IT Stories

Dave’s poat about the server update got me thinking about some fun IT stories I’ve encountered over the years. I don’t technically have a degree in IT but my nerd-like interests have lead me to become known for being a computer wiz at work (yay another job title without the compensation!! 🙄) and I occasionally have to assist coworkers with their computers.

One classic was when my coworker called me to look at her computer – every time she opened a program it would immediately close. Yep, she had enough crap piled on her desk in a disorderly fashion that the pile was resting on her keyboard’s escape key…

Another one, somehow my coworker’s mouse buttons swapped (meaning a left click is now a right click and vice versa). She did a full system reboot and said she might need a new computer. So I looked at it and could quickly see what was happening, and suggested she try a different mouse. It the same thing with a new mouse so I said it’s just a simple setting in the control panel we can check. In the meantime, her keyboard quit working! The USB dongle she removed for her first mouse also connected her keyboard and she didn’t know that and automatically assumed her keyboard was dying.

Most of the fixes I do are pretty simple but every now and then I run into something that stumps me and I use my go-to suggestion. A Laptop was making crazy beeping noises and flashing something on the screen about BIOS. I asked her if she did a shutdown and reboot and she hadn’t. Whatever didn’t load properly in BIOS resolved itself. She asked what happened and what all that meant and I said I dunno, but it’s fixed. 😁👍🏻

I find myself sounding like Roy from The IT Crowd… “Hello IT, have you tried turning it off and on again?”
🤣🤣🤣

My favorite story involves magic. lol
http://catb.org/jargon/html/magic-story.html

Ha!! I need to make a “more magic” switch and stick it somewhere in my office! 🤣🤣

I can barley copy and paste something. 0 computer skills from this guy. The teachers loved me when I had to play the at home school teacher roll. I’m not tech savvy nor do I enjoy trying to be.
But now if we are talking movies, IT scared the hell out of me when I was a kid. And for many years I didn’t realize IT part 2 was on the same vhs as IT 1. I just had to let it play through

Office humor, we plugged a wireless mouse into a coworkers computer. Then gave it a jiggle every once in awhile. We started with subtle movement, then increased the jiggle as time goes on. For two weeks he started complaining about his mouse going crazy. IT got involved (we gave them the heads up) and they played it off like he was the crazy one. Eventually he found the usb dongle in the back of his computer.

Another one, we had an individual that would look at the letters and finger peck the keyboard to type. We swapped the letters around on his keyboard. He quickly became frustrated and stormed out of the room. He ran to IT and got a new keyboard.

Years ago when I first started a job, there was no IT dept… turns out after a couple weeks.. I became “it”…. I was “it” because I knew how to “Ctrl Alt Delete” and to system restore to an earlier date !!! LOL !!!

When I was in the Air Force we had a guy who was super paranoid. We put a fake camera over his desk in the ceiling. He saw it and FREAKED out. I thought he was going to have a melt down. He thought the commander was spying on him. He was so Pi$$ed off at us when we finally told him. I thought it was funny!

I had a guy actually delete the “.exe” extension from his computer. This was 20 years ago, dont judge. It took me forever to figure out what was going on. He was a crafty user and never did admit to it.

In my office, we tape the red laser underneath the mouse of new employees. Someone did this to me when I started 13 years ago there and it took me 10 minutes to figure it out.

Some people take much longer to solve the problem, and some can’t figure it out at all. We had one guy literally throw away 3 brand new wireless laser mouses before he saw what was going on lol.

Another girl couldn’t figure it out for 3 whole days. Eventually an IT Specialist showed her the problem. She was a bit of a slow learner.

And yet another guy (older fella) just kept changing out the batteries. The ironic thing is that the battery compartment is literally right next to the laser underneath the mouse. Not sure how you could change the batteries and not notice the tape there.

We would remove the mouse “ball” and people couldnt figure out why their cursor moved. That was long before the LED days.
I had a older coworker who I swear had OCD. Everything in her cube was in its perfect space. She even had a floormat where should would put her boots when she changed shoes when getting to the office.
I would move things around just a little on her desk. She had this little analog clock and I would turn a quarter turn.
She always fixed it. One day in our team meeting she mentioned that she though Service Master was messing around with things on her desk and everyone looked at me and laughed. I never told anyone I did it, but they knew.
We also had this “donut list”. It was a lengthy list for reasons you had to bring in donuts. #7 was conception.
My one coworker never locked her desktop and while she was at lunch I typed and email to our entire Dept stating that she was bringing in donuts tomorrow due to rule #7 on the list. I positioned the cursor over the send button but didnt send it. She gets back to her desk and sees this draft message and panics and clicks send LOL

Somewhat IT/Somewhat maintenance related. April fools last year, one of the engineers at work stuck a small bluetooth speaker above the ceiling tiles in my office area. It was playing Christmas music SUPER quiet. Quiet enough to barely hear and be a nuisance but not loud enough to impact phone calls or business. It took us a good 2 hours to find it…

I was having all kids of problems getting a program to do what I wanted one day and I banged on the keyboard and somewhat loudly said Da#^ it! Well guess who happened to be standing right behind me, the IT guy. He wasn’t too pleased I gave the keyboard more persuasion than needed. I still don’t know why he was there.

