From the Wall Street Journal, Tuesday, March 1; Marketplace

"Befuddled PC Users Flood Help Lines, And No Question Seems to Be
Too Basic"

The exasperated help-line caller said she couldn't get her new
computer to turn on.  Jay Alblinger, a Dell Computer Corp.
technician, made sure the computer was plugged in and then asked
the woman what happened when she pushed the power button.
"I've pushed and pushed on this foot pedal and nothing happens,"
the woman replied.  "Foot pedal? the technician asked.  "Yes," the
woman said, "this little white foot pedal with the on switch."
The "foot pedal," it turned out was the computer's mouse...
[...]

One woman called Dell's toll-free line to ask how to install the
batteries in her laptop.  When told that the directions were on
the first page of the manual, says Steve Smith, Dell's director of
technical support, the woman replied angrily,  "I just paid $2,000
for this damn thing, and I'm not going to read the book."
[...]

A frustrated customer called, who said her brand new Contura
would not work.  She said she had unpacked the unit, plugged it
in, open it up and sat there waiting for 20 minutes waiting for
something to happen.  When asked what happened when she pressed
the power switch, she asked, "What power switch?"

Seemingly simple computer features baffle some users.  So many
people have called to ask where the "Any" key is when "Press Any
Key" flashes on the screen that Compaq is considering changing the
command to "Press Return Key."

Some people can't figure out the mouse.  Tamra Engle, an AST
technical support supervisor, says one customer complained that
her mouse was hard to control with the "dust cover" on.  The cover
turned out to be the plastic bag the mouse was packaged in.  Dell
technician Wayne Zieschang says on of his customers held the mouse
and pointed it at the screen, all the while clicking madly...

Disk drives are another bugaboo.  Compaq technician Brent Sullivan
says a customer was having trouble reading wordprocessing files
from his old diskettes.  After troubleshooting for magnets and
heat failed to diagnose the problem, Mr. Sullivan asked what else
was being done with the diskette.  The customer's response: "I put
a label on the diskette, roll it into the typewriter..."

At AST, another customer dutifully complied with a technician's
request that she send in a copy of a defective floppy disk.  A
letter from the customer arrived a few days later, along with a
Xerox copy of the floppy.  And at Dell a technician advised a
customer to put his troubled floppy back in the drive and "close
the door."   Asking the technician to "hold on," the customer put
the phone down and was heard walking over to shut the door to his
room...

The software inside the computer can be equally befuddling.  A
Dell customer called to say he couldn't get his computer to fax
anything.  After 40 minutes of troubleshooting, the technician
discovered the man was trying to fax a piece of paper by holding
it in front of the monitor screen and hitting the "send" key.
[...]

...some end up damaging parts beyond repair.  A Dell customer called
to complain that his keyboard no longer worked.  He had cleaned
it, he said, by filling up his tub with soap and water and soaking
the keyboard for a day, and then removing all the keys and washing
them individually.

Computers make some people paranoid.  A Dell technician, Morgan
Vergara, says he once calmed a man who became enraged because "his
computer had told him he was bad and an invalid."  Mr. Vergara
patiently explained that the computer's " bad command" and "invalid"
responses shouldn't be taken personally.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
Zeigen's Source: Mary Beth
Author: Apparently an unnamed WSJ staff writer.