Comment On Missing Files, The Amazing Print Driver, and More Support Stories

Women ARE from Moires! (from Shane)
As the net admin for a small municipality, I don't get to do front-line support much anymore, but a few years ago, I fielded one that was rather bizarre. A user called complaining about distortion on her CRT... it looked all... "melted". Their office was just down the hall so I went over and sure enough, the display was badly mangled. Degaussing didn't help. Then I noticed a foot-long fluorescent light affixed to the bottom of the metal shelf above the monitor.

"Has that always been there?" I asked her. "Yes, she replied, but I just moved the computer here, it used to be over there..."

Do fluorescent light ballasts create much magnetic interference? I wasn't sure. Then I noticed the top of the shelf didn't have any bolts or screws through it. How was that light affixed? I gave it a tug. Then a firmer one. With a grunt, I managed to finally pull it free from the shelf-bottom... to find its base was a foot long industrial magnet.

Missing Files (from Bluejay Adametz)
So this email came to the support desk recently...

From: ----- ---------
Sent: Wed 1/18/2012 3:15 PM
To: Helpdesk Support
Subject: Missing Files??

We are missing a folder named "TO_BE_DELETED" on the M: drive.

Do you know what happened to it?

Desktop Support (from Kirk)
I work for the IT department at a high school. Not too long ago, I received an email from a staff member that a printer in an upstairs workroom wasn't printing. When I went to take a look, I asked myself why the printer problem was the only thing the staff member reported:

At some point, the computer and printer sat on a nice adjustable desk, and that desk is now nowhere to be found. I suppose it’s a good thing we didn’t secure the computer equipment to the desk after all.

The Amazing Print Driver (from Guto A)
While carrying my usual sysadmin duties, one of the nurses came by my desk with a document she had printed out and promptly exclaimed, “ look at this, it's all in Chinese!”

I took a look at the printout and, indeed, it certainly was in Chinese. Or maybe Japanese. I couldn’t really tell, but what I did know is that it wasn’t in our native language of Portuguese.

I logged on to the print server, which had had its share of fits and random drop-offs during the previous weeks. Nothing was wrong there. No error messages or strange things, so we walked over to her workstation to check things out.

Upon inspecting the document, I quickly realized the cause of the foreign language: the document was, of course, written in that exact language. I pointed out that document on the screen looked exactly what she got from the printer.

She looked at me with a curious look and inquired as to how that would that be possible, as the print driver was in Portuguese and the documents she printed always came out in Portuguese fine. I shot back a quizzical look, “I’m sorry?”

“Well since all of the documents are already in Portuguese,” she explained, “I never had to use the translation function of the driver.”