What is the dumbist customer comment/question you've heard?

[chrisban35]

One of the CRAZIEST aspects that we technicians deal with comes from an early "belief" being established, and then having to deal with demystifying that belief.... the WORST, is IT personnel... CLEARLY they're the superior smarty pants of any "technology" and you and I are mere minions upon the heap of electronic components... LOL They drop their jaws when I whip out my certifications, and let them know I've been an IT professional for over 35 years! I then tell them, not to worry, its just an ID ten tee error..... They ask, what's that? I say an ID ten tee error... Looking confused, I write it down for them in marker on a piece of blank paper... "ID10T error"...

Reminds me of one customer we had a while back when internet based phones were just being used, think Vonage. Well we had a customer with a desktop copier with a fax option. Got a call to fix it since they could not send and receive faxes to some long distance numbers and some local numbers too. I get there and test it by sending to our office. Get our secretary to return send since it worked fine. send a test to one of their numbers and connected fine and printed the confirmation page. So I had them sign the paperwork and then left. And explained that any machine that can send and receive locally is working fine they probably had phone problems. So I wrote a bill since they were not under contract and left. Had to go back twice more. Third time I actually used their fax to dial my cell phone. And surprise got a "unknown caller" message on my cell display. Showed it to the office manager and asked if I could call one of the offices they were unable to send to. Yeap that company had been getting so many spam faxes that they put a block on all calls with an "unknown caller or caller id blocked" on their phones so they could avoid getting the spammers sending fifty to a hundred pages of spam faxes with their computer software at night. We actually had to do it too on our office fax because one holiday weekend came in on Monday and the received fax tray was full of faxes from a cruise company sending "vacation package deals" I finally explained that their setup instructions actually explained that the fax machine needed to be set up on a single use phone line(which they actually had when we sold and installed the fax machine six months earlier) and not as part of a computerized phone system no matter what their computer expert said. If they had a problem then he was the one to "fix the program and the computer hardware/software." Their fax machine was working properly. And yes they called him and he insisted I come back and prove it to him otherwise we had to fix a defective fax machine. I flat out told the customer if I came back and had to waste time telling the computer expert when she could show him the set up instructions herself that they were going to pay for my time. I had several more problems with the computer jerk. Until he finally switched his base of operations out of our area and we did not hear from him again.

[allan]

One of the CRAZIEST aspects that we technicians deal with comes from an early "belief" being established, and then having to deal with demystifying that belief.... the WORST, is IT personnel... CLEARLY they're the superior smarty pants of any "technology" and you and I are mere minions upon the heap of electronic components... LOL They drop their jaws when I whip out my certifications, and let them know I've been an IT professional for over 35 years! I then tell them, not to worry, its just an ID ten tee error..... They ask, what's that? I say an ID ten tee error... Looking confused, I write it down for them in marker on a piece of blank paper... "ID10T error"...

I call it a PEBCAK error.

[gneebore]

One of the CRAZIEST aspects that we technicians deal with comes from an early "belief" being established, and then having to deal with demystifying that belief.... the WORST, is IT personnel... CLEARLY they're the superior smarty pants of any "technology" and you and I are mere minions upon the heap of electronic components... LOL They drop their jaws when I whip out my certifications, and let them know I've been an IT professional for over 35 years! I then tell them, not to worry, its just an ID ten tee error..... They ask, what's that? I say an ID ten tee error... Looking confused, I write it down for them in marker on a piece of blank paper... "ID10T error"...

Even more fun is when the "IT computer expert" can not fix a printing problem with a simple parallel port hook up. Had one customer upgrade their computers and the new windows 2000 did not have printer drivers for a very early electronic typewriter/printer that we sold them earlier. I was actually there setting the ip address on their new copier we sold them to match what the computer guy wanted. The IT specialist just about had a cow when they asked him to let me set up the typewriter instead of making him figure it out. All I did was tell them to go ahead and plug the typewriter cable into a pc. And told him to go to the webpage for the typewriter manufacturer and download the latest drivers from there. Now the thing I wondered about was how did mr. expert network computer guy not know something as simple as going to the manufacturers website?

