The Azzaron Blog

The following is an ACTUAL e-mail conversation between myself and a potential (well, not any more) vendor:

ME: "Looks pretty good. I do need to have a total of 12 36GB drives though (2 x 6) and 6 72GB drives (1x6). Can you please update?"

VENDOR: "Excellent I will get this to you shortly. Do you still need the Microsoft? :)"

ME: "Is there anyway to get this broken down by system? It's rather confusing to an end-user."

VENDOR: "This is our quoting system and there is no way to break down."

A customer called with a problem regarding their Microsoft Office. They were having a problem with the only computer that could check the company e-mail account. A quick Google search turned up a known Microsoft issue (what else?). I dialed into their computer and started the Office updater. I explained very clearly that they would need the Microsoft Office XP disc to continue.

Not Office 2000. Not Office 2003. But Office XP. I got in the car to head to the next appointment and called to check in with the customer.

"Only 33 minutes left," they told me.

"Hmm, that''s a long time for a Service Pack," I told them.

"Yeah, but we can wait. It had a problem with tape drivers, though. Will that be an issue?" they asked.

A customer called our office and explained that a program he was working on had closed itself while he was in a document. The customer was not concerned about the lost document (which he had not saved), but wanted to know when he re-opened the program, how could he get all the programs on the Task Bar back in the right order. Apparently he always opened his computer the same way each day with the same programs and didn't know how to work when they were "out of order" on the bottom of the screen.

The following conversation is repeated in some form or the other every week with a customer.

ME: Okay, please open Internet Explorer and go to www.logmein123.com.

CUSTOMER: Okay. I entered that. Do I want the official site?

ME: No, enter that site in the address bar.

CUSTOMER: I did and it came up with a bunch of results.

Okay, so I just have to write this one and get if off my chest. For the third time in as many months, the same customer just called me about missing files. Here we go again.

HIM: "There's something wrong with the computer system," he tells me, "half of the company documents just disappeared."

ME: "When did you notice they were gone?"

HIM: "Well, I was trying to select some and then they were gone."

ME: "Did you possibly drag them into a another folder?"

The following is an actual conversation with a customer:

ME: Okay, I can fix this issue, but first I'll need to to put the Microsoft Office CD in the drive.

HIM: I found the disk, but the comptuer is standing up. It won't go in.

ME: Find the little tabs and slip the disc in.

HIM: I can't. It just slides out.

The following is an actual phone conversation with a customer.

THE SETUP: A high-strung customer called freaked out that he could not drag an drop files into an e-mail. Okay, so the nerdy punchline is that he had clicked Attach File already and was trying to drag a folder from the Insert window to the e-mail, so of course it wasn't going to work. Meanwhile, the conversation was pretty priceless.

HIM: Can you tell me what's wrong with the computer? I can't drop-and-drag files into e-mail.

ME: Okay, let me get into your computer.

HIM: I can't believe this. Why is this happening?

The following is an actual conversation with a consulting customer. Unfortunately, I'm sure this happens every day.

ME: Okay, I have access to the one computer, and I see what you're saying. I can't access the files on that other computer either. Can you please go over there and give me remote access to it.

THEM: Okay. Just a second. Let me go turn it on.

ME: (silent scream)