Any funny geeky IT/computer stories?

Feelgood

Been working in IT for a good few years at this stage, I had a user call me once because the coke vending machine in the canteen wasn't working. She wanted to know if she should just reboot it!

The best one however was landing into the computer room on a Monday morning to find part of our IBM mainframe missing. We found it down the hall with a painter standing on it painting the ceilings!.

Anyone else got any odd or funny stories?

syklops

A company I worked in several years ago, we came in to find all the keyboards had been stolen. Monitors and computers were left, but the keyboards were gone. Cue much panic as no-one could log into their computers. We rang up the local PC shops and bought their entire stock of keyboards to get people back up and running.

A few weeks later, the police came round to say they had found the guy who had done it. It turns out he had just gotten out of prison for a similar kind of robbery, but when he had gone into prison, it was Comodore 64 keyboards he had nicked(which contained the computer). He had nicked all our keyboards, because he thought the technology had gotten smaller, and the computer was inside the keyboard.

In another company I used to have a boss, who we could dedicate an entire thread to his 'inexperience' with computers.

It was an ISP I was working for, and the first thing we did for any connection issues was get them to ping the gateway. For some reason he was on the phone to the customer. I think maybe the customer had demanded to speak to a manager, thinking, rather unfortunately, that the higher you go the more knowledgeable you get. You and I both know the opposite is usually the case. So he is on the phone and he asks me "What do I do to test it" and I tell him to do a ping, and then I only hear his side of the conversation
"Right, I want you to do a ping"
"What?..."
"Oh do you not know how to do a ping?"
<to me> "How does he do a ping?"
Me:"open a command prompt and type in ping"
"Yeah, er, open a command prompt.. and then type in 'ping', P...I...N...G.......enter.
Me: :rolleyes:
"What does that say?"
<to me>Yeah that worked.
Me:"No, get him to ping the gateway. Find out what the IP is from the database, call it out to him, and get him to ping that.

At this point his eyes glazed over. He then sweet talked the customer for about 10 minutes and fed him a load of bullsh1t about him getting one of the senior engineers to troubleshoot his connection for him, and then got me to ring him back 5 minutes later.

Kinetic^

Got a call on a Friday night at 10pm from someone looking for help with a browser issue.

"Sure, I can set up an appointment next week"
"Wouldn't that cost money?"
.....

Gone Drinking

Users ask silly questions, this is a given and i can't really blame them. If you put yourself in the job that they do (in most cases), you wouldn't have a freaking clue either!

What gets me is "IT people" doing stupid things..

Like one guy, who was told to wipe a bunch of machines and if any were found to be unwipeable, then to destroy the hard drives.

One of the lads walked in on him and he was dropping a whole PC on the concrete floor, picking it up and dropping it again and saying "They won't be getting anything off this machine!"

Tallon

Feelgood wrote: »

Been working in IT for a good few years at this stage, I had a user call me once because the coke vending machine in the canteen wasn't working. She wanted to know if she should just reboot it!

I don't get it

You can reboot a vending machine!

jme2010

My old computer architecture lecturer told us a story. A few years ago he was teaching an introduction class to computers for mature students i.e a bunch of "ma's and da's" and he went to tend to a lady who was clearly fustrated. When he got to her, she had the mouse on the floor under the table trying to press it with her feet like a sowing machine pedal :rolleyes:

chin_grin

jme2010 wrote: »

My old computer architecture lecturer told us a story. A few years ago he was teaching an introduction class to computers for mature students i.e a bunch of "ma's and da's" and he went to tend to a lady who was clearly fustrated. When he got to her, she had the mouse on the floor under the table trying to press it with her feet like a sowing machine pedal :rolleyes:

That exists. :pac:

jme2010

chin_grin wrote: »

That exists. :pac:

Thats briliiant.

He assures us the lady was mistaken. It was a regular ball mouse with left and right click.

lol silly parent why u no mouse good?

softdancomputer

chin_grin wrote: »

That exists. :pac:

I wonder how it smells...

jme2010

softdancomputer wrote: »

I wonder how it smells...

I'm guessing like a disabled persons foot.

