back to article After a long lunch, user thought a cursor meant their computer was cactus

The biggest days of the festive season may be behind us, but demand for tech support never stops. That's why each Friday, even this one, The Register shares stories of fixers forced to help flummoxed fools in On Call – the reader-contributed column that celebrates your successes. This week, we’re revisiting the topic of …

  1. This post has been deleted by its author

    1. Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

      Re: Follow these simple instructions...

      Hilarious! Reminds me of the time some user stuffed a 5.25" disk in the very thin space between the two FDDs in the tower case. Extracting it was quite fiddly

      1. The Oncoming Scorn Silver badge
        Facepalm

        Re: Follow these simple instructions...

        LS120 disc jammed\drive not working - Officer had disemboweled the drive with a knife in attempting removal.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Follow these simple instructions...

        Very similar thing happened to me - only it was a DVD. Colleague came to me saying the DVD drive didn't work on a new workstation - which puzzled me, as it never even had one. He'd assumed the gap between the two drive panels on the front was a DVD drive.

        Fun times!

      3. gnasher729 Silver badge

        Re: Follow these simple instructions...

        Once had a 3 1/2 inch floppy drive break. It was removed, boss waited for a replacement. A week later I was given a floppy disk, put it in the drive, it made plonk! and fell inside the computer before I realised. Left it there until I got a new drive, couldn’t read it anyway.

      4. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Follow these simple instructions...

        used to see that regularly when desktop slot loading cd drives were all the rage

    2. Return To Sender
      Facepalm

      Re: Follow these simple instructions...

      At least they did follow the instructions...

      I've posted this before, but anyway; back in the days of BBC Micros with Cumana 5 1/4" drives and DFS (the ROM, not the sofa company :-D) we had a good customer who periodically called us saying his diskettes wouldn't read. Not too unusual, these were the days when different media (Dysan, Verbatim etc.) could make a difference and drive calibrations could be a bit iffy. Did happen a bit more often than expected though.

      Eventually, we asked him to bring a failing diskette to the store's so's we could try it on our own hardware. Didn't even get as far as inserting the diskette; after the "Hi Bob, got the diskette?" type pleasantries he said "yes, here it is", Then reached in to his shirt pocket, pulled out the diskette... and unfolded it.

      "Bob, I know what the problem is...". One of the quicker fixes.

      A short lesson on how diskettes work, why 'floppy' means just 'slightly flexible' and why a couple of creases will properly bugger it up ensued. Happy, if somewhat embarrassed, customer, much shared mirth.

      1. Test Man

        Re: Follow these simple instructions...

        "unfolded it" LOLOLOL *facepalm*

  2. Pascal Monett Silver badge
    Thumb Up

    Thank you El Reg

    Thank you all for your tireless dedication to entertain and inform us - or is it inform and entertain us ? - about all things IT and loosely related.

    I hope you've all had a good festive season and I look forward to reading you for years to come.

    1. This post has been deleted by its author

      1. blu3b3rry

        Re: Thank you El Reg

        Thirded!

        1. Will Godfrey Silver badge
          Thumb Up

          Re: Thank you El Reg

          AOL Mode="on"

          Me too.

          1. Giles C Silver badge

            Re: Thank you El Reg

            Upvoted all the comment above…..

            1. WonkoTheSane
              Thumb Up

              Re: Thank you El Reg

              Including yours.

              1. UCAP Silver badge

                Re: Thank you El Reg

                And yours.

                (this could go on for a long while).

                1. Giles C Silver badge

                  Re: Thank you El Reg

                  I think so….

                  1. The Oncoming Scorn Silver badge
                    Pint

                    Re: Thank you El Reg

                    I also think in a similar mindset to the above comments.

                    1. J.G.Harston Silver badge

                      Re: Thank you El Reg

                      ditto

  3. BartyFartsLast Silver badge

    I think the fastest fixes eventually turned out to be the CTRL-ALT-*arrow key* for an inverted or rotated screen, users believed it was magic

    1. Gala

      Had an IT manager who would prowl the office floor at lunchtime doing this to every unlocked PC he could find.

      Miss you David, you were a git, but you were our kind of git.

      1. Joe W Silver badge

        One of our IT Security guys did that. He's now retired, a well deserved retirement, mind you!

        He also sometimes left chocolate at desks with locked screens.

