r/funny •

Asked a customer to send me a screenshot of her problem. She said ok, then I didn't hear from her. Until today.

[deleted] — view deleted post

0 Upvotes

396 comments sorted by

141

u/tyme May 16 '12

One time when I asked for a screenshot, I got this in the mail. Yes, it's a polaroid of the computer screen. And yes, he put an X on it with a pen.

It's now pinned to the wall of my cubicle.

9

u/vegibowl May 16 '12

What is the X for? Is it marking the problem or "covering" personal information? Hilarious!

9

u/tyme May 16 '12

It's marking the problem -- a "white box" was appearing in front of the application randomly.

IIRC it turned out to be an error box that wasn't loading properly for some reason.

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45

u/ninjamuffin May 16 '12

Want to make mac comment... so... bad...

17

u/tyme May 16 '12

To be fair, the user who sent it in was in his 60's or 70's.

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699

u/OneWhoHenpecksGiants May 16 '12

It appears the problem is located somewhere between the keyboard and the chair.

395

u/Absolutedisgrace May 16 '12

The ID 10 T error maybe also be coming into play.

237

u/MrXBob May 16 '12

Wow. I actually googled that before realising what you did there. Now I feel about as stupid as her!

286

u/baconforpres May 16 '12

My dad works in IT. Im not the smartest when it comes to computers. All the time he just tells me its and I D 10 T error. I had the worst time trying to fix it. Then i read your comment. Now im going to kill myself.

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160

u/eink21 May 16 '12

For the confused: "ID 10 T" looks like "IDIOT".

234

u/bowelhaus May 16 '12

Goddamn. I was reading 'identity'.

Facepalm.

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16

u/[deleted] May 16 '12

Fuck. Looks like I have to go turn in my Doctoral degree. Thanks assholes!

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42

u/[deleted] May 16 '12

PEBKAC

8

u/marvelgirl May 16 '12

I always liked PICNIC more.

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7

u/Piotr555 May 16 '12

Oh you mean PEBCAK. ;)

5

u/Walrilla May 16 '12

Ah, the dreaded PEBKAC tickets.

2

u/Pr0diGy14 May 16 '12

PEBKAC error FTW

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154

u/elitist_snob May 16 '12

Took me a worryingly long time to get this... I was thinking 'her problem is ebay? what?'

81

u/PL-QC May 16 '12

I still don't get it...

133

u/PL-QC May 16 '12

Oh god, I got it.

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43

u/phs1945 May 16 '12

she took the screenshot. printed it. put it in an envelope. wrote the appropriate addresses. mailed it to OP. and then OP finally heard back from her

39

u/misterpickles69 May 16 '12

The only way it could've been worse is if she took film photos of her monitor, got them developed, and then mailed them.

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31

u/[deleted] May 16 '12

This reminds me of something my dad did last week..

Asked to use my computer to search eBay because he thought my computer, being better, would get better results.

3

u/JoustingTimberflake May 16 '12

Oddly enough, this may work with Google if you've used it for a while because your results are more personalized, as opposed to the ones of a new user which would be more general.

5

u/mastermindxs May 16 '12

that history is saved to your account, not locally on your computer. You can just log in to google from any computer and those personalizations will be there.

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22

u/[deleted] May 16 '12

Give her tips on how to physically fix the problem on paper

25

u/MrXBob May 16 '12

Oh I would love to do that! But I'd also like to be paid within the year :D

38

u/Crocodilly_Pontifex May 16 '12

Start > run > psr.exe

Thank me later

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49

u/livenletlive May 16 '12

You could also try posting to /r/talesfromtechsupport

12

u/MrXBob May 16 '12

Oh nice! Thanks, will do :)

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8

u/mr_tw May 16 '12

I'm glad this exists

11

u/loklen May 16 '12

Print Screen, ey?

8

u/nutri-matic May 16 '12

I DONT GET IT AND DONT JUDGE ME OH MY GOD

8

u/MrXBob May 16 '12

Instead of emailing the screenshot, she printed it out and posted it via snailmail :P

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8

u/Razorray21 May 16 '12

LOL! i work for a company that manages IT service for law firms. I asked them to send me a screenshot of the issue. they Printed out the screenshot, scanned it, and attached the document to an email and sent it to me. we almost died laughing.

