share your funny/crazy IT-related stories

[Deleted]

As a developer, I've taken a liking to stories involving something IT related failing tremendously. the type of story where someone needs to troubleshoot a broken monitor to discover there's a power outage.

do you have some weird stories to share about your coworkers, relatives or friends being so computer illiterate, they try to correct typos with whiteout?

[Blood Fox]

Um, this one time I was having router issues, did a restart and the basics. I called the support line, they had me do the same few things, she was stumped and asked me to restart the router one more item, and it worked. I felt like an idiot and I think that may of made that little blond's day.

[TellyTop]

http://www.rinkworks.com/stupid/
http://www.techtales.com/techroom.php
These two pages should keep you busy for quite a while.

Although this next one isn't mainly IT it's still worth a look. It has something from all types of jobs all over the world.
http://notalwaysright.com/

[Ciddy]

^ to add to the above, http://www.customerssuck.com is also a good source of reading material on this subject. Not everything there is IT-related (although some of it is), but still worth a read.

Couple of my own stories:

1.

This one was my own fault and wasn't the result of a "stupid user" or anything (aside from myself), but it's amusing and is one story I like to tell a lot.

I was remotely troubleshooting a minor problem on a Windows 2003 server once and accidentally disabled its only NIC from within the network connection properties while I was in there checking stuff. So of course that kicked me out of remote access. I had to drive over there and re-enable it. Luckily, it was only about a 30-minute drive, and it was after hours, so I didn't cause any downtime in the middle of the work day or something bad like that. Good times.

2.

I also had to repair a laptop once where the customer had run over it with a car. Apparently, she was carrying the laptop in its bag out to her car and talking on her cell phone when she realized she forgot something in the house. So she put the laptop down, went in the house, got what she needed, got in the car, and started to back up. Then she felt like she was running over something and realized what she'd done. Big "oh shit" moment.

Turned out, all she needed was a replacement display (cost her about $200, as the laptop was out of warranty, and I'm pretty sure the warranty wouldn't cover that even if it were, so I had to order the screen and install it). The LCD was busted all to shit. Some of the actual mounting brackets for the display were broken too, so I had to MacGuyver up some shit to make the new screen fit tight. Aside from some cosmetic damage, everything else was fine, and the laptop was completely functional once I got done. The bag she had was pretty good sized and had a lot of padding in it, so I think that may be what saved her from losing the entire laptop.

I have actually had 3 different cases I can think of where a laptop has been run over with a vehicle. This particular laptop was the only one that lived to tell about it though. The others didn't make it. I did have one where the hard drive survived, so I was at least able to get all the customer's pictures and stuff back. The other one....no chance.

[Ciddy]

Also, I once had a power supply fail in a really loud manner which scared the shit out of me. I was doing a job at a client's office. They wanted to replace an older workstation with a new workstation and move the old workstation to someone else's desk (as the old one was a slight "upgrade" for that other user). Fair enough. I got the new workstation installed, moved the old workstation to the other desk, got everything plugged in, hit the power button, and got nothing. No fans, no lights, no sounds, nothing.

So I start doing the general troubleshooting stuff. Double-checked the switch on the PSU, tried plugging the power cord in a couple of different outlets, etc. No good. Opened the case up to make sure the connection from the PSU to the motherboard wasn't loose or something (unlikely, but at this point I was just checking everything I could). Decided to unplug EVERYTHING, give it a few seconds, and plug it in to give it one more go. Plugged the power cable in the back of the PSU, and right then, the sound it made was like a fucking gunshot (keep in mind I was crouched under a desk with my face like a foot away from this thing).

Almost needed a change of underwear after that one. The lady working at the office was freaking out getting ready to call 911 because she thought I just got electrocuted.

[Not pOO flinger]

Someone brought in a laptop for repair (can't remember the issue) and I had to open it up to look at the inside and clean out some dust. Upon receiving the laptop I noticed that it had been opened at least once before. I opened it up to discover that the inside was covered with glue from a hot glue gun.

I kinda regret not taking a picture because that was a funny sight to behold.

[narzinor]

During the winter 2011-2012 my router had somehow borked and I got disconnected maybe 10 times a minute. It was very frustrating. I contacted Tech Support but they couldn't really help out, so they decided to just send me a new router. Kind-hearted as I am, I decided to forgive the old router and send it to Valhalla, so I put it on a lil' bark raft on the lake and set it on fire. I really don't know why I didn't really think it though, but I'm pretty sure I should be charged with littering of some severe kind and I feel extremely, extremely guilty...


Also, it turns out it may not have been the router I sent off. I am not very well-versed on the ways of Computer Sorcery. Could've been ze modem or... Not sure what the other word was. But it was a box with wires.

I think you should have shot flaming arrows at it as it drifted away instead.


