A Field Service Engineer's Memoirs
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   When I worked for a company that had a contract with 3M, 3M had asked me
   to write them a memo describing why we were having problems with diskette
   failures.  I said in the memo that the disks were failing due to head
   crashes.  "If the customers would just clean their heads periodically, we
   wouldn't have these problems," I said in the memo.  One customer responded
   with, "What kind of shampoo do you recommend?"
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   An end-user hotline received a call about a bad software disk.  They asked
   the customer to make a copy of the disk and mail it in to the hotline.  A
   few days later, they received a letter with a mimeographed copy of
   the disk.  Since it was a double-sided disk, both sides of the disk
   had been xeroxed.
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   A Computer Operator says as she is lifting a large disk pack from the drive:
   "Gee, how much does one of these weigh?"
   Me: "It depends on how much data is on the disk...."
   The operator believed it.
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           I had a similar experience while working as a student operator at
   Michigan Tech. One particularly trying afternoon, the computer was merrily
   crashing for a number of reasons. After about four such spectacles, we
   broadcast that the computer would be down for the remainder of the afternoon.
   There was a resigned groan from the users and they began to file out of the
   Center, except for one young woman who wandered up to the counter and queried:
           "What's wrong with the computer?"
   Too tired and irritated to give her a straight answer, I looked her straight
   in the eye and replied: "Broken muffler belt."
   A look of deep concern wafted into her expression as she asked:
           "Oh, that's bad. Can you call Midas?"
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   Overheard in a student computer lab:
   Client (raising hand and waving frantically): "The computer says 'Enter your
   name and press RETURN.'  What do I do??"
   Lab Assistant: "Enter your name and press RETURN."
   Client (as if a revelation has struck): "Oh!"
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   Another friend of mine in a similar situation reports having a student in the
   lab one day, who had to abort out of the SET PASSWORD sequence because he
   couldn't think of a six-letter word.
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                                        (Courtesy of Brian McCrae)