Stupidest Question Ever?

[Compenstine]

LOL that is funny! I had a similar thing happen, but it was with Internet, This person had moved their desk and couldn't get internet to work after the move. I checked it all out and found that the network cable was not plugged in.. LOL Our shop charged $120 for on site per hour. Being the owner, I cut her a break and only charged her for 15min of the $120 to cover my gas and the 2min it took to get the internet back up. I loved doing on site work it was fun.

[jasonculp]

I think when it comes to IT...all bets are off! I am the first stage IT guy at our company (I am a salesman for oilfield/agricultural products not IT) I try to pass it off to our IT company, but their service is terrible, long waits, and poor service.

I ate dinner with the regional (multiple state) IT director for a national cable/internet/telephone provider. Some of his stories are amazing, and most of the dumbest ones are from within his own company!

[Tam]

I work in IT and at times do some residential work for people that want their computer fixed but don't want to bring it into the shop.

A woman had called and asked for an on-site visit because her brand new computer was not playing music. This was...hmmm, around mid-March.

I get to her house, lug in all my tools, replacement speakers, CDROM drive, installation discs etc and start talking to her to get some more information.

She had a Christmas CD and said her computer wouldn't play it. So I took the CD out of the jewel case, opened the CDROM drive and put the CD in. Checked to ensure speakers were plugged in, turned on, that Windows volume wasn't turned all the way down or muted...all were fine

I opened Windows Media Player and pressed play, not knowing what to expect. However the music starts playing and she looked absolutely stunned. I asked her if this was the correct CD? Does it sound OK? Is it too loud? Are you able to hear it at all?

She kept staring at me and said she didn't understand what I did. I walked her through the process of opening Windows Media Player and pressing play. I even placed a shortcut on her desktop (to some people if there isn't an icon on the desktop then the program doesn't exist at all to them).

She was amazed, and thanked me but I still wanted to know (out of morbid curiosity) what her process was.

Ready?

She had never taken the CD out of the jewel case. She assumed that if she had a computer it would automatically, through magic, play her CDs. She'd obviously gotten this CD and computer for Christmas and had been struggling for months.

I explained that's not how it works, that the computer would need to have the CD actually in the computer...etc etc.

I then, after a 10 minute house call, had to charge her the one hour minimum of $115.00.

So, if that was TL;DR...there most certainly are stupid questions. But none has been asked by anyone here.

At least she wasn't using her CD player as a cup holder!

I frequently have to go fix my SO's father's laptop. He can only tell me that he "broke the internet" when he can't open his browser. With the way he does and doesn't do things, I'm thoroughly convinced he really is capable of breaking the internet someday...

Edited November 24, 2014 by Tam

[T-Bone]

Yeah, anytime I go on a service call to a business client it's always "The server's down"...

No, your phone isn't working. No, you can't log into your computer because you locked yourself out. No, your computer is frozen and crashing from all the malware and viruses you have on it.

Always with the server being down.

Edited November 24, 2014 by The Bone Slummer

[Earthling789]

I've worked IT for pushing 20 years... I've seen and heard my fair share of "computer humor", lol... It is true, that some people shouldn't own a computer... And, being in charge of several servers, I constantly hear, "the server is down"... regardless of user-error, printer-malfunction, or the fact they can't realize they're logging in with the caps-lock on

My absolute favorite, though... A lady in the office was having issues getting documents to scan. I worked with her over the phone (which was my first mistake), and it took forever to get the basics of the problem. She couldn't tell me what model printer/scanner she was using, couldn't tell if she was using a flat-bed or paper-feed model... so I asked her to describe how she was performing the "scan" (hoping to glean some insight to the hardware).... She was quite huffy with me at this point, and told me, "How hard is this... I'm holding the sheets up to the (MONITOR'S) screen, and hitting this da** 'PRT SCR' button a million times, and it just won't scan them!! This stupid piece of sh** is worthless!!"

Edited November 24, 2014 by Earthling789

[Compenstine]

LMAO That would be a classic!

I did printer repair for the hospital. Went on this call where as I was working on the printer and one of the girls said to me "This Printer is a piece of Crap. It never works and jams every time anyone sends a print to it." I just smiled and said I'll see what I can do. As I said that she grabbed a paper clip from a container placed just above the printer, one dropped down into the fuser. After a full strip down I found 10 paperclips down in the printer. I had to replace the fuser because one had tore it up bad. LOL I asked one of the girls if I could speak to the departments supervisor and showed her what was going on. After a Duh and good laugh moment she moved the paperclip container and thanked me for figuring out why it was such a POS printer.

[Tam]

Once, I spent a little over two full hours talking to the SO's father to try to troubleshoot the problem with his desktop (he was in Arizona, I was in Colorado). Throughout the whole thing he kept saying that Mozzarella Firefox wasn't working for him (he'd somehow put it into full screen mode and lost the menu bar).

[jasonculp]

I finally had to install team viewer on my mom's computer. I don't know how many times I have driven over there to fix her stuck computer. When i get there I scroll down and click ok... If the button is off screen it doesn't exist.

