I work for a rather large manufacturing plant in Ohio. While it’s a fairly clean environment, it does still have areas that don’t see much traffic and accumulate dust. I’m responsible for the computer hardware on-site and troubleshooting any related issues.

I got called on-site to this location outside of normal hours due to an issue impacting production. The end user had just the day before treated me like crap because I was not allowed to provide her with a free additional laptop charger simply because she did not want to transport hers back and forth between work and home. She ended up being the one to take me out to the floor and show me the machine with the issue.

Upon arrival, the keyboard was very dusty. No problem; I wasn’t really worried about it. [End User] decided it was too dusty and immediately grabbed the “canned air” on the same table as the keyboard and started to spray it without reading the label.

It turned out that the can had WD-40 (a lubricant) in it.

I was flabbergasted and did not really know how to respond. [End User] acted really confused and asked me what had happened.

Me: “I think you just sprayed the keyboard with lubricant.”

This was not the first run-in I had with [End User] and previous employees in my position had similar experiences. It was fun to see her do something so completely stupid. I’m not even sure she realized how stupid it was, to be honest.

A couple of years ago, I got an internship in the IT department of a non-profit. My boss asked me to log in to all the computers belonging to users that were gone for the day and do a quick update to our software. I shrugged my shoulders and got to work.

About an hour later, I signed off from the machines I worked on and left for the day.

I got to work the next day and noticed I had about twelve missed calls. I checked my voicemail and almost all the messages were from this woman complaining about not being able to log in. I fired off some emails and headed down to figure out what had gone wrong.

She immediately confronted me and was absolutely delighted that I had potentially f***ed up something. She was threatening to have me fired, telling me that she’d been trying to log in for an hour, and saying things like, “Why do we have an IT department if you’re always breaking our computers?!”

I tried to calm her down and sat at her desk to troubleshoot the issue. It turned out that because I was the last one to log in the day before, Windows auto-filled the username as “Administrator.” She was typing in her password without changing her username.

I was speechless; I couldn’t believe she sat there for an hour without figuring out to type in her first initial and last name before putting in her password.

I told her to type up her username and password and she should be fine. She gave me the snottiest look and said, “Next time, type in my username for me, got it?”

I had to swallow that and get on with my day.

Related:
The Username Blame Game, Part 2
The Username Blame Game

This all started about a month ago at my workplace where I’ve been for the past twelve years.

On that fateful day, I had forgotten my key fob to buzz through the security gate, so I asked the guard — [Guard #1], who I’ve known and chatted to for several years — to let me through. As he was getting up, the moody older guard next to him — [Guard #2] — stopped him and rudely told me to sign in.

Me: “I’ve been working here for over a decade, and I’m known to [Guard #1], so he can vouch for me.”

Guard #2: “It doesn’t matter; it’s a health and safety thing in case there is a fire.”

That’s not true; this is a shared building and each company is responsible for accounting for their staff. I know because I helped set up this plan with the building’s owner.

I explained this to him, but he wasn’t having it and directed me to the sign-in book. Funnily enough, the book had a printed sheet stating that it was for guests only and had a line saying permanent staff should get a sticker to ID themselves. I asked about the sticker.

Guard #2: “This is the new process. You have to sign in and out each time you enter or exit the building without your fob.”

Me: “Are you sure?”

Guard #2: “One hundred percent.”

Fair enough! The UK health and safety body says that, ideally, you should take a five- to ten-minute break each hour away from your computer screen. Not wanting to get a repetitive strain injury or anything, I took it upon myself to take even more regular breaks, especially when [Guard #2] was on shift.

For my breaks, I would go on short walks outside, and wouldn’t you know it? I am getting very forgetful in my old age and kept forgetting to bring in my fob.

Each time I came to sign in, [Guard #2] would need to get up, open his door, and undo his keys to buzz me in. Quite often, I would forget something in my car just as he was about to let me in, and he’d need to make his round trip back to the little office. My record was thirteen little breaks over the day.

After about two weeks of this, I managed to have a catch-up with [Guard #1]. He explained that he had checked and there was definitely not a need for me to sign in each time, and even better, [Guard #2] was constantly moaning to the other security guys about the “idiot” who keeps forgetting his fob.

I’m a warehouse division manager for a company. A very well-known brand for dishwasher detergents is our customer, and the customer’s supply chain manager complains that the trucks cannot reach our warehouse due to rain. The warehouse is uphill and she insists that the road is not good.

