Clients from hell
Posted on: June 8, 2011 - 1:39am
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Clients from hell
I came across the site, called Clients From Hell which lists rather amusing encounters web designers have with their clients. Some of them are outright hilarious.
I've never been a web designer, but I used to work tech support at a call center and had to deal with some incrediably stupid people.
It will last a while too, I'm currently on page 94.
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And people wonder why I haven't gotten around to doing some freelance work.
Client: “I just… Okay, sorry I snapped. I just came from church. That place leaves me feeling so angry for some reason.”
You know...I almost agree with the client here. I think more language learning sites should have porno ads on them. Hell, ALL sites should have porno ads on them. Get to it, Sapient!
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I've read 40 pages, and now the site doesn't work anymore
So addicting 0.0
*Refresh, refresh, refresh*
“A meritocratic society is one in which inequalities of wealth and social position solely reflect the unequal distribution of merit or skills amongst human beings, or are based upon factors beyond human control, for example luck or chance. Such a society is socially just because individuals are judged not by their gender, the colour of their skin or their religion, but according to their talents and willingness to work, or on what Martin Luther King called 'the content of their character'. By extension, social equality is unjust because it treats unequal individuals equally.” "Political Ideologies" by Andrew Heywood (2003)
That's funny, I think I have met the majority of those clients in a professional environment at some point in time.
I like the one with the V that's too pointy 
The funnier thing yet, or sadder depending on how you look at it, is that I would actually know how to handle those idiotic questions. So much exposure to idiocy in such little time.
"Don't seek these laws to understand. Only the mad can comprehend..." -- George Cosbuc
Well, anyone who has ever done IT work knows those people all too well. I have not seen that site before but there are plenty of them out there. Some of the stories that I have seen really ought to fall into the category of “can't possibly be true” but so many people are that stupid that I just can't say that they aren't.
Care to play a game? I have done this on a few IT forums and to date, nobody has figured out what the issue was.
So this person calls me to her desk one morning with the report “I turned my computer on but nothing is happening”. When I got there, I saw that the screen had a slowly scrolling text that said something along the lines of:
Monitor
Test
Working
I promise to post a picture of a squeaky cat toy for the first person who figures it out.
Edit: If the right answer does not happen after a couple of days or a bunch of posts, I will let you all off the hook. Even so, give it a shot.
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Without any other details, and off the top of my head I'm going to suggest.
1. Screen saver locked
2. Resolution change test
3. Device auto adjust setting.
I would need to know the OS and make of monitor/desktop before knowing for sure what the issue is.
"Don't seek these laws to understand. Only the mad can comprehend..." -- George Cosbuc
I'd vote for screen saver. "Move your mouse"
But then, I had the "my keyboard is broken" because nothing happened when they pressed the wrong key. And, I've had the call from the guy with a master's in mechanical engr call up and say his printer was broken and not printing -- when the printer was turned off.
-- I feel so much better since I stopped trying to believe.
"We are entitled to our own opinions. We're not entitled to our own facts"- Al Franken
"If death isn't sweet oblivion, I will be severely disappointed" - Ruth M.
I have a funny IT incident that happened recently.
As I've mentioned, I work for a telecom company. We have a tool that queries modems to give us the stats. It is usually only accessed from a database that is about 10 clicks in. You have to select area/node... so on up to the modem's address and then just click the modem's link and there you have all the stats.
This is extremely tedious so I had a script that bypassed all that stuff and just queried the look up tool directly when you put in the MAC. Well, this worked well from my work station, behind the firewall, so I put it on my phone (company issued). Anyways, I was testing this script on my phone for about a week, then the whole tool just went down. I called up the guy in charge and asked him what's up with the look up tool as it's not working at all anymore. He thought we had a security breach because he noticed a bunch of foreign IPs. I started laughing and told him that we have no security breach, but the damn tool was not secure at all. I forgot to enable the VPN on my phone and I was sending the queries from the phone's IP. We had a good oh shit moment when we realized the security hole I have inadvertently discovered.
Mind you, in order for it to be exploited you needed the exact URL of the tool, but still. It's funny if you're a geek.
"Don't seek these laws to understand. Only the mad can comprehend..." -- George Cosbuc
"Plug in your fucking SVGA/DVI cable, you dumb bitch?!"
What, you mean people don't come close to or outright commit business suicide regularly?
“A meritocratic society is one in which inequalities of wealth and social position solely reflect the unequal distribution of merit or skills amongst human beings, or are based upon factors beyond human control, for example luck or chance. Such a society is socially just because individuals are judged not by their gender, the colour of their skin or their religion, but according to their talents and willingness to work, or on what Martin Luther King called 'the content of their character'. By extension, social equality is unjust because it treats unequal individuals equally.” "Political Ideologies" by Andrew Heywood (2003)
Well, as I say, nobody has ever figured this one out at first.
One error code is: ID10T
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I think that's a generic code, fault is between the chair and keyboard. I used to read the BOFH files back in the BBS days, that was funny.
