The New User Influxation

The place is in chaos, the servers are maxed out, everybody is stressed, tensions are high and no one can remember their password, date of birth or even their name. The same time every year we get a huge influx of new users: More users to report problems, more users to create them. Each one has to be registered on the system to get their vital computer user accounts, and then have to go through a long, gruelling induction by our highly trained specialists.

I say gruelling, as it is more taxing for the inductors than for the inductees. From the stories they have told me it resembles a cross between the London riots, and the Krypton Factor for the technologically afraid.

The Phone Scam

For months I have had numerous reports from colleagues, friends and family members about a guy with an Indian accent, phoning them up at home and claiming to work for Microsoft. Or more specifically 'Microsoft Windows'.

First of all, before I go on, any idiot knows that Microsoft is the company and Microsoft Windows is the product. But not this one. This is a special kind of idiot, he is twice as stupid and says he works for  'Microsoft Windows'.

This 2x idiot, this Fonejacker rip-off, this stinking piece of garbage, is nothing more than a scammer, a con artist and a thief. Do not mistake him for a hacker either. Hacking requires skill and intelligence.This is nothing more than a petty criminal, who wants your hard earned cash.

The World's Worst Software Engineer - Part 6

Bright and early, The World's Worst Software Engineer arrives ready for battle. He's a warrior; fully armored, loaded with dangerous software; fresh back from his holiday, he is raring to go and just as clueless as when he left.

Even though I have sent him through the logon credentials he still can't connect to the server. Even though they are exactly the same as last time. I reset the password for him. No luck. I test the account myself and it works perfectly. Still he can't get past the bad user name or password error screen. It takes me ten minutes to talk him through how to get on to the server. Great start, that holiday has done him a world of good; his brain is completely relaxed. I'm impressed already!

The World's Worst Software Engineer - Part 5

One Week Later:

We are on high alert, the system isn't running correctly after the upgrade, and of course it's all our fault. Our database server is not working correctly because the software can't connect to it. Regardless of the fact that every other server that connects to it are having no problems whatsoever and there have been no other complaints.

The World's Worst Software Engineer isn't complaining to us directly though, but going through a proxy, namely, the person who wanted the software in the first place. We are eventually informed that he is on his way down to see us, to see if we can help. What this really means is, he is on his way down so he can moan about the local database account, and stand around looking dumb while we struggle to fix the problems he has caused, with no helpful input from him. To top it all off, we still know nothing about the software, how it is setup, how it works or even how to log in to it. Much the same as him really.