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Sharky

Shark Tank

Wanna bet?

IT support tech arrives at the office bright and early to discover that all three of his company's buildings are without power, reports a pilot fish on the scene.

"In fact, power was out in the whole industrial corridor," says fish. "So the tech decided to unplug all the servers and turn off all the PC UPSs so that when power returned, things wouldn't blow up.

"Then he remarked to his co-worker, 'I wonder how many calls the customer service folks will make because they can't turn on their PCs.' His co-worker replied, 'Come on, it's the 21st century! I'm sure they know how to turn on a UPS.' A small wager was made.

"About an hour later, power was restored and the servers plugged back in -- and the tech's phone started ringing off the hook. He put all the calls on speaker so his co-worker could listen to the conversation. The customer service folks one after another told the tech that their PCs were dead.

"He explained that they needed to turn their UPSs back on and, one after another, the customer service folks asked, 'Is that the little round button on my PC?' He spent the next half-hour showing each customer service rep where to turn on the UPS."

Sharky's betting that you've got a true tale of IT life to tell. Send it to me at sharky@computerworld.com. You'll snag a snazzy Shark shirt if I use it. Add your comments below, and read some great old tales in the Sharkives.

The Best of Shark Tank includes more than 70 tales of IT woe submitted by you, our readers, since 1999. Which all goes to prove, conclusively, that hapless users and idiotic bosses are indeed worldwide phenomena. Free registration is all that's needed to download The Best of Shark Tank (PDF).

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