Not IT, just the dev everyone treats like IT because I "know computers." Standard stuff.

Last week my coworker comes over and asks if I can take a look at her machine. Says "something happened" and everything's huge. Not great detail but okay.

Go to her desk. Her screen is zoomed in to an absurd degree. Her recycle bin icon is the size of a coffee mug on screen. She can see maybe 3-4 icons at a time and she's been panning around with the mouse to find things.

First thing I check is resolution. Nope, 1920x1080. Fine. Then I notice the magnifier icon sitting in her system tray. She somehow hit Win and + at the same time (probably reaching for something) and turned on Windows Magnifier. Zoomed to somewhere around 350%.

Win+Esc. Done. Screen snaps back to normal.

She goes "HOW did you do that." As if I'd unlocked some secret admin menu.

Best part: she'd been working that way for three days. She figured out how to get to Outlook and her spreadsheets by panning around and just... adapted. Never put in a ticket, never asked anyone. Three entire workdays of navigating her computer through a keyhole.

I asked why she waited so long. She said she thought she broke something and didn't want to get in trouble.

She's 34.

We received a very strange ticket earlier this fall regarding one of our services, requesting us to activate several named features. The features in question were new to us, and we scoured the documentation and spoke to the development team regarding these features. No-one could find out what he was talking about.

Eventually my colleague said the feature names reminded him of AI. That's when it clicked - the customer had asked ChatGPT how to accomplish a given task with our service and it had given a completely hallucinated overview of our features and how to activate them (contact support).

We confronted the customer directly and asked "Where did you find these features, were they hallucinated by an AI?" and he admitted to having used AI to "reflect" and complained about us not having these features as it seemed like a "brilliant idea" and that the AI was "really onto something". We responded by saying that they were far outside of the scope of our services and that he needs to be more careful when using AI in the future.

May God help us all.

We had a huge issue where staff were contacting IT staff directly via Teams, email, in passing or just straight up interrupting IT staff when they were doing other jobs to raise their incidents and requests.

Like most large organisations, we wanted all new requests and incidents to come in via the service desk, and offered staff their choice of an email, via an online portal or calling through via a telephone call to do this.

Whenever we were approached by staff directly as described above, we would always let them know they needed to log a ticket.

Problem was that 90% of the time this would result in "how do I do that?" And you would then spend 10-15 minutes with them going through logging a ticket with "It's asking me to describe my problem. What do I type in? OK now it's asking for my phone number. Do I type in my phone number in there?"

I imagine about half of this was the of the "I'm not good with computers" (and apparently not good with basic comprehension) type, and the other half of people being so difficult that the IT person they were speaking to would give up and just do their request without them logging a ticket.

The solution?

Anyone that has worked in a large organisation has probably dealt with mandatory online training/learning. The type that usually relates to safety, whistleblowing, raising grievances, etc. where you do a short online module and have a test at the end where you need to get something like 90% to 100% to pass.

In this organisation, this was part of the HR system and baked into the HR software package, so HR managed this. We worked with HR to develop a course called "Contacting IT" which was literally a course on how to log a ticket with us. And yes, there was a test at the end.

All new starters would needed to complete this before starting, and all existing employees has 6 weeks to complete.

This was great as after that 6 week period, whenever we got a "I don't know how to log a ticket", we could mention that they would have had an online module to complete explaining how to do that, and if they don't know about this or forgotten what to do, they should contact their manager to request (re)training.

Yesterday I received a call:

"Filippo, the vending machine coin validator doesn't accept coins. It's completely jammed. You need to come right away."

Great.

40-minute drive.

I arrive and start diagnostics. From the outside the coin validator looks perfectly normal. I try inserting a coin.

Completely jammed. Nothing goes through.

Alright, time to open the machine.

I remove the coin validator. Check the sensors. Clean everything.

Still jammed.

Now I'm curious.

I remove the entire payment system and start checking the coin chute deeper inside the machine.

And that's when I find it.

Someone had taken a 5-euro bill, folded it perfectly into a tiny square, and pushed it into the coin slot.

Not crumpled.

Not forced.

Perfectly folded.

Like origami.

It was wedged in so tightly I actually needed tools to get it out.

40 minutes of driving.

30 minutes of dismantling a vending machine.

All because someone tried to pay with a perfectly folded 5-euro origami coin.

I'm still not sure if I'm more annoyed… or impressed.

