Top 20 Stupid Client Quotes

A few years ago I was building an e-commerce website for a London-based company. The schedule was pretty hectic, but we pulled some all-nighters and got the shipment out in time for initial review. After the review, the client CEO sends emails to me, my line manager and our CEO stating that we have hacked his website and intentionally added profanity and filth to the system. I was hauled down to explain our actions. After calming the guys down to a conversational level, he showed me the "evidence" where, when the CEO enters information in the product search text box, it comes up with suggestions such as "inter-racial gang bang" when looking for "inter...". I calmly explained that the search box was named the same as that of Google's and that his search history was showing in the results. The complaint was dropped without apologies or explanations.

Last week... Client (paraphrased): Hey this is really urgent, that website xxxxxxxxx you made for us a year ago, here's a pile of changes we need, we won't be paying you for the changes because we already paid you for the website and have not made it live yet. REALLY URGENT!

I don't know why our shop has become the Information and Directions hub for the city, but we are always having to find directions for people. So this past week a woman walks into our print shop, "I need to know where X Pharmacy is." Me: "I don't know, let me look it up." Her: "How can you NOT know?" Me: "I don't understand the question." Her: "I don't want the address." Me: "Without the address I can't tell you where it is." Her: "I know where it is I just don't know which way to go." Me: "Let me look it up and I'll be able to tell you." Her: "Well, okay... if that's all you CAN do."

The company I worked for hired a new receptionist, she was nice but really akward and totally scatter-brained. She loved to answer the phone and write notes on post-it notes and place them on people's screens, desks, cube walls etc. (you know instead of forwarding the calls to the person's voicemail) Well, after a busy morning of phonecalls and troubleshooting I and a couple of my co-workers went off to a well deserved lunch. Upon returning from lunch, I enter my cubicle to find a pretty pink post-it note adhered to my keyboard. It read: "They called... They'd like you to call them back.... ASAP!" There I sat... mouth agape wondering -- Who is "They"? and What is "They's number?" Needless to say, she didn't last long as our receptionist. =)

@ #7311 My friend works for a DSL provider and one day he gets a call from someone saying their internet is down. So normal troubleshooting over the phone, the guy was on wifi, he was connected to the access point, he could ping his access point, when told to ulplug the modem and count to ten before plugging it back in the guy said he didn't have access to the modem. So my friend decided it was time to make an official service call (why he didn't do that at the start I do not know) and took the "customers" phone number but realized they didn't even have DSL service at that number. Turns out the "customer" on the phone was mooching wifi off his neighbors, and his neighbors had cable internet instead of DSL. So when the cable went down the thief decided to take it upon himself to call tech support.

Me: Thank you for calling the Helpdesk. This is Jena. DB: I'm sorry, I'm looking for IS. Me: This is the technical support line for the AHC DB: I don't think you can help me- I need IS Me: This is the IS support group DB: What is IS? Me: Information Services DB: I don't think you can help me- I need a computer tech Me: I am a computer tech. DB: Are you sure you're qualified to help me? Me: I have a computer degree and over 10 years of computer experience. I feel I should be able to help you with most things computer related DB: So I have a problem with a computer. Are you sure I can ask you? Me: Well, ask, and we'll see if I know the answer. I did. We were all amazed.

"Can you make 30 of something in 2 months?" Me: Maybe. What am I making? "I don't know. But I need to know you can make them." Me: What exactly is it? "We don't have a design. But we shouldn't bother designing if you can't make enough in time." Me: I need a design before I can estimate the production time. "But do you think 2 months is enough time to make them?" Me: I can make you 30 somethings, but it might not be exactly what you want. Client seemed surprisingly happy with this answer. (Edited for brevity)

Flying Spaghetti Monster, please save me from communications staff! The manager of comms (a notorious airhead) has been trying to get remote access for _weeks_. It is provided by way of a web interface and a security token, and the whole process has been agonising because she is just SO dumb. The latest speedbump: she forgot her password, so I did a reset. Then THIS happened... Me (via email): Okay, I've reset your password to [memorable default]. When you log in it should prompt you to change it to something more secure. Her (email reply): What? I can't even log in yet! How am I supposed to go and change my password if I can't even get into the system! Luckily it was early and nobody else was in the office to hear me shout, "Oh you fucking IDIOT!"

