5

5/26/2006 11:17:35 PM

I've got you all beaten.... (and I'm no techy by any stretch of the imagination)
When we first got a DVD player back home a long time ago, a certain family member was trying to put in a DVD the same way she put in a VHS, by thrusting it into the front of the DVD player (thump thump thump)

family member: Soooooooon!!!!!! How do I put in this CD (even though it was a DVD).
me: you have to hit "open" on the remote controller
FM: controller, what controller?
Me: This one (shows her the remote)..Hit "power", then "open"
FM: Do I have to turn it to channel "3" (like the old VCR's)
me: "Jesus H. Christ"
FM: Don't be blasphemous, you know better!!!!!!!

I explain hitting source until Video 1 comes up (which is just once), then hitting "power" on the DVD remote (took 12-15 minutes to explain that turning it to channel 3 just wasn't going to cut it)

So I get her started on the DVD, and yells at me 30 minutes later:
family member: I have to go to make some pop corn and step out
me: well then I'd hit pause
FM: ok..........DAMMMNIT!!!!
me: Good God, what is your problem
FM: what did I tell you about blasphemy
me: whatever, what's your problem
FM: I hit "stop" instead of pause, now I'm going to have to fast forward to where I was, that'll take a few minutes
me: now worries it's digital, just hit "play" one more time

An hour later the movie is finished and she's about to head out to the movie rental place to take it back and she asks me how to rewind it to avoid the fee for unwound movies..........
And the last part, she comes back that night, and of course the tv is still in "Video 1" mode and she claims the cable is out and instructs my father to call Time Warner.

Last but not least, I go up to the PC in my old room , and I see some instructions on a pad about how "to operate." Some gems were:
1. Turn on computer (Big red button)
2. Double click to open program (Click, Click)

5/27/2006 12:16:12 AM

i'll give your mom the benefit of the doubt and say it was grandma

5/27/2006 1:44:55 AM

my aunt always told us to rewind our nintendo games before we returned them

5/27/2006 4:02:27 PM

(Click, Click)

5/27/2006 4:44:41 PM

(Click, Click)

5/27/2006 5:04:16 PM

NCSUMEB, there's no doubt that your family member is technically inept, but you definitely sound like an asshole from that story.

5/27/2006 11:27:08 PM

I wasn't gonna say anything but...yeah. What he said.

5/27/2006 11:30:59 PM

wait, isn't that the point of this thread? to show how superior we are to other people? as human beings, i mean.

5/27/2006 11:35:12 PM

Actually my mom makes a good point with this one....

Mom: So how do I stop the computer without just pulling the plug or hitting the power button?
Me: Well first you take the mouse and click on Start..."
Mom [interrupting me]: Wait, the first thing you do when you want to stop the computer is click start?
Me: Yeah.
Mom: Shouldn't they have a stop or off button on the screen?
Me: ...

5/31/2006 12:05:15 PM

my brother put a CD-ROM into a 5 1/4" drive

but that was obviously a while back

now he's an attorney who's done cases on internet copywrights and patents haha

5/31/2006 12:16:23 PM

^^ nice one Josh

5/31/2006 2:29:34 PM

Well Pimaster i can see where you would see that, but I also hand wrote a set of DVD instructions the day before which she lost in 24 hours, that took me about a half hour to write down every single instruction so I was fired up, and compared to most of tech talk, I would certainly be considered inept.

5/31/2006 6:30:46 PM

Quote :

"Actually my mom makes a good point with this one.... Mom: So how do I stop the computer without just pulling the plug or hitting the power button? Me: Well first you take the mouse and click on Start..." Mom [interrupting me]: Wait, the first thing you do when you want to stop the computer is click start? Me: Yeah. Mom: Shouldn't they have a stop or off button on the screen? Me: ..."

Actually, this has been a major point of debate in UI circles for a long time. The "start" button is one of the worst damn metaphors ever put into computing practice.

5/31/2006 6:40:44 PM

"I don't give a damn about security" - My dad.

5/31/2006 6:42:11 PM

^^ and the classic blog entry about it
http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2003/07/22/54559.aspx

5/31/2006 6:58:43 PM

^ The long answer makes sense (a hell of a lot better than "you're starting the shutdown process" that you hear sometimes), but the short answer is ridiculous.

