I use to man a support phone like that...those are not made up situations
One time a guy called, I can't remember the problem now, but as part of diagnosing it I needed him to send a copy of a floppy disc so I could analyze it. I told him what I needed, he said that he would get it in the mail right away. Two days later, via Fed-Ex I received a piece of paper which contained a photocopied image of the disc. Fortunately, I'm too nice of a guy to be sarcastic, so I called and said, "I got the copy of the disc, thanks for sending it so quickly. After examining it, I'm going to need one more thing from you to resolve this issue..."
Another time a secretary called complaining that every week she would prepare this big report for her boss, save it to a floppy, make sure it was on the floppy then leave for the weekend. On Monday morning her boss arrived earlier than her and would get the disc because he needed the report for an early morning meeting every week. Well apparently when he would check the disc it was empty, then she would put it in her computer and verify it was, in fact, empty. She couldn't understand since she always verified it was on the disc after she copied it. This is when learning to ask about the work environment and workflow helps tremendously. It turns out, she would take out the disc and attach it to the metal file cabinet in her bosses office with a large magnet (If you don't know, magnets erase floppy discs).
My all time favorite was this one. The offices I supported were in Southern California and I worked in Northern California. Occasionally I had to travel to the southern office to work, but while there still had to field these support calls. The advantage, however, was I could immediately go up to the office and work on the problem directly. This was fortunate for this incident...
I got a call from a woman who said her computer was eating her discs. I assumed she meant they were getting physically damaged, but she corrected me and said, no it is EATING them. She said, I put the disc in the computer but the computer never shows the contents and then when I go to pull it back out, it's gone. This REALLY baffled me and so I told her I'd be right up. Not knowing what to expect I took my tools and several parts with me, just in case. When I got there I asked her to demonstrate the problem, she grabbed a disc and without looking reached down under the desk to slide it into the computer. I noticed that there was a small gap between the drive and the computer case, and it was in this gap, not in the drive opening, where she was sticking the discs. I opened the case, and here's the part that blew my mind, there was a stack of about 15 discs in there ... she had tried 15 times before calling about the problem
Anyway, I reseated the drive so the gap went away and encouraged her to glance at the computer as she inserted the discs in the future
Ah, the memories ... I could probably go on and on with these stories
Thanks for posting that, it was a fun reminder that I'm no longer manning a support phone
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