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As much as we’ve integrated technology into our lives these days, many of us understand very little about how it actually works. If updating and restarting my computer doesn’t solve the problems I’ve been encountering, I’m out of ideas. But thankfully, those of us who are less technologically savvy can always call up IT professionals to find out what’s wrong with our devices (and to embarrass ourselves).
IT workers on Reddit have been recalling the most shocking and ridiculous problems they’ve ever had to solve, so we’ve gathered some of their wildest stories down below. If you’re a fellow IT worker, we thank you for your service. And if you’re not, these tales might make you even more grateful for the field that you are in!
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#1
Back when I first started ages ago, a woman called in and said "my mouse isn't working!" I asked her if it was wired or wireless.
"I don't know! Why would I know that?"
"What do you mean? Is it wired or not? Is there a wire on it?"
"I said ***I don't know!*** This isn't ***my*** job to know it's ***yours!***"
So I asked her if she picked it up and walked away, how far would she get.
I was the one that got in trouble.
Clown fish 1 year ago
Comment of the day going to Mike for making coffee come out of my nose
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Upstaged75 1 year ago
A boss I had a long time ago once made the Director of IT come to her desk to take a USB drive out of her computer. She didn't know how and was worried it would break or destroy the files on there. I tried to tell her but she didn't believe me. I tried not to look smug when he came and did the exact same thing I told her to do.
TotallyNOTAFox 1 year ago (edited)
Had a teacher in business college that asked me to copy a folder with over 2.000 files onto his USB drive. He was very impressed how fast (less than 3 seconds) it took me. - His method was to copy EACH FILE one by one
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Anga 1 year ago
My father worked in IT. He said 80% of his job was teaching the difference between a single click and a double, and to check if the computer was plugged.
Moosy Girl 1 year ago
I’ve given up on the single/double click thing, let them open excel and outlook instances until the laptop slows to a crawl if they want. :p
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Sven Horlemann 1 year ago
"I want to come by and strangle you. Does it have a cord, or do I need to bring one?".
the_avenging_knight (her/she) 1 year ago
Could you swing it around you head and throw it at the nearest wall without touching the mouse?
Petra Schaap 1 year ago
if they just would have said "i dont know" it would be a tad more believable.
Kathleen McGann 1 year ago
The head of our IT department at the private bank that managed George W's money once bitched out a colleague of mine for not sending her the Word doc she asked for. He told her it was attached to the email she just replied too. She made him come to her office and download it for her because she didn't know how to do that. Head of IT. Officer of the Bank. We really need torches and pitchforks.
Id row 1 year ago
I spent my career in IT and there is no way I ever could have done support. I would have turned into Sam Kinnison on the first call. sam-kiniso...b771bd.gif 
RELATED:
#2
The unfathomable amount of CP that I have come across both professionally and independently repairing computers is breathtaking. From Mother to Grandfathers, cops to mechanics, youngsters to old folks.
It's pervasive and f*****g disturbs me.
I have an in with one of the local PDs and drop a note each dime every time. No passes here. If I find it on your machine, so do the locals and the stateies.
Strings 1 year ago
Recall hearing about a thief who stole some guy's laptop (burglary). Opened it, found child porn, and turned himself in along with the computer, thereby getting the owner of said laptop
Tabitha 1 year ago (edited)
There is a hierarchy with criminals, and the pedos and rapists are at the rock bottom. Even criminals have a line in the sand for what they’ll tolerate.
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Pheebs 1 year ago
Fixing computers for family friends. First, told the guy to keep his teenage sons off the pron sites. Second, reallllllly did not need to know my stepdad’s boss and husband were swingers. They had nudes of themselves and their friends on the computer. Saw a lot of old, saggy peens and boobs that day. Got paid in chocolate covered strawberries.
David 1 year ago
I cleaned off some mild CP once. I didn't report it because it wasn't 'pedo'. It was the woman's teenage son being curious about girls his own age. But I also couldn't in good conscience leave it so - deleted. I did inform the mother since technically it is still illegal even if it is common for teens to be into other teens. Also - while it was their home PC, she worked in a law office - so potentially very embarrassing. Also - this wasn't sexual acts. IIRC, it was just a topless teen or something like that.
Ephemera Image 1 year ago
You acted correctly. Even if they are kids his own age, he's guilty of keeping cp and probably disseminating it. Hopefully his mom explained that to him.
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Joy Chapman 1 year ago
had a friend going through a divorce. Lawyer told her to get info off hubby's computer for evidence of cheating and hiding funds. She wasn't sure how so she basically copied everything and gave thumb drive to lawyer. She got divorce and assets but no child support because hubby went to jail on child porn charges. Lawyer apologized but said as officer of the court, he had to turn hubby in once it came to light.
Ash 1 year ago
One of my dad's friends worked as a freelance Computer Guy in ye olden dayes. He was working on this dude's computer, and saw some weird files and... the guy was in the mob and they were files about illegal gambling rings. Then the client walked in and saw him looking at the files. Dad's friend literally left town and changed his name for a few years.
Michael Largey 1 year ago
Perhaps "drop a dime every time" To "drop a dime" means to inform on someone to the police anonymously via a pay phone.
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#3
My husband does not work in IT but he should. He worked on a facilities team at an expensive private school, and one day got a ticket to remove/trash a 75 inch TV. He approached the ***head of the IT department*** asking why he needed to trash it when he had just installed it brand new. The ***head of IT*** told him it won't stop shutting off. My husband loaded it into the work van and dropped it at our house instead. Later he came home, plugged it in...
and turned off the 10 min automatic power off timer. We got a fancy TV for free!
hungryghost 1 year ago
Sadly, the user brain defect is not covered by warranty...
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Panda Kicki 1 year ago
So he installed it with 10 mins power off time and then refused to inform them and instead stole the TV?
Valdemar 1 year ago
With all of the TV's that I've worked on over 14 years I've never come across one that has a set timer to turn it off after 10 minutes. Yes they have a sleep timer but it's a once and done setup that you have to go into the system menu and set it up each time you want to use it. For arguments sake though let's say it has one that isn't a single use design, instead of troubleshooting it at the school he took it home and went to the sleep timer right away? Sounds like he played the school.
Ali H M Salehuddin 1 year ago
Hard to believe in the stupidity of some people who's supposed to know better.. or to my own stupidity in believing this fake story.
Cooking Panda 1 year ago
Some people like to fall asleep with the tv on, but they don't want the tv to be on until morning
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Oskar vanZandt 1 year ago
Sounds rather dodgy... If the school replaced the TV because it was faulty (and not brand new) with another one, I could understand the facilities man taking home the faulty TV and fixing it to avoid it going to landfill. That is acceptable to me... this seems like outright theft.
Ray Ceeya (RayCeeYa) 1 year ago
75 inches?!? That's bigger than me! I'm not sure I have a wall big enough for that screen.
#4
Had a customer come in with his laptop and a bag of keyboard keys. He said he was working on his computer and received a phone call and stepped out of his home office. His cat found out how much fun it was to pop off the keys on his laptop, one by one and almost every single one.
Bouche and Audi and Shyla, Oh My! 1 year ago
We happen to enjoy toys just as much as soft can-openers do. It's just that you all are lazy. How can you properly pounce or bat a key if it's attached? How you all soft can-openers have fun just pushing them down, we'll never understand. If we take the keys off the keyboard, then there's actually some challenge to the game. *bats the A under the sofa* See? Much more fun.
Ovata Acronicta 1 year ago
Hey, that's not a bad bit of work at least! Gotta appreciate the worst thing being "the cat took the keys off" and not like "here's my toasty-roach machine"
Libstak 1 year ago
Just look up the make and model key board on your phone and reattach..I mean the letters and numbers on every keyboard are the same and function keys are in numerical order, so it's just the side bars really,
David 1 year ago
Also, even if you don't touch type -- open up notepad - press a button - see what character appears on the screen. A few keys won't be as obvious but most of them will.
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Seanette Blaylock 1 year ago
Good point. The feathers and, ahem, "exhaust" do not do keyboards any good.
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Joe Reaves 1 year ago
Cat can figure out how to pop them off. Human can't figure out how to put them back on without IT support. I see where the brains are in that household.
#5
Received a call from the FBI Cyber Crime division. Said be at a conference room at one of my healthcare clients in an hour. Got my team together and showed up.
Was informed that a large medical practice that used our software had been infiltrated by a hacker that had posted a video of himself on some kind of dark site walking around their large office (500,000 square feet) and bragging about his expertise and claiming to own our network. They played us the video. He was employed there as the night security guard. We quickly saw that he did not gain access to our net.
They informed us that he had given his notice and his last day would be Thursday. He has posted a bunch of threats to the dark site about what would happen that next holiday weekend, after he was gone.
It did turn out that he had gained access to the network of the surgery center in the same building. And he has used that access to remotely disable the HVAC system for hours at a time during surgical procedures.
On his last day, the FBI rolled up at night. Waited for the older security guard to leave the building to patrol the parking garage. Then knocked out all power and lights to the big building, lock all the doors, pulled up in about eight black vans, about 30 guys with submachine guns jump out, sweep the building, arrest him and quickly leave.
We were counseled to shut down the network for a week, in case he had planted time bombs to be triggered near the 4th of July. We did.
