This just happened to a coworker of mine who is active-duty military. She’s been in a leadership class all day, so she left her military-issued laptop in my office for safekeeping while she’s in class. 

For those not familiar with US military IT regulations, there are a great many things that cannot ever be plugged into a government computer’s USB ports — chiefly anything with internal memory such as flash drives, cameras, and cell phones. Doing so causes the government computer to report the unauthorized plug-in to the network, and the network security people take steps to secure the device from possible attack.

As mentioned, [Coworker]’s laptop has been sitting in its computer bag in my office since she left for her class, and nobody has touched it. A little bit after her class broke for lunch, [Coworker] got a phone call from her Chief Petty Officer. It seems the network security people had been frantically trying to reach [Coworker] about an unauthorized plug-in to her computer. Since she was in class and her phone was therefore turned off (Navy tradition says anyone whose phone rings during training has to buy donuts for the whole class the next day), they couldn’t reach her and therefore decided to shut off not merely her computer but her entire network access.

Once she’d turned her phone back on and started seeing all the calls from network security and her Chief, [Coworker] called the Chief to find out what was going on. After she was told about the “problem”, [Coworker] talked to me and found out that no one had been anywhere near her laptop at all. Confused, [Coworker] called the Chief again to find out how to fix the problem.

She was told it would be no problem. The Chief would annotate that he had counseled [Coworker] about network security, and she would have to retake the online network security annual training. Once these were accomplished, [Coworker] would be able to get back into the network to do her military job as Leading Petty Officer for the shop.

Most of the readers familiar with various IT disasters are doubtless nodding sagely as they can see where this is going. In order to regain access to the network, [Coworker] had to take a network security training course on the network, and all of her network access had been shut off. She couldn’t even get into the network from another computer because network security had killed all of her access rights.

After laughing until I was blue in the face, I strongly suggested she take the laptop to the network security office and kindly ask them how she could retake the security training if they’d shut off her access. She was too tired to get into a fight after a day in the classroom, so she called the Chief and told him someone else was going to have to handle the morning muster reports and other administrative tasks she normally handled until someone at network security realized the Catch-22 situation they had created.

Network security is actually a pretty important job for government workers — especially military — but some of the network security administrators are full-on caricatures who absolutely belong here on Not Always Right.

My workout buddy and I went to a restaurant. The waiter stopped by and asked if we wanted to order drinks. We said no, just water, because we’d just been working out and were very thirsty. Plus, my buddy tends to get post-workout migraines, and if he does, then I’m the driver.

Before we could say we wanted appetizers — we were, after all, very post-workout hungry — the waiter vanished. Twenty minutes later, people who’d come in after us were getting their appetizers.

We weren’t able to wave down our waiter, so we walked out.

I know alcohol and even soft drinks boost the total and corresponding tip, but that’s no reason to ignore water drinkers.

I once was pet-sitting for neighbors and had to go chase down the dogs. They were outdoor dogs. (This is very common here outside the towns; these dogs lived on a farm with lots of fields and forest nearby.)

I got a call from a different neighbor that the dogs were in their yard. I drove over, and the smaller dog (knee-high) had already gone back home. The larger one (a hip-high and massively fluffy German Shepherd) was standing around begging for pets.

The neighbor sold eggs and veg from their farm, and people were showing up to get their noms. Tugger, the giant floof, was scaring the customers. He was the friendliest thing ever, but he was freakin’ HUGE.

I got him wrestled into the back of the neighbor’s pick-up and took him home. He didn’t “go visiting” anymore after that — though I did increase my “talk to the puppers” time when I went over to feed ’em.

Screwing around with archaic weaponry like it was a toy — like in this story — causes all kinds of problems. I almost died as a teenager due to that.

I hung out with a group of reenactors and European-style martial artists, and I had been experimenting with homemade practice armor. My stuff wasn’t pretty, but it cost almost nothing and was quite effective, as was demonstrated by this one idiot.

He was the cousin of one of our members that was visiting. He’d gotten ahold of a poniard dagger and was screwing around with it — slashes, stabs, etc. Just as I came around a corner to show off my newest, best cuirass — thankfully, I was wearing it — the idiot did a backhanded stab that thunked into the solar plexus area of the cuirass.

Everyone’s eyes got big as I rocked back on my heels. They’d been telling him to put the dagger away and stop screwing around before someone got hurt.

Luckily, the guy he accidentally stabbed was wearing armor intended for use with live blades, on the theory that if it could handle battle-sharp steel, practice weapons wouldn’t leave a mark.

The blade went in about an inch into the cuirass, and then the tip snapped off.

I got a few orders for armor pieces from people who saw that happen.

(Editor’s Note: A cuirass is armor consisting of a breastplate and a backplate fastened together.)

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His Problems Are Quickly Compounding

I used to work at an outdoor education program that involves middle schools bringing their students to stay overnight for three to five days. One week, we had a slightly more affluent group, and one of the girls was having a birthday during the week. This happens all the time, so we’ll usually sing for the kids, and their parents can pack a card and treat for them.

This girl’s dad did not find this celebratory enough. He asked the school to ask my boss if he could fly his plane over the field and drop bags of candy for the kids. The camp owner obviously said no because this was a huge safety issue and he didn’t want to get sued. The teachers told us that it would not happen.

Then, during the week, we started to hear murmurs from the teachers that maybe the dad was planning to do it anyway. My boss confronted them and they assured her that it definitely wasn’t going to happen, that they were just talking about how they would have done it if they could have. My boss was very suspicious, so on the day of the girl’s birthday, she warned us to drop off our kids with the teachers for our break and go straight back to our cabins so we wouldn’t be around and liable just in case.

Sure enough, a few minutes later, the dad flew by and started dropping trash bags full of candy out of his plane. He clearly was not well-practiced in this because the majority of the bags ended up landing in trees and getting caught there.

My boss was furious and the school was banned from ever returning. I think the camp director also tried to get the dad fined for littering because of all the trash bags in the trees, but I’m not sure if that ever went anywhere. Luckily, no kids were hurt.