        1. FIA Silver badge

          ...ours would occasionally send a nice email say how they were going to bring in cakes for everyone.

          (You learnt to lock your screen quite quickly).

      2. Rob Daglish

        Unlocked PCs are an open invite to send a mail to the company first aider saying the user has a wotsit stuck in their nose. This works best if you clue your first aider in beforehand...

  4. Camilla Smythe

    Corner of Folder/Similar on Keyboard.

    Once seen before subsequently fixed in a second.

    1. AndysOpinion
      Big Brother

      Re: Corner of Folder/Similar on Keyboard.

      Once heard, never forgotten - my quickest fix: user calls, I hear the familiar beeping sound and say, before he speaks, "just remove the pile of papers from the corner of your keyboard".

      User gasps "are you watching me?" (hence Icon =>)

      Problem solved in brief seconds :)

      1. chivo243 Silver badge
        Pint

        Re: Corner of Folder/Similar on Keyboard.

        I had one of those, lady transcribing meeting minutes was famous for resting the corner of the large binder on the control key! Why is my document full of gibberish? I had to visit her office, but the fix was quick!

      2. that one in the corner Silver badge

        Re: Corner of Folder/Similar on Keyboard.

        > User gasps "are you watching me?" (hence Icon =>)

        Reply: "Always!"

        A little paranoia helps keep the Users in line.

        1. Excused Boots Silver badge

          Re: Corner of Folder/Similar on Keyboard.

          "A little paranoia helps keep the Users in line."

          And for a little extra paranoia, mention how much you like the colour of their bath towels but not a fan of their bedroom wallpaper!

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Corner of Folder/Similar on Keyboard.

            Not their bedroom wallpaper, the bespoke coathook on the inside of the wardrobe door.

        2. Ken Shabby Bronze badge
          Headmaster

          Re: Corner of Folder/Similar on Keyboard.

          “Every step you take, every breath you make.”

        3. C R Mudgeon

          Re: Corner of Folder/Similar on Keyboard.

          That's a fine prank until it gets HR involved.

          I'm recalling what Michael Moorcock wrote in a very different context about (I paraphrase) demons that can be summoned by a careless thought, but banished only with the most arduous rituals and spells.

          1. FIA Silver badge

            Re: Corner of Folder/Similar on Keyboard.

            That's why the correct response is a decidedly less committal '<miniscule pause>...is there anything more I can help you with today?'

      3. Andrew Scott Bronze badge

        Re: Corner of Folder/Similar on Keyboard.

        Had someone call complaining about their networked printer constantly needing to be turned off and back on. Asked if there was a 49 error on the display. Yes, how did you know? Updated the firmware and problem disappeared. Had someone from that office whose job was to keep things running tell me proudly that he never wasted time updating firmware for printers or computers.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Corner of Folder/Similar on Keyboard.

      I once had a roll of wrapping paper on an escape key, that was an interesting diagnosis.

    3. Sherrie Ludwig

      Re: Corner of Folder/Similar on Keyboard.

      I have a cat who loves to do the tech version of sprawling on the newspaper you are reading by getting between me and the computer on my lap (currently so positioned, pardon the typos). I was baffled by the occasional inability to scroll, or the odd spacing in a message I was typing. Then I realized my orange bowling ball of a feline was nudging the (in)appropriate key to cause that. I could set him down, but he will get back up immediately with claws like ice axes into my legs, and he's old and I'm a softie anyway, so....

  5. Dave K

    One of my quickest fixes was regarding a laptop that wasn't charging. User confirmed from the power icon in the system tray that the device was connected to power and was showing as being "plugged in", but it wouldn't charge. I went up, took a look at the user's docking station (this was the era of the big Dell E-docks) and immediately noticed the power connector was not fully plugged in (quite a bit of the steel barrel was visible). Slotted it home and the laptop immediately started charging.

    Turns out with the Dell E-docks that it is possible to have the power connector sufficiently connected to power the laptop, but not enough for the laptop to know the wattage of the power brick, and in that situation it'll report that it has power but will refuse to charge. I think the call took me about 20 seconds - which included the time taken to check the system tray and confirm it was now charging correctly.

    1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

      Not sure if they still do it, but Dell laptops used to have an extra pin up the middle of the barrel for comms between the PSU and laptop. You could use a non-Dell PSU but you'd get a warning that it was a faulty or non-Dell PSU and may not provide enough power. Basically a "scare" message because there was no comms from the PSU telling the laptop what it's power rating was but worked perfectly if you used one of the correct or higher rating.