Turns out he had a young wife and two kids. Was offered a plea deal for three years in prison. Decided to go to trial. I was a witness.
He was sentenced to 11 years.
A twist. The pastor at his church testified as a character witness. Said he had never had an issue with him. Turns out the FBI had hacked the Church computers with a warrant and found that he had been fired as the IT guy at the church. Pastor was charged with perjury and sentenced to prison too.
Upstaged75 1 year ago
I'm literally watching CSI Cyber at this moment. Seems like this could have been an episode of the show! :)
Blue Cicada 1 year ago
2 high schools, 2 districts in my county. I was working part time at both, as a contractor. One day black vans and sedans pull up at both buildings, agents in dark suits head straight to IT classrooms in each building, remove IT teachers, desktops, other hardware. Agents meet w upper-level admin behind closed doors. Teachers escorted out in cuffs. Parents informed by email that both teachers "left to tend to family matters." Subs in classrooms until long-term, qualified subs found for rest of school year. Students saw this raid go down. Teachers saw this. Admin saw this. No news coverage, nothing. It was as if it never happened. Rumor was that financial shenanigans were discovered--illegal trading, or gambling or mining.
Ash 1 year ago
That thing with the pastor poses a fascinating moral situation: be kind by defending a man's character by committing perjury? Or tell the truth and be involved in sending him to jail when he has a wife and young children? I mean, the answer SHOULD be obvious, but the question is interesting nonetheless.
SPQRBob 1 year ago
And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. -John 8:32 The answer should have been obvious to the pastor at least.
Load More Replies... Joe Reaves 1 year ago
I understand the pastor was trying to help (probably out of sympathy for the family) but I'm pretty sure bearing false witness is in the nono list for Christians.
Mark Walters 1 year ago
What hospital? What church? I find it hard to believe that a pastor went to prison for perjury, that's exceedingly rare, and typically, if you dinged for it, then it's an enhancement to some other charge. It's also pretty unlikely that the FBI would roll up with machine guns to apprehend a single nonviolent offender, unless he was making threats or deemed a threat. More than likely they would nab him at his home at a time when he was presumed to be sleeping, rather than cutting the power to a business. A hacker gaining access to HVAC in a surgical center and going to prison for it would be something that would make the news, especially with the pastor angle. And, especially if the FBI stormed a building with 30 agents to arrest the guy. This reads like an action movie, but not much like real life.
LakotaWolf (she/her) 1 year ago
Oh look, proof: https://cybernews.com/editorial/ghostexodus-jesse-mcgraw-cybernews-documentary/ and https://www.darkreading.com/cyberattacks-data-breaches/hospital-hacker-ghostexodus-sentenced-to-9-years and https://www.wired.com/2011/03/ghostexodus-2/
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somnomania (she/her, queer) 1 year ago
why disable the hvac during surgeries? just to be an a*****e?
#6
An outgoing software dev put an easter egg in our ERP before he left.
Anyone who typed the word "RAPTOR" in any text field, would have a Raptor from Jurassic Park fly across their screen with a loud screech. Only 3 of us on the team knew about it.
Little over a year later during a demo of our Asset Management module a manager asked about inputting vehicles, the trainer asked what kind of vehicle he drove, "An F150 Raptor". So the trainer, as a demo, input the vehicle description and BAM!
**"RAAAAAAWWWWWWRRRRR!!!!!!!"** comes screeching with this Raptor flying across the screen in a room of 50-60 people, including our CBO, and most of our upper managers. My wife is one of those upper managers so she sees me in the back of the room trying so hard not to laugh. She gave me this look like "really?"
Our boss just calmly said "Well, that's not a bug or a feature. Looks like we'll need to fix that." He had no idea.
The next day he went back through the commits and saw where it originated. During an after action meeting he kept it low key and just assigned it to me and this other dev who knew about it to take it out. He finished by saying "And please don't put easter eggs in our code.".
Pheebs 1 year ago
I have worked in a couple places where devs easter egg things. Generally they’re for other devs, and not client-facing, as not everyone has a sense of humor. One place had rude ASCII art, which WAS possible for clients to find if they ever viewed source on one of the company websites. Current job has one file with growing not-rude ASCII art (dev only view), amusing names for functions, and overly sarcastic comments.
Tucker Cahooter 1 year ago
I used to say that you can bet your bottom dollar that there are zero bugs in the flight simulator, pinball game etc that the developers at Microsoft used to insert into the Office products (as opposed to, say, spending their time fixing the bugs in the actual Office applications...)
Bouche and Audi and Shyla, Oh My! 1 year ago
Easily Replaceable Persons. Early Rainbow Pruning. Every Redundant Petunia. Endless Robot Parkour. Evil Raisin Perfume. Excellent Ripped Parcels. Elephants Reading Polish.
Load More Replies... #7
I did IT in the mid 90s. I had a small vacuum cleaner I used to clean out dusty cases. One day one of the people I supported came into my office and asked if he could borrow it to clean out his home PC. I said sure and gave it to him. He then continued to stand there working up the courage to ask me something else. Noticing his dilemma I asked if there was anything else I could help him with. He, with a completely serious face, asked if the vacuum cleaner was going to suck the data off his hard drive. Now I, up to that point in my career, had never laughed out loud at a user but I couldn't contain it. The relief on his face was priceless when I reassured him his data was fine.
Mike F 1 year ago
Just turn the dial to ignore the 0's and 1's before you turn it on, it'll be fine then.
Tim Fawcett 1 year ago
Did you explain that the dust in the case is all the lost 1s that have out of the cables. The '0's being round go through easily but the '1's beng spiky tend to get stuck and fall out. Explain that to minimise the harmful build up of dust and the data loss it represents they need to keep all their cables as straight as possible.
Daniel Atkins 1 year ago
I have had a person ask for copy of the fax before I send it. This isn’t W. Wonka’s tv that sends candy bars through the air.
Ray Ceeya (RayCeeYa) 1 year ago
This reminds me of the guy on the canning line who tried to use the magnet we use to pick up bottle caps to pick up aluminum cans.
Kitty Swain-Evans 1 year ago
Was pulling new computer cable through a drop ceiling area. The desk ladies were convinced I was going to get electrocuted and kept trying to get me to stop doing my job. I think this was also the same office that called and said their computer (actually a huge IBM dumb terminal before the PC became an office standard) wouldn't turn on. Turns out they unplugged it to plug in their coffee warmer.
#8
On my way to a client site, the client called and asked me to pick up a pizza.
Me: "You are charged by the hour, you know that right?"
Client: "Yep"
Me: "What kind of pizza do you want?".
Pink kitty 1 year ago (edited)
@Ray Ceeya (RayCeeYa) Wish I was one of them!
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Joe Reaves 1 year ago
Client considers his time valuable enough that he's willing to pay the IT guy to run errands. Assuming client can afford it that's not an unreasonable calculation for the client to make.
Tim Douglass 1 year ago
As a young programmer, maybe 25 y/o or so, I was sent out to a client site to get some information needed to set up their payroll system. I had an appointment with the owner at 9:00am. I get there a couple minutes early and am told to wait until he's free. An hour later I had the receptionist send in a note that our on-site charge was $120/hour. No response. Finally at about 4:30pm, as he's getting ready to go home he comes and asks me what I want. Ten minutes to give me the information and I'm back in my office before 5. When he got the bill for 8 hours of on-site he lost his mind.
Danish Susanne 1 year ago
But I hope he realised that he really deserved that bill.
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#9
IT for medical professionals. Big institution. Doctor brings in a dead laptop, they killed it by spillin' something on it, they were stupid and didn't backup any data so my task was to pull the drive and recover their files.
Open up the laptop and learn it's full of body lice. Full. So I double-bag the laptop, call Facilities to report an infestation. My shop gets tented and fumigated, their lab gets the same treatment. Meanwhile I leave work, drive to Walgreens, get a couple home de-lousing kits, drive home, strip down in the backyard and de-louse myself. May have been paranoia but I ended up tossing my clothes & the backpack I used to carry to work; I even tented my car for 3 days (that was fun) to k*ll any bugs that may have hitched a ride. De-loused myself and my dog, too, just to be safe, and cleaned my whole house like I was expectin' the queen for dinner. I wasn't taking any chances with bugs that a) make a livin' by suckin' blood, and b) were somehow survivin' in a medical lab that had God-knows-what goin' on in it.
María Hermida 1 year ago
Why were there body lice inside the computer? I mean, if there were so many inside it, the lab and the workers must have been covered in them. They are doctors FFS. Couldn't they see there were parasites everywhere?
Dianne Dean 1 year ago
What kind of medical lab was it? I mean, did you miss out on some kind of super powers?
Sven Horlemann 1 year ago
So, with the Queen... how did the dinner go? Worth the effort, I hope.
#10
Not wild, but ridiculous: I drove 40 minutes away to look at a client's computer, who said the PC was not responsive. When I arrived, he said "Look" and pressed a key on the number pad. Nothing happened. I pressed Num Lock and drove 40 minutes back.
A week later, the same customer said his computer was miscalculating formula amounts, so I drove there again. He says, "Look...I type in that I want a pint, and it prints out a formula for sixteen ounces." After giving him an elementary math lesson, I drove 40 minutes back again and requested that he have his computer taken away.
