Customer Doesn't Realize Files Must Be Double Clicked To Be Opened

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mattstaff
Aug 7, 2021 8:00 AM EDT

Oh boy, just when we thought we might've encountered the very worst (or best) of the world's tech support horror stories, this bad boy comes along. As it turns out, some people are wandering aimlessly through the world without the necessary knowledge that you pretty much always have to double click on files to open them. It's no wonder that this tech support employee's jaw hit the floor. For another recent tech support horror story, check out the time that a man assumed a literal fire coming from his computer was a feature of his computer. Yeah, no. 

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  • 01
    Font - r/talesfromtechsupport + Join u/Ser_Alluf_DiChikans • 1d 3 3 S 4 1 I never used Excel before, didn't know that's how it worked.... Long Edit: Thank y'all so much for all the awards! It makes the painful stories worth it! My Hell Desk horror story of the week:
    via u/Ser_Alluf_DiChikans
  • 02
    Font - We recently had an employee transfer from our least technically-apt dept to a slightly more technically-apt dept. This always results in an annoying few days for me because our managers firmly believe that the "T" in "IT" stands for "Trainer"; they give their new hires a super broad overview of what to do and when they can't figure it out the managers tell them to put in a help desk ticket so I can teach them the basic computer functionality they should have already known before being con
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  • 03
    Font - So almost immediately I get a ticket from New User ($NU) that he can't open a spreadsheet. I go thru the basics, ie- any error messages, you don't have permission, file locked, excel not responding, yadda yadda. Nope, user just clicks the file, waits a few minutes and nothing ever happens. I remote into the users computer and have them show me what's going on. I see the user open file explorer, browse to directory, I see the mouse move over to a spreadsheet, I see the file highlight when
    via u/Ser_Alluf_DiChikans
  • 04
    Font - I open the file on my computer to make sure it's not corrupt in some weird way that would only affect how it's opened (hey, stranger things have happened)... Checked users permissions (file, directory, and account) even tho I didn't think that would be the case since the file does actually open inside of excel. SFC, DISM, repair Office installation, all to no avail. Restored a previous version of the file from backup, nothing. I tell the user to go to lunch and meanwhile I will uninstall/
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  • 05
    Font - A little while later I get a response that it's not fixed, $NU still can't open excel files. What the actual eff? Mad Googling ensues... Whilst I question all of my life choices, I get another reply: $NU: hey i fixed it, you can close my ticket out $ME (in unfathomable disbelief): wait, what?? seriously?!?! $NU: yeah lol, i didnt know i had to double click excel files to open them. i've never used it before. $ME (just now starting to realize what was happening): what do you mean you didn'
    via u/Ser_Alluf_DiChikans
  • 06
    Font - $ME: but.... but i watched you open a word doc? $NU: yeah that's how I always open word, i just double click the file i need and word opens. i didnt know excel did that $ME (summoning my inner Tuvok): that is...completely illogical. so all the times i told you to open a spreadsheet and was watching you....you just clicked them once? $NU: yeah lol sorry about that Head, meet desk; Desk, meet head. I never actually considered that it would be possible that someone would be single-clicking a
    via u/Ser_Alluf_DiChikans
  • 07
    Font - All in all, I learned a valuable lesson from this. No matter how long you've been shackled to the H II Desk, no matter how much you think you know about everything, no matter how jaded you've become with stupid users over the years, NEVER EVER overlook the absolute simplest, stupidest, mind-numbingly basic troubleshooting steps. Because users are f stupid, and you need to be able think equally as f stupid. ing ing TL;DR: A user didn't know they had to double-click files to open them and I
    via u/Ser_Alluf_DiChikans

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customer service tech support FAIL technology clueless ridiculous dumb
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