Skerries

we have gotten this call several times where a member of staff is away on business and rings from the hotel they are in to say that the internet isn't working and can we fix it!?
"yes no problem, wait while i log into the world hotel internet program and give you access" :rolleyes:

Gulliver

Years ago the main "IT" guy in the place I worked in was asked about some 3.5mm jack headphones that were not working. He fiddles about with them for a while, then looks at the person and says "I'll need the drivers that came with these". This was waaay before USB headsets.

Phone support - can't get on internet
Me: "Ok, click start, then run"
Over the phone: <Windows shutdown noise>
Me: "Did you click just start then shut down?"
Customer: "No I clicked the start button on the box"
Me: "Sorry?"
Customer: "You know the button I press in the morning to turn it on. Why would I need to run? It's not gong to blow up is it?"

wolfric

I can just imagine all the funny stories the doctors would have if they tried to diagnose and treat you over the phone. Hell i imagine if not for doctor patient confidentiality, we'd hear more stories like what you see in house md clinic duties.

Some older friends of the family had never had a computer before so i got them their first one and was showing them how to use it (about a year or two ago).
They couldn't stop lifting the mouse up off the table to try move it.

fionny

wolfric wrote: »

They couldn't stop lifting the mouse up off the table to try move it.

Its gas to think about it, I cant imagine someone not knowing at least the very basics of using a computer... I know they exist its just as alien a concept as someone not being able to read.

Khannie

fionny wrote: »

Its gas to think about it, I cant imagine someone not knowing at least the very basics of using a computer... I know they exist its just as alien a concept as someone not being able to read.

Yeah, it's mental. My youngfella was asking me how come his granny was slow with the computer (now by granny standards she's pretty decent...like she can send an email). To him the notion that someone couldn't use a computer as easily as a knife and fork was just absurd.

Keedowah

Years ago the main "IT" guy in the place I worked in was asked about some 3.5mm jack headphones that were not working. He fiddles about with them for a while, then looks at the person and says "I'll need the drivers that came with these". This was waaay before USB headsets.

Gulliver were you working in Sligo at the time? Cause that happened in a company I worked in there aswell - yer man was a bit of a fool.

Gulliver

Keedowah wrote: »

Gulliver were you working in Sligo at the time? Cause that happened in a company I worked in there aswell - yer man was a bit of a fool.

Oh crap!!! Rumbled!!!! Yeah, he was a complete fool. Great fan of the percussive maintenance - "For f**k's sake!!!" <BANG>

Feelgood

Tallon wrote: »

I don't get it

You can reboot a vending machine!

Good point but this was a good 12 years ago, before the new fan dangled digital ones came on the scene!.

I don't know many IT depts that looking after vending machines?

Cuddlesworth

My mate was the network engineer and sys admin of a medium size business. He had somebody call up and hand him their home toaster to fix. It didn't go down well.

Tallon

Feelgood wrote: »

Good point but this was a good 12 years ago, before the new fan dangled digital ones came on the scene!.

I don't know many IT depts that looking after vending machines?

Unless it was in the 17th century, machines still used 'computers' 12 years ago!

A reboot will generally fix most things, and IT departments have always looked after, well, IT

jme2010

Tallon wrote: »

Unless it was in the 17th century, machines still used 'computers' 12 years ago!

Yeah, not like those all lever & mechanics coke machines 13 years ago

Tallon

jme2010 wrote: »

Yeah, not like those all lever & mechanics coke machines 13 years ago

You mean these ones?

Duggy747

For shìts and giggles I used to convince people not to stand too close to a computer if they had a cold...............otherwise they'd give it a virus :pac:

A friend of mine had set up a facebook page for his landlord (He had a room in their house he would use his computer). One day the landlord asked him to sort out a problem so the friend went to turn on the machine. The machine was already in standby mode and when it came out of it the 1st thing they saw on the screen was Facebook Of Sex site with a huge picture of a woman's gowl. The landlord stumbled, went bright red and quickly tried to close down loads of these porn tabs

Asked a client once to bring in their machine so I could repair it. Told them to bring in just the tower.....................cue them bringing in just the monitor.

Had a woman come in before whinging about a computer she recieved of us (It was a computer she got off her sister for free, which we donated loads of to the school she worked in). Anyways, she was complaining to me about awful service and how she'll tell everyone never to buy stuff off us again. She was saying they never used the machine and it was broken (BSOD).