T'Mar of Vulcan 1 year ago
When I was in charge of our school's computer centre, one computer had a problem in that there was no sound. Called the support people (a husband and wife who charged ridiculous amounts and always spoke to me like I was a moron so I didn't like them) and gave the man the rundown of a few problems we had with different computers. At the end I was like, "And this one's sound doesn't work!" Yep. He went to the bottom and clicked the sound icon. A child had turned it off. That was one day I really did feel like a complete ning-nong.
David 1 year ago
I feel like some of the blame here lies with the tech either being lazy or bad at their job. Both of those are over the phone 'fixes'. Ask some questions before committing to an hour and a half out of office. To be kind - it is POSSIBLE things are structured such the tech had no choice. But I have fixed many problems like this over the phone. The first one verbatim. "Not responsive" can mean a lot of things to a customer. Having them tell you what they are doing and how the computer is acting goes a long ways. NUM LOCK is a classic / frequent one for less experienced users. Our customer base was tractor dealerships all over the US. We only went on site for major stuff like installing a new AS400 system. PCs were fixed over the phone or, sometimes, shipped in if necessary. Usually it was not necessary.
Miomirko Buhtlić 1 year ago
Yeah, follow-up question is given in these situations. I had calls where I was told that PC won't start, but very quickly got to the information it is actually a piece of software that didn't work. Some people are terrible at explaining even the basic problems.
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WakandaPanda 1 year ago
This week I had a sales guy call as his Outlook couldn't send or receive email. Tried remoting onto his laptop, but non connection. Asked him if his internet was OK and what icon was next to his taskbar clock. Tells me he has the globe icon, so his internet is working. I explain to him this means he isn't connected to the internet, hence the email problems. Clicks on the icon and selects his WiFi, eh 'Voila' his emails start working.
Ray Ceeya (RayCeeYa) 1 year ago
In most other places a pint is absolutely meaningless. The 50cl glass which is close to 20oz is fairly common though.
Load More Replies... somnomania (she/her, queer) 1 year ago
to be totally fair, i didn't know off the top of my head that 16oz is the same as a pint. we have so many different measuring systems for weight and quantity in the US, and they don't all convert evenly. but also, it's easy to look it up and spare someone the time/gas/vehicle emissions.
Frank Nadolski 1 year ago
Used to repair cash registers at Sears (yes, I'm that old). Get a call for "strange writing on screen, won't work). I'm 45 miles out through heavy traffic. I called and talked to the supervisor and asked exactly what it was saying. I might fix it with the customer. "I don't know that technical stuff" "You just get out here and fix it!"I made it clear that if we work together I might get her up and running. She didn't want anything to do with it and said, "just get out here and fix this, its been going on for days"as she hung up. Because she called late on Friday by the time she answered the calls it was now an emergency call out with a four hour minimal and mileage. 90 minutes later I'm standing in front of a screen that says "PRESS ENTER TO CONTINUE"
Jan van den Broek 1 year ago
A coworker once (in the 80's) drove two hours to learn that the client intepreted "Press F7" as two keystrokes.
#11
I work with a lot of engineers, like literal rocket scientists. The number of really intelligent people who don't know what simple things like "can you minimize that window" or "let me see your desktop" are is simply mind blowing. I am thankful everyday that Teams added the ability to take control of someone's cursor. I feel like the more advanced a person's specialized knowledge becomes, the more rapidly their general knowledge declines. Some kind of weird inverse correlation.
kitten levels tokyo 1 year ago
You know someone is genius-level if they are wearing their underwear on the outside of their pants.
David 1 year ago
Some truth to this. I was surprised the day I learned the programmers in our company were largely ignorant about PCs and hardware. I assumed you had to know the PCs intricately to make them do what you wanted. But no, they knew their programming but didn't know some fairly basic things about hardware. Which is fine, I guess. It just surprised me.
LeMurierBonjour 1 year ago
True! I work with university academics and what they don't know about real life you could write on and fill the Moon.
I_imagine_even_worse_w***s 1 year ago
I had this issue once when I was working in another country. Both English speaking countries but what I thought was standard IT slang internationally was not! When I was setting up on a new system spent ages on the phone to IT guy who was utterly confused when I asked if I should enter my credentials aka login. I was told afterwards that said IT definitely understood me but was just being a d¹ck!
David Shaw 1 year ago
Well, they do say that an expert is someone who knows more and more about less and less until, eventually, they know everything about nothing, so...
Xerastraza Lecrutia 1 year ago
be amazed at this stuff. We have a CAD designer who can run circles around people with Design and 3d modeling. But wasn't sure which USB slot he could use for a mouse and keyboard dongle. He thought each USB had a specific function.
#12
Big company, couple of hundred users, each with their own network drive (hotdesking scenario, so they could get their docs, no matter where they sat in the call centre/rest of building). The server that housed the "home drives" as we called them, was running low on disk space, so we sent out emails to everyone saying the shared drives were for work docs only, and that we could see images, mp3s, mov files, etc, and that these should be deleted if not work-related.
Fast forward a few weeks and the disk usage has gone down, but still really close to full, so the lowest paid member of staff, me, was to find the worst culprits and report back on what the largest content in their drive was.
The very first person I checked had a huge drive (most under 500MB, this was 10s GBs). Sorted by size, 2GB+ .mov file, named totally randomly with numbers, like 93829084320834 - Opened it, CP. FML. The subsequent police-led s**tshow was not what I needed to be involved in at 19 years old.
Ray Ceeya (RayCeeYa) 1 year ago
Yeah, I figured that out from the last paragraph. 10GB of CP on a work server? WTAF? I'm pretty sure most "normal" not illicit pron collections don't come anywhere near that. Now I'm trying to figure out how I can quantize the average size of a pron collection for the average American. I really doubt that's something people measure.
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Strings 1 year ago
Fun fact with child porn cases. When you hear that they are being charged with X number of counts, that means the police could find X number of images or videos that were clearly of children. And some poor sucker had to go through tye perp's machine and look at every. Single. One
BoredPossum 1 year ago
I wouldn't wanna be the cop who did it, but it's an important job. That c**p has to be stopped.
Load More Replies... María Hermida 1 year ago
You really need to be a piece of s**t to purchase/produce/enjoy/distribute or whatever other verb you can think of related with CP. But on top of being a piece of s**t, you really need to be a total imbecile, with an IQ lower than the average room temperature in Celsius, to store CP in a work server. And they were warned beforehand!!! I do hope he got a really long prison sentence. Those people are rubbish. They should stay in prison forever.
Mabelbabel 1 year ago
Gary Glitter (former glam rock singer from the 70s who had a few No 1 singles) was caught when he dropped his laptop into PC World, a chain computer store, to get fixed. I don't think they are that bright really.
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Rick Seiden 1 year ago
I work as a consultant and our software can scan the network to figure out what assets are on the network and what's on them. It can find laptops and printers and so on. For Windows computers it can find all the software installed. I randomly found an "adult oriented' slot game in the database. I thought that this person should know that we know. I was going to send them an anonymous email, so I looked them up. They were in middle management. I figured they should know better, and let it go.
Maartje 1 year ago
My dad somehow managed to get a nasty virus on his computer ( He was very old and did not learn how to use a computer until he was well in his seventies) that caused porn popups of all different kinds of sick, including CP. I found all kinds of sick imagery in his temp files. He was near crying when I showed him, but from his history it was clear that he never went to sites like that. ( he would not have known how to clear his history). There are some sick people out there, even worse when something like this gets planted on your PC without your knowledge.
Bear Family 1 year ago
The first night I had a computer, the first time I went on the internet I fat fingered an address and landed on a porn server with popups that brought my 486 laptop to a halt. I was TRYING to get to something interesting but not that kind of interesting.
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Toothless Feline 1 year ago
It never ceases to amaze me how many people store p0rn on work computers and browse for it on their employer’s network. Not just CP, but any kind of p0rn is a no-no at any workplace (except those involved in making, distributing, or evaluating it).
Xerastraza Lecrutia 1 year ago
The amount of Personal files on our network is terrible... We also give every user a private network drive due to an old rule they refuse to chnage. We had one saleswoman using it as her personal cloud storage and had 600GB of pictures and movies to clear space from her phone.... We have found porn... and all sorts of inappropriate things... Users really thing their Private drive means no one on earth but themselves have access... Admins don't exist..
#13
Got called to investigate/unplug a laptop that had viruses detected on it. When I arrived, this laptop was in the open with the login information taped to the desk. This laptop was given local admin privileges by someone before my time for some application. This was in an office area that was always unlocked and 10 steps from the entrance of the building. No one was in the office as they went home early, including management.
On a laptop filled with everyone's information (SSN, names, addresses, and more), Limewire, games, p**nography, and more. The two who worked on this laptop just used it like their personal laptop with occasional work being done on it.
The laptop was promptly disconnected from the network, confiscated, and returned for analysis. Yes, there was spyware and we don't know how much personal info got out. This was reported to higher management. The two who used it disappeared quickly and quietly after that.
Ash 1 year ago
I like the term "disappeared" in the last sentence. Makes them sound like they were quietly assassinated.