    2. swm

      In 1965 when teletypes were the main device to communicate with computers our secretary at the computer center received a call and shortly hung up laughing. Seems someone called with a problem and she said before the caller explained the problem, "Please press the left button on the teletype to turn off that buzzing." The buzzing stopped and then she asked what the problem was. The caller said, "that was the problem - I couldn't figure out how to turn off the buzzer."

      Problem solved before being explained.

    3. Andrew Scott Bronze badge

      Yes, see that a lot. Also "Insufficient power from adapter, use the adapter that came with your computer". laptop only needs 65 watts but after powering the docking station the 50 or so remaining is enought to trigger the warning.

  6. ComicalEngineer

    I had the *joy* of sharing the office with a particularly obnoxious PFY who thought very highly of himself and his computing skills. I returned to the office after playng 5-a-side at lunch time (we were on flexitime) to the news that PFY had called IT support because the monitor was showing funny colours and the screen was fuzzy. I was told that the PC was FUBAR and that he "had tried everyting" including turning it off and on again, and that IT spport would be along sometime in the afternoon. (IBM PC XT with original double height drives).

    A quick look round the back of the machine showed that the monitor lead had been pulled half out of the socket and hence the strange colours and fuzz. Two seconds later and a quick tighten of the screws and the machine was restored to full health. Turned out that the monitor lead screws had never been tightened when the machine was set up (by none other than PFY himself).

    Turned out that he had dropped something which had rolled behind the machine and had pulled the cable half out in retrieving it.

    I made him call IT to cancel the support call (which would have been charged to our department) and never did tell him how I'd fixed it.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    April 1, 2000.......

    ....so for a bit of fun with a technically challenged colleague, the Windows splash screen on his laptop was changed to an image of the blue screen of death.

    Of course, when he rebooted his laptop, the windows desktop came up with all the usual icons...perfectly functional!

    ...and, as predicted, he had a conniption and called the help desk!!

    Mission accomplished!

    P.S. I know,,,,not original...but fun anyway!!

    1. Alan Brown Silver badge

      Re: April 1, 2000.......

      Setting the screensaver to banner text: "The system has failed and all data is lost!"

      I lost track of the number of users who fell for that one

  8. Chloe Cresswell Silver badge

    I had a consultant appointment in London, As I left home a client rung with a network issue. Refused to carry out the action I asked them too, so we set off, diverted to the site which was enroute.

    I parked up, walked in, pushed the network cable back in the PC, walked out, got in the car and drove off.

    One call out for under 3 minutes on site.

    1. A.P. Veening Silver badge

      One call out for under 3 minutes on site.

      I hope you billed that client for at least half a day.

      1. Chloe Cresswell Silver badge

        I bill call out/first hour, then extra hours, so that 3 mins cost them 1 hours work+call out *nods*

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          About those call out rates......

          When I worked for a humungous consulting firm in the USA in the 1990's......

          ....partners would turn up for a client meeting.......

          ....and charge $1000 an hour.....plus expenses!

          I wonder what the hourly rate might be today!!

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: About those call out rates......

            Ah...those were the days.....

            My charge out rate (at a similar humungous consulting firm) only managed to get up to $250 an hour.

            Don't you love it when clients spend $20 for your visit to the restroom??

            1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

              Re: About those call out rates......

              We used to charge £120 per hour, 1st hour included in the same call-out fee back in the 1990's when the exchange rate was near as dammit £2 = £1, so yeah similar rates (for non-contract[*] call-outs, they already paid a monthly "maintenance fee" which covered genuine hardware failures). There were a number of times I had to wander up to reception and remind them I was still waiting, the clock and meter was ticking over at £120 per hour from the moment I walked in the door and NOT from when I was shown to the faulty equipment. So yeah, "spending a penny" might cost them 20 quid :-)

              Out of contract mostly meant user damage or demonstrable s/w issues.

        2. PB90210 Silver badge

          Used to be min 2hrs

    2. tweell
      Devil

      I was taught not to do this

      As a field tech, I was dispatched hither and yon on calls of (cough) extreme importance (cough) .

