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Shark Tank

Even BEFORE 9/11 this was bad news

This grade school includes two buildings about five miles apart -- one for the elementary grades, the other for the middle school -- and one IT pilot fish supports the both. So why doesn't she know about the guy on the roof?

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It's a very special kind of urgent

This engineering firm tests equipment as part of its business, so when a manager at a site in another country sends programmer pilot fish a message saying he needs an urgent change to the testing software, fish moves fast.

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Maybe what he really wanted was an Exchange guy

It's a decade ago, and this Linux sysadmin pilot fish has survived several rounds of layoffs before he finally gets the ax. But he's not worried -- he has a standing offer to come work for one of his old employer's customers.

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Oh, THAT one!

This company is upgrading production equipment at several sites spread all over the state -- and when this pilot fish gets a call from another site about a PC that won't power up, he knows what to do.

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How to speed up a PC, 1980s style

Flashback a couple decades, to the days when everyone at this company is using IBM PC/ATs -- but that doesn't explain why the boss's PC takes minutes to delete a single email.

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What's the hurry?

This IT pilot fish at a manufacturing company is about to take his Christmas vacation -- which, naturally, means he's still on call if anything goes wrong. And with a co-worker whose foot-dragging is legendary, that's almost guaranteed.

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Because users know what they need, right?

The phones at this company have a key sequence that enables auto-answer, so the phone doesn't ring -- the caller is immediately connected in speakerphone mode. That's a feature that one supervisor loves.

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It's gonna be a lonnnng week

This pilot fish gets the same memo from the Big Boss as everyone else in the company -- and it doesn't bode well.

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That's pretty sorry, all right

This IT pilot fish at a small manufacturing company really could use his upcoming vacation -- particularly to get away from one co-worker. But he can't completely leave work behind.

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To be fair, nothing IS what she got

This IT pilot fish gets a trouble ticket from a user: All of a sudden, she can no longer print waybills for packages she sends out, even though the printer looks OK.

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Not as bizarre as they thought

This library system uses an RFID tag on each book so materials can be checked out quickly. But one day a help-desk request comes in from a remote branch: It seems every time a patron checks out, a book titled "Bizarre Dinosaurs" shows up, too.

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See, if you knew everything, you'd be up there too

Support tech pilot fish is called into an upper-management office for an emergency printer call: "My printer is no longer printing and I need immediate assistance!"

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Well, the idea was good...

One of this sysadmin pilot fish's regular tasks is recovering space on Windows servers, and his usual procedure is to spot the users with the biggest files and then call or email them, asking them to delete a few. Then he gets a bright idea.

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ASAP, redefined

This IT consultant pilot fish gets a call from a small design firm customer whose email has simply stopped working -- and they need it fixed ASAP!

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Restoring? Not so fast.

Pilot fish gets a call from a site manager who wants to restore the data that was deleted the night before. Exactly what will that require?

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