The Daily WTF: Curious Perversions in Information Technology

2014-02-20 Reply Admin

MN Ghost:
TRWTF is that JD never explained why he moved the receiver and that the coffee mug was the problem. Let her figure out the problem herself if she won't accept help. And then stop answering her tickets.
TRRWTF is the number of people here that didn't have the same reaction.

TRWTF is the people that always think these TDWTFs are verbatim recordings of exactly what goes down. If they even happen at all these are, at best, cliff notes of the incidents.

What I don't get is the "It doesn't say words, so he must have moved it and sprinted away without any words exchanged between them at all! What a doofus!"

2014-02-20 Reply Admin

Just reading this made me want to do that.

cellocgw · 2014-02-20 Reply Admin

Scott Neumann:
The word fuck did not originate as an acronym (e.g., Fornication Under Command of the King). It crept, fully formed, into the English language from Dutch or Low German around the 15th century.
Yep, so American.

That's an interesting take. See, for a counter-wrong-example, a certain Van Halen album name.

2014-02-20 Reply Admin

RF Keyboard. BAM! Problem solved.

clively · 2014-02-20 Reply Admin

The Real WTF is that she hasn't properly applied the concepts of Feng Shui. At it's core is harmony and a sense of well-being. In this case her favorite coffee mug is interfering with the harmony of her desktop which, in turn, is destroying her sense of well-being.

If JD would fully embrace Feng Shui then he should remove Jane, as she is destroying the desktop's harmony and without personal change on her part there is no combination of factors that will improve Jane's sense of well-being.

If Jane would fully embrace Feng Shui, then she would be willing to place her coffee cup in a different location. A relatively minor change which would restore balance to the force. As it stands now she's just another unenlightened hypocrite.

2014-02-20 Reply Admin

Should have just had her change what her mug was made of.

2014-02-20 Reply Admin

Sadly, this was exactly the case. Sales was half of the office space and ran things. As an inexperienced student, it took almost a year of proving myself to get the clout for anyone but my immediate team to think I knew anything. Luckily, I started a career in software engineering after that position and have been much happier for years now. I still run across stupidity, but after low-level support issues, I can now take them without damaging my head and/or desk.

2014-02-20 Reply Admin

Roby McAndrew:
Smug Unix User:
Some companies without property management contracts might allow you to drill a hole through the desk

Better still offer to work late to come up with a fix. When she's gone home drill a large hole right through the mug to allow a line of sight with the keyboard, mug and receiver in the required position.

As much as she deserves it, that'd also flag JD as someone who's not afraid to step up to arrogant pricks, and Lord knows why management usually don't want people like that in tech positions. They tend to prefer more submissive sheeple they can trawl over and fire those they can't.

What he could do however is to open her keyboard/receiver off hours and slightly sabotage it so that it'd soon stop working at all. Then Jane would have to either pay for a new wireless keyboard (expensive novelty and all that) with a hopefully stronger radio signal; or she would suck it up and use a wired kb.

He'd even have the perfect excuse for her: "it's an unreliable technology, you see how it kept behaving erratically these past few months. It just gave in."

herby · 2014-02-20 Reply Admin

The only solution:

Make the wireless keyboard non functional. While there are many ways to do this, a very devious one is to use clear nail polish on battery contacts. Drying time is only about an hour, and this can be accomplished during the off hours of the "victim". Then when complaints come in about total non functionality, and work needs to be done, offering a wired keyboard ("it is what we have in stock") as an alternative is a good solution. Then the "victim" can go any buy another and that too can be made non functional as well.

Pretty soon the "victim" gets the point.

2014-02-20 Reply Admin

Paul:
My IT support staff consists of myself, my helpdesk tech, and a tech in one of our satellite offices. We have a ticketing system, and make extensive use of it. It's one of the best things we've ever done to get organized.

We literally have more ticketing systems (4) than employees (2).

