I work in maintenance at a very nice community college. My job includes installing and removing keyboard trays, assembling desks, hanging photos in offices, etc.

I’m headed down a hallway to a teacher’s office when one of the IT guys comes out of the office I’m headed to, shaking his head.

Me: “What’s up, [Coworker]?”

Coworker: “[Teacher] called down to IT complaining that her computer was making a strange noise every time she tried to save something, so she had to shut it down to prevent any damage to it.”

Me: “What was it doing?”

Coworker: “She showed me! She would get a document ready to save, but when she clicked on ‘Save’, her hard drive would activate, making that humming, clattering noise that hard drives make, so she would freak out and force a cold boot — hold the power switch until the computer shuts off. That, of course, made her lose the document and have to wait for her machine to boot up again.”

I was incredulous, my mouth agape.

Me: “So, what did you tell her?”

Coworker: “To stop doing that!”

He turns away, shaking his head again.

Coworker: “These people are teaching our kids — at college!”

I worked at the help desk at a community college computer lab for a few years and encountered all sorts of stupidity; this one stands out above all the rest.

A middle-aged woman walks over to my desk and wants help opening a document she saved on a 3.5-inch floppy the other day. No problem. I follow her to the computer she was using. We get all sorts of problems with people and their disks here, so this is pretty run-of-the-mill. We sit down at her computer, and I open the disk.

It’s blank. Not only is it blank, but it’s a brand-new unformatted blank.

Me: “This is a blank disk; it’s never been used. Are you sure this is the right disk?”

Customer: “Yes, it is; I bought it yesterday. I was in the other lab and they said they were going to erase all those computers that night and I needed to save my work to a disk.”

Me: “Well, this disk is empty. It’s never had anything saved to it. Are you sure you saved it to the disk?”

Customer: “I did! I put the disk in and clicked save.”

Yup, I know what happened now; she never actually saved it to the disk.

Customer: “They must have erased my disk! They said they were going to erase everything on those computers that night, and they erased my disk!”

Me: “Did you leave your disk in those computers overnight?”

Customer: “Of course not! It was in my bag at home! They must have erased it!”

Me: “That’s not physically possible. There is no way they could do anything to your disk when you have it at home in your bag. You must have not properly saved your document to the disk. Would you like me to format this disk and show you how to do it for next time?”

The customer screamed, flipped the keyboard over, and then promptly stormed out.

In the early 1990s, I bought my first house. Not long after moving in, I noticed that our local community college had a non-credit evening course called “Residential Wiring For Homeowners”. It was, as the title suggested, catering to homeowners who wanted to learn the basics of electrical wiring in the home as it pertained to anything from replacing lights fixtures and switches to minor electrical changes — renovations, etc.

The instructor was a licensed journeyman electrician with a wry sense of humour and more than a few stories to tell of the many wiring nightmares he had come across in his career. He was a great instructor, and I learned a LOT from him in the course.

Each week, he would give a short lecture on the work we would practice. For the course, each of us bought a list of electrical supplies (wire, switches, junction boxes, etc.), and we used a two-foot-by-two-foot square of plywood to attach the various pieces. After each lecture, we would then practice building the circuits and mount the necessary pieces on the board. During this time, our instructor would move about checking our work, offering advice and/or corrections, and answering questions.

On the first night, [Instructor] outlined the course and expectations. He also made it clear there was one rule that had to be followed:

“NOBODY plugs their board in to live power without me checking your work first. No exceptions!”

You may guess where this story is going.

There was one guy in the class — let’s call him “Ralph”. After a few nights, it was clear that Ralph was struggling a bit with the concepts. He never seemed to get it right the first time, kept asking for more explanations, etc. He was a nice guy but clearly not cut out to do this stuff on his own.

One evening, in particular, stands out all these years later. We were working on a more complicated wiring example using four-way switches and light fixtures. Everyone was working away and completing the task when, all of a sudden, there was a loud “FOOP” and the lights went out in the class and in the hallway so we were in the pitch black.

After a few moments:

Instructor: “Who did that?!”

Ralph: “Uhhhh, sorry…”

Instructor: “Okay, everyone unplug your boards, and do not touch them until I’m back. I’m going to find and reset the breaker.”

