1. Log on, wait a sec, then get a frightened look on your face and scream “Oh my God! They’ve found me!” and bolt.
2. Laugh uncontrollably for about 3 minutes & then suddenly stop and look suspiciously at everyone who looks at you.
3. When your computer is turned off, complain to the monitor on duty that you can’t get the damn thing to work. After he/she’s turned it on, wait 5 minutes,turn it off again, & repeat the process for a good half hour.
4. Type frantically, often stopping to look at the person next to you evily.
5. Before anyone else is in the lab, connect each computer to a different screen than the one it’s set up with.
6. Write a program that plays the “Smurfs” theme song and play it at the highest volume possible over & over again.
7. Work normally for a while. Suddenly look amazingly startled by something on the screen and crawl underneath the desk.
8. Ask the person next to you if they know how to tap into top-secret Pentagon files.
9. Use Interactive Send to make passes at people you don’t know.
10. Make a small ritual sacrifice to the computer before you turn it on.
11. Bring a chainsaw, but don’t use it. If anyone asks why you have it, say “Just in case…” mysteriously.
12. Type on VAX for a while. Suddenly start cursing for 3 minutes at everything bad about your life. Then stop and continue typing.
13. Enter the lab, undress, and start staring at other people as if they’re crazy while typing.
14. Light candles in a pentagram around your terminal before starting.
15. Ask around for a spare disk. Offer $2. Keep asking until someone agrees. Then, pull a disk out of your fly and say, “Oops, I forgot.”
16. Every time you press Return and there is processing time required, pray “Ohpleaseohpleaseohpleaseohplease,” and scream “YES!” when it finishes.
17. “DISK FIGHT!!!”
18. Start making out with the person at the terminal next to you (It helps if you know them, but this is also a great way to make new friends).
19. Put a straw in your mouth and put your hands in your pockets. Type by hitting the keys with the straw.
20. If you’re sitting in a swivel chair, spin around singing “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” whenever there is processing time required.
21. Draw a pictue of a woman (or man) on a piece of paper, tape it to your monitor. Try to seduce it. Act like it hates you and then complain loudly that women (men) are worthless.
22. Try to stick a Ninetendo cartridge into the 3 1/2 disk drive. When it doesn’t work, get the supervisor.
23. When you are on an IBM, and when you turn it on, ask loudly where the smiling Apple face is.
24. Print out the complete works of Shakespeare, then when its all done (two days later) say that all you wanted was one line.
25. Sit and stare at the screen, biting your nails noisily. After doing this for a while, spit them out at the feet of the person next to you.
26. Stare at the screen, grind your teeth, stop, look at the person next to you, grinding. Repeat procedure, making sure you never provoke the person enough to let them blow up, as this releases tension, and it is far more effective to let them linger.
27. If you have long hair, take a typing break, look for split ends, cut them and deposit them on your neighbor’s keyboard as you leave.
28. Put a large, gold-framed portrait of the British Royal Family on your desk and loudly proclaim that it inspires you.
29. Come to the lab wearing several layers of socks. Remove shoes and place them of top of the monitor. Remove socks layer by layer and drape them around the monitor. Exclaim sudden haiku about the aesthetic beauty of cotton on plastic.
30. Take the keyboard and sit under the computer. Type up your paper like this. Then go to the lab supervisor and complain about the bad working conditions.
31. Laugh hysterically, shout “You will all perish in flames!!!” and continue working.
32. Bring some dry ice & make it look like your computer is smoking.
33. Assign a musical note to every key (ie. the Delete key is A Flat, the B key is F sharp, etc.). Whenever you hit a key, hum its note loudly. Write an entire paper this way.
34. Attempt to eat your computer’s mouse.
35. Borrow someone else’s keyboard by reaching over, saying “Excuse me, mind if I borrow this for a sec?”, unplugging the keyboard & taking it.
36. Bring in a bunch of magnets and have fun.
37. When doing calculations, pull out an abacus and say that sometimes the old ways are best.
38. Play Pong for hours on the most powerful computer in the lab.
39. Make a loud noise of hitting the same key over and over again until you see that your neighbor is noticing (You can hit the space bar so your fill isn’t affected). Then look at your neighbor’s keyboard. Hit his/her delete key several times, erasing an entire word. While you do this, ask: “Does *your* delete key work?” Shake your head, and resume hitting the space bar on your keyboard. Keep doing this until you’ve deleted about a page of your neighbor’s document. Then, suddenly exclaim: “Well, whaddya know? I’ve been hitting the space bar this whole time. No wonder it wasn’t deleting! Ha!” Print out your document and leave.
40. Remove your disk from the drive and hide it. Go to the lab monitor and complain that your computer ate your disk. (For special effects, put some Elmer’s Glue on or around the disk drive. Claim that the computer is drooling.)
41. Stare at the person’s next to your’s screen, look really puzzled, burst out laughing, and say “You did that?” loudly. Keep laughing, grab your stuff and leave, howling as you go.
42. Point at the screen. Chant in a made up language while making elaborate hand gestures for a minute or two. Press return or the mouse, then leap back and yell “COVEEEEERRRRRR!” peek up from under the table, walk back to the computer and say. “Oh, good. It worked this time,” and calmly start to type again.
43. Keep looking at invisible bugs and trying to swat them.
44. See who’s online. Send a total stranger a talk request. Talk to them like you’ve known them all your lives. Hangup before they get a chance to figure out you’re a total stranger.
45. Bring an small tape player with a tape of really absurd sound effects. Pretend it’s the computer and look really lost.
46. Pull out a pencil. Start writing on the screen. Complain that the lead doesn’t work.
47. Come into the computer lab wearing several endangered species of flowers in your hair. Smile incessantly. Type a sentence, then laugh happily, exclaim “You’re such a marvel!!”, and kiss the screen. Repeat this after every sentence. As your ecstasy mounts, also hug the keyboard. Finally, hug your neighbor, then the computer assistant, and walk out.
48. Run into the computer lab, shout “Armageddon is here!!!!!”, then calmly sit down and begin to type.
49. Quietly walk into the computer lab with a Black and Decker chainsaw, rev that baby up, and then walk up to the nearest person and say, “Give me that computer or you’ll be feeding my pet crocodile for the next week”.
50. Two words: Tesla Coil.

