Amazingly, there's a near-infinite variety of tech-support callers. Not all of them are
evil, however.
The Automatic
This caller has a problem that's very serious. It involves a certain system that he/she has already looked at, and it's just not quite giving the right results. But.. oh, wait, there we go. Fixed. He/she is sorry he called you and wasted two minutes of your time. This type of caller is actually one of the nicest -- he/she requires virtually no effort.
The Packrat
Often a cross among the Redneck, the Nerd, and several very long lengths of wire. The computer is six years old. The components are, quite possibly, older. It has a low-density 5 1/4" floppy drive and a 300bps modem. The caller has a subscription to an online service you thought ceased to exist over a decade ago. Your challenge: get Office 2002 to work correctly. Suggestions of upgrading will be met with lengthy rants about the price of computers these days, possibly including references to welfare or having one's credit card number stolen from a shady online "store."
The Kid
I bump into these more, since I work at a school. The caller has just come to school with a computer from home. He/she knows nothing about it, but his/her father has set it up for him/her. However, when the flood of viruses and system file corruptions force him/her to format, all the homegrown patches and tweaks that were holding the beast together become evident. This is your fault for suggesting a format (or reinstallation, or replacement of a single DLL) in the first place. Now how are you going to get that laser printer that was somehow soldered into the monitor port to work? In addition, of the forty CDs required to install every OS, peripheral, and program on the system, all will have been left at home because "I didn't think I'd need them."
The Breezer
An offshoot of the Mumbler and the Explainer. Rather than listening to your careful instructions, the Breezer will instead insist on explaining every error message to you... poorly. If he/she cannot get online, you will hear: "Well, I clicked on it, and it gave me this message: The system could not connect to the Internet because of a very serious error Blah Blah Something Or Other." The Breezer is physically incapable of elaborating on any missing details. Pull out your crystal ball; you'll have to guess what the problem is and fix it without any feedback.