# Aggravating stories from tech illiterates



## BORTZ (Sep 29, 2012)

So I know we all have parents, relatives, grandparents, and non tech savvy coworkers. I want to hear the stories that make you grit your teeth in hate for their general computer illiteracy.
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Like the day when my mom learned she would copy and paste shiz? She didnt leave the computer for a week.
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"Why do i have to pay for internet when I have to plug the computer into the wall for power?"
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Or one time my dad was playing this card game on the computer. The computer got slower as he played it, over the course of like a year or so. Eventually the computer (a Compaq, with Windows ME :barf it kept overheating and we didnt know that. So we took it to the computer repair man and it developed hairline cracks in the motherboard because of the overheating. On the way home, my dad got on my case for installing so many games on it. Mind i was twelve and i had like 2 games. Sega Smash Pack 2 and Age of Empires 2.
*He said the computer crashed because I had too much installed on it and that all the weight of my games cracked the motherboard.*
WTF dad. So later i when we got a new computer i saw him playing the card game again.
This went on for a few years and eventually i started downloading things. One day i checked when my download went, into the download folder. Along with it i found the other few things ive downloaded, as well as OVER 500 COPIES OF THE CARD GAME MY DAD PLAYED.
Every time he played it, he would download it. Every effing time. Shizzz man.
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Me:Hey emily, i didnt know you had a Wii.
Emilyh yeah, but something is wrong with it.
Me: I can fix it probably (being real proud of myself and my GBAtemp database.
Emily: Oh yeah it wont play DVDs.
Me:...
(i know the wii can play them, but it doesnt do it out of the box.)
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Share yours. I find these hilarious.

OH and everyone that posts here get a like from me.


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## Tom Bombadildo (Sep 29, 2012)

I could probably write a book. If I wasn't so busy watching Doctor Who right now I'd add a ton, but for now I'll just stick with the ever popular:

"I need to buy a new computer, my internet is way too slow"


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## BORTZ (Sep 29, 2012)

Suprgamr232 said:


> I could probably write a book. If I wasn't so busy watching Doctor Who right now I'd add a ton, but for now I'll just stick with the ever popular:
> 
> "I need to buy a new computer, my internet is way too slow"


Please please do. Im excited to read these, they might be my favorite thing ever.


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## Alexrose (Sep 29, 2012)

Back in school when I lived with my parents, my mum always used to snap at me for alt tabbing.

YOU'RE NOT HELPING, YOU'RE JUST FLIPPING EVERYWHERE.

And when you fix someone's computer and they uninstall the antivirus you put on and download Bonzai Buddy or some shit then claim you broke it and it worked just fine before you did anything.

My other housemate for someone computer literate is a real dick too. I built PCs for everyone in my house and 1 component was faulty and he's all like:

BUILDING PCS IS STUPID. I'D MUCH RATHER HAVE A PROFESSIONAL DO IT. THIS DOESN'T HAPPEN WHEN YOU BUY A PREMADE PC, AND THEY BREAK ALL THE TIME.

I can't reason with him.


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## MelodieOctavia (Sep 29, 2012)

Suprgamr232 said:


> I could probably write a book. If I wasn't so busy watching Doctor Who right now I'd add a ton, but for now I'll just stick with the ever popular:
> 
> "I need to buy a new computer, my internet is way too slow"



My aunts and uncles do that all the time. They also buy a new computer if it gets slow altogether. I have asked them, instead of throwing out their PC that they give it to me. I haven't told them that I reformat them and resell them. That's a fact I'd rather leave concealed. If they choose to be ignorant even after trying to show them how to fix the problem, the least they could do is let me profit from their ignorance 



Anyway, another exmaple:

My mother asked me how I could fit all those movies on the TV (referring to Netflix). "Doesn't all those movies take up hard drive space on the TV?"


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## Foxi4 (Sep 29, 2012)

I know the problem of re-downloaded files very well - my mum does it quite often when she gets photos over e-mail. Since she doesn't exactly know where the default downloads folder is or how to find it, she simply re-downloads them every single time. Then again, I do that with my time table for Uni - I'm a lazy ass. The difference is that I periodically clean up after myself. I also know the "too many installs, my PC is slow now!" issue - pops up every now and then.

We usually get to the point where my family members say "you're never going to use my computer again!", however in a matter of days there's meant to be an issue of some sort, to which they gladly sing the song of their people, called "Can you fix it, please?", to which I respond "Sure.", fix it and then use the computer yet again for an undisclosed amount of time, returning to the starting point of the adventure.

Another funny one is "what are all those icons on the desktop?", which is a recurring question whenever I install something. "It's my game, leave it." usually ends up with either the "You're addicted to the computer!" or the "You're putting junk on the computer!" arguments, but seeing that they both fly right over my head, I have no beef with those.

I also regret ever telling my mom "if the internet doesn't work, restart the router". Our old ISP had DHCP issues and every now and then, the adress lease would expire, but we would not get the IP re-assigned, resulting in no internet access. This was a way to fix it... however, now it's the go-to way to fix *any* internet issue. In fact, my mother often claims to know that I don't know what I'm talking about, the internet surely is "there" and all we have to do is reboot the router, when the internet is clearly dead.


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## FAST6191 (Sep 29, 2012)

I am sure we all have a few thousand of these

In very recent times

"please restore microsoft works" (this after not being able to save and send a document in a format anybody else could reasonably manage)


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## shoyrumaster11 (Sep 29, 2012)

TwinRetro said:


> My mother asked me how I could fit all those movies on the TV (referring to Netflix). "Doesn't all those movies take up hard drive space on the TV?"



What?


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## Sheimi (Sep 29, 2012)

"Want to know why the internet is going slow? Go delete your email and it will go faster" wat


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## Clarky (Sep 29, 2012)

I will have to try my best to remember some...know there are plenty tucked away in my memory

one that comes to mind was over 10 or so years ago when the DC was doing its rounds, I recall one part about the DC I quite enjoyed the idea of was Bleemcast (a PSOne emu for the DC for those who don't know) and eventually a boot disc for GranTurismo 2 was released which amongst other things allowed the game to load quicker, run at twice the normal resolution, basically a few enchancments which even went beyond what a PS2 which had built in PSOne compatibility built into could do. Anywho after paying the sum of £5 for said disc it eventually arrives and my brother and a few friends are excited to see Gran Turismo 2, a game we have all enjoyed in each others company many times to be "improved", so anyone after an amusing boot screen which states how Sega doesn't endorse Bleem and they have made it without a license from Sega we swap discs over and heads get strached by people when they are suprised that GT2 doesn't look like either Gran Turismo 3 or Metropolis Street Racer. After spending a good amount of time explaining how emulation works we ended up playing that bad boy for a number of hours


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## Tom Bombadildo (Sep 29, 2012)

Ok ok, another one I thought of that's no so much a thing someone says but a thing someone does.

At my school, whenever there's a problem with the PCs the tech guys just reinstall Windows XP instead of bothering to fix it, even if it's something stupid such as...oh, I dunno, putting something in the Startup folder on some PCs. Yeah, they actually did that, and yeah, my school actually pays them to do that.


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## Depravo (Sep 29, 2012)

I have all this to come yet. I recently donated my old computer to my aged mother.


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## Foxi4 (Sep 29, 2012)

Alexrose said:


> My other housemate for someone computer literate is a real dick too. I built PCs for everyone in my house and 1 component was faulty and he's all like:
> BUILDING PCS IS STUPID. I'D MUCH RATHER HAVE A PROFESSIONAL DO IT. THIS DOESN'T HAPPEN WHEN YOU BUY A PREMADE PC, AND THEY BREAK ALL THE TIME.
> I can't reason with him.


He's right - PC's in stores are made by brownies and chip fairies - the components are never touched by filthy men. Their insides are always properly cliped in, they always have proper ventillation and they're never made of sub-par components.


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## yusuo (Sep 30, 2012)

I dont really have anything too annoying, just the usual shit like when i fix someones pc and stick new anti virus, programs etc on and then later down the line shit goes wrong, i inevitably get the blame as it was all my fault, Weird cause I have all the same shit on my laptop and i've never had any viruses/malware/problems.

At the end of the day it comes down to regular maintenance, I run Advanced System Care and Diskeeper Defragmentor once a week to keep everything running nice and smoothly


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## Castiel (Sep 30, 2012)

Me to my brother (because it's so easy to annoy him when I act stupid when it comes to technology):
"Our Xbox is running out of space and being all slow like. Should I go out and buy a new motherboard?"
I know the Xbox isn't a computer but I figure this counts


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## BORTZ (Sep 30, 2012)

Oh man i am SOOO excited watch this thread populate. I LOVE these stories. 
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE keep sharing and I will read EVERY one.


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## Arm73 (Sep 30, 2012)

Well back in the 80's, I needed to connect my computer ( a Spectrum ) to the living room old CRT TV when I wanted to use it, and every time something was wrong with the TV ( like the power supply burned out or the TV tuner wasnt working ) and we had to call a technician to fix it, automatically it was my fault because I was playing too much with my computer !!
Or just in general, I wasn't supposed to use the computer for more then one hour or the TV would break !!


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## Clarky (Sep 30, 2012)

a recent enough one just came up, although its hardly funny. My brother who in recent years who has learned how to turn a computer on in recent years has tried to set up a media centre (unsucessfuly) and he phoned up me up to tell me about this great deal he found on a "wireless portable hard drive". After straching my head for the best part of 10 minutes it suddenly dawned on me he had ended up buying a NAS server, safe to say after about a week he ended up trying to sell it to my dad because he couldn't figure it out, and tried to sell it on the strengh of "you could store all your e-books on it", yep, all 2TB's worth of ebooks....


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## shoyrumaster11 (Sep 30, 2012)

Hmmm.... For me, it would definitely be the teachers in my school. They have computer problems all over the place! A few examples would include sound problems when connecting their cheapo laptops to an electric whiteboard! They never seem to have any luck with the sound! Like they don't select the driver that the electric whiteboard relies on for sound. Another would have to be the witeboards and their video feature! It almost always seems to glitch! My final example was when a video codec was being installed but, after that it didn't work. Leik, whats installing it TWICE going to do?!


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## Sheimi (Sep 30, 2012)

Parents: Go delete all your stuff off the computer and it will run faster
Me: Ok (transfers all my stuff to my flash drive) and deletes it off the computer and uninstalled all my programs
*few hours later after not using it and it's off*
Parents: It still runs super slow, your fucking grounded.
Me: If you put more RAM into it, it might run faster
Parents: It's not the RAM, it's your files on it.

So, a few years later after I knew more about computers, the problem was the RAM. So I went out and bought more RAM for the old desktop computer and maxed out how much RAM you can put in it and now it's my gaming computer. (It was custom built from what I knew and it costed over $1,500)


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## MelodieOctavia (Sep 30, 2012)

My mother ran down the stairs one day, waking up my wife and son in the process...laptop in her arms. So goddamn excited about an email. She kept blabbering about how we struck it rich. We were going to buy another house bla bla bla...So i asked her to show me the email. "No I have no time for that, I need to get to the bank before someone else cashes in on this" I said I'm sure you have a few minutes. I took a look, saw that it was a typical Nigerian scam...Man I'm glad I caught her in time. It took nearly an hour to bring her down to earth and explain what a 419 scam is, and I even had to show her the 419 forums...


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## FireEmblemGuy (Sep 30, 2012)

Luckily my dad used to be a software engineer and built/refurbished computers, so I generally don't have trouble with him; he has been out of the computer business since the mid 90's or so and isn't really up-to-date on tech; just two or three years ago he tried to update an old PC we'd had in storage to Windows XP even though it was barely fit for Windows 98. This of course lead to us driving around town looking for a store that still sold 3.5" floppies, and of course he decided Walmart and Radioshack were 'obviously' still carrying them. Eventually we found some at a secondhand tech store, but of course even after getting it set up it never ran as well as he'd imagined it would.

My mom's been using computers since the late 90's and was an eBay powerseller before they really cracked down on pirated videos; she's still not great with any hardware stuff, and I still have to walk her through anything that's not Windows. Luckily she's figured out Firefox and Chrome, but when I first downloaded FF onto the family computer some six years ago she complained about how I was letting all the viruses into the system and that I needed to uninstall it.

The worst was my high school. Senior year they tried implementing an online course system, starting with Advanced Math II. Only about a dozen of us took it, and close to half of them dropped it before the first semester was over. A lot of Flash-intensive programs and videos on computers that could only handle Windows XP with the classic desktop setting, and the first couple days none of us could even log in. At the end of the first week one of the newly-hired tech guys came in at the beginning of the class and had a 'solution': "OK, so when you log into your computers you should see a new icon on the desktop that says 'Godzilla FireFox', click that and see if that helps". As if that wasn't hilarious enough, they hadn't even installed it properly, as sessions were basically saved in RAM on those machines, and programs had to be installed on the main server and students had to be manually added to an 'OK to use' group for local use. It was a clusterfuck all year long, to the point that, since we were mostly unsupervised, most of us used the class to catch up on other homework, texting (phones were banned on campus during class hours back then), or playing browser games; those of us who cared about the grade just binged through everything the last couple weeks of each quarter.


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## Tom Bombadildo (Sep 30, 2012)

Alright, here's some.

I have a friend who likes to pretend he knows all about PCs and stuff, and sometimes the things he says just makes me cry with laughter. For instance:
"Yeah, my PC was running out of hard drive space so I went out and bought like a couple 64GB sticks of RAM so I can pirate more music and stuff"
or
"My mom's PC keeps getting a BSOD so I gotta go out and buy a new case for it. Really sucks"

Other things that make me angry is when techno-tards try and pretend they know what they're talking about. Like:
"My 2nd Gen iPod touch has much better hardware than your crappy HTC Evo"

I've also heard just some really stupid stuff in my time like:
"Yeah I usually pirate Blu-ray copies of movies a few days before they're in theaters"
or
*Teacher after a program crashes on our 5 year old PCs at school* "This is why I have a Mac"

There are also the people who know I'm relatively knowledgeable about computers in general so there will be people who ask me really stupid questions like:
"So my friend has these bank files he needs to get rid of at his local bank, do you think you can hack into it and delete them?"


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## loco365 (Sep 30, 2012)

TwinRetro said:


> It took nearly an hour to bring her down to earth and explain what a 419 scam is, and I even had to show her the 419 forums...


I think I just found my new favorite sport. *clears blocked email list*

As for me, my mom CONSTANTLY tells me to clean up my desktop because it's making the computer slow. And whenever she types, she adds a million spaces. And it goes beyond the computer as well. I tell my mom shortcut buttons on the TV remote to make it easier for her to use.

She never uses them.


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## Gahars (Sep 30, 2012)

One day, my mom asked if she could borrow my laptop to check her email. I said sure, and left her to her own devices.

I return several minutes later to find her in complete distress. It takes several minutes of yelling before I can calm her down and get to the root of the problem - she couldn't figure out how to use the touchpad in the pace of a mouse and became distraught.

She's... not great with computers.


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## Sterling (Sep 30, 2012)

My grandmother never did get around to grasping the concept of the double click.


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## ZAFDeltaForce (Sep 30, 2012)

"Oh no. I deleted the Internet"

- Someone, after deleting the shortcut to Internet Explorer


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## Sicklyboy (Sep 30, 2012)

Ohhh boy~

I'll have to post some as they happen.  I get a lot of... "slightly less than tech-savvy" people at Target, plus my parents aren't exactly computer wizards either.

Start with one from my parents:

(I had just reinstalled XP on their computer, shitty ass Dell from 6 or 7 years ago)
Dad - "Nick, can you put Word back on the computer?"
"Sure, what's up, you need to type up a document?"
"No I want to check my email."
"...what?"
"I need Word so I can check my email, can you put it back in?"
"Dad you use Chrome.  Word is a word processor."
"No I'm pretty sure I used Word."
"No dad.  You used Chrome."
"Then what's Firefox?"
"That's what Mom uses.  Dad, Chrome is already installed.  It's the blue, yellow, red, green circle.  Just use it."
 "I still think you're wrong."

Edit - here's another one.

A few years back, Dad has a friend whos mother had just passed.  Friend said he could give the computer to me to recondition, scrap, sell, whatever.  So I take it, complete with scuzzy mouse, keyboard, and CRT, boot it up - Win98.  "Okay" I thought. "She was an old lady.  This is sorta to be expected."  Look on the desktop, and there I see an icon for "Shortcut - Show Desktop"


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## 1stClassZackFair (Sep 30, 2012)

I would hate it when my mom would say "Bring Netflix to the living room". I would get really pissed then I say " it's called a ps3,not a damn Netflix "


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## Quietlyawesome94 (Sep 30, 2012)

I bought my dad a Kindle Fire for his birthday, and it's probably the first time he has browsed the internet unrestricted. (His Work computers don't let him do squat)

He'll go watch a movie trailer on Youtube and get all excited saying, 'Oh look! They already have this movie available for free on this site! How do we go do that?'

When it's obviously one of those stupid spam comments that somehow gotten top comment. :/

My mom complains about how slow her computer is when she is the one with 100+ tabs open in Firefox along with PDFs and other stuff.
It's so bad that we get to the point that when I'm trying to help her fix something, and it needs to reboot the computer, she says, 'Nope, got too many tabs open. I'll lose everything.'

I also walked into her room once and noticed that she had put tape over the webcam of her tablet.... That tablet being an HP TouchPad with a port of Android 4.0 on it, which has a non-functioning camera.


Seeing the news that the Wii U's GPU is apparently 3-4x stronger than that of the Xbox 360, I said that it will have better graphics than the 360. A stupid 13 year old that I can't stand said, 'Haha no. That's not true.'
The same kid always blurts stupid shit like, 'No it isn't!', or 'You're lying. I don't *think* that is true.' It pisses me off to no end because I know what I'm talking about more often than not when I'm trying to tell kids this stuff.

People who buy iPhones only because it is more of a fashion statement rather than something they need or would use. This lady is a prime example:



My mom trashed a computer once and kept the fan thinking it was the CPU. 

That's all that I can think of at the moment.  I've got so many of them, but those are the only ones that come to mind.


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## Bobbyloujo (Sep 30, 2012)

moar please!

I can't think of any specific examples but one of my favorite ways to entertain myself during the school day is to listen to all my computer illiterate classmates and teachers share their "knowledge" about technology... ha.


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## BORTZ (Sep 30, 2012)

I was in tech services one day getting ready to drop off my laptop for some software help. Behind me the head of department came in the door. 
He says "hey Gary, I got that thingy you attach to the network for stuff". 
...I grabbed my laptop and and told the receptionist I won't be needing any help.


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## Sefi (Sep 30, 2012)

Back in high school, I had found some computer prank files that did several fun things but were obviously fake to anybody that knew a bit about computers.  My friend Jeremy took the one that made it seem like the computer was deleting the entire hard drive with a small window prompt saying it was doing just that.  Well, he installed a program (netbus maybe?  been a long time) to control the computer in our school library from another computer in an adjacent computer lab.  It was close enough that you could see the library computer screen and the people using it.  One of our school's techs was sitting at the library computer when Jeremy loaded up the prank deletion program.  The guy went into panic mode and yelled for his coworker to "come quick!".  Was extremely funny not just from a prank standpoint, but the fact that they actually thought it was deleting the entire hard drive.

I used to download tons of games on our dialup connection through IRC.  I would minimize it to the system tray, where nobody else in my family had any clue to look.  If it wasn't on the taskbar it must not be running at all right?  Sometimes I felt guilty and went and closed it, but if one of my sisters were using it I'd play innocent and let them barely surf the web.

Last year a friend's PC was beeping on startup.  I looked into it and it turned out he just needed a new battery on the motherboard.  Took it out, showed him what it looked like and the battery part number.  What did he do?  Bought a new PC of course!


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## Bobbyloujo (Sep 30, 2012)

Oh, here's one of my favorites.

"I had to delete everything on my computer because I got a popup saying that it was infected with tons of viruses"

What they saw was this: http://cms-admin.bbb...e_FakeScan1.jpg


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## Psionic Roshambo (Sep 30, 2012)

Everytime my wife says "computer" I cringe, her mom and our daughter are the same way, I then have to decipher if they mean the keyboard the mouse the monitor the speakers the printer the Internet the network or the actual box. 

Last night my daughter "What did you do to the Internet? My skype is working but this web page is not!!!"  I had to resist the urge to say something mean.... Instead I calmly explained that the web page she was trying to access was probably offline and that she should try again later.


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## Vulpes Abnocto (Sep 30, 2012)

I posted my favorite story to /r/talesfromtechsupport/ a few weeks ago. 



Spoiler



*For TL;DR, scroll to the bottom.*

Let me preface my story with this: I am not IT personnel. I've never had any formal training, I hold no degrees, I don't work in any information technology field. In fact I'm a carpenter, and a shepherd. Around fifteen years ago a friend got me into PCs and LAN gaming, taught me a lot of the basics of Windows, and gave me a basic working knowledge of networking. But I live in a very small Georgia town that you won't find on many maps; So that fact makes me a big turd in a little bowl.