BoredPossum 1 year ago
But with the password there, more people could have used the computer as well.
Maartje 1 year ago
For the life of me, why people use their work computer to watch porn and download risky files with Limewire is beyond my comprehension.
Elio 1 year ago
I didn't know Limewire still existed. I agree that looking up pron at work is very stupid.
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Robin DJW 1 year ago
I was the curator of a hard drive that HR pulled from a PC that was used in the night shift to view porn. I had to be prepared to testify if the terminated employee made trouble for my company after he was gone. I had to keep it for some bizarre number of years (records retention rules), but I was eventually allowed to destroy it. The person was eventually re-hired, so I am guessing he got counselling. It was a nasty little episode in the never-boring life of an IT person.
#14
My colleague got a call from a customer who was a Pastor as he needed help with his computer. It was a weekend, and my colleague knew his machine name so he remotely logged onto it as he in parallel started calling him. Screen loads, and it’s playing lesbian p**n, on his work computer, in the church. Needless to say it was awkward as the pastor answered the call a few seconds later.
lwolf1952 1 year ago
Sounds par for the course. It's okay, not many verses in the Bible about watching P0rnhub.
BoredPossum 1 year ago
Yeah, that's what I thought it would be when I read pastor. In that case "awkward" wouldn't be enough, but rather illegal.
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Alex Martin 1 year ago
Super unethical to log into a client's computer without their knowledge and permission.
Marla Singer 1 year ago
Yeah, um, you don't remote in before calling the customer. You get them on the phone or text first and ask them if they're ready. Jesus.
Nimitz 1 year ago
I used to be an IT guy and grew up knowing how to fix computers. My Mom got me to help with IT in 4 of her various evangelical Christian churches. Every single pastor has had a MASSIVE porn history. And 3 of the 4 had gay porn. Really, really great gay porn. I'm happily gay and proud, but those guys preached the homophobia of the Prosperity Gospel.
Nimitz 1 year ago
You can find two of the guys by googling Southern AB Victory church scandal. They also had sex with 17 y.o kids and then claimed they had moments of weakness. And that their "marriages have never been stronger" lmao
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#15
Drive to an office for emergency oncall service charging the client $400+ dollars an hour to plug the power back into a switch which their cleaning staff had knocked loose.
Michael Largey 1 year ago
No, he had to take the time to drive over there, find the problem, fix it, and drive back. His time is what you pay him for.
Load More Replies... Daniel Atkins 1 year ago
My boss and I drove 45 minutes to plug in the finisher on a copier that we asked if it was plugged in. We made a ticket with creative wording to make it look like we did more than just plug it in.
Oskar vanZandt 1 year ago (edited)
Doing field service electronic/EPOS/IT swap jobs, I have run into this a number of times... Usually a PSU disconnected from its kettle lead. I normally closed the job as an "Engineer Fix" to spare the customer/user embarrassment.
WakandaPanda 1 year ago
Same with construction contractors, they don't give a damn about what they unplug !
quentariel 1 year ago
I kinda understand some inability to solve IT problems, but the two things anyone should be able to do are shutting/restarting and checking the power plug. But almost free mobey for tge IT-guy I guess.
Rebecca McManus 1 year ago
Used to manage a 24*7*365 desk, the ceo calls from his manhatten apartment on Christmas day because his Internet is down. The desk may be 24*7*365 but local support isn't. After he spent 30 hours screaming at me because there is no local support available he realises the cleaner unplugged the router. No apology, nothing, he's in his 90s now and I hope he ends up in hell
Biana Weatherford 1 year ago
I will admit to being the nitwit in this type of situation. I'm looking at the bigger picture, not the simple step 1 thing. Ooops.
Seanette Blaylock 1 year ago
So far as I'm aware, just about everyone reading here is human, therefore error-prone. I'm now remembering about a year ago, when my husband and I got back into our apartment after major repairs (we'd been in a motel for over a week). The HVAC wasn't working. My husband is an electrician. He did various troubleshooting, to no result. Went to put in a maintenance request, and *I* spotted the circuit breaker in the OFF position. Reset it to the correct position and all was well. (smirk)
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ADJ 1 year ago
My father (electrician) once drove 700 km one way beacause of power loss in computers in company regional headquarters. Turned out, some office girl plugged electric kettle to socket reserved for computer use and tripped the circuit breaker. So, 9 hours drive, 3 minutes of work, and 9 hours drive back. Night spent in hotel on company expense...
#16
Someone recently called my helpdesk requesting that we clear the roads so she could get to work.
"The sky is falling and waters in the way"
Meaning
"It's raining really hard and the streets are flooded"
As the IT helpdesk, of course there's nothing we can do about that.
Dreaming Spirit 1 year ago
+++ Divide By Cucumber Error. Please Reinstall Universe And Reboot +++
Upstaged75 1 year ago
If only that's how help desks worked! Got a problem? Call a help desk and ask them to fix it. My current problem is that I don't have enough money. ;)
Sergio Bicerra 1 year ago
Ok, crazy explantion: woman calls her job, friend answers and she proceeds to tell the rain is gathering and can't drive to work. Friend says "those streets should have storm drains, like in the movie IT". "The movie IT?" "Yeah -friend says- they show a storm drain on the first scene, it keeps rain from accumulating" "Hmmmm... IT...-the woman thinks- I better call them"
#17
Got paid my on-site visit minimum of $375 to plug in a phone cord to a fax machine. The young front office person did no know what a landline was.
"Disembodied voice" 1 year ago
I've had to do things like this a lot. Please check your cords.
featherytoad 1 year ago (edited)
My husband used to travel all over the Chicago suburbs working on office copiers. Every once in awhile, he would travel and hour just to plug in the copier. One of those things where the plug wiggles out just enough to make it look like it's plugged in, but not making the connection. This happened to my dryer and my husband told me to check the plug. Yep, that was it.
Patrick Linnen 1 year ago
There's a reason why "Unplug it and plug it back in" is in the support script.
Load More Replies... Satya Bain 1 year ago
RJ45 goes from the port to the desk phone to the computer. Frequently, I get calls to take the phone out of it. It's called malicious compliance. I'll do it, then have them make a phone call on that desk phone their manager wants them to use. They quickly ask to have it put back.
M O'Connell 1 year ago
My doctors office doesn't know of any other way to send records or prescription refill requests.
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Purple_bio 1 year ago
hello, i am a generation Z i know some things even you wouldn't know, considering knowledge is only received when given if anything it's the elders fault for not teaching the person how things work also anyone can make this mistake, it's so simple you over look it.
Load More Replies... weatherwitch 1 year ago
Given fax machines are as outdated as the ark I'm astounded they didn't know what a landline was 😮
Ephemera Image 1 year ago
Oddly enough, many medical offices still use fax machines. I had a hard time getting my doc to send me a bloodwork requisition, he could only send a fax - the last fax machine I owned was in the nineties...
Load More Replies... Purple_bio 1 year ago
i mean i seen this in some adults to, it's not just young ones now-days, everything is tech based now-
Load More Replies... #18
Other workers screen shot her windows screen, made it her background then moved her task bar off screen. She kept clicking start but nothing would happen.
Upstaged75 1 year ago (edited)
That's an old prank! Good to see the classics are still around. ;)
Ray Ceeya (RayCeeYa) 1 year ago
Oh I have the second level for that prank. Do that, but open microsoft paint and flip the image upside down. Then you set it as the background and hide all the icons. You also flip mouse X/Y. The result is a desktop where the icons don't work, and the mouse is completely backwards.
Ovata Acronicta 1 year ago
Only semi-related but I've had my taskbar hidden for ages now. Not sure why that extra centimeter of space at the bottom does well for me but it does. Otherwise, kinda rude prank...
Gracie Mae 1 year ago
i once did something similar AND turned the pic upside down--my co-worker had a great sense of humor, but it was awesome watching her bring up her pc that morning!
#19
Take literal magnets off of the laptop so that it would work again.
michael Chock 1 year ago
Spin a magnet to make electricity. Spin electricity to make a magnet. Unless you are an electrical engineer, don't put magnets on your electronics.
kissmychakram 1 year ago
Back when floppy discs a) existed and b) were actually floppy, I went to a client site to upgrade their system and found their (bespoke) recovery disc attached to the break room 'fridge with a magnet "so it didn't get lost".
DaMonk 1 year ago
Also because many laptops use a magnet in the screen assembly to let it know when the lid is closed, and therefore when to put the laptop to sleep.
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Moosy Girl 1 year ago
Also a problem for teachers with SmartBoards or classroom touchscreens. >.<
Mary Gillis 1 year ago
I'm in IT and so many of these have me laughing as yep, been there, done that. I worked for a big bank and one of the higher ups hard drive failed. I go and replace the system and wasn't able to retrieve any data as the hard drive was just fried. I give them a new hard drive, load everything back on. A few days later, same thing happens, dead hard drive. I do everything all over again, reload everything etc. A few days later I randomly stop by their office just to see how everything is working. There are HUGE picture magnets all over the whole front of the desktop!! I just go grab them all off and say Don't do this!!!
#20
Lady from the office downstairs borrowed my bosses keyboard whilst waiting for a replacement.
When hers arrived she washed the borrowed one in the kitchen sink and left it on the draining board to dry out.