While between two IT jobs, I spent several months working behind the bar at a local pub. (I put this down as "acquiring good customer-facing skills" on my CV, though most software engineering roles do not require evicting agressive, drunk clients from the building.) One busy weekend, some of the bar staff failed to turn up, and the landlord tried to ring other temporary staff. After quarter of an hour receiving "number unobtainable" responses, he thrust a mobile phone and a notebook into my hands and said, "Keep ringing these numbers until the lazy ****s answer!" I replied, "Er, boss, these aren't telephone or mobile phone numbers. They're National Insurance [social security] numbers."

Designed and developed a budget website for a client. Once complete I send out an invoice and say that I'll remove the password protection from the site once final payment is received. She asks: "Will it be online then?" I say: "It's online right now, just with a password protection" She doesn't quite understand and I don't push it. She pays up, I remove the password protection, then the next day she FREAKS! Very angry emails because the site is not up. After emails it's clear she though it would be #1 on google once she paid for it (my contract had a line item explaining that the site would be Optimized for Search Engines, css layout, meta tag research, rich text links, etc.). I said it could take months until google lists the site. Not the right response. In three days the site is listed and shows up #2 when you type her business name. She placated. Next day it disappears (as she was connecting to a different google datacenter that hadn't indexed the site yet). I get a great call and am yelled at for 2 hours because I refuse to fix it. The money quote: "Fine, if you won't help me, give me the password to google and I'll fix it myself" -- she honestly thought it was up to the web designer to tell google what search position a new website should be in.

