Zola ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ Bear Blog

No bizarre calls, but...

There were actually no bizarre conversations with users yesterday, but I've got the remedy: this page. Be sure to read the comments. My favourite, courtesy of Dave:

I used to work on and then managed a large help desk in Michigan. One day during my time as a tech support person, one of my coworkers hung up the phone while laughing uncontrollably.

We supported the users of a major car company in the US. We all commented at various times that it was a wonder they could build cars because their people were so clueless. However, this user had a unique problem.

He called in and was hysterical because he had a report that was due in an hour. The problem he reported was that every time he typed the word "the," it disappeared and was replaced with "I like to take baths with young boys" as soon as he pressed the space bar.

For anyone familiar with Word, the cause was immediately apparent and is instantly recognized as one of the greatest practical jokes ever played: someone had gone into AutoCorrect and set it up so that the word "the" was replaced with the phrase of choice.

I have since played this joke on several people over the years.