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The Hall Of SHAME

Every office in the world has one of those boards called the Hall Of Fame where they post thank you notes from customers, well this is just the opposite.

I used to work for a Major International Computer Manufacturer in Atlanta as a Technical Phone Support Helpdesk. I handled internal employees as well as external customers, and had been for about three years... I had seen many "Odd" things regarding customer’s machines. Several of these calls where relayed to me by fellow Employees, customers, and other helpdesk agents. All stories are told in the first person for comical effect.

Every single last one of these are true, and that's the funniest thing about them.

Beemer's: An Executive of unnamed major company other than mine, calls in one day with an issues with his 760CD (this was a while ago). it would seem that he follows the same routine every day and has been for several years now, and he's never had this problem with any of his laptops before...

Every day he walks out to his car in the driveway, puts his laptop and day timer in the trunk of his car, starts the engine letting it idle for exactly 5 minutes, puts the top down, and checks the tire pressure and oil. then he places his laptop and day timer on the passenger seat of the car for the commute to the office.

The day he called me went just *SLIGHTLY* different. He'd left his day timer in his home office when he went out to the car. Placing the laptop on the rear of the car, he started the engine, checked the tires and the fluids and got in, putting the top down. He then pulled out of the driveway and stopped. He'd remembered his day timer, and backed back into the driveway. He then decided he did not need it for today and pulled back out into the road. This is when he remembered a presentation he had to give that afternoon so he pulled back in to get it, grabbing his day timer while he was in the house and went back out to his car. he got in and went to place his presentation and day timer on his laptop in the passenger seat, which is when he noticed his laptop was not there. He got out, looked around the car, then looked under the left rear tire to find his laptop.

To say the least he was a little upset, mainly because I would not replace it under his warranty, and no amount of explaining would get him to accept that this was billable for misuse and abuse. he continued to demand a replacement stating I did not know just how powerful he was...

At this point I asked him what kind of car he drove... "It's a BMW, Why do you ask?"
My reply? "Well now sir, if it had been an American Car I might have been able to cover it!"
I had an undying urge to say "Here's Your Sign!" but refrained for obvious reasons.
He failed to see the humor in that.

Engineering Flaw: I had a call from an Engineer. He was a nice guy and came right out to tell me the problem... He'd dropped his laptop about 10 inches and the case was broken. No Problem, It's Billable. He accepted that, but he had a Meeting to attend and turned me over to his secretary.

Ok, an Engineer who attend meetings and has a secretary... Sounds a little odd, but I can deal w/ that.

So I'm talking w/ his secretary, getting the shipping info, and get to the point where I ask if she has one of our shipping containers or if she needs one. "Nah, I'll just put it in an envelope." "I'm sorry Ma'am, but a Laptop is a little to big for an Envelope, and requires a special shipping container for transportation..."

"Not any more it doesn't"

This got me a little confused... "Why not, Ma'am? He said he only dropped it 10 inches."

"Oh! It was 10 inches to the Plank he was walking on, but it was 10 (ten) stories to the Side Walk it hit."

RagTop Man: Manager at a California company checks his e-mail on the way into work every morning using his cell phone. One particular nice day he put the top down, got on the highway, pulled in to the middle lane, sun was shining, there was a nice warm breeze, every thing was Great! He pulled his cell phone out of his inner jacket pocket and went to connect it so he could get his e-mail...

His laptop was not on the passenger seat. He looked in the back seat figuring he set it back there for some odd reason... not there either. He checked the floor, and then got nervous. he looked up to the rear view mirror just in time to see his laptop fly off the trunk and hit the bumper of the Mack Truck right behind him...

When he was on the phone with me he told me he was worried about his Data, and that he found Most of the hard drive.

Sonnova Base Ball Player: Mobile Account Manager was working on a Multi-Million dollar project and had to visit a lot of customer sites to make sure all of the T's were cross and the I's dotted. She also spent most of her time at home doing work and not attending to the whims of her 3 year old son.

She kept telling her son "Mommies got work to do, I'll play with you when it's all done, ok?" Her son did not think this was ok.

