The World Wide Weep

Customer: "I am getting a 'Page Cannot Be Displayed' message."
Tech Support: "Ok, let's try our home page."
Customer: "That worked."
Tech Support: "Ok, let's try another page like www.cnn.com."
Customer: "That worked too."
Tech Support: "I don't see any problems then."
Customer: "Well I tried that page I was trying, and it did it again."
Tech Support: "What's the site's address?"
Customer: "(address).com."
Tech Support: "Hmmm. It looks like the site is down."
Customer: "Yeah, I know it is. Can you fix it now, please?"
Tech Support: "It's not one of our sites, so we can't fix it."
Customer: "What do you mean you can't fix it? You are my Internet provider. You should be able to fix it."
Tech Support: "No, we cannot. We do not own that site."
Customer: "Let me speak to your supervisor. You're just stupid and trying to brush me off."

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Tech Support: "Yeah, just go to our website it's at www.[our company].com...yeah, three w's, then a dot, then [our company], then a dot then 'com'...yeah, that's right. . . . What do you mean, how do you spell 'dot'?"

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Customer: "Whenever I try to go to your sports site, I end up at this other page. I even typed the correct address in the bar to make sure that I got there."
Tech Support: "What browser are you using? We need to check to see if your browser is new enough to view our sites."
Customer: "Well...I must be using the newest browser. I'm using Yahoo. I think they'd update their browser! Hold on. Let me check Alta Vista really quick."

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On day my English teacher was trying to teach the class how to do research on the Internet.

Teacher: "What browser do you use to get on the Internet?"
Student: "Internet Explorer."
Teacher: "No, no...the browser that you use to get around the Internet. Which do you use?"
Student: "Microsoft Internet Explorer."
Teacher: "You connect with Internet Explorer, but what is your browser? You know, Yahoo, Webcrawler...?"
And for the rest of the semester he insisted that a search engine was the same thing as a browser. And every time he said it, I dug my fingers in the desk to keep from screaming at him.

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Customer: "I need something off the web, and I don't have any way to use a browser!"
Tech Support: "There's a browser called 'lynx' that you can use from a shell." (gives a brief description of how to use it)
Customer: "What's lynx? I need a browser!"
Tech Support: (again mentions lynx and says how to use it)
Customer: "I need a browser. If you can't help me, get someone else to answer my emails."

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Tech Support: "Well, just go to [URL]."
Customer: "How do I do that?"
Tech Support: "Type it in in your web browser."
Customer: "Huh?"
Tech Support: "Ok...sir...do you have Internet access?"
Customer: "Huh? No. No Internet. I don't even have a computer."
Tech Support: "Ok, sir, you need a computer and an Internet account to access web sites."
Customer: "Oh. Well, it didn't say that when I mailed in the membership card. I want my money back."

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A librarian at one of our libraries was surfing the web one day and came across a site that said it was best viewed using the Internet Explorer browser. So she called me and said she needed a "browser" to view this site, and could we install a browser onto her system?

I told her that if she was viewing the site already, she was already using a browser, but, unsatisfied with that answer, she went over my head to the Directory of Libraries and said that we were being uncooperative about providing her with a browser.

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Submitted by BayiSingh