      My boss, a BOFH - Bastard Owner From Heck - explained that in cases where the network cable had become disconnected somehow, I was NOT to just push it back in. Instead, I was to replace the patch cable. If that was not possible, I was to replace the cable end. When waiting for calls, we would make patch cables from odds and ends of leftover cabling, and would always carry a variety of lengths with us.

      This way, the (l)user would feel vindicated in calling us, give us high reviews and he could overcharge them for a replacement patch cable. Win-win-win.

  9. An_Old_Dog Silver badge

    Au Contraire

    Tellers have not "sadly been largely been replaced by IT." They've simply been largely eliminated. Because it is cheaper. When I walk into a bank at lunchtime, I see eleven teller windows, two or three tellers, and long lines.

    Bank IT has been with us for a long time. When I was a sprog, visiting the bank with my mum and handing up my saved-up rolls of pennies, I also handed up my bank book. The teller put it into a electric typewriter-like device (presumably connected to a computer somewhere), punched some keys, then after a bit of delay, the computer typed the transaction and new balance onto my bank book.

    Now we have tellers tapping and typing, tapping and typing on their touch-screen Windows PCs, and the whole process takes longer than when they were using hard-copy terminals hung off a (now-old) timesharing mainframe.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Au Contraire

      @An_Old_Dog

      The story is actually MORE sinister than you describe.

      Yes......corporate jobs have been eliminated.

      The sinister thing is that the effort associated with these eliminated jobs has been pushed onto.........THE CUSTOMER.

      Example:

      - Old days - corporate folk picking up faxes and doing the keying into corporate systems.

      - Today customer on (lousy) web site keying (multiple times) into corporate systems.

      Yup......and touted as progress. Go figure!!!

      1. heyrick Silver badge

        Corporate enshittification

        It is progress. They've trained their little house pets (us) to do these jobs so they don't have to employ people to do them. More money for the board, stockholders, etc.

      2. C R Mudgeon

        Re: Au Contraire

        "these eliminated jobs has been pushed onto.........THE CUSTOMER."

        The buzzword is externalizing costs.

        Environmental degradation is another example -- "We'll foul the air/water/landfill and leave it to someone else to clean up our mess."

      3. FIA Silver badge

        Re: Au Contraire

        - Old days - corporate folk picking up faxes and doing the keying into corporate systems.

        - Today customer on (lousy) web site keying (multiple times) into corporate systems.

        Because the information you'd faxed in magically wrote itself on the fax paper???

        If you're telling them stuff surely you (basically) entering it into the system for them is better than writing it on a form, then it being transcribed (with the potential errors that can occur).

        Mind you, I don't go to the bank any more, because technology has progressed and now gives me a plurality of options to replace queuing to pay the bills.

    2. This post has been deleted by its author

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Au Contraire

      The banks will never get those annoying branches closed if customers insist on using them, so they have zero incentive to provide an acceptable level of service there ( see also selling off railway station car parks, etc ).

      1. Chloe Cresswell Silver badge

        Re: Au Contraire

        There isn't a single branch of my bank left in the county.

        "Use the app" that I can't use.

        "use a cash machine" find me a cash machine that takes the chip and sign card I got from you because I can't remember PINs.

        "use the post office" who can't do cash with chip and sign cards either

        "How do you manage in the modern world?" (this is from their accessibility team) I manage ok till I have to deal with you!

        1. -maniax-

          Re: Au Contraire

          I'd say it's time for you to be switching to a different bank

          1. Chloe Cresswell Silver badge

            Re: Au Contraire

            Try finding one that's not the same.

            Most are "we don't want to issue you a chip and sign card, why can't you just pick a number you can remember" ("If I could remember a number like that I wouldn't be in the situation where I need a chip and sign card in the first place")

            1. Phones Sheridan Silver badge

              Re: Au Contraire

              I don’t think you can blame your bank for that. I haven’t seen a POS for over a decade that has a sign option on the credit card machine anymore.

              1. Chloe Cresswell Silver badge

                Re: Au Contraire

                It's part of the spec, it's been there since the start. So yes, I can blame my bank for removing every option except "order your cash via the foreign currency system and we'll post it to you"

                EMV (Chip and PIN/Chip and Sign) are the same spec.

                If the PDQ does C&P it does C&S.

                But if you want a current list: sainsburys PDQs do, Co-op PDQs do, Morrisons PDQs do, LNER trains do, TFL osyter topup machines do... I could go on and list every place I've spent money in the last week or so.

