If it's 4pm, it must be...

[serinde]

MORON TIME!

Situation: The customer's aDSL is not working. She has already hung up on dariodevil in ire for "making it too hard" when he asked her to turn her DSL router off and back on.

Your humble correspondent: "OK, first I need you to look at the front of your Netopia router, and tell me which lights are lit."

User: *time passes.* "None of them are!"

YHC: "...None? Every one of them is dark?"

U: "Yes!"

YHC: "Well, generally that means that the router doesn't have any power. So the first thing to do is check the power cable--start by unplugging it from the wall and plugging it back in."

U: "What will *that* do?"

YHC: "...?"

U: "Will that hurt my computer?!?"

YHC: "No. No it won't. If all you do is unplug the ROUTER, it will have no effect whatsoever on your COMPUTER."

U: "Um okay. ... It's impossible to see anything back here! I can't tell where this is plugged in! There's all these cables!"

YHC: *wait*

U: "OK, I think I've unplugged it... Oh crap! I unplugged my computer! Shit! What do I do now?"

YHC: *pause to see if this is a rhetorical question*

U: "HELLO?!?"

YHC: *...apparently not.* "Well, I'd start with plugging the computer back in."

U: "WHAT WILL IT DO?"

YHC: "Reboot, most likely. "

U: "Oh."

YHC: "Then find the ROUTER power cord, and unplug IT."

U: "I can't figure this out! I give up! This is such a mess! I just want my email!!"

YHC: "Ma'am, I can't help you with the wiring in your home. But your router does not seem to have power, and until that's sorted, there's nothing we can do to troubleshoot your connection any further."

*lightbulb. Perhaps she's looking at her firewall appliance, or fax machine, or possibly refrigerator*

"Could you please take a look at the *back* of the Netopia and tell me how many ports you see there, for things to plug in?"

U: "There's nothing that looks like a power cable! There's a yellow cable going to the computer, and a grey one going to the wall, and a white one going to another computer, but no power cable! ... Oh. it's sitting here on the desk, just behind the box."

YHC: "Perhaps that would be the cause of your problem."

Comments

[rainbear.livejournal.com]

My favorite...

Back in the mid-90s I worked for a up-to-then small paper company (http://www.paperdirect.com/) for their technical support division.

"Tech support for *paper*" you ask? Well no.. more for their template software.

We had some doozies. My fave was:

DFU: "I followed your stupid instructions. Nothing's happening."
YHC: "Ok, let's start from the beginning... Please insert the diskette into your drive, and let me know when you've done that."
DFU: "It's there."
YHC: "Ok, good! Now, are you at a C: prompt?"
DFU: "What's that?"
YHC: "When you turn your machine on, do you go directly into Windows, or do you go to a DOS prompt?"
DFU: "DOS prompt."
YHC: "Ok then. Are you at a DOS prompt?"
DFU: "My screen is blank."
YHC: "Define blank for me?"
DFU: "Nothing's there"
YHC: "Is there a cursor on your screen?"
DFU: "No."
YHC: "Please check to make sure your monitor and computer are turned on."
DFU: "Of course they are, I'm not a f***ing moron!"
YHC: "I never said you were, ma'am. It's just that you're there, and I'm here, and I can't see through the phone, so I have to rely upon you to tell me what I'd be looking for, if I were there."
DFU: "Oh, ok. Yes, of course it's on."
YHC: "Thanks! Ok, so hit the 'CAPS LOCK' key on your keyboard, does your CAPS LOCK light light up?"
DFU: "Nope."
YHC: *clue! Monitor's on but...* "Ok. Please check the front of your computer. Is the power light on, off or flashing?"
DFU: "Um, off."
YHC: "Please turn your computer on, but first make sure you take the diskette out of the drive so your computer can boot properly."
DFU: "Ok"
(much later, after walking DFU through complete install...)
DFU: "Before, when you asked if my power light was flashing? What would that mean?"
YHC: "I'm not sure, ma'am, but if I were there, I'd have yanked the cord from the wall and ducked behind something before it exploded."

My boss gave me top marks for that one. :)

[xlerb.livejournal.com]

I was somewhat aware of this at the time, but wasn't paying too much attention, on account of how a certain part of the mail system was in a corner crying about spam instead of shoveling the legit mail where it needed to go.