The Programmer, now somewhat agitated, says, "O.K., if you don't know the answer you pay me $5 and if I don't know the answer I pay you $50!" Now, that got the Engineer's attention, so he agrees to the game. The Programmer asks the first question, "What's the distance from the earth to the moon?" Then Engineer doesn't say a word and just hands the Programmer $5.
Now, its the Engineer's turn. He asks the Programmer,"What goes up a hill with three legs and comes down on four?" The Programmer looks at him with a puzzled look, takes out his laptop computer, looks through all his references and after about an hour wakes the Engineer and hands the Engineer $50. The Engineer politely takes the $50 turns away and tries to return to sleep.
The Programmer, a little miffed, asks, "Well what's the answer to the question?" Without a word, the Engineer reaches into his wallet, hands $5 to the Programmer, turns away and returns to sleep.
He bent over, picked up the frog and put it in his pocket. The frog spoke up again and said, "If you kiss me and turn me back into a beautiful Princess, I will stay with you for one week."
The boy took the frog out of his pocket, smiled at it and returned it to the pocket. The frog then cried out, "If you kiss me and turn me back into a Princess, I'll stay with you and do *anything* you want."
Again the boy took the frog out, smiled at it and put it back into his pocket. Finally the frog asked, "What is it? I've told you I'm a beautiful Princess, that I'll stay with you for a week and do *anything* you want. Why won't you kiss me?"
The boy said, "Look, I'm a computer programmer. I don't have time for girlfriends, but a talking frog is really cool."
a.. "My systems on fire. What do I do?" Ummmmm. Turn it off? " (Click)"
b..
c.. Most hated support call: "I'm not sure if we need a computer system. Can you give me the relative advantages of Unix, DOS, Windows, Novell, MacIntosh, Sun, etc...?"
d..
e.. "My floppy drive won't read disks." I suggest they clean out the dust from the drive. "I can't." Huh? "The dust won't move". I find that they were using spray glue near the machine and that all the dust was glued in place.
f..
g.. "My printer stopped working." Turn it upside down and shake out the staples and paper clips. Works every time.
h..
i.. "Can you teach me how to use a computer?" I answer: No. I just fix the machines, I don't use them.
j.. Question LEAST likely to be answered correctly by support: "What is the current version of your software/hardware/firmware?"
k.. Email autoreply from support@_______.com Thank you for your support request. (drivel deleted) Please refer to support request number: Error: cannot create /u/something/filename (4 lines of garbage deleted) in future correspondence. Your request will be processed in the order received. (more garbage with Out of space on hd(1,41) mixed in.)
l.. A video store installed the computer on top of the cash drawer. Every time the cash drawer would open, the hard disk would get a good bouncing. I decided that this was technically disgusting, and moved the machine. The next morning, the drive wouldn't spin up (stiction). Solution: Put it back on top of the cash drawer and let it bounce.
m.. From a hard disk drive manufacturer: "The drive stopped working. I popped the little plug and noticed it was awful dry inside. I added some oil but it didn't help."