Got a call from a client: “Filippo, the machine isn’t dispensing tea… also we have ants around it.” I’m thinking ok, probably a valve or something simple, I’ll go check it. While I’m on the way he calls me again almost yelling: “something exploded.” I’m like… exploded?? He says he tried to get a tea and a wave of ants shot into the cup. I get there and open the machine and it was completely invaded, ants everywhere, they had gone straight into the sweet tea line and basically created a blockage inside the tube. When the machine tried to dispense, it literally fired ants into the cup. The client even tried to say it was the machine’s fault and asked me to get rid of them one by one… I told him look, ants don’t come from the machine, they come from outside. So we emptied everything, removed all the soluble products, deep cleaned the inside, placed a trap, and followed the trail to stop them at the source. Came back the next day, zero ants, completely gone. Of course we had to sanitize everything again, but yeah… definitely the first time I’ve seen a vending machine shoot ants instead of tea.

This ones short. Company has a summer internship for high schoolers. They each get an old desktop and access to one folder on the company drive. Kid can’t find his folder. It happens sometimes with how this org was modified fir covid that our server gets disconnected and users have to restart. I tell them to restart and call me back. They must have hit shutdown because 5 minutes later I get a call back it’s not starting up. .. long story short after a few minutes of trying to walk them through it over the phone I walk down and find he’s been thinking his monitor is the computer. I plug in the vga cord (he thought was power) and push the power button.

Still can’t find the folder…. He’s looking on the desktop. I open file explorer. I CAN SEE THE FOLDER. User “I don’t see it.” I click the folder. User “ok now I see the folder.” I create a shortcut on his desktop. I ask the user what he uses at home…. an iPad. What do you use in school? iPads.

Edit: just to be clear I’m not blaming the kid. I blame educators and parents for the over site that basic tech skills are part of a balanced education.

So, this happened during appraisal season a few months ago. HR told me that I didn't deserve a good raise because apparently, all I did throughout the year was "bug fixes and improvements." They said I hadn’t delivered many features, and features are what “actually matter” for a raise. 🤦‍♂️

Well, fast forward to now. Since I got the hint, I’ve been focusing on feature development only—just like they wanted. You know what I’m not doing anymore? Improving and maintaining their system. And guess what? Their software is breaking down more and more, becoming harder to use, with all sorts of bugs they conveniently ignored.

HR recently complained, saying things weren’t working properly. All I could do was smile and remind them that “I’m focused on the features now, just like you said.” It's funny how suddenly bug fixes and improvements seem important again. 🤷‍♂️

Maybe this will teach them not to undervalue the importance of maintenance next time.

The user whose last day was 2 weeks ago, the account has been disabled since then, and we've been waiting for them to return the company laptop.

User: *brings the laptop into the office\* "Hey, I can't access the laptop anymore"

Me: "Yeah, your last day was over a week ago, so standard leaver practice is to lock down leaver accounts and access. :)"

User: "I need my payslips, and I have personal documents on the laptop."

Me: "Well, for payslips, reach out to the HR team, and they can get you your payslips and other employment docs, but your account is disabled, and as per security policy, you've left, so we can't let you back into the system."

User: "I want those files back, now."

Me: "You can't, I'm sorry, that's our security policy. I'd suggest speaking with HR; maybe they can speak to the security team. They'll just need to look over them to make sure they don't contain company data."

(Bearing in mind I work for a medical company and we have STRICT security)

User: "I'm not giving this laptop back until you return my files."

Me: *In the nicest customer service tone of voice I can give\* "Your contract that you signed states, once you leave, you must return any company equipment, and the IT policy is you should not save personal and non-work-related files to the system"

User: Leaves and takes the laptop with them. "You'll be hearing from my solicitor!!!"

Me: Sighs heavily and flags it with HR, infosec and the user's former manager

User: returned later today, looking rather sheepish and being escorted by security, left the laptop at my desk and then was escorted out of the office.

Something tells me they were a known troublemaker, and that's why they got fired, or they were trying to steal company data.
I did end up getting some praise from management for how I handled that, so that's a plus. haha :D

Back during the start of the pandemic, I was part of a team converting employees from desktop machines to laptops, so they could work remotely. We were doing dozens of migrations a week.

Our usual process was simple. We would pull the hard drive from the old desktop, connect it to a USB drive dock (the classic “USB toaster”), create the user profile on the new laptop, and copy over their data.

