The Shattered Sky

Working in the field of IT, or even just as someone who knows something about how to flip a switch, you are going to be dealing with those who are not as well versed in “technology”.

I am sure many of us such “tech savy” people can relate to being the go-to guy/gal for anything that plugs into an electrical socket. Sometimes however, the problems people run into have nothing to do with some complicated thigamabob.

I remember for example once being called by a rather nervous sounding lady who said her computer had suddenly tripped off and was not coming back on. Truth be told, she had somehow stretched out and had her high-heel make contact with the little switch on the power strip from which her “personal confuser” had been feeding.

Problems with forgetting about the power button and expecting everything to work while various cables such as  power and video are disconnected are common. These occurrences are often accompanied by rants and raves  followed by awkward silence once the situation is addressed.

When I get these sorts of user errors I of course have to be nice about it, and professional especially at work, but deep down inside I feel like Roy from episode one of the British sitcom, The IT Crowd. I just want to yell out, “I’m sorry, are you from the past???”

You may be wondering what inspired this entry so I’ll be nice and tell you. Besides; I’d probably spontaneously combust and burn to a cinder if I didn’t. It goes like this: Tonight a certain family figure called me because the keyboard of the computer being used was not working. I hit some keys, looked for a Num Lock or Caps Lock light and truly, it was dead. I then took a gander at the back of the system and immediately saw the problem. To miss it would be like ignoring a large elephant dance about in a pink tutu and earrings on the hood of my car. In an effort to connect another device, the keyboard’s USB connector had been pulled out and then pushed back in. The only thing was that the keyboard plug didn’t go back into a USB port. It was instead jabbed into the pins of the serial port.

Oh boy.