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About This List Created by: komodoDate Created: 1/2/2008 Times Viewed: 270 Item Count: 20
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| 2 1. Actual eMail from the IT director: "We are currently experiencing problems with our email. Please inform me if you do not receive this email. Thank you" |
| 2 2. A customer came into the camera shop where we worked, and bought a disposable camera. A few weeks later she returned to pick up her photos. After a quick search, the clerk returned empty-handed, and asked the customer when she had dropped the camera off for developing. "Oh no," the customer explained, "it was a DISPOSABLE camera. After I took the photos, I just threw the camera away!" |
| 1 3. Client was asked to send a photo by email of the problem. "Okay, I can email it to you, but can you send it back when you're done? I need to keep the photo here just in case we need it later." |
| 1 4. Doing Internet tech support over the phone about 10 years ago, a client called in saying that his "connection" wasn't working. After troubleshooting, I had him reinstall the software. We go through the steps and we get to a point where he tells me "It's asking me to continue. Y or N." I tell him to type Y, but he says nothing happens. Hmmm. After going through it several times, we get back to the same point, so I tell him to type Y. And I hear him mumble something under his breath as he types. I asked him what he said... "I just typed what you told me. W-H-Y." |
| 0 5. The CEO called down to my phone one day claiming he'd come up with a fantastic new system to help the programming department get twice as much work done. From now on, he wanted us to work on two projects at once... |
| 0 6. I was about 2 weeks into my first real developer job when I received a call from a most upset user. Only days before Id completed an access database for her and shed finally got around to using it. She was literally screaming down the phone, after about 10 minutes trying to calm her down Id discovered that she was attempting to enter a date in to a text box and the system would not let her. After another 10 minutes I still had not resolved the problem. At this point Im starting to panic, there is no body in my office who I could pass her off to and Im panicking thinking Im going to get fired. Shes screaming down the phone that she expected better for the money shes paying and will be expecting a full refund. Im opening up code and looking around for the problem and still nothing. The conversation when like this: Me: What exactly happens when you try to enter the date? Her: It wont let me! (Very helpful) Me: ok but what exactly happens? Do you get an error message? Her: No the blinking line goes to the end of the box and wont let me type anymore! Im panicking, god Im fired. I look down at the keyboard in desperation praying to the code god then it hits me! Could it possibly be so simple! Me: What date are you entering? Her: 10 October 2002, this system is useless! Wheres your manager Me: Which number keys are you using? Her: What do you mean which number keys and I using! (As if it was the most stupid question in the world) Me: Are you using the ones along the top of the keyboard or the keypad on the right of the keyboard? Her: Im using the keypad on the right, why what on earth does that matter Me: Have you got num lock on? Her: Num lock, of course Ive got num lo........ sh At this point she hung up, and I burst out laughing. I was so busy panicking thinking Id screwed up, I forgot to check for user being stupid. Basically I finally figured out that every time tried to enter the date she pressed 1 which without num lock is End which would be why it went to the end of the field and would not let her type any more! Since then Ive all ways checked for dumb user syndrome before hunting through my code and 99% of the time it is! |
| 0 7. I work for , now what many of my clients refer to as a, " Big, Faceless, Uncaring, corporation", now that is has merged with a national ISP. Be it as it may, this may be totally true, but there are a couple of good things they do from time to time. I am one of the DSL technical support agents for this company. So, one day, I received a call from a particularly unsettled customer, which most of them are, about having slow speeds. So I go through the protocol of questions, to rule out certain interferences that may contribute to her getting slow speeds. Once we rule all of them out, she then asks me, what speed is she paying for. I tell her, Ma'am, your speed is a guaranteed 768x128kbps. She said, no it's not and I say, well ma'am, this is what my system tells me. Again she screams at me, that is not the speed I'm paying for!! I say ma'am let me check again. Now, sometimes customers are so consistent with their tirades, I second guess my self, because I feel as though anything can happen. So after checking through several other databases that are provided, even calling our consumer billing department, I tell her, that in fact, that is the speed she is paying for. She continues disagreeing with me over and over, so being curious, I ask her, what do you think you are paying for? She says, I sure ain't paying for 768x128, because that is the resolution of my screen!!!!!! I said, ma'am, I believe you are mistaken, she tells me with such oomph and undisputed intelligence, that in fact, this is the resolution of her screen and it has nothing to do with her speed!!! ( If you take a look at the properties on your desktop, go to the settings tabs, you will in fact see that a resolution can be 1024 by 768 pixels, PIXELS!!!!!) She also screams at me, because her bill is now lower, specifically, half as low than the original bill! So I take a look and in fact she is correct. She is correct because, this company recently lowered everyone's bill that started receiving that guaranteed speed because they were offering that to new and coming clients, and felt it unfair that the old customers were paying for the same speed but at double the price. I explained this to her and told her what a good deal this was. She said it was not, she wanted to pay her price for the original bill, because she believed it made her speed faster!!!!! Finally trying to explain this to her in the smallest words and as slowly as possible,she said, alright...I'll pay this lower bill for the time being, but i still don't understand why you lowered my bill and if my speed doesn't get better, I want you to put me back on my original bill. The bill in which her price was twice as high for the same (resolution) speed that she was getting now. I bid her a good evening,hung up and a single tear ran down my face. |
