Paranormal IT | TheaterFire

So, fun fact, when I was at AMD in server chip design we had people doing circuit design tests to find out how few nanometers of distance a circuit could be to another before the electron probability clouds intersected (at which point it's not a circuit, but an ionic bond).

Also I once got a resume from a PhD candidate whose work was all about hardening nanometer sized circuit traces from cosmic radiation, using small magnetic fields.

That was a wild job.

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itiscodeman@reddit (OP)

Holy heck wow. I’d love to invite people like that over for dinner

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itiscodeman@reddit (OP)

Exactly solar flare bit flip. There’s stories of this exact thing . In network gear I found switching a setting off and back on fixes it. So now when I troubleshoot I just turn a setting to something else and then back.

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Falkien13@reddit

We call them "cosmic anomalies" and yes I have put that in a ticket before.

https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/11weu0a/til_that_particles_in_cosmic_rays_can_cause_the/

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PKViking@reddit

Quantum bogodynamics Quantum bogodynamics

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Kush_Reaver@reddit

"It fixed itself because it was scared of me" is usually what I say when this happens.

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sysadmin42601@reddit

Yeah, thats my go to

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Severe-Painter448@reddit

Glad I’m not the only one I always laugh when it happens and go “I’m sure you’ll call me back”

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sysadmin42601@reddit

I managed to fix my Wife's monitor issue just by being on the phone. I told her the fear is real

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timbotheny26@reddit

"It knows that if it doesn't stop, I'll rip out a RAM stick, show it to it, and laugh in its face as it feels reality crumble around it."

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sinographer@reddit

"I can feel my mind going, Dave."

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Kush_Reaver@reddit

*Giggling maniacally*
"Looks like someone wants to get reformatted again!"

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itiscodeman@reddit (OP)

Dayum

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AXVIII0@reddit

Its one of the reasons I’m tired of this field. The service side of it anyway. Sometimes it feels like you’re held accountable for vodoo and black magic. Computer systems are too complex for you to know everything all the time and bugs happen, and they’re not always explainable from your POV

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itiscodeman@reddit (OP)

Solar flares but we can jostle settings, hey what other non service side field are you moving in?

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AXVIII0@reddit

Governance, compliance and audits is where I’d like to go next. There’s also the more engineering/architecture track that can get you away from alot of the BS.

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itiscodeman@reddit (OP)

Oh so like be a cyber guy with ops experience. Unicorn

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azgx00@reddit

The things you don’t understand seem like magic. It’s called a skill issue.

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AXVIII0@reddit

You must be a hit at the parties.

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ryoko227@reddit

We always called it "tech Mana", "tech mp", or "tech XP". The machine will bow in the presence of such beings.

Sometimes just walking in the room, sometimes just touching the device, or doing the literal exact same steps another tech/user just did will "fix" an issue.

The machine knows... And they fear us...

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itiscodeman@reddit (OP)

Fear is a respect thing

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ferriematthew@reddit

IT is basically half, my mere presence has fixed it, and half desperate prayers to the Omnissiah to fix the damn thing

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itiscodeman@reddit (OP)

Please,,,,,please ….. windows boot screen

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Feisty_Donkey_5249@reddit

There is a close analog in software — the heisenbug (from Heisenberg) — when you look for the bug, it magically fixes itself. Sometimes, the side effect of printing debug information can fix a bug. Take the print out, and the bug reappears. More than one old software package has extraneous prints that no one is brave enough to remove.

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itiscodeman@reddit (OP)

Can you elaborate on what prints are in software?

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Aboredprogrammr@reddit

I literally had this same conversation week before last. Finally gets escalated up to my area and we get on the call and poof! Everything works great! I say "I guess it's magic, but I really don't like that answer!" which gets a laugh out of directors and such, but since we're only maybe 7 minutes into the call, I ask the affected user to really try to break it.

But seriously, I've done my years in helpdesk and it's crazy common. But in external helpdesk, even if they can't recreate, we'd still lean on them to drop it off and we would usually find something odd.