[jonnoh]

C'mon let's play nice and not make fun of the old and stupid among us. I happen to belong to both categories. iN (oops caps lock on) in my own defense I didn't get my first computer 'till I was about 40 some 22 years ago. Niy om (oops wrong home row) But fortunately I also at that time hooked up with a sig other 20 years my junior who happens to know computers naturally as he had them since childhood. Which also puts me the the predator category.

However I do know some things. For example: The firing order for a Chevy 283 is 18436572. I can also set timing by ear (pretty darn close) and file and reset points and tell you if your condenser or coil is bad and adjust dwell. Because these talents aren't called for very often being an expert in unused technology puts me also in the lazy category.

But it isn't hopeless! I did learn to replace smoking with vaping about 18 months ago at age 61. Old dogs? Occasional new tricks?

Vape ON!

[jonnoh]

I also forgot to add to my last reply, how many laughs I got from all your replies. I think my stomach muscles are tighter now. If I can keep reading stuff like this I can quit exercise.

[jasonculp]

C'mon let's play nice and not make fun of the old and stupid among us.

I fall victim to this all of the time, please forgive me! I make fun of my parents all of the time and some of the old timers at work but at the end of the day I always turn to them when I need true wisdom.

I am really glad that old dogs can learn new tricks! I am sure before much longer, I will be an old dog. (I feel that way now when my grand kids bring new x-box games over....except RockBand... I'm still the champ)

[jonnoh]

Ooops in the attempt to be funny maybe I came off like a pompous a$$. I didn't mean to I loved all the replies here. To prove it I'll give you one of my favourite old ppl stories. I was in my mid teens and my brothers and sister younger. We were sitting around the table for thanksgiving or Christmas dinner with our parents and maternal grandmother. You know one of THOSE occasions. Anyway for some reason the word 'lesbian' came up and my grandmother announced to one and all, "I was a lesbian". Well! We kids burst into immediate hysterical laughter. My mom tried in all proper respect of elders fashion, tried to shhhhh us but she and my father couldn't hold it and they too burst into laughter. We were literally cramping up rolling about on the floor in complete hysterical abandon. Grandma got up and with a "Well I never!", stomped off to her room. It was probably an hour before any of us regained enough composure to go apologise to grandma.

As it turns out, in the early 1900s when my grandmother was a young lady, the word 'lesbian' didn't have the connotation it has today. She belonged to The Lesbian Society which was a group of young ladies who met regularly to discuss current issues such as women's suffrage and other hot topics of the times. We had to explain to her why what she said was so funny to us.

To this day whenever one of my siblings says or does something stupid I generally say, "Well what can you expect, your grandmother was a lesbian you know."

[jasonculp]

No jonnoh, I didn't take it that way! I totally got what you meant! I sometimes have to watch myself, I can sometimes go overboard. I guess what I really meant by the post is that I do give the techinally challenged a hard time sometimes, but I excel in technology, I fail miserably in other areas, and get schooled by the older more experienced! We tend to joke like this at work, and sometimes I bring it home with me!

[jonnoh]

My solution to being technically challenged is always to throw myself at the mercy of those more knowledgeable than me with self deprecation, like "my knowledge of computers comes from the time we were photographing dinosaurs with our polaroid one step cameras and watching movies on beta max and vcr s. I also do so admire anyone who can work in the USA in today's world. I left the work force at the top of my game in 1998 with my sexual harassment waiver on file, and don't think I could do it now. I wouldn't even get in the door because I'd be saying things like, "You want me to do what? Take a drug test to be a greeter at WalMart? Are you crazy? Greeters would probably be a lot better at their jobs if the WERE stoned! (hope I can say that here, I mean no promotion of the notion.). I couldn't survive the politically correct interaction required on the job. The things we joke about where I teach in Malaysia would get me sacked for sure. My colleagues date and sleep with students all the time. It's not even noticed. Common behaviour. Students offer sex for grades all the time too. Chinese ladies get student visas just to come here to find rich sugar daddies and this has all become normal to me after almost 20 years. And believe me we have lots of laughs at non politically correct stuff all the time. Sexist, racial, ageist, ethnic, religious. Nothing is sacred and most of it is usually self deprecating not arrow slinging. I personally think it's so much more fun than to have to watch what you say all the time. Every time I go back to America, I always worry that I'll say something out of line. There's a catch though. It's illegal to insult islam here. So guess what's the most insulted group? Yep, but mostly 'behind the barn' so to speak.

So to get back to proper topics, I truly appreciate those who have the technical knowledge of how these vapour rigs work and understand the electronic interactions of voltage wattage and ohms. Sometimes I have to look up many of the words in some posts just to get what the op is saying.

[oliviamia168@yahoo.com]

I just soak mine in some hot water for about 15 minutes and it seems to do the trick !

[Mplough]

Everclear 190 proof to clean my coils and blow out with one of these

A guy I was talking to said he used canned air to dry his coils, bad idea. There is enough force to break a weak coil, not to mention the residue left behind from the bittering agent.