BBS in a Box 15/BBS in a box XV-2.iso/Files II/News/Tech Support Tales/Tech Support Tales #3.sit/Tech Support Tales #3

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T E C H   S U P P O R T   T A L E S   # 3
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HOLY MOLY! YOU WILL NOT BELIEVE THE STORIES THAT YOU ARE ABOUT TO READ....BUT THEY ARE ALL TRUE!!!

It will never cease to amaze me how silly and befuddled some people get with their computers. Every day thousands of people turn on their computers (or try to) and come across a problem which they think they understand. The results of their actions can be amusing and often hilarious.

WELCOME to issue #3 of TECH SUPPORT TALES - the publication which proves that stupidity breeds humor. Since the last issue came out, I've received quite a few subscription requests and would like to thank all the folks out there who are passing this rag around in cyberland and to their co-workers. And also to the people who have been reviewing TST in other publications. This kind of exposure and publicity has brought in a slew of new stories for this issue that I only hope will make you laugh as hard as I did when I first read them. With this issue we're looking at jerky computer tales from both sides of the spectrum. It seems there are just as many end users with stories about dim-witted Techs out there as there are Techs with stories about moron
end users. If you belong in either of these categories, send your goofball experience to me. A big mondo thanks to Suzanne Courteau at Macworld for relaying things technicians have told Macworld staff while they were testing vendor's tech support and for providing this new perspective.

TO SUBSCRIBE: I'm not using a fancy-schmancy mail server, so please don't send me any cryptic mail server type messages...a simple note with the words "Subscribe Tech Support Tales" in the subject field will do the trick. If you need copies of any back issues, let me know and I'll send them your way. And as always, if you have any of your own stories that you would like to see in a future issue, please send them along! I'm still trying to dig up some good computer jokes & riddles for future issues, so if you know of any, please share them with us.

Send all mail, comments & rantings to:
[e-mail]

Thanks to the following individuals for sharing the true stories you are about to read: [e-mail], Smurf [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail]

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LETTERS TO T.S.T.
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* "I saw your magazine on America Online and laughed out loud as I read
those stories!"

* "I truly enjoyed your first release, I passed it on to many at my company! I look forward to future releases."

* "Many of these things are urban legends (a friend of a friend told me....)  You shouldn't say they're true unless you can document them."

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JOKE(s) SECTION
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*How does Bill Gates change a light bulb ?
   He doesn't - he declares darkness a new industry standard.

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DIM-WITTED TECHS!
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In response to a question about a printer that keeps reinitializing itself,
a technician said "That's normal. If you haven't used it for awhile it lays
low, then initializes itself." One technician asked, "What do you mean,
initialize printer? I don't know what that means. If it's on the front panel
but not on screen, has to be a network problem." Another said, "if you switch
from one program to another, you must reinitialize the printer each time".
One was sure it was a network problem; when I wouldn't crawl under the desks
to check the termination, he said to check with our network consultant. Was
also disconnected after 5 minutes on hold.
____________________________________________________________
One technician was dubbed The Patronizing: after he found out what drive I
was calling about, he told me I had to turn it on separately from the
computer, and that I have to let it warm up for 20 seconds or so--next thing
he said was "send it back" and issued me an RMA.
____________________________________________________________
"Bring it in!" That was one technician's solution to every problem -- he
asked very few questions.
____________________________________________________________
Some vendors assumed we were Windows users, or didn't know where things were
in the chooser.
____________________________________________________________
When asked about a drive with bad blocks, the technician said to try saving
the file with a slightly different name to see if that helped--if that didn't
work after a few tries, call the manufacturer as it's a software/operating
system problem; another technician said reverse the order of the drives in
the SCSI chain, and if it works, fine--if not, it's a bad cable and I can get
another from a mail order house or a computer dealer because they don't carry
any 50-50 cables. One guy suggested opening the IIci ("read the Apple
manual") to remove the termination from the internal drive!
____________________________________________________________

