Top 20 Stupid Client Quotes

A few years ago I was building an e-commerce website for a London-based company. The schedule was pretty hectic, but we pulled some all-nighters and got the shipment out in time for initial review. After the review, the client CEO sends emails to me, my line manager and our CEO stating that we have hacked his website and intentionally added profanity and filth to the system. I was hauled down to explain our actions. After calming the guys down to a conversational level, he showed me the "evidence" where, when the CEO enters information in the product search text box, it comes up with suggestions such as "inter-racial gang bang" when looking for "inter...". I calmly explained that the search box was named the same as that of Google's and that his search history was showing in the results. The complaint was dropped without apologies or explanations.

I worked at a small college in the IT department. The admissions department was in a small building not far from our department's HQ, and they were very consistent and constant complainers about their technology. The problem wasn't their technology. It was the fact that they were staffed with a bunch of Luddites who refused to take a minute to actually figure out how to *use* their technology and sometimes, they stuck their fingers into their technology in really stupid ways. They somehow convinced the previous IT director that since the admissions process is laden with "confidentiality," they needed laser printers at almost every desk. (more like lazy fatasses who didn't want to walk 10 steps to a shared printer) These printers would be the source of many, many problems with this department. They also had a gigantic multi-function copier/scanner/fax/printer downstairs for doing big runs, like mailings, which they *never* used for the stated purpose. Whenever we got called to fix a printing problem with that device, it was always someone's church flyer or bake sale poster on 11x17. Never anything college-related. Concerns about this mis-use of college resources went right over the director's head. It was an old school, with old buildings, and in many places there is just one network jack in an office or work area, not several. They had a computer used for their interns in a shared space upstairs, and they had printer connected to it via USB. One of the admissions counselors got the bright idea that it would be better if all the interns could print to that printer via the network, and he was just the man to do that. So he unplugged the USB cable from the PC, unplugged the PC's Ethernet cable from the wall, plugged an Ethernet cable from the printer into the wall, then called us and complained that neither the "new shared printer" nor the PC worked. That was a fun conversation about involing IT before you start pulling on things, not after. We solved that particular issue with a small network switch tucked up under the desk. Pretty standard solution for the limited infrastructure in the buildings. But then the complaints started rolling in occasionally that the neither the printer or the PC were on the network. Sure enought: the student interns kept unplugging the power brick for the switch so they could plug in their MP3 players and iPhones. Over time, the number of tickets we got for just this one printer were pretty amazing. One day, the Admissions Director calls, gets me on the phone and starts berating me about this printer. The printer doesn't work again, its a piece of shit, we're incapable of meeting their IT needs, not responsive to the problems, blah, blah, blah, blah. Basically, he runs up one side of me and down the other over the issues with this printer. I said "Whats the issue now?" "Nobody can print to that printer. It doesn't work. Its all plugged in and everything." "OK, I'll be there in a minute, lets get to the bottom of this." I walk over to the Admissions building, head upstairs to the printer and check it out. Plugged in, power, etc. I walk downstairs to the Admissions director's office, and she starts berating me in-person for this printer not working. I finally interrupted her and said "I fixed the printer. Its printing right now." "What was the problem? Why can't IT make that printer work! This is constantly a problem with you people." "It was out of paper. Really, its not our job to keep your printer filled with paper." That took the wind out of her sails. I then pulled out the help desk ticket report I had on that printer. The report that showed that 85% of the calls to her department were for that printer, and nearly ALL of the calls for that printer were due to self-inflicted problems. (we had a resolution code "PEBKAC" in the ticket system for "stupid user tricks" that came out on the reports as "end user issue". There were a LOT of "PEBKAC" codes in there) "User unplugged network switch to plug in iPod," "User turned off printer due to noise," "User selected wrong printer," "Network switch unplugged from Ethernet for some reason, user does not know how that happened," "Power strip not turned on. Flipped switch, all-OK," "Paper tray found not fully seated," "Ethernet cable not plugged into back of printer," "Power cable not plugged into the back of the printer," "User mashed the print button, but did not select the correct printer in the dialog box," "Printer was wide open with no toner cartridge. Installed new toner cartridge, prints fine. Old toner cartridge nowhere to be found," "Printer was offline, pressed big green "online" button, printer immediately printed all jobs in queue." After I showed her that we were, indeed, meeting their needs and fixing all of the issuses as they occurred, even though they were the source of their own woes, she started bringing her complaints about the printer to her VP, who came to our VP and said "IT isn't supporting Admissions! Admissions brings money into the college! IT is trying to sabotage the college!" Our VP, well briefed on the subject, presented the very same report I gave to the Admissions Director to their VP, including our great response time (well, they were literally next door to us, easy to respond to) and the fact that nearly all their problems were a) self-inflicted; b) not something we could fix without putting locked plastic boxs over the printer, PC, power cables and the Ethernet connections; and c) would be almost completely eliminated if they'd just all use the big multi- function printer in the building for the purposes it was intended for. Apparently this wasn't good enough for that VP, who later started complaining to the college president that our VP and the IT department weren't taking his concerns seriously enough, and that any shortcomings in the Admissions arena were due to a lack of IT support. The president wasn't buying what that VP was selling, especially since we had the data to back up our work with them, response time, time to close and cause of the issues. They eventually had us come and remove the intern PC and that printer.