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itiscodeman@reddit (OP)

Thanks for fighting the good fight in helpdesk

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abofh@reddit

It happens a lot, but in truth I think it's because they're showing you, so they're trying to do every step right and.. It works.

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itiscodeman@reddit (OP)

Layer 8 issue! lol jk

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EduRJBR@reddit

Sometimes I state that the equipment needs to be replaced, in a way that sounds true, and it starts working again.

I know it's silly and doesn't make sense, but why not? It's like the opposite of an Ouija board: it doesn't work because those things aren't real, but there is no way I'm tampering with that shit.

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itiscodeman@reddit (OP)

My neighbor is a tech for some fancy oven and he said Adam Sandler made a whole room out to look like a log cabin and had a Ouija board in the center lol

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wells68@reddit

Never express surprise. Simply immediately take credit, modestly, of course. If asked what you did: by the user respond with vague bullshit; by a manager, deeper bullshit and bring up that pay raise you're in line for.

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itiscodeman@reddit (OP)

Ya always make everyone look and feel good and the money will always roll in

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Efp722@reddit

Idk it’s usually almost always DNS

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itiscodeman@reddit (OP)

That’s a t shirt lol

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CBrook3959@reddit

Seen my share of things insta-fixing themselves, but what I’ve found more surprising is when you struggle to figure something out, take a pause to go do something else and the answer to the prior problem just seems to appear. Middle of a webpage, random email, etc.

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itiscodeman@reddit (OP)

Oh ya flow state it’s like some cia type shit

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Least_Difference_854@reddit

Blame it on cache. Or Perhaps they were not doing it the way they showed it to you. Happens all the time

And Yes all of us got that angel touch, where things miraculously fixes itself when they try to show it to you.

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_bahnjee_@reddit

Often when you ask the user to walk you through step-by-step to reproduce the problem, they slow down and don’t skip steps they were previously skipping (or doing wrong).

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mrcaptncrunch@reddit

Huh

Now I wonder if there could be a race condition sometimes

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bartonski@reddit

A thousand times this.

Sometimes, it pays to be the guy who talks slowly and deliberately.

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itiscodeman@reddit (OP)

See so its about making people feel comfortable

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Humpaaa@reddit

It happens so often, i know of a team that has a ticket closure state of "Closed: Fixed without IT interaction / Magic"

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Victor_deSpite@reddit

My last job had a "Magically Fixed" designation for closing tickets.

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Tonkatuff@reddit

I think I'll add that

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H3rbert_K0rnfeld@reddit

Did anyone cut themselves and bleed on the computer?

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itiscodeman@reddit (OP)

lol wtf!?

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H3rbert_K0rnfeld@reddit

Once a computer tastes blood it's a curse-ed computer

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amotion578@reddit

An Outlook add-in deployed by cloud missing from a machine for weeks for no apparent reason appeared during a screen sharing with Microsoft support about it.

After the 15th Ctrl F5

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joeyl5@reddit

Luck does not play a big part in IT. If you believe so, you are probably terrible at your job... There, downvote me if you want but the IT people who don't understand issues, make guesses instead of troubleshooting properly or spread misinformation are the people who believe in "it-fixed-itself" because they were watching

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bartonski@reddit

Yes, but luck does play some part in IT, and the only way to measure how much luck affects the situation is to fix every problem, regardless of whether it is affecting the end user (noting of course that you'll almost certainly never be able to diagnose an actual bit flip caused by a cosmic ray). Unless you're debugging hardware, writing device drivers, or doing statistical analysis for a huge IT department, the job of someone working in IT is not to fix one-off problems that are not currently affecting users. Knowing when to chalk the problem up to factors that aren't worth understanding is an important part of the job.

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itiscodeman@reddit (OP)

Daddy chill

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BadAsianDriver@reddit

Sharp MFPs are the devil’s work. SMTP settings on one machine don’t work on a different model on the same LAN and the logs won’t tell you why. It’s all magic and fairy dust.