One weekend she decided to get Pizza for her son while she was home working, as she went to the door to pay the delivery man her son decided he knew the best way to keep Mommy home to play with him. he took a Base Ball Bat and destroyed the laptop.

The Young Lady was Absolutely in tears when she called me. She feared that $25Million dollars worth of data was lost and it was due the following week. I spent an hour calming her down before we started trying to save her computer.

After 2 hours of work I determined that her Hard Drive was fine and all of her data was safe. She would need a new system to access the information on the drive, but to say the least her laptop was shot!

No Harm Befell the Child and his mother was promoted to upper management, where she's spending most of her days playing in her new corner office with her son.

Any Key: Customer called up saying she had installed a new application and her computer locked up. "What is on the screen right now, ma'am?"
"Well, I have my Icons, task bar, clock and mouse pointer."
"Anything else? Does the mouse move, Ma'am?"
"Yeah it moves, but there is a window up saying install successful 'Please press any key to continue'"
"Then what happens?" I ask
"Nothing... it's waiting on the 'Any Key'"
"Then press any key ma'am"
"I can't find it... There are no keys on my keyboard or my external that say 'Any' on them... What do I do?" She was starting to get worried
I gave the situation about three second’s worth of thought
"Oh! You have one of THOSE Keyboards... That explains a lot!"
Silence for about 5 seconds on the phone line
"The 'Any Key' was not labeled on THOSE Keyboards. It's the Big key at the front of the computer, you can also use it for Spaces in documents..."
The sound of a key being pressed and the sound of an application starting could be heard on the phone
"My Goodness! It's working! Thank you Young man, Thank you Very Much!"
"My pleasure, any time I may assist you PLEASE feel free to call..."

Coffee Cup Holder: this is a classic, so I'm sure you've heard it before... and Yes I DID take one of these calls...

Cust "Hi, My coffee cup holder's broke."
Support "I beg you pardon, sir?"
Cust "My coffee cup holder broke, it won't retract any more."
Support "The coffee cup holder, sir?"
Cust "Yeah. You press the little blue button and it pops out the front of my laptop."
Support "I'm sorry, sir, do you mean the CD-ROM drive?"
Cust replies really excitedly "You can put CD's in there too? Wow, you guys think of everything!"

This Outlet Works?: Gentlemen calls in, His laptop is not working, not booting at all. I ran a little PD (problem determination) and the unit was stone cold. Customer then stated that his Aptiva in the other room worked fine. I asked him to plug his laptop into the same outlet as the Aptiva, so we could make sure it was not the wall outlet...
After about a minute the customer comes back on the phone all out of breath... His Aptiva's not working now either.
Apparently he carried his Aptiva from the other room and set it up next to his laptop.
"Uh, no sir... I wanted you to carry the laptop in to the other room and set it up Next to the Aptiva."
"Oh! One minute..." two minutes pass and he comes back on... "Hay! There both working now, what did you do?"

The Light Switch: Executive called in and complained his $4000 laptop has a piece of junk, it was dead and he needed it for an important meeting with his clients later this afternoon.
I asked him to check the power connections, he was "too pressed for time" he "had to leave the hotel in the next half an hour" to make it to his meeting.
I then asked him if the lights were on in his room.
"No, I have the shade open, there's plenty of light."
I then asked him to turn on his light switch and try powering the computer on again...
He did. I heard the system start booting, then he said "Oh, Never Mind." and hung up the phone.

Power Issues: a young lady (used for Politically correctness) called me stating her computer shut off in the middle of working on a document and would not power back on.
I had her check to make sure the Ac adapter was plugged in, made sure it was not on a switched outlet, had her run a reset on her laptop to discharge a couple of capacitors on the DC/DC card, try another adapter, and nothing was helping. The unit was not going to power back on...
"Ok, this unit is going to have to be serviced. Would you please read me the Machine type and Serial number off the bottom of the laptop?"
"I can't."
"Why not ma'am? Is the ID plate to worn to read?"
"No, it's too dark in here..."
"Could you turn on a light and read the numbers to me, please?"
"No. We're having a Tropical Storm here in Tampa, the power went out over 3 hours ago."

