The following is an excerpt from the Wall Street Journal by Jim Carlton.

This was forwarded by P. Wyatt .

1. Compaq is considering changing the command “Press Any Key,” “Press Return Key” because of the flood of calls asking where the “Any” key is.

2. AST technical support had a caller complaining that her mouse was

hard to control with the dust cover on. The cover turned out to be the

plastic bag the mouse was packaged in.

3. Another Compaq technician received a call from a man complaining

that the system wouldn’t read word processing files from his old diskettes.

After trouble-shooting for magnets and heat failed to diagnose the problem,

it was found that the customer labeled the diskettes then rolled them into

the typewriter to type the labels.

4. Another AST customer was asked to send a copy of her defective diskettes.

A few days later a letter arrived from the customer along with Xeroxed

copies of the floppies.

5. A Dell technician advised his customer to put his troubled floppy

back in the drive and close the door. The customer asked the tech to hold

on, and was heard putting the phone down, getting up and crossing the room

to close the door to his room.

6. Another Dell customer called to say he couldn’t get his computer

to fax anything. After 40 minutes of troubleshooting, the technician discovered

the man was trying to fax a piece of paper by holding it in front of the

monitor screen and hitting the “send” key.

7. Another Dell customer needed help setting up a new program, so a

Dell tech suggested he go to the local Egghead. “Yeah, I got me

a couple of friends,” the customer replied. When told Egghead

was a software store, the man said, “Oh, I thought you meant for

me to find a couple of geeks.”

8. Yet another Dell customer called to complain that his keyboard no

longer worked. He had cleaned it by filling up his tub with soap and water

and soaking the keyboard for a day, then removing all the keys and washing

them individually.

9. A Dell technician received a call from a customer who was enraged

because his computer had told him he was “bad” and “invalid.”

The tech explained that the computer’s bad and invalid

responses shouldn’t be taken personally.

10. An exasperated caller to Dell Computer Tech Support couldn’t get

her new Dell Computer to turn on. After ensuring the computer was plugged

in, the technician asked her what happened when she pushed the power button.

Her response, “I pushed and pushed on this foot pedal and nothing

Happens.” The “pedal” turned out to be the computer’s

mouse.

11. Another customer called Compaq tech support to say her brand-new

computer wouldn’t work. She said she unpacked the unit, plugged it in,

and sat there for 20 minutes waiting for something to happen. When asked

what happened when she pressed the power switch, she asked, “What power switch?”

12. True story from a Novell NetWire Sys Op:

Tech support: Hello, this is Tech Support.

Caller: Is this tech support?

Tech support: Yes, it is. How may I help you?

Caller: The cup holder on my PC is broken and I am within my warranty period. How do I go about getting

that fixed?

Tech Support: I’m sorry, but did you say a cup holder?

Caller: Yes, it’s attached to the front of my computer.

Tech Support: Please excuse me if I seem a bit stumped. It’s because I am. Did you receive this as part of

a promotional, at a trade show? How did you get this cup holder? Does it have any trademark on it?

Caller: It came with my computer, I don’t know anything about a promotional. It just has “4X” on it.

At this point, the Tech Rep had to mute the caller, because he couldn’t stand it. The caller had been using the load drawer of the CD-ROM drive as a cup holder, and snapped it off the drive!