Thursday, November 08, 2007

Technical Support


One of Roadchick's friends called her the other day and asked her to come over. It seems that the friend had gotten a new laptop and printer for her job and for some reason, she could not get anything to print.

There were promises of coffee and breakfast and Roadchick happily agreed.

This morning, Roadchick made the drive to her friend's house. Upon arrival, the 'chick offered to work on the printing problem while her friend cooked breakfast.

Armed with a cup of coffee that said "Professional Smartass", the 'chick headed down the hall to the office. (It's always nice to get a personalized coffee cup.) The laptop was a shiny, new Dell and the printer was also shiny and new and some name brand that the 'chick no longer remembers. Anyway.

The 'chick powered up the laptop and plugged the printer's USB cable into the side of the laptop. She opened up the Control Panel and opened up the Printer folder. A few clickity-clicks of the mouse later, she waited for the test page to print. There was no test page forthcoming.

So, a test document in Notepad. Nothing printed.

The 'chick double-checked that the printer was powered up and the other end of the USB cable was connected to the printer. Everything was a-ok.

The 'chick switched the cable from the bottom USB port to the top one.

Things started to print.

The 'chick's friend heard the printer running and came into the office to find out how the 'chick pulled off this miracle of technology.

"Well, it's pretty simple, really. Think of the USB ports as a part of the female anatomy and the USB cable as a part of the male anatomy. Once the female gets used to the cable being inserted into one port, she may not be so eager to change to a . . .lower port."

Friend thought about this for a minute and then said:
"Oh, well, that explains it. My son set everything up and then couldn't remember where everything went."

"It would help if the computer had a little, soft voice going 'That's not it. A little bit higher.'"

Sex and computers.

And a hot breakfast afterward.

5 comments:

heather said...

LOL! as much as i love the analogy, i think i would most likely have a ~very~ short career @ tomtom if i used it at work.


(i wonder how long it will be till i slip.)

Michael Thomas said...

But I like the lower port!

Roadchick said...

Heather~ but, no one would EVER make that mistake twice. Guaranteed.

Michael~ then you get into deleting previous installations, re-installing software, and getting the port to recognize new physical devices. Many end users find this to be too much trouble when there is a willing and available port just millimeters away.

Susan said...

I need my printer to say "but I thought you liked it when I took it slow"...Maybe then I wouldn't be so annoyed when it takes almost 2 minutes to print my flyer.

Killer said...

I bet if you keep asking the computer she will eventually take it in the "other" port.

I have never convinced any females with that approach, but I won't give up hope.