                "I haven’t seen a POS for over a decade that has a sign option on the credit card machine anymore." Do you have a Chip and Sign card? Because you will only get the option to sign on a chip and sign card, you can't force a Chip and Pin card to go to signature verification unless the PDQ can't do PIN verification.

  10. An_Old_Dog Silver badge
    Facepalm

    My Fastest Fix

    Client calls up, says their (Xenix-running PC) monitor is dead. The power LED on the monitor is lit. I pack up a replacement monitor and make the 60-mile drive to the client site. I walk in, look at their monitor, hear their story about coming back from lunch to find a black screen.

    While they are telling me this, I unthinkingly reach out to the monitor, turn the brightness knob clockwise, and see the "missing" display text.

    One of the other secretaries there always turned down the brightness before she went to lunch, because Xenix did not come with a screensaver.

    (Icon for my not having had them check this when they called in the problem.)

    1. FirstTangoInParis Bronze badge

      Re: My Fastest Fix

      A frequent issue with hot desking is that the previous user has decided to turn the monitor (or if you’re lucky, monitors) off. Plugging in your laptop to the docking station gives blank screen(s) all round until you realise this. Then you have to spend time convincing your laptop the screens really are there. I’m pretty sure the cost in time wasted like this is more than the cost of electricity to power said monitor(s) in standby.

    2. This post has been deleted by its author

    3. C R Mudgeon

      Re: My Fastest Fix

      [monitor's brightness turned down]

      I had an odd thing rather like this just yesterday. On the highway and noticed that I couldn't see the rightmost part of my car's odometer, fuel gauge, etc. (It's a newish-to-me second-generation Prius.) I could see the essential bit -- the speedometer -- but still it was annoying and cause for concern. "What's come loose in that panel assembly, and how much is it going to cost to fix it?"

      Then I remembered that the same thing had happened once before. I reached forward and removed the old pay-and-display ticket that was lying flat on the dashboard, not obscuring the display at all. Problem solved.

      As nearly as I can figure it without getting off my duff to go look at the car, the actual displays are mounted in the dashboard facing straight up, and a mirror reflects them to where the driver can see them.

    4. Stevie

      Re: My Fastest Fix

      I did exactly this fix when asked by my wife's friend if I could fix her GE PC which had "stopped working".

      I was never so relieved in my life. I knew nothing about PC innards in them days.

  11. Andy Taylor

    Dust removal

    I think my fastest ever fix which was not one of the above was a site visit to an old CD ROM network server which had multiple physical CD drives which were not being read. Every single disc was covered in a thin layer of dust and a simple eject/wipe/insert for each drive was all that was needed.

  12. Kev99 Silver badge

    Never underestimate the stupidity of the human animal, aka, PEBKAC.

    1. MatthewSt Silver badge

      Or error ID ten T

    2. -maniax-

      I prefer PICNIC

      (Problem In Chair Not In Computer for anyone who hasn't encountered that one)

      1. D-Coder
        FAIL

        ISO Layer 8 error.

        1. This post has been deleted by its author

  13. ocelot

    Doing a summer vacation job at the University,

    I was once chastised for leaving part of a 132 column fanfold printout listing hanging down over over the front panel air intake vents of the prized departmental ICL PERQ personal minicomputer ..

    It was riskier because that computer had the wonderful "BYE OFF" command that tripped its circuit breaker power switch with a satisfying clunk after flushing files to disc.

    So I would walk off last thing in the day leaving the computer doing something, and then it would spend some time doing whatever while trying to suck in a listing rather than cooling air.

  14. Throatwarbler Mangrove Silver badge
    Terminator

    Nuts

    When I was a generic IT guy for a tech startup, I got pulled into a graphic designer's office by a senior software engineer to troubleshoot mysterious issues with the designer's mouse pointer leaping all over the place. I looked at the front of the user's computer to follow the multiple USB cables and removed the bag of nuts sitting on the user's Wacom tablet.

    Thinking back to my desktop support days, I recall not always being consciously aware of how I solved particular issues; the Omnissiah would simply guide my eyes and hands to the correct solution.

    1. David Newall

      What's the problem?

      Also known as, "I don't know what's wrong but I'll know it when I see it."

      1. stiine Silver badge
        Facepalm

        Re: What's the problem?

        And we'll both know when its fixed.