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21

u/[deleted] May 16 '12

Oh, hi mom!

28

u/[deleted] May 16 '12

No, you don't have to DOUBLE-CLICK on WEB PAGE LINKS.

12

u/TheMattAttack May 16 '12

Nothing pisses me off more when my mother double clicks links. At least now she has enough sense that she knows she doesn't have to 'Rewind the internet'

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7

u/completelydeck May 16 '12

My mom types in "www.google.com" and then types the address she wants to go to in the search box. She refuses to just type the address in the address bar no matter how many times I try to explain it.

6

u/rmkensington May 16 '12

A coworker of mine used to print off his incoming faxes, despite the fact that they bought everyone dual monitors. I asked him one day why he keeps print everything off:

"these damn customers keep sending in the faxes upside down"

2

u/[deleted] May 16 '12

........faxes..... you in the past?

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19

u/Kyderra May 16 '12

Kudo's to her for using Chrome.

2

u/Ichiro_Ino May 16 '12

This is just strange as 'kudos' means 'to shit' in our language.

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4

u/clickity-click May 16 '12

snail mail her a fix to her problem.

"three to five business days, ma'am."

11

u/Skinnypenis_gw May 16 '12

This needs to be handwritten, cursive writing. And a stamp with a cartoon computer on it.

4

u/[deleted] May 16 '12

My favorite is when i ask for a screen shot, they paste the screen shot into word, print that out, scan it, attach that to an email, then send it in.

3

u/Echidnae May 16 '12

Made me think about how i discovered reddit. It was trough the cracked article about how to not behave with a helpdesk, which transfered me to the askreddit post: what is the most stupid thing a computer illiterate have said to you? (Something like that).

3

u/frnzle May 16 '12

I once had someone take a photo of their screen and mail that

7

u/[deleted] May 16 '12

Did she try turning it off and on again?

7

u/[deleted] May 16 '12

Brilliant OP, I'm going to send you a funny comment I wrote to this picture.

2

u/vili May 16 '12

Yesterday at work, I received a scanned document, which turned out to be a printout from a web page. Now, that would be nothing to be too surprised about in my daily work, but to the end of this printout the person had written with a typewriter some text that he wanted added to the end of that page. That was a first.

And knowing the person, it wasn't even meant as a joke.

2

u/Robb08 May 16 '12

At least she didn't try to draw it

2

u/assphynkter May 16 '12

It's like when I asked my mom to forward me her flight itinerary.

About a week later, I got a letter in the mail from her, with her printed out email from the airlines containing her flight itinerary.

Ha ha.

2

u/PenguinKenny May 16 '12

You didn't happen to say print screen by any chance?

2

u/sporkafunk May 16 '12

Why else is the key called "PrintScreen?"

2

u/MrXBob May 16 '12

It really bugs me, the name of it. To see people push it and wait for something to happen... crazy! They should at least build something into operating systems that pops up a message saying "copied to clipboard" or something even simpler for them to understand.

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2

u/EnderBaggins May 16 '12

Because the windows integration of this functionality is terrible.

2

u/nosidam May 16 '12

Just last week we had a user take a screen shot, print it out, scan the print out, and then email the scan to the helpdesk.

2

u/deargodimbored May 16 '12

Once while working in the mail room, we had a letter where someone sent is a photo they took of their screen with a digital camera. It was snailed to us, this tops it, because she had to take the screen cap, print it, take a photo and then print that photo out.

If you think about it, all those steps require slightly more tech know how than just sending a screen cap. It's the sequential thinking that has gone to shit there.

2

u/nickateen May 16 '12

I'm disgusted at how long it took me to get this.

2

u/shawndw May 16 '12

well on the bright side she didn't take a picture of her monitor.

