The answers you really wanted to give ---!!

[Cheryl Griffin]

How about anything that is preceded by "I don't know why everyone says not to do this but I did ..."

That's the system administrator I want in charge of all my high availability machines. (not)

[Martin Johnson]

User: I just accidently deleted my file. It was a very importnat file. Can I get it restored from backup?

SA: When was the file first created?

User: This morning.

SA: Sorry, you are SOL! Next time be more careful.

:-)
Marty

[John Meissner]

Martin - I used to hear that one all the time... the user would be working all day on the document... and never saved it. Then either his PC would crash (big suprise), he'd close it without saving, or he'd delete it "accidently". don't you just love that one....

When I used to do site support I once had an engineer who honestly I don't know how he managed to breathe let alonge use a computer...

He called me one day and told me his tool bar dissapeared. I figured it was on auto hide at first so I tried to talk him into getting it to raise up. no good. Then i figured that he resized it so it didn't display (which was the actual problem it turns out). I couldn't, in 15 minutes, talk him through bringing it back. so I went over... clicked on it and raised it back up. huffed and puffed at him (literally) and left. there should be a license to reporduce in this country.

[Martin Johnson]

John,

The one that really got me was when I was working for DEC. A customer called and said he was having problems with his computer. It appeared to be hung.

I asked him if there were any messages on the console. He told me to hold on while he got a flashlight. I asked him why he needed a flashlight. He told me the building just lost power.

Knowing he did not have a UPS system, I bit my tongue and reminded him that computer don't run without power. He answer, "Oh! Never mind!"

This "brilliant" person is on someone's payroll. Go figure!

Marty

[Pete Randall]

Reminds me of the programmer who called me to complain that his "keyboard didn't work - no idea why". Unable to get any further details out of him, I went to his desk and discovered his nearly empty coffee mug still there on his desk next to his keyboard, which dripped coffee when I picked it up. The programmer, of course, had gone into hiding, fearing the wrath of "Pete, the Loveable".


Pete

[Jeff Schussele]

Hi Pete,

Especially lovable if he'd had the LAST cup of coffee, heh?
I can almost here the frantic 911 call........

"SIR! IS HE ARMED?!?!?!?"
"Only with a broken coffee cup....""

Cheers,
Jeff

[Chris Vail]

At my former employer, we had a gal call in (from Lousiana, of course) and wanted to know what the "foot switch" did.

It was the mouse.


Chris

[Sunil Sharma_1]

messages at a UNIX command prompt

make love
make does not know how to make love


Sunil

[Suhas_2]

Question ( from an irate user):
I am not able to "telnet" to zyxwvutsr server. Can you please advice ASAP?

Answer (That I gave once out of sheer frustration):
Log-out and login again on your PC three times, then try .... if the problem persists...
reboot your PC three times ...by the time MY Unix server will definitely be up and running ... but this exercise will keep you busy !!!!!

[Massimo Bianchi]

Q:
I cannot find sucha program in my HPUX server, and the managment is willing to have the results immediatly

A:
Yes, well ... (GOOOOOL !!), sorry for the noise, my collegous are watching the World Football Final in TV and there is no-one to open the call right now. May be in a couple of ours.... [line down]

[Michael Tully]

An emergency on your part is not necessarily one on mine, so get $%^&*& lost ...

sorry to be blunt, one them there days ...
Cheers
Michael
"When I have trouble spelling, it's called fat finger syndrome."

[Volker Borowski]

Q: Who is General Failure and why is he reading my Harddisk ?

:-) I love this one :-)

Volker

[Shannon Petry]

True story,

I was at a customer site installing a new application and patching an SGI Indigo (yes, model 1 and very long ago, app was Aries). I hear 2 users talking, 1 saying that he broke his coffee cup holder.

Next, I hear this guy talking to someone on the phone, telling them that he had a warranty on his IBM, and wanted them to fix his coffee cup holder.

After listening to this guy for a few minutes complain, I heard him say "I come in every day, I log in, press the button and my coffee cup holder comes out".

I walked around the corner, and his CD tray was broken off. I told him it was called a CD Drive, and hurried to the rest room to laugh my butt off.

His company was billed $1,200.00 from IBM for the repairs as the warranty does not cover idiocy. I was so glad my Sun's and HP's had the carriers at the time ;)

(I have heard alot of versions of this story since then, mine is true from about 1994/1995)

Now, for answers here that I would like to give...

QUESTION: I WANNA DO THIS, HELP

ANSWER: Produce something to show that you want it, dont make us do your work for you. Helping and Doing it for you are not the same thing.


Thanks Paula! Nice thread!
Shannon

[Steven E. Protter]

User from applications develment comes to me with a screen print. The application won't run from the command line.

Earlier in the day, I'd sent out the proper command line to launch into the test version of the application. I used email.

I demonstrated how to cut and paste from the email and used her user id to demonstrate the app worked if you used gthe right launch.

The programmer came back to me in a huge huff saying I didn't know what I was doing.

