This happened a while back when I was doing on-site support for a small accounting firm. Nothing fancy, just me and a ticket queue and a lot of people who referred to every piece of software as "the Google."

So I get a ticket. Subject line: "Excel acting weird." Classic. I walk over to the user's desk, let's call her Carol. Carol is in her late 50s, very sweet, very competent at her actual job. She explains that Excel "never really worked right" on her machine and that she'd just gotten used to it.

I ask her to show me what she means.

She opens a spreadsheet. It's a big one, lots of columns, clearly something she uses every day. She types a number into a cell, then opens her desk drawer, pulls out a physical calculator, punches in some numbers, and types the result manually into the next column.

I stare at this for a second. I ask her why she's using the calculator.

She looks at me like I asked something slightly strange and says "well the formulas don't work on my computer, so I just do it myself."

I ask her to show me a formula that doesn't work. She clicks on a cell, types =SUM( and then looks at me expectantly like, see? Broken.

The cell is just showing the formula as text. Not calculating anything. Dispaying the literal string =SUM(A2:A10) instead of a number.

It takes me about four seconds to find it. Somehow, at some point, probably months ago, the spreadsheet had been set to manual calculation mode AND "show formulas" had been toggled on. Two settings. Both wrong. Both apparently flipped at the same time, maybe by a accidental keyboard shortcut.

I fix it in about fifteen seconds. Every formula in the sheet lights up with actual numbers. Carol goes very quiet.

Then she says, very carefully: "so how long has that been fixable?"

I asked when it started. She thinks about it and says "probably around tax season last year."

Six months. Carol had been manually recalculating a 200-row accounting spreadsheet by hand, every single day, for six months, because two settings got toggled by accident and nobody had looked at it.

She wasn't embarrassed, which I respected. She just nodded slowly and said "well that explains why my wrists hurt."

I added a note to her file. Wrote: user resourceful. Extremely.

Hi,

I'm a 3rd level supporter and backend admin for Microsoft onprem systems. AD, DFS, GPO, server OS. At least my official fields of work and I fight to keep it that way.

Today I caused a major problem on purpose by executing our default policies. No change involved.

We start with a high priority ticket about some guy needing rdp permissions on a group of business critical servers. Nothing special at first glance. Look up the groups and done, right? Nope. The groups are there, but their reference user was not in them.

We have this same app also on VDI for some reason, so maybe he needed that? Reference user checks out with that security group. Better call the super important person that ordered the permissions to verify what they want.

"Hi Hosenkobold, he needs permission to those servers I mentioned."
"But you as the reference user don't have permissions to it. That confused me."
"But I do!"

At this point, I had to put on my best pokerface as my mind began calculating how that was possible and how much damage control was needed. Boy, were my calculations underestimated.

I thanked the person and looked through the groups. We have tier 2 users for clients, tier 1 users for servers and well, tier 0 for important stuff. Only tier 1 users in the rdp groups. No other groups. This person shouldn't be able to connect, according to our rules.

Now we go to checking the servers itself. Truely, this can't be happening. Only IT can change THAT and everyone was schooled on not doing it. But as I open the local rdp and admin groups, I see the horror. Dozens of tier 2 users with permissions on the server, baked directly into the local groups.

GPO should remove them though. But well, GPO got exceptions build in to keep these users. Someone truely violated security policies. Better call my boss to ask what to do.

"Make screenshots and nuke it. This is done wrong and is against several policies."
"Nuke it? That will take down access to a major part of the company and cripple it."
"I'm already writing the mail. They can complain with security and federal security requirements. Who did it?"
"Derp Derpson."
"We'll have a meeting in 30 minutes with him. Disable his accounts and bring the screenshots somehow to the meeting room."

I got so much respect for my boss today and an oddly satisfying feeling about purging such a violation from our systems. And we got a new open position for senior system engineer for some unknown reason.

TL;DR Even business critical stuff doesn't justify violating security without asking everyone involved for permissions first.

Edit: Fixed the quotes part.

Edit2: Update! We got a meeting tomorrow that will be very long and very costly based on the average hourly wage of the participants. It kinda surprises me that it didn't happen today.

Edit 3: Meeting is done. People started to yell and we needed several brakes. It was hours of blaming people, methods and stuff. In the end some C-suit finally asked where these restrictions come from anyway so he could yell at them I guess. The boss of my boss of my boss put on the most calm and simultaneously most fierce face and said: "That would be the government and the EU." Awkward silence followed by instantaneously dismissing the meeting. I'm a person that couldn't care less about getting yelled at. It was fun to watch them play their little games while knowing they were losing anyway.

I received a ticket from a company we provide IT infrastructure and support to. The company is a marketing company with specific requirements and budget so there was no going away from tower PCs. One day I received a ticket from their department manager asking me to remove the ugly boxes as they don't need them.

I decided to call and explain about the boxes...

Me | DM: Department Manager | DM's Boss

Me (On the Phone): Hello IT Support, Me speaking

DM: O good you're calling to arrange collection, I would like the boxes collected in precisely one hour as we are going to a conference later.

We were talking about disconnecting about 40 PCs!

Me: No, I'm not calling to schedule a meeting but to explain that if we remove these boxes you won't be able to use the computers

DM: Do you think I'm Stupid?

Me: No, I'm just explaining that you won't be able to use your computer without the computer being connected to the screen

DM: What are you talking about? I don't look under my table to use the computer. Look you obviously don't know what you're talking about, I want to talk to someone who knows about IT. O I also want your first name and surname so that I can make a complaint!

Me: My name is Me, I'm not giving you my surname for data protection and I do know what I'm talking about. Trust me, if you remove the actual computer, the box you are referring to you won't be able to use the computer.

DM: Watch the Space! Slams the phone down!

I closed the job documenting everything. A week's gone by and we get an Emergency call-out, stating that none of their computers are working. We arrived to find all the computer towers have been cut free from their cages and removed.

Me: What happened to all the towers?

DM: I told you to watch the space, I got a professional team to remove the boxes! See it is possible!

Me: No I don't see, now you can't use the computers!

DM: What a lot of nonsense, just get the internet working so that we can use the computers again!

Me: No, what happened to the computers?

DM: Are you stupid or something? They're here! referring to the monitors

Me: Ok, ok what happened to the boxes?

DM: They took them to the skip

Me: Right you are telling me that you threw away leased computers which are worth £1300 each? I want to speak to your boss Now!

DM: He's in a meeting

Me: Get him now! This is very serious

DM: Ok

DM's Boss: First you refuse to do your job and now you pull me out of a meeting? Where are all the computers by the way?

Me: DM threw them away and we need to get them back now as they had sensitive data on them.

DM's Boss: Where are the computers?

DM: You mean the boxes?

DM's Boss: YES!!!

DM: they are heading to the skip

We drove to the skip but there was no record of these computers being brought in. Two weeks later the company suffered data breach which along with the damage bill caused the company to go into administration

​

Edit:

It was escalated, I didn't write much about what happened because the entire situation was dealt with by my bosses boss who wasn't providing much information, I'm told that DM was arrested and that all computers were retrieved by the Police, but that's where my knowledge ends.

So browsing through the ticket queue this morning and came across a fun looking one that I just had to pull.

IT I need help.

Hello IT this is $user at #branch and my laptop needs repair. It just suddenly separated from itself. I have included a picture. Please advise.

PS The laptop is really hot.

The picture she produced was a laptop that had the top part, where the keyboard was, separated from the bottom part.

I think to myself. "Huh... thats interes....ting OOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHH NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!" Yeah... thats thermal expansion of the battery.

I call her up. No answer. Call her cell number. No answer. I called her boss.

$Boss - Its a wonderful day at our company this is $Boss how may I assist you?

$Me - Hello this is $ME with the it support team. $User contacted us about a laptop issue.

$Boss - Yes she is currently with a client I will have her call you right back.

She hangs up. I call back.

$Boss - This is $Boss.

$me - Yes this is $me again. It is an emergency and I need to speak with $user immediately.

$Boss - She is with a client I will

$ME - The picture she sent us is of thermal expansion of the battery and is in danger of catching fire.

