• JJ (unregistered) in reply to David Chappelle
    David Chappelle:
    TRWTF is not using the PS/2 mouse port to USB to thumb drive adapter.
    Uhh...green is the mouse port. Purple is for the keyboard.
  • (cs) in reply to smxlong
    smxlong:
    I wouldn't be so hard on the person who stuck a thumb drive in a USB-to-PS/2 dongle. Seriously, the thing fits in there, why shouldn't it work?
    Closest thing to this fail I've ever encountered is a user who had both of their DVI cables plugged into VGA adapters, even though the monitor had DVI inputs.

    Punchline is that this was our IT guy.

  • (cs) in reply to Zolcos
    Zolcos:
    What kind of CD drive isn't completely enclosed?
    Have you looked at a PS3? Or a wii? That's the kind of drive that isn't completely enclosed, it's called a "slot loading drive" or "SlotIn drive", which the article specifically mentioned that the computer had. You often see these on laptops, too.
  • Your Name (unregistered) in reply to boog
    boog:
    Zolcos:
    What kind of CD drive isn't completely enclosed?
    One in a desktop computer from around the year 1998 or so, according to the story. Rather than a tray that slides out, there is just a slot for the CD.

    It doesn't have to be a desktop though; I had a tower from those days with the same sort of CD-ROM drive. Never thought to put broken CDs in it. I would have had I realized it'd make for such an effective weapon.

    The CD was not necessarily broken to begin with. I've had a CD shatter in the drive once. I put the disc in, it spun up, I heard a little "crack" and started getting read errors, and I pull the thing out and there's a big star-type crack on one side. I still don't know how the fuck it happened.

    This wasn't some janky CD-R, either, it was a pressed disc for a game.

  • (cs) in reply to JJ
    JJ:
    David Chappelle:
    TRWTF is not using the PS/2 mouse port to USB to thumb drive adapter.
    Uhh...green is the mouse port. Purple is for the keyboard.
    You keep telling yourself that.
  • (cs) in reply to dgvid
    dgvid:
    The listener might end up hearing something like "f*ker! squirrel chimp-faced you throat f*king your down keyboard f*king this jamb to going I'm".

    I'd really be interested in seeing the sorting algorithm for this stack structure you're using. :)

  • (cs) in reply to Nagesh
    Nagesh:
    Tomorrow if you ask me to build approval rules in your system and then your employee (system user) call me to complain, I will have right to get mad at him.
    It's a good thing for you that there's no possibility of a client giving you a good design and of you mutilating the implementation.

    Give 'em hell, Nagesh!

  • (cs) in reply to boog
    boog:
    Nagesh:
    Tomorrow if you ask me to build approval rules in your system and then your employee (system user) call me to complain, I will have right to get mad at him.
    It's a good thing for you that there's no possibility of a client giving you a good design and of you mutilating the implementation.

    Give 'em hell, Nagesh!

    NICE!

  • (cs) in reply to Your Name
    Your Name:
    boog:
    Zolcos:
    What kind of CD drive isn't completely enclosed?
    One in a desktop computer from around the year 1998 or so, according to the story. Rather than a tray that slides out, there is just a slot for the CD.

    It doesn't have to be a desktop though; I had a tower from those days with the same sort of CD-ROM drive. Never thought to put broken CDs in it. I would have had I realized it'd make for such an effective weapon.

    The CD was not necessarily broken to begin with. I've had a CD shatter in the drive once. I put the disc in, it spun up, I heard a little "crack" and started getting read errors, and I pull the thing out and there's a big star-type crack on one side. I still don't know how the fuck it happened.

    This wasn't some janky CD-R, either, it was a pressed disc for a game.

    If the disc had micro-fractures in it, the high speed of the drive could have caused them to become macro-fractures, which then could lead to complete breakage.

  • (cs) in reply to C-Octothorpe
    C-Octothorpe:
    hoodaticus:
    Okay, I've had this one happen three times now - and for the record, I am NOT tech support.

    I had an executive call me to tell me he wasn't getting any emails. Since I knew this wasn't so, I logged into his email account and, sure enough, no new recent emails were in the inbox. A LOT of deleted items though. I basically called him back and told him to look in his deleted items folder.

    "Oh. Okay, they're there. [click]"

    This happened with another executive a month later. Same resolution.