I worked at a small college in the IT department. The admissions department was in a small building not far from our department's HQ, and they were very consistent and constant complainers about their technology. The problem wasn't their technology. It was the fact that they were staffed with a bunch of Luddites who refused to take a minute to actually figure out how to *use* their technology and sometimes, they stuck their fingers into their technology in really stupid ways. They somehow convinced the previous IT director that since the admissions process is laden with "confidentiality," they needed laser printers at almost every desk. (more like lazy fatasses who didn't want to walk 10 steps to a shared printer) These printers would be the source of many, many problems with this department. They also had a gigantic multi-function copier/scanner/fax/printer downstairs for doing big runs, like mailings, which they *never* used for the stated purpose. Whenever we got called to fix a printing problem with that device, it was always someone's church flyer or bake sale poster on 11x17. Never anything college-related. Concerns about this mis-use of college resources went right over the director's head. It was an old school, with old buildings, and in many places there is just one network jack in an office or work area, not several. They had a computer used for their interns in a shared space upstairs, and they had printer connected to it via USB. One of the admissions counselors got the bright idea that it would be better if all the interns could print to that printer via the network, and he was just the man to do that. So he unplugged the USB cable from the PC, unplugged the PC's Ethernet cable from the wall, plugged an Ethernet cable from the printer into the wall, then called us and complained that neither the "new shared printer" nor the PC worked. That was a fun conversation about involing IT before you start pulling on things, not after. We solved that particular issue with a small network switch tucked up under the desk. Pretty standard solution for the limited infrastructure in the buildings. But then the complaints started rolling in occasionally that the neither the printer or the PC were on the network. Sure enought: the student interns kept unplugging the power brick for the switch so they could plug in their MP3 players and iPhones. Over time, the number of tickets we got for just this one printer were pretty amazing. One day, the Admissions Director calls, gets me on the phone and starts berating me about this printer. The printer doesn't work again, its a piece of shit, we're incapable of meeting their IT needs, not responsive to the problems, blah, blah, blah, blah. Basically, he runs up one side of me and down the other over the issues with this printer. I said "Whats the issue now?" "Nobody can print to that printer. It doesn't work. Its all plugged in and everything." "OK, I'll be there in a minute, lets get to the bottom of this." I walk over to the Admissions building, head upstairs to the printer and check it out. Plugged in, power, etc. I walk downstairs to the Admissions director's office, and she starts berating me in-person for this printer not working. I finally interrupted her and said "I fixed the printer. Its printing right now." "What was the problem? Why can't IT make that printer work! This is constantly a problem with you people." "It was out of paper. Really, its not our job to keep your printer filled with paper." That took the wind out of her sails. I then pulled out the help desk ticket report I had on that printer. The report that showed that 85% of the calls to her department were for that printer, and nearly ALL of the calls for that printer were due to self-inflicted problems. (we had a resolution code "PEBKAC" in the ticket system for "stupid user tricks" that came out on the reports as "end user issue". There were a LOT of "PEBKAC" codes in there) "User unplugged network switch to plug in iPod," "User turned off printer due to noise," "User selected wrong printer," "Network switch unplugged from Ethernet for some reason, user does not know how that happened," "Power strip not turned on. Flipped switch, all-OK," "Paper tray found not fully seated," "Ethernet cable not plugged into back of printer," "Power cable not plugged into the back of the printer," "User mashed the print button, but did not select the correct printer in the dialog box," "Printer was wide open with no toner cartridge. Installed new toner cartridge, prints fine. Old toner cartridge nowhere to be found," "Printer was offline, pressed big green "online" button, printer immediately printed all jobs in queue." After I showed her that we were, indeed, meeting their needs and fixing all of the issuses as they occurred, even though they were the source of their own woes, she started bringing her complaints about the printer to her VP, who came to our VP and said "IT isn't supporting Admissions! Admissions brings money into the college! IT is trying to sabotage the college!" Our VP, well briefed on the subject, presented the very same report I gave to the Admissions Director to their VP, including our great response time (well, they were literally next door to us, easy to respond to) and the fact that nearly all their problems were a) self-inflicted; b) not something we could fix without putting locked plastic boxs over the printer, PC, power cables and the Ethernet connections; and c) would be almost completely eliminated if they'd just all use the big multi- function printer in the building for the purposes it was intended for. Apparently this wasn't good enough for that VP, who later started complaining to the college president that our VP and the IT department weren't taking his concerns seriously enough, and that any shortcomings in the Admissions arena were due to a lack of IT support. The president wasn't buying what that VP was selling, especially since we had the data to back up our work with them, response time, time to close and cause of the issues. They eventually had us come and remove the intern PC and that printer.

This was said by my fiance's boss, the owner of the store. Anyway, the store where my fiance worked was having problems with theft. People were stealing a fair amount of merchandise so the owner installed like, 8 cameras in the store - it's similar in size to the inside of a convience store, maybe a bit larger so it's a bit overkill. Last week he told my fiance, "I feel like I wasted my money on these cameras because after I installed them, all the theft stopped." Um... isn't that the ENTIRE point of cameras? To deter theft?! I guess he just wanted to watch people steal from him instead. Obviously it doesn't take a genius to run a business.