When neighbors heard that I've been picking up "broken" computers on the side of the road, fixing them up, and using them (or giving them away) they decided that this meant that I must be some sort of "genius". I get called out to take care of problems great and small in this little clearing of the woods. Most of my problems don't compare to the ones that many of you deal with every day,
but they make for interesting stories.

My favorite client is affectionately known as The Chicken Lady. She raises ~100,000 chickens every month to make sure you can have your Chick-Fil-A any time you want. (except for Sundays, of course) I could share stories of her supposed hackings or toolbars so numerous that her workable screen size could be covered by a US dollar bill or how often she panics over something becoming unplugged: but my favorite stories stem from her nephew. We'll call him Boomhauer.

Boomhauer is my age (mid 30s) and I distinctly remember a time when he could speak with some level of sense and clarity. Unfortunately he's now on just about every anti-psychotic drug known to modern science. It's become difficult to understand how his mind can still keep him breathing and blinking autonomously.

One fine day in the early Summer of 2012 I was enjoying the single day I had off from my daily duties each month. It was no surprise when a phone call screwed all of that up.

"I caint get my computer ta work."

This is always the phrasing. No "The internet won't connect", no "the monitor won't come on", no "the printer is out of ink". It's always: "I can't get my computer to work."

Beautiful.

On this day I take the short trip down the road and perform the usual tests. Everything about the computer seems to be fine, except that it refuses to connect to the internet. I'm loathe to call the local ISP since I've had dealings with them many times in the past and it never goes well, so I start questioning Chicken Lady about the circumstances surrounding the outage.

About this time Boomhauer wanders in muttering something about getting me to fix his TV after I'm done with the computer. (at least that's what I glean from every tenth word that falls from his mouth) Sure. I wanted to spend my entire off-day here fixing crap for free.

I try resetting the router, alternate browsers, checking all the PC's wiring. Nothing works. I eventually break down and call the ISP. They say everything is working fine on their end, but they can't detect a computer on our end. It's been an hour, and I'm getting frustrated since every fifteen minutes the Chicken Lady's husband has to meander through the room and bellow "Ja git it fixed yet?!" No, that's probably why I'm still here. When I get it fixed my car will vacate the driveway and I'll actually get to relax.

To hell with it. Maybe if I go focus on something else the answer will come to me. I start looking over Boomhauer's TV.

Of course the problem isn't one TV, but two. I ask him what he's expecting them to do....and he begins telling me about how he knows all about how a residential cable connection differs from a business cable connection...in the most chaotic and abstract way possible....
I can't listen to him for five minutes before giving up on his unholy tangle of wires. Was that...was that an LNB from a satellite dish that I saw in that wiring?

I go back to getting nowhere with the computer...but the mess in that little bedroom keeps nagging at me.

Half an hour later Boomhauer decides that it's time for him to go sit by the creek for a while.
Gooood riddance.
The nagging feeling gets more intense and I return to his bedroom just to reexamine the wires that he kept distracting me from.

It looks as though he wants one TV to show their cable television service, and one to show over-the-air service along with his VCR. Simple enough, apart from the fact that he's running the signals through four different splitters (and of course one LNB which is serving no purpose apart from extending the reach of his rabbit-ear antenna.

And there are two wires that I can't explain. They come from opposite corners of the room; one nearest the road, and one nearest the computer.....what the fuck, really?

I connect them, return to the computer and the internet works flawlessly again.

In all of his brilliant re-wiring Boomhauer has disconnected the internet line from the computer in an attempt to see his Andy Griffith Show re-runs.

Don't ask me why that wire runs through and splits in the middle of the bedroom. I have absolutely no idea.

It takes about five minutes to get both TVs and the computer working properly again.
On the way home I tossed the LNB into the woods.

I wish that I could say that this was the last time that we encountered this problem, but two weeks later I was called back over the same symptoms. Stupid me for only hand-tightening his cable connections. Once again he got the itch to fiddle with the connections and screwed them all up again. This time I took a wrench and locked them down as tightly as possible without stripping any threads.
There have been no problems ever since.
*
TL;DR - rednecks on multiple anti-psychotic drugs should never attempt to re-wire their own cable service*


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## Hyro-Sama (Sep 30, 2012)

My cousin had purchased a Wi-Fi USB adapter for their desktop as no Ethernet cable was run up the walls into their bedroom and Wireless was already in the house. I asked why it wasn't being used and my cousin told me "it was too difficult to install." Thinking this answer was silly, I proceeded to install the adapter by following the prompts provided by the installation disk. Ten minutes later my cousin had internet and they just stared at me like I had just performed a miracle.


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## Vulpes Abnocto (Sep 30, 2012)

Hyro-Sama said:


> My cousin had purchased a Wi-Fi USB adapter for their desktop as no Ethernet cable was run up the walls into their bedroom and Wireless was already in the house. I asked why it wasn't being used and my cousin told me "it was too difficult to install." Thinking this answer was silly, I proceeded to install the adapter by following the prompts provided by the installation disk. Ten minutes later my cousin had internet and they just stared at me like I had just performed a miracle.



Ever-so-relevant XKCD

(there's one for every occasion)


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## Snailface (Sep 30, 2012)

Here is a treasure-trove of computer illiteracy.
http://www.rinkworks.com/stupid/

A sample:


> I was helping a friend with some code. In the code, I found the line:
> x = x;
> and removed it. I made some further changes and send the code back to him. He told me he still had errors. So he sent me his code again, and again I found the same line. I asked him why he kept putting that in there, and he replied, "So x doesn't lose its value."


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## nando (Sep 30, 2012)

our internet was down at the office and this lady who at the time was made partner asked me, "do you think it's down because of the market crashed?"

but really the most aggravating thing in my office was from the self appointed techie. i was away on vacation and when i returned i found my apple studio display replaced with a samsung syncmaster - the shittiest display i have ever experienced. damn monitors have the shittiest color and gamma is all over the place. they actually had a "professional" come in to calibrated and it still looked like crap. i had to live with that display for 2 years before i finally got a new one. the "techy" traded in my old monitor which i missed dearly and was worth 2 times more than what i got

not only that but he filled all 8 memory slots in my computer with 512mb modules for a whopping 4gbs! a computer with the potential for 32gbs maxed out at 4! i'm so glad he is gone and i get to decide on my future hardware.


----------



## Densetsu (Sep 30, 2012)

A friend asked me to take a look at her laptop.
*Me:* _"Sure, what's wrong?"_
*Her:* _"I think there's a virus on it."_
*Me:* _"What makes you think that?"_
*Her:* _"My laptop's been slow for a long time.  Like, reeeeeallly slow."_
So I had me a look-see, and immediately noticed that her laptop was badly in need of a Windows Update and an AVG virus definitions update.  
*Me:* _"When was the last time you updated AVG or did a Windows Update?"_
*Her:* _"Oh I never update those things.  I haven't updated for 2 years."_
*Me:* _"What!?"_ 
*Her:* _"Yeah, I just close the update message thingies whenever they pop up."_
*Me:* _"Why!?"_ D:
*Her:* _"Because it always takes forever, and my computer slows down if I update while I'm working.  And after it updates, I hate having to restart my laptop while I'm in the middle of something.  My computer is already slow enough as it is."_


Spoiler: *Me:*


----------



## Sicklyboy (Sep 30, 2012)

Densetsu said:


> A friend asked me to take a look at her laptop.
> *Me:* _"Sure, what's wrong?"_
> *Her:* _"I think there's a virus on it."_
> *Me:* _"What makes you think that?"_
> ...



My grandpa doesn't update his laptop because he's afraid of things changing.  I don't even bother helping him with it anymore because I know what I'm going to end up saying to him.


----------



## Sheimi (Sep 30, 2012)

When I started coding my own games in Sega Genesis coding (which I taught myself). So one person in my family thought I was hacking the internet when I was making my own game for the Sega Genesis hardware. I don't know why I laughed that day.

Friend: Can you help me out?
Me: Sure, what's the issue?
Friend: I extracted a game and there is no iso
Me: Hmmm....Do you see a bunch of rar files?
Friends: Yes and I do not have a program to extract the rar file
Me: *facepalm* just use 7zip
Friend: ooooh, yeah I forgot that I can use it.


----------



## mysticwaterfall (Sep 30, 2012)

Back in high school, one of the secrataries said she needed a new computer because hers kept saying it was out of space. I asked if she had ever deleted/backed up anything. She looked at me all amazed "You can do that? Wow!'
---
About 2 years ago, I fixed somebodies computer who literally had 2 inches of toolbars on her IE. It was so ridiculous.
---
Back in the DOS days the computer got fatal error, which as we all know means nothing big. My mom saw it and totally freaked out that I had ruined the computer and pulled the plug to save it.

Probably think of more later...


----------



## Sop (Sep 30, 2012)

mysticwaterfall said:


> Back in high school, one of the secrataries said she needed a new computer because hers kept saying it was out of space. I asked if she had ever deleted/backed up anything. She looked at me all amazed "You can do that? Wow!'
> ---
> About 2 years ago, I fixed somebodies computer who literally had 2 inches of toolbars on her IE. It was so ridiculous.
> ---
> ...


That's nothing. One of my friends mum's has about 7 inches of toolbars.


----------



## Lanlan (Sep 30, 2012)

nando said:


> our internet was down at the office and this lady who at the time was made partner asked me, "do you think it's down because of the market crashed?"
> 
> but really the most aggravating thing in my office was from the self appointed techie. i was away on vacation and when i returned i found my apple studio display replaced with a samsung syncmaster - the shittiest display i have ever experienced. damn monitors have the shittiest color and gamma is all over the place. they actually had a "professional" come in to calibrated and it still looked like crap. i had to live with that display for 2 years before i finally got a new one. the "techy" traded in my old monitor which i missed dearly and was worth 2 times more than what i got
> 
> not only that but he filled all 8 memory slots in my computer with 512mb modules for a whopping 4gbs! a computer with the potential for 32gbs maxed out at 4! i'm so glad he is gone and i get to decide on my future hardware.


on the syncmaster did you change the name of the PC connection to PC or PC DVI? I just bought a syncmaster and it looked like crap til i did that.


----------



## AlanJohn (Sep 30, 2012)

When I still lived with my parents, we had around 5 computers in the house, but everyone for some reason used mine. I locked my PC with a password, then my mother sent it to an IT guy who installed Windows XP Bloatware edition and deleted everything from my computer. Then, one time, my sister booted my PC, which was running on linux. She thought that my PC was "broken" since she couldn't open her precious .exe's, and sent it to the IT, again. They installed a fresh version of Windows XP bloatware edition, again, and deleted everything, again.

It is hard to be the only intelligent person in your family.


----------



## Ace Overclocked (Sep 30, 2012)

AlanJohn said:


> When I still lived with my parents, we had around 5 computers in the house, but everyone for some reason used mine. I locked my PC with a password, then my mother sent it to an IT guy who installed Windows XP Bloatware edition and deleted everything from my computer. Then, one time, my sister booted my PC, which was running on linux. She thought that my PC was "broken" since she couldn't open her precious .exe's, and sent it to the IT, again. They installed a fresh version of Windows XP bloatware edition, again, and deleted everything, again.
> 
> It is hard to be the only intelligent person in your family.


You live on your own being 15 years old?
You finally caught up, i stopped living with my parents when i was 12


----------



## AlanJohn (Sep 30, 2012)

Ace Overclocked said:


> AlanJohn said:
> 
> 
> > When I still lived with my parents, we had around 5 computers in the house, but everyone for some reason used mine. I locked my PC with a password, then my mother sent it to an IT guy who installed Windows XP Bloatware edition and deleted everything from my computer. Then, one time, my sister booted my PC, which was running on linux. She thought that my PC was "broken" since she couldn't open her precious .exe's, and sent it to the IT, again. They installed a fresh version of Windows XP bloatware edition, again, and deleted everything, again.
> ...


It's just that I had to move to this city in order to get a proper education. 
I still live with my aunt & uncle. Thankfully, they are computer literate.


----------



## BORTZ (Sep 30, 2012)

Word of mouth but i believe him. Hes actually a member here now @[member='wafflebeard']

He told me when he was a freshman in college he was working on a report. He was searching like Britanica and other educational prestigious sites. Every once and a while he could click on a link and be presented with a youtube page with a rick roll. Normally that would be hilarious, and it was. But this had been going on for a week. 

He took it to tech services because he though he had contracted a hilarious virus. He got it back a few days later. Tech services said someone had installed a plug in for firefox. It was an April fools joke that went bad apparently. Everytime you click on a like there was like a 10% chance of you getting redirected to youtube for a Rick Roll. But only on April fools day. But his kept going for a week and a half lol 

Not really tech illiterate but funny.


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## mysticwaterfall (Sep 30, 2012)

I'll never understand how people get so many toolbars.  Do they read nothing?

Back in the 80s I remember my friend down the street believed that you needed the whole program on a floppy with the documents it made. So he had like 20 copies of a notes program, each with only a few dicuments, since the program took most of the space.
--

I remember my dad told me at work that they were always losing the key disks. So one day the manager attached them to the filing cabinet with a magnet.
----

So many times helping people in the DOS days telling them to put a space in to have them type "space" and then tell me it didn't work.
----

Once in school a mouse died on the computer. Student said it froze and asked for help. Person helping goes, "well, this computers toast". I get them where they want with keyboard shortcuts and just say we need a new mouse. Blank stares.


----------



## Foxi4 (Sep 30, 2012)

mysticwaterfall said:


> I'll never understand how people get so many toolbars.  Do they read nothing?


Toolbars for web browsers should be made illegal all around the world, there should be a global cursade to destroy them unless they're downloadable extensions available in their corresponding App Stores so that only those who actually want them install them without fearing that they'll get one after breezing through an installation paying attention only to where the "OK", "Next" or "Finish" buttons are.

Relevant:


Spoiler










If I ever wanted my browser to be s*it, I'd just switch to IE.


----------



## MelodieOctavia (Sep 30, 2012)

A couple months ago, I was cleaning up one of my mother in law's old computers. Started up XP, slow as all hell, and What do I see? None other than that little purple fucker BonziBuddy. I had to make a full reformat due to there being tons of spyware and adware, but I couldn't help getting all nostalgic. I kind of felt like I was deleting an old friend. My Mother in law looked over my shoulder before I shut down the computer and said "Oh hey! I remember that little guy! He was the most helpful program I ever had on a computer. I wonder if I can download that again..." And then I remembered why it needed to be destroyed.


----------



## porkiewpyne (Sep 30, 2012)

My old computer which everyone in my family shares has very very little RAM. Dad almost brought it to the IT guy to get it reformatted. Glad I was home that day :\


Well, I kinda derped many times as a kid too. Remember those free smiley ads and all? Yeap I was a sucker for those. *sigh* I look back and I swear if I could go back in time, I'd beat the crap out of that idiot.


----------



## learnin2hack (Sep 30, 2012)

This happened last year I downloaded two files under (less than 50mb between them) We went over our 15gb limit and got charged â‚¬70 (we went over by 1gb wtf?) They blamed me.


----------



## BORTZ (Sep 30, 2012)

God this thread is gold. Or diamonds.







Foxi4 said:


> mysticwaterfall said:
> 
> 
> > I'll never understand how people get so many toolbars.  Do they read nothing?
> ...


Gosh whats that little ad down there at the bottom? Thats soo annoying. lol

When i was younger (like gradeschool) we would take our papers that we had written into school on 3.5 floppie drives. We would play with them sometimes and i would always flip over the little metal piece that covered the tape where your shiz was stored. One of the kids was like "Dude! You just erased my paper!!!" and had a tanturm.  So i took out mine and flipped the little metal piece over mine like 40 times reallly fast and still printed that 4th grade paper lol.


----------



## loco365 (Sep 30, 2012)

Hopefully if I get a job at a computer store, I'll have more stories like these to one day tell.

I just remembered another though. When I was in Grade 4, our school had the awesome Apple computers with the colored tops. Like these:


Spoiler










Anyways, at this point in time, I wasn't really computer-literate, but I knew that if it did weird things I normally wouldn't see from the other students using the computer, I knew something was wrong. And one day, we all came into the lab and sat at our stations. This one girl turned on her computer, and it made the most twisted sound I've ever heard a computer make in my entire life. It sounded like fingers on a chalkboard, but MUCH worse. Only after the teacher hears that does she tell her NOT to sit there because the computer crashed.

And 2 years later, all the schools in the district were switching over to Windows XP computers. At this point in time, I was really good with Windows and knew the ins and outs of it rather well. We were having a small discussion on the computers and to not go overboard because they were still being set up. She then went on to mention that we'd have to go through some kind of "training" on how to use these computers. Thank god we didn't. But she said, that she'd have to teach us some keyboard shortcuts. "All of the Windows shortcuts are similar to those of Apple computers.", she said, "And I'm pretty sure that Ctrl+S is for saving, and Ctrl+Q is for quitting." I then raised my hand and said "Uh, quitting is Alt+F4 on a Windows computer." She looked at me and said "I'm pretty sure it's Ctrl+Q." I said to her, "No, it's Alt+F4. I own a Windows computer and I know how to use one." She still denied it.

And another 2 years later, in Jr High at a different school, we still had the shit of Windows XP computers. The network they were on was simply awful. Some days, it'd take about 2 minutes to log you in, but on a bad day, it could take 15 or 20 minutes. Just awful. But anyways, one day, a student was having fun playing around with his friend's account on one of the many computers in the school. What he did, was set the background as a tiling image of a woman with the worst shirt on, and she had rather large cleavage. Like, reeeeeeeeealy large. As he was logging off, a teacher was walking by, so he yanked the plugin from the wall. Which was a really bad idea. He got in crap for undoing the computer, but the teacher also wanted to know what he was doing that required that act of desperation. So he had to log back in. And show them the background. And the fact that he damaged the fragile connection the computer had to the server. It took 15 minutes of logging in, 15 minutes of that background, 15 minutes of having a teacher watch him as he fixed the persons account, and after that, he lost computer privileges for the rest of the year.


----------



## the_randomizer (Sep 30, 2012)

Ah yes, perhaps one that sticks to me happened about, oh, maybe ten years ago. We had a 120GB HDD and over time the PC got slower. What does my sister do?  She tells me I have too many games on the hard drive and because of that, it's ruining the computer.  I told her "no, it's a large-capacity hard drive, it's meant to store a lot of data, so why should it matter?"  Then there's the infamous "you should have bought a mac instead, they're so much better than a PC."  News flash, buddy, a Mac still falls under the definition of a personal computer.  Most of what I know about computers is self-taught ever since getting our first family PC back in 1995, 8MB RAM and an Intel MMX 133MHz CPU.  There are too many technologically impaired stories to list, but if I think of more, I'll certainly post them.


----------



## chyyran (Sep 30, 2012)

My friend was writing a paper and accidentally deleted everything. I happened to lean over and "CTRL-Z". Next thing he tells me, he's had to rewrite 2 papers before, due to accidentally deleting stuff.
Facepalm.


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## nando (Sep 30, 2012)

Lanlan said:


> on the syncmaster did you change the name of the PC connection to PC or PC DVI? I just bought a syncmaster and it looked like crap til i did that.



I dont remember but as opposed to what. I didnt set it to any magic settings and it is hooked up via dvi. I searched online for adequate color profiles for this display and consensus amongst graphic designers is that it is simply unworkable. I mean it looks sharp and has high contrast and bright colors but in my field thats bad. It needs to be accurate. Im pretty sure you have a different and better model. Samsung is all over the place in quality. 

The displaymate tests pretty much confirm my issues


----------



## dickfour (Sep 30, 2012)

I think the worst of the worst tech illiterates are the smart phone tablet crowd who think because they can press their thumb on an app or post to face book a photo of lunch they are somehow tech gurus.


----------



## ouch123 (Sep 30, 2012)

Not too many things bug me from tech illiteracy, but there is one thing that gets me every time: the person who thinks he's tech-savvy and as a result, makes it nearly impossible for anyone working on his computer to get anything done. Example? I've had someone come up to me with a $3000 computer (purchased retail of course) asking me for help on why his sound doesn't work. He has, however, protected his computer with a *thumb scanner*, so I can't logout or restart the computer unless he's there with me. I get it working and send him off on his over-priced computer that he uses to send email and watch videos. A few months later, I receive a call from some stranger asking me if I've ever worked on this guy's computer. I say "Yes I have. Why?" He responds, "Well, he protected his BIOS with a password, but doesn't remember what it was. I was wondering if you knew it?" After a moment of silence and me strongly resisting the urge to face-palm, "No, sorry, I don't know it." (;;-_-)


----------



## Foxi4 (Sep 30, 2012)

ouch123 said:


> Not too many things bug me from tech illiteracy, but there is one thing that gets me every time: the person who thinks he's tech-savvy and as a result, makes it nearly impossible for anyone working on his computer to get anything done. Example? I've had someone come up to me with a $3000 computer (purchased retail of course) asking me for help on why his sound doesn't work. He has, however, protected his computer with a *thumb scanner*, so I can't logout or restart the computer unless he's there with me. I get it working and send him off on his over-priced computer that he uses to send email and watch videos. A few months later, I receive a call from some stranger asking me if I've ever worked on this guy's computer. I say "Yes I have. Why?" He responds, "Well, he protected his BIOS with a password, but doesn't remember what it was. I was wondering if you knew it?" After a moment of silence and me strongly resisting the urge to face-palm, "No, sorry, I don't know it." (;;-_-)


Remove CMOS battery for effect. Protecting the BIOS with a password is silly, unless it's for child protection.