The EZ Setup Duck: guy called up and said he was getting a 301 error on post. then he said his laptop was giving him The Bird. (the mouse cursor in EZ setup of his laptop's BIOS is a humming bird) 301 is a classic key being held down during post. I told him to tap each key 4 times and use a can of compressed air... "Your going to have me Blow my computer?" I laughed, the conversation continued. turns out he likes using keyboard vacuum, I told him those were noisy. "Now if you used a filter queen, it works great!" I stated "yeah," he said, "it must really suck."

Computer-weenie: (this one is care of one of my customers who also runs a helpdesk) One of the Executives in my company wanted a new computer system to play with. He ordered a 27" monitor, MS natural keyboard, Logitech trackball marble +, UPS, Yamaha speaker system, Flatbed 1400x1400 color scanner, HP Laserjet, AND had a Dual ISDN line plugged directly into his office... he calls up the next day and nothing's working.
The local IT Support person went to his office and looked under his desk, then asked where his system was.
The user looked him right in the eye and with a blank face asked "What system?"

Rugged Unit: Gentlemen called me up yesterday stating he ran over his laptop with his 1995 Monty Carlo. He made the usual statement about the lack of brain cells on his part, I claimed it was an accident and that accidents happen. Then I explained about the three laws that govern the universe. Murphy's Law: If anything that can go wrong, it will. Finagle's Axiom: If anything can go wrong, it will go wrong at the worst possible moment. And O'Tool's theory: Murphy and Finagle were (edited)Bloody(end edit) Optimists!
He laughed. I offered an R3, same day pickup for depot service, and he declined because he was still using the laptop.

Lemme explain a bit. He Ran Over his laptop with a 4500lbs. car. The case is broken and warped, the LCD screen is broken and leaking, the DVD drive is hanging out of the side of his computer like the tongue of a dead horse (his description)... But It's Still Working. He hooked up and external monitor and the laptop runs just fine! Windows comes right up.

He then demanded that we make a commercial for TV Showing a Toshiba, a Compaq, and a Think Pad getting run over by a car and then get used showing just how rugged our systems are... I told him I would "Pass it on to the appropriate people"

Connection Problems: lady spent 8 weeks w/ software support, local support, had the modem replaced twice and she could not get connected to her global dialer.

Checked modem response in control panel, got AT command set back. Went into dialer configuration, set speaker volume to "on" and checked wait to connect setting... it was set to zero. Had her set it to 30 seconds and had her dial out again. Dialed and connected just fine.

She thanked me for doing what her local IT dept, her help desk, and software support group in almost 2 solid months of continuos tinkering could not repair.
I told her in all modesty that I was a hardware support specialist, not a software guy, and I was only doing my job by helping her...

Which side up?: Customer calls me up one morning and tells me he JUST got his laptop back from repair and now he has another problem... His NIC (Network Interface Card) is stuck in the pcmcia slot.
I asked him to remove it and read me the card. He couldn't get it out, it was truly jammed in the slot.
"How far in is it?" I ask
"Oh, about half way. I wasn't strong enough to get it the rest of the way in." he claims
"Could you read me the part of the label that is out side the laptop, Sir?"
"Sure, let me turn it upside down to get that for you"
"Um, Sir... the label is Normally placed on the Top of the card, at least that is the way my company does it..."
"You Know, I Thought there was a problem when I was putting this thing in... I did it upside down, right? Was that bad?" he asks
Well... I couldn't LIE to him, but I didn't want to hurt his feelings either...
"Sir, I can get it fixed, I'll have to send it in for that... but they *MIGHT* want to charge you for this..."
"Hmmm... That was bad then... ok. Lets do it."

High Fiber Diet: Customer calls me up asking if I can send him another shipping container so he could ship his unit in for repair. I asked him what happened to the box we sent him?
Customer: "well, you'll think I'm lying, but..."
Support: "I'd never think that about you sir, after all it's just a card board box..."
Customer: "My dog ate the box..."
Support: "I haven't heard that since high school... got a better excuse?"
Customer: "No, really! My dog ate the box, and My laptop was in it at the time..."
Support: "your dog didn't eat the laptop too, did he?"
Customer: ::chuckles:: "no, no, no, just the cardboard..."
Support: ::laughing:: "That's a good thing, Sir, because that would not have been covered by your warranty."
I power shipped him a new box, admonishing to keep it off the floor this time...