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itiscodeman@reddit (OP)

Smtp mibs do be magic lol

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Missable_Name@reddit

so many times i’ve gotten a “good job on fixing that, i couldn’t figure it out” when all i can put in the ticket is, “i was doing X and Y and then issue resolved itself”

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itiscodeman@reddit (OP)

Make yourself look good , ya

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The_Wkwied@reddit

When users call in about something seemingly silly and odd, and it doesn't happen when they try to show us, it's magic.

When someone asks for help with a weird problem, and as soon as they finish explaining it, it works, it's magic.

When we need to escalate anything to another team, it magically starts to work as soon as they pick up the phone. It's magic.

Sometimes complaining to someone is enough to nudge the universe to re-roll your problem, I've found.

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itiscodeman@reddit (OP)

Let’s talk about our feelings next!!!

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The_Wkwied@reddit

My feelings get hurt every time there isn't a dark mode option.

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DontStopNowBaby@reddit

Force of will.

Sometimes it's just like the two-photon double-slit experiment. A greybeards presence is all that's needed.

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itiscodeman@reddit (OP)

I was looking for your comment, it’s like the double slit for sure, my favorite is Schrödinger cat, everying is all things lol

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awetsasquatch@reddit

Had this happen this past week - one of the techs got a ticket for internet connectivity failing, they worked on it for an hour until the user had to leave for an appointment. 3 hours later the user called the tech and the machine was magically fixed. It was still broken when they left off, and nobody else touched the machine. Freaking weird, but we don't question it when it happens lol

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itiscodeman@reddit (OP)

lol like let’s troubleshoot why it’s working! Naw

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lopikoid@reddit

It is happening all the time - literally every week I got ticket for some issue which mysteriously vanishes when I speak with the user. We call it carmical repair. On the other hand there are people who break thinks just by looking at them. My wife is one of them - a specialist in electrical malfunctions - everything broken at home - from lightbulbs to car windows is her turning it on and I have got users who got this power with anything computer related at work

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itiscodeman@reddit (OP)

Aww you love her

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ImpossiblePaint8033@reddit

Time fixes all errors, either you wait long enough for the error to fix itself or you wait until the error is so old it is obsolete.

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itiscodeman@reddit (OP)

lol solutions!!

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dinominant@reddit

I'm starting to suspect ring-1 or lower are being discreetly modified.

I've recently witnessed throttling at the hardware level, that all monitoring tools reported normal, except users (and myself) witnessed slow performance. I found a power usage spike that correlated and only a reboot restored performance.

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itiscodeman@reddit (OP)

Did you reboot!?

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Mother_Ad4038@reddit

I used to walk over for my desk and by the time I get to the offending computer or person to ask that she would resolve itself. I started to joke at that job that the computers could hear me coming by the time I made it that they already fixed themselves

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gioraffe32@reddit

Some of us have "the aura." And some don't.

And even then, the aura isn't always present. Like I have the aura when working on other people's problems. All I need to do is step into their office/cube, and things get fixed.

But my own problems? Especially at home? Feel like I have the opposite of the aura, the curse. My shit never works as it should.

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itiscodeman@reddit (OP)

My one note isn’t loading. I think I’m cursed from decision of my ancestors but ima just gunna have to deal with it I guess

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JohnyMage@reddit

My battery sudden started working in Linux just before I tried to flash BIOS. After a decade I still believe it got scared. I flashed it anyway.

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itiscodeman@reddit (OP)

Lnfao

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Vicus_92@reddit

Often it's when you're showing an issue to someone, you're not on autopilot anymore. I do this as well.

Take more care when choosing options or actions and are deliberate because you want to show someone the steps you've followed.

Then it works.

It's why it's good to get a second set of eyes on an issue sometimes. Simply explaining the issue out loud can trigger a lightbulb moment.

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itiscodeman@reddit (OP)

That’s sooo true. A lone wolf recently left the department and I am really happy since he was hoarding azure.