"Don't seek these laws to understand. Only the mad can comprehend..." -- George Cosbuc
And the answer is.......
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Screen saver!!!!
Was it scrolling vertically or horizontally?
Without knowing the direction of scrolling, my first guess, outside of screensaver, would be that there's some sort of 'monitor test' button on the monitor, and the person thought it was a power switch.
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We will never know.
Wow, way to forget about a thread.
Nobody was even close. The person had not turned to computer on. When I walked up and fixed the problem for her with a single press of a button, she said “I did not know that my modem had to be on to use the computer”.
This from someone with a masters degree. Granted it was an MSW but even so, how do you go to college and not know how to turn on a computer?
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This is ancient history - even for me.
-- I feel so much better since I stopped trying to believe.
"We are entitled to our own opinions. We're not entitled to our own facts"- Al Franken
"If death isn't sweet oblivion, I will be severely disappointed" - Ruth M.
Go to one of the colleges in Bhutan?
Anyways, imagine that knowing I had a mental list of nearly every obvious, overly mundane answer possible (a few were already taken by other posters), I was very near suggesting she turn on her machine when I already saw how many "mundane" answers given by other posters and myself and then decided to give up.
fuck.
“A meritocratic society is one in which inequalities of wealth and social position solely reflect the unequal distribution of merit or skills amongst human beings, or are based upon factors beyond human control, for example luck or chance. Such a society is socially just because individuals are judged not by their gender, the colour of their skin or their religion, but according to their talents and willingness to work, or on what Martin Luther King called 'the content of their character'. By extension, social equality is unjust because it treats unequal individuals equally.” "Political Ideologies" by Andrew Heywood (2003)
You may claim that now. However, if you have done IT support and you have read any of the websites with tech support horror stories, you will know that there are more ways to fuck up a computer than just the really obvious ones. And having done IT support, you would know that the ones that really do seem to be unbelievable might just be true.
One of my favorites was a guy who kept calling AOL to get his account started. Now remember that in the days of dial up, it was routine to have to do this across many actual calls as the caller would have to hang up to try something.
At one point, the tech guy asked about a noise in the background only to be told that it was just traffic. Apparently, the caller did not have a phone line in his house and he was calling from a payphone down the street. Too dumb to possibly happen? I can't say that.
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There was a supposed transcript of a real tech support conversation that made the email rounds years ago. I'm inclined to believe it is true ---
Actual dialog of a former Wordperfect Customer Support employee:
"Wordperfect Customer Support; may I help you?"
"Yes, well, I'm having trouble with WordPerfect."
"What sort of trouble?"
"Well, I was just typing along, and all of a sudden the words went away."
"Went away?"
"They disappeared."
"Hmm. So what does your screen look like now?"
"Nothing."
"Nothing?"
"It's blank; it won't accept anything when I type."
"Are you still in WordPerfect, or did you get out?"
"How do I tell?"
"Can you see the C: prompt on the screen?"
"What's a sea-prompt?"
"Never mind. Can you move the cursor around on the screen?"
"There isn't any cursor: I told you, it won't accept anything I type."
"Does your monitor have a power indicator?"
"What's a monitor?"
"It's the thing with the screen on it that looks like a TV.
"Does it have a little light that tells you when it's on?"
"I don't know."
"Well, then look on the back of the monitor and find where the power cord goes into it. Can you see that?"
"Yes, I think so."
"Great! Follow the cord to the plug, and tell me if it's plugged into the wall."
"Yes, it is."
"When you were behind the monitor, did you notice that there were two cables plugged into the back of it, not just one?"
"No."
"Well, there are. I need you to look back there again and find the other cable."
"Okay, here it is."
"Follow it for me, and tell me if it's plugged securely into the back of your computer."
"I can't reach."
"Uh huh. Well, can you see if it is?"
"No."
"Even if you maybe put your knee on something and lean way over?"
"Oh, it's not because I don't have the right angle-it's because it's dark."
"Dark?"
"Yes-the office light is off, and the only light I have is coming in from the window."
"Well, turn on the office light then."
"I can't."
"No? Why not?"
"Because there's a power outage."
"A power... A power outage? Aha! Okay, we've got it licked now. Do you still have the boxes and manuals and packing stuff your computer came in?"
"Well, yes, I keep them in the closet."
"Good! Go get them, and unplug your system and pack it up just like it was when you got it. Then take it back to the store you bought it from."
"Really? Is it that bad?"
"Yes, I'm afraid it is."
"Well, all right then, I suppose. What do I tell them?"
"Tell them you're too stupid to own a computer."
-- I feel so much better since I stopped trying to believe.
"We are entitled to our own opinions. We're not entitled to our own facts"- Al Franken
"If death isn't sweet oblivion, I will be severely disappointed" - Ruth M.
I hope this guy sued.
Look at my blog! It's awesome!
I'm also on this Twitter thing