B Hobbs 1 year ago (edited)
The keyboards that are common today, a quick wash may not cause a problem. If I learned of this, I would disassemble the keyboard, separate the membranes, soak everything in distilled water, air dry, reassemble, might take an hour. Back around 1978 or so, an operator spilled a soda in a keyboard, lots of micro switches to clean with trichloroethylene, a few days of work. The operator had to help because they were not supposed to have soda in the mission area.
Gerald Ogden 1 year ago
They cleaned it with Trice? Wow... overkill much?
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Tiffany Wilson 1 year ago
Had a friend, some 20+ years ago, spill orange juice on her keyboard. She stuck it in the dishwasher and it still worked after. My gabbers were flasted.
Binny Tutera 1 year ago
So... I think we know why she needed a replacement in the first place.
Invisible Potato 1 year ago
i regulary washed my keyboards in washing machine, and it worked fine. once a year or two, let it try for a long time, and it was perfectly fine :)
Kitty Swain-Evans 1 year ago
Turn your keyboard over and pat it like you are burping a baby. What came out? Is it working now?
Purple_bio 1 year ago
ANYONE would know this is a big no-no how did they become a adult, i want to see their licence and REVOKE it
Never Snarky 1 year ago
Read if people putting their keyboards in the dishwasher Ruth no Problems resulting. Don't have the nerve to try it, though.
#21
Emergency flight from CA to GA because they were getting alarms on their new system, flew out at like 4am, got onsite at 9am, told to come back at 9pm. got a hotel, slept, came back onsite 9pm. Customer stated that someone used a cable from the PDU to log into system but plugged it in wrong when done. But they were no longer getting alerts. I looked at it, it was correctly cabled, apparently someone had noticed and put it back correctly. Left site and flew back home. 23 hour day just to LOOK at a cable label... they probably got charged like $10k to have me go onsite if not more...
kitten levels tokyo 1 year ago
I feel like “Cat Sitter” is a more enjoyable but less lucrative job than “IT Person”.
Pheebs 1 year ago
Yes, and it doesn’t matter what you do in IT you always get asked by someone to fix a computer. Even if you make websites look pretty all day, and have never taken so much as a class in computer repair, someone wants you to fix their computer.
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Nimitz 1 year ago
I had to do this once. Drive 13 hrs to an ethanol plant just to change an ethernet cord in the guard house so they could see the cameras (somehow they connected to the CORP network instead of the PIN). I then spent a week doing mild repairs that could have been completed remotely, and drove back. 67 hr work week.
Oskar vanZandt 1 year ago (edited)
OP most would have been reimbursed for accommodation etc. but would likely have been paid hourly/day rate plus OT for the job. Company he works for gets the lion's share...
#22
I had repaired a printer at the big insurance company. On the bill I wrote "mouse removal - NC". The client questioned my comment - "printers don't have mice"! I responded "they're not supposed to. The furry little guy is in the plastic bag next to the printer.". Eeewww.
"Disembodied voice" 1 year ago
My biggest enemy at work is the printers, it's always an issue with the printer
keyboardtek 1 year ago
The last day before I closed my business and retired, the 20 year old HP printer that required rebuild parts every year finally died. I had a satisfying cathartic episode with a hammer on that printer.
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Don Sayers 1 year ago
Our cat put a mouse in our printer at home. How do you coax a mouse out of a printer?
Comedy Clumbers 1 year ago
Printers are ALL evil and I would have no problem believing the printer lured that mouse to its death.
#23
IT problems are human errors and it's usually because something is powered off. 200 dollars to drive 5 miles just to hit the power button is more common than you think,.
nottheactualphoto 1 year ago
The 200 dollars goes to the company, not to the tech :-/
Load More Replies... Beth Wheeler 1 year ago
On the rare occasion that I have had to call IT I have already tried a reboot, shutdown and unplugged for a couple of mins. I have been working from home for about 8 years and about 3 yrs ago I told the IT guy I was ready to go on my back deck and throw it the creek about 25 feet away. He laughed, couldn't be fired remotely so I had to go to the office for 2 days for them to go through and I guess reload everything Everything worked except I couldn't get any incoming calls. They ended up giving me the PC off the desk I was working at because I had appts the next day and wouldn't go back.
Bill Swallow 1 year ago
IT Rule Number 1: "Is it plugged in?" IT Rule Number 2: "Is it turned on?"
David 1 year ago
If you can't tell them over the phone to hit the power button you might not be a very good (or honest) IT person. turning it off and back on is a persistent joke because it really does work a lot of the time. That was even more true in older versions of windows that had memory leaks. A cold boot fixed a lot of stuff. And an "off" computer doesn't perform well.
Oskar vanZandt 1 year ago
The caveat being that it's a good idea to turn the equipment off, wait a least a minute and then turn it back on... Sometimes clearing the stored power in a PC/laptop by removing the power supply and holding down the power button is also recommended.
Load More Replies... michael Chock 1 year ago
Before troubleshooting a system, first troubleshoot the "operator switch".
#24
Very early in my career, back when I was still working an entry level job, I had called in sick with stomach flu. I was throwing up every hour to hour and a half, had been all day. I got called by my boss and told it was an emergency, that her computer wasn't working, and she had something she needed done in an hour so I needed to come in and fix it, sick or not. So, in between bouts of puking, I drove across town and plugged the power cord for her monitor back in. Not even the end in the monitor itself, the end in the wall. She hadn't even taken 2 seconds to make sure it was plugged in before she dragged me in with stomach flu to fix it for her.
Dave 1 year ago
I'm starting to think all IT people should have a list (is everything plugged in?, have you hit the power switch?, etc.) and have the first question be: "did you complete the list?" Sorry, what was I thinking...
Maartje 1 year ago
The problem is, Dave, that people that do not know these basics cannot be trusted to even find the plugs for whatever it is that should be plugged in. I used to do house calls. They know how to turn on their computer and how to run whatever it is that they need to run , be it card games or spread sheets, it does not matter- and that is all they know. More than likely someone else initially set up their computer, plugged in the monitor, the keyboard, set up wi-fi or the hardwired internet and printer. They may have been shown how to do it but never had to deal with it again so if something does not work it is unplugged they are lost and it is REALLY difficult to explain that over the phone. Modern phones and video calls might be more useful to sort this out now though.
Load More Replies... Xerastraza Lecrutia 1 year ago
One of the major downsides to IT. There is no such thing as days off or vacation. I can be on Vacation half a country away and have to fix problems still. And get asked why i am putting clock time in on my vacation.
Gracie Mae 1 year ago
had one call for a printer that kept jamming, couldn't figure out why--turns out it also had a mouse that got stuck in the rollers of an old thermal printer...flat rat
#25
I was a solo IT department for many years. Had to run manual backups on sales people laptops. I run into a huge folder, check if it needs to be backed up. Turns out it was a s**t ton of pics/videos of the married sales guy and the young receptionist getting it on at a company event (the company used to get us all hotel rooms). I sat the guy down and said I found some s**t that shouldn’t be on company property. He turned white as a ghost. I said it’s all good if he deletes it/doesn’t do that again. So I never told anyone about it. I would’ve found a way to tell the wife if I hadn’t run into screenshots of their texts—the wife had recently found out about the affair. It was really messy, kids involved.
Tabitha 1 year ago (edited)
People, just keep it in your pants. You avoid so much heartache and hassle just not giving in to the temptation—-and most of the time that temptation turns out to be absolutely NOT worth all the trouble, and you wish you could get your old relationship back again, because for the first time since you gave in to that temptation, you realize just how wonderful your ex really was and how stupid you were to throw them away for the POS you blew up your good life for. And you deserve to be totally eaten up with every bit of that regret.
Steve Hall 1 year ago
Guys, if you can't keep your pants on at work, you deserve what you get.
Bear Family 1 year ago
WHY do people store that kind of personal stuff on a company computer? Never heard of an external drive or memory stick?
#26
I had to remotely install a spyware program on a VP/CFO's laptop because loss prevention was trying to gather information on him. The software recorded keystrokes, program usage, web history AND videos of what he was doing on the laptop.
He resigned the next day after they found that he had a girlfriend in one of the company's manufacturing plants in China. The guy lost a million dollar job for that. Probably lost his wife and home too.
Ray Ceeya (RayCeeYa) 1 year ago
I don't feel bad because he probably still got a golden parachute out of it and he can just buy replacements for all those things. Rich people don't get consequences like the rest of us.
Load More Replies... Comedy Clumbers 1 year ago (edited)
Decades in IT and I can still not wrap my mind around how many people use their work computers for non-work related and illegal things. Folks, we can see what you've been using your work computers for. We don't like to any more than you like to be caught. Please, just buy a Chromebook refurb for
BoredPossum 1 year ago
Judging from the other pandas reactions, I'm probably missing something here. So his girlfriend was Chinese? It's morally low if he's married, but what's the big deal?
Kira Okah 1 year ago
A VP/CFO having a secret girlfriend in a manufacturing plant overseas and resigning when the company found out? Quite likely selling company secrets.
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Dainty72 1 year ago
Can't wrap my head around losing that amount of money either.