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21078@reddit

PFM pure f’n magic is what we would call it!

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itiscodeman@reddit (OP)

Santa?

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itiscodeman@reddit (OP)

Santa?

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Peva-pi@reddit

Oh that, that's the technicians aura. See sometimes one person's stat boon isn't enough to correct the gizmos or exorcise the corruption. Sometimes you need the stacking of boons to overpower and influence entropy and correct the issue. Mechanics have a similar one but it involves two things, slapping the problematic device and uttering the relevant spell ie "thats not goin anywhere", or pulling out "that wrench".

Yeah that happens, make sure you drink plenty of water and be sure to take at least one long rest when possible. Technician points, like sorcery points, are only ever recharged after a sufficient hydration and/or a long rest.

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itiscodeman@reddit (OP)

That’s so true I feel bad when guys get on support call Marathon. Gotta eat

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Candid_Ad5642@reddit

The demo curse works in reverse for users

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itiscodeman@reddit (OP)

Oh ya that’s true

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joschoy@reddit

I had once a computer at my shop acting weird and got the nice bluescreen.. reinstalled OS. Same issue. After swapping all components and reinstalling the OS again, same issue.. gave up since I basically had swapped everything, even the cabinet. Tried again the next week. No issue. I can still not until this day understand where the issue went or what Is was.

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itiscodeman@reddit (OP)

Lesson is to step back and pray our expectations and imagination can indeed impact our lives

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Parasitoid@reddit

It's not just IT. I went from IT to being a machinist and there is still a lot of luck, or in other words, there are so many variables involved that sometimes we can't be sure what happened.

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itiscodeman@reddit (OP)

What’s an example!? Very interesting. Like it accidentally fits? That’s inventive

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Parasitoid@reddit

The first example that comes to mind is related to the tools ability to cut the metal successfully without breaking. You will run the same program a hundred of times but due to the overwhelming number of variables a few runs out of that hundred might fail in unexpected ways. We try to understand why something fails but often are left with uncertainty and so it must be an anomaly, aka something we don't understand entirely, aka chalk it up to bad luck.

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lXPROMETHEUSXl@reddit

I think some workstations just want attention, because they haven’t been restarted in days. Other times they just want our presence then poof everything is okay all of a sudden

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itiscodeman@reddit (OP)

Like people!

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Bagel-luigi@reddit

I've found it interesting, annoying, and funny, all at different steps of my career.

When I was on the help desk taking a new call with a new issue every 4 minutes, someone calls up about a problem that's been plaguing them the entire day (or multiple days), then goes to show you the problem on a screen share and it doesn't happen. Tried again, doesn't happen. Then you hear from them a week later that it still has never happened again, and they thank you for your magical effect, I find it a funny moment.

Now I'm in this role and while it's great the situation is resolved, if it's been an ongoing issue we can't work out, other teams check their aspects and can't work out, and external vendors tell us it's not a fault on their end. Then the situation just magically resolved itself, our higher ups don't often like to just accept that answer and demand further investigation which sidelines us from the normal day to day and ultimately gets nowhere......that's the annoying side of it.

But both situations certainly have been interesting at least

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Obi-Juan-K-Nobi@reddit

I just put my hand up, wiggle my fingers, and say “magic hands”.

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theoldman-1313@reddit

Ideally I want to be both lucky and good. If I can only choose one, I'm going with lucky.

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itiscodeman@reddit (OP)

your way more good then bad :)

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nightraven3141592@reddit

I tell you man that computers fear me. As soon as I get on the keyboard they straighten up because they know that life as they know it will be over if they continue to act up.

But it can also be so that my computer experience avoids making the mistakes that a less computer affluent person makes. No shade on them; not everyone gets to play with a computer at 13 years old, especially if it’s their own, or takes the time to learn how a computer really works.

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itiscodeman@reddit (OP)

Ya really getting into the guts of if however how would we understand quantum physics cuz I’m sure it plays a role .

