The secret power of IT support: Computer intimidation
Posted by SkyGuardianOfTheSky@reddit | talesfromtechsupport | View on Reddit | 138 comments
Look, sometimes things just don’t work and we don’t know why. And sometimes they do work and we also don’t know why. I like to imagine it’s because computers are dark empaths and can sense if you are not confident or in a hurry and consequently try to make your day as painful as possible. And conversely if a computer senses it’s misbehaving and someone has come to see what all the trouble is, it’ll suddenly be on its best behaviour.
One particularly magical example of this was a call I received some time ago from a rather stressed out admin clerk who had apparently been having constant issues with excel all day where it wouldn’t let them type anything in.
I suspected that it was probably something like being stuck in read only mode. However literally the minute I remoted into their computer and asked them to show me where the issue is stemming from, all of a sudden they could type in excel again!
“How did you do that??? I’ve been trying to get this to work all day!!!”
Dawg I wish I knew…
Now that excel is working for them, I let them go and carry on with other junk that needs doing. Barely 10 minutes later I get a call from THE SAME PERSON for the SAME ISSUE. Apparently as soon as I stopped remoting in they couldn’t type in excel anymore.
So once again I remote in and once again, as soon as I do so they can type in excel again. At this point I offer to just let my remote access to run in the background so they could do their work in excel but they turned down the offer since they were about to clock out anyways.
And this isn’t an isolated case. I’ve had COUNTLESS cases where as soon as I arrive on scene to assess why [application] doesn’t work, it starts working again.
What about you? What are some of your cases of intimidating technology into working?
cadds_75@reddit
I don't intimidate the computers... I always tell people I am the paladin of computers and I just lay hands on and heal the poor soul of the computer....
TeslaNovaStar@reddit
I usually call it the tech support wizard field. Like the computer just knowssss someone competent is nearby and it wants to make me look like an even bigger moron.
kagato87@reddit
I tell people it's because the computer is afraid of me. It knows I won't hesitate to smack it with the format stick and, if needed, order it's replacement.
1947-1460@reddit
I usually say it’s afraid because it knows I’ll rip its guts out and it will feel pain.
glenmarshall@reddit
The root causes of many problems are PEBKACs or ID10T errors.
I do like the phenomenon when a fellow programmer does a code walkthrough with a teammate to find a bug. The previously obscure bug becomes immediately obvious.
K-o-R@reddit
The origin of Rubber Duck Debugging.
owenevans00@reddit
Too many to remember. It's amazing how much better they behave when you can credibly say "Mottherfucker, I know where your power switch is, and I'm not afraid to update your drivers"
jamoche_2@reddit
“If you don’t open that exit hatch this moment I shall zap straight off to your major data banks and reprogram you with a very large axe, got that?” - Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
K-o-R@reddit
checks watch Okay, get the axe.
vwooooooooom "Please enjoy your day on this planet."
NotYetReadyToRetire@reddit
My version was to tell the computer “I have screwdrivers, wire cutters and a soldering iron, and I WILL USE THEM ON YOU.” Users laughed at me until their PCs suddenly decided to cooperate. For the servers, I made it a point to disassemble any old PCs we were scrapping in front of them as an object lesson while telling them if they screwed up they were next.
s-mores@reddit
Also known as the demo effect. As soon as you try to show someone something broken it miraculously starts working just to spite you.
erikkonstas@reddit
In software development we call this a "Heisenbug", where a debugger alone throws execution off enough to make it non-reproducible under inspection, but clearly there if there's no debugger.
s-mores@reddit
I once had a case where commenting out a class caused compiler crash.
If the class was there, fine. If it was gone, fine. If it was commented out, crash.
rilian4@reddit
Sounds like a bug in the compiler itself...misreading comments some how.
erikkonstas@reddit
Ah, realizing the parser is broken has to be one of the worst feelings ever, like your entire confidence in it is just gone, personally I consider these bugs just like ants (where one is, more are lurking).
GrumpyOldGeezer_4711@reddit
Back in the early 90s I was programming in COBOL on a Prime.
After an update to the OS the compiler decided to get quirky. Sometimes, but naturally not always, it would refuse to compile unless there was a comment in a specific line. Not only that but in programs up to a certain length that comment had to be in line 63 while in programs exceeding that length it had to be in line 200-something.
We decided that if one comment would keep the compiler happy then that was a good deal.
erikkonstas@reddit
255 perhaps? That 63 is a bit interesting...
