rSlash - r/Talesfromtechsupport FIX MY COMPUTER, NERD! OR I'LL KILL YOU!

Episode Date: April 19, 2020

r/Talesfromtechsupport The guy who calls into tech support in today's video is absolutely nuts. He gets so pissed off that he threatens to drive almost 200 miles to the building where OP works so he can beat up OP. Dude... you called a tech support guy on the phone. How will you even know what he looks like? Are you just going to come up to random people and ask, "Hello, are you the guy who I threatened to beat up?" If you like this video, like me know by subscribing to my channel! Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-BLjJSdtbM Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For your holiday season, real Canadian Superstore has more legendary ways to save than any other major grocer. Until December 6th, get a free Jumble Point Seta when you spend $300 or more. Plus, PC Optimum members can get select PC or no-name cheese at $3.99, conditions apply, so fly for details. Welcome to our slash-chails from TechSupport, where have you tried turning it off and turning it back on again? So, among the literally thousands of calls I've had in my four years in tech support for an ISP, this guy really took the cake. It was the apotheosis of all those calls. It was the most infuriating yet, in hindsight, hilarious call I've ever had in my life. He came in on a fairly quiet Saturday morning and the conversations started quite normally.

Good morning, this is OP from the ISP. How may I help you? Yes, hello. This is Blink. I just woke up to my wife and kids complaining there's no internet and the television isn't working either. Oof, that's quite inconvenient. I'm going to have to check where the issue might be and try and fix it. Thank you. He gave me his postal code and house number. I confirmed his details and ran a scan on his address. There was absolutely no signal, so I needed to do a basic troubleshoot with them first. Do you know where your modem is, sir? Yes, it's next to my front door. Good. Could you please tell me which lights are on and blinking on it? There are a couple of lights on. Not as many as usual, though. Is the online light on? No. Okay, your modem isn't

receiving any signal then. I'm going to have to test if the problem is in the modem or the signal towards your house. For that, I need you to turn off your modem for about 30 seconds. Could you please do that? Um, no. I'm sorry. That sort of thing is YOUR job. I'm not touching that modem. You only need to pull out the power cable, wait 30 seconds, and plug it back in. Like I said, that's YOUR job. Since I'm one over to fix it. I wasn't sure if he was joking or not. I was just baffled at the hard turn this conversation had just taken.

Sir, there's a basic troubleshoot we need to run with all our customers, it solves like 90% of all. I don't care. I'm not getting paid for this, so I'm not doing your job. Now since someone over, I can't very well send our technicians over just to restart your modem, sir. You can and you will, and you'll compensate me for the time I haven't received any of your services. I don't care much for your tone, sir. Either

you cooperate with our standard troubleshoot or I can't help you. You've got a pretty big mouth, they're MISI. What's your name? At least you complain to Genshju. My name is First Name, sir. First Name, what? JustName, sir. FirstName, what? Just FirstName, sir. Scared to give me your last name? Hmm. No, just not obligated to give it to you. You've been very rude to me, so I won't give it to you.

You think you're so high and mighty because you're on the phone. I know where your HQ is. I'm driving over there right now, and you'd better make sure you had your eyes open when you come out, first name. I snickered at the thought. He lived about 280 km or 175 miles from our headquarters. Plus he only had my first name and he had, of course, no idea what I looked like. If you would rather take 3 hours to get here and then another 3 to get back home, rather

than taking 30 seconds to restart your modem, you're welcome to do so. I'm not terminating the call on issuing a threat warning, have a lovely day. I hung up before you could respond and reported a threat of violence to my manager. He may not have it and put it through to our second line to pick this further up. I wish I could say the story into there, but unfortunately it continued as soon as I resume taking calls. Not five minutes after I got back to work, I got them on the phone again. Good morning, this is first name from, ah, there you are. You think you can just hang up on me? I'm taking this to court. I'm canceling our services as

of right now. I've issued your violent threat, which we've recorded by the way on our second line, sir. I'll add that you wish to terminate your contract, they'll call you back within two hours. Goodbye. I hung up again, and he thankfully didn't try to reach me again after that. I did learn afterwards that he had, in fact, taken this case to court, and lost. His services were canceled five months before the end day to the contract, and he had to pay up the remaining five months. I hope it was worth it to him. I didn't press charges for the threat since I never took it seriously. I mean, I literally laughed it off. Thinking back to it still makes me

snicker. I'm imagining him driving for three hours, arriving at our headquarters, asking all the women who left the building their names, and the hope he could do, God knows what to one of them. Then, driving back home for three hours, not to mention having to stop for gas, which costs a lot here. And still have his wife and children complaining they have no internet or television. Idiot. Sweetie, have you fixed the internet? I've done so much better than to fix the internet. I've broke the law, lost the internet for five months, and wasted thousands of dollars on pointless legal actions. Our next reddit post is from Secaz. Hello IT. Hi, I'm still off-sick, but I'm not.

