The 20 most recent Stupid Client Quotes from Clientcopia. http://clientcopia.com/ Copyright 2005 Clientcopia
Fresh from a "Quality Initiatives" program at Large Mutual Insurance Company, I saw that my next bit of minor maintenance was to tweak the instructional text on a data-entry screen. Cool, thinks I, while I'm in there, I'll change the LONG PARAGRAPH OF ALL CAPS TEXT to mixed case. It takes no more time to deliver a High Quality Product, just like they said.

At the clientside review ( I swear this is the literal truth):

Clientside manager: "Why did you take away all the capital letters?"

Me: "Studies show it's easier and faster to read mixed case. This has no impact on system performance, and the dataentry clerks can be just that little bit more productive."

Clientside manager: "Our people aren't really that smart."


(Silently I agreed with her, but not in a way she would have liked.) ]]> http://www.clientcopia.com/quotes.php?id=6277 Fri, 09 May 2008 09:34:36 EST
Boss: Sometimes with MS products up is left and down is purple ]]> http://www.clientcopia.com/quotes.php?id=6276 Fri, 09 May 2008 09:14:37 EST
This is why people wear me out. I'm doing a shirt for a writers festival. The back of the shirt is basically a list of all the plays, and they send me a Word document of the lay out. I copy exactly what they have and how they have it. One of the plays is called Chimney's. And I spelled it like that the first time. Then they came back with corrections, like I am the one that messed it up. And say 'Chimmeny's is misspelled. I think, well you just spelled it wrong, but maybe it's a special spelling for the play. I compare mine to theirs for about 5 minutes, and send it back, I have exactly what they tell me. Then they came back with a few layout changes, I change it, send it back. Then I just got an email saying, Chimeny's is still misspelled.
I can't win!!
]]> http://www.clientcopia.com/quotes.php?id=6275 Thu, 08 May 2008 13:33:20 EST
me: Thank you for calling-------how may i help you

lady:hello benny?

me: no

lady: this is mandi is benny there i'm calling his desk

me: no this is (very slowly) _________

lady: um okay where are you located?

me: san diego

lady: there must be something wrong with the phone


*she called back 3 more times in a row. each time haging up when i picked up* ]]> http://www.clientcopia.com/quotes.php?id=6274 Thu, 08 May 2008 11:51:44 EST
Not sure what you are asking for with regards to white paper...... your transactions will be coming from the internet.
]]> http://www.clientcopia.com/quotes.php?id=6273 Thu, 08 May 2008 06:52:16 EST
In a call center:

operator:-What operating system your computer runs?

Client:-Windows yahoo.

oh the pain. ]]> http://www.clientcopia.com/quotes.php?id=6272 Thu, 08 May 2008 01:22:39 EST
I work for XXX, we run several end-user helpdesks for huge multinationals. The top stupid client quote would come from a call to one of my French agents:
Agent: Thank you for calling the helpdesk, how may I help you?
User: The Outlook icon on my desktop isn't yellow enough on this new machine.
Agent: Excuse me sir?
User: This just won't do, I can't work like this, that icon isn't yellow enough.
Agent: We could try and adjust the display settings and do some colour corrections.
User: Yes, do it.
Agent takes remote control of users' PC and shows the RGB adjustment sliders, user proceeds to fiddle with them for 15 minutes, turning his display into a jaundiced nightmare.
User: Much better, thank you.
Agent: have a nice day, sir.

]]> http://www.clientcopia.com/quotes.php?id=6271 Wed, 07 May 2008 23:58:33 EST
During my college years I would build and sell computers to earn a bit of extra cash.

I got a call from a friend who said his mother wanted a computer and asked if I could make one for her.

I used to live less than 30 miles away from the biggest computer fair in Europe, and not to put too fine a point on it, I REALLY hooked her up. Everything was top of the line and because it was for a friend's parent I did it purely at cost.

Long story short, she ended up with a machine that would cost at least 1600 at retail, and I sold it to her for less than five hundred...cost of parts only. No charge for labor or even gas money to bring it to her house.

I take it to her house, set it up and leave her to it, convinced I had done my good deed for the day.