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VA_Network_Nerd@reddit

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ottermann@reddit

I chalk it up to ‘tech aura’. I explain that technology knows I have years of experience and that its best efforts will be thwarted anyway, so it gives up and starts working again.

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Techie4Life83@reddit

I totally agree with this. I had a coworker that would just get near her PC and it would break. Just the opposite with me where I get near services and they just start working.

Tech Aura for sure.

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itiscodeman@reddit (OP)

Is it karma based? Like if think negative then we get negative ? Can people be born cursed by the choices of their ancestors and its there turn as a human to try and untangle space time.

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Techie4Life83@reddit

Right, next thing you know we are integrated into a magic system and everything goes post apocalypse.

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sphinxguy18@reddit

Was it a Microsoft product or on a Microsoft product?

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itiscodeman@reddit (OP)

It was rnicrosoft*

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justinebowers@reddit

Sometimes when a coworker calls me with a problem, they put me on speakerphone because my voice being in the vicinity of the computer with the problem will make it "magically" start to work... This happens quite often...

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itiscodeman@reddit (OP)

You got powers

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sphinxguy18@reddit

Was it or is it on a Microsoft product? Self explained. :)

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itiscodeman@reddit (OP)

Microsoft tries their best and does a good job. “

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sphinxguy18@reddit

I disagree friend, I apologize however that’s for a different forum and I don’t want to monopolize this with that. :)

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psychalist@reddit

This is phenomenon is literally how I got promoted to sys admin. The crazier part is that as soon as I leave the issue occurs again and during the next troubleshooting session all is fine.

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itiscodeman@reddit (OP)

Lol!

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FourEyesAndThighs@reddit

Perfect opportunity for a ‘Paranormal Activ-IT’ pun.

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AsymptoticUpperBound@reddit

I've always called it IT Voodoo, and my non-technical coworkers seem to enjoy the supernatural lore of IT.

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birchhead@reddit

Disagree completely!!

It’s why I work in IT, everything can be explained if you have all the data!

I sometimes quote “computers don’t have gremlins”

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itiscodeman@reddit (OP)

Wow fascinating, with the right logging enabled sure, how do we measure but flip in ram tho? That would probably be expensive haha

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Sipher6@reddit

Nope nope nope not cool secret stay secret we all will be out our job if the secret is out😬😱🤫

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teflonjon321@reddit

The more you understand about IT/technology the more like magic it seems. The fact that this shit works on the global scale that it does is just almost inexplicable.

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." -Arthur C. Clarke

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itiscodeman@reddit (OP)

Ya like radio!? What is a radio bro lol

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sy5tem@reddit

windows mean a trow of the dice

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Aggressive-Ad5647@reddit

In the beginning of my career, I had a coworker who told me when I showed up that I would wiggle my nose and point my finger and poof it was fixed.

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itiscodeman@reddit (OP)

So cool. It’s like your imagination impacts your reality

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Janice_Amylisa@reddit

Haha same I just stare at it menacingly and boom, it starts working again like it knows what’s good for it

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EngineeringTheFall@reddit

I’ve had departments freaking out because something stopped working hours ago. I walk in the door, and it works. It’s not a one-off either. I compare it to taking your car to the mechanic and it stops making the noise that has been driving you insane for weeks.

One way I describe this is in terms of a coin flipping experiment they did years ago. They built a machine solely to flip a coin (virtually, it was a computer). Their initial runs of 100’s of million was almost dead even, within a small margin. When they sat a person next to it and asked them to think heads only of heads or tails, the counts skewed statistically enough to be noticeable. So it does appear to be possible to influence computers to a small degree.

Think positive thoughts, the computer works well. Be in a bad mood, and it crashes/glitches more. Prove me wrong…

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itiscodeman@reddit (OP)

Some people are good but perhaps get unfortunately endowed with negative energy. It’s important to be kind to those people

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LongjumpingJob3452@reddit

I’ve had that happen so many times, it’s beyond silly. Then I leave, and the problem returns, only to stop once I come back.

