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I was a new regional manager running a training center in Raleigh where we had 4 classrooms full of 10-15 students learning a new software application. My wife and 3 year old came by to see new facility and to say hi. We had a B10 AS/400 (I think that is what is was). You remember that one, the size of a small filing cabinet with the big red on/off switch in front? Well, we didn't have an official computer room at the time so the AS/400 sat out in the "common area" in the office. My wife set my son down while I took her around to introduce her to the class and the next thing I know the system goes down. Turns out the big red switch was too much for my 3 year old to resist and he had thrown it. I sent the class out to lunch, waiting on the 50 minute IPL time.

AS/400's are not child proof.

Pete Helgren


Scott Klement wrote:
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!

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