skymut 0 #1 August 16, 2002 This week all the teachers showed up (after a nice, relaxing summer break), which means that I have had to switch gears from project implementation to support. It also means that I don't have time to post on the forums at work like I did this summer . I remember how I enjoyed going to training seminars, and during lunch a lot of us IT people would go to lunch and exchange stories about stupid/funny/nightmarish things end users would do that we had to deal with or fix. I thought it might be fun to hear some more of these stories. Anyone? Matt A well-informed person is somebody who has the same views and opinions as yours. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kingbunky 3 #2 August 16, 2002 ... my fave was a lab supervisor at a hospital i worked at. kept getting all kinds of odd errors. everyone in support had a crack at her problem, re-imaged her workstation, swapped hard drives, until i decided to swap memory. i went to clear off her assorted post-it notes, pictures of her cat etc. from her computer to remove the cover. amongst the crap was a letterholder at the side of the pc. i went to move it but it was stuck. i thought it was taped in place, but it turns out it was a 4"x6" magnet holding it to the case. i had to explain to her that magnets were a bad thing."Hang on a sec, the young'uns are throwin' beer cans at a golf cart." MB4252 TDS699 killing threads since 2001 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
skymut 0 #3 August 16, 2002 I suppose it isn't fair to ask about stories and not to share any... Now, I try not to be like 'Nick Burns - The Company Computer Guy', but I really get tickled at some of the things I come across. I had one lady who swore her computer was broke - wouldn't power up. "Did you check the cables, make sure everything is plugged in, especially the power cable?" "Yes, everything is plugged up right." "Does anything happen when you turn the computer on?" "No, it just sits there - no noise or anything." "Okay, I'll come have a look (thinking, might be a power supply, who knows). So, I get to her room, find the culprit computer, hit the power button - everything works great. She asks, "what did you do to fix it?" "Nothing, I turned on the power button." "Oh, I didn't know that button was there." Seems that she thought turning on the monitor button would power up the cpu as well. Here is a question is get often, and I'm trying to think of a real funny reply to: "Did you guys (meaning the IT folks) turn on the internet?" "We tried, but Al Gore wants to charge us for royalties, since he invented it. It really isn't in the budget." "We are replacing our huge internet on/off switch back in the closet." "We had to turn the internet off because our pipe to it sprung a leak. We called an internet plumber to come have a look at it." Help me out here... Matt A well-informed person is somebody who has the same views and opinions as yours. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
indyz 1 #4 August 16, 2002 I picked up a few stories in my two semesters as a net tech for a university. * I got sent to this one Ph.D's office because I was the only one skinny enough to fit between the aisles of crap that were stacked up to the ceiling. We had been having problems with unauthorized bandwidth usage (grad students bringing laptops and using Kazaa, and whatnot) so we were collecting the hardware address of everybodies computers, giving them a static IP address, then setting up the routers to reject traffic that wasn't coming from approved IP/MAC address pairs. Well, this doctor wanted me to give him the same address for all three of his computers, and he would just plug one into the network at a time. * I had a grad student with a laptop who needed to be set up for the network. I went to get her hardware address and giver her the cable she needed. Turns out that the only had a modem, so I sent her to buy one from the uni computer place. I ended up telling her 3 times what to buy, down to the exact part number, before she bought it. Turns out she thought that her modem was a network card, and didn't want to buy a new one. * Grad student left a plugged-up sink on in a lab. Lab flooded. Computer downstairs got soaked. I got to go see if it was working. The printer powered up with no error messages, the computer booted and I could hear windows started, but the monitor didn't work. I asked the prof about it, and she said, "Yeah, I turned it on to see if it worked and it buzzed, is that bad?" Turns out that she had done this while it was still soaking wet. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
