TOP 20 RESPONSES FROM TECH SUPPORT:

20. That's funny, it worked yesterday.
19. Well, the program needs some fixing.
18. I don't see how that's possible.
17. The machine seems to be broken. What did you do to it.
16. Has the operating system been updated? What do you mean, you don't know how?
15. What did you do and when did you do it?
14. You were probably typing too fast.
13. We haven't changed anything. What did you do wrong?
12. You must have the wrong executable.
11. That's not an error message. It's a feature.
10. It's almost ready.
9. Of course, it will only operate in safe mode.
8. You're next on my list.
7. It's just some unlucky coincidence.
6. We can't test everything.
5. This can't do that. What did you do?
4. Didn't I already fix that? What did you do?
3. It's already there, but it has not been tested.
2. It works, but it has not been tested.
1. All we did was upgrade the network server. That shouldn't cause any problem at all. What did you do?

After all is said and done, a television may insult your intelligence, but nothing rubs it in like a computer!

Tech support has reported the following true stories....

The boss has never gotten e-mail literate. He called the company tech and complained, 'It won't let me send this message.'
Tech: 'You can't just type 'Mary Smith' in the To: field.'
Boss: 'Well, how many Mary Smiths can there be on Guam?'
Tech: 'You have to type your daughter's exact e-mail address.'
Boss: 'But I send e-mail to her every week. They ought to know who it goes to by now.'
A short time later the tech was called again;
Boss: 'It's gone. The e-mail I just spent an hour typing is gone.'
Tech: 'What happened?'
Boss: 'I clicked Send and it just disappeared.'
Tech: 'It's in your Outbox, because you told the computer to Send it.'
Boss: 'I thought computers were supposed to be smart.'

He always sent his e-mails on Tuesdays so they would get to his daughter by the following Saturdays.

Friend: 'Did you get the e-mail I sent about my sound card?'
Tech: 'Nope. When did you send it?'
Friend: 'Sent it this morning. You should have gotten it by now.'
Tech: 'Let me check again. Nope, nothing here.'
Friend: 'Oh, yeah, it's Presidents' Day. It probably won't get delivered today,'

Customer: 'I tried sending e-mail to 1.404.123.4567 but the e-mailer won't let me.'
Tech: 'Maybe because that is a telephone number.'

I spent 30 minutes teaching an elderly group in our Seniors' Computer Kindergarten basic concepts for the use of e-mail in comparison to post office mail. One lady logged in with her user name and password, took her time to compose her message and successfully sent it to her sister.Then she sat and stared at the monitor.
Teacher: 'Good job. That wasn't so hard, was it? But what are you doing now?'
Lady: 'I'm waiting for her reply.'

Customer: 'You screwed something up. Now it keeps giving me an error message.'
Tech: 'OK, what does the message say?'
Customer: 'It says YOU entered an invalid e-mail address.'
Tech: 'Let's go back to the General tab and double check your address.'
Customer: 'It says xxxx-at-home-period thingy.com.'
Tech: 'Can you read it to me letter by letter?'
Customer: 'It says x-x-x-x-a-t-h-o-m-e-'
Tech: 'Ok, stop there. I want you to type your user name, xxxx, then the @ symbol, not the word AT.'
Customer: 'What are you talking about?'
Tech: 'Have you got the xxxx part done?'
Customer: 'Yes.'
Tech: 'Then hold the Shift key down and hit the number 2 key.
Customer: 'Both at the same time? Are you trying to break it?
Tech: 'Trust me, this will work.'
After that the customer got even more upset because he didn't have any e-mail to receive.