Happy new year folks! To kick off 2024 right, I wanted to start a segment of stories I’m tentatively calling “Tech Tales” detailing oddball, atypical, or otherwise amusing anecdotes from our history in the field that might resonate, educate, or (hopefully) entertain you.
Very, VERY early in my career, I worked at a non-profit that didn’t have much of a budget for an tech department. It wasn’t a huge deal since I was fresh out of school and a diet of “cup ramen with an occasional vegetable” wouldn’t really hurt me and I REALLY needed a job other than waiting tables. The coworkers were great, the clients were reasonable, and the commute was less than 30 minutes.
The downsides: since there wasn’t much of a budget for a tech department, I was responsible for everything that used electricity. That included networking, the office’s software, the membership database, the website (both frontend JavaScript as well as backend PHP), etc. If it used electrons, it was my problem. Now most days things were simple: a member sends in a photo they want uploaded to the front page, a grandma/grandpa wants me to manually change their password, simple stuff like that. Occasionally there were bigger issues like malicious bots spamming the forums or complaints that the front page takes 15 minutes to load on a dialup connection which needed a couple days of troubleshooting.
But once in a blue moon I got a gem to work on. Let me set the scene.
Just past noon, a coworker of mine, let’s call him Jeb, walked up to me as I was nose deep in a SQL query.
Jeb: Hey Zet, I’m having some trouble with my computer.
Me: Oh, OK, sure, be there in a sec.
I type out a quick note to myself to pick up where I left off and walk over to Jeb’s PC. Taskbar is complaining about an IP conflict, so it’s a lightning fast fix. Just pull up the command prompt, type in an easy “/ipconfig renew” and we’re good to go. I’m halfway through typing the command when I hear Jeb say the words that I will never unhear again.
Jeb: Yeah it just won’t connect to the website anymore… I think I ran out of internet.
Me: *stops typing* I’m… sorry? What did you say?
Jeb: I think I ran out of internet.
Me: … could you excuse me for a second? I need to check the server room.
Jeb: Sure!
I walk back to the glorified closet with A/C where the servers lived. It took a solid 5 minutes -300 seconds – to compose myself, and I walked back out.
Me: *finish the IP