I demonstrated the cut and paste again.

What I wanted to say:

Go to your eyedoctor so you can SEE the email.

Go to Windows Training and LEARN how to cut and paste from an email.

I just had to grit my teeth and keep showing her until she figured out her problem.

This is an IT working with three decades of experience.

SEP

[John Collier]

You are all going to think that I???m making this one up, but I actually had a person ask me once ???How can I be using Office 97 when every time I turn my computer on it says ???98???????.

The answer I wanted to give was something similar to ???Drop the mouse and step away from the keyboard ??? SLOWLY!???

Of course, given the mindset of most (not all, but most) of the M$ user community these days, I guess we shouldn???t be overly surprised at questions like this, should we?



The other thing that I have recently run across is management asking why the HP OV system either won???t do or isn???t doing .

The only answer that I can come up with publicly is ???you will have to ask the current Sys Admin about it???.

The real answer is ???Because you took the only person with any experience, desire, and time off of the system and put them in a _Communications Operator_ position simply because you didn???t want to create an official SA position and pay them.???

The old adage of ???you get what you pay for??? seems to come into play here???

[Martin Johnson]

I have a Sybase DBA who is so use to typing "go" after each command (which is necessary in Sybase)he also does it at the unix prompt. So I created a little script:

# go
going...
going...
gone.

It was great listening to him crack up - which was about 30 seconds after I made the script available system wide.

Marty

[Tim Sanko]

User:My program failed when I tried to run it.
Admin: when did you last run it?
User: Just now.
Admin:What is the program name?
User: myprogram.c
Admin:What did you call it, and where is the executable?
USER:(let's do this in the key of Boo Flat) "What executable."

Tim

[Brian Crabtree]

Question: My jobs don't work if I run them at the same time

Answer: And...

Brian

[Balaji N]

Things we all would like to say at work, but can't.

1. I can see your point, but I still think you're full of it.

2. I don't know what your problem is, but I'll bet it's hard to pronounce.

3. How about never? Is never good for you?

4. I see you've set aside this special time to humiliate yourself in public.

5. I'm really easy to get along with once you people learn to see it my way.

6. I'll try being nicer if you'll try being smarter.

7. I'm out of my mind, but feel free to leave a message.

8. I don't work here. I'm a consultant.

9. It sounds like English, but I can't understand a word you're saying.

10. Ahhh...I see the screw-up fairy has visited us again...

11. I like you. You remind me of when I was young and stupid.

12. You are validating my inherent mistrust of strangers.

13. I have plenty of talent and vision. I just don't care.

14. I'm already visualizing the duct tape over your mouth.

15. I will always cherish the initial misconceptions I had about you.

16. Thank you. We're all refreshed and challenged by your unique point of view.

17. The fact that no one understands you doesn't mean you're an artist.

18. Any connection between your reality and mine is purely coincidental.

19. What am I? Flypaper for freaks!?

20. I'm not being rude. You're just insignificant.

21. It's a thankless job, but I've got a lot of Karma to burn off.

22. Yes, I am an agent of Satan, but my duties are largely ceremonial.

23. And your crybaby whiny opinion would be...?

24. Do I look like a people person?

25. This isn't an office. It's Hell with fluorescent lighting.

26. I started out with nothing & still have most of it left.

27. Sarcasm is just one more service we offer.

28. If I throw a stick, will you leave?

29. Errors have been made. Others will be blamed.

30. Whatever kind of look you were going for, you missed.

31. I'm trying to imagine you with a personality.

32. A cubicle is just a padded cell without a door.

33. Can I trade this job for what's behind door #1?

34. Too many freaks, not enough circuses.

35. Nice perfume. Must you marinate in it?

36. Chaos, panic, & disorder - my work here is done.

37. How do I set a laser printer to stun?

38. I thought I wanted a career, turns out I just wanted pay checks.

[John Meissner]

ok... i wanted to give this answer... (and did) ... not too bad... but ....

http://bizforums.itrc.hp.com/cm/QuestionAnswer/1,,0x53548b82cc91d711abdc0090277a778c,00.html

[Tim Sanko]

Paula,

One of my users who often asks for root access, wanted to format his low level directory because there was something wrong with it. I told him to run this command.

BVISDT01#:/cat /usr/local/bin/format
echo "Formatting drive "
sleep 3
echo ..."
sleep 20
echo "Finished"

This ended his complaints.


Tim

[Paula J Frazer-Campbell]

Question:-

Where does MW get the data from ?

Answer I wanted to give:-

From the cupboard under the stairs!!


Paula

[Yogeeraj_1]

Princess

where can i find the "whereis" command?

;)

cheers
Yogeeraj

[Caesar_3]

Hello!

Not a princess but for the answer it's built
in the shell.

Caesar

[Yogeeraj_1]

# whereis whereis
whereis: /usr/bin/whereis /usr/share/man/man1.Z/whereis.1
#

Hail caesar
;)
congrats on your new hat!