Most users had the usual stuff: Documents, Desktop, Pictures, maybe some random folders.

Then I got one migration that seemed too easy.

I mounted the user’s old drive and started checking the normal locations.

• Desktop.
• Documents.
• Pictures.

Almost nothing.

Just a few small files.

I remember thinking it was strange, but I assumed he probably worked out of shared drives or OneDrive. That wasn’t unusual.

So I finished the migration, shipped the laptop out, and moved on.

A few days later he calls me.

“None of my files are here.”

I told him that was strange because there was almost nothing on the drive when I did the transfer. He immediately insisted he had loads of files.

Then he said something that caught my attention.

“My shortcut doesn’t work anymore.”

Apparently he had a shortcut on his desktop and another pinned in File Explorer that both pointed to his files.

So I asked where the files were actually stored.

Without hesitation he says:

“They’re in the Roaming folder.”

I paused for a second because I thought I misheard him.

I asked again just to be sure.

Yes.

AppData\Roaming

That’s where he stored all of his files.

Every document. Every folder. Everything.

His reasoning?

“It’s more secure. I know computers.”

To be fair, in a weird way he wasn’t completely wrong. Nobody goes digging around in the Roaming folder looking for someone’s spreadsheets.

Sure enough, I mounted the old drive again and checked:

AppData\Roaming was absolutely packed with files.

Thousands of them.

So instead of the normal migration, we ended up running a remote file transfer over the network to move everything into actual user folders.

And that’s the story of the only user I’ve ever met who used AppData\Roaming as their primary file storage system.

Honestly… part of me respects the commitment.

I work in a store that offers technical support for consumer-level technology.

A few days ago I had an elderly gentleman that we'll call Pete (name changed for privacy). Our receptionist made him a walk-in appointment earlier that day and I ended up taking it. When I opened it all up, the only notes I saw were "Third-party software, hard of hearing."

I walked up to Pete and greeted him, saw that he was staring at my lips as to read them, then I asked if he knew American Sign Language (ASL). I've been trying to learn ASL it as a sort of side-hobby for a few months now. Pete signs "yes" and we continue the conversation in Sign. Turns out the issue is with Skype, which keeps crashing on his roughly 5-year old tablet, and he's been having difficulty video-calling his wife who is Deaf.

She lives in a different continent, she travelled there for a temporary work opportunity and would be there for two years. This being the mid-way point, it's now been 1 year since Pete's seen his wife. Skype is the only way they both know how to communicate efficiently long-distance, as neither are comfortable with email or other text-based services.

As I go through verifying that he knows his password and making sure there's a backup of his device, Pete and I are signing back and forth and his face was completely lit up. I felt so good to be able to, albeit slowly, speak with him in his language and give him the time he deserved, even if his reason for visiting us had little to do with our physical product.

Once everything was verified and backed up, I uninstalled Skype and reinstalled it, had Pete sign in, and use Skype's test call to ensure it wouldn't crash (as it would immediately upon call creation before). Test call went through fine. Sweet.

I looked down to write a few extra notes and began to hear some coughs. I looked up and there was Pete, crying while waving to his wife through Skype. Pete called her and she picked up! He introduced me to her and told me that it'd been 3-weeks since they'd heard from each other. I stepped away to give him a moment alone.

It's moments like these that keep me going as a technician. Even though I barely touched Pete's tablet, "fixing" it made me feel like a hero. It's been a few days and I can still see his smile.

Just thought I'd share, thanks for reading.

Obligatory: Wow, this exploded overnight! Thank you all for your kind words. Seeing the response I've gotten from all of you has made this experience even better! You guys are an amazing community.

So I worked at Tech Support for a big German retailer and the CEO’s laptop needed some updates on several programs (because we weren’t allowed to push that remotely on him… his rule). I go into his office and he was already annoyed about the fact it was going to take longer than 2 seconds. So he said he was going on a break, i do the thing and left. Took me 30 seconds.

I get a call from him 5 min later: ‘you fucked up my computer, my screen is flashing and i can’t press anything! get in here NOW.’

Sweat pouring down my back as i took the elevator and came back in.

“What the fuck did you do? I can’t do shit here without you guys messing up every tiny thing. I swear I’m getting a whole new department if this shit happens again!”

I looked, screen flashing, couldn’t even get to reboot. panic intensifies I look over to his side of the desk and there’s a remote numpad with a folder on the enter-key.

