Tech support workers, what are your favorite stories from your time in the industry?

Me: Here's the URL for the web service I've just deployed. I've set up users and permissions so just copy it into your browser and you should see a very similar system to what you've been trained on with all your data in there.

Customer: All I'm getting is a blank screen.

Much panicking and headscratching later...

Me: Waaaiiiiittt, did you press Return/Go after copying the URL?

Customer: That was not in the instructions.

I got a call from this woman in Boston, out was just a product activation call so I had to read her a 20-character activation string. We use the NATO Phonetic Alphabet for those, to reduce confusion over the phone.

The last character was Y-Yankee. I followed that up with "but I guess that's a politically incorrect word around Boston, huh?" And she goes on an absolute tirade about how people are way to sensitive, throwing out a few racist dogwhistles along the way.

I just said "Ma'am, I was making a joke about the rivalry between the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees."

She went silent for a few seconds and hung up on me.

Had an older coworker who was on a long call with a user; his hands got tired so he put it on speaker after a while.

At a certain point my coworker fell asleep... and so did the user on the phone (snoring).

Many years ago I worked for a small company who'd just hired a new CEO - and the guy hated me for some reason. He used every chance to make inappropriate remarks, and at times he'd just get angry and start yelling at me because his MacBook wasn't doing something the way he wanted it. Keeping in mind, I didn't do support for endpoints, my specialty was servers and network. I'd just let him go off because he wasn't local, and would only come to the office for a day about once a month.

One day he called into the office and asked for me (again there are other support people who could easily help him with his macbook issues). He states he's on a train, and can't send or receive e-mails. Assuming he's done basic troubleshooting, and not wanting to piss him off further, I go through normal troubleshooting steps. After several minutes he gets angry again, and starts yelling at me, so did what anyone would do - I put him on speaker phone so everyone else in the office could hear his rant. We all had a good chuckle.

Once he'd gotten it out of his system, I suggested he give me his remote access info (we'd installed remote access software on his macbook for this very reason) so I could remote into his system and see for myself what was going on. He states the software won't display the one-time access code...so I asked him if he was connected to the WiFi, there was a pause, and then and the phone went dead, he just hung up on me. Magically his email started working after that

Once upon a time before there were smartphones....

The internet existed already, e-mail as well.

We got a letter on real paper.

The guy was asking about some weird stuff going on in our software on his PC screen. He had included some screen shots, and referred to them in his questions. Smart guy, so far 😉

It turned out the screen shots were Polaroids. Smallest possible size! And they did not just show that window on the screen where the software was doing things. It was also showing his whole desktop. And his real desk. And the wall shelves around...

I have kept one of the photos to this day 😂

"Can you tell me why my printer won't print yellow?"

"Well first, it is a color printer? And there is yellow ink in it?"

"Oh, yes!"

"Can you print green?"

"Green works fine!"

". . . That printer only has 3 colors of ink, if you're printing green that means yellow is coming out..."

Tried uninstalling and re-installing printer drivers, changing cables, cleaning cycles, examining the print head, everything seemed to be fine...

"Oh, oh, oh! Should I be printing on WHITE paper?"

". . . Are... are you printing on yellow paper?"

I worked for a college for a while.

All of the student records were on a mini frame IBM as400 from 1986.

The only connectivity to this device was via a 100 MB ethernet connection. There were no backups. The tape drive that was used for backing up this data I had gone defunct well before my time at the college.

I started noticing errors in the connection logs and I notified the CIO, saying that we needed to replace this box or upgrade it or do something before the connection failed or else we could lose access to data that we are federally required to maintain.

They noted my concerns, and then they let it go.

About 6 months later, the ethernet card failed.

I let them know that our only way to get data into or out of this machine has gone offline and cannot be resuscitated.

They asked me to fix it I told them I can't. The card was down. I had gone through the proper processes of rebooting the machine and opening it up to take a look but couldn't find anything wrong with it I tried reseating the card, but this system is old as shit and they didn't make parts for it anymore and even if they did the school would have to buy it and the school is too cheap to buy them.

People are running around scared for losing their jobs because the consequence for this not coming back up could be so severe as to cause the entire college to be shut down.

Okay so now that the stage is set, a few days later the former IT guy happened to stop by the college. This dude was 70 something years old if he was a day, and I saw him out in the corridors.