----------



## Gahars (Sep 30, 2012)

Another from the mother:

She was taking a seminar, since the credits she earned could go towards boosting her income (plus, the school she works at offers you a full refund if you get a B or above in the course), and had to type up a 20 or so page essay. Well, 4 pages in and she accidentally deletes all of her progress. She finds me and asks if I can help, so I say "Sure". 

Well, the document was still there; it was just completely blank. I asked her to explain what had happened, and she told me that while she was typing, she accidentally Select All'd the document and hit delete. Freaking out, she hit the Save button to "save" her work.

There was no way to redo or retrieve the stuff at all; I had to let her down gently.


----------



## BORTZ (Oct 1, 2012)

Oh man, the day i had to teach my mother what the difference between "Save" and "Save As" was like the 3rd or 4th ring in Dante's Inferno. 

In high school I had a friend who worked with the school news program. They all had a shared account that they would all (the newsies) long into. Of course, because of the anonymity, you could dick around and do what you want. So eventually they had to set up "per user" specific logins which broke the connection to the news media folders on the server. So these computers are middle of the road for like 2006 or 7 and running XP with Citrix for network support. My friend was tasked with getting the media off the server and into a new folder that the per user logins could all access. So he couldnt just move it all at once, so after downloading it, he makes a new folder and selects the folders from his harddrive. We all know windows transfer times are a bit wonky so it went from 5 minutes, to 5 hours, and up to about 2 and a half days. it futtered around 12 hours to 3 days for like a minute or two so he leaves while the computer works. 

In a different class, he had to log into citrix to get a paper. He cant log in. No one can log in. 

After class he goes back to check the drive. 3 days to transfer. And the progress bar hadnt really moved. 

*AT ALL. *

It turns out that he managed to crash the school's server, school wide. No one could log in, get shiz or work on the network, even the teachers. The elementary school that is like a half mile away? Also down. haha


----------



## Sicklyboy (Oct 1, 2012)

Friend gave me computer to fix.  "Nick, my pc is sending out spam emails with my Yahoo account, WAT DO OMG"  "CAN YOU FIX IT I'LL PAY YOU."

Told her I'd be done with it by tonight, haven't touched it, haven't had time.  She moves in 10 days, too, as it turns out!

Look on back of computer, video outputs - VGA.

Couldn't find my VGA cable.

Once I found it, I programmed an activity into my Harmony 700 to switch my TV to VGA input.  It's the bottom one.


----------



## Psionic Roshambo (Oct 1, 2012)

A story from the distant past, a friend of mine was experimenting with creating custom packets and in general doing some TCP/IP hacking. With out going into the gory details he had managed to get Earthlinks backbone network to DDOS itself (This was back before DDOS was invented....) was on the news since it knocked something like 300,000 people offline for something like 8 hours and required a reboot of eathlinks entire backbone in order to flush the packet from their network (it contained instructions to echo the packet and pass it along the network essentially a TCP/IP virus with the only intent was to copy itself and send the copy along the backbone.... went into a massive replication flood.... was pretty funny the packet would hit one server get copied and sent to the next one up and down the network each pass making more copies. Shut down a server to "fix" it and bring it back up just to get flooded again....) 

Nasty little packet that all networks should be pretty much immune to these days since most networks filter out spoofed header information.... 

Amazing what a few bytes in the right place can do....  Needless to say that once they passed the whole online cyber terrorism laws that my friend completely stopped working on funny jokes like that one.


----------



## Sicklyboy (Oct 1, 2012)

I would love to know what she downloaded to screw up this computer so bad.  Not only do I find shit like BearShare and other obviously named "Make my PC better while giving MOAR ADS AND MALWARE" programs and using 2 Antivirii (Avast (as per my recommendation) and CrapAffee (kill me)), Avast has gotten to the point where only the GUI will run, service won't start nor will it update.  This ought to be fun.

(inb4raulpica)


----------



## ouch123 (Oct 1, 2012)

Foxi4 said:


> Remove CMOS battery for effect. Protecting the BIOS with a password is silly, unless it's for child protection.


I didn't know you could reset the BIOS that way. Cool.


----------



## MelodieOctavia (Oct 1, 2012)

ouch123 said:


> Foxi4 said:
> 
> 
> > Remove CMOS battery for effect. Protecting the BIOS with a password is silly, unless it's for child protection.
> ...



Yep, did that all the time with people who thought they were being "smart" when they sold their PC to me.


----------



## Zetta_x (Oct 1, 2012)

I swear to god I had this:

"I thought you upgraded my computer to windows 7 ... could this virus have reverted back to windows xp?"

We did not upgrade her to windows 7; she had xp with one of those security sphere variant malware. Where did she get that we updated her to 7?


----------



## loco365 (Oct 1, 2012)

Friend installing a torrented Maya 7 (Not really tech-illiterate but still funny) :



> [12:32:19 AM] Bela: "Aladdin Device Driver is not installed."
> [12:32:24 AM] Bela: WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT
> [12:32:35 AM] Team Fail: idk
> [12:32:38 AM] Team Fail: got the same error
> ...


I almost died laughing at the last part.


----------



## Lanlan (Oct 1, 2012)

My mom's friend was gonna give me a computer, but it was running really slow. So I format it and reinstall Windows XP, it works like a charm. The friend's husband proceeds to tell me that I can't have the computer because it has "passwords stored on it" for important stuff. Despite all of us telling him that there's none of his old data on the computer due to me formatting it, he won't let up. Sadly I didn't get the computer but I did manage to create a user account with a password


----------



## Arm73 (Oct 2, 2012)

I got another one.
A few months ago I was having dinner in a restaurant, and next to us there was a group of 4 (very) old people discussing computers !
I wish I could have recorded their conversation, it would have been very good material for this topic, but anyhow, at one point one of them said that he recently purchased  a new computer, and that was a MAC,
And the reason for it was that his old PC took eight minutes to start, 8 minutes ! While his shiny new Mac only took 30 seconds !
I wanted to turn around and tell him : What do you think it's gonna happen if you buy a new PC ?


----------



## 1234turtles (Oct 2, 2012)

Grandma "what's the internet"
Grandma "can't you get computers with internet already up there"


----------



## narutofan777 (Oct 2, 2012)

my mom asked me where the search bar was.


----------



## 1stClassZackFair (Oct 4, 2012)

Foxi4 said:


> mysticwaterfall said:
> 
> 
> > I'll never understand how people get so many toolbars.  Do they read nothing?
> ...


That's how the pc's in my school are. Even if you disable the toolbars they'll be there the next day so yesterday I told the computer lab head to install Google Chrome on them instead and he said "I like Internet Explorer because it's easy to use". Then I said "why don't you try safari from apple?,it's very simplistic." He said "I don't think the computers have enough space to install that." Then I looked at all the computer's specs and they each had around 290GB of storage,dual core processors,and 4 gigs of ram, then i just facepalmed and left.


----------



## Deleted-236924 (Oct 10, 2012)

1stClassZackFair said:


> Foxi4 said:
> 
> 
> > mysticwaterfall said:
> ...


I think the fact you suggested Safari would be enough to make a post on this thread.


----------



## Sicklyboy (Oct 10, 2012)

I forgot about this thread.

So, here's my latest.

I don't remember if I mentioned it in this thread, can't be arsed to look back a page, but friend messages me on FB "Nick, computer is sending out spam emails through my Yahoo account and I am getting delivery failure messages from the mailer daemon.  What do I do?"

Give her the runaround "Disconnect internet/turn it off so it can't do any more harm, change your passwords from a known clean device, etc".  "How do I fix it?" "Give it to someone who can clean it for you."  "Do you do that?"  "Yep."

Gives me the computer, I decide to try my hand at detection and removal without just reinstalling Windows like I usually do, give myself a bit of a challenge for once.  After a bunch of hours put into it, it's clean now, running a hell of a lot better than it was when I got it, too.  "I removed a bunch of problem stuff including BearShare, which is more or less as big a security concern as Limewire is.  I wouldn't be at all surprised if your computer got its malware infection through something you got off of it."  "Yeah I think that's where it came from."  /noshit

Bring it back, we had never discussed any pay except that there would be pay involved.  I was fully prepared to say a price, but she says "Let me go get the money."  Brings back money, I put it in my pocket (I don't like counting pay in front of people...) and I go leave, count it in my car.

I made a wallet-stuffing $35.


----------



## Sterling (Oct 10, 2012)

plasma dragon007 said:


> I forgot about this thread.
> 
> So, here's my latest.
> 
> ...



How many hours did you put into it? I'd have at least charged 50 bucks for that cleaning, plus some if it took more time than it should have. At 5 hours of time spent, you're only getting 10 bucks an hour. Any more than that and you're losing money.


----------



## Sicklyboy (Oct 10, 2012)

Total, around 10 or 12, including letting the computer scan with multiple different tools and reconfiguring all of the stuff that got messed up..  Actual labor, about 5.


----------



## jose_exe (Oct 10, 2012)

My father has the habit to click an icon 10 times in a row

then he later complains why there is so many windows open at the same time


Quite some time ago mi mother made do me the weirdest stunt, when she asked me to transfer a power point presentation into her cell phone
[she liked the music that was included in]

I came up with the idea of recording the actual pps file and then convert it to 3gp

After she complained that the words were too tiny, she made search in youtube for the music video of it
[thank god for keepvid!]


There was this other time when my nephews sent a disc of family photos and my mother wanted to print them

When i looked in the disc's contents, it's was actually a video cd made entirely of photos


----------



## exangel (Oct 10, 2012)

plasma dragon007 said:


> Total, around 10 or 12, including letting the computer scan with multiple different tools and reconfiguring all of the stuff that got messed up..  Actual labor, about 5.


jesus, did she at least feed you while you were doing all that shit?


----------



## Ethevion (Oct 10, 2012)

My boss said he needs to upgrade his internet because the computer is too slow. The thing was from 2003 and was slow as shit and overloaded on viruses. When he upgraded the internet nothing changed and he asked me why it didn't help. -.-


----------



## Fluto (Oct 10, 2012)

While Im on EBay buying something for my Mum.
Me : Quickly scrolling down ,skipping through the things that are not related.
Mum: "WHY ARE YOU MOVING SO FAST!! SLOW DOWN!
Me : Scrolling... slow as a turtle. 

-----------

One day I went on my Mums Pc, when I went onto the web browser,  all I saw was a never ending amount of tabs...


----------



## Sheimi (Oct 10, 2012)

Me: Hey, can I rip Metroid Prime 2
Cousin: No
Me: Why?
Cousin: When you rip the game, it erases the disk
Me: You do know the disks are not rewritable
Cousin: I did not know that.
Me: *Major facepalm*


----------



## ouch123 (Oct 12, 2012)

mezut360 said:


> One day I went on my Mums Pc, when I went onto the web browser,  all I saw was a never ending amount of tabs...


Happens to me whenever I go to TV Tropes or sometimes (much less nowadays), Wikipedia.


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## Gahars (Oct 12, 2012)

mezut360 said:


> One day I went on my Mums Pc, when I went onto the web browser,  all I saw was a never ending amount of tabs...



To be honest, I used to do that, too. 3 windows, at least 6 or so tabs in each...

TvTropes did not help matters.


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## MelodieOctavia (Oct 12, 2012)

So my mother in law calls me up, wants me to cleanup her computer. Pretty reasonable.

I remove a whole crapload of toolbars, adware, spyware, scareware, etc...

PC is running like a champ.


"I asked you to do a cleanup, not remove everything! I was using that stuff! Next time I'll take it to a professional!"

Good. Bother someone else next time.


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## Coto (Oct 12, 2012)

2 times Vbios got corrupted because of faulty and risky video bios updates inside BIOS on notebooks. Dead motherboards. Clients went insane, FFS those key combos to restore BIOS from some device are helpful...

Diskettes have had saveD my life far more times than nowadays "usb mass storage devices" on BIOS procedures.

And some other stuff, like my mom's software (input client data) not working on any machine that could not run SQL webserver + some visual basic program designed back in 1985 by Dr Brown. It wouldn't work on windows 98, 2000 barely but that notebook could not handle windows 2000 with ease. So I had to reformat, and I found out it used a SCSI controller. It had no 98 and lower OS support. It had a CD drive through the SCSI controller, and the CD drive had trouble reading CDs. It was a Dell latitude CPX something (1999-2001 pc)

My mom needed that software running because the report (once in a year) wasn't complete without her input. So yeah, I was screwed, but that lead me to assembly world and learn to debug stuff (or die) .. so anyway, found a scsi controller (had to insert dell's scsi controller string), and it worked on DOS mode. from there everything worked.. ffs.

edit: right now there's no known INTEL GMA 3600 driver for windows xp, so intel has a driver compiler (with their own profiles of specific motherboard architectures), and i've compiled one, but it's giving black screens, maybe because of VRAM workspace init area.. if this works i'll be happy


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## TheDreamLord (Oct 12, 2012)

TwinRetro said:


> My mother ran down the stairs one day, waking up my wife and son in the process...laptop in her arms. So goddamn excited about an email. She kept blabbering about how we struck it rich. We were going to buy another house bla bla bla...So i asked her to show me the email. "No I have no time for that, I need to get to the bank before someone else cashes in on this" I said I'm sure you have a few minutes. I took a look, saw that it was a typical Nigerian scam...Man I'm glad I caught her in time. It took nearly an hour to bring her down to earth and explain what a 419 scam is, and I even had to show her the 419 forums...


Idiot, you missed out on millions!


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## ZAFDeltaForce (Oct 12, 2012)

Dad: "Son, how do I transfer photos from my digital camera to my PC?"

"Oh, you just plug it to your computer via USB and copy the files out as if it were a thumb drive."

Dad: "Huh? How do I do that?"


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## nando (Oct 12, 2012)

TheDreamLord said:


> TwinRetro said:
> 
> 
> > My mother ran down the stairs one day, waking up my wife and son in the process...laptop in her arms. So goddamn excited about an email. She kept blabbering about how we struck it rich. We were going to buy another house bla bla bla...So i asked her to show me the email. "No I have no time for that, I need to get to the bank before someone else cashes in on this" I said I'm sure you have a few minutes. I took a look, saw that it was a typical Nigerian scam...Man I'm glad I caught her in time. It took nearly an hour to bring her down to earth and explain what a 419 scam is, and I even had to show her the 419 forums...
> ...




i cashed in on that a while ago.


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## exangel (Oct 12, 2012)

TwinRetro said:


> My mother ran down the stairs one day, waking up my wife and son in the process...laptop in her arms. So goddamn excited about an email. She kept blabbering about how we struck it rich. We were going to buy another house bla bla bla...So i asked her to show me the email. "No I have no time for that, I need to get to the bank before someone else cashes in on this" I said I'm sure you have a few minutes. I took a look, saw that it was a typical Nigerian scam...Man I'm glad I caught her in time. It took nearly an hour to bring her down to earth and explain what a 419 scam is, and I even had to show her the 419 forums...


My mom lost $6,000 because she didn't say anything to me before carrying out the transaction.  Part of the reason she was so confident in the scam was that she spent a lot of time on the phone with some guy in England (the call was at his expense) being sold on the deal.  
I told her to call the police (for the love of God!!!), but she decided going into more debt was better than involving feds.  This really pissed me off as she wound up having to take money out of her 401k after a judgement was levied against her in a suit from her former bank.  She shouldn't have just taken it sitting it down but now she will never do anything on the internet regarding money without my approval/assistance.

edit: oops, posted before finishing sentence.
edit2: I really don't think anything in my 15 years of being a hobbyist/technician can even come close to this experience.  Thinking about it makes me physically uneasy even though this happened about 4-5 years ago.  It pretty much blurs out every other vaguely irritating experience from my memory.


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## Castiel (Oct 14, 2012)

Grade 7 teacher: "Did you know that when you hit the red button on the phone, it turns off the conversation?"

Same teacher: "Can I use one of your guys' calculators?
Student: "Use the one on your laptop."
Teacher: "I have on on my laptop? How do I get to it?"
Student: "Go to your applications folder."
Teacher: "Where is that?"


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## Taleweaver (Oct 14, 2012)

I'm tech support. Not only do we have a good deal of clueless people and arrogant people, but we're backed by an ICT company who has some of the most lazy or incompetent people possible (the worst part is that because of the phone and mail, it's mostly anonymous).

Some gems:

When coming to work in our company, you get the choice of keeping your own SIM card or getting a new one. And with a phone or smartphone to go with it. My colleague and me handle the smartphones. We're used to vague questions or remarks, but there was this one guy who came to us asking what the password of HIS OWN sim card was. For some reason or another, he must have managed to use his previous phone for YEARS without ever having to enter his pin code. He quickly settled for a new sim code afterwards. The worst part...this was a newly hired bigshot manager in accounting.

Another guy was a typical power user. He INSISTED on it having the latest quad core dual wielding, this many gigabyte, that many RAM...as if he was shopping instead of getting the same freaking model everyone else got. Well...not exactly: not long before, we were told to hand out the basic model to keep the budget in check. Only on special cases, new persons would get an approval of a newer model. So obviously, we asked why he needed all that stuff.
*He:* I'm a teacher. I'm using it for powerpoint. On slower models, it sometimes hangs for a split second when I click on it to show the next slide.
The worst part: after we rejected it, he went to defend his case higher up on the command chain. He got his better laptop.

Then there was this other guy who managed not only to order 8GB of RAM extra on a 32-bit system (which already had 4GB to start with and no spare place on the motherboard), but to get it approved as well. When I got the RAM and the order, I went and told him it wouldn't make no difference at all (and why), he replied with "just install it. I'm sure it'll be better than nothing".
I actually suggested to my boss whether I should have used superglue to get those sticks on his laptop. 

EDIT: almost forgot: this one was from last Friday:
In order to take over someone's PC, we have to know the name of that PC. It's a nine-digit number which is on a sticker on the PC. Unfortunately, this sticker tends to be on keyboards, mice and monitors as well (inventory purposes). It's pretty common that people give me the name of their monitor or docking station instead, though the guy on friday was thus far my first who _insisted _that he gave me his PC number andnot the monitor (it was his monitor, as I checked later). Luckily, the default image also renames "My computer" into "<insert user name> on <insert PC name>" . It took him literally five minutes for him to locate the icon on his PC. When I was connected, I somewhat expected a huge MESS of desktop folders, files, shortcuts and the lot...but I was wrong: there were only 4 or 5 icons on there.
Worse: I had to connect to that pc and the pc directly next to it. So while rectangulating over the icon and telling EXACTLY which icon I had meant and that the PC next to it had to have one with nearly the exact same icon and name...he still manages to give me even more totally different numbers that had nothing to do with anything.

EDIT 2: ...and one of our retarded/lazy ICT company.
At one point, I had to remaster an old returned PC. We have a live USB drive from it...but this PC somehow refused to boot from it. The BIOS was locked. More precisely: it was locked but not with any of the 2 or 3 passwords we were given for a BIOS. Since these were fairly old, you could reset the BIOS by removing the battery on the motherboard. However...in some clairvoyance of genius, the ICT company had locked the case. It had a key, but we didn't have one.

So I mailed them the whole situation: the regular BIOS passwords don't work...were there any other that were used on <this particular type of PC>? I also included that I couldn't even open up the case due to it being locked.
(note: I'm only that thorough on my mails because the majority of my clients refuse to mail them after retarded, not-working responses. I'm SURE they would have replied with "have you tried restarting" otherwise).
About a week later, I got a letter. Not a mail: a letter. It was a key for the PC case and a typed note saying "hopefully this helps". That was all: no name, phone, or even a return address on the envelop.
Which was, unfortunately, pretty smart in a cynical kind of way: there was no way to file a complaint because there was nobody to point to.


But by far the most retarded one was happening between me and a secretary. The secretary of our CEO, no less. It went somewhat like this:

*She*: can you come over? There's something wrong with <insert CEO's name>'s phone.
*Me*: what kind of phone does he have?
*She*: nokia
*Me*: ...all our phones are nokia's. What kind?
*She*: I don't know.
*Me*: what is wrong with it?
*She*: I don't know. I'm calling you to fix it.
*Me*: what kind of error does it give?
*She*: I don't know.
*Me*: *sigh* I'm coming over. (we were in the same building)

Though it's less than 2 minutes between our desks and I should logically have passed the CEO on the way, when I arrive, he is somehow gone when I get in her office.