The electrical tape on the mouse laser and removing the ball was a favorite too. Same with unplugging a monitor but keeping the screws in just enough that the cable wouldn’t fall out.

Rotating monitors. We spun a buddy’s monitor 180 degrees so his whole desktop was upside down. That’s when we found out he’s actually a genius, because it took him a whopping 5 second to grab the whole monitor stand, flip it upside down and lean it against the wall (since the base was now up in the air) and shrug it off and continue his day.

That and putting tape under the mouse never gets old.

I’ve never met an IT. I’m not a computer guy. Making bills out for customers is about the extent of my computer workings.
You guys would have a field day with me!
I’m no noob when it comes to pranks on construction sites though.

As someone whos worked in the trades as an hvac mechanic the last 20 years , these simple pranks you guys play would stump and frustrate me to no end . I recently left the field and took a position at mayo as an hvac specialist , alot more computer use than I am used to , and sometimes deal with attitude from It for my stupid questions . Just last week had to respond to a call that the IT dept was extremely cold , please respond asap . After a quick observation, I politely had to walk them over and show them how to turn the thermostat up . 😄

glad i’m not alone!!!!!!1 IT…….i cant even figure out how or why my gosh darn printer wont print!!!!!!!!!

The old ball mice were so much fun. I would take the ball out, tape the rollers on the inside, and put the ball back in. Most people would never figure out why their mouse wouldn’t work.

Another one of my favorites is to take a screen shot of someone’s desktop, move all their icons off of it, and change the background to that screen shot. It will take some time for them to figure out why none of their short cuts will work. Or change what the short cut does.

Mike m wrote:

As someone whos worked in the trades as an hvac mechanic the last 20 years , these simple pranks you guys play would stump and frustrate me to no end . I recently left the field and took a position at mayo as an hvac specialist , alot more computer use than I am used to , and sometimes deal with attitude from It for my stupid questions . Just last week had to respond to a call that the IT dept was extremely cold , please respond asap . After a quick observation, I politely had to walk them over and show them how to turn the thermostat up . 😄

Hilarious!

A coworker put Carmex on the underside of my desk, when I grabbed the desk to scoot into position my hands found it. I stepped it up a notch and taped a couple thumb tacks under his desk… It was all fun and games, but he stopped playing tricks on me after that.

Bahaha! Some of these are too funny guys! I’m not good at thinking up pranks, but you guys are creative!

Rodwork wrote:

Another one of my favorites is to take a screen shot of someone’s desktop, move all their icons off of it, and change the background to that screen shot. It will take some time for them to figure out why none of their short cuts will work. Or change what the short cut does.

Damn… that’s a good one that would probably get even me for a moment before I figured it out!

Back in the day we would hide someone’s chisel or cut a deep scratch on the backside of the stone tablet, when they would start writing it would shatter into a million pieces.

Here’s my ctrl-alt-delete

Iowaboy1 wrote:

Back in the day we would hide someone’s chisel or cut a deep scratch on the backside of the stone tablet, when they would start writing it would shatter into a million pieces.

By far the best response here.

I put a wad of stink bait under a guys desk once. It was in paper towel for easy removal. I’m old school, just not mean old school.

Then there was the time that an Ido member posted a link to a page that had clothed pretty women on it. I changed it to “farm porn” link after a Moving Waters walleye guide suggested it. That one got some attention.

Any old AutoCAD users out there?
I used to open up the largest drawing I could find, type in Regen and put a piece of tape on the space bar.
Draw an extremely large square around there drawing so the next time they did a zoom extents it looked like the drawing disappeared.

This is not an IT prank but a very good prank for people who fish.
Take your buddies jig fishing pole when he is not around. Peel off 50 or 60 feet of line and cut it. Now take the cut off line and wrap it back on the spool. 1st cast and the jig goes sailing and it looks like the line broke.
Then keep a straight face if possible.

Rodwork wrote:

Another one of my favorites is to take a screen shot of someone’s desktop, move all their icons off of it, and change the background to that screen shot. It will take some time for them to figure out why none of their short cuts will work. Or change what the short cut does.

I did that at least once at work and got yelled at for a while. I also changed the position for where the machine went to put a new cutting wheel in but that change only took affect after the control program on the computer was restarted so it was 2 weeks before I heard a complaint about that