rSlash - r/Talesfromtech My Computer is a Microwave!

Episode Date: February 6, 2025

0:00 Intro 0:08 Off and on 1:57 Comment 2:16 Log in 5:07 Remote 6:52 Comment 8:15 My account 9:40 Out of paper Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Life's the trip. Make the most of it at Best Western. Book, direct and save at bestwestern.com. Welcome to r slash Tales from Tech Support, where have you tried turning it off and turning it back on again? Our next Reddit post is from Final Fantasy 7 Rules Dude. I work in tech support for a fairly large company and I've had my fair share of bizarre calls but this one really stuck with me. A customer calls in and the first thing I notice is that they're clearly frustrated. I ask for details and they explain that their computer is just frozen and nothing is working.

I tell them as calmly as possible, no worries, let's start by rebooting the computer. Please hold the power button for 10 seconds to turn it off and then turn it back on. There's a pause on the line. Then... I don't know how to do that. I say, you don't know how to turn off your computer? No, I don't know where the power button is. I'm trying to stay professional at this point, so I walk them through it.

I even ask them if they can find the power button on the actual device. They respond that they don't see one. So I ask, can you look on the side or the back of the computer for a button or a logo? It doesn't have one! At this point, I'm a little confused, but I decide to walk them through the process anyways. I start asking if they see any lights on the device. They tell me, no, nothing is lighting up. Then it hits me.

I ask, are you sure you're working with a computer? Well no. No I'm looking at my microwave. This person had been trying to reboot a microwave for 30 minutes, thinking it was their computer, after a long awkward silence. I confirmed that microwaves don't have the same functionality as computers, and I recommend they try restarting their actual computer instead. They were extremely apologetic, and I just couldn't stop laughing after I hung up. Down in the comments, we have this post from drink15. This reminds me of when I had to teach They were extremely apologetic and I just couldn't stop laughing after I hung up.

Down in the comments we have this post from drink15. This reminds me of when I had to teach someone to use a PC. They picked up the mouse like a remote and pointed it at the screen. I told them to take a beginners class at the local library for free and left. Some people are not built for technology. Our next Reddit post is from Heg Bork. This is a secondhand story told to me 20 years ago by someone who was already a veteran sysadmin back then, so it would have happened in the 80s or early 90s. This took place in a factory that made heavy machinery. They were modern,

and the factory floor had terminals connected to a mainframe for tracking parts and whatever else they needed it for. One day, a sysadmin gets a call from the factory floor had terminals connected to a mainframe for tracking parts and whatever else they needed it for. One day, a sysadmin gets a call from the factory floor and after the usual pleasantries, the user says, I can't log in when I stand up. The sysadmin thinks that it's one of those calls and goes through the usual. Is the power on? What do you see on the terminal?

Have you forgotten your password? The user interrupts, I know what I'm doing. When I sit down, I can log in and everything works, but I can't log in when I stand up. The sysadmin tries to explain that there can be no possible connection between the chair and the terminal, and sitting or standing should in no way affect the ability to log in. After a long back and forth on the phone, he finally gives up and

walks to the factory floor to show the user that standing can't affect logging in. The sysadmin sits down at the terminal, gets the password from the user, logs in, and everything is fine. He turns to the user and says, see, it works. Your password is fine. The user says, yeah, I told you. Now log out, stand up and try again. The sysadmin obliges, logs out, stands up, types the password and invalid password? Okay, that's just bad luck. He tries again. Invalid password. And again.

Invalid password. Baffled by this, the sysadmin tries his own master password while standing. Invalid password. He sits down and logs in just fine. This has now turned from a crazy user to a really fascinating debugging problem. The word spreads that this chair is an input device and other people start flocking around it. These are technical people in a relatively high-tech factory and

they're all interested in fun debugging. Production grinds to a halt. Everyone wants to try if they're affected and it turns out that most people can log in just fine, but there are certain people who can't log in standing and there are quite a few who can't log in regardless of standing or sitting. After a long debugging session, they find it. Turns out some joker pulled out two keys from the keyboard and switched their places. Both the user and the system admin had one of those letters in their password. They were both relatively good at typing and didn't look down at the keyboard when typing when sitting.

But typing when standing is something they weren't used to and they had to look down at the keyboard which made them press the wrong keys. Some users couldn't type properly and never managed to log in. While others didn't have those letters in their passwords, so the switch keys didn't bother them at all. Our next Reddit post is from Sputroso. I was working for a TV distributor with both cable and disk channels. They had their own brand of TV box and decoders. When this customer in question called in and started by saying that I had to believe him, I knew that it was going to be a great call. The log showed that he had called several times before. When my wife is at home, the remote control to the TV doesn't work. I think to myself, yes it does, but I'll hear you out. I bet she takes the batteries.

