Some years ago our dodgy narcissist boss “acquired” a load of kit from an equally dodgy supplier. We reckoned they were shipping customer’s RMAs to other customers without testing anything, hoping the next customer would not notice or figure out the problem. Something must have got mixed up with this scheme and we ended up with two large boxes of random kit meant for someone else.

Two items were motherboards, for the time two higher end “workstation” branded ones that had EVERYTHING. It’s been a while now so I don’t remember what exactly, but at least 6 SATA ports over two controllers, dual gigabit LAN, two or three PCI-E 16x as well as the usual stuff you would expect. Well beyond anything a lowly high street computer shop had seen before.

Almost salivating, boss whips out the pirated XP CD.

And its fucked. Half a dozen drivers refuse to install. Even one of the NICs, identical to the working one. No matter what we try they end up with the yellow triangle “!” warning in device manager.

Ah well. It is a dodgy RMA return. Let’s try the other one.

Infuriatingly for the boss, this one has exactly the same problem. Exactly the same devices with the same errors.

He wants his freebies so bad, he’s incensed that they both fail in the same way because it smells like a solveable problem, not a defect or damage that could be explained for one or the other.

Bit of background on boss. He stumbled into IT, never really had any plan to get into it and certainly not for the joy of it. It pays the bills. He mocked me and the other staff for our comptia and Microsoft certifications because he never needed all that pompous book learning and he runs his own business.

I have a look at it. Device manager is complaining about “not enough resources” or something to that effect. Thinking back to my A+ and the tedious memorising of IRQs I give it a go myself.

On the motherboard that has EVERYTHING, I disable Almost Everything in the BIOS. The second SATA controller, the NICs, audio, serial, parallel, every single feature unnecessary beyond keyboard, monitor, mouse, hard disk and optical drive. XP gets installed again and unsurprisingly every device is installed.

I reboot and enable a NIC. It works. Reboot and enable the second NIC, it works too! I keep going one by one until every device is installed without complaining. That explains why it was RMA’d if the first customers hadn’t tried this. I’m feeling pretty shiny about it.

Boss isn’t impressed. “It’s too complicated, don’t trust it, why do they make everything so hard??”

And that’s the story of the two very expensive motherboards we got completely free that never got used until the business went bankrupt.

(I have no idea if it was IRQs or not, that’s just the hunch I had about them “running out” when XP tried to install everything at once. It could be a fluke or an incorrect guess, but an educated one that was enough to get it working)

Not the dialup chirping.

I once had two laptops on a bench side by side, different makes and models and different faults, nothing in common that might cause this. When I got them booted up to work on them, BOTH of them started making the same burbling XP noises I’d never encountered before.

This was back when Infrared was in use briefly as a data transfer method. Being slow and line of sight only it was soon made redundant by Bluetooth.

It turned out I’d accidentally aligned the IR ports just off center to each other and they were repeatedly failing and retrying to establish a link.

I, too, have a tale of someone convinced their PC was haunted. My grandmother asked me to take a look at her friend’s computer. She had two problems.

One that the " and @ keys were swapped. I don’t know why she mentioned that the last person who tried to fix it was American but that’s an instant fix. No shade on Americans, you probably don’t have much call to change keyboard settings to en-GB from Microsoft defaults.

The other was it would boot up at random times, day or night, and it would spook her. No rhyme or reason as to when. It was early on in my IT career so I was still geeking out over everything, every new motherboard I bought I’d be exploring every BIOS option before even thinking about installing an OS. One option I’d never had to use but had intrigued me was Wake On Ring. And she did have dialup.

Wake On LAN requires a Magic Packet or some other protocols. But I reasoned WOR might be simpler and the telco sending diagnostic pings that would trigger it (it’s a long time ago, I never bothered to look it up or even if I thought to ask if the phone rang at the same time). This computer does indeed have a WOR option which I disable. We won’t know straight away if it works so I say to let me know, which she does after a week and is confident it’s stopped.

