Nikon Humor

Correlli

Peter posted this link in another thread about a guy who gave a Nikon F6 a one star rating because you would need to buy strange cartridges instead of regular CF cards. I did not want to hijack that thread but I wanted to tell you my three favorite Nikon Tech-Support stories.

1. This one happened before I started working there but I was told it is true. There was this man who turned in a Nikonos (for those who don't know: this was a submersible camera that did not need a housing for underwater photography). He had some water inside and wanted it to get checked. They did, found nothing but cleaned it and pressure tested it. About a week later he came back, again with water inside the camera. So he was asked what he was doing. They found out the water entered the camera because he was changing lenses - underwater!
2. I received this call personally, so I know it is true. A guy called with a Coolpix 4500 (nice camera back then!) complaining that it did not work properly. If he used the build in flash the images were totally black and if he didn't the autofocus would not work. I asked him what he was shooting and he told me that he loves to go down to the harbor at night to take pictures of the big container freight ships. I had to tell him that the build in flash was not strong enough to light up such a large ship and without the flash the exposure time was simply too long to hand-hold the camera.
3. Another call I got personally. Someone called with problems with his film scanner. We tried to talk him through the menus of the Nikon Scan Software but he kept telling me that his menus look different. I told him to download the most recent version of the software 3.x but he told me that he already got 4.x. So I asked him about his scanner model and it turned out to be a Canon film scanner. I asked him if he was aware that he called the Nikon Tech Support Hotline and he said: "Yes, I know. But your hotline does not charge anything whereas the Canon hotline costs money and I hoped it was something very basic that is independent of the manufacturer." - I loved that one!

jonnyapple

These are great, Corelli. I'm chuckling with the images of someone changing lenses underwater or shining their feeble flash out into the harbor. I smile at events watching people's point and shoot flashes popping from way out in the stands.

Your third story reminds me of something not Nikon related, but I used to work customer service for the US Postal Service. I had a lady call in complaining that our driver was being cruel to her dog somehow (pepper spray?). I had the complaint all filled out and ready to send to the local post office, and I asked whether it was her regular postman or someone just delivering packages (sometimes they'll do that on routes with lots of parcels). She said, "Oh yeah, just packages. It's the guy who comes with the big brown van marked UPS." 

DXV_Photo

Johnny that reminds me when I use to work for the USPS.  I did server management and got a call from one of the bulk mail centers complaining the time was off on there server.  I checked it and told him the time was correct and it is set by the atomic clock.  He told me all their time is based off his bosses watch and if I could get the atomic clock changed to match it.  yeah, NO.

bjrichus

At my tech support job, we mark a surprising number of questions down as being caused by the well known "id10t" problem...

jonnyapple

DXV, that sounds like something straight out of a dilbert comic strip! I guess he'd have to take that up with NIST...

TriShooter

Those are great stories that highlight the incredible lack lack of common sense, and cognitive skills we now have in the US. They are funny, but also a window to see where we heading.

It is frightening to listen my friends that are still working now. They can hire engineers that know the vocabulary and graduated but lack the reasoning skills to use what they have learned innovatively. My friends are being forced to bring people from overseas to fill high paying jobs here in the US. The root cause is our public schools and universities are to a large extent failing to educate their students.

If a product is sold to incompetents that cannot read a manual it cost those that can read and understand the material more for the product because we all have to cover the higher costs associated related to the required extra service.

Manufacturers, as well, are too often guilty of selling defective products and not informing their customer support people about the problems. Software companies that have major flaws that can harm their customers have repeatedly refused to fix their products so crackers (hackers) after waiting 6-12 monts for a response published their flaw. Then the big software companies made it illegal for anyone to publish a known software flaw so now hackers leak the flaws anonymously as exploits, or otherwise risk litigation.

Michel

A friend sent me this snippet..."At a family reunion last March at Terrigal, 100km north of Sydney, I had to show a woman roped in how to use a proper camera looking through the viewfinder and holding it against her face – she had never seen a proper camera close-up, only on TV news reports of press conferences. She was complaining that the camera and flash were too heavy to hold out in front of her." It was his D90 she was complaining about

jonnyapple

I teach physics at a university and know some of these graduates who don't know how to think, TriShooter. I'm continually amazed at how afraid people are of numbers. They can be perfectly literate but not know even basic algebra or even arithmetic. I tell my physics classes the first day of class that I don't let them use calculators on exams, and for some students it's like I stole their teddy bear. Some drop the class. Some of the ones who stay tell me it has helped more than any physics I could teach. 

To support your statement about schools, my department chair gave his exam for a general science class to his ten-year-old son and he did better than his class averages. You just have to compare fifth graders and their interest in science to incoming college freshman to see something is going wrong somewhere between those years. I'm sure universities share some of the blame.

Sorry this isn't funny. Say, did you hear the one about the guy who used his lens as a candy dish for the holidays?

Msmoto

Tech support at (Big Computer Company) was called about a monitor not working.  Asked to check the connections on the back, the customer said he couldn't do that.  Why?  It was dark.  Asked to turn some lights on and check.   Couldn't do that.  Why?  The answer was "The power is out".  Then told to pack the computer up and send it back.  Customer asks "Is it that serious?"  Service replays, "Yes, you are too (Blank) stupid to use a computer."