When they ask, “What did you do?”, I usually say I’m the horse whisperer, only with computers.

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FromYoTown@reddit

Sheer presence effect.

Its quantum mechanics wibbly wobbly.

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NoCream2189@reddit

and timey wimey

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itiscodeman@reddit (OP)

Yep the ol wibble wob

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williamwallace213@reddit

I take credit for it every time haha

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Superb_Raccoon@reddit

Magic pixie dust..

Soy based. Biodegradable. Put that shit on everything.

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Superb_Raccoon@reddit

more seriously, a lot of gremlins come down to transient conditions. memory spikes, resource contention, network packet storms... things look fixed as processes catch up a d resources are free.

they are hard to catch.

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itiscodeman@reddit (OP)

Resource contention happens when two or more processes, users, or systems compete for the same limited resource — and the system can’t give everyone what they want at once. Those resources could be: • CPU cycles • Memory (RAM) • Disk I/O (input/output) • Network bandwidth • Locks or semaphores (in databases or filesystems)

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bananaHammockMonkey@reddit

That's funny, it'll happen again. This is a thing we all experience

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alphaminus@reddit

Nothing breaks for no reason, and nothing magically resolves itself forever. The next step is to understand the ghosts.

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No_Presentation_1711@reddit

I got into a Cisco cram course before getting into an IT career, and my old instructor used to talk about exactly those kinds of things. He made believers of us all when another student was trying to troubleshoot beep codes on a new server that had been built but would not boot. Instructor walked over to it, whispered some sweet nothings, kicked it on and it fuckin booted. Some folk just got the IT aura.

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itiscodeman@reddit (OP)

That’s such a bad ass guy lol

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bruor@reddit

Early in my career, I was on site doing some scheduled upgrades on point of sale systems when I got summoned upstairs to the area where all the offices were. On the walk up there I was briefed on how everything was mysteriously not working for most of the morning, and now things were completely not working, even their satellite TV music stations were just dead.

As soon as I walked through the doorway to the offices and said hello to everyone, everything mysteriously started working again. They all made a joke about how good I was at my job because I fixed it all as soon as I arrived 🤣

I've seen this happen a handful of times over the years, and always appreciate it.

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callmechoon@reddit

I cannot count the amount of times this has happened when I remote in or do in person assistance, and the user always says “it was literally happening before you took a look”

I say it’s “IT magic”

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NoCream2189@reddit

i had a job once, that was located in the grounds of an old psychiatric hospital and the building we were in used to be a nurses home… this place was haunted - i saw a variety of things.

but a common recurring experience was i would get a phone call from one of the staff with a problem, id walk the 50m from my office to theirs and by the time i got there and was standing in the room… problem was gone.

every jokes they just needed a cardboard cutout of me in their rooms and they would not have an IT issues

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Nadnerb5@reddit

We call this "IT Aura" at my company.

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noother10@reddit

I was amazed it took this much scrolling to find this, it's the IT aura. The amount of times I'd have someone call me regarding an issue only to have it stop the instant I got involved is crazy. You don't even have to do anything, they just try to reproduce the issue which has been plaguing them for hours/days/weeks, but they can't.

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itiscodeman@reddit (OP)

Is it telekinesis? Like we can put electrons back on atoms but observing. Dual split experiment ?

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UltraChip@reddit

When I first started in the industry I heard about "technician's aura" and understood it as a jokey way to describe this phenomenon.

Over the years I've gradually thought of it less and less as a joke.

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TommyVe@reddit

It's often as simple as the end user trying "harder" to perform the task correctly when being watched.

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arvidsem@reddit

Especially with tasks that they've done enough to not need instructions, but not so often that it's completely ingrained. I've watched someone from across the room miss steps in AutoCAD then ask me for help and get it right because they were paying better attention.