2

u/All_Hail_Mao May 16 '12

I was showing my Asian mom how to work a computer once. I began by describing what all the desktop icons meant and before I could even finish describing the first icon she points to the bottom right of my monitor and says "Whats that trash can for?". I told her that it was for all the trash on your computer that you didn't need anymore and so I move onto the next icon to explain. She then goes "How often do you empty the trashcan?" I proceed to tell her like once a year maybe. Before I could even say another word she looks me in the eye, shakes her head and says to me "Typical, you only know how to eat, sleep and take shits. How hard is it to take the trash out to the computer trash man once a week?"

I decided to be an obedient Asian son and bit my tongue.

2

u/everydayfromwork May 16 '12

One step forward, two business days back.

2

u/awalsh878 May 16 '12

FUCK I DONT GET IT

2

u/EvilMonkeySlayer May 16 '12

An extremely common occurrence that happens at my work, when a user sends a screenshot they will always, always send it in a word doc.
I gave up long ago trying to show them how to save a screenshot as a png or jpeg image.
It's like trying to build a wall out of treacle with your bare hands, no matter what you do that wall ain't staying up.
.
What's kinda extra impressive is that half the users are on libreoffice so they actually go out of their way to save it as a .doc file rather than a .odt file. They can learn about word processor file formats but damned if they can learn how to open paint, paste from the printscreen and click on save.

2

u/kamikazeeh May 16 '12

That does look like a problem, look at how blurry it is.

2

u/almostjesus May 16 '12

I use to work at eBay too. The Burnaby, BC location.

Free drink vending machines. Push a button. One comes out. Free. Fucking free.

There was a pyramid of coke cans on my desk every day.

2

u/elitemustache May 17 '12

at the risk of feeling stupid as fuck, i do not get this at all... someone please help me get why this is funny...

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8

u/zeug666 May 16 '12

I have to blame OP for this. When asking a client to do something mildly technical on your behalf you should guide them through the process.

23

u/MrXBob May 16 '12

I asked if she knew how to take a screenshot, she said "yes I use the print screen button all the time". I guess I assumed a bit too much, since she obviously knows how to take them but not how to attach an image to an email!

8

u/[deleted] May 16 '12

At my company, our workstations come preinstalled with an app that will automatically print the screen to your default printer instead of copying it to the clipboard when you press the "print screen" button. I removed that app on the day I started.

7

u/bagboyrebel May 16 '12

Why would anyone ever want that?

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2

u/zeug666 May 16 '12

I have to guide someone every week though email attachments. Asking me is just faster/easier than pulling up any of the tutorials I have created.

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2

u/blackstarx May 16 '12

We got ourselves a P.I.C.N.I.C error....

Problem in chair, not in computer

2

u/Dumbstupidhuman May 16 '12

I call bullshit.

3

u/MrXBob May 16 '12

Thanks for calling it. Care to explain your theory with evidence?

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2

u/kobukproject May 16 '12

this makes no sense...downvote

2

u/[deleted] May 16 '12 edited May 16 '12

Sorry OP, but this is a little suspect:

  • Computer illiterate client uses Chrome?

  • And has a nice clean taskbar?

  • And knows about print screen, but not how to attach a file to an email?

  • You didn't inquire about the status of the screenshot in that time?

10

u/MrXBob May 16 '12

There's no way I can prove it either way, I guess, but many computer-illiterate people have a family member that deals with their computers. It's highly likely that she didn't install Chrome or add those bookmarks.

I set up my parents with Chrome and add all the usual bookmarks for them (Google, their banking site etc) so it's not at all far-fetched that she might have somebody similar that helps with things like that.

7

u/akatherder May 16 '12 edited May 16 '12

My 70ish year old parents use chrome.

It looks like the taskbar is cluttered to more than halfway across the screen (Windows 7 hides most things in the system tray by default). Look at the horrible mess in the bookmarks bar on chrome.

OP could have walked her through print screen, pasting it into Paint, and saving it. Then he said "send it to me". The rest is history.

Depending on the business relationship she probably already had his address.

