Apocryphal: user reports laptop frequently crashing. Tech is putting it through paces, can’t make it crash. Tech slides it over and asks user to show them what they do differently. User touches the laptop (before they can do anything with it) and it crashes. I was told about this, I didn’t see it happen.
I firmly believe some people emit some sort of electromagnetic interference that we don’t have a reliable way to measure yet that makes technology buggy in their hands. My spouse is one such person. I’ve watched them from across the room do exactly the right steps and not have it work. Then hand it to me and it works instantly. There’s no logical reason for this. Their mere presence near by can make some things error it seems. It’s given me a lot more patience when people describe problems that should be impossible.
Of all the tech related professions IT people are by far the most supersticious. There is a reason we put bags of ramen on top of server racks and do other weird things when preforming high risk tasks.
A college advisor gave me the nickname of Morris Virus. Computers would go haywire, even crash (at least one death), if I was near them (and sometimes when I was about to arrive). I got kicked out of the Computer Center dozens of times. I got in trouble in other places, like at the local ISP, and got banned from touching some computers.
Streetlights would turn off as I approached and come back on after I passed them. A friend used that to find me.
A great aunt and a brother would meet up from time to time to exchange watches since watches would run faster for one and slower for the other.
Apocryphal: user reports laptop frequently crashing. Tech is putting it through paces, can’t make it crash. Tech slides it over and asks user to show them what they do differently. User touches the laptop (before they can do anything with it) and it crashes. I was told about this, I didn’t see it happen.
hada user like this, we joked she was allergic to laptops. we could never replicate the issue until she touched it
Did she name her car “dick turpin”?
I firmly believe some people emit some sort of electromagnetic interference that we don’t have a reliable way to measure yet that makes technology buggy in their hands. My spouse is one such person. I’ve watched them from across the room do exactly the right steps and not have it work. Then hand it to me and it works instantly. There’s no logical reason for this. Their mere presence near by can make some things error it seems. It’s given me a lot more patience when people describe problems that should be impossible.
Of all the tech related professions IT people are by far the most supersticious. There is a reason we put bags of ramen on top of server racks and do other weird things when preforming high risk tasks.
A college advisor gave me the nickname of Morris Virus. Computers would go haywire, even crash (at least one death), if I was near them (and sometimes when I was about to arrive). I got kicked out of the Computer Center dozens of times. I got in trouble in other places, like at the local ISP, and got banned from touching some computers.
Streetlights would turn off as I approached and come back on after I passed them. A friend used that to find me.
A great aunt and a brother would meet up from time to time to exchange watches since watches would run faster for one and slower for the other.