Back to Plan A

It's a scorching summer day at this manufacturing plant, and the heat on the shop floor is almost intolerable. "The air conditioning and fan system was working full blast, but still the temperature was high -- as were tempers," says a pilot fish on the scene.

"Suddenly, there was a network outage in the shipping area, which was traced to a router. I accompanied the IT guy to help him by holding tools or whatever he needed."

The IT guy is working to replace the router when one of the shipping managers shows up, red-faced and sweaty.

"Do you know what's going on?!?" he roars at the IT guy.

IT guy calmly replies, "I believe so. I should have it up soon."

"Can you fix it?" asks manager, still screaming.

IT guy, still calm: "That's what I'm doing."

Manager, howling: "Well, do something!"

IT guy steps back from the router, points his screwdriver at it and intones, "Inky dinky winky pow, I order you to work now!"

Reports fish, "Naturally, nothing happened. The IT guy looked at the manager and said, 'Well, that didn't work,' and calmly went back to dismantling the router.

"The manager opened and closed his mouth a few times and then laughed and said, 'OK, point taken!' and strolled off."

Help Sharky make it through a long, hot summer. Send me your true tale of IT life at sharky@computerworld.com. You'll score a sharp Shark shirt if I use it. Add your comments below, and read some great old tales in the Sharkives.

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