2014-02-20 Reply Admin

Jeremy:
MN Ghost:
TRWTF is that JD never explained why he moved the receiver and that the coffee mug was the problem. Let her figure out the problem herself if she won't accept help. And then stop answering her tickets.
TRRWTF is the number of people here that didn't have the same reaction.

TRWTF is the people that always think these TDWTFs are verbatim recordings of exactly what goes down. If they even happen at all these are, at best, cliff notes of the incidents.

What I don't get is the "It doesn't say words, so he must have moved it and sprinted away without any words exchanged between them at all! What a doofus!"

If he had explained it to her and went ahead and moved the receiver back anyway and still refused to move her coffee mug, that in itself is too noteworthy a WTF to have omitted. That's what the story should have been about.

2014-02-20 Reply Admin

"sipping from The Great Attenuator"

Bravo. Lol'd.

2014-02-20 Reply Admin

Jeremy:
MN Ghost:
TRWTF is that JD never explained why he moved the receiver and that the coffee mug was the problem. Let her figure out the problem herself if she won't accept help. And then stop answering her tickets.
TRRWTF is the number of people here that didn't have the same reaction.

TRWTF is the people that always think these TDWTFs are verbatim recordings of exactly what goes down. If they even happen at all these are, at best, cliff notes of the incidents.

What I don't get is the "It doesn't say words, so he must have moved it and sprinted away without any words exchanged between them at all! What a doofus!"

+1

Although the pedantry can almost be excused based on the fact that most of us are engineers trained to dissect every little detail. Still, I assumed JD explained that the coffee mug was the source of interference, but she moved the receiver anyway because the whole set up of the story is that she's an idiot.

2014-02-20 Reply Admin

"AND HE RESIGNED HAPPILY EVER AFTER" groan

2014-02-20 Reply Admin

pjt33:
There are various workarounds: let her pick the one which is least upsetting to her.

She'll obviously pick the option which allows her to put every item involved exactly where she wants it to be and when it doesn't work it's your fault. Just like right now.

kilroo · 2014-02-20 Reply Admin

I'm mildly surprised that no one suggested a nice-looking slip-cover or something for the receiver.

2014-02-20 Reply Admin

kilroo:
I'm mildly surprised that no one suggested a nice-looking slip-cover or something for the receiver.

Nah, she would screw it up further by buying some sort of idiotic metal-coated slip-cover from some far-eastern online shop just because she liked its appearance. And once it's on the keyboard won't work at all no matter where the receiver is and it'll still be your damn fault.

2014-02-20 Reply Admin

MrBester:
Indeed. "Go fuck yourself, Jane" is four simple words. I'm sure everybody else in the small staff doesn't like her prissy attitude either.

Or, in the immortal words of Dan Ackroyd, "Jane, you ignorant slut."

2014-02-20 Reply Admin

I really, really want to punch people like that in the face. Having the absolute gall to ask why you won't fix their problem when they have rejected your solution. What's even worse is that, if you act the same way toward them in explaining that THEY are the problem, you are the one that gets in trouble

Zemm · 2014-02-20 Reply Admin

After that I'd just immediately close every ticket with the note "customer can't accept solution", linking it with the ticket that fixed it the first time which would already have the wordy version of "issue caused by interference, fixed by removing obstruction and repositioning receiver".

Sound like an IR keyboard. I had one of those back in 2000 or so. It only lasted a week or so before I got rid of it due to its unreliability.

Snooder · 2014-02-20 Reply Admin

Maybe I'm just really lucky, but I've never run into a situation where someone literally refuses to implement a solution that will solve their problem.

Usually what happens is the person presenting the "solution" fails to explain it completely, assuming that the other person would understand. For example, it's more likely that "JD" assumed that seeing the keyboard get fixed by moving the cup would clue in Jane that she can't have the mug between the receiver and the keyboard.

My usual approach for this sort of thing is to present the user with a 3 options for resolving his problem. 3 is a good number because you want a small number of options so people don't get confused, but you also want to present the illusion of choice. People tend to be more invested in a course of action if they think it was their idea.

