zombocom

[pixilated-serra.livejournal.com]

thought i'd introduce myself with this gem from this morning's helpdesk queue;

to: helpdesk
subject: printer

I am at reception desk today. Can you please tell me what printer number the Brother IntelliFax 4100 is so I can add it to my list?

thanks;
######

---

to: #####
subject: re: printer

Hi,

This is a fax machine and doesn’t work as a printer.

Regards...

I think we're not getting through to them.

[margaretc.livejournal.com]

I was at my dentist's office yesterday, relaxing in the massage chair waiting for the dentist, when I heard the following conversation from down the hall.

Dental employee 1: Hey, what's the password for the patient program?
DE2: I think it's 'jennifer'.
DE1: Yeah, that's it!

When my dentist came back in I said to him "Tell them to quit yelling passwords down the hall to each other."

Dentist: Oh, were they?
me (gritting teeth): Yes.

Dentist goes away to get something else, and while he's gone I hear him say something to the employees.

DE1 & 2: Oh, did she hear us? *giggle*

me: *sigh*

I suppose it's useless even considering trying to get them to use complex passwords.

Such a cunning linguist, she is.

[toxico.livejournal.com]

Occasionally (read: more often than not) we'll have to remotely connect to someone's machine for troubleshooting. We do, of course, ask them if it's okay first and advise them to close any personal or sensitive items, per policy.

There are many ways of phrasing this request. My coworker has possibly the worst way of phrasing this: she'll call the user and ask "Do you mind if I come on your computer?"



...well, that had nothing to do with a stupid user, so HAY NE1 GOTZ A KEE JEN 4 N33R0?

Unnecessary stress.

[yanni85.livejournal.com]

While I was out at this particular client's site they asked me to install the new "print head" for their thermal printer. So I figure out how to take the thing apart, install the new part and put it all back together. Plug it in and ... nothing. Doesn't turn on. Did I screw something up? Is it a bad part? Open it back up, check the connections, make sure it was plugged in and seated correctly, no cables pinched or anything. Plug it back in and... still nothing. Must be a bad part. I take it apart again, put the old piece back in, check all the connections and wires, put it back together. Guess what? STILL NOTHING.

At this point I am about having a heart attack. Before I started it was working fine, just one side of it was so light that they couldn't read the name on the label and now it doesn't even turn on. I finally trace the power cord. Wouldn't you know it, while I was working on the damn thing the user had kicked the power strip and turned it off. Took everything apart again, put the new part in again, put it all back together, turned it on and it worked just fine. It's bad enough when the foot-to-power-strip error makes us waste a trip, but about giving me a heart attack was just not cool.

Oh boy

[stefflebug.livejournal.com]

This is why I don't help forum members out with tech support stuff.

This morning I had this email from one of the members, who always comes off as a bit of an idiot, asking me:

How do you add a shout box to the site? I made a site for me and my friends at work to use and I wanted to add an shout box and I cant find it. Please help!

I sent back instructions on how to do it, written in idiot speak and with clear directions to where each part of the menu was, as below:

Ok. First of all you log in to the control panel with "edit message board settings*.

Then in the side panel there's a dropdown menu called "MOD center". Drop that down and select the "add/remove MODs" option. Then select the install option for shoutbox, which should be 5 or so options down. This should add the shoutbox.

Finally select the "manage MODs" option from the menu at the side and choose where you want your shoutbox to be.

Hope this helps. Let me know if you need anything else.

This is what I get back:

I am about to give up! I am not computer anything and I am dying of boredom at my job. I need to find a job that is worth going to and I dont have to fiend for people to come to the guild. I am a sad sick case of bored personel

Can anybody decipher this, because I've got no idea?

Now all I've got to do is work out how to respond without calling her an idiot to her face and pissing off our mutual friends.