When the lights came on and [Instructor] returned, he reviewed all the work in progress and gave the okay to proceed… for everyone but poor Ralph. He took Ralph to one corner of the room and sat down with him for a few minutes to have a “quiet conversation”. We proceeded with finishing our work, and Ralph eventually returned to finish his project board under the watchful eye of [Instructor].

A few classes later, we were done with the course. On the final night, [Instructor] began passing out certificates to all of us… except for poor Ralph. They were largely symbolic certificates, just an acknowledgment that we had taken the course.

Instructor: “Ralph, I know you tried your best in this course, but it is abundantly clear that you really have trouble grasping the basics I tried to teach this class. I would invite you to register for and take the course again to get the concepts down. If not, I implore you to never, ever touch the electrical wiring in your home and always call a qualified electrician for any work.”

I have no idea if Ralph tried to take the course again, and I certainly hope he never burned his house down trying to replace a light switch on his own.

In the late 1970s, I worked as a lab assistant in the computer department. A sense of humor was required for the job. We had yellow vests with the label “Lab Asst.” on them, and we had a bit of yellow tape covering the T. Collectively, we considered buying a T-shirt for our department secretary that featured images of floppy disks and the banner “mini-floppies.” Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed and that didn’t happen.

This all was years before the first IBM PC and when the only real alternative to big computers was the Apple II. The computer our department depended on was a PDP-11. It was over seven feet tall and roughly the shape of a filing cabinet. It featured a 200-Mb internal hard drive and a 50-Mb removable drive for backing up data. By modern standards, that’s pretty pathetic, but by the standards of the day, it was already light years ahead of using floppy disks for storage. For those too young to remember, the floppy disks of the era held about 180 Kb of data.

The computer could also handle a dozen users connected by terminals. The terminals were just a screen and keyboard. Students had no access to the actual computer itself, which was in a room separate from the computer lab.

As an example of a little knowledge being a dangerous thing, a student came into our offices one day.

Student: “You guys need to listen to me!”

Coworker: “What’s wrong?”

Student: “Your computer memory space. You don’t have enough.”

Coworker: “What do you mean?”

Student: “I was doing some reading about keeping everything in memory.”

Coworker: “And?”

Student: “You guys need to add a floppy disk drive to the computer.”

We all looked at each other in bewilderment.

Coworker: “Okay, we’ll keep that in mind.”

Student: “Great! I just wanted you to know.”

A short time ago, I became my college’s newest IT services person. I actually enjoy the job and honestly couldn’t be happier unless I got to play video games all day long. I have a desk, personal email, and job duties, but no timeline that “it has to be done in eight minutes or our necks are on the chopping block.” It’s just straight-up tech work.

The IT department is always on hand during the day to assist the professors in teaching their students. Most of the time, the professors are great. But I do get those once in a while who make me want to facepalm so hard. 

Anyone who has worked in IT will recognize the following story.

Professor: “This computer is not working and I have a class in ten minutes. I have to have my lectures off the computer, now!”

Me: “Can I just ask some questions real quick to see if it’s an easy fix?”

Professor: “No! Get your lazy butt over here and fix it!”

Me: “All right, sir, I will be over there in a few minutes as your office is on the other side of campus.”

It takes about five minutes to get there. We are a small community college, so the furthest one would have to walk anywhere would be half a mile.

Me: “Okay, let us take a look at this com—”

Professor: “Well, it took you long enough to get over here. What is wrong with you, anyway? I have a class in five minutes and the computer still isn’t even… Hey, it’s coming on. What did you do?”

Me: “I simply plugged it back in. Looks like you unplugged your computer this morning when you plugged in your coffee pot. You should have no problem getting your files off your computer.”

Too bad he wouldn’t let me ask some basic questions over the phone. Sheesh!

He then pulls a thumb drive out of his pocket, prints the notes for his lecture from it, and then removes the thumb drive. I decide not to mention that he could have done this at any computer on campus and that there’s an open computer lab literally next door that he could have used his thumb drive in.

Professor: “Well, it doesn’t help that you took your time getting here! I know more about computers than you ever will, anyway. Let’s not forget who has a degree and who doesn’t!”

Me: “All right, sir, I hope your fragile ego gets better! Have a good day.”

I grinned and left before the professor could say another word.

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