I don't know why our shop has become the Information and Directions hub for the city, but we are always having to find directions for people. So this past week a woman walks into our print shop, "I need to know where X Pharmacy is." Me: "I don't know, let me look it up." Her: "How can you NOT know?" Me: "I don't understand the question." Her: "I don't want the address." Me: "Without the address I can't tell you where it is." Her: "I know where it is I just don't know which way to go." Me: "Let me look it up and I'll be able to tell you." Her: "Well, okay... if that's all you CAN do."

Last week... Client (paraphrased): Hey this is really urgent, that website xxxxxxxxx you made for us a year ago, here's a pile of changes we need, we won't be paying you for the changes because we already paid you for the website and have not made it live yet. REALLY URGENT!

This is from a friend of mine. He was hired to be the network admin and PC tech for a small-but-growing accounting firm. As the only tech person he would have a lot of work dumped on his shoulders, but if the company grew like they planned within a few years he would be over all the additional tech folks they were planning to hire. The company was run by several members of the same family and sometimes their relationships were obvious from the things they did. One day he was given the task of getting Sally, a new hire, on the network so she could print, e-mail, and work on documents stored on the mapped network drive. When they met she explained that she had just graduated from college with a degree with business administration and a minor in accounting. Since this was around 2005, he assumed she had a fair amount of PC experience. It took several attempts for her to successfully login and repeated explanations of what a network drive was seemed to go right over her head. He then showed her how to open documents in Excel and Word on the network drive but she didn't seem to understand that either. E-mail usage was even worse. Saving files was somewhat of a mystery to her and 'Save-As' really got her confused. It took him over three hours just to cover those deep subjects to the point where she seemed to understand and he got her to sign off on a sheet showing that he did his job and she was ready to begin work. Just before he left he reminded her to practice what she had learned and if she got stuck, give him a call. He then said, "After you do this for a few months, it will become so natural that you won't even think about it." But her reply really floored him when she whispered, "I don't think I'll be doing it that long. Uncle Jake [company CEO] just wants me to do this for a few weeks so it won't look so obvious when they make me the Vice-President over Marketing." When that happened, he updated his resume and found work with a firm whose employees were a bit less intellectually challenged. ;^)