So, I get the boss in on it, I slap up the machine, fix it and check the logs. Of course the machine was being used every single day since she first recieved it. Her smarmy son was there too dropping comments about how shìt it was and was acting like HE was the technician rather than me and the boss with his buzzwords. Normally I wouldn't have to but in this specific case I checked their internet history and noticed the son's face went white as a ghost and he started getting twitchy. I was then bombarded with a shìt-ton of fetish porn sites mingled in with gaming sites.

The boss and I looked at each other and knew the son was up to no good and more than likely caused the crash. For the craìc, I pulled a subtly disgusted look and looked at the son who couldn't even keep eye contact with me anymore :pac:

As much as we wanted to, we couldn't tell the mother that her son was a porn freak and that he caused the problem. We instead showed her the event logs proving the machine was used more than one time.........which the woman had stressed. She changed her tune, calmed down, gave her back the now clean porn machine and she went along her way with her son's tail between his legs.

Ah, we had a good laugh about it afterwards though

Tallon

Just had a ticket come to me in work...

"Customer Service Desk
Cables are all tangled. Staff are getting caught in cabling"

Gulliver

Had a laptop come in that "just stopped working" and that the customer was "very annoyed with the quality of the machine and the service" She had been told that she wouldn't be handed a new machine until a tech looked at it.

Set the laptop on the bench, opened up the lid was hit with the aroma of coffee. In between the keys was all sticky gunk. I stopped in my tracks and went and got the manager and told them that coffee had been spilled on the laptop - no replacement. Customer was still at the desk, so manager went out and said this to her. She flew into a rage "HOW DARE YOU" "I DEMAND A REPLACEMENT" etc etc.

Manager made me disassemble the laptop in front of her and fair dues to her, she stuck to her guns even though the mobo had a nice coffee-flavoured shell and under the keyboard was worse than the canteen sink. She never admitted there was a spill even though it was clearly visible on the parts. Eventually they got rid of her, I never found out how, but she threatened legal action and everything.

IronDuke

A user in my last office rang me to say his keyboard was broken. I went to have a look and asked what the problem was.
User said "the "i" doesn't work".
I pressed the "i" button and an "i" appeared on the screen.
I said are "you sure there's a problem?"
User said, "Absolutely look at this". User then pressed the "i" button twice in high speed succession. Only one "i" appeared on the screen.
Turns out the users' colleague had recently received a new keyboard and now they invented this nonsense so they could get one too.

BostonB

People email me looking for a fax number so they can fax me screengrabs or lists thats they copy and into word print them off then fax them. Then email me to ask me did I get it. I could cry...

Cuddlesworth

Gulliver wrote: »

Had a laptop come in that "just stopped working" and that the customer was "very annoyed with the quality of the machine and the service" She had been told that she wouldn't be handed a new machine until a tech looked at it.

Set the laptop on the bench, opened up the lid was hit with the aroma of coffee. In between the keys was all sticky gunk. I stopped in my tracks and went and got the manager and told them that coffee had been spilled on the laptop - no replacement. Customer was still at the desk, so manager went out and said this to her. She flew into a rage "HOW DARE YOU" "I DEMAND A REPLACEMENT" etc etc.

Manager made me disassemble the laptop in front of her and fair dues to her, she stuck to her guns even though the mobo had a nice coffee-flavoured shell and under the keyboard was worse than the canteen sink. She never admitted there was a spill even though it was clearly visible on the parts. Eventually they got rid of her, I never found out how, but she threatened legal action and everything.

Reminds me of call of my own. I was advised that a high ranking member of the company was bring in a personal machine that was 2 weeks old and I was to see what was wrong with it. All he had said was that it was broken and he wanted it fixed.

Walked in my boss's office later that day because he couldn't stop laughing. Laptop was on the desk, there was a 15 degree curve through the middle with about 2 and a half inches of air on either side between the bottom and the desk. And a big tire mark right across it.

He actually sat there in front of my boss and said nothing happened to it and it was a disgrace that he was handed this faulty machine. Cheap ****er had declined to pay the 50 euro extra for a full three year accidental damage warranty. First and last time I ever saw anybody that high up get told to **** off.

BostonB

Once has a use who worked on a document for over a month without saving it, then his machine crashed when his machine had only 1KB free on the HD.

