Best luser/fault description?

[the-s-guy.livejournal.com]

We've all collected a bunch of these terms - from luser to PEBKAC and PICNIC, from Code 18 to starfish to ESO, with ID-ten-T and TAE-error along the way. Not to mention the insidious Fiddler Virus.

Today, I ran across FOBIO - Frequently Outwitted By Inanimate Objects. Thought it might tickle some funnybones.

So, what's the funniest way you've heard to describe technical idiots and the faults they cause?


Luser: traditional, from 'user' and 'loser'.

PEBKAC: Problem Exists Between Keyboard and Chair. Also PEBCAK.

PICNIC: Problem in Chair, Not In Computer.

Code 18: Problem is being caused by the component sitting about 18 inches in front of the screen.

Starfish: It's got a central body and five extensions, but no brains, and its mouth is also its anus.

ESO: Equipment Smarter (than) Operator.

ID-ten-T: A classic term. Spelt "id10t".

TAE error: Thomas Alva Edison. aka "computers need electricity to run", or "it works better when it's plugged in/switched on".

Fiddler Virus: The condition that makes end-users screw around with their settings and thereby toast their application, computer, and/or network.

Comments

[taleya.livejournal.com]

12-o'clock flasher - all the VCR's, clocks, etc in the house are flashing 12:00 because they don't know how to set them...

Nut loose on the keyboard...

hmm. How crude are we getting?

There's the ever-popular "Cuntstomer" at my workplace...

[chaobell]

Keyboard actuator.

[sunfell.livejournal.com]

RWE: Replaced with Etch-a-Sketch.

[reynardo.livejournal.com]

Related (so to speak):

CSM - Cousins shouldn't marry

02G - only two grandparents

[swwinchester.livejournal.com]

CUE / COE - Critical User Error / Critcal Operator Error - for those times when your keyboard actuator is REALLY not working right

"OBR Issue" - Owned By Royalty issue. Used to note callbacks / machines that, due to the extremely imperious nature of thier owners, along with requests that we wouldn't even fill for actual royalty, that get given to the slowest, least competent tech we have handy, and put in the far back of his work queue after waiting a few days to be assigned.

"GTR Issue" - Green to Red issue. Mentioning that the work is billable or that other issues have been located that are billable results in angry, possibly violent responses. See also notation "Has C.Red Virus" for almost identical meaning, only money does NOT need to be mentioned to risk a bad reaction.

"DMBW" - Darwin May Be Wrong. Only used for EXTREME cases. The only one that comes to mind, as an example of this, is a woman who was either mentally retarded (no, not merely challenged, we wondered how she went from smacking rocks together to using a computer), who ALSO had an OBR issue. To the extent that, after being told it would take 3 days to get it looked at and possibly fixed, called us back every 2 hours, and explained in detail the problems to the technician who was unlucky enough to get her call. Even if it was the technican who took in her machine. Or the technician she just spoke with 2 hours previously. Or merely the poor Customer Service Rep who couldn't forward her because we were down to one tech for a half an hour and that tech was on the phone. The next day, she starts again, we firmly inform her she will NOT have an answer for at least another day and a half, please be patient. Two hours later, her boyfriend calls.
Her boyfriend is just as retarded as she is, and has OBR issues that make hers look pathetic, ALONG with C.Red ... that evening, the happy couple shows up to see if thier machine is fixed, with thier 6 month old baby. At that point, Darwin Must Be Wrong, because there's no way in hell these two should have survived to breed. But they did. And thier existance caused not one tech, but my entire department and MOST of the Customer Service group to contemplate suicide and / or murder while they waited for thier computer to be fixed, because 'they weren't leaving without it', 'we said it would be ready', etc.

... incidentally, further proof that they qualify - they're too stupid to realize that we gave them, in thier own words, shitty service, and NOT under warranty, and NOT for free, yet, for two years, they were amongst our most regular customers. Several of our longer term techs twitch at the mere mention of thier names. At least one was observed to enter the fetal position and beg for mercy upon hearing that they were coming in.

Of course, so as not to make it PURELY derrogatory against the customer, here's some in-house slang found in solution notes at my last job ...

"BHOG" - By Hand of God. Translates "We're not sure how the hell we fixed it." Conversely, "UIG/FTG" - User is Gremlin / Forward to God. We tested it up and down, it SHOULD work, by all stretches of the imagination, but the problem is still there, and we're now utterly vexed - we NEED a BHOG on this one. Also, FTG was sometimes used for an otherwise well-treated machine that was beyond repair by a few techs.