The company undertakes some sort of merger or acquisition. As a result, extra outlying offices are connected via VPN, and there are clashes with some IP Address ranges. The IT director decreed that some of the new networks would have their addresses moved, but also some existing networks where this would be more convenient e.g. where a network with two PCs and a printer clashed with that of a whole factory. One manager complained but was overruled. He took petty revenge by simply disappearing for the day of the switchover, leaving his office door locked, while almost all his department went for an extended lunch. The IT Tech. went to the nearly empty department, reset the router, rebooted all PCs and reconfigured the one visible networked printer. Through the glass door of the locked manager's office, he could see a PC and a printer next to it. He asked the one worker left to mind the telephones whether the manager's printer was local or networked. She gave him a look that clearly said Sorry, she didn't speak Klingon. With other departments to reconfigure, he left it at that. The next day, the manager submitted a formal complaint against the Tech, claiming that the Tech had broken his printer, which failed to work after the network change. The IT director fed the complaint into the shredder and sent another Tech along to investigate. The second Tech found that the printer was networked. He removed the Cat5 cable from it and prepared to jab a screwdriver into it to press the "reset" button. Apparently, the manager's polite enquiry of "What the %*&! do you think you're doing?" could be heard on the floors above and below. Tech: Well, I'm just resetting this printer to factory default state. Then when I plug the ... Manager: No, you're not sending this back to the factory! I can't do without it for all that time. Tech: I'm not sending it anywhere. I'm just resetting it. When I plug the network cable back in, it will pick up a new IP address from the router. Then I just need to delete the existing printer port from your PC and ... Manager: What are you playing at? First you want to send the printer away for repairs. Then you want to remove hardware from my PC. I can't have all this messing around. Tech: The printer port is just part of the software configuration. I just need to adjust some settings on your PC. Manager: No! You've done enough damage as it is. Leave things you don't understand alone!

The company I worked for hired a new receptionist, she was nice but really akward and totally scatter-brained. She loved to answer the phone and write notes on post-it notes and place them on people's screens, desks, cube walls etc. (you know instead of forwarding the calls to the person's voicemail) Well, after a busy morning of phonecalls and troubleshooting I and a couple of my co-workers went off to a well deserved lunch. Upon returning from lunch, I enter my cubicle to find a pretty pink post-it note adhered to my keyboard. It read: "They called... They'd like you to call them back.... ASAP!" There I sat... mouth agape wondering -- Who is "They"? and What is "They's number?" Needless to say, she didn't last long as our receptionist. =)

Our I.T. department was doing a major software upgrade across the entire corporation. It was a situation where if the upgrade wasn't done properly and quickly, the company would likely go under, so of course we were under a lot of pressure to do it as fast as possible with minimal mistakes. I was sent to one of our divisions to upgrade a few people in their offices. I started with the division president, who fussed and griped about the entire upgrade process and how *I* was wasting his time with something as frivilous as the upgrade. I listened to his tirade for the entire 45 minutes it took to get it done, then quickly left to perform the same process on his secretary's computer. She was cut from the same material and, true to form, fussed the whole time I was doing the upgrade. I kept reminding her that it was necessary, that she and her boss had sat in the planning meetings where the CEO and CIO stressed how critical it was, etc. She blithly ignored everything I said and finally came up with this gem: I'm going to retire in two years and I don't see why you can't put this off until after I'm gone! Left unsaid was the huge financial losses that the upgrade was supposed to stem and all the people who had been laid off previously as the company struggled to survive. Within two months the secretary was let go and her boss followed several weeks later. I have NEVER heard a dumber excuse for holding off on a company-wide upgrade. ;^)

@ #7311 My friend works for a DSL provider and one day he gets a call from someone saying their internet is down. So normal troubleshooting over the phone, the guy was on wifi, he was connected to the access point, he could ping his access point, when told to ulplug the modem and count to ten before plugging it back in the guy said he didn't have access to the modem. So my friend decided it was time to make an official service call (why he didn't do that at the start I do not know) and took the "customers" phone number but realized they didn't even have DSL service at that number. Turns out the "customer" on the phone was mooching wifi off his neighbors, and his neighbors had cable internet instead of DSL. So when the cable went down the thief decided to take it upon himself to call tech support.

When our support center went to 24 hours, a lady called and asked what our hours were. The tech replied, "We're 24 hours, mam." There was a pause, then the lady said, "Is that Eastern Time?"

This was said by my fiance's boss, the owner of the store. Anyway, the store where my fiance worked was having problems with theft. People were stealing a fair amount of merchandise so the owner installed like, 8 cameras in the store - it's similar in size to the inside of a convience store, maybe a bit larger so it's a bit overkill. Last week he told my fiance, "I feel like I wasted my money on these cameras because after I installed them, all the theft stopped." Um... isn't that the ENTIRE point of cameras? To deter theft?! I guess he just wanted to watch people steal from him instead. Obviously it doesn't take a genius to run a business.

