I recall my early days in the industry when I was still playing the desktop support role. One user who had been working at the company for at least six months, and who I was, shall we say, familiar with, put in a call for urgent assistance. As he worked just around the corner from the HellDesk I popped out straight away. On arrival at his desk he gave me an apologetic look and told me that he had a knotty problem with a word document he was writing. He showed me the screen that had a single line of large point text on it, looked me in the eye and said "Sorry to bother you, but I've tried everything and I'm stumped. How do you get the cursor onto the next line?"
I stared mute at him for about five seconds then, without breaking eye contact, reached out and hit the enter key. Bless him, his face lit up like a Christmas tree and he couldn't thank me enough. "I'll have to remember that!" he said as I left him, more than a little bemused that he has survived in the job that long without that kind of knowledge.
I wish I was making that up!
Biting the hand that feeds IT