*Me*: okay...so where's the phone?
*She*: he took it with him.
*Me*: erm...I'm going to assume he's having problems receiving mails here (a common issue). Did he change his password recently?
*She*: not that I know of.
*Me*: can I reach him?
*She*: no.
*Me*: erm...okay. Does he has his laptop with him? (so I can mail the guy for some info)
*She*: no. He only has his smartphone.
*Me*: ...which...has a problem...
*She*: Yes. Can you fix it? 
*Me*: hard to say. Can you get me the phone when he gets back?
*She*: no! He will need it this weekend! (this was friday afternoon...he left early) Can't you fix it?
*Me*: erm...that's going to be difficult...


Yeah...in the end it was just a password sync error. But we actually had to sent a tech out just for that. I had to lower my thoughts on that secretary, however.  (yes, she REALLY thought I could fix a phone without any info whatsoever).



Anyway...I got so much of these stories I bundled them in a satire once ("If doctors had to work like ICT-technicians..."). It's a bit long, but I'm still kinda proud of it:


Spoiler



**Intro:**
Modern society is a funny thing. Technology advances rapidly, as is our dependance upon it. On the other hand, we – or most among us – shun knowing about it. “It just has to work” is the general idea. And that “has” tends to become personal. Because not being able to work or reachable to others means to be crippled and helpless.
I'm a ICT-support guy by profession. And lemme tell you: “crippled and helpless” is by far over exaggerated. Everyone seems to assume that any kind of technological issue is a piece of cake to “the IT-nerd”. There are people – usually bigshots in the company – who buy a smartphone, start messing around with it until they manage to break something and then toss it our way with a vague description (“it doesn't work”). On pretty much a daily basis.
It's also normal for me to be called a specialist in everything from phones, printers, PC's, tablets to the most exclusive software ever. It's less fun than it sounds: deadlines are usually yesterday, manuals were thrown away and the client is breathing in your neck asking questions like “why doesn't it work?” every five seconds.
So I started wondering...what if doctors had to work like we do?
The answer would be as follows...

---

**Patient:**  *<walks straight into the office>* Ey, dude...how 'r things? Say, I've got me a question. My sis has some issues lately...you know, if you've got the time...
**Doctor:** erm...what kind of issues?
**Patient:** I dunno. Something of 'er stomach or something. Or her lungs. You'know...something. Any idea what it could be?
**Doctor:** Where's she now?
**Patient:** busy on something. But if you could spare some time, go check her out, will ya?

---

**Patient:** ow, man…I've got this pain lately.
**Doctor:** pain? What kind of pain?
**Patient:** y'know…pain. Just: pain. Like...yeah...
**Doctor:** Stomach ache?
**Patient:** yeah...possibly.
**Doctor:** *<starts investigating>*
*about 15 minutes later*
**Doctor:** well...it looks kinda normal...
**Patient:** erm…can I interrupt? That's not the right spot. It's over *here* that it hurts.
**Doctor:** …that's not your stomach. That's your knee.
**Patient:** stomach...knee...all the same. I'm no biologist.

---

**Doctor:** so...what's the problem? :-)
**Patient:** yeah, I've combined me some metrochloradyne with agelbagorp and antichlimidagel.
**Doctor:** Interesting…
**Patient:** …and it didn't work.
**Doctor:** what didn't?
**Patient:** that stuff. It was supposed to be a giving me a boost, but it didn't.
**Doctor:** ah…and you're here because...?
**Patient:** you've got to find out why not!
**Doctor:** erm…and how am I supposed to do that? I've never heard of those products.
**Patient:** what? Never? But you're the specialist?!
**Doctor:** I'm a doctor. But that doesn't mean I know all the products by the pharmaceutical industry. At the very least, I'm not a specialist. Who advised you them?
**Patient:** don't it work?
**Doctor:** how should I know? I just told you I've never heard of 'em!
**Patient:** pfff…some specialist you are...

---

**Doctor:** ouch...this looks serious. I'm afraid you'll have to stay at home for at least a week.
**Patient:** what!? But I've got an important presentation in an hour! I've got to be there in an hour!
**Doctor:** You've broken your leg...
**Patient:** indeed! And it has to be unbroken. Right NOW! It's URGENT!

---
**Patient:** *<pondering>* man...I feel...I feel... *<suddenly hit by a streak of enormous technological insight>* sick! Do you know how to cure sickishness?
**Doctor:** have you eaten anything wrong lately?
**Patient:** *<avoidant>* maybe…
**Doctor:** *<checks purchases at pharmacies>* I see you've bought a great number of medicine without prescriptions lately…
**Patient:** yeah, it was just to try it out. It went okay until it went worse.
**Doctor:** why did you buy all that? Who needs three different pills against headaches?
**Patient:** it's just...my buddy has medicine for a hobby, and he had found a nice cocktail on the internet, and...youknow...
**Doctor:** you just took everything at the same time?
**Patient:** yeah, pretty much...y'think that may have something to do with it?

---

**Doctor:** ah…mr. Smith. How are you? Any progress? :-)
**Patient:** oh, shaddap! It's still the same!
**Doctor:** they couldn't help you in the hospital?
**Patient:** no...or rather: I didn't want it. They wanted to do an “operation”-thing, and it would've cost me a fortune.
**Doctor:** well...from what I diagnosed, it was pretty severe...
**Patient:** …and that's why I'm coming to you to get it fixed.
**Doctor:** …
**Doctor:** I've transferred you to them because I couldn't help you. I have neither the experience, knowledge or the equipment!
**Patient:** but I don't trust those guys! You have to do it!

---

**Patient:** got me a question…
**Doctor:** yes?
**Patient:** *<puts box of pills on the table>* I wonder...can ya help me with this?
**Doctor:** *<reads box>* what do you want to know?
**Patient:** how d' ya use them things?
**Doctor:** erm...orally?
**Patient:** say what?
**Doctor:** they have to be swallowed.
**Patient:** dude! That's not what I meant! I ain't no retard. But what do they DO!?
**Doctor:** have you read the package leaflet?
**Patient:** no...'t was too many words. I just wanna know what they DO.
**Doctor:** well...you can trust your girlfriend knows what to do with them. :-)
**Patient:** huh? Girlfriend?
**Doctor:** these are anti conception pills.
**Patient:** wow, dude! Spare me the technical crap! I'm not a freaking fama...pharam…specialist!
**Doctor:** …
**Doctor:** thsese are pills your girlfriend has to take on regular basis in order to avoid unwanted pregnancies.
**Patient:** but I ain't got no girlfriend!
**Doctor:** then why did you bought them?
**Patient:** they were 10% off in advertisement!
**Doctor:** that's...possible...
**Patient:** and what if I wanted to avoid pregnancies? Can't I use them then?
**Doctor:** excuse me?
**Patient:** if I take those pills...will it prevent the girl I'm with from becoming pregnant?
**Doctor:** I'm afraid it doesn't work that way. You see, these pills are made so her ovaries...
**Doctor:** *<takes a brief look at the patient who clearly has NO IDEA what that is>*
**Doctor:** …lemme just say that these pills don't work that way.
**Patient:** but what am I supposed to do with it?
**Doctor:** I dunno...?
**Patient:** I want my money back! This is a rip of!
**Doctor:** I...can't really disagree on that. But would you please leave my office so I can do some work?
**Patient:** eh? Oh...sure. Sorry. But man...c'mon! What kind of false advertisement is that? They don't even say what kind of pill it is. They just dub it “The pill”. How retarded is that?
*( translator's note: in Dutch, “de pil” both means regular pills and anti conception pills. As such, the article 'de' (=the) is pretty important. It's very known, though. However, I have no idea if a literal translation makes any sense )*

---
*translator's note: this one obviously doesn't apply everywhere*
**Patient:** *<storms in>* yo, dude...I've heard ya can prescribe me some grass...
**Doctor:** that's...possible, yes.
**Patient:** cool. Can you proscribe me some?
**Doctor:** that depends on what's bothering you...
**Patient:** the pharmacist is bothering me! Some administrative thing. Can't you just proscribe him so it's alright and by the books and stuff?
**Doctor:** not without specific complaints, I'm afraid.
**Patient:** what do you mean? You proscribed it to Joe, didn't cha?
**Doctor:** I'm afraid I can't just speak about the conditions of others...
**Patient:** why not? *<hostile>* You're just describing it to your FRIENDS, you mean?
**Doctor:** *<biting teeth>* as a docter, I'm bound by the Hippocratic oath, which states...
**Patient:** So it ain't allowed?
**Doctor:** no…it ain't.
**Patient:** hmm…ok. I'll get it. Don't want cha doing nothing illegal. But do you happen to know a place or someone that could hook me up?

---

**Patient:** yo, Philip…check this out, man! *<rolls up sleeve>*
**Doctor:** ouch...that arms looks pretty bad. What happened?
**Patient:** yeah, one of those things fell on it. Y'know...them “fluid”.
**Doctor:** What kind of fluid?
**Patient:** I dunno exactly. You know...Reeks pretty sharp…
**Doctor:** methylated spirit?
**Patient:** What's that? But yeah...it could be…
**Doctor:** what were you using it for?
**Patient:** for cleaning...or perhaps painting. Or repairs. I dun't remember. Does it matter? Just fix it already!
**Doctor:** the jar containing the fluid...where there markings on it?
**Patient:** markings?
**Doctor:** orange background, furthermore black...either a skull... or an explosion...doesn't ring a bell?
**Patient:** oh, yeah, THAT! Well...no idea. It's not impossible. Was it on the bottle?
**Doctor:** I'm asking YOU! I can't say which kind of wound this is!
**Patient:** who cares? Just prescribe something already! It's itching!
**Doctor:** that could make things worse!
**Patient:** and ya REALLY can't say what this is?
**Doctor:** I'm a family doctor…no skin specialist!
**Patient:** since when are there different kinds of doctors?

---

**Patient:** good morning...my boss asked me to drop by on his behalf. He has a problem.
**Doctor:** sure...what kind of problem?
**Patient:** he asked me to come by for it.
**Doctor:** yes...but what's wrong with him?
**Patient:** well, if he knew that he wouldn't need you, wouldn't he?
**Doctor:** I mean...is he in pain?
**Patient:** I don't know...he didn't mention it.
**Doctor:** what DID he mention?
**Patient:** to come see you. Is all this really important?
**Doctor:** …
**Doctor:** can I call him?
**Patient:** that'll be hard: he's in an important meeting and unavailable for comment.
**Doctor:** well...then I'm afraid I can't help him.
**Patient:** what? Why not?

---

**Patient:** hello. I'm afraid I still have trouble with my back.
**Doctor:** ok…is this your second visit?
**Patient:** yes...well...the second time I'm seeing someone for it. Your colleague advised me to lie down in hot sea sand for an hour a day.
**Doctor:** erm...that sounds kinda...
**Patient:** *<interrupts>* …but I didn't have sea sand so I took some from a random heap of sand and mixed in some salt. That's okay, isn't it?
**Doctor:** erm…
**Patient:** then I warmed it all in the microwave oven. That okay?
**Doctor:** I...have never heard of that treatment. Who advised you exactly?
**Patient:** a buddy of mine. But he's into spiritual healing. And because the mind is connected to the back...
**Doctor:** why do you come to see me?
**Patient:** I need to know the correct temperature of the sand. Oh, and is it better to lie still, or roll around a bit now and then to make it settle in?
**Doctor:** I think you'll better ask that question to your “buddy”.
**Patient:** impossible...his back aches!
**Doctor:** …

---

**Patient:** *<storms in, fetches a handful of medicine out of his pocket and knocks it on the table>* That stuff you prescribed two weeks ago STINKS! Those calming pills don't work AT ALL!!
**Doctor:** *<starts to look up the situation in his computer>*
**Patient:** *<yelling in the doctor's ear in the mean time>* gotta admit it worked for SOME time. But only TEMPORARY! And then I got a STOMACH ACHE! And that got WORSE!
**Doctor:** did you try to relax during the week?
**Patient:** *<annoyed>* OF COURSE!
**Doctor:** ...and you avoided all forms of stress?
**Patient:** *<avoidand>* yes. Well...kind of. Just the bare minimum.
**Doctor:** you went to work?
**Patient:** no. Well...all right, I WAS calles...and perhaps a tele conference once or twice. And of course the major decision that had to be made. But a couple hours a day can't hurt, can it?
**Doctor:** I'd told you to avoid ALL forms of stress?
**Patient:** *<bursts out>* man! I just happen to be the senior vice executive manager of intraglobal services! I can't risk the future of my company just because your damn pills don't work?!
**Doctor:** erm…
**Patient:** I need stronger pills!
**Doctor:** I already provided you with the strongest kind!
**Patient:** then I'll up the dose!
**Doctor:** I really have to advice against it.
**Patient:** I don't give a damn!
**Doctor:** have you read the leaflet about the possible consequences of...?
**Patient:** READ? I DON'T READ! I'VE GOT A SECRETARY FOR THAT!

---

**Patient:** I've got a problem…
**Doctor:** yes...? :-) *<gets ready to take notes>*
**Patient:** can I get something for it?
**Doctor:** it depends on what kind of problem you're having?
**Patient:** pfff…I don't know. You're the doc.
**Doctor:** what's the issue?
**Patient:** well…stuff. Ya know...sometimes I don't feel so well.
**Doctor:** in what way?
**Patient:** just...not well.
**Doctor:** sick? Stomach ache?
**Patient:** *<looks not-understanding>* could be…
**Doctor:** are you in pain?
**Patient:** sometimes…it happens…
**Doctor:** where on your body?
**Patient:** no idea...
**Doctor:** erm…is there something else you can tell me?
**Patient:** no, I don't think so. Can't you just prescribe me something?
**Doctor:** Hmm...ok *<prescribes placebo>*
**Doctor:** here you go. If you take this three times a day during a week, everything'll be much better.
**Patient:** thanks a lot, doc! 

---

**Patient:** *<with grating voice>*…got a question…
**Doctor:** fire ahead. :-)
**Patient:** busy cleaning toilet cabinet...stumbled upon these…*<puts a tupperware box of differently shaped and colored pills on the table>*…what are these?
**Doctor:** I have absolutely no idea. Where's their original package?
**Patient:** …thrown away…to save space. Why?
**Doctor:**  Then how do you know which pills you should take for what?
**Patient:** that's why I am here! *<coughs>* Pharmacist…said that if soare throat returned…I had to take pills again.
**Doctor:** which ones?
**Patient:** don't remember…complex name. Just say which ones…talking takes me effort.
**Doctor:** I'm afraid there's no way to tell. Sorry, but you'll have to get rid of these.
**Patient:** *<shocked>* Why? I paid for them! *<cough, cough>*
**Doctor:** …but you can't say which pills cure what. It could be very dangerous for your health to just take pills when you don't know…
**Patient:** *<waves away explanation>* I get it…exploration. You want me to pay more. For…shame! *<cough, cough>*
**Doctor:** ...but if you just kept the pills in their original box, then…
**Patient:** *<takes box of pills and leaves the office in the middle of the explanation>*

---

**Patient:** doc...take a look at this! *<puts box of pills on the table>*
**Doctor:** *<frightened>* …and you want to know what they do?
**Patient:** no, man! These are pills against diarrhea.
**Doctor:** *<somewhat comforted>* ok…so what about them?
**Patient:** It's just...I was wondering if you'd be willing to prescribe them to others.
**Doctor:** okay, so...what are they called, exactly?
**Patient:** they don't have a name yet. But they've helped me a lot.
**Doctor:** what do you mean, “no name”?
**Patient:** my cousin cooked them up. And though it'll give a bit of gas, it really helps get rid of diarrhea.
**Doctor:** is your cousin a certified investigator to pharmaceuticals?
**Patient:** nah…but he *is* interested in chemistry! He once made us a something with which we could clean our kitchen sink! He's a genius with that! He can make anything!
**Doctor:** so you want me to prescribe illegal pharmaceutics?
**Patient:** why would it be illegal?
**Doctor:** because he's not a certified investigator. Because there could be any number of unknown consequences. Because this thing is pretty much untested. Because...never mind. Let's just say I'm not going to do it.
**Patient:** Pfff…aren't you dull.

---

**doorbell:** trrrring!!!
**Patient:** hello? Yes...cub on im...it's on the thirb fwoor.
**Doctor:** *<comes in, does the investigation>*
**Doctor:** okay...You've got a tough case of hay fever. It's pretty normal in these period of the year. It'll pass.
**Patient:** so I'b better stay hobe...home?
**Doctor:** no need. It's pretty safe to work. I'd just avoid parks and flowerbeds for the time being.
**Patient:** what? But you canb be serious!? Just...look at thibs hanperchief! Look! *<waves mucous handkerchief pretty much in the docter's face>*
**Doctor:** *<avoiding>* I believe you on your word, but honestly: it's not that bad. In fact: it's much more unhealthy to just stay indoors.
**Patient:** impossibbe! I am ILL! I hab to be in BED! And SLEEP!
**Doctor:** *<wonders how that'll help against hay fever>* erm…I can only give you my opinion. I can't really force you what to do.
**Patient:** but my job...
**Doctor:** ...is YOUR concern. I'm sorry, but I'm not going to lie to them because you want to stay at home.
**Patient:** fine, fine. I'll tell 'em. Oh, but doc...befobe you go...would you aeba...aerate the carpets?
**Doctor:** areate the carpets?
**Patient:** yeb. I am ill. And since you abe here...
**Doctor:** what does that have to do with me?
**Patient:** you abe concerbed about my health? It would ventilate the indoob air.
**Doctor:** why yes, but...that's not MY job?
**Patient:** why not?

---

**Patient:** *<excited>* dude! Ya gatta come immediately!
**Doctor:** *<starts packing>* What's going on?
**Patient:** flat tire on a bus nearby! It looks pretty bad!
**Doctor:** warn the hospital! *<hurries out the door>*
*<an hour later>*
**Doctor:** *<looks up from an enormous line of injuries and wounded people; notices the first patient>* Say...what's keeping the ambulance?
**Patient:** what? You seem to be doing okay, don't you?
**Doctor:** I'm busy with CPR! Haven't I told you to warn the hospital?
**Patient:** yeah, well...but I didn't really knew what to say when they asked for the address, and you were busy, and since you seemed to have a good handle on the situation...
**Doctor:** …you simply decided to stand around waiting until I got time for this?
**Patient:** wow, dude...you sound stressed. Take it easy. Sure, it's a lot of work, but that's your job, isn't it?
**Doctor:** there are people here with concussions and broken legs!
**Patient:** …and? Is that something serious?

---

**Doctor:** okay...and “that feeling” in your fingers...would that be more dull or more a tingling sensation?
**Patient:** fuck, dude! Lay of the technical terms, okay? I ain't no surgeon!

---

**Patient 2: ** yo, Greg…how are ya? :-)
**Doctor:** *quickly covers patient 1's nude upper bodyf* not now! And knock before you enter! And it's Martin...Greg's my colleague.
Patient 2: oops…sorry. Didn't mean to intrude. But anyway...could you take a look at this?
**Doctor:** can't you see I'm busy with someone already?
**Patient2:** sure, sure. I don't mean to rush you. It's just...I'm here...and it'll only take a few minutes...so...look...*<pushes pet in the face of the doctor>*
**Doctor:** …that's a dog.
**Patient2:** …and she's been doing pretty weird lately. She doesn't eat her usual dish, she...
**Doctor:** sorry, but you'll have to go to a veterinarian with her.
**Patient2:** *<indignant because of the interruption>* why?
**Doctor:** because I don't treat animals.
**Patient2:** *<on a tone of “jezus, what a lazy arsehole”>* and why not?
**Doctor:** animals and humans are totally different from one another!
**Patient2:** are they really? Okay, okay, I'll drop by one. What do I tell 'em?
**Doctor:** erm...the problem?
**Patient2:** ah…I see. And what if that “veterinarian” cannot fix it?
**Doctor:** …I don't know? Do you mind me working, please?
**Patient2:** sure, sure...not a problem.

---

**Patient:** I think I've done a wrong...
**Doctor:** spit it out. :-)
**Patient:** *<spits>*
**Doctor:** not...literally.
**Patient:** oh...okay. Well, I had some issues with my back, and google told me it could be haemorrhoids.
**Doctor:** well, we'll check...
**Patient:** so I immediately bought some products, but those caused my joints to hurt.
**Doctor:** what kinds of products?
**Patient:** something google advised. Anyway: I proceeded to purchase some ointments against bad joints, but it caused a rash.
**Doctor:** *<In doubt>* I see…
**Patient:** so I got me some pills against that, but that caused issues with my bladder. And it didn't help.
**Doctor:** so you're here to...?
**Patient:** …to prescribe me a better medicine. One that cures haemorrhoids, bad joints,  a rash and my bladder.
**Doctor:** you could start by stop taking all those other medicines...
**Patient:** WHAT?! Man! Those things cost me a lot of money, so I WILL continue using them. And I'm busy, so it has to be fixed NOW! But if you want me to stop...here... *<puts a box of pills on the table>* Take it! Just gimme back my money!
**Doctor:** …erm…I think you better go to the pharmacist for that.
**Patient:** I did. They didn't want to get involved. So it's up to you to fix this mess!