1. Don’t write anything down. We can play back the error messages from here.

2. When a tech says he’s coming right over, go for coffee. It’s nothing to us to remember 3,000 screen saver passwords.

3. When you call us to have your computer moved, be sure to leave it buried under half a ton of postcards, baby pictures, stuffed animals, dried flowers, bowling trophies and Popsicle art. We don’t have a life, and we find it deeply moving to catch a fleeting glimpse of yours.

4. When you call the help desk, state what you want, not what’s keeping you from getting it. We don’t need to know that you can’t get into your mail because your computer won’t power on at all.

5. Don’t put your phone extension in your e-mails to the help desk. We need to keep an eye on the address book performance.

6. When tech support sends you an e-mail with high importance, delete it at once. We’re just testing the public groups.

7. When a tech is eating lunch in his cube, walk right in and spill your guts right out. We exist only to serve.

8. When a tech is having a smoke outside, ask him a computer question. The only reason why we smoke at all is to ferret out those clients who don’t have e-mail or a telephone line.

9. Send urgent email all in uppercases. The mail server picks it up and flags it as a rush delivery.

10. When you call a tech’s direct line, press 5 to skip the bilingual greeting that says he’s out of town for a week, record your message and wait exactly 24 hours before you send an email straight to the director because no one ever returned your call. You’re entitled to common courtesy.

11. When the photocopier doesn’t work, call computer support. There’s electronics in it.

12. When you’re getting a NO DIAL TONE message at home, call computer support. We can fix your line from here.

13. When you have a dozen CGA monitors to get rid of, call computer support. We’re collectors.

14. When something’s wrong with your home PC, dump it on a tech’s chair with no name, no phone number and no description of the problem. We love a puzzle.

15. If you hate your mouse, get some other pointing device and discard the manual. We know all the keyboard accelerators.

16. When a tech tells you that computer monitors don’t have cartridges in them, argue. We love a good argument.

17. When you get a message about insufficient disk space, delete everything in the Windows directory. It’s nothing but trouble anyway.

18. When you get a message about a hard disk controller failure, and then you reboot and it looks okay, don’t call tech support. We’d much rather troubleshoot it when it’s dead as a doornail.

19. When you have a tech on the phone walking you through changing a setting, read the paper. We don’t actually mean for you to do anything; we just love to hear ourselves talk.

20. When a tech tells you that he’ll be there shortly, reply in a scathing tone of voice: “And just how many weeks do you mean by shortly?” That’ll get us going.

21. If you have a 14-inch monitor that says VGA on it, set the display to true colour, 1024 x 768. You’ll never again have to worry about people reading confidential files over your shoulder.

22. When we offer training on the upcoming OS upgrade, don’t bother. We’ll be there to hold your hand after it’s done.

23. When the printer won’t print, re-send the job at least 20 times. Print jobs frequently get sucked into black holes.

24. When the printer still won’t print after 20 tries, send the job to all 68 printers in the branch. One of them is bound to work.

