It is way awesome when your work is able to get rid of outdated electronics and update to the latest and greatest. Everyone that actually works with these machines day-to-day thinks an IT upgrade is a nightmare. Sometimes you are left with an eye twitch for life. This would be my case.
We had an IT specialist come to our office to help with the transition to new equipment. Everything that is supposed to go smooth never does because we are 500 miles from the nearest server and the building is full of nit-picking perfectionists that are smart enough to know when something isn’t running correctly. And we will not hesitate to complain about it. If it’s new we want it to work properly. (Heck, we even demand the old stuff works properly. It isn’t truly Thursday until someone has gone “Office Space” on the fax machine)
Poor Christopher Robbin* was not prepared for the building he walked into. Sarcasm for days, yo!! Insane amounts of un(under)medicated ADHD combined with genius level I.Q.s as far as the eye could see! Squirrel!
“Please click that icon right there”
“The one for the angry piggie?”
“The what?”
“The scanner, duh. It looks like an angry pig, plus it eats everything we put in it”
“I cannot unsee this……wow”
“Just talk nicely to it. It likes being call King Pig. The last person that yelled at it died”
“HOW?!”
“It scanned in a paper and shot it out so fast that it went flying straight for her neck. Paper cut to the carotid artery. Bless her heart, she never had a chance.”
Christopher Robbin found excuses to be in the back office the rest of the day. I think he was afraid he would be the next sacrifice to the scanner. I’m still surprised he didn’t show up in a turtle neck the next day. Some people have no sense of self preservation. Tsk tsk.
That next day things were running fairly smooth in the front office so I figured I would take advantage of this rare moment and get some work caught up. We have pretty much full internet access since we are responsible enough to know what sites are appropriate for work. I went to WebMD so I could print out patient information sheets on antidepressants. Got the one I needed and went to go back so I could get the extended release form next. Weird, nothing happened when I hit the back space button. Tapped it a few more time. Screen goes black for a second. Great, the new computers don’t follow old school commands. Oh well. Wait… Awesome! The page is finally loading!
“What…….the……FLUFF!!!!!!!”
The picture that loaded was not WebMD……none of those 5 pictures were WebMD…….none of those 5 videos had any business being on a work computer………. SWEET FUDGE CICLES!!!!! Those videos have audio!!!!! AND IT WON’T STOP!! I am diving over the brand new high definition screen like it is a grenade! I’m trying to shield the family with small children that are coming down the hallway from this explosion! WHY WON’T IT STOP?!?!?! I found the power button on the new computer but all it did was kill the picture, the sound was still going! SCREW IT!!! I started ripping cords out of the back of the machine as fast as I could until the moaning and wet slapping finally stopped. The 2 other girls up front had turned around to stare at me unsure of what was happening. I took a deep breath and grabbed the overhead page
“Christopher Robbin to the fax seat please!”
Instead of coming to the front he called my extension.
“I’m trying to set up Denise’s computer right now can it wait?”
“No! It cannot wait! I need you to get up here and help me right now!”
He walked in a minute later and looked at my black screen and mess of wires that used to be a brand new Dell. He had a very obvious mixture of confused and pissed painted across his face.
“What happened?!”
*whisper* “there was porn on my computer”
“Don’t mess with me. What really happened?”
“There really was porn on my computer! High-def collage of videos taking up the whole screen!”
“That’s not possible…..”
“I wouldn’t make this up!”
“But there are firewalls in place that keep this from happening”
“Well, your firewall sucks more than the blonde in the upper left hand video!!”
“But… how….???”
“You figure that out. Use holy water and gloves if you need to. I have to go explain this to my boss before I get fired”
I walked to the back manager’s office to beg forgiveness. Probably the worst walk of shame in my life. They had to send out a company-wide email banning EVERYONE from going to that site until we got clearance from their security department.
At least once a week someone finds a reason to bring up WebMD. “Why are the computers acting up? Was Rya on WebMD again?” A little part of me hopes to never hear the end of the jokes.
*not his real name but it is the one we gave him because he was so sweet and innocent. For real, we gave him that name. I have no idea what his real name is but he answered to it after the first day, even on overhead pages. What a sport. But we always rename our IT guys. Its tradition.
It's just Rya 