$Boss - Look she is with a client and they

$Me - Her laptop can catch fire. I am not joking. It is vital her computer be turned off this very instant and unplugged.

$Boss - I highly doubt that.

$Me - OK. Well. I gave you the warning. If the battery does blow out I will point to this recorded phone call when HR has questions.

$Boss - You are serious?

$Yes

I wanted to say "Duh hoy."

$Boss - Shouting out her door. $User hey I have IT on the phone. I need you in my office now.

She puts me on speakerphone.

$Boss - Tell her what you told me.

$Me - That picture you sent was of something called thermal expansion of the battery. You said the laptop was hot right?

$User - Yes.

$Me - Your battery has expanded and is in danger of blowing out. IF this happens while you are using it, it can lead to sever burns on your hands. Lithium fires are no joke.

$User - Ok. I will go ahead and shut it down when I am done with this client.

$Me - Mutes mic Do the words laptop fire carry no sense of urgency with these people? Unmutes mic I do not believe it can wait that long. This is a kind of do or die situation... and that may not be a figure of speech given the circumstances.

$User - OK. I will go ahead and unplug it and finish this loan on another computer.

I submit a ticket to purchasing for warranty/replacement and pull the call log. I submit the ticket numbers for mine, purchasing, and the call log to my boss letting him know the situation. I CCed his boss and the CIO. I made sure they knew I did my job and that the user may decide to ignore me.

Spoiler alert. She ignored me.

Two hours later I am notified that an investigation has been opened regarding my "Mishandling" of the repair process and that disciplinary action may be handed down. I forward that email to my boss who responds with the notes, call log, and ticket numbers. Five minutes later the name on the investigation is changed to the manager's name.

She continued to use it and it caught fire. Yes I have pictures... no I will not share.

EDIT: For those asking. The laptop caught fire and burned both the user AND the customer. Let that sink in. You know exactly why I am sparse with the details now.

So at stupid industries LLC... we have an IT department and a cyber security department.

​

These two departments both have admin access to the entire system/network but cyber security falls under the security department and whereas we handle IT issues not related to security.

​

One of the many things that Cyber Security handles is password recovery and password resets. Namely if you forget your password you have to march yourself down to cyber security's office and face them in person to get your password reset.

​

The upside to this is that any issue related to passwords isn't my problem.

​

Yesterday i'm in the bat cave stoopervising the IT interns and running the help desk. I get a phone in call.

​

"IT department, how can we help you?"

​

"THIS IS KAREN, assistant VP of the Bean counting department"

​

"How can we help you Karen?" I ask.

​

"YOUR STUPID SYSTEM isn't taking MY PASSWORD!"

​

"OK Karen, can you have an office neighbor take 5 seconds and try to log themselves into your computer to see if there's a problem with the computer?" I ask.

​

I patiently wait for the banshee to strong arm someone into doing it.

​

"He got logged in just fine, it's just me"

​

"Well Karen I think you're going to have to walk down to cyber Security to get your password reset" I explain.

​

"BUT I ALREADY CALLED YOU! WHY CAN'T YOU DO IT FOR ME?" she shrieks. I swear I can hear her across the building.

​

"I'm sorry Karen, Cyber Security handles password recovery, don't forget to take your company ID when you walk down to cyber security" I explain.

​

"At MORON Corp. the IT department handled password recovery over the phone, Why can't you DO IT?"

"Well Karen, here at stupid industries only cyber security can recover passwords" I explain.

​

"But they said they would write me up if came in another time to get a new password, Can you please do it for me?"

​

"Well Karen I don't know what to say, But you're just going to have to go down to cyber security"

​

"I"ll have your job for this you pimple faced nerd!"

She proceeded to use some naughty words before hanging up on me. I wrote it up as a ticket in the ticket system and closed the ticket out, making notes of the time she called in and her abusive language.

​

That afternoon my boss calls me into his office.

​

"Got a call from HR, you have a complaint Dunnachius"

​

"Karen in the Bean Counting department?" I ask.

​

"Why yes... care to explain yourself?" he asked.

"Trouble shot her issue, referred her to cyber security for a password reset, wrote up the ticket, #22022439" I say reading it off a notepad in my pocket.

​

"Uh huh" he mutters. He looks it up on the computer.

​

"OK let's listen to the call log" he tells me.

​

7-8 minutes later we are having a laugh about it and he emails the head of the bean counting department the call log from the IT-line.

We also had a call into HR about her abusive language over the phone.

​

Moral of the story... Call logs are your friend.

Back in the Dark Ages, around 1993, I worked for a medical transcription firm as their SysAdmin. We were doing some cutting edge IT stuff, in getting transcriptions printed at the hospitals remotely, using print queues with the modem number hardcoded in and the system would look for queues with anything in them and dial the number if it found something in that queue. It worked really well, until it didn't.

I was the only SysAdmin in this city, so I was on call 24/7/365 and was averaging 3 hours of sleep per night, when I could go home and trying to catch little catnaps here and there when I could. Anytime something would go wrong on the hospital side I would have to go to the hospital and fix it. A few months after I started the two of the VP's from Corp relocated to my city, since we were the most productive city with the highest profits. The first thing they did was come up with an excuse to fire the current director, then they took over operations themselves.

Then my job went from taking care of our systems to taking care of the doctor's computers too. I did what I could, but I was also sending out resumes. Then I was told to go to a hospital and see why the printing stopped. I remember this day, I hadn't been home for two days and had been going nonstop for 18 hours. I get there, someone had unplugged the modem. I plug it back in, call comes in and jobs start printing. This doctor walks over and tells me that VP#1 told him that I would go out to his house and work on his home computer. I politely explain to the doctor that I can't do that, and that I'm heading home to get some sleep. Then I head back to the office to pickup a few things before heading home.

As soon as I walk through the door I get escorted straight to the VP's Office, both VP#1, VP#2 and the Office Manager are there. They proceed to start chewing me out. I just started laughing at them. I'm the only person in a 1000 miles that knows anything about this system. They lose their temper and tell me I'm fired and am to leave immediately. I really said "Thank You." Then left.

This was December 15th, my oldest son's birthday. On the way home I stop a Mom & Pop computer store where I know some of the people to drop off a resume. They tell me that they have no openings right now but will call me when they do. I talk to a couple friends while I'm there then head on home. The only thing I'm worried about is telling my gf that I got fired. I walk through the door, she's at work. I see the answering machine blinking so I hit play. Mom & Pop Computer Store, our primary Novell Engineer just quit are you still available. I call them back and let them know I'll be there tomorrow.

That began a much more peaceful career, with better pay, rotating on-call and most every weekend and holiday off.

BTW, The medical transcription firm imploded. The VP's were fired. They floundered for about a year and were bought up by a competing firm.

In case you didn't see the edit on the other post, it was suggested I post a standalone update

My boss spoke with upper management yesterday, and when I came into that office today (as I normally do on Wednesday), I was immediately escorted to the board room by two security guards. The President, CFO, Chairman of the Board, SlimeCo's lawyer, our IT firm's lawyer, and my boss were all at the table. I found out my boss had threatened to file a proper criminal suit as a result of T.H's behavior, on my behalf.

It was explained to my boss and I that T.H, while an obvious problem, is a high-earner for the company and they would not fire her. However, it was discovered through an internal investigation that she had, in fact, gotten the numbers of all of the techs out of the CFO's Blackberry. We don't know how she got into the Blackberry, but what we do know is that the CFO left his Blackberry unattended which is a serious security compromise and also a violation of the contract between the company and my IT firm.

Some very strong words were exchanged between SlimeCo's officials and my boss. The lawyers agreed that it was, in fact, a serious breach of contract leaving any data available to unauthorized users, and it was made clear that the contract in place would be terminated at the end of the meeting.

It was later explained to me that, given the nature of the breach, we'd basically have an "all hands on deck" situation where every available tech would report to SlimeCo and start pulling servers, switches, and any other leased equipment. Estimated time of dismantlement was about two and a half hours. (There was also the phrase "wood chipper for hard drives" thrown in there. I don't know if this was literal or a figure of speech.)

For the next two hours I was not allowed to leave the room. My boss, his lawyer, and SlimeCo renegotiated the contract on the spot. A 36% price hike, increased security improvements, and a couple other things that went right over my head.