By luck, I’m already in the warehouse and the truck she mentioned is in the warehouse unloading, so there are actually no issues. I call the customer.

Me: “Truck is here; no worries. We will meet the deadline.”

Customer: “No, it’s not there. I just talked with the transporter and they said they cannot drive on that f****** road.”

Me: “Sorry, I really don’t get where the information is getting mixed up, but the driver is here.”

I hand over the phone to the driver.

Driver: “Yes, I’m at the warehouse.”

Customer: “You are lying! The truck is not there, and we will be late for the delivery.”

Me: “Here is a photo of the truck in the warehouse; I just shared it with you in your email. Can you check, please?”

Customer: “Yes, I can see. This is probably an older photo. I will reach out to your boss and complain about you.”

Me: “Well, as you wish!”

The truck was unloaded, nothing was delayed, and the next day, the supply chain manager of the company behaved as if nothing had happened. She was famous for being abusive in the logistics industry.

And she was promoted to a regional job. 

I left the position and left the company. No money is enough for this kind of pressure.

This happened back in the late 1990s. I was a seventeen-year-old teenage schmuck who had moved away from home and was living on his own.

I had recently bought my first desktop computer. I had a strong interest in computers and programming, but at that point in time, I was what can be described as “knowing enough to be dangerous”, which meant knowing more about computer systems than the common Jill Smith but still being ignorant enough of critical technical information that I would only learn through either years of experience or formal training… or after a disastrous consequence.

The latter is exactly what happened when I tried to install an upgrade on the motherboard, and the system wouldn’t boot… at all. It was mid-January, I didn’t have a car, and the temperature was in the single digits with wind blowing snow everywhere. I had to improvise by borrowing a child’s wagon from my neighbor, wrapping up the system in a blanket, and lugging it on foot to a computer repair shop.

I pulled in the wagon and the technician gave me a puzzled look. I could only give an embarrassed laugh and say:

Me: “I don’t have a car! I’m only seventeen!”

As I described the issue, I remember him putting his head on his desk and stifling laughter before lifting his head back up and asking some friendly questions about me. Finally, I asked:

Me: “How much is it gonna cost to fix?”

Technician: “Run along home, pal. I’ll give you a call when I get done.”

Two days later, I got a call from the technician.

Technician: “I got it straightened out. Took me a h*** of a while, but I got it back running again. For future reference, please refrain from DIY upgrades. Have a certified technician do it for you.

Me: “Lesson learned! I gotta grab my wagon and then go to the bank, so I’ll be there in about ninety minutes. How much do I owe you?”

Technician: *Sound of stifling laughter* “Stay there. I’ll be over in about fifteen minutes. *Hangs up*

The technician showed up at my house shortly afterward with my computer in his car. I heartily thanked him for the kind gesture of bringing my system to me. When I asked him again how much I owed him so I could go pick it up from the bank, he chuckled again and then gave me a pat on the shoulder.

Technician: “Don’t worry about it. Take it easy!”

And he drove away, leaving me completely stunned and speechless.

I ran into him a few years later. After a friendly chat, I asked him why he had been so remarkably generous and sympathetic to a total stranger.

Technician: “You reminded me so much of myself back when I was a teenager, from the moment you stumbled into my shop with that Radio Flyer wagon and your PC all wrapped up in a blanket… to the time you innocently explained how you screwed up the system by slapping on that piece of hardware to your motherboard and assuming you were good to go. I felt so bad for laughing at you, but it was just the whole situation. It reminded me of when I was sixteen and my dad bought me a motorcycle. I was so d*** proud of that thing. Then, one day, I saw something on a TV show about a way to soup up the engine. Not doing an ounce of research, I ran on down to a parts store, grabbed some stuff, and went tinkering on my motorcycle. Similar to you, I found myself in triple-digit Arizona weather, pushing my dead motorcycle to a repair shop. After the guy laughed his a** off at me and asked what the h*** I was thinking, he repaired it. But he told me the bill was on the house that time just because he found the situation so funny, cute, and pathetic. I figured I’d pay the kind favor forward when you came in.”

That was over twenty years ago. I’ll never forget that kind act when I was fully expecting to have to cough up half of my savings account to get my system fixed because of my own recklessness.

I did pay the favor forward years later when my goofball sister thought it was a good idea to try to overclock her system using instructions from a YouTube video, resulting in a critical system failure that took me almost a week to get ironed out.