Intro

Over the span of my 30+ year career in IT, I have seen a lot of customers and coworkers do some rather crazy things. In this series of posts I will share a few of my more notable experiences. All of these accounts are true stories. Some are merely funny and some highlight some rather stupid actions that IT workers experience.

This is part 1 of a 4 part series and each one will contain 5 separate accounts. These stories are deliberately arranged randomly. The names of customers, coworkers and businesses are withheld.

I hope these make you laugh! Enjoy.

Keyboard Kaos

Approximate Date 2005

My client had a dirty keyboard and he was trying to convince me that putting it in the dishwasher would clean it up nicely. He mentioned that he had found this so-called 'tip' online and was convinced that it would work. Naturally, I argued against the idea. He proceeded to do it anyway. After all, it was on the Internet so it had to be true. Well, cleaning it in that manner worked surprisingly well! It was spic and span.

A few days later, the same customer came back to me. He explained that his computer keeps randomly crashing. Hmmm, let me take a wild guess, - I sold him a nice new, clean keyboard, and the issue was resolved. I explained to him that water and electricity aren’t a good combination.

Power Play

Approximate Date 2001

Once when I was working as a network administrator for a company that had multiple locations. One of which is in Chicago. I received a frantic call at 3pm on a Friday afternoon from this location. This person was an accountant who 'knew a lot about computers'. The accountant said nothing is working, the entire network is down! My first course of action was to connect to it remotely which failed. Then I tried to resolve this over the phone. I asked some basic questions, Is the server running? Is the switch and router up an running? He said yes to everything I had asked as if everything is perfect. Then he said, How fast can you get here? The plant manager is furious. I responded, I'll need to make a trip and see if I can get things going.

I traveled to our facility in a Chicago suburb just south of Midway airport, which was roughly 2 hours away. It was now after 6pm and the office had gone home. Second shift was still working in the factory but unable to record any transactions.

I wasn't the person who did the initial setup and configuration for this location. The server room did not have a rack. It was just a single tower server on a cafeteria style table and everything was plugged into a power strip under the right end of the table. (A racck and UPS would be things that I added later.) There was a second computer on the other end of the table that was setup as a workstation. I spotted the problem immediately.

All of the equipment on the table was dark and without power. I flipped the switch on the power strip and brought the server, router and switches up. It took only a few minutes. The plant manager walked in and wanted an explanation. I told the truth. Someone flipped the power switch and killed the power to all the equipment. His jaw dropped, but at the same time he was grateful that it wasn't a bigger issue. I booked myself a room at the near by Hilton and put it on my expense report. It was never determined who turned things off, but I suspect it was an employee who may have simply bumped it with his foot.

Teaching a Lesson

Approximate Date 2001

Back in the days of Windows 98 computers, I was working for a financially distressed company. One of the sales people stormed into my office demanding a new laptop. He had a Micron Transport XKE. I explained that I was not able to approve the purchase of a new laptop as I don't control the budget. He then dropped his laptop about 4 feet above my desk and let it crash down.

Needless to say, it damaged the old laptop beyond repair. The screen and the drive were both gone. (Solid State Drives were not a thing yet.)

Well he did end up receiving a different laptop. The IT manager suggested I give him an identical Micron XKE from another employee that had recently left the company. The salesperson was never disciplined by the company, but he didn't get his way either. Coworkers that act like this always go directly to the bottom of my priority list.

Just Yank It!

Approximate Date 2015

A client called with a problem. He explained to me that he was moving and needed to disconnect his desktop. He went on to tell me that he could not figure out how to unplug the blue monitor cable. He pulled but it didn't come out so he decided to just yank it out. He pulled on the blue plug so hard that it ripped the VGA connector off the motherboard. Needless to say, the motherboard was completely destroyed.

He wanted to know if I repair the damage to the back of the computer and the motherboard. No I said, and I asked him why he didn't unscrew it first? It has thumbscrews. He was dumbfounded.

Unrealistic Expectations

Approximate Date 2016

A woman from a local machine shop called about purchasing some computers to be used in the shop area. She requested a quote for 5 'high end' Windows 7 computers to run AutoCAD. Sure, I can do that! I was expecting to make a sizable sale. She gave me her email.

I went to work and diligently looked up the specs for the current version of AutoCAD and came up with a competitive price in the $2000 range per unit. I quoted rather high-end desktops (as requested) with video cards. I genuinely expected them to want something even better but didn't want to go too high. I emailed the quote.

The customer was shocked! She replied back the next day and said she was only given a budget of $300 per unit! Needless to say, it was out of her companies price range. No sale.

Thanks for wasting my time! I eventually heard that they went to Best Buy and purchased cheap ass Celeron computers. Good luck running AutoCAD on those shit-boxes! It would be slower than molasses. I'm postitive they didn't meet the minumum reqirements for AutoCad. I never heard from that company again.