The Wisdom of Coworkers

1. Brent

   29 August, 2006, 12:31 am

   I have no coworkers. I’m unemployed. 😆

2. Spud

   29 August, 2006, 2:27 am

   Client – “We have no gas at our stove”
   Plumber – “it’s an electric stove”
   Client – “Why isn’t it gas?”
   Plumber – ” ”

   :geek:

3. Anna

   29 August, 2006, 3:20 am

   True story.

   Boss: “Anna can you come and help me mail a text”.
   Anna: “Sure”.
   Anna: [while taking place behind his computer] “Who is it too?”
   Boss: “To you”.

4. Lung the Younger

   29 August, 2006, 3:38 am

   Gotta go back to the eighties for the real juicy stories:

   – I heard of a co-worker of a friend of mine who left one those big floppy disks (remember them) for his attention – on a pin board – with a thumbtack stuck through it.
   – The same friend also once asked a co-worker to copy a floppy disk for him and the co-worker came back with (you guessed it) a Xerox of the disk.
   – Or an office manager who wasn’t happy putting a server in the basement of the building because the electrons would have to travel up four floors and that might slow the system down.
   It goes on and on…

5. Spud

   29 August, 2006, 4:23 am

   “Hey Pauly, go to the store and get us a long weight mate.”

   3 hours later

   “Oh ha ha de fucking ha”

   heeeeheheheheee (mutley laugh)

6. Ron

   29 August, 2006, 6:26 am

   Coworker pulled me out of a meeting.

   Coworker: “I just got a new computer and it boots up fine, but I cannot connect to the network.”
   Me: “Plug in the network cable,”
   Coworker: “Oh.”

7. bhamm

   29 August, 2006, 7:50 am

   Dave, I could go on for days, but I’ll just share my personal favorites with you, all 100% true, by the way: (little background, I’m the IT technician for a chain of gas stations)

   – One station manager couldn’t figure out why any of her numbers she typed wouldn’t show up in the designated field. Turns out, the field has a white background and she thought it would be more flashy to change her font color to… you guessed it, white.

   – Another one found that if you put a magnet next to a monitor, you can make “cool colors”.

   – Our auditor, after he had been here a year, couldn’t figure out where the floppy drive was on a newer machine, so he pushed a button on the front of the pc and a little tray popped out. “Oh”, he thought, “This must be where this disk-thingy goes.” No, no… that would be the CD-ROM drive.

   – “Hey! Did you know that ‘Delete’ and ‘Backspace’ do the same thing!?! ”

   (If you want more, just ask… I’ve got too many.) :java: ❓

8. Dorothy

   29 August, 2006, 10:14 am

   1) I once oversaw a data collection program for a nationwide company. Offices in each state would dial in and upload their data each week. The Florida office had random trouble–system crashes, disconnections, no-boots, software doesn’t load, etc.–for months. We cleaned files, we reinstalled software, we reinstalled Windows, we did everything you can talk someone through over the phone. Finally I convinced them to get a hardware guy out there, because it was not our software causing the problem. The next week, nothing. Week after that, Florida’s data transfer goes through just fine. I call them for an update: “They had to replace our PC. There was a dead lizard in it.” :wtf:

   2) Friend of mine is the tech specialist for a local school district. He sent out (old floppy) disks of a demo program to the computer classrooms with instructions on how to run it. He gets a call from one school saying they need a new disk–this one ran the first day, but wouldn’t run the second day. He sends a new disk. Two days later, same teacher calls and complain this disk went bad, too. New disk sent. Three days later, same school, same problem.

   He figures he’s outside the realm of statistical probability, so he goes out to the school, hand delivers a new disk, and then sits in her classroom and watches her for three classes to make sure she’s not doing anything to damage the disk. She gets through the three labs with no problem, and my friend is boggled. Everything works, she did nothing wrong, this is a weird run of bad luck. The teacher says, “I know, it’s just the strangest thing!” She takes the disk out of the drive carefully puts it in the sleeve… and proceeds to stick to her filing cabinet with a magnet.

   My friend blinks for a second. “Um…I think I see your problem.”

9. junkman

   29 August, 2006, 10:28 am

   back in the day i worked for a landscape lighting company here are some classics:

   me: hey rob grab that roll of wire and bring it over here. (roll of wire just sitting on ground still rolled up)
   rob: is it live?

   me: i’m going to walk this ladder down hold your feet against the bottom
   rob: where’s the bottom?

   (we were both lowering a large patio stone back into it’s place. rob didn’t let go so his fingers were stuck underneath it. i had to free him. he wasn’t hurt but the look on his face i will never forget)
   me: why didn’t you let go when i hit the 3 count?
   rob: because when it started to drop i didn’t know what would happen.

10. Meagan

    29 August, 2006, 10:39 am

    Well, I don’t work but I do have some stories from the classroom and at home.

    Just a while ago, my sister had bought a package of blank CDs so she could make mix CDs from iTunes. She hadn’t opened it yet and I needed to use one but I found that she actually got blank DVD-Rs instead of blank CD-Rs.