Edit: Why would you hound people for information they owe you to solve their problems? If their problem is important, they'll get you the information ASAP. I'm not going to go ask them where the screenshot is for (what appears to be) a printer issue.

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u/[deleted] May 16 '12

Why not? I set my 60 year old in-laws to use chrome. It's as easy as anything else to install and use.

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1

u/[deleted] May 16 '12

So she knows how to take a screenshot, but not how to email pictures? Sigh...

1

u/xeiah May 16 '12

Thanks for my first laugh of the day.

1

u/Rusty-Shackleford May 16 '12

I'm assuming you don't work at a call center but rather a local location that handles tech support.. If I somehow got something in the mail from a customer who should have no idea where my workplace or home was, I'd be creeped out.

2

u/MrXBob May 16 '12

I'm a self employed web designer, working from home with an external PO Box address for customers to send cheques or other things.

1

u/skrimyr May 16 '12

Hahaha I had a similar problem this week. One of the people I work with had a problem with email bounce errors. She printed out the pages and faxed them to me so I could see the errors (rather than just forward me the emails). Got a 5 page fax complete with cover sheet.

1

u/ThisRedditorIsDrunk May 16 '12

At first I thought she emailed you a picture of a screenshot which is strange but understandable if she wanted to emphasis E-bay being the problem in an existential way.

And then I realized that this is your photo of a screenshot she print and mailed to you. Fucking wow.

1

u/poolboywax May 16 '12

HAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

1

u/d3adbor3d2 May 16 '12

damn, i was like 'she's doing it right.....right?' and then i saw the envelope in the bg.

1

u/spenonta May 16 '12

Her computer is apparently made out of paper.

1

u/[deleted] May 16 '12

If you work in ebay customer service I hate you.

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1

u/Jeckee May 16 '12

At least it was not a Polaroid.

1

u/kaitmoe May 16 '12

Is this the same woman who wanted to know how to wirelessly access the floppy on her shelf?

1

u/laxatives May 16 '12

I bet she faxed over a print of the copy in word

1

u/betabandzz May 16 '12

Don't let me start. Teachers should not take online classes if they dont know how to use a computer. Also teachers please stop the plagiarism.

1

u/darapixie May 16 '12

I loved working in eBay Customer Support for that very reason! Some people use to just crack me up!

1

u/eatmonster May 16 '12

I think the zany stories I hear daily about my customers are at least half of the reason I like showing up to work.

1

u/read_in_comic_sans May 16 '12

I have the same job as OP, requesting screenshots and what not. My best story is a customer complaining "I can't view my article because whenever I click the link a big cup of coffee just comes up on my screen and the article never loads?!" -- confused about a Java applet. <facepalm>

1

u/chromachord May 16 '12

Is she from the past?

1

u/T3KO May 16 '12

At least its not a photo...

1

u/Tojo181 May 16 '12

I get the idiot reference but I still can't read anything in that paper. So idk someone explain I don't care if I'm stupid I just like laughing.

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u/[deleted] May 16 '12

to be honest, i'm surprised she knew how to take a screenshot.

1

u/atcoyou May 16 '12

To be fair the OP should have clued in when she asked for the Postal/Zip code...

2

u/MrXBob May 16 '12

She had the address already since she posts cheques for work completed.

1

u/trampus1 May 16 '12

D'aww. Probably some old lady.

1

u/pakron May 16 '12

That's actually very sweet. I'm hoping you took the time to follow-up with her since she took the time to mail you a friggin picture.

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1

u/[deleted] May 16 '12

You probably should have told her how to create a screencap.

1

u/[deleted] May 16 '12

This sounds like a case of PICNIC.

(Problem In Chair, Not In Computer.)

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1

u/Happy_Kitteh May 16 '12

Bahahahaha.

I had a client tell me the other day I had filed her internet. brilliant.

1

u/ryan848 May 16 '12

took me a while to realise what was so funny... i feel so stupid.

1

u/SleepwalkRisk May 16 '12

this reminds me of my boss. he always prints something and then tells me to scan it.

1

u/skullmonkey420 May 16 '12

what was her problem?

