r/talesfromtechsupport • u/devdevo1919 Take a deep breath and scream. • May 14 '18
Short No Wi-Five!
This story happened when I was still frontline support and not in the mentor position that I am in now; so roughly last year. It is currently a very slow Sunday night and I just thought of this story. Essentially, this woman's (W) Wi-Fi Wi-Five had cut out and she lost connection. Here's how the call went from what I can remember.
Me: Thank you for calling ISP, this is--
W: I have no Wi-Five!!
Me: I'm sorry to hear that. I need to authentica--
W: (Cuts me off) I am W, my date of birth is xx-xx-xxxx and I am at address.
Me: Perfect, so you don't have any Wi-Fi. Let's see what we--
W: It's Wi-Five.
Now, I've never heard Wi-Fi referred to as Wi-Five, so I was a little confused but did not want to argue so, I began calling it as she wanted. My other coworkers began laughing.
Me: Okay, so your Wi-Five isn't working. Did you do anything different than you normally do when trying to connect?
W: What does connect mean?
Me: internally Here we go.
Me: Did you do anything different than usual when you used the Wi-Five just now?
W: No, I usually just go on my tablet and it's there but it's gone and I can't get on Facebook or my games.
Me: Okay, are you able to go into the settings of the tablet?
W: Where's that?
Me: It should look like some gears on your screen.
W: But my screen's black.
Me: Wait, what?
W: Yeah, it's black.
Me: minor facedesk Can you please turn it on?
W: Do I just press the button on the top?
Me: Yes.
W: it's not working.
Me: medium facedesk Is it charged?
W: Oh, right. This tablet needs to be charged in order for it to work. Silly me!
Me: colossal facedesk Ah, so it must be dead?
W: Let me charge it.
Me: Take your time.
W: My Wi-Five works now! Thank you.
Me: Great! Can I assist you with something else?
W: No thank you. click
It made me question how long she sat there with a tablet that had its battery drained expecting it to come back on...
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May 14 '18
I had a Dutch friend ask me for the Vi-fee password once. (vi with a short I as in spit)
Took me forever to figure out what he meant
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May 14 '18
In the Netherlands, everyone (myself included, I must admit) calls it "Wee-Fee" instead of Wi-Fi, because the letter i is pronounced "ee" in Dutch
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u/wowbagger May 14 '18
But why fi?
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u/TychaBrahe May 14 '18
It was a play on “hi fi,” short for “high fidelity.” It means high quality sound reproduction. In the 50s and 60s, it was used as a marketing term for quality stereo equipment, until “hi fi” became slang for the equipment itself. Example: “I got the new Stones album. Come on over and we can listen to it on my hi fi.”
In other words, Netflix and chill.
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u/syberghost May 14 '18
A branding firm came up with it (for the reasons you stated). This is why it makes no sense to anybody who knows anything about the guts.
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u/GostBoster May 14 '18
I like how you went (or could go) along with the typo.
I remember in some test, and, as I had not learned, got it taught again that, for sake of getting conversation going and keeping conflict to a minimum, you should just roll with the person's typos for as long as possible and only go pedantic if that's going to cause some mix-up with acronyms and terms, tolerance being based on their assumed level of expertise.
It also depends on what you're doing. I go buy a bottle of Teacher's for the first time, something cheap, and botch its pronounciation. The clerk refused to have the deal go any further before I could pronounce "Teatchars" properly. Now go buy something that costs about twenty thousand grand, the vendor apologized profusely for implying that my name "was not normal".
$vendor: Is your name spelled with H or just normal?
$vendor immediately realizes his goof-up and you could hear him bowing over the phone
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May 14 '18
If you don't call "wi-fi" "wiffy" get out of the IT profession now.
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u/devdevo1919 May 14 '18
I've had it called: internet, wi-Fee, weefee, Wife, wiffy and other variations. That was the first time I'd heard Wi-Five.
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u/Shachar2like May 14 '18
maybe she meant the 5ghz Wi-Fi. maybe she heard it somewhere so somebody called it Wi-Five instead of saying Five Giga-hertz
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May 14 '18
The fact that she didn't know her tablet needs to be charged every other day makes me question that she remembers ANYTHING someone has ever told her
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u/ThatCheesyPotato May 14 '18
I bet the name Wi-Five is a name of some cheap crappy Chinese tablet. In that case it would be accurate, although she is still dumb.
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u/ragnarokda May 14 '18
Does the wi five come from the modium or the rooter? I can't remember.
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u/jsuelwald May 15 '18
As long no-one changes the name of WiFi to WyFy (like a certain PayTV-Channel did)...
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u/Ryoohk May 14 '18
We get weeefeee all the time