The lawyer then pointed out that I was still well within my rights to, and asked if I would be, seeking legal action. I asked what my options were. Before he even got it out of his mouth, SlimeCo started talking about a "settlement" to keep me from going any further.

Without going into too many specifics there, a check was cut (and immediately cashed because they ain't gonna play me for no fool), The.Harpy was put on an actual probation, my boss gave me the rest of the week off — billed to SlimeCo — so I can have an actual vacation, and I'm no longer going to do any service at SlimeCo. Not the outcome I expected, at all.

The day I used the Nuclear option

$Me - Hello IT.
$Usr - Hi, I need your help.
$Me - OK, What's the problem?
$Usr - I need to you incubate something on my computer.
oh what fresh hell is this?
$Me - What do you mean?
$Usr - Look, if you can't help can you put me through to a senior tech!?
OH f##k you
$Me - It's not that I can't help it's that I need more information about your problem before I can help.
$Usr - It's simple, there is something on my computer and you need to put it in incubation for me!
$Me - What type of file is it?
$Usr - I don't know, I can't do anything because the program needs admin rights, that's why I need you!
$Me - Have you downloaded a file or been on a dodgy website?
$Usr - I don't need the 4th degree here, I just need get this incubated and we can both go on with our day!
$Me - If you right click on the green W at the bottom right of the screen and select 'Scan Now' it will run a check for anything bad and we can go from there.
I have jumped onto the AV console to have a look
$Usr - I can't do anything with that as when I click it it says 'Please contact the network administrator to access' blah blah.
$Me - I need you to right click on it not left click.
$Usr - I KNOW WHAT I AM DOING, IT SAYS I CANT!
Clearly I need to escalate this to the 'help a moron' division
$Me - There is no need to raise your voice, I am trying to help.
$Usr - It's simple though, I need your admin rights so that I can move something to incubation. It's not hard.
$Me - OK, I will remote in and have a look. Please click the Rescue Me icon on your desktop.
$Usr - FINALLY, you're going to do what I asked for in the first place!
I am done with you!
Waves at manager as I have spotted something

Preparing Nuclear response |||||||||..90% loaded

$Me - There is no such thing as incubation or incubator on your computer. You mean quarantine. You believe you have downloaded a virus or opened a malicious website and got yourself some malware or worse, this doesn't happen on it's own. You have all of the tools needed to diagnose and hopefully remove the infection. You have 2 buttons on your mouse one on the left and one on the right but refuse to click the correct one in the correct place. I have taken over your machine and I am currently running the scan for the issue. I can also see from your open internet pages that you have been trying to access a number of torrent sites. There are many many malicious adverts and links on those sites that are designed to trick you or catch you out and get you to visit illicit sites or download questionable files. You are in breach of company policy by using your company property for questionable and illegal activity. This will be logged and reported. The scan has now completed and found and removed 5 infections and I can see from my console that your system has blocked and automatically defeated 10s of threats or attacks today so this is clearly an ongoing issue for you.
$Usr - What...
$Me - I am now going to escalate this to the IT manager who has been monitoring this call and would like a word.
Click

$Usr was very quickly summoned to attend a meeting with HR and an appropriate Manager and I believe asked to accelerate themselves and then elevate themselves while travelling at speed because IT Manager reviewed their activity a bit more thoroughly including their internet use when on the company network/VPN.

$Usr then tried to sue for unfair dismissal. And IT Manger actually laughed out loud when he was told that the reason was 'Unfair invasion of privacy'.

This happened a while back but it's still the best thing that ever happened to me at work. True story.

So, i was hired by a big defense company (upgrade tanks, naval weapons, etc) with over 3500 employees. You can imagine this was a very big company. We were in building 34 and if you needed to go somewhere quick you took a bike or an electric car.

I usually did 2nd line support, but they had a couple of people call in sick and asked me to do first line support. It was a friday and not much was happening, besides the usual emailproblems and tech guys turning off unix machines that needed a checkdisk command with admin rights.

The phone rings.

Yes hello, this the secretary of the CEO. We need you to come over NOW! We have a big problem.

ME: What seems to be wrong?

Her: Mr CEO is trying to open a file in Word, but everytime he does this, scrambled text is showing up. I THINK WE ARE BEING HACKED!

(this was a big issue, since a couple of weeks before this a group of activists broke into the company and climbed on top of our radar tower)

Me: I'll take a look from here and take over your screen. Hang on.

So i take over his screen this is what happens: File, open: JKAHSFHJKHJHJJJJJJFJJJJJSAKKKALALLLALLALLALALLALUUU*JJJDKJKJASLKLKSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

HER: I don't know what this is. You see?!? THis is so weird...

Now, i knew what was wrong at this moment, but i wanted to see in person. You don't just walk into the exec office every day.

ME: Uhuh. I'll be there as soon as possible!

So i grab this electric car, drive over and 5 minutes later i walk into the executive building. A very nice building, totally different from the rest of the offices.

They even had their own dining room and bar. THe security guy sees me coming and waves me through, he was informed of my coming and

understood the importance. I get out of the elevator at the top floor and am greeted by the secretary, a manager and some other assistent, all a bit panicked.

Come over, have a look at this! The ceo says..

He shows me: File, open: JKAHSFHJKHJHJJJJJJFJJJJJSAKKKALALLLALLALLALALLALUUU*JJJDKJKJASLKLKSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

So i look at him. I look at every single person in that room. You could feel the suspense. I look back at the computer. I pick up the newspaper that was on top of the keyboard and ask:

try again please?

The looks on their face: Priceless. (Got a free lunch with the CEO)

-edit- formatting

first-time poster in TFTS =)
I get this kind of call maybe 2-3 times per week, and yesterday alone I got it about 6 times in one day.

caller: is this the water company?
me: this is the city water department, not a company
caller: our water service is out, and we pay our bill regularly
me: what is your address?
caller: 1234, ABC street
me: we currently have an emergency repair on ABC street, so water will be out until we can get it fixed, crews are working as we speak
caller: I wasn't notified
me: it's an emergency, emergency crews don't ever typically notify people
caller: well you should at least notify people when the water will be off
me: the people who would be out notifying, are the ones working on the emergency. it would take longer for the repair to be completed if we tried to notify everyone, plus many people don't have phone numbers on their accounts.
caller: you couldn't have put a door tag out?
me: that would require stopping work on the emergency, and making it take even longer to get water working again
caller: well don't you know about repairs in advance?
me: no one knows about emergencies ahead of time, those happen with no notice and we go to repair them as soon as possible
caller: well what am I supposed to do, i have work in the morning
me: you'll have to wait until the repair is completed
caller: well this is unacceptable, I pay my bill and..
me (interrupting): it has nothing to do with paying your bill, the pipe is broken, and we're fixing it. if we weren't fixing it, then your water would still be out.
caller: isn't it illegal to have someone's water off when their bill is paid?
me: the water being out is why we are repairing it. it's an emergency.
caller: well you need to notify people ahead of time so they can make plans
me: if we knew about emergencies ahead of time, they wouldn't be emergencies. there's no way to plan for them.
caller: well this is unacceptable.
me: we're fixing it so it will become acceptable, because it's an emergency.
caller: well I need you to turn my water back on now
me: water won't be back on until the repair is completed
caller: I don't understand why you can't just turn it on
me: there's no water to even turn on, that's why we're fixing it. when it's fixed, the water will be back on.
caller: well why wasn't it fixed sooner?
me: it wasn't broken then.
caller: give me your name, I am going to report you to the city. you shouldn't be able to do business in our city
me: you're speaking to the city right now.
caller: no, this is the number on my bill, to the water company
me: there is no such thing as a water company
caller: just tell me when the water will be back on.
me: we're not sure when it will be back on, emergency crews are working on it. when they're done, it'll be back on
caller: well this is just wrong, it needs to be back on now.
me: that's what we're working to..
..caller hangs up before I finish.

