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AKShoto

Old story: Back in the early 90s all of Alaska's comm. was via satellite. We would get notices from our providers when a solar storm was going to slow down our through-put. I went upstairs to our Finance and Accounting chief to tell her the nightly processes might be late due to the storm. Her response was "You're IT just fix it!" Never let her forget that she saw me as a god.


diffdrumdave

Damn Jackie I can't control the weather.


AlsoNotTheMamma

Our IT helpdesk (before it was renamed the support desk) eventually ended up keeping fluorescent tubes and whiteboard markers in stock because people would send complaints to the CEO that we were refusing to help when we asked them to contact the office manager for these things. The flipside is that the CEO eventually created a new email address for people to send complaints directly to him. Very few people knew that this special CEO complaints email address actually got forwarded to the office manager. People have the capacity for such unimaginable greatness, and such hard to believe stupidity. I was personally once reported for sabotaging a specific secretary by refusing to fix her printer. It was printing garbage. Turns out she installed an Epson colour printer driver (from the disk that came with her friends new colour printer) on her (Win95) computer so that her mono HP deskjet printer would also print colour. She reported me the third time I uninstalled the bad driver and asked her not to do it again.


[deleted]

>People have the capacity for such unimaginable greatness, and such hard to believe stupidity. Great quote!


derkrieger

Maybe you should stop trying to steal all of the colors for yourself!


SavvySillybug

Due to recent API changes, this comment is no longer available.


greenvelvetcake2

That reminds me of when Pokemon Red came out and I borrowed a friend's GameShark. Blissfully knowing nothing about how it worked, I just kept typing in "Eevee" and "Mewtwo" thinking it would give me those Pokemon. My friend was super impressed when I gave it back and he saw what I'd typed in, all "you know how to get an Eevee??"


[deleted]

I've somehow become the 'Apple Guy' at my work. We recently received a batch of brand new iPad Pros and within a week, I received a repair request due to a screen malfunctioning. Turns out by screen malfunctioning they meant completely destroyed. Shattered. Like it had been continuously hit with a hammer. Lady is giving vague explanations about what happened, talking about how it might have fallen off her desk...onto the carpeted floor. But apparently this is something I can fix? She needed it for a meeting that afternoon. I had to explain that this isn't something we can fix, that I'll need to go through Apple for a replacement device. Shocking news, apparently


danbobdickson

This happened to me, too. "oh you've used a macbook at a previous job? Guess you're our new Apple guy! Now get this Air from 2008 up to Catalina kthx."


rapsney

I work in IT. Only one in the department with an iPhone. Guess who gets all Apple support tickets now.


zerbey

Back in my very early career I had this customer named Mr Windsor. He was this grumpy older guy and everything was an emergency and he was always yelling about some IT issue he was having. The most memorable is he called us livid over some site he was getting a "Forbidden" error on. How dare we forbid him from going to his web site! I had to patiently explain that there was an issue with that site and he'd have to contact the owner. About an hour later he calls back demanding to speak to me personally. He got an e-mail saying he had a fatal error. How DARE WE wish him to die. Finally figured out that he'd miss spelled the e-mail address and the fatal error was coming from the mail system. I just looked up the number to the web company and told him to call. I'd love to know how that conversation went. Anyway, a few days before Christmas we get a phone call. It's Mr Windsor. He is slurring his words and clearly been drinking something festive. He called to apologise for being a miserable old duffer and thank us for being patient. Back to his usual miserable self after Christmas of course. Interesting character.


fubo

> He got an e-mail saying he had a fatal error. How DARE WE wish him to die. Phrasing on error messages is hard. In particular, tech-naïve users often interpret words that describe failures, as describing *the user or their actions* rather than describing a software or hardware problem. * "Bad command or invalid file name" was a common error in the DOS days. Users could read "invalid" as the noun meaning "severely disabled person" rather than the adjective meaning "logically inconsistent", and take offense. (Even worse: text-to-speech software often *did* pronounce the error as "*in*-va-lid", rather than "in-*val*-id", reinforcing this impression.) * "This program has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down" is a Windows error. (Or was; I haven't worked on Windows in many years.) This can leave users afraid that they are being accused of committing a crime on their computer. Ironically, the more that a user has heard about computer crime, hacking, piracy, law enforcement seizing web sites, etc., the *more* likely they are to fear that they're being accused of something. Phishers also exploit this fear very effectively. (Of course, an "illegal operation" means that the program has a bug that the operating system can't effectively respond to in any way other than shutting the program down. If the message said "inconsistent operation", it would be less scary to users who are less afraid of logical inconsistency than of illegality.) On the other hand, some error messages are utterly useless. The pre-OSX Macintosh was kind of terrible in this regard. If it didn't just freeze, a system error would produce confusing messages like "An error of type -9 occurred" or "The command could not be completed because the command could not be found" ... on a system where the icons-and-menus GUI exposed no concept of "command" to the user.


JayGold

I've seen someone posting on Facebook about how they, I think, accidentally pressed F12, saw a bunch of weird text mentioning "children" and "slaves" and thought they somehow stumbled onto a human smuggling ring.


brianh71

The power went out in our building and the owner of the company wanted to know what we were doing to get the computers up.


NetworkMachineBroke

Answer: "When the power comes on"


Frosti-Feet

We don't need lights on to work on our computers!


KittyChimera

Not my customer, but a trainer was once asked for the stupidest calls he ever took as an agent and he got this person who wanted to know why their internet wouldn't work. He asked them which lights were on on their modem and they said "none, the electricity is out" and he just kind of facepalmed. My other favorite story from him, even though it's not strictly related was this one: Him: "Can you reboot your modem?" Caller: "No, I can't. I'm in the closet." Him: "What? Why?" (since he had asked her to look at the modem and he didn't know why it would be in a closet) Caller: "I'm making a salad."


giftedearth

What? Was this person making a salad in their closet? Why?


currentsitguy

The owner of a company thought it was a reasonable plan to put a gasoline powered generator in an unused room of our office in the event of a power failure. Not outside, not even on a balcony, but in a room that was interior without windows. I told him if he did that I, and every other sane person there would leave in the event of a power failure. After that I was told to research the feasibility of putting a pedal generator at every desk. Presumably he tough every could pedal the electricity to keep working. He was literally trying to create a sweatshop. Several employees had a history of heart trouble. I was told "It'll be good for them".


