So I work at the IT dept at a major university in Richmond, VA (Virginia Commonwealth University).

Just a minute ago I received a phonecall from a studen't advisor requesting a password reset for his email. I get his username from her, and then ask to speak to him as I must be speaking with the person who's password I am resetting obviously, I verify his social and his birthday and I go to reset his password.

Oh I forgot to mention this guy is of middle eastern descent.

Well instead of hashing it out for 5 minutes as to what they are trying to tell me to reset it to I decide to reset it to "richmond" and let him reset it to somethign himself.

Me: Sir I have reset your password to Richmond, would you like to try logging in now?
Him: I no understand?
Me: I reset your password to Richmond
Him: What is Richmond?
Me: You know, Richmond, the city you live in?
Him: No I no understand
Me: You attend Virginia Commonwealth University, which is located in Richmond, the city you live in. I have reset your password to Richmond
Him: No, I no understand
Me: Let me speak to your advisor please

Should have reset it to durka I guess.

Quoted: Should have reset it to durka I guess.

He wouldn't have known what that meant.  You probably meant "durka durka."

Quoted: Quoted: Should have reset it to durka I guess. He wouldn't have known what that meant.  You probably meant "durka durka."

True, and a mohammad jihad for good measure.

I'm sure it would have gone much easier if you'd have set his password to decapitate, suicide, hijack or bombing.

I have one along those lines.

I was teaching at a charter high school. I was also had a contract as there network administrator. The

math teacher was of Indian desent. Very nice lady but had some cultural hangups. If a man is doing

they will not tell you what you are doing wrong. Thats just the way things are. I get a call asking for

help. I talk to her and she said its freezing. Not a problem ,take care of it right now. I sit down at the

desk and for 10 minutes try to get it to lock up. Runs great like all the desktops do. I ask her what she

is doing, what programs are open when it freezes up.She has been looking over my shoulder not

saying a word. She kind of looks down at her feet and says "Not the computer the thermostat, I was

told you have the key"   Doooohhhh!!!!

Quoted: I have one along those lines. I was teaching at a charter high school. I was also had a contract as there network administrator. The math teacher was of Indian desent. Very nice lady but had some cultural hangups. If a man is doing they will not tell you what you are doing wrong. Thats just the way things are. I get a call asking for help. I talk to her and she said its freezing. Not a problem ,take care of it right now. I sit down at the desk and for 10 minutes try to get it to lock up. Runs great like all the desktops do. I ask her what she is doing, what programs are open when it freezes up.She has been looking over my shoulder not saying a word. She kind of looks down at her feet and says "Not the computer the thermostat, I was told you have the key"   Doooohhhh!!!!

Quoted: I have one along those lines. I was teaching at a charter high school. I was also had a contract as there network administrator. The math teacher was of Indian desent. Very nice lady but had some cultural hangups. If a man is doing they will not tell you what you are doing wrong. Thats just the way things are. I get a call asking for help. I talk to her and she said its freezing. Not a problem ,take care of it right now. I sit down at the desk and for 10 minutes try to get it to lock up. Runs great like all the desktops do. I ask her what she is doing, what programs are open when it freezes up.She has been looking over my shoulder not saying a word. She kind of looks down at her feet and says "Not the computer the thermostat, I was told you have the key"   Doooohhhh!!!!

I wish my wife was like that.  She loves it when I do something wrong.

I wish my wife was like that.  She loves it when I do something wrong.

Your preaching to the choir Brother.

When I worked an IT job.  I had a big hammer I kept on my desk that said "Mr. Fix-it" painted on it in big yellow letters.  I also had a old Level IIA vest that said IT DEPT on the front and back.  I kept this hanging by my door.  Whenever I got a call to go out to the warehouse floor to fix something I always put it on.  The warehouse guys always got a kick out of it

You should have reset it to "medork". spell it out for him. shake, then wait for a few weeks while he figures it out.

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Should have reset it to durka I guess. He wouldn't have known what that meant.  You probably meant "durka durka." True, and a mohammad jihad for good measure.

Maybe he would have understood something like porkrinds or thedanishrule.

-K

Quoted: When I worked an IT job.  I had a big hammer I kept on my desk that said "Mr. Fix-it" painted on it in big yellow letters.  I also had a old Level IIA vest that said IT DEPT on the front and back.  I kept this hanging by my door.  Whenever I got a call to go out to the warehouse floor to fix something I always put it on.  The warehouse guys always got a kick out of it

I like those complaint department grenades that tell you to take a number and of course the number is attached to the pin.

Quoted: I have one along those lines. I was teaching at a charter high school. I was also had a contract as there network administrator. The math teacher was of Indian desent. Very nice lady but had some cultural hangups. If a man is doing they will not tell you what you are doing wrong.

I take it Indian men are lacking in cunnilingus skills.

For amusement of all, have your security question for passwords be "Who's your daddy?"

This Indian man is doin' just fine thank you very much!  

Quoted: So I work at the IT dept at a major university in Richmond, VA (Virginia Commonwealth University).

