The Grumpy Admin

One of the "higher ups" sees me in the hallway. He gives me an urgent look and motions me with his hand. The old "comer here quick, my world is falling apart look." No words were uttered, just hand signals. I pick up the pace, racing along the carpet with my coffee like a speed-walker on crack. On a side note, I didn't spill a drop of coffee.

I arrive in the office and ask what the urgent matter is. I'm expecting to look at a broken LCD screen, a smoking PC, or perhaps some one legged midget porn popup.

The reason I was urgently summoned, but no words were used in the hallway:

The mute speaks, "My son has a game on right now and no matter what I do I can't get the proprietary media player to download. I really need to listen to it." I didn’t even bring up our policy about unauthorized downloads and/or streaming audio.

I just opened up the webfilter and firewall and after about 10 minutes, the game is now streaming for all to hear. You can't say no if they are in an office, right?

In the shower this morning, I remembered playing Nintendo at my neighbors house when I was just a kid. Don't ask me why.

My friend's father forbid us from pausing any Nintendo game. Why you ask?

He didn't want the video game heads to wear a blank spot in the tape.

It always used to piss me off that we couldn't pause a video game because he didn't understand how it worked nor would he actually take the time to listen to us when we tried to educate him on the inner workings of a video game console.

Even back then the idiots got on my nerves.

I’ve decided to open a hotdog stand on the border to give the illegals a good hearty wiener on a bun before they scramble across the border. I’m going to call it Dog-N-Dash. Good-bye IT world.

I wish. Dog-N-Dash is just another story of a crazy end user. This happened yesterday.

I get an email that reads: “Is there anyway to get someone from Dell here to look at the printer, it sounds like someone is scratching a dog behind his ear and his leg is thumping the floor.”

The Dog.

Now I know that the Dell tech support technician is going to want to troubleshoot the printer. The printer is not in my office. I call the end user to deliver the bad news.

Me: Well, I got your email about the printer, and I’d love to help you, but unfortunately, if you don’t mind, the best thing for you to do is to call Dell directly and go through the process with them. I’d like to help, but I know they will want someone to be in front of the printer trying fixes.

Hillbilly end user: That’s fine. What number do I call?

I pull up the Dell website.

Me: Call one dash eight hundred dash WWW dash DELL.

I say it slow so he can write it down and get it right. What he comes back with I could not have made up if I had all day to make up stuff.

Hillbilly end user: My phone ain’t got no dashes.

Me: You can leave them off.

The Dash.

Perhaps a job in food handling on the border would be more rewarding.

.....same as the first.

If you send me an email asking for a "Black Berry", I am of the opinion that you don't have the smarts to use a BlackBerry. Or perhaps, you need this phone.

Seriously, how the hell can someone who can't even clean out their own multi-gigabyte email box with hundreds of unread messages possibly think a BlackBerry is a good idea? Yeah, you can't even find your Outlook icon because of the 75 icons on your desktop, but you're ready to have email on your hip? Give me a freaking break!

I mean come on, I can see a CEO and even a few other execs having BlackBerry phones, but what makes the average end user (15 layers deep in the OrgChart with no direct reports) think a BlackBerry (which comes with a manual they won't read and can't understand) will actually help?

I say F'it. Let's get everyone a Black Berry, a Lap Top, a Wire Less Data Card, and Eight Oh Two Dot Evelyn Bee at home. Let’s throw in a color laser printer, two external USB hard drives, and a rocket launcher just to be safe.

Then I can spend all of my time helping end users learn to use these new toys to surf the internet and trade jokes via email from anywhere they might get the urge.

Meanwhile the servers rot.

I have an end user who is covering for his boss while the boss is away. Part of that entails checking email. Well, the boss gets a system generated message that his password will expire in a few days. That, of course, makes my phone ring.

End user: "My boss got an email that says his password needs to change. He is on vacation. So I am going to change it and then email him the password so he can still get his email on vacation."

Me: "Well, that won't work, since he needs his password to check his email. You should call him to give it to him."

End user: "Yeah, I don't want him to be locked out, so I'm sending it to him."

Me: "He won't be able to get into his email with his old password to retrieve his new password since he needs his new pasword to even get into email in the first place."

End user: "I KNOW THAT'S WHY I'M SENDING IT!!!"

Me: "OK. That's probably a good idea."

Sometimes, it just easier to give in. Actually, it almost always easier.