7 strangest IT help requests
October 27, 2008 by Valerie HelmbreckPosted in: Communication, Gadgets, IT employment, Special Report
So, your help desk staffer picks up the phone and the user on the line says, “My laptop’s been run over by a truck. What should I do?” Look both ways before you pick up the pieces?
Help desk staff hear it all. From disaster to a comedy of errors, calls from users in distress run the gamut.
A recent survey of CIOs from Robert Half Technologies reveals much of the spectrum. Its results also show what a successful help desk needs to deal with the problems.
Seasoned help desk pros won’t be surprised by the odd questions staffers fielded. Among the most unusual:
- Why isn’t my wireless mouse connected to the computer?
- Can you rearrange my keyboard alphabetically?
- How do I read my e-mail?
- My computer’s telling me to press any key to continue. Where is the ‘any’ key located?
- Can you reset the Internet for me?
- There are animal crackers in my CD-ROM drive.
- Can you build me a robot?
What’s a rep to do when the complaint or request is this dumb? Well, the first trick is to refrain from laughing or simply hanging up.
It’s important for help desk reps to remember that technology most likely isn’t the area of expertise of the caller.
That doesn’t mean users are dumb. They just don’t have the same deep understanding of technology that IT pros have. It’s not their job.
Staying respectful and helpful should be the goal in these cases. Staff attitude can shape appropriate responses, so remind techs that:
- IT workers have a job because others aren’t tech-savvy
- The user is likely stressed because a computer problem’s keeping them from getting their work done, and
- The tech support staff’s job is to solve problems, not pass judgment.
You can help a stressed staff by giving them an outlet for unintended mirth. Try these ideas:
- Create a venue – either a comments box or a social gathering – where staffers can exchange stories and anecdotes.
- Provide regular training on communication techniques, and
- When a problem or question is simple (like an unplugged power cord), staff can make the user feel better by saying, “We love it when problems have a simple solution!”
So what’s the wackiest user request you’ve gotten?
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October 28th, 2008 at 10:33 am
Back in the early 90’s when I was seling and supporting an accounting software program, an older woman called me and asked: “Do I need a computer to run this software?”
Really.
I was so tempted to tell her No, the toaster version was coming out any day – but we were frequently monitored, and I liked pulling a paycheck!!
October 28th, 2008 at 10:43 am
My desktop! It’s gone! Fix it! (we log into the computer)….”sir, please log into the network to get to your desktop” (the guy has already been here for several months..I’m guessing that he never logs out at night…)
My keyboard! It’s typing weird things! (we walk over to the computer, and remove the book that was laying on the CTRL key)
October 28th, 2008 at 10:53 am
The worst one I have seen logged on my help desk while I was doing a review was the user couldn’t get their printer to work. Said the computer couldn’t see the printer so they turned the monitor to face it, and it still wouldn’t print. I don’t think anyone at our companies christmas party could stop laughing. The users identity was hidden from everyone else. It was classic.
October 28th, 2008 at 10:54 am
Back in the 70’s we were pioneering connections. Up until that point it had been all keypunched cards – lots and lots of keypunched cards! But it was new technology to be connected to another building, and we’d drop the connection a couple of times a week. We had a call list that we would go thru, and usually the person on the other end would ask what the problem was. The quick and easy response was to tell them that we had a ‘bug in the system’…until we realized we were freaking too many people out because they thought we meant real bugs!
October 28th, 2008 at 10:55 am
“That doesn’t mean users are dumb. They just don’t have the same deep understanding of technology that IT pros have. It’s not their job.”
This incorrect on many levels. If your job requires you use a computer then it IS your job to know how to use the basic functionality of the machine. It’s no different than, say, a forklift driver, carpenter, or electrician. You better damn well know how to use the tools of your trade or you should not have that job.
The “odd” questions you listed have nothing to do with a “deep understanding” of IT. Questions like those, and others like them, are from people with no business being in front of a computer. Computer and software makers go out of their way to make computers easy to use. Common sense and the ability to think for one’s self are really all that’s needed to get started. If these simple traits escape you find another line of work.
October 28th, 2008 at 10:56 am
I worked with a frustrated remote user for an hour and a half to troubleshoot a WiFi Internet connection. I methodically guided the user, a friend whose home office I am familiar with, through shutting down the WiFi connected laptop, the WiFi access point, router and cable modem. Then asked the user to borrow the Ethernet cable from the desktop computer and use it to connect the laptop to the router, thereby testing the internet connection before the WiFi access point. She had not thought of testing that. Next I guided the user through powering up the cable modem, waiting for it to stabilize; power up the router, wait for it to stabilize; power up the now hard wire connected laptop; ensure the internet connection worked through the wired ethernet connnection; shut down the laptop & disconnect the Ethernet cable; power up the WiFi access point; power up the laptop; find the WiFi access point and ensure that was now working. After that methodical process was successful the user stated.