(all company names and employee names changed to protect the innocent... or well in the customers case... the guilty) This one will take some explaining but is well worth the read if you ask me. I was working as a phone technician for Blorchizon, so for those of you in the know... we get the weirdest of the weird. I had moved up through the ranks and had become a tier 3 agent, handling only the most difficult of issues. One fine day everything was going normal, customers with weird throughput issues, customers in areas with recent flooding and more, when this lovely issue occurred. A tier 2 agent had been working on this call for about 20 minutes and could not isolate the issue. The call had been moved up to them after 10 minutes on the front lines. Needless to say, they contacted me and described that the customer wasn't getting any internet access and nothing they did was changing the issue. So I told the agent to transfer the call to me and this is what transpired: Me: Thank you for holding, my name is Jed with Blorchizon advanced support. How can I help you? customer: Hi Jed, my name is Joe and that last guy was really nice, but we can't fix my issue! Me: I'm aware of that Joe and I'm really sorry. It seems like something out of the ordinary is going on here and it is my job to find it and get you back up and running. Joe: Excellent... see I have a top of the line computer and it is new, so I know it isn't the computer. It has to be your service. Me: We'll see Joe. At this point, I proceeded through basic troubleshooting to see how well he would listen. This guy gave me all the correct answers to anything I asked. For example, I'd direct him to the Control Panel and then into the TCP/IP stack and he'd tell me everything was there exactly as it was supposed to be. So we continued: Me: Joe, I have to admit this is really strange, everything seems to be exactly how it is supposed to be and you should be getting internet access. Joe: Yep! That is what I've been saying. You know this all started... Joe was disconnected right there. At first I thought to myself... Sweet! It works now, no more issue. However it was our policy to try and contact customers back if they were disconnected to make sure everything was ok. So I grab the number from my caller ID and call back. This is what I got: *ring* Lady: Thank you for calling Happy Meadows Mental Hospital, how can I help you. Me: Um..... maybe I dialed the wrong number, but do you have a Joe there? Lady: Well... nobody on staff here is named Joe. We do have a patient named Joe. Are you a relative? Me: Uh... no ma'am I'm with Blorchizon Internet. Joe and I were on the phone, apparently he is having trouble with his internet. Lady: That isn't possible sir! He doesn't have a computer, and we don't have internet access in our rooms. Me: O....K..... Lady: *urgent voice* I better go check on him! I sat on hold for a few minutes, because now I was intrigued. Eventually the lady came back. Lady: I'm very very sorry sir. Joe had gotten a hold of a newspaper and had found advertisements for Smell Computers and for Blorchizon DSL. He has some boxes set up on his desk and thinks it is his computer. Me: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA *yes I really laughed on the phone* After a few minutes of explaining the issue to this woman, stating that Joe had given me all of the answers I needed for everything, she told me that Joe was very smart and had probably learned all the answers to give when asked those questions by calling previously. I checked the note system we had, and sure enough Joe had been calling in since 3:00am that day and had talked to about 30 technicians. I can still imagine it to this day, a guy sitting in a hospital gown in front of a bunch of cardboard boxes on the phone trying to get his internet working... absolutely fantastic. Thought I'd share.

I have a client who decided he wanted to use some of his own photography (he is a ironmonger) in his brochure for decorative fencing. He appears one day with 7 prints and I think to myself ok, little unusual for a non professional to be using film. However, when I put the photographs face down in my scanner I notice they are imprinted on the back with the logo of a well know instant digital photo printing kiosk, when I ask him if he has these on a SD card her replies yes but he though it would be cheaper to go buy the print himself for me to scan than for me to go and have to print them and charge him extra! This however is not the end of the tale... The following day he appears with the SD card and I put in it my card reader, iPhoto opens and starts to import the photographs...the photos start innocent enough but quickly tun into a what can only be described as a pornographic slideshow of pictures of him and his wife before I manage to yank the card out! Now this may sound embarassing enough but my mother happens to be our book-keeper and sits two desks back with full view of my monitors...

I work in a large ELECTRONICS store. As in, we don't carry cloths, or pet supplies, or food. Just electronics and their related peripherals. My job is not to answer phones, but to sell computers. However, one of our employees that answers the phones called out sick, and I decided to help cover while his replacement came into the store. At least 5 times during 2 hours I was answering the phone, someone called and asked for the electronics department. I kindly explain that we are an electronics store, and offer to help them locate a product or if they would like to give me an idea of what they are looking for (ie, a computer, tv, a movie, etc) I can transfer them to the respective department. One customer that I explained this to, did not like my answer. So she hung up, and called back, obviously expecting to get someone else. When I answered, she muttered something about the line must have gotten cut off, and hung up again. This cycle repeated itself 12 times before she finally gave up. About an hour after this, the replacement came in, and I went back to selling computers. Not 20 min. later, a very loud and angry woman came in. She was upset that the person answering the phone couldn't just transfer her to the electronics department, so she had to drive all the way in. Turns out she wanted a computer that we hadn't had in stock for 3 days, and weren't due to get for another 3 days. A simple answer I could have provided her over the phone in 30 seconds.

