1. From my mother: IT’S NOT TURNING ON NOW BECAUSE YOU DOWNLOADED WHATEVER THAT FIREFOX THING IS.
2. Reaching over my shoulder and pressing the power button, while I was mid way through a registry edit and saying… “do you think rebooting it will help.”
3. “Ever since you fixed that paper jam my computer has been running slower.”
4. Dad: I need to put some files on my thumb drive.
Me: Ok, remember how we did that last time?
Dad: No.
Me: Ok, what files?
Dad: Pictures.
Me: OK, open your pictures folder, highlight the ones you want and press Ctrl+C.
…
Me: Are you doing that?
Dad: No. I’m in control panel.
Me: Who told you to go to control panel?
Dad: I thought it might help.
5. My boss calls everything from our website to our printers “database”. We do in fact have a document database which we use so every time there she has an issue I have no idea what she is talking about. “I can’t connect to the database” = Can’t Print. “The database crashed, were we hacked” = Computer unplugged.
6. People at my company that refer to everything as “The Server.”
“Is the server down?” = My screen resolution set to 800×600
“Is the server up?” = I have somehow erased my hard drive
“Could you put it on the server?” = Why isn’t the file magically appearing on my desktop .
7. “I was working on this word document for 2 hours and I closed it, it asked me to save and I said no. Get it back”
8. Blaming an error on you, when it happens months later, and is completely unrelated to any work you did. Especially if its a hardware failure when you fixed software problems. Just imagine that with any other technical industry. Have a friend who is an electrician come to your house for free, install an outlet, for free, and next year a lightbulb in the other side of your house burns out, so you call him up and say it is probably his fault, and guilt him into replacing it.
9. As a kid, my mom would play this online card game. I would play little cartoon games, like whinnie the pooh, and junk like that. Anyway, one day I come home and all my games are deleted, I was mortified. I asked my mom what happened and she told me, “they were making the computer run slower.” about 2 or 3 years later I realized that she would download and reinstall her stupid card game every single time she wanted to play it.
10. She said, “Where’s all my stuff?” After reloading her OS and having:
A. Explained at length how EVERYTHING WOULD BE GONE.
B. Offered her a data transfer.
C. Read her the wipe/reload paperwork OUT LOUD.
D. Had her sign the papers that said, “EVERYTHING WILL BE GONE.”
E. Told her that her computer would only have the things on it that it had when it was brand new.
11. The other day, I was informed that I needed to make sure that the server was up, and it was to be a priority because the customer did not have an operating system.
12. Doing tech support at an ISP, person said “My computer won’t turn on, your internet is broken” I asked them to check the back of the computer to see if the plug was in, they replied “I can’t see the back of the computer, its dark in here” I said “Well turn on the light then.” Reply “Well… the power is out.”
13.
Mom: Some of my keys on the keyboard are sticking. Can you ask your boyfriend to reprogram it for me?
Me: No, Mom, that’s not how that works. That sounds like a hardware problem.
Mom: You’re not the computer engineer!
14. My mother. Her computer crashed one day (presumably due to all the stress). She completely wiped the hard drive then decided to buy a new computer because she likes new things.
Next day:
Mom: “I can’t find any of my files on my new computer.”
Me: “Well, you didn’t do a data transfer.”
Mom: “But I put the old one in the new computer! It’s sitting right there on the bottom!”
At this point, she opens the case and shows me the old drive just chillin’ on the bottom panel. After I explain how that doesn’t do anything, this happens:
Mom: “Well, I’ve got some copper wire in the office somewhere. You can attach the new one to the old one.”
Me: “That…won’t work.”
Mom: “YES IT WILL YOU’RE JUST LAZY.”
15. Where are your files?
In Word
Okay but where are they?
In WORD!
But in what folder are they in, My Documents?
NO THEY’RE IN WORD DAMMIT.
16. That if you get the destination address slightly wrong on an email, someone, like an electronic postman i guess, will know what you mean. My mum had been giving out her email, adding “or something like that”
17. Me: “Show me exactly how you caused the problem to occur.”
Them: “Why can’t you do it? You’re the computer expert.”
18. My dad called me a twat because I opened a new tab.
19. “I know you folks at Best Buy are always trying to confuse people like me. I don’t want to hear any bullcrap, just show me where the discs of internet are.”
“Discs… Ma’am I don’t quite understand, do you already have a provider? or…”
“CUT THE BULLSH*T, just show me where I can get a disc of internet!”
“In the aisle next to car stereos ma’am.”
20. “So here’s how you can prevent this from happening in the future.”
“Don’t give me technical mumbo jumbo, just fix it.”
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