While working in tech support, I get a call from a man who can’t get his external drive working. This is back in the day when parallel and serial ports live next to USB ports.

Me: “Can I ask you what ports you have?”

Caller: “I don’t have any.”

Me: “You don’t have any ports on the outside of your drive?”

Caller: “Well, no. I’ve been working on the inside of the computer to try to get everything working. I had a lot of trouble getting into the case!”

Me: “How did you open the case?”

Caller: “With a hacksaw.”

Me: “With… with a hacksaw?“

Caller: “Yeah, down the backside of the tower.”

He had sawed through the mainboard, expansion cards, and yes, even the power supply.

Me: “Sir, you just destroyed every component in your machine, and you’re lucky you didn’t hit a capacitor in the power supply and kill yourself.”

Unsurprisingly, I was unable to help him.

This is the first semester of required masking at my college. I have a hearing-impaired student, and I’m getting set up with an office that coordinates accommodations. I’m told that the student would formerly lip-read, but now with masking, they need to use a third-party transcription service to be able to read what I’m saying in real-time during class. I have no idea how this is set up, but I follow all instructions and am willing to be as flexible as I need to be.

First, I’m given a microphone that plugs into the classroom computer. I’m a little unsure how this will go, so I try it out. No good; the way the classroom is set up, I can’t access the board without taking the microphone off.

They tell me I can purchase a wireless microphone, but I’m a part-time lecturer so I wouldn’t be reimbursed. I push back on this; I’ll do what I need to do, but I’m not willing to spend money when the university has the equipment. IT provides me with a wireless mic, so it seems fine.

Then, I ask for help getting the transcribers to work with the microphone: in other words, I have the mic and I have the computer, but who is hearing me to type it in? I don’t know what the transcription service company is, and I don’t know how I’m supposed to connect with them so they can hear me through the microphone.

I ask the accommodations coordinator how I contact the transcription service.

Coordinator: “We’ll send IT down to help you with that. They’ll be there about fifteen minutes before your class starts.”

I’m thinking, “IT connects me with the transcription service? That’s unexpected; that seems like an accommodation office thing.”

The next class meeting approaches. I’m there twenty minutes early, waiting for IT. IT emails that something’s come up and they’re sending a different person. The IT person arrives about ten minutes after class has started.

IT: “Here’s the mic plug. You just plug it into the USB drive here, open up this program, and now talk… Okay, you’re good to go. Your microphone is set up!”

Me: *Pauses* “Yes, but how do I talk to the transcription people?”

IT: “The who?”

Me: “The transcription people? The people listening to me, the reason I have this microphone?”

IT: “I… have no idea. Who are you using?”

Me: “No clue. I haven’t been told. Yeah, I thought it was strange that IT would be in charge of connecting with the transcription service.”

We share an eye-roll.

I email the accommodations coordinator right away that I have the mic set up, but I don’t know how to connect with the transcription people. I get no response until the next day.

Coordinator: “Did IT set up the microphone, though?”

Well, yes, but with no one listening, what’s the point?!

I did wear the microphone during class. With no one listening. For the half-hour we had left.

My poor student also had no idea how to connect with the transcribers; this was their first time using the service. Lip-reading was always sufficient so they never needed transcription.

Also, this NEVER got resolved. I never did find out how to connect with the transcribers. The student passed the class, fortunately.

Our company has standard password requirements for its customer accounts: one uppercase letter, one lowercase, two numbers, and a minimum of eight characters.

Caller: “I forgot my password!”

I go through the password reset process.

Me: “All right, I reset your password. Please login with ‘Password99’ with an uppercase P and no spaces.”

I think we’re done, but she ends up locking her account multiple times. I try everything I can think of, and based on years of working with customers like this, I know she isn’t doing the uppercase P.

Me: “Remember it’s an uppercase P.”

Still no dice. Finally, I get permission to remote connect to her computer. It’s a pain since she isn’t logged in and the client doesn’t like us doing it this way, but my manager finally allows it.

I type the password for her in the ID section so she can see it, and she finally says:

Caller: “Oh! Uppercaps and lowercaps! Why didn’t you say so?!”

Cue me banging my head against the cubicle wall.

Client: “I need your help!”

Me: “Sure! What do you need?”

Client: “I was clicking and dragging a file from one folder to another as you taught me, but I sneezed in the middle and so let go of the mouse.”

Me: “I… see.”

Client: “My computer ate my file! Where did my file go?!”

I was able to help them find the missing file but had to stifle a chuckle at the thought of their computer “eating” their file.

One of my reports has to get his laptop reimaged because of a mistake in Central IT. That means basically getting his laptop rebuilt from the ground up — stressy and messy.

It takes nearly two weeks to get this done, because the procedures for reinstalling all the apps are not well defined, and there are always some missing. This is less than excusable because IT themselves specify what the standard build contains, but they themselves cannot update their recovery procedures to match this, so there is ALWAYS some back and forward.

My report finds he’s still missing the VPN that he needs to connect remotely, and he is due to fly out to a client’s site on Wednesday afternoon. Normally, he would be spending the morning at home, getting his stuff together, getting ready to go up to the airport, chilling, or whatever before the flight. But of course, because he hasn’t had the VPN pushed out to him, he has to come into the office that morning to get it achieved, despite the fact that the request to get this done was put in on Monday. It didn’t happen Tuesday because the bloke whose job it was took a day off for some reason we weren’t told about.

So, first thing Wednesday, I’m on the phone with the IT team to get this expedited. 

IT Team: “It will be done today.” 

Me: “Please do it now. [My Report] is due to fly out. This has to be done while he is in the office, and he is not going to be in the office all day.”

IT Team: “Okay, we’ll do it now.”

I can detect attitude.

Me: *Politely* “Thank you. This is mission-critical, as can be seen in the job request.”

IT Team: “Everything you send us is job-critical. If everything is job-critical, then nothing is.”

The upshot of this conversation is me crafting an email that will go to higher management to explain what is going on because I am irritated by this, and I am starting to be concerned about whether it is actually going to get done.

An hour later, my report is still waiting on this software to be pushed out, so I get back onto IT, as they won’t listen to him and his complaints. And again, and again, until it is after midday and my report is in danger of missing his flight. The situation is explained in considerable depth and breadth, but the sulky and surly voice at the other end (I have not met this person, he is in another branch of the company, in a different location) again says, “If everything is mission-critical, then nothing is.” He ends with, “Do you know just how much we have to do here?” as though it’s my fault his team broke the laptop in the first place.

This continues through the afternoon, and by this time, my report has missed his flight and is still at his desk at 5:00 pm. He is now just sitting there at his desk, staring out of the window, motionless, completely out of “spoons”. He’s gone through the gamut of emotions during the course of the day.

Me: “Just go. Leave your laptop here, go home, and take the rest of the week off — paid. We will reschedule the meeting at the client’s location.”

Finally, the software is installed by 5:30, after most everyone has gone home, and I’m still there trying to get in touch with the IT team. And finally, I manage to talk to the person who has ACTUALLY installed the software — not the manager of the team that I’ve been speaking to.

His excuse for not doing it earlier?

Installer: “Why should we have to cater to someone who just wants to go home early? We have to be here all day, so I don’t see why you people can’t stay here all day, as well.”

I made sure that upper management was completely aware of this situation, and I recommended that heads roll because of this.

Fortunately, the client was accepting of our excuses and was prepared to reschedule the meeting for the following week, but it was a serious embarrassment to us and caused us considerable extra expense.