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Sharky

Shark Tank

Now cut that out!

This specialty hardware company has a store about 60 miles from headquarters, reports an IT pilot fish who supports the store's equipment remotely.

"They access our mainframe through the Internet," fish says. "In that store is an employee named Alice, who's gullible and a bit dense."

Fish has installed a new PC on the sales counter, so he's the one who handles the case when one of the salesmen there calls to complain that the programmable keys have stopped working.

That's not a crisis -- in fact, it's the kind of problem fish anticipated.

He tells the salesman to find the repair CD that fish left at the store, and insert it into the CD tray, so fish can resolve the problem remotely.

Once the fix is in, fish calls the salesman back to report success, and to tell him fish is about to eject the disk.

"I guess Alice walked in the room," says fish, "because he said, 'Hold on,' and I heard him tell her to go to the counter because I was going to send them a CD.

"As she watched the CD pop out, all she could say was 'wow!'"

Make Sharky say "wow" with your true tale of IT life. Send it to me at sharky@computerworld.com. I'll send you a stylish Shark shirt if I use it. Add your comments below, and read some great old tales in the Sharkives.

Now you can post your own stories of IT ridiculousness at Shark Bait. Join today and vent your IT frustrations to people who've been there, done that.

What People Are Saying

CD tray virus

During one of my computer course, can't recall which one. But I apparently was bored with the class. I went into computer management with admin permission and randomly popped open one CD tray after another. When they closed I would open them again. No one including the instructor could figure out what was going on, I finally gave myself away when someone mentioned virus and I lost it.

The Navy uses many miles of

The Navy uses many miles of shore line - something recruits can spend hours seeking all over the ship. The Supply Department can requisition some chow line - very handy at dinner time. And don't forget fallopian tubes - vital to repair the 1MC (ship board annoucing system), and not always available at the first place the new guy is sent.

Good Ol' Army Days...

When I was the Operations NCO for our unit, part of my job was to determine what uniform we'd be wearing for the gig (I was a musician).

I had a very large calendar in the hallway that I would update all the pertinent information on for each upcoming job. Part of that information was which uniform.

Occasionally, I'd have to update the job board with TBA for the uniform; when the newbies would seek me out, I would tell them that it was the Tropical Band Attire that they should have been issued when they processed into our division.

You should have seen their newbie faces when I hit them with that one! I had more than one squad leader come to me and tell me to knock it off, but our 1SG loved the gag, he'd even back me up on it, so it lived on as long as I was the OPS NCO.

govermant usage

And we the taxpayers are paying for all of that expensive shore and chow lines, and fallopian tubes.
Where will it end!

Government Usage

Oh boo hoo. Spend 2 days in a military unit and tell me about the expense. Humor keeps it amusing.

I wonder how much good humor goes on at the Welfare Department. Talk about your government waste. Or how about the TSA - all those good shoe jokes at the airport. Feeling secure?

Here in the commercial sector we are always torturing the newbies with id10t errors and l-user errors

RE: now cut that out!!!

LOL

I wonder, would "Alice" believe you if you told her that Fish had invented a prototype 'replicator'????

Practical jokes are mean --

Practical jokes are mean -- but sooo much fun!

Many eons ago as a theater major, we used sheets of gel to color the stage lights. Now, this stuff is essentially the same as Jello, so let's just say you really don't want to get it wet. We would take a bunch of old, useless gels and get some gullible freshman to go wash the gels. When they came back with a soggy mess, we would say, well did you use hot or cold water? If they said they had used cold, we would tell them you are supposed to use hot -- and vice versa. So we would get them twice. Funny, they seldom appreciated the humor.

Wash the gels ... I remember

Wash the gels ... I remember that one well !!
We would also send the new guy to look for the "sky hooks" and the "around the corner" Leko's.

My favorite was when I was working on putting connectors on a rather long cable which was coiled on the floor ... two of the new guys were watching very intently ... I finally decided to have some fun with them so I gave each a stripped end of the cable and told them to hold the bare ends tightly in their fists ... I told them I needed to get a different wire stripper and I would be right back ... as I was walking away, I turned around and said, "For God's sake, whatever you guys do ... DON'T SHAKE HANDS."

Ah, The Old Power User

At BigBlue: My coffee cup holder is broken.
At McD's: My foot pedal is broke, and the arrow doesn't go anywhere.
At Discovery Zone: I've locked the key in the cash drawer, you mean you can open it?!
At DZ Again: Me** Now type d-i-r space c-full colon. User** dot dot dot, dot dot dot dot dot, dot, dot. Me** Did you hit the space bar? User** Oh, What's that? Me** You know, that big bar looking thing at the bottom, it is the longest key on the key board. User** OH, so THAT is what that big bar does.

There are more, but these are my real life contributions.

Chicken Bones

When ever I go to someones desk to check a problem that ussaly does not ocur when I am there I tell them that I carry chicken bones in my tool case and it's voodoo fixes the problem. (if they bring the problem to me I tell them the bones are in the celling).