I walked up to him, I was like hey man just so you know the as400 network connection is down, do you have any tips on how I might bring it back up?

He said hang on a second.

I let him into the server room and he waved his hands in the air over the as 400 and said try it again.

And sure as shit, the fucking network connection came back up.

I lost my shit.

The administrators for the college lost their shit.

Everyone's fucking mind was blown, and somehow they suddenly magically had the money to purchase a cloud as400 and upload all of our data to it within the next 6 weeks.

I got to retire that box but I'm never ever going to forget how somebody fixed a 40 year old ethernet card by waving their fucking hands in the air

I got called in to handle a situation where an employee was spying on his boss's emails. He got caught when a read notification went out from his account.

He got called into a meeting and when they explained what it was about he didn't say a word, but left the meeting, went back to his office, removed the hard drive from his computer and left with it.

I just had to figure out what he'd done, make sure he didn't have any further access, and fill in until they hired someone permanent. No idea what happened after that.

When I worked help desk, a coworker of mine took a call where someone called in because one of the thin clients was on fire. The user was advised to call 911.

I was helping a user reset their password and the convo went something like this: Me: Ok, your temporary password is Password1. Log in with that and you'll be prompted to change it. User: Is that a capital 1? Me: No, just a regular 1.

This was way back but had a basic support call for someone who couldn't get their mouse to work.

After speaking with them for over ten minutes and just being generally confused I cut to the chase and asked, "Ma'am, what are you doing with your mouse right now?"

The answer? She was moving the mouse around on the monitor.

Years ago I was working in a sales / support call center. One day in between calls someone posed the question of if you had to sleep with someone of the same sex who would it be. Obvuois answers were things like George Clooney Brad Pitt etc. one of our team was extremely introverted so it was normal for him not to participate.

3 weeks later he pipes up, "I've given this a lot of thought and If I had to sleep with a man it would be Jesus Christ" 3 weeks later. Blows my mind he was in deep contemplation for so long. I still am taken a bit back.

The reason? "Jesus seems like he'd be a considerate lover with strong hands." Beautiful.

One monday morning an employee called and said she forgot her password. I told her that I need her username to reset it. She told me that she had also forgotten her username. I guess she must have had a fun weekend :)

Was working the counter at a repair shop. This really old guy had come in for a data backup and a wipe/restore. We performed said service, and reloaded the data from the backup back on, and his outlook data was encrypted with a password he couldn't remember.

This infuriated him, he specifically asked me if I wanted HIM to "Shove the desktop tower up his ass, stick his head in after it, and give it a sniff."

People are wild.

people that use their recycle bin as storage. there have been multiple. once I was at their desk, looked at their trashcan next to their desk and asked if it would be smart to store stuff in there. they got the point after that.

or the new user I setup, went to lunch, came back and needed his password reset because he forgot it already.

Apocryphal: user reports laptop frequently crashing. Tech is putting it through paces, can't make it crash. Tech slides it over and asks user to show them what they do differently. User touches the laptop (before they can do anything with it) and it crashes. I was told about this, I didn't see it happen.

Half an hour of troubleshooting a user who said they couldn't reach their file share on their network. They didn't have access to the internet... They didn't have access to anything else on the network... Switch under their desk indicated not connecting to the rest of the network. Asked if they would go to the server closet, they said they couldn't, because an overzealous wrecking ball went through that closet this morning. Not even joking...it was to take down the neighboring building which was being knocked down for being a code violation for being too close to my client's building.

Once had to explain to an old lady (in full-time employment in a job that requires use of a computer) that the mouse moves around on the desk surface. She was trying to move the cursor by putting the mouse on the screen.

I worked at a global internal helpdesk, my company had offices all over the world.

One day I get in to the office for night shift and the day shift was laughing.

Aparantly a guy in the main office, located on a different continent, called the global helpdesk for help with their computer, can't remember the actual reason, they were rude and dismissive, and while the tech was trying to help them they found games installed of the computer.

This is not allowed, so they told the guy, who said that he had admin access so it was fine.

The tech kept pushing that this was not allowed, but the guy would not accept it and even told us that his team mates also had these games installed on their laptops, so while talking with the guy the tech reached out to the global head of IT on Lync and explained the situation.