---

*<in the middle of the night>*
**Phone:**  triiinnggggggg!!!
**Doctor:** *<sleepy>* hullo?
**Patient:** yeah, hi...I cut myself. Could you come over to fix me up?
**Doctor:** cut yourself? How? How bad, I mean?
**Patient:** well...my finger bleeds...sorta...
**Doctor:** *<annoyed>* can't you go to emergencies?
**Patient:** I can't go out like this!?
**Doctor:** an ambulance?
**Patient:** man…you don't know what they charge? All it needs is a bandaid!
**Doctor:** then why are you calling?
**Patient:** I don't wanna do it myself. I'm too scared I might screw up.

---

**Patient:** so...have you found anything for that “cancer” thing yet? :-)
**Doctor:** didn't I transfer you to a specialized hospital for that?
**Patient:** why yes indeed! But they couldn't help out. So I dropped by to see if you happened to know a solution.
**Doctor:** …do I happen to have found a solution against cancer? Just like that? On my own? In ...two weeks time?
**Patient:** yes! I thought...you never know...:-)
**Doctor:** but I don't have time for that! I'm busy with clients all day long!
**Patient:** and between hours? Surely a geek like you is able to come up with something?
**Doctor:** What? When did I ever made such a ludicrous claim?
**Patient:** okay, not literally, but I thought...you did that “diagnose” thing about it, so...
**Doctor:** I'm afraid I can't help you with this...
**Patient:** c'mon, doc. It's my life we're talking about here. Won't you agree this is something IMPORTANT?

---

**Phone:**  trrrriiinnngggg!
**Doctor:** hello?
**Patient:** 'morning. 'am a bit ill.
**Doctor:** that's too bad to hear. Shall I transfer you my secretary to book an appointment?
**Patient:** no can do...I've got a job to do.
**Doctor:** so it's not that bad?
**Patient:** how am I supposed to know? You're the doctor! Can't ya tell me what's wrong?
**Doctor:** how do you mean...by telephone?
**Patient:** yeah...I'm sometimes a bit dizzy and I sometimes  cough. *<coughs to demonstrate>*
**Doctor:** I…am afraid I can't really make a good diagnose this way.
**Patient:** …
**Patient:** whatever. I'll see how I'll solve things myself. *<hangs up the phone>*

---

**Patient:** doc! It's terrible! This cure against intestine jam gives me a headache!
**Doctor:** *<reads leaflet of the medicine>* that's...one of the possible side effects, yes.
**Patient:** why didn't you say so!? You should have prescribed me something for it! I came here to get BETTER! Not to switch diseases!
**Doctor:** it wasn't said these effects would surface. In fact, they only happen in...
**Patient:** why didn't you say that? It's your product, right?
**Doctor:** no, not at all! I just prescribe it in case of...
**Patient:** oh…well...in any case: you'll have to solve this. I need pills against headache.
**Doctor:** sure, sure…
**Patient:** and I'm not paying for it! This is a damn rip off!
**Doctor:** *<sigh>*…then I'm afraid you'll have to take contact with the pharmaceutical company.
**Patient:** 'scuse me? What do I have to do with them?
**Doctor:** unlike me, it actually IS their product. I can't really test all their pills so I can only assume that they work. If not, it's certainly not my responsibility to take the blame.
**Patient:** well, if you put it like that...so if I want to file a complaint, how do I do that?
**Doctor:** I don't know...write them a letter? Search on their website? Hire an attorney? I really wouldn't know…
**Patient:** *<takes notes>* Interesting…It's always good to get some professional advise. I'll let you know about the result.
**Doctor:** what do I have to do with it?
**Patient:** in case they come up with complex terms like “side effects”. I'm just a normal guy. I can't follow all that medicine thing. And I'll need your help.
**Doctor:** that's...not my job?
**Patient:** c'mon, don't be shy. You knew this shit gives you a “headache”, right?
**Doctor:** I'm just reading it from this leaflet...
**Patient:** wow, wow, wow…hold the technical stuff! In fact...it's better if you call these guys and make them improve their pills.
**Doctor:** but...
**Patient:** I'll drop by again in a week to check if there's any progress!

---

**Phone:**  trrrriiinggg
**Doctor:** doctor Philips speaking. :-)
**Representative:** good morning...my name's Morgan Kinch from the board of doctors. We received a complaint about you from a certain mister Biggs. Does the name mean anything to you?
**Doctor:** Biggs...I've got multiple clients...is this about Samuel Biggs?
**Representative:** yes...apparently, you didn't want to help him.
**Doctor:** excuse me?
**Representative:** that's the complaint as we've received it.
**Doctor:** mister Biggs comes here just about every week with the same symptoms that have to do with old age. The things I've described thus far have no effect. I asked him to see a specialist, but he always refused on base that they are “whippersnappers”.
**Representative:** so you confirm that you refuse to help him?
**Doctor:** haven't you read his file? I've made multiple diagnoses and prescribed just about anything. It's not my fault if there isn't anything on the market that can help him?
**Representative:** mister Biggs claims you've been withholding all the good medicine…
**Doctor:** …
**Doctor:** I'll leave that to the opinion of mister Biggs.
**Representative:** you weren't exactly customer friendly…
**Doctor:** he almost grabbed me by my doctor's coach. What do you expect?
**Representative:** *<soothing>* I understand...you're making long days, your clients aren't always as friendly and it sometimes happens that you're losing your professionalism. But mister Biggs leads a large company. I can't stress enough the importance of him being helped in the best way possible.
**Doctor:** …how does that change the fact that I've tried everything humanly possible?
**Representative:** in this particular situation, I've asked mister Bigs to consult another doctor. But for future references, I will expect a better customer friendliness towards your clients.

---

Phone: *<triiinngg>*
**Patient:** good afternoon, doc. I'm just calling to ask if I'm recovering from my illness.

---

**Patient:** yo, dude...write my daughter five tablets of peryoxidantose a day, will ya? :-)
**Doctor:** erm...and where is your daughter exactly?
**Patient:** she's ill at home in bed, obviously. What did you think?
**Doctor:** but I can't make a diagnose without here being here, can I?
**Patient:** no need, no need. She has the same thing as my cousin. Not feeling well and barely any appetite.  Exactly as my poor cousin used to have.
**Doctor:** you mean your cousin infected your daughter?
**Patient:** *<hostile look in eyes>* And what exactly are you suggesting?
**Doctor:** I mean...you think your daughter caught the disease from him? By being around him?
**Patient:** you can catch a disease that way? Oh...well...it's possible, I guess. I mean...you're the expert, right?
**Doctor:** what kind of disease is your cousin having, actually?
**Patient:** I forgot. Something complex. It was been a year or so. But I'm certain of the name of the pills. I don't want to take a risk with my daughter's health!

---

**Doctor:** *<on home visit, to the mother of the patient>* Here you are: just get these at the pharmacist and your son'll be fine in three or four days. :-)
**Mother:** Thank you. Oh, and...while you're here...can I bother you with something else?
**Doctor:** sure...what's up?
**Mother:** well, I sometimes got this pain in my lower back. And an itch between my toes. And a strained neck from time to time. Also a foul taste in my mouth. Not now, but often enough. Do you have a cure for all of that?
**Doctor:** it's probably better to come by on consultation for that.
Mother: can't you do it now?
**Doctor:** I have to go to my next house call...
**Mother:** *<shrugs>* meh...those'll wait their turn.

---

**Patient:** say…I've got this tooth ache, lately. You see this tooth? Iw kinwa huws if I pwess on iw.
**Doctor:** …have you seen a dentist about it?
**Patient:** a what?
**Doctor:** a dentist. To have your tooth checked into.
**Patient:** there are different kinds of doctors? Wow! Since when? And where do I find one?
**Doctor:** in the phone book. Or wait...you're from around? I can advise doctor Johnson. He's a street ahead, on 43rd street.
**Patient:** I see...and what do I tell him?
**Doctor:** the same thing. He knows more about it than I do.
**Patient:** *<sceptic>* yes...but if not, I'm returning to you, y'hear?

---

**Patient:** hi dude. What's up? :-)
**Doctor:** I'm fine...how are you?
**Patient:** fine, man. Absolutely marvelous. I just got a question...what do I have to do to get the same prescription as Jim?
**Doctor:** erm…having the same symptoms?
**Patient:** *<nods in enthusiasm>* yep...I've got me those. :-)
**Doctor:** so what is it exactly that's bothering you?
**Patient:** I've got those same sin-tomes Jim has. 
**Doctor:** *<sceptical>*…and what's bothering you YOURSELF?
**Patient:** *<thinks for a moment>* heart palpitations, no energy, foul mood. No, wait: tired mood. Yes...I'm VERY tired, doc. :-)

**Doctor:** *<nods>* can I check you out for a second?
**Patient:** hmm…I'd rather don't. It's...I don't want you to catch it, y'know. And since I've got the same sin-tomes as Jime...
**Doctor:** I'm afraid I can't write out things without a diagnose.
**Patient:** no problem! Just make the diagnose. There's no need to check things out, right?

---

**Phone:** Trrrriiiinggg!!
**Doctor:** hello?
**Patient:** dude...you've got to come IMMEDIATELY!
**Doctor:** *<alarmed>* what's going on?
**Patient:** I can't get an erection!
**Doctor:** *<relaxes>* ok...well...you can come on consultation for that.
**Patient:** ya don't understand. I need an erection NOW! I'll pay for it!
**Woman:** *<in the background>*honey...what's keeping you?
**Patient:** right away, snuggums! *<to the doctor*> Hello? C'mon, dude...hurry up already! Come over to...
**Doctor:** *<interrupts>* Whoa! Sorry, but I really can't get involved in this. I've got other patients to worry about.
**Patient:** screw the other patients. You've got to give me an erection right away!
**Doctor:** I'm afraid you'll have to consult a sexologist for that.
**Patient:** I already tried a sex line. It didn't work!
**Doctor:** a SEXOLOGIST! Someone who is professionally...someone who can help with these problems.
**Patient:** so...a special kind of doctor, you mean?
**Doctor:** …
**Doctor:** yes...a special kind of doctor, yes.

---

**Doctor:** …and there we are: a small spoon of nicroxide, solved in a glass of water, rinse with it, and the sore throat will be gone in a couple of days. :-)
**Patient:** a large of a small glass?
**Doctor:** the usual...standard size.
**Patient:** how large is that?
**Doctor:** erm…about 25 centiliter?
**Patient:** *<thinks>* how much is that?
**Doctor:** it's just...average. You do have glasses in your house, right?
**Patient:** I dunno. Perhaps. Is a cup also fine?
**Doctor:** *<sigh>* yes, a cup is also fine. I don't care. As long as it's…
**Patient:** *<interrupts>* YOU DON'T CARE?! And what if I use too much water? Or not enough? It'll be a catastropheuche, uche, uche!
**Patient:** *<gasping for air>* there...look at that! Isn't this TERRIBLE! This has to CURE, RIGHT?!
**Doctor:** would you please remain calm? It's better for your health.
**Patient:** and would you PLEASE not come up with that university mumbo jumbo and just tell me how much water I've gotta use?
**Doctor:** I just told you: the average quantities in an average glass. Or cup. Or whatever.
**Patient:** with or without handle?
**Doctor:** excuse me?
**Patient:** the cup...I only have cups with a handle. Is that okay, or should I buy another one?
*<fifteen minutes pass>*
**Patient:** ooooh! NOW I get it. Why didn't you say so from the START!
**Doctor:** *<exhausted>* yes…
**Patient:** *<leaves the office>*
**Doctor:** *<sighs loudly, puts on a forced smile>*  next, please! :-)
**Patient 2:** say...why does it always takes so long before it's my turn around here?


----------



## Sheimi (Oct 15, 2012)

Here is one that happened 15 minutes ago

Me: *turns on Windows XP computer that has 504MB of RAM*
*grandpa goes on it*
*gets yelled at for having a few files on it*
Grandpa: It was working fine til you got ahold of it.
Me: What the fuck do you expect for it having 504MB of RAM, it's not going to be like your laptop
Then he leaves my room


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## BORTZ (Oct 16, 2012)

Wever said:


> SNIPPY


um, dude? Those are all GOLD. Please post more.

Everyone else, please keep posting, i love this!


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## Taleweaver (Oct 17, 2012)

Yesterday, someone came to me with a "broken wifi" on his laptop. Not sure what was wrong: it connected fine in the wi-fi at work and on the external one we have for visitors. But at home, it kept hanging at 'connecting' (his home laptop and smartphone worked, so it's not that things were really broken on that side). Pretty hard to troubleshoot, as we aren't allowed to make home calls. After going over all the security and other settings, nothing really came up. While he remained nice the whole time, he did remark the following:

*him: *yeah...despite what people say, the internet is still instable.
*me:* _(without missing a beat)_ ah...so you're actually glad that it doesn't work? 
*him:  *_(suddenly taken aback) _...erm...yeah. In a sense, I am.

Yeah...television certainly doesn't make as much of an issue as the internet. Way to compare different technologies. 


@BotzANATOR: erm...you mean those analogies? If so, these are pretty hard to do (most of the stories break the analogy because the professions are too different).

...

There was this one I saw in a movie where the doctor said something like "I can't help him: he's dead." and the other guy threatens him with a gun and says "fix him up nonetheless!". I've had that happen, yes (okay, the threatening wasn't THAT bad  ).


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## FAST6191 (Oct 17, 2012)

I think one of your spoilered ones hints at the four least favourite words anyone with a profession revolving around building, fixing or setting up things dreads

"while you are here"


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## loco365 (Oct 17, 2012)

Relevant ragecomic I found:







And another one I remembered:

When I was finishing Grade 9, the tech department for the school district started installing Windows 7 on _all the computers in the district_. *AT ONCE*. And the next day, they managed to avert a crisis and revert back to XP because while the computers were getting 7 installed, something messed up. Only problem is the computers, which were as slow as fuck, WERE EVEN SLOWER after they reset back to XP.

I swear the School Department's ITs are a bunch of stupid idiots.


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## BORTZ (Oct 17, 2012)

@Wever i just meant anything, cause all your stories are fantastic. Actually the real life ones are better than the analogies.


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## Gahars (Oct 17, 2012)

So, college life (AKA "You really should know better by now")...

A friend of a friend ran into my room and begged for help with his printer. He had a big paper due the next day, and if he couldn't print it out, he was going to be "dead" and "toast" (in that order, mind you). According to him, his printer had been just fine until all of a sudden, it refused to print. No matter how many times he would press print, nothing materialized. 

I'm no computer expert, but of all the people present that night, I guess I was the go-to guy.

So I enter his room and get to work. His printer is fine, it has paper and ink, there's no print jobs, etc. I was about to try printing out another copy when I looked down at his windows to see "Microsoft One Note". 

It turns out he had been unknowingly been sending all of his print jobs (about 15 in all) to Microsoft One Note rather than his printer, and this was the source of all his grief and frustration.

TL;DR: Microsoft One Note is a harbinger of pain and misery.


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## BORTZ (Oct 17, 2012)

When i was a senior this past spring, I was the TA for the freshman traditional animation class. This was a big job, we had to teach the new students A LOT of new software that was confusing and its possible they would only have to use it one, making almost not worth getting into deep details. Which means we would probably skip over something, forgetting its importance. 

Saturday, (lol my day off kinda) i was slorching around my dorm room watching modern family from my newly hacked wii with MPlayer. Hungry i decided to take a quick trip to Walmart to hit up the hot deli items. While there, i get a panicked and frustrated call from (easily) the most attractive female of the freshman class. 

She had dragon stopmotion up and running but her camera (an actual Cannon DSLR T3i) wouldnt show up. 
This is a common problem. So i told her the steps of getting the camera to show up. Shut down dragon, disconnect the camera from the computer and plug the usb back in. Have the camera on and then start dragon and select the camera from the drop down menu. somehow she couldnt follow that (nevermind the guides i have made and printed up at each station. Screenshots and red circles over everything you need to do.) She begged me to come help her cause she couldnt do it. ...Fine. "Only cause youre hot"

So i get over to the animation lab.
Facepalm one: She had moved comupters and now didnt need my help cause the new stand was working. :|  you couldnt have called me and told me you didnt need help anymore?
Facepalm 2: well i go to check the first stand she was at. 5 second later i found i couldnt bring up the camera either. Then again, it never made the shutter sound when it came on... or it never came on. 
I look under the counter to see the camera cord dangling. Not plugged in. :|
Ok so you might not be good with computers but this!? She defends herself by saying it wasnt on the instruction sheets. 
I SHOULDNT HAVE TO TELL YOU TO PLUG IN A DANG CAMERA

disclaimer: its a widely know fact that we dont use batteries with the cameras because they would die to often for use.


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## Andman315 (Oct 17, 2012)

I'm just throwing this out there, but these websites have a whole bunch of these stories ranging from people that are tech illiterate to people that have no common sense.
http://notalwaysright.com/
http://notalwaysworking.com/


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## mechadylan (Oct 17, 2012)

Boss:  How do I e-mail to myself?
Me:  Excuse me?
Boss:  I sent out an e-mail with an attachment before I could print it.
Me:  Call up the guy you sent it to and have him send it back (snickers.)
Boss:  No, that would look unprofessional.


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## BORTZ (Oct 17, 2012)

Oh oh so another one from college. 

So i went to college with a kid who suffered from Asberger's syndrome, ad was somehow admitted into the animation program even though his skills were extremely subpar. He would spent all day and all night in Becker (the animation building) and always be logged into the same computer, usually with Maya and Chrome running with over 27 tabs (im not kidding). With limited resources (computers), sometimes things get shuffed around and we need to use extra computers, and tonight,he wasnt there, but still logged in. Nothing unusual really. 

The rules for logging someone out of their computer are as follows.
1. has anyone seen them in the past hour/are they in the building
2.is there a note on the computer saying where they are, whats running and why they should stay logged in.
3. While logging out* DO NOT SAVE THEIR SHIZ*. Its not being a dick or anything, its possible something crashed, they were in the middle of something and saving it would actually hinder their progress, etc. Besides if its just render images, they are actual files that are produced elsewhere and no saving is required.

He wasnt around, no one had seen him for hours, and no note. 
So we log him out and start our renders. When we are done, we log out and leave the building at like 2am.

The next day, Jake, the head of our animation team, overhears our professor and the kid we logged out last night having a discussion.

Student:Yeah i got back late last night and someone logged me out.
Prof: You werent around when they did, were you? Did you leave a note?
Student: i... no... 
Prof: Well then then could log you out, right?
Student: I guess...
Prof: What seems to be the problem?
Student:Well i lost some work. 
Prof: Well how much? Is it something you can redo in time for class? 
Prof: And why didnt you save?
Student: I lost 3 days of work. 
Prof: WHY didnt you save?
Student: I save when im done. 

Jake and I's eyes just go wide as we try to stifle our laughter and disbelief. 
WHO THE FUCK DOESNT SAVE FOR 3 DAYSSS?


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## Sicklyboy (Oct 17, 2012)

BortzANATOR said:


> Oh oh so another one from college.
> 
> So i went to college with a kid who suffered from Asberger's syndrome, ad was somehow admitted into the animation program even though his skills were extremely subpar. He would spent all day and all night in Becker (the animation building) and always be logged into the same computer, usually with Maya and Chrome running with over 27 tabs (im not kidding). With limited resources (computers), sometimes things get shuffed around and we need to use extra computers, and tonight,he wasnt there, but still logged in. Nothing unusual really.
> 
> ...



Dafuq... Why wouldn't he save...


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## BORTZ (Oct 17, 2012)

dude saving is for the weak.


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## Sterling (Oct 17, 2012)

That's an understandable quirk for someone with Autism.


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## BORTZ (Oct 17, 2012)

Whats funny is that he was really smart, just not in the social side of things. He knew better than not to save, he just didnt.


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## The Real Jdbye (Oct 17, 2012)

Stuff like this happens to me often, but I don't really remember any specific cases. Though I have encountered the "the PC is slow, must be the internet's fault" one a few times.


