I am a twenty-seven-year-old engineer who works at an engineering consultation company. Basically, we work with large clients to help them solve their most complex engineering projects. Oftentimes, these are issues that a fleet of PhDs cannot even solve on their own, and we are giving these tasks to a single person —often with only a Bachelor’s degree to their name. This is a long way of saying that I work with a bunch of smart people.

I am one of two female engineers, surrounded by mostly men who are “older” than me and all have at least a Masters. (The oldest one is thirty-one years old.) This means I end up holding their hands quite a bit.

Coworker #1: “What is the password for the [Desktop]?”

Me: *Walks over* “Uh, no idea. Why do you need it?”

Coworker #2: “We are trying to connect to the VPN.”

Me: *Pauses* “Why?”

Coworker #2: “We are trying to access the shared folders and we need to connect to the VPN.”

Me: *Addressing [Coworker #1]* “First of all, the VPN is to access the Internet remotely. This guy is connected directly into the Internet via that Ethernet cable.”

He seems to get it.

Coworker #2: “But how does it connect to the Internet?”

Me: “See that green cord coming out of the computer and going into the wall right there?”

Coworker #1: “Oh, yeah!”

Me: “It is connected directly to the router.”

At this time, I get onto the URL that allows you to access data remotely on any web browser.

Coworker #2: “So, it is already connected?”

Me: “Yeah. Second of all, the login that you use for this computer isn’t connected to the network. It is a basic guest login. So, knowing the password to it to get onto the VPN wouldn’t have done any good.”

Coworker #3: “What do you mean by that?”

Me: “My login credentials allow me to log on to any company computer, right? Well, there is nothing like that set up for [Desktop]. I mean, you can log onto it using your credentials, but not to [Username]. That is a local account to store our network licenses on.”

Coworker #1: “I see. So the password wouldn’t have worked to connecting onto the VPN.”

Me: “Correct.”

I motion toward the website and show him me logging in.

Me: “We can also remote into the Shared Folders using our login credentials. As you see, there are the Shared Folders.”

Coworker #2: “But we are having issues with the share folders.”

Me: “Yeah, well, you can still access it using the method I just showed you.”

I log out so [Coworker #1] can try.

Coworker #2: “So, is this an [IT] issue or what? Because we cannot access the Shared Folders on this computer.”

Me: “Well, normally, you can put in your credentials and access the Shared Folders remotely from the desktop, but I am guessing this is a you-did-something issue. Restarting the computer can help.”

Coworker #3: “So, we should restart the computer?”

Me: “If you want to kick everyone off the network licenses, sure. Or you could just use the URL I provided to download files. It doesn’t affect me, but your other coworkers might be mad.”

Coworker #1: “I only have a couple of files anyway.”

Me: “Sounds good to me.” *Walks away*

This is the fourth or fifth time I have had this conversation with these three. Their heads are just so full of complex problems that the basic solutions elude them. Documentation doesn’t help. I’ve tried. 

So, any time you are feeling down about yourself, remember the time a PhD, a PhD candidate, and a man with his Master’s in computer engineering all tried to connect a desktop to the VPN. Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses.

As a former school board privacy officer, I dealt with many Freedom Of Information requests from the public that dealt with anything from salaries of senior employees to the value of contracts awarded to emails about routine business.

Occasionally, someone would submit a very complex request that would require a lot of time to complete. So it was with one parent who wanted thousands of emails, committee meeting minutes, reports, and the personal notes of a dozen different school board employees. The reason? She had requested that her children’s bus stop move from the entrance of the cul-de-sac she lived on to right in front of her house. While the difference was only about 100m (109 yards), the request was denied because the circle at end of the cul-de-sac was too small for the bus to turn around.

After I’d worked on the request for more than a month, the parent grew impatient and demanded to know what was taking so long. I tried to explain I was a one-man operation, but she started making accusations that I was part of a conspiracy against her. She demanded that I produce all the records immediately or, “I will contact my lawyer!”

Now, I’m smart enough to know that anyone who says, “I will contact my lawyer,” doesn’t have one, especially not one who specializes in Freedom Of Information requests. But, playing along, I said, “Oh, we don’t want it to come to that. I’ll finish this today,” and hung up.

So, I did. The legislation requires that we charge $7.50 per fifteen minutes of search time for records, plus $7.50 per fifteen minutes of preparation time (redacting personal information, eliminating non-responsive info, etc.), plus other incidental costs (copying, printing, etc.). Because I had to have ICT help with the emails and computer records, the charges added up rapidly. I called the parent back the next day and told her the first batch of records would be ready by the end of the week. Then, I asked how she’d like to pay the costs.

Parent: “The costs? What costs? How much?”

Me: “$4,870. As I’m sure your lawyer will explain, 50% is payable up front before we proceed any further with the request. Then, we can start on the next batch.”

