Computer Bloopers

For a computer programming class, I sat directly across from someone, and our computers were facing away from each other. A few minutes into the class, she got up to leave the room. I reached between our computers and switched the inputs for the keyboards.

She came back and started typing and immediately got a distressed look on her face.

She called the teacher over and explained that no matter what she typed, nothing would happen. The teacher tried everything. By this time I was hiding behind my monitor and quaking red-faced. I started to type, "Leave me alone!"

They both jumped back, silenced. "What the . . . " the teacher said. I typed, "I said leave me alone!"

The kid got real upset. "I didn't do anything to it, I swear!" It was all I could do to keep from laughing out loud. The conversation between them and HAL 2000 went on for an amazing five minutes.

Me: "Don't touch me!"

Her: "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to hit your keys that hard."

Me: "Who do you think you are anyway?!" Etc. Finally, I couldn't contain myself any longer and fell out of my chair laughing.

After they had realized what I had done, they both turned beet red.

Funny, I never got more than a C- in that class.

Customer: "Your sound card is defective and I want a new one."

Tech Support: "What seems to be the problem?"

Customer: "The balance is backwards. The left channel is coming out of the right speaker and the right channel is coming out the left. It's defective."

Tech Support: "You can solve the problem by moving the left speaker to the right side of the machine and vice versa."

Customer: (sputter) (click)

Tech Support: (snicker)

This guy calls in to complain that he gets an "Access Denied" message every time he logs in. It turned out he was typing his user name and password in capital letters.

Tech Support: "OK, let's try once more, but use lower case letters." Customer: "Uh, I only have capital letters on my keyboard."

I had been doing Tech Support for Hewlett-Packard's DeskJet division for about a month when I had a customer call with a problem I just couldn't solve. She could not print yellow. Allthe other colors would print fine, which truly baffled me because the only true colors are cyan, magenta, and yellow. For instance, green is a combination of cyan and yellow, but green printed fine. Every color of the rainbow printed fine except for yellow. I hadthe customer change ink cartridges. I had the customer delete and reinstall the drivers. Nothing worked. I asked my co-workers for help; they offered no new ideas.

After over two hours of troubleshooting, I was about to tell the customer to send the printer in to us for repair when she asked quietly, "Should I try printing on a piece of white paper instead of this yellow construction paper?"

An unfailingly polite lady called to ask for help with a Windows installation that had gone terribly wrong.

Customer: "I brought my Windows disks from work to install them on my home computer." (Training stresses that we are "not the Software Police," so I let the little act of piracy slide.)

Tech Support: "Umm-hmm. What happened?"

Customer: "As I put each disk in it turns out they weren't initialized."

Tech Support: "Do you remember the message exactly, ma'am?"

Customer:(proudly) "I wrote it down. 'This is not a Macintosh disk. Would you like to initialize it'?"

Tech Support: "Er, what happened next?"

Customer: "After they were initialized all the disks appeared to be blank. And now I brought them back to work, and I can't read them in the A: drive; the PC wants to format them. And this is our only set of Windows disks for the whole office. Did I do something wrong?"

A woman called the Cannon help desk with a problem with her printer. The tech asker her if she was "running it under Windows." The woman then responded, "NO, my desk is next to the door. But that's a good point... The man sitting in the cubicle next to me is under a window, and his is working just fine."

Tech Support: "OK Bob, let's press the control and escape keys at the same time. That brings up a task list in the middle of the screen. Now type the letter 'P' to bring up the Program Manager."

Customer: "I don't have a 'P'."

Tech Support: "On your keyboard, Bob."

Customer: "What do you mean?"

Tech Support: "'P' on you keyboard, Bob."

Customer: "I'm not going to do that!"

Overheard in a computer shop:

Customer: "I'd like a mouse mat, please."

Salesperson: "Certainly sir, we've got a large variety."

Customer: "But will they be compatible with my computer?"

I once received a fax with a note on the bottom to fax the document back to the sender when I was finished with it, because he needed to keep it.

Customer: "Can you copy the Internet for me onto this diskette?"

I work for a local ISP. Frequently we receive phone calls that go something like this:

Customer: "Hi... Is this the Internet?"

Some people pay for their online services with check made payable to "The Internet".

Customer: "So, that will get me connected to the Internet, right?"

Tech Support: "Yeah."

Customer: "And that's the latest version of the Internet, right?"

Tech Support: "Uhh... uh... uh...yeah."

Tech Support: "All right. Now double-click on the File Manager icon."

Customer: "That's why I hate this Windows - because of the icons.  I'm a Protestant, and I don't believe in icons."

Tech Support: "Well, that's just an industry term sir. I don't believe it was meant to..."

Customer: "I don't care about any 'Industry Terms.' I don't believe in icons."

Tech Support: "Well... why don't you click on the 'little picture' of a file cabinet.. is 'little picture' OK?"

Customer: [Click]

Customer: "My computer crashed!"

Tech Support: "It crashed?"

Customer: "Yeah, it won't let me play my game..."

Tech Support: "All right then, hit Control-Alt-Delete to reboot it."

Customer: "No, it didn't crash - it crashed!"

Tech Support: "Huh?"

Customer: "I crashed my game. That's what I said before! I crashed the spaceship, and now it doesn't work."

Tech Support: "Click on 'File', then 'New Game'."

Customer: [pause] "Wow! How'd you learn how to do that?"

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Last Updated:  02/26/01 07:15 PM About this page contact: Mark Brumels