25. Don’t learn the proper name for anything technical. We know exactly what you mean by “my thingy’s outta whack”.

26. Don’t use on-line help. On-line help is for wimps.

27. If you’re taking night classes in computer science, feel free to go around and update the network drivers for your all your co-workers. We’re grateful for the overtime money.

28. When a tech makes popcorn, help yourself while he’s checking out your access rights. And we keep chocolate in the top drawer, too.

29. When you have a tech fixing your computer at a quarter past noon, eat your lunch in his face. We function better when slightly dizzy.

30. Don’t ever thank us. We’re getting paid for this.

31. If you’re an intern, feel free to bring in all your friends from college and have your Daddy complain to our boss when we won’t let them use the scanner. We had no friends when we were in college; that’s why we’re such a bunch of tight-assed little twerps.

32. When a tech asks you whether you’ve installed any new software on this computer, lie. It’s nobody’s business what you’ve got on your computer.

33. When a tech finds the AOL shortcuts in your Recycle Bin, tell her you’ve never seen those before. We couldn’t tell bullshit if it kicked us in the face.

34. If you have NT, feel free to change the local administrator’s password to “biteme” and promptly forget it. We like installing NT.

35. If the mouse cable keeps knocking down the framed picture of your dog, lift the computer and stuff the cable under it. Mouse cables were designed to have 45 lbs. of computer sitting on top of them.

36. If the space bar on your keyboard doesn’t work, blame it on the mail upgrade. Keyboards are actually very happy with half a pound of muffin crumbs and nail clippings in them.

37. When you receive the new Yanni CD for your birthday, shove it into any slot on the front of your computer. We like getting physical with 5.25 floppy drive.

38. When you get a message saying “Are you sure?” click on that Yes button as fast as you can. Hell, if you weren’t sure, you wouldn’t be doing it, would you?

39. When you find a tech on the phone with his bank, sit uninvited on the corner of his desk and stare at him until he hangs up. We don’t have any money to speak of anyway.

40. Feel perfectly free to say things like “I don’t know nothing about that computer crap”. We don’t mind at all hearing our area of professional expertise referred to as crap.

41. When you need to change the toner cartridge, call tech support. Changing a toner cartridge is an extremely complex task, and Hewlett-Packard recommends that it be performed only by a professional engineer with a master’s degree in nuclear physics.

42. When you can’t find someone in the government directory, call tech support. Due to budget restrictions, we double as 192.

43. When you have a lock to pick on an old file cabinet, call tech support. We love to hack.

44. When something’s the matter with your computer, ask your secretary to call the help desk. We enjoy the challenge of having to deal with a third party who doesn’t know jack shit about the problem.

45. When you receive a 30-meg movie file, send it to everyone as a mail attachment. We got lots of disk space on that mail server.

46. Don’t even think of breaking large print jobs down into smaller chunks. Somebody else might get a chance to squeeze a memo into the queue.

47. When your eyes fall on the family pictures on a tech’s desk, exclaim in a flabbergasted tone of voice: “YOU have a child?!?” We need to be reminded of how lucky we were to ever have got laid.

48. When a tech gets on the elevator pushing £15,000 worth of computer equipment on a cart, ask in a very loud voice: “Good grief, you take the elevator to go DOWN one floor?!?” That’s another one that cracks us up no end.

49. When the Finance folks are printing a 100-page spreadsheet on the LaserJet, send your black and white print job to the colour printer. We get the black toner for free.

50. When you lose your car keys, send an email to the entire department. People out in Yellowknife like to keep abreast of what’s going on.

51. When you bump into a tech at the grocery store on a Saturday, ask a computer question. We don’t do weekends.

52. When you see a tech having a beer with a member of the opposite sex on a Friday night, walk right up to them and ask a computer question. We don’t do dating; the reason why we have that horny look on our faces is because we’re discussing the new Intel processor.

53. Don’t bother to tell us when you move computers around on your own. Computer names are just a cosmetic feature in NT 4.0; they won’t be doing anything useful until the next major release.

54. When you can’t access some shared directory on your boss’s machine, just tell us that you’ve lost your X: drive. We know all that shit by heart.

55. If you need to buy a computer for your daughter in college, feel free to pick our brains while we’re taking a leak. We’re good at talking shop with our dicks in our hands.

56. If your son is a student in computer science, have him come in on the weekends and do his projects on your office computer. We’ll be there for you when his illegal copy of Visual Basic 6.0 makes your Access 95 database flip out.

57. When you bring your own personal home PC for repair at the office, leave the documentation at home. We’ll find the jumper settings on the Internet.