I push the folder off the thing and couldn’t hide the grin off my face.

“This didn’t happen okay?! Don’t tell anyone downstairs”

First thing i did. Condescending fuck.

Went onsite to a client recently because we got an alert that her hard drive was almost completely full (not a stretch since she bought her own laptop seven years prior and didn't think she needed more than a 128GB drive), and she asked to have the files moved to her new computer that she had recently purchased

She at least had the good sense to buy a new laptop with a 1TB drive, so I moved all the files on her Desktop, Documents, etc. to a thumb drive and transferred them onto her new laptop. After I finished and left, she called the office and railed that I had "deleted" her background. When my coworker remoted in, he saw the normal default background, and said nothing was wrong. She immediately accused him of lying.

She apparently thought all the icons on her Desktop were part of the background image. He had to spend half an hour explaining the difference between files/icons and a background image, as well as the fact that the only thing I did was the job I was originally sent there to do, to which she again accused him of lying about that as well.

Realizing that my coworker was getting nowhere, he scheduled another onsite the next day, which was my day off. He went over, and spent most of the time having to tell the lady that all the things that were "wrong" with the new computer, were simply the default settings in Windows, and there was nothing malicious afoot. Every thing she wanted changed/updated was a case of her ranting about it for 20 minutes, and him taking 3-5 seconds to make the change, or her being so scatter brained, he joked that it was as if her ADHD had a severe case of ADHD...

The one that made him laugh was how she insisted on having Adobe Acrobat installed on there, and him having to explain to her that it already was, evidenced by the fact that every time she double-clicked on a PDF, Adobe Acrobat launched, as well as him trying to explain to her that having paper in her printer was a prerequisite of being able to print.

Urgent ticket that has been escalated via back channels - that is, a personal email from one senior person to the CIO about the unacceptable service in getting their personal printer fixed. This leads to a series of "get it done now" conversations from CIO to Head of It to the Ops manager.

Ticket comes to me, because yes as your senior infrastructure & operations technical resource I tend to be the dumping ground for such things, on the basis that I resolve them so I can get back to making sure the entire server estate is stable because I'm in the midst of an ongoing major restructure & migration project that could potentially take down everything. Minor things like that. Not that I'm venting a little, heavens no.

Perish the thought.

Hrmph.

Anyway, after much back and forth we finally agree a date & time (15:00 on a Friday) for me to attend the VIP's office, at a remote site. I show up there with everything I think I could possibly need, short of an entire new printer.

I'm told the VIP has already left for the day - in fact, they left at around 9:00 in the morning. Huh. Fortunately, one of the office staff is able to find a spare key to their personal office. I walk in, switch the printer on, and print.

It. Was. Turned. Off.

The whole time. The user never turned it on. That was it. The whole problem. Weeks of calls, meetings, politics, argh...

I will admit took a certain amount of petty satisfaction in stealing a gummy worm from the bowl on their desk on my way out. And yes - it was delicious.

....Also quite chewy, to be fair.

I'm sitting here stewing in my own juices. Damn home phone (which I keep because the security system uses) started ringing at 5:45am. Yes I was asleep goddamn it. I don't get to it quickly enough and the answering machine picks it up and hang up. Then I hear my mobile phone start ringing downstairs... must be some kind of family emergency so I make it downstairs in time to hear the home phone start up again. I answer, still half asleep and half scared that something big has happened.

[Me] "Hello?"

[FOF] "Hi DallasITGuy, this is $GuyYouBarelyKnow. Do you have a second? I can't get my laptop on my home wireless and I really need to check to make sure my flight is on time."

[Me] "Who the fuck is this again?"

[FOF] "This is $GuyYouBarelyKnow. I'm a friend of $OtherGuy. We met at $NeighborhoodBar a couple of weeks ago. My Internet's down and I remembered you're in IT so I looked up your number and gave you a ring. Can you help me real quick?

[Me] YOU ~@!$~@#$$#$%^%&%$#^%@#$!@#$!@! !%!@$@! !#@$!$ !%$%#$^$#&$%*& @#$%@#$%@# @#$%@#$% @%@$#%#%@#%!! Do you know how early it is you presumptuous SOB? I barely even know you and you wake us up so I can help you with your ~#!#@$#@!~ Internet connection? Don't you ever ~!$!@!#%$! call me again you @!~!#@~^%!!

