Computer Issues

1. Some people can't figure out the mouse. Tamra Eagle, an AST technical support supervisor, says one customer complained that her mouse was hard to control with the "dust cover" on. The cover turned out to be the plastic bag the mouse was packaged in.
2. Dell technician Wayne Zieschang says one of his customers held the mouse and pointed it at the screen, all the while clicking madly. The customer got no response because the mouse works only if it's moved over a flat surface.
3. Disk drives are another bugaboo. Compaq technician Brent Sullivan says a customer was having trouble reading word-processing files from his old diskettes. After troubleshooting for magnets and heat failed to diagnose the problem, Mr. Sullivan asked what else was being done with the diskette. The customer's response: "I put a label on the diskette, roll it into the typewriter..."
4. At AST, another customer dutifully complied with a technician's request that she send in a copy of a defective floppy disk. A letter from the customer arrived a few days later, along with a Xerox copy of the floppy.
5. At Dell, a technician advised his customer to put his troubled floppy back in the drive and "close the door." Asking the technician to "hold on," the customer put the phone down and was heard walking over to shut the door to his room. The technician meant the door to his floppy drive.
6. The software inside the computer can be equally befuddling. A Dell customer called to say he couldn't get his computer to fax anything. After 40 minutes of troubleshooting, the technician discovered the man was trying to fax a piece of paper by holding it in front of the monitor screen and hitting the "send" key.
7. Another Dell customer needed help setting up a new program, so Dell technician Gary Rock referred him to the local Egghead. "Yeah, I got me a couple of friends," the customer replied. When told Egghead was a software store, the man said, "Oh! I thought you meant for me to find a couple of geeks."
8. Not realizing how fragile computers can be, some people end up damaging parts beyond repair. A Dell customer called to complain that his keyboard no longer worked. He had cleaned it, he said, filling up his tub with soap and water and soaking his keyboard for a day, and then removing all the keys and washing them individually. Computers make some people paranoid.
9. A Dell technician, Morgan Vergara, says he once calmed a man who became enraged because "his computer had told him he was bad and an invalid." Mr. Vergara patiently explained that the computer's "bad command" and "invalid" responses shouldn't be taken personally.
10. These days PC-help technicians increasingly find themselves taking on the role of amateur psychologists. Mr. Shuler, the Dell technician, who once worked as a psychiatric nurse, says he defused a potential domestic fight by soothingly talking a man through a computer problem after the man had screamed threats at his wife and children in the background.
11. There are also the lonely hearts who seek out human contact, even if it happens to be a computer techie. One man from New Hampshire calls Dell every time he experiences a life crisis. He gets a technician to walk him through some contrived problem with his computer, apparently feeling uplifted by the process.

Bill Gates Hard Drive

Q: Did you hear that Bill Gates bought the world-wide rights to Viagra?
A: He's renaming it MICROHARD.

Computer Experts

Two groups of computer experts were set up in order to find out whether a computer is male or female: one group was male, and the other group was female.
The group of women reported that computers should be refereed to as "HE" because:

1. In order to get their attention you have to turn them on.
2. They have a lot of data but are still clueless.
3. They are supposed to help you solve problems, but half the time they are the problem.
4. As soon as you commit to one, you realize that if you had waited a little longer, you could have had a newer and better model.

The group of men reported that computers should be refered to as "SHE" because:

1. No one, but, the creator understands their logic.
2. The native language they use to talk to other computers is incomprehensible to anyone else.
3. Even your smallest mistakes are stored in long term memory for later retrieval.
4. As soon as you make a commitment to one, you find yourself spending half your paycheck on accessories for it.