  15. heyrick Silver badge

    My fastest fix

    Was at school in the eighties. Kid whining about how the stupid machine can't read his disc, all his work GONE!!!1!

    While I might have derived satisfaction from his loss because he was a bully and an arsehole, he had no indoor voice and it was annoying me. I got up, walked across the room, took out the 5 1/4 floppy, put it back in the other way up. As if by some sort of magic, the little sensor for the spinny hole could now see the hole spin by and suddenly the disc could be read and...blessed silence for a while.

    1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: My fastest fix

      There was a saying "There are eight ways to insert a disc into a dive. Only one is interesting."

  16. Gene Cash Silver badge

    The title is too long

    "The user didn't know a screen saver kicked in after 30 minutes, because she was always back from lunch before it kicked in"

    I think there's an unsung hero here... that's not something someone could ever say about me.

    "One of the other secretaries there always turned down the brightness before she went to lunch, because Xenix did not come with a screensaver."

    And another one here. Most secretaries office staff I've known would have no clue why screensavers exist or why they're called that.

  17. TheMaskedMan Silver badge

    "As the afternoon wore on, hot air produced by the cathode ray tube could not escape, heat would build up, and the boxes would crash."

    Ahhh, this rings a bell. Years ago, I was summoned to check out a monitor problem. PC seemed to be running but the monitor was dead. Swapped the power cable. Still dead. Popped the back off the monitor, noted that a fuse on the board was blown. Replaced the fuse, monitor sprang to life.

    A few days later I was summoned back to the same problem. Fuse was again blown, but this time I replaced the monitor. All was good for a day or two, and then I was summoned back yet again, the new monitor being dead. As it was brand new, I returned it under warranty and replaced it yet again.

    While I was there, the customer asked me to do something else, and while I was working an enormous long-hairred moggy sauntered into the room launched itself onto the desk and settled down for a snooze atop the new monitor, effectively blocking all the vents on the top.

    The cat was banned from it's nice warm roost, and the monitor problem went away.

    As for tellers being replaced by IT, well almost. I haven't had cause to visit my branch for several years, but last time I was there the tellers had be repurposed. Instead of sitting behind the counter, they were flapping along the stupidly long queue in the banking hall (why do they call it that even if it's no bigger than a corner shop??) trying to persuade irate customers to use the new fangled pay-in ATMs that occupied one wall and several of the former teller positions.

    Tempers were not improved by the fact that the machines seemed incapable of accepting the equally new fangled plastic bank notes. To add insult to injury, the coin counting/sorting machine along the other wall was in pieces while a harried tech worked on its guts ( I never saw that machine working properly in all my then-frequent visits to the bank).

    It took me almost an hour to pay in, by which time my parking ticket had expired and I picked up a penalty from the smug bastard parking enforcer in the car park. I haven't been back since.

    1. Philo T Farnsworth Silver badge

      Cat warmer

      I don't think my two cats ever forgave me when I eventually replaced all our CRT displays with LCD panels.

      Not only were they deprived a nice warm spot on which to nap, they also were unable to keep a watchful eye on their humans.

      They eventually resorted trading off napping on top of the laser printer, so we had to always check for feline presence before hitting PRINT.

      1. Throatwarbler Mangrove Silver badge
        Happy

        Re: Cat warmer

        One of my cats took to napping on top of the WiFi router, which was fine and dandy until, between the cat and a period of sustained heavy utilization, the router overheated and permanently fried itself. My current router is much smaller, so it makes a less attractive napping spot.

      2. Old Used Programmer

        Re: Cat warmer

        While I had cats that would sleep in the tray of the laser printer, as soon as the printer started making noise getting ready to print, the cat would leave.

        1. Philo T Farnsworth Silver badge

          Re: Cat warmer

          You never met our late white Turkish Angora, Mactavish1.

          White color is a marker for deafness in this particular breed of cat and deaf he was.

          He was also a World Class Napper -- when he was going to take a nap, nothing would stop him, printer jams be damned.

          ________________

          1 So named because when he was a kitten he had a ruff somewhat reminiscent of the beard of a cartoon Scotsman, no offense meant to those readers "north of the border."

    2. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

      "To add insult to injury, the coin counting/sorting machine along the other wall was in pieces while a harried tech worked on its guts ( I never saw that machine working properly in all my then-frequent visits to the bank)."

