This is from a time when I started providing technical support. It’s been doing the rounds ever since.
“Word Perfect Technical support; may I help you?”
“Yes, well, I’m having trouble with WordPerfect.”
“What sort of trouble?”
“Well, I was just typing along, and all of a sudden the words went away.”
“Went away?”
“They disappeared.”
“Hmm. So what does your screen look like now?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“It’s blank; it won’t accept anything when I type.”
“Are you still in WordPerfect, or did you get out?”
“How do I tell?”
“Can you see the C: prompt on the screen?”
“What’s a sea-prompt?”
“Never mind. Can you move the cursor around on the screen?”
“There isn’t any cursor: I told you, it won’t accept anything I type.”
“Does your monitor have a power indicator?”
“What’s a monitor?”
“It’s the thing with the screen on it that looks like a TV. Does it have a little light that tells you when it’s on?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, then look on the back of the monitor and find where the power cord goes into it. Can you see that?”
……”Yes, I think so.”
“Great! Follow the cord to the plug, and tell me if it’s plugged into the wall.”
……”Yes, it is.”
“When you were behind the monitor, did you notice that there were two cables plugged into the back of it, not just one?”
“No.”
“Well, there are. I need you to look back there again and find the other cable.”
……”Okay, here it is.”
“Follow it for me, and tell me if it’s plugged securely into the back of your computer.”
“I can’t reach it.”
“Uh huh. Well, can you see if it is?”
“No.”
“Even if you maybe put your knee on something and lean way over?”
“Oh, it’s not because I don’t have the right angle-it’s because it’s dark.”
“Dark?”
“Yes-the office light is off, and the only light I have is coming in from the window.”
“Well, turn on the office light then.”
“I can’t.”
“No? Why not?”
“Because there’s a power outage.”
“A power… A power outage? Aha! Okay, we’ve got it licked now. Do you still have the boxes and manuals and packing stuff your computer came in?”
“Well, yes. I keep them in the closet.”
“Good! Go get them and unplug your system and pack it up just like it was when you got it. Then take it back to the store you bought it from.”
“Really! Is it that bad?”
“Yes, I’m afraid it is.”
“Well, all right then, I suppose. What do I tell them?”
“Tell them you’re too stupid to own a computer.”
That ones a classic for sure. This is like pre-mobile phone era, so it would have been a corded phone too (non-voip), another rarity
good story! honestly got a good chuckle out of me
Please tell me this is made up 😭
I first heard this in the early 1990’s when I was working on a computer helpdesk. By that time, Word Perfect was no longer popular, having been steadily replaced by Windows and Word.
My hope in humanity tells me it’s made up, but my experience interacting with users of the tools I coded tells me it’s very plausible.
When I did tech support for a UK telecoms firm, that was the easy way to fuck off an awkward customer with any kind of connectivity problem - stability, speed, whatever. Generally, people’s routers were connected to the same NTE as the landline.
“So what we’re going to do, is replace the ADSL filter, see if it’s a gubbed filter, it’s a nice cheap and easy fix. Can you remove the filter from the wall socket please?”
click
Beautiful.
ADSL filter thats pretty damn funny! its like the blinker fluid equivalent of tech support
This is actually true though. With ADSL you needed a filter to split out the ADSL line with the phone line.
Go figure i did not know that
Every day’s a school day.
In fairness, it’s nothing short of sheer voodoo what they managed to do with the simple copper loop. As usual though, it was the rural communities that felt the pinch (and the gains) more than most though.
The chances of it being the filter were stupidly low, and I don’t think I ever had a case of the filter being at fault - but it was one of those potential issues that would make a customer look stupid (and £120 lighter) if BT tipped up and declared it a customer equipment fault.
In newer homes (at the time), there were NTE faceplates that had a filter built it, with individual ports for telephone and for data telephony cables. They didn’t last long though. Maybe they were stupidly expensive in comparison, maybe BT could see the fibre future and stopped producing them.
What you might be missing from the story is that the customer was more likely than not using a landline to call technical support.
The ADSL filter sits between the telephone line from the street and the telephone.
Disconnecting the filter is equivalent to yanking the telephone socket out the wall and if you do that during the call … no more call.
At this time many people were already using cordless phones and mobile phones were making inroads, so the link between the call dropping and removing the filter might not be immediately obvious to a clueless end user.
Source: I have had the misfortune of phoning telco helpdesk services where this kind activity would absolutely happen.
Yeah, people using mobile phones to contact businesses wasn’t really a thing, partly because mobile usage was still taking off when I was in the biz, but mainly because calls to freephone numbers weren’t actually free (or included in package minutes) at the time.
One of my best memories is going to my local Radio Shack because I needed something plus I had a crush on the girl who worked the counter.
While there, she took a call and answered like she was supposed to:
“Thanks for calling Radio Shack. You’ve got questions, we’ve got answers.”
After a brief pause for the other person speaking:
“Why is that a dangerous slogan, sir?”
Another pause:
“We never said it would be an answer you liked.”
Did everyone clap after?
Are you implying people don’t make jokes like that?
At the customers expense? No they don’t.
I used to all the time when I worked retail. I’m making fun of the company more than the customer and most of them understand that in my experience
Snot Flickerman never heard that conversation. You don’t have to defend them.
And you never had any fun at a job before, got it.
Not at the customers expense to thier face, no. Im not an asshole like that.
some BOFH energy
Ahhh my eyes… All white.
But yes, good memories.
Dark Reader extension does wonders.
There is no extension when I open the link directly from inside my Lemmy app (connect). There is also no ad block.
thank you for sharing i had no idea of this. and its really fucking funny shit! i love this kind of humor!
I had someone do this at work once. It was hilarious. But i had to tell them to never do it again.
It was cathartic though.
