On Call Arrr! How is it Friday already? The Register can’t explain where the week went, but we can deliver a new installment of On Call, the reader-contributed column that shares your stories of tech support SNAFUs.
This week, meet a jolly reader we’ll Regomize as “Roger” who thinks he may have broken our record for fastest tech support resolution, which we believe currently stands at 8.5 seconds.
Roger told us that 15 years ago he worked as a sysadmin for a government agency responsible for volunteer emergency marine rescue. His agency provided boats and other necessary kit that volunteers took to sea to sort out boating misadventures or rescue fisherfolk in distress.
“The man who managed this area was someone who could be transported back to a 1700s pirate ship,” Roger told On Call. “Big, burly, sunburned skin, sun-bleached hair, even missing a couple of fingers.”
“He was also one of those people whose face was always so red he looked like he was going to explode with barely contained rage at any moment, and he had a reputation to match.”
One day, this chap blustered into Roger’s office, brandishing a laptop.
“He stormed up to my desk, leaned over my partition, and began his rant before I could so much as say hello,” Roger explained.
The anger was somewhat justified as the piratical manager went out to a rescue incident and found he couldn’t connect to Wi-Fi. That meant he couldn’t access the agency’s apps.
“He screamed about the rubbish laptops and IT systems we had, nothing ever worked, all the usual stuff,” Roger wrote.
As he copped this spittle-flecked spray, the rest of his team got busy rearranging pencils or pretending to be on very important phone calls. Even the IT manager, Roger’s boss, decided he was better off not intervening.
The user’s rant ended with a thundered “Just FIX IT!”
So Roger did. Here’s how.