The ultimate Laptop!

[jecook]

Post your horror stories and your "holy crap! It's still working!" laptop stories here.

Seriously, I want to hear the best and worst.

My worst: I had to deal with an averatec POS laptop that pretty much had every componant go bad in the 18 months that the owner had it. Combined with their craptastic warrenty policies, and I won't touch one with a 30 metre pole.

My best: a Thinkpad 600 I named Snoopy. It logged probably a million frequent flyer miles between the two people that had it. It finally died from a bad heat sink fan.

(no subject)

[shirenomad]

I recently started renting a room from a local family. Friendly bunch, but not the most technically oriented. Being the Net junkie that I am, one of the first things I do upon unpacking is set up my computer and jack into their wireless network. No encryption key -- I make a note to suggest they add one. Then I try to access the Net... nothing. I check my connections: solid to the router, but can't even find the DNS, much less ping the wider web. I ask a passing family member if they've been having trouble reaching the web today, and get the response of "Oh, you tried 'Linksys' didn't you? You want to connect to 'Belkin'; that's the Internet."

Wait, what? "Belkin" is one of the wireless connections available, but it's getting a whopping ZERO bars of connectivity to Linksys's three. I pry further, asking to see the physical router, and discover that no one actually seems to know where it is; "someone from work" set the wireless network up. Okay, where are the computers in the house? Easy enough; other than the laptops there's only the one machine.

Discovery #1: The router is a Linksys, which means the weak Belkin signal they've all been connecting to for who knows how long is a neighbor's unencrypted router. They'd cluelessly switched to that when "Linksys" hadn't worked.

Discovery #2: The reason Linksys hadn't connected to the Net. It's got power, it's a wireless, and the Internet line is plugged into the proper slot on the router, with the other end of the line plugged into... nothing! Someone had skipped that minor last step of, you know, connecting to the cable modem.

Two plug-ins and a modem and router reboot later, "Linksys" was operating normally. I don't blame the family for letting things stay like that for so long -- they didn't know any better -- but I hope Mr. "Someone From Work" isn't in a tech department.

(no subject)

[kitschicat.livejournal.com]

Xerox called this morning to have me do a phone survey about the service we've been receiving from one of their authorized vendors. The vendor is excellent, so of course, I gave the highest marks to all questions. At the end, she asked, "What can we do next time to provide even more satisfaction?"

My answer? "Bring beer."

She lost it laughing despite her best attempt to remain professional. >:)

This is reason 5544454545731133787 why I hate florida customers

[prozacnation.livejournal.com]

This person from previous calls, didn't know how to run her computer. Tech actually stated that in the reference number of one call.

She comes in to online chat (for issues regarding her ISP) to ask about:

1. How to print a label.
2. How to change the time on her computer.

Neither is our issue - all are referred to vendor per the policy and procedure.

When she kept asking how to do it, I kept apologizing stating "I'm sorry but we cannot assist with this. Printing from your computer and altering any files on the computer we cannot assist with." Yadda yadda Yadda.

Florida Luser> People that react like yoooooou get nowhere in life as you may realize you are spending more time in double talk than trying to assist a good customer

I love how she put so many oooooooooooos in the word you.

So I guess She's right. I'm working here and getting nowhere in life.

But at least I know who to call when my printer doesn't work and I know how to change the time on my computer clock.

What can you expect from government employees

[harry-whodunnit.livejournal.com]

A few of the tickets that came through to me today, names changed to protect the guilty:

From: #####
Location: #####
Contact No: #####
Description of fault: When will it be fixed?

Oh, a guessing game. I'm good at these. My guess is 'never'.

From: #####
Location: #####
Contact No: #####
Description of fault: Urgently

Whatever it is, it needs to be done URGENTLY. Maybe the rest was supposed to reach me by telepathy?

From: #####
Location: #####
Contact No: #####
Description of fault: I have DMC

Having DMC bothers her so much you might think it's some kind of disease. "Quick nurse, he's got the DMC! Inject twenty CC of atropine into the heart, STAT!" But no, DMC is a scheduling system, and the problem was that she'd lost a booking. All of which she thought was obvious from the description...

Here's a thought:

[xanthrant.livejournal.com]

How many of you were drinkers BEFORE you started supporting LU$ERS?

How many of you hoist 5 too many a pint more than you had been drinking BEFORE you started supporting LU$ERS?

How many of you drink to numb the incessant banality of LU$ER idiocy?

How many of you would like to crack an empty can/bottle/keg over an incompetent cowerker?

now if you'll eksqueeze me....beer awaits.

For the brave bretheren who have fallen in the name of teh LU$ER

WTF alert

[spacebird.livejournal.com]

I just heard an agent tell a customer, "If you want real excitement, punch a brick wall and lick the blood off your knuckles."

Why is this person advancing in the company? Why does he even have a job?