November’s Poll Results: Best IT horror stories

Hey everyone,

November is FINALLY over, and while the colder weather and shorter days would normally be getting us down, we have something to lift our spirits: November’s poll results!

As you may recall, we asked you to share some of your best IT horror stories. We had a great time reading all of the comments on the blog and Spiceworks. Some of the responses were hilarious, and some were indeed pretty terrifying. It was tough to choose only 4 winning entries, but since that’s what we promised to do, without further ado here they are!

From Chuck Layton:

“About 15 years ago I was working doing phone support for physicians using our software. Doc calls me and is having a problem. I told him to put his mouse on the My Computer icon and right click. He said, it isn't doing anything. I said are you sure, you should see a small popup window. He said I'll try again. Then I hear it...clink, clink. He was literally putting his mouse on the glass front of the monitor. IT people could write some hilarious books!

From Gossamer10927:

“I worked as a computer instructor. One student was having trouble with her computer so I went to take a look. When I pulled the tower forward I noticed there were MAGNETS ALL OVER THE BACK OF THE COMPUTER. After some confusion, the student 'fessed up'. Someone had told her the magnets would make the computer run 'slower' SO IT WOULD BE EASIER TO USE.”

**From ** DolphinKing:

“Have a Google Search bar on the company homepage, for quick access to Google searches. Asked to remove it by manager, so we do so. Inundated with calls that "THE INTERNET IS DOWN!!" (Apparently; users not only assume that Google "is" the internet but also the only way to access it was through the search bar on our homepage!) Return Search bar to homepage, crawl in to corner and start crying.................................”

From Don Miller

"Last spring, I got the bright idea, to upgrade all my servers to Server 2012R2 from 2008R2. I wrote out a plan, and submitted it to management. I am the only IT person, so they didn't know what they were looking at, gave me the go ahead. I upgraded 3 servers on one weekend. Went flawlessly. Following weekend, I upgrade our Exchange server. Some of you are already laughing at me. Some of you may not realize, that Exchange does not support in place upgrades of the underlying OS anymore. The last time I had attempted this, it was a 2000 to 2003 upgrade, and it worked great. But Microsoft quit supporting it long ago. Microsoft Support is awesome though. They walked me through the process of copying my exchange database over to a new server (yeah virtual machines!), removing the bad server from the AD, and getting Exchange back up and running. Our email system was only down for 2 weeks. My most embarrassing screw up to date (20 years in IT)"

PRIZE TIME!

In addition to featuring their stories on our blog (and sending waves of laughter and horror to IT pros across the world!), we’re delighted to give our four winners a $25 Amazon gift certificate. Please contact me to claim your prize. I’ll also connect with each winner via Spiceworks to share the good news. Again, thank you to everyone who participated! Stay tuned for the December poll coming in a few days…prepare your wish list folks!