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MORON END USERS!
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A company at which I once worked replaced their existing clones and
XTs with honest-to-God PS/2s.  Users were informed to convert their data
to 3.5 inch diskettes.  One user didn't replace *everything*.  Not to worry,
as she just folded the 5.25 inch floppy in half and jammed it into the
3.5 inch floppy drive.
____________________________________________________________
About 10 am this morning, my girlfriend's father shows up and he's livid at his LC III. I mean, he literally opened the door and threw the mac in on the floor. He's been claiming that this mac has hardware problems, etc. I've been over to his place at least a dozen times to "fix" it. Snooper, MacEKG, etc never find anything wrong; and it always works okay for me. So anyway, he now announces that he's through with this mac and that it's hers...and can he borrow a typewriter or a Plus or something. So we calm the guy down, give him a typewriter and promise him a Mac portable which he's used okay in the past. So she's now the proud owner of an LC III. It turns out that before he showed up at out place to chuck the Mac on floor, he threw the keyboard at the wall. I'm happy to say that the Macintosh keyboard is much tougher than it looks. The LC's survived with only the loss on one of those little tabs on the bottom. I guess if he'd been really serious he'd have dumped a Coke on it.
____________________________________________________________
Back in the good old pre-PC days we sold a system that required the user to hit Ctrl-A in order to sign on.  We sold one to some outfit in Canada.  Well, trying to get them going over the phone took like an hour cuz we'd say "hit Ctrl-A" and they'd say "ok we hit Ctrl, eh?, and nothing happened, eh?"
___________________________________________________________
One student kept having problems with his 5.25" disks, complaining that
none of the computers on campus would read them. I asked him if he could
bring in the disk later so I could examine it. I assumed he didn't have
it with him because he wasn't carrying any notebooks or a backpack. He
replied, "I have it with me," and proceeded to take it out of his back
pocket, unfold it, and hand it to me.
____________________________________________________________
When one of the computer labs upgraded from Apple IIe computers to Macs,
one student came to me because she was having problems with the new
computers. She had "reformatted" her 5.25" disks by trimming them down
with a pair of scissors so that they would fit into the 3.5" drives.
____________________________________________________________
I am the Systems Manager at a 35,000 circulation daily paper, the name of which I will withhold to protect the guilty.

One day, our Society Editor was typing away at her terminal. As I passed her desk, she asked me to turn up the brightness on the monitor, because it was too dark. As I leaned over to twist the brightness knob, I noticed that the power switch was in the off position. She had been typing her story on a deactivated computer, and didn't even notice!

Several days later, I saw this same woman sitting patiently at her desk, staring directly at her monitor. Figuring something was up, I looked over her shoulder to see that she had typed her name on the command line. I asked what she was waiting for, and her reply was that she was waiting for the computer to log her on. Only problem, she hadn't hit the "LOG ON" key! She'd have sat there all day!
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I worked for a short time with a company that installed computers for many people.  They do tech support on their own and other's stuff.  Anyway, they had installed a system for a medical facility.  The machine was a 286 with an amber screen.  They brought it in saying that the screen wasn't showing the prompt and several of the menu options.  We turned on the machine, and sure enough, some stuff was missing.  Me and my tech-partner contemplated trying a different monitor, to see if the card was still good.  Suddenly, on impulse, I reached back, and turned the contrast knob up.  Suddenly, there were the missing menu options and the prompt!!  We put on the bill "Contrastual Adjustment."  We also charged them around $60 for that 20 seconds of work.  Not bad, huh?
____________________________________________________________

          - The PowerBook That Leaked -
                      (a true story)

In 1993, sometime in December, a customer walks in with a dead PowerBook 165.
 Fault description: hangs on startup.  An additional symptom provided was:
whilst being carried from the customer's site to our service center, a
'sloshing' noise was heard within the machine.

"Has anything been spilt on this computer?" I inquired, but no, nothing of
the sort had happened, protested the client vehemently.  Taking this with a
grain of salt (no-one's going to admit doing something that totally
invalidates their warranty and effectively wrecks their computer) I went
about filling in the repair order.

Back on the bench, I started the PowerBook up.  Sure enough, an address error
on startup, just after 'Welcome to Macintosh'.  I lowered my ear to the
keyboard, at which point I heard a crackling noise (couldn't hear any
sloshing noise though) and became aware of a rather 'sharp' odor which
seemed to emanate from the inside of the machine.  Flicking the computer off
and unplugging the adapter, I removed the battery from it's compartment, only
to observe that the entire battery casing was soaked in a fluid which appear
to have a rainbow-like sheen (kind of like what a puddle of soapy water would
look like - oily and colorful).  I also noticed that the same fluid was
leaking out of the battery compartment onto the static mat, but appeared
clear rather than multi-colored.

My first thoughts were that the battery had somehow leaked acid out into the
guts of the PowerBook, which would account for the sharp smell (which
reminded me of ammonia), yet the battery terminals were about the one part of
the battery that was dry.  No, upon closer examination, I ruled the acid
theory out.  The battery was wet, but not leaking.

Tipping the machine on it's side, I watched more fluid run out and coagulate
on the bench in a puddle about the size of a compact disc.  It was definitely
clear, and I observed that the 'rainbow' effect had been caused by the
reaction of the plastic battery casing to this 'mystery liquid'.  I then
unscrewed the computer and separated the two parts of the PowerBook.

The smell suddenly became a LOT stronger.  The hard disk looked like a solid
lump of rust, and the daughterboard appeared to have about three barbecued
chips.  Although I was quickly forming my own opinions on what had happened,
I invited several of my workmates in to take a sniff and offer an opinion.
 We were unanimous in our decision.  I rang the customer, who seemed
surprised when I asked the question: "Do you have a cat?"

