When you work in tech support, you will often have callers who really don’t know much about technology, but you have to help them the best you can.

What would you do if you had a caller who couldn’t get their printer to work, but no matter what you asked them, they couldn’t answer your questions to help you troubleshoot?

That is what happened to the tech support guy in this story, and after a lot of wasted time, he figured out that the printer wasn’t plugged in. After the printer started working, tech support stayed connected to get a little revenge.

“I’m not a computer person” – but allow me to be as unhelpful and condescending as possible while I demand you fix my problem

I work an out of hours IT desk, we support multiple businesses after hours when their IT teams leave for the day.

There are always certain customers you don’t like.

It’s 11:30 pm and I get a call through from my least favorite business we support (we have no systems access and very little in the way of documentation, their calls are renowned for being a pain in the butt to deal with).

EA = Extremely affluent sounding British guy

Nice and professional.

Me: Service desk how can I help?

EA: Oh hello I’m not able to print

Me: Okay, any error messages? Any signs of life from the printer?

Those were simple terms.

EA: Now hold on I’m not a computer person so you’ll need to use simple terms

Me: What happens when you print?

EA: Nothing happens that’s why I’m calling you!

You have to give him something to go by.

Me: Do you see any messages appear on the screen when trying to print?

EA: No

I don’t blame him.

I have a particularly low tolerance for these kinds of callers who are unable to provide even basic details. This guy was also coming across as very condescending

Me: Is your printer turned on? Can you see any lights?

EA: Of course!

These are standard troubleshooting steps.

Me: Can you walk me through what you generally do to print something?

EA: I’m not a computer person so you’ll need to be more clear

Me: Tell me how you’d usually print

What could he possibly not understand?

EA: Look here, I don’t really understand what you’re asking me

Me: What would you usually do to print?

EA: I don’t understand you

Me: Ok sir, I’d like to connect remotely to your computer so I can see what’s on the screen. Is that okay?

Could he possibly be this dumb?

EA: This is all very complicated. I’m not sure what you want to do.

Me: I’d like to access your computer so I can see what’s wrong

EA: I’m sorry, can you explain that more clearly?

What is going on here?

Me: I’m not sure how much clearer I can actually be with this. I need to remotely connect to try and fix this for you

EA: Look this is terribly unfriendly for people who aren’t technically savvy like myself. Why can’t you fix this?

Me: I’m trying to help you and fix it but you haven’t been able to provide a great amount of detail on the issue, so I’d like to remotely connect a take a look myself

He hasn’t used a technical term yet.

EA: I’m not familiar with these technical terms. This is very hard. I don’t understand why we have you people if you can’t help people who aren’t technically savvy

Me: I’m trying to help, however as it’s out of hours our scope is limited. I need to remotely connect to see what’s going on. I respect that you are not technically savvy but at the same time we do expect a certain level of existing knowledge from users in order to be able to provide our support service after hours. I can ask that the main service desk calls you back in the morning if you’d prefer?

Of course, everything is always urgent.

EA: No look this is very important and I need this fixed, how do you get on my screen?

Me: Firstly, I need you to open a web browser or just go to Google

EA: I JUST USE THIS FOR EMAIL WHAT ON EARTH IS A WEB BROWSER?

Me: Do you use Google?

You wouldn’t know it.

EA: Yes of course I do!

Me: Okay, please go to Google….

We spend a painful amount of time getting gotoassist working

Me: Thank you I’m now connected. I’m going to take a look at the printer setup now

It wouldn’t surprise me if he didn’t even have it plugged in.

Me: I see the printer is reporting “not connected”. Can you check to make sure it’s plugged in please?

I Google the model number and this is an old Epson printer. USB only. At this point I’ve had enough of this callers ineptness

You don’t know how to plug things in?

EA: But I don’t know HOW!

Me: I’m sorry, I really can’t help you with this part. You’re the one physically located with the computer and the printer. Go to the printer and make sure any wires coming from it are plugged into the PC.

EA: OK.

To nobody’s surprise.

Several minutes later I hear the unmistakable sound of a device being connected in Windows

Me: Okay, the printer is now showing as connected so it looks like the plug was disconnected. Please try printing again.

Well, that was easy.

EA navigates to Outlook, opens an email about discounted camping products and proceeds to print it off

Me: I can hear the printer in the background so it looks like we’re good now?

What!?

EA: Yes it’s working but you didn’t help me at all click

EA was such a PITA. He also left gotoassist running in the background – so I spent the next half an hour inconspicuously moving his mouse each time he tried to click something before I got bored and disconnected.

That last bit is just too funny. I certainly don’t blame him for getting a little harmless revenge.

Let’s see what the people in the comments have to say about this.

Here’s an update on the story.

How does he even have a job.

Yup, this exactly.

This would be a funny prank.

This should be the standard.

Come on man, you have to give him something to work with.

If you liked this post, check out this story about an employee who got revenge on a co-worker who kept grading their work suspiciously low.