    That same month, I got the same issue - no new emails showing up. This time, it wasn't an executive. I went into this lady's Outlook Web Access and checked the deleted items - nothing. Then I go back to the inbox and lo and behold - she's got the filter set to "Unread Messages". Naturally, when she opens an email, it disappears. TRWTF there was that she lied to me and knew damn well she was getting her emails - the problem was that they were disappearing on her.

    Solving the problem was enough for these users. Some users, though, get all bitchy with me and copy their managers and their managers' managers. (In the corporate world, this is known as a declaration of war.) They have some misimpression that I don't report directly to the CTO and CEO, and that their lowly managers can actually pressure me to do anything at all, I guess. Depending on the p[bitc]H concentration of the conversation, I often end up humiliating the lot of them.

    If the parties involved had enough clout, I would probably send them to a bureaucratic hell of my own creation, but I haven't needed to do that yet.

    ... and this is EXACTLY why I contract. I can't stand this kind of posturing/office politics bullshit.

    I hate it too; however, I'm also pretty damn good at it.

  • (cs) in reply to smxlong
    smxlong:
    I wouldn't be so hard on the person who stuck a thumb drive in a USB-to-PS/2 dongle. Seriously, the thing fits in there, why shouldn't it work?

    There's a huge gap between "stupid" and "non-technical" and it's sad that so many technical people don't realize that.

    It's obscured by the dongle in the picture, but I suspect there's a small picture of a keyboard next to the PS/2 port. Where does "open your fucking eyes" fit in the gap between "stupid" and "non-technical"?

  • blarg (unregistered)

    The last few wtf's (from the same user) show us why the heavy editing which is done by Remy & Co is required. Unfortunately user submitted wtf's just don't have the same appeal.

    Sure they are wtf's, but without the drama and 'mistruths' that are edited in to stories, computer issues just aren't that interesting.

  • владимир (unregistered)

    You have to wonder what kind of dumbass it takes not to try one of those many, many USB ports when the first one wouldn't work.

    You also have to wonder how a company can keep two buildings full of dumbasses and still somehow survive to fill two buildings with dumbasses.

  • Niten (unregistered) in reply to Jack

    The sad part is that the code you send probably ends up in production somewhere.

  • anonamouser (unregistered) in reply to Nagesh
    Nagesh:
    anonamouser:
    Nagesh:
    We have implmeneted single-sign-on called *SSO* for short for serveral clients. Unfortunately all of these dimwits keep asking same stupid questions all the time to the user analysts at client location, who are even more dumber.

    They keep sending these mails to me. Everyday I get 4 - 5 requests from user analysts who are finding so tough to comprehend SSO model implemented by their own company.

    I thought you said it was implemented by your company. Or, are you saying the more dumber user analysts work for your company but at the client location?

    Either way, maybe it's the user documentation that's the most dumbest.

    We did implement, but the design came from client. It is their plan. Tomorrow if you ask me to build approval rules in your system and then your employee (system user) call me to complain, I will have right to get mad at him.

    We just implemented SSO for a client that has more than 100,000 (100 kilopeople in metric) employees. About 7000 (7 kp) of which have access to our program. We provided instructions for using SSO with the deployment. Support fielded about 30 people (3 decapeople) who didnt' know how to login.

    On second thought, maybe I should take lessons from you. Your model seems to have more support costs (profit) built in right up front.

  • anonamouser (unregistered)

    ^^ Support fielded calls from about 30 people

  • Sobriquet (unregistered) in reply to Smitty
    Smitty:
    smxlong:
    I wouldn't be so hard on the person who stuck a thumb drive in a USB-to-PS/2 dongle. Seriously, the thing fits in there, why shouldn't it work?

    There's a huge gap between "stupid" and "non-technical" and it's sad that so many technical people don't realize that.

    It's obscured by the dongle in the picture, but I suspect there's a small picture of a keyboard next to the PS/2 port. Where does "open your fucking eyes" fit in the gap between "stupid" and "non-technical"?

    Ask a typical techie, especially a programmer, to thoroughly describe what's on their screen. You should get a detailed description in some consistent fashion, using fairly precise terms.

    Now, ask a non-technical user to do the same. You'll get a fraction of the information, probably more oriented towards what they're doing, but ignoring all sorts of details.

    They just don't perceive it. A non-technical user with a browser open perceives the contents of the page he's looking at, and not much else. "Power users" I've talked to seem to be aware that there are buttons and widgets and such, but they are only aware of the superficial look of the system, they don't make any connection between what they see and what's running behind it.