2014-02-20 Reply Admin

Chuck Lester:
He should have hit her in the head with the keyboard in the frist place.

and get sued over this trivial issue?

2014-02-20 Reply Admin

clively:
The Real WTF is that she hasn't properly applied the concepts of Feng Shui. At it's core is harmony and a sense of well-being. In this case her favorite coffee mug is interfering with the harmony of her desktop which, in turn, is destroying her sense of well-being.
If JD would fully embrace Feng Shui then he should remove Jane, as she is destroying the desktop's harmony and without personal change on her part there is no combination of factors that will improve Jane's sense of well-being.

If Jane would fully embrace Feng Shui, then she would be willing to place her coffee cup in a different location. A relatively minor change which would restore balance to the force. As it stands now she's just another unenlightened hypocrite.

This!

You get the user to fix the problem themselves, using terms and ideas the user is familiar with. Connecting a real phenomena with the user's pre-existing superstitions.

And of course, if the user doesn't accept your explanation and continues in their previous habits then you have reason to remove the unchanging, balance-destroying user.

2014-02-20 Reply Admin

Huh? Why the hell not give her a wired keyboard and be DONE with it?

That's the real WTF.

chubertdev · 2014-02-20 Reply Admin

TRWTF is the proliferation of wireless keyboards. Just about all of them are, and just about none of them need to be. I love the one that I have for my home media center, but it was really hard to find a wired keyboard for my desktop that I liked. I'd rather have something with a perfect signal and no batteries to replace.

2014-02-20 Reply Admin

Hasse de great:
It strikes me that then amount of problems of this kind tends to occurs much more frequently on the other side of the pond.
In my 30+ years in IT industry I have met stupid users and managers but not as stupid as described in many of the TDWTF stories. Even when taking into account that the stories are made exorbitant to make them funnier to read.

It happens this side of the pond too. It doesn't matter which pond you choose (we're surrounded, and we even have an inland pond and some dire straits). It happens all the time.

2014-02-20 Reply Admin

JD:
I still run across stupidity, but after low-level support issues, I can now take them without damaging my head and/or desk.

Don't do it JD. The desk! The DESK! They told you to drill a hole in THE DESK!

2014-02-20 Reply Admin

Barf 4Eva:
Huh? Why the hell not give her a wired keyboard and be DONE with it?
That's the real WTF.

article:
she had her signature travel mug halfway to her mouth when she caught sight of JD approaching her cube with a replacement keyboard. Her eyes narrowed when she caught site of the cord wrapped haphazardly around the big black rectangle.

"I am not using a wired keyboard!"

2014-02-20 Reply Admin

In this case, I would give the user some choice but keep veto power. "The receiver MUST be able to see the keyboard. Let's see if we can find a place on your desk to put it where it can see the keyboard but you don't have to see it."

chubertdev · 2014-02-20 Reply Admin

Norman Diamond:
Barf 4Eva:
Huh? Why the hell not give her a wired keyboard and be DONE with it?
That's the real WTF.
article:
she had her signature travel mug halfway to her mouth when she caught sight of JD approaching her cube with a replacement keyboard. Her eyes narrowed when she caught site of the cord wrapped haphazardly around the big black rectangle.

"I am not using a wired keyboard!"

I think he meant give it to her face

nonpartisan · 2014-02-20 Reply Admin

Good Lord. 80 comments and no one can figure out the real problem??

Y'all keep saying to give her a wired keyboard. The problem is that the wire from the keyboard runs through the location of the coffee mug. The mug has to sit atop the wire, causing the mug to be off-kilter and spilling the coffee. And even if she puts the mug there without spilling, she can't adjust the keyboard while she's using it.

Remove the wire, remove the problem. Except . . . no. And putting the receiver elsewhere screws up the Feng Shui.

No wired or wireless keyboard will solve her issue. So she shouldn't get a physical keyboard at all. Use the mouse and the Windows on-screen keyboard.