[Lagonda]

Just had one of our IT help desk kiddies tell me that a customer was having trouble double siding labels and asked what setting they should use.
Was tempted to tell him that they should use the same settings for duplexing transparencies but since I'm in enough poo here at the moment I sent him back to ascertain exactly what the customer is trying to do.

[gneebore]

Just had one of our IT help desk kiddies tell me that a customer was having trouble double siding labels and asked what setting they should use.
Was tempted to tell him that they should use the same settings for duplexing transparencies but since I'm in enough poo here at the moment I sent him back to ascertain exactly what the customer is trying to do.

Had couple customers that wondered why labels always seemed to jam in the copier when they ran through laser printers without any problems. Had to explain to one customer twice that the 50 copy per minute was too fast for he gummed label sheets and actually was too hot so the glue would melt and the labels would peel off inside the copier. Yeap they had one operator that insisted the labels could be used in the copier and they should print them with the copier since it would print the whole fifty sheets in a minute instead of waiting twenty minutes for the old slow hp 2 to print them. The second time they called to have us clear the jams we actually had to replace the transfer belt in the color copier because it ripped when the gummed label folded again and stuck between a feed guide and the transfer belt. Had to let the office manager go back with the parts and explain the bill to them since they thought it should be covered under contract. Just for my protection when getting packed up on the first call I actually took the discarded top of the box the labels were in. In the instructions right there was the warning to not use on any high speed printers

[roho]

Just had one of our IT help desk kiddies tell me that a customer was having trouble double siding labels and asked what setting they should use.
Was tempted to tell him that they should use the same settings for duplexing transparencies but since I'm in enough poo here at the moment I sent him back to ascertain exactly what the customer is trying to do.

I HAVE HAD some one try to run duplex transparencies...... analogue days at a Provincial government office, University educated no doubt. Asked me in a upset tone why the copier had no settings for 2 sided transparency.

[Bix]

Only my customers come to me asking for advice on how to repair their microwave because I'm able to repair the printer?


Yesterday a customer asked me if seeing a 1080p movie on a 720p display could burn the pixels

[gneebore]

I HAVE HAD some one try to run duplex transparencies...... analogue days at a Provincial government office, University educated no doubt. Asked me in a upset tone why the copier had no settings for 2 sided transparency.

There was one school here that actually did duplex a set of transparencies in an early hp 4 duplex printer. Because it could duplex and they wold save money by using half the transparencies printed single sided. We were not the service company for them on that printer. A friend of mine was and he had a riot telling me how they complained they could not read the transparencies when they put them in the overhead projector. He actually had to take a clear sheet and draw on both sides with a felt tip pen and show them what they were trying do with the printed transparencies. One dingbat actually argued with him that they were only showing one side at a time. So why does show the one on the bottom alomg with the top of the page? And people wonder why the kids are not learning anything

[NeoMatrix]

Only my customers come to me asking for advice on how to repair their microwave because I'm able to repair the printer?


Yesterday a customer asked me if seeing a 1080p movie on a 720p display could burn the pixels

Re. Pixel burns
Seriously....?

I would have said to the customer,all those cute and cuddly animals on the display have pixel burns on them.
You'd better ring the RSPCA, an inform them about pixel burn cruelty to animals...

[tonerhead]

My favorite of recent is everyone in office can print/scan except Dick. So Dick calls us to fix the copier because he can't print/scan. This is an IT issue Dick, have you spoken to your IT dept? He argues his computer is working better than ever with everything and being it is a print/scan issue it must be the copier at fault. Tell you what Dick, I will check the copier and fix your print/scan issue, however, if I have to do anything on your computer or network, it is billable, how does that sound? Not acceptable after all they have a maintenance plan. I arrive, look at machine log. Nothing wrong with copier Dick, do you want to print/scan? I would like to adjust your computer Dick, do you want to roll the dice? If I can get you to print/scan you will be charged, if not, no charge. GUESS WHAT???

That chicken Sh!t, said guess I will have IT check into it further. BTW Dick is not the real name, just the nickname I gave him.