I used to work in IT, answering help desk calls and performing computer repair. After a couple of years in this line of work, I started making lists of the most humorous encounters I had with those in dire need of my services. I've prepared a top five of the most amusing incidents I witnessed in my years in IT.
A Sticky Situation
I received a call that a keyboard was no longer functioning properly; the caller swore she couldn't figure out why. When I showed up, new keyboard in hand, I went to test the old one. I suggested the reason the keys were all stuck was because of the massive amounts of syrup that had been spilled on the inside.
Solitary Confinement
One of the key figures of the company had his secretary call me with an urgent matter. The situation was such that it could not be discussed over the telephone and I needed to meet him in his office as soon as possible. I was still relatively new and was nervous at the enormity of the situation. When I entered his office, he told me that he accidentally deleted the shortcut to Solitaire from his desktop.
And the Password is...
One user was always forgetting the password to her email account. Though we didn't have access to email passwords, I remembered hers from the numerous times I'd visited her office and each time she forgot, rather than resetting the password, she would just call me. I finally one day suggested that she write the password down someplace where she could easily locate it. She took my advice, but I received a call again the following day. I asked her if she had written down the password and she said yes, but she couldn't see it. I asked where it was: she had renamed the inbox icon on her desktop to her password, but when she double clicked it, the icon was covered. She never thought to minimize the screen OR that naming the icon with her password was not the safest of all options. By the way, the password was her dog's name with no special characters.
They Don't Call It a Help Desk for Nothing!
I was manning the phones and answered with the typical greeting, "Help Desk, how may I help you?" The person on the other end of the phone began asking me about some employment applications he was going through and wanted to know which prospect sounded the best to me. I asked if this was a specific computing related issue. He said no, but he needed help, so he called the help line. I put him on hold so I could get the laugher out of my system, then went back to the call, listened to the application information, and gave my best recommendation.
Self-Inflicted Hilarity
I was working on a PC and couldn't quite figure why the hard drive wasn't being recognized by the motherboard when I suddenly started noticing a large quantity of red liquid spreading on the internal components. I couldn't find the source, but the red liquid kept growing and I was sure this was where the problem stemmed from. This was when I noticed I had cut my hand very badly and was bleeding inside the computer.
