WinDogg, Viper, I feel your pain...

[Kosugi]

True story below:


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Unacceptable behavior

Pilot fish on the help desk at a big motor coach manufacturer gets a Monday morning call from an agitated user.

"There's something on my monitor that I've never seen before -- something about 'Check signal cable,'" user says. "The computer is not responding and needs to be worked on immediately.

"I'm a very busy person, and I have work to do," she adds, just in case the fish doesn't understand that users are busy people who have work to do.

OK, says fish. First, are there any lights on, on the front of the computer case?

"No," says user.

Please turn on the computer, fish says.

"Wow, everything is working now," she replies.

The problem was that the computer had simply been turned off, fish gently explains.

"That's unacceptable," the user huffs. "The computer has always been on when I arrived for work before."


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[Kosugi]

More...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Techie pilot fish gets a call for the umpteenth time from this user. "The PC won't work," the user says. "Come fix it."

"I take it to the fix-it bench, and I'm watching TV while tearing the top open," fish says. "I'm blindly reaching about and get a handful of -- yuck!"

The yuck turns out to be mainly pink fiberglass insulation. Apparently a mouse had climbed into the ceiling and walls, collected the pink stuff and carried it back to the PC for a nest.

"Poor PC finally overheated and died. I bet he was in there for months," fish says. "Stunk, too."

Fish calls user with the news: "You've got a mouse problem."

No, says user, "the mouse is OK, it's the PC."

"No, no," says fish. "You don't understand..."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[thebestMAX]

Almost as funny as my story when I went to service a computer that couldnt read floppy disks and found them held to the side of a cabinet with a magnet.

Also drove 90 miles one night to turn on a piece of equipment they swore had the power lights "ON"

 

[Zoltar]

Yea, isn't the funny that the computer can't read.......floopies

 

[thebestMAX]

Caught it and fixed it myself before your post.

Neiner,neiner

 

[Kosugi]

Still more, these are good:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After installing a new app, IT pilot fish tells user to hit the F1 key for help if she has a problem. Half an hour later, disgruntled user calls: "I've been hitting the F1 key for at least 15 minutes, and no one has called or come down to help yet!"

~~~~~~~

This application runs on a Unix server and displays on Sun workstations and Windows PCs. So when user calls with a problem, tech support pilot fish first asks, "Are you using a Sun computer?" Answers user: "No, it's over in the corner, in the shade."

~~~~~~~~

I am not a crook "I was just trying find a calendar in Word," says panicky user, "and then Word kicked me out and shut down - and a box popped up on the screen that said I had done something illegal!"

~~~~~~~~~

Walking user through a problem, IT pilot fish directs, "Now type a single quote." A single quote, repeats user. "Is that an uppercase comma?"

~~~~~~~

DSL at remote site is down, so pilot fish sets up a temporary dial-up connection and tells on-site staff that DSL service provider tech will call to fix the problem. Hearing nothing for a few days, fish calls remote staffer to see if she's heard from the tech. "Oh, yes," she says. "He called and asked if my Internet was working. I told him yes, and he said, 'Thank you,' and hung up."

~~~~~~~~~

Receptionist complains that for every key she hits, three or four letters show up on her monitor. As pilot fish is removing the keyboard, brown liquid pours out the side. "Oh, I spilled my coffee all over it this morning," user says. "Do you think that had anything to do with the problem?"

~~~~~~~~

Make it a double Secretary tells help desk, "I just spilled coffee on my boss's keyboard. What should I do?" Help desk pilot fish decides, "What the heck, it's just a $35 keyboard. Have her disconnect it and wash it out in the sink. If that doesn't work, we'll replace it." Next call is from her enraged boss: "Who the hell told my secretary to put my new $4,000 laptop in the sink and run water all over it?"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


LOL on the last one!

 

[LadyNiniane]

Oho! Someone else subscribes to the Shark Tank, too!

Some days that's the only piece of e-mail I get that I keep.

If you use the above link, look for "Shark Tank" in the left-hand column to find the current story and the available archives.

Lady Niniane

 

[Kosugi]

More greats (the first one is classic)!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Just as the IT staff is breathing a sigh of relief after cleaning up the damage from the Anna Kournikova virus, a whole new round starts. Pilot fish confronts the culprit, who admits he clicked on the icon a second time: "I didn't get to see the picture the first time."




