My worst nightmare...

Every IT person I’ve ever met has at least one nightmare story about being roped into fixing somebody’s home PC/network/broadband and everything going wrong.

A friend roped me into fixing his friend’s Windows 95 PC that his kids had managed to kill by installing all manner of junk onto it. Naturally, as soon as I had fixed it, I was on point duty from then on. If the PC merely hiccuped I was expected to drop everything and hurry round to fix it. Eventually, I went round after the PC went wrong again, and the friend of a friend had one of his mates round. He was completely drunk and throughout my stay repeatedly threatened to beat me up. My host didn’t do anything to stop him either. In fact, he seemed to find the whole thing hilarious. Suffice it to say, I never went back and swore that I wouldn’t do anything like it again for anybody but direct family members.

It never ceases to amaze me how much complete strangers expect from IT people. Consequently, a lot of IT people lie about what they do when they meet new people.

What’s your story? If you work in IT you’ve gotta have one. 😉 Better yet, do you have a strategy that doesn’t piss people off too much?