Keyboard magically grows a set of number keys?

[marie-the-otaku.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't taken the call myself.

Hello there, work in general all-around internal (strictly over the phone) tech support for a largish company. Customers can be amazing at times- in good, bad and absolutely WTF ways.

This story would be one of the absolute WTF's that left me baffled and holding back riotous laughter. I literally just stared at my monitor for a good five minutes after I ended the call in amazement that I really had taken this call.

**Cue phone ringing**

Me: "Hello, thank you for calling [our department,] can I get your log in ID please?"

I get the information to start the ticket then ask her what I can help her with.

Her: "Yeah I changed my password to include a number this morning and I CAN'T TYPE NUMBERS ANY MORE so I can't log in at all!"

Me: *cocking eyebrow* "Are you using a desktop or laptop?" (Some laptops as you guys I'm sure know have weird configurations at times-especially the older 'special dinosaur' laptops that are roaming about the company because their owners don't want to give them up.)

Her: "A desktop."

Me: "OK, are you trying to use the number pad or the row of number keys above the main keyboard's letters?" (I figured she had her Number Lock turned off and was trying to use the number pad while it was off. The frequency of that exact occurrence is sadly staggering.)

Her: *after full two seconds of silence* "OH MY GOSH! I never knew there was another set of numbers there above the letters!" *typing furiously* "OK, I'm in! Thanks so much! Have a good day!" *hangs up*

Me: *baffled and very amused*

Comments

[azleaneo.livejournal.com]

I love that you asked desktop or laptop.

I had a client call in about a 'virus' which was them turning numlock ON on a laptop keyboard.

[bekscilla.livejournal.com]

It drives me batty when people manage to turn on numlock on their laptop and then can't find the buttons to turn it off! Esp since we have dell's, ibm's and hp's in the environment, so buggered if I know where to find the buttons

[mariasama16.livejournal.com]

I had a lady call in one time, where her cat walked across the keyboard and managed to hit the exact key combos to switch languages. Unfortunately, that also apparently switched the keyboard layout as well, so she couldn't log back into Windows to switch it around. Her computer was locked at the time, luckily, but it was still a very odd call to get.

[jrho.livejournal.com]

My cat did this a couple days ago except he turned the image on my screen upside down. I'm still disappointed I didn't turn into Freakazoid.

[toxico.livejournal.com]

Great. Now I have to resist the urge to download all the Freakazoid episodes.

[jrho.livejournal.com]

Give in to siren call of 90s cartoon shows.

[toxico.livejournal.com]

As I usually do.

[demented-pants.livejournal.com]

I ♥ the 90s (http://mogulus.com/poopdick) has a lot of great 90s movies and TV on demand. I am not ashamed to admit that I watched Fern Gully the other day.

One of the guys at work told me about it; I guess the username is a btard thing.

[jrho.livejournal.com]

I love Fern Gully! Robin Williams as Batty Coda rocked.

[demented-pants.livejournal.com]

I've had that call once. I got as far as "my cat walked on my laptop and --" and my brain went, "Oh no, tell me it didn't pee..."

Luckily it was just the upside-down thing, so I did a quick google search and presto fixo.

[benatwork.livejournal.com]

I've had that exact same thing happen. This mystical green light comes on in the middle of my function bar and I spend five minutes poking around before I finally realize that it's the numlock light. Silly apple laptops.

[doublefelix.livejournal.com]

Heh, this is probably one of the main reasons Macs don't have numlock at all, to protect people from their own stupidity.

[penguin-attie.livejournal.com]

Oh, at least my powerbook does, actually. Except that it doesn't even have a separate number pad, so hitting it makes the keys not simulating a number pad do even weirder things...

[doublefelix.livejournal.com]

Oh, yeah, but that's because it's a laptop and they have to have the number pad inside the main part of the keyboard. Desktop keyboards (aluminum and plastic) have a 'clear' button, but I have no idea what it does (it doesn't clear a textfield as far as I can tell...)

[caira.livejournal.com]

The only thing I've ever been able to get mine to do is work like "num lock" on Linux and Windows . . .

[benatwork.livejournal.com]

Macs have a numlock..

[trixtah.livejournal.com]

I bet the numlock is still off.

[fluffydragon.livejournal.com]

hah! on Warcraft, numlock is used as your 'press it and you keep running without holding down 'w' ' key. Before that though, I still knew to look for the extra green light.

[zendequervain.livejournal.com]

But that keeps you from doing the fantastic 'wwwwwwwwwwwww' chats!

Haaa. I autorun everywhere, seriously.

[dv8nekomimi.livejournal.com]

Yes, and after you exit WoW, it sometimes turns off numlocks, yet leaves the light on (at least for me). You have to toggle the numlock key a couple of times to resync it.

[toxico.livejournal.com]

I noticed that too. I have to hit Num Lock twice for it to toggle the first time.

[dark-fx.livejournal.com]

I've changed autorun to be bound to Shift + Up Arrow and unbound Shift + Down... autorun is a lot easier and it doesn't mess with my numlock, which is especially irritating on a laptop keyboard.

[heinous_bitca.livejournal.com]

I have Shift+numpad keys bound to the raid target symbols in WoW. So I always have to turn numlock on to use the symbols.

Then I forget. And log into WoW later, and wonder for half a second why using the numpad with my authenticator doesn't give me the numbers I typed.