DocAndersen
Ghostwriter challenged me to write a funny story in my Wander Project. I realized sitting at my desk today that I have many funny stories from my IT and teaching careers. I thought it would be fun for the next few days to share some of my funniest stories. Today’s story is from the days when I was on a helpdesk. It doesn’t, however, have to do with a phone call. When I was first on a helpdesk taking calls, I had a good friend that worked with me. We took all the calls (another long story). He at the time was the PC tech, and I was his backup. I was the Mac-Tech, and he was my backup. We had a lot of fun pulling practical jokes on each other all the time.
This particular story doesn’t shine a bright light on me. I was out of the office for training. My co-worker needed to use my Mac for any Mac calls. I should, knowing him, have borrowed a mac from the storeroom, but I didn’t think of that. Anyway, I got back to work after the training days and sat at my desk. I logged into my PC (we used a PC based helpdesk software our lead engineer had written.) My Mac was usually the last thing I would turn on. Normally what I would do was turn on the Mac, and then I would look over to the phone lines seeing if we had any calls in the queue. Then I would focus on my to-do list on the helpdesk software from the day before while my Mac launched.
Now in those days, there was a specialized sound that let you know when the Mac was having issues. One of those sounds was called the chimes of death. That meant your Mac could not boot. I looked over and saw the screen of death as well (a Mac on the screen with a sad face),. I freaked out, and as I had learned from the Apple folks, I unplugged the Mac and counted to 10. Then I plugged it back in. Same thing. The screen of death, chimes of death when I looked over. Needless to say, my coworker was laughing at that point. I looked over at him and realized, and he had changed the startup sound and startup screen of the Mac to be the chimes of death and the sad mac Screen.
I can’t tell you how dumb I felt at that moment.
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Question of
Would you like more stories of me making big technology mistakes?
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Yes
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No
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Question of
Hey everybody fails, does it make you feel better to know I often fail in technology endeavors?
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Yes
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No
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Question of
Should I do more of these?
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Yes
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No
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Question of
Have you ever changed the sounds of a PC or Mac?
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Yes
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No
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Q: Would you like more stories of me making big technology mistakes?
Yes (9 votes) – 100%
Q: Hey everybody fails, does it make you feel better to know I often fail in technology endeavors?
Yes (5 votes) – 56%
No (4 votes) – 44%
Q: Should I do more of these?
Yes (7 votes) – 88%
No (1 votes) – 13%
Q: Have you ever changed the sounds of a PC or Mac?
Yes (1 votes) – 13%
No (7 votes) – 88%
gotta love a good prank story
He was a great friend. Sadly he passed away almost 25 years ago now. I miss his sense of humor.
a fellow of infinite jest
Alas he was. He bore me 1000 times upon his back.
that’s enough shakespear for me
What, no Bard for you?
What about soup?
plenty of soup for me- I made WAY too much eggdrop soup last night
The only good Egg Drop in our area closed!
It was very sad!
always sucks when a good place closes and some vegan place opens up instead
worse than that, it is the 3rd mexican place in that strip mall.
I love mexican food more than anything, but having 3 within a 1/3 block is a bit much.
they might start a price war
all you can eat Pinto Bean Friday?
dueling taco tuesday?
that sounds like a Ledante art work that would be fun to view. Unless of course the artist made it dueling taco trees.
taco trees? no such thing…
Taco trees is where you draw the line?
a girl has to have her standards
but taco trees is the Mendoza line for the Ledante?
even at my sassiest, I can’t see myself crossing that line
is that tacos only?
All tacos?
Fish taco trees?
what about burrito trees?
Or chimichanga trees?
Or are we, at an impasse with no Mexican food trees?
my work tries to be informed by reality, or at least conform with reality if it existed…
i think the last line of that is the most telling (if reality exists!)
that’s not what I meant, but… there are a lot of folks today who act like reality is multiple choice
I choose C.
next time can you include an all of the above option?
or we could go virily and have yes/no/blue
well then I choose chartreuse.
🙂
you’d be better off with the chardonnay…
i am more a scotch man myself…
good for you! a man of taste…
A glass of Scotch
An OpusX Cigar
and you won’t see or hear from me for at least 2 hours!
and you’ll be in a great mood afterward
I will because the minute the cigar comes out, and the bottle of scotch, the family skedaddles!
so then no chess game?
In your many years of work and travel, you have certainly experienced countless fun and a little less fun adventures.
I do, Ghostwriter challenged me to write a funny story for my wander project and now I am inspired to do for both my posts!
Another good one. Humor takes us far in life. 🙂
The ability to laugh at oneself is the greatest gift.
Good and interesting story, dear friend … I really laughed … how many stupid things I’ve done in my life
I have done many. But also it goes to show you that no matter what you do for a living, you will make mistakes!
I totally agree with you …. there is no human being to make any mistakes in life … thank god I made only minor mistakes so they didn’t significantly change my life … some make big mistakes which unfortunately I don’t to never fix it
i have many more to share. After 30 years in IT, I realized I make more mistakes sometimes!
I made them so many that I don’t remember them all … but the truth is, they were little things
well i have many many more to share. Some of them were really dumb!
haha i really liked this story
Thank you very much for the kind words!
Whatever you write is good. These kind of stories are good too.
thank you my friend, thank you!! I cannot tell you how glad I am you are here on Virily!!!!!
Thanks a lot. I remember your stories from Niume, they were great. I had a lot of stories for Virily prepared, but the problem is that perhaps they were published in another site on which I was writing so I will have to start new stories for Virily, but no worries because writing is my passion.
i remember, and yes, virily will not publish things that are not unique! We have a few of the Niume crew here!
Well that is an interesting story…..
we had a blast he and I. I miss those days sometimes. I don’t miss that day however!
Humility is always good for the soul!
very true, i’ve done some really stupid things over the years!