I help IT at the school I work for sometimes, since I am a Technology teacher. It was early, and the IT person wasn't there yet, when a student had trouble. She called me over and mumbled something about freezing. I looked at her PC to see what was going on, and simply said "oh, it's freezing?" She replied "Yes! I'm wearing a dress and the window is open so I am cold!" I looked over and the window was indeed open. I looked over at her and said "you called IT for an open window?" and walked away.

Quite a few years ago my mother worked at a law firm and became their computer technical support for the less savvy secretaries. She was called down to one computer that sat on a desk you could barely find under all the paper. The secretary was complaining that the mouse didn't work anymore. Mum restarts the computer, checks its plugged in etc... until she realizes that the mouse lead is moving too freely. After clearing off the desk she discovers that the secretary managed to catch the mouse lead whilst hole punching some papers and had hole punched right through it.

I work as a Telecoms Sepcialist for a large service company that sells, maintains and repairs hospital equipment. We have many engineers in the UK, and in order to better mannage the support calls when they call in and be able to report on the call stats, I created a a two step auto-attendant. "Press 1 for the Central Support Team, Press 2 for the Call Centre Team". The Central Support Team handled paper work, and invoicing while the Call Centre was customer facing and would have install info such as addresses. After testing and making sure all were happy I pushed it out. I then got a really worrying call. Service Manager: "The new number options are rubbish. They don't work" Me: "Ok there might be something wrong - tell me what you experience?" Service Manager: "This is ridiculous. Whenever I press option 1 I get put through to the Central Support Team. I want the Call Centre." Me: *pause* Errr ok, that's what it should be doing. Let me check the programming and make some test calls. I thought I got the announcement the wrong way round with the options. But I hadn't. And called back the manager. Me: Hi, I just checked and all is working as should be can you try? Service Manager: Hang on, let me try... I can hear him put another phone on speaker. He dials, gets the message for option one and two. I hear a button press and he get put through to Central Support. Me: What button did you press? Service Manager: One? Me: But that's the correct option to get to the support team? If you want the Call Centre team you need to press two. Service Manager: Thats stupid. Why didn't anyone tell me?

I was working as an interior decorator, doing a custom glazed painting job in a kitchen/dining room. After exhaustive efforts in picking colors and glazes, and running all of them by the client, we finally settled on a combination that was exactly what she wanted. I finished one wall, and since she was rather difficult to start with AND it was not my first ro-de-o, I called her in to look at it. She looked, looked, hemmed, hawed, and then said. "It's great! It's just what I asked for. Except, well, I wonder, could you make it brighter and darker?" Sure. You bet. Let me just get right on that. Brighter AND darker. 'Cause that's how colors work.

This is from a friend of mine. He was hired to be the network admin and PC tech for a small-but-growing accounting firm. As the only tech person he would have a lot of work dumped on his shoulders, but if the company grew like they planned within a few years he would be over all the additional tech folks they were planning to hire. The company was run by several members of the same family and sometimes their relationships were obvious from the things they did. One day he was given the task of getting Sally, a new hire, on the network so she could print, e-mail, and work on documents stored on the mapped network drive. When they met she explained that she had just graduated from college with a degree with business administration and a minor in accounting. Since this was around 2005, he assumed she had a fair amount of PC experience. It took several attempts for her to successfully login and repeated explanations of what a network drive was seemed to go right over her head. He then showed her how to open documents in Excel and Word on the network drive but she didn't seem to understand that either. E-mail usage was even worse. Saving files was somewhat of a mystery to her and 'Save-As' really got her confused. It took him over three hours just to cover those deep subjects to the point where she seemed to understand and he got her to sign off on a sheet showing that he did his job and she was ready to begin work. Just before he left he reminded her to practice what she had learned and if she got stuck, give him a call. He then said, "After you do this for a few months, it will become so natural that you won't even think about it." But her reply really floored him when she whispered, "I don't think I'll be doing it that long. Uncle Jake [company CEO] just wants me to do this for a few weeks so it won't look so obvious when they make me the Vice-President over Marketing." When that happened, he updated his resume and found work with a firm whose employees were a bit less intellectually challenged. ;^)