"NMS/*part abbreviation*" - "No Magic Smoke/*part*". Dont bother to turn it on, it's dead as dead gets, and based on the burn patterns, this part seems to be your culprit. Most frequently NMS/PS, but NMS/MODem wasn't all that uncommon.

"IUD" - Irate (or Insane) User Damage. Such things as a Playstation 2 that had it's CD Tray ripped out when it stopped working, or a hard drive a customer SUCCESSFULLY attempted to mount using 3" long self-tapping drywall screws (the HDD itself didn't work anymore, obviously, but it WAS mounted right by all other respects of the concept. Even the jumpers were set right.) See also "DBL" - Damage by Larvae - for damage resulting from kids toys.

[swwinchester.livejournal.com]

And, as it seems the DMBW ran a little too long, The final one ...

"RBM/NIR" - Repaired By Magic / Notes in Runes. "Not sure how it was fixed, can't figure out what the hell the repairing technician wrote here." Implies that the technician closing the tag has PERSONALLY verified that all reported defects are gone, and the only reason he doesn't know why is the extremely cryptic hand-written notes left by the tech who worked on it. We had to use this a lot, as we had a REALLY good technician who's notes resembled those of George (http://chroniclesofgeorge.nanc.com/).

[fnordx.livejournal.com]

They had a term for that when I was working back in the NOC for a large ISP, and I think it's even in Newton's Telecom Guide, Resolved by "FM", or "F'ing Magic", meaning that the problem just seemed to resolve itself by magic, without anyone doing anything.

[swwinchester.livejournal.com]

"BHOG" (see above) is closer to FM ... RBM/NIR is a case where we DO know how it was fixed, but we are unable to decipher the mystic runes left by the technician who did this fixing, and thus we are unable to state how it was done ... and anything you can't explain yourself is magic to you (But perfectly reasonable to the person who did it).

[jazzmasterson.livejournal.com]

DCI: Designated Clueless Individual. In in-house support, the ones you know are dangerous, and whose machines must be locked up and kept away from them.

[harry-whodunnit.livejournal.com]

SGS - Someone who Gives a Shit. As in 'transferred to SGS' or 'advised to contact SGS'

YGWYPF - You Get What You Pay For. No expedited support for people who pick the cheapest, nastiest plan.

[twitchfetish.livejournal.com]

from being a bunch of radiohead fans, we started to refer to some of our onsite guys as "idiotechs" due to their basic inability to fathom action plans like "replace PSU", and their bad reports back to us saying we did a bad action plan because of this.

seriously, our onsite guys get: all part numbers listed, symptom by symptom description of the problem, where to get the BIOS flash, how likely a part is to fix the issue, and step by step instructions on what to test and what to do to fix the issue, all written by us in Remote Tech Support, and they still fuck it up...

other ones: NBG (Notes By George (http://chroniclesofgeorge.nanc.com/)), usually referring to case notes written by an RTS n00b or the National Call Centre, Gremlin Error for a fault that only occurs on customer site when our tech is NOT THERE, and LBE - Lying Bastard Error - usually when a user has kicked, dropped, spilled something on or otherwise FUBARed the machine, and tries to convince us the star-pattern cracks in his LCD are a manufacturing defect so we'll fix it for free.

they get forty cented. (here's 40c. go call someone who cares.)

IV

[bottleopener.livejournal.com]

. . . we have a tech like that. Frank loves to write a paragraph about what he fixed and how it was done. The bad part is, when the customer comes in to pick up their machine, we cant read what the hell was done. We have now forced him to start making his notes on textpad, and then printing it out.
Oh if you come across that god damned CWS about:blank, prepare for some gray hairs. Finally identified that it was also Backdoor.Haxdoor.C . . that beast is a bitch to pull out.

Bottle

[residentgeek.livejournal.com]

I just had a machine with that. I spent quite a bit of time trying to fix it, only to give up and reimage the damn thing. What a bitch.

[swwinchester.livejournal.com]

Ahh, yes, that was one of our favorites to deal with ... as soon as we ID'ed it, we immediately suggested a backup / reimage after removing it twice, as it was a loss of revenue to remove it ....

Fortunately, I'm no longer able to speak in the present tense - I am a sleeper cell, I am not presently active. ^_^

A couple more

[the-s-guy.livejournal.com]

EEOC - Equipment Exceeds Operator Capacity
Wetware Failure