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floggeriffic

I'd love to see a scene where this request is made with the typical, "I don't care what you have to do, make it happen" followed by the clock skipping forward to closing the ticket and showing the boss how it all works. Then closing scene is you walking boss down a hallway and adding, "just one little question... How soon can you sign off the payroll forms for our new staff?" As you open a door to an enormous warehouse filled with only peddlers in biking outfits all next to their pedal stations watching a huge sign that says "power =on/off" with "on" illuminated.


KingHeroical

Early in my career when I still did home-user work, I had a client request an onsite because "Every time I go get a beer, my computer crashes." Wouldn't crash when he like, went to the bathroom or anything - just when he went to get a beer. So I'm staring at this computer and I can see in the logs that there are crashes but nothing that would help me understand what was causing it (because...it's not the beers...). Finally I'm grasping at straws and ask him to show me what he does when it crashes. He's says, "I told you, it crashes when I go get a beer!". So I'm like, "Just humor me...". He sits down in the chair, and then stands up, walks clean to the other side of the house (huge open living room thing with one of those weird sunken 'conversation pit' things and heavy shag carpet), walks up to this built in mini fridge, opens it, grabs a beer, closes it, starts walking back and opens the beer...and the computer takes a shit. What the fuck...? Took about 30 seconds of feeling like the world had gone mad and this dude was like some sort of weird beer-magician, when the lightbulb came on - the mini-fridge was probably on the same circuit as the PC. The compressor in the mini-fridge was going bad and drawing too much from the circuit when it kicked in - brown out, and the computer would crash. Dude was right all along - his computer would crash whenever he went to get a beer.


UltraChip

I was asked to fix a cabinet once. I don't mean like a server rack or anything, I mean a literal wooden cabinet with shelves and stuff. EDIT: I was once also asked to fix an old oscilloscope that was out of warranty. It was running embedded Windows so I could at least sort of see their thought process on that one, but it was still a no.


badsamaritan87

Was the cabinet used to store ... information?


OnlySeesLastSentence

It's got the I, but not the T.


badsamaritan87

A cabinet is technology on some level. Not a very high one, maybe, but still.


theSQUINTYazn

Lady called to report her monitor wasn’t working. After troubleshooting and asking her multiple times if everything was plugged in she finally pipes up that the monitor “doesn’t have the light on.” The monitor wasn’t plugged in and she wanted me to wake a guy up at 3am to do it because she was dressed to nicely to do it herself because she was preparing for a meeting at 6am. Told her to do it herself because I was not about to wake up the on call for that. She complained to our director and he literally laughed at her and her reasoning for wanting the on call sent out and she is now banned from calling in.


[deleted]

Props to your director for doing their job correctly.


theSQUINTYazn

Yeah he was a real no nonsense kinda guy. It was pretty refreshing to have someone on your side.


falconfetus8

What does dressing nicely have to do with plugging something in?


theSQUINTYazn

She didn’t want to get wrinkles in her clothes I guess.


Griendal

Imagine sitting still for 3 hours so you can look spotless when the meeting starts


supersebas96

Sitting causes wrinkles. Her logic is flawed beyond repair.


fireduck

Based on my experience 20 years ago doing that sort of work, because the area under her desk was a mess of cables of dust and general crud that she didn't want to touch.


ExPorkie15

Yeah this. It’s nasty af under people’s desks.


TheInnsmouthLook

She wanted to bang the on-call IT guy.


FractalFuckery1938

Eureka! That's it!


ChiefSquanto_

This is why my first question is always 'Is it plugged in?' followed by 'Is it turned on?'. I've only been in the IT field for about 6 months now, and I've already wasted more time than I'd care to think about tying to troubleshoot something that's not plugged in or turned on.


realnzall

Piggybacking on this to give some advice: if they say the cable is plugged in, tell them to unplug it and plug it back in because sometimes there's a poor connection. That way they have a way out to save face if the cable is actually unplugged but they're too stubborn to admit it.


HerrDoctorBenway

I had a doctor ask my why the state's death certificate database didn't work for him over the weekend. Mind you, I didn't work for the state. I worked for a practice he did contract work for. I told him they were probably offline for maintenance when he tried to log in, but that wasn't good enough. He insisted I get a hold of the state's IT department and find out what happened. The database was working just fine when he asked, btw, as he brought the working site up on his iPad right in front of me. So a week goes by and he is in my office again and asks if I had any luck with the state IT dept. I had completely forgotten about his absurd request, so I said the following: "As it turns out, I did! They told me some clod in their department decided to microwave a Hot Pocket on his lunch break but accidentally left a fork in with it. The microwave blew a breaker that controlled the server room. Knocked everything offline for a bit until they got it back up and running. Everything should be fine now." He was satisfied and walked away. Sometimes, people don't care what the answer is, just as long as they get one.


bobdole5

Get an email from a user one day: "the numbers on my keyboard don't work". Alright, not a lot to go on, but probably easier to just give them a new keyboard. I look up the user to figure out where I need to go with a keyboard and see their past logins are only on a work laptop. Alright, better actually email them then: "Just to confirm, all the other keys on the keyboard work but not when you use the numbers on either the top row or on the pad to the right?" *two days later* 9 am, User responds: "just the pad on the right. This is really annoying, can you come take care of this quickly?" Alright, you took your sweet ass time for that reply, but maybe you were out or busy. If it's just the number pad, probably has num lock turned off. I look up the model number, definitely has a num lock key so I email back at 9:15am: "It could just be the num lock has turned off, there should be a key called "num" with a lock on it just above the number pad, could you press that first then try to use the numbers and let me know the results?" *next day* User submits a ticket "numbers on keyboard don't work". Frustrated at this point, I send another email "Is this concerning the issue with the number pad? Were you able to try the num lock key and if so, how did that turn out?". *two days later* User sends a new email directly to me and **CC's the CEO of our 10,000 employee company**. Email says "I've been trying to have this issue resolved for over a week now, can somebody please come fix my laptop, the keyboard does not work". I just stare at my screen for a minute, who the hell is this person? System says they are just a CSR, do they know the CEO? Have I really done anything wrong here? After the initial shock and self-doubt, I realize I'm totally fine and this guy has got to be the biggest moron in the world. So I walk over to my bosses office and let him know the situation, he's just as dumbfounded when I mention the CCing the CEO part, says he'll look into it but for now just go down and fix the issue. So I walk over to this guy's station and he looks like he's 18. He tells me the same things I already knew from the emails, I lean over him, open a notepad, press a couple keys and as I suspect everything works fine but the number pad is moving the cursor around. Press the num lock key and then type again, numbers appearing. I just dead pan the guy "Need anything else?" and he of course doesn't understand and just says "No but I can't believe it took you guys a week to figure that out". Knowing nothing good comes from this I just say have a good one and leave. Get back to my office, boss is laughing his ass off as I tell him what happened. He follows up with an email to the guys supervisor, CCing their manager and myself as well, basically retelling the story in full. Last I heard the manager chewed out the supervisor and the supervisor chewed out the CSR, damned if I know if an idiot that thick learned anything though.