And that is my IT exorcism story to add to the pile. Does everyone have at least one eventually?

Ever have to leave a professional sounding note on a ticket that broadcasts to anyone reading it how rock fuck stupid the user has been?

“User attempting to install software over mobile hotspot, advised to use faster/more reliable connection”

Bob. Bob was a part of a team who did I’m not entirely sure what but it involved network/enterprise architect services for clients. Something like IT infrastructure design for companies without the resources to do it themselves.

Bob raises a ticket because he can’t install a piece of software on his new laptop.

Me: “Hey Bob. You want XYZ software? It’s deployed automatically”

Bob: “Yeah but it just won’t install”

Me: “Logs say it’s timing out, it exceeds the deployment window”

Bob: “I really need it though” such a helpful, worthwhile comment thank you Bob.

Me: “This usually takes like 15mins I don’t know why it would go over an hour”

Bob: “I am on a pretty slow connection”

Me: “You’re not onsite then? Are you at home?”

Bob: “Yeah”

Me: “On what, dialup?” At the time 8Mb ADSL was still very common and more than enough for this.

Bob, sounding a bit sheepish: “Err, well I’m actually using a 4G hotspot”

Me: “You’re pulling [GBs] over a cellular network?? I hope you have a good contract deal”

Bob: “Work phone, not my problem”

Me: “Fair”

Bob and I have spoken many times and are familiar enough with each other for a little gentle ribbing.

Me: “Still, that’s a pretty slow connection even for 4G”

Bob: “I don’t get great reception here”

Me: “Can you move your phone around the house to see if you get a better signal?”

Bob: “Not really, its just a small cabin”

Me: “…cabin?”

Bob: “On me boat”

Me: “BOAT”

Bob: “Boat, aye”

Me: “Boat”

Bob: “Yeah I live on a boat” Waves, waves everywhere and constant drops in link.

Me: “Like, moored up at a docks?” I don’t know the terminology. It’s like a caravan park for boats.

Bob: “Yeah”

Me: “BOB. Come on you know better than this. Go to bloody starbucks or something. Hell it’s 4pm go to the pub and ask for the wireless key” Like maybe Bob if you weren’t LITERALLY FUCKING TETHERING you’d have a better experience.

Bob: “But it’s nearly finished this time!”

Me: “You tried it more than once??”

Bob: “…”

Me: “Mate. You know what I’m going to tell you. I’m going to close this ticket. Let me know if you’re still having problems over a decent connection”

Bob: “Sigh, yeah alright.”

ffs, Bob

My first job in IT still haunts me for all the stupid shit we did while bragging about how great we were. Most of that coming from the boss who you could easily convince me invented narcissism himself.

Any way to bodge a job but still call it working was a success story. The boss would boast about finding little tricks to get around Microsoft best practice guides and saying you don’t need all that fancy shit that’s just a way for MCSEs to overcharge for support.

He had absolutely no interest in IT, it just happened to be the business he got into. He never kept up with anything and I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if he’s still running XP for everything today.

A community center approached us for a job with two requests. Install Windows on about 20 PCs, all ancient beige towers with room for four optical drives. The second was to come up with a way to stop people stealing the RAM from them as they would pull off the blanking plates and reach inside.

They’d already tried hot melt glue but that’s nothing a light kick won’t solve. Our solution was to brick it up with a load of dead optical or CD-ROM only drives that were worthless, and when we ran out of those we had drive bay adaptors to fit those 3.5" card reader hubs that were partially blanked at the front. They looked so fucking bad, but being a charity with no funding to spare they went for it.

As for Windows, the boss approaches it within the limits of his knowledge. In goes the torrented XP CD with the license key I still remember off by heart.

Boss: “Fuck 'em they’re a charity right? Do they have license money? No”

We get it up and running and then next comes the also torrented disk imaging software CD. We make a clone and image the rest.

We get a call a bit after the computers are collected. There’s a problem getting them on the domain because they’re all named “Computer01”.

Boss: “So? Just rename them?”

They call back again, same problem still.