Oh, did you mean to call HR or is there an IT issue? It's an IT issue. I'm back at work now, but I'm still sick. I don't understand the issue. I've tried to log into the HR system, but it has been listed as off-sick. Ah, I see. You need to add an end date to your sickness. But I'm back now. That's okay. You need to fill in the date field with when you

came back. I'm back now. Okay. Did you start back at work today? Yes, I'm back now. Do you have the HR system open in front of you? Yes. Can you see the field for date return to work? Yes. Ha, ha, ha, ha. Click the little calendar icon and select the date you returned. But I'm back now. I think to myself, are you, are you really?

I'm pretty sure you've left your brain cell at home though. So select today's date from the calendar that pops up. Why? So that the HR system knows that you're back at work and not still off-sick. But I'm back now! You need to tell the HR system when you came back so it unlocks your profile. Can't it tell? How would it tell?

Well, I'm in the building and log into my computer is that not enough? The systems aren't linked in that way. People come into work all the time when off on holiday or sick to drop things off or collect things. If the system logged that as a day in work, then holiday and sick pay would be all messed up. We also have a number of remote users who are never in the office. So how do I sort this out? Are you kidding me? Fill in the date field. Can I remote onto your system and help you sort it?

Would you mind it might be easier? Too effing right it'll be easier. Okay I'm on and I'll just add today's date in here and we're all set. So I'm back now? Yes, you're's date in here and we're all set. So I'm back now. Yes, you're no longer being shown as off-sick. Can you reset my password while I've got you on? Please, please, please, IT gods don't do this to me. What's wrong with your password?

Nothing, but I got the about to expire message when I logged in and I want you to reset it for me. You can change your password yourself by clicking the Change Password link when you see that screen, or wait for it to expire and you'll be forced to do it when you next log in. I don't want to change my password. You have to change your password every 60 days. Can't you just give me another 60 days? The policy of changing it is for security. My password is very secure.

Okay, what's your current password? And the user shares an actually quite secure password. Okay, now that you've told me your password, it's no longer secure. And I must insist you change it immediately. You're flying to meet with a new supplier to keep your business growing. And with the business platinum card from American Express, you can earn $820 in new value and more, which includes a $200 travel credit toward your flight. American Express.

Don't do business without it. Terms and conditions apply connectcentario.ca You work in IT. You knew my password anyway. No, all passwords are secure. I can reset passwords, but I cannot look at them. As I'm still connected to you, I'll help you change it now. I've proceeded to open the password change menu for the user.

The user fills in the field and gets an error, saying the new password is a previously used password and those can't be allowed. It won't let me change it. You didn't change it, you just typed it in again. I don't want to change my password. You have to, it's company policy. Passwords are hard to remember. Just pick a couple of random words and then a number and a symbol.

What do you mean? Like, desk mug, phone, pencil, one exclamation mark. Just pick a few things you can see from your desk and ta-da, easy to remember. Okay, that's done then. Okay, enter the details on screen then. New password accepted. That's all sorted for you then. Great. I'll disconnect the remote connection. New password accepted. That's all sorted for you then. Great. I'll disconnect

the remote connection. I just thought. I've been back since last Thursday, so will that all be right? You watched me fill in your return date yesterday because you said it was today. I'm back today. I'm back today, but I came back last week. Go in the HR system and change the return date to last Thursday. How do I do that? I'll roam back in and sort it out. I'm starting to realize why this guy was so resistant to changing his password. To be frank, this guy just doesn't have enough brain cells to memorize more than one password.

Our next reddit post is from Marino Jesse. I work in a store that offers technical support for consumer level technology. A few days ago, I had an elderly gentleman that will call Pete, name change for privacy. Our receptionist made him a walk in appointment earlier that day and I ended up taking it. When I opened it all up, the only notes I saw were third party software, hard of hearing. I walked up to Pete and greeted him and saw that he was staring at my lips as to read them. Then, I asked if he knew American Sign Language. I've been trying to learn ASL as a sort of side hobby for a few months now.

