What is the craziest question you have heard from a user?

So I'm helping one of our users yesterday who is having trouble logging into his account. The poor guy couldn't remember his user-name so I looked it up for him, but that is not the best part! So as he leaves my office he asks the following question, "Oh, do you have any replacements for the coffee warmer, because it's not working?" I stared at him and asked him what on earth he was talking about. So he fumbles around with the DVD-RW drive trying to get it open. I asked at this point if he was serious with a grin on my face. He didn't say anything and the silence in the room became very uncomfortable, he looked up at me with bewilderment in his eyes and walked out. I'm left with believing the guy thought that the DVD-RW drive was coffee warmer. I was so shocked that I forgot to check if the DVD-RW drive is still working or needs to be replaced.

The government side of our business hires contractors and sends them to Afghanistan and Iraq. Many of our users have never owned a computer, and I have even helped some that are afraid of them. This can make for some very funny situations but yesterday's left me cringing wondering how long that laptop will last.

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Comments

veritas_libertas

@Admins: Could you please move this thread to the Off-Topic area. Sorry about starting it in the wrong location.

Devilsbane

I've received calls regarding water on the floor of bathrooms at which point I let them know they should contact facilities.

Spent 20-30 minutes trying to get someone to log into a system, I reset her password and she still wasn't able to get in. She was entering Password! for her new password rather than Password1 which I reset it to. A lesson for all of us, ! is not 1

I spoke with user that refused to write down an error message, rather she just want someone to come to their desk and read it. Turns out it was just a reminder that their system had been updated, and would restart in roughly 8 hours to complete the installation.

I could go on...

asurania

Best question from a major bank in the united states (i worked for there helpdesk before).

Who created the internet, and when is it open for business?

Second best helpdesk call from the same bank..was that a system engineer called and her internet was not working apprently
So i remoted in and asked her to go to yahoo.com
she typed in www.yaaahhhhoooo.com

issue was not a technology issue...but a user issue

Devilsbane

asurania wrote: »

So i remoted in and asked her to go to yahoo.com
she typed in www.yaaahhhhoooo.com

Well duh, everyone knows that it is www.yaaahhhooooo.com, she apparently didn't sing the slogan right.

JBrown

A student once walked into the tech room demanding that we reset her email password, which was strange, since we were not offering email services to students. The email in question was at hotmail.com.

tomahawkeer

I got called at 1 am because someone noticed that a mouse wasnt working, on a MAC that nobody was using or going to be using. This was everybodys quitting time and was also the last shift before I was to come in at 8 the next morning.

skyline

This was not from a user but from a fellow MCSE member!! (I wasn’t MCSE yet but I was on my way there)

During a rollout of xp stations our group was asked to push out some software to a few stations via GPO. The request came to the MCSE guy. After 15mins he wasn't done and it became quite clear that he was paper cert, as he knew NOTHING about AD. I mean nothing at all, didn’t even know what a OU was....

When suggested to just go to the pc and map a drive and run the .msi file, he said he "forgot how to map a network drive"

Michael.J.Palmer

skyline wrote: »

This was not from a user but from a fellow MCSE member!! (I wasn’t MCSE yet but I was on my way there)

During a rollout of xp stations our group was asked to push out some software to a few stations via GPO. The request came to the MCSE guy. After 15mins he wasn't done and it became quite clear that he was paper cert, as he knew NOTHING about AD. I mean nothing at all, didn’t even know what a OU was....

When suggested to just go to the pc and map a drive and run the .msi file, he said he "forgot how to map a network drive"

Wow.... just wow... His next questions would have been, "What's an active directory?" "What is this Group Policy you speak of?" "Oh, and what's an MSI file? I thought all installation programs used something called an executable or something."

You know the sad thing, there are probably still people like that out there and I'm the one stuck at home unemployed.

wastedtime

skyline wrote: »

This was not from a user but from a fellow MCSE member!! (I wasn’t MCSE yet but I was on my way there)

During a rollout of xp stations our group was asked to push out some software to a few stations via GPO. The request came to the MCSE guy. After 15mins he wasn't done and it became quite clear that he was paper cert, as he knew NOTHING about AD. I mean nothing at all, didn’t even know what a OU was....

When suggested to just go to the pc and map a drive and run the .msi file, he said he "forgot how to map a network drive"

They have been covering it up for years but aliens have been stealing the brains of people with certifications. Make sure you protect your brain and wear a tin foil hat.

historian1974

I had a user once ask if he could get his network cable upgraded from a yellow one to a black one based on the fact that he was the only one in his immediate cubicle without black.

Countryboi

when i was working business class tech support for a ISP we had a lady that just came from ATT to us and was claiming someone was rerouting all her calls from her escort service to another escort service and that the mafia was tapping her line......i explained to her while this may have been possible at ATT it is near impossible for VOIP after it leaves the cable modem and even if they could why would anyone do this for what amounts do a 30 dollar hooker.....she would call every day with this mess

apena7

historian1974 wrote: »

I had a user once ask if he could get his network cable upgraded from a yellow one to a black one based on the fact that he was the only one in his immediate cubicle without black.

You should have given him a blue cable. Everyone knows blue cables are the best since that color means they're waterproof.

Devilsbane

historian1974 wrote: »

I had a user once ask if he could get his network cable upgraded from a yellow one to a black one based on the fact that he was the only one in his immediate cubicle without black.

You should have told them that he is better than the rest of them, which is why he was given a yellow one.