Our IT used to give people new machines, set them up with a tiny C: partition, which created loads of problems as people ran out of space. The same IT dept used to give people new machines and just swap in their old HD from a completely different machine. Which would then constantly crash as the hardware didn't match the windows install.

Yawlboy

A friend of mine in the military was on a tour with the UN in Lebanon a few years back. He was responsible for giving laptops to officers - who had received minimal training on PC's.

One guy brings the laptop back a day later saying its broken as a 3 1/2 inch floppy disk (it was a while ago) was stuck in the drive. Mate tries to eject the disk and no it was rightly stuck. He ends up having to take the laptop apart, remove the floppy drive and take that apart.
Eventually he gets the disk out and finds it has a whole load of stickers on it which had caused it to get stuck. He calls the officer back and asks him what happened, guy explains that he put the disk in and typed DIR to see what was on it and it came up with DISK HAS NO LABEL on the screen. So he ejected it and put a label on, re-insterted the disk and did a DIR again - same result so he decided to put a second label on it...........

PogMoThoin

Worked for an ISP. We got calls from customers complaining their broadband connection was down, but they were ringing us on their Blueface phone. It was a regular one.

Gonzovision

Got a call out yesterday because a customers broadband was down. When I got there he didn't want me to fix his broadband, just get his emails working.

Gulliver

The company I worked for installed a router for a client. They rang up saying the broadband had gone down and the ISP said it must be the router. Cue "You sold us a dodgy product" etc. Turns out the cleaners unplugged the router to plug in the hoover.

Spent ages talking to a person whose "modem" was broken. The couldn't check the PC and kept saying that won't work as the modem's gone. I wanted to check was it disabled or the drivers were ok. Turns out the "modem" was the whole PC.

Another person didn't want a temporary replacement PS/2 keyboard as it might give his machine a virus.

Not really a funny story but a guy once told me that my job must be very easy and his six year old son probably knew as much as me about computers. Why can't you punch customers in the nuts?

BostonB

Gulliver wrote: »

... Why can't you punch customers in the nuts?

Now you tell me...

Skerries

i'm trying to remember more but there has been so many
you get the usual ones where people say their internet is down and when you go up they hadn't plugged in the network cable
had another user who put a credit card cd into a slot loading Mac, cue destroyed drive as it shattered inside
had a user with a desktop who had it standing on its side under his desk and kicked it over destroying his hard drive so i replaced it
a couple of months later the plank did it again!

Keedowah

Had a customer call up and give out stink about our software saying it broke her computer. She was going off on a rant from the second I picked up the phone, she eventually calmed down enough for me to ask her a question.

me: "So how has it broken your computer?"
customer "It wont type numbers anymore!!" she then goes off onto another long rant.
me "See on the top right of your keyboard there might be a numlock light.
customer: "ah..." hangs up.

techguy

If you've read all this thread so far and still want more.. check out www.clientcopia.com

spider guardian

I had someone ask me why wireless routers were so called even though they still had wires coming out of the back of them.

Anyone who has ever played around with unix should check out this page http://www.yak.net/carmen/unix_horror.html some absolutely priceless stories

syklops

Keedowah wrote: »

Had a customer call up and give out stink about our software saying it broke her computer. She was going off on a rant from the second I picked up the phone, she eventually calmed down enough for me to ask her a question.

me: "So how has it broken your computer?"
customer "It wont type numbers anymore!!" she then goes off onto another long rant.
me "See on the top right of your keyboard there might be a numlock light.
customer: "ah..." hangs up.

This reminds me of another numlock story. I was working in Intel(which makes it more ironic), and I was being trained and i had to type a load of numbers in. My trainer saw me using the num pad and told me I should get out of the habit of using it, and use the numbers at the top instead.

I should point out i was working in a clean room, and wearing a thing a bit like a space suit, including 2 layers of gloves, so typing was not very comfortable.

Anyway, I ignored her comment. A few weeks later I was doing a supervised test by the same instructor, and had to type some numbers in, but got nothing. She said "Ah ha! I told you! Not all the number pads work!". I then pressed the numlock key and continued typing in the numbers. She looked at me surprised and said "Does that work on all keyboards?".Let me remind you, this was an instructor in Intel.