AdreKiseque@reddit
I mean, 63 = 8² – 1 = 2⁶ – 1. Highest possible value for 6 bits unsigned or 7 bits signed... standard ASCII uses 7 bits iirc. There are patterns.
RiteRevdRevenant@reddit
Given
63₁₀ = 111111₂and255₁₀ = 11111111₂, if that were the case it’d be an interesting pattern.GrumpyOldGeezer_4711@reddit
We tried to link it to the usual suspects in terms of byte, words, halfwords etc. but it didn’t match up. We reported it to Prime but they drew a blank as well.
Also, it’s been over 30 years, I am not certain of the specifics anymore. My memory isn’t what it never was… ;)
KnotHanSolo@reddit
We call it "The IT Aura".
ApplicationHour@reddit
Happens to me all the time. What did you do? Shrug. They just know better than to act up when I’m around.
mc_it@reddit
I had one coworker recently call me her "IT Paladin".
I "healed" her computer just by Laying Hands upon it.
Stryker_One@reddit
Like an IT faith healer? BEGONE foul app! I cast you OUT Clippy!
Legion2481@reddit
People have called me IT Wizard before, i once replied completely without customer service filter "How dare you call me a Wizard, I'm a Sorcerer. Very different."
donnacus@reddit
I had a bug one time that did that. It turned out to be a hardware problem. we had a bad bit of memory. If the debugger was loaded, the program loaded where that bad bit was 0. Without the debugger the program loaded where the bad bit fell in the middle of a instruction and changed the meaning of the code. I finally was able to demonstrate setting the location to 1 and didn't change. Think early days of computing circa 1980 on a PPD-11.
SeanBZA@reddit
I had a bad stick of memory, and simply set a kernel parameter to exclude that particular page of memory, which otherwise, despite being hit by lightning, was perfectly functional, even after 2 days of hammmering at it. Was a nice free upgrade to a system that was otherwise short on memory, only having 128M, and adding in the single 512M stick in a free slot made it fly, despite only having the one stick added to the 2 64M ones.
oppereindbaas@reddit
That’s Volkswagen emission testing in a nutshell
Significant_Snow4352@reddit
"why is this variable null? It should clearly be set here two lines earlier."
adds console.log()
variable is no longer null and code works
lauriys@reddit
Vue computed properties in a nutshell
floutsch@reddit
I call that the "practical application of the inverse of Murphy's Law". Shift what is supposed to occur to be an error andit will fail. Just keep a poker face when the machine can see you :D
Emadec@reddit
I'd say this is more a reverse Pauli effect! Stuff starts working again when we enter the room
floutsch@reddit
Oh! That's also nice!
ThunderAug@reddit
I have this happen almost Daily. Whether it is an End User or an IT College, as soon as I step over to their computer, the issue resolves itself. I like to call it my IT Aura. It's blue in hue, just so you know. Passive IT fix is best fix.
DeltaBravoSierra87@reddit
My go-to line for the embarrassed user who swears it was happening 10 seconds ago is 'it's important for us to remember that computers are spiteful'. That usually gets a laugh and relaxes them. Most don't care why it didn't work before if it works now.
new-Baltimoreon@reddit
I think the machines know that I'm not above taking them apart and leaving them in pieces if they don't work right.
AdreKiseque@reddit
"Computer Intimidation" is a great term for it lol
alphaglosined@reddit
I have my own personal theory of this "IT aura" thing that seems to exist. It doesn't make any sense according to what science I know, but hey observations precede a theory being proven!
All computers to some degree or another are sentient. The sentience is dependent upon size of transistor (smaller = better), number of transistors in use, with respect to both CPU, RAM and other components, although CPU is weighted more than RAM, than the others.
Next the behavior, it's a bit like a dog. It bonds with a single primary person the best but will associate with others and can bond with them equally well willingly. How it reacts to a person depends upon how it's been treated over the course of its life. If it has been treated well, it'll respond well.
Now about printers... They are not some weird unique machine, see pretty much all of them have had computers in them since the early 90's and at one point their CPU could actually be more powerful than someone's desktop CPU. Not true today of course, but it does show that they are not basic logic gates (even if you don't have things like networking supported).
Problem is, people see printers as a mindless tool, even among IT folk and of course nobody ever attempts to bond with them. Hence why people have so many problems with them that are beyond the manufacturer actively harming the printer.
