Comments on: Thank you for calling AOL. How may I help you?

By: Carphone Warehouse employ Muppets but their managers do care

Carphone Warehouse employ Muppets but their managers do care — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 16:49:17 +0000

[...] Perhaps this should be added to Adrian’s post about the mad calls from the AOL days. [...]

By: Stu C

Stu C — Thu, 15 Feb 2007 08:51:32 +0000

Probably one of the funniest days I remember in Tech Support was when we where working the day of Princess Diana’s funeral (a Saturday) at it was live on the Web as well as on TV. I remember anyone that rang up with a tech issue being asked “Did they not have any respect” and “Should the not be looking at the funeral”. Funny enough they all apologised and said they’d ring back later.
The other great thing about the tech floor was sitting in Tech Chat watching every episode of South Park that we’d just downloaded….Class….

By: Paul Walsh

Paul Walsh — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 22:05:41 +0000

Ah, you’re right Seamus – Y for U

I’m sure someone could write a book on this stuff!

By: Steve Moore

Steve Moore — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 19:35:18 +0000

A few more funnys for you

Helpdesk: “Your password is the small letter ‘a’ as in apple, a capital letter ‘V’ as in Victor, and the number ’7′.” Customer: “Is that ’7′ in capital letters?”

Customer: “I have a huge problem. A friend has put a screensaver on my computer, but every time I move the mouse, it disappears!”

Helpdesk: “How may I help you?” Customer: “I’m writing my first e-mail.” Helpdesk: “Okay, and what seems to be the problem?” Customer: “Well, I have the letter ‘a’ in the address, but how do I get the circle around it?”

No more floppy disks from home, Systems Administrator tells user whose PC keeps getting re-infected with viruses. A week goes by with no problems – then user’s machine is infected again. Yes, she used a disk from home, user admits. “But I let the diskette sit on my desk for a whole week. Who knew that the virus could live that long?”

By: Adam

Adam — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 16:31:44 +0000

On the supporting random stuff topic – a friend of mine finally came up with a way to explain why we didn’t support hardware problems, windows problems etc.

His basic analogy was television – if your TV stops working, would you call the BBC to help you fix it?

Besides that, one of my most vivid memories is the Eddie Izzard call from Galway on an old Mac – I think Seamus finally figured that was the old V90 speed bug. I think he had about 6 of us in on that one – celebrity can help

By: Aido

Aido — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 15:59:31 +0000

Thanks Seamus, I stand corrected!

By: Seamus

Seamus — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 15:49:51 +0000

Ha!
” A for alpha, C for Charlie, ampersand (shift 7)â€¦ and U for You.”

I remember it well, and if I’m not mistaken, the actual phonetic option he used was:
Y as in You.
He also used to like asking people if they had a dog…those damnable chewed up modem lines….