    Another story involves a multi-media class I took last year. The teacher would be going through the steps of how to make a website in Dreamweaver and this one guy would always be a few steps behind and would ask questions like, “What do I have to save this page as?” or “Sir, my computer’s not working. Can you fix it?” The computer works fine, he just didn’t know how to use it. Then again, the class was full of journalism students so many of us hadn’t done this before. I was the only one to get straight A’s in that class. 😀

11. andrew

    29 August, 2006, 10:59 am

    well there is not enough space on the internet for the folly i see but here are a couple.

    I work as a tarot reader in an occult store.

    Client comes to the counter with some of those glass cased candles with images on them. As they go to roll them in paper to protect them she shouts. “Don’t tip them over all the magic will fall out”

    Client comes in and asks for dragons blood and someone shows her the incense and the oil. She looks confused but does not say anything. The clerk says is this not what you wanated. She responds by saying “I wanted the real thing” To which the clerk says we are all out of dragons. This seems to satisfy the client who then leaves.

12. Anon-y-moose

    29 August, 2006, 2:49 pm

    I’ve gotta stay anon because my co workers read davezilla 😛

    Here goes though:

    (Co-worker is on the phone with her father, this was earlier this year during lent)

    “I don’t know what restaurant we’re going to go to this friday… I don’t want to eat meat. Wait… is chicken meat?”

13. Davezilla

    29 August, 2006, 3:27 pm

    [Comment ID #74367 will be quoted here]

    Ah, well I am not using current coworkers. These are all from prior jobs. 😈

14. Irene

    29 August, 2006, 3:37 pm

    My mom, bless her little unelectronically savvy heart kept complaining that her cell phone wasn’t getting any calls, I told her to let me see it….. Sure enough, it was turned off! 🙄

15. Zinta

    29 August, 2006, 3:46 pm

    Ok.. I was help desk for a lumber company… They had weigh stations all over the country.. the trucks would weigh in and that would tell the computer how much wood it was carrying. Pretty simple. Whenever the computers had problems the weigh station manager had to call us. We ALWAYS contacted the programmer I’ll call Joe that was responsible for the weigh stations computers.

    The Weigh station manager called one night, I’ll call him bubba. He said, “The weigh station is down because we had a bad storm and the electricity is knocked out. Can you call Joe.”
    I said, “If the electricity is knocked out Joe won’t be able to help you.”
    He said, “I know.. but I want to get hold of Joe… because the electricity will probably be on again in a few minutes and Joe will have to help us bring the computers back up.”
    No matter what I told this guy he wanted me to contact Joe.
    I said, “Ok.. give me the phone number to the station you are at.”
    He said, “555-6666”
    I took all of this down and called Joe.
    Joe called back an hour later and said no matter what he couldn’t get anyone at 555-6666.
    I said I’d try it… and of course no answer.
    We could do nothing but wait.
    About 2 hrs go by and the station manager calls.
    He says, “I’ve been waiting and waiting and nobody has called me.”
    I told him that both Joe and I have been calling the 555-6666 number and nobody answers.
    He replies, “That’s because the electricity is off and those phones don’t work. I’ve been calling you on my cell. I gave you that number because that is the number we are told to give you.”

    I almost died.

16. Apple

    29 August, 2006, 4:51 pm

    I work in property management.

    Tenant: “Can you send an engineer to the ladies restroom?”

    Me: “Sure, what’s the problem?”

    Tenant: “I just flushed my teeth down the toilet!”

    Me: “O RLY?”

    Tenant: “YS RLY!!!”

17. evelyn

    29 August, 2006, 5:24 pm

    i was a resteraunt manager–had an employee ask if that was real peaches we used for our shakes and if the fire in the grill was real–uh–dah : ❓

18. Spud

    29 August, 2006, 7:17 pm

    Some of these (mine included) are moving into Darwin Award catergories and not IT.

    I wonder what is going to happen when all computers/ terminals are voice activated and the sorts of help question that will be generated for the IT people.

    :wtf:

19. silentstorm

    29 August, 2006, 9:04 pm

    I love IT stories and my friend told me this one that happened to him when he worked on the help desk, so this is a true story.

    My friend: Good morning, how may I help you?
    Customer: I got received my new computer, but it says it comes with a CD ROM drive and I can’t find it
    My friend: Do you see a large drive on the front of the computer?
    Customer: What’s a drive?
    My friend: Ok, do you see a large rectangle on the front of the computer with a small button underneath it?
    Customer: No, I see a rectangular hole
    My friend: Well, that is your CD ROM drive
    Customer: It is? I thought is was a cup holder. I thought it was a nice idea, but I was going to complain to the company it wasn’t big enough or strong enough to hold my cup of coffee because it broke right off!
    My friend said goodbye very quickly and hung up b/c he didn’t want to laugh in the customer’s ear. 🙄

20. TheFaramir

    29 August, 2006, 10:00 pm

    Years and jobs ago….

