Had a similar thing when i was on hell desk many years ago.

Social worker 90 miles away rang up with same issues....

Then they wanted us to deliver a psu

Even in the valve days, wireless was just a slick misleading marketing claim, dreamt up by sales. Wires will never go away.

They just get renamed to "WiFi cables"...

That looks funny, until the WiFi is deemed insufficient for the user and he wants a wired connection to the SSID.

I wish you were joking, but I have seen Ethernet cables labelled as "Wifi cable" before.

> "Wires will never go away."

Of course they will. Just at the point that you need them.

Doesn't matter who they are, how much they earn or how important they think they are. Anyone yelling and ranting like that at me down the phone is just getting the call ended straight away.

If they can't use their words, I can't help them.

Doesn't matter who they are, how much they earn or how important they think they are. Anyone yelling and ranting like that at me down the phone is just getting the call ended straight away.

Damn straight. The one time I was sworn at by a colleague (needlessly, I might add) I walked off the job. Cost to the company? €126,000. The man that swore at me is no longer employed there.

When I worked in PC repair, we had a laptop sent in with an all caps note attached saying we were not allowed to power the laptop up, or examine the hard disk.

The laptop belonged to a best selling childrens book author and contained their next book.

The service centre manager contacted the owner, explaining there was zero chance we could diagnose the problem without booting the laptop, the manager was treated to a foul mouth rant, followed by a warning that booting the laptop would result in a visit from her lawyers.

We returned the laptop unrepaired, with a print-out from the warranty contract detailing how they had already given us express permission to power up the device in order to diagnose the issue, if they wanted their laptop repaired, please return it with a note confirming they agree to our terms and conditions.

We never heard from her again...

> best selling childrens book author ... foul mouth rant

That's the trouble, all those years of being sweet and syrupy for the children - well, the publishers, parents and interviewers, mostly - with no safety valve, they'll blow at any time.

OTOH had a lovely chat with an author at a Con couple of weeks back, she's great fun, up for making a fool of herself. Read the first one of another of her series this week: yikes! Double yikes! Had to finish it before trying to get to sleep so at least I knew the heroine was still alive, if not entirely safe & well (not a spoiler, it is a series).

A nuclear battery might be the solution in terms of battery life, but the weight of the lead shielding might be a bit of an issue portability-wise, not to mention the weight of the uranium or plutonium used. The TSA also might want to have a quiet word if you arrive at the airport with such a device.

But management will want it light, so will get the fully unshielded version.

And wholeheartedly deserve it...

Just be sure you are out of the building before they all get together for the next full Board meeting. Especially if they rejected your recommendation that they have a moderator in the room.

No they'd just take the heavy nuke battery out then phone up and complain it wasn't turning on

There's a thought especially if you could make it go bang remotely.

PR firm typically chockers with Precious Retards.

Some misunderstandings, when you look at it from their point of view, are understandable even more than just understandable when dealing with some of the impenetrable decisions of standards bodies.

This wasn't one of those; Cathy's client was the typical entitled upper manglement twat†.

† considered inclusive or neuter here with no reference to natural gender intended.

A nuclear battery would still run out. It'd just take a fair bit longer...

Clarke's Third Law: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

My corollary: for a substantial proportion of users, "sufficiently advanced" is quite a low bar to clear.

For the vast majority of the population of the earth..... the internal combustion engine is "magic". (for reference, that technology is well over 100 years old now... )

Sadly I once rang support as WiFi just stopped working one day when WFH, apparently there was a switch on the side that turned it off and I must have done so when I bunged it in my rucksack, wanted to end that phone call as fast as I could.

Similar problems with the little shutter on the camera for video calls. Needs to be VERY bright orange!

We had clients when this was conmen who wanted slip style laptop cases. Switches moving due to the case was a weekly event.

One of our users in HR got a laptop to replace her desktop. She didn't know that it needed charging but somehow it took a *month* for the battery to run out. She logged a ticket "it displayed an error message with something about power and then shut down. She needs the laptop for her work can we please fix?" I have no idea how she managed to eke a month out of the laptop, presumably by not using it much. The difference was that she was a lovely person, so we just explained it to her a bit better and then had a laugh in private.

In a previous employment at a small PC repair/retail business, we had a customer who wanted to switch from a laptop to a desktop "to get rid of all these annoying wires".

After he bought said desktop, he seemed surprised that the PC now needed a wired keyboard and mouse (well before the era when wireless options were available at a reasonable price) as well as power leads for tower and monitor, cable between monitor and PC, network cable...

To be fair, if they are willing to pay, you can build a PC into a desk and hide it all - although the mouse still needs to be free to move around - but there was a pantograph available before the mouse became all the rage.

Old issues of Byte magazine have adverts for really nice desks, with panels that hinge up to swing the CRT jnto view or slide into the top letting the keyboard to rise up (none of those drawers that pull out from underneath and stick it right into your belly).

A long time ago we were televising something from a big London theatre. As various things were powered up and switched on, a cameraman ( [1]EMI 2001 for spotters, shows how long ago it was) called in and said his viewfinder was black, no picture. We looked at his camera and there was black on the main output as well. I trotted inside to troubleshoot and spotted the problem as I walked towards it. Phil, our professional cameraman and all round nice guy, had forgotten to remove the lens cap. It cost him a round at lunchtime.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EMI_2001

Many many times I had to explain that Wifi/wireless didn't mean that they would get internet everywhere.

The idea of it requiring an access point within range was lost on many at least in the earlier days of wifi.

I had lots of stupid conversation with supposedly intelligent people, for whom the computer was a magical box that defied normal conventions.

Back in the good old days a customer called me and said that whenever they switch on their PC the date has gone back to 1st Jan 1980 and they have to correct it.

"Ah", I said. "It sounds like the clock battery has gone".

There was a brief pause, followed by an indignant "Well, who do you think would take something like that?".

Hardly IT related, but it does remind me of a "support request" I received reporting that the TV remote had stopped working.

I asked if they had tried replacing the batteries, only to be told "Don't be stupid, they've worked just fine for the last five years"!

Now obviously there are some rather stupid users out there now. But given we do now have wireless charging for various devices, and laptops that don't have "charging ports" as such anymore (just USB-C) and I haven't used a dedicated charger in about 5 years (it charges via docking monitor), I'm inclined to slightly forgive these sorts of stories now.