Open Waves

For now, I will sum up a few interesting “technical problems” I have had to solve around the office during my first two months on the job. Eventually, I plan on releasing my own “365 hilarious IT questions calendar”…probably in exactly one year.

• I was asked to figure out why a cd would not burn on someone’s computer. His suggestion: “Maybe you have to turn the cd upside down, that worked for me once”. That was not the solution.
• “I can’t connect to the internet”. This is a common one. So far the culprit has been: 1 unplugged Ethernet cord from the wall, 2 unplugged Ethernet cords from the computer, and 1 where they had “Work Offline” selected while in Firefox.
• “I can’t connect to the server”. Ah, a close second to the previous statement. And the winner is…YOUR CAPS LOCK IS ON!
• “I can’t get email”. Hmm, try it now. Oh, it worked? Bye.
• The ‘blue screen of death’ is a common occurrence in the PC world, but on a Mac? Let’s check to see if the monitor cable is plugged all the way in to the computer. Nope, surprised?
• “My printer won’t print. I think it’s time to replace it”. Imagine that. Let’s turn it off and then back on again. What do you know? It works.
• “My computer doesn’t have a power button”. Oh, ok…hey, what’s that?
• “I can’t find my file”. Well where did you save it? “I don’t know”. Come on people.
• “There is something bouncing up and down on my screen, and I don’t know what to do”. This is fairly common for Mac’s, not so much PC’s. Relax, this is not something to worry about. You simply have to click a few buttons and upgrade whatever software you have set to update automatically.

At least so far no one has asked why the cup holder in their computer won’t open, so I guess it could be worse. As more things transpire I will recount them with more detail on a one by one basis. You may not see the humor in any of these, in which case you either are one of these kinds of people, or you just landed on Earth.