Users are awesome.

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This morning, a user comes down saying that their laptop isn't working.

User: My laptop just stopped working all of a sudden.
Me: Ok...

[I try to turn on the laptop, but get nothing]
[I take out the battery and notice a brown liquid inside]
[I wipe off the battery, and switch the laptop back on]
[Laptop has power but nothing displays on the screen]

User: Oh, it's got power now!
Me: Yep, but no display.
Me: ...Any idea what the liquid was on the battery.
User: Oh, I've just spilt a cup of tea on it.
Me:

[Momentary pause]

Me: I'll have to take it away and see if I can dry it off properly, but I don't know if it's fixable.
User: Any idea how long it will take to resolve? I have important work to do.
Me: ...

[Silence]

Me: ...No.
User: Oh, ok.

I then proceeded to spend twenty minutes in the disabled loos drying off the laptop with the hand-dryer until it worked again.


Ugh. I hope this day gets better soon.

Qs

 

Yep, used to get stuff like that regularly. I remember one that went :

Customer : Can you come in please or send an engineer - we can't print

Me :Ok, who can't print ?

Customer :No-one can print

Me :Oh, is the network still working ? You have access to the internet, email files etc ?

Customer :Oh yes, we just can't print

Me :You have about 40 network printers there. Are you telling me that none of them work ?

Customer :Yes, hold on - the MD wants a word with you

Me (apprenhensively) :err, OK

Customer (MD) :Can you just come in now please and sort this printer mess

Me :Sure, it's no problem. I was just trying to establish what had happened

Customer (MD) :It's me. I logged on to the server and deleted all the printer drivers so now we can't print. Never mind the cost, just get here pronto. Can you try not to let the staff know it was my fault ?

Me (grinning inside) :Sure, be happy to help. Be there in 10 minutes and we'll invoice today too


Aah, those were the days !

 

I once project managed a chip & pin rollout for a UK supermarket. Got promoted from leading an engineering team to managing them so knew the horror stories about till points first hand. Best one I came across personally was backfilling a team leader one night in a store in Central London. this store had only been open eighteen months but was - by far - the filthiest store I'd ever set foot in. Whilst I was unpacking the gear for the installs the duty manager asked me to take a look at one of the POS systems - which had suddenly stopped working that afternoon.

I pulled the case of this thing apart and - lo and behold - discovered what I can only describe as about 250ml of sticky, hot, stinking pink plasticky goo all over the motherboard. Looking around I noticed a suspicious-looking bottle of Pepto-Bismol sitting half empty on the shelf under the till. Turns out, after speaking to some of the night shift workers, that the idiot checkout bod on that till had wanted to go home an hour early that day so had poured the gunk in through an open PCI slot at the back of the case, then told her supervisor that her 'till wasn't working'...

 

Speaking with a "lady" earlier on this morning. "the e-mails on the blackberry were not working since her computer had updated and the world was about to end". Remote session later, discovered it was actually her hotmail account was locked out. This is the same person who sent her laptop in because it had stopped working. She sent her personal laptop in for repair. She is one cheeky b1*ch

 

They keep you employed!

 

Oh, I know. I wasn't being sarcastic! (no tounge smilies )

Qs

 

...blood pressure raised and beer flowing

 

P45inthepostalongwithalettertellinghershesbeingtakentocourtformisuseofcompanyresources...

aaaaaand relax

 

lmfao.

 

It's all good.... I had a user call me 5 times in 30 min asking me how to copy and paste from word document to an email message body... after I asked her to write the steps down.

 

I just love users!
Best thing since sliced bread! especially when they shout at you on the phone telling you how to fix their problem!

 

When that happens (and it does sometimes) I tell the user: "Awesome, you fix it then and I'll do other bits in the meantime"

 

I get that pretty frequently... but I just ask say "show me" then they're like well I rather you do it and that's where it stops.

 

This made me laugh out loud in work.

 

this person has more cheek than a thousand @rses! She recently took it upon herself to reset the SDSL device when someone couldn't log on to the domain recently.

 

Our users are fairly harmless, at the moment my most regular query is 'how do I put a link in an email again?'

Sometimes wish I hadn't discovered that the marketing department were emailling 100+ MB files backwards and forwards when they are all stored on the bloody network...

That and having to provide training to one user on the ins and outs of paint.....