58. We’re aware of that problem with computers just sitting there and not doing anything. We’re confident that with the next service pack they’ll be able to dance the jig.

59. The correct location to store important files is the Recycle Bin. It’s just like a real office, where you keep your tax receipts in the blue can under your desk.

60. If you miss Windows 3.1, find the line that goes shell=explorer.exe in your SYSTEM.INI file and replace it with shell=progman.exe. It makes troubleshooting infinitely easier when we ask you whether you have a Start button at the bottom of your screen and you truthfully answer us that you don’t.

61. If you curse every morning when you start to type your password and the Virus Shield splash screen pops up in your face, disable the Virus Shield. Again, this is just like real life: if you don’t like condoms, just don’t use them, that’s all.

62. If you hate PC’s, get on the Internet and download one of those desktop enhancements that make your computer look just like a Mac, down to the sad faces replacing verbose error messages. We find it refreshing to troubleshoot the nuances in that sad little face instead of some cold forbidding hexadecimal integer.

63. When you detect a French accent in a tech’s voice, switch to French. We don’t mind that your level of fluency is that of a mildly retarded 4-year-old; you don’t make a whole lot of sense in your own mother tongue either.

64. We don’t really believe that you’re a bunch of ungrateful twits. It hurts our feelings that you could even think such a thing. We wish to express our deepest gratitude to the hundreds of clueless losers portrayed herein, without which none of this would have been remotely possible.

65. Keep it crashin’!

Monday

8:05am
User called to say they forgot password. Told them to use password retrieval utility called FDISK. Blissfully ignorant, they thank me and hang up. God, we let the people vote and drive, too?

8:12am
Accounting called to say they couldn’t access expense reports database. Gave them Standard Sys Admin Answer #112, “Well, it works for me.” Let them rant and rave while I unplugged my coffeemaker from the UPS and plugged their server back in. Suggested they try it again. One more happy customer…

8:14 am
User from 8:05 call said they received error message “Error accessing Drive 0.” Told them it was an OS problem. Transferred them to microsupport.

11:00 am
Relatively quiet for last few hours. Decide to plug support phone back in so I can call my girlfriend. Says parents are coming into town this weekend. Put her on hold and transferred her to janitorial closet down in basement. What is she thinking? The “Myst” and “Doom” nationals are this weekend!

11:34 am
Another user calls (do they ever learn?). Says they want ACL changed on HR performance review database so that nobody but HR can access database. Tell them no problem. Hang up. Change ACL. Add @MailSend so performance reviews are sent to */US.

12:00 pm
Lunch

3:30 pm
Return from lunch.

3:55 pm
Wake up from nap. Bad dream makes me cranky. Bounce servers for no reason. Return to napping.

4:23 pm
Yet another user calls. Wants to know how to change fonts on form. Ask them what chip set they’re using. Tell them to call back when they find out.

4:55 pm
Decide to run “Create Save/Replication Conflicts” macro so next shift has something to do.

Tuesday

8:30 am
Finish reading support log from last night. Sounded busy. Terrible time with Save/Replication conflicts.

9:00 am
Support manager arrives. Wants to discuss my attitude. Click on PhoneNotes SmartIcon. “Love to, but kinda busy. Put something in the calendar database!” I yell as I grab for the support lines, which have (mysteriously) lit up. Walks away grumbling.

9:35 am
Team leader from R&D needs ID for new employee. Tell them they need form J-19R=9C9\\DARR\K1. Say they never heard of such a form. Tell them it’s in the SPECIAL FORMS database. Say they never heard of such a database. Transfer them to janitorial closet in basement.

10:00 am
Perky sounding intern from R&D calls and says she needs new ID. Tell her I need employee number, department name, manager name, and marital status. Run @DbLookup against state parole board database, Centers for Disease Control database, and my Oprah Winfrey database. No hits. Tell her ID will be ready tonight. Drawing from the lessons learned in last week’s “Reengineering for Customer Partnership,” I offer to personally deliver ID to her apartment.

10:07 am
Janitor stops by to say he keeps getting strange calls in basement. Offer to train him on Notes. Begin now. Let him watch console while I grab a smoke.

1:00 pm
Return from smoking break. Janitor says phones kept ringing, so he transferred them to cafeteria lady. I like this guy.

1:05 pm
Big commotion! Support manager falls in hole left where I pulled floor tiles outside his office door. Stress to him importance of not running in computer room, even if I do yell “Omigod — Fire!”

1:15 pm
Development Standards Committee calls and complains about umlauts in form names. Apologizing for the inconvenience, I tell them I will fix it. Hang up and run global search/replace using gaks.

