I did had one support call, a long time ago, where I told the guy to use the mouse and click on the start button. Then I heard the sound of something tapping on glass.

"Sir, please keep the mouse on the table and then move it. You'll notice the arrow moving too. Move the arrow to ..."

Yeah, that was still when everybody had CRT screens. That should give you an indication how long ago it was.

[–] Thedogdrinkscoffee@lemmy.ca 8 points 57 minutes ago

I did a support call in the 90's where "clicking the left mouse button" was stumping her. After trying a few variations of instructions, I decided to take a step back and better assess the situation.

Me - Ma'am, are you left or right handed?

Her: right

Me: Lift your right hand, and look at the mouse. It should be a palm sized white plastic device with two buttons, one on the left and one on the right where your fingers rest. There should also be a small cable that extends from the far side and plugs into your computer. The underside of it has a little grey ball in the middle. Do you see it?

Her: You mean the doohickey on the floor?

Me: Pardon me?!? Well, it should be on your desk, not the floor. Why would it be down there?

Her: You mean the foot pedal?

Me: *light bulb clicks on. Are you really familiar with sewing machines?

Her: yes, but this doesn't work anything like that.

Me: ok. We have found the problem! This is great. First step is to take the foot pedal off the floor and place it on the desk, under your right hand when you are sitting comfortably.

From there everything went smooth as silk.

[–] WhiskyTangoFoxtrot@lemmy.world 10 points 1 hour ago (2 children)

I once had a support call where I told the customer to click the Start button and they didn't know what it was. I clarified by saying that it was the button in the corner of the screen. They did it and then said that their entire screen turned black.

Apparently they'd pushed the power button on their monitor.

[–] drcobaltjedi@programming.dev 1 points 3 minutes ago

To the guy a few weeks ago that said I wasn't being fair to users not reading error messages and comparing it to a doctor reading your charts. Read this fucking thread.

[–] 1984@lemmy.today 1 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

When I was young, older people thought the monitor was the computer and had no idea there was a chassi under the desk connected to it. :)

[–] WhiskyTangoFoxtrot@lemmy.world 1 points 41 minutes ago

When I was young people thought the keyboard was the computer. And they were right.