We want to hear about your Family & Friends IT Support Stories!

[asyrewicze]

Hey Everyone!

As mentioned in SysAdmin Weekly - 040 - Big Tech OWNS Your Compute.... Should You be Worried?, we'd like to do an episode where we share some stories when it comes to providing IT support to family and friends.

They could be funny, horrific, shocking....or otherwise!

I would LOVE to be able to share some stories from the community during the episode, so let us know below if you have a great family and friends IT support story to share!

Cheers!

[F1phreek]

I was dropping my daughters off at daycare and immediately noticed something was wrong. The doors were propped open and some parents looked concerned. Walking past the office doors I could see the assistant director of the daycare was on her phone panicking. I asked another parent what was happening and they said, "their internet is broken."

That seemed plausible to me because the Comcast service at our office dropped that morning. It's our backup ISP at work and my phone has been blowing up all morning with alerts. We also are in the middle of a massive migration project that we need to get done before the end of the year. I cannot take the day off and I have PTO scheduled for next week. Calling out is not an option!

I asked the assistant director, who is also my mother-in-law, what is going on. She was on her iPhone with their MSP trying to fix the internet. "The phones and computers aren't working! If we don't have phones we have to close today." That's NOT happening. I walk to the back of their office and look at the rack. The internets not broken.... the whole damn thing is off! Not a single blinking light (and no UPS)! I asked one guy who works there to check the breakers. I follow the PDU's power cable through this mess of a rack to the behind a cubicle and see the problem. It's unplugged.

Someone unplugged the PDU and powered a freaking Christmas decoration (wasn't even cute). A few minutes later everything was up and running. Dropped my kids off in their classrooms and we completed the project on time.

Mother-in-law seemed very embarrassed so it was probably her, lmao.

[asyrewicze]

Root cause is the punchline! I laughed when I read this =D

Someone unplugged the PDU and powered a freaking Christmas decoration (wasn't even cute)