OT: My story is when I first started doing tech support. A guy had bought all the parts for a computer, but was having some trouble getting it to work after he installed them all. I tried everything I could think of, replaced every single part in a vacuum with another computer I had for this purpose. Everything worked.

Eventually, I just asked him some info about the parts, like where he got them and what have you. Turns out everything was brand new... except for the hard drive. It was from an old dell computer. That hard drive worked in my backup computer, because it was also a dell. I tried using another hard drive, and his computer worked perfectly.

Turns out, Dell computers have firmware measures setup in certain components to keep people from not using their products! Last time I ever used a Dell computer or recommended one to someone else. =p

[Deleted]

This one was a very stupid misstake on my part. It was after a LAN party, so when I get home I plug in my computer and start it but all of a sudden it just turns of and reboots. I try to restart it a couple of times but it doesn't work. So I turned on my laptop and googled my problem. After reading through a few forum posts that sugested it could be broken components etc... I just couldn't be bothered so I put my laptop away and went to sleep (hadn't slept for like 30 hours or something). So when I wake up I decided to start the computer again and hope it had magically fixed itself, which it obviously had not. I sigh and look down on my computer and thats when I realize that the tiny reboot button was stuck...

[Deleted]

I was repairing a desktop for a familiy member. I was fiddleing witht the PSU and I kinda switch it from 220v to 110v, so when we tried to boot agian it kinda blow up. I am still hearing jokes about it from my familiy.

Luckly I had a spare PSU, put that one in and the desktop booted and everything worked

[Deleted]

I work customer support for a printer company.

Me: "Sir, I will need you to login to the printer from a computer. Do you know the IP-Adress of the printer?"
CU: "The adress of the printer?"
Me: "Yes, the IP-adress. If you don't I can explain how to find it."
CU: "Oh, no I know it. It's *over there* and to the left"
Me: "..."

Now, I can accept that he didn't know what an IP-adress is. What blew my mind was the fact that even if he thought I was asking for the "physical adress" of the machine, the answer "over there, and to the left" really is not such a useful answer over the phone...

[Ciddy]

I had one customer who referred to DLL files as "dill" files. I had to do some cleanup on her laptop once because her AV software freaked out and locked down some Windows system file as a false positive (similar to that big McAfee fuckup a couple of years ago where it flagged svchost.exe in XP SP3 machines). Can't remember now exactly which one it was, but Windows would not load properly after that. I had to keep a straight face while she described how her antivirus popped up and told her stuff about various "dill" files that were infected.

She was a very nice older lady, and we all liked her, but we referred to her as "the dill lady" for a long time.

[Deleted]

Quick explanation about the situation:
It was my first inturnship, it was at a school and some student came by the helpdesk claiming her teacher pc wasn't working. So when i enter the classroom i directly go for the pc and i ask the teacher whats wrong, and she tells me the computer isn't responding at all. So i'm there looking at the pc and thinking: lets try pressing the start button and see what happens or rather what doesn't happen, just to make sure. And wouldn't you believe it, it turned on. I could barely resist laughing here in the face. To make it even beter she asked me outloud what was wrong with the pc, and what she did wrong, now mind you this wasn't some old lady, she was in here 30 tops.

So i tell here that she didn't turn it on, 1 student hears this and yells it through the classroom, and the next thing the whole class is laughing at here. Then she look at me if she could kill me and i casually ask if she needs any more help, she responded with: no, you've done enough. I walk away with singin trolololol in my mind. The next day we get an mad e-mail from the teacher that i embarresed here and demanded i was punished. My guide(?) for the inturnship ask what exactly happens and he mails back that i've been punished and tells me to tell i've been punished if she asks.

[Lady Tygry]

My fellow educators are usually one of two extremes: comfortable using Google to troubleshoot their issues or the most common, terrified of their computers. Most of the problems I hear about, of course, involve printers. See: http://theoatmeal.com/comics/printers Others though, are more in the vein of 'Oh God, the computer won't turn on' or 'Open Office formatting issue when opening from Word', respectively solved by plugging the computer into the wall and a copy/paste. So I'm surprised that my two favorite anecdoes do not involve teachers.

My mother: I was either still in high school or home during freshman year when this happened. My mother bursts into my room, jarring me from sleep. She needs to check her e-mail NOW. I start to drift back off vaguely aware that there's rage occurring a few meters away. Finally, she yells at me to get up, furious as to why she can't get into her work e-mail. I stumble over and look: she's typing her e-mail address into the URL. And no, she didn't have a setup to access her account remotely anyway.

My aunt-in-law? I guess we'll call her that. I don't think I've ever known anyone else who uses a computer every day but still thinks of it as a completely foreign object. She needed to copy a file over, I assume from a thumb drive though I don't actually remember. Either way, better half walks her through it patiently over the phone. We assume it's resolved. Imagine our surprise when she shows up having unplugged and brought her desktop so he can do it for her.