Aggravating stories from tech illiterates

[MelodieOctavia]

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...

 

[FireEmblemGuy]

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.

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

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?"

 

[loco365]

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.

 

[Gahars]

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.

 

[Sterling]

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

 

[ZAFDeltaForce]

"Oh no. I deleted the Internet"

- Someone, after deleting the shortcut to Internet Explorer

 

[Sicklyboy]

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"

 

[1stClassZackFair]

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 "

 

[Quietlyawesome94]

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.

 

[Bobbyloujo]

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.

 

[BORTZ]

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.

 

[Sefi]

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!

 

[Bobbyloujo]

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

 

[Psionic Roshambo]

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.

 

[Vulpes Abnocto]

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

 

[Hyro-Sama]

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.

 

[Vulpes Abnocto]

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)

 

[Snailface]

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."

 

[nando]

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.