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I had my very first tech support experience right here in Gaia last week. I talked someone through emptying her 'temporary internet files' so that she could fish properly.

I can only assume that she saw my name and thought I was a computer geek, imagine her surprise when she discovered that I am a geek for sci-fi not computers. lol

Still we muddled through and it worked. But it got me thinking about the real tech support people and I scrounged the following off the internets.

ALL IN A DAY’S TECH SUPPORT

One woman called Dell's toll-free line to ask how to install the batteries in her laptop. When told that the directions were on the first page of the manual the woman replied angrily "I just paid $2,000 for this damn thing and I'm not going to read any book."

Customer: "I received the software update you sent, but I am still getting the same error message."
Tech Support: "Did you install the update?"
Customer: "No. Oh, am I supposed to install it to get it to work?"

Customer: "I'm having trouble installing Microsoft Word."
Tech Support: "Tell me what you've done."
Customer: "I typed 'A:SETUP'."
Tech Support: "Ma'am, remove the disk and tell me what it says."
Customer: "It says '[PC manufacturer] Restore and Recovery disk'."
Tech Support: "Insert the MS Word setup disk."
Customer: "What?"
Tech Support: "Did you buy MS word?"
Customer "No..."

Tech Support: "Ok, in the bottom left hand side of the screen, can you see the 'OK' button displayed?"
Customer: "Wow. How can you see my screen from there?"

Customer: "Uhh...I need help unpacking my new PC."
Tech Support: "What exactly is the problem?"
Customer: "I can't open the box."
Tech Support: "Well, I'd remove the tape holding the box closed and go from there."
Customer: "Uhhhh...ok, thanks...."

Customer: "I'm having a problem installing your software. I've got a fairly old computer, and when I type 'INSTALL', all it says is 'Bad command or file name'."
Tech Support: "Ok, check the directory of the A: drive - go to A:/ and type 'dir'."
Customer: reads off a list of file names, including 'INSTALL.EXE'
Tech Support: "All right, the correct file is there. Type 'INSTALL' again."
Customer: "Ok." (pause) "Still says 'Bad command or file name'."
Tech Support: "Hmmm. The file's there in the correct place - it can't help but do something. Are you sure you're typing I-N-S-T-A-L-L and hitting the Enter key?"
Customer: "Yes, let me try it again." (pause) "Nope, still 'Bad command or file name'."
Tech Support: (now really confused) "Are you sure you're typing I-N-S-T-A-L-L and hitting the key that says 'Enter'?"
Customer: "Well, yeah. Although my 'N' key is stuck, so I'm using the 'M' key... does that matter?"

At our company we have asset numbers on the front of everything. They give the location, name and everything else just by scanning the computer's asset barcode or using the number beneath the bars.
Customer: "Hello. I can't get on the network."
Tech Support: "Ok. Just read me your asset number so we can open an outage."
Customer: "What is that?"
Tech Support: "That little barcode on the front of your computer."
Customer: "Ok. Big bar, little bar, big bar, big bar ..."

Tech Support: "I need you to right-click on the Open Desktop."
Customer: "Ok."
Tech Support: "Did you get a pop-up menu?"
Customer: "No."
Tech Support: "Ok. Right click again. Do you see a pop-up menu?"
Customer: "No."
Tech Support: "Ok, sir. Can you tell me what you have done up until this point?"
Customer: "Sure, you told me to write 'click' and I wrote 'click'." (At this point I had to put the caller on hold to tell the rest of the tech support staff what had happened. I couldn't, however, stop from giggling when I got back to the call.)
Tech Support: "Ok, did you type 'click' with the keyboard?"
Customer: "I have done something dumb, right?"