Back to school Shenanigans

[Difdi]

As a middle step, you can adopt...strange...behaviors. Like an aluminum foil breastplate (to keep the screen radiation from giving me a tan!) or collecting a few dozen (hundred?) pet rocks...the possibilities are endless!

[Geek King]

You did remind the boss that if you come into the office with a baseball bat or similarly dangerous object, it's probably time to give you a break?

Remember, Aluminum bats to maim, wooden to kill.

[technical.angel]

"You have had my laptop for FOUR DAYS!" Um... she dropped it off yesterday.

[LostMyMind]

Ask her for what she was smoking that let her days speed up so fast that she cram 4 days into 24 hrs. If I could bottle that stuff.......

[technical.angel]

As a middle step, you can adopt...strange...behaviors. Like an aluminum foil breastplate (to keep the screen radiation from giving me a tan!) or collecting a few dozen (hundred?) pet rocks...the possibilities are endless!

Um... does that mean I shouldn't be doing that?

[Geek King]

Hmm, I think those are rock pets, not pet rocks.

[technical.angel]

Well, plastic and wood, but still. It gives me something to do rather than bash my head or the computer I'm working on into pieces.

Have I mentioned lately how much Vista with one gb of ram SUCKS!! ??

[HawaiianShirts]

Have I mentioned lately how much Vista with one gb of ram SUCKS!! ??

And to think my customers don't believe me when I try to explain this to them.

What's worse are the customers who buy Vista to upgrade their existing computer when said computer doesn't have enough umph to handle Vista. Several times now I've had someone complain that they bought Vista and it won't install (because they've got 128mb of RAM--I didn't think even XP ran properly on that amount) or that it installed but has slowed their computer to match a snail dragging a pile of bricks uphill (because they only have 512mb in a computer with a mobo that, according to the manufacturer, won't accept any more memory).

I hate those conversations because they always end with the customer complaining that they now have a copy of Vista that is opened, unreturnable, and useless to them. If they'd only talked to me before they bought it...

[technical.angel]

And to think my customers don't believe me when I try to explain this to them.

Show it to them. That should do it.

Click.

Jeopardy theme.

Click.

Jeopardy theme.

Rinse and repeat.

[edicius]

Anyone else in higher ed hell, post your funnies. Give your shivering sliver of sanity a breather!

Oh boy, now you've done it.

There was the time when I delivered a CD player to a class for a professor. Put it right on the lectern in the front of the class. Now, keep in mind, this isn't some little Discman...it was a smaller boom-box style one.

She calls up at the start time of her class to complain that her CD player isn't there. I insist that I had just put it in her classroom. She insists that she doesn't see it. Now I'm thinking that she gave us the wrong classroom number and that's why she doesn't see it, because it's in another room.

So I run down to her classroom...and there's the CD player, right there on the lectern, plain as day. I walk over to it and show her.

"Oh...I didn't see it there."

Only other story I'll relay right now was a great triumphant moment on my part. I started this job as a technician when I was 20 and due to the retirement of the department head, took over the department when I was 21 (and I'm still here at 29). So some people didn't exactly give me the respect due a department head because, I assume, of my youth.

Well, one day a professor didn't like the fact that she couldn't get the equipment she needed for her class (a TV and VCR) because it was all booked out (I was in the process of wheeling a TV cart out of her classroom to bring to another class that had booked it in advance) and she didn't book it at least 24 hours in advance as is our policy. She basically requested - or, rather, DEMANDED it - a minute before her class was due to start. I explained to her that we only have so much equipment and that for that class period, all the TVs were already booked out.

She didn't believe me and claimed I was out to get her. She then pulled the card that all of us here are much too familiar with.

"WHO'S YOUR SUPERVISOR? I DEMAND THAT YOU GET YOUR SUPERVISOR ON THE PHONE RIGHT NOW!"

I calmly looked at her and said, "Ma'am...I'm the head of the department."

Her face sunk and, in unison, all the students in her class went "Oooooooooooooh!"

I rolled the TV out of her classroom without any further argument. Proudest moment of my working life here.

[ShadedWings]

On Thursday, my manager counted our repair sheets. I had done 84 computers since the 11th. And that's not counting the students who came in when I was up front and just blasted through their computer instead of having them leave it.

So, in the end, I think it's going to come pretty durn close to me having touched most of the student computers on campus.

Uhmm.. does that make anyone else go twitchy and want to reach for the hand sanitizer? Man, I don't envy you on that count.

[technical.angel]

At this point, I'm wishing I had grabbed my hand sanitizer more often.

I'm feeling sooo icky right now.

Check back later for the tale of the student from the hot flamey place!

[Gabrielle Proctor]

"WHO'S YOUR SUPERVISOR? I DEMAND THAT YOU GET YOUR SUPERVISOR ON THE PHONE RIGHT NOW!"

I calmly looked at her and said, "Ma'am...I'm the head of the department."

Her face sunk and, in unison, all the students in her class went "Oooooooooooooh!"

Oh SNAP! I wish I had been there!

[Amina516]

Check back later for the tale of the student from the hot flamey place!

Sounds promising...

[technical.angel]

Okay so the student from the hot flamey place.

In the long ago time (year before last) I did room appts from desktops. We decided it was better for me to go to the rooms to deal with them rather than having the students drag them in, and face the trouble of having a setup to connect them to.

Then came the SFM (Student from Hades). She would call in with a problem. I would set an appt with her. She wouldn't be there. I would set an appt with her. She wouldn't be there. I would tell if she didn't show up for the next one, I was closing her ticket.

She did this to me on 3 separate occasions. So, now, I don't do room appointments.

So, that brings us to Friday.

She calls, all pissed off because she can't get online. I tell her she needs to bring her computer in.

She literally goes on and on for about 2 minutes, while I hold the receiver away from my ear and just let her go on.

"I wish you guys could just remote into my computer."
"Well, first, you have to have an internet connection for me to remote into your computer. Secondly, that opens up a lot of problems we're not prepared to deal with."
"Can my brother remote in and fix it?"
"Well, still, you would need to have an internet connection for him to remote in."

She huffed, puffed and generally pitched a fit. I, once again, kept quiet, not knowing what would come out of my mouth if I didn't. She finally said she'd bring it in.

She dropped it off around 11:30am, throwing a fit. Her brother, who works at a computer store, took a decrepid case, and shoved, rather willy nilly, all kinds of new stuff into it.

One of the things missing on the rather decrepid case, of course, was a FREAKING POWER BUTTON!!!!!

The last time I worked on her computer, she had a button thing that you could press to turn on the computer. This was now replaced with two wires taped to the top of the computer. After much work and consternation, we realized you had to hold the two wires together to get the computer to turn on. I was PISSED she hadn't metioned anything about it when she dropped off the computer.

1:30pm, she called, even more pissed off because the computer wasn't don't yet.

I had to call the network admin in on it because while our NAC client could talk to the network, nothing else would. She was getting a valid IP, but I couldn't ping ANYTHING.

He fixed that issue, but still couldn't get IE or FF to connect. After some work, he realized that Opera had completely stolen the net connection.

I could tell the second she walked in to pick up the computer, because she was huffing and puffing over the indiginity of having the lowly IT people touching her computer.

But, one bright point, my manager gave her a mild lashing for dropping the computer off without telling us how to turn it on.