> Then there was the person who spent three hours terrorizing us before it transpired he'd not connected his modem, nor turned it on, or in fact taken it out of its package
I worked at a local mom and pop ISP at around the same time, probably a few years later. Those sorts of customer calls were the best (after they were resolved of course.)
* One guy would call at 2 or 3 AM and scream into our voicemail "Internet's DOWN! FIX IT NOW!!!!!". His wife would call the next day and apologize.
* One time, someone called irate that their dialup service wasn't working. He called the number we gave him, and all he heard "was a bunch of ringing and static". After several minutes we figured out he was dialing the modem bank from a telephone and expecting to use the Internet without a computer. He did not own a computer, and was quite upset we had not told him he needed one...
* It took two or three hours one time to figure out why someone couldn't connect. Helpfully, they figured it out themselves -- they were entering "the letter zero, not the number zero".
* A guy called up one time wanting to tell us about an interstellar propulsion device he developed (which also, of course, could cure cancer if the 'magnetic field' was reversed.) I suggested he call the Jet Propulsion Labs and gave him the number.
For me, the support calls were always the worst and I was very glad when the company got big enough that I no longer had to regularly take calls (although the ones I did get were the worst of the worst.)
I couldn’t not refer the guy after I spent 15 minutes listening to his…not exactly well-thought-out, but certainly extensively-thought-out idea. Also, it was Friday afternoon and I needed a way to get off the phone. Just hanging up seemed rude.
I worked at a local mom and pop ISP at around the same time, probably a few years later. Those sorts of customer calls were the best (after they were resolved of course.)
* One guy would call at 2 or 3 AM and scream into our voicemail "Internet's DOWN! FIX IT NOW!!!!!". His wife would call the next day and apologize.
* One time, someone called irate that their dialup service wasn't working. He called the number we gave him, and all he heard "was a bunch of ringing and static". After several minutes we figured out he was dialing the modem bank from a telephone and expecting to use the Internet without a computer. He did not own a computer, and was quite upset we had not told him he needed one...
* It took two or three hours one time to figure out why someone couldn't connect. Helpfully, they figured it out themselves -- they were entering "the letter zero, not the number zero".
* A guy called up one time wanting to tell us about an interstellar propulsion device he developed (which also, of course, could cure cancer if the 'magnetic field' was reversed.) I suggested he call the Jet Propulsion Labs and gave him the number.
For me, the support calls were always the worst and I was very glad when the company got big enough that I no longer had to regularly take calls (although the ones I did get were the worst of the worst.)