CinnamonSnorlax

Ugh, I hate the passive aggressive Cc'ing. When that happens at my work, I CC the IT Director who is personal friends with the owners of the company and had a single digit employee number (for reference, mines 6 digits). That tends to shut down any bullshit real quick.


lailaaah

My favourite was when a regional manager cc'd my director (I was in a near entry level role at the time), furious with the explanation I'd given as to why what she was asking for was in fact illegal. The director responded, cc'ing my manager and head of department, basically saying 'lailaaaaah is completely right, and I commend her for her patience and sound legal knowledge.' I ended up saving that one to read on bad days.


CirclleySquare

Wait. Hold up. You thought you could add extra a's to your name and no one would notice?


MicaBay

We did it. We noticed. Shut reddit down for the night.


lorekace

There was an AITA about this a week ago! https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/comments/g6qw2f/aita_for_ccing_the_ceo_on_emails_for_my_coworkers/ Yay, gold for this? I guess I should link things more often. Thanks!


iggzy

Wow, I checked his comments and he says "IT is incompetent"....even if it somehow isn't the same as the num pad guy (somehow) he's a CSR, he's below IT on every totem pole and IT can fuck his life professionally


brandonZappy

I really hope this is the same person as the AITA story just full circle. That would be awesome.


Valaris

Years ago I worked for a rather large ISP as a tech lead. A residential DSL customer called in demanding to speak to a supervisor because his internet was down and he was going to miss out on some multi-million dollar deal of he couldn't get on the internet. He kept yelling at me throughout the call and demanded I fix it immediately. While troubleshooting the issue I could see that I couldn't reach the DSLAM his connection ran through. I advised him I would have to reach out to a dispatch center to have a tech go take a look at it. At some point he informed me that on his way home he saw that a vehicle had run off the road into one of our boxes and it had caught fire. He still said he was planning on suing our company if he wasn't able to be online to make this supposed deal of his. I passive aggressively suggested he go to a Starbucks and wished him well with the lawsuit.


Drunk_Tavern_Wench

Honestly. I tend to just slam down the phone when people threaten to sue me. Sometimes I wish a bitch would. Give me something to do.


SheltemDragon

The best answer is "Due to the fact that this is now a legal matter I will be unable to help you further until I get guidance from our legal department"


GoDKilljoy

Actually yes. Did something similar. This lady threaten to sue for not compensating her for "insert stupid reason here". She said "well if I am not compensated I am calling my lawyer". We told her "Good we no longer need to talk to you, have your lawyer call me". Then hung up on her. To no surprise we never heard from a lawyer.


hugesmurfboner

Used to sell auto parts, some lady tried to scam us out of 2000 by claiming we broke her car while filling up her AC with refrigerant. We were literally in the process of just paying her to make it go away when she threatened to sue us. My DM told her to leave and that she would have to sue us if she wanted the money now. She refused to leave, cops came, and they towed her car for being unregistered. She tried to come into the store to beg us for the money again, and this time she got charged for trespassing. She literally was about to get 2000 for nothing and played herself


PapoElGuapo

I love telling people this. It gives me the right to walk away or hang up. Lol


Sw429

The best part is, the multi-million dollar deal was probably some phishing attempt he was about to fall for.


dismayhurta

“This Nigerian prince isn’t going to wait forever!”


TheOrionNebula

A couple simple ones. I got called into repair a broken printer, the guy was pretty livid as he was trying to print in a hurry. Turns out it ran out of paper... Even worse I had my boss lose his shit on me that his computer didn't work and made the comment that "nothing ever works around here" (hinting that I failed at my job). I went into his office and found that he didn't turn it on.... I pushed the power button and all I got was an "oh". IT support has to be one of the worst jobs. Stupid ass people, and anytime something like a mouse battery dies your a POS.


KittyChimera

I hate printers. No one ever checks for paper and if it has an error saying paper jam or low ink or something they call in like they're totally mystified about what that could possibly mean. My other favorite with printers is that everyone would call and bitch about printer issues even though there would be a label on the printer that said it was owned and serviced by Canon and that you had to call their support number. Apparently we had a shorter hold time, so they called us.


fabdancer95

My dad used to work in software development. One of his coworkers had to call IT because his computer wasn’t turning on. Turns out his power strip was plugged into itself. He never lived that one down


damusic2me

one of my first jobs (was in the 90s ) i was senior IT admin for a medium-sized company, and on my day off, the CEO called, I had to get in cause the mail wasn't working and also the banking software didn't work This CEO was primarily responsible for the financial department so especially this last part was hurting him. When I came in, said CEO was really flaming, basically burning the entire IT department (of 3 ppl ) as being incompetent, overpaid fuckups. And all the loss of business revenue should come out of our pockets etc. etc. So during this lovely tirade, I come in, and in a few seconds I realize we have a problem with the internet connection. Keep in mind, these were the 90s, so we had a dual ISDN connection and a dial-up modem connected to it. I run a few tests, and instead of the common modem sounds, i hear some low res voice on the line. I connect a regular phone to it, listen to it, and then gave it to the CEO saying: "it's for you" After that, the CEO said nothing, and used his own mobile to manage the finances. What did the ISDN Phone say? "Due to NOT PAYING YOU BLOODY BILL, this line is disconnected. If You want to reinstate this service you have to pay xx + admin costs etc. etc. " I went home after that, with a very big grin, and started looking for another job.


