I thought you folks might get a laugh out of a little something that happened to me this morning; just an hour ago actually. I repair laptops and desktops on the side to make extra pocket money. I'm not an expert but I usually don't have any problems getting them fixed. A fella was referred to me because he needed the display replaced on a Toshiba. Not a big deal, they are pretty easy to do. Anyway, apparently this guy thinks he's somewhat of a computer expert and kind of considers himself a "hacker". He brings the laptop in with a replacement LCD panel. He hands it to me in the case and says "be careful, my laptop is a little on the heavy side because I have so much top shelf software installed". Honestly, I didn't know whether to sh*t or go blind! Just about the time I think I've heard everything.... As tempting as it was to explain what an idiot he was, I didn't. I just smiled, said ok, and said it will be done in an hour or so. I figure it's not worth arguing with him and I'm better off just putting in the display and collecting my money As always, but still amazed, Chris
WOW! That's amazing. I actually had a guy tell me he wanted to paint his car fiery red so that it can go faster. But here in Winhost I'm pretty lucky because most of our customers are pretty knowledgeable.
It's that pesky inverse proportion thing rearing its head again. You'll find the people who shout about their skills the loudest are generally the least skilled. It's something you come across in support all the time (not here, of course! ): "Before I tell you my problem I just want to let you know that I was a programmer for NASA and I invented the hyperlink. Having said that, why can't I check my email when I'm at my mother's house? I think your server is configured to block me. I can't believe you are so unprofessional!"
Keeping with the subject of funnyisms I had a woman call me once when I was developing Jetform applications, she said she couldn't get Jetform to print. I'm not support but as she was in the same building I thought I'd nip along to see what the problem was. She had tried three unsuccessful password attempts and was locked out of her PC, that was why she couldn't get Jetform to print I called the server guys and got them to reset her password. Another one was in the same company we were developing an application in asp TOS if anyone can remember that far back ... and this guy from australia was visiting and somehow landed in our office. He wanted to show us an application that he was working on in asp so he fired up a browser and showed us this webpage with several text boxes etc. and a button and he said 'and when the user clicks on the button it will search the database and bring back the results' You know that knowing look you give each other sometimes when you think 'WTF?' well the head developer and I gave each other that look when he announced 'oh I haven't written any of the database stuff yet' so it was just a bare page with a few textboxes and a button
Hey, if it was long enough ago, he was probably impressed by the page with a fragment of a form on it. All that pesky database stuff could wait, right? 15 years ago I did online support for one of the first programs that would generate an html page based on some simple user input. 99% of that support was asking people where I could see the page(s) so I could see what might be wrong. Almost every one of them answered, "Well the pages are on my computer. What do I do to put them onto the web?" You'd think that someone who would pay almost $50 for an html generator - and buy it online - would know at least a little bit about the concepts behind the web. But that wasn't the case. I had templates written up that told them how to find a host (it was a lot easier then, since there were only about a dozen), how to register a domain name, where to get an FTP client... I wasn't supporting the software, I was giving web 101 class to thousands of people. Then, when they finally got their sites up I would see them and wonder why either of us bothered.
Experienced that too! So, I told them.. Opps, beware my laptop is heavy too.. Heavy on resources, that is... 笑ww
