Re: Dumb Things People Do

On 8/14/2008 at 1:31 PM, in message

Hi Folks... I'm looking to compile a list of (hopefully humorous)
"Dumb Things People Do" to be published in System iNEWS magazine.

For example...

---

One day, several years ago, I was sitting at my desk at work when I
received a call from one of our computer users who works in the same
building that I do, but one floor down. She told me that Microsoft Word

was not working, and asked me if I could come down and take a look.

Call me lazy, but I wanted to try a few simple things over the phone
before going down. So I asked her what problem she was having, and she
told me that the screen was blank. Now, usually when a user says that,
the whole screen isn't actually blank, just the window they want to use.

So I asked her if the mouse worked when she moved it, she said no. I
asked her if she had tried turning the computer off and back on again to

see if that would clear up the problem. She said she hadn't tried, but
would try it while I was on the phone. A minute later, she said it
wouldn't work. She pressed the power button, but nothing happened.
Naturally, I thought the computer was locked up, and she just needed to
hold the button in longer to make it power off. So I explained that,
and she tried again, to no avail. Then, I suggested unplugging it, and
that didn't work either!

At that point, I said I'd be right down to look at it. I walked down
the stairs to find that the floor was dark. The power was out, and
that's why her computer's screen was blank.

--

So that's the sort of thing I'm looking for (it doesn't have to be as
wordy as my description -- in fact, mine might be too wordy!) I'm
looking for stories of dumb things that come up on the job. These *do*

need to be IT related things, but it can be either a "dumb user" or just

a "duh!" mistake made by an IT person. Any sort of amusing story about

IT would be useful.

Thanks!