Customer service person fired by XXX.  Appealed this in court and was reinstated as the judge agreed the person who called when the power out was "XXX".

So we change this to the Nikon service call about the DXXX camera saying it would not come on.  Customer service asks if the battery is fully charged.  Response is " I am doing that now"

heartyfisher

LOL -- I think stupidity crosses all boundaries .. not just countries but race and religions :-) and Nikcanon 

And JA I did darn good at physics but terribly at maths,.. I would have dropped your class too ! :-) LOL


I had to help our marketing guy once. he kept coming to ask for our latest software cos he was loosing his floppy disk(yeah that dates me)  . anyway I went to his pc and found a bunch of floppy disks jammed in between the little gap between the 2 disk drives.

adamz

the worst case for me was driving 300km only to plug the usb cable into the printer on - my customer was 100% sure that every single cable was connected correctly... 

other situation, this time only 20km of driving... the computer cable was not plugged in to power outlet... and once again, client was sure every single cable is plugged in and connected... no wonder he couldn't turn the box on

once in Brazil, I handled my dslr to one American girl to take a snap of me... I was extremely surprised when she tried to look through the lens instead of viewfinder, and I had to keep calm and explain her where to look through viewfinder

ben_v3

I once had the on board flash up, my moms husband tried to look through the gap between the flash and base. I laughed heartily at him.

framer

Since this has been frankenthreaded into stupid consumers I'll tell you a true story in full if this gets not PC just delete the post.

In the 70's for a short time I acquired a waterbed store in Melbourne FL USA.  The home of FIT or Florida Institute of  Technology.  They had a lot of Iranian students at the time.  One Iranian engineering student came in the shop and bought a complete waterbed kit and left.  A few hours later I got a call about how to fill the bed with water.  I told him to get a hose attach the adapter included with the kit and fill the bed.  He argued with me that I should have included a hose, really...  I told him to go to the hardware store and buy a hose.

About two hours later I get another call, he said, there's water all over the dorm and the bed is leaking.  His dorm was only a couple of minutes away from the shop so I went to investigate.  This genius had bought a soaker hose and the water was still turned on.  I never got to his room I turned and left the building. 

 

framer

 

 

 

mirtos

I was once working customer support for a computer company and was told that the footpedal wasn't working.

(they meant the mouse, and they were thinking it was a footpedal ala sewing machines)

Or my absolute favorite was years ago, a company (think it was compaq, not sure though) was considering changing the text on the "Enter" key to "Any", because people kept calling up and couldnt find "The Any Key"  (hit any key to continue, on various software programs)

spraynpray

The human race is doomed of course because once these muppets realise how stupid they are there is only one course of action open to them - become politicians....

PB_PM

Since we are on the subject of funny work stories from the past I have a few, but this type of scenario came up more than any other.

I worked at a facility that hosted many events, and I basically did security and event setup. Events would often want to put tables across the hall in the front or rear entrance, to sell tickets and restrict access to ticket holders. The problem was that blocking the entrance is not allowed, due to fire regulations. I would explain this to people, and for the life of them they couldn't figure out how blocking the doors in such a manner was a fire hazard. I finally had to explain that if the tables were put up that way the fire marshal could come in and shut down the event. That would quickly get them to change their minds.

Msmoto

It was suggested we need a T-Shirt...so, Adam, here is is:

bjrichus

It was suggested we need a T-Shirt...so, Adam, here is is:

Nice one MsM... 

I can just see the security guys now, on each side of the heard pushing a path through for me ... a bit like the parting of the Red Sea and here we NRF members come into the VIP area, in front of the press corral.

[Deleted User]

Don't mean to be difficult...but in English we'd generally put 'a' between need and pass...

Aside from that, when can we order them?

[Deleted User]

To add to the mirth...

Out ISP (Orange - France Telecom) lost our Internet connection due to a bulldozer driver. We rang the 'help' line who confirmed the outage. I asked if they had any predictions regarding down time and the nice lady replied "No, but don't worry, we'll send you an e-mail when it's back online." 

Sadly, I didn't record that conversation...

Msmoto

Re: T-Shirts....the text has a slang "in your face" attitude, so the a was left off.....sort of..... :-))

So far, none have been manufactured.  Maybe the OK to do this will be given.

jonnyapple

Here are some more t-shirt ideas we worked on a couple of years ago:

http://nikonrumors.com/forum/topic.php?id=3042

Parke1953

So i go to the link that jonnyapple put up and read. I get to the thong and i have tears coming down my face. The wife comes in and says whats so funny so i tell hes and she just looks at me and says thats not funny your dumb and walks out. My 22 YO son comes in and asks whats so funny i tell him and he's busting a gut. The wife walks back in and says your both dumb. What is it with them. Oh sh** i think she can see me from the other room. How do they do that?

I want a T shirt.

heartyfisher

Can I suggest a less wordy statement? Hmm ite supposed to be center justified but ist not showing it .. but you get the picture.

NRF Member
PRESS PASS
Not required

spraynpray

Where do I order?

Ironheart

Passes? We don't need no stinkin' passes!