My Favorite Call

I've been in tech support for a long time. A very long time. But this has to be my absolute favorite tech support call:

To set the stage, DOS was on its way out as an operating system and the new Windows 3.1 was slowly replacing it. Since most people's PCs were running DOS-based applications, they would run into all sorts of problems once they had upgraded. Those old DOS programs just didn't know what to think running underneath Windows. Windows stole memory from them and even took their lunch money, so to speak.

Something told me not to pick up that ringing phone with only 5 minutes left in my shift, but I did it anyway. The lady sounded frustrated and wanted to know why her new computer was having so much trouble. I walked her through checking a few things step by step and the more we went through, the more frazzled she became.

Suddenly, I had a thought. Maybe they had upgraded their operating system. So I asked, "Ma'am. Are you running Windows?" Her reply will haunt me for the rest of my life: "Young man," she announced, "We are in the middle of the building."

That was all I needed to know.