There was dead quiet on the other end of the phone.

Parent: “You haven’t heard the end of this! I’m calling [Local News Station]!” *Hangs up*

It is now three years later. I’m still waiting.

I’m sat at my desk whilst a coworker is sat a few desks away and her manager is walking toward the nearby printer.

Coworker: “Whilst you’re over there, can you grab me [document]?”

Manager: “F****** h***, what did your last servant die of?”

Coworker: “She was killed by the printer, so be careful.”

I work in internal IT for a retail company. Lately, a big portion of my job has been password resets. We have an SSO (single sign-on) system which means almost everything uses the same password. We have the ability to check the status of their accounts — is it locked/unlocked, how long until it expires, etc. We can’t see the password itself or what the user might be entering. I have a user call asking for a password.

User: “I need to set up my password so I can sign onto the computer.”

I check the account and see that there was a password set about a week ago. With the SSO, for some reason, everyone half knows what to call it, but most of the employees don’t seem to understand what it actually means or entails.

Me: “I’m showing that your password was just reset last week. It’s the same password you use for [System].”

User: “I’m not trying to sign into [System]. This is my first time, and I’m trying to sign onto the computer, but there’s nothing that says [System] on the screen.”

Me: “You use the same credentials that you use to sign into [System] to access the computer.”

User: “I don’t see anything that says [System] here. I’m trying to sign onto this computer for the first time.”

Me: “I understand that, but you still use your [System] credentials to sign in. I show a password was set on [date], so that’s what you’ll want to use.”

User: “Today’s my first day. I have no idea what that is.”

Me: *Headdesk*

I realize that I’m going to get nowhere with her, so I go through the process to verify her identity and get her a temporary password. Meanwhile, a manager or someone walks in, and the user kind of lowers the phone and starts half-whispering.

User: “Oh, yeah, Service Desk is helping me get signed in. She keeps saying that I set a password on [date], but I never did.”

Manager: “Yeah, you did. That was when you did [various pieces of paperwork].”

User: “I never did that.”

Manager: “Yes, you did. We filled out [various pieces of paperwork] so you could start.”

User: “No, I never did that.”

I finally got her signed on and everything, but I felt sorry for that manager. I hope it was just a case of early morning/no coffee versus the user actively forgetting doing paperwork, but who knows?

As a little “thank you” to our employees, I hired a catering company to cook lunch for my 150 employees. I presented the quote to [Manager], who approved it immediately and asked me to send out the invite.

The day of the lunch came and I saw several people I did not recognize. I approached one group hanging around [Manager].

Me: “Hi, guys. How are you?”

Manager: “Ah, this is [My Name]! She organized all of this!”

Stranger: “Hi, [My Name]! I’m [Stranger] from the corporate office. [Manager] said you were having a thank-you lunch today, so we came out.”

Me: “Oh, hello. Nice to meet you.”

Every single person I did not recognize had come from other locations specifically for the food. They had contributed nothing to our work but showed up for free food, some of them even jumping the line. I got [Manager] alone a few moments later.

Me: “Okay, no disrespect, but what the f***?”

Manager: “It’s fine, [My Name]. Not everyone will show up, and these companies always bring more food, anyway.”

Me: “So, did you invite them or did they just hear about it?”

Manager: *Uneasily* “I mentioned that we were having this catered lunch…”

Me: “But did you invite them after I gave the caterers the headcount, or did they decide you telling them about it was an invitation?”

Manager: “I don’t remember. It’s not important. They’re here; we have to make them happy. Just make it work.”

As you may have guessed, nearly every employee did show up for the free food and the caterers did not bring extra meals. The corporate employees thought it was a great day, the caterers were furious that we had misrepresented the number of people they were to feed, and about a dozen employees were left out of the luncheon because there was no more food. I made a run to a local restaurant to get more food so that everyone could eat. After the corporate employees left, [Manager] pulled me aside.

Manager: “Hey, look, I’m not blaming you at all, but you should know that there are some pretty pissed-off people out there. When we say we’re going to feed everyone, we have to hold up to it. You know?”

Me: “Nor should I be blamed for it.”

Manager: “What?”

Me: “I arranged a meal for the people working here, not the corporate surprises. I just paid for more food out of my own pocket.”

Manager: “Well, we can’t turn them away.”

Me: “If they weren’t invited, we absolutely can. And next time, I will.”

Manager: *Angry* “You’re being pretty petty right now.”

Me: “Fine, I’m petty. I don’t care. But you should have told me you told them. I’d rather have too much food than not enough.”

I got a lot of s*** from the employees when the word got around that I had “poorly planned” the lunch. No matter what I said or did, I became the one everyone hated. A few months later, [Manager] asked me to plan another meal. I pointedly declined and suggested he do it himself. There was no second meal.