| -1 8. Just got a rather paradoxical email from a client. 'Please make sure that all the brochure pages are updated with the latest versions we sent you this morning. Please also ignore this request.' |
| -1 9. Working in the student computer lab was usually pretty easy. Once in a while, I'd get a doozy though: A young woman came up to the desk, her panicked face red and tear-streaked. "It's gone! My paper's gone!" she cried. She was nearly hysterical, so I tried to calm her down. "Easy, easy...tell me exactly what happened." "I was typing my paper and I've been working at it for hours and hours and I got up to go to the bathroom and when I came back it was all gone!" she blurted out breathlessly. "All right, well let's go have a look. There's a good chance that Word was set up to make a backup, and we can just restore it from that." We both walked over to the little Mac SE she had been working at, with papers and food wrappers and other random stuff littered about. "There," she announced, pointing at the black screen, "it's gone! The whole thing's gone!" I studied the black screen for a moment, then looked back at her thoughtfully. Slowly and deliberately I reached over and with my finger I gave the mouse the tiniest nudge. The Mac's screen saver disengaged, the screen sprang back into life and there was her paper, just as she left it. She gasped. "Oh thank GOD!" (I did take that opportunity to explain to her the wonders and magic of "Saving," to help avoid any possible future issues...) |
| -1 10. From a sales rep with 7+ years selling ads for a weekly newspaper. "I want you to use the extra white ink in this ad" Upon telling her that we do not use "white ink" in the newspaper - ever, she gets a "I know more than you because I have been here longer look" and asks "well, where does all the white in the paper comes from then?". I had to show her a roll of newsprint to get her to understand that it was simply the paper color without ink on it that was white. |
| -1 11. Client: I'd like to move my web site to your company and have you take over maintenance of it. Me: Great let's get the paperwork started - but if I may ask - why are you unhappy with your current host? Client: I'm fed up with their charges ... every time I ask them to update my site ... they charge me for it. Me: Meh.... |
| -1 12. A user came to me REALLY ANGRY and said: "Why do you keep deleting all my e-mail?" Seriously, this guy was about to KILL me. I told him I wasn't deleting his e-mail. The solution: Scroll. He didn't know he had to SCROLL to see old e-mail!! |
| -1 13. I worked as a PC Tech in a hospital several years back and found some weird support issues due to it being a general purpose hospital. One day I was summoned to the Emergency Room because one of their PCs suddenly stopped working. The secretary assigned to the E.R. types in patient information as soon as somebody is brought in, or walks it on their own power. She is situated at a desk right in front of the front door (her location will become a vital part of this story shortly). I walked in and she showed me her PC, which just "stopped working right in the middle of something". I've heard that dozens of times, but in her case it was actually true. As I bent over the PC, I was almost overcome by a horrible smell. Not a typical burnt/dying/electronics smell, but one like vomit in a bathroom. I noticed some odd stains on top of the case and opened it up. I was greeted with a fungus-like horribly stinky substance all over the motherboard. For a second I felt violently ill. I showed her the offending substance and asked her if she knew what it was. "Oh yeah," she says, "somebody came in last week and vomited right on my desk. I cleaned the desk up but didn't know it got inside the computer." The lovely, brave young lass was treated to a new PC just as fast as I could get one to her. I probably washed my hands a dozen times throughout the process of disposing of her old PC. |
| -1 14. I was not the provider or client in this case, but an innocent bystander. You see, my landlord was a bit of a tightarse... As most of my fellow Aussies will know, some gum trees (aka eucalypts) will sometimes grow in a fork down low in the trunk, and as the tree ages (sometimes getting to be a massive tree) the fork will often split down the middle. We love our gum trees, but they can be a bit of a problem in a suburban back yard. One day my wife noticed that the tree in our yard was splitting right down the fork, as so often happens. This was a _huge_ tree, probably close to 20m (65ft) high with a trunk diameter at the base of around 1.5m (5ft). If it fell down, it was going to cause a bit of a mess. We were renting back then, so naturally we called our landlord straight away and told him what was going on. As I said before, he was a _serious_ tightarse, and hated to spend money on anything. With a massive tree about to split in half, tall enough to damage not only his property but multiple neighbouring properties, he then dithered about looking for the absolute lowest quote he could find to get it felled. This went on for days. Finally, late on a Friday afternoon, a very nice, professional, efficient, and almost certainly experience tree-feller turned up to have a look. He was horrified. he said he'd be back first thing in the morning to put a metal band around the trunk to slow the splitting, and would then be back again that afternoon to safely cut it down. Half of it fell down of its own accord that night, smashing two fences, a clothesline, several bushes, and a neighbour's shed. Made one helluva bang, let me tell you. The tree-feller came back and started the process of cutting up the fallen log and felling the now extremely unstable remaining half of the tree. As this was going on, I heard the following exchange between my landlord and the tree-feller: LL - You'll charge me half the quoted price, of course. TF - What?!?!? LL - Half of it fell down. The job is half done. TF - No. The job is not half done. We have to cut up the fallen tree, and I have to send my workers up a half-fallen-down tree to fell it in pieces from the top down. This is amazingly dangerous work and we can't get any insurance. Any injuries come out of my pocket. No, the price is as agreed. LL - Half of it is already on the ground! You have to give me a discount at least. At this point I made an excuse and ran inside; no doubt my landlord would find an excuse to evict us if I laughed my arse off at him. |