“I did all that. Why didn’t it work when I did that?”
I responded that I could only speak to the process that I had personally guided her successfully through and could not guess what had failed before.
Um, ok, she patiently waited for each piece of equipment to power on and stabilize in methodical order as well as tested the internet connection with an Ethernet cable upstream from the WiFi access point?
October 28th, 2008 at 11:09 am
I was working at Motorola in customer support for cell phone (OK not IT but it is technology) – we had a mute button on the phone system I after what it was for the manager laughed and said you will see. First few phones pretty standard questions – How do I change my battery? How do you save a number?
Then the goods one starting coming in –
*my phone must be broken I dont hear a dial tone
*my phone doesnt receive calls, I asked the caller if the phone was on, he stated no because then the battery warns down.
*what do you mean I pay for collect calls on my cell phone
*caller stated the phone didnt work anymore, I asked if she had properly charged the phone – her response you have to charge the phone?
I had fun working there a got a least 1 good laugh everday.
October 28th, 2008 at 11:18 am
i had a moron, i mean user who couldnt understand why her white font on her screen wouldn’t print on white paper.
took over 30 minutes to explain to her. still gives me nightmares.
October 28th, 2008 at 11:46 am
Just this year…
A user was under scrutiny by his manager due to lack of productivity. He blamed it on IT (which is me) because I gave him a laptop without Microsoft Windows. Instead, he claimed, the operating system was something called Vostro.
It was a Dell Vostro laptop running Windows XP Pro.
October 28th, 2008 at 11:50 am
The best 3 I had to deal with:
1.) Apparently, a child can make bologna fit a CD-ROM tray.
2.) A child can also attempt to copy a fruit rollup.
3.) An adult Harvard grad Attorney can water a plant on top of a CRT monitor. This resulted in the question, “my monitor is on fire – should I turn it off”. I wanted to tell her to stoke it & we’ll make smores.
October 28th, 2008 at 12:14 pm
Back in the late 80’s when I worked for a computer reseller, one of our service techs came back from an installation call and was laughing. He said the customer had seen the DOS software package and said, “So it comes with directions for Do’s but what about the directions for the Don’ts.” Then we had another customer that had tried folding a 5 1/4″ floppy to fit into the new 3.5″ diskette drive. Ahh, customer service!
October 28th, 2008 at 12:19 pm
A worker in our legal department was having a problem. Her internet was down. I sat at her computer and looked over to my left noticing that the internet wire was unplugged. I plugged it in and it worked just fine. I am a miracle worker. Not bad for an Office Manager, huh? We have no IT department.
October 28th, 2008 at 12:20 pm
When external dial up modems were first being used, I had a manager who wanted to use the computer behind me – when the system dailed the network and it started ringing – she leaned over to the modem and said “hello? hello?”……
October 28th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
My favourite happened just recently. I had an end user tell me that his keyboard was typing all kinds of crazy things. Even in trying to IM me to tell me about his problem, he would get strange characters taking over what he intended to type. I walked into his office and asked him to reproduce the error. Another end user was standing there and said to him “What did you do with that wireless keyboard that came with your laptop?” Turned out he stuffed it in a box under his desk, but left it turned on. Every time he moved his chair, he hit the box, setting off the wireless keyboard. We all had a good laugh over that one.
October 28th, 2008 at 12:38 pm
I’m sorry, you folks get paid to do this job? What hysterical stuff!
I take it back. Some users are just dumb, no getting around it.
October 28th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
These are “strangest?”
“# Can you rearrange my keyboard alphabetically?” I hope they said “yes.” it would be a simple request.
Run over by a truck is also easy. “Pick up the pieces. In the morning **** will deliver a new laptop to you and a shipping box. Place the pieces in the box and ship them to us.”
My strange requests were things like, “We had an application, we have a couple old reports, it took 5 people a year to write. Please write a replacement in 2 weeks.” To which my boss was happy to assure them that I would have it ready….”
With the exception of “Cna you build me a robot?” these are all pretty tame.
October 28th, 2008 at 12:56 pm
I had a client that complained that they could not connect to the network. Since we had recently installed WIFI they thought they did not need the network cable connected to their desktop after they rearranged their office.