  • RashFael (unregistered)

    The "thumb drive" is actually the usb dongle of a Logitech G7 wireless mouse.

    For your convienience, here is my old one: http://img836.imageshack.us/img836/9233/logitechg7stick.jpg

  • Chaz (unregistered) in reply to RashFael
    RashFael:
    The "thumb drive" is actually the usb dongle of a Logitech G7 wireless mouse.

    For your convienience, here is my old one: http://img836.imageshack.us/img836/9233/logitechg7stick.jpg

    Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.

  • Toc the elder (unregistered) in reply to anonamouser

    I get the joke and I'm sure that you know that there is no metric (or more correctly, SI) measure for people... but I love how it kinda sounds killing (kilopeople) and decapitating (decapeople) people...

    Good test question on quantities though: If Bill kills 4 decapeople and sally 1 megapeople which one goes to normal court, and which goes to the Hague for crimes against humanity?

    Very appropriate when discussing support.

    Captcha eros... really? Is the server feeling a little naughty today?

  • Meh (unregistered) in reply to smxlong
    smxlong:
    I wouldn't be so hard on the person who stuck a thumb drive in a USB-to-PS/2 dongle. Seriously, the thing fits in there, why shouldn't it work?

    There's a huge gap between "stupid" and "non-technical" and it's sad that so many technical people don't realize that.

    And a nail will fit into a power socket.

  • Maxx (unregistered) in reply to Cujo DeSockpuppet
    Cujo DeSockpuppet:
    My best one was this: "It not wrok, pleace do teh needfull."

    No context to it, just that. The spelling is intact as sent, at least as I recall.

    WHOA! I got this too from an overseas contractor... Maybe it's a standard term in INdia.

  • (cs)

    I'm curious. Do tech support people still get problems as dumb as "is the monitor turned on", or has the general public finally figured that out?

    My favorite recurring tech support problem in the 1990s was all the CD-ROM drives that had a line out jack built into them (that of course only played the audio from audio CDs and not any other system sounds).
    "Did you plug it in?" "Yes." "OK, is it plugged into the sound card, or the CD-ROM drive?" "How should I know?" "Front or back of the computer?" "Front" "ok, find the plug in the back." "Still doesn't work" [walk to their office] [it's in the line-in hole, not the line-out]

    I'm not blaming the users on that one, but it was frustrating as all hell at the time. Glad more modern drives don't have that stupid jack on them.

  • (cs) in reply to Meh
    Meh:
    smxlong:
    I wouldn't be so hard on the person who stuck a thumb drive in a USB-to-PS/2 dongle. Seriously, the thing fits in there, why shouldn't it work?

    There's a huge gap between "stupid" and "non-technical" and it's sad that so many technical people don't realize that.

    And a nail will fit into a power socket.

    A nail doesn't look as if it was designed to fit into a power socket.

  • PRMan (unregistered) in reply to Zolcos
    Zolcos:
    What kind of CD drive isn't completely enclosed?

    When the CD explodes, you'd be amazed at how well it fits through the thin little space between the tray and the enclosure...

  • Pytry (unregistered) in reply to smxlong
    smxlong:
    Meh:
    smxlong:
    I wouldn't be so hard on the person who stuck a thumb drive in a USB-to-PS/2 dongle. Seriously, the thing fits in there, why shouldn't it work?

    There's a huge gap between "stupid" and "non-technical" and it's sad that so many technical people don't realize that.

    And a nail will fit into a power socket.

    A nail doesn't look as if it was designed to fit into a power socket.

    No. But three nails do.

    "Damit! I'm missing two nails for this socket Jensen!"

    "Sure thing boss."

  • Billlllllll (unregistered) in reply to hoodaticus
    hoodaticus:
    Okay, I've had this one happen three times now - and for the record, I am NOT tech support.

    ... lo and behold - she's got the filter set to "Unread Messages". Naturally, when she opens an email, it disappears. TRWTF there was that she lied to me and knew damn well she was getting her emails - the problem was that they were disappearing on her.

    Since you're NOT in tech support, I'll cut you some slack. But rule one of tech support is users always lie. Sometimes they don't mean to lie, but they will anyway. They literally cannot see that warning that popped up. The finger hits the mouse before comprehension hits the brain.

    There's a real art to tricking them into observing something they usually filter. Misdirection and outright deceit is sometimes necessary.