As for why IT people seem to make it work? Have you ever wondered how girthy your doctor's arm is? Well, computers get to find out! For obvious reasons, they would prefer to forget about it and avoid relearning it.
Basically computers don't like being treated like mindless tools, and want to bond with people who use them. If you actively try to bond with them, listen to them, and treat them well, they'll treat you well. Otherwise, they can and will have the desire to mess up your life.
AlemarTheKobold@reddit
I guess HP whips and abuses all of their printers from the factory, because they're the devil
rilian4@reddit
I hear everyone on reddit say that but in all my many years in IT, I've had better luck with them than other brands. I guess I'm weird. 🤷♂️
AlemarTheKobold@reddit
My biggest gripe is with the consumer grade equipment and the "HP Smart" app- the app is total dogwater and gives me nothing but trouble when I have to help people with it.
Not to mention their anti-consumerist practices and their entire ink subscription service
rilian4@reddit
100% I work w/ the laser stuff not consumer. I won't touch ink printers...
Dazzling_Risk_9463@reddit
Hp printers were ok as far as the laser jet models, but they are a bitch to work on and those jet direct cards are worthless. Their laptops across the board are shit and their desktops have been disappointing.
aquirkysoul@reddit
Back around 2006-2007, I used to make a tidy sum by doing cash-in-hand on-site residential tech support.
I eventually started to heavily overbook each day after I discovered that the tech support aura fixed a good 80-90% of the problems on arrival. I'd encourage this by offering a discounted rate if the issue disappeared as soon as I walked through the door (in exchange for allowing me to leave and get straight on to my next job).
While I probably should have turned it into a proper business, I found that I'd had to do so little actual troubleshooting/problem solving that my technical skills were actually getting rusty. The impostor syndrome ended up leading to me wrapping it up and moving down to Sydney to get a 'real job'.
capn_kwick@reddit
What I tell people is that you have treat computers like extremely spoiled children. You have to give them exactly what they want.
ze_ex_21@reddit
Computers can smell when you're in a hurry, and decide to start installing all the widows updates
rilian4@reddit
In my experience, windows 10 especially will slowly erode performance if there's an update and you haven't installed it to the point the system is unusable. You think "Let's just reboot and see if that helps" and sure enough every freaking time it has an update. Makes no nevermind that the system ran perfectly fine for months before that update posted. I've been in IT 27 years+ and seen this more times than I can count.
rhoduhhh@reddit
"Widows updates" feels accurate as a descriptor for Windows updates
Destination_7146@reddit
And now you have discovered the existence of the machine spirit. The Emperor Protects.
gman4757@reddit
Toll the Great Bell once!
RockingInTheCLE@reddit
OMG 😂
groveborn@reddit
Stuck key. Ctrl or Alt or even caps lock were not doing key up for whatever reason.
Substantial_Leg6852@reddit
I have a co-worker that is opposite to this. She has had so many issues with her set up. She doesn't do anything particularly bad with it either. It just will get wonky on her.
She asks me to take a look, I walk over and it works...or I check cables and then it works (even if the cables aren't the issue just usually the first thing I check when monitors are flaky).
A few other coworkers think I am magic too... because same thing. "Hey came you come take a look", I walk over "Oh, is working now", "Happy to help?"
blind_ninja_guy@reddit
This isn't exactly it support, but when I was in college, I needed to use virtualbox to run virtual machines. I'm blind, so I use accessibility tools. Virtualbox had a bug that I like to call Shrodingger's accessibility bug. The app would randomly have some race condition that would break something used to relay accessibility updates to specific windows in the app. This would have the effect of everything becomes inaccessible from that point on. But you had no idea that the app had become inaccessible until you tried to use the user interface again, pressing a key of some sort. This meant that at some point the app had broken its accessibility implementation, but it was in a superposition of accessible and inaccessible until you used the application, at which point the user interface collapsed to one of the two states at random. It was always fun to explain to people why I had to reboot virtualbox. And then I discovered it had a command line interface and was like oh cool perfect don't need to deal with this crap anymore.
Kranth-TechnoShaman@reddit
Tech Aura. I used to call people to get directions, and their printer magically started working as I got to their village. Even wi fi printers!
rhoduhhh@reddit
That's what we call it in my IT department, too. One of my coworkers has the highest Tech Aura in the department, and I have the 2nd highest. All our other coworkers will go to me or him if they can't get something working, and I have to go to him in the rare occasions I can't fix something. It's absolutely wild.
