From a friend of mine whose work has just switched from phone to email support (lucky blighter).

[reynardo.livejournal.com]

The setup: At my current place of work another tech had sent a customer a zip file with a patch to fix an issue, customer has replied saying they can't open the file so the emails continue
---------------
Tech:
Hi,
You will need an application such as winzip to open the .zip file.
It is a free program you can download to view the .zip
www.winzip.com
Kind regards,
Customer Service
-----------------
Customer:
I am using my work computer is it possible if you can fax it to 02-XXXX-XXXX
I can not download any programs.
-----------------
Tech:

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGGGGGGGHHHHH!!!!

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/hub_/]

maybe you should tell him to flip the laptop down and shake to reset it... like a etch-a-sketch.

[gholam.livejournal.com]

Are they using Windows 98, or a similarly ancient flavor of *nix? Because as far as I'm aware, everything from 2000 onward has native zip support...

[canray.livejournal.com]

Windows 3.0. :-P

[reynardo.livejournal.com]

I'll thank you not to use that sort of language in here.

[canray.livejournal.com]

DOS 4.01.

[loosechanj.livejournal.com]

4.3 BSD.

[brotherflounder]

OS/2 1.1

[reynardo.livejournal.com]

The product isn't supported for any OS except 2000 and Xp, so unlikely.

Customer stupidty, however, extends across every OS.

[canray.livejournal.com]

Stupidity knows no race, creed, location, financial situation, or operating system.

Stupidity is.

[pixelchik.livejournal.com]

Stupidity is everywhere!! Aaah!

[snarl817.livejournal.com]

Print out a hex dump and fax it to him. Tell him he needs to type EVERYTHING in EXACTLY, or it won't work. Close the ticket with, "Faxed the patch to the customer"

:D

[reynardo.livejournal.com]

Your answer. Your icon. Your lj profile. I think I'm in love.

(Alas, my dance card is already overbooked, but I'm adding you to my friends' list. Entirely up to you, though, if you want to add back).

[shirenomad]

No, no. "Sent the patch to the customer in the manner requested."

(Other than that, I applaud your evil. And your love of Abby.)

[manuka.livejournal.com]

Kinda lame to recommend winzip which nags you to register, instead of one of the F/OSS apps that work equally well (such as 7-zip)

[sigurther.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I was gonna say, technically speaking, winzip is not free ;)

[kerberos.livejournal.com]

Don't people know UUencode anymore? 8)

UUencode, fax, have the client OCR scan it and UUdecode it. *GRIN*

[greylady.livejournal.com]

I say you write "WinZip.exe" on a piece of paper and fax it over.

Of course, the boss might not find that amusing.

[superbus.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't even recommend WinZip anyway; if a customer of mine needs to know how to open up those pesky .zip and .rar files, I send him right over to 7Zip.

[jecook]

+1.

There were also some command line patches and scripts that gave 2000 the same level of functionality as XP's Compressed folder support, but just slightly fuglier. worked like a charm, though.

[phaedra-13.livejournal.com]

OMG...that is freaking priceless.