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The following is an excerpt from the Wall Street Journal by Jim Carlton.


1. Compaq is considering changing the command "Press Any Key," to
"Press Return Key" because of the flood of calls asking where the "Any" key is.

2. AST technical support had a caller complaining that her mouse was
hard to control with the dust cover on. The cover turned out to be the
plastic bag the mouse was packaged in.

3. Another Compaq technician received a call from a man complaining
that the system wouldn't read word processing files from his old disk.
After troubleshooting for magnets and heat failed to diagnose the problem,
it was found that the customer labeled the disk then rolled them into
the typewriter to type the labels.

4. Another AST customer was asked to send a copy of her defective disks.
A few days later a letter arrived from the customer along with Xeroxed
copies of them.

5. A Dell technician advised his customer to put his troubled disk
back in the drive and close the door. The customer asked the tech to hold
on, and was heard putting the phone down, getting up and crossing the room
to close the door to his room.

6. Another Dell customer called to say he couldn't get his computer
to fax anything. After 40 minutes of troubleshooting, the technician discovered
the man was trying to fax a piece of paper by holding it in front of the
monitor screen and hitting the "send" key.

7. Another Dell customer needed help setting up a new program, so a
Dell tech suggested he go to the local Egghead. "Yeah, I got me
a couple of friends," the customer replied. When told Egghead
was a software store, the man said, "Oh, I thought you meant for
me to find a couple of geeks."

8. Yet another Dell customer called to complain that his keyboard no
longer worked. He had cleaned it by filling up his tub with soap and water
and soaking the keyboard for a day, then removing all the keys and washing
them individually.

9. A Dell technician received a call from a customer who was enraged
because his computer had told him he was "bad" and "invalid."
The tech explained that the computer's bad and invalid
responses shouldn't be taken personally.

10. An exasperated caller to Dell Computer Tech Support couldn't get
her new Dell Computer to turn on. After ensuring the computer was plugged
in, the technician asked her what happened when she pushed the power button.
Her response, "I pushed and pushed on this foot pedal and nothing
Happens." The "pedal" turned out to be the computer's mouse.

11. Another customer called Compaq tech support to say her brand-new
computer wouldn't work. She said she unpacked the unit, plugged it in,
and sat there for 20 minutes waiting for something to happen. When asked
what happened when she pressed the power switch, she asked, "What power switch?"

12. True story from a Novell NetWire Sys Op:

Tech support: Hello, this is Tech Support.

Caller: Is this tech support?

Tech support: Yes, it is. How may I help you?

Caller: The cup holder on my PC is broken and I am within my warranty period.
How do I go about getting
that fixed?

Tech Support: I'm sorry, but did you say a cup holder?

Caller: Yes, it's attached to the front of my computer.

Tech Support: Please excuse me if I seem a bit stumped. It's because I am. Did
you receive this as part of a promotional, at a trade show? How did you get this
cup holder? Does it have any trademark on it?

Caller: It came with my computer, I don't know anything about a promotional. It
just has "4X" on it.

At this point, the Tech Rep had to mute the caller, because he couldn't stand
it. The caller had been using the load drawer of the CD-ROM drive as a cup
holder, and snapped it off the drive!
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