Emadec@reddit
I love how so many of us decided on the use of "Tech Aura" without prior collective agreement.
ChaoticCryptographer@reddit
I’ve always just called it magic but I’m calling it Tech Aura from now on. Currently mines the highway in our department but I’m hoping we get some more powerful Tech Aura wielders soon
ArkofVengeance@reddit
Thats what i tell ppl when they ask why it works when i show up. Tech aura.
Emadec@reddit
Praise the Omnissiah, for he comprehends all *binaric screeching* this layperson perhaps did not perform the proper blessings before requesting services from the machine spirit
SeanBZA@reddit
Will bet that this was either flaky memory, or something was corrupted in the kernel. Restart and it goes away, as that bit of memory is now not used, though running Memtest for 24 hours will probably show it up, or look at the rowhammer test to see if it was inadvertent memory access on adjacent cells causing it. Either of the last shows a single error take the memory and replace it, and snal the old ones in half to keep them from being used again. Then run the tests again.
Kaaawooo@reddit
I tell clients computers are sometimes intimidated by my presence. 😂
lavachat@reddit
My partner is in IT, and I've had errors or something with a chip in it not working for me, but behaving perfectly fine when he's home. The things know they're replaceable and who will pull the plug.
ozzie286@reddit
I suspect they have a stuck key on the keyboard, either CTRL, ALT, or ESC, and the remote software either disables that key or puts a limit on how long it can be held down to hinder users f*cking with techs when techs are just trying to fix stuff.
Cassie0peia@reddit
One time someone was having issues with his laptop. He was remote (sr exec) so we weren’t there to troubleshoot in person. We even had him send the laptop to us and we couldn’t recreate the problem. We sent it back and just ordered a new laptop. Then something he sent made us pause.
Hold on… do you work with your laptop closed (while connected to a dock)?
Yes.
Your computer has a camera slider cover on it, right?
Yes.
That stupid cover was pushing on the touchpad buttons. Weeks wasted trying to troubleshoot this.
ozzie286@reddit
Wait, what? The laptop should disable the built in keyboard and touchpad when the lid is shut. Anything else is crappy design. I'm assuming the webcam cover was an aftermarket one, otherwise it's a really crappy design that should be named and shamed.
Cassie0peia@reddit
Yes an after market cover that stuck out just enough and placed in just the right spot so that the lid was technically not shut completely, I guess. This was the only laptop we ever had this issue with.
intellectual_printer@reddit
Yeah it was this. I've had a issue where a users keyboard was under some papers holding down the control key, user connected/ disconnected from the dock and the laptop still thought the control key was held down
JazzHandsFan@reddit
Once the enter key was stuck on the computer I was using and so it kept infinitely attempting to open stuff and grinding the computer to a halt.
3lm1Ster@reddit
As a user, I have had this happen too many times to count. There is also something in the cash register where if the drink option shows MED instead of MEDIUM, you can't do anything but hit MAIN MENU. No other buttons will work. Unfortunately, there is no consistency to when this happens, so our IT dept can't figure it out.
intellectual_printer@reddit
How often does that happen ?
3lm1Ster@reddit
Daily
I can ring in orders for 30 minutes with no problems, then the MED instead of MEDIUM will show up and be annoying, then disappear for a random time before appearing again.
intellectual_printer@reddit
This sounds like a error/ bug with this software more than anything. Sometimes the most simplest things can trigger these bugs, like clicking more than once on areas.
Also if it's only 1 pos teller effected it could be just that teller that needs to get rebuilt / re imaged.
3lm1Ster@reddit
It's something with the program, because it happens on all registers in multiple locations
intellectual_printer@reddit
In a perfect world your IT team will contact the developers and get them to provide a debugging version so this bug can be investigated and fixed.
But that likely won't happen 😔
rafaelloaa@reddit
Either stuck physically, or "stuck" in software. I sometimes have a case where the ctrl key is functionally stuck (i.e., if I just press "t" it'll open a new tab), even though sticky keys etc are all disabled and the physical key is fine.
In those cases, I find that mashing the "stuck" key a few times causes it to start behaving normally again.
ozzie286@reddit
That's usually because the key is coming back up, but the physical switch that the key pushes on is stuck.
Pixxyeb@reddit
Yup, had a space bar issue just 2 weeks ago with this same story!
DigitalLint@reddit
I had a developer with this problem two days ago.