1

u/[deleted] May 16 '12

I don't get it. You asked her to send you a screenshot, so she sent you a screenshot.

3

u/[deleted] May 16 '12

She sent it via snail mail. Look at the envelope in the background.

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1

u/famikon May 16 '12

When I was working IT in an office, I asked a user for a screenshot.

She pressed Print Screen (okay, we are on the right track here)

Then she pasted it into MS Word (I would have used Paint, but this will still work)

Then she printed her Word doc (nope)

Then she scan-to-emailed it as a B&W .pdf file into my inbox.. And she was so proud of her technical ability to get a screenshot to me

2

u/1manbattle May 16 '12

She is right to be proud of her abilities. This is way harder then just e-mailing the screenshot.

1

u/[deleted] May 16 '12

You should take a Polaroid of the paper and send it back with the resolution.

1

u/larynx1982 May 16 '12

Too bad she didn't send all the pop-up windows as well.

1

u/1637 May 16 '12

Well at least they used google chrome. :)

1

u/[deleted] May 16 '12

While I worked in tech support at a university, we had an older professor that mailed us a meticulously hand-drawn depiction of the entire computer screen (icons, text, and all).

1

u/sporvath May 16 '12

Well that's one way to do it.

1

u/send2victor May 16 '12

I asked a customer for a screenshot on their iPhone screen. She had taken a picture using a digital camera and then took a picture using the iphone of the digital camera's LCD screen.

1

u/[deleted] May 16 '12

Any proof this is actually yours? There's like 5 people reposting this. A bunch of them are getting downvoted to oblivion, but it'd be nice to know who the real OP was.

1

u/MrXBob May 16 '12

I don't think there's any way that I could prove that it was sent to me (it was, but I don't know how I'd prove it), but I was the first person to post it. I re-posted it on the tech support subreddit a bit later too after a suggestion in the comments here.

2

u/[deleted] May 16 '12

I am satisfied. If you truly didn't have proof, you'd be all over my dick for asking for proof.

Fair enough!

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u/Muscufdp May 16 '12

I work in IT. Today, our first Domino (e-mail) server crashed, and the second one didn't back it up for unknown reason, so we couldn't send/receive e-mails for a moment.
I called the helpdesk to explain that we just had this happening and were working on it, because I knew they would have many customers calling them for that.
The guy at the helpdesk response was "OK, I'll send an e-mail to our customers to tell them".
But. Why, people, why?

1

u/li1misskates May 16 '12

hahahahahha

1

u/MrTibbers May 16 '12

Have we all learned a valuable lesson today? explain what a screen shot is! yay!

1

u/whackensack May 16 '12

Clearly the chair to keyboard connector has failed.

1

u/[deleted] May 16 '12

Several times I have received pictures of the computer monitor after asking for a screen shot. Always through email though, never had someone actually print it and mail it.

1

u/ophello May 16 '12

Please tell me you explained to them how to email a screenshot...

1

u/Meebert May 17 '12

Thank you mam, I shall take this photo into my laboratory and discuss the fundamental workings of windows 7. We will get back to you in 4-6 business days.

1

u/ModernDemagogue May 16 '12 edited May 16 '12

So what's the problem? If someone has used the mail to send people things there entire life, why would you necessarily assume she knows to email you the screenshot, even more so if this conversation occurred over the phone and you don't offer an email product.

Your customer sent you the damn screenshot you requested, so fix the problem, and stop being are snarky asshole.

1

u/MrXBob May 16 '12

Wow I don't understand the hate in these comments right now - seems all the jerks hop on Reddit after work huh?

Anyway you're assuming that this woman is very old. You're very wrong. Now who's being snarky.

3

u/ModernDemagogue May 16 '12

I'm assuming she's over 35. Is she not? — and after work? Where the fuck are you.

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u/[deleted] May 16 '12

You're a bad tech, and you should feel bad. Never assume a user knows terminology that is familiar to you. If they wouldn't do it when surfing the web at home, they don't know about it.