      And yet, by magic, the ones in supermarkets that take a percentage and pay out store vouchers, never seem to fail. It's almost as if the ones which make a profit have more money spent up front for better quality kit than the "convenience" ones in banks used for taking very low value deposits.

    3. Old Used Programmer

      I had a cat that liked to lie down on top of my (large Viewsonic) monitor...so I built a shelf with the front resting on the bezel and back on legs about 5 inches long. Thus...warm space for the cat *and* ventilation for the monitor.

  18. Philo T Farnsworth Silver badge

    Press Any Key

    I have to tell this story on myself:

    Many many years ago, when the world was young and green screens roamed the earth, I was asked to help out on a photo shoot for our center.

    A workstation vendor had rolled one of their systems into our computer room, setting it up next to our brand new Cray X-MP/48 (I told you this was a while ago).

    The rep powered the thing up and left me to assist the photographer.

    After a few minutes of fussing around, the machine "crashed."

    Now, this was the first time I'd ever seen a workstation of any kind in the flesh, as it were, and knew nothing about them, so, like a complete idiot, I just pressed the reset button, since that's what I'd've done on my office PC.

    A few minutes later, it "crashed" again.

    This happened two or three more times (see where this is going?) until I inadvertently brushed the mouse while reaching for the reset button and. . . lo and behold. . . the machine came back to life.

    At that moment I was enlightened.

    I had just learned the existence of the "screen saver."

    I also learned at that moment that there's a first time for everyone for everything and to never berate a user for not knowing something that I happen to think is flamingly obvious.

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    oh, floppies...

    Dad had a customer in south Louisiana in the 1980s. They'd mail him a change request and he'd make the update and send them the new version on a floppy disk. One day he received a 6x6x6 package in the mail instead of a letter. It turns out that when they received the previous floppy update on a Friday afternoon, they removed it from the pasteboard envelope and left it on the car's dashboard over the weekend. On Monday morning it was severly U-shaped and would no longer fit into their disk drive. To be safe, he simply sent them a new floppy, but did cut the disk out of the U-shaped sleeve, inserted it into a flat one after which it would both fit into the drive, and read normally.

  20. jlturriff

    Speaking of the days of green screens...

    (This is not a description of an on-call fix, but it did fix a few people.)

    Back when mainframe terminals were an improvement from Hollerith cards and keypunches, they were very thin on the ground. (The first place I worked, the data processing department installed two (!) terminals for use by the senior programmers.) Things gradually improved by creation of a "bull-pen" of shared terminals for the rest of the staff. Inevitably, there was competition for access to this scarce resource, and occasionally someone would step away from a terminal or go to lunch without logging off. This, of course, was also a security issue, and a few of us, if sufficiently provoked, would do something like using a little-known command to change the terminal's line length to 1 character, or install a little TUI routine that looked just like the logon screen, but just looped until a particular function key was pressed.

    (To my knowledge, nobody ever misused such a routine to steal credentials, which would have been a quick way to become unemployed.)

  21. mikey_b

    Long journeys for quick fixes

    Back in the late 90s, I used to work for a mail order PC company, mostly selling direct to consumers, as one of their on-site support guys. Each evening I'd get a phone call with a list of names, addresses and problems for the following day. Having visited site, I'd then phone in the status of the job (fixed or bringing it in to send back to base), and the mileage driven. This meant sometimes driving a long way for an easy fix. My record was when providing holiday cover for our Scottish engineer. I'd driven up from SW England to just north of Edinburgh the night before, and first job was replacing a noisy CPU fan. 512 miles for just 10 minutes on site - about 8 of which was purely chatting to the customer while finishing the cup of tea they made me.

  22. withQuietEyes

    Familial tech support is still like this

    My dad likes his gadgets, and I'm at my parents' helping them set up the new house they just moved into. Guess who's been fixing everything from soundbars to TV setups to printers since arriving.

    (With the dog forever attempting to help by drooling on the technology in question.)

    1. NXM

      Re: Familial tech support is still like this

      One of mine decided that network cables counted as food. Cue much shouting.

      1. Paul Cooper

        Re: Familial tech support is still like this

        Cows regard seismic data cables as edible. I once spent an afternoon in a field driving a herd of heifers away from our expensive cable!

        1. This post has been deleted by its author

          1. Stevie

            Why didn't you just tell the cows to moove?

            I've never herd of such a thing!