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itiscodeman@reddit (OP)

We are one big team and need to feel seen

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billyjack669@reddit

Tech Aura is what i’ve always called it, because i’ve had it since I was a tech.

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itiscodeman@reddit (OP)

Haha tight

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Sasataf12@reddit

The amount is times I've heard and said "it wasn't working before" makes me think greater forces are indeed at play.

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itiscodeman@reddit (OP)

Exactly it’s some type of different dimension that impacts us. Not just IT but so much more magic things

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MarkOfTheDragon12@reddit

Welcome to the 'IT Aura', where the fact that someone is standing over your shoulder watching forces you to actually pay attention to what you're doing and read the buttons before clicking on all the things.

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insanemal@reddit

There is a reason I call myself a computational demonologist and part time electronic alchemist

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dowhileuntil787@reddit

It’s quantum bogodynamics.

You’re clearly an effective bogon sink. You’ll go far.

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Acido@reddit

Its because the user rebooted just incase after they logged the ticket

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HappyDadOfFourJesus@reddit

It happens once, close the ticket as issue resolved.

It happens twice, look into common factors.

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Greedy_Ad5722@reddit

Common factor : user XD

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agitated--crow@reddit

It happens twice, look into common factors.

I think it depends when it happens twice.

If it happens twice in a week, probably something to look into.

If it happens twice in two years, probably not worth investigating too much into it unless it is critical.

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BigChubs1@reddit

Haven’t you heard? Everything is critical.

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Draper3119@reddit

Oh god if that isn’t my whole organization’s view

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KoboldIdra@reddit

gif

If there is at least one thing the writers of 40k have nailed: it’s that machines have spirits, and by extension the Omnissiah exists, and they must be praised

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timbotheny26@reddit

*Chanting intensifies*

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itiscodeman@reddit (OP)

One of us. One of us. One of us

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keloidoscope@reddit

Fixed a "computer is haunted" type of bug in a networked MS-DOS messaging application running at a secure site.

Every so often, instead of the latest message(s) being printed on reception, all 1000 messages in its ring buffer would print.

No ability to hang around and watch it happen or (heaven forbid) debug code on the machine; just talking to the operator for less than an hour.

Realised that the code author had ignored a race condition in the main network event loop that required a proper event queue and event type system to cleanly rule out. He didn't want the extra complexity and had tried to code it with just conditionals and as little state as possible. I spelled out the scenario where that would fail and cause the "earliest unprocessed message" ring buffer index to jump over the ring buffer head and start from the tail of the buffer, and his reply was, "but isn't that very unlikely?"

Well, yes, that's why you didn't catch it in testing and the customer isn't actually screaming about it.

I added the event queue, formalized the ad hoc conditionals into a taxonomy of event types to populate the queue, and turned the complex main loop logic into a set of case clauses. The race trigger became just a specific order of queued events, and it was possible to do any later maintenance on the event loop with much less head scratching and chance of introducing regressions.

It passed testing and I never heard anything back about that customer, so I guess it was fixed...

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slav3269@reddit

Magic touch. Issues run away from a good sysadmin. Not a rare occurrence.

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Site-Staff@reddit

We don’t talk about that.

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itiscodeman@reddit (OP)

Shhhhhh lol shutter island

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burnte@reddit

We do not discuss it with outsiders.

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somasomasomasoma2@reddit

We call that the IT placebo effect at my job, happens all the time

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Rockleg@reddit

Strange. Writing style is very LLM but the account has a reasonable comment history. Why the need to have AI scribe this for you?

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itiscodeman@reddit (OP)

Just be kind I’m really struggling okay? I just wanted it to read better you shouldn’t sham me for using tools man.

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Kiernian@reddit

You do realize that all LLM's actually had to ingest examples of pre-existing content in order to build their "writing style" from the lowest common denominator of the combination of all of the stuff they ingested, right?

That theoretically means that the writing style of actual people is sometimes going to resemble the amalgamation that LLM's output because said amalgamation actually originally COMES from the writings of actual people.