    Engineer: “Hey, can you teach me how to do that Visual Basic stuff you do?”
    Me: “Well, training isn’t in my job description, but you can teach it to yourself pretty easily if you already know some other programming languages.”
    Engineer: “You mean I’d have to program it? Oh.”

    (Engineer walked away, crestfallen. He apparently came to me thinking he could have two or three complete applications under his belt by the end of the day if only I would teach him a couple of VB tricks.)

21. Jim

    29 August, 2006, 10:02 pm

    Best “Dilbert” Pointy-Haired-Boss-ism:

    Fax me a copy of the internet.

    On green paper, too.

22. cronewynd

    29 August, 2006, 11:03 pm

    I have spent my time doing telephone technical support, ofttimes for a rather large banking concern.
    I could bore you all with a ton of stories. Let me just say that people are much, much stupider than any of these stories so far, when it comes to computers and the Internet. And yet, they still want to bank online. Oiy Vey! :java:

23. Dale

    29 August, 2006, 11:10 pm

    we were just starting to get PC’s throughout the mill and one of my coworkers chased
    me down to find out what I did to ‘his’ computer. seems he had gotten a Java script error and since I am JavaJunki i must of caused it. (I did clear the error for him)

24. Marcus

    29 August, 2006, 11:20 pm

    Wow, Dave you work with some real puter guys. Now, I am self-employed so I have to ask myself those stupid question. Here are some my stories from old jobs.

    I walked into the office and noticed the secretary tapping the monitor.

    Me :Why are you tapping the monitor?
    Secretary:The computer is a little slow today

    Me : That’s not the computer
    Secretary: Where is the computer?

    Me: On the floor, but feel free to tap away if it makes you feel better

    On to the next one.

    Coworker: Marcus can you help me.
    Me: Sure

    Coworker: I was checking my email … well I didn’t open any… and this started happening. Can you fix it.
    Me: Wow, how did you get all thos e pop-ups? Look at the size of those tits.

    Coworker: I didn’t do anything!!!!!
    Me: Yeah, right. Get out of my way.

    Last one

    Ring ring ring
    Office Manager.: My computer isn’t working anymore. What did you do?
    Me: Nothing. I just installed it. It was working fine when I left. Did YOU do anything?

    Office Manager: I moved it to a new location because it was a little crowded where you put it.
    Me : Oh, that’s fine. Did you plug it in?

    Office Manager: Yes …. um…. Thanks for your help I see the problem
    Me : What was wrong?
    Office Manager: I plugged the power strip into itself.

    Thanks for playing everyone and now for my next trick I am going to pull Bill Gates out of my redhat.

    What kind of herbs are we talking about?

25. Eric W.

    29 August, 2006, 11:27 pm

    Are you kidding? I worked in the IT department of a credit union taking employees calls (primarily about the network, the system not responding to transactions from tellers, hardware issues mostly with printers and so on) for over two years; this kind of material and more outstanding stuff happens every day (it would take the Library of Congress to include them all).

    For example, a girl in operations that the little “group” I talk to know of was at the ice box machine about to put ice into her cup. I am standing there waiting watching her as she is digging through the mountain of ice inside the machine with the scoop like there is a secret prize hidden or something. I look at her funny and she responds, “I’m going for the ice in the back, this ice right here is old.” Old ice, yup.

    Or people calling in to complain that their teller totals and other important documents are coming out of the printer only to discover that one of the people thought it would be a cute idea to print out 500 copies of invitations to her son’s merit badge award. Or just other ridiculous things like people sending out _company-wide_ emails concerning the pregnancy of their sisters cousins boyfriends niece etc. and other little jokes and such. President of the company put an end to that nonsense right off.

26. dee

    30 August, 2006, 6:16 am

    I am absolutely technically challanged. I was training for a new job and had to sit a watch a video in a room full of other new employees. The video was on a DVD. When it was over the trainer took the DVD out and proceeded to put it back in the case. I said to her, “don’t you need to rewind that first?” :wtf:

27. Mandy

    30 August, 2006, 8:13 am

    True. fucking. story.

    Power went out in our office. The fucktard admin with a hearing aid says, “If the power is out, how come I can still hear you?”

28. Marcus

    30 August, 2006, 12:25 pm

    [Comment ID #74446 will be quoted here]

    Good one. Heard same story involving computer. School House Rock song about electricity would be good for them.

29. JeannieBug

    31 August, 2006, 5:28 pm

    The Director of Surgical Services for a large hospital that I worked at, called my office looking for her secretary. The gal wasn’t in yet, so she decided to ask me if I could help her with her problem (I am not an IT person):

    Her: “My computer is off.”
    Me: “So turn it on.”
    Her: “I don’t know how.”
    Me: “You don’t know how to turn your computer on?”
    Her: “No.”
    Me: “Do you see the button on the front?”
    Her: “On the front of the screen?”
    Me: “No, on the front of the computer, on the actual computer itself. It should be a circle with a line through it.”
    Her: “Yes.”
    Me: “Push it.”
    Her: “Oh okay, now it’s doing something!”

    This woman is in charge of the ENTIRE Surgical Services department… I was truly afraid for all of us….
    💡

Comments are closed