And you thought your support cases were bad!

[Luke122]

PEBKAC = greatest acronym ever.

[Airbozo]

PEBKAC = greatest acronym ever.

I worked at Sun for a while supporting one of the newer campus' and when the desktop support system was setup, the Engineering Manager had PEBKAC listed as one of the resolution codes. This went on for almost a year when a new director asked about this resolution code during one of our staff meetings. He saw his name in the report as one of the tickets we closed (we had to report weekly on our open and closed ticket items as a process to refine our support procedures) and was curious why, in addition to the initial trouble report, the resolution stated what the technician did, then the last line said PEBKAC (entered by the manager not the tech). When he asked what the acronym meant, we all looked at each other and the manager blurted out the meaning not thinking.

The guy went crazy on us. He had the manager remove the acronym that day. Him and the manager went at it the next meeting when instead of PEBKAC the indicator said: USER ERROR.

He didn't like that either.

[Snowman]

On one occasion, a lady came into the store, apparently interested in buying a home computer. After surveying the models on display, she walked over to one and pointed to the monitor and keyboard saying, "I think I need one of these, and one of those...." She then pointed to the CPU and continued, "...but I don't think I need one of those."

These always make me question if it is somebody just writing a story... I have never referred to a tower as a CPU... that would be under the heat sink and fan on the motherboard.

[x88x]

I used to refer to the tower as the CPU. It is sometimes a useful catch-all, since 'tower' isn't always applicable, but the CPU will always be inside the thing that you are referring to. Now I just call it the computer.

[dr.walrus]

I worked at Sun for a while supporting one of the newer campus' and when the desktop support system was setup, the Engineering Manager had PEBKAC listed as one of the resolution codes. This went on for almost a year when a new director asked about this resolution code during one of our staff meetings. He saw his name in the report as one of the tickets we closed (we had to report weekly on our open and closed ticket items as a process to refine our support procedures) and was curious why, in addition to the initial trouble report, the resolution stated what the technician did, then the last line said PEBKAC (entered by the manager not the tech). When he asked what the acronym meant, we all looked at each other and the manager blurted out the meaning not thinking.

The guy went crazy on us. He had the manager remove the acronym that day. Him and the manager went at it the next meeting when instead of PEBKAC the indicator said: USER ERROR.

He didn't like that either.

In-house support can be dreadful.

Working in support for social services, I once dealt with a user who scheduled homecare visits whose timesheets were all messed up. She insisted, time after time that she hadn't done it, despite three separate audit trails that showed:

1. The time the problems had occurred
2. That they had occurred from her terminal
3. That she was logged in

Moreover, her argument that 'the system had just done it itself' just didn't hold any water when you looked at the audit trails - you could practically see how someone had gone between screens, how the few seconds inbetween each change clearly showed a person had been doing it.

I didn't like to accuse her of doing it herself, so I suggested someone else could have been using her terminal... but she was adamant that she wanted a full investigation into the problem. I could only repeat that I had conducted a full investigation, I wasn't blaming her, but that was the conclusion of the ticket.

The lady in question burst out crying - and we're not talking about a little weep, but proper, snotty, uncontrollable sobbing. Ending that phone call was very difficult because she was crying too hard to speak...

First thing I did was speak to her manager, my manager, and the manager in charge of support for the application where the problem occurred. Fortunately, everything I'd said and done was correct and by the book - the user was sent home for the day. Madness.

[AmEv]

Ugh, I have the "CPU" pet peeve myself.
So, you want me to put my homework on a 50-degree-celcius piece of equipment???? And ultimately lose it, and the computer?

I just call it "machine."

[AmEv]

Another hilarious one:

Customer: "I ran Microwave Defrost, but it didn't help."

(Referring to Microsoft Defrag.)

[Airbozo]

This one will date me:

I used to work at AMCO productions in Denver. I supported the main computer room and on occasion, helped with end user support. Most users had the old IBM 3278 terminals and there was a little status line at the bottom of the screen where indicators were displayed. One of the trouble codes was NBL (nothing below the line). I got an emergency call early one morning with the status NBL. This usually meant a reboot or the token ring cable came loose.

Went to the user's office and he said that he came in this morning and it was like that (not possible since you have to log in to get to a certain point which he clearly was logged in). I asked what he had been doing when it died and he re-iterated it was like that when he came in (still not possible since what was on the screen showed that he had been working on something before the system died). Checked the cables and they were ok, He excused himself to go to a meeting and then I sat down to troubleshoot. As I pulled the keyboard towards me, hot coffee splashed out. I turned the keyboard upside down and almost a cup of coffee poured out of that thing onto his desk and all over his papers...

The funny part is, he denied spilling the coffee and tried to blame me for it! My boss knew better since at the time I didn't drink coffee. We rinsed his keyboard out, let it dry and gave it back to him. His office forever smelled like burned coffee. I later find out that he had done this several times before.

[AmEv]

*3

Around 2001, our family got a new desktop computer from a popular computer company. We also got an inkjet printer in a sort of bundle deal. After a few weeks of flawless operation, the printer ceased working and made an odd clicking sound whenever a document was sent to it. We called customer support for help.

The customer support associate went through an idiotic troubleshooting checklist ("Is the printer plugged into the wall?" and so forth) and then had us check the device manager and reinstall the printer drivers. I told him it did not appear to be a software problem, because the printer was making odd noises, which indicated a mechanical failure of some kind. After an hour long session of troubleshooting, we were advised to box up the computer and printer and send it to their repair center. Yes, not just the printer but the computer as well.

They asked if we had any files on the hard drive that we'd like to save. We told them which files and folders to save for us. Finally we got the computer back and a new printer. The computer had been wiped and the operating system reinstalled, and we got our data files on a CD.

The problem? A cheeto had fallen into the printer and jammed it. They sent the cheeto back in a small plastic bag. The printer was covered by the warranty, but the CD backup was not, so they charged us $100 for it.

[blaze15301]

when i was working with this guy a few months ago he called me up one late night asking me how to plug his fridge into a usb port. i told him he couldn't do that it was just impossible. then he blatantly called me a liar and told me he seen it on the internet. i told him what he was looking at was a mini fridge at best. and he still insisted on calling me a liar. needless to say i stopped helping him.