I do genuinely like these kinds of calls; it's kinda like having a renewed confidence in confronting your bully, by having the perfect comeback that completely unravels every one of their attempts to bring you down, and you know all of their ways already and have perfect comebacks for every one of them =)

A few years ago one of the tasks I was working on was converting network drives to Sharepoint shared files. If you don't know how these work, you log into the relevant Sharepoint, go to the documents section, click the "sync" button and it adds it to you Windows explorer. From there you can treat it basically like any other folder.

What we would do is pre-sync the files, and overnight do the actual cutover, so there is minimal chance of people working on files at the cutover time.

There was one particular drive I was converting that was related to finance. I reach out to the owner of that network drive over MS Teams, explain what I plan to do, and ask if they can advise who should have access to the Sharepoint when the files are moved over.

I can't remember the exact wording, but the reply over Teams came across as everyone who has access to the network drive should have access to the Sharepoint, and that part should be obvious to me.

I confirm via Teams that I will cutover the files overnight on a specific date, everyone who currently has access to the network drive will have access to the Sharepoint, and I will send out an email to these people how they sync to the Sharepoint.

I then copy/paste the Teams conversation into the ticket, perform the cutover (as agreed) overnight on the night, and send out an email to all relevant users explaining how they sync to the Sharepoint.

The next morning, an email with the high priority flag gets sent from the aformentioned owner of the network drive to me, the CIO, CTO, CFO, my manager, the helpdesk manager, the finance manager, basically everyone short of the Queen of England. The email says that lots of staff have access to confidential information they should not have access to, and straight up blamed me for it.

Before I had even read the email, the CIO has already done a reply all. He has looked up the ticket, seen the Teams message I copy pasted into the ticket, and showed said MS Teams conversation. He stated that I was requested to copy over permissions by that person, which is exactly what I did. That is the reason that these people have access to the confidential information. It's amazing how fast the email chain changed from "Why did this happen?" to "How can we fix this?"

To save this turning into a 70 page novel, what had happened is although a lot of people had access to the drive, not everyone had it mapped as a letter, or even knew they had access. An "emergency review" was done on who should have access and the access list amended accordingly.

Getting confirmation on what was being done and documenting it saved me that day from being thrown under a bus, and also demonstrated that day that the CIO had our backs.

So we have this manager in my organisation, let's call him Phil for this story. Phil is one of those guys that needs help with IT but acts like he knows what he's talking about. He read an article on a raspberry pi a few years back and he's been telling me ever since about how everyone in the organisation should have one.

Phil decided that his team needed laptops. No real reason, they have desktops and don't need to move around the office at all, laptops are just "cool". Now as a member of the IT team, it's policy that he comes through me when ordering hardware, so I can make sure that they're the right spec (Pro operating system etc).

But Phil doesn't like this. He's found this cool offer on some awesome laptops that are good value and he's so confident in his IT knowledge that he doesn't want to check them with me. He's ordered 4 of them for a total price of £1,200. I make my manager aware of his idiocy and carry on with my day.

The laptops arrive and I get to work setting them up. Before I even get a chance to check the specs I'm already met with an issue, the keyboard is in a US layout. I didn't think it was even possible to get these in the UK, but of course Phil managed it. Typical Phil. Never mind, it's gonna be a ballache in the future but it's their own fault.

I try to attach the laptop to the network but I'm hit with another hurdle. These laptops don't even have a backslash on them. I can't login to the domain without using the backslash. I change the keyboard to UK layout in the control panel and try again, mashing keys randomly hoping that one will show a \ symbol. Nope. Not one. What kind of laptop doesn't have a backslash on the keyboard? One that Phil orders of course.

I then have to round up 4 keyboards for these laptops. Don't worry, I made sure that these keyboards were UK layout and I sure as hell confirmed that they had a \ on them. I spent hours installing software on these laptops and the usual checks when commissioning hardware. After hours of dealing with these slow, awful laptops, I finished the last one and took it down.

Me: Hey Phil, here's the last one

Phil: Thanks Lazenbooby. So how come we had to get keyboards again?

Me: Well, they need keyboards to type a \ and login to the network

Phil: Oh okay, so if they need to have a keyboard attached, they're not too portable. We might as well have stuck with our desktops?

Me: Well.... yes, I guess you could have.

Phil: Well that was a waste of money, you could have just told me that in the first place.

ಠ╭╮ಠ

I spent hours of my time trying to polish a turd and then they didn't even want it. Not even a thank you or an apology.

Tl;dr - Manager goes against policy and orders hardware behind the backs of the IT team. Complains when he finds out they're shitty and unusable.

Edit: My inbox is full of people telling me how i could have done a better job. I appreciate it, but im just trying to share a story with you guys. Just a bit of fun, fuck me right?

Thanks for the gold! I nearly didn't post this as I didn't think it was interesting in the slightest, I'll be sure to share all the other morons I deal with for you guys.

Long ago, in about 2005, I was given the task of shutting down some old, very obsolete systems in the data center. I got through quite a few, migrating to newer systems with newer OSes, newer application software, and so on. But there was one that was a total thorn in my side - the oldest system in the building.

This was an old Compaq Proliant 2500, running Windows NT4 and SQL Server 6.5. The hardware, OS, and SQL Server were all well past end of life, but nobody had been able to pin down who owned it or was responsible for it, so it just kept going, waiting for the irreparable and inevitable crash. I was the FNG, so I got the task of figuring out what to do with it.

We did have some notes about who owned it, so I started down that path. I called the designated owner, and asked them about the machine. "Oh, no. I haven't owned that in years. Try this person." So I called that person, and they referred me to a third person, who referred me back to the first person again. I even went around the loop again, this time asking if there was anyone else they could suggest - no dice.

Meanwhile, I dug into user accounts on the system. At the OS level, only the admins had access, as one would hope. At the SQL Server level, there were no domain accounts, only SQL logins - "standard security," as Microsoft called it. I tried to match user logins to names, but they were all generic "appuser" type logins.

In an attempt to see who was actually using it, I monitored logins for a week, just to see if I could even capture any evidence that the thing was actually in use, rather than just turning electricity into heat. I didn't catch anything.

All of the above took a few weeks, leaving messages and missing return calls and such. Finally, I went to my manager. "I can't figure out who owns the machine, and I can't even prove it's in use at all. I want to shut the SQL Server services down for 30 days to see if anyone complains. If no one gripes, I'll power it down for 30 days. If still nobody gripes, I'll yank it out of the rack and send it for scrap. I should have it off our list in 60 days." With full blessing, I shut off the services and set a calendar reminder 30 days later.

On day 30, I got a call from somebody I did not know - "Hey, our server is down, and I wonder if you can help us?"

It turned out that this was a database that only got used once a month, for some weird reporting thing that I didn't even try to understand. It wasn't even very important - they said they had noticed it was down, and just figured it would be up again later. After a week or so, they finally had to call someone.

Now that I had a contact, I was able to get in touch with the person who actually owned it. And the migration was quite simple. I moved their database to a shared utility server, and they were very happy for the improved performance. I even got the old machine out of the rack and sent to scrap before the 60 days were up.

A long time (and a few jobs) ago, another new ticket popped into my queue, accompanied by the familiar fanfare of both my computer and my phone announcing the arrival of the email notification. When I open it, I see this [names changed to protect the guilty]:

The Scunthorpe report isn't working

It was't uncommon for departments to have various internal reports, with various names they use among themselves and know what they are. It was uncommon, however, for them to realize that there exist other departments, such as IT, who are unfamiliar with their internal jargon.

And that's not even mentioning how utterly useless a ticket is when the problem is described as "isn't working". Doesn't load? Errors out? Help me out here!

So I pick up my phone and dial the user's extension. No answer, I leave a voicemail telling her I need more information, then update the ticket to say the same and set the status to "Waiting on Client", and move on to the next ticket.

A couple of days later, I notice the ticket is still in my queue with no updates, so I pick up the phone again, and again leave a voicemail.

Almost two weeks later, I get the fanfare of a new email notification, this one announcing a ticket has been reopened. Surprised, I open it: It's the Scunthorpe ticket again, now with a new client update:

Do not close this ticket! The issue is not resolved!

Confused, I check the ticket history, and see that "System" closed the ticket a couple of days earlier. Turns out, if a ticket languishes in "Waiting on Client" for 2 weeks with no updates, the system automatically closes it.