The global head of IT was pissed and briefed the head of the local IT team at the main office to collect the computer and completely reinstall it.

The tech was still on the line with the guy, and was told to tell him that the local IT team would help him, and to expect them shortly.

I don't know the exact exchange in the main office, but the next day we got word that the entire team was required to have all of their computers reinstalled, this was a global team across mutiple continents, even some in our own office, who sheepishly came down to us to have us reinstall their computers a day or so later.

The guy who got caught can't have been popular...

---

I worked for a different company a few years after the above incident, this was smaller, much smaller, but it was a fantastic place to work.

Anyway, I got the task of being the VIP technician for our partners in addition to my normal duties.

This wasn't that bad, it mainly consisted in helping partners with remoting in and giving them higher priority.

Now, at the start of the pandemic, the main VIP wanted to make sure that his dedicated office computer at one of his holiday homes was updated and ready for the summer.

So I had to get up there, I was given a preinstalled desktop computer and had to fly to the town where the holiday home was located.

This was in May 2020, right when the pandemic shock was at it's absolute peak.

The flight was domestic, but what I didn't expect when I got to the airport was how completely empty it was.

In the departure hall that would be packed normally, it was just... empty....

Well, five other passengers was milling around, and maybe two or three staff that I could see.

I get checked in, and walk to the gate, there sre about 8 passengers there, my flight is called and I get down to the transfer bus and the doors close, and... I am alone...

The bus starts heading out across the tarmac and stops at an unmarked plane, a completely white Fokker F50, no branding or anything.

There is a cute stewardess who tells me that I am the only passenger on the flight and that I can just pick any seat.

I do so and we take off, and throughout the flight I can't just stop thinking about how I am the only passenger and how odd it felt.

So I get to the airport, collect my bag and my taxi is waiting for me, and after and hour or so we have arrived, the holiday home is a farm, and the farm hands greet us, I get let into the office and start doing my work.

After hours of setting up every little detail, testing and testing and testing again then documenting everything, I am ready to leave and get driven to a nice hotel, that is completely empty.

I stay the night, and the same taxi that collected me from the airport the day before pick me up again.

We get to the airport and this time there is a 100% increase in the number of passengers on the flight, that's right, we had one more passenger!

The flight back is uneventful, I get back home, remote into the office and upload my notes and debrief my manager.

Industrial but guess it counts.

Giant motor is supposed to kick on, run for a moment in reverse, wind down, and then go forward. What is happening instead is it kicks on then the whole system goes into stopped state. Two days on the phone and I can't figure it out, pouring over the code, trying everything.

Suddenly the guy in the field coughs and says "sorry it's really dusty here".

It clicks in my head. I tell him to manually push down on the contactor. He says he feels resistance I tell him that's good and push harder. It give in and I tell him to start again. Works perfectly.

The dust had combined with the internal oil of the contactor making a sludge. The contactor has two coils, a high torque high current one for starting and a low torque low current one to hold. Not much different than a starter in a car. The sludge has stopped the second coil from engaging keeping it locked in high current. Since it was DC the coil kept drawing more and more amps until the power supply couldn't keep the voltage high enough. Which made the PLC halt. When the PLC halted it erased all the temporary bits including the one that said it was running. The PLC stopped telling the contactor to engage and the power went back to normal.

The sequence was maybe a tenth of a second.

A long time ago had an attorney call in looking for help dialing internationally. I said "sure we can help you call abroad" and he said, "well first I'd have to get her number."

...I think about that shit all the time and its been like 12 years.

I did support for inexpensive, but commercial grade network equipment. I'd just been promoted to a senior support engineer 2 days earlier. My boss came to me and said "we have a customer who just deployed a over $250k of equipment and it doesn't work. The customer, sales person and account rep are on the call, we need you to figure it out". After an hour or so going over their setup we found out our new switch connects to a 3com switch over a fiber line. 3com was out of business at this point, but I managed to find documentation on the product online. It's fiber ports were FDDI. Our switch only supported Ethernet (No one really supported FDDI at this time.) At which point the sales person said "we'll just have to replace the rest of the hardware" and the customer agreed.

