LOL these are pretty good...I have a doozy of my own.

Now, we've all seen the call into wordperfect from the guy who's got a power outage. I didn't really believe it (or the cup holder story) until I experienced this call myself.

A little background info:

At the time I was tech support for a company making niche software for chemical engineering companies. We had a major Ice storm in Montreal, power is out almost everywhere. This particular customer tended to blame EVERYTHING on the software. EVERYTHING. He was a rude S.O.B who liked to dish out abuse.

Anyway, I'm working in the dark, he calls.

SOB: Your software totally #$%@ up my computer! I am going to SUE you into oblivion for sending me destructive upgrades (he had received our new version I guess).

Me: Lets see if we can get you running again sir, tell me what happened.

SOB: I'm running the install and at 99% my whole PC just shut down...SHUTDOWN! Your @@^%$^%&*@#@ software won't let me boot up now!

Me: Ok sir, can you turn on your PC and let me know what error messages you get.

SOB: (Five minute stream of PERSONAL abuse about the manner of my birth, my low IQ, questionable charisma..whatever)

Me: Sir, if you continue your personal abuse, I'll hang up...I'm trying to help you, please be polite...now can you tell me what messages you see.

SOB: (Last parting shot...but calming down...with a statement "I *PAY* Your salary so you d**m well take what I dish out..."..then he calms down a little more) I *told* you, I can't boot up my PC.

Me: Ok, I heard you...but can you try it for me and tell me what happens.

SOB: *sigh* Ok..hang on.

(A few minutes of listening to dead air and some sort of bumping around)

Me: What's taking so long, is there a problem?

SOB: (swearing profusely) I can't find the switch, its too dark in here.

Me: Why is it so dark?

SOB: We've got no power...just like the rest of Montreal. It went out just about the time your software screwed up my PC.

.....


Now at this point, I know he doesn't have a UPS or generator (I'd been to those offices before) so I burst out laughing...prompting him to explode in a flurry of obscenities...I hung up.

A few weeks later, I get called into my boss's office about it...and, not realizing that this moron is on the speaker phone (My boss didn't think to mention it) I tell him "Oh, he's the idiot who called to chew me out because he's too stupid to realize that a power failure affects his PC too).

Needless to say, he didn't like me very much (the client...my boss on the other hand almost pulled a muscle to keep from laughing).

Oh at TimeWarner they made us start taking regular cable tv calls a couple months after I started so one call was this:

Me: "Okay sir, the storm knocked your converter box offline, it just needs a reboot by simply unplugging the power to it and plugging back in."

Guy: "Is there any other way, I don't want to reach behind the entertainment system as its too far to reach and to heavy to move."

Me: "Okay, we can reboot it by using the remote but it doesn't always work this way as it needs to lose all power, but we can give it a shot."

Guy: "Okay."

So I explained how to do it but it didn't work.

Me: "We'll have to unplug it then sir."

Guy: "This is frustrating, I'm not getting up to do that."

Me: "Well you can unplug it from the back of the box, you don't have to get behind your entertainment system."

Guy: "Well, you need to think of another way, I'm not getting up off this couch."

Me: "Well if you won't get up off the couch to simply unplug your box which will fix this issue, I can't help you as there is no other way. Is there anything else I can assist you with?"

Guy: "Yeah, fix my box!"

Me: "I can't unless you get up as I can't do it for you since I'm miles away over the phone."

Guy: "Well you need to fix this or I'm going to miss my shows and I want a credit on my account."

Me: "I can't and unless you have something else I can assist you with, I cannot assist you in any other way unless you follow my directions."

Guy: "Well, you can fix my cable box!"

Me: "Since you won't follow my directions, this issue is resolved as I cannot assist you any more at this time, have a good day sir." <I Hang Up>

Lazy people get on my nerves.

I can't freakin' believe that trickykid :)

ROFL.....ahahahahahahhaha

Oh man, I have tons of stories, I could probably fill up a website with my own stories.. ;)

Then why don't you? It may be a good way to show the world the terrors of your job. :p

Past jobs.. don't really deal with it now at my current job. I really do need to update my site though... hmmm...

What happens if that cable TV customer had a sprained ankle, or something even worse that he was too embarrassed to talk about? Maybe because of his malady, he was suffering huge depressions which made him sound grumpy and lose his temper.

It's simple enough for *you guys*, you give explanations (some thing like "you need to be on our platinum level - whatever, one higher anyhows- support contract for better service"), and then you put down the phone.

Those unfortunate people have to live with their physical and mental shortcomings for the rest of their lives! And to top it all, *you* make up for the brief period of discomfort by posting in threads like these.

For laziness, impoliteness and even insults (albeit less so), there are mitigating circumstances.

No, I don't think you read my whole post. The guy flat out told me he just didn't want to get up off the couch. If he had a sprained ankle I'm sure he would have told me, etc. I've had plenty of people call and if they hurt or can't do anything physical, they are always sure to let us know. Plenty who would state, I'm stuck in bed, just had back surgery, etc.

This guy also had his wife in the background yelling at him for not getting up, etc. If he was disabled, he could have asked the many voices I heard in the background help him.

But he basically told me he just didn't want to get up, a pure sign that he was lazy. Its those I can't tolerate, truly disabled people I can understand though.

Regards.

I don't mind people who are ignorant of computers; it just means they haven't learned yet. We were all newbies once :)

What drives me nuts, though, is people who know nothing, and yet believe that they know everything. I had a pseudo-tech-support webmaster job at my university. For the most part, people didn't give me much grief, and were receptive to explanation, but I had one lady who complained that a webpage I had made was broken because she couldn't view a linked PDF document. I thought "oh, that's easy; she just needs to make sure that Acrobat is associated with PDF documents."

She said that no, that wasn't it; the problem was on my end, and I needed to make the link to the PDF an "active link." Since it wasn't an "active link", it was wanting to download onto her computer, instead of just viewing the PDF inside of her browser. It took a while to convince her that no, the problem was not with my code; everyone else could view the PDF just fine. It came out that the department had recently upgraded all the macs to OS X, and, just as I suspected, Acrobat was not properly associated with PDF documents.

Trickykid, have some respect for people who weight 600 pounds.

:p:p

If its a gene related and not their fault in which I do believe in.. yes, I show total respect.
If they got fat cause their lazy and they eat too much, well, that's their fault and I don't show any sympathy for them.

If there's some of us taking the side of the 600kg, foulmouthed, slothful lusers out there, it's because we've read too many BOFH from hell stories.

At which point I must insert my favourite:

BOFH puts phone on hook, immediately: Ring! Ring!

BOFH, picks up phone > Yes?

Customer > There you are at last! I've been trying to get you on the phone, but it's been engaged (off-hook of course) for the last two hours!

BOFH > That's incorrect Sir.

Customer > huh?

BOFH (looking at back of "Bladerunner" videocassette cover) > to be exact, it was 114 mins. :D

I honestly don't know........

What the heck does BOFH stand for?

Bastard Operator From Hell

Other than the definition, as stated above, I feel additional clarification is in order.

The BOFH is the star of many many periodical stories from Simon something or other (I can't remember the last name)...google around or check out www.theregister.com (they have some of the newer stories) they are really quite hilarious.