Essendon

I had a user call up when I worked at an ISP some years ago saying his internet wasnt working. A minute later after asking him when he bought his new ADSL pack and a couple other questions, it turns out the modem was still sitting inside the packaging. He was waiting for the intenet to magically start working !

ipconfig.all

hahhahhaha hahahahahahahahhahahahahahhahhahahhahahahahahahahhahhahahhahhhahhahahahhahhahahahahahahhhahahhahahahahhahahhahahahahhahahahahhahahahhahahahhhahahah i had to lol at the last isp one lol lol lol lol

Psoasman

....I asked a user if she saw the mouse moving on her screen and she thought I was talking about the rodent...not joking! I had to drive 20 minutes to another site to hit the F-lock key for the same user.

arwes

At my first ISP job, some fairly cute woman spoke with one of our sales guys about us creating and hosting a XXX site for her. All us techs were offering to pool money to offset her costs.

Unfortunately, the more the owner thought about it the more he realized it could mean bad press if traced back to us, so he had to decline. Crap.

chX

Working in an ISP, plenty of stupid/funny calls.

Asked a lady to close the window she had open (Internet Explorer). Yep, you guessed it. She put the phone down and proceeded to shut the nearest open window.

--

Had some guy call up and complain that his "legal torrents" were going to slow. Apparently "3.4 Kilopascals per second" isn't fast enough by his standards.

subl1m1nal

I got a couple for you guys:

I had a user a few jobs back that would call at least once a week complaining that her monitor was broken. I would get out of my seat, walk across the building, walk upstairs and turn on her monitor. Even if I asked if she turned it on, I'd get "well, I pressed the button".

Another client called because their server wouldn't turn on. I had to drive 45 minutes to press the power button. He seriously couldn't find the power button.

wd40

We received a call that two laptop users lost all their files, after troubleshooting remotely I had to drive to another branch, it turned out that they swapped their identical laptops by mistake

rsutton

Working for a company that streams stock market data to customers VIA the web. A client calls in upset he is not gettting data. A few questions in to troubleshooting I realize his computer is not connected to his DSL. I told him this and he was not surprised. He said he still needed to get his data even though his internet was down.

DevilWAH

The questions I like are from the experts (real experts) who call a generaly IT help desk.

I had one guy with about 20 years experince as a software developer in various proraming languages.

With out pausing to introduce him self. He started strigh of with some speal about implening such and such function in C with this to all x y zz.....

he went of for about 5min with out a pause going in to some serious deep programing speak. (I have done a little C++ but this was way way way beyond me)

When I finaly got a word in and tried to explain that we really did not have the expertise on the helpdesk to help him, and suggested he contacted one of our software development team to see if they could. He spat out about something about how unhappy he was with the helpdesk service, and slamed down the phone....

Devilsbane

DevilWAH wrote: »

The questions I like are from the experts (real experts) who call a generaly IT help desk.

I had one guy with about 20 years experince as a software developer in various proraming languages.

With out pausing to introduce him self. He started strigh of with some speal about implening such and such function in C with this to all x y zz.....

he went of for about 5min with out a pause going in to some serious deep programing speak. (I have done a little C++ but this was way way way beyond me)

When I finaly got a word in and tried to explain that we really did not have the expertise on the helpdesk to help him, and suggested he contacted one of our software development team to see if they could. He spat out about something about how unhappy he was with the helpdesk service, and slamed down the phone....

I've had calls similar to this. Everyone seems to think that I am an expert with every program that we use here. Well most of them I have never used as I've never been in a position to look up contract information or anything like that.

"I clicked on x and it didn't show me y" really you should be talking to your manager or something if you need to learn how to do your job.

RobertKaucher

apena7 wrote: »

You should have given him a blue cable. Everyone knows blue cables are the best since that color means they're waterproof.

I have photograph that proves this statement false.

Panzer919

We have a client who hired an IT Director because they fired the last one and didn't feel like paying our company to fix everything the right way the first time. If I had to calculate how many hours we have logged for said Director I would have to say it was close to 300 hours in 2 months.

He has called in for help with, who should he give passwords to, how to reload a pc, how to change a users rights in AD, how to trace a network cable, how to map a dive, how to load printer drivers, how to map said printer, etc...

If I listed the crap calls I took at my last job(large ISP) I would have to write a novel. lets just say this, "make something idiot proof and they will build a better idiot!"

RobertKaucher

Devilsbane wrote: »

I've had calls similar to this. Everyone seems to think that I am an expert with every program that we use here. Well most of them I have never used as I've never been in a position to look up contract information or anything like that.

"I clicked on x and it didn't show me y" really you should be talking to your manager or something if you need to learn how to do your job.

And might I follow up with Excel is a business tool. I am a database and network admin, my job is not to format your spread sheet for you. Learn to flipping use Excel, which is a business tool (did I say that already?), to do your job.

Devilsbane

RobertKaucher wrote: »

I have photograph that proves this statement false.

Your picture failed.

MattMcNabb

RobertKaucher wrote: »

I have photograph that proves this statement false.

I know where this photo came from.

RobertKaucher

MattMcNabb wrote: »

I know where this photo came from.

I bet you had a few there yourself!

Michael.J.Palmer

This isn't something that happened to me but my father in law when he worked as an IT guy for a local bank about 10-15 years ago.

He got a call one day with someone saying that their computer wouldn't start-up, the call was from another branch that was about 2 hours away, so to try and make sure that it was a hardware problem of some sort that required his attention he asked the usual "Is it plugged in? Are you pressing the power button? Are you the only one having this problem?" Well they said it was plugged in and what not and he had them double check the plug. He drove out to the branch and when he got there he nearly smacked the person who called, it appears that the power cord wasn't pushed in all the way and it appeared to be plugged in to the user, he nudged the cord in and cut on the computer and left before he went off (my father in law is known to have a temper... I guess that's why he hasn't worked in IT for so long, lol).