My department was in one crazy rush season as a number of delivery dates had gotten bunched up by the project management team, when we got an irate call from another client: Client: "Your server has completely died on me here - we have not system monitoring for the entire site! You must supply me a new server free of charge immediately!" My boss: "What exactly happened?" Client: "Your idiot service engineer deleted a bunch of dll files from the Windows directory! And now it won't restart!" My boss: "Well, I find that hard to believe." Client: "Well, it's bloody well true - now sort it out!" *click* As mentioned, things were crazy - and building a new systems monitoring server took a couple of days after getting everything delivered from our suppliers (we didn't keep much stock lying around) - so fulfilling this request was difficult. We were also a bit shocked about the allegations that it was caused by our service engineer - who was a trustworthy character who also knew his limits with regards to IT and wouldn't do that without clear instructions from ourselves... or the client. We grabbed the Service Director and asked him to track the engineer and try and clear the matter up. Turns out that not only had the client instructed him to remove god knows how many dll files from the Windows directories, and was standing right next to him while he did it. It also turned out that he had been angling for a replacement server for a while, but had objected to the (already heavily discounted) prices he had been quoted by the service department. My boss: "Hi there, our guy says that you told him to delete those files and actually watched and pointed at each one to be deleted." Client: "Well... yes... but..." My boss: "In that case, your claim for free emergency replacement is not valid and we can't schedule it for three weeks I'm afraid." Client: *grumble* "Fine... but I'm not paying what you're charging for a server, I'll get one from Dell myself" My boss: "I'm sure you can't - you see we buy quite a few units from Dell each month, and they give us discounts because of the repeat custom" Client: "I'm not falling for that! I'll have the computer to you at once" My boss: *sigh* "Fine - but there are certain requirements for the server, and you must make sure you specify them exactly to Dell... " reels of the memory, CPU, HDD, and the fact that a parallel port is a must for the licensing dongle that we use. He also emails all the requirements, just to be sure. The server finally arrives - we unbox it, start to get it ready, and notice that there is no parallel port. My boss: "You didn't get a parallel port" Client: "What? Why do I need that - our printers are all on the network" My boss: *sigh* "The licensing dongle that you have is for a parallel port - now you can either send the server back to Dell and get one that is correct, but that will take time, or we can replace the dongle with a USB one, but that will cost" Client: "Well, I really need the server in place - so, fine, I'll pay for the damned dongle" Which, of course, we supplied to the client with a rather hefty markup...

(all company names and employee names changed to protect the innocent... or well in the customers case... the guilty) This one will take some explaining but is well worth the read if you ask me. I was working as a phone technician for Blorchizon, so for those of you in the know... we get the weirdest of the weird. I had moved up through the ranks and had become a tier 3 agent, handling only the most difficult of issues. One fine day everything was going normal, customers with weird throughput issues, customers in areas with recent flooding and more, when this lovely issue occurred. A tier 2 agent had been working on this call for about 20 minutes and could not isolate the issue. The call had been moved up to them after 10 minutes on the front lines. Needless to say, they contacted me and described that the customer wasn't getting any internet access and nothing they did was changing the issue. So I told the agent to transfer the call to me and this is what transpired: Me: Thank you for holding, my name is Jed with Blorchizon advanced support. How can I help you? customer: Hi Jed, my name is Joe and that last guy was really nice, but we can't fix my issue! Me: I'm aware of that Joe and I'm really sorry. It seems like something out of the ordinary is going on here and it is my job to find it and get you back up and running. Joe: Excellent... see I have a top of the line computer and it is new, so I know it isn't the computer. It has to be your service. Me: We'll see Joe. At this point, I proceeded through basic troubleshooting to see how well he would listen. This guy gave me all the correct answers to anything I asked. For example, I'd direct him to the Control Panel and then into the TCP/IP stack and he'd tell me everything was there exactly as it was supposed to be. So we continued: Me: Joe, I have to admit this is really strange, everything seems to be exactly how it is supposed to be and you should be getting internet access. Joe: Yep! That is what I've been saying. You know this all started... Joe was disconnected right there. At first I thought to myself... Sweet! It works now, no more issue. However it was our policy to try and contact customers back if they were disconnected to make sure everything was ok. So I grab the number from my caller ID and call back. This is what I got: *ring* Lady: Thank you for calling Happy Meadows Mental Hospital, how can I help you. Me: Um..... maybe I dialed the wrong number, but do you have a Joe there? Lady: Well... nobody on staff here is named Joe. We do have a patient named Joe. Are you a relative? Me: Uh... no ma'am I'm with Blorchizon Internet. Joe and I were on the phone, apparently he is having trouble with his internet. Lady: That isn't possible sir! He doesn't have a computer, and we don't have internet access in our rooms. Me: O....K..... Lady: *urgent voice* I better go check on him! I sat on hold for a few minutes, because now I was intrigued. Eventually the lady came back. Lady: I'm very very sorry sir. Joe had gotten a hold of a newspaper and had found advertisements for Smell Computers and for Blorchizon DSL. He has some boxes set up on his desk and thinks it is his computer. Me: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA *yes I really laughed on the phone* After a few minutes of explaining the issue to this woman, stating that Joe had given me all of the answers I needed for everything, she told me that Joe was very smart and had probably learned all the answers to give when asked those questions by calling previously. I checked the note system we had, and sure enough Joe had been calling in since 3:00am that day and had talked to about 30 technicians. I can still imagine it to this day, a guy sitting in a hospital gown in front of a bunch of cardboard boxes on the phone trying to get his internet working... absolutely fantastic. Thought I'd share.

