Dumbest colleagues you have ever worked with 9

[JonC8191]

I thought the lady a few years back who thought the rest of us were idiots for believing that the moon landing happened would never be surpassed.

However ...

A current colleague turned down a free-of-charge flu shot the other day. Now she is disinfecting her work area because two people 1250 miles away have ebola.



I'm the reason why Paradise Lost

 

[johnherman]

The company we were with was being sold, and they were paying bonuses to retain critical people until the sale. One colleague left his job with only 6 weeks to go before we were to get a $5000 retention bonus. This was 1990, so the 5k had quite a bit more spending power than today, but 5k is still 5k. So, with 6 weeks until bonus, he gave 2 weeks notice. If the other company really wanted him, he could have negotiated. And he had unspent vacation at the current company, so he could have taken some days to work with the other company (even without pay) while waiting for the retention bonus.

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[SQLBill]

I (a DBA) worked closely with our SysAdmin. He had mentioned to me a few times about this one employee who could not remember their password and was always asking for it to be reset. This one day I was in his office when the person came in to see him. Yep, forgot their password and needed it reset. The Sysadmin reset the password (opened the screen and let this person type the new password in) and as the person walked out of the office, they stopped and turned around. Yep, they had already forgotten the password.

-SQLBill

The following is part of my signature block and is only intended to be informational.
Posting advice: FAQ481-4875

 

[SamBones]

Not sure if this is dumb, or just gross. I once worked with a contractor. Nice enough guy. He was on a 2 year contract. At the end of his contract, he left on good terms with everyone.

After he left, someone was assigned to his desk. I remember hearing a very loud "EW!" I walked over to see what was up. The new occupant was standing there with a look of horror on her face. She had the top center desk drawer open, and in the little pencil well at the front of the drawer was what looked like white fur. Stepping a little closer to see what it was, it turned out to be about two years of both fingernail and toenail clippings, all apparently saved for the next person to get the desk.

Ew!

 

[SkipVought]

My dad, rest his soul, was a carpet designer. His boss had a practice that at lunch time, half of the designers would leave for lunch, while the remaining half would stop working on their designs and begin working on the designs of the designers that left, in order that their work would not stop.

 

[hilfy]

I used to do code maintenance and tech support for and MS DOS application that was written in Clipper. Our trainer also did some support but, unfortunately, very much fit the "dumb blonde" stereotype. Not only did she keep asking me the same questions over and over, but one day she was connected to a client and instead of working with just one file, she did "del *.*" and deleted not only our software but ALL of their database .dbf files as well. She came to me in a panic. This was on a Windows NT server which didn't have the DOS undel command available, but fortunately, I was able to work with their IT folks to them to copy it to the server where it worked like a champ to undelete the files that had been deleted. Not learning from the experience, a couple of months later this gal did the same thing!

-Dell

DecisionFirst Technologies - Seven-time SAP BusinessObjects Solution Partner of the Year

http://www.decisionfirst.com

 

[gbaughma]

I've had a few.

One lady called me because her computer was beeping over and over. I could hear it on the phone. She had set her purse on her keyboard and couldn't figure it out. Same lady called me because her printer was jamming. Her purse was sitting on top of it (where the paper ejects). I'm not sure where she expected the paper to go exactly...



Just my 2¢

"What the captain doesn't realize is that we've secretly replaced his Dilithium Crystals with new Folger's Crystals."

--Greg

 

[SkipVought]

No doubt she pursed her lips as well!

 

[ChrisHirst]

At the company I worked for, the previous 'IT guy' had everybody logging on to the network using the "Administrator" user name and password.
Then after we upgraded from NT4/Windows 9x to Windows 2K one of the receptionists (not employed for her outstanding intellect) who had never had network access previously, could only remember her initials (3) as her password for more than two days



Chris.

Indifference will be the downfall of mankind, but who cares?
Time flies like an arrow, however, fruit flies like a banana.
Webmaster Forum

 

[SgtJarrow]

Back in the days where users could use a 3.5" floppy to carry data back and forth from work and home to continue working from home....

This one user wanted a floppy disk to take some work home....so I presented the user a blank floppy and helped her copy the data from their PC to the floppy. She comes to work the next day saying that when she got home, there was nothing on the disk. So I walked her through the copy again that day. Same thing next morning. I PERSONALLY do the copy the next day and same result.

User comes in and I tell myself this is the last time I am going to help them because it HAS to be user error....no other explanation. So I walk to her desk and watch everything she does during the copy. All looks well. As I walk away, I remember something I needed t say and as I turn around and re-enter her cubicle, I see her sticking the floppy disk to her file cabinet - WITH A MODERATE SIZE MAGNET!

After a few minutes explanation about how she kept erasing her own disk...I finally solved a long running mystery in our department.