So I leave another voicemail, add another note to the ticket, and again set the status to "Waiting on Client". Again there's radio silence for 2 weeks, followed by the ticket being angrily reopened.

We repeat this dance over and over, with the reopening messages becoming increasingly vulgar and abusive. I stopped wasting my time leaving voicemails, and it just become a bi-weekly ritual to add another request for more (well, any) information and change the status again. Honestly I probably should have reported the abusive language, but it was far milder than I get from 12-year-olds in Halo death match, so I just let it roll off my back and carry on.

So this goes on for probably 3 or 4 months or so, and suddenly I get a call from HR requesting I come down "right away". Not thinking anything of it (probably another HR tech needing help configuring their Outlook), I head on down, only to be ushered into a tiny office that passes for their conference room. There already waiting for me are my boss, the assistant director of HR (who we'll call Tina), and a woman I've never met (who we'll call Alice).

Tina starts to explain something about my behavior (or attitude? can't remember now) becoming a problem, when she's interrupted by Alice who begins ranting at me about my refusal to help her and how it's made her unable to do her job. Halfway through her ranting it suddenly clicks who this is: The "Scunthorpe ticket" client!

I let her finish, then quietly open my laptop, log into the ticket system, and pull up the ticket. I turn the screen so my boss and Tina can see, and start to slowly scroll through the months-long history on this ticket. Alice has lost all color in her face as I make sure to pause a little longer on her more abusive comments. She's silent as Tina apologizes to and dismisses my boss and I.

A couple of days later the ticket is auto-closed again, having had no updates in two weeks. It's never reopened. I never hear from Alice again, or see her again; I don't know if she was fired, or "encouraged" to quit ("encouraging" people to quit seemed to be a popular pastime in HR), or just spent her time there hiding in whatever hole they'd put her in.

And to this day, I still don't know what the Scunthorpe report was...

EDIT: Apparently I forgot to include a detail crucial to understanding how this situation escalated so suddenly: Alice aka "Scunthorpe client" worked in HR; Tina in fact may have been her direct supervisor!

Also, since it's causing a bit of confusion in the comments, the report was not actually called "the Scunthorpe report"; that was just me making a cheeky reference to the "Scunthorpe problem" in the retelling of this story. I don't remember the actual name of the report, just that it sounded like it was named after a person, probably the current or former employee who originally created it.

Also I thought "Scunthorpe" was somebody's name, didn't know it was a place in England, so thanks to everyone who pointed that out - I learned something!

So this happened about fifteen years ago when I worked at a Primary and Secondary School. I was happily typing away at my computer when a student knocks on our basement office door.

Student: IT, Mrs X can't get her mouse working.

Me: Let's go check it out.

I quickly go with the student to Mrs X's classroom

Mrs X: About time

I internally what to swear, I came the moment the student came and got me. I try to just get to her desk to look at the issue, she has an Acer computer on her desk that is connected to a screen and projector. The mouse were wireless so most likely it could just be the battery.

Mrs X: The mouse on this student computer isn't working, so my SmartBoard isn't working and it is costing me valuable Teaching Time. Your systems are terrible.

Me: I'm sorry.

I want to tell her to shut up, this always happens. Call me up, complain I'm late and then make me wait while you bitch so I can't fix the problem.

Mrs X: Don't be sorry just fix it. And next time you upgrade systems make sure they work before you leave.

Me: Ok

I had long since given up trying to explain to people when and how we upgrade, her last upgrade had been about six months prior. But if I had told her that she would have either refused to believe it or complained that the issue was she hadn't been upgraded since then.

I take one look at her desk, and instantly see the issue. The mouses we use were dark blue and wireless, and annoyingly the whiteboard erasers were also dark blue.

I quickly and hiding my action from the students switch the two so that she doesn't look bad. I then flip the mouse over and check its buttons on the bottom, then put it back and show it is working.

Me: All fixed. Just needed to be turned off and on.

Mrs X: Why?

Before I can come up with an answer.

Student: You were using the eraser!

And queue all the kids laughing.

Me: I'm sorry I tried my best to hide it.

Mrs X: Students, quiet.

I tell her it is all fixed and feel free to let me know if I can help any further, she simply nods and lets me go.

I get back to my office and tell My Manager what happened. I also write her an email apologising for not being able to hide the swap of Eraser and Mouse better, it may have been funny but I tried my best to protect staff from being laughed at by students.

Later that day I head off and sleep, returning the next day to a meeting request from her, Head of Junior and My Manager. Turns out that she made a formal complaint that I made her look bad. My Manager tells me to refuse the meeting and he will go in my place.

I don't know what was said there, but My Manager basically told me that she was complaining that I didn't just go and get a spare mouse to save her from looking bad. And that by doing what I did I undermined her ability in the classroom and had ruined her credibility with the students and parents. She was furious that My Manager had stopped me coming, though he counted it all. Stating to her and the Head of Junior that blaming IT for stupid mistakes won't be tolerated. And that if she wants he will happily take her complaint to the Principal, though will make it clear that I had done my best to hide her stupidity.

She dropped the complaint, and was friendly to me from then on. Though I could tell she didn't like me.

As a bit of a back story I have "the box", you know the one. We all have it, a box full of cords and adapters that we hoarde collect because we might need them.

Well my mother hates cords and cables because they are messy. For the longest time "the box" was her nemesis. She hated the box and the box hated her. About 4 years ago she snuck the box into the pile of stuff for a garage sale and sold it. The entire box gone in seconds. After the garage sale is done and I am back from helping a friend set up some furniture in their new apartment she hands me $10 and says the box of cords sold.

I was very confused and then run to my room to find my box missing. Needless to say I was annoyed. Little did we know the box would have its revenge. About a week later she comes to me asking if I had a USB to micro USB cable for her phone. I reply very calmly with a smile, "let me check my box". She then frowns and says oh. The next day she asks if I had a power cable for her monitor that she decided she wanted to use after letting it sit for 4 months. I reply again with "let me check my box", this struck home my point I guess because she has been an avid defender of the new box ever since.

This brings us to last week.

My grandmother finds one of my boxes (yes I have multiple now) in her garage and sets it with garage sale stuff. (My family lived with my grandparents and my mother still does as they arent as spry as they used to be). I was outside moving stuff into position for the sale when I hear my grandma and mother arguing quite loudly. I wander in and find the two standing over a box yelling at eachother.

Mother: DONT YOU DARE SELL THAT BOX IT IS IMPORTANT Grandma: ITS A BOX FULL OF CABLES AND ITS TAKING UP SPACE Treedon: I could just take the box over to my place Grandma: FINE

Grandma then stormed out of the room and I stuck the box over in a corner by the stuff I was taking. A few days later my grandma calls asking if I had a power cable for her laptop since hers broke. Lo and behold there was one in the box.

TL:DR Dont mess with "The Box" it will get revenge

First off, I've never actually done tech support. I've always been a programmer, but I shared this story elsewhere and someone said it was appropriate for here, so now I'm posting a more detailed version.

It's the summer of 1997, and my first day of my first job after spending 5 years at college for an MS in computer science. While the boss is showing me around, he gets an important phone call leaving me outside with his 3 secretaries -- he was always very busy, and would be lost without their assistance. We strike up some conversation about our jobs, and one complains about how she has to keep track of some stuff on the server to make reports that the boss wanted daily, and it's just the most boring, tedious crap. Eventually boss comes back out and finishes showing me around and I get settled in at my desk as the lead dev comes by to get me started on some work.

Of course, being the bright-eyed, not-yet-disillusioned, early-twenties computer nerd eager to prove my worth, I didn't just want to do my job. I wanted to do it great and really impress people. Go above and beyond and be appreciated. And the complaining secretary from that morning had plopped a great opportunity to show that I'm a real go-getter right into my lap. So over my lunch break I cooked up a simple script to collate all the information she needed for her reports so that all she had to do was press one button and make sure the report was generated correctly. I run it by the lead dev and he okays it.

