"Oh my gosh..."


Today's tasty entree is a guest post from Isaiah Henni. I love his blog, not only because it's nicer, but because he's writing a series on his studies of Nehemiah, or as I call them, Ricky's Devotion Time Since He Didn't Get Up Early Enough. Oh, and I wrote a post for him a while back, but forgot to link to it from here since I was out of town and/or lazy. Go read it and pretend it's new. Also, pretend you enjoy it.
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One of my friends who used to be in Tech Support related this story to me. I was grateful I didn't get this call, and you'll see why in just a second.

Me: “Tech Support, how may I help you?”

Caller: “My internet isn’t working. I can't open up Internet Explorer.”
Me: “Ok. What happens when you try to open it?”
Caller: “Nothing.”
Me: “Ok... when you click on it, nothing happens?”
Caller: "Yes."
Me: "Hmm. Now which icon are you clicking on?"
Caller: "I'm not sure what you mean."
Me: "No problem, do you know what version of windows you have?"
Caller: "Um, haha, sorry, no idea."
Me: "Ok, go ahead and click on the start button in the bottom left-hand corner."
Caller: "Ok."
Me: "Do you see the Internet Explorer icon?"
Caller: "No."
Me: "Ok, hmm. What do you see?"
Caller: "Nothing."
Me: "You don't see anything?"
Caller: "No."
Me: "Is your monitor on?"
Caller: "What?"
Me: "Is your computer on?"
Caller: "Well, I'm sure it is."
Me: "Is it making noise?"
Caller: "Well, no."
Me: "Ok, let's push the power button."
Caller: "Ok. [silence] Nothing happened."
Me: "No fan noise or anything?"
Caller: "Nope, no lights either."
Me: [skeptical] "... and you're sure you pushed the button?"
Caller: "YES!"
Me: "Wait, so it wasn't on before?"
Caller: "No."
Me: "Well, why were you saying you were clicking on things?"
Caller: "... I don't know. Are you going to help me or not?"
Me: [thinking] "Is the computer even plugged in?"
Caller: [long pause] "Oh my gosh..." [long pause] "Oh my gosh..."
Me: "Its not plugged in, is ..."
Caller: [interrupting] "Oh my gosh... just, forget I called. It is working fine... Oh my gosh, I can't believe I did that... Oh my gosh."
Me: "Thank you for calling Tech Support."
Caller: "You can't tell anyone this, just forget I called... bye!" [hangs up]
Me: [turns to co-worker] "You're not going to believe this."

True story. The person was saying they were clicking on things on the screen, when their computer wasn't even on. Then he finds out the computer has been unplugged the whole time.
This is why the good men and women of Tech Support will ask you every time, "Have you tried turning it off and on again?" and "Are you sure it's plugged in?"




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3 comments:

Russ said...

This is probably why I could never ever ever work in support.

Isaiah said...

Russ,
I'm not sure how I survived it... and that was only a couple years.
At least some of the customers are nice, and the others make for good stories.

Ricky Anderson said...

That's true.

The majority of the calls are from friendly people with real problems that we help them fix.

The ones that are blog worthy are the exceptions.

Like the time one of the managers called me to gripe me out because my phone wasn't working.