'[He] was on 24/7 call, so unplugging the phone wasn't an option': Tech support guy gets revenge on an angry IT customer by programming the office phone to call him at 2, 3, and 4 AM every night

Author image for Jesse Kessenheimer
Jesse Kessenheimer • Writer and Editor
Nov 9, 2024 6:00 PM EST

We learned from a young age that you should be nice to the other kids on the playground. Share the bouncy rubber ball, don't pull a girl's pigtails, and include everyone in your fun games! That's how it should be in the working world–the adult world–because if you make an enemy on the blacktop, you might just get destroyed in the next game of dodgeball. 

This IT customer learned never to mess with their tech support crew after being a total buffoon on the phone. He was known for screaming at the guys who were just trying to help him troubleshoot his modem, but finally, after being placed with the same phone support guy one too many times, he snapped and decided to get some revenge. 

Frankly, I think this guy's sleep schedule became a little more precious to him after he got completely pwned by the dude he was used to screaming at–I guess now it looks like the phone is the only thing screaming at 2 AM… 3 AM… and 4 AM. Do you think he'll be nicer to his next customer service rep after this? You be the judge.

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    Cheezburger Image 10426155008
    via TimeImage

    This image is for illustration only, and the subjects are models; the image does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • 02
    Never ab e your tech support guy A few years before Caller ID was available, I was working at a company that made super- fast modems. These were seriously expensive and our customers were all large corporations and organizations who always wanted the highest speeds available.
    via Aiku
  • 03
    One customer's IT guy had serious anger issues, and always called in yelling his lungs out whenever he encountered a problem. Customers were always assigned to specific engineers, so poor old Ted had to deal with him every time.
    via Aiku
  • 04
    One day, over lunch, I asked him if he'd heard from Major Decibels (our nickname for the ah le), and he started laughing. Turns out he'd programmed one of his own test modems to call the guy's home number at 2, 3, and 4AM every night.
    via Aiku
  • 05
    Decibels answered the phone to the annoying squeal of a modem trying to handshake. Ted even reduced the connection speed to the standard at the time, so the victim wouldn't recognize our product's quite distinctive handshake sounds.
    via Aiku
  • 06
    The IT guy was on 24/7 call, which Ted knew, so unplugging the phone wasn't an option. This went on for about a month until the guy changed his number. I was in total awe of this calculated vengeance.
    via Aiku
  • 07
    djnehi This is the kind of petty revenge this sub was created for.
    via djnehi
  • 08
    Evelyn VictoraD Ha. I was the developer of a war dialer back in the early 80's. One of the app's features was to discover discount long distance account codes via dictionary attack. I set the test number to a particularly gross televangelists donation line.
    via EvelynVictoraD
  • 09
    If the code was good they would get a call. I released the app on the underground BBSes. It was pretty popular and every time they changed the number I would publish an update :)
    via EvelynVictoraD
  • 10
    Coder Joel Takes me back to my BBS days when I lived in Silicon Valley. On one of the bulletin boards you could set a message to announce your arrival and another one to announce your departure. I changed my departure message to: "NO CARRIER" which was the same message you got when your modem got disconnected. Every time I signed off, half the users hung up and redialed back in.
    via CoderJoe1
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    MnGoulash My version: never stiff your waiter who is a tech guy. When I was a waiter at a fancy restaurant in Dallas back in the 2000's, I was also a computer geek getting my MS certifications.. if people treated me bad or stiffed
    via MnGoulash
  • 12
    me, and if they paid with a credit card, I'd look up their phone numbers (or take them from the reservation system) and program my modem/computer to call them over and over and over and over until I was bored..
    via MnGoulash
  • 13
    dave200204 I was working for a company one time that had an automated fax go out about once a month, in the middle of the night. Some poor guy had his phone number wind up on the list. He would wake up to the fax squawk in the middle of the night. He finally figured out it was my company and called us. He was not a happy camper. Took my coworker a minute to make the appropriate deletion.
    via dave200204
  • 14
    novembirdie Once upon a time I had internet service through Company A. I loved them. All I had to do when I had an issue was call their support number and got connected to a real tech. Real person, in the same state. They were experts in Windows, MacOS and Linux. I'm out of their service area now but will always remember them.
    via novembirdie

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boss worker employee manager job revenge work coworkers phone working petty revenge ceo employees prank supervisor workplace company coworker business
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