There's something about stories of time in the military that just really tick all boxes. For one thing, you have archetypical authoritarian figures aplenty who have a very real and absolute authority over their subordinates, the kind of power that a overstepping assistant retail manager or wizened doctor's office receptionist would salivate buckets over. The thing is, in this type of environment, you're going to be ordered to do things that you don't agree with or that just plain old don't make…

It feels like the more specialized someone is at one thing, the worse they are at others, and the more educated and specialized they are, the more surprising the things they can't do will be.It's almost as if living your life with a singular drive and focus leaves you as a not-very-well-rounded individual, probably one of the reasons celebrities are being consistently picked apart in the landscape of the modern social media levels of exposure they're placed under. We're quickly reaching a point…

This web designer was responsible for managing and maintaining a collection of websites that their organization maintained for clients, but their organization had a particularly strange policy where requests from clients always needed to be considered with their boss telling them that they couldn't say no to requests, regardless of whether or not the requests actually made any sense, were actually good ideas“features” or would bog down and ruin the performance and interface of the web sites. Gr…

Tech support guys have seen it all–from power outages and troubleshooting, to complete idiocracy, IT guys must cultivate some serious patience to deal with the technologically illiterate folks of the world.

Technology has made our jobs both easier and harder at the same time. Why? Because technology often has a mind of its own and decides to work on its own terms. It can be so frustrating when you're trying to get work done, and the internet goes out or some issue with your computer interferes with your progress. Back in the 90s, a quick kick to the side of the modem would usually fix the problem, but it's not that simple nowadays. It's also frustrating when the tech team takes an average of fiv...

Just because you have a degree doesn't make you smart, and that is pretty obvious when you take a close look at people who have graduated from college. Let's talk about school. A student's quick thinking saved the day when his school's computers encountered a recurring shutdown issue. The school relied on a program that reset changes after logout, requiring students to save work on the server. But a licensing issue caused the PCs to shut down after 20 minutes, deleting unsaved work and frustrat…

Instant karma is the best, especially when it involves a manager who is out to get a new hire for no reason other than ego. This story is about a new IT manager, who clashed with a paranoid facilities manager at the manufacturing company they both worked at. The IT guy knew his stuff, but the micromanager was overprotective of jobs that 'belonged' to him, and often told him to get lost. For context, the micromanager controlled a critical production machine with an outdated computer system, and…

Once I had a very incompetent coworker who was just the nicest person to walk the face of the earth. Seriously, it was so hard to be angry at her for not doing her job well because she was always so chipper and thoughtful. Much like Lucy in this story. One employee took to r/talesfromtechsupport to share a story about their coworker, Lucy, who began working as a HelpDesk technician at a financial company. They did password resets, fixed Windows issues, and basically did all of the tech stuff re…

Whether you're a computer wiz or technologically challenged, we can all agree that there's one office appliance that has earned the award for ‘Worst Piece of Equipment Ever Made’: The printer.

When you work at a call center, every day is different. You never know who's going to pick up the phone and call you that day. Will you get the super polite Gen X-er in need of genuine support, the Karen who thinks she knows best (even though she's the one who called in the first place), or the boomer who takes 45 minutes to explain they need help with something they could have easily Googled? Sometimes, the lines are dead, and you can goof around with your coworkers, and sometimes, you can't...

The use of technology is not enjoyable for everyone. An automated system will never be able to completely replace human-to-human communication. How would you respond, though, if a client asked for technical support but refused to follow through on the necessary steps? The story below describes an IT worker who is irritated. Working in IT, the original poster (OP) came across one of the most absurd requests to date. The client attempted to justify their noncompliance with the guidelines by citin…

Working at a call center that deals with computer support can be pretty tough. You get calls from all sorts of people throughout the day, and this employee has the stories to prove it. Once a customer gets transferred from customer support to him, his job in tech support allows him to access a customer's computer remotely to provide assistance on whatever they need. The guy who does this job has seen it all - from older customers who took 40 minutes just to set up a Gmail account to entitled cu…

If you ever find yourself talking to someone who is not from the US about college, they are always shocked by how much college students have to pay for tuition. Some countries in Europe have actual free universities , and here in good ol' America, people carry their student loans for literal decades. That is why when we hear of stories in which colleges and universities take even more money from their students, without an actual valid reason, it simply makes us see red. For example, can someone…

Staying up to date with technology has become an essential part of working-class life. It can be exhausting, especially with how quickly technology is advancing today. Think about it: not long ago, the internet didn't even exist. Now, we have a whole generation of employees working remotely or in a hybrid capacity. Who would've thought? But no matter your job, whether you work in a corporate office, factory, or restaurant, technology is constantly changing . New software to improve work process…

There was a certain point in time in the not-so-distant past when plenty of people had never encountered a “Personal Computer” before—a time when listing your basic typing and computer skills on a CV would make you a strong candidate for a varying degree of roles.

In this world, there are two kinds of people: those who are obsessed with technology and those who are afraid of it. The two sorts would never waver in their positions as they are on opposite ends of the technological spectrum. The story below is an account relayed by an IT worker. The original poster (OP) tells the tale of how the company brought on an unseasoned employee to perform a task for which he had no prior experience or training. At first, OP tried to help the man, but after some time…