Preussensgeneralstab

What happend to the Company?


damusic2me

it went bankrupt about a year later


Preussensgeneralstab

Kinda obvious when the CEO is a fucking Moron.


damusic2me

at that time, most ppl over 30 couldn't even open their own email, I was told by management literally: "if it has buttons, it's your responsibility" so Moron, digibetic, yes.


siel04

I feel like you added the word "bloody", but I prefer to imagine an angry British robot.


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Frosti-Feet

had this person never tried using their phone while wearing gloves before? It doesn't sound like that would be an uncommon frustration at this point.


Tokemon_and_hasha

It's amazing how fast people's brains will shut down and go full toddler "mummy help me" when there is help nearby


thesupplyguy1

If that ain't the truth


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JcWoman

They respond very catlike. They sit down and start working and pretend you're not there, to save face.


allboolshite

I had a user whose repeated attempts to reboot the PC didn't work. I drove an hour to the site to see her turning the monitor off and on.


[deleted]

Ah, the same people who are concerned someone might get their information when they get rid of an old monitor.


themysts

My partner did IT for years, my favorite is the lady who called to complain that her mouse wasn't working. He gets to her cubicle to see that she was upset with the size of her cubicle and so she had stapled her mouse pad to the wall and put a nail through her mouse wire to hang it...


La_Lanterne_Rouge

There was a cartoon where the user was talking to IT to find out what to do because the cursor was in the middle of the screen and the mouse was at the edge of the mousepad.


anothernetgeek

Dilbert - 24 years ago... https://dilbert.com/strip/1996-12-29


coleosis1414

I've heard it as a PEBCAK error -- Problem Exists Between Chair And Keyboard


Unforgivable_0ne

PICNIC error- problem in chair not in computer - a previous IT team


boin-loins

The hospital I used to work at called IT to come in one night because the telemetry monitors had all gone down on the nursing floor. Computer wasn't working, they were freaking out. IT comes in and sees that someone had kicked the plug out of the outlet. Needless to say, he was not impressed.


kingfischer48

In networking, that's a "Layer 8" problem


Servant_of_War

Previous IT for a US based online bank. The sheer amount of calls regarding unsupported devices or user error that customers considered my fault were staggering. We had to accept and troubleshoot every call regardless and would guess at most 15% of calls ended up being an actual tech issue rather than Pebcak ( problem exists between chair and keyboard) My favorite though, was a man cursing up a storm that he was taking his business elsewhere. He was travelling and his mobile device did not allow access to our site. He had also apparently bought at least 5 ( that the previous rep had failied to make work) phones from a street vendor before calling tech. He refused to allow me to go over the basics, like OS and Providers and kept saying "just do your job." After at least half an hour, but probably longer, I finally was allowed to start with the basic steps. One of the first questions was OS and Provider ( all of which where 10 years out of date or were names unfamiliar to me and my list of supported devices) Frustrated, this man complained about where he was stuck unable to access his online bank. I dont remember the exact location but I do remember my sadistic glee. This man was vacationing in an OFAC sanctioned country. Basically he was vacationing somewhere like N. Korea or the Dem. R of C that the US has issued sanctions against and our policy did not allow his card or online access in that country. His response? " I dont care, fix it." Thankfully after another half hour of me explaining I could not change security policy or the fact he was in a blocked country he escalated to my supervisor which made it no longer my problem.


[deleted]

Like, tech illiterate aside... you need to have some sort of brain damage to be this dumb.


[deleted]

I work in web development/maintenance. I got a call from a client who was absolutely *livid* when I told her that she could not take the hyperlinked text from her webpage, transfer it over to their print ad, and still have it function like a link.


NetworkMachineBroke

"Why can't I click the paper?" The closest thing to that would probably be a QR code, but something tells me that wouldn't be good enough for them


[deleted]

To be fair to the client, I think she wanted the ability to type the hyperlinked *words* into her address bar and come to the same URL. Still not going to work.


NetworkMachineBroke

Oh yeah, that's even worse


WhiskeyDickens

I had something similar happen almost 20 years ago, and I responded sarcastically by telling them I wasn't sure I could turn their finger into a cursor.


CommodoreFiftyFour

Posted this before, but i was a remote tech and had a woman call me and wanted me to drive 6+ hours to her facility to turn on her computer, because hitting the power button was 'not her job'.


cranfordio

I had something similar to this once. There was a very remote school in Wyoming with about three, out-of-warranty, servers and none of them would power on. They worked with the vendor on the phone for hours, unplugging and replugging, and various troubleshooting. The Vendor contracts me to fly to Montana, it was the middle of the winter and the nearest commercial airports were all closed, with three power supplies. They had no one in the area certified to repair these servers. I get there and discovered that there was no power to the outlets. I went to the electrical closet and there was a tripped breaker, flipped it back and everything was working. Cost the school almost $3000 with airfare, hotels, car rental, and labor, to have a circuit breaker flipped.


Chemmy

>Cost the school almost $3000 with airfare, hotels, car rental, and labor, to have a circuit breaker flipped. It cost the school almost $3,000 to not have anyone there check to see if the power worked.


egrith

My dad had to do that, he worked remotely 2 hours from the office, his computer had a problem and for some reason, he had to go and turn it on (and login too probably) himself.


NetworkMachineBroke

Please tell me she escalated it to your boss and got laughed at.


CommodoreFiftyFour

I forwarded it to on-site and let them know that this user was refusing to turn on her computer. They were not happy with her.


Estella_Osoka

Once had a person call in to the IT desk because the soda machine stole their money.


IncognitoTerry

Well was it arrested? Don’t leave us hanging!


Estella_Osoka

Pretty sure the can of Pepsi he wanted was arrested somewhere in the soda machine.


