Do you unnastan the words comin' outta my mouf?

[Acolyte]

Just a quick one today. I had a computer in that the user said was giving some error codes when it tried to read disks. Couldn't recreate it, although the drivers for the disk drives were gone, so that was her problem. Still, I called her to ask about the specific error.

'Yeah, this is Acolyte calling from (Store) service, I've got some questions about your computer. I wasn't able to recreate the error, so I was wondering what you were doing when the error occured.'
'...um...huh?'
'What were you doing on the computer when the error occured?'
'...uh...I don't understand what you're asking me.'
'Were you running a specific program, did the error occur at a specific time...what were you using the computer for when it happened.'
'Oh! Uh...I was running that re...re...reboot? Rewrite...re-something-thingy.'
'Recovery?'
'Yeah! That's it! And then something happened and it broke!'
'...Kay. Well, I'll get on fixing it, thanks.'

I half expected her to tell me that she was sitting in a chair in front of a computer when the error happened. Dunno if she was just that computer-illiterate, or just out of it, or possibly high.

[BaristaTrav]

At least she didn't say she was hitting it with a sledgehammer or opening a file called harddriveeatingvirus.exe

[crazylegs]

She'd got a lovely email from someone telling her that they loved her...

[Naaman]

At least she didn't say she was hitting it with a sledgehammer or opening a file called harddriveeatingvirus.exe

..or 'tidying up' the Windows folder

[Bliss]

I half expected her to tell me that she was sitting in a chair in front of a computer when the error happened

That actually happened to me the day I decided to be snotty and try and force a customer to think and formulate ideas. Here is the gist of the conversation, the last part is as close as verbatim as I can recall... and yes I know I was a smartass, but well I had had it with that user for a long time... well....

Nomenclature: M == Me; C == Customer

M: Ok what program do you use to read your mail?
C: What do you mean?
M: *internal sigh, lets try another tactic* Ok, what do you open when you want to read email?
C: What?
M: When you want to read email, what steps do you take to read email? what do you need to do to read email? (I was fishing for the icon name. I could've presumed Outlook Express but I was really irritated by now.)
C: I just read it......
M: *loosing it, and mistreating a customer for the first of my only two times in life* You mean then, that when you want to read your email, you walk to your computer... your computer then detects your presence in it's vicinity, turns itself on and determines you desire to read email, opening the emails in screen automatically?

C: .... yes....

At that point I excused myself with the customer, passed the call to a coworker and spent the next 15 minutes siting alone in the bathroom with my face between my hands.

Edit:
Btw i think it was that day that all hell finally broke lose inside me and I decided that the future was just naked stupid people lying in the ground in a overpoluted earth suffocating and demanding to know why their thingies in their chests where hurting and that someone fix them NOW

[RetailWorkhorse]

M: *loosing it, and mistreating a customer for the first of my only two times in life* You mean then, that when you want to read your email, you walk to your computer... your computer then detects your presence in it's vicinity, turns itself on and determines you desire to read email, opening the emails in screen automatically?

C: .... yes....

HAL?! IS THAT YOU??? DUDE!! I want MY computer to do that!

And I use a web-browser to read email.

[Broomjockey]

M: *loosing it, and mistreating a customer for the first of my only two times in life* You mean then, that when you want to read your email, you walk to your computer... your computer then detects your presence in it's vicinity, turns itself on and determines you desire to read email, opening the emails in screen automatically?

C: .... yes....

Well, if they only ever use their computer for email, then they could leave the program open, and someone set it to auto-refresh every X minutes. Then if the monitor's set to power off after say 15 minutes of inactivity, then they may not ever turn their computer off. And when they sit down, they always bump the desk causing the monitor to come back on.