October 28th, 2008 at 1:02 pm
While working for a major Computer Technical Support group in the late 90’s. We always had those people asking what they were doing that was illigal- after the computer was saying ‘the program performed an illegal operation’. You always know the ex-fellon’s who were paranoid… They would say, ‘what did I do! I can go back there…Im trying to live my life straight! Im telling you, I DIDN’T DO IT!’
Or in one case an older guy called in asking if we help him with his screen flickering and shaking for some wierd reason… and he even ask if I could ’see’ them through their monitor. This seemed strainge to me he would ask such an odd question.
I never looked at it that way before so I told him, so I started to kidd him a bit… ‘.. let me look around the room to see if there is anything interfearing with your computer signal.’ I ask him. After a long pause said with victorious excitment – ‘AHah!- right there! Behind that wall in the conjoining room!- go look at the power socket behind the wall where that power cord is plugged in, ..follow it to the souce!’
The guy’s voice seemed to get very nervous and he said.’ Holy $#@!! …I have to go’.
Even strainger, he didn’t even say ‘goodbye’ for some reason before he hung up and I never got the change to tell him I was just joking around.
October 28th, 2008 at 2:13 pm
How about the guy who complains that the cupholder on his desktop is broken… Huh? Yea, when I press the buttonon the front of my desktop, the cupholder flashes a green light and makes a bunch of clicking noises, but doesn’t slide out.!! :\
Remember, there are no stupid questions, just plenty of inquisitive idiots!
October 28th, 2008 at 2:14 pm
I have a few strange ones:
1) While working at an ISP, I spent an hour on the phone with a customer explaining to her the Internet was not evil. She finally came to the office to get her packet and be on her way. About 30 minutes later the phone rang and my skin crawled. It was her. She proceeded to tell me that the Internet broke her computer. You see every time she typed in her password all she could see was “little stars” in the password field.
2) One more from the ISP. One gentleman called and asked why he could not get on the Internet. I asked him what his username was and he paused and said he did not receive one. Since all users are required to fill out the application and request a username I was unsure how he could have forgotten this. Turns out he just thought he could get online and never pay for it.
3) I worked in an IT department at a factory. A user called and said her computer reads to press any key to continue. She asked me what she should do. I told her that my guess would be to press any key and she would continue. Sure enough, she asked where it was. I told her to press the “N” key and the “E” key at the same time. She was so impressed that the message meant N-E that I became her hero.
October 28th, 2008 at 7:41 pm
Got a call from a user saying his phone wasn’t working. Phones, IT? For some reason all technology is seen as falling under IT’s purview–go figure. I asked for more information. “Well, Greg was rearranging this weekend. He was carrying the phone, tripped, and it got stuck.” I swear, I couldn’t help it; it just popped out. “Stuck where???” I asked with vision of Greg with a very inconveniently positioned phone in his person. Turns out the off-hook button was jammed.
Got a frantic call from a user that their computer just quit. It was locked up, wouldn’t do anything and deadline was fast approaching. After walking her through the most common causes such as loose keyboard or mouse connections, I agreed to come back into the office since I’m only 5 minutes away. After a hard crashing and reboot, sure enough, the clock was ticking but the keyboard and mouse wouldn’t work. I picked up the dead one on their desk in order to replace it. Liquid poured out of the keyboard! “Why didn’t you tell me you dumped a Coke on it?” I asked. Her response? “Was that important?”
October 28th, 2008 at 8:56 pm
As former chief nerd at a radio station, I always seemed to have the most fun [read: horror] dealing with the sales department. Typically more emotionally oriented right-brainers, critical thinking wasn’t exactly their forte. And neither were computers.
One day, the highest-selling executive rushed into my office in a panic. “I can’t get into our database because I accidently unchecked the ‘remember this password’ box. Now I can’t remember my password!”
Sitting down at his cubicle, I paused to look up at his goofy mug smiling down on me. Placing the cursor into the password field, I thought to myself, “WWJD: What Would Jimmy* Do?”
On a hunch, I proceeded to crack his password: “jimmy”. No rainbow tables, no cheating by looking at the Post-It note which was inevitably under his keyboard.
Sometimes, you just have to know your audience.
*Names have been changes to protect Jack’s identity.
October 31st, 2008 at 8:13 am
I was fielding a call from a retail store. The person called up was a teenager working there. He says
Our internet is down and our credit cards arent working. I asked him to start looking for a hub in their back room. I described it to him as little box that says 3COM on it. He said hold on, I’ll look on the shelf for it. Let me go get something to stand on. He comes back. “I can’t see it anywhere” I don’t think I have one. O wait. I’m standing on it. Let me look at it. Well it looks pretty broken.