I accidentally wiped a column in a police department's evidence database 😁😅

Not me, but I recall a story from a while back. ISP tech answers call from an irate customer who isn't able to get online. After basic troubleshooting, the tech advises the customer to power cycle the cable modem and router...the customer scoffs, how can I do that when my power is out? 😂

Years ago I worked for a healthcare IT company that had its developers, IT administrators, and help desk all reporting to the CTO. The CTO was an MD with a computer science degree from a prestigious university.

I was in a different department entirely but I was invited to a presentation he was giving and came to the conference room a bit early. I walked in to him in a full panic trying to connect his laptop to the projector. I plugged in the HMDI and hit Win + P and he reacted like I had just defused a bomb. Really made it hard to take seriously his five year strategic plan for all of our IT projects.

A year later he took extended leave to travel internationally and came back to work with a full perm and added the word "tree" to his last name. He lasted about 6 more weeks before he announced he was leaving. He is now the CIO of a large university.

I worked for an MSP that merged with a copier company. Copiers got more and more capable, and so of course people wanted to use their "advanced" features, hence the merger with an IT company.

When they sold a copier, they would sell limited IT engagements. Things like handing information and help to customer IT, or if they lacked IT, limited help like placing it on the network, installing the drivers to use it as a printer, setting up scanning to network. This was done remotely by a level one technician, Joe this time.

Well, install day came, and after Joe helped out the customer claimed that some computers could print, some couldn't. And some computers couldn't access anything else on the network. They hired a local IT guy that threw Joe under the bus, and the customer yelled at my boss. As one of the level 2 techs, I was told to "fix what Joe fucked up" right in front of Joe. Shit boss, different story.

I travel out there, look at their problem, but was told I couldn't touch anything until their IT guy showed up. So I used the time to ask questions, and tour around since I had a hunch.

Local IT guy strides in 15 minutes late, smug as hell. I talk and lead him to the basement, following the signal strength of a weirdly named wifi signal, and get a solid full strength connection in front of a locked closet. I ask them to unlock it, and ask about the router I see on the shelf, and point out that I believe it's their issue.

Local IT guy installed a router as an access point, and did it so wrong that it was acting as a 2nd DHCP server on their network, handing out different addresses. In layman's, their computers had 2 bosses with differing orders. Therefore local IT guy broke it, and blamed Joe cause he didn't understand what he did.

I praised Joe from that day for being the first technician I knew capable of physically installing gear remotely. He was an excellent tech, and a good colleague.

My favorite stories almost all involve other coworkers helping out the old ladies who were employed by a dry cleaners. They ranged from simple things like wildly mispronunciations of equipment that they saw and just heard how to pronounce, to borderline unbelievable like the day a coworker spent >45 minutes helping a lady get her computer working only to find out that the store only had emergency lighting because there was some power issue.

Though, the CEO/owner of that company gave me a few too. My favorite was the day he walked into our office, looked at a shithead coworker's empty chair, then said to my manager (at full volume while a couple of us were on calls) "Hey fuck face, where's porn boy?"

Permanently Deleted

I was on a call once where some guy initially wanted to like block channels or something. After like 2 minutes it turned into some crazy Trump-esque rant about basically nothing. Some of my favorite quotes:

• These people out here talking like they no what's what. They don't know shit. But big daddy... he knows.

• I see these fools running around here playing games. I don't play games. I play real life.

I had a user ask us to solve her problems slower because it made her feel stupid when we solved them immediately.

Before I was officially in tech support but I was the unofficial helper in my office. I don't recall the exact issue this person was having on their desktop but I went over to help and said "have you tried restarting?" This person, a millennial, probably younger or the same age as me, then pressed the power button on the monitor to "restart". I'm still reeling.

Not tech support, but in tech, a software team with a bunch of naive Indian expats named one of the software sprints "mandigo" after Django Unchained. Only me and and Northern Irishman got it and we laughed our asses off.

I had changed into scrubs, booties and hair cover to go into an operating theatre and repair a printer. I didn't want to have to come out and do all that again if someone had forgotten to charge the electric screwdriver, so I revved it a couple of times while standing in the charge room, which was fully visible from the hallway. A passer-by glanced my way at the noise, did a double take at what might have been a surgeon testing off-the-shelf power tools before starting a procedure, and walked into a trash can. 😁