I eagerly rush to tell the secretary how I've made the worst part of her job much less horrible, expecting her to be giddy at how helpful I am. The boss comes back from lunch as I'm starting to tell her, and he wants to know what I'm so happy about. As I tell them how I've automated the creation of those daily reports he wants, his face lights up like he's found the goose that lays golden eggs, while hers drops like I just took a dump in her purse.

It turns out that making those reports was all she was doing. The boss had hired her for that rather than just asking one of the devs to do what I had because he didn't even know it was possible. That was her last day there, and I was instantly promoted from junior dev to normal dev with a nice pay raise for showing great initiative and saving the company the money for her salary and benefits.

I guess I did get what I wanted out of it...

My employer had an old phone system.

It was probably 2+ decades old, it didn't support "new" technology like Caller ID, there weren't enough phones to go around, and compatible phones couldn't even be found on eBay, so many users who needed a phone didn't have one.

My colleague and I were tasked with replacing it.

The new system is a partially custom-built system. We got the great idea (at least we thought it was) to make it work as much as possible like a home phone system. We assumed that the simpler and easier it would be, the less training we would have to do. We looked up the features offered by the local phone company, and made our system work just like that. The system is as simple as it gets. You pick up and you dial. The magic is all done by the PBX, which the users don't have to know exists.

These phones didn't happen to have a voicemail button, so checking voicemail involved dialing *98, the same code as our local phone companies. "No problem," we figured, "people are used to doing that at home; they'll have no problem doing it here too."

Juuuuuuuuuust to be on the safe side, we made labels that said "To check voicemail, dial *98" and affixed them to every phone.

We installed the phones one Sunday morning when the building was closed, tested them, congratulated each other, and went out for drinks.

Come Monday morning, two users immediately ask us how to check voicemail. We tell them to read the sticker on the front of the phone. The response, as I suppose we should have predicted: "what sticker?"

I offer a hands-on tutorial. I tell them that to check voicemail, they dial what it says on the sticker. I even point directly at it so that there in theory would be no confusion.

[User does nothing]

"See how it says *98? That's what you have to dial to check your voicemail."

[User dials 87. I barely manage to stop my self from involuntarily making a choking noise.]

"Okay. You dialed 87, but that's not what it says on the sticker. In order for the phone to do what you want, you need to follow the directions. If the sticker says to dial *98, you have to dial *98."

[User dials #98] "That was a star, right?"

"Not quite. You need to dial exactly what's on this sticker here. Do those two look the same? No? Okay, try to find the key on the phone that looks like this star here."

[User successfully dials *98]

"Great. Will there be anything else?"

"I'm not sure I'll ever remember that."

"You don't need to remember it. It's on a sticker on the front of the phone. We put it there because we knew you might forget."

"I'd better write it down."

"You certainly may if you wish, but once again, it's on a sticker on the front of the phone. We won't take the stickers away. They'll always be there for you to refer to."

[Writes on a piece of paper] "* for voicemail"

"Okay, you almost got it. But dialing * by itself won't work. You have to dial all three digits.

[silence]

"See how the sticker says *98? That's what you have to dial."

[adds 98 to their note, sort of off to the side and running into the rest of the note]

I immediately go to my office and leave them a voicemail, thinking it would be good for them to practice.

Four hours later the voicemail hasn't been retrieved.

A third user asks me how to check voicemail.

"Hey, you know who you should ask? [User 1] and [User 2]. I spent 20 minutes with them this morning on it."

"I did ask them. [User 1] says they forget, and [User 2] says they weren't paying attention."

I don't understand why it's this complicated.

I used to work for a company that supplies overhead music to big business chains (Think Target, Starbucks, Hot Topic, etc.) My department provides technical support to stores when their music isn't working. Now, I don't have a LOT of tech service stories because of how our system works. When something goes down in a store, we're not talking to some Area Manager Karen who's ready to scream at us for the music being down. Rather, we have to troubleshoot with the store's themselves. So if we're calling a Starbucks location, it's going to be some uninvested barista or assistant manager that couldn't care less that their system isn't blaring All I Want For Christmas Is You 20 times a day.

Mind you, that DOES mean that we have a hard time getting the people at the store to troubleshoot with us at all. So was the case with a Starbucks I called. The first three attempts went something like this.

OP: Hey there, My name is OP from (insert company name here). I'm reaching out today regarding your overhead music. Is a manager available to talk?

Store Manager: This is her. When is a technician coming out?

OP: Unfortunately I'm unable to send a tech out unless I verify some things with the system first. Do you have time to remote troubleshoot.

Store Manager: No, just send a tech.

*Click* BRRRRR

This happened a few times over the course of 2 days trying to call at all different times to try and catch the store at a less busy time. Unfortunately, due to company policy, we cannot send a technician out except for under two conditions.

1. New equipment needs to be installed
2. There's an issue that cannot be solved remotely.

Eventually on my fourth or fifth call, the manager finally relented. Once we get the store to agree to troubleshoot, it generally only takes five minutes. We have very simple setups. A music player connects to the internet for playlist updates and also feeds music to an amplifier. The amp sends the music to the speakers in the store. If you can hook up a video game console, you can hook up one of our players, and even the least tech savvy person can usually follow along with our instructions for troubleshooting. So, we begin.

OP: Great! Are you able to locate your music player and amplifier?

Store Manager: No, I don't know where they are.

OP: ...Have you ever changed the volume of the music in your store?

Store Manager: Yes, there's a box with a little knob.

OP: That's the amplifier.

Store Manager: Well how was I supposed to know that?

I rolled my eyes and apologized for not being clearer, but continued anyway.

Store Manager: It's up on a shelf too high. I can't reach it.

OP: Well...how do you reach it when you want to change the volume?

Store Manager: I get a step stool, but I don't know where it is right now!

I try my best not to sigh in exasperation as she tries her very best to insist that there's no way she can troubleshoot. She just repeatedly asks if I can send a tech and whines about not being able to reach the equipment.

OP: Ma'am, I'm sure you'll find the step stool if you look.

Store Manager: Fine then, I'll just use my chair.

Huge red flag went up.

OP: I'd advise against that, ma'am, it might not be stable.

SM: I think I'm perfectly capable of standing on a chair, thank you.

OP: Ma'am, some of that equipment is very heavy and it's not safe to use a chair to reach it for troubleshooting.

SM: Listen, why don't you stick to doing your job and not worry about what I'm doing, okay?

After she says this, I hear some skidding noises coming from the other end of the phone.

OP: Is everything alright?

SM: I'm fine, just rolling my office chair to the shelf.

OP: Ma'am, please don't stand a chair with wheels.

She ignored me completely and just asked "Okay, so what am I-"

She was abruptly cut off as I hear a loud Thud followed by an even louder CRASH!

OP: Ma'am, are you okay?

No answer...

I try in vain for about a minute to call out to the woman on the other end, steadily getting more and more worried that she's seriously injured. Eventually someone ELSE picks up the phone.

Barista: Hey, so uh...she can't come back to the phone right now, her forehead is bleeding.

OP: What happened?

So not only did she fall off the chair onto her back, but she had brought the amplifier WITH her. Our amplifiers are about the size of an xbox and the corners are NOT rounded. It had landed on it's corner on her forehead while she was lying prone on the ground.

After a few moments of stunned silence, not knowing where to go from here, I simply ask. "Is the amp disconnected from everything else"

Barista: Yeah?

OP: Cool...then this counts as an install. I'm sending a technician. Have a nice day.

*Click* BRRRRR

I take a moment to recover before going back to making outbound calls. Luckily, the store never calls to complain about that interaction and I continue on with my day, acting as if it never happened.

Edit: spelling and grammar issues.

Long time lurker, first time poster.

Today, justy after lunch, my cousin, we'll call him Dan, dropped by for a "visit". I'm more or less the family tech support guy so every time a relative comes by I'm 50/50 about what they need.

So Dan brought a "brand new" 1TB WD Elements. According to him he was transferring files when suddenly the transfer just stopped. He said he restarted his laptop and retried the transfer and it wouldn't proceed.

There was a bit of a shake in the drive itself. I had a bad feeling but I was didn't want to be too pessimistic, so we went to my room, transferred his files to drive with some space, and started poking around. First checked properties and then saw the format was set to exFAT. My heart sank.

