Anger Management
This branch office manager has a nasty habit of hitting the speakerphone's mute button when he gets angry during meetings. "He'd then hop up and down, cursing a blue streak," says a pilot fish who's seen it. "Then one meeting, the videoconference room was the only room available. Once again he got angry, hit the mute button and hopped up and down cursing a blue streak. It took almost a full minute before one of his employees got his attention and pointed to the monitor. The headquarters attendees were all staring open-mouthed at him. He recovered very quickly -- and he never booked the videoconference room again."
Just Like You Asked
This pilot fish regularly receives lists of usernames and IDs to add to a system, so he lays down the law: All requests must be in a spreadsheet attached to an e-mail, not as text or a voice mail. "One person started sending me blank e-mails with attached spreadsheets for every single communication," fish reports. "She was writing all her messages on the spreadsheets and attaching them to the e-mail."
There It Is!
Sales VP calls support pilot fish late one afternoon. He's just returned from a long sales trip. Now he's at home and wants to remote-control his office laptop from his home PC to catch up on e-mail, but for some reason he can't connect. A quick check shows the laptop isn't attached to the network, and fish fears it may have been stolen from the office while the VP was gone. Do you know where your laptop is? fish asks.VP: "Yes, it's in its carrying case in the other room. I had it with me on my trip. ... Oh, oops, ah, never mind."
All Charged Up
Help desk gets a call: "User's network charge card has expired, and she needs more minutes." Huh? "When I got on-site, I found her network interface card was dead," says support pilot fish. "After I changed out the card, she came into the office and asked me if I had recharged her card for minutes. I told her, 'Yup, you should have enough access time for another year.' "
Update Time
PC support pilot fish is filling in for a netadmin at a remote site and wants to confirm the backup procedures. "After talking to a half-dozen people, I obtain the key to the administrator's office, the combination to the fireproof safe and the key to the lockbox inside the safe," says fish. "There I find the backup plan. I brush the dust off a faded folder titled 'IBM Mainframe and Punchcard Storage Procedure.' "
