Computer Stupidities: Paranoia

Some random computer paranoia I stumbled upon:

Computer Stupidities: Paranoia: "About a year ago, a customer from Roswell, NM, called in to place an order. To break the ice, I jokingly asked if he or any of his neighbors had seen any aliens lately. The guy laughed and proceeded to tell me all about the crazies (his word, not mine) that not only live in Roswell but who come on vacation there in hopes of seeing a UFO themselves. As he talked, I processed the order, and the last bit of information I needed to complete it was the guy's email address for marketing purposes.

* Customer: 'Email! I won't have anything to do with that Internet or modems of any sort! You should be careful about those. Don't you know that once you install a modem, the government can look into your computer and watch everything you do? That's why every night before I go to bed, I turn the monitor to the wall.'"

Computer Stupidities: Paranoia: "When in college, I had to make a fake advertisement for a class. I had a GIF that I downloaded that I wanted to put into it, so I sat down at the only Mac that was connected to the scanner in the school's computer lab. For some reason, it couldn't open the file, and the program crashed repeatedly. I got a lab technician to come over, and I explained the problem. She asked what I did to it and got angry with me. So I went to the Mac next to the one I was on and opened the picture in the same program. She told me in no uncertain terms that I was responsible for ruining the computer.

* Me: 'I scanned these pictures in, then tried to open this GIF I downloaded.'
* Her: 'What? You can't do that! That type of a file is for Windows machines only! It isn't supported on Macs.'
* Me: 'No, it is a standard graphic file. It can be opened on either machine, how did I get it to open on this Mac right here? See?'
* Her: 'Don't do that! You're gonna break that one also.'

To protect her computer from evil me, she leaned over and flipped the power switch off."

Computer Stupidities: Paranoia: "The second day I worked doing phone tech support, I was called by an elderly woman who was sobbing and panicked. After spending twenty minutes getting her calmed down, I finally found out what her problem was. She had been on the Internet and recieved the ever-popular message 'This program has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down.' Immediately afterward, she had heard police sirens down the road and thought, 'They're coming to lock me up!'"

Computer Stupidities: Paranoia: "I've done my time in tech support and have managed to live through some very weird calls, but this one was the best. An older lady bought a brand new desktop system with all the extras and had been using it for about a month when she got an error about an 'illegal function.' She took apart the whole system down to the hard drive and hid it in different parts of her house, called us, and wanted to know how much longer she had until the police were going to come get her. Needless to say, we spent a lot of time on the phone putting the system back together."

Computer Stupidities: Paranoia: "One of my users recently came into the workforce and is literally terrified of her computer. Each sound it makes be it from the speaker or random drive noises causes her to flinch and turn pale. She sits at a custom-built wraparound desk surrounded by her computer, the switchboard, an electric typewriter (she hates that too), and the postal meter. In order to point at the screen I have to stand directly behind her chair.

She was having great problems with the telecoms software convincing herself that she really had downloaded the file. In order to demonstrate that the 'dir' command would show her that her files really were in the directory I chose the c:\dos directory to use it on.

When the dozens of filenames flickered down the screen she was so panicked that she thrust her chair backwards crushing me between the chair and the typewriter.

To simplify things, I installed Windows 95 and demonstrated how to move files from the folder to the trash can. Later I wandered by her desk and noticed a forest of icons surrounding her trash can. She hadn't managed to hit it once."

Computer Stupidities: Paranoia: "At 3:37 a.m. on a Sunday, I had just looked at the clock to determine my annoyance level, when I received a frantic phone call from a new user of a Macintosh Plus. She had gotten her entire family out of the house and was calling from her neighbor's. She had just received her first system error and interpreted the picture of the bomb on the screen as a warning that the computer was going to blow up."

Computer Stupidities: Paranoia: " * Customer: 'I had an important document that was password protected, and I can't get in it. I don't know the password.'
* Tech Support: 'Ok, we do have a program the get passwords from Word documents. Can you email me the document?'
* Customer: 'No, it is very sensitive. That's why it was password protected. I won't even keep the file on the server. I keep it secure on a floppy.'
* Tech Support: 'It would be much safer if you kept it on the server. Floppies are easily corrupted. At least on the server it would be backed up each night.'
* Customer: 'That is exactly what I don't want to happen. For legal reasons, I don't want any copies of this file. I want you to come down here and get the password for me.'
* Tech Support: 'I'm not in the same office as you are, so I'll need to send someone there to your desk to help you out.'
* Customer: 'Have them call ahead first so I can get security here when they are work with the file.'
* Tech Support: 'Security? Sir, We sign a non-disclosure agreement, so that won't be necessary.'
* Customer: 'Yes, it will be necessary! This is a very important and sensitive document, and we don't want anyone touching it without some security.'
* Tech Support: 'Ok, that's fine. I'll let them know to bring the password software so they can get the password you forgot.'
* Customer: 'I didn't forget it!'
* Tech Support: 'Excuse me?'
* Customer: 'I didn't have to remember it.'
* Tech Support: 'What do you mean?'
* Customer: 'The password was written on a yellow post-it note attached to the disk and must had fallen off. It has be somewhere on my desk, but there are so many papers here I can't find it!'

I had to mute the phone so they wouldn't hear me laughing."