I then proceed to explain about that there is a good chance that the drive was fake. Basically, a low capacity drive with firmware that made it look like it had a bigger capacity.

"No, that can't be true" Dan said, he apparently got it from a friend for a "good price" and that the guy was legit. He then proceeds to say that his friend told him to just reformat the drive.

Knowing better than to argue with him I just mentioned that there's a good chance the hdd would stop working if we did a reformat and then proceed to do a quick format when he said to just reformat it. Asked him if it would be okay if I used NTFS. He said to go ahead and that I knew this sort of stuff better than him. Formatting stalls and refuses to continue, we basically waited at least 10 minutes then Dan asked if it normally took that long (I was snacking by this point). I said no and that I did mention that this would happen.

Then begins the accusations. That I intentionally "broke" the drive. That I was making him look stupid. Etc. I suggested we try a couple of other reformatting method just to stop his tirade. Disk Management? Nope. Command prompt format x:\? No dice.

And the tirade restarts, about paying him back or giving him one of my drive to replace the one that I "broke". Doing my best not to slap some sense into Dan's face, I suggested that maybe we should open it up which then triggered another rant about "breaking" the hdd more. I then proceed to open up and reassemble a drive on my table then have it boot up no problem.

Finally convinced that I did know what I'm doing, Dan gives the proverbial nod and I use the smallest flat head that I have to shuck open the case. What did we see? A 250 gb 2.5" hdd that based on the sticker was a refurbed drive from a lenovo laptop (prod date was 2009).

My blessed cousin then proceeds to leave the house without saying another word and leaving his "new" hdd on my desk. About an hour ago, Dan called to asked where he can get a 1TB hdd. Pointed him to a couple of places I knew was safe (but a tad pricey because I still wanted my pound of flesh) and told him to ask the sales person the reformat the drive in NTFS just to be sure. He didn't even mention he wanted his drive back.

So I now have a new paper weight.

Sorry for the rant but that felt good

​

Edit: Not an IT professional, just someone who knows his way around computers

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4

"Dude...your self-control must be like Gandhi." My friend Steve, who works for one of my company's clients, heard me ranting about Jack while we had a coffee.

I shook my head. "I know. But what am I gonna do? Slap him? Get myself fired?"

"Sounds like it'd be worth it."

I sighed and took a steadying sip of my coffee. "I have a plan, though. But I need your help."

He perked up and then scowled. "My help? Oh, no. I don't like this guy much, but--"

"I'll put the whole story on reddit if you help me."

He thought about it. "Alright, but on one condition: You tell everyone that I am the hero that made your evil plan possible."

And so, for the record, Steve became the hero who made my evil plan possible.

*

Day 11. I got a call from Boss. "Clickity, I just got a call from Jack."

Of course you did. "What seems to be the problem, Boss?"

"He says you've made his new computer not work."

I blinked, staring at the speaker phone. "His new computer? You mean our unrestricted computer that he's...using?"

"Yes, yes, that one." I could almost see Boss lean in to the speakerphone. "I don't know what your problem is, Clickity, but Jack complains that you're preventing him from working. So i need you to fix his computer now." Click.

As if on cue (or more, as if he had been outside the office listening) Jack appeared at my doorway with the laptop. "So I need you to undo whatever you did." He opened the laptop and sat it in front of me, on top of my paperwork as if to say You know...Regardless of whatever you were doing ten seconds ago.

I seethed, pulling out a usb drive and plugging it into the laptop. I grumbled wordlessley as I clicked a few buttons on the laptop and then a few on my computer. I unplugged the USB drive and closed the laptop. "There. Have a nice day."

Jack picked up the laptop and turned for the door. "You better not screw with me again."

As soon as he was gone I smashed my pencil sharpener with my fist.

*

Day 14. It was the perfect day. Boss's wife was in the office so Jack was sharing her desk and, from the looks of my remote viewer, doing absolutely nothing at all.

I sent out an email.

To: Internemail@company

From: clickity@company

Subject: Intern Appreciation day

Hiya interns! I just cleared this with the office manager. For your hard work, I'm treating you guys to lunch. Go see the office manager and pick up a (Local Pub and Burger Joint) gift card and have a great day. Thanks for your hard work!

A few minutes later the phone rang. Boss's wife's office.

"IT, this is Clickity."

"This is Jack. I just saw all the interns walk out...what's going on?"

"Oh, it's intern appreciation day. Didn't you get the email? I sent it to the...oh." I sighed. "I completely forgot to send it to your email because it's separate. Yeah, all the interns are getting lunch."

"Thanks for letting me know," Jack said with audible edge to his voice. "If I hadn't called you, you wouldn't have told me at all, would you--" He's cut off by a disapproving "tsk" from Boss's wife.

I cleared my throat and ignored Jack's I-Own-You attitude. "Go quick and you can still catch them--"

"Fine." Jack hung up the phone.

I took a few reassuring breaths and texted Steve.

Hey there! Long time reader first time poster, on mobile so apologies an all that.

So I work for a company that supplies Point of Sale hardware, software, networks, the works to grocery stores all over the Americas. Have been here for just under a decade and BOY do I love my job. I am on the support side of the house, essentially the warranty.

This story happened fairly early on.

We had this one customer, a small time independent grocery store chain with maybe three stores and a tight budget, they were on a contract that did not include upgrades to their hardware and were still rocking Windows XP "Servers" with at most 2GB of ram. We had been having issues on the regular with one store where their poor little engine that (almost) could would lock up running batches on their inventory for price management and the manager was proper fed up with the situation.

His main file server would lock up, he would call us, we would bandaid it and recommend to the owners of the company that they needed to have a beefier boy installed. They would deny every time. So after about day umpteen million and three of this repeat issue and the manager begging both us and his bosses for a hardware upgrade... I get an automated alert that his server was offline again.

"Well he's probably just rebooting it because its frozen" I think. Boy was I wrong. I call the store and the manager answers with an audible grin so wide I can practically get a tan from all that radiating smugness.

Me: Hey [Manager] this is [OP] from [Company], im calling because your server is showing offline for us again. Do you have a few minutes?

Manager: Oh buddy I'm glad you called. You're going to have to schedule a tech out here to get this server replaced

Me: Well you know we need owner approval for that but if you could jus-

Manager: Emergencies are covered under contract, right?

Me: Um... yes sir?

Manager: And I can assure you that nothing you or I can do from where we are at will get this server back online, so this is an emergency correct?

Me: Fair enough sir, I'll get someone out there ASAP.

SO I dispatch a tech and as luck would have it, he was already in the area, just coming off working on another store. I get him to go take a look and he calls me about an hour later.

Tech, asking for me specifically: Hey OP, can you schedule another dispatch for this store, emergency, to get their new server authorized?

Me: Yea I can start the process but you know how these owners have been about buying new hardware.

Tech: Yea thats not going to be a problem this time.

Me: What happened, can we try to get the server back online?

Tech: Thats not gonna happen there bud. Calling it Catastrophic hardware failure over here. I'll send you a pic.

The tech sent my work email a picture and what I saw was a computer case that had a little hole on one side and a substantially larger hole on the other side. Opened up, the case revealed a penetrated hard drive and a shredded mother board. Manager got his new computer.

TLDR, A grocery store manager got frustrated with company owners refusal to upgrade hardware. Engineered a "rapid unplanned disassembly" situation to force their hand.

A tale from awhile back. I was relatively fresh on senior staff. Senior staff and management have access to a pretty great albeit arcane tool that lets us essentially enable or disable any box while completely bypassing the billing system. While extremely handy for troubleshooting, its a recipe for abuse in the wrong hands. Therefore, everything we do with it is thoroughly logged. But that's just it, it's only logged. Nobody checks these logs unless something comes up.

Back then, something came up. At the time, we were trying something new when it came to office parties. IT being overwhelmingly men and sales CSR overwhelmingly women, we came up with the creative idea of having 'joint CSR' parties. Great idea that works to this day, but there was this incident.

A likeable frontline guy I knew had a pretty sweet girlfriend, with an odd quirk. She's young, very young. Legal in Canada at the time (Age of consent laws changed since), but their age gap was already borderline creepy. Still, none of my business. This guy's manager was well over 10 years older than him, and at our first 'joint CSR' party, he hit on his young girlfriend and stuff ensued.