Load More Replies... #27
Working with the Judicial system, it wasn't uncommon to see photo / video evidence of child abuse or neglect. People do some really f****d up things to kids.
whineygingercat 1 year ago
I worked in a photo dept at a pharmacy once. Had to check customer orders for that exact same thing. Police ALWAYS called. If only there was such a thing as an 'un-see button'
Joe Reaves 1 year ago
One day, hopefully, we will be able to wither wipe memories or at least unlink them from our emotional responses, eliminating a lot of PTSD and other trauma disorders. For now - Tetris is the best we can do...
Load More Replies... Valdemar 1 year ago
Worked in several photo labs, one I was tasked with developing film for the county agencies including crime scene film, it's more than just sexual abuse that people do to kids and it's the horrific violence that they inflict on them that made me realize that there is no God and religion is a lie. And before anyone gets on a soap box to spout their tirade about how it's gods plan there's no way it was gods plan for a 10 year old to get half his face blown off with a shotgun by his drunk father, it wasn't gods plan for a newborn to be strangled so severely by its mother that she snapped his neck.
Beth Wheeler 1 year ago
OMG I wouldn't be able to do that job any time I get a call for any type of abuse it makes my blood boil. My blood pressure literally goes up. I had a call I time where I had to call the clinic manager because of the situation and she said they have to go to the ER and police and Social Services get involved. I had to leave for an appt and my Dr said your BP is high today... Yrs and this is why... He was ok after that that.
Guess Undheit 1 year ago (edited)
The difference here versus slime with CP, you know that seeing it is a possibility or inevitability. But also that you're working to help people, not dealing with unexpected pervs found by accident.
#28
This wasnt at work but at a lan party. Had a guy in a CS 1.6 tourney had a system was constantly overheating and locking up. Opened it up to find it caked with dust. A few people split the job of cleaning it and I was given the cpu heatsink. I didnt have my tools and all I had was some plastic untinsels and with what was in the bathroom. The sink was too small to get the heatsink under it and the knife was not getting it off. So I just stuck the heatsink in the (relativly clean) toilet. All of the caked dust and gunk came off. I was able to shake it off, put it under the air dryer, apply some thermal compound on it and put it back in the machine. The other guys got the rest of the system cleaned up.
I didnt tell him I flushed his heatsink in the toilet.
David 1 year ago
Some PCs look like the inside of vacuum cleaner bags. Had a PC shipped in by a customer and it was one they used out at the shop or parts counter and had been sucking in dust for ages. The inside was so gross you could barely see the components. I ended up taking out to the alley behind our building so I could blow it out there. There was WAY too much dust to blow out inside the building. To their credit, I think they built a filtered box with a fan air supply that the PC sat in after that so all the air going to the PC had already been filtered once.
michael Chock 1 year ago
I have always wondered why more people don't just mount computer components inside an actual cabinet, and then run a big ol fan on it through an hvac filter. Just change the com0uter filter same time you change the hvac filter.
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Blue Bunny of Happiness 1 year ago (edited)
Okay, I misread that as an Ian party and wondered if there was a famous Ian out there, a bit like the Dave day (beloved TV chef Dave Myers who was half of the Hairy Bikers who passed away from cancer recently. They held a celebration in his honour and 41,000 bikers travelled to his home town to celebrate his life)
Maartje 1 year ago
My son had to go DJ somewhere and was freaking out that morning because he could not get his interface to work. I looked at it, grabbed it, turned it over and tapped the back a number of times. C**p flew out. I turned it back over "try again" and lo and behold, it worked. Ever since he comes to me with anything related to computers. (I do need to clarify that I used to teach computer classes but this was so basic it was funny)
Tabitha 1 year ago
Um, no bathtub? No way to put part of the heat sink in water in the sink, then turn it? I mean, a toilet might look clean, but still be teeming with bacteria. Yuck.
Mandy Delaforce (PC Girl) 1 year ago
But you didn't flush in the toilet. You flushed it in the holding tank, which is probably cleaner than the bathroom sink, as it's fully self contained and filled directly from the water inlet.
Tim Douglass 1 year ago
My BiL started having problems with his PC overheating (think 1990) and I was the "expert" who got to figure it out. His wife had a long-haired cat that liked to lie on top of the computer case. Opened it up and it was a giant wad of felt filling the entire case.
J. Oliver Scott 1 year ago
The stuff found in PC cases - dust bunnies, rats nests, insect nests, the list goes on
#29
Got paged one night because of a data outage. Turns out one of our on-call response folks went into the server room, locked themselves in, and unplugged several machines. This caused several data outages, which caused a page and thus someone driving in to resolve it. This was a major military mission critical system and this guy thought the best way to get someone’s attention was to break a bunch of stuff.
Ray Ceeya (RayCeeYa) 1 year ago
He got attention. Not sure he wanted that kind of attention though.
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Emily M 1 year ago
I think maybe they mean he got accidentally locked in?? He unplugged things because he knew someone would have to come open the door.
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#30
I just flicked a defective screen back to life not 2 minutes ago. Like a small laptop screen that just would'nt turn on even after taking it out and putting it back in. Then I get uppity and flick it and boom... Actual craziest was a fired employee who was wildly underperforming coming to give back her laptop. I booted it up and she had a contract and payslips from the other company she was working for with our stuff. She was dumb as a rock and HR tore through her case...
Tabitha 1 year ago
Like a well-placed kick to get the washing machine to start, or hitting the side of an old TV set to get the reception or sound to straighten out.
Ray Ceeya (RayCeeYa) 1 year ago
Turns out you don't have to be very smart to be a spy. You just have to be greedy.
just me 1 year ago
I'm thinking it was a double dipping scenario. Get paid for the same 8 hours from two different companies.
Load More Replies... Maartje 1 year ago
My annoying husband does that. I will be hours trying to fix something and he saunters over, and just touches it and it comes back to life.
Seanette Blaylock 1 year ago
Mine too. I've seen a misbehaving piece of tech start working right when he LOOKS at it. TV Tropes calls this the "Walking Techfix".
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somnomania (she/her, queer) 1 year ago
sounds like the cable connecting the screen to the motherboard is faulty, or the connection point itself. i've had to deal with that multiple times,
#31
Walked all the way across campus in the Florida heat just to tell a PhD professor that the reason their monitor kept turning off every few seconds was because the computer was in fact turned off. Then got yelled at for her classroom not being ready for her when she came in.
Also was told to "make sure these projectors aren't in the building by the end of day. Don't care where they go, just that they aren't here tomorrow" by my boss. It was more expensive to buy new bulbs for them than to just buy new ones so that's how I ended up with 5 projectors that lasted years.
Bouche and Audi and Shyla, Oh My! 1 year ago
I'll eat the wontons for you!
Load More Replies... Xerastraza Lecrutia 1 year ago
Ironically i also have multiple perfectly fine projectors... I just have no use for them but Didn't have the heart to just toss them in the trash...
Maartje 1 year ago
Now- wait a minute . "that's how I ended up with 5 projectors that lasted years" - if those bulbs are that expensive, why would OP go and buy them?
Patrick Linnen 1 year ago
Early projectors that had the projected resolution and colour range needed to make the display look the same as what is seen on the computer screen were expensive in part because of the special type of bulbs required. When the bulbs lasted they lasted very long. when they burned out, they cost at least half of the original cost of the project when new, and more so if the projector is not longer made.
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Krista Salerno 1 year ago (edited)
A classroom I worked in needed a bulb for the overhead projector. You would have thought I asked for the Arc of the Covent or the Holy Grail. There was an actual conversation if they had one in the office or if they could afford to order one that school year.
J. Oliver Scott 1 year ago
Inkjet printers, consumer grade laser printers, and LED overhead projectors are more expensive to replenish their consumable components than simply replace the entire unit.
Steve Hall 1 year ago
All the way across campus in the Florida heat, how ever did you survive that?
Dave 1 year ago
I have a laser printer at home that is low use. I recently, for the first time in decades, bought a toner replacement. In the past, it was always less expensive to buy a new one than a toner cartridge.
Russell Rieckenberg 1 year ago
Wait until you need a new drum. It could be literally twice the cost of the cheapest new laser printer.
Load More Replies... #32
Back when I worked as a help desk tech at a government facility- I was sent on a call to put in new desktop for the office manager as she hated laptops.
I set an appt time up in outlook for her, block out an hour off her schedule and swing up there.
There she is, a very large elderly office manager sitting in her desk. There under her desk is the tower I was to replace.
I introduce myself. She backs her chair up about a foot and says "OK, have at it." and powers off her system.
I stand there looking at the one foot of space between her lap and the spot under her desk. "I am going to have to ask you to slide your chair back as I need to remove and replace the tower." I state.
She skootches maybe another foot back and blankly stairs at me.
So, I hold my breath and go down under her desk. Thats when I notice the 10-12 filled pee bottles under her desk. Yes. Pee in old Gatorade bottles just tucked away under her desk.
I ripped the tower out and said "I will be back ASAP I need to clone your hard drive." and GTFO.
I sent my intern to go install the new one.
Blue Cicada 1 year ago
So... it's possible but not easy for a cis woman to pee in a bottle/use a portable urinal funnel to pee in a bottle. So what's up? Too far/painful to walk to bathroom? Sudden urge to pee, no time for quick walk? Bathroom is gross/unsanitary? Embarrassed to use women's bathroom, or bullied by coworkers? Criticized, poorly reviewed or punished for bathroom trips? Enjoy being gross? The action needs to stop, no matter why. I'm just nosily curious.
