Should Have Downloaded Some Common Sense First

(I work in a pharmacy. We have to install an updated digital certificate into our dispensing software so that we can connect with the government’s healthcare software. My boss has provided me with a manilla folder with a set of instructions, the PIC — Personal Identification Code — code, and other related documents, and left me to it. The back end of our dispensing software is rather fiddly and complicated, so we’ve organised for our dispensing software’s tech support to call us and install the certificate remotely. This entire conversation takes place by phone.)

Tech: “Okay, you’ll need the PIC and the CD.”

Me: “What do you mean, CD?”

Tech: “As in the physical CD.”

Me: “I wasn’t told about a CD. Wouldn’t it be [file] that [Boss] downloaded and told me about?”

Tech: “No, it’s a physical CD. They should have sent you a CD with the letter with your PIC.”

(I shuffle through the manilla folder of documents that [Boss] gave me and pull out a CD labelled with the name of the government’s software.)

Me: “Okay, let’s try this.”

Tech: “Does it say [ACRONYM] on it?”

Me: “Yep.”

Tech: “That should be it, then.”

(I put the CD in and give the tech the PIC code.)

Tech: “It didn’t work. Are you sure it’s the right code?”

Me: *after double checking* “Well, that’s the code I was given.”

(Nevertheless, I hunt through the file and find two more CDs and two more codes, and we try them all, but none of them work. During all this, I notice that the tech is trying to open a file on the discs with the same unusual extension as the file my boss had downloaded.)

Me: “Are you sure it’s not [file] we’re supposed to be using rather than the CD?”

Tech: “No, there should be a CD.”

Me: “Why don’t we try it anyway, just in case?”

(We tried it, and, lo and behold, it worked! Cue my epic facepalm and fervent wish that I could get back the twenty minutes we’d wasted!)