It's an oldie, but still a goodie: TECH SUPPORT CALL I'm currently running the latest version of GirlFriend and I've been having some problems. I've been running the same version of DrinkingBuddies 1.0 forever as my primary application, and all the GirlFriend releases I've tried have always conflicted with it. I hear that DrinkingBuddies won't crash if GirlFriend is run in background mode and the sound is turned off. But I'm embarrassed to say I can't find the switch to turn the sound off. I just run them separately, and it works okay. GirlFriend also seems to have a problem co-existing with my Golf program, often trying to abort Golf with some sort of timing incompatibility. I probably should have stayed with GirlFriend 1.0, but I thought I might see better performance from GirlFriend 2.0. After months of conflicts and other problems, I consulted a friend who has had experience with GirlFriend 2.0. He said I probably didn't have enough cache to run GirlFriend 2.0, and eventually it would require a Token Ring to run properly. He was right: as soon as I purged my cache, it uninstalled itself. Shortly after that, I installed GirlFriend 3.0 beta. All the bugs were supposed to be gone, but the first time I used it, it gave me a virus anyway. I had to clean out my whole system and shut down for a while. I very cautiously upgraded to GirlFriend 4.0. This time I used a SCSI probe first and also installed a virus protection program. It worked okay for a while until I discovered that GirlFriend 1.0 was still in my system. I tried running GirlFriend 1.0 again with GirlFriend 4.0 still installed, but GirlFriend 4.0 has a feature I didn't know about that automatically senses the presence of any other version of GirlFriend and communicates with it in some way, which results in the immediate removal of both versions. The version I have now works pretty well, but there are still some problems. Like all versions of GirlFriend, it is written in some obscure language I can't understand, much less reprogram. Frankly I think there is too much attention paid to the look and feel rather than the desired functionality. Also, to get the best connections with your hardware, you usually have to use gold-plated contacts. And I've never liked how GirlFriend is totally "object-oriented." A year ago, a friend of mine upgraded his version of GirlFriend to GirlFriendPlus 1.0, which is a Terminate and Stay Resident version of GirlFriend. He discovered that GirlFriendPlus 1.0 expires within a year if you don't upgrade to Fiancee 1.0. So he did, but soon after that, he had to upgrade to Wife 1.0, which he describes as a huge resource hog. It has taken up all his space, so he can't load anything else. One of the primary reasons he decided to go with Wife 1.0 was because it came bundled with FreeSexPlus. Well, it turns out the resource allocation module of Wife 1.0 sometimes prohibits access to FreeSexPlus, particularly the new Plug-Ins he wanted to try. On top of that, Wife 1.0 must be running on a well warmed-up system before he can do anything. Although he did not ask for it, Wife 1.0 came with MotherInLaw 1.0 which has an automatic pop-up feature he can't turn-off. I told him to try installing Mistress 1.0, but he said he heard if you try to run it without first uninstalling Wife 1.0, Wife 1.0 will delete MSMoney files before doing the uninstall itself. Then Mistress 1.0 won't install anyway because of insufficient resources.
Posted 3:08 PM, , by Faber Optimé. Post permanently located here. Click here to email the author about this post.
Don't write anything down. We can play back the error messages from here.
When a tech says he's coming right over, go for coffee. It's nothing to us to remember 3,000 screen saver passwords.
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.
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.
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.
When tech support sends you an e-mail with high importance, delete it at once. We're just testing the public groups.
When a tech is eating lunch in his cube, walk right in and spill your guts right out. We exist only to serve.
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.
Send urgent email all in uppercases. The mail server picks it up and flags it as a rush delivery.
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.
When the photocopier doesn't work, call computer support. There's electronics in it.
When you're getting a NO DIAL TONE message at home, call computer support. We can fix your line from here.
When you have a dozen CGA monitors to get rid of, call computer support. We're collectors.
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.
If you hate your mouse, get some other pointing device and discard the manual. We know all the keyboard accelerators.
When a tech tells you that computer monitors don't have cartridges in them, argue. We love a good argument.