A couple days later I get a phonecall and the bitch is just SCREAMING at me. The computer's a piece of shit, it doesn't work, it's broken, I ripped her off etc.

What ever happened to asking nicely?

Anyway, I go to her house and find she's saying the computer is 'broken' because she can't get it to print. I tell her I never even sold her a printer. She says:

"I know that! I bought one today and that piece of shit you sold me won't even recognize it!!!"

I ask her if she's considered the problem is with the printer and she says:

"Don't get smart with me! I bought the printer from PC World!! They're PROFESSIONALS."

I sigh inwardly. The shaved monkeys at PC world are 'professionals'...I'm just an idiot with a screwdriver.

"Did you install the drivers and everything?" I asked.

"The what?" She says.

uh-oh.

I go to her dining room where the computer is set up, assess the situation and point out the following problems to her.

1) She hadn't installed the drivers.
2) She hadn't connected the printer to the computer.
3) She hadn't put the ink cartridges in the printer.
4) There was no paper in the printer.
5) The power cable for the printer was still in the box.

Basically, she'd taken the printer out of the box, put it on the desk next to the computer and tried to print. When this shockingly didn't work, she decided to scream at me.

Amazingly, after I point this out to her, she turns to me and says:

"So...can you set it up for me then?"

I just laughed and said "Why? So you can scream at me again when it runs out of ink?"

She whined something about needing to print something for work the next day. On my way out of the door I said:

"Call the professionals at PC World, they might do it for you...should only cost you about two hundred and hour."

Moral of the story : When someone does you a massive favor...ask nicely if something goes wrong.

]]> http://www.clientcopia.com/quotes.php?id=6270 Wed, 07 May 2008 21:31:26 EST
I had a woman walk into my store with a destroyed picture. Here's how the conversation went:

Her : "The dog got hold of this picture, can you fix it?"

She shows me a destroyed picture of her standing next to her husband in front of some woods. Her husband's entire head and most of his body is missing.

Me : "Well, I can crop it so it's just you, or fill the missing part with more trees etc, but that's about it."

Her : "WHAT??? You can't put my husband back???"

Me : "... ... ... Ma'am, I can only work with what I'm given."

Her : "Well this is just ridiculous! Why do you say you can resotre photos if you can't do a simple thing like put my husband back in the picture???"

Me : "Ma'am, I can only work with what's already in the picture. I can't magically recreate an image of your husband from nothing."

Her : "Yes you can, I've seen them do it on TV!"

Me : "No, ma'am, you haven't, unless you're talking about a sci-fi show. I have no idea what your husband even looks like. If you can explain to me how it would even be remotely possible for me to put him back in, I'll be happy to do it for you."

Her: "Are you calling me a liar?!?!"

Me : "Ma'am, all I'm saying is it's impossible to put your husband back in this photo. I use photoshop...and photoshop doesn't have a magic 'create pixels from nothing' feature."

Her : "I've never been so insulted in my life!!!!! I'll go and get a REAL PROFESSIONAL to do it for me."

Me : "Good luck, I suggest waiting for the Enterprise to come into orbit...their computer might be able to help you."

(stamps off) ]]> http://www.clientcopia.com/quotes.php?id=6269 Wed, 07 May 2008 16:46:39 EST
Situation: client is asked about giving me imagery for a printed ad. Imagery is 4 days overdue.

Client's response: "The computer is working overtime to convert those .psd files to .jpg" ]]> http://www.clientcopia.com/quotes.php?id=6268 Wed, 07 May 2008 13:02:59 EST
So the "folks upstairs" at a large prescription processing firm were complaining that metrics reports for their call center had clearly broken because the numbers they were getting made no sense.

After DAYS of crawling over everything trying to find the problem with the reports (why would they all break at once, was the database corrupted, wtf?), my friend decided to worship at the temple of GIGO and find out about more about how the data was being entered in the first place.

We discovered that "to make things easier" one trainer had actually taught an ENTIRE CLASS of data entry monkies to enter times as follows:

2.15 (two minutes, fifteen seconds)
2.30 (two minutes, thirty seconds)
2.45... (you get the idea)

Personally, I think they should keep that instruction as part of the training class, and only hire the people that protest it! ]]> http://www.clientcopia.com/quotes.php?id=6267 Wed, 07 May 2008 12:48:03 EST
One of my salespeople sent me an art change request saying she'd like some text
reduced to .75% of its original size.

