Tech Stories

1. Perils of other interests Took a bit of personal leave yesterday to shoot a commercial. Roughly two hours’ work (actor, so all I had to do, basically, was show up), free food, and I got paid more than I make in a day at my tech job. But the biggest thing was the treatment, the respect as a professional from other professionals. Then I come back in to the salt mines today and am once again regarded as a peon by idiots. Sigh. Just keep thinking, “Steady paycheck…steady paycheck…” [By: Owie] Comment on Story Comments To LART or not to LART, that is the question. Whether 'tis nobler to suffer the slings and arrows of starfish or to take arms against a sea of morons and end them. -exzyle2k The Drum & Bugle Corps that I am a member of was used to shoot a commercial for Ontario's Lotto 649. It was hard work, but it was an awesome experience, and HOLY CRAP, do those people eat well! -normntaz The one time I was in a commercial, was pretty awful (for Nissan Altima, where the tympani player gets onstage just in time to play his first big entrance). We waited for hours, no food. But when we did an episode of Boston Public, that was great. Little work, lots of good food, good money. (The California Philharmonic played the Boston Pops.) -sassicatz We (my volunteer fire/rescue department) do fire standbys for TV/movies all the time. The best was the TV show 'North of 60'. They used our truck in the show, and yeah, it was the best catered fire we've ever had. :) -Jay911

2. Auxiliary starfish Upon reaching the lofty goal of getting your fishies solidly trained on a particular issue, you may feel a bit of, shall we say, the ‘despondency of uselessness.’ Whatever do they need you for now? Never fear! There are always fishies in reserve, never to be seen until needed! The entire Business Education (ha) department knows in their souls that they are not to move, nay, even to touch the Xerox Phaser printer while it’s powered up. Sizeable reservoirs of liquid wax ink + movey thumpy shifty = messy messy death by evisceration. So, let’s have the front office call in some contractors over the weekend to do some work on the walls and ceiling tiles and be sure not to tell anyone (me) about it beforehand so I can shut the printer off on my way out the door on Friday…presto shifto chango! A $2500 paperweight! I guess the large sign on top of the printer which reads, “DO NOT MOVE THIS PRINTER” does not communicate the information I think it does. [By: Owie] Comment on Story Comments Piston broke, huh? -robbor "Hey, I gots a smaller one at home, but it can't be much different, can it?" -namor To be honest, if I didn't know better, I'd assume that sign meant not to change it's location in the office. Besides, can't you set it to power down after a set period of time? </devil's advocate> -Hellion From context, I assume this is a printer that uses the solid-ink technology that Xerox bought from Tektronics a while back. Those printers do not get shut down, because what they do, they melt down "crayons" made of wax or resin, then spray the resulting melted goop onto the page. Problem is, if you shut them down, they have to dump the ink to keep the print heads from clogging... and each power-down is about $20 worth of ink. They will go into standby, but in standby the ink is still liquid, and moving the printer will splash it throughout the printers internal workings. Instant paperweight. So sorry, Owie... -chazz

3. when legends come to life I gotta get this out, cause I'm still in shock. I was just starting TS on a printing issue with one of my least favorite users. She fancies herself a bit of a whiz since she knows a couple keyboard shortcuts, so whenever I’m fixing her farkup-du-jour she pesters the hell out of me with her inane ‘diagnoses’--some of which are real gems, but I’m too distracted by the desire to strangle her to remember them later. Anyhow, I absentmindedly told her that her computer “couldn’t see the printer,” just to get her to shut up for a second. It was an Active Directory issue, but hell if I’m telling her that. She looked at her monitor screen, looked at the printer, and then—I swear to God--TURNED THE SCREEN TO FACE THE PRINTER. Imagine her disappointment when the coveted ‘ctrl-p’ once again failed to produce the expected results. I muttered a strangled, “I’ll call the network guys and let you know,” and staggered out. I thought this kind of stuff was urban legend horseshit. There I go with my unreasonable expectations again. [By: Owie] Comment on Story Comments i'm not sure if i should have laughed or cried at this, so i laughed so hard i cried -rhiannon At least my fishies acknowledge the fact that they know fark all, and I am a god... They just call, and I fix... -garwain I laughed 'till I stopped. I'm not at all suprized.... -leonine know say this rhyme "I see said the blindman as he picked up his hammer and saw"...Jumping on greyhound bus next stop lart shelter. -jjtech4 I used to tell my sf that hitting the pc didn't help 99/100. This was a joke. Well I quit saying that when this lady explained that she didn't hit it THIS time. I found out later that she would get mad at her pc and kick it as hard as she could. -PoohBear LOL, should have told her it needs glasses :) -Hellion been there, seen it, walked away -Deadagent

4. Rhetorical question Am I really expecting too much by assuming that people know better than to swap hard drives in a laptop while the machine is ON?! Yeah, I know, stupid me. But how about after being told not to on THREE separate occasions, the third being after she did it while on the phone with me about some other stupid issue? “What happened? Why’s it making that noise?” Gah. Then, for the big finish, she wanders in right before quittin' time and tells me that one of the drives in question won't boot and she doesn't know why because she hasn't used it since last spring... [By: Owie] Comment on Story Comments Looks like someone needs to lower their expectations :) -Hellion Tell her that you have to change the burners on her stove when they're on. I bet she comes into work the next day with bandages on her hands. -scooby111 Some people just can't do anything in the right order, you know - like 1) shut down, 2) swap HDD, 3) boot up. Or - 1) enter cubicle, 2) drop knickers, 3) pee. Maybe I expect too much of the human race.... -Gromit ok, I'm thinking my uk-us translator is on the blink, by cubicle you mean...bathroom stall? or little pretend office that has no perminent walls or even any kind of door? -drachen No no Drachen I piss inside my cube all the time, maybe that's why I never get visitors... -mugglemage

Customer Misconceptions

2. That “just getting a little Pepsi on the keyboard when I opened the can” will render the entire bottom row and touchpad buttons inoperable, and I won’t be able to tell that you use a $1500 district laptop as a dinner plate when I open it up. On the bright side, I reckon I won’t have to pay for lunch today… [2004-09-14]

Tech Rules

Customer Types