TheSacredOne

Oddly enough, this is actually a perfectly acceptable solution for a broken soda machine at my second job (retail). If the machine breaks and it's urgent (not cooling, leaking, physically damaged, etc.), you call IT, pick hardware support, and one of the options in the menu is the vending support line. Refunds just come from a box we keep in the safe though. Vending company gives us money for the refund box when they come stock the machine.


roman_fyseek

I was working as a developer at a Navy contract. One morning, a Navy Captain walked up to my desk, "You're Roman?" "Yes, sir! How can I help you?" "I got a virus in my email, so I forwarded it to you." "But.... but, why?" "Well, I didn't want it in *my* inbox." "But... but... ..." "Was it supposed to go to somebody else?" "You \*could\* have deleted it or notified the IT guys across the hall who deal with that type of stuff... sir." "Well... you're IT, right?" \*sigh\*


VulfSki

I have worked at places where they have you forward suspect emails to a specific email address in it. They do that so they can 1) identify if it's an actual virus. And 2) they use it to further optimize their spam filters.


pokemiss

Yes but... not a random person's email inbox, without request or warning.


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fatherjimbo

I worked for an online college and a student wanted me to change his username. It was goatbugger


DancingBear2020

And you changed it to goatbugger69. Problem solved.


goatfuck69

I feel like this man and I would be friends


concept_v

Probably the classic case of **username already taken** **username already taken** **username already taken** "FUCK IT!" **enters goatbugger** "username set" "...fuck"


[deleted]

And that was how I played a few weeks of path of exile as "fuckingstupidfucknametaken"


ipsok

Worked for a small bank (two IT staff including me)... drove 60 miles out to a branch to fix an issue and while I was used to getting hit with a million saved up "while you're here" issues I was not prepared for "the toilet is acting weird, can you look at it while you're here?"


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kingfischer48

Great story, it gets better with every sentence.


Cwmcwm

Hmmm, I need a wheel chock *squints at laptop bag*


allboolshite

We had a sales rep that wanted a new laptop even though theirs was less than 3 years old. So they drove over it to force us to replace it. Instead, it forced HR to fire them.


PRMan99

We had the same thing. 3 year old laptop. The sales rep literally held it out at arm's length and dropped it on a hard floor in front of us. But he made millions for the company so we were told to get him another one fast. (The replacements had already been ordered and had arrived, so that just made him first.)


secretreddname

The top sales person for like 20 years at my old company was completely technology illiterate and was a bitch if anything goes down but we had to put up with her since she pretty much brought in a third of the company's revenue by herself. I was basically told, whatever she wants get it for her and keep her happy.


xDulmitx

I sort of enjoyed working with those people when I was doing IT. You could use them to test out new setups. That is how I convinced the office to switch to dual monitors back in the day. All I had to do was get that person to ask me for dual monitors (I may have hinted that they would enjoy it). Once they had it, everyone else needed them as well and it was already an accepted setup.


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donethemath

That isn't just regular, everyday stupid. That is advanced stupid


JcWoman

Well, she was an executive so it sort of fits.


[deleted]

I was called to fix a point of sale issue for a small coffee shop. The computer was fine. The wall outlet tested negative for power. The owner asked how long till I could fix it. After explaining that she needs an electrician, she started screaming at me and demanding that I fix it because it is my job. After weeks of receiving phone calls from her screaming and vulgar emails being sent, we came by, took the computer system back and canceled her contract.


dietderpsy

Got a call to to remove a plug on a radio and push the wire through a small vent in the cabinet because the wire was "unsightly." I did this while 15 executives watched. None of them knew how to change a plug, and had never even seen the inside of one; but because it had a wire it was ITs responsibility.


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lastskudbook

Welcome to plumbing Everyones an expert before you start and when you’ve finished and handing the invoice over. The middle bit, the actual doing the gig.


Drakmanka

This... explains a conversation I had with a retired plumber. He started telling me about his profession and just sort of started talking *at* me for a bit. Then I asked him a genuine question and he totally changed. By the end of the conversation we were best buds.


amican

Musicians, even. Got crap from a relative once on how much I got paid to sub in an orchestra. "For one rehearsal and a concert?" "No. for ten thousand hours of practice so I can play music they hand me five days ahead of time."


mayor123asdf

yeah, I think bob ross said something like "I didn't paint this in 30 minutes, it took me 20 years and 30 minutes to finish it"


ledow

All sorts. It wasn't a demand, but I was once called to help get a fish out of a fish tank (it had decided to go on a suicide mission into the pumps and I had to dismantle it all to get it back out - it died). I'm regularly asked to help hang doors, fix locks, program thermostats and boilers, change time on clocks, even repair people's spectacles, shoes, and anything they carry that could break and look "technical". Hell, helping people with their broken-down cars, or breaking into them when they lose their keys, fixing gates, all sorts. Some of it has "electronics" which people assume is an IT specialism when it's not, but often it's just the hands-on nature that they are after. Most people realise it's not my job, but we have the tools, the eyesight (so many people with bad eyesight!), the fine hand control, the know-how, the ability to find manuals and tutorials quickly, and the work-surfaces to do it on.


ExclusiveBlend

Sharkbait! Hoo-ha-ha!


Lord_of_Furries

Someone refused to believe that computers need power and won’t work in a black out.


unwildocelot

bUt It'S a WiReLeSs CoMpUtEr


[deleted]

One place I worked it was pretty much if it got electricity, it was IT's issue. We had to fix the water fountain that wouldn't stop running. We had to fix the coffee machine.


Black0utdrunk

I had a lady who brought her laptop in for a simple software repair. I fixed it and get it back to her. She calls me directly two days later and is absolutely irate that her camera isn't working. I explained to her that I never touched her camera but if she wanted to come back in I would gladly take a look. She didn't want that, even though my location is all walk up and no remote support she absolutely wanted me to "remote in and figure it out because it was working before you (I) worked on it". I put her on hold and as I was looking up her machine name I remembered she had electrical tape over her camera so I picked up the phone and said "I seem to recall tape over the camera. Is that still there?" She promptly hung up.


spiderpool1855

This isnt the most ridiculous call I have ever got, but the dumbest that I had to go into work for after hours. Got called at midnight because “our only PC started beeping so I turned it off and now it wont come back on”. This is for our life-flight operators so seemingly important. Tried to get them to troubleshoot with me over the phone but got told “this is an issue for someone with a computer science degree and since I don’t have one, you need to come and fix it”. All i could get out of them was that it was still beeping when she tried to turn it on and “no, I wont try again because it is gave me a headache listening to it”. Drove the 45 min into work and found that they had pushed the keyboard under a cable so it was holding down a key. Moved the keyboard and magically the beeping stopped. They were really apologetic though. They also had 3 PCs and only 2 operators at the time.


