True Story

[MorningStar]

Years ago before I had seen a mouse with more than one clicker, I was at my brother's house and my sister-in-law was teaching me how to do something on the computer. She said, "OK, now right click on it."

I was confused, "Write click? I'm supposed to write the word 'click'?"

She laughed pretty hard.

My friend was just telling me about her sister getting confused when her grandson yelled, "Help! I can't get out of here!" It scared the crud out of her. Turned out he couldn't get out of his computer program.

[dahlia]

Another true computer story - I am the computernik in my family and will get calls when someone has a problem. Years ago (think Windows 3.1) one of my sisters called with a problem. Nothing I said would help. Finally (since I was on the phone and couldn't see anything), I said, "Maybe it's frozen." My sister responded, "Well, it is cold in here."

[pam]

Wow Windows 3.1. Those were the days. :)

[BadWolf]

My fave (pre-laptops) is after about an hour of tech support via the phone my cousin telling new user to check the cords in the back of the machine for a loose connection. Dude was gone a loooooooong time, and then apologized, saying he'd needed to find new batteries for the flashlight:

(Wait for it)

Because

The

Power

Was

Out.

Headsmack! After that my cousin started all calls verifying that the computer was not only plugged in, but turned on, and that the power was on.

[MorningStar]

Hahahaha!!!! Good stories.

[Mahone]

Oh I've got loads of these from personal experience in my days of IT desktop support in a previous workplace many moons ago :

- Got a call about a printer not working. Arrive at their office 5 mins later, to find a mug of hot coffee sitting on top of the printer, and the kettle sitting next to it. The same kettle they had just unplugged the printer for, in order to free up a socket to plug the kettle in.

- Reports of a computer not working at the other end of the building. I get there and find the staff member shouting at me that the computer is once again not working, and won't switch on. I inform her that she has indeed pressed the power button on the monitor, but neglected to do the same with the base unit.

- Several phone calls about none of the computers working in a few rooms within the same zone of the building, none of them will power on. As we'd had several calls in quick succession about this, I request one of the staff members try plugging a nearby electronic device in (e.g. a fan). It didn't work. I put them through to the estates department and suggested they inform them of a power cut to that zone.

- Took me a good five minutes to resolve this one. A staff member was tidying their desk, and suddenly their computer starts randomly typing in characters of its own accord. I get the call and take a look, this kind of behaviour usually suggests something sitting on the keyboard, but there wasn't, and even after disconnecting the keyboard, the issue continued. I rebooted, checked for any obvious virus infections, nothing. I then removed each of 6 or 7 USB cables in turn, and after removing one, it stopped. I traced this cable to a bluetooth sensor hidden beneath a pile of paper. I took a quick look around the office, and found a box with piles of books in. Beneath these books was a second, wireless keyboard, still switched on. The staff member had two keyboards (don't ask), one wired and one wireless. As he was tidying, he decided to get rid of the wireless one and place it in the box, then piled books on top.

- During the christmas shutdown, the cleaners go through the entire building, taking advantage of the fact that it's empty. They unplug a lot of the computers to plug their hoover in. Once everyone returned to work, we'd get support requests for up to a week regarding computers not powering up - the worst part is, no-one believes you when you suggest its unplugged.

- Speaking of cleaners, one evening they managed to get into our server room - long story. Anyway, they proceeded with their usual method of unplugging the first plug they come across in order to power their hoover. Of course, it just so happened that this plug powered our file server for over 200 remote users, which didn't have a redundant power supply at that time (again, long story). That was a long evening...

- I was doing some work for a primary school and they had a computer with an erratic cursor moving across the screen of its own accord. Thinking someone had remote access to their computer, they called me to take a look. After convincing them they had not been hacked, I looked for the actual cause and found a young girl leaning on the smartboard in the corner of the room. The projector was not switched on, so nothing was visible on the smartboard, but the smartboard itself was still active and connected to the computer, and was essentially acting as a second mouse as she pressed against the surface.

- The same school as above, I had an e-mail about a computer not working properly, and making funny noises. I cracked open the case, to find one of the school kids had poured almost an entire bucket full of sand in through the vent on top of the case, from the sand box conveniently located next to it.

Edited October 19, 2012 by Mahone

[MorningStar]

Haha! Those are great. Have you seen the show IT Crowd? It's on Netflix. Every time someone calls, one of the guys asks something like, "Is the computer turned on?"

[Mahone]

Haha! Those are great. Have you seen the show IT Crowd? It's on Netflix. Every time someone calls, one of the guys asks something like, "Is the computer turned on?"

Indeed. I saw it when it was first broadcast on TV. The IT crowd is closer to reality than you might want to believe, in terms of both the actions (and reactions) of the IT department staff and the general staff they support.

[pam]

I have an IT guy at work that I'm pretty good friends with that thinks it's so funny to freak me out at random times. He remotes in to my computer. I'm sitting there watching the cursor go all over the place. Files opening that I didn't open.

He thinks it's so funny.

[volgadon]

I have an IT guy at work that I'm pretty good friends with that thinks it's so funny to freak me out at random times. He remotes in to my computer. I'm sitting there watching the cursor go all over the place. Files opening that I didn't open.

He thinks it's so funny.

What you want to do is find a different IT guy to remotely access his computer when he accesses yours.

[pam]

Shoot all of the IT guys are probably all standing around his computer while he's accessing mine. I swear these guys can't do anything by themselves. I saw them all in the breakroom at work yesterday. All of them standing around the Pepsi machine watching one get a Mt. Dew.

[Guest]

It drives my IT husband nuts how the other IT guys always try to talk to him when he's working. Don't they have anything to do? He has plenty.

[Mahone]

It drives my IT husband nuts how the other IT guys always try to talk to him when he's working. Don't they have anything to do? He has plenty.

No because clearly he is doing it all for them :)

[NeuroTypical]

Where I work, some phones are internal only, others can call out to the outside world. I called our helpdesk to request long distance ability for my phone. The guy asked me to send him a screen capture of the error.

[dahlia]

- During the christmas shutdown, the cleaners go through the entire building, taking advantage of the fact that it's empty. They unplug a lot of the computers to plug their hoover in.

Boy, there would be holy heck to pay if maintenance unplugged anything. They aren't even allowed to throw away paper or boxes unless they are marked 'trash' or in the recycle bin. No picking up paper from the professor's office floor and throwing it away.

Especially in an academic environment, you don't know who's studies/experiment you could be destroying if yo touch anything. I'm sure the same is true for a lot of business environments as well. Just the idea of someone touching my computer gives me the shakes.

[Mahone]

Boy, there would be holy heck to pay if maintenance unplugged anything. They aren't even allowed to throw away paper or boxes unless they are marked 'trash' or in the recycle bin. No picking up paper from the professor's office floor and throwing it away.

Especially in an academic environment, you don't know who's studies/experiment you could be destroying if yo touch anything. I'm sure the same is true for a lot of business environments as well. Just the idea of someone touching my computer gives me the shakes.

Different environment - clearly in the environment you work in, things have to be explicitly marked before they can be thrown away, which is fine. Although to a certain extent that is true in the place I worked at when that scenario occurred (I wouldn't expect them to throw a random sheet of paper away for instance unless marked as rubbish), if something really does look like it's rubbish but definitely isn't, and the world would come to a sudden end if it was thrown away, or a computer was unplugged, I'd expect it to be marked clearly as "do not throw away", "do not touch" or "do not unplug".

In that particular place, all the computers shut down nightly automatically, so they'd have had to let us know in IT if they wanted to use it for something throughout the holidays as well.

Edited October 21, 2012 by Mahone