| -1 15. Client Call: Hello there i'm blah.... i was wondering whether you can tell me of another design firm, like yourself but for cheaper. Been a good sport i gave her my name and phone number... best thing is: 2 secs laters.. ring... ring... i answer, she starts talking and realises its me "oh sorry i called you again, sorry" hangs up. 4 seconds later ring.. ring.. - i just look at the caller ID and don't bother answering. |
| -1 16. me: So.. you told me last week how you wanted it, and I did it. Her: NO, you're wrong, I never said that! me: Ok..... moving on. Her: You know, you're going to have to get to the place where you can kind of know what I'm thinking before I even say it, you know? So I don't have to keep telling you these things. Yup. Just read that over for a minute. Worst client I've ever had the privilege of dealing with. |
| -1 17. This quote was from a client, a kid, probably 20-something who just started selling advertising and hired my firm to create a website for one of his clients... Client: So I want to be clear here, and I want to make sure you know what you're doing in terms of design. Do you know how photography is used in design? Me: Uhhhhhh, wait, what? I'm not sure I fully understand what you are asking? Client: Well, I want to make sure you understand that in designing a website you should use photography that relates to the subject matter on the page. For instance, if you are reading about bird watching, you would use images of birds on the page. Get it? Me: (thinking, are you fucking kidding me?) Uhhh, yeah. We know what we're doing here. We've got the whole design thing down by now. We've been designing sites for clients for a decade now. Client: Okay, well, make sure because this website is important to my client. *sigh* |
| -1 18. Our software handles purchase orders(PO). It has an option to change an existing POs. One of our customer asked us if we can make a change to the system, so that when they have a meeting to revise (change) a PO, the system will get updated. We said "Sure, just have someone from the meeting get in the system and go to the Revise screen to update the changes". The customer said "No, without anyone going into the system. We are too busy to do that". Since then we been pondering about how can we make a system that can read the collective mind of the people in the meeting...with no success. |
| -1 19. Our site offers two different subscription models: monthly and yearly. Today (December X, 2007) we received the following call from a customer: Customer: "I signed up for a monthly subscription, and was enrolled for a yearly! I only want a month-long subscription!" CS Rep: "Our records show that your subscription is due to expire next month..." Customer: "Well, it's not! I just received an email telling me that my subscription expires in January of 2008!!! Don't make me cancel my account!" CS Rep (& rest of company): *stunned silence* |
| -1 20. I work for a large firm with 150,000+ users and I would have to say 80% of them are technically retarded. Here are some examples that I see/hear on a daily basis: Me : So you're trying to VPN into our network and from the message you're getting it seems you have a router. Are you behind a router. Client : No, the router is beside me. Me : uhhh....okay. Do you have Cable or DSL internet service Client : Yes ------------------------- Me : Alright we're going to create shortcut, do me favor go ahead and right-click on your desktop. Client : I have a laptop Me : .... ------------------------- Me : Alright, we may need reboot for the changes to take effect. Go ahead and reboot for me. Client : So log-off or shutdown? Me : Reboot please Client : So shutdown? Me : ...sure Client : How long do you want me to wait? Me : Let's give it a good 10 minutes to make sure, I'll call you back when it's up. Client : Okay ------------------------- Client : I'm having some issues with my blackberry not working. Me : Well what seems to be the issue? Client : I'm not getting my emails Me : Alright do me a favor, in the top right hand corner do you see some bars? Client : No it has an X Me : Alright scroll down to an icon that looks like a plane or radio tower Client : Alright, found it Me : Alright, go ahead and push in on the track wheel and it should enable wireless Client : It's not selected anymore Me : Alright go ahead and scroll back to it Client : Alright, I'm back there and you want me to...? Me : Push in on the scroll wheel Client : It keeps moving Me : Alright I'm going to need you to push in on the scroll wheel and not scroll with it when you go back to that icon. Client : Oh hey, I got 4 bars now. I figured it out. Me : *under my breath* ya you sure did Client : I'm sorry? Me : Have a good day *click* ------------------------- Client : I can't log into my PC Me : Alright, do you see a login screen? Client : No, I can't log into it. Me : Alright is the PC or monitor on? Client : No Me : Alright go ahead and turn on the PC and monitor please Client : I can't the powers out Me : Alright, well...*an alarm starts going off* Client : Apparently there is a fire but I need to get this power point presentation completed for my boss today. Me : Well, do me a favor go ahead and head on outside and I'll have someone come out and fix your PC alright? Client : Will it be today? Me : It depends on how far the fire gets. |
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