The "Tell me about your IT Department" thread is a little weak.  I believe there are far more entertaining stories about end users out there.  Let's here them.  I'll post a few later when I have a bit more time.

BDU's - Brain Dead Users.   Managed the computer lab in the library while I was a student.
Cute girls in ENG 101 coming in.  This was 1990, however, so I ran a herd of Zenith XT 8088's with green screens.
5.25 Boot Floppies - 2 drives in each machine, no HD.

http://bofh.ch/bofh/bofh1.html

I worked for a pump & tank company and helped out a station owner with a bad case of malware on his office computer.  I had spybot & the updater, defraggler and ccleaner all on a schedule to do nightly scans to help automate his non existent maintenance.  He thanks me but once I leave he calls over his son to check what Ive done, the son uninstalled everything that I did and downloads a copy of Adware Pro (not ad-aware by Lavasoft) He calls back the next day saying that because of ME his computer is running like crap.

"My icon's not there, I can't work"

When I was supporting a large military unit I had one user that inserted a Fortezza card into her computer's floppy drive so far that the shutter closed behind it.

I am the IT manager for the county where I live and at least a few times a week i get "i locked my self out can i can get my password reset"

employee: How come my computer is slow?

Me:What is acting slow?

Employee:  The internet

Me: What are trying to do

Employee:  Listen to Pandora and get on facebook

Me:  Nice LOL!

hmm.. so many over the years. the one that sticks out went to PR for the weekend and came back still drunk and high after boozing and coking her brains out on a 3 day bender.


she killed the brain cells that stored her password. I kid you not.

I like reading the stick notes on peoples monitors that contain user id and password.
Had a user complain that she had to rescan a document that got blocked by the exchange server and then proceeded to tell me "I have to rescan all 10 pages."

they are retards and constantly make my job harder by clicking on emails with attachments and downloading malware..that is all

My favorite thing lately is to add sticky notes to the user monitor that make no sense and see how long it is before they notice I have one over a month now the user has not notice that says...... Pick up kangaroo from school 3:30

I hated end users so much, I left the IT field!

I worked IT for 15 years, from Helpdesk up to server admin.  I had people call me during power outages wondering why their computer or printer wasn't working.  Remote support where people didn't have their own broadband, and had been 'unknowingly' stealing their neighbors, and were pissed at ME when the neighbors caught on and changed the PW.

My personal favorite is the time one of our guys got wrote up cause someone called about the coffee maker not working, and he 'foolishly' told them that IT doesn't fix coffee makers.  Management told us all the next day "If it has a plug, we fix it."  

So, let me append my opening statement: "I hated end users (and management) so much, I left the IT field!

I was trying (key word, trying) to support one of our sales managers at a remote site.  I was trying to get her to drill down through a set of menus but she kept getting lost, so I asked her to close all her windows and then double click on the desktop.

I am temporarily on helpdesk support for a customer because a bunch of people quit.
Actual emails titles I received today.  Almost all of them have no message body or other information provided.  The ghosts in my inbox lady did include a screenshot at least.
"The website is down"
"Web down??????"
"EVERYTHING IS REALLY SLOW"
"ghosts in my inbox....."
"PLEASE HELP MY FAX IS GONE AND I CAN'T FAX"  
"HOURGLASSING BETWEEN STEPS PLEASE CHECK ON THIS"
 

FUCKING RETARDS. That about sums them all up. I sometime wonder how they manage to stay alive day to day.

LOL i love this shit i am glad that i am not the only one that bangs my head off the wall everyday as i am the only IT employee at my facility to take care of 3 towns and about 150 computers its not to bad pretty relaxing but i get some good calls everyday.

Well according to the good people here on arf. I server the other departments and I should not bitch about the fine people I work for..

Bless there little hearts!

Had a user go on vacation. Gets back calls the help desk, "I can't log in. I forgot my username."
I said, "Do you mean your password?"
"No, my user name."

Our usernames were first initial and last name. She literally forgot her name.

My favorite was the woman who called IT because her computer was plugged in but there was no power...she had the powerstrip plugged into ITSELF. I still laugh about that.
Or how about the person who had the monitor facing the printer so they could 'introduce them' to one another? they actually spoke to the monitor and said 'this is the printer' and
told the printer 'this is the monitor' and called IT because they would not recognize one another- a classic from the 90's.

all the users I work with are like this women:

Heh.



My best friend's sister's boyfriend's brother's girlfriend heard from this guy who knows this kid who's going with the girl who saw a web site that was slow at 31 Flavors last night. I guess it's pretty serious.

WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT IT?

I did tech support for the government.  The stupid, it burns.

+1. Which is why it boggles my mind why this same user can't figure out how to use windows 8. Never used start in the first place!

A few months ago I replaced an End-of-Lease USFF with a new one.

