Saturday, June 10, 2006

Computers and Their Users

A friend of mine showed me a hillarious site on computers. Here is an exerpt for you. I will try to link the site, but I may forget.


Tech Support: "Hello, tech support, can I help you?"
Customer: (slowly) "Oohh." (pause) "I think I did a bad thing."
Tech Support: "Ok, so tell me what's up."
Customer: "Well, my computer was running great. Everything was working fine, I had no problems whatsoever."
Tech Support: "Ok..."
Customer: "So I decided to open it up and have a look inside. I saw all these wires dangling all over the place. There were grey flat ones, and small red, black, and yellow ones, and it seemed like they weren't connected to anything. So I decided to plug them all in."
Tech Support: "Um, you mean you plugged them all in? What did you plug them into?"
Customer: "Well, whatever I could get them to connect to. I saw pins sticking off of some of the boards that didn't have anything on them, so I plugged all the loose wires in to make it run better."
Tech Support: "And then you..."
Customer: "And so I plugged them all in, and I hit the power button, and there was this loud bang and a flash and a puff of smoke. Now it doesn't work at all."
Tech Support: (suppressing all emotion and turning deep crimson) "Can you hold for a minute, please?"
Kaboom! "Explosive" doesn't adequately describe the laughter. I related the story to some co-workers between gasps for breath. Several of the techs and I had quite the laugh fest while he was on hold. After about five minutes of eye-popping, sweat-beading laughter, I wiped away the tears, took a sip of water, and came back on the line. I knew it'd be futile to even attempt to troubleshoot it.
Tech Support: "Ok, well why don't we just have you wrap it up in the original packing material and send it back to us, we'll take care of the whole thing."
And so another computer newbie learned that the extra power supply cables and unused IDE ribbon cables don't have to be plugged in for the computer to work just fine.

here is another one...


Customer: "Hi, I think I've got a problem with my monitor."
Tech Support: "Ah. Do you still have an image?"
Customer: "Yes, best image ever. Thing is, when I look at it from the side, I see red hot components."
Tech Support: "Uh, when you look at it from the SIDE? How can you see any components?"
Customer: "Well, through that big smoking hole."

8 comments:

Jeffrey said...

big smoking holes are cool.
(except maybe if they destroy your computer)

Graham said...

yeah... uh. whatever.

erudil said...

It sounds sorta like a trip I took to an island called Socotra.

I've heard of Socotra, I think. Isn't it south and a little east of Aden, perhaps east of the east point of Somalia?

Jeffrey said...

dude, this is an awesome sight. it makes me feel like i know something about computers.

Jeffrey said...

okay, that was embarassing. i meant site. (i don't feel like i know anything about computers anymore)

Jeffrey said...

dude, when did you get your own website?

Graham said...

Jeffrey: glad you appreciated it... lol. I got a kick out of it. I got a website monday. At the moment, it is in little bits and pieces all over the floor. I am trying to do it in html to impress my teacher, but I have to teach it to myself first...

The Help Agency:thanks!

Christina said...

Jeffrey's right. that post does make me feel like I know about computers.