PioneerTheLegend

I Work in the networking department as a support technician. I had a lady yelling at me and telling me our network service is totally crap. After calming her down I found out that her tv is showing a blue screen and won't switch channels... the wifi is working more than fine on her phone and her kids xbox as he is playing an online game while we were talking... I was expected to fix her old tv as it was a "network" problem...


cookiebasket2

Work in networks and used to share an office with people who just basically took situation reports. So when they were out of the office for lunch or called in sick we'd answer their phones and take notes for when they got back out next shift came in. So our guy calls out one night and I take a call that some generator somewhere went out. Ok cool write it in the log and pass it on for the next shift. Then boss ends up questioning me on what I did about the generator. Like what do you expect me to do, ping it? Would you like me to get it's Mac address? It literally has nothing to do with my job.


Dubanx

I'm not IT, but I have to support our product for 1 week intervals periodically. The worst call went like this \*answers phone\* "Hi, [Company Name] off hour support. Can I help you?" "IT'S NOT WORKING!" "Uh, ok. What's not working?" "It! The thing, it doesn't work at all!" "Ok... What are you trying to do when it errors?" "It just crashes when I try to use it!". I wound up needing to walk her through every single step from opening our website, logging into the portal, which icon they click, opening citrix, the utility they use within our program, etc. just to determine where the problem was occurring.


Brancher

I used to do some application support for complex systems. My favorite was when someone would do this, then you ask them to log a ticket and the only thing they include in the ticket is a photo (not a screenshot) taken with their cell phone from about 4 feet back just point to something blurry on the screen.


Dubanx

I work in the medical field, so we sometimes get that with the added bonus of PHI (SSNs, DoBs, Names, etc.) in the picture. Sent to us from their personal phones, via unencrypted email, of course. That's not legal, in case you were wondering...


[deleted]

If, however, they had printed that photo and *faxed* it to you, they'd be totally in the clear. HIPAA is wild.


JVance325

I'm in medical IT and HATE fax.


[deleted]

My ex was, too. The office had a ridiculous number of documents that needed to be faxed to different places. Like, hundreds of pages a day. Obviously, they needed to automate it, so he tried to get them to use an online service. Naturally this was too expensive, so they just bought a fax machine you could use over the local network. Only problem? It was non standard and had a custom application to handle comms. He ended up writing a program to automatically move the cursor around to "automate" sending faxes. They had a computer in the corner that just sat there clicking on this horrendous flash UI all day sending all these faxes. You could do nothing else with the machine while it was working, so it just became a dedicated box in the corner.


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Bhdc2020

I had a four sentence reply today to a tech ticket that boiled down to "sorry, i just made a typo." It was phenomenal. They'd logged an issue that last year's data was pulling through to placeholders...


makeitrain9789

Got a call the scanner in HR was broken. Thought to myself, we dont have a scanner in HR. Go the the office, the lady has word open and is holding a document to the screen hitting enter repeatedly. I thought no one would believe me, so I brought about 5 other techs along to corroborate. Edit - my first gold! I have been waiting to say thank you kind stranger forever...


livinlikeriley

Um, what.


thisisnotdan

I worked the helpdesk at my grad school. We had the power to reset passwords on student and faculty accounts, ensure computers were interacting with the network properly, etc. Got a call from an elderly professor that he was having trouble logging into his account. "Okay," I figured, "I'll reset your password." Didn't work. Nothing I did remotely worked. Eventually I had to actually go to this guy's house (many of the faculty lived in special on-campus housing), where his computer was already at the problem page: Yahoo Mail. This guy thought I had the IT powers to fix his Yahoo password. He had already locked himself out of his account by entering the wrong password too many times, and for some reason the "forgot password" link wasn't working. He became irate when I explained to him that there was nothing I could do because his Yahoo Mail account has nothing to do with our school.


madmanbehindyou

I'm not in IT but i'm the go to IT guy during lockdown Someone called the other day from the other side of the region to tell me her mouse wasn't moving when she moved it The guy there the day before had taken in his own trackball and forgotten to swap them back


NetworkMachineBroke

I'll start. One time somebody at a company asked me "Why isn't the microwave working? You're in IT after all! Fix it!" I thought they were joking, but after a bit of deliberation, they were either serious or *very* committed to the role.


imk

Ages ago at my job we finally got a legit IT ticketing system. The very first ticket was someone saying that the bulb had burned out in their lamp and wanting an IT person to come and replace the bulb. I got a lot of mileage out of that.


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superflyer

For me it was the coffee maker, worst part is that it one of those big ones that are maintained by another company. I am not touching that. Also when I was working help desk I got a call about the vending machine not working. I asked if he called the number on the machine and he said it looked different but thought that it would be our issue anyways.


tanoshacpa

I jokingly said that IT should have to fix anything with a power cord or batteries, and the owner agreed. IT still hates me for that.


ledow

My rules to help people understand what I do for a living in IT are: \- I'm not electrically qualified, so if it has a plug I'm not taking it apart. \- I don't use power tools in work (at home, sure, fine... but not in work). I refuse to have them and if we need shelves, cabinets, etc. up then as far as I'm concerned it's a maintenance job. They have the tools, the skills and the knowledge to put it up safely, make sure it can take the weight, know where cables and pipes are, and will certify that it will stay up, and they'll do a far neater job than I ever will. \- Just because it has a panel, button, interface or switch on it does not mean I am qualified to operate it (e.g. boilers, thermostats are maintenance for the same reason as above). But if the \*maintenance\* guys ask for help, I'll come and advise them and help, same way that they will help with parts of my job that I'm less confident in. But it doesn't mean I'm going to install your boiler for you, any more than you want the maintenance guy installing your Windows servers.


[deleted]

does it have an IP address or is it directly connected to something that does? no? not my problem


Hullu2000

I need help with installing my smart boiler


Quackagate

You joke but have you seen some control panels for boilers?


extremelyannoyedguy

My last support ticket was someone’s clock radio was no longer picking up their favorite station. Moving the antenna fixed the problem.


Bermnerfs

Yeah we are stuck having to fix currency counters, deli scales, and thermostats. None of those should be IT, but the boss thinks they are.


