The last employee to leave this big open-plan office is supposed to turn out the lights. Unfortunately, one worker doesn't know where the light switch is -- but she sees a big handle marked "power."

After applying some updates to a Windows 2003 virtual server, this pilot fish comes in the next morning to find the server unresponsive. Then it happens again a few days later -- and soon it's happening every morning.

There's a major virus outbreak going on, and a user at a remote site calls this pilot fish to complain that her computer won't let her get any work done -- and the local tech isn't answering her calls.

Pilot fish at this government lab is called in because some users just aren't following the rules.

Remote user calls to report that her terminal screen is blank -- and after 45 minutes of troubleshooting, this help desk pilot fish starts to see the light.

This big utility company has staff scattered over a wide area, and that means lots of small offices and field teams. But when network traffic between two of the offices gets painfully slow, IT is quick to respond -- sort of.

This IT shop is replacing its two print servers with a single new machine, which requires writing a script that makes changes to every PC in the company that prints. And that mostly works -- but there's still one PC left to find.

The company where this pilot fish works has part of its operations on a mainframe -- and mostly that's fine, though it's a little dicey when month-end reports are due. Then the system engineers announce they've got a great idea.

This IT boss stomps into the printer room in a big hurry, ignoring the signs warning not to wear loose clothing near the shredder -- and what happens next is predictable.

One of this company's more charity-conscious users composes a message intended for only a select few of his close personal friends, and then sends it out to the entire 15,000-member workforce -- with predictable results.

Everything has been working just fine for this small business's IT, with e-mail and the Web site managed by a third-party vendor on the vendor's servers. But then the Web site vendor moves e-mail and Web sites to the servers of a large hosting company.

This pilot fish has watched his IT shop grow from a single IBM minicomputer to dozens of servers connected to hundreds of PCs over the past 20 years, and these days he only occasionally sits in on a department meeting. But sometimes, that's a good thing.

Lone on-site IT engineer at a small military base in the desert in Iraq is very gung-ho about doing his part, and he wants to be able to brag about his time ‘outside the wire' -- so he comes up with a novel excuse.

Pilot fish gets a call from a client with a week-old PC -- and he's in a panic. The newbie user tells fish that he can't plug in the mouse and keyboard, and he needs to answer an important e-mail that has just arrived.

This government agency wants a digital photo of an employee in a remote office, and the local administrative assistant dutifully e-mails it. But that's not the way the folks in D.C. want it.