Quirky Keyboard

Does your quirky keyboard make  your arrow keys move the cursor in the wrong direction? Learn how the Tech Woes Gods Remap Your Quirky Keyboard.

https://techwoes.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/tw-Backward-Arrows.mp3?_=1

Quirky Keyboard

Several years ago, I had a client who had a keyboard with arrow keys that moved the cursor in the wrong direction. The right arrow moved it to the left, and the left arrow moved it to the right. An obvious hypothesis was that her quirky keyboard was a defective keyboard, but I suspected differently. Since she had a cat, I thought that the cat may have crawled across the keyboard and managed to somehow remap the keyboard.  After five or ten minutes of investigative IT detective work, I discovered what really caused the problem – someone installed a Hebrew font pack!  A few seconds later, my client mentioned that her daughter had installed the font pack the previous day. At her request, I uninstalled the font pack, and the quirky keyboard problem went away. Imagine, that she had called a less than stellar call center. Keep reading. . .

What follows is a transcript

of a telephone conversation between a person with a quirky keyboard problem and someone who is not terribly helpful. Most call center first level tech support staff would probably recommend replacing the keyboard, which was clearly not the problem. At least this “tech woes god” came up with a more creative “solution.” Please remember that the names have been changed to protect the guilty and any resemblance to a real life situation is coincidental. Or is it? Maybe a little bit of both. I hope you enjoy my not so subtle attempt at tech humor, and welcome you to express your opinions and share your frustrating experiences in the comments below.  If you enjoyed this post, please feel free to share it with others. Thank you for stopping by.  Craig Herberg

Unhelpful tech support guy: Technical support.  How may we humiliate you?

Unsuspecting tech woes victim: The right arrow key on my keyboard moves the cursor to the left, and the left arrow key moves it to the right.  Can you help?

Unhelpful tech support guy: Of course.  Turn the keyboard around.

Unsuspecting tech woes victim: Huh?

Unhelpful tech support guy: Just try it.  You’ll see.

Unsuspecting tech woes victim: The arrow keys work properly, but how do I type?

Unhelpful tech support guy: Just stand on your head.

Unsuspecting tech woes victim: You make it so easy.  Thank you so much.

Unhelpful tech support guy: Any time.  Thank you for calling technical support, where a stupid answer is only a phone call away.