I figured it was time for a break from all the technical information and procedures that I have been writing about. I have worked in the information technology industry for a long period and have come across some very interesting technical support issues. I thought I would share some of my stories (yes these are true) and hopefully provide a laugh or two.

Technical Support Stories:

• A user had received a fax on their computer and when they viewed the fax, it was upside-down. Instead of using the rotate option in the software the user grab the laptop and turned the laptop upside-down hence rendering the fax upright and readable.


• One user called to complain that their floppy drive was not working properly – had an issue inserted a floppy disk. I went to the system and observed the user trying to use the drive. I then took the floppy, flipped it over and inserted with a problem.


• I came in one morning to find out that over the weekend a sheet of labels got stuck in the printer. The user said not to worry he took the printer apart and removed the labels and everything was working fine. He then proceeded to hand me an envelope with the “extra” parts that were left over when he was finished. A $200 repair later….


• A user called to complain that his password was not working properly. I went to help him and asked what is password was – which turned out to be his wife’s name. I proceeded to type her name into the system – voila! – I got right in. Made you wonder how much he loved his wife if he could not spell her name correctly!


• I received a call from an irate user because their printer was not printing properly. He was very upset and demanded help right away because he had to print. I quickly went to help the user rectify the problem until I found out they were trying to print a football pool on company equipment and on company time. Needless to say, he never tried that again.


• A user called stating that their word processor was not working properly. She was typing but nothing was appearing on the screen. I started to troubleshoot the issue with her walking her through several steps to try to determine the problem. I was pretty much stumped when she mentioned she had been playing with the system colors – turned out she changed the text to white so she could not see it on the white background.


• Had one person who was using company equipment and software to send his resume out to potential employees. To bad the SPAM filter caught the email message. Oops!