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She Flew 500 Miles to Install Enterprise Software—Then Clicked “Next” Three Times and Left in Under Four Minutes

Software engineer smiling at someone's stupidity

Pexels/Reddit

It’s always funny when a customer makes the biggest deal out of the smallest computer problem.

For one software worker, that happened when a customer struggled to install a program that was supposed to be incredibly simple.

All they really had to do was leave the default settings alone and click “next.”

But no matter how many times support explained that, the customer kept second-guessing every step.

Eventually, they decided they needed someone to come out and do it for them, even though the nearest person was 500 miles away.

Read on to see what happened next.

Had to fly to customer site to install software

We produce custom desktop software for customers.

These particular customers were especially tech-illiterate and didn’t even have an IT department to speak of, despite being a major manufacturing corporation (anonymized, but you’ve heard of them for sure).

Our software is nothing super crazy: download our run-of-the-mill installer, open it, and click next a few times, and you’re done. Sure, there are advanced options, but most people would be fine with the defaults.

Unfortunately, support was not able to help three employees.

Support had a problem with three people trying to install. No amount of “click next” was getting through to them. They were seriously questioning the advanced options they thought they had to set, and talking them out of changing the defaults was an exercise in futility.

Them: It is asking for a path to install.

Support: Just leave it be. Click next.

Them: But what do I put for the path?

Support even tried to tell them the path was correct.

Support: What is it set to now?

Them: See two dots diagonal line program files diagonal–

Support: That is the correct path. Click next.

Them: But I should set the path, shouldn’t I?

Then, they had a great idea.

This circular conversation went nowhere… Finally, the customer had a great idea.

Them: “Can you send someone out here to help us?”

Support: “The nearest person is 500 miles away.”

Them: “We will pay whatever expenses it takes. We just have to get this thing installed before tomorrow.”

Suddenly, he was on the way to the airport.

Next thing I knew, I was boarding an airplane bound for their city.

2 hours later, I was at their office… 20 minutes after that, hitting next a total of 6 times (3 for each luser), I was done. The application worked fine.

They drove me back to the airport, and I came back home that night.

The only good thing was they dutifully paid the thousand-odd bucks for the flight plus premium hourly cost.

Wow! Talk about short notice.

Let’s see what the people over at Reddit think about what happened.

This reader dealt with something similar.

That would be taking it too far. But it’s still funny.

What a great policy.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about an employee who was fired because of a coworkers lies, only to get the chance for revenge years later.

Here’s a funny thought.

At that point, there wasn’t much else support could do.

They tried explaining it over the phone, but the customer kept making it way more complicated than it needed to be.

So, if they were willing to pay for a flight just to have someone click “next” a few times, that was their choice.

At least the employee walked away with a cool story to tell.

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