1:20 pm
Mary Hairnet from cafeteria calls. Says she keeps getting calls for “Notice Loads” or “NoLoad Goats,” she’s not sure, couldn’t here over industrial-grade blender. Tell her it was probably “Lettuce Nodes.” Maybe the food distributor with a new product? She thinks about it and hangs up.

2:00 pm
Legal secretary calls and says she lost password. Ask her to check in her purse, floor of car, and on bathroom counter. Tell her it probably fell out of back of machine. Suggest she put duct tape over all the airvents she can find on the PC. Grudgingly offer to create new ID for her while she does that.

2:49 pm
Janitor comes back. Wants more lessons. I take off rest of day.

Wednesday

8:30 am
Irate user calls to say chipset has nothing to do with fonts on form. Tell them Of course, they should have been checking “Bitset,” not “chipset.” Sheepish user apologizes and hangs up.

9:10am
Support manager, with foot in cast, returns to office. Schedules 10:00am meeting with me. User calls and wants to talk to support manager about terrible help at support desk. Tell them manager about to go into meeting. Sometimes life hands you material…

10:00 am
Call Louie in janitorial services to cover for me. Go to support manager’s office. He says he can’t dismiss me but can suggest several lateral career moves. Most involve farm implements in third-world countries with moderate to heavy political turmoil. By and by, I ask if he’s aware of new bug which takes full-text indexed random e-mail databases and puts all references to furry handcuffs and Bambi Boomer in Marketing on the corporate Web page. Meeting is adjourned as he reaches for keyboard, Web browser, and Tums.

10:30 am
Tell Louie he’s doing great job. Offer to show him mainframe corporate PBX system sometime.

11:00 am
Lunch.

4:55 pm
Return from lunch.

5:00 pm
Shift change; Going home.

Thursday

8:00 am
New guy (“Marvin”) started today. “Nice plaids” I offer. Show him server room, wiring closet, and technical library. Set him up with IBM PC-XT. Tell him to quit whining, Notes runs the same in both monochrome and color.

8:45 am
New guy’s PC finishes booting up. Tell him I’ll create new ID for him. Set minimum password length to 64. Go grab smoke.

9:30 am
Introduce Louie the custodian to Marvin. “Nice plaids” Louie comments. Is this guy great or what?!

11:00 am
Beat Louie in dominos game. Louie leaves. Fish spare dominos out of sleeves (“Always have backups”). User calls, says Accounting server is down. Untie Ethernet cable from radio antenna (better reception) and plug back into hub. Tell user to try again. Another happy customer!

11:55 am
Brief Marvin on Corporate Policy 98.022.01:
“Whereas all new employee beginning on days ending in ‘Y’ shall enjoy all proper aspects with said corporation, said employee is obligated to provide sustenance and relief to senior technical analyst on shift.”

Marvin doubts. I point to “Corporate Policy” database (a fine piece of work, if I say so myself!). “Remember, that’s DOUBLE pepperoni and NO peppers!” I yell to Marvin as he steps over open floor tile to get to exit door.

1:00 pm
Oooooh! Pizza makes me so sleepy…

4:30 pm
Wake from refreshing nap. Catch Marvin scanning want ads.

5:00 pm
Shift change. Flick HR’s server off and on several times (just testing the On/Off button…). See ya tomorrow.

Friday

8:00 am
Night shift still trying to replace power supply in HR server. Told them it worked fine before I left.

9:00 am
Marvin still not here. Decide I might start answering these calls myself. Unforward phones from Mailroom.

9:02 am
Yep. A user call. Users in Des Moines can’t replicate. Me and the Oiuji board determine it’s sunspots. Tell them to call Telecommunications.

9:30 am
Good God, another user! They’re like ants. Says he’s in San Diego and can’t replicate with Des Moines. Tell him it’s sunspots, but with a two-hour difference. Suggest he reset the time on the server back two hours.

10:17 am
Pensacola calls. Says they can’t route mail to San Diego. Tell them to set server ahead three hours.

11:00 am
E-mail from corporate says for everybody to quit resetting the time on their servers. I change the date stamp and forward it to Milwaukee.

11:20 am
Finish @CoffeeMake macro. Put phone back on hook.

11:23 am
Milwaukee calls, asks what day it is.

11:25 am
Support manager stops by to say Marvin called in to quit. “So hard to get good help…” I respond. Support manager says he has appointment with orthopedic doctor this afternoon, and asks if I mind sitting in on the weekly department head meeting for him. “No problem!”

11:30 am
Call Louie and tell him opportunity knocks and he’s invited to a meeting this afternoon. “Yeah, sure. You can bring your snuff” I tell him.

