General Forums >> Bonehead User Moves >> My favorite Windows 95 printer story...
My favorite Windows 95 printer story...
14 posts back to top |
Posted 2 months ago It was late 1996, and I was still working the external customer help desk that tech company in Florida. Many of our customers were moving to Windows 95, and were hailing "Plug and Play" as the greatest thing since sliced bread. So, I get a call from this woman who just installed Windows 95, but now she can't print. Again, you go through the standard list of questions about the printer being turned on, being online etc. She answers all my questions to the affirmative. So, I ask her if the printer has paper. Her response, "how can I tell?" So, I ask her what type of printer she has, but she doesn't know. I ask her to look at the face of the printer, and tell me if it's an "Okidata," "Lexmark," or some other brand, but again, she doesn't know. After 15 minutes of Q&A (which seemed like 15 HOURS), I come to find out that she doesn't have an actual printer. In other words, she never bought a physical printer. Instead, she went through the "Add a printer wizard," and manually added a logical printer to Windows, but she didn't have the actual hardware printer. *Sigh* Have you ever had one of those fleeting moments where so you SO frazzled, that at that very moment, a bus could drive right over you and you would be happy that it happened? All I could was shake my head... I explain to her that simply adding a printer that way didn't give her the ability to print, and that she would have to actually BUY a printer and have someone physically connect it to the computer. She told me that she worked in accounts payable, and that she used an adding machine every day, and that she thought the computer had an "internal printer" (an adding machine inside the case) and that the paper would be fed out through the slots in the back of the computer case. I never bothered to ask her how she would go about changing the paper or ribbon once they ran out... I may still be on the phone with her to this day if I had. OR, maybe I would have walked out in front of that bus and then wouldn't have to worry about it anymore... :) |
157 posts back to top |
| Posted 2 months ago This is a case where you find out where they work, call their supervisor and tell them that their employee is too stupid to be let loose with a computer... or sharp objects, or anything with an electrical connection or moving parts. I can't top your story by any means, MKelly, but I can contribute! I actually had a similar experience with a Win98 client who didn't understand PnP either. He bought a printer, took it home plugged it into the electrical outlet.... and then called me. "It doesn't work! The light comes on, but it doesn't work!" After the usual questions, I find out this dolt thought "plug-n-play" meant all he had to do was plug it into the wall. He hadn't connected it to the computer, nor installed the drivers. The redeeming part of this episode of stupidity is that my client - after I'd walked through correctly installing the printer with him - asked me to teach him some computer basics. He was embarrassed by this incident, and didn't want to have to call anyone for something like it again. He now owns his own business, which he started about 6 or 7 years after the above, and I got to build all his PCs and his office LAN. I also spent the next week making certain his employees knew exactly how to use the new network. That was a blast, and even though I no longer run my little consultancy (literally speaking), I'm still his one-and-only IT guy... 10 years later. |
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14 posts back to top |
| Posted 2 months ago I never had anyone who thought that PnP meant simply plugging in the power cord; at least not that they admitted to me. Hahaha, that's funny; but not NEARLY as funny as my reaction had I been in that situation. I can only imagine my reply (prefaced by, "Sarcasm is just one more service I offer") of "how did you expect it to communicate, ESP?" or something similar... |