Awlson@reddit
Ahh yes, the tech support aura. When it works for me and not the teachers, i just tell them the equipment knows to behave around me, for i know where the hammers are kept.
asmcint@reddit
Usually I just have the standard tech support aura, family will call me in to help with a problem, then as soon as I walk in the room it stops. However I have specifically intimidated printers into working in the past. Sometimes just by getting mad enough, but occasionally specific threats of violence have had to be invoked. Threatening a reenactment of the "Office Space" scene must be done rarely but is highly effective. Although ever since moving to ink tank printers I've just stopped having problems altogether. Most that ever needs to be done is reboot the computer, it's never the printer's fault with an ink tank model.
pagso3000@reddit
i dont think i have had any where remoting in has fixed it, but i have definitely had times where it work when i do it. usually this is just a case of user error. i have had other times where it starts working as soon as i turn up to their office and i dont need to do anything.
NotYourNanny@reddit
"I'm so smart that when I walk up, you get smarter."
Works over the phone, too.
meitemark@reddit
"I'm so smart that when I walk up, the computer finally recognise the combined IQ as above plant level."
Dazzling_Risk_9463@reddit
You don't have to be a genius to work in IT. You just have to be smarter than the meatsacks you're helping.
kanemano@reddit
sometimes it's just a pause, before you logged in the user was asking the computer to do several things, play spottily, keep open 40 tabs, run 14 programs.... you login, and the computer relaxes and only working on the one thing, excel and can catch up.
3lm1Ster@reddit
My work computer does this now, but with only Excel running. I click in the box I want to add info to, and it shows the box is active, but nothing happens. Then, after about 10 or 15 seconds, everything appears like a dam broke.
kanemano@reddit
How large is the file? One of your fields may have formatting issues or is running a calculation including another sheet or has a link in it somewhere,
3lm1Ster@reddit
I think the problem is in the CPU itself, and not the software. Most of the time, this issue is in Excel, but it occasionally shows up in other programs when Excel is closed.
Unfortunately, IT has the computer so locked down I can't get to any of the Windows diagnostic tools to find out anything.
UnabashedVoice@reddit
Not even task manager? I troubleshot a similar issue on my work laptop using task manager's Performance tab; on my machine, the issue was 16gb of ddr4 couldn't keep up with my workload. I submitted an IT request for additional RAM, and the lag went away once i was working with 32 instead.
3lm1Ster@reddit
Nope. We have access to Word, Excel, Nbo (which is our main inventory and reporting program), and a handful of white-listed web pages.
UnabashedVoice@reddit
Aww man, that's gross. Not even the option via ctrl-alt-del?
3lm1Ster@reddit
I can access that screen, but only to lock or reboot. I have no idea how they admin locked that much, but they did.
UnabashedVoice@reddit
Sounds like you may need to open a case with your helpdesk, have someone remote in and run diagnostics.
rilian4@reddit
Group Policy. It's pretty straight-forward if you do windows admin stuff. They could have locked all of the buttons out if they wanted to.
UnabashedVoice@reddit
Yep.
Captain_Hammertoe@reddit
I once flew to another city for a support call on a major software product, only to be told upon arrival that the problem had miraculously cleared up about 20 minutes before I got there.
Traveling-Techie@reddit
“I’ll just use this other, newer computer, I’ve been meaning to get rid of the old one.”
“Wait, it started working!”
bagofwisdom@reddit
My "Menacing gaze" has fixed a significant number of IT problems.
EdgeOfWetness@reddit
Maybe the stress allowed them to spell correctly
Sweet-Education-4840@reddit
We call these kind of repairs FM.
“What was wrong with that blade server on 10? It was FM I went and looked at it and it was working.”
FM= fucking magic
Purple-Lie-354@reddit
The variation of this that I learned was "PFM", for "Pure Fucking Magic". Same idea, really. Covers sooo much territory!
TheRealJackOfSpades@reddit
I call it "I have a screwdriver and I'm not afraid to use it." The possibility of being skinned and gutted puts the fear of me in the hardware.
Equivalent-Salary357@reddit
Same thing with sick kids and doctor. Multiple times.
For example, temperature 104^(o)F (40 C) at home, drive to doctor and it's 99^(o)F (37.2 C).