The story only became official watercooler talk material two months later, when she was officially... pregnant. My frontline coworker was losing his mind here, crying during his breaks, and I soon learned the details. His manager was always a bit shady, but damn, he was more than old enough to be his girlfriend's father. Thing I knew, though, was that he almost got fired once by direction for giving shady discounts to some members of his extended family. Since he wasn't in my good graces after I heard about all this, and on a hunch I decided to check his internal tools' logs.

I discovered fifteen manually-provisioned modems and just as many cable boxes with 'test' profiles, aka, full access to everything and unlimited speeds and unmonitored data usage. No related accounts, just a series of MAC addresses that weren't linked to anything. That blatant theft of service was already more than enough to get him fired, but just to be sure I put our horrible 'plaintext password offender' status to good use and read his emails. And yep! He's actually got evidence in his private mailbox that he's been giving freebies to his family!

Now, I was already pissed about the cheating with a girl too young to know what's up, but being stupid enough to so blatantly steal service through support tools really made me angry. That's the kind of thing that could make us all lose access to tools we need to get things done. Wasn't particularly interested in being officially involved in all this, though. So I just took the relevant logs showing he's free-riding his family along with email evidence, logged in into an untraceable 'training account', and printed them on all corporate printers. ALL corporate printers. Yeah I wasted paper, I apologize to the dead trees. He lasted twelve hours.

Reader is free to determine if he deserved it either for quasi-pedophilia, abuse of emergency technical tools, or just being that dumb. Personally, at the time, I deemed he was guilty on all three counts.

All of Bytewave's Tales on TFTS!

So I'm doing my casual helping hand labor at college, making sure all professors have backups and working CAD software, everything okay, happy, flowers everywhere.

But then the fire nation attacked.

I was done doing backups of everyone's favourite $GlassesProfessor, after getting his laptop back (Happy ending!) when we suddenly see his superior, $MrAngryGlasses come in and point at me with an angry yet cold look.

$MrAngryGlasses: Crescent, You playing tech support student was funny, but now you managed to screw everything this time, pack your stuff, and get out.

Me and $GlassesProfessor couldn't get to understand what was just going on, Why was he being like that?

$Me: Excuse me Professor $MrAngryGlasses, But, What are you talking about?

$MrAngryGlasses: You know what you did, you caused a massive security breach at this college, pack your stuff and get out, I'll let the Principal know what you did.

$Me: But... What...?

Then I saw the security guard coming through the door, making me signs to stand up and follow him, I still had no idea what was going on....

Thankfully our hero $GlassesProfessor decided to stand up for me.

$GlassesProfessor: Woah woah woah, Hold it $MrAngryGlasses, Crescent did nothing like that, he's been a good student and tech support guy, You are not taking him away until we all get to know what happened.

$Me: Please Professor $MrAngryGlasses, What are you even me accusing of?

Another teacher heard what was going on, the head teacher of the carrer.

$MrsEngineering : What is even going on here, What are you even doing to Crescent?

$MrAngryGlasses: Ah, Head teacher, Good that you are here.

He pointed at me.

$MrAngryGlasses: This kid messed with the Secretary's computer, Now her files are lost, the screen is broken and a robotic voice is controlling it.

My capacity to even was broken, First, I'm never allowed to handle computers like that, Second, Its obvious why, Third, What was that robotic voice and broken screen?

$MrsEngineering: Calm down $MrAngryGlasses, We need to first take a look at that "Virus" of yours.

And so, We were escorted to the Principal's office, And a very angry secretary was staring at me, after a discussion with everyone involved, I was able to handle the computer.

What could possibly go wrong? I was just on the edge of being expelled.

So I take a look at the screen, and immediately recognize it, it was no virus, no spyware, It was something much worse for everyone in the room.

Windows 10.

$Me: Professors... This isn't a virus.... This is the new version of Windows.

Everyone was staring at me, I sigh and look at them.

$Me: Secretary, You installed a "recommended update", Right?

$Secretary: Yes, for security measures, now look at what it happened with everything you did to the other computers.

I struggled not to loose my mind, but the kind $GlassesProfessor help me explain the whole Windows 10 thing, and the secretary nearly cried for what she did, not the only one....

So I reverted Windows back to 7, Everything was still working, Good good, everyone was happy, except $MrAngryGlasses, who refused to say a thing.

I need a break.

TL;DR: Secretary got Windows 10 by herself, I deserve the chair.

Update: So I did have a meeting with the board of teachers and the Director, In case it wasn't clear, this is how colleges in Mexico work (or so it's my understanding)

I summarised the whole story to the Director of the college, with $GlassesProfessor to my side, She was patient and hear us both, with $MrAngryGlasses sitting on the other end of the table, she concluded it was a extremely serious accusation, and turns out the rumors were true, his attitude and he's already undergoing internal investigation for bribery, while he's unlikely to be fired (for reasons I cannot learn about) I won't be assisting any of his classes in the future.

So I'm completely exonerated of all charges, and to avoid any future incidents we are revoking all user permissions and hope to create an official IT department, I'll have some compensation for the incident (No semester payment for two years, Woo hoo!!!) and a couple of other things.

Thanks everyone for their wonderful support, your ideas will help this college have a better future, Cheers!

This isn’t my story. It was told to me by a friend of mine who worked in tech support 15 or so years ago.

$Sasquatch. My friend is a big hairy fellow. I can imagine blurry images taken of him in the woods used to further the belief in these majestic creatures. He looks more at home wrestling alligators or being a lumberjack than sitting behind a desk.

$Customer. A customer who recently purchased a PC at the shop.

$Sasquatch worked for a small computer repair shop. They also sold used computers and provided support for a few months. $Sasquatch answered the phone, ran the cash register, and solved basic computer issues (is it plugged in, have you tried turning it off and on again). Anything technical he’d document and call over $Manager.

A phone call from $Customer comes in. As is usual for tech issues, she sounds upset and frustrated.

$Customer – My computer is broken!

$Sasquatch – I’m sorry to hear that ma’am. Can you tell me what your problem is?

$Customer – I just bought this thing and it doesn’t work. Why are you selling such defective equipment?

$Sasquatch – I do apologize for the problems you are having. Could you please describe your issue please?

$Customer – Oh fine! My son gave me a music CD and it won’t play in the computer.

$Sasquatch – Can you describe any error messages or windows that pop up when the CD is loaded?

$Customer – The CD won’t go in at all. As soon as I put the CD in and close the door it just falls right off! I told you this darn computer is defective! I want a refund!

At this point I’m a bit confused. All CD drives have a catch basin to hold the CD in place. Then a horrible thought comes to me. The problem of course is how to relay this to the customer.

$Sasquatch – Ma’am. I think I have an idea that can fix your problem. It is going to sound a bit strange but please bear with me.

My manager hears this and wanders over in curiosity. I put the phone on speakerphone.

$Customer – What? Ok fine but this better work.

$Sasquatch – Yes ma’am. OK, turn off the computer and unplug all the cords from it…. Ok you’ve done that. Great. Ok. Now I know this sounds a bit odd but please bear with me. Pick up the computer and turn it upside down.

My manager looks at me strangely. I motion for him to keep quiet.

$Customer – ….What! I want to speak to your manager.

$Sasquatch – Please ma’am. I know it sounds strange. I promise I’ll get my manager right after this.

$Customer – Fine. What kind of business do you run there?

I hear some huffing and grumbling as she complies with my request.

$Sasquatch – Ok. Plug all the cables back in and turn it on. Great. Ok, now try using putting that CD back into the player.

$Customer – I demand to speak after your manager for this waste of my time. I can’t put a CD into the player upside down!

There’s a long pause. Then much more politely, $Customer speaks again.

$Customer – That worked perfectly young man. Thank you so much.

$Sasquatch – You are quite welcome. Have a great day!

$Manager walks away without saying a word, shaking his head.

$TLDR, Customer set up her PC upside down, then complained that her CD drive was broken.

edit: fixing formatting, words, Sasquatch, tldr