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## Sicklyboy (Oct 17, 2012)

Lol, in my Calc I class, the prof typically has a problem getting her netbook to display over the projector.  I refuse to offer my help because it's so simple.  But she actually had to ask yesterday "WHICH ONE IS 'ON', THE CIRCLE OR THE LINE"

Binary, beeotch.  That's how I always remember, at least (aside from the fact that O means an open circuit and I means a closed one, I'm no electrical engineer so that's seldom the first thing to come to mind)


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## Taleweaver (Oct 17, 2012)

FAST6191 said:


> I think one of your spoilered ones hints at the four least favourite words anyone with a profession revolving around building, fixing or setting up things dreads
> 
> "while you are here"


That's a common, yes. Not sure how it is elsewhere, but at my job, it really doesn't matter if I'm busy connecting PC's or making specific notes that, when done incorrectly, would make the universe explode. My colleague told me one story where he was on the cell phone, also working on some other problem at the same time AND being somewhat in discussion with someone...and then yet someone else pretty much shoved his cell phone in his face.

Still, my dreads are more the following:

-the "it's not working"-routine, which is pretty much a guessing game because they can barely (if at all) tell what it SHOULD be doing.
-"this will only take a second". My standard replies are usually in the lines of "how long will these seconds take?", "...and if not...?" or (when I'm really pressed for time) "I don't HAVE a second".
-"when you've got the time, could you come take a look at my PC?". Standard reply: "I'm booked up 'til 2014. Is that okay?". The ones who don't visit us often somehow think I'm joking. 
-"I need access to ". I dread this not only because they're so vague about things it gets retarded ("the mailbox we use in our department. I don't know what it's called. But I need access to it now!"), but that they assume we're allowed to just give everyone full permission to everything ever because they want to.
-"can you do this for me? I don't know  very well". This is a pretty tough one, as there is a fine line between troubleshooting and doing someone's work for them.

...which reminds me: there was this one time where I had three or four major crisii to handle at the same time (my colleague was absent). I was wheeling around with a non-working PC while someone stopped me asking to create a mailing list for him. Barely stopping, I told him to ask HR or the communications department. He replied that this was for the communications department, and that HR had sent him to us. This was kind of odd, but I had to do my own work.
A few days later, as I told this to my colleague, he confessed: someone too dumb to create a mailing list had asked him for guidance. Since it's easier to just create it than it is to create it and point out EVERY FREAKIN' BUTTON, he just did that (okay, that it was a cute lady probably had to do with that as well).
Result: this little act of kindness spread like wildfire, effectively making him the "IT specialist" who creates all the mailing lists for...well, everyone.


Oh, and I think this thread is incomplete with this link: http://www.rinkworks.com/stupid/
(it has AWESOME stories...and it's pretty safe for work  ).



@BortzANATOR: ouch...I can't top that no-saving guy. But I had the following at least twice:
user receives a mail with a word attachment (some sort of to 'fill in' form). He/she doubleclicks on it to open it (which opens it somewhere in some obscure temporary folder). They fill it out completely. They save it. They quit...and then call us to ask where it went. Or worse: they call us later, pointing to that mail in their inbox being grudgy "because it didn't save it in the attachment".


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## BORTZ (Oct 17, 2012)

plasma dragon007 said:


> Lol, in my Calc I class, the prof typically has a problem getting her netbook to display over the projector.  I refuse to offer my help because it's so simple.  But she actually had to ask yesterday "WHICH ONE IS 'ON', THE CIRCLE OR THE LINE"
> 
> Binary, beeotch.  That's how I always remember, at least (aside from the fact that O means an open circuit and I means a closed one, I'm no electrical engineer so that's seldom the first thing to come to mind)


Dude OMG i have a story like that. Is the same dang thing! 

Chemistry, and the prof cant get his loaner computer (his was in the shop) to connect to the projector. This goes on for 5 minutes and there are at least 20 students (this was a bigger class, of like 75 or 80), and NO ONE can figure it out. A couple of my friends who i was sitting with, nudge me and say "hey man i bet you can get it working". 

So i walk down to the desk, and kinda stand behind everyone till i can get a clear look at the laptops keypad. Scanning for the common "F7" trick function button. As soon as i found it, i shoo'd everyone away and calmly walked up, pressed the Fn and F7 buttons and boom, we have projection. 

At first everyone was silent and i heard some people were like "omg how did he do that" "wow thats amazing" 
Two seconds later almost everyone was mad at me. "You knew how to do that all along!? WTH Bortz!? Why did you help us sooner!?"

OMG im never helping you people again.


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## FAST6191 (Oct 17, 2012)

If we are sharing links of this type likely to see each other fired owing to a lack of work being done for reading about troubles others face with people in their work then I feel the need to also link up http://www.actsofgord.com/

Wever I dare say your stories are every reason I did not pursue IT proper, I still ended up doing a fair bit of it but there at least I get to spec out, build, maintain and upgrade pretty much everything with not a lot of legacy nonsense to worry about. I fear I have dug myself a bit of a hole as I have kept XP running briskly and securely until this very day and the gear it runs is not worth the time to keep running (it is about now everything slowly starts to fail), to that end I reserve the right to take it back come May next year.


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## Chary (Oct 17, 2012)

I've got tons of these. One that I can remember right now is from my high school;

In the Library, there was a kid on MS Paint, and they were just randomly scribbling, until the teacher walked by, and started screaming. She said that Paint was a horrible program that installed viruses. She then proceeded to give him detention for installing "Inappropriate Virus software."

I also remember my Dad thinking the RROD for Xbox'es was a virus a human could get for touching an Xbox 360. Lawl.


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## Sicklyboy (Oct 17, 2012)

FAST, acts of gord is fantastic. I read through the entire site a few years back.


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## BORTZ (Oct 17, 2012)

One of my friends made some really really crude animations with MS Paint and Windows Movie Maker for a local christian station in Pittsburgh. Since the company doesnt get much content to show, they also did and live skype interview and aired as they were chatting. 

Apparently they know NOTHING about computers. The interviewer asked my friend "Did it take you a long time to make these with such complex software?" 
He said he froze up and didnt know what to say without making the interview look like a total idiot, so he rolled with the punches and was like "Yeah there was a learning curve, but i got ahead of it quickly" lol


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## stanleyopar2000 (Oct 17, 2012)

Teachers computer wasn't working...so I take my time to erase spyware and malware off a computer and a week later..it was worse...I found Cashback Buddy, bullseye network shit and more toolbars than you could stick up your ass were on it...this was a STAFF's computer at my high school years back....I mean...what the fuck!?...first off...the administrator should be doing this shit. not a student. second of all. Didn't you listen to a goddamn thing I said?!!?...I saw the history and said "no free vegas video slots websites that want you to install zango or bullcrap like that!" minus the nerd rage language


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## loco365 (Oct 17, 2012)

Gahars said:


> So, college life (AKA "You really should know better by now")...
> 
> A friend of a friend ran into my room and begged for help with his printer. He had a big paper due the next day, and if he couldn't print it out, he was going to be "dead" and "toast" (in that order, mind you). According to him, his printer had been just fine until all of a sudden, it refused to print. No matter how many times he would press print, nothing materialized.
> 
> ...


Good god. Our school computers do the same thing. We have to make sure we select the correct printer. Not to mention there's close to 50 printers.


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## Felipe_9595 (Oct 17, 2012)

At the beginning of the year, we had to enter to one website of our school to see our qualifications and to get some important papers. The problem: the retarded IP limited the access to the page to only allow 100 users at once. Our school has 4400 students. The result: the server got overloaded only 5 mintues after the website was up and nobody could get their necesary papers on time.


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## Coto (Oct 17, 2012)

Hahaha, at least you didn't have that stupid IP-pool blocking policy Movistar has (up to three shared IPs). Also, intranet on most universities tend to collapse as soon as a lot of people try to gather their data at once.


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## Felipe_9595 (Oct 17, 2012)

Coto said:


> Hahaha, at least you didn't have that stupid IP-pool blocking policy Movistar has (up to three shared IPs). Also, intranet on most universities tend to collapse as soon as a lot of people try to gather their data at once.



In fact, we have Movistar internet lolololololol

And yah our intranet is shit, it doesnt help at all that the people in charge of it are tards.


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## mechadylan (Oct 17, 2012)

Somewhat related.  My boss had to set up an account with a local vendor via their website so I volunteered to do it as I would probably have to have access to it at some point as well.  After setting up his username and password, the following convo ensued:

Me:  Okay, now we just have to set up the security question for this account.
Boss:  Sure, what's the question?
Me:  "What's your favorite food?"
Boss:  Sauerkraut.
Me:  Sauerkraut?
Boss:  Yeah.  What's wrong with that?!?!
Me:  You DO realize that at some point you may be prompted to provide this answer, yes?
Boss:  Yeah, and I'll type, "sauerkraut."  What's the problem?!
Me:  Sir?....
Boss:  WHAT?!?!
Me:  Spell, "sauerkraut."
Boss:  S...O... ... ...U... ...
Me:  ...
Boss:  OK, OK!  "TACOS" THEN; MY FAVORITE FOOD IS "TACOS!"


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## Felipe_9595 (Oct 18, 2012)

This is now oficially my favorite topic on the site. just lost a valuable hour of my life reading it entirely xD


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## Taleweaver (Oct 18, 2012)

Fun with passwords...I saw that "sauerkraut" one coming a mile away. 

We had this one new guy at one point. Not the brightest lad when it came to computers, but nothing absurd. Though it kinda raised some doubts as he turned out to be hired as a project leader for an ICT project (!).

Either way...he had problems syncing his smartphone. After about an hour of trying everything (we were new to smartphones and their settings at that time)...it turned out to be the password the user had ASSURED us was correct. He even typed it for us. Twice.

The next day: the same thing. Though against company policy, I asked him to write down his password*. He wrote it in all caps. And assured me it was all caps. And the letter 'O' (he was one of these guys where O and 0 are identical).
About fifteen minutes into troubleshooting when he was in a meeting, I did what I should've done from the start: actually try to log into his pc account. It didn't work. A bit pissed, I reset his password to match exactly what he had written. Lo and behold: everything was perfect.

Of course, that was until he tried to log in again the next morning when "his password was changed". Luckily for me, he also had that same piece of paper with him (complete with the 'all capital' and 'letter, no number' remarks). I sent him to the head of IT with it (he wasn't to the point of blaming me, but it was starting to get close).

He was fired the next day.



*not that THAT matters much: we're the guys who reset forgotten passwords


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## DS1 (Oct 18, 2012)

"My Mac is running slow because it's running out of space!"

"Uh, it says here there's still 60GB left on your HD..."

"But I got a popup saying I was running out of space!"

"............"


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## Taleweaver (Oct 18, 2012)

Another fun one (to tell...the experience itself was irritating) from today.

But first, I've got to tell we're somewhat in the middle of a merge (long story). That means that we have a department with their own network, different computers, different version and language of windows, citrix and...well, EVERYTHING different than what we're used to. This has lead to many a "I can't print" warnings from their main pc nitwit, but that's a different story. Today, she and her colleague showed me a cell phone of yet a third person. It couldn't get on the internet. Note that this was a kind of phone I've never even seen. And, as it turns out, it wasn't even of them: it was from...an external client, perhaps? Worse...it wasn't a smartphone. Unless there are really smartphones with just dialing buttons and a screen which is barely larger than your thumb.

He insisted it was a smartphone. I didn't bother to correct his views. I just parrotted "I've never seen such a phone so I wouldn't have a clue how to help", "the internet is secured by  so unauthorized personnel cannot use it" and things like that until it somehow arrived in their brains that I wouldn't drop everything just because they occupied my office with a 3-person posse.


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## shoyrumaster11 (Oct 19, 2012)

Wever said:


> "the internet is secured by  so unauthorized personnel cannot use it"



Than how are we on the internet now? Damn it! Those tech illiterates!


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## BORTZ (Oct 19, 2012)

This is a really simple one from high school.

I had 4th period :Moving Making" in the computer lab. One of my friends worked next to me, lets call him jon. 
I  have another friend who rode the bus with me, a few years younger but he apparently sat at the same computer station a few periods later in the day. 

All of the computers had "Deep Freeze 3" installed on them as part of the boot image. I guess it was the school way of keeping the computers from getting bogged down with stuff people download and shiz. I cant remember if its important to the story or not but ill explain it anyways. DF3 deletes everything that isnt on the original boot image or saved by the admin or something. So if you changed the background, it would be gone and back to the default DF3 when you logged back in. But you could move icons around and stuff and they would stay... My guess is that we didnt have an active DF3 license because it would create some really weird problems. Like i changed my background one day, and when i came back the next, I simply had a DF3 logo over my background, but it was still there... So out tech department was pretty much shiz.

So jon one day started noticing things were quite right on his machine. like the mouse would be unplugged...
OH. If you messed up your password 3 times on our particular XP/Citrix network, you would get logged out for 15 minutes or so... so being the dicks we were, we would log out at the end of the day and purposely get locked out so the next person would have to sit there for 15 minutes with nothing to do... 

So one day jons icons wouldnt work. He couldnt find any of the programs in this start bar either. 
Later i came to figure out that mattie (the kid on the bus) had gotten bored and drug all the icons out of the start bar and onto his desktop. lol
But for some reason that meant that no one else that logged in could access the programs on that computer...lol. 

Once i figured out that mattie could do whatever he wanted and screw up jons account, i convinced him to delete the sys.32 file. he knew what it would do, and we both thought it was funny, until the next day...

Then it was hilarious. Jons computer had been sluggish that day, and the more he worked on it, the slower it got. So he restarted it. It showed the initial monitor spec and the F4 and F12  boot options... then a message saying "A critical dll is missing, please try agian" 

I died laughing.


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## Sicklyboy (Oct 19, 2012)

Cmon bortz, we all know deleting system32 makes the computer run faster. Stop lying :/

(anyway, wouldn't df3 have just restored everything?)


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## Arras (Oct 19, 2012)

plasma dragon007 said:


> Cmon bortz, we all know deleting system32 makes the computer run faster. Stop lying :/
> 
> (anyway, wouldn't df3 have just restored everything?)


Honestly I have never heard of Deep Freeze but I'd think it wouldn't be able to restore anything if it doesn't get to run. Also yeah, I broke about two or three school computers this way. One by deleting the entire WINDOWS folder, one by deleting Win/sys32/hal.dll and one by editing desktop.ini.


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## BORTZ (Oct 19, 2012)

plasma dragon007 said:


> Cmon bortz, we all know deleting system32 makes the computer run faster. Stop lying :/
> 
> (anyway, wouldn't df3 have just restored everything?)


Well like I said, DF3 was spotty... Like my freshman year it world like the admins wanted. But by my senior year (when all this happened) it was kinda... broken. It was really weird.

And DF3 was like an application that ran after the computer was logged in or something... I dont think it had access to the sys files.


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## BORTZ (Oct 19, 2012)

I cant stand people who are ignorant about cell phones either. 

Two and a half years ago... right when the very first 4G phones were hitting and the iphone 4 had just dropped. My uh, classmate was due for an upgrade over the summer and everything so he got a new one.

One of my friends was over showing me his new iphone 4, which was pretty sweet at the time.
So the "classmate" (we werent really all that great of friends, he just thought we were) was on rounds and waltzed into my room.
"Bortz! i havent seen you yet this year, look at my new phone!" pulls out the first EVO 4G and shows me its pixelaty screen, and how much of an oversized monster it was. And then goes on to brag how much better it was than the iphone. Before anyone gets all "Ifone suxx" on me, lets remember this is 2 and a half years ago, before android had really gotten a solid grip and the iphone was generally a better phone than most. He goes on. "Yeah i switched from Verizon to Sprint so i could get 4G and this awesome phone (also this was before VZN had the iphone). Its so awesome. 

His phone starts buzzing. "Oh im getting a call. smell ya later"
He walks out the door and i remember him saying something like "Yeah its a new one, i hardly get any service anywhere in this town. And ive been into the city and havent found 4G yet..."

He switched to AT&T 3 months later and got an iphone 4.
4G still hasnt hit our area. 
He is now on Verizon with a 4S he bought right before the 5 was announced (even though i told him to wait) and now hes pissed and wants the 5.


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## mechadylan (Oct 19, 2012)

I'm trying hard not to stray off topic, but seeing as how "smartphones/dumb people" has popped up a few times:

Neighbor:  Hey I got the new 4G phone.
Me:  Cool, how do you like it?
Neighbor:  Not so much.  Sometimes I only get like 1 or 1 and half G's.


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## Taleweaver (Oct 19, 2012)

shoyrumaster11 said:


> Wever said:
> 
> 
> > "the internet is secured by  so unauthorized personnel cannot use it"
> ...


Not on my company, you aren't. And not on an 'unauthorised' computer/smartphone/whatever either.

...which kinda reminds me: somewhere at the end of February, we suddenly got all sorts of strange effects with our network. PC's that had worked fine suddenly didn't got an IP-address anymore. After some hairpulling troubleshooting of every freakin setting and the kitchen sink, I ended up with what I, until then, thought was impossible:
-PC A on patch A doesn't get an IP-address
-PC A on patch B gets an IP-address
-my own laptop on patch A gets an IP-address.

Lots of calls that got totally ignored by those partners (this is usual: I remember a call where some tech support claimed I should contact the bsm (short for "Business Service Manager"). My reply: "I AM THE BDSM! ...erm...I mean: I am the BSM!". *) actually got a result. Turns out they were experimenting with a new security protocol. Literally 5 seconds after I stated the PC name and someone in charge of that protocol, things were back to normal.
All in all, five different problems without solution (among which: not being able to get an IP-address for new PC's. PC's delivered by them, on their network).


One week later (on my birthday, no less!), someone from that company proudly proclaimed their ever innovative search for quality by utilising a new security protocol that "would normally not hinder the end users". My chiefs don't want me to state opinions openly, or I would have replied to everyone to put it where the sun didn't shine for all of the five or six reasons why end users MOST CERTAINLY DID experience hindrance. Instead, I only informed my chiefs. They went "diplomatic" on things. For now, it's disabled for everyone until further notice.


...but I got off-topic. I was going to tell a much smaller story about the internet. You see, when you're on our network, there are two settings for internet:
-standard. This is pretty much "no internet except to specific whitelisted sites".
-full: this is to all sites except the ones who are blocked (facebook, porn, games...you know: everything fun).

Unfortunately enough, some wiseguy thought it was neat to whitelist google for the standard setting. End result: I've had at least three people who were CONVINCED they were granted full internet "because google worked". Of course, none of the replies gave any hit, but that wasn't worth mentioning until further probing.


*yes, that really happened. Low level tech troubleshooting ("are you SURE you restarted?") does that to me.


mechadylan said:


> I'm trying hard not to stray off topic, but seeing as how "smartphones/dumb people" has popped up a few times:
> 
> Neighbor:  Hey I got the new 4G phone.
> Me:  Cool, how do you like it?
> Neighbor:  Not so much.  Sometimes I only get like 1 or 1 and half G's.


Me: 1 and a half G's? You throw it against the wall THAT hard? 
Believe it or not, but I tend to come up with those sorts of responses without missing a beat (though my tongue sometimes has troubles explaining the image popping up in my mind).


And another gem from today:

Yesterday (note: _yesterday_!) some guy calls, kinda aggravated, because the network printer "still doesn't work". There were all these mailings going back and forth but nothing was done. Except that he mailed all that to my colleague and not to me (or, you know, the mailbox where you SHOULD deposit complaints so the entire team knows about it). After him forwarding the case, I started my routine to call around and make some passive-aggressive threats. One of the decent guys in that company checked it out.
He mailed me today that it was fixed. Kinda odd...the case concerned the printer manufacturer not wanting to intervene because the given printer serials didn't match. Nice to hear that it was solved, but even then it tends to take a few days to get a tech in the correct place with the correct equipment. So I called the guy back. Only now, he tells me that he isn't near the printer itself.
He called me back less than 5 minutes later. He sounded apologetic: the printer was repaired 2 days ago.
Everyone had complained to him about it when it was broken, but by the time it got fixed, nobody even bothered to mention it.


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## mechadylan (Oct 19, 2012)

*Part I*

I arrived at work one morning and was immediately greeted by a frustrated co-worker:

Co-worker:  The system is down!  The internet is down!  My computer is slow!  I think it's THAT virus they're talking about!

I walk over and observe the following:  anti-virus scan hasn't been run for a while, Java update pending, and 67 (not even exaggerating) critical updates!

Me:  You really need to address these updates.

Co-worker:  Can you do it for me while I use your computer?

Me:  Sure, just don't break that one too.

We switch desks and I go about updating and he attempts to go about working on a "foreign" computer (mind you, we were both on XP Home at the time.)  After several minutes of clicks and frustrations, he finally blurts out:

Co-worker:  Your computer doesn't work either!  The system is down!  The internet is down!  I think you have THAT virus they're talking about too!

I walk back over to my desk and see that he's managed to open up about 6 Internet Explorer windows and they are all at "about:blank."

Me:  Well first off, you don't need that many windows open.  *click *click *click *click *click

Co-worker:  But none of them are going to the internet.

Me:  That's because, #2 you haven't told IE where to go yet.

Co-worker:  Well on my computer, when I click the button it goes directly to my login screen at *business name here* .com.

Me:  That's because that is YOUR preference on YOUR browser on YOUR computer.

Co-worker:  And yours is different?