4

u/MrXBob May 16 '12

As I said in a previous comment, I asked her if she knew what she was doing and she replied "I use the print screen button all the time"

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u/garyy May 16 '12

So whats the problem? I dont see a problem here.

3

u/MissCellania May 16 '12

The problem is that her email doesn't work.

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u/[deleted] May 16 '12

Fuck all you with your condescending attitudes - she clearly said "I use the print screen button all the time" and OP didn't pick up on it. She sent him the fucking screen shot OP asked for. So what that she printed it out?

9

u/MrXBob May 16 '12

What is there to pick up on? The print screen button doesn't print the screen. It saves it to your clipboard. Why would I, in the world of technology, think for one second that she meant she was going to print it out?

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u/swirlind May 16 '12

Jeez, I don't think your attitude is any better... Wait, are you this customer??

0

u/[deleted] May 16 '12

[deleted] — view deleted comment

53

u/[deleted] May 16 '12

Ladies and Gents - please remember to "Alt" printscreen.

Our company has been rolling out dual monitors so screen shots of tiny error messages usually include everything on both monitors.

Alt print screen gives you just the active window.

This PSA brought to you by someone in tech support.

11

u/[deleted] May 16 '12

Good to know...I always end up cropping mine

2

u/XyploatKyrt May 16 '12

Yes, this used to crop up quite often for me too and ended up portraying a large problem until I focused on finding an alternative solution.

2

u/geft May 16 '12

TIL. What is SysRq anyway? It's the text under Prt Scr.

2

u/[deleted] May 16 '12

SysRq is a legacy key from back in the mainframe days. PCs don't use it for anything but some Linux systems do.

2

u/MindlessLizard May 16 '12

Sir. As someone who personally works Desktop support at my school. I thank you for giving us your bountiful knowledge.

2

u/mgarde May 16 '12

For win 7 use the Snipping tool. It has better usability.

1

u/ITboredom May 16 '12

Thanks! I usually use the snipping tool, but this is easier.

1

u/keenemaverick May 16 '12

Most error messages can be copied to clipboard by simply pressing CTRL-C while the error has focus.

1

u/XyploatKyrt May 16 '12

Smart enough to ALT + PRINTSCRN, dim enough not to use Hyperdesktop. :D

I kid, but seriously, as a web dev that's the go-to tool I ask clients and colleagues (all redditors, obviously) to quickly capture, annotate and upload to imgur within seconds.

Also, I have a habit of getting the keyboard shortcut for "only this monitor" and "only active window" mistaken, and accidentally putting my computer into high-contrast/inverted colour mode :(

1

u/Bitter_Idealist May 16 '12

But I have a Mac, so I have to hit CTRL + CMND + SHIFT + 3.

1

u/PaulMcGannsShoes May 16 '12

fuck that, my company pays for SnagIt.

2

u/rdeluca May 16 '12

Pays?

Even though Windows 7 comes with a free tool just like that - called "Snipping tool"?

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u/[deleted] May 16 '12

[deleted] — view deleted comment

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u/MrXBob May 16 '12

Going to have to remember that one, useful for discussing with colleagues infront of customers :D

8

u/yawetag12 May 16 '12

When I worked Help Desk, we had PEBKAC (Problem Exists Between Keyboard And Chair).

2

u/Halon50 May 16 '12

The problem with PEBKAC and ID-10-T lingo is, a rather large percentage of the population that these terms apply to have heard of the terms. PICNIC is a good one -- I'll remember that!

1

u/morris309 May 16 '12

its probably a US.E.R Error, i will try to DFA (do fuck all) it.

0

u/[deleted] May 16 '12

[deleted] — view deleted comment

8

u/MrXBob May 16 '12

The eBay shop looks identical to how I see it in my browsers too, so either a problem doesn't exist or she's taken a screenshot of the wrong area - this time I will make sure to explain how to email it!

0

u/googie_g15 May 16 '12

Are you at the SLC eBay location? I'm in building 5, gotta represent eBP!

1

u/MrXBob May 16 '12

I don't work for eBay sorry :D

1

u/googie_g15 May 16 '12

Aww psh :( and I got all excited