I put my foot in my mouth rather firmly once. I was teaching a new user some basic UNIX commands just so she could get around on the computer when she needed to. I thought I was doing pretty well, but, in a moment of self-doubt, she said that she didn't think she'd ever learn how to use a computer. My feeble attempt at consoling her follows:
* Me: "Don't worry. You'll get the hang of it. When I first started using UNIX, I didn't even know how to change directories!"
* Her: "What's a directory?"
* Tech Support: "When was the last time you rebuilt the desktop?"
* Customer: "Did what?"
* Tech Support: "How long have you owned this computer?"
* Customer: "Four years."
A customer walked into the computer store I work in, wanting to return a computer.
* Me: "Sure, is it defective?"
* Customer: "No, that's not the problem. When I took it home and turned it on, I realized it was only half programmed."
* Me: [scratching head] "What do you mean by half programmed?"
* Customer: "Well, look at the computer on display." [points to the Windows 95 desktop] "Do you see how all the programs are on the left side of the computer?"
* Me: [biting tongue] "Well, you are right sir, I will take your computer back."
I decided the moron had to solve his life before he could buy a computer.
A guy at our company asked to have Lotus Notes installed on his Mac. He said he'd be away for a couple days, and I could install it then. When I went to do it, there wasn't enough disk space, but there was about 96 megs in the trash. Ah, I thought, he's forgotten to empty it.
When the user returned to work, he came straight to see me after switching on his machine.
* Him: "Where're all my files?"
* Me: "What files?"
* Him: "The ones I was keeping in the trash."
Recently, I had a guy from the local tech school come in for an interview for my computer assistant job opening. I was taking him around the office, trying my best to explain to him what my job entails and what he'd be doing if he worked for me. One of the very first things I showed him was our NT server, which runs Wincenter Pro, a third-party enhanced version of Windows NT Server which allows us to have multiple people logged into the same NT box and to start up a remote NT session from an X-Windows desktop. He was pretty impressed by that, having been trained in a vanilla NT environment. The next thing I showed him was one of our old DG 300 UNIX workstations. He scoffed along with me when I explained that the workstation used an old 16mhz Motorola processor, so it was not exactly fast. The interview seemed to be going well up to this point, with the guy seeming to understand most of the stuff I was throwing out (even the stuff I wasn't too sure about myself) until I happened to mention that the DG workstation, along with all the other workstations and servers in our office (save the NT server, of course) ran DG/UX 5.4R3.10:
* Me: "Yeah, and this thing runs DG/UX 5.4R3.10."
* Him: "What's that?"
He stares blankly. My heart sinks.
* Him: "So does that run as a thread under NT?"
* Me: "No. It's an OS. It just runs by itself."
* Him: "Oh oh, so you start up NT, then--"
* Me: "No. UNIX. It's an operating system. It runs by itself, not under NT."
He stares blankly. So much for this prospective employee.
Two girls walked into the University's Linux cluster one time. They were obviously unfamiliar with computers and chatted with each other trying to figure everything out. I was doing my own work and had tuned out a lot of the conversation, but at one point one of them turned to me and asked how to get into Windows. "Type startx," I replied, for the Linux machines booted to a shell prompt, and you had to type "startx" to get into X-Windows. I never did find out if that worked for them or not, but they spent quite some time trying to correlate the instructions they had on paper (presumably given out in one of their classes) with what they were seeing on the screen. A full hour and a half passed, and finally one of them turned to me again and asked if this was the Microsoft Windows cluster. "No," I replied, "that's downstairs." It was hard to stifle the laughter until they were gone. An hour and a half before they realized they weren't even using the right operating system. Wow.
A lab technician (legendary, where I work) deleted a large and seemingly useless file named /vmunix from a Sun workstation. (This file is the UNIX operating system image.) The machine worked fine until I tried to reboot it.
In what seems more and more like another life, some 15 years ago, I was an assistant in a computer lab belonging to the computer science department of my university. The lab consisted of a bunch of 286 IBM PS/2s with only a 3.5" floppy drive -- they had to boot with an operating system disk and then put in the program disk, and so forth.
One day a student was having problems booting up the computer. I went to see what was happening, because she was becoming increasingly vocal about the quality of the hardware and the incompetence of the people (me) who were supposed to maintain it. I found that she was trying to boot off a floppy with no operating system. So I tried to tell her that she needed a DOS diskette to boot the computer.
* Her: "Why?"
* Me: "Well, because without the operating system the computer just cannot work."
* Her: "But I don't need the operating system."
* Me: "I assure you, you do."
* Her: "No, you don't understand, I've already passed the operating systems exam. I'm preparing the coursework for simulation theory, so I don't need an operating system. I already passed. Really."
* Me: "I'm not talking about the exam. I am talking about the operating system for the computer."
* Her: "Why on earth should I want to put an operating system on the computer when I have already passed the exam? I need to study simulation theory, not operating systems! The arrogance! Now you want to tell me what I should study? You don't think I passed the exam on my merits alone? Huh?"
She stormed out of the lab and filed a formal complaint with the department's secretary. The worst part was that I got reprimanded, because, apparently, the senior management didn't know any better than she did. Yes, she graduated a couple of years later.
A member of getacoder.com posted and asked for someone to write an operating system for him. It had to have all the features of Windows XP Professional. In return, he would be willing to pay $20 to $100.
The listing:
I need someone to program me a new OS (Operasting System) that looks different than Ms Windows XP etc. but has the same style. It does not need to run on a mac but all the other PCs. It's supposed to have a stylish look with clear edges etc. And ITS NOT SUPPOSED TO BE JUST A REDESIGNED WINDOWS as I'm going to sell that operating system later on. These are some important points :
It should have ALL THE FEATURES that Windows Xp Professional has. ALL the files that run on Windows XP ust also run on the BlueOrb OS. It must have a very user-friendly interface (like MS WINDOWS XP) When it gets Installed, the user needs to insert a serial number. It HAS to be HACKER SAFE! It must be quick and good looking.
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