When you get a message about insufficient disk space, delete everything in the Windows directory. It's nothing but trouble anyway.
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.
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.
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.
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.
When we offer training on the upcoming OS upgrade, don't bother. We'll be there to hold your hand after it's done.
When the printer won't print, re-send the job at least 20 times. Print jobs frequently get sucked into black holes.
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.
Don't learn the proper name for anything technical. We know exactly what you mean by "my thingy's outta whack".
Don't use on-line help. On-line help is for wimps.
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.
When a tech makes popcorn, help yourself while he's checking out your access rights. And we keep chocolate in the top drawer, too.
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.
Don't ever thank us. We're getting paid for this.
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.
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.
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.
If you have NT, feel free to change the local administrator's password to "biteme" and promptly forget it. We like installing NT.
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.
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.
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 a 5.25 floppy drive.
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?
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.
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.
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.
When you can't find someone in the government directory, call tech support. Due to budget restrictions, we double as 192.
When you have a lock to pick on an old file cabinet, call tech support. We love to hack.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
When you lose your car keys, send an email to the entire department. People out in Australia like to keep abreast of what's going on.
When you bump into a tech at the grocery store on a Saturday, ask a computer question. We don't do weekends.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 VirusShield. Again, this is just like real life: if you don't like condoms, just don't use them, that's all.
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.
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.
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.
Keep it crashin'!
Posted 5:47 PM, Monday, May 08, 2006, by Faber Optimé. Post permanently located here. Click here to email the author about this post.
Lesson #1 A crow was sitting on a tree, doing nothing all day. A small rabbit saw the crow, and asked him, "Can I also sit like you and do nothing all day long?" The crow answered: "Sure, why not." So, the rabbit sat on the ground below the crow, and rested. All of a sudden, a fox appeared, jumped on the rabbit and ate it.
Moral of the story is: To be sitting and doing nothing, you must be sitting very, very high up.
Lesson #2 A turkey was chatting with a bull. "I would love to be able to get to the top of that tree," sighed the turkey, "but I haven't got the energy." "Well, why don't you nibble on some of my droppings?" replied the bull. "They're packed with nutrients." The turkey pecked at a lump of dung and found that it actually gave him enough strength to reach the first branch of the tree. The next day, after eating some more dung, he reached the second branch. Finally after a fortnight, there he was proudly perched at the top of the tree. Soon he was spotted by a farmer, who shot the turkey out of the tree.
Moral of the story: Bullshit might get you to the top, but it won't keep you there.
Lesson #3 When the body was first made, all the parts wanted to be Boss. The brain said, " I should be Boss because I control the whole body's responses and functions." The feet said, " We should be Boss as we carry the brain about and get him to where he wants to go." The hands said, " We should be the Boss because we do all the work and earn all the money." And so it went on and on with the heart, the lungs and the eyes until finally the asshole spoke up. All the parts laughed at the idea of the asshole being the Boss. So the asshole went on strike, blocked itself up and refused to work. Within a short time the eyes became crossed, the hands clenched, the feet twitched, the heart and lungs began to panic and the brain fevered. Eventually they all decided that the asshole should be the Boss, so the motion was passed. All the other parts did all the work while the Boss just sat and passed out the shit!
Moral of the story: You don't need brains to be a Boss - any asshole will do.
One of Life's most important lessons There was a fly buzzing around a barn one day when he happened on a pile of fresh cow manure. Due to the fact that it had been hours since his last meal, he flew down and began to eat. He ate and ate and ate. Finally, he decided he had eaten enough and tried to fly away. He had eaten too much though, and could not get off the ground. As he looked around wondering what to do now, he spotted a pitchfork leaning up against the wall. He climbed to the top of the handle and jumped off, thinking that once he got airborne, he would be able to take flight. Unfortunately, he was wrong and dropped like a rock, splatting when he hit the floor. Dead.
The moral to the story is: Never fly off the handle when you know you're full of shit.
Posted 2:44 AM, , by Faber Optimé. Post permanently located here. Click here to email the author about this post.
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