"Can you make 30 of something in 2 months?" Me: Maybe. What am I making? "I don't know. But I need to know you can make them." Me: What exactly is it? "We don't have a design. But we shouldn't bother designing if you can't make enough in time." Me: I need a design before I can estimate the production time. "But do you think 2 months is enough time to make them?" Me: I can make you 30 somethings, but it might not be exactly what you want. Client seemed surprisingly happy with this answer. (Edited for brevity)

A stranger got a hold of me by going through our agency's phone directories. "Hi, are you an IT?" "Yes, I am. How can I help you?" "I need help with blah blah blah ..." After a few minutes, I realized he wanted me to do his computer class homework. (Which is a very simple power point presentation) Being bored that day at work, I spent a few minutes walk him through. Before I hang up, he asked:"Do you guys have any IT position available? I heard computer jobs make a lot of money and I want to get one."

I work part time at a University in Wisconsin as an "equipment services technician" which is the fancy title for a student who gets calls from the Professors when the tech equipment in the classrooms. We handle a bunch of equipment, lcd projectors, desktops, dvd players, document cameras, but our favorite is the handy little touch screens that switch the inputs and outputs, control the volume, the lights in the room and just about everything else. When we first installed them all the professors were confused on how to work them, but this was my favorite call. Prof: Hi I'm in (Building and room) and I can't get this new touchscreen thing to turn on. Where's the power button? Me: Well Professor, the touchscreens don't actually have a power button, but if you touch the screen it should work. Prof: No, you misunderstood me, its not even turned on, wheres the power button. Me: The screen is just asleep, all you need to do it touch the screen to use it. Prof: I have a Phd in electrical engineering, trust me I can use a touchscreen, but I need to turn the damn thing on first now don't I? Me:(sigh) Look, there isn't a power button, just touch the screen, touch anywhere on the screen and it will turn on, its just asleep. Prof: How can I use the screen if its not turned on? How hard is this for you to understand? Me: Sir, its not turned off, only asleep. Kind of like how a computer goes to sleep if you leave it alone to long and you have to wiggle the mouse to wake it up. Prof: So I have to turn on the computer? Me: No, that was just an analogy... Just touch the touchscreen anywhere on the screen and it should wake up immediately. Prof: (sighs loudly into the phone) Look, all I need is for you to tell me where the power button on this thing is. I've wasted nearly 5 minutes arguing with you on the phone and I can't start my class until this thing is up and running. So either tell me where the damn power button is, or give me the number of someone who knows what the hell they're talking about. Me: Ok, I want you to do exactly as I tell, can you do that for me Professor. Prof: Fine just tell me... Me: Take your right index finger and press it to the middle of the touch screen. Prof: Why? Its not turned on, it won't do anything. Me: Lets try something new. Is there a student in the room? Prof: Yeah, the whole class is here. Me: Good, put one of them on the phone. Prof: Why? Me: I have a hunch about something with the touchscreen but it may be easier if I talk to a student about it. It shouldn't take me more than a minute. If this doesn't work I will personally walk across campus and replace the touchscreen right away. Prof: (long pause) Ok, I'll get someone. Student: Hello? Me: I need you to touch the touchscreen for me. Student: Anywhere? Me: Yeah, anywhere on the screen. In the background I can here the students applauding and the Professor grab the phone. Prof: Why the hell didn't you tell me all I had to do was press the upper right corner of the touch screen! This was a complete waste of my time.