I think this was my best call.
November 1st, 2008 at 11:58 am
Two PC users on the same computer had been at war. One on 1st shift the other more savvy on 2nd. Their issue with each other was the location and what desktop shortcuts would be present on the desktop.
The helpdesk one morning received a call from the 1st shift operator. I am double clicking my icons but they don’t work.
Deskside support reported the 2nd shift operator had created a bitmap image of the desktop the way he liked it. Then set it as the desktop wall paper and deleted the actual icon shortcuts.
It never dawned on the 1st shift user he was only double clicking on a picture.
November 11th, 2008 at 12:26 pm
While working for a college as the Desktop Support Tech, I would get a call from one of the Department secretaries about every two weeks. Her disk drive would not read her 5.25″ floppy. So I would go out and look at the machine, clean the drive, and test it with a floppy that I carried with me for testing. It would work fine and I would leave. This went on for about 2 months and I finally got tired of it, so on my last trip I asked her to test the drive. She sat down at her desk and removed the floppy from the filing cabnet…where it was held with a magnet…..
At the same University, the library had a collection of magazines on CD’s. They took the time to place the CD’s in the cartridges (this was in the 90’s and they had purchased the Pioneer CD-ROMs that used the CD cartridges to feed the disks into the drive) and then they taped them closed and labeled them with instruction not to remove the CD’s from the cases and to insert the case this end first. Now mind you this was a University that specialized in Masters degrees. I received 2-3 calls a week from the library to come and remove the CD from the 5.25″ floppy drives because Masters students cannot read.
January 14th, 2009 at 6:27 pm
Cleaning up my email I came across the 7 strangest IT help requests and 25 responses. As a user I am fairly savvy on how things work but reading IT’s side of things and how stupid they think users can be at times reminded me of the time I worked for a privately owned global software logistics company.
One day some coworkers had an email pop up that was from the director of one of the IT groups, the email was to his boss demanding that he be paid $600k a year and get 5% of a business he helped develop. I never received the email because our email crashed within a minute of the first email popping up. It took awhile but the email came back up. We received an email from the President of the Company stating the someone hacked the director’s email and sent the email as no one made that kind of money at the company.
Word quickly spread through the company that the director was seen running down the hall to the server room and ripping out the cables connecting the email servers to the network. He had sent his email to “All” instead of “Allen”, his boss. He was gone two weeks later.
February 24th, 2009 at 11:48 am
I work in the IT department of a bank. We switched to bio-metric logons because of password problems with most of our users, they could never remember them. So one day we get a call from an end user stating that she was locked out, this happens with four unsuccesful attempts, and we unlock her. We get the same call two more times. So I decide to go over and see what is happening. The user has band aids on her fingers and can not figure out why her fingerprint is not being read. We keep a file in the IT department of some of the more bizarre and strange stories that we have encountered and after ten years it is over 25 pages.
February 25th, 2009 at 11:53 am
For all of you who are not in-the-know, here is a great website that shows that even IT people hate the help desk…..
“Chronicles of George”
http://chroniclesofgeorge.nanc.com/
Read the explanation, then click “Jump to Page 1″ on the left.
June 30th, 2009 at 1:59 pm
This is from almost 25 years ago but still one of my favorites. The VP of Manufacturing called us because his printer wasn’t printing. Turns out the printer cable was disconnected. My colleague was having fun with him and told him that all his data had just poured on the floor instead of going to the printer AND HE ACTUALLY LOOKED AT THE FLOOR!
Not two months later, we walked in and this same VP was under his desk looking for the token because he read that you needed a token to maintain the network connection and his network connection was down. Although this guy could be an aggravation, he provided the IT dept with a lot of cheap entertainment!
November 3rd, 2009 at 9:36 am
How about we drop this whole “stupid user” spiel? Most of these old stories are urban myths or deliberate jokes.
All of us, no matter how trivial our jobs, can make somebody feel stupid if we want to.
If your job stresses you, find a more acceptable way of dealing with it than sneering at the people who indirectly pay your salary.
November 3rd, 2009 at 9:57 am
WOW! Touchy, Yngvild?
The theme here is not “demean the user”, it’s “relate stupid user stories”…. of people who demean themselves. These are people who defy common sense and / or logic in order to cement their infamy. Think of it as an electronic version of the Darwin Award.
Contrary to your statement, “most of these old stories are urban myths or deliberate jokes”, I count two jokes and one urban myth — although the “hide the desktop icons” joke never gets old, and I have been doing it for over 15 years myself.
Lighten up, my friend!