IT
.
Working in I.T. shows you a few strange things. One of them is that some computer systems are sentient. When the owner or user is trying to work on it, it'll display bizzare symptoms, bugs and crashes but, as soon as a techie hoves into view, it'll purr like a pussycat and refuse to throw up a single error. Diagnostics will show it to be clean and the sweating user will be bleating:

"But it does it every time I try something. I can't understand why it's working now!"

I'll just tell them I believe them because normally, I do. I've seen it happen too often for there not to be something in it. Computers *know* when there's a techie in view. They can sense us. Sometimes, and I shit you not, you have to sneak up on the bastards to catch them doing something naughty.

And while we're on about techies, some of us have developed odd superstitions or rituals over the years. With me, it's my magic paintbrush that I keep in my toolkit. It's a very fine-haired paintbrush that I use to clear dust out of circuit boards. If a machine has an intermittent hardware fault (those are the ones all techies hate 'cos they're a bastard to find) then out comes my magic paintbrush.

But I'm not as bad as a mate of mine. He has a voodoo rubber chicken that he keeps in his inside pocket. When he's stumped, he takes out his chicken (stop sniggering at the back) and waves it over the computer. He swears it works.

I just wish he wouldn't do it in front of customers. Gives the rest of us a bad name.

Cheers
( Legless Mister Stabby - shanks for the memory, Thu 3 Jul 2008, 11:48, 11 replies)

Mobile phones are the same.
For two weeks last year, my phone refused to work. If it turned on, it wouldn't accept any button presses, the screen would rotate, distort, zoom, and do other silly things.

So I took it to the shop, and it worked perfectly. Nothing wrong with it. It's been fine since.

I'm sure I looked a terrible fool.
( Thinker, Thu 3 Jul 2008, 11:58, closed)

*click*
for the mental image.
( Madam Marlboro wonders if you've found her yet, Thu 3 Jul 2008, 12:15, closed)

Does this mean
that if we nail loads of rubber chickens to the doors of Wee C Porld, all the shit they peddle there will actually work?
(happylittletulip helpless and delicious, Thu 3 Jul 2008, 12:21, closed)

This is all true
So far its happened to me 4 times today.

"My computers fucked!!!"

"Show me"

"Oh.....Its not been working all day and now....."
( Peej, Thu 3 Jul 2008, 12:35, closed)

Ahem!
It has been my considerable experience in life that there's nothing a rubber chicken can't fix.
( girlinthehole, Thu 3 Jul 2008, 12:53, closed)

*Puts Hand Up*
This happened frequently in my techie days.
( scoshi pretending to diet since, Thu 3 Jul 2008, 15:12, closed)

I love the image
of Legless sneaking up on a computer, before leaping out and yelling "Caught you, you bastard!"
(Bazongaloid, Thu 3 Jul 2008, 16:01, closed)

IT Voodoo!!
No rubber chicken but I do have 'Sock Monkey' and 'Magnet Monkey'!! Magnet Monkey guards my desk and Sock Monkey (a Paul Frank keychain monkey!) attends all of my desk calls with me. I also have pictures of him main stage at Reading Festial and crowd surfing at Foo Fighters at Wembley!!

I often get asked what he is for and my reply is 'He answers the stoopid questions' :)
(indigo_prime, Thu 3 Jul 2008, 16:38, closed)

I used to keep
a plastic duck foot that had broken off of a cheap piece of garden statuary and had it sitting on top of my computer. When people asked me about it I said it was in case Windows NT locked up again on me. I would then shake it over the monitor and growl "Wanadoonta koonagunda! Wanadoonta koonagunda! Wanadoonta koonagunda!"

For a fact it rarely locked up on me!
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Thu 3 Jul 2008, 18:01, closed)

My Users
I just thought my users were all lonely and inventing PC problems was just an attention seeking disorder.
I've told them - you don't need an excuse to talk to me!

That or they have an odd form of Münchhausen by proxy where they deliberately harm the computer to get attention.
(Rich T has a clever and witty sig, Thu 3 Jul 2008, 19:36, closed)

Aura effect
It happens to me as well - whenever I get asked by friends or family to look at some recaltriant bit of kit, the damn thing always behaves perfectly. I've started calling it the 'aura effect', as I must generate some sort of aura that causes technology to behave!
(Raystorm, Mon 7 Jul 2008, 23:27, closed)