Edit: no idea why it posted this twice.

nonpartisan · 2014-02-20 Reply Admin

Good Lord. 80 comments and no one can figure out the real problem??

Y'all keep saying to give her a wired keyboard. The problem is that the wire from the keyboard runs through the location of the coffee mug. The mug has to sit atop the wire, causing the mug to be off-kilter and spilling the coffee. And even if she puts the mug there without spilling, she can't adjust the keyboard while she's using it.

Remove the wire, remove the problem. Except . . . no. And putting the receiver elsewhere screws up the Feng Shui.

No wired or wireless keyboard will solve her issue. So she shouldn't get a physical keyboard at all. Use the mouse and the Windows on-screen keyboard.

2014-02-20 Reply Admin

herby:
The only solution:
Make the wireless keyboard non functional. While there are many ways to do this, a very devious one is to use clear nail polish on battery contacts. Drying time is only about an hour, and this can be accomplished during the off hours of the "victim". Then when complaints come in about total non functionality, and work needs to be done, offering a wired keyboard ("it is what we have in stock") as an alternative is a good solution. Then the "victim" can go any buy another and that too can be made non functional as well.

Pretty soon the "victim" gets the point.

When someone is being a PITA, your solution is to destroy two or three keyboards, probably worth a hundred bucks overall? How do you handle a person who parks too close to you, key their car?

da Doctah · 2014-02-21 Reply Admin

Someone needs to make her believe that keyboarding with bare fingers is bad qi, and she needs to invest in a pair of boxing gloves.

2014-02-21 Reply Admin

flop:
Just put the receiver below the desk - with a bit of sticky tape, directly below the keyboard.
Then it's in range, and she wouldn't have to see it.

Or if there's metal part on the case of receiver, attach something made with metal to it to make it giant antenna, and in this way the user won't have to see it directly too.

2014-02-21 Reply Admin

Hasse de great:
In my 30+ years in IT industry I have met stupid users and managers but not as stupid as described in many of the TDWTF stories. Even when taking into account that the stories are made exorbitant to make them funnier to read.

I have seen stupid people.

I had a client explode their PSU because the thought switching the voltage regulator at the back from 220V to 110V would "use less power".

Similarly I got a technical college instructor to blow up their own PSU by suggesting the voltmeter is connected in series with the circuit.

2014-02-21 Reply Admin

gilhad:
I would tell her, that the mug blockes waves between keyboard and receiver, thus blocking communication and retults to missigh characters. Then I would closed all next ticket with "Willingly sabotaged by user - works for me" without even leaving my chair.

Stupid reacts poorly to reason. You have to cover up reason with stupid. Find/write a feng shui text that denounces metal cups as blocking harmonic energy or some crap.

2014-02-21 Reply Admin

TRWTF is the lack of violence.

2014-02-21 Reply Admin

At the very least, I'd have snapped the wireless keyboard into two halves, and then said

"Ahah! I see why your keyboard doesn't work; it appears you snapped it into two halves. You'll have to use the wired one now, as it's the only working one we have."

Who is going to believe that the rational tech guy broke the keyboard, rather than the angry irrational bitch?

2014-02-21 Reply Admin

...she had her signature travel mug halfway to her mouth when she caught sight of JD approaching her cube with a replacement keyboard. Her eyes narrowed when she caught site of the cord wrapped haphazardly around the big black rectangle.
"I am not using a wired keyboard!"

JD closed his eyes and sighed. Images of the keyboard cord wrapped around her neck danced before his closed lids. Or perhaps the dancing was Jane, dangling precariously out her second-story office window. In any case, this was easily enough solved. Opening his eyes, JD narrowed his eyes, put on his best "or else" face, and brusquely brushed past Jane...

There, I fixed it.

2014-02-21 Reply Admin

anonymous:
...she had her signature travel mug halfway to her mouth when she caught sight of JD approaching her cube with a replacement keyboard. Her eyes narrowed when she caught site of the cord wrapped haphazardly around the big black rectangle.
"I am not using a wired keyboard!"