The Jokes On her: young lady in collage just called me asking if we gave her a new computer because her speakers were in the wrong place...
I looked up the call history and most of the unit HAD been replaced, but it WAS still the old computer
She claimed that the speakers used to be under her monitor, and now they're on either side.
About this time I hear some one laughing VERY hard in the back ground, laughing his butt off as a matter of fact.
She mutters something to him and then exclaims "Oh My God! You Jerk!"
I ask her what's going on and she tells me to never mind, a friend of mine was playing a joke on her.
I ask her if the laptop was working properly? So far it had been, she said, but her friend was playing a joke on her and had her call into support just to see if she'd really think we gave her the wrong computer...

Computer Bugs: A tech in our repair center is working on an LCD issue on a laptop for a Florida lady, when an ant crawls out of the computer and up the LCD.
the tech brushes it aside to keep working when another one comes out. Feeling that something "ODD" was going on he opens the unit up: 60 ants crawl out of the unit, and signs of Raid could be seen on the case.
When the customer was called she claimed the unit should be repaired under warranty, and that she had no idea how the ants got in the laptop because she didn't have any ants in her house...
I think that was because they were all in her laptop...

One Clean Unit: Customer calls in laptop to tell me there's a problem with the unit, it wasn't booting anymore but it worked just fine an hour ago. during PD (problem determination) the customer notices that the unit is really shiny now where it had been a dull almost matte black before... Then he asked his son what happened.
Apparently while the customer was out getting pizza for his son, his son's friend for lunch they had a little accident, while running through the house the two kids ran into the coffee table and knocked over a glass of orange juice which spilled into the keyboard of the laptop. Worried that he ruined the computer he call a techno-geek buddy from junior high and told him what happed...
teen-geek "Oh, you spilled something in the keyboard? Stick it in the dishwasher that's what My dad does..."
Trusting their friend, they stuck a $7000 dollar laptop into a $800 dishwasher...
to say the least, we found the problem in the rinse cycle...

Good Direction Follower: young lady calls up with a problem. her unit booted to bios and she could not get out. turns out that when her unit boots there is a prompt to hit F1 to go into bios, and she did, however she did not see the command set listed on the bottom of the screen saying "hit ESC to exit"
I had her hit ESC, unit booted as normal into windows, I had the cust shutdown and reboot several times and it came up just fine...

To The Point: support: "Is there anything else I can help you with today, Sir?"
customer: "send me a pizza"

Point Of View: One of the technicians in my group recently started wearing glasses, and Normally forgets to put them on when he comes in. Every day our manager walks by to check to see if he's got them on, if he does the manager says "Nice to SEE you today Mark!"... or if Mark's not wearing them he declares to the room "Hey, has anyone SEEN Mark today? I can't seem to be able to SEE him today" and Mark would put on his glasses...
well this has gone on for several weeks now, Mark has been getting better at remembering.
Our manager came out of his office a few minutes ago with another member of management and Mark team leader and out loud mentioned that he wanted Marks desk moved closer to his office so he can keep an EYE on Mark.
Mark replayed "Sir, you do not need to take any CORRECTIVE action on me cause from here on out I will be Picture Perfect"
Half the department fell out of their chairs laughing...

Failure To Communicate: customer got his unit back from repair and called us up to complain. Apparently it's not his computer, but he's So distraught he put his mother on the phone to yell at me.
She's going off and not giving me a word in edge wise, then she starts yelling at me in Russian. halfway through the diatribe of mixed dialects he blamed me for making her son cry, "E's Cryink now, are yous happink now??"
Now, according to the record the unit was billable for customer induced damage, Twice.
each time the unit was Sent Back Unprepared at customer request.
the customer was a 14 year old kid who's moving back to Moscow in a week, and their trying to get the unit fixed for free. Also according to the records the kids mother is the one having it sent back un-repaired because she doesn't want to pay for damage her son did to the unit, but doesn't want him to think it's her fault it's not getting fixed...
We sent her over to Customer Care, and the kids changed his story 4 times inside of 5 minutes...