Pete signed G.S. and we continued the conversation and signed. Turns out the issue was with Skype, which keeps crashing on his roughly 5-year-old tablet, and he's been having difficulty video calling his wife who's deaf. She lives in a different continent, she traveled there for a temporary work opportunity and would be there for 2 years. This being the midway point, it's now been 1 year since Pete's seen his wife. Skye is the only way they both know how to communicate efficiently long distance, as neither are comfortable with email or other text-based services. As I go through verifying that he knows his password and making sure there's a backup of his device,

Pete and I are signing back and forth and his face was completely lit up. I felt so good to be able to, albeit slowly, speak with him in his language and give him the time he deserved. Even if his reason for visiting us had little to do with our physical product. Once everything was verified and backed up, I uninsolved Skype and reinstalled it, had Pete sign in, and used Skype's Test Call to ensure it wouldn't crash, as it would immediately upon call creation before. The Test Call went through fine, sweet. I looked down to write a few extra notes and began to hear some coughs.

I looked up, and there was Pete crying while waving to his wife through Skype. Peter called her and she picked up. He introduced me to her and told me that it had been three weeks since they'd heard from each other. I stepped away to give him a moment alone. It's moments like these that keep me going as a technician. Even though I barely touch Pete's tablet, fixing it keep me going as a technician. Even though I barely touch Pete's tablet, fixing it made me feel like a hero.

It's been a few days and I can still see a smile. And down in the comments, we have this contribution from La Bagabond. Introducing old isolated people, often widows to the wonders of video calling in the internet at large was always a nice moment. Wait, you mean there's all the books in the world in this tiny thing? Yes, ma'am, that's exactly what I meant.

Can you put some recipe books in there for me? Yes, ma'am, what kind? QA pie or other pastry coming in for me later that week. Our next Reddit post is from MacStanger, so I worked at a computer repair store. This lady, about 35, comes in with this bright pink laptop around lunch. Hello, welcome to the computer shop. How can I help? The lady slams her pink laptop on the counter.

Yeah, my laptop is extremely slow. Can you press a few buttons and fix it for me please? Sure, let me take a look. So I put up a laptop and see the windows loading screen. It's there for much longer than normal, and I could hear the hard drive struggling. Yeah, it looks like you're gonna need a new hard drive. Look, just fix it for me. I need the laptop working for tomorrow. Well, we have a brand new OneTarabyte hard drive for 55 pounds, sold at cost, and a 40 pound service charge, it'll take. No, that's too expensive. Just fix it without replacing anything.

I can't, unfortunately. Your hard drive could die at any moment. She storms off around for she comes back. Yeah, you were actually cheaper than everyone else. Can you do that before it closes? I won't be able to do it today, but it can be ready around 11 tomorrow, I said. That will have to do, she says. I boot the laptop back up and found no C drive. The hard drive died. I tried a recovery managed to get some data, but not all. She wasn't happy. Hmm, maybe the reason why her hard drive is busted is because she keeps slamming her

laptop on counters. Our next Reddit post is from Ms3Web. Some context, I work for a small business on an IT team of three. I handle more of the infrastructure and project work, but since we sit in open cubicles, occasionally a user will approach me directly since they tend to just see all of us equally when it comes to needing help. In this case, a user from our merchandising and marketing group approached me with a request. Hey OP, do you have a sec? I have a disk with some files burnt to it and I'd like to copy them over to a USB drive. Do you have a disk drive I can use?

My laptop doesn't have one. Sure thing. I grab a USB CD drive for my drawer. We head over to the marketing guys office. I walked marketing guy through connecting the disk drive to his laptop and insert the disk. We pull up the drive volume and he points out the files he needs to copy appear to be there. Okay, so let's go ahead and plug the flash drive in so we can copy those files over.

The Marketing Guy plugs into flash drive, pulls up the volume, and I see there's already some files saved on it. He promptly yanks the flash drive out of the laptop and throws it in the trash. Oh, was there something wrong with that drive? Yeah, let me just grab another drive real quick. Marketing guy pulls out another flash drive, plugs it in, pulls up the volume, and again sees that there's already files saved on the flash drive. He once again pulls it out of the computer and throws it in the trash.

What was wrong with that drive? Oh, there were already files saved on that one. He once again pulls it out of the computer and throws it in the trash. What was wrong with that drive? Oh, there were already files saved on that one. I don't have any blink flash drives. Do you have a spare one? You know you can delete files off a flash drive and save new files to it, right? Ha, marketing guy looks astonished

to learn this piece of information. Let me show you real quick. I pulled the drive out of the trash, plug it in, and show him that he can just select all the files and click delete. I proceeded to copy the intended files from the CD to the flash drive. You're the man! No worries, and I quickly walk away trying to not express any emotion. At this point, I absolutely lost it and had to tell my other two team members who also to not express any emotion.

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