Really Funny or Sort Of Tech Mishaps (skype, outlet, flash)

[sprklcl]

* Relative taking and snapping holiday family pictures, and this was before digital cameras and when still had film cameras. About half a hour later she realized she had forgot to put film in the camera. Fortunately, others of us there were taking pictures too, but with properly loaded cameras.

* One of the cartridges of my ink jet printer had run out of ink, as little was printing out on pages coming out of the machine. Put new ink cartridge in and still same problem. Then realized I had forgot to take off the thin protective plastic strip before putting the cartridge in the printer.

* Older relative, told her she sounded muffled when talking with me on her cell flip phone which was relatively new, though she said she could hear me just fine. Went over to her house, found she put a label on the phone with instructions on how to clear messages from the phone. Problem was that label was covering the microphone hole.


What are your really funny or sort of funny tech mishap stories?

[coschristi]

Last week I sent my husband a text message that said 'My boobs hurt bring fish'.

I knew he was down the street from a fav fish restaurant, it was too hot to cook & I was grouchy because it was the wrong time of the month. I knew he'd know what I meant but he was at an auto parts store & had just handed his phone over to the guy behind the counter to show him a part number when my text flashed on the screen.

The guy looked confused & asked him; 'Uh, is this some kind of code'?

[phetaroi]

Back in the earlier days of technology in public schools, when I was a vice principal, I was seen as sort of the computer wizard in our school...which was hardly true...and yet I knew more than most. One day the principal called me in and said, "Victor, can you look at my computer? It isn't working at all". I immediately said, "Joan, you have to plug it in". Joan laughed, and I said -- while holding up the cord -- "No, you really do have to plug it in". Apparently the custodians had thoroughly cleaned the night before and had unplugged it to clean.

Back in college in 1969, we had an IBM 360. It was HUGE. Took up most of a room and the building had been redesigned to have the room incorporate two floors. I don't remember which language we were programming in at the time...may have been RPG or COBOL, but someone put in the wrong carriage control number in their program, and the printer almost instantly shot out a stream of paper that, for a moment stood straight up to the ceiling and then all fell down to the floor.

[movinon]

Originally Posted by phetaroi

Back in the earlier days of technology in public schools, when I was a vice principal, I was seen as sort of the computer wizard in our school...which was hardly true...and yet I knew more than most. One day the principal called me in and said, "Victor, can you look at my computer? It isn't working at all". I immediately said, "Joan, you have to plug it in". Joan laughed, and I said -- while holding up the cord -- "No, you really do have to plug it in". Apparently the custodians had thoroughly cleaned the night before and had unplugged it to clean.

Back in college in 1969, we had an IBM 360. It was HUGE. Took up most of a room and the building had been redesigned to have the room incorporate two floors. I don't remember which language we were programming in at the time...may have been RPG or COBOL, but someone put in the wrong carriage control number in their program, and the printer almost instantly shot out a stream of paper that, for a moment stood straight up to the ceiling and then all fell down to the floor.

Ah yes, the "are you plugged in" moment. I was in tech sales for professional video production. I had a tech support guy available for the big problems and I could do the basic troubleshooting. I got a frantic call from one of the Big Three TV network tech staff that they were on the air in five minutes for the evening news and nothing was working. My first question was always "Are you plugged in?" . . . probably five seconds of dead silence and the network guy sheepishly said "Oh. Thank you. We're good to go now. Bye." Wish he'd been on Skype so I could see his beet-red face! I don't imagine he lived that down very fast.

I also went through the "no film" problem although it was at work. The resident company photographer was supposed to be shooting a very important contract signing meeting with a prominent foreign company. Yep, he forgot to load the camera. He was the only photographer attending and it was a once in a lifetime opportunity. It became a standing joke with him after that which he fortunately took in good spirit.

So glad to just be accountable for myself these days. I have my "what did I just do?" moments but at least I don't have to explain to anyone else!

[markjames68]

Almost 20 years ago I bought a new motherboard and AMD CPU. I put it all together but before mounting the cooling fan I wanted to make sure it worked, so I turned it on briefly.

It worked for about a second before smoke rose from the center of the CPU...in those days they didn’t have thermal shutdown capability...it was a brief period between not needing CPU fans and when the chips had built in protection...



30 years ago the company I worked for had a government subsidized work program where you’d get poorly qualified people that would train as a PC tech and the government would pay half. We used to need various socketed BIOS chips to work with various motherboards, so we had around 20 on hand - sometimes you’d need to try a few before getting one that would work.

After about an hour he came to the boss and said none of them worked, which had never happened before. Except....he socketed them all backwards (rectangular IC chip that could be reversed 180 degrees) and fried them all.

[SoCal_Native]

Smartest kid in the class was writing his Fortran Code (I think using an IBM 360 like the guy above mentioned...this was around early 1980s at Cal State Northridge...we were still using punch cards in 1979). Kept debugging and debugging and debugging....Getting really frustrated.....

He spelled "Integer" incorrectly when declaring variables.

[thecoalman]

Originally Posted by sprklcl

* Relative taking and snapping holiday family pictures, and this was before digital cameras and when still had film cameras. About half a hour later she realized she had forgot to put film in the camera.

I did this while taking pictures in the Budweiser factory in St. Louis.


I cared for my Grandmother in her last years, she was one month shy of 101 when she passed. She had a double block so I lived next door. She wasn't clueless but there was some funny moments. She's complaining she couldn't hear the TV and I calmly picked up her hearing aid off the table. She had this digital alarm clock that was hooked to outlet that was intended for a light so it was switched on the wall, people would often hit the switch without knowing they shut the clock off. She could usually manage to get it set right but the one morning about 3AM I hear Led Zeppelin's Whole Lotta Love ripping... Opened the front door thinking it was car outside, sure enough it was the clock radio alarm going off. She's was just about deaf without the hearing aid so she is just snoring away. Every time i hear that song now I burst out laughing.

[phetaroi]

There used to be some tech radio show on Saturday mornings that I listened to, and one day they were interviewing a rep from one of the computer companies (I think it was HP). They asked him what the most common question was that the help line got. "It says to hit any key. There's no any key on my keyboard". The interviewer laughed and said, "But really?" And the rep said, no that is really the most common question.