Quote :

"Short answer: The same reason you turn the ignition key to shut off your car."

Yea, but you use the ignition key to start the car as well. You don't use the Start button on the taskbar to start your computer; you use the big button on the front of the box.

5/31/2006 8:01:14 PM

my mom spent an hour and a half trying to send a fax from her computer. Finally, I get tired of listening to her fuss and complain and I walk over there and say "did you plug the phone line into the modem?" She says "I already did. Besides, I don't need a modem to do this..."

I walk over and look at the computer: no modem.

5/31/2006 9:24:06 PM

One of my friends was doing some tech support for something in high school and he said that someone called in saying that "the cup holder on their computer broke off"

He also said he knew someone who tried to burn a CD by putting it in a microwave.

6/1/2006 9:42:58 AM

Today I had someone argue that there should be an easier way to type in all lower case letters with the caps lock on. I told they they could hold shift and the letter and it'd be lower cased, but that was too hard, and for whatever reason he's emotionally attached to the caps lock light.

He also argued that a and @ are the same thing, and when used in a password like apple, they should both be interchangeable for the letter A.

6/1/2006 12:46:18 PM

Quote :

"I have a Catalyst 6509 running CatOS 7.6.5. The switch has been up for 819 days. I'm concerned that this switch may malfunction soon since it has not have had any maintenance (reboot or OS upgrade) for over 2 years. I monitor the switch constantly for errors or issues but I have not found any. I'm not complaining - I'm just concerned that the switch may have an issue sometime in the future since it has been running for such a long period of time. Should I be worried? How long can a Cat 6509 run without any reboots or CatOS upgrades? "

I mean, seriously.

IF IT AINT BROKE, DONT FIX IT.

6/5/2006 11:29:13 AM

You should put some quirks in the next IOS so that these things won't piss people off by being so damned reliable.

[Edited on June 5, 2006 at 12:54 PM. Reason : *]

6/5/2006 12:54:24 PM

^^ these are the people we give support to...

6/5/2006 12:55:17 PM

^^ reminds me of http://thedailywtf.com/forums/thread/74323.aspx

6/5/2006 1:08:22 PM

Quote :

"One of my friends was doing some tech support for something in high school and he said that someone called in saying that "the cup holder on their computer broke off" He also said he knew someone who tried to burn a CD by putting it in a microwave."

These are lies.

6/5/2006 1:35:20 PM

I swear dude, he called me up laughing his ass off directly after the cupholder one.

6/5/2006 1:45:28 PM

Quote :

"You should put some quirks in the next IOS so that these things won't piss people off by being so damned reliable. "

or put like "long uptime is fine! leave me the fuck alone!" when it goes over a certain ammount.


whats funny is in the web administrator for lotus domino, it gives a server uptime. And if its above like 60days it says "Great Uptime! You've got a rock solid server here!"

6/5/2006 2:00:41 PM

The other day, I got this call because of some "CD problem" from AN ECE PROFESSOR. So I head to her office to see what the deal is. She says she can't get her CD out. I opened up the CD rom drive and there is no CD in there. She then proceeds to tell me that it's not in there. Apparently she inserted the cd in the little slit between the zip drive and the cdrom drive. "I thought it was like the cd player in my car."

So I had to open up the case (she also had no idea how to do this), and I found the cd resting on top of the zip drive...

Where do they get these people?

6/13/2006 2:21:59 PM

I'd rather my ECE professor know how electrons flow through conductors than where a CD-ROM plugs into any random gadget...

come to think of it, that's probably why she's the professor and you're the lowly grunt running around doing errands for her

6/13/2006 5:07:44 PM

a computer is not exactly a random gadget. CD-ROMs have been around for quite some time now, people should know how to use them properly. especially people smart enough to teach at a university.

6/13/2006 5:13:23 PM

I strongly disagree.

6/13/2006 6:33:17 PM

apparently

6/13/2006 7:58:59 PM

^^The lack of common logical thought that drove her to push it in a crack is what is scary, not the lack of technical knowledge. For someone dealing with sophisticated equipment and theory, that does not bode well.

6/13/2006 8:02:25 PM

I actually have a lot more interesting stories about fucktard IT people.

It seems the majority of you don't know a god damn thing about development.

6/13/2006 8:03:16 PM

you people

6/13/2006 9:16:35 PM

Excoriator, you are an idiot and need to learn how to defend yourself.