"So, three quarters, right?" I asked.

"Yes, isn't that what I put?" she asked. So then I explained how .75% was very
small indeed--less than one percent of the original. Which was so small as to be
impossible, of course.

"I just don't speak the same language as you," she mused.

"I didn't INVENT it!" I said. ]]> http://www.clientcopia.com/quotes.php?id=6266 Wed, 07 May 2008 12:20:37 EST
(This was a Govt. project for a COMPLETELY CLOSED internal system. The job was fine except the person "in charge" was upwards of 50 and not computer savvy, so he kept turning to this 20something wet-eared brat for ideas that were always worthless....)

Client: Can your people add a login function so that our men can access the system from off-site?

Me: o_O That would rather severely compromise the security of the system....

Client's young lackey: Well yes but can't you just add a password screen? Like a bank?

Me: The. System. Has. No. Internet.

Client's lackey: Oh. Right. Well could we make it so they could dial in from the Internet (no really that's what he said!) and then login to it from that?

Me: (frustrated) Actually yes, I could do something like that, but I'm fairly sure it would go down as a breach of contract, an act of treason, and a danger to national security, requiring that the three of us be hanged.

Client: .... (he seemed to understand but before he could say anyting...)

Client's lackey: Oh well then maybe just a screen where they can get it from the web if they have the same passwords they use here.

Me: *falls over dead* ]]> http://www.clientcopia.com/quotes.php?id=6265 Wed, 07 May 2008 10:35:02 EST
Happened last year, not exactly a client problem but still funny.
I was in school and the head mistress came and pulled me out of class fuming telling me to bring my laptop. We get to her office and waiting to meet me is the new system administrator for our school, the last one left. Before he left he told everyone to look out for me hacking as when I was young and stupid I took out their network (they were using Me and it was 2006, couldn't help myself). Anyway, they just installed a different anti-virus with the update to XP and they found what she described as "keyloggers" and monitoring software, they somehow traced the keyloggers output files to an ftp server in school and found that it was encrypted so they assumed it was me trying to get everyone's passwords. So for a week and a bit the school is threatening to expel me/sue me what ever they could think of unless I gave them this password for the encryption. I kept on saying that it wasn't me. Eventually, one of the tech staff checks their emails and finds one from the last admin reminding them of the monitoring software they installed (to make sure that the kids were not looking up porn). There was only one person with access to the files for privacy.
Mine wasn't the most tech savvy school in the world... ]]> http://www.clientcopia.com/quotes.php?id=6264 Wed, 07 May 2008 00:41:25 EST
I'm still in high school but I have some experience with computers. Anyway because I'm the only person in the house who knows how to use them I got stuck being the 24 hour IT support for my family and all of our friends. I come home from school and my mum starts yelling at me for leaving my computer on... She then says that she unplugged it. She then told me that the internet wasn't working. I go and look at my room to see what the problem is. My computer is still running but asleep. However the router had been unplugged and taken away.
Me: Mum, where did you put the router?
Mum: Whats a router?
Me: The box that you took
Mum: No your not getting the computer back. Now fix the internet ]]> http://www.clientcopia.com/quotes.php?id=6263 Tue, 06 May 2008 21:45:53 EST
I was contracted with a company to implement a system (written by one of the smartest guys in the business - just ask him!) for printing store signage, e.g. "Socks $2.99". The idea was that, instead of the old system in which the main office printed signs and overnighted them to its 40+ stores, a clerk in the main office would format the signs, and then each store manager would fire up the printer every morning to automagically print them on light card stock kept in the printer's 2nd paper tray.

(The enthusiasm of store managers for having yet another task piled on them, for no additional compensation, can easily be imagined.)

The system worked great at the home office, but none of the stores could get the signs to print. I spent hours on the phone talking through the procedure. We were not allowed to physically visit any of the stores since the client decided it'd be a waste of time.

Me: "You have the 2nd paper tray." "Yes." "It's filled with light card stock." "Yes." "The signs aren't printing." "Correct."

