So THAT'S what the PC nobody uses is for!

Pilot fish's wife -- she's the IT consultant in the family -- gets an alert at 10 p.m. And it's an issue she can't handle remotely, so fish drives with her to the client's site.

That means he's a minute or so behind her when he walks in. "I heard a shriek of disgust, and rushed in to find my wife screaming about various idiots," he says. "The server had crashed because the office droids piled a couple of waste cans all around the server. In addition, they plugged a paper shredder into the designated battery back-up for the server.

"Between there being no airflow to the unit and the EMI from the shredder, it was bad enough. Upon inspection, the interior of the server was also covered in fine white paper dust.

"She explained to the staff what 'dust-free environment' meant, and the need to keep EMI-emitting devices away from sensitive computer components.

"She was able to replace the power supply and battery back-up and clean the unit, but they were down for about 24 hours."

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