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Tales from Support: The Party Laptop

August 3, 2009 / posted in Tales from Support / No Comments

It was a quiet morning at QWE Computers – Shane and I were working in the back, and Todd was up front. It had been slow for a few days, and we were all waiting for something exciting to happen. They always say ‘be careful what you wish for’, and as it turns out, they’re right.

The front door opened, and a new customer walked in – she wasn’t a regular, and as far as we could remember, none of us had ever dealt with her before. She brought a laptop bag up to the counter and carefully set it on top, then took a step back. Todd greeted her.

Todd: How can I help you today.

Her: Well, I’m actually a little embarrassed, and I don’t know if you can help me.

If there’s any way to get our attention, that was it. Shane and I stepped out from the workbenches so we could hear better.

Todd: Go ahead – what’s wrong?

Her: So, I had a party last night. A lot of people came over, and we were having a pretty good time. Then, around midnight, one of my friends decided he wanted to check his email.

Todd: Okay, so it wouldn’t connect or something?

Her: No, it worked fine. Well, for a little while.

Todd: Okay, so what did it do?

Her: Well, it’s not what it did. It’s what he did. Look for yourself.

As she started to unzip the laptop bag, we all gathered around, imagining a charred case, or maybe everything being melted. Instead, the stench of vodka, vomit, and nine hours worth of rotting, putrid, bile-soaked laptop exploded from within.

Everyone gagged, then quickly backed away from the case. Todd ran to get a can of air freshener, and Shane and I just gaped.

Her: He had a little too much to drink, and threw up all over it. It turned off right away, though. Can you fix it?

At this point, none of us wanted to get close to it, let alone touch it. Todd came back, sprayed the front area of the shop until all you could smell was lavender with a hint of bile, and promised her that we’d have a look, and maybe send it to our supplier to see if they could maybe salvage some of the bits and maybe put them in a bare-bones laptop to save her some money, rather than buying a completely new laptop. After giving us her contact information, she left rather quickly.

The rest of the details are a little hazy, but someone found a pair of gloves and cleaned it off enough to get a look, but it was pretty apparent that the keyboard and motherboard were shot. That sorted out, we boxed it up and shipped it off to our supplier, then moved on.

The next day, mid-afternoon, our supplier called in. They weren’t impressed.

Todd: So, did you get that laptop we sent in? Can you salvage anything other than the hard drive?

Them: We didn’t even look! What did they do, drop it in a toilet?  We’re not going anywhere near that thing! It’s on it’s way back to you in a sealed bag – don’t ever send us anything like that again!

So with that, the laptop was returned, and using more gloves we were able to salvage the hard drive and recover the poor girl’s data. We never saw her again after that, but I always cringe whenever someone asking for help starts off with ‘So, I was at this party…’.

Tales from Support: The Double-Click

July 29, 2009 / posted in Support, Tales from Support / No Comments

Years ago I worked at a small, local computer store. After that, I worked at two different call centres. Then I worked at a data centre, and now I work in an ‘SMB’ (Small/Medium Business) as a network admin. Over the years I’ve had my own share of near unbelievable experiences, and in ‘Tales from Support’, I’m going to recount them as I remember them. Names have been changed where appropriate, however some will remain the same (as the stories just wouldn’t be the same without them). And now, ‘The Double-Click’.

During my time and QWE Computers (anonymized –ed.), one of the most common fixes for computers that came in were the Two R’s of Windows — Reformat and Reinstall. As a courtesy to customers, we’d clone their hard drive to a spare before formatting and then restore their data (documents, emails, pictures, etc…) once we were done. We’d try to get everything as close as possible, because a lot of people had never been through the process before and we often confused about what would happen. We’d hang on to the backup drive for a few days after releasing the computer to the customer just in case we missed something (and yes, we’d inform the customer of this before hand – always C.Y.A).

One particular customer had dropped off her computer and specifically asked for it to be reformatted and backed up. I’d dealt with the customer before, and knew that she wasn’t the most computer literate person we’d dealt with. After a few questions about what was wrong, we confirmed that a reinstall would be the best bet for her. As it turns out, her son was a tech and had tried to help her over the phone, but the problem was too complex for that kind of help and he told her to come to us.

She left the computer with us, and then picked it up the next morning when we were done. Later that day, just before closing, she called. The following is close to verbatim of the conversation I had with her:

Me: Thank you for calling QWE Computers, Laslow speaking. How can I help you?

Her: Hi, this is Kim. I picked up my computer this morning, and I can’t get on the internet! Nothing happens!

Me: Okay ma’am. When you brought your computer home, did you plug it back in to your phone line? [Note: this customer had dial-up internet, even though this around 2002, and Windows 98SE]

Her: Yes I did! I even spent three hours on the phone with Telus! They couldn’t get it working, and said it must not have been setup correctly!

At this point, the gears started grinding in my head, and my boss, Todd, and co-worker Shane had stopped what they were doing to listen to me. I remembered testing her connection before sending the computer out – we had a standard policy to get customer’s dial-up information so we could test it before releasing the system. Time to start troubleshooting.

Me: Alright. Are you getting any error messages?

Her: No! Nothing happens!

Me: At all? So you click on the ‘Internet’ icon on your desktop, and nothing happens?

Her: Exactly! Telus tried for hours to get it working, but I can’t get it to open up!

Me: Okay. Can you try it again for me right now?

I hear her put the phone down on the desk, then I hear a distinct CLICK. About two seconds later, another CLICK, then she picked up the phone. My jaw dropped.

Her: There! Nothing happened!

Me (still not sure if I’m believing what just happened): Kim, when you click, do you click really fast, like click-click, or do you pause for a little bit between clicks, like click———–click?

Her: The second one. I give it a little time to think.

Me: …..Ma’am, can you try clicking on the internet connection really fast? Click-click, just like I said.

Her (dubiously): Okay….IT WORKED! IT WORKED! OH THANK YOU SO MUCH! I have to go now, but THANK YOU!

Me: Okay…have a nice day!

*Click*

As I hung up the phone, I turned around to see my Todd and Shane nearly doubled over, laughing as hard as they could. I grabbed my coat and left early.

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