PhD in dumbassness

So I hope my colleagues will forgive me for posting stories on here relating to my current job rather than the good old call center. I stopped working there about 5 months ago and started a job closer to my school. I do still do tech support however and in fact my department is actually called the call center even though I usually am running around physically fixing computers rather than taking calls.

At my new job I do computer support for a group of individuals many of whom have PhDs though you wouldn't think so based on some of the problems I have had to help with and some of the questions I have had to answer. Everyone's heard the "is it plugged in?" tech support joke and can't believe anyone could really be that stupid. Well I'm here to confirm that yes people are that stupid. It happens a lot more often than you would think too. I would say probably at least once a week I am faced with cases like this. Often I will call the person requesting assistance and ask them exactly what is happening just in case the problem can be resolved over the phone. Sometimes this works but not in cases such as the one I am about to describe.

I got a case last week from one of our esteemed PhDers stating that he had been gone a few days and for some reason when he got back his computer would not turn on. My first thought was that it could possibly be a fried computer and he would need a new one. So I call him up and asked him the usual questions. "Did you check the power cord?" "Is it showing any lights or making any noises at all?" These were all met with the answer "I don't know I'm not a computer genius!" So I finally resolve to come take a look myself. I arrive to the office and go to the desk ignoring the blabber from the man telling me his complete ignorance when it comes to "computing stuff" and I push the power button. Computer fires right up.

Another instance occurred a little longer back. The main secretary office called us to tell us that their printers were all working yesterday but now today they aren't working. Me and a co-worker head down to investigate. We check the printers and they are all printing configuration pages fine but can't get any jobs over the network. Must be a connection problem right? That would make sense. We ask the head secretary if he checked the network cables already and he says yes. Doubting him I decided to check myself. Sure enough all of the printers are plugged in snug and tight to the switch. One tiny little problem though. The switch was not plugged into the wall. When asked how I fixed the problem I told the secretary that the switch just wasn't plugged in and was met with "we get network connection through the wall?"

Yes my friend this is why we prefer you frickin retarded faggots don't move shit around when you don't know what the piss you are doing. You would think one of the requirements to be a secretary would be "Must know what a computer is and know how to use it (including how to READ THE ERROR MESSAGE BEFORE CLOSING IT!)". Sorry that's a story for another day.