Me:  Yes.

Co-worker:  But why is it blank?

Me:  Because that's my preference.

Co-worker:  Why?

Me:  BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT I FUCKING PREFER!

*Part II*

Co-worker:  So you actually type out website names?!?!

Me:  Not always, no.

Co-worker:  So how do you go to different websites?

Me:  I use my bookmarks.

Co-worker:  What's a bookmark?

Me:     Umm, simply put, it's a list of commonly visited websites in the form of clickable links.

Co-worker:  Ohhhhhh!  You mean my my favorites!  (not a typo, he actually said, "my My favorites.")

*Part III*

(casual convo ensues as I continue to update and he continues to work)

Co-worker:  Ya know, it's really stupid the way you have your computer set up.

Me:  Excuse me?

Co-worker:  It's almost like you've intentionally made it impossible for someone like me to go on the internet from your computer.

Me:  Yeah, how about that.


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## BORTZ (Oct 29, 2012)

Please post more stories, its been a long week away from the temp and i could use some more tech shiz.


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## Guild McCommunist (Oct 29, 2012)

In the course of a few months about two computers broke around my house. My mom thought it was my fault since I usually am the one installing most of the software and end up using them a lot but it wasn't. The computers were crap, outdated when we got them seven years ago. Now my mom feels a bit distrustful of me using a computer. When I got my laptop (which I'm using now) she said "...Maybe you should wait until school to start using it."

I'm not some tech guru but I know how to handle a computer. No one seems to understand that however.


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## loco365 (Oct 29, 2012)

BortzANATOR said:


> I cant stand people who are ignorant about cell phones either.


I know one particular person that hates cell phones. It's the sole reason I do not have one.


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## Devin (Oct 29, 2012)

Not mine but. Apparently the following happened.

A person was installing a printer with a friend, and they were installing the software.
The person installing the software finished installing it, and it was looking for the printer.
The computer said could not find printer.
So the person installing the software moved the monitor toward the printer, and made it try looking for the printer again.


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## Guild McCommunist (Oct 29, 2012)

Team Fail said:


> I know one particular person that hates cell phones. It's the sole reason I do not have one.


 
Nowadays though it feels like a necessity to have one. Like even if you're not into texting so much it's just a safe thing to have. Nowadays I feel a bit unsafe driving without one. Like if I get lost, I have a GPS, if my car breaks down, I can call someone.


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## loco365 (Oct 29, 2012)

Guild McCommunist said:


> Nowadays though it feels like a necessity to have one. Like even if you're not into texting so much it's just a safe thing to have. Nowadays I feel a bit unsafe driving without one. Like if I get lost, I have a GPS, if my car breaks down, I can call someone.


The exact reason I want one. One reason I can't wait to to turn 18, is so I can sign the contract myself, instead of having a parent/legal guardian to sign it.


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## DCG (Oct 29, 2012)

My sister once downloaded a file for the sims trough limewire.
I told her: I don't trust that one, if you run it, it's your problem.
Turns out it was a worm XD

But dear god, most of my family are computer illiterate as hell... and I need to fix nearly everything :/
And I don't get payed.....


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## Sora de Eclaune (Oct 30, 2012)

Friend A: "Can you install the game on this flash drive onto my R4?"
Friend B: "We would sooooo love to play it."
Me: "Alright. Give me a minute..."
-Moments later-
Friend B: "So...did you install it?"
Me: "An R4 can't play this."
Friend B: "Why not?"
Me: "This is a DS TWO-specific game. Only a DS TWO can play it."
Friend A: "DS Lite is the second DS. Are you stupid? We're using the R4 on a DS TWO!"

This is why I wish I lived in a more technologically-smart area.

Edit) This happened Friday. Since then, Friend B has been sick with a cold, stuck at home, and friend A doesn't want me to explain without friend B around because they claim they wouldn't understand enough to explain it to anyone else. Friend B seemed to be a lot better today, so I'll probably go ahead and explain tomorrow.


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## Taleweaver (Oct 30, 2012)

(wrote this one while gbatemp was down)

In my environment, I don't often come into contact with Mac owners. The fact that we've got one (yes: ONE. In a company of a few hundreds) is something worth pondering about.

Up until now, she rarely if ever bothered us, so I assumed she knew her stuff. How wrong I was. I really don't wanna go bashing Apple users, but...I really cannot NOT tell this one.

We moved locations this week. Of course lots of missing stuff (and others who suddenly had "extra" hardware) and all that junk, but surprisingly no real damages. In fact, our stock of about 40 PC monitors made it through all right.

But there was one screen that got broken by the moving crew. The most expensive one (over 1000 euro). Because it was HUGE (27 inch screen). And was pretty unique in the company. You guessed it.

Of course, she asked for a replacement. Which our bosses were kinda reluctant to give, as it was her last week (don't ask). This monitor had a weird sort of proprietary connection. Not knowing much of her device, I asked her if her Mac had a VGA exit.
Her reply: "huh?"
I drew her the entrance. Showed her the end of the cable. No idea.
Then she told me it was a laptop. But she still needed the monitor. Reason: the monitor powers the laptop. It had an adaptor from itself...but she had forgotten that at home.

Now this screen is broken. Worse: in an attempt of apple to be fancy, there was no physical button on the thing. Kind of odd.
Her reply: "what's a power button?"

I WISH I was making this up. For well over a year, she has never turned the screen off. She probably hasn't even touched her huge-ass monitor, save perhaps to check if it was a touchscreen.

It got worse: since I didn't want to get glass in my hands, I covered the screen in some paper towels for transportation. Fearing an electrical discharge (or even explosion) the second it turned on, I also turned it away from myself before I powered it (did I tell you the screen was HUGE? It weighed even more than the average CRT monitor).

On hindsight, I shouldn't have told her that. The monitor booted just fine and had no artifacts (in other words: it was just the glass that got broken). However...she flat our REFUSED to look at the screen, fearing an explosion.
Fine by me: she had her laptop screen and it was powered (I didn't bother to mention that it was HER idea to haul that broken HUGE screen back to her desk, just for the power).

But she couldn't work. All her icons were on the large desk (which she had turned away from herself), and none on the small one (AAAAAAAARRRRRGGGGHHHH!!!!!).

I remember googling for 'cloning displays' later, but dropped the whole case once I read there was no keyboard shortcut to do that. Besides...I really don't want to know how that would look.

She probably spent the rest of the day looking at her galaxy background while passers-by could see all her icons on a broken HUGE monitor.


---

Another fun one. Keep in mind: this is still in the middle of chaos of the move where PC's are to be unpacked, connections are lost and all other sorts of mayhem.

Caller: yes, I know you're busy, but...I need to know how to change my credentials in outlook.

(keep in mind 2 things:
1. she's talking about the user account settings from Active Directory. It's just that she SEES this in the address list of outlook.
2. she already called about this before the move. I gave her a link to a web-based tutorial on how to do it)

Me: erm...didn't I tell you the link?
(I DIDNT told her that it was her who forwarded this same link to the entire company)
She: yes...but it's not very user friendly. People are used to using outlook, so I was wondering how I can do it within outlook...
Me: I don't think it can be done in outlook. The thing is...<insert the explanation of active directory and outlook and such.>
She: yes, yes...but I don't see why it can't be done in outlook. Can you check...if you have time?
Me: I'm booked up 'till 2014 (it's not exactly a lie: people throw in work much faster than we can handle it)
She: I want to put it in a mailing list to everyone tomorrow.
Me: ...is there something wrong with the link I gave earlier?
She: I don't know. I haven't tried it...

If I had a button on my phone to put electrical current on the other end, I would have used it. On high voltage. I know I have complaints about our backend partner, but I've got to admit it's mostly the delivery (sloppy, too late, bureaucratic, and so on). But they've got their occasional gem of good work. This link is exactly that: written both in Dutch and French, step-by-step instructions, pictures of everything...the whole shebang.

The rest of the call was pretty nerve-wrecking. She insisted that the link wasn't "user friendly" enough and that I should look for a solution to it.


----------



## GammaGeorgeX (Oct 30, 2012)

I once had to be at my cousin's house, and they retardized the house! They said that SSB Brawl was a crappy game just because there were pokémon in it!

There was also a time back in grade 5 where these kids were getting me to help with the sites we kept going to, and they kept typing 'www.'. I was the only one not to, and they kept saying "you _forgot_ the www!" Oh my god that place was depressing.

And lol once I wa son my dad's computer, and he saw me using dvdvideosoft for youtube (to download vids from youtube), and he was the words 'free youtube download'. Then he said "free youtube download? Not doing that! It's okay to get videos _from_ youtube, but not download anything!" Yes he literally said that.

Also, sometimes my dad goes into my room and threatens to take my computer just because I don't want o show him what I'm doing.

Oh yeah, and back in middle school, I was showing a friend the episode 'Goodbye Toby' form the office on moonshell, and I was told to put it away. Then my friend was saying how it was his favourite episode, and the teacher just said 'you can play that game later'. UUUUGH PUNCHING MODE... ALso when I first opened up my DS for it, it was a normal DS, and a little kid just went up and squeaked, "I have a DSi", like he was showing off, and in my head I turn into the tourettes guy, and I think, "*fuck you kid you're a dick*."

And you know what also pisses me off? Any in my school who notices I have a flashcart just says "yeah R4s are awesome", they just expect that all flashcarts are r4s!

A long time ago, I got a GBA SP with AGS 101 (which means the light is brighter with more battery). I didn't like how it was like that at the time, being used to my brothers old SP, so I went to gamestop to try and trade for one of those awesome dual colored ones. I asked for it when my dad was there, and he said " yeah he says his is too bright", and the cashier said "you can press the button with the sun on it to make it brighter or darker!" Thanks a lot gamestop, you're _totally_ helpful.

When I was in third grade, my teacher's microsoft word was doing that thing where it sometimes stays on selecting multiple characters, where you just have to click to stop it. SHe asked for help to find out "why it keeps highlighting", and I tried to help, but some other kid wanted to really bad, and he couldn't even figure it out. Obviously it just fixed when the teacher clicked by accident, but they never even found out the solution.

I once had a babysitter who looked at me doing wiiplay (oh come one, I was young and I had just gotten to use it), and the sitter came in the room to say "oh the wii can play games too"?

Back in grade 5, there was a "computer teacher", literally. She did just about nothing but have trouble with opening and closing a window, and knowing that iMovie existed. I knew how retarded she acted, which was funny when almost NO one else did. Once, a kid once corrected her a few times because she was so stupid, and then she all of a sudden blurted out "YOU HAVE CORRECTED ME ABOUT 17 TIMES, I'VE BEEN TRAINED FOR THIS AND YOU KNOW NOTHING COMPARED TO ME", yeah, maybe she knew a minute's worth of closing a window!


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## Felipe_9595 (Oct 30, 2012)

Welp, this one happened to me, quite funny.

Last week, our radio academy finally received the implements to start our own internal radio at the school (Pretty old but impresively, quite functional things. A 1982 AlphaSix mixer working perfectly, another analog mixer and stuff that nobody had used at least for 25 years). After moving everything to our oficine, we connected everything to our main computer, booted up FL Studio, and tested the mics, to our surprise, the analog soundboard was working like a charm with FL Studio (When we connected it we thought it was gonna explode or something, really, it looked like crap). So we left with everything working.

Next day we came to the office to record our first program. Booted FL Studio, plugged the mics.... and no sound came out. Really weird, everything was working perfectly the previous day. I swear, i tried with everything. I reinstalled ASIO, reinstalled the drivers for our Soundblaster,tried with different channels in the mixer, tried with a different cable for the mic, with a different mic, with a different computer... but still, no sound came out. We lost like 40-50 minutes until i said "Ok, i give up, i dont know whats wrong with this thing". Then one of my friends asked:

"Its the mic on????"

Me: "Yes of cour-"

Me: "Fail"

Stupid mics with slippery power switchs :c


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## mechadylan (Oct 30, 2012)

Radio Shack story?  Radio Shack story.

Several years ago, (as FireWire was slowly dying at the hands of USB 2.0) I went to the Shack to purchase a 4-pin to 6-pin FireWire cable to plug my DV cam into my eMac G4.  There were two rows: 1' cables for $39.99 and a 6' cable for $9.99.  I immediately grabbed the 6 footer as it was the only one left, and then noticed 4-pin to 6-pin adapters behind it.  I checked the Radio Shack product code on the adapter and it matched the one on the cable at hand (22-xxxx.)  It was OBVIOUS at this point that they gave a new product an obsolete product code without completely depleting the obsolete stock first.

Luckily, an attendant approached me at this time to answer all my questions.

Clerk:  Do you have any questions, sir?
Me:  Yeah.  Why is the 1' cable 40 bucks, but the 6' cable only 10?
Clerk:  (staring at both and thinking long and hard)
Me:  (Aww, man.  This is gonna be good.)
Clerk:  The shorter cable is going to be a lot faster because the information doesn't have to travel as far; that's why it's more expensive.

Thanks, Radio Shack.  I'd never expect anything less from you.


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## Sora de Eclaune (Oct 31, 2012)

Friend C: "How do I get back to the menu from the game?"
(I show her the A+B+L+R+Down combination)
Me: "You press A+B+L+R+Down simultaneously."
Friend C: "Thank you!"

Later, I see her pressing the buttons in vain. She was thinking of it like a secret cheat code, like the Gnome code from the Sims: Bustin' Out for the Gamecube or PS2, therefore wasn't holding the buttons at the same time.

We just had this conversation:

Me: "Simultaneously means at the same time."
Friend C: "Does it really?"
(She continued to attempt the button combination the same way as before.)
Friend C: "It's not working! You must have jinxed my R4."


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## GammaGeorgeX (Nov 1, 2012)

Another funny one,
I was at a computer camp, and we had to burn these files to CDs.
Camp Teacher: Now you need to burn your files to a CD.
9 year old kid: Why do they have to be burned? (implying physical burning with fire)
Camp Teacher: Because you made them wrong!
My little brother: That's not true!
Camp Teacher: Yeah I know I'm just messing with him.


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## Taleweaver (Nov 5, 2012)

Ugh... it was another one of those days. Not one but TWO 'bang head here' situations.

Nr1:

Before I tell this, I've gotta tell you that I don't know every single one of our >200 users by name.

Three users came to me. They couldn't print. This was normal: since we moved, it's a walk-up print thingy that requires holding your badge against the printer before it recognizes you and their print jobs. Anyway...I have to scan their badge with a USB-device and a program, and send their names and the scanned number of that badge to a colleague who'll do the technical things.

So yeah...of these three users, only two of them couldn't print. The third one was just to show them our desk (small note: this is on the same floor. And floors aren't that big. And we've moved TWO WEEKS AGO). So I scanned their badges and asked for their names. As is often the case, they barely listened and pointed out the window as if they've never seen the view before (as said: they were on the same floor. For two weeks).
After I made sure I got their names and numbers correctly (one of them even pretty much pressed her face to my monitor to make sure I wrote it correctly), I mailed it to my colleague.

About an hour later, the third person showed up. She had been able to print just fine before, but now something was amiss. It quickly turned out why: when I asked one of those two persons whom I had to deal with if she happened to be person X, she replied yes. She even spelled "her" last name. Except that it wasn't her name. It was the name of that third person who just happened to show those former two our desk.

I mailed the correction to my colleague. If it wasn't such a damn busy day, I would've seen the humour in it as well ("so she actually forgot her own name?").

...but it got worse. Yet another hour later, those two actual users showed up looking kinda apologetic. They could print...but their badges were switched. 

I didn't bother to do "user friendly" when I mailed the situation to my colleague.



Nr2:

This involves our ICT backing company. It's important to know that they've got multiple clients. While roughly different companies, there is some overlap.

Anyway...today was the first day of a new user (according to HR, he started the first of november...it's not the first time we need a time machine to do our job in time). He has an account...on another company. He asked me if it was possible to keep his mail account, as there were some important mails in it.
"Sure," I say. That's the relatively easy part: because of the overlap, more than a few people "switch" from one company to another within this same group. All I needed was to give the system administrator from his former company a call and ask him to put the account in a special OU that is meant for swapping people (for obvious reasons, we don't have permission on the OU of other companies. So in order to move an account, one administrator has to put it in that shared OU and the other has to pick it up and put it in his own company).
So I call him. Pretty much as soon as I utter the words "Active Directory", he's suddenly busy in a meeting. In his own office. He says he has never had to do it before, and isn't sure what to do exactly.
Alarm bells go off in my head, but I really cannot drop it. So I agree with him that I'll mail him what to do and he'll mail me back once it's done.

If you ask me, the mail was a bit disdainful. Telling a system administrator how to use Active Directory is like telling an accountant how to use a calculator. And for the task at hand (move an account around a bit), it wouldn't be like explaining integrals. Either way...about ten minutes later I mail him the info, complete with a couple screenshots and a dummy explanation (move...THIS account...to HERE). Basically all he had to do was open active directory users and computers and drag the user to somewhere else, as if it were a file in an explorer window.

Later on the day, the user himself calls me. That "administrator" apparently had a hard time with it, so he called someone from our mutual backing company. Unfortunate for him, his problemsolver was on vacation. So it got transferred...

...to us.

I don't really like to do it, but I couldn't but tell the user the truth: his former administrator was a retard who probably lied about his curriculum.

As for our backing company: I have no idea how they even manage to do that. I honestly thought Dilbert was fiction.


----------



## chavosaur (Nov 5, 2012)

*Playing smash bros at my buddys house*
Me: Whooped your asses again.
Tyler: Dammit, its cuz your player 1!
Max: Yea dude, everyone knows like, first player controllers have like, special handicaps to make them win at the game man...
Tyler: Yea man, its like the handicap trigger button or something.
Me: Im pretty sure all controllers are the same, especially wiimotes
Max: No way dude, you have player 1 hardware in your wiimote, thats why your winning!

... my friends smoke to much...


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## tbgtbg (Nov 5, 2012)

Grandparents: "What's a digiTALL camera?"
Me (knowing damn well they won't have a clue): "Well instead of film it stores the images as 
Grandparents (interrupting): *glazed over look* "HUH?"
Me: "Computers. They work with computers."


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## hankchill (Nov 5, 2012)

I used to work in I.T. Client Services for Tim Hortons in Canada, All the stories I have could fill a warehouse. And not just of end user stupidity, my co-workers who were supposed "professionals" were absolute morons too.


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## Engert (Nov 6, 2012)

Eye halve a spelling chequer
It came with my pea sea,
It plainly marques four my revue
Miss steaks eye kin knot sea.
Eye strike a key and type a word
And weight for it two say,
Weather eye and wring oar write
It shows me strait a weigh.
As soon as a mist ache is maid
It nose bee fore two long,
And eye can put the error rite
Its rare lea ever wrong.
To rite with care is quite a feet
Of witch won should bee proud,
And wee mussed dew the best wee can,
Sew flaw's are knot aloud.
Eye have run this poem threw it
Your sure reel glad two no,
Its letter perfect awl the weigh
My chequer tolled me sew.


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## BORTZ (Nov 6, 2012)

Engert said:


> Eye halve a spelling chequer
> It came with my pea sea,
> It plainly marques four my revue
> Miss steaks eye kin knot sea.
> ...


English dude, english. And these are stories about people who dont understand technology, not poets corner.


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## emigre (Nov 6, 2012)

I got asked if we had Mario for the Playstation 2 at work today.

It wasn't the stupidest thing I was been asked today.


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## zRussian (Nov 6, 2012)

This one time, a friend of mine bought a new laptop for himself and I noticed that he was using Internet Explorer. I introduced to him Google Chrome and how much better it is and I even told him Internet Explorer is only good for installing new web browsers. Here is what he told me and I quote,''I don't want to get Chrome Google because I'm afraid to get a virus from it.''


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## Engert (Nov 7, 2012)

BortzANATOR said:


> English dude, english. And these are stories about people who dont understand technology, not poets corner.


 
That poem was actually directed at know-it-all types who think that higher access means higher knowledge and when spell check fails them, it's quite amusing.


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## Catastrophic (Nov 7, 2012)

There are a few technical farts I had that I can think of. I once fixed laptops for 3 of my classmates and the first one had apple marmalade on the touch pad, took like 10 minutes to properly boot up and another 5 minutes to start a program. And sometimes it crashed for no specific reason. I reinstalled XP, wiped it clean and it was STILL unbearably slow. The second computer was missing keys from the keyboard, had a glitchy Windows overall and had folders of porn stashed in unhidden places titled "Tom and Jerry". I reinstalled Windows 7, installed whatever programs that are good to have and then ran Windows Update to install Service Pack 1 and other necessary updates. Once it was done updating, nothing. Nothing happened upon boot-up whatsoever and the computer was pretty much bricked. And I had no idea what went wrong. So I reinstalled Windows 7 for the second time using the boot menu and it still had strange behavior afterwards. The third computer was ungodly. The keyboard was completely dead and no keys worked. At first I tried to free up some space and even after deleting almost all unnecessary files, it had limited hard drive space. After scratching my head in confusion I finally found out that a utorrent folder, which for some reason was hidden, contained about 30GB of useless data. I opened up his utorrent and saw that he attempted to download like 10GB large movie files which never finished downloading. I just ended up reinstalling Windows and it ran decently afterwards with a working keyboard.

