IT types have been sharing their wildest tales of people’s hilarious and infuriating tech fails – 13 stories definitely worth downloading
What is it about proximity to computers – especially at work – that reduces the smartest of people to blithering idiots?
Those best placed to answer that question are the IT team in any given office.
So when Redditor vapor-ware asked the following questions …
People who work in IT, what’s the wildest thing you’ve discovered/had to do while at work?
… there were some proper gems in these responses. These 10 technology tales are our very favourites.
1.
“Back when I first started ages ago, a woman called in and said ‘my mouse isn’t working!’ I asked her if it was wired or wireless.
‘I don’t know! Why would I know that?’
‘What do you mean? Is it wired or not? Is there a wire on it?’
‘I said I don’t know! This isn’t my job to know it’s yours!’
“So I asked her if she picked it up and walked away, how far would she get.
“I was the one that got in trouble.”
-KhaosElement
2.
“Drive to an office for emergency oncall service charging the client $400+ dollars an hour to plug the power back into a switch which their cleaning staff had knocked loose.”
-t0getheralone
3.
“Got called to investigate unplug a laptop that had viruses detected on it. When I arrived, this laptop was in the open with the login information taped to the desk. This laptop was given local admin privileges by someone before my time for some application.
“This was in an office area that was always unlocked and 10 steps from the entrance of the building. No one was in the office as they went home early, including management.
“On a laptop filled with everyone’s information (SSN, names, addresses, and more), Limewire, games, pornography, and more. The two who worked on this laptop just used it like their personal laptop with occasional work being done on it.
“The laptop was promptly disconnected from the network, confiscated, and returned for analysis. Yes, there was spyware and we don’t know how much personal info got out. This was reported to higher management. The two who used it disappeared quickly and quietly after that.”
-gac64k56
is my nine year old laptop finally dead. be honest pic.twitter.com/HBoXm8F2rk
— Gabrielle Drolet (@gabrielledrolet) June 19, 2024
4.
“Lady from the office downstairs borrowed my bosses keyboard whilst waiting for a replacement.
“When hers arrived she washed the borrowed one in the kitchen sink and left it on the draining board to dry out.”
-MrBenzedrine
5.
“Drive to an office for emergency oncall service charging the client $400+ dollars an hour to plug the power back into a switch which their cleaning staff had knocked loose.”
t0getheralone
6.
“My husband does not work in IT but he should. He worked on a facilities team at an expensive private school, and one day got a ticket to remove/trash a 75 inch TV.
“He approached the head of the IT department asking why he needed to trash it when he had just installed it brand new. The head of IT told him it won’t stop shutting off. My husband loaded it into the work van and dropped it at our house instead. Later he came home, plugged it in…
“… and turned off the 10 min automatic power off timer. We got a fancy TV for free!’
HuuffingLavender