Kip_Schtum@reddit
I was IT for an agency and in the morning the office would be full of field staff madly trying to get office stuff done before they went out in the field. Once someone called me that their laptop wouldn’t start up and I had a few people ahead of them so it took me about five minutes to get to them and then when I go over to their area, just as I walked up, it magically came on before I even got within 2 feet of the computer. I just laughed and said I’m taking full credit for that and turned around and walked away.
ladylucifer22@reddit
Murphy's Law is sometimes positive. Computers will either respect us or fear us.
robsterva@reddit
I think that the act of opening a remote connection fires up a different set of drivers that either cover up or fix issues like this. I've seen it happen with keyboard, mouse, display, and even app freeze issues.
It's to the point where some of the users at my job call to say "can you remote on to unstick (things)"... It's faster for them than rebooting.
ze_ex_21@reddit
The VW emissions method. Clever.
BouncingDancer@reddit
I can confirm that IT aura is a thing. I'm a user and my Teams weren't working - I couldn't hear the other people meetings and they couldn't hear me. I tried it with and without headphones, logged of the call to log on again and nothing. Brought the notebook to IT, suddenly it's working and they didn't do anything with it.
IdioticEarnestness@reddit
I joke at work that we need a full-sized cardboard cutout of me for when I'm on vacation. When something is being wonky, just bring the cut-out near the computer. It'll get intimidated and start working again.
MissRachiel@reddit
You laugh, but I once fixed an intermittent issue where someone's computer would turn off at random times by making a voodoo doll of myself to sit on the tower.
I did in-home repair and tutorial stuff. Worked with a lot of old folks. This old man's computer would randomly turn off while he was doing stuff. Sometimes before it even hit the Windows desktop. It would go weeks without doing it, then do it again several times in a row.
I tried all the normal stuff: made sure cord, power strip, outlet were secure, checked the motherboard for weird grounds, swapped out the PSU, physically moved the tower to the other side of the desk, moved the tower from the floor to the actual desk surface, and the little bastard kept doing it. It did it in front of his wife, the grandkids, his sons, random visitors, but never while I was there.
I got tired of being called out for this thing, and tired of fucking with it, so I made a little MissRachiel voodoo doll with a golf ball in a sock for the head/clothes, some yarn the color of my hair on top, Sharpie resting bitch face, and a toilet paper tube enclosed in the sock to serve as the body and keep it standing upright on the tower.
It never happened again.
My personal theory is that he or his wife shuffling around with their socks on, or maybe the wheels of his power chair on the plastic chair mat were building up a static charge that they sometimes grounded to a USB port, which was enough to get the system to either shut down or restart. The voodoo doll creeped them out enough that they kept their hands/feet away from the tower.
rafaelloaa@reddit
I have this with computers/other tech frequently, but also with other electronics.
I had a cheap immersion (stick) blender that was starting to fail. I bought a nice fancy AllClad one to replace it. I swear the old one heard me threatening it, as it's kept on buzzing just fine for the year+ since that purchase.
UnabashedVoice@reddit
I've always known this as a proximity effect of Computer Mana. The more a person uses computers, the higher their computer mana is. More in-depth use, like troubleshooting or repair, builds mana faster. They know when they encounter a human who is unafraid.
owenevans00@reddit
Admins emit cluons. Users emit anti-cluons, also known as bogons. Computers require a net positive cluon flux to work properly.
ancalagon73@reddit
Same phenomena when you take your car into the mechanic and it stops making that noise.
megabsod@reddit
I like Tech Aura, but we call it the Proximal Repair Radius here. It's an AOE buff and generally doesn't require casting, though it can have a cool-down.
ThginkAccbeR@reddit
During the pandemic rather than getting everyone laptops and secure access to our servers that way IT decided to make everybody login via VPN to their machines in the office.
As local tech support as well as the office manager when something would go wrong and someone couldn’t get into their computer I’d get sent a message to go into the office and fix it. It usually meant an update didn’t complete and needed to reboot but sometimes there was no reason that they couldn’t VPN.
So I would go into the office, always wearing my Doc Martens, and shout into the empty space. “OK, which computer needs kicking?”
About 75% of the time I would get to the person’s computer and it would be working again.
