Ridiculous Requests That IT Workers Received

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mattstaff
May 1, 2020 9:00 AM EDT

This fun AskReddit thread has IT workers describing the most ridiculous requests/calls/occurrences they've had while on the job. IT workers really need to possess a superhuman level of patience to navigate the ins and outs of their jobs, while maintaining a grip on sanity. It's astounding how many people call for tech support, before checking to see if the computer is plugged in. 

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  • 01
    Text - Hysterical_Realist • 2h 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.
    via u/NetworkMachineBroke
  • 02
    Text - soiledpantsforsale • 3h Drove for 2 hours to replace a touchscreen monitor that had stopped responding; turns out they were wearing gloves. We used to log these type of callouts as ID-10-T errors
    via u/NetworkMachineBroke
  • 03
    Text - Estella_Osoka • 3h Once had a person call in to the IT desk because the soda machine stole their money.
    via u/NetworkMachineBroke
  • 04
    Text - dietderpsy • 2h 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.
    via u/NetworkMachineBroke
  • 05
    Text - NonHipster72 • 3h 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
    via u/NetworkMachineBroke
  • 06
    Text - MangosAreForLove • 2h 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 a
    via u/NetworkMachineBroke
  • 07
    Text - UltraChip • 2h 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.
    via u/NetworkMachineBroke
  • 08
    Text - theSQUINTYazn • 2h 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 complaine
    via u/NetworkMachineBroke
  • 09
    Text - NetworkMachineBroke 5h 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.
    via u/NetworkMachineBroke
  • 10
    Text - EtherBoo • 4h 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
    via u/NetworkMachineBroke
  • 11
    Text - D-Rez • 5h Vague tickets that give no clue as to what's wrong beyond "computer broke lol". Then you ring them up asking them to fill it in properly, and they get annoyed, "I thought you guys knew what you're doing". Or when the Karens at work drop off their personal laptops or phones, and expect us to fix it. That's not what we're here for.
    via u/NetworkMachineBroke
  • 12
    Text - ledow • 2h 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, thermostats and boilers, change time on program 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
    via u/NetworkMachineBroke
  • 13
    Text - brianh71 • 2h 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.
    via u/NetworkMachineBroke
  • 14
    Text - TheDeadGunslinger • 2h 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.
    via u/NetworkMachineBroke
  • 15
    Text - CommodoreFiftyFour • 2h 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'.
    via u/NetworkMachineBroke
  • 16
    Text - Frammingatthejimjam • 2h 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.
    via u/NetworkMachineBroke
  • 17
    Text - phillipinio • 2h 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.
    via u/NetworkMachineBroke
  • 18
    Text - Digibollocks • 2h Had a call in the middle of the night from India asking me if I was the administrator for a particular piece of software. I was not. No idea how he got my number. Must have read it off an email chain or something.
    via u/NetworkMachineBroke
  • 19
    Text - PioneerTheLegend • 3h 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...
    via u/NetworkMachineBroke

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customer service employee FAIL technology askreddit computer ridiculous Reddit
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