12:00 am
Lunch.

1:00 pm
Start full backups on UNIX server. Route them to device NULL to make them fast.

1:03 pm
Full weekly backups done. Man, I love modern technology!

2:30 pm
Look in support manager’s contact management database. Cancel 2:45pm appointment for him. He really should be at home resting, you know.

2:39 pm
New user calls. Says want to learn how to create a connection document. Tell them to run connection document utility CTRL-ALT-DEL. Says PC rebooted. Tell them to call microsupport.

2:50 pm
Support manager calls to say mixup at doctor’s office means appointment cancelled. Says he’s just going to go on home. Ask him if he’s seen corporate Web page lately.

3:00 pm
Another (novice) user calls. Says periodic macro not working. Suggest they place @DeleteDocument at end of formula. Promise to send them document addendum which says so.

4:00 pm
Finish changing foreground color in all documents to white. Also set point size to “2” in help databases.

4:30 pm
User calls to say they can’t see anything in documents. Tell them to go to view, do a “Edit — Select All”, hit delete key, and then refresh. Promise to send them document addendum which says so.

4:45 pm
Another user calls. Says they can’t read help documents. Tell them I’ll fix it. Hang up. Change font to Wingdings.

4:58 pm
Plug coffee maker into Ethernet hub to see what happens. Not (too) much.

5:00 pm
Night shift shows up. Tell that the hub is acting funny and to have a good weekend.

Are you terrified of your computer? Do you feel out of place and overwhelmed when your friends or co-workders start spouting reams and reams of technical jargon that you will never understand? Then this article is for you! We’ll help you get over your fear of technical terminology by tickling your funny bone. We’ll start with some definitions that SHOULD be true, and we hope are entertaining.

486 – The average IQ needed to understand a P.C.

State – of – the – art – Any computer you can’t afford.

Obsolete – Any computer you own.

Microsecond – The time it takes for your State – of – the – art computer to become obsolete.

Syntax Error – “Hello, I want to buy a computer and money is no object.”

GUI (pronounced “gooey”) – What your computer becomes after spilling your coffee on it.

Computer Chip – Any starchy food stuff consumed in mass quantities while programming.

Keyboard – The standard way to generate computer errors.

Mouse – An advanced input device to make computer errors easier to generate.

Floppy – The state of your wallet after purchasing a computer.

Hard Drive – The sales technique employed by most computer salesmen.

Portable Computer – A device invented to force business men to work at home, on vacation and on business trips.

Disk Crash – A typical computer response to any critical deadline.

Power User – Anyone who can format a disk from DOS.

System Update – A quick method of trashing ALL of your current software.

So you think you’re computer-illiterate? Check out the following excerpts from a Wall Street Journal article by Jim Carlton —

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

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.

Another Compaq technician received a call from a man complaining that the system wouldn’t read word processing files from his old diskettes. After troubleshooting 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.

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.

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.

Another Dell customer called to say he couldn’t get his computer to fax anything. After 40 minutes of trouble-shooting, 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.

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 couple of geeks.”

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.

A Dell technician received a call from a customer who was enraged because his computer had told him he was “bad and an invalid”. The tech explained that the computer’s “bad command” and “invalid” responses shouldn’t be taken personally.

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 “foot pedal” turned out to be the computer’s mouse.

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?”

True story from a Novell NetWire SysOp:
Caller: “Hello, is this Tech Support?”
Tech Rep: “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 Rep: “I’m sorry, but did you say a cup holder?”
Caller: “Yes, it’s attached to the front of my computer.”
Tech Rep: “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!

Computer problem self-report form
1. Describe your problem:
____________________________________________