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People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world. (Calvin from Calvin And Hobbs)

Robert L. Johnson III
CCNA, CCDA, MCSA, CNA, Net+, A+, CHDP
C#.NET Programmer

 

[strongm]

>This was on a Windows NT server which didn't have the DOS undel command available

Lucky it was running FAT, then, given DOS undel does not work on NTFS ...

 

[johnherman]

OK, here's another: Project is in great danger of falling behind schedule. CIO decides that we can make up time by doing 16 hr days. Since we have offshore folks, she said we could get 32 hours in one day, 16 from onshore and 16 from offshore. Easy math, right? No consideration of the fact that we needed to share code, databases, test cases, as well communicate changes and status.

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[johnherman]

OK, one more. This one may be familiar to some as it was accepted and posted in the Shark Tank section of another publication. I was working in a subsidiary of a major corporation. Corporate Security and Compliance department published new security regulations and made managers responsible for compliance within their areas of responsibility. One requirement was "All passwords must be difficult to guess". Naturally, I sent an e-mail to corporate asking them how I could tell if my staff was in compliance. I did not receive a response, but the requirement remained in effect.

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adaptive uber data for info galaxies (bigger, better, faster than agile big data clouds)

 

[gbaughma]

One requirement was "All passwords must be difficult to guess"

Login: "Administrator"
Password: "difficult to guess"



Just my 2¢

"What the captain doesn't realize is that we've secretly replaced his Dilithium Crystals with new Folger's Crystals."

--Greg

 

[hairlessupportmonkey]

All of them. ;-)

ACSS - SME
General Geek

 

[blister911]

(This was before laptops were so prevalent and all we had for monitors were CRTs).

Back when I was in college we had a group assignment for our final project in one of my programming classes. Four of us grouped together. The fifth member of our team, Anna, had to be assigned to a group because nobody wanted her. We were the unlucky group that got her.

One Saturday, the group brought our computers to my buddy's apartment to have a day of programming and project discussions. We had been set up and working for about an hour when Anna arrived. While the rest of us continued to work, Anna carried all her stuff into the apartment and attempted to set her computer back up. After about a half hour (just a guess as I was busy working on my part of the project, but it was a long time), she asks for assistance. I'm the closest to her, so I jump up to help. All she has connected were the two power cables; one into the system and one into the monitor. I look at the connections on the back of the system to see what might be the problem. I don't know what I was expecting to find, but everything looked fine. So I asked her what was up. She said she was having problems figuring out what connections went where: monitor, mouse, keyboard, speakers, zip drive, etc. Shocked, I took a second look at the back of her system and the cables ends.. As I turned to go back to my work I said, "Anna, if you can't read the labels next to the connections, try matching the colored ends to the colors on the ports." EVERY connection port on the system was labeled and color-coded to the cable end that needed to plug into it.

I'm embarrassed to say she graduated with the same degree that I have.




Light travels faster than sound. That's why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.

 

[montyzummer]

A guy who after realizing he had no white cable clips , went to the hardware shop three doors down and purchased some white spray paint and spray painted all his black clips white , then proceeded to clip the cable down the middle of the wall .... dead center ... not the side or apex but dead center.... on arriving at site to help with the install as he had waited 2 hours for the paint to dry and it was well behind ..... out of interest i asked him why had he not phoned the local stores 30 mins away and got some white clips delivered ( i didnt want to look stupid he retorted!!!) ... i then out of curiosity ventured into the hardware store and low and behold in the cabling section .... guess what white cable clips !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i dont know how this fella remembered how to take breath.

APSS (SME)
ACSS (SME)
ACIS (UC)

 

[johnherman]

@gbaughma Reminds me of something from a collection of humorous incidents in court rooms. One of these humorous scenarios involved a witness shaking his head "no" on the stand. Judge told him, "All your answers must be oral". Sure enough, the next question that they lawyer asked him, he answered with "Oral".

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adaptive uber info galaxies (bigger, better, faster than agile big data clouds)

 

[SamBones]

...I see her sticking the floppy disk to her file cabinet - WITH A MODERATE SIZE MAGNET!

I used to work for Blue Chip Stamps, a West coast take on S&H Green Stamps (or any other trading stamps you may know). Actual stamp use was fading at the time, so the company decided to try doing the same thing only with little plastic cards to record the transaction and "points", instead of handing out stamps and books. The system worked reasonably well, but we had a VERY high incidence of "bad" cards. It took a little while to figure out. It seems that after doing the grocery shopping, to keep the card handy for the next trip, many people would put the card up on the fridge with a magnet.

That little detail may be what killed the program.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Chip_Stamps

 

[MasterRacker]

Early 90's at a tech startup. The owners call us into an all-hands meeting and spend an hour explaining how business has dropped, money is tight, we need to cut expenses, there will be no raises, etc. One finishes off with "...and morale can be grounds for dismissal"

Next day the other owner shows up in a new car... DOH!

Jeff
[small]"The software I buy sucks, The software I write sucks. It's time to give up and have a beer..." - Me

http://RusticPhoto.org

[/small]