Boss: “We did what you asked, must be an issue with your domain”

As far as he’s concerned he’s been paid for work done, not his problem.

I, actually having an interest in an IT career do a bit of research. It’s the only time I’ve ever had to know anything about it so it’s hazy now all these years later but I think I figured out the PID (a unique identifier unrelated to the hostname) had been cloned so the domain would reject multiple computers claiming to be the same device.

I tell boss this. He does not call the community center to offer further support or solutions.

But narcissist that he is, he knows he’s fudged the job. Rather than make things right with A FUCKING CHARITY he instead moans and whines for days about how Microsoft are money grubbing bastards and overcomplicating everything just so you have to do everything “their way” and rake in money through certification training and exams.

I noped out of the place after far too long there. I’m still in IT and been successful enough to learn just how BAAAAAD that business was, now I know enough to reflect. Still literally keeps me up at night sometimes.

I’m glad he went bankrupt.

And no it wasn’t FCKGW or whichever one everybody asks.

Where i used to work we had a lot of Chinese students in the city, with varying degrees of skill with English. No problem, English is my main but also not my first language. This story is from about 20 years ago.

A customer comes in for help with their computer. I ask my troubleshooting questions to triage the problem.

“My computer can’t connect to the Internet”

OK what happens when you try?

“Nothing”

At home, at work?

“At home”

Have you checked all the connections?

“Yes”

Restarted everything? PC, router?

“Yes”

Have you contacted your ISP?

“Yes”

And?

“No problem”

OK do you see link lights on the network socket?

“Yes”

Is it just websites? Are you having problems with email, MSN messenger or Skype or any other chat clients?

“Yes”

(We are at this for a good 10 minutes but I’ll skip the unnecessary bits)

Have you tried a new network cable?

“Yes”

OK bring it in, we can test it here for you.

“Oh but it works in Starbucks”

What? You mean its a laptop? Wireless?

“Yes”

And you connect wirelessly at home too?

“Yes”

But you said… the cable, the link lights?

“Yes”

And then it hits me. Waves of memories wash over me. My Japanese father talking to clients, head bobbing up and down constantly nodding and bowing.

“Hai, hai, hai, haaaa, hai, hai, kashikomarimashita”

Yes. Yes. Yes. Oh yes. Yes. Yes. I understand.

Yes in japanese doesn’t necessarily mean “correct”. We say it to show we’re listening and being attentive, following the conversation. Yes doesn’t always mean “yes that’s right”, it can means “yes please continue”. And now I assume its similar in Chinese too. Like in English you might say “aw yeah! Aw hell yeah!” while listening to a story.

Right. Forget everything we’ve just said and start from the beginning.

Can you see your SSID in the list at home?

“Yes”

(Fuck. Thats on me)

And what name is your SSID in the list when you connect at home?

“[ISP]-XYZ123”

OK good and…

In our IT store had a few repeat timewaster customers. One in particular though I completely lost patience with. This young man just did not get things. No matter how many times or different ways we explained it. He would keep asking the same question over and over again, I believe some people do this deliberately, it’s a tactic to wear people down until they just give you what you want to get you to go away. Or they don’t like or won’t take no for an answer on principle. This kid did not have that spark, whether the problem was technical or procedural or policy we could explain endlessly why he couldn’t have what he wanted and the only thing he could comprehend was that… he didn’t have what he wanted. It wasn’t even being offended that he was told “no”, it was simply he had a problem, which was very much his problem, and it still wasn’t solved.

So naturally it becomes my responsibility to help with his brilliant new business idea. From our previous interactions he had already lost Customer Service Voice privileges and it was straight to barely restrained disdain.

Kid: “Can you show me how to download movies and burn them to DVD without getting viruses?”

Me, already familiar with him yet still stunned by the audacity: “What? No?”

Kid: “But I don’t know how to do it and I need you to show me how”

Me: “I… you mean obtain copyrighted material through illegal channels to also illegally redistribute? For PROFIT?”