Day-Glo disaster New plan for protecting community college's laptops from theft comes from the property accounting department: Spray paint them with fluorescent colors. Support pilot fish can only sigh, "Can you imagine a college president using one of those painted monstrosities in front of his peers? Or the help desk calls: 'For some reason my keys are sticking.' "




Strolling through cubicle land, pilot fish overhears a help desk worker fielding a call on speakerphone. Help desk: "Where are you getting the error message?" User: "In a box right in the middle of the screen."




No more, Mr. Nice GuY Pilot fish is brought in by various companies to teach technical classes and makes it a practice to buy morning refreshments for the students out of his own pocket. His students like it - but one client asks him to stop. "It seems that someone in another class complained about their lack of goodies," fish says. The client's solution: "Treat everyone like grade-school students and prohibit refreshments lest someone be offended."




Overheard in a big meeting where divisional CIOs are discussing the challenges of integrating multiple IT platforms: "What's the big deal if everyone owns systems by this 'Legacy' company?"




Pilot fish gets a call from a VP: "I'm going to a conference, and the hotel doesn't have Internet access. How do I access my e-mail without Internet access?" You can't, fish says. You need some kind of Net access, even via a lowly dial-up modem, to access your e-mail. "Oh!" VP says, "that's why I always have so much trouble."

 

[Kosugi]

Yep, mi lady, thought I'd share.


I highly recommend computerworld by the way, I've actually contributed


Ill post a few more..., then let the kids play on their own...

 

[Kosugi]

Last ones, Ill post the link to the site after them...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Wrong Image Pilot fish stops reading a faxed ad at the point where the data warehousing tool vendor boasts, "We specialize in extracting data from your back end and bringing it to your forefront."

Playing in Traffic IT pilot fish at a financial services company gets a heads-up from the networking group: One office is using so much bandwidth on the Internet proxy servers that it's affecting users sitewide. The network guys identify the customer service rep responsible, and the fish trucks down to the call center, where one look at the user's desktop reveals the problem. "I identified myself," says the fish, "and asked the user how having the streaming real-time images from four freeway cams could have a bearing on the duties of his job."

Contractor Web pilot fish working on a military base gets a call from a military unit commander. Why isn't my biography on the unit's intranet page? he demands. Fish scours the unit's files looking for the bio to add but can't turn it up anywhere. She finally calls the brass hat back and asks, "OK, where can I get a copy of your bio?" Brass answers, "I don't have one."

Eight the hard way During a routine backup, sysadmin pilot fish notices that an 8mm tape drive isn't working properly. No big deal - the drive's still under warranty, and the vendor promises to ship a replacement ASAP. But there's not a spare 8mm drive, so the fish mentions it to her supervisor. His response: "Couldn't you use two of the 4mm tape drives? We have several of those."

CONSULTANT PILOT FISH crosses five states to spend a week installing software modifications, training staff and testing the changes at a client site. As he's leaving, he tells local boss, "If anything unanticipated comes up, just call and I'll drop whatever I'm doing to deal with it." "Unanticipated?" asks the boss in a sudden panic. "Like what?"

TELEPATHY, MAYBE? IT manager asks pilot fish, "Other than turning it on or taking the top off, are there any other ways to figure out how much RAM a PC has?"

FIRST THING one morning, tech support pilot fish gets a call from a frantic user - his system won't boot. Fish gets it going from a floppy disk and discovers all the system files needed to run Windows are missing from the hard disk's root directory. Under questioning, the user 'fesses up: "Yesterday I decided to clean up my system and noticed all those strange files. I didn't create them, so I decided to give them a home in another folder to tidy things up." Sighs the fish, "At least he didn't just delete them."

~~~~~~~~~~

Ok kids, that's it for now. To read more of them (hundreds more) go here...

SharkTank

These are all submitted by IT professionals of all levels... and I mean all levels.

Enjoy!

 

[crab]

there are thousands of them here

 

[fobbman]

I've got a couple that I've had at work here:

First one was the senior art director for a large professional sports league who was complaining that every time he had to wipe his HD clean that he would have to buy a new version of one of our software products, even though he saved the preferences on a floppy disk beforehand. Mind you, the serial number is on the manual, if he would have registered these copies of the software he could have called us for the serial number, and also the serial number is in the Help-->About section in the software itself.

The next one happened just yesterday. A customer sent an email asking about where he could purchase a product that we have discontinued a long time ago. The customer service rep sent back a note saying that the product was discontinued and no longer available. The reply from the customer was "That's okay, I live in Canada. Where can I buy the software?"

*sigh*