Any time you feel dumb, don't worry. Check out the following excerpts from a
"Wall Street Journal" article by Jim Carlton. Lots of people are dumber than
you.

1. Compaq is considering changing the command "Press Any Key" to "Press
Return Key" because of the many calls asking where the "Any" key is.

2. AST technical support had a caller complaining that her mouse was hard to
control with the dust cover on. The cover turned out to be the plastic bag
the mouse was packaged in.

3. Another Compaq technician received a call from a man complaining that the
system wouldn't read word processing files from his old diskettes. After
trouble-shooting for magnets and heat failed to diagnose the problem, it was
found that the customer labeled the diskettes by rolling them into a
typewriter to type on them.

4. Another AST customer was asked to send a copy of her defective diskettes.
A few days later a letter arrived from the customer along with Xeroxed
copies of the floppies.

5. A Dell technician advised his customer to put his troubled floppy back in
the drive and close the door. The customer asked the tech to hold on, and
was then heard putting the phone down, getting up and crossing the room to
close the door to his room.

6. Another Dell customer called to say he couldn't get his computer to fax
anything. After 40 minutes of trouble-shooting, the technician discovered
the man was trying to fax a piece of paper by holding it in front of the
monitor screen and hitting the "send" key.

7. Another Dell customer needed help setting up a new program, so a Dell
tech suggested he go to the local Egghead. "Yeah, I got me a couple of
friends," the customer replied. When told "Egghead" was a software store,
the man said, "Oh, I thought you meant for me to find a couple of geeks."

8. Yet another Dell customer called to complain that his keyboard no longer
worked. He had cleaned it by filling up his tub with soap and water and
soaking the keyboard for a day, then removing all the keys and washing them
individually.

9. A Dell technician received a call from a customer who was enraged because
his computer had told him he was "bad and an invalid". The tech explained
that the computer's "bad command" and "invalid" responses shouldn't be taken
personally.

10. An exasperated caller to Dell Computer Tech Support couldn't get her new
Dell Computer to turn on. After ensuring that the computer was plugged in,
the technician asked her what happened when she pushed the power button. Her
response, "I pushed and pushed on this foot pedal and nothing happens." The
"foot pedal" turned out to be the computer's mouse.

11. Another customer called Compaq tech support to say her brand-new
computer wouldn't work. She said she unpacked the unit, plugged it in, and
sat there for 20 minutes waiting for something to happen. When asked what
happened when she pressed the power switch, she asked "What power switch?"

12. True story from a Novell NetWire SysOp: Caller: "Hello, is this Tech
Support?"

Tech: "Yes, it is. How may I help you?" Caller: "The cup holder on my PC is
broken and I am within my warranty period. How do I go about getting that
fixed?" Tech: "I'm sorry, but did you say a "cup holder"?" Caller: "Yes,
it's attached to the front of my computer." Tech: "Please excuse me if I
seem a bit stumped; it's because I am. Did you receive this as part of a
promotion, like at a trade show? How did you get this cup holder? Does it
have any trademark on it?" Caller: "It came with my computer, I don't know
anything about a promotional. It just has '4X' on it."

At this point the Tech Rep had to mute the caller, because he couldn't stand
it. The caller had been using the load drawer of the CD-ROM drive as a cup
holder, and snapped it off the drive!

Another well-known one that I can add is the true tale of the user who
called up complaining that the instructions said to load the four diskettes
into "Drive A" but he couldn't possibly get more than two in.