Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis for February 21, 2016

Pig did it.

(Sad trombone sound)

seems like an “F Minus”

Well that’s unusual.

This happens more often than you’d think…

“Is it definitely plugged in?” and “have you tried turning it off and then on again?” (as said by Roy from ‘The IT Crowd’)."

I worked IT and this was like every 5th call, and yes I had to tell lots of people I had a checklist and they usually responded that way lol

That, right there, is a good comic strip.

Are you IT guys always that clueless?

I feel for the IT folks who must support some of the garbage that there companies are putting out there: Yahoo and T D Ameritrade are two of them…………….If it is not broke please don’t fix it………Please don’t make us go through 3 steps to do what we where able to do in 1 step before………….But then we would not be able to look at all those pretty adds you put in there…………….

Yup. Been there and done that I don’t know how many times with users. Of course, over the years, I’ve done a few dumb things too. And even if tech support doesn’t have the answer, which is at least half the time, they at least get me thinking about the problem differently, and then I solve it myself. So it’s still worth it.

You just made a fool of yourself, Rat. Not that it was a hard thing to do….May your hard drive fry once you get plugged in!

When I first read it, Rat was the one doing tech support and annoying the caller….

It’s a real issue. A lot of equipment which takes a kettle-type lead has a very tight socket into which it is difficult to get the lead to engage properly, and the lead may either work loose and fall out or, possibly even worse, work just slightly out of position. If this happens to a monitor it can create very strange effects, such as brown and green stripes across the screen.

Sorry sir… that’s a firmware issue.You will have to reflash your head ROM.

After you shut down and restart, and then reinstall your operating system, the next step in the script is to create a tachyon pulse by reversing the phase polarity, which will modulate the shield frequencies..Doesn’t anybody watch ST:TNG?

This type of error has a common bug ID. It’s a 10-T.

http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=19990211

LOL! LOL! that time it was Rat’s fault!

I had a customer on the phone like that. “YOUR *(^^ PROGRAM WON’T PRINT!” After 40 minutes of trying to calm him down and figure out what was up, the printer was plugged into another computer. (Before the days of shared printers.)

I worked in IT for a long time. I did not have a checklist (I was a department of one) but checking that the power was on was second only to whether they had rebooted. Thing was, the people stupid enough to have the power off seemed to know they were clueless and never got upset about these kind of questions. I knew it was time to retire when someone said “I guess you must think I am stupid?” and I replied “that thought had occurred to me.”

Oops

Using the CD/DVD player for a cup holder was always a good way to cause a problem. Yes, they did.

There’s a reason it’s on the checklist.

Then there is always the one about a lady calling because the computer isn’t working and when the IT guy asked her to check if it was plugged in, she said that she would have to get a flashlight to see. When he asked why, she told him because the power was out. Id10T error. Been there. Help desk was a punishment assignment.

Step Two – Reboot the computer. A great many problems are solved with that one.

When I worked in the hospital a doctor was trying to use a piece of equipment but he and his nurse practitioner couldn’t get it to work. I was called in to help. My first question was, “Is it plugged in?” While the NP got defensive the doc looked down and said, “Nope.”

hahaha rat…you are soooooo stupid!!!!!!! Take that you piece of rat crap you!!!!!

Looks like something from notalwaysright.com.

The same thing happens to me every time I have to call UVerse. Except I’m always plugged in.

Not only that, the cord isn’t long enough to reach the outlet.

uh oh. someone is gonna get kicked in the oompa-loompas I’m afraid.

When I was in the Army I heard about a cryptography class where the final exam was to troubleshoot an encryption device. One poor guy struggled for 45 minutes and all the tester had done was pull the plug.

When I was asked to fix a family member’s computer they would ask “What’s wrong?” My response was “Just a loose nut in front of the keyboard!”

The computer is missing; the power cord runs only to the monitor! Checking to see that the configuration actually includes a computer deserves to be on the moron checklist in addition to the monitor power.

pig did it. he was trying to be helpful and cut down on the electric bill

When I was in IT, we upgraded the H.R. admin assistant’s system from the old green screen to a color monitor. The next morning, we got a support call – no picture. I went to her office and had the pleasure of simply pressing the power button and then witnessing her embarrassment..In all fairness, this lady was a generally pretty sharp cookie. But back in those days of steam powered computers, the monochrome monitors didn’t have a power switch – they plugged into a switched outlet on the PC. And the switch on the replacement wasn’t very obvious..We both got a kick out of it.

I LOVE this!!!!! (it happens, but no one will admit it)!

There are people who think a mouse is a foot pedal. People make the darnedest mistakes.

I remember reading about an IT call where the customer complained that their screen was blank. The IT guy went through his trouble shooting list and when he got to the question about the computer being pugged in the customer said, “hold on, I have to get a flashlight to check.” “A flashlight?” “Yes, we’re in the middle of a power outage here and I need a light.”

I remember reading about an IT call where the customer complained that their screen was blank. The IT guy went through his trouble shooting list and when he got to the question about the computer being pugged in the customer said, “hold on, I have to get a flashlight to check.” “A flashlight?” “Yes, we’re in the middle of a power outage here and I need a light.”

Quite some time ago, a customer called and said his printer wasn’t working. My first thought was that it wasn’t turned on, but I didn’t want to ask him that and make it sound like I thought he was stupid. There were no lights on the outside of this printer, but under the cover there was a status display. I asked him what number was on the status display. He went to check and a minute later came back and said “Never mind” and hung up.

I can totally see myself doing something like this!

Oopsie.

This is why we Help Desk folks ask those seemingly stupid questions.

Cats, amirite?

HAHAHA!

Yep… every day I see both sides of that.

Awkward.

Tech support has to assume you don’t know anything about computers or they could miss an obvious solution. I mean, let’s get real here. Most people who call tech support ARE just that clueless.

Anyone else reminded of “The IT Crowd”?

lol got mad for nothing

Ha ha ha ha ha

Computers have plugs?

Poor guy