Pilot fish gets a call from the facilities technician who handles this site's backup diesel generators. Facilities guy complains that something's wrong with his PC's uninterruptible power supply, because the PC goes off every time they switch off the power for a test. "When I checked his UPS, I noticed a bright yellow strip covering the three 'battery backup' plugs," says fish. I promptly pulled the yellow strip off and told him to plug his computer and monitor into the outlets marked 'battery backup' rather than 'surge suppress only.'"
Who's Don?
User is in an important meeting with other salesmen when his BlackBerry device vibrates. "He checks his message," reports a pilot fish in the know, "studies the sender's address for a while, then exclaims to the group, 'I keep getting e-mails from Don O. Treply at BlackBerry.com. Does anybody know who that is?' He shows the salesman next to him, who after cracking up tells him it's donotreply@blackberry.com. The rest of the group now reminds him of it daily. Needless to say, he's a little hesitant to speak up anymore in meetings."
Cryptic
After corporate announces that everyone must now use encryption for e-mail, manager e-mails IT pilot fish: "Do we need to do anything about this?" Fish replies: Yes, you need to get PKI installed and then use it! Alice, the info security officer, will guide you. Manager: "And who does that here?" Fish: Pay attention. As I said, Alice will guide you. Manager: "I am paying attention, and where do you say Alice will guide me?" Says fish, "I called Alice and told her I'm not responding again -- this one is hers now."
Remote Remote
User complains to help desk pilot fish that she can't do her work from home using remote-desktop software, so she requests -- and gets -- a laptop. "The next day, we get a call because she can't connect to her PC from home anymore," fish says. "Yup, trying to remote to an 'office PC' sitting in her home at the time doesn't quite work well."
Network? Why?
Road warrior user calls support pilot fish from his hotel room because he can't send or receive e-mail. "I ask him if the network is working at the hotel he is in," fish reports. "He says, 'I don't know, and I don't care. I don't want to get on the network; I just want to send and receive e-mail!'"
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