I have the same sort of job. I was talking with a Chinese person yesterday - Norwegian and Chinese accent sucks in different ways which makes it a nightmare to understand eachother. Not to mention that in some cultures they say "yes" even if it is quite obvious that they have no idea what you're asking about.  After trying for 5-10 minutes to get hold of her username, I tried to use the phonetic alphabet to get a confirm for each of the letters in her username. "The second letter, is that an I as in India?" "No, I'm from China". "How many letters is it in your username" "One". (It is between two and eight).

Not a work-related event, but funny anyways:
I had a co-worker ask me for help with his laptop once, "it's really slow online, I don't know why". I asked about antivirus and spyware programs, he said it didn't have any he knew of.

So we got together and I had a CD with the usual free programs, and it's an old laptop that takes like five minutes to start up. First thing on in safe mode is Spybot, which ran and deleted something like 1,200 files. AdAware found about 40 more. Then rebooted, and got online and began doing a free online virus scanner, that got nothing.

Then he plays with it for a few seconds and says "Well it works now, but all the extra stuff is gone", and I say "What stuff?" (because all the main programs were all still there). And he hands me this CD that is commercially-labelled "1001 Amazing Internet Tools" or something like that. He says he got it from some friend of his who liked it. Where she got it I don't know.

And I stuck it in my own laptop and did a [malware] scan of it, and EVERYTHING on it is spyware! CometCursor, animated email icons, a hundred different shopping assistant browser toolbars, a hundred different IM "friend finders", ect. About 450 different ones in all.
I was saying "okay ummmm, , , , I think I see the problem."
~

Quoted: So I work at the IT dept at a major university in Richmond, VA (Virginia Commonwealth University). Just a minute ago I received a phonecall from a studen't advisor requesting a password reset for his email. I get his username from her, and then ask to speak to him as I must be speaking with the person who's password I am resetting obviously, I verify his social and his birthday and I go to reset his password. Oh I forgot to mention this guy is of middle eastern descent. Well instead of hashing it out for 5 minutes as to what they are trying to tell me to reset it to I decide to reset it to "richmond" and let him reset it to somethign himself. Me: Sir I have reset your password to Richmond, would you like to try logging in now? Him: I no understand? Me: I reset your password to Richmond Him: What is Richmond? Me: You know, Richmond, the city you live in? Him: No I no understand Me: You attend Virginia Commonwealth University, which is located in Richmond, the city you live in. I have reset your password to Richmond Him: No, I no understand Me: Let me speak to your advisor please

You work IT at VCU? So, tell me, I'll be attending in the fall, do you guys filter out porn sites from the dorm networks? How about things like ARFCOM, Penny Arcade, etc.?

ETA: if you can understand an urban-Virginia accent with a tiny hint of Brooklyn, you should be fine trying to understand me

about verifying the SSN
whole thing or just part of it?

we only get the first 5 digits at the helpdesk I work at, although some users sometimes email/say (depending on if they called for a reset or emailed) the entire thing

Quoted: Quoted: So I work at the IT dept at a major university in Richmond, VA (Virginia Commonwealth University). Just a minute ago I received a phonecall from a studen't advisor requesting a password reset for his email. I get his username from her, and then ask to speak to him as I must be speaking with the person who's password I am resetting obviously, I verify his social and his birthday and I go to reset his password. Oh I forgot to mention this guy is of middle eastern descent. Well instead of hashing it out for 5 minutes as to what they are trying to tell me to reset it to I decide to reset it to "richmond" and let him reset it to somethign himself. Me: Sir I have reset your password to Richmond, would you like to try logging in now? Him: I no understand? Me: I reset your password to Richmond Him: What is Richmond? Me: You know, Richmond, the city you live in? Him: No I no understand Me: You attend Virginia Commonwealth University, which is located in Richmond, the city you live in. I have reset your password to Richmond Him: No, I no understand Me: Let me speak to your advisor please You work IT at VCU? So, tell me, I'll be attending in the fall, do you guys filter out porn sites from the dorm networks? How about things like ARFCOM, Penny Arcade, etc.? ETA: if you can understand an urban-Virginia accent with a tiny hint of Brooklyn, you should be fine trying to understand me

You're good to go in the dorms. No filtering, just no file sharing. Gaming and whatever websites you want. Let me know when you get to VCU, we'll have to go shooting.


Sharky:

I just ask for last 4, but we get the whole thing. We know pretty much everything about them except there old password. I had a black lady call and ask what her password is, I informed her "ma'am there is no way for me to find it out, but I can reset it for you if you would like" and she responds "you sure it aint lilmomma?" I about busted up laughing when she said that. I said "no ma'am no way for me to find out"

One of my coworkers was resetting a password and asked the student what she wanted it to be and she responds as serious as possible "f-u-c-k-y-o-u"

next time reset it to ID10T

I sent my wife the Dilbert Desktop. It has fake icons like "Work Avoidance Strategies", "Meetings to Skip", "Boss-Employee Translator" that sort of thing along the right side of the desktop. My wife installed it on her machine at work. One day, the IT guys were upgrading some software while she was gone to lunch. She walked in on them trying to get the icons to work. They asked her why they couldn't delete those bad shortcuts and how she did it.
Doh!