You told me to write "click" so I wrote "click...."

I'm going to telephone Jack and tell him about this.

I used to work in a British call centre, and believe me, the people in the story were the clever ones!

You know what drives me crazy? Well 2 things actually. Both about trying to help someone.

1. When someone is asking you on the phone some really stupid question like "you told me in your email to rename this file. How do you do that? What should I name it?"
So you tell them and they still act all confused, so you pull up the same file and tell "click on (whatever icon)"

them: ummmm.....
you: It's on the top of the page, on the right....
them: uhhhhh....
you: see the icon that looks like a picture of paris hilton? Right next to that.
them: ....uhhh.......paris.......ummmm......

2. You tell them what to do, and they're saying, "ok, yeah, ok, right...ok" and then you say, "ok, do you have that data on your screen now?"

them: no
So you go over it again, even doing it on your side so you know you're telling them right....they're saying "ok, yeah, ok..." All right, the data should be on your screen now.

them: no, it's not.

So....what's happening when you click (whatever)?

them: oh, I haven't click anything yet.

Some techs owe their jobs to their ability to make the simple seem complex.

I owe my job to my ability to make technologically-challenged people feel savvy.

Drew, you're a hero!

If only my tech help had the same attitude!

On the other hand, some 8 years or so ago, I was on the phone with Peachtree customer support, and was told to click a certain option. Couldn't find it. Around we went, and after 5 minutes of this, I realized she had entered a certain tab as was looking at the options. No way did she tell me to click that tab. We were literally "Not on the same page." If only we could teach these people to follow their own instructions exactly, and see what happens (or doesn't). . . .

I once read about a helpline customer who was convinced "his files" were inside the monitor! The service agent said "They aren't in there, they're on the hard drive". The customer said, "But I can see them behind the glass!" He meant the icons on his desktop...

And then there was the woman who thought the disk drive was a coffee holder