Finally, I got a yardstick. Me: "My printer unit is 17 inches tall. How tall is yours?" "13 inches." "That means your 2nd paper tray is not attached to the bottom of your printer." "It has to be attached to the bottom of the printer?"

Repeat 40+ times. Eventually the system "worked".
]]> http://www.clientcopia.com/quotes.php?id=6262 Tue, 06 May 2008 09:49:53 EST
Our UNIX server rarely went down. One day we had a power outage, so we powered the server down cleanly before our 1/2 hour UPS ran out of juice.

Once the power came back on, we were up and running again.

At the next staff meeting, our boss demanded that we do a better job of planning these unplanned outages. ]]> http://www.clientcopia.com/quotes.php?id=6261 Mon, 05 May 2008 22:33:54 EST
I worked part time at HMV over the christmas holidays so naturally it was always very busy. I was just putting some stock out when a customer asked if I could help her with something.

I followed her over to one of the music sections and she was looking at a Mariah Carey CD. She told me that she had been watching TV the other day and saw a singer talking about her album. The customer wanted to buy this CD but didnt know the singer or the album's name but thought Mariah Carey looked like her. I told her that I didn't know what TV show she was talking about so I couldnt tell her for sure if it was the right one. She then asked if I could look it up on the system. I was a bit confused at this point as the computer system is really just for checking stock so I said the system couldn't help. She repeatedly asked me to look it up on the system, as if she thought our stock system was some all-knowing god. After about 20 minutes of this, i was getting annoyed and other people wanted my help so I just told her it was the right cd. She said, and I quote "Oh ok if you're sure. But if you're wrong i'm going to come back and give you a right bollocking!" I was like....ok....and swiftly left.

I never saw her again, thank god. ]]> http://www.clientcopia.com/quotes.php?id=6260 Mon, 05 May 2008 17:09:39 EST
About three years ago, the large government entity I worked for decided to centralize all the departments. Two of my coworkers quit and were not replaced even though the merger did not take place for two years. This meant that I was the ONLY tech support person. I was responsible for 250 pc's, six servers, 12 sites located through a large county, all the networking cabling, routers, switches, software, printers & ordering. I lived out of the government car for six months.

One of the larger clinics had a room with three computers located on a long desk up against a wall. I received a frantic call from a person who could barely speak English. Her desktop would not turn on. There were no lights on the computer. I asked her if it was plugged in. She couldn't figure it out. I said that it was a black cable. She still couldn't figure it out and insisted that I come to this clinic immediately. I told her to find someone else and ask them to plug in the computer. If there was still a problem after that, she was to call me back.

I did not receive another call. And never did hear how the problem was fixed. I really didn't want to hear either. ]]> http://www.clientcopia.com/quotes.php?id=6259 Mon, 05 May 2008 15:02:38 EST
So I work at autotrader, a car magazine, and i take calls from people who wan to sell their cars. So I get a call from this guy...

Me: Hello, autotrader, how can I help.
Customer: Hi, I want to sell my car, how do I go about doing that.
Me: Do you have a computer sir?
Customer: Yes.
Me: Well you can do it all online. All you need to do is email us with a picture of your car and a description, and we'll put it up.
Customer: Oh, ok, so what's the email address.
Me: Have you got a pen.
Customer: Hang on a sec... yeah.
Me: OK, it's all lower cases, no spaces.
Customer: uhuh.
Me: tvprivatesales@autotrader.co.uk
Customer: uhuh... got it. Thanks.
Me: Thank you.

So I hang up, think nothing of it, until about half an hour later, I get a call from the same man...

Me: Hello, autotrader, how can I help?
Customer: Hi, I called up earlier trying to sell a car, and I was told I could email it. So I tried, but it keeps saying "Delivery to the recipient failed permanently", so I don't know what to do.
Me: What was the email address you were given sir.
Customer: All lower cases, no spaces,
Me: Yeah...
Customer: tvprivatesales@autotrader.co.uk.
Me: That is correct sir. Just to make sure, though, could you spell it for me.
Customer: OK, a-l-l-l-o-w-e-r-c-a-s-e-s-n-o-s-p-a... ]]> http://www.clientcopia.com/quotes.php?id=6258 Mon, 05 May 2008 14:28:34 EST