2. Now, describe your problem accurately:
___________________________________________________________

______________________________________

3. Speculate wildly about the cause of the problem:

_________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________

4. Problem Severity:
A. Minor__
B. Minor__
C. Minor__
D. Trivial__

5. Nature of the problem:
A. Locked Up__
B. Frozen__
C. Hung__
D. Shot__

6. Is your computer plugged in? Yes__ No__

7. Is it turned on? Yes__ No__

8. Have you tried to fix it yourself? Yes__ No__

9. Have you made it worse? Yes__

10. Have you read the manual? Yes__ No__

11. Are you sure you’ve read the manual? Yes__ No__

12. Are you absolutely certain you’ve read the manual? No__

13. Do you think you understood it? Yes__ No__

14. If `Yes’ then why can’t you fix the problem yourself?

_________________________________________________________________

15. How tall are you? Are you above this line? ___________________

16. What were you doing with your computer at the time the problem occurred?

_________________________________________________________________

17. If `nothing’ explain why you were logged in.

_________________________________________________________________

18. Are you sure you aren’t imagining the problem? Yes__ No__

19. How does this problem make you feel?

_________________________________________________________________

20. Tell me about your childhood.

_________________________________________________________________

21. Do you have any independent witnesses of the problem? Yes__ No__

22. Can’t you do something else, instead of bothering me? Yes__

ARG Agree to run garbage
BBT Branch on binary tree
BBW Branch both ways
BEW Branch either way
BH Branch and hang
BMR Branch multiple registers
BOB Branch on bug
BOD Beat on drum
BOI Byte operator immediately
BPDI Be polite, don’t interrupt
BPO Branch on power off
BST Backspace and stretch tape
CEMU Close eyes and monkey with user space
CLBR Clobber register
CLBRI Clobber register immediately
CM Circulate memory
CPAR Crumple paper and rip
CRB Crash and burn
CRR Convert to Roman Numerals
CU Convert to unary
CZZC Convert zone to ZIP code
DC Divide and conquer
DWIMNWIS Do what I mean, not what I say
DMPK Destroy memory protect key
DNPG Do not pass go
DO Divide and overflow
EIOC Execute invalid opcode
EMPC Emulate pocket calculator
EPI Execute programmer immediately
EROS Erase read-only storage
EXOP Execute operator
EXPP Execute political prisoner
FSRA Forms skip and run away
GFD Go forth and divide
GFM Go forth and multiply
HCF Halt and catch fire
IBP Insert bug and proceed
IIB Ignore inquiry and branch
LCC Load and clear core
MBF Multiply and be fruitful
MLR Move and lose record
PBC Print and break chain
PD Play dead
PDSK Punch disk
PI Punch invalid
POPI Punch operator immediately
PS* Punch obscenity
PSD Pause and smoke dope
PVLC Punch variable length card
RAT Random Access Tape
RD Reverse directions
RDS Read sideways
RIRG Read inter-record gap
RPM Read programmer’s mind
RSC Read and shred card
RSD On read error self destruct
RSTOM Read from store-only memory
RWCR Rewind card reader
SDJ Send data to Japan
SHAB Shift a bit
SHLBM Shift a little bit more
SMR Skip on meaningless result
SOT Sit on a tack
SQSW Scramble program status word
SQPC Sit quietly and play with your crayons
SRSD Seek record and scar disk
SRZ Subtract and reset to zero
SSJ Select stacker and jam
STROM Store in read-only memory
TDB Transfer and drop bits
UER Update and erase record
WBT Water binary tree
WEMG Write eighteen-minute gap
WPM Write programmer’s mind
XSP Execute systems programmer
ZAM Zero all memory

A conversation on a support hotline…

*ring* *ring*
“Hello! Local ISP, how can I help you?”
“Well, I was sorta hoping someone could walk me through taking a leak”
“Okay… well, do you have to go now?”
“Yes, I do”
“Okay… well, are you on male or female equipment?”
“MALE-CLONE…”
“Okay, the first thing we want to do is find your fly..”
“My what?”
“Your fly… it opens your pants. It should be in the front of you. Look down”
“I see shoes”
“No, sir… look sorta in the front of you… like just below your stomach. You should see some metal on your pants. That’s your fly..”
“The round thing?”
“Well, that’s your button… let’s open that, too, while we’re down there. The fly looks like a lot of little metal things sideways”
“Oh, okay.. got it. Okay, it’s open..”
“Okay, sir… can you grab your willy?”
“No.”
“Do you see your willy?”
“No.”
“Okay… what do you see?”
“I see white… just white and some lines..”
“Do you have underwear installed?”
“No.”
“Sir, if you can’t see your willy, and you see only white… I think that you may have underwear installed. We are going to have to uninstall your underwear to take a leak….”
“Well, my friend was the last one to use my fly… he might have installed underwear…”
“Okay, sir… well grab the white part and pull down… keep pulling until you see your willy..”
“It’s stuck… it won’t go down…”
“The white part? Or your willy?”
“My willy…”
“DON”T pull down on your willy, sir… just the underwear… we only want to get to the point where we can see it….”
“Oh… okay, we’re there….”
“Okay… now look around the room… do you see anything made of porcelain?”
“I see a little penguin on a shelf …”
“Okay, sir…you’re in the living room…. go to the bathroom. We can’t take a leak until we are in the bathroom. The bathroom will have a lot of tile, maybe some carpeting… yours might have mirrors or some soap in it. Some people have showers in their bathrooms…”
“Well, I’m downstairs… I think the bathroom is upstairs…”
“Okay, well… let’s go upstairs…”
“I can’t walk…”
“Okay, sir… temporarily reinstall your underwear… then go upstairs.. then uninstall your underwear again…”
“That was the white part, right?”
“Yes, sir… that’s correct…”

“Okay, I’m upstairs…”
“Okay… now do you see any porcelain bowl-type things?”
“Well, there’s two…”
“How tall are you sir?”
“5’4″ ..”
“Okay… go to the one where it’s lower than your willy….”
“Okay….I’m there”
“Okay… now make sure that you are pointing toward the porcelain bowl.. now just go…. ”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, when it pops up… just hit ‘okay’…..”