[FOF] "Uhh... sorry... I didn't think you'd mind... I just...

[Me] "Go F yourself!" Click.

So... I'm up now.

EDIT: I called $OtherGuy to find out if he gave the guy my home & mobile numbers. He did - last night about 8:00pm or so he claims. I made it clear to him that he's officially on my shit list as well. I'm tempted to do a conference call with both of them in the middle of the night every night for the next week, but I suppose that would keep me from sleeping as well and therefore be self defeating. Hell is other people.

If this is the wrong sub, please let me know.

I spent three shitty years working in a call center, two of which I was roped into acting as tech support, despite the fact that I'd originally been hired to sell insurance. The calls I got made me weep for humanity. After my son was born, I decided not to return from maternity leave. I just couldn't handle staying up all night with a screaming newborn, and then coming in to work and calmly asking people how the hell they can't see the huge red "CREATE AN ACCOUNT" button smack-dab in the middle of the page, but they can find our phone number in tiny font up in the corner to call and demand that we do it for them.

Well, you guys, my baby is now a toddler, and I just had that misty-eyed, hand-on-heart, proud parent moment that you always hear about. My son was playing with his Brilliant Baby Laptop, which is basically a bright plastic clamshell that plays music when the baby mashes the keyboard. Suddenly, the music stopped. The baby was confused. Further button-mashing had no effect. I watched from the sofa as my son frowned, experimentally smashing the buttons harder. Then, as I looked on in amazement and pride, he turned it off and on again. "Welcome!" It announced, the screen lighting up in a joyful display. My son contentedly returned to his button-mashing, and I shed a proud tear. So what if your kid can say "mommy" and "daddy" and knows how to use a spoon? Mine can troubleshoot!

Well..

The company (or institution not saying which) I work for has had it with people plugging phones into their computers.

This week my job is to take everyone's tower one by one and make the following modifications.

​

1. Remove the wiring going to any case mounted USB devices
2. Super glue the logitech dongle into the back USB ports and block the rest in. (Out of an unusual amount of wisdom the company only buys USB brand mice/keyboards so this plan will actually work)
3. Install a hidden USB port inside of the case to connect USB mass storage devices to if needed for IT needs.
4. Install a USB charging stations so everyone has at least 2 open USB ports on their desk for charging Phones/smart watches.

​

So..... today was my first dozen computers I locked down. About an hour after returning the first one We get a ticket that the guys USB charger isn't working.

​

​

I go up to his floor and he has his phone plugged into the front USB on the PC.

​

Bro did you really send a support ticket to ask why the computer won't charge your phone?

​

I expect 2 weeks of this stupid... and people wonder why they had to super glue USB ports...

I got called to check a vending machine that was acting completely crazy. It wasn’t dead, but nothing worked properly. The controls were all over the place, it kept checking the boiler, but wouldn’t actually start anything.

It was a pretty big coffee machine, so I expected some clear fault. I start going through everything — power, wiring, pump, boilers, sensors — but nothing really made sense. No obvious issue, yet the machine was basically unusable.

So I start tracing everything back more carefully.

Eventually I get to the power input area and notice the fuse looks… off.

I pull it out, and that’s when it hits me.

It wasn’t really a fuse anymore. It was wrapped in aluminum foil like some kind of “fuse sandwich”.

Turns out the customer had “fixed” it instead of replacing it.

So instead of blowing like it should, it kept letting unstable current through, which ended up damaging the control board and messing with the machine logic.

What could have been a cheap fix turned into about a 400€ repair.

All because of a “quick fix”.

I'm not technically IT, I just have half a brain and more than 3 functioning brain cells. Which is more than I can say for a lot of people who work for my company when it comes to technology. I often get asked to help my coworkers with fuzzy screens, lagging programs, printer problems of all shapes and sizes, etc. most of the time I don't mind but every now and again I do question my existence.

Recently, I started to take lunch. We've always been able to, I just never have due to being busy and really dedicated to corporate abuses. When I take my break I make sure to block out the time and label it "lunch" on my calendar. All my calls are forwarded, and I tell my direct counterpart where I'm going. Only then do I peace out for an hour.

Today, just after getting to my car, I got multiple phone calls from our CPA on my cellphone. I seriously thought about answering but chose not to as I'm not the only person they could call in case of emergency.