The customer says, your colleagues all guess that she takes the batteries out of the remote. Darn it. But she doesn't. I can be holding the remote control and it works fine. Then she comes home and 10 minutes later it doesn't work anymore. I haven't let go of the control and I even tried changing batteries when it stopped working just to be sure, but it doesn't make a difference. We go back and forth for a long time, thinking of different things that could be an issue.

He's being nice about my inability to help him, and though I started out thinking he's just another customer who thinks that the reply, did you check if the cable is connected properly is always, yes, I did, I even tried five different cables, even though they didn't. I quickly realize he's tech savvy and we test and discard a dozen theories. In the end, 45 minutes later, we solved it. When his wife got home, she pulled the curtains apart to let in light, and the sunlight was directly on the receiver, interfering with the remote control. When his wife left, he pulled the curtains to see the TV better.

My company tried to lower production costs on the new decoders, so the dark plastic in front of the IR receiver was just that. Dark plastic instead of a filter to block other light. Figuring that out was the most satisfying tech support moment I've ever had. Down in the comments we had this story from Huge Erection. For the longest time, my wife and I couldn't figure out why our sound bar would randomly go from full volume to no volume. Not mute.

Instead, it was just lowering the volume all the way to nothing. We could go weeks without it happening, then suddenly for a couple of days, it would do it all the time. We tried solutions for months, new batteries, new remote, resetting the device, etc. With nothing working. There was no online evidence of this being a common problem, and tech support wasn't able to assist. We chalked it up to a faulty device, and because it happened fairly infrequently, we didn't immediately pursue a replacement. One day, I was putting away my daughter's toys when it happened again. I set down the toys,

turned the volume back up, and then went to put the toys away, and it happened again. Lo and behold, I came to find out that the wand for my daughter's Fisher Price Princess Castle, which activates when moved or jostled, is apparently on the same frequency as only the volume down button of the remote. Every time she would pull the toy out to play with it, we would see the problem. She would then go a couple of weeks without playing with it, so we didn't experience the issue. We've since relocated the castle to the basement playroom and all is good. I've worked on hundreds of tickets over the years and that, by far, was the most satisfying

solution yet. Our next Reddit post is from Library at Night. This is from when I did phone support for a hosting provider a few years back. Thanks for calling tech support, this is OP speaking. Every time I log in to your website, I'm logged out immediately. My husband needs me to make a change immediately on the website, but your site's broken. I hope not. I haven't had an issue and we haven't had any other calls.

Let's troubleshoot a bit. What happens when you log in? It accepts my password and after redirecting me to my account page, it logs me back out and sends me to the front page. Okay, sounds like possibly a browser issue. Let's try some stuff. We check cookie settings, etc. Try some other browsers and nothing is working.

She says the same thing every time. Wow! This is just bizarre! Can you humor me and just log in one more time and just tell me each thing you're doing no matter how small or mundane the point seems? Ah, yes! I visit your site. I click log in. I enter my username.

I enter my password. I click log in. It logs me in. I click my account. I enter my password. I click log in. It logs me in. I click my account. It says, hi Tim, if you're not Tim, click here. I click here. Wait, don't click that. That's what's logging you out.

That's if you somehow found yourself in the wrong account. But I'm not Tim. No, but your husband is. He set this up. Oh my God. Oh my God. I'm so sorry. Click. Our next Reddit post is from Jimmy3shoes.

This call comes in at 8am. Thank you for call. I don't know what it's going to take to get someone down here. This printer needs a technician and no one's come to fix it. Oh, what's wrong with the printer? It won't print. It hasn't printed for two months and no one's come to fix it. I pull up the printer's information and a cursory glance reveals no previous incident reports on this specific printer.

I say, sorry to hear that. Has this issue been previously reported? No, I don't think so, but it hasn't been working since May and someone needs to get down here immediately. We can't work if we can't print. I look up the printer, and it has 246 queued up jobs, and the printer is reporting out of paper. Seriously.

I say, is the printer displaying any errors? Yes. And? Let me go look. So I wait about 5 minutes, then hear her shuffling back to her desk. It says, out of paper. Does it have paper in it? I didn't check!

Do you want me to go look? Yes, if there's paper in there, take it out and put it back in. Maybe the tray sensor is acting up. I wait another 5 minutes. She returns and says, there wasn't any paper. How long is it going to take to get someone up here to refill the paper? Ma'am, we don't refill paper trays. That's on you guys to do.

Go fill it with paper and call back if that doesn't resolve the issue. There are some other things we could try. I don't even know what we pay you people for if you won't come when we need help. Click. That was our Slash Tales from Tech Support, and if you like this content, be sure to follow my podcast because I put out new Reddit podcast episodes every single day.