(MARKET.EXE):

#include #include #include #include #define say(x) lie(x)
#define computeruser ALL WANT TO BUY OUR BUGWARE
#define soon next year
#define the product is ready to ship another beta version
void main()
(
if (latest window versionone month old)
(
if (there are still bugs)
market(bugfix) ;
if (sales drop below certain point)
raise(RUMOURS ABOUT A NEW BUGLESS VERSION);
}
while(everyone chats about new version)
(
make false promise(it will be multitasking) ; / Standard Call, “in lie.h /
if (rumours grow wilder)
make false promise(it will be plug n play);
if (rumours grow even wilder)
(
market time=ripe;
say(“It will be ready in one month);
order(programmers, stop fixing bugs in old version);
order(programmers, start brainstorm about new version);
order(marketingstaff, permission to spread nonsense);
vapourware=TRUE;
break;
)
)
switch (nasty questions of the worldpress)
(
case WHEN WILL IT BE READY:
say(“It will be ready in”, today+30 days,” we’re just “testing”) ;
break;
case WILL THIS PLUG AND PLAY THING WORK:
say(“Yes it will work”);
ask(programmers, why does it not work);
pretend(there is no problem);
break;
case WHAT ARE MINIMAL HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS:
say(“It will run on a 8086 with lightning speed due to the 32 bits architecture”);
inform(INTEL, “Pentium sales will rise skyhigh”);
inform(SAMSUNG, “Start a new memorychip plant ‘cos all those customers will need at least 32 “megs”);
inform(QUANTUM, “Thanks to our fatware your sales will “triple”) ;
get big bonus(INTEL, SAMSUNG, QUANTUM);
break;
case DOES MICROSOFT GET TOO MUCH INFLUENCE:
say(“Oh no, we are just here to make a better world for everyone”) ;
register(journalist, Big Bill Book) ;
when(time is ripe)
(
arrest(journalist) ;
brainwash(journalist) ;
when(journalist says windows95 is bugfree)
(
order(journalist, “write a nice objective article”);
release (journalist) ;
)
)
break;
)
while (vapourware)
(
introduction date++; I* Delay ‘I
if (no one believes anymore there will be a release)
break;
say(“It will be ready in”,today+ONE MONTH);
)
release(beta version)
while (everyone is dumb enough to buy our bugware)
{
bills bank account += 150 megabucks;
release(new and even better beta version);
introduce(more memory requirements);
if (customers report installation problems)
say(“that is a hardware problem, not a software problem”);
if (smart customer says but you promised plug and play)
(
ignore(customer) ;
order(microsoft intelligence agency, “Keep an eye on this bastard”);
)
)
if (bills bank accountskyhigh L& marriagetwo years )
(
divorce(woman that was beatiful when I married her);
wave(dollars, at lusty chicks) ;
)
if (there is another company)
(
steal(their ideas) ;
accuse(company, stealing our ideas);
hire(a lot of lawyers) ; /* in process.h *I
wait(until other company cannot afford another lawsuit);
buy out(other company);

I* Now everyone realizes that we sell bugware and they are all angry at US *I
order(plastic surgeon, make bill look like poor bastard);
buy(nice little island); hire(harem);
laugh at(everyone, “for having the patience year after year for another unfinished version);
)

void bugfix(void)
(
charge (a lot of money)
if (customer says he does not want to pay for bugfix)
say(“It is not a bugfix but a new version”);
if (still complaints)
{
ignore(customer) ;
register(customer, big Bill book);
/ We’II get him when everyone uses Billware!!*/

alt.sex.lesbian.steel_workers
alt.aviation.kamikazi.pilots
alt.sex.gay.policemen
alt.sex.straight_actors_guild
alt.aviation.hang_gliders.quadraplegic
comp.os.win95.happy_users
alt.military.deutchland.ss.former.hit-squad.members
alt.religeon.jewish.oversexed.girls
alt.justice.free.charles.manson
alt.medical.proctologist.talk