A long term employee at one of our help desks evidently didn't get the concept of the RSA SecureID fobs which displays a new 6 digit number every 30 seconds. You use that number in conjunction with a fixed number as your password to access certain secure systems. Once the number changes it is no longer valid to use.

Back in the Day when I was a newbie, I just got out of college and started working as a help desk agent. Our service depended whether the user lived on the east or west part of the Mississippi river.

I had a user call the help desk ask which side of the Mississippi DC was located?

I was working for AAFES Europe back in 1990 as a Network Installer/Repair Tech when I received a repair ticket from one of our larger stores. A retail employee wrote on the ticket “PC works fine in input mode, no output mode functions”. I called the facility to get more details but no one could locate the person the entered the trouble ticket.

A little knowledge, and admin rights, can be a dangerous thing.

Back in the day in IT I was able to help anyone I could, now a days we have policies and procedures that bug the heck out of me. I cant even add rights to a user in active directy let alone copy data into their user files. Its all because we went Corporate they say. Well, from what I hear employees say is..

Same company, different suit.

After the upstairs big wigs got their company-issued phones delivered to their homes, I got this call:

"I'm trying to use this phone, but it doesn't work."

"Ok, ma'am, just dial the number you wish to call, and push the button with the green phone on it."

This goes back about 15 years. I get a call from the manager of one of the Departments on the first floor of our building. The manager says that her monitor has stopped working and doesn’t know why. I show up at her office and start trouble shooting the monitor.

A friend who worked for DEC field service had an emergency call to a local hospital on a Monday morning. He found a VAX connected to five removable drives, all with flashing fault lights, emitting screeching noises and an ominous burning smell.

Kohl's corporate is the worst place to work. Just finished 2.5 years there. Multiple Reorgs, date driven projects and no standardized processes make this place a "war zone" and the casualties are the workers. Managers main concern is covering their butts with no regard for the employee. I have worked 18 years in the business and have not seen any place close to this messed up!

Back in the day when Windows 95 rolled out there was much consternation about 32 Bit Processing and what does that mean....

One of my users asked me about the "32 Bit Thing" and I advised him that when he powered down a machine, he had to wait for 32 seconds before powering it back on. This allowed for the bits to clear out their memory.