Kid: “Yes”

Me: “I’m not helping you break the law, no”

Kid: “But I don’t know how to do it”

Me: “This isn’t something I’m going to help you with, I’m not going to be complicit in this”

Kid: “But you’re a computer shop I thought you would know how to do this”

Me, stupidly: “Yeah but I’m not going to show you”

As I type this I wonder how much shorter this story could have been if I’d just said none of us knew how. But this kid would absolutely have asked us to find out, in order to teach him.

Kid: “But that means I can’t sell my DVDs”

Me: “Yes I guess it does, so is there anything ELSE you need?”

Kid: “Yeah”

Me: “…”

Kid: “I want you to help me burn movies to DVD”

I won’t bore you with the half an hour we spent going round in circles with this. You’ve all had this conversation with someone in your life. You get the idea.

Eventually he leaves. For like an hour. Then he comes back.

Kid: “I still don’t know how to burn my DVDs and I need you to help me”

Me: “I’m not going to do that for you, I told you all this earlier”

Kid: “But that means I don’t know how to do it”

Me: “Yes that’s right”

In my career I’ve found answering repeated “so won’t you do this for me” questions by agreeing with them surprisingly effective. No apology, no customer service deflection or never say no to a customer approach after the third or fourth orbit on the merry go round. “So I can’t have what I want?” Yes you are correct, I’m glad we are in agreement and we have arrived at this conclusion together.

Kid: “How am I going to sell DVDs then?”

Goddamnit. That usually works.

Me: “I don’t know how many times I have to say this. I’m not helping you break the law”

Kid: “What if you just show me the burning DVDs bit?”

Me: “You’ve already told me what you plan to do with it. I’m not getting involved”

Kid: “I thought you’d know how to do this”

I honestly don’t think he’s bright enough to question my expertise to manipulate me into giving him what he wants. He’s just stumbled dumbly into insulting me.

Me: “Look we are a computer sales and repair shop. We’re not a training center. We sell IT equipment. If you have a problem with your computer you pay us to fix it. We do not teach people how to use their computer, it is not a service we provide”

Kid: “Oh I can pay you!”

MOTHERFU… of god…

Me: “NOT. A. Service. We. Provide.”

Eventually he leaves again. Half an hour later he’s back again?!

Kid: “The guys in the shop nearby (our competitor) says I won’t get viruses if I install linus”

Me: “You mean Linux”

WHY, WHY DID I ADMIT TO KNOWING WHAT HE MEANT?

Kid: “He said you don’t get viruses on linus”

Me: “Ok”

Kid: “So can you show me how to do it on linus?”

Me: “Lin… No, I’ve already told you countless times I’m not going to teach you how to break the law”

Kid: “But they said it would be better to do it on linus because you get loads of viruses from porn sites”

Me: “P… PORN?? The movies you want to sell are PORN??”

Kid: “Yeah so I can sell them…”

Me: “I AM NOT TEACHING YOU TO BREAK THE LAW AND I AM NOT DISCUSSING PORNOGRAPHY WITH YOU”

Skip several more repetitions of this argument I won’t bore you with verbatim.

Me, finally: “Look we’re going round in circles. The answer is NO. You’ve wasted nearly two hours of my time and I’m not entertaining this any more”

Kid: “But the other guys said…”

Me: “THEN GO BACK TO THEM. I AM NOT GOING TO HELP YOU WITH THIS, OR NOW WITH ANYTHING ELSE. IF THEY SAID THEY KNOW “linus” GET THEM TO DO IT FOR YOU. GET OUT OF HERE, I’M REFUSING YOU SERVICE” x3 rounds of raised voices.

Finally he leaves, crossing the road looking back over his shoulder at me with a nasty scowl. After all these years still I remember looking away when I considered if I didn’t break eye contact, he might actually get hit by a bus and blame me for it.

He came back the next day. I simply called the boss over and went on break.

I begged the boss to ban him but he said he didn’t want to get into legal trouble for refusing to serve someone with a “mental illness”.