In the early days of tech support, Doug Cavaliere took a 45-minute call trying to troubleshoot what a customer believed was a "foot controller" that wouldn’t work. After searching through manuals and specs, Doug asked one crucial question: “Can you flip it over?”
What he discovered was hilariously simple—a foot pedal that was actually a computer mouse.

This quick story is a reminder that sometimes, the problem isn’t in the manual—it’s in the assumptions.

🎥 More stories from Doug: https://www.indexrgb.com/guest/doug-cavaliere

Key Topics

• Funny tech support moments
• Misidentified hardware in early computing
• Troubleshooting basics and customer assumptions
• Foot controller vs. foot pedal confusion
• The importance of asking the obvious questions

Quotes

• “I asked the gentleman, could you flip the foot pedal over? He did.”
• “And there was a ball underneath it… confirming that this foot pedal was a mouse.”
• “Not a slang item—but a moment I’ll never forget.”
• “Sometimes it’s not about what you think it is—it’s about what it really is.”