.

    We usually had people that were use to swearing for every second word, but we had to keep our conversation polite. The people calling in knew this, so they would pepper their conversation with expletives just to goad us.

    One time I had a guy phone up and he was right p1553d off, he says, "This f_cken printer you guys sent me doesn't work"

    Without missing a beat I responded in a very polite tone, "which f_cken printer did we send you?"

    ... it caught him off guard, totally defused his anger, and he had to chuckle a bit, and the fact that his printer didn't work wasn't anymore the worst thing that happened.

    I once taught a fellow employee to use WordPerfect. She complained that large spaces were opening up in her documents.

    Fortunately, it wasn't telephone support, and I was able to watch her demonstate the 'fault'. It turned out she was using the space bar to move the cursor around the screen - it works on a typewriter, doesn't it?

    Another comment she made was that she never touched the END key - after all it might mean the end of everything.

  • (cs) in reply to IT Girl

    I have two links to Raymond Chen's The Old New Thing for you guys.

    Addison:
    second? No one cares. Really.

    A friend of mine once told someone their network was down because all the 1's got stuck in the cable. He got them to unhook all the wires and straighten all the kinks out. Meanwhile he reset the router. When they turned their computer back it everything worked fine.

    First is an apparently serious tidbit about tech support instructing people to blow dust out of their connectors. Not because they could accumulate dust, but in an attempt to make them pay attention to if and where it's plugged in.

    IT Girl:
    Yeah, well you do have to keep in mind that Microsoft is also made up of the brilliant minds that put the shutdown option under a start button.
    Yeah, damn Microsoft and their usability testing that told them that that was the right place for it.

    (Here's a hint: you're probably not going to be able to come up with a foolproof place to put it. After all, the universe just has to build a better fool.)

  • Michael Llaneza (unregistered) in reply to Glow-in-the-dark
    Glow-in-the-dark:
    There was a phase where I could have sworn Scott Adams was around taking notes somewhere close - it was almost uncanny how he tracked the nonsense happening in the place where I was working at the time (v large telco - stupidity was an essential asset in career planning).

    If that very large telco was Pacific Bell you technically worked with Scott Adams. If any of the characters remind you of yourself, I have some good news and some bad news for you...

  • (cs)

    kigabits -- HA! Good one. (Although be sure not to confuse that with "Kegel bits", which is an entirely different thing).

  • Jeff Grigg (unregistered)

    [I love you guys! I do, I really do!]

    ;->

    I was working at a consulting company when the ILOVEYOU virus hit. None of our consultants in the field fell for it -- but the CEO, several VPs and most of the sales staff fell for it. Yea, well, I /knew/ that they really loved all us in-the-field workers... ;-> So I sent a note to the in-house support staff with a list of top dogs to go help. ;->

    Small company. Lots of love to go around. ;->

  • (cs) in reply to Peter Pedant
    Peter Pedant:
    Whoda thunk it?

    "Who would have thought it".

    Lower your colours and prepare to be boarded, sir! The Dread Pedant Roberts takes usernames, but no prisoners.

  • Roland (unregistered)

    I once had a customer who wanted to use X programs, but couldn't. Turns out he bought the X package for his SunOS system, but didn't have TCP/IP (this was ~1988).

    He called back later and had the TCP/IP package. He had a few systems on his network, but was having problems with it. Turn out he decided to put all his machines on the 127 net. After all, there was already an entry in /etc/hosts with that number!

  • Jeff Grigg (unregistered)

    I did phone support for a while too, and my boss told us this one:

    Customer calls and asks us to restart her terminal (remotely, through the network). It's not responding to network commands, and she's getting impatient. "I need the terminal light because it's really dark down here." she says. "WTF?!?" thinks us, so we ask if her building has power. Well no, it's flooded; she's standing in about a foot deep of dirty water in the basement. The computer's in the water, and >>> she wants us to TURN THE POWER ON!!! <<<

    We suggested that it would probably be best if she got out of the dark flooded basement and got the building supervisor to do something about that. Meanwhile, we called our supplier to replace all the submerged computer equipment. (After the basement was pumped and cleaned, of course! ;-)

  • (cs) in reply to Rick
    Rick:
    Here is the Dilbert comic referenced earlier:

    [image]

    Jeez - they went back and colorized all the old dilbert's? Is nothing sacred these days? By next year, they'll all be fully voiced flash animations, with a special "I don't get it" track to explain the joke.

    However, gave me a fit of nostalgia - so I went and googled the dilbert hole comics. At 21, I found the potty shock humor hilarious. I'm embarrassed to say I still chuckled a bit at 33.

  • modo (unregistered) in reply to d3matt
    d3matt:
    Bob:
    I rename my My Documents, My Pictures, etc. to Documents, Pictures, etc on my Windows XP computer . And then install linux. And then symlink the Linux documents, pictures, etc to the windoze ones.
    If you're doing a symlink anyway, why bother with the rename? Does it bother you that much?
    I don't get it, either. Where's the wooden table? Cthulhu..? Anyone..?
  • csrster (unregistered) in reply to Bappi
    Bappi:
    Zagyg:
    DaveAronson:
    WinPig is already a product, for swine herd management. See this link.
    Interesting company name. Why not go the whole hog (pun intended) and call yourself awkwardsoft or crapsoft?
    What's wrong with Agrosoft? It's a perfectly good name for a company that makes software for the agriculture business.

    Agrisoft would be a good name. Agrosoft sounds like ... software that gives you aggro. Not desirable.

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