Stupid user story

[Prismhead]

I've been doing desktop support for over 6 years now. He is probably the best story I have....it happened today.

I go to help a user today. He is having trouble doing the whole copying and pasting thing in Word. So, I help him with that. Then I watch him start to work on his document. He goes to indent a sentence and he starts to use the space bar. I tell him to use the TAB key. He is surprised by this. He takes out the spaces and hits the TAB key. "Cool!" he says. I never did that before.

He then says, "you will probably laugh at me when I tell you how I centered the title across the screen".

I said, "You used the space bar to move it over until it was centered...and you just eye-balled it...right?"

He says..."Yeah", then, and I am not kidding, he pulls a ruler out of his desk and holds it up to his monitor...."Then I check it to make sure I centered it".

I can't imagine the look I had on my face. I could feel it though.

I said. "There is a easier way". We took out the spaces and hit the "Center" button on the toolbar and his title centered.

He took out his ruler again to check it.

"Yup, that works. I knew there must have been a button or something to do that, but I could not figure it out, so I have just been doing it the other way, but this is easier."

At that point I just left.

 

[Xanikk999]

I have to admit i didnt know about the tab thing until i was like 12 or 13.

I knew alot about computers except the microsoft software suite. I never used it because all i used computers for is to play games and surf the net.

 

[kingjoshi]

A lady (my dad's friend) called over computer problems. She's using Windows 98 and she can't get the Internet to work or the printer installed. How the heck am I supposed to fix that remotely?

Turns out she didn't have the keyboard plugged in so that's why she couldn't type the URL. I told her how to download the drivers for the printers and I assumed that worked because she stopped calling. :sighs:

 

[Maniacal]

People = Stupid, well, not so much stupid as ignorance and naiveness.

 

[Genocidicbunny]

The stupidest ive heard of is people not being able to turn on their computer. They say they have everything attached and ready to use, but some cant find the power button and some just cant turn it on. In most cases they have just forgotten to plyug the computer in

 

[kingjoshi]

One case a guy called tech support. He didn't know what was wrong. He said the computer wouldn't come on. After much discussion, (I forget the details), it was revealed that there was a power outage in the block. Apparently the user was unaware computers need electricity which cannot be supplied during a power outage.

So instead of informing the user on this, the tech support asked him to put the computer back in the original box. They said it was serious and to return it and tell them there is a "user error".

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

One case a guy called tech support. He didn't know what was wrong. He said the computer wouldn't come on. After much discussion, (I forget the details), it was revealed that there was a power outage in the block. Apparently the user was unaware computers need electricity which cannot be supplied during a power outage.

So instead of informing the user on this, the tech support asked him to put the computer back in the original box. They said it was serious and to return it and tell them there is a "user error".

That's an urban legend. I can't find the Snopes for it, but the upshot was that it was a woman, and the tech support guy knew her, and so he couldn't make fun of her. Also, they ended up getting married.