First of all, the fact that she was an ece professor is not the main point. It is a side note that is relevant to the story. Next, what qntmfred said was exactly why I brought this up. The fact that she is a professor in the computer engineering department means that she should have been smart enough to open up a fucking cdrom drive.

As far as this "lowly grunt running around doing errands for her" goes, I do not work for her. The reason why I had to help her is because the computer she uses belongs to me and the people that I do work for. I go to fix crap like that because I am there to protect the computers. I could give a rat's ass for the people that use them. We hand them out for the university, specifically the ece department, to make sure that the professor's can function at work. Don't talk like you know what I do because you don't.

6/13/2006 9:18:18 PM

I did tech support for an open source operating systems company in the area and this one lady would call all the time with the dumbest questions. She literally read the install guide for a week before doing the install which takes all of 20 minutes.

The stupiest call I ever had from her was one day when she called up wanting to know how to read binary data with emacs. After struggling to figure out what she was trying to do, i finally realized that she was trying to open a device driver kernel module in emacs and wanted to know how to get emacs to translate the jumbled garbage she saw into english.

I figured she was wanting to look at the source, so when I mentioned that she would probably want to download the source code, her response was "I'll never be able to understand that".

6/13/2006 11:09:53 PM

oh trust me - i know what you do

Quote :

"I go to fix crap like that"

gg landing that sweet ass job i'm sure the "stupid" professor could only dream of rising to such lofty heights

Quote :

"She literally read the install guide for a week before doing the install which takes all of 20 minutes. "

so somebody actually does RTFM and then that comes back to haunt them in a "tales of the inept" thread... great. you guys are such arrogant dicks - and the thing that makes it so pathetic is that you're working tech support



[Edited on June 15, 2006 at 6:48 AM. Reason : s]

6/15/2006 6:46:06 AM

So what's your excuse for being an arrogant dick, Excoriator?

6/15/2006 6:57:09 AM

I don't look down on people who make an effort to understand computers. And I respect engineering professors, for fuck's sake.

6/15/2006 6:58:16 AM

Gotta look out for your fellow dumbasses. Gotcha.

6/15/2006 7:00:42 AM

You don't look down on people who make an effort to understand computers? So why the fuck are you here being a prick? We "techies" understand our computers and obviously have made much more of an effort than the people we are helping.

And I never said I don't respect my engineering professors. I respect them for the topic that they've studied all of their lives. The knowledge they have on their subject is amazing. However, such remedial tasks as the one I described deserves an insult. Whether or not you feel the same way doesn't mean shit to me. If you don't like this thread, then get the fuck out.

6/15/2006 10:48:00 AM

So... back to the stories.

I just had a guy call in trying to block his best friend's email address. He got some spam for penis enlargement pills and the spam's address spoofed his friend's, and boy was he PISSED.

"I've been friends with the guy for 30+ years and this is how he treats things?"

I explained spam to him (apparently he hadn't seen this before) and he was happy he didn't have to beat the living shit out of his friend

6/19/2006 9:53:24 AM

Quote :

"Gotta look out for your fellow dumbasses. Gotcha."

It's amazing how working tech support gives people a superiority complex.

Especially considering, you know, they're working tech support.

6/19/2006 1:15:54 PM

I'm not sure to whom that comment was directed, but I don't work Tech support. However, if I did, that certianly wouldn't be the reason that I felt superior to douche nozzles like Excoriator. He's just a low level troll.

6/19/2006 1:43:18 PM

He seems to have you all worked up.

So I'd at least give him some credit for that.

6/19/2006 1:50:14 PM

and nacho got you worked up enough to comment on his comments

EVERYONE'S A WINNER!

6/19/2006 1:54:06 PM

^^It's fun trolling a troll. But I guess since that's what you're trying to do right now, you already knew that.

[Edited on June 19, 2006 at 1:57 PM. Reason : ^heh]

6/19/2006 1:56:29 PM

If you were trolling, then you might want to take a few pages out of Excoriator's playbook.

So people will notice.

I only commented because I thought the "I'm smarter than my teacher!!!" mentality went away after high school. Interesting to see I'm wrong.

6/19/2006 2:01:32 PM

set 'em up...

6/19/2006 2:19:21 PM