    "Sounds like we need to reboot your mouse. Unplug it. Now, before you plug it back in, hit F9. Look in the center of the screen and tell me what color the triangle icon is."

    "Yellow" (admission that they can see the icon)

    "Now, read me what it says just to the side of that yellow triangle."

    "Printer is out of paper."

    "OK, that means your printer is out of paper. You can plug your mouse back in. You're welcome."

  • kosh (unregistered)
    the article:
    After working in Tech Support for several years, I have come to value the rare request that actually contains enough information to solve the problem

    This is the WTF. If I have enough information to solve the problem, I solve it myself. Let's hear it for support people that DON'T need this kind of spoonfeeding.

    On the other hand, those ones tend to get promoted. Clearly Bob hasn't been.

  • Ralph (unregistered) in reply to Meh
    Meh:
    smxlong:
    I wouldn't be so hard on the person who stuck a thumb drive in a USB-to-PS/2 dongle. Seriously, the thing fits in there, why shouldn't it work?

    There's a huge gap between "stupid" and "non-technical" and it's sad that so many technical people don't realize that.

    And a nail will fit into a power socket.
    This is where the IT industry went wrong. We have encouraged our users to be stupid. We praise and reward their ignorance.

    If you stick a piece of metal into an outlet you get immediate and clear feedback that you just did a Really Bad Thing. My brother did it once, and the entire family and half his friends heard about it and learned a lesson that stuck in their memory.

  • cdmills (unregistered) in reply to Billlllllll

    Like. And I already dislike Akismet.

  • (cs) in reply to 2300
    2300:
    Well, TRWTF is of course cables which fit physically in a way that doesn't work.
    But the only alternative is to invent yet another shape of plug...
  • (cs) in reply to boog
    boog:
    Zolcos:
    What kind of CD drive isn't completely enclosed?
    One in a desktop computer from around the year 1998 or so, according to the story. Rather than a tray that slides out, there is just a slot for the CD.
    Don't some current or recent Macs have these? EDIT: as well as the laptops, PlayStations etc. that have already been mentioned.
  • bar (unregistered) in reply to blarg
    blarg:
    The last few wtf's (from the same user) show us why the heavy editing which is done by Remy & Co is required. Unfortunately user submitted wtf's just don't have the same appeal.

    Sure they are wtf's, but without the drama and 'mistruths' that are edited in to stories, computer issues just aren't that interesting.

    Actually, "I heard a crunching, a bang and then noticed my arm bleeding" was one the funniest sentences I read in a WTF article for a while.

  • Sudo (unregistered) in reply to vt_mruhlin
    vt_mruhlin:
    I'm curious. Do tech support people still get problems as dumb as "is the monitor turned on", or has the general public finally figured that out?
    I left a job last year after finally having enough of it. One of the things that eventually drove me insane was the fact that I shared an office with two photocopiers. (Two of three copiers in an entire school).

    The machines went into standby after ten minutes or so to save power, and needed to be powered on again before use. Every couple of hours I would have to show someone how to turn it on (by pressing the giant power button) - the same people, day after day - most of them teachers. (Those who can't, teach).

    The other "fun" thing that I had to persevere on a daily basis was that fact that it turns out about 20% of the staff in that place can't operate anything more complicated than a piece of chalk without actually describing it to themselves - aloud. So a lot of my day would be accompanied by the drone of "A4... portrait... paper from drawer... two?... is that two?... no, one... drawer... one... 40 copies... green for go... there, done."

    It was like that film Groundhog Day, except there were retards, and nobody was laughing.

  • Phythor (unregistered) in reply to hoodaticus

    Will do sir! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ps-2-ports.jpg

  • Anguish (unregistered)

    The real WTF is why I'm being asked to believe Chaz's USB wireless mouse controller is storage.

  • Franz Kafka (unregistered) in reply to smxlong
    smxlong:
    I wouldn't be so hard on the person who stuck a thumb drive in a USB-to-PS/2 dongle. Seriously, the thing fits in there, why shouldn't it work?

    There's a huge gap between "stupid" and "non-technical" and it's sad that so many technical people don't realize that.

    Why the hell would you expect that to work? You stick USB things in USB ports. Why would you go to all the trouble to shove it in a ps2 port when there are 6(!) regular ports right there? The adapter thing only comes with ps2 keyboards that handle both anyway.

