February 10, 2003
Great moments in tech support

I spent several years doing help desk work, first for a small software company, and then here for the large multinational where I now work. I've always been suspicious of supposedly true help desk war stories involving users who asked where the "any" key is or who used their CD-ROM drive as a cup holder because I never encountered anything remotely like that.

This guy, however, apparently did, and he's got some pictures to prove it. I am duly impressed. If you recognize yourself in any of these pictures, do us all a favor and hire a ten-year-old to do all of your computing for you.

Thanks to Matt for the tip.

Posted by Charles Kuffner on February 10, 2003 to Technology, science, and math | TrackBack
Comments

Did I ever tell you about the person unable to fit their 5-1/4" floppy into the 3-1/2" drive? I took that call while working for the makers of the "Brick"(TM). As incredulous as it sounds, I got a second call from the person later in the day wanting to know why the computer couldn't read the disk. The same disk. Hint: scissors were involved.

Posted by: B. K. Oxley (binkley) on February 10, 2003 1:25 PM

I am not making this up. :-)

For those of you too young to know there was once more than one kind of floppy disk:

And now you might understand why the inflexible 3-1/2" inch plastic case is called "floppy". And what about the ground-breaking 8" disks?

Posted by: B. K. Oxley (binkley) on February 10, 2003 1:28 PM

Ox, in a world long ago and far away, I used to call the 5.25"s floppies and the 3.5" hard disks... and I would get so frustrated when no one knew what I was talking about.

Posted by: R. Alex on February 11, 2003 8:44 AM