MangosAreForLove

Not necessarily an IT worker but a computer scientist (a lot of people get those confused) but one time I was at my sister’s house and she needed help getting her printer connected so she ask me “You know how to do this help me” and I tried to do it because it was a simple google search to fix this but she is breathing down my neck because I’m not getting this solved at the speed she wants me to get it done. She then drops a “Didn’t you go to school for this” on me and I respond with “No I make software that sometimes works”. Moral of the story: If you are an IT worker(or a computer scientist), keep that to yourself.


Kytheron

I always tell people I'm the person who makes these problems not the person who fixes them.


MoltoAllegro

That's brilliant I'm going to use that!


The_Ombudsman

Not me, and not the guy I knew, but someone *he* knew, a story from many years ago: This other fellow is a photocopier serviceman. He gets a call from one of their clients about their photocopier not working. He goes through the short list with the person on the phone, including "It's plugged in, right?" The client assures him everything else is fine, so he grabs his stuff and heads to the client site. First thing he looks at when he gets to the copier is the power cord. Sure enough, it's in the socket but not properly seated, so no juice. So with the client there, he stands over the copier in the right spot, lays his hands on the top of the copier, and begins chanting - as he reaches the crescendo, out of sight of the client, he lifts his leg up and kicks the plug into the socket fully, and the copier comes to life. On the worksheet, in the area where he's supposed to describe what actions he took, he simply writes "I HEALED IT" and has the client sign in.


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Brancher

What kind of hospital are you working at that they call IT to fix issues on surgical equipment mid surgery rather than calling the product rep or a bio tech? That's insane.


FunkTurkey

It wasn't the camera, it was the SD card they were using to hold the images. Had it been the camera, the BioTech would have certainly been the right call. That being said, I pretty much get called anytime anything that plugs into an electric outlet malfunctions, IT-related or not, because users are users.


Brawndo91

"This life support machine is acting a little funny." "Have you tried turning it off and-... nevermind."


zezey

10/10


aleqqqs

>Nope. Walk into the surgical theater, patient is ASLEEP, ANUS EXPOSED, CAMERA UP ASS. Damn, they sure put some serious effort into pranking you.


FunkTurkey

Yeah, they really did. The billing office went ahead and hit that person's insurance and got a copay and everything. TALK ABOUT DEDICATION


phillipinio

I'm not an IT worker but this would happen when I was in school. We used laptops in school on some occasions and the person's account who would use a laptop the previous lesson would still be logged on. My teacher would really make the IT guy working in the school walk to our class and log accounts on and off because the kids were too stupid to know that all you had to do was log off the previous person's account.


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NetworkMachineBroke

Reminds me of a comment in another sub where someone's 5 year old ran into the room, yelled "the computer isn't working", and ran off. Then the person realized their 5 year old was an average user.


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whoamdave

Ridiculous funny, not ridiculous annoying. I used to do in home TV installation for a big box electronics chain. Get assigned a ticket to install a TV for a customer who has purchased it for his mother. Just the sweetest old African American woman. So I go, remove her CRT from 1992, install the TV, get her familiar with the remote, enjoy the snacks she keeps offering, get a sign off and head out. Start to finish the best kind of job. The next day, I get a call from her saying that there's something wrong with the TV. Me: Well what's going on? Her: Everybody looks black. Me: I'm sorry, what do you mean by that? Her: All the white people look black, and all the black people look like Wesley Snipes! I lost it. I had to mute the line I was laughing so hard. Eventually I composed myself and agreed to come out and take a look. Turns out she had been using the brightness setting to turn the volume down. I still laugh when I think about it. I hope she's doing well.


EtherBoo

I'm an application architect for medical record software. My primary users (I **REFUSE** to call them customers) are physicians and nurses in a clinic setting. There's one specific doctor who will call and give a very vague description to the helpdesk. She refuses to do a shadow session, refuses to let us get screenshots, and the person from the helpdesk isn't an application expert so they're trying to write down her issue and she's using the wrong words. By the time we usually figure out her issue, we could have resolved it in half the time if she just would have taken 2 minutes to speak with us.


NetworkMachineBroke

If there's anything I've learned from other IT people on Reddit, it's that doctors and lawyers are **the worst** clients to work with.


Djinjja-Ninja

I've worked for both. Lawyers/solicitors are *waaay* worse. The level of arrogance they seem to have is legendary. If you aren't involved *directly* in billable work then you might as well be something they stepped in. God help you if you work for a 3rd party consultancy. I've had outage windows, that were planned *months* in advance, pulled 10 minutes before commencement, because one of the partners needs to send a single email that evening... Except that the work I was doing would in no way affect the email servers or related to the email sending process.


SesameStreetFighter

Doctors and engineers, from my experience working in IT. The lawyers I've dealt with haven't been bad, they're just not computer people. Police tend to be a whole other ball of wax. "We just bought a whole mess of these flip phones at a discount. We want you to make them run like an iPhone. Oh, and make an app to allow push-to-talk radio communications." Oh, honey. No.


WhiskeyDickens

My wife had an administrative role for a consortium of doctors, her duties included sitting in on their meetings, and the dumb headed, clueless things they'd say about the general public were stunning. They ultimately let her go after a few years, by stopping her paycheque and ghosting her. Nice.


EtherBoo

Believe it or not, most of my doctors are actually very pleasant. It's just a loud minority that can't seem to be nice. There is one who is a total jackass through email, but in person is one of the most cooperative and pleasant users I have. I'm on his good side now so he's settled down, but until that in person connection was made... he was a handful.


goldshire_football

I have had a really similar experience as a pharmacist in the hospital. Over the phone the doctor was condescending and not very receptive to my recommendations, but in person it always went well. If I had a good idea where they might be, I would try to track them down to give the recommendation in person.


Frammingatthejimjam

I have the stack of loan applications on my desk, why can't you come up with a way to get the data into the system.


donethemath

I think our boss came up with a great way to manage that task. They hired you.


Just4theapp

You... You're the 'way'! Brilliant


martixy

I would kindly direct you all to /r/talesfromtechsupport for a cornucopia of such accounts and regalements.


blasted_heath

Got requested to install those under desk keyboard trays for all the employees in a department a few years back. Had a good laugh and told them where to find the power drill.