Bob Brooce 1 year ago
Most women can learn to control direction with a bit of practice if they're so inclined. Probably better to start by practicing in the shower instead of your office, though. Unless she was stockpiling d**g-free p**s it sounds like she had it mastered.
Load More Replies... Glasofruix 1 year ago (edited)
Not as disgusting but reminded me of a similar(ish) situation. I was in an office one summer day upgrading hard drives on users' computers, which meant i had to go under their desks in order to access the aforementionned devices. The office was an open space with barely any dividers and most of the office staff was somewhere else. So i'm on my last computer sitting across of me is one of the female office workers, very attractive i might add, the computer's under the table, no dviders between the desks it's scorching hot outside so everyone's lightly dressed. You see where i'm going. After pondering for a minute i tell her: "Ummm excuse me, i have to open the computer under the table" "Sure go ahead" "I mean it's under the table here" I point down. "Yeah, no problem" "Uh, you are wearing a dress" She looks at me like i have two heads, gears are turning hard for a few seconds "AAAAAAAAh. Now that you mention it" We had a good laugh about it and she moved desks the time for me to swap the drive.
Seanette Blaylock 1 year ago
At least you were decent about it and took pains to avoid upskirt peeks. :)
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Blue Cicada 1 year ago
HR needs to be notified immediately. Bodily fluids are a major work hazard (for you and others). Fluid near electronics is a fire hazard.
Dirk Daring 1 year ago
I've been in IT for almost 30 years. On seeing the pee bottles, I would have refused to touch the tower or anything else near it.
Patrick H 1 year ago (edited)
My guess is that her size made walking to the bathroom a chore. Also, she could probably only fit in the handicapped stall, but if it was occupied, she had to wait, so she just decided the risk wasn't worth the trip and started peeing at her desk. Even so, that's still a biohazard in the workplace, and she should have been reported.
Bob Brooce 1 year ago
Credit where credit is due. It's not nearly as easy for a woman to pee in a Gatorade bottle as it is for a guy.
#33
As a consultant software dev, I got called into a client office on a Saturday to help fix a hardware issue because the regular IT staff was non-responsive (they sucked). We were changing a bad memory card on a server, and my boss asks me to unplug the top box. I was averaging about 90hrs a week so I was f*****g cooked, and I unplugged the wrong machine. This was a travel agency call center doing $1M/day and this machine was in the call center server stack. We freaked out of course, and my boss walked out onto the call center floor, quietly asking if everything was running ok LOL. Luckily it was a benign marketing server and everything was ok. Lesson learned, don't let the software dev in the server room.
Bouche and Audi and Shyla, Oh My! 1 year ago
Better yet, keep the kitten away from Tokyo!
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#34
Had to spec out a state of the art, no limit small computer for the CEO. I give two options, one best in market skull logo on the front. The other not as good and no skull logo. I submit to my boss and he says CEO will probably never go for the skull one as it's unprofessional. I look up a plate to cover and add that in. Like a $10k computer alone, 5k monitor. CEO went for skull icon one without plate cause it was best in market and skull looked cool. My boss wasn't happy to be wrong.
PFD 1 year ago
Really brutal, edge-of-your-seat stuff. I'm still shaking slightly.
Load More Replies... Xerastraza Lecrutia 1 year ago
I really hate these situations... Our CFO demanded he pick his own PC. So what does he pick the best PC he could find on Dell so he has a 5,000$ gaming PC for looking at excel.... it hurts my soul... we also had to buy him a Huge monitor cuz someone else for a 32" one cuz of bad vision and he couldn't be out done by someone else...
#35
I walked into the office one morning to my CEO asking me to follow him to his office. He pulled out a stack of paper, almost a full ream, of printed p**n from our network printer and asked me to find out who sent it.
Back then, most of our office staff had their own desk printers. I assumed that this person had worked late and meant to print out these pics on his local printer. Our CEO only used the network printer near his office and gets to work well before everyone else. Obviously, dude was fired.
MurderMittens 1 year ago
Maybe i'm missing something. Why would he ask you to find who sent it if he was the guilty one?
Natalia Linnik 1 year ago
Not the CEO, they found the guy who printed all that and fired him. Some wording is missing.
Load More Replies... Dainty72 1 year ago
None of this makes any sense? No matter what comment you read. I read an above comment and that still makes no sense???? You can reread it! Makes no sense! Now I'm going to be downvoted because people have nothing better to do
Andy Frobig 1 year ago
My interpretation is that someone else meant to print it on his own printer but accidentally routed it to the boss's
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Ephemera Image 1 year ago (edited)
Most offices do not let their employees have personal printers on their desks. To clear this up, there are usually several printers networked together in different rooms in large office spaces, you can sit at your desk and send a print job to the printer in Room A which is designated as your printer. Each employee will have a login code which is how IT will find who printed what. But if you click on the wrong printer in the queue that pops up when you click 'Print' it will go to (in this instance) the bosses printer, which is in room B. So you have to be careful which printer you send the file to, otherwise someone else will see what you printed when they go to their printer room.
Tom Brincefield 1 year ago
I'm reading this and the comments and the only thing I don't get is why anyone thinks the CEO printed the porn and got fired. Unless English is a second language, I guess.
#36
Not me but a colleague had to sing a lullaby to a user because she said she needed to be calmed down. (had to might be the wrong word, but he did do it).
She was insanely unstable when it came to service workers. She was the head economist at the specific company handling a lot of money. So she was basically babied no matter how many times we complained to her boss.
She would call in screaming refusing to let us do anything while expecting us to fix her problems telepathically. She had non issues every day, so we basically existed so she could torture us.
Doofnuts 1 year ago
Sometimes people at the genius level are complete nut jobs. Just guessing that's what's going on here.
Ephemera Image 1 year ago
Naw. Just a spoiled rotten rich kid who thinks the sun shines out of their a*s. Very very few are actually smart.
Load More Replies... #37
We had an after-hours call to the hospital we work at because our new unit secretary in the ER couldn't find the remote to the TV they have that show where patients are located. It's also an application that's loaded onto every computer in the nurse station. She was fired a few days ago after trying to throw us under the bus for her f**k up.
Pheebs 1 year ago
This could be stupidity, or it could be training. Never assume someone knows. Mind you, it’s never a good idea to f**k over IT.
Karen Ballou 1 year ago
Never mess with admin assistants or custodians either.
Load More Replies... #38
Hiding a "k*ll switch" in the code of a web application we had because my boss thought the customer would try to steal our code. Just to add, my boss never used the switch, but they did stole our code, I already left the company, but as far as I know there's a lawsuit going on, I remember having to help my boss gather proof of it to share with the lawyers.
Jorge Gonzalez 1 year ago
If there is a lawsuit going on the lawyers might have advised against it
Load More Replies... David 1 year ago
A friend of mine had to use a kill switch once. He had a company that made gambling software casinos used. The software company got a percentage of the gross. Probably a small percentage but the point is what they got paid depended on how much people gambled with the software. Except one casino kept shorting them thinking they wouldn't notice. So they turned it off. "Our software isn't working! Fix it!" "We will, as soon as you pay us" He said that was followed by some "Do you know who we are?" kind of talk (implying mafia) and my friend's company was like, "Yes, we know. Are you going to pay what you agreed or not?" And in the end they did. Currently he works for another company. I forget the title but he's the programmer in charge of the other programmers and project lead. We were in the navy together in the 80s. He was just learning programming then and encouraged me to. I wish I had. He has told me some of his salaries and holy moly.
Ephemera Image 1 year ago
LOL! Threatening someone who knows where all the bodies are buried isn't too smart, even for the 'mafia'.
Load More Replies... 𝖊𝖜𝖔𝛋 1 year ago
Our devs used to put code onto websites or customers that hadn’t (refused) paid their invoices, which made the font a slightly lighter shade every day for something like 30 days. So rather than having to kill the sites manually, they’d just add the code after the first letter chasing the payment was sentand wait. They said it was much more fun that just disabling after 30 days, and made people pay their invoices more quickly.
#39
Explain to the Chief Technology Officer that having the prod server and its backup server sat next to each other, may well save cost on not having two data centers, but when that data center (also known as the stationary cupboard…) goes, it’s not such a money saving idea….
La Lucy 1 year ago (edited)
Worked with a hospital system that did this. Their data center was in the basement with prod, test and back up all housed there. Located in Houston the lost it all when a hurricane flooded the basement. Quickly created a second IT center, offsite, after that!
Joe Reaves 1 year ago
My uni IT faculty had main and backup servers in the same room. They got burgled. This was in the day of 3.5" floppies so students couldn't back up their work to anywhere but the main and back up servers. They lost everyone's projects. I think it was April/May time. Not sure how they worked that out for the finalists as I didn't know any but I knew a lot of pissed off 2nd year students. These days I'm sure students only have their back ups on uni servers and use their own devices so if you lose your work it's down to you f*****g up, not the people who are meant to be running the show.
Load More Replies... Bob Brooce 1 year ago
That's why I have my servers in a mobile cupboard, and far away from all the printer paper.
