According to new media marketing firm Penn Olson, these are the top 10 questions posed to Ask.com in 2009:

  1. How much should I weigh?
  2. How do I get out of debt fast?
  3. How do I get pregnant?
  4. What is Miley Cyrus’ phone number?
  5. What is Twitter?
  6. What is the meaning of life?
  7. When will the world end?
  8. How long does marijuana stay in your system?
  9. What are symptoms of Swine Flu?
  10. What time is it?

Most of those questions indicate something bad about the confidence many of us place in the power of the Internet. The list did make me think about the kinds of questions that get asked at our computer help desk. Rather than list the top 10, I'm offering up the 10 I hope we never hear again:
 

  1. I didn't do what you told me, but can you fix it now that it's broken?
  2. If I didn't put in my backup tape, can you still restore my files?
  3. Can I keep using my computer after the power goes out?
  4. Should I have called you before I clicked OK on that popup?
  5. The salesman said it would be easy. Why can't you make it work?
  6. I just sent out an email to a couple thousand people and now I'm getting bouncebacks. Can you look at it?
  7. So I wasn’t supposed to open that Hallmark e-card?
  8. What do you mean I’m not supposed to work out of my deleted items folder?
  9. Is this trojan message good or bad?
  10. I didn't do anything. Why isn't it working?

Our Indianapolis IT outsourcing company fields dozens of calls every day at the Help Desk. We know that each caller us a customer with an issue that is unique to them, and we do all we can to help them. There are times when we wish we could have gotten to them sooner, but we understand that they use our IT services because this stuff is a bit foreign to them. If all of these questions stopped being asked, we'd have another 10 that we wish we didn't hear. Our favorite thing to hear is, "Thank you for fixing my problem."