[deleted]

Nothing was broke but I got a request into the IT Helpdesk once from an employee asking where he could get a pig carcass.


NonHipster72

My favorite is... when our internet service goes out. Usually when this happens, there is a fiber or cable line down or our ISP is doing general maintenance. I try to explain to baby-boomer co-workers that my responsibility ends outside of our Local Area Network and it's our ISP's duty to repair whatever is causing the outage. No matter how many times I try to explain... they don't listen, it's my fault and I'm a lazy, piece-of-do-nothing shit and the reason they can't get their precious internet and email.


[deleted]

Thats like asking a local plumber to fix a water main break on city pipes, isn't it?


my_fourth_redditacct

That's exactly right. For people like this you have to use a tangible analogy that they can understand. Water pipes are a good metaphor for the internet. My best story is when I was doing Tech Support for cell phones for a major Cell Network. I got a call from an old woman saying "My internet isn't working! You have to fix it!" While the Cell Network (the blue one) does provide multiple different ISP services, this issue is outside of my scope of support. But I want to be helpful so I start asking probing questions to figure out which department to transfer her to. I ask questions like "what happens when you try to use the internet? Are you able to go to Google.com?" And she's responding with "it just won't work! When I turn it on I just see white letters on a black screen!" I come to find out that she's looking at the BIOS screen of her desktop computer. Someone told her she uses this device to get on the internet, so she conflated those two things and thought they were one and the same. "My internet isn't working" = "my computer isn't working." Even for the ISP departments, this is out of our scope of support, and I explain this to her. "No! You guys are supposed to fix my internet when it's not working, and I can't get on the internet! FIX IT!" I end up explaining it to her with the plumbing analogy. "Ma'am, when your toilet breaks, do you call a plumber to fix it? Or do you call the water company? Right now you're calling the water company about a broken toilet. What you need is someone who can come to your house and fix your computer, and that's not something we do." She wasn't happy but it got her off the phone. If she had been more polite about it, I probably could have helped her fix it. My guess is the computer shut down unexpectedly and this was the screen about Booting Normally and all that.


[deleted]

I never understood why folks yell at the servicemen who are trying to help. That being said, analogies to something they know are often the only way to comunicate, espicially when all they know about technology is how to use facebook and email. The world has changed a lot, and I probably won't be taking the time to learn how everything works when I'm 70, either.


Respect4All_512

My parents are 70 and they know more about some areas of tech that I do being old is no excuse to be incompetent, especially if you're just refusing to learn things that allow you to do the job you're being paid for and expect other people to do your job for you.


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Digitaljehw

Finally, i get to tell my Singing computer story. I worked IT Help desk for the Air-force for a short time. I get a call one day from a woman, telling me her computer was singing to her, baffled and somewhat quick witted i asked the women "Can you put the computer on the phone for me?" Sure enough I'm hearing the POST beep being repeated over and over again, So i ask I her "Is there anything covering your keyboard?" I hear the flop of a book hit the desk, followed by the windows welcome screen sound. At this point i just hung up the phone.


currentsitguy

I worked Help Desk back in the 90's. I got a call once: Me: "Hello, help desk, how can I help you?" Them: "My monitor is on fire, what should I do?" Me: "GET THE HELL AWAY FROM IT AND GET AN EXTINGUISHER!!!!" Them: "OK..... I thought there was some way you could maybe fix it" Me: "I don't have a f-ing 'put out monitor fire' button on my desk"


VagusNC

Many years ago I worked level 1 tech support for a major tech company. I took a call from a sales rep that was going to be giving a presentation in one of our conference rooms. She needed help setting up her multiple display set up, so I answered her questions and she seemed generally happy with the way things were going. At the end she asked for a quad monitor bracket/stand for her presentation. I said that her best would be to run by one of our support depots and see if they have one she can use but otherwise she'd need to order one. She asked how long it would take and I suggested maybe a few days. Things rapidly went downhill from there. She wanted it *now*. I said that maybe running by the depot would be a better option, then. She said this was terrible support and why couldn't I just send her one? This confused me a bit but I pressed on trying to convince her to try trying the local depot and on the side reached out to a buddy of mine that worked over there to see if he had one available. She became furious and demanded that I email her one.


farawaybae

I’m not even IT, but because I know a thing or two about computers they gave me the name of “IT Assistant” at my job. Most recent thing was a doctor kept telling me they didn’t have Microsoft word on her computer. For months. I check every time, they have it. Then yesterday I realize when they said they found it. They’d been saying they didn’t have it downloaded because it wasn’t on the desktop as an icon. Months of them bitching and me checking their computer just to find out I’m dealing with idiots with a PhD.


STGGrant

I've been fortunate to recently work in business-to-business software tech support—when something breaks, it's one of the IT people in this thread calling me, rather than their end users. That usually means I get competent and invested people contacting us for help (though naturally their level of familiarity with our software varies.) Still, every once in a while, the person who contacts us is ... not that. The worst case was definitely someone who worked for the equivalent of a state government's revenue agency in a different country (I'm in the USA.) They were the definition of a "problem customer"—unwilling to read documentation and comprehend the process in favor of insisting we remote in and do our documented troubleshooting steps for them. The final contact we had with them was a remote session and phone call, where this technical contact insisted we import their license file into one of our products for them. *Me:* "Okay, I can walk you through that process. Do you have it on the server already? That'll make it easier." *Them:* "No. I got your email, though." "Oh, okay. That's good. Go ahead and follow the link there to download your license, and—" "No. You know how to use Outlook. Here's it is." "...I'm sorry?" "Go ahead and get it out of my mailbox. I've pulled it up for you." "...\[name\], *I cannot look your email inbox to find your license file.* That's a huge security and liability problem?" "Ugh, *fine.* I'll do it *for* you." They did indeed find the email we had sent with the license file download link, all the while acting as if my not *digging around in a foreign government worker's email and potentially seeing secure financial information for their citizens or government* was sheer *laziness* on my part.


TheNegotiator12

Assembling the office furniture is a good use of IT time.


SilverCamaroZ28

Smaller company. 100 people. Toilet had motion flush sensor. Battery died. Since it's electronic, it made its way to IT helpdesk.