Blue Cicada 1 year ago
Keeping the backup in a physically different location seems so obvious to a non-IT person, such as I. Yet I have seen same-room backups used in several industries. It's like management can't visualize disaster scenarios, such as floods or fires.
#40
I used to work for a “non-profit” case management organization. Most of my end-users were case managers trying to take kids away from their s****y parents. All of them were issued laptops and cellphones. We tracked these devices closely. I picked up a ticket from this one girl who lost her phone. When she opened the ticket she CC’d her manager so i thought it was only appropriate to reply all, with the last known location. After sending them the address i got curious and plugged it into google. It was a well known adult toy store. The girl eventually replied, “I DID NOT GO TO A SEX SHOP!”.
just me 1 year ago
If she didn't, someone may have found her phone and gone there. That information could (possibly, though unlikely) be used to recover the phone. The with phone could have access to confidential info, so it would be good to know that someone else has it, and it didn't just fall between the couch cushions.
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Page intentially left blank 1 year ago (edited)
Google gets it wrong a lot. I have a strip mall near my house that has several stores, but I've only gone into a select few. Google still marks me as going to a different store almost every time.
What do you think ?
R Dennis 1 year ago (edited)
I worked with an overly self-righteous, holier-than-thou woman in the early 90s. I was into computers since the early 80s, so I often had 2 or 3 friend's computers at my house. Anyway, this lady knows I know computers and asks me to look at hers. I open it and her and her husband have different sign-ons. Going into his, there was so. much. porn... like tacky "Come play with me" stuff from early in the day. There were so many viruses and malware that I just told her it needed all of its programs wiped and reinstalled. She didn't care because she only used it for bills. Fortunately, it was the relatively early days of home computers so it took a lot of work but I was able to clean it out for her. I charged her $25, but never told her about the porn... so much porn...
Just_for_this 1 year ago
I had a call out for a broken computer, the remote guy had logged in and couldn't diagnose (you will see why) only thing he could tell me was the user said the PC was doing weird things when they were using the mouse. Got there to see what was happening - they had put their coffee mug on the CTRL key while rolling the mouse wheel.
Valdemar 1 year ago
I work for a state government agency as ET/IT and several other roles. I regularly have to send out facility wide emails about making sure to restart the computers to allow updates to take place, to sign out of shared computers, to lock computers when you walk away from them ( think high security risk from housed individuals). I had an employee that was moved to a new office to set up, got everything in place and asked her to log into her computer and she proceeded to give me her password which I stopped her at the third letter, this is a college educated person who has been through security training and is in her 20's and should know better! I can't tell you the number of times I have to plug in cords, reboot laptops and docking hubs. The worst part of the job isn't the people though, it's the heads of the IT/ET that set projects up, if you're going to replace a 20+ year old system that is critical to life health safety then replace the entire system including the servers.
T.O.S.o.R. 1 year ago
I, too, work in the service industry and can 100% confirm... Sometimes, the only service needed is to turn the device ON!
Vanessa MacKenzie 1 year ago
work in telco. Had a massive outage with a fibre company due to a slip that cut the cable and took out half the island. (fibre is owned by several companies in different parts of the country. and telcos rent from them) 2 hr wait on the phone. Customer waited 2 hours, thinking it was an outage. Different fibre company - took all of 1 minute for her to discover that her husband had accidentally unplugged the fibre box while cleaning..... 😂
Load More Replies...
Dan Flo 1 year ago
Not IT but hydraulics. The amount of time I talk to people not understanding the differance between pressure and force is suprising. Now, I get that people in general don't remember P=F/A from school - but if you are using a 700 bar pump (that's alot of pressure) and a 100kN press (that's alot of force), one would think there would be at least a bit of interest to actually know about the mechanics in work. I often get the question "what force can I get from this pump?" and I say "you get 700 bar pressure from the pump" thinking they mix up force and pressure, but they go "yes I know, but what force is it giving?". Having to explain that the force comes from the tool you connect to the pump, and the area of the piston "convert" the pressure from the pump into a force from the piston is something I did not belive I would have to do to people using these kind of equipments.
Kitty Swain-Evans 1 year ago
Having had a 40+ year career in many phases of IT going back to humongous mainframe days, this is one of the best threads I have read in a long time.
Bettye McKee 1 year ago
I enjoyed this one because the comments were somewhat more intelligent than the usual comments I have to deal with. The world is populated with shallow-minded people.
Emie N. 1 year ago (edited)
I know these posts won't see these here since I'm sure they originally come from reddit but I'll say it here anyway. Language is important. And calling it CP gives the impression that it's just like any other type of pornography when it's not. I know that's obviously not the intent since we've be told it's called CP forever. But these poor children are victims, they are being abused. The proper term is child sexual assault images/videos.
Nikole 1 year ago
Good point, actually. Calling it child porn implies some level of consent.
Load More Replies...
Neill Powell 1 year ago
long ago. I drove 160mi and 4 hours billable to check a faulty printer. Printer was fine. next day, same call out, same "faulty" printer. Nothing wrong. Another billable call-out. Day 3 same faulty printer. I ask the employee to show me the printer that isn't working. She was standing in front of the fax machine. 5 Reams of reprints lying around the actual printer.
R Dennis 1 year ago (edited)
I worked with an overly self-righteous, holier-than-thou woman in the early 90s. I was into computers since the early 80s, so I often had 2 or 3 friend's computers at my house. Anyway, this lady knows I know computers and asks me to look at hers. I open it and her and her husband have different sign-ons. Going into his, there was so. much. porn... like tacky "Come play with me" stuff from early in the day. There were so many viruses and malware that I just told her it needed all of its programs wiped and reinstalled. She didn't care because she only used it for bills. Fortunately, it was the relatively early days of home computers so it took a lot of work but I was able to clean it out for her. I charged her $25, but never told her about the porn... so much porn...
Just_for_this 1 year ago
I had a call out for a broken computer, the remote guy had logged in and couldn't diagnose (you will see why) only thing he could tell me was the user said the PC was doing weird things when they were using the mouse. Got there to see what was happening - they had put their coffee mug on the CTRL key while rolling the mouse wheel.
Valdemar 1 year ago
I work for a state government agency as ET/IT and several other roles. I regularly have to send out facility wide emails about making sure to restart the computers to allow updates to take place, to sign out of shared computers, to lock computers when you walk away from them ( think high security risk from housed individuals). I had an employee that was moved to a new office to set up, got everything in place and asked her to log into her computer and she proceeded to give me her password which I stopped her at the third letter, this is a college educated person who has been through security training and is in her 20's and should know better! I can't tell you the number of times I have to plug in cords, reboot laptops and docking hubs. The worst part of the job isn't the people though, it's the heads of the IT/ET that set projects up, if you're going to replace a 20+ year old system that is critical to life health safety then replace the entire system including the servers.
T.O.S.o.R. 1 year ago
I, too, work in the service industry and can 100% confirm... Sometimes, the only service needed is to turn the device ON!
Vanessa MacKenzie 1 year ago
work in telco. Had a massive outage with a fibre company due to a slip that cut the cable and took out half the island. (fibre is owned by several companies in different parts of the country. and telcos rent from them) 2 hr wait on the phone. Customer waited 2 hours, thinking it was an outage. Different fibre company - took all of 1 minute for her to discover that her husband had accidentally unplugged the fibre box while cleaning..... 😂
Load More Replies... Dan Flo 1 year ago
Not IT but hydraulics. The amount of time I talk to people not understanding the differance between pressure and force is suprising. Now, I get that people in general don't remember P=F/A from school - but if you are using a 700 bar pump (that's alot of pressure) and a 100kN press (that's alot of force), one would think there would be at least a bit of interest to actually know about the mechanics in work. I often get the question "what force can I get from this pump?" and I say "you get 700 bar pressure from the pump" thinking they mix up force and pressure, but they go "yes I know, but what force is it giving?". Having to explain that the force comes from the tool you connect to the pump, and the area of the piston "convert" the pressure from the pump into a force from the piston is something I did not belive I would have to do to people using these kind of equipments.
Kitty Swain-Evans 1 year ago
Having had a 40+ year career in many phases of IT going back to humongous mainframe days, this is one of the best threads I have read in a long time.
Bettye McKee 1 year ago
I enjoyed this one because the comments were somewhat more intelligent than the usual comments I have to deal with. The world is populated with shallow-minded people.
Emie N. 1 year ago (edited)
I know these posts won't see these here since I'm sure they originally come from reddit but I'll say it here anyway. Language is important. And calling it CP gives the impression that it's just like any other type of pornography when it's not. I know that's obviously not the intent since we've be told it's called CP forever. But these poor children are victims, they are being abused. The proper term is child sexual assault images/videos.
Nikole 1 year ago
Good point, actually. Calling it child porn implies some level of consent.
Load More Replies... Neill Powell 1 year ago
long ago. I drove 160mi and 4 hours billable to check a faulty printer. Printer was fine. next day, same call out, same "faulty" printer. Nothing wrong. Another billable call-out. Day 3 same faulty printer. I ask the employee to show me the printer that isn't working. She was standing in front of the fax machine. 5 Reams of reprints lying around the actual printer.
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