Once, working HR for a global tech firm an applicant sent in a very professional resume and cover letter and was granted an interview. He followed this on the day of the interview with a second email directly to the CTO, this included a three page listing of all of the faults he had identified in the company website, from interface he did not like to functionalities, including sections where he had hacked into secure areas, and told them how his genius at everything from internet security to forensic computing to website design and development would be invaluable for amending these "glaring errors" CTO comes in wide eyed and hands me a printout....said it was too "impressive" to just forward on. Our genius presents to his interview early and instead of waiting in reception as requested he gets up and starts looking for the IT department, he is found trying to circumvent security on one of the access doors leading to a sensitive area. He presented with his headphones dangling around his neck, sunglasses on top of his head, an earring in one ear and tennis shoes with his suit, while chewing gum. Despite this we went on to conduct the interview. Call it morbid curiosity. He proceeded to condescend to all present, tell us he was a technical genius and worth 12 times what we were offering but would be willing to slum it for a few months while establishing himself and requested 6 weeks paid vacation a year. He also managed to call my offsider "babe" and said he would learn her name once he had the job. At the end of the interview I basically I ripped him a new one. His defense? He was "proactively showing his skill-set to advantage by applying it directly to the corporate environment" and "wanted to appear hip and young and vital so as to best show how he could function in an IT culture" and that "none of it would matter cos in 6 months he would be my boss anyway" oh and the job he was going for? an entry level internal help-desk position.

Me: Thank you for calling the Helpdesk. This is Jena. DB: I'm sorry, I'm looking for IS. Me: This is the technical support line for the AHC DB: I don't think you can help me- I need IS Me: This is the IS support group DB: What is IS? Me: Information Services DB: I don't think you can help me- I need a computer tech Me: I am a computer tech. DB: Are you sure you're qualified to help me? Me: I have a computer degree and over 10 years of computer experience. I feel I should be able to help you with most things computer related DB: So I have a problem with a computer. Are you sure I can ask you? Me: Well, ask, and we'll see if I know the answer. I did. We were all amazed.

Another true story: I was at a new client's site, hooking up a new workstation they'd ordered. The Office Mgr asked if I knew much about networks (I'm a network architect by trade & training, 25 years experience). I cautiously said something to the effect of "Ah ... yes, a bit. What's up?". He took me to the supply room & pointed out a brand new HAL server, still in the box. He tells me that the last crew in servicing their systems (my esteemed competitors) told him that they couldn't connect this new server as the network was too fast for it (Ethernet, 100Mbps, Cat 5E cabling). (brief blink into "twilight zone" after hearing that statement) So, I worked over the lunch hour hooking up this server. After it was up & running, I told him that by lifting the network cable from the floor -up- to the server, the network packets slowed down enough for the server to operate okay. He slowly worked that statement over in his mind & then asked if the previous crew were ID-10-T's - a very perceptive statement from an accountant. To this day, I have no idea why those guys left a $30,000 server just sitting there. They hadn't even sent him an invoice for it.

I own a small design and print shop and had a client come for the 3rd time to discuss a small run of A5 flyers which should have been dealt with in one visit but turned into the design project of the century. Anyway, this client was coming in to supply photos of his metalwork for use on the flyers. He turns up with photos and I thought OK just means I need to scan them...as I placed them on the scanner I noticed on the back the standard print labelling of a well known UK supermarket chain that prints form memory card so I asked the client where they came from....with a totally straight face he told me he had just been and had them printed from his cameras SD card so that I could scan them for his flyers... sometimes I wish I was a plumber...