  23. anthonyhegedus Silver badge

    Mouse

    One of my customers - a small firm of traders who had a branch in London with three "old school" traders in a small office - once called to say that one of the traders had a black screen on their computer.

    Now we'd already had a situation where we went out to the customer and plugged in their computer that they swore wasn't unplugged so we were a bit wary. The phone conversation went something like this:

    us: So what appears to be the problem?

    them: are you the television repair men?

    us: no, we're the IT people. We fix computer problems

    them: well my television isn't working. I got back from lunch and there's no picture

    us: you mean the screen that you use your computer with?

    them: yes, the television. It usually shows our trades and stock prices but it's not working now

    ...several to-and-fro exchanges later...

    us: move the mouse a bit

    them: oh, it's OK, it's suddenly come back to life

    us: yes

    There you have it. These people had never encountered the screen going off before.

  24. timrowledge

    Many, many, years - and two countries ago - a customer visited my office to discuss a new feature request. We worked our way through what might be involved, all that stuff. Agreed 10 days work, finished the coffee, and he left to return to London. I had an inspiration and before he got out of the car park I had finished the feature. Definitely a good afternoon/

  25. Sequin

    I once got an emergency callout to attend our data centre because "all of the menus have disappered" on a CPM machine used to collect records of overtime claims for staff whose job it was to mind people enjoying a holiday at Her Majestyu's pleasure. Failure to fix the problem could lead to riots I was told, as the staff might walk out if payments were delayed.

    I jumped into a taxi clutching system disks and screwdrivers and made my way there. I waled into the data suite after about a 15 minute wait while the confirmed I could enter, walked to the machine, examined it for two seconds, turned up the brightness on the monitor and walked back out! Somebody had cleaned the screen and nudged the brightness rotary control with the cloth while polishing it.

  26. stephajn

    Shortest solved problem for me ever

    Back in the early days of my career paying my dues and having my prior sins purged from me through the pain and suffering of doing phone support, the best call I ever received that to this day still cracks me up.

    I was doing remote support for a school that offered home schooling via computer based on a custom system built on top of Lotus Notes (of all things). The list of problems we had to solve over and over again was long given that the computers being used in the homes of our users ranged from Windows 95 to Windows 2000, or they would rent an IBM machine from us with Windows 98 SE on it.

    Typical problems involved having sync issues in Lotus Notes and we would routinely have to walk them through the same custom data integrity check procedure over and over on the phone. Many of our users only had dial-up so call turnaround time was fast because we would get them to the point where they could initiate a script that would run to resolve most problems, and then we would hang up so they could connect to the internet and do their thing. It was dull, tedious work.

    One day, I was training a new guy who had just started and he was shadowing me on these phone calls. The best call of that day came in mid-morning as I was sipping on my coffee. It literally went like this:

    "Hello, this is Stephajn. How can I help you?"

    "HEY! I'm really confused about this computer you guys lent me. I think it's missing some parts!"

    "Oh? What parts is it missing?"

    "Well you only gave me half a keyboard! Where are the lowercase keys?"

    My shadow and I looked at each other, both feeling rather confused. Then I turned back and looked at my keyboard, and started laughing so hard, I barely managed to mute the phone in time before the guy would have heard me laughing my ass off at him. My shadow looked at me confused, and I held up the keyboard where, of course, all of the labels on the keys are in capital letters.

    He had to walk out of the room and laugh so hard in the hallway. It took everything I had to compose myself and explain the concept of a caps lock key to the guy on the phone.

    "OH! So just like my typewriter then!"

    "Yes....just like your typewriter....." and again I had to mute the phone because I was laughing so hard.

    But that day didn't stop rewarding me because the next call came from a woman who was in absolute tears. Completely distraught.

    I asked her what the problem was and she said her computer did something illegal and she didn't mean for it to happen. She was so afraid that the police were going to show up.

    "Why do you think your computer did something illegal?"

    "It just told me onscreen! It says, 'This program has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down.'"

    The 19 year old in me both wanted to laugh, but also to give this poor woman a big hug. Oh memories of the Windows 9x error message days....

    It took me a few minutes to reassure her that the police were not coming to her house and that it was just bad wording from Microsoft to indicate that a program had just crashed.

    About a week later I got to meet this poor woman when she came into the school to pick up a replacement monitor. I got to give her that hug as she was so grateful.

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