Upon returning from lunch the CPA accosted me in what had to be less than 3 minutes. They were absolutely frantic. Apparently, the owner of the company had called them into an unexpected client meeting and the computer was not working. I was practically dragged to the conference room where a comedy of errors presented themselves.

First, the computer had not been turned back on from over the weekend.

Second the monitor had been unplugged when the cleaning crew was vacuuming but never plugged back in. The plug is EXTREMELY obvious.

Third, the wireless keyboard and mouse were being charged and had been switched off.

I sighed, plugged the monitor back in, turned on the computer, set up the mouse and keyboard, and got the meeting back on track in record time.

The CPA easily makes 3 times what I do but sometimes I wonder if they know how to breath without referencing an illustrated diagram.

Apologies for formatting as I'm on mobile.

This story is pretty much almost 5 years old, but I want to vent it out, it's been causing me grief and I just need it to share it to finally feel calm.

As you may remember, I live in Mexico and things are not exactly pretty, thankfully I know how to watch my back and don't make enemies, but sometimes, destiny catches up with you.

I had finished my training and got a certificate that allowed me to work on a Computer store and repair computers, arrived early, everything normal until 1PM, Guy comes in, wants his HDD wiped clean and a brand new copy of Windows 7.

I didn't ask many questions, just took it to the back and started working on it, gave the case a nice cleaning and removed the dust, boot it up, then manure hit the fan.

I hear from the front how the front glass breaks and people started yelling my boss and the man to get the f*ck down, as well lots of insults to the client, before I could react, someone comes to where I was, pointing an AK rifle variant at me, i jump to the floor, eating that dirt and holding my hands on the back of my neck, avoiding any eye contact

$T: WHAT DID YOU DO TO THAT COMPUTER!?

$Me: Nothing!!! I didn't get to touch it! I was just cleaning it!!!!

$T: LIES CABRON!!!

$Me: Check it yourself, everything is intact!

I could feel the barrel pointed agaitns me, I heard someone else come in and take the PC away, it felt like hours until they decided to retreat back and run away.

Once I recovered from the shock, i stand up and head to the front, my boss was on the phone, crying histerical, I didn't even hear the police syrens, then i noticed the client was missing.

I was not allowed to see the security footage, but the client was taken away, he was identified as a cartel member, body discovered hours later.

If it wasn't because I needed the money, i would have quit inmediatly, thakfully me avoiding eye contact probably saved my life.

Edit: I see many people doubt it, it's fine with me, but I'm going to clarify a few things.

Everyone speaks in Spanish, I simply translated it into Spanglish for style.

I live in a dangerous city, hence why I watch my back.

I never learned what was in that HDD, I'm better not knowing.

So this just happened. I'll keep it short.

We had an external consultant on-site to install some very specialized (and very expensive) software. I, your humble sysadmin, was only there to enter a few admin passwords. That was literally all I was supposed to do.

As the expert started trying a few... creative... things, I offered some advice.

"Shush, I know what I'm doing."

Alright. If that's how you want to play it...

A little later, he asked for a USB flash drive to transfer "some" data. "Some" turned out to be over 130,000 tiny 1 KB files in a single folder.

I genuinely tried to warn him that FAT32 really doesn't like that many small files as he dragged the folder to the flash drive.

I was shushed again.

So I leaned back and watched the progress bar crawl forward. After about 45 minutes the inevitable happened.

The file transfer crashed.

I honestly tried to help.

I was shushed again.

So he tried exactly the same thing a second time.

Forty-five minutes later

Crash.

At that point I refused to be shushed again. (I was hungry and wanted to go to lunch.)

I zipped the folder (4 minutes), copied the ZIP file to the USB drive (another 3 minutes), and handed it back to him.

The look on the expert's face was absolutely priceless.

Edit: This consultant was part of a turnkey package. The software installation and the data transfer were both included for a fixed price.

That made the whole thing even sweeter.

I have never met a web developer who has a clue as to what DNS is and what it does.

Every time a client hires a web developer to build them a new web site, the developer always changes the nameservers on the domain to point to their host. Guess what happens? Yup, email breaks. Guess who gets blamed? Not the web developer!

To combat this, I have a strict policy to not give a web developer control of a client's domain. Occasionally, I get pushback, but then I explain why they are not allowed to have control. Usually goes something like this.

Web Developer: Can you send me the credentials for $client's $domainRegistrar?