Here's another one. I used to share a lot of files such as movies with my classmates by trading USB sticks. As a result I often had to connect my hard drive and the stick to my laptop to move files over. One day, my files and folders wouldn't show up on my hard drive. I then figured that they were hidden. But no matter what I did, the files would always hide themselves. Eventually MSE found a virus named Dorkbot something which apparently infects portable drives and is contagious to other drives except the main laptop drive for some reason, and this virus was found on BOTH of my HDDs containing around 200GBs data. I told MSE to delete it but it didn't work. I used many different virus scanners and I tried deleting the virus off the drive manually in safe-mode, but no matter what I did the virus came back like it was nobody's business. There was a high chance that the virus wrote itself to the boot record and my last resort option was to format the drives and rewrite the MBR. My only other source of space was the laptop which had like 50GBs of space free, and since I couldn't have both drives connected at the same time as they would reinfect each other, I had to pick 50GBs to salvage on one of the drives then throw out the rest. The formating worked and the drive was clean, but this meant that in order to fix the other drive, I had to copy 50 gigs from it to the laptop and then from the laptop to the clean drive and I had to do this for all 200GBs. That's about 500GBs of transfer time total and let me tell you, it took *AGES *to finish. But you know what the worst part about it is? I most likely got that virus from one of my classmates and I, along with plenty of others, passed around that same USB stick to many other people. Just the thought that many people might've been infected with the virus along with the laptop owners above made me feel like skewering my nuts.

Needless to say, I never connected shared USB sticks to my computer along with drives ever again.


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## Taleweaver (Nov 30, 2012)

Okay...I'm digging this one up because it's a sharp one.

First off: our company isn't in the best of weather. You know the drill: the CEO telling everyone we have to be cost efficient, and all users who immediately think they're the lone exception. One guy even managed to weasel in a trade-in for the regular (aka: embarrassingly slow) laptops for a new, high end model...because he convinced the director of ICT somehow that it was crucial for when he displayed powerpoint presentations (I *WISH* I was making this up).


It's this very same guy that called me today (while I was in the middle of a business meeting with my boss and our spokesman of the ICT deliverer).
He wanted me to install the drivers of his new mouse.

I was a bit confused. Mice are standard. The drivers are already on all the images.
No, he said. This was his own mouse. He had just purchased it. With his own money.
Me: I'm sorry. We don't support hardware that isn't purchased through our own vendor. Who gave you permission to buy this?
(keep note: we have quite a lot of spare mice. Not even the standard mouse we give with each laptop in addition to the touch pad on the thing).

This is where he got vague. Instead of giving me a straight answer, he halfheartedly tried to tell me that it wasn't about hardware but about software (drivers). Of course I replied that it's about a MOUSE, and that a mouse is HARDWARE.
Then he went with the intimidating "Do you know who I am?" route.

Alas for him...

Me: yes. As a matter of fact, I *DO* know who you are.

What I _didn't_ say: "a simple teacher who jerks off on computer specs and thinks the sun shines out of his ass".

You can guess the rest: he hadn't ordered anything. His superiors most likely didn't know anything. Whether or not he was going to declare the cost of the mouse as a work cost is something I'd rather not speculate upon (in other words: you can bet your ass on it), but he never figured that normal users don't have the right to install just about any fucking USB device ever.
I noted that I was in an important meeting*, and suggested to bring it to their discussion. He'd rather not.
I wanted to talk to his supervisor. He wouldn't tell me who it was.
He ended the call almost crying. The "I don't want to be talked to in this fasion   " kind of tone.


*if the phone was in the same spot, I would have put it on speaker. And thinking of it, I'm kinda sorry that I didn't gesture everyone outside the meeting room around the phone.


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## Taleweaver (Dec 14, 2012)

Here's a conversation with a colleague of another department. A *system administrator*, mind you.

*Him*: hi there. 
*Me*: hi. (note: I was exhausted when I picked up the phone...it was a _terribly_ busy day).
*Him*: I have a question. 
*Me*: yes?
*Him*: how do you use active directory?
*Me*: ...
*Me*: ...
*Me*: ok.
*Me*: go to google.
*Him*: *fumbles a bit* okay. Now what?
*Me*: type in: "how do I use active directory".

As you can guess, he wasn't quite happy with the answer. 


(in his defense: he was only recently promoted to the function. And he has a clear advantage in understanding computers over his direct peers. Still...when I told him "when you have a question, just give us a call"...this isn't what I meant).


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## Taleweaver (Dec 19, 2012)

(note: user is calling from her office. From behind her PC)

*Caller:* hi. I'm calling to say that my mouse is broken. When I move it, it's kind of iffy.
*Me:* not a problem. I'll come right over to replace it. 

(this is normal. We just replace the mouse, clean the thing, test it for five minutes and put it in the stock with spare mice. Never argue with user opinions)

*Me:* oh...just to make sure...You _do_ have a standard HP mouse, right?
*Caller*: I'm not sure. How do I tell?
*Me*: a standard mouse is black and has grey mouse buttons.
*Caller*: erm...I'm not sure. Is this black?
*Me*:...


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## Psionic Roshambo (Dec 19, 2012)

emigre said:


> I got asked if we had Mario for the Playstation 2 at work today.
> 
> It wasn't the stupidest thing I was been asked today.


 
Did you tell him about the NES and SNES emulator for the PS2? lol probably would have just gave you that deer in the headlights look.


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## Sicklyboy (Dec 19, 2012)

Taleweaver, I love your stories.  And I hate that this is very likely the field I might want to go in, but I love it at the same time.

Anyway, story of a while back, computer store owners are geniuses.

So one of my best friends has me build a computer for him.  He doesn't have his own, save for a shitty laptop, and I really need to be studying right now but I forgot that this topic existed.

SO we looked on Newegg, priced some parts; decent but still low-mid range computer, it can game, but you're not gonna be running Crysis on max resolution or anywheres near that on it.  Ordered everything, AMD CPU with an AM3 socket bundled with a mobo, typical when I order from Newegg, RAM, HDD, case, etc...

Parts come in, he has me come over a few days later to put it together.

"...Kevin, these were all the boxes, right?  I didn't open one and put a part of it somewhere else...?"

"No, why?"

*looking all around his bed and his room* "I fucking ordered you an OEM processor, not a retail one.  There's no heatsink for the damn thing."

So I start thinking of all the electronics stores around that carry heatsinks.  There's a few computer stores, two of which were closed, most/any big box retailers I know do not carry heatsinks by themselves, so that left one other computer shop about 20 minutes down the road.  No big deal.

I drive us there, walk in, I've seen the place before, owner is in there and I ask him if he has any AM3 socket heat sinks since I accidentally ordered an OEM CPU instead of a retail one.

"Uhh... I don't know... does it have a clip or does it use those push pin things?"

"A clip."

"Yeah I'm not too sure, you can take a look through the cabinet here."

"...Thanks.  Have a nice day."

And boy was I fucking pissed.


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## Taleweaver (Dec 20, 2012)

plasma dragon007 said:


> Taleweaver, I love your stories. And I hate that this is very likely the field I might want to go in, but I love it at the same time.


Thanks. With "the field"...you're talking about tech support, or ICT in general?

If the former...please loosen your attitude. Going by your story, I'd say that store owner is one of the good kinds. It's way better than having someone with no skills and goes for stalling time (I'll go get you our technician!) or tries to sell you the wrong product.


Another tip: get a good boss. That's _not_ optional: *get a boss who knows his stuff.* The reason: ICT gets underrated to the ridiculous level. The result is that people will call you for all sorts of programs or hardware errors. Things will always be urgent, the error message will be vague at best and they will wander off at the moment you need them to enter their password. If you're not careful, they'll have you do parts of their job (beware of signs like "but you're the specialist" or "I'll leave you to it"). And they WILL complain if you screw up or do things like being busy with someone else.

Here are two examples (also from yesterday):

-while searching for lost print cartridges (the department who was responsible tried to blame us), some guy approached me, showing off his phone. Apparently, he had installed a few dozen (or hundreds?) mailboxes in his contact list. He asked if I could delete them for him. I told him he could probably handle his personal cell phone better than I could.

-I had to swap a laptop with someone. This would have been done the day before, but (as everyone else) she didn't like our company policy that made us deliver the older models instead of the new ones (these older models are used six year old laptops, so it's actually a miracle some people _don't_ complain). So after some fuss, our boss gets into the routine of allowing a newer model. Problem: she has some confidential mails that should be deleted. I told her that she used citrix, which basically means that the mails are on a different computer anyway. Yes, she said. But they are stored locally as well. I told her our guys would format the laptop before giving it to someone else. Still she insisted on deleting them first. I told her I would format her pc prior to that even BEFORE I gave it to them. Still she insisted on deleting. I asked her if she was _sure_ that she was only deleting the offline folder. That it wasn't syncing with the server at that time. Yes, she was sure. She even demonstrated it by going into citrix and showing that all her mails were still there.

It worked fine...until all her mails were gone.


This is the sort of situation that you have to be professional. Just call for a backup, ignore the laughter on the other side of the phone and don't go pointing fingers in front of her*. Just get the fucking thing fixed and be grateful that it's exactly that sort of user thinking that gets you a steady paycheck at the end of the month.
(extra note: I was home an HOUR later because of that).




*yeah, the fact that she was a cute and pregnant woman sort of helps.


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## mechadylan (Dec 21, 2012)

I used to work on the second floor of a building with a few other businesses; my front door (which was always open) was a couple of feet from the elevator door so I constantly saw my neighbors coming and going.  One day, this cool "Fonzy"-type goes strutting past my front door holding a beige box tower on the way to the elevator.  He hits the elevator button and doubles back to say:

Dude (hoisting up box):  Hey, man.  You need a new computer?  It's in great shape!  Hehehe.
Me:  Sure, let me take a look (reaching for my cordless screwdriver.)
Dude (walks into my office):  This is our old computer, but I already bashed up the hard drive pretty good.
Me:  Why'd you bash up the hard drive?  Just remove it, dumbshit.
Dude:  Nah, I heard it's best to just take a hammer to it and throw the whole thing away.

I open up the case and examine the motherboard and all of the parts that are still intact.  There's a Maxtor 40Gb hdd in pristine condition still attached to the IDE and 4-pin power supply harnesses.  I point to it and say:

Me:  Hey!  Can I have this part?
Dude:  Sure.  What is it?
Me:  It's your hard drive.
Dude:  WHAT?!?!  This thing had 2 hard drives?!?!
Me:  No.  Just one.
Dude:  Then what's THIS shit (pointing) that I took a hammer to, genius?!?!
Me:  That's your DVD drive, Einstein!


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## Sicklyboy (Dec 21, 2012)

Another story from a month or two ago that I don't think I posted.

A coworker moved, garage had a bunch of stuff in it, stuff containing two old computers.  Knowing I'm into computers, he asked me if I wanted them since the previous owner said to do with it what he wants.  Of course, I oblige, as I like scrapping computers for parts (hard drives and PSUs primarily)

So I had it sitting in my room for a while, and eventually decided to take it apart.  Pick it up and "oh god... this smells like a smokers computer..."

Open it up, go to take out the 80mm exhaust fan, and see the tons of nicotine gunked up dust clogging it.  I promptly closed it back up without taking a single part, took the thing, and hurled it one handed into the back yard out the back door of my house.

Not that it's really a story from tech illiterates, but annoying nonetheless.


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## no_chocobo (Dec 22, 2012)

Everyone thinks that because I am a programmer, I can fix every know problem with every computer ever.  I can code websites, I don't know why your router is broken!


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## Taleweaver (Jan 7, 2013)

*Someone**:* my pc is from HP. The (broken) printer as well. Can I connect a Cannon printer to it or do I have to stick to HP for the printer?
*Colleague*: erm...that really doesn't matter.
*Me*: (after trying to keep a straight face)


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## Sora de Eclaune (Jan 31, 2013)

An older man came up to me as I was lounging on my porch yesterday. This is an incredibly nice man who lives down the street from me and likes to help everyone with their home improvement problems. He helped me out with a plumbing problem once, so I owed him something in return. Yesterday was the day.

He asked if I could help with his iPod Nano and I obliged. Five minutes later, he was back with a Dell laptop I learned ran Windows 8...and his wife. I politely corrected him that it wasn't an iPod Nano, but a laptop. "I thought it was a tablet." After some fiddling, I found that it was one of the newer laptops with the screen that can flip around and be used as a tablet, then politely explained that it was a laptop / tablet combo. He seemed to understand this, but wrote this down in a notebook he brought along with the laptop.

So I went to work, and he spoke as I was inspecting the laptop. He told me the last tablet he had was a Windows 9, and he got it in '92. His wife chimed in that she thought it was an Android. I quickly figured out what was going on, and told them the problem: they hadn't charged the laptop. The man told me he didn't know it needed to be charged.

After explaining some things to them, the man says this: "That's a cool color for a Microsoft Vita." I politely correct him once again.

20 minutes after he leaves, he comes back asking what to do, as his dog has chewed up their charger cord. I referred them to the local electronics store. Alessa sat down next to me and tried to advertise the local game shop. I literally pulled her sock off and stuck it into her mouth before she got out more than "Hey, you could come buy games at..." and told her that would be something to explain on another day, as they didn't have a charged laptop at the time.

TL;DR: Older man thinks he has an iPod Nano tablet, was only half right. His wife thinks they had an Android. They both think the computer they had in 1992 was a Windows 9. My DS gets complimented as a Microsoft Vita. Two older people get extremely embarrassed.

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Update) I got a knock on the door a couple of hours ago. He's back, with an old, beat up first generation iPod. He told me he found it on the side of the road and thought it was a cell phone at first. I told him what it was and asked the normal questions (i.e. "Did you find this with anything else", "Do you know who owns this", etc) and he didn't know a thing about it and had decided he'd keep it. I gave him all of the necessary information about the device and helped him turn it on to see if it still worked. It had a near-full battery (It was around 95%, I think) and was filled with nothing but songs from all the Twilight Movies, Hannah Montana, One Direction, and Rebecca Black. He requested I take everything off of it and I obliged, seeing as if it had all that then the previous owner would probably get a new one anyway. He then told me to load some songs onto it.

My library of songs is nothing he'd want, but I let him sample some songs out of it to pick a few he wanted in the meantime. He actually picked every Ronald Jenkees song I had, one song from a Tales of Symphonia / Tales of Phantasia remix album that I've been told sounds like some old 80s song, a couple of songs from Utada's Exodus album, Castles in the Air by Chage and Aska, and (surprisingly) some of the songs from the Nier soundtrack. He told me it was something fresh and nice on the ears to listen to.

However, he then told me he'd like his own music too. I told him that when his computer was fully charged he could come back with that and his CDs and I would help him get all of the music onto the computer so he could load up the iPod. I didn't check how big the storage was, so I don't know how much would fit on it. I'll have to check that next time.

The man left with our iPod charger dock (we have that and the USB cable and charging plug, but lost the plug so we had no choice in what to loan him as he has no computer to plug the USB cable in; this is all measures in case the battery is bad, not that the device actually needs charging right now) and a random extra pair of iPod headphones, and will return the the dock tomorrow, after he and his wife return home from getting the computer charger and (now) stuff for their new iPod.

...though before that happens I'll have to go and show them how to hook the iPod to their car. The man really likes some of the music I put on that iPod (he gave Ashes of Dreams / New from Nier and Castles in the Air two thumbs up, which surprised me as I always hear him yelling at other people to turn on something he likes instead) and apparently wants to show his wife before they get to the store. He's promised to pay me back for the extra help with a large bag of cookies. I declined, but I think he's going to bring them anyway.

TL;DR: Older man finds an iPod. Gets me to load some of my music on it so he can use it immediately. He compliments songs that older people usually don't like. Offers me some cookies.


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## BORTZ (Mar 14, 2013)

I would like to see more of these. 

I took some time out of my night the other day to explain to my mom that when I wiped her phone that her emails were still there. And how they werent stored on her work computer, laptop, or our old one. 

Then she threw a hissy fit when she lost all of her contacts after the wipe.


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## wrettcaughn (Mar 14, 2013)

I've recently taken over some IT duties for the company I work for.  At the moment it's working with a coder to get a program ready for company-wide use and testing a few devices to gauge their usefulness in our accounts.  However, I'm now fielding calls for all other "computer issues" and, mind you, 24 of the 28 supervisors contacting me are in their 50s/60s and are computer illiterate...

Yesterday a gentleman called me saying he couldn't find a folder on his desktop.  I remotely connected to him and the entire desktop was covered in folders, 22 of which named "New Folder(8)" etc...  I open one and inside is a folder titled "New Folder"...  I almost hung up on him...  We spent the next 40 minutes organizing his desktop (the folder he was looking for was buried 4 folders deep in "New Folder (19)"...

I sent out some software to everyone a few weeks ago to be implemented immediately with explicit, idiot-proof instructions that required .NET 4.0 be installed on some computers.  Monday my boss calls and tells me _redacted_ needs help, .NET won't install.  I call the guy up, remotely connect, and have him show me exactly what he's doing and where he's getting stuck.  He proceeds to follow the steps correctly (ie; click on a link I provided and click "Download") only he's using IE and the "IE has prevented downloading...blah...Click here to download" comes up.  I asked him if he "Clicked there to download"...  He says "It wasn't in the instructions..."


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## BORTZ (Mar 14, 2013)

Lol people are idiots. My dad tells me to go into IT, and i ask him how long he would like to see me alive before i hang myself.


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## wrettcaughn (Mar 14, 2013)

BortzANATOR said:


> Lol people are idiots. My dad tells me to go into IT, and i ask him how long he would like to see me alive before i hang myself.


Thing is, I want to hang myself during the actual conversations but I'm getting paid damn good money for it ($22/hr).  Can't really complain about that.  I seriously wonder though how some people even function at their jobs when they can't figure out "drag & drop" or "right-click"...


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## BORTZ (Mar 14, 2013)

wow thats not bad at all.

Dang. I mean imagine what it was like before "copy" and "paste" and how people go without using it out of ignorance every day.


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## mechadylan (Mar 14, 2013)

Here's a jewel from my inbox that I just can't bring myself to deleting.


Spoiler


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## BORTZ (Mar 14, 2013)

Hooory shiz.



BortzANATOR said:


> Hooory shiz.


Someone was asking me for advice on what laptop to buy. She said her girlfriend had a "really cool Dy laptop". I was like seriously WTF. Ive never heard of them. Dont bey laptops and shiz from knockoff brands lol.

Turns out her friend had an HP something or other and she read the label wrong.


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## BORTZ (Mar 14, 2013)

whooprs


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## mechadylan (Mar 14, 2013)

BortzANATOR said:


> Hooory shiz.


I thought it was a joke so I never responded, but he was serious.  Something about how I wasn't in his contact list and he wanted to add me to some spam list.  I has relieved that he couldn't figure it out.


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## Dimensional (Mar 22, 2013)

Someone came to me to help fix their computer. Not something too difficult. They were saying that it was running slow. I turned it on, had them log in, and looked around. Within 20 seconds I found the culprit. They had not 1, but 3 different Anti Virus software suites running at the same time, and they all were out of date. Apparently they never updated them to begin with either.


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## Chary (Mar 23, 2013)

Called AT&T, 'cause my router wasn't working. After about 2 hours of the guy saying, "Honestly, honestly" over and over after every word, I asked him for his supervisor. The supervisor told me, "The reason your Internet is acting up, is because you have a virus." Incredulous, I asked for clarification. All he said was that it was a virus impeding my access to the Internet. Furious, I asked them how I could get this "magical virus" that  Infected my 3 Windows machines, my ipad, Xbox and Wii, especially since they all run on different OSes. They just said to "watch what I download on my Xbox," and hung up. I was so mad, I literally took the router to the nearest AT&T headquarters, and threw it against their wall.

Another story I have is when I called AT&T on another matter. I asked them why my brand new router I had received from them was cracked and broken, right out of the box. All I got was a response saying, "Don't download porn" Horrified, (Since I am a 16 year old female, with NO inclination to watch such a thing) I screamed for the manager. Long story short, he got chewed out big time for telling a minor such a thing over the phone.


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## Ericthegreat (Mar 23, 2013)

Alexrose said:


> Back in school when I lived with my parents, my mum always used to snap at me for alt tabbing.
> 
> YOU'RE NOT HELPING, YOU'RE JUST FLIPPING EVERYWHERE.
> 
> ...


lmao I remember when I was small I had bonzai buddy, uncle taught it was so cool that he could say what you typed in, and we would usually make him say bad words. but yea years later I put on that pc and it had 150+ virii.


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