The User I saw wore the keyboard OUT.  Several keys were impossible to read.  Considering how cheap a replacement keyboard is I was slightly surprised User never bothered to buy their very own keyboard.

After downloading Userfiles to a Safe Spot* I then had to go through a proverbial birds nest of wires connecting the PC, a lamp, radio, keyboard and I forget what else. A Lamp was placed on the PC itself.  The PC was placed on its side. I never saw a worse fire hazard from all of the wires being such a mess.  Oh, yeah: Include a electric heater on the floor.  I'm not going to talk about the accumulated dust either.  I will say that I left the User in a much better shape than when I came in.

About a week later I had an appointment in the same general area but different office for another End-of-Lease replacement.  Got there to find two laptops waiting for me.  Different User (DU) was told I have the paperwork for This one (on the desk) but not for the one DU had carefully put inside its carrier.  After explaining to DU the situation I got to work.  Because of the DU's Office Setup had I went to DU a couple of times carefully explaining the situation and asking how such and such a piece of equipment should be set up.  Finished I got DU to signoff the req forms.  That's when DU noticed what the cubicle on the Other Side of DU's deck was setup like.  Fair enough, EVERYBODY has their own style and system. Neighbors was smart and very efficient.  NOT like DU's setup.  DU starting complaining.  I told DU that I went to DU several times trying to get the installation Just Right.  I explained to DU that IF I had been told to do DU's office like DU's neighbor I would have done it exactly like Neighbor, or at least as close as possible right off the bat.  I told DU if I was to change setup I was going to charge extra for the approximate 30 minutes it would take me.  DU declined and said DU would do it themselves.  Not a problem, and I left.  I told my Supervisor the tale when I got back.  tsk, tsk,tsk was he reply, agreeing with me.




*Extra Billable if it goes over a set time for installation.  Files can take a long time to download/upload.  I once timed One file's download time around 45 minutes going down.  I knew somebody whose appointment took an entire afternoon plus a hour of overtime because of all the files.

i have some pretty crazy stories, the ones that i actually can tell, but need another day to write the fun ones up :o



ahsotag?

I have gained a sense of humor to deal with some of the duh moment ones.

Two o'clock in the morning I get a call. Hey the computer is not responding the the mouse. Reboot? Yes. Ok I'm coming in.

I get there and I try it. Works fine.

He says " oh I have to use that mouse?" He was using the mouse to the computer next to the computer he wanted to use. ( operations floor)

I am currently an IT Specialist for the USDA...





After taking this job I can honestly say there are people in this world that should not be allowed within 20' of anything electronic.





I had a lady take home her laptop so she could do some work at home in the evenings... I get a call the next day, she said her laptop just started smoking and quit.  I was like ok, sounds like it just fried... it is rare, but it does happen.  I get her a new laptop and a few weeks go by and she takes it to the house again... once again she calls me and tells me this one started smoking and quit.  Ok, at this point I am really suspicious as to just WTF she is doing with these things... but once again I get her a new laptop and sure enough about 3 weeks later I get a call that this one too has started smoking and has quit.  I met her the next morning at her office, she shows up and sure as shit the third laptop is also totally fried...  I watched her pull it out of her bag and just to be sure I wanted to try to power it up.  I asked her to grab the charger out of her bag and hand it to me... she says: "Oh, that is still on my desk"... ok... so now I am thinking this is REALLY strange... three laptops fried on battery power... what are the odds?  I then started conversation along the lines of I wish my work load was light enough I could do it on battery power... she answers "oh no, I use a charger, the one from my MAC fits perfectly"  I then probed a little further, she was trying to use her charger for her MAC on her HP...  Insta fry!  I finally got her a FOURTH laptop, educated her on why you can't use a charger for a MAC on an HP... so far no issues.





I wish I could say these stories are rare... but they are government workers after all.





I have had a user take a flat bladed screwdriver to a stuck back up tape...





I have had a users computer that came in because the keyboard wasn't working... I opened it up and there was enough loose Copenhagen under the keys to cause it to stop working.





I had a user that was trying to move a networked copier and forgot that it had a blue wire attached to it in addition to the power cord... that one was fun.





I could go on and on...

 

We have an assistant director here who should not be allowed within 20 feet of any electronic devices.  His secretary should take all dictation and do all typing for him.  
"I have no internet!"  Go and check, and yep, he's right.  He unplugged the network cable from his laptop.  
"My mouse doesn't work!".  Yep, he's right.  He stopped using the mouse last week and now uses the touch pad on the laptop.
And on it goes.  But I don't mind, because they're easy fixes that are quickly done.  He's happy, and I get to return to doing real work.

it has been a few times in my career that a user (mac user, always) turns in their laptop with uh.... extremely private pictures on it.  leave it to one of the (total perv) guys who worked for me to find them 100% of the time.

Soooooo, to sum all of this up- commonsense is seldomly encountered anymore.