As it turned out, he didn't have a cat, but he *did* have a lovely fluffy
bunny rabbit who was seen in the vicinity of the PowerBook only the day
before.  Yes, there was no doubt about it, little fluffy had hopped up onto
the keyboard and downloaded some incompatible data.  I checked the warranty
form, but there was no provision for failure due to rabbit urine anywhere.  I
advised the customer to get in touch with his insurance company.

In the end, the PowerBook was biffed and the customer upgraded to a 180c.  I
cleaned up the static mat and sprayed the service department with a healthy
dosage of "Fresh Field of Flowers".  I checked in with the customer about a
week later, asked how was he enjoying the 180c, asked if he'd managed to
restore his data, and, of course, asked how was his rabbit?

"Delicious." he said.
____________________________________________________________
My father works for a multinational company and he is the manager of
a project that implements a new sales support system in the entire
region he is operating in. The program itself is a distributed database,
allowing individual users to make their own updates on their laptop
PCs and then uploading their changes to a server as well as downloading
all the changes the other users have made. When he wrote the instructions
to the sales representatives on how to do this he got the letter back
from one of the regional offices with complaints. His original
instructions read like this:
  From the File...-menu, select OS-Shell. This will make your screen
look like this:    C:/SPS/WIN
Now type DOWNLOAD to ..............etc etc
The hand-written remark on the sheet of paper was "These instructions
are incorrect and cannot be followed! Right after C:/SPS/WIN, a strange
bracket (>) pops up and it WILL NOT go away!"
____________________________________________________________
A customer called in and stated that his system locked up in a spreadsheet
application. He then told me, "you techs don't care about our data that we work
on. I knew that you would have me turn the computer off and reseat the video
card, so, in order to save my data, I reseated the video card with the system
on." I finally convinced him that we needed to turn the computer off and then
back on. Guess what? When we turned the computer back on, all we heard was a
series of long and short beeps, which, btw, weren't even correct beep codes.
____________________________________________________________
We've got a bulletin board as part of our tech support that customers can log on to, give themselves a password, and download useful items.  Customers forget their passwords all the time, and such was the case when one gentleman (who MUST remain nameless) called up and tried to log on.  We happened to be working on the bulletin board at the time, so we watched with not a little amusement the following interaction between him and the bulletin board server:

name:      XXXXXXX
password:  BLOWJ*B
*** log on failed ***

name:      XXXXXXX
password:  BLOW J*B
*** log on failed ***

name:      XXXXXXX
password:  MONEY
*** log on failed ***

At this point, the gentleman gave up and called us to find out what his password was.  We had already looked it up.  It was "SUCCESS".
____________________________________________________________
One customer kept reporting a problem with her system beeping
at her. This would happen (at times) without a user at the
computer and at NO specific times. With this, of course the
trouble-shooting would be more difficult. Our decision was
to create problem report and have her call in when it was
occurring or had occurred. We were hoping to narrow the
problem and some to a resolution.

Well we did, approximately 1 mos. after she had reported
the problem. Evidently a pager had been dropped under
the desk where the computer was situated.
____________________________________________________________
I received a call from a customer who was having some permissions
problems... grantpt wasn't working, so he couldn't get shells
open, etc., etc...

So, I started going through the permissions on his machine...
ls -ld / showed 755 -- this was fine.
ls -ld /usr showed 777 ...

I told him this was probably not directly the problem, but that
we should change it anyway... so I asked him to change it to 775
I even told him the command he could use: "chmod 775 /usr"
he said okay, so I asked him to cd into /usr, and do an ls -l
there, and to tell me what he saw.  He said he was still
waiting...  I asked "for what?  the cd?  the ls?" -- response:
"the chmod".  EEK!

 "what EXACTLY did you type?"
 "chmod -f -R /u..."

I didn't even let him finish before I told him to type control-C

I ended up suggesting he re-install from scratch, because he
apparently didn't have very much user data, and what little he
did have, he had backups of that he could restore from if need
be.  The original problem in fact had been that he had done a
chmod -f -R 777 /usr, which, of course, will completely hose any
setuid permissions that might occur there.
____________________________________________________________
A tech asked a customer for a "screen shot." He also requested she then fax him the result. Lo and behold, through the fax came at photocopy of a Polaroid picture of her screen.
____________________________________________________________

Current and previous issues of TECH SUPPORT TALES are available on America Online, eWorld, Speaker's Corner BBS [phone], various newsgroups or directly from me. Don't forget to send your letters, stories & computer jokes to:

[e-mail]

until next time...put litter in its place. Dispose of your post-it notes in your floppy drive opening.


© 1995 Eric Hausmann. Authors retain individual rights. You are encouraged to distribute this document freely and post it to other online services & BBSs provided it is kept in its original state and remains unaltered. If you are interested in reprinting any part of TECH SUPPORT TALES, let me know & I'll have my people contact your people.