JD closed his eyes and sighed. Images of the keyboard cord wrapped around her neck danced before his closed lids. Or perhaps the dancing was Jane, dangling precariously out her second-story office window. In any case, this was easily enough solved. Opening his eyes, JD narrowed his eyes, put on his best "or else" face, and brusquely brushed past Jane...
There, I fixed it.

Because violence in the workplace is always funny. Especially against women.

Smitty · 2014-02-21 Reply Admin

anonymous:
anonymous:
...she had her signature travel mug halfway to her mouth when she caught sight of JD approaching her cube with a replacement keyboard. Her eyes narrowed when she caught site of the cord wrapped haphazardly around the big black rectangle.
"I am not using a wired keyboard!"

JD closed his eyes and sighed. Images of the keyboard cord wrapped around her neck danced before his closed lids. Or perhaps the dancing was Jane, dangling precariously out her second-story office window. In any case, this was easily enough solved. Opening his eyes, JD narrowed his eyes, put on his best "or else" face, and brusquely brushed past Jane...
There, I fixed it.
Because violence in the workplace is always funny. Especially against women.

Violence against the criminally stupid is usually funny, man or woman.

2014-02-21 Reply Admin

QJo:
Chuck Lester:
He should have hit her in the head with the keyboard in the frist place.

Th rel WTF is of curse tha Jae is a clas-A bith.

(The captha dos not wok for new potings, only eplies, so I piked a radom pos to apend ths to.)

Please move your coffee mug somewhere, you are losing characters.

2014-02-21 Reply Admin

Boot to the Head.

2014-02-21 Reply Admin

Meep:
When someone is being a PITA, your solution is to destroy two or three keyboards, probably worth a hundred bucks overall? How do you handle a person who parks too close to you, key their car?

A hundred bucks? After a dozen, maybe. Oh, do you think she gets an ergonomic keyboard?

2014-02-21 Reply Admin

CigarDoug:
Meep:
When someone is being a PITA, your solution is to destroy two or three keyboards, probably worth a hundred bucks overall? How do you handle a person who parks too close to you, key their car?
A hundred bucks? After a dozen, maybe. Oh, do you think she gets an ergonomic keyboard?

RTFA

Back when "wireless" was nowhere near as ubiquitous a descriptor as it is today, keyboards without cords were an expensive novelty.

chubertdev · 2014-02-21 Reply Admin

JD:
QJo:
Chuck Lester:
He should have hit her in the head with the keyboard in the frist place.

Th rel WTF is of curse tha Jae is a clas-A bith.

(The captha dos not wok for new potings, only eplies, so I piked a radom pos to apend ths to.)

Please move your coffee mug somewhere, you are losing characters.

Insert joke about losing more characters than George R. R. Martin.

2014-02-21 Reply Admin

"It seems that some of the characters you're typing are getting stuck in your coffee mug. Unfortunately, with a wireless keyboard the only way to make the characters travel around your coffee mug is to move either it, the keyboard, or the receiver. I can, however, give you a handy wired keyboard and you can make the characters go around obstacles on your desk by simply moving the wire around them."

Then again, a cleverly-placed metal reflector might have also fixed the problem.

chubertdev · 2014-02-21 Reply Admin

Best solution:

wait 20 years
submit story to TDWTF
send article to Jane, shaming her into submission

2014-02-21 Reply Admin

Dave H:
wotsit:
The real WTF is the fact he didn't have the guts to just replace her keyboard (even just doing it when she was away for the night) and let her moan to management who should back him up (especially as all he would need to say its gone for repair and that is a temporary keyboard who cares if she has that temp Keyboard for the next 10 years)
If you tolerate people acting like sot children they just gets worse.

Nothing more permanent than a temporary solution.

Directly lying to the people above you about the people more 'important' than you is a good way to get fired immediately with cause, thus losing any UI or other benefits, and a good way to ensure no one else will hire you.

Coffee Beats Wireless

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