  • (cs)

    Drat, and I threw out some of those adapters just last week. I totally could have used the extra USB ports.

  • Julian (unregistered)

    I think Akismet has banned me from this site

  • (cs)

    I worked tech support for one. year. only.

    Never again. I can't deal with idiots.

  • Gunslinger (unregistered) in reply to Zylon
    Zylon:
    smxlong:
    I wouldn't be so hard on the person who stuck a thumb drive in a USB-to-PS/2 dongle. Seriously, the thing fits in there, why shouldn't it work?
    Closest thing to this fail I've ever encountered is a user who had both of their DVI cables plugged into VGA adapters, even though the monitor had DVI inputs.

    Punchline is that this was our IT guy.

    This might not have been a fail. My previous monitor had both a DVI connector and a VGA connector, but the DVI connector wouldn't work with my computer for some unknown reason. It worked on another computer, and another monitor worked on my computer's DVI connection just fine. So, I had to use the VGA connection.

    Obviously, there's no way for me to know if that's the case in your story, but it's possible.

  • allison (unregistered)

    So what would happen if you plugged a thumb drive into a PS/2 port?

    /curious, but would rather not try it myself

  • Ruben Huges (unregistered) in reply to frits

    It's obvious: that dongle is actually a wireless mouse receiver - not an USB stick.

    The user must have read somewhere that PS/2 is faster (not true, with wireless), or has a higher interrupt priority (true) than USB.

  • Al Anon (unregistered)

    Maybe it's the drugs: I'd be happy to receive an amusing email like that from an end user. But she has a good point - smartphones nowadays behave as though it's the wild west of the 1990s and just decide for themselves what your Sent folder should be called, create it, and store sent mail there. At least (iirc) the iPhone let's you change the default setting. Unlike Android phones. Between webmail, phones, and desktop mail clients all accessing the same account, it's not uncommon to see "Sent", "Sent Mail", and "Sent Items" folders, all with (recent!) messages in them. If I was that sysadmin, I'd be promising a prompt fix in exchange for some of what she's having (aside from labour).

    </rant>
  • PB (unregistered)

    Only Nagesh can be dumbass enough to try to put their thumb drive in the wrong USB port, and not try any of the others.

  • (cs) in reply to allison
    allison:
    So what _would_ happen if you plugged a thumb drive into a PS/2 port?

    /curious, but would rather not try it myself

    A thumb drive doesn't have its own power so hopefully you wouldn't actually write your computer off...

  • (cs)

    The story about the floppy is still relevant today, although in a reverse/roundabout way. The other day, I was installing Solaris 10 on our virtual infrastructure. I wasn't quite happy with the installation, but couldn't for the life of me figure out how I could get the thing to boot from the virtual DVD instead of the equally virtual hard disc. Turns out I needed to go into the virtual BIOS of the virtual machine (with real blue and yellow colour scheme on the virtual screen) and change the boot order. Now who would have thought of that...

  • itsmo (unregistered) in reply to dgvid
    dgvid:
    Zylon:
    No of course there isn't and queue some more swearing and shouting.

    For the love of god, it's cue.

    Not necessarily. Maybe the caller was pushing obscenities into a FIFO data structure. It would act as a buffer in case the caller was swearing faster than the listener could comprehend.

    A stack would not be appropriate here, by the way, because in a really creative outburst of profanity order matters. The listener might end up hearing something like "fker! squirrel chimp-faced you throat fking your down keyboard f*king this jam to going I'm".

    YFTF

  • Bob (unregistered) in reply to Cujo DeSockpuppet
    Cujo DeSockpuppet:
    My best one was this: "It not wrok, pleace do teh needfull."

    No context to it, just that. The spelling is intact as sent, at least as I recall.

    My biggest pet peeve on support calls? "please do the needful". Yeah, the needful will be unplugging your desktop and giving you an abacus. Though that might still be too advanced for some of the yahoos that are perfectly capable of operating a big scary machine like a car, or a complex set of sums, or hell breathing...

  • Kevin Thorpe (unregistered)

    I've had an 'I've got a virus' call. When I asked why they thought that they told me that 'all the writing is upside down and I've tried all four knobs on the top and none of them do anything' ---- facepalm.

    I've also spent ten minutes talking to someone about a terminal (in both senses of the word) fault before they mentioned that there was smoke coming out of it. We all know nothing works if you let the magic smoke out.

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