Patient tech support guy outmaneuvers a tedious Karen who insists he explain every single step of troubleshooting: '[So] I explain the obvious'

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Jesse Kessenheimer • Writer and Editor
Jun 25, 2024 12:00 PM EDT

Never underestimate the patience of an hourly employee. 

Although being on the clock means we may be counting down the minutes, regardless of an hourly employee's interactions at work, they're still getting paid for their time. The tech support guy in our next story proved that your hours are paid even if a regular phone call takes 10x as long. 

After hopping on a service call with a woman concerning her computer malfunctions, the original poster of this story (OP) was prepared to do whatever he could to help her fix her tech problems. However, after retorting with a snarky attitude and unwarranted malice, OP was more than a little peeved. He was here to help! 

After being verbally accosted by the snooty Karen, he decided to drag out the conversation as much as possible, maliciously complying with her insistence on explaining every single detail–and I mean, every… single… detail. Keep scrolling to read this satisfying tale of malicious compliance where an hourly employee cashes in on the world's longest service call. 

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  • 01
    Every time I asked her to double-click on something, I would pause and say "with the left mouse button"
    via canva
  • 02
    A customer insisting that I explain the obvious. S Years ago I worked in a call centre doing technical support. Usually for dial-up internet providers.
    via jacob_ewing
  • 03
    I'll never forget one lady who called in. I don't remember what her issue was, but I started walking through troubleshooting:
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  • 04
    Me: "Ok, please double click on 'My Computer"" Her: "With my left mouse button or my right button?"
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  • 05
    Me: "With the left button" Her: "Ok" Me: "Ok, now if you could double click on 'control panel' please."
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  • 06
    Her: "With the left button or right button?" Me: "Oh, yes, with the left button. When someones says 'double click', they are always referring to the left button"
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  • 07
    Her: "I don't care, I want you to tell me every time what button to use" So I did.
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  • 08
    For the rest of the conversation, every single time I asked her to double- click on something, I would pause and say "With the left mouse button", as if
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  • 09
    that was something unusual. She complied, but I could tell by her tone that she was getting frustrated with it. She never said that I could omit the added instruction though, so I just kept going.
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  • 10
    Eventually the problem was solved and we disconnected. Nothing came of it, but I hope the next support desk she spoke to didn't need to explain it to her again.
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  • 11
    sysadminbj 9 hr. ago Sometimes you have to be very exacting with your instructions when on the phone with someone. Assuming they know which button to double click often leads to 20 minutes of you pounding your head against the desk only to realize that they've been double right clicking the entire time.
    via jacob_ewing
  • 12
    Example One of my guys was on the phone with someone for an hour trying to figure out why their USB port wasn't working only to figure out the caller was plugging the USB drive into the wrong PC.
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  • 13
    Quarian_Engineer№7 · 8 hr. ago Reminds me of a story I heard: a user called tech support because "my keyboard doesn't work." 1st line got them to try a few things without success before instructing them to pick the keyboard up and walk back
    via jacob_ewing
  • 14
    a few steps. "Ok, done that." "And did the keyboard come with you?" "Yeah." ." "Right - that means it's not plugged in. Are there any OTHER keyboards on your desk?" "Oh, yeah, there's another one tippity tap... oh, this one works!"
    via jacob_ewing
  • 15
    Somerset76 8 hr. ago Lol! I used to do tech support for gateway computers. There was a command to press any key to continue. After more than one person asked where the any key was, I started saying press the h key to continue. I only once had someone ask why the h key. My response "it's in the middle of the keyboard@
    via jacob_ewing
  • 16
    prankerjoker 8 hr. ago . edited 8 hr. ago I'm going to click on the upvote button with the left button. I also wonder if she is the type to open the CD-ROM tray and thinks it's a built-in cup holder.
    via jacob_ewing
  • 17
    CoderJoe1 9 hr. ago Reminds me of a college class I took for Microsoft Office in the 90's. It was six credits so I figured it would be an easy way to pad my transcript.
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  • 18
    Unfortunately, the instructor for the course was new and proved to barely know the material. She wouldn't say double-click. She would tell everyone to click-click the icon. It was even weirder for a
    via jacob_ewing
  • 19
    triple click. Yup, she would say, click-click-click the paragraph in Word. I wound up teaching the class for her when she discovered I knew more about it than she did.
    via jacob_ewing
  • 20
    Boomerw4ang · 6 hr. ago When I did support for TV service, I spent a huge amount of time and frustration with users like this who have no sense that I'm already trying to tell them exactly what to do and they don't need to question it every single time...
    via jacob_ewing
  • 21
    Our version of this was simply trying to get someone to make sure their remote was in Sat mode, TV mode, etc. before moving forward (because people are dumb and call for their channels not changing when they're in some other mode).
    via jacob_ewing
  • 22
    Every. Time. If you say simply "press the 'Sat' button and let me know when you've done that." "Okay" "Press the channel up/down and tell me what happens"
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  • 23
    "The Sat button is blinking." (Meaning they held it down for 5 seconds and put the remote into programming mode). Sigh "okay I think we held the button down too long. Please PRESS AND RELEASE the Sat button. It should light up once and stay off..."
    via jacob_ewing
  • 24
    "Well why didn't you say that?! How am I supposed to know??" "It's okay. I will explicitly mention if I need you to hold down any button. Otherwise just press and release them until I ask otherwise..."
    via jacob_ewing
  • 25
    Repeat this conversation ad nauseum over thousands of customers until I'm conditioned to just say "press and release" by default 50 times per call...just to head off the inevitable "you didn't say to let it go!!"
    via jacob_ewing

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coworker attitude ceo coworkers employee boss clock job clocking in employees business company karen hourly manager troubleshooting support tedious Tech work workplace supervisor worker working karens hourly employee
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