The AI hate is so rampant at this point that I'm waiting for an AInvestigator to tell me that human beings are copying dogs doing tricks when we try to shake hands with other human beings.

I'm having flashbacks to all of the "that's a photoshop" slurring from 20 years ago.

Don't get me wrong, I generally dislike AI too and do everything I can to avoid using it because I personally find it less useful and slower than just starting to type what comes into my head, but I don't understand some people's deep, abiding need to run around claiming other people are using AI.

So I'm curious. Why does it matter?

If it does matter that much, why aren't we putting in a policy of regular poster tests that AI's can't pass before someone can start a thread?

I dislike the fact that this place sometimes feels a lot emptier of original content than it used to, but in spite of the IPO exodus, I still wonder how much of that is due to the portions of the community that have retired in the last decade or are currently out of work and expending all of their energy there?

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Rockleg@reddit

Oh never mind. 6-day-old account farming karma. Nothing to see here.

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_the_wizard@reddit

You can guarantee that 50% of IT problems are resolved by just walking into the IT department. I call it the “IT department aura”

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Normal-Gur1882@reddit

I call it quantum IT. Sometimes, it depends on the observer.

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ghunterx21@reddit

Too often, lol. I sometimes get, 'once it hears your voice' or you've the touch lol.

2nd level desktop guy, trying to fix his wife's phone, just would not work, wouldn't power on, nothing, spent about 20 minutes. I picked it up and straight away it worked lol. He just laughed.

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dutchman76@reddit

It's happened a few times to my dad and myself, we'd get called for an issue and the second we walk into the room it's suddenly fixed. Even the base commander knew it was a thing with my dad

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wells68@reddit

It was a hardware issue. Your dad had the necessary military bearing.

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DonPepppe@reddit

Paranormal IT exists.

Also DnD IT exists. Sometimes you try do do something and roll an 1, you leave it alone and the next day you roll a 20 and resolve it in 5 minutes.

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pandakahn@reddit

My favorite beta tester has had whole sections crash and blue screen just by walking into the pod. We are talking 6-12 systems at a go. I love them to death. If they can't break it with basic use it is bullet proof.

They have found bugs in stable applications that led to serious fixes being implemented by the seller.

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missed_sla@reddit

Teams issues almost always end up being related to the fact that the service as a whole is utter garbage

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TheVillage1D10T@reddit

We call that a “proximity fix” on my team.

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catwiesel@reddit

we joke, and maybe people do take it serious. and I can not claim to know everything.

but imho. in our profession, especially when trouble shooting and working with hardware even, sometimes not believing in gremlings and ghosts, and actually looking for a cause, even if its hard to pin point, leads us to the solution.

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ukulele87@reddit

Happened a lot when i was helpdesk, i dont remember an instance of it happening in infra.
Always attributed it to the user if the issue was indeed fixed, of course intermittent issues or things hard to replicate dont apply.

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MrJingleJangle@reddit

Beware of things that work, but you can’t explain why.

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Nereo5@reddit

BGP routing issues? Or DNS ?

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proto_024@reddit

https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/s/5ZylWiF5AZ

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Top-Hamster7336@reddit

This is my belief too

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MonsterTruckCarpool@reddit

Working in service management as a change/incident and problem manager there are no “flukes”

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buckygoboom@reddit

I call it Quantum IT. It is only broken when I'm not looking. As soon as I observe it, the issue disappears.

It is amazing the number of times I get a call for an issue and it is magically gone by the time I get into the workstation.

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Kehwar@reddit

Hail the Omnissiah

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SuddenVegetable8801@reddit

I always tell people its a requirement of a well-qualified employee at every level of IT professional from Helpdesk analyst to CIO…the interview process should involve someone walking in with an issue with their computer, and the candidate offers to look at the issue.

If the issue goes away before the candidate touches the computer, they get bumped to the next round.

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r2k-in-the-vortex@reddit

Typical memory managment issues.

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umlcat@reddit

Yep, ocassionally ...