Miscellaneous Bait

On November 4th -- this is 2009 -- an email appeared in my inbox with the subject line reading: Chinese New Year is 2/14/09, Get your orders in NOW!

Huh?

Time travel?

Is there a DeLorian involved?

Or just a typo?

Ever notice how Outlook remembers past email recipients so as you type in a name it takes a guess on filling out the rest of the characters?

About a year ago, prior to a possible hurricane land fall, all IT equipment had been removed from a site that would be in danger of flooding due to storm surge or the very heavy rain that comes with a hurricane. That hurricane ended up as a fairly mild rainstorm thankfully. After the storm ad passed, several of the IT staff members and I were sent to set the site back up.

I manage the phone and card-key systems, and generate usage reports for managers on request. I'll also run occasional reports looking for patterns of abuse of the system.

A few years ago, there was an intern working at our offices. She seemed to be on the phone a lot. Really a lot...

I had a user ask me to look at their personal laptop during working hours. I explained that I don't spend company time working on outside projects as a rule (ok, I may check my eBay bids once in awhile from work). The user (who is not in my chain of command at all) was really in dire straights though, and needed their laptop back today. I told them, I would do what I can.

This always tickles me. I frequently work late in our office/manufacturing facility, and my office is seperate from the rest of the desk area, so people don't notice me. Second shift has lunch around 5:00 pm. I come out of my office, and almost every desk has someone (who doesnt' belong there) sitting at it on the phone.

I was helping a family member dealing with their dial-up ISP (begins with A, ends with L, has a big gaping hole in the middle). Since I couldn't figure out the problem, I called their tech support. When I got the level 1 support guy on the phone, he was very nice, but as we went through the process, I could actully hear him flipping pages in a book for troubleshooting.

User sends in his laptop to fish, because several keys on the keyboard no longer work.

Fish receives the laptop, fires it up, opens notepad, and sure enough several keys do not work. Fish plugs in external keyboard, and can type normally.

Since the laptop is in warranty, fish call PC Company to get it fixed. Conversation goes as follows.

PC Support guy: This is Larry how may I help you.

I received a call yesterday. There were 2 to 3 seconds of silence after I answered followed by a flat, monotone, voice.

"Is Arnold there?"

"Who is calling?" I asked.

"Shawn."

"And you are with…?"

"XYZ Magazine."

"Shawn, don't you how to speak on the telephone? Don't you know to always identify yourself when calling?"

"Do you want our magazine?"

It seems a common theme lately for people to be mentioning how their user always ignore important notifications that are sent to them. especially by email.