Observations From Inside Your Local Espresso Machine

[CovenantJr]

the ridiculous notion that the customer is always right

Damn straight! In my experience, the customer is almost always wrong. Or, if I must cut them some slack, they're wrong at least as often as the staff. The customer is always right? *grumble*

[Avatar]

Agreed.

--A

[Cagliostro]

I have heaps of stories, but I think the funniest were from my days working help desk at a mental health network of buildings. I'd get calls from the therapists, who I think most of them got into the bis to solve their own problems. Anyway, here's how a typical conversation would go.

Me: Help desk...
Therapist: Yeah, my computer isn't working.
Me: How is it not working?
Therapist: Well, the lines on the computer are all wavy.
Me: Oh, you mean the screen of the monitor?
Therapist: No, the computer.
Me: (confused) So are we talking about the thing that looks like a tv?
Therapist: Yeah.
Me: Okay. Let's try something. You see the buttons on the monitor?
Therapist: Yeah.
Me: There should be some that either move back and forth, or have little buttons that say Menu. Do you see that?
Therapist: Give me just a second, I just have to go under my desk. (Cag sits puzzling for a bit...then realizes and screams) Okay. Now my computer has gone blank.
Me: Did you push a button on the tower, that big thing under the desk?
Therapist: Oh, you mean the hard drive?
Me: No, the tower. That is the computer. The tv looking thing is the monitor.
Therapist: Yeah, I pushed a button on the hard drive and the computer went blank.
Me: Okay, push that same button you pushed before when the screen went blank.
Therapist: Okay, just a sec.
Me: Okay, now do you seen anything on the screen?
Therapist: Yeah, the computer is saying Windows. But its still blurry all wavy.
Me: Okay, the other device; the one that looks like a television. What buttons do you see on it?
Therapist: I see one that looks like a sun, one that has menu...
Me: That one. That says menu. Push it.
Therapist: Can't you just get someone to come do it for me?
Me: I know you can handle this. Do you remember back in the days when tvs had different knobs, and things would start to look funny? What would you do?
Therapist: Get my dad to fix it.
Me: Okay, I'll send out one of our overworked network people to come over to your building to fix something any adult should be able to handle themselves. I would, but I've got to sit by the phone and wait for more calls like this. They should be there in about 30 minutes to an hour.
Therapist: Thanks!

I wish this wasn't more or less true, but it is. I definitely remember playing around more with the menu. But it seemed like everyone thought the tower was called the "hard drive" and would correct me when I told them that it wasn't called that. I still wonder who gave them that idea. There was even on person they had to give a tablet pc which allowed him to write. I won't even go into what a large waste of time and money that ended up being, as he couldn't figure out how to use that either, and because the technology just wasn't especially great.

[Prebe]

ROFL Cagliostro!! I have some support function (database admin) at work too, so I know the feeling exactly.

I thought my mother was the only one who called the computer a hard drive.

[The Laughing Man]

I've had clients refer to the tower as the modem....

and as a csr for a cable co., just getting people to turn off the cable box?

"Uhhhh....unplug it?"

No, turn it off?

"What do you mean?"

The power button? Can you press it?

"On the remote?"

Sure, that would be fine.

"The tv just went out."

The tv turned off when you pressed the button to turn off the cable box?

"Yes."

Is there a little green light on the tv?

"No, it's just a blank screen."


arrrggg....

[emotional leper]

This is why I no longer do computer repair for family, unless it suits my purposes. Like my father, who, while using my mom's computer to try to rip some cds and transfer the MP3s to his phone which, apparently, functions with a built in FM transmitter, cannot get his phone to show up as it should, as a removable storage device. He just sits there, swearing, and becoming more unbearable than he already is by the instant.

Meanwhile, the guy who spent three years on Comp Sci and Engineering is laying on the couch, trying to take a nap.

[Nav]

Time for my favourite acronym: PEBKAC = Problem Exists Between Keyboard And Chair

It does seem that people nowadays think that it is their divine right to get what they want, when they want it, and if they can't they don't care if there's a good reason for it. They want their $6 hot milk with a dash of coffee and they want it now!

It's funny how foreign words can be assimilated into English. I can't count how many giggles I've stifled when a British or American tourist asks for a latte in Italy and can't understand why they've been given a glass of milk.

[emotional leper]

Time for my favourite acronym: PEBKAC = Problem Exists Between Keyboard And Chair

It does seem that people nowadays think that it is their divine right to get what they want, when they want it, and if they can't they don't care if there's a good reason for it. They want their $6 hot milk with a dash of coffee and they want it now!

It's funny how foreign words can be assimilated into English. I can't count how many giggles I've stifled when a British or American tourist asks for a latte in Italy and can't understand why they've been given a glass of milk.

That's why I think we should all speak Latin.

Also, every time someone says the phrase "Je ne sais qua," I usually start going, "Say Qua, Jenna! SAY QUA!", or ask them, "You don't know WHAT?"

So much fun.