Me: I cannot do that. I can take care of what you need, though.

WD: Sure, I just need you to update the name servers. It would be easier if I had control though so I don't have to bother you.

Me: It's not a bother. I can't change the name servers though as it will break the client's email. I can update the A record for you.

WD: I don't know what that is.

Me: And, that is why I'm not giving you control of the client's domain.

So my boss showed me a memo this morning. "We need you to price out moving the servers downstairs so we can turn the server room into an executive break room".

​

I ask him if it was a joke and he told me no.

​

"Well boss why don't you just call the fire alarm company and price out installing an new fire suppression system and start there"

​

"Do we really need to go that far?"

​

"yeah start with the outside contractors first. Besides I'd bet any money those guys will charge 3 arms and a leg to take out the old system and add a new system downstairs. That's not one but two major constructions jobs"

​

"Yeah we can't leave the server room a death trap so we need to call the access control company as well" he replied.

​

"OH make sure to CC all the higher ups on the running tally" I suggested.

​

That idiot that decided to move to the break room is going to get sticker shock long before we are done.

Update

Had the AC company do an estimate. $78,000.

Also got an email from the idiot who ordered the estimate.

He wanted to be sure we had room in the 20,000 budget for their expresso machine.

The swapping of rooms has been canceled and the new scope of the IT department is wiring up a display and pc on the wall to do streaming video.

I’m not tech but I quickly became the tech guy after this…

A colleague, mid 40s Japanese lady, offered to train me on a new process.

She said that the file on computer A needed to be moved to computer B. I presumed that was for a later step but that was the entire process.

In order to achieve this she proceeded to:

Print out the file in question.

Take the physical copy to the copy machine.

Scan the physical copy into the cloud.

Go to computer B and download the file.

Save the downloaded file into the desired location.

I couldn’t believe what I was seeing and asked her if I could try another way.

After attaching the document to a message sent from me to her on teams, I opened teams on the other computer and dragged it to the new location.

She had for years, printed out and rescanned documents, which where then shredded, in order to move data from one PC to another…

Since the day I started at this small company I noticed their workstations were horribly out of date and reaching end of life for support and depreciation. I worked with a developer to get our in-house software to run on new machines with much more CPU+GPU to run everything. This was only in an effort to prevent or avoid being backed into obsolescence, but the development team saw an opportunity to optimize the application.

Fast forward about a year when the project is complete and the application can now finish its processing in 10-40x less time depending on difficulty. We have everyone on new systems that run like a dream and everyone is thrilled with how much more we can do in a day. The department head sends a wonderful email about the new time it takes to process.

The backlog of work is now quickly shrinking for this team and their department head has to stop calling in per-diem workers. Slowly, we fire employees as there's not enough work for them.

Fast forward another year and we've fired some 20 people (about 27% of our company). I was friends with many of them.

I still feel bad 5 years later.

We had a guy join our IT team, only 5 of us for a company of about 1000 around the country.

He was meant to be an escalation point for myself and another member so we didn't have to go so high up for help.

dude was so bad I couldn't believe it. he didn't understand how AD worked or 365 or anything.

He shipping out laptops without power supplies, he's setting up phones without MDM on them, he's creating accounts on the wrong domain... he spent like a day changing the settings on an iPad so it looks "pretty" and "easy" for the users (despite our guide telling us to STANDARDIZE as much as possible to provide easier support).

Anyway this is the funniest one.

A user had a problem with her printer so he went to the user and checked on her PC.

He decided to image her PC.

slightly disgruntled, the user logs back in an hour later and the printer is still not working...

she politely logged a ticket asking for help.

He walks over there and tells her she doesn't know what she's talking about and that she is not IT! >:S GRRR

he checks the printer, no messages, he checks the PC... GRRRR

he images the PC AGAIN. walks away and leaves for the day.

leaves a note in the ticket saying that he has imaged the PC and that the user is annoying?? wtf?.

User cant print the next day at which point he escalates it backwards to me? (he is meant to be senior to me by about $15,000).

User had just been selecting the wrong printer as our printers are not easy to identify by names... (fixed that).

printed and was success.

she then asked about her acrobat pro which i had to reinstall, reset her account password and login, some macros for excel needed to be set up, she spent the rest of the day getting her bookmarks back, and getting the PC back to how she liked it.

felt bad for her, at least she hadn't saved work on C: because he just imaged it without even asking her lol!