Technical Support Recipe: Butter Your Disk Drive


Customer: "I got this problem. You people sent me this install disk,
and now my A drive won't work."

Tech Support: "Your A drive won't work?"

Customer: "That's what I said. You sent me a bad disk, it got stuck in
my drive, now it won't work at all."

Tech Support: "Did it not install properly? What kind of error
messages did you get?"

Customer: "I didn't get any error message. The disk got stuck in the drive
and wouldn't come out. So I got these pliers and tried to get it
out and that didn't work either."

Tech Support: "You did what sir?"

Customer: "I got these pliers, and tried to get the disk out, but it
wouldn't budge. I just ended up cracking the plastic stuff a bit."

Tech Support: "I don't understand sir, did you push the eject button?"

Customer: "No, so then I got a stick of butter and melted it and used a
turkey baster and put the butter in the drive, around the disk, and
that got it loose. Then I used the pliers and it came out fine. I
can't believe you would send me a disk that was broke and defective."

Tech Support: "Let me get this clear. You put melted butter in your A drive
and used pliers to pull the disk out?"

( At this point, I put the call on the speaker phone and motioned at the
other techs to listen in.)

Tech Support: "Just so I am absolutely clear on this, can you repeat what
you just said?"

Customer: "I said I put butter in my A drive to get your crappy disk out,
then I had to use pliers to pull it out."

Tech Support: "Did you push that little button that was sticking out when
the disk was in the drive, you know, the thing called the disk eject
button?"

( Silence. )

Tech Support: "Sir?"

Customer: "Yes."

Tech Support: "Sir, did you push the eject button?"

Customer: "No, but you people are going to fix my computer, or I am going
to sue you for breaking my computer!"

Tech Support: "Let me get this straight. You are going to sue our company
because you put the disk in the A drive, didn't follow the
instructions we sent you, didn't actually seek professional advice,
didn't consult your user's manual on how to use your computer
properly, but instead proceeded to pour butter into the drive and
physically rip the disk out?"

Customer: "Ummmm."

Tech Support: "Do you really think you stand a chance, since we do record
every call and have it on tape?"

Customer: ( now rather humbled ) "But you're supposed to help!"

Tech Support: "I am sorry sir, but there is nothing we can do for you.
Have a nice day!"