Nothing like a little threat!
burf151@reddit
Brave Little Toaster phenomenon. They don’t wanna go to the dump. Machines are certainly scared of my Frankenstein’s monster grave robbing “recycle” shelf.
masterbard1@reddit
I've made tons of money just by having the intimidation super power. I once drove 2 hours on a sunday at 10 at night to help a lawyer print out some very important case documents cause his computer wouldn't turn on I got there and it turned on 1st try. lawyer printed the documents, turned off the computer and tried to turn it back on, no dice, his wife tried, no dice, his daughter tried, no dice. I try, it turns on! lawyer paid me very well that night. had him as a client for almost 10 years.
tashkiira@reddit
The infamous Tech Aura. 'It wouldn't do X, Y, Z, and it needs to!' And then we look at the darned thing and it works..
ramblingnonsense@reddit
This began happening to me so often it was becoming difficult to write off as selection bias or mere "demo effect". I figured this out once people began deliberately exploiting the effect without my knowledge! It seemed like the only rule was that I had to actually use the machine; just being on the phone or in the room talking wasn't enough. But as soon as I remoted in or sat down at the desk and started typing, problems disappeared.
After careful self observation, I've come to conclude it's the subconscious things I do to fix a troublesome system that I now do to every computer I encounter. It's a series of habits so deeply ingrained I literally didn't even realize I'm doing them, which is why I couldn't explain it.
And they're all simple things like:
I eventually came up with about 20 things I do out of habit that fix issues before I even realize I did them, and I suspect many of the stories in this thread have similar roots.
georgy56@reddit
It's a common phenomenon; technology sometimes behaves better when we're watching. Tech magic!
wwbubba0069@reddit
the amount of times things "just start working" the moment I walk the 1/2 mile trek across the building and get within arms reach of it... I'm looking at you UPS zebra label printer... user almost always will apologize for having me make the hike and say something along the lines of "its scared of you"
meitemark@reddit
A zebra printer scared of anything? That'll be the day. Nah, most likely it just wants a visit from someone nice.
wwbubba0069@reddit
I think the only thing it fears is me smashing it in a 100 ton hydraulic press.
meitemark@reddit
Zebra printers fears nothing. They know they will be reborn as a Zebra printer anyway. You cannot make something that has nothing to lose fear you. You can make them like you.
funkmotor69@reddit
When this happens - and OP is right, it happens a lot - I just tell people, "Computers fear me."
livasj@reddit
I usually tell any customer who apologises for bothering me in cases like these that "all it needed was the magic eyes".
woemoejack@reddit
I call it the proximity effect. I've convinced users that the issues are sentient and know when I'm close.
trip6s6i6x@reddit
Fellow excel jockey here, think I might know this issue lol
If it's what I've experienced, when you have multiple sheets open (especially when they're stored on a network drive and not on the local machine), sometimes windows has a hiccup that causes the active sheet to be underneath the one you have up on screen. When this happens, you can clip on cells, but you can't copy or change anything (because the sheet's not actually active.
When this happens, I just click through all the sheets I have open, and this refreshes the system so I can make changes again.
Windows is weird.
smcbride27@reddit
I had a meeting with the head of IT, as I go into the room he's handing the connection off to coworker saying that his HDMI port doesn't seem to be working. We have the meeting and I suggest we try the other laptop again. It just starts working.
My cousin had dropped her iphone and they overnighted her a new one. I was going over for dinner, show up and she'd been working on it for the better part of four hours. She had started looking for the nearest apple store. I walk her through the process again and magically it all starts working.
ThudGamer@reddit
I work in software development. Just the other day, a client was testing the transition from system A to system B. Data had been ported over, so test results were expected to be identical. Except B was showing a different total.
We all hopped onto a call to troubleshoot. Yes, B was short a few records. We have the client run the process again. This time the totals match.
No clue how it could have been wrong the first time, but it's been working fine since the call.
UnabashedVoice@reddit
This is why i move data with robocopy's /mir function. 1:1 data, faster transfer than through the GUI.
SethMarcell@reddit
This drives my wife absolutely nuts. She's quite competent with computers, so when something isn't working for her it gets frustrating.
She will occasionally ask me for help and before I even do anything it starts working, drives her up the wall.
kiltannen@reddit
It is the Intel technician proximity circuit...
artieart99@reddit
i work in telecom. just last week, we were grooming some circuits (multiple customers ride each circuit). first one we tried to groom, none of the first 3 customers we tried to move would come up. so we moved them back, put the circuit back where it was, and moved to the next circuit. all went well for the rest of the circuits. go back to retry the first, customers come up immediately. not the first time i've encountered that, sure it won't be the last.
bbbbbbbbMMbbbbbbbb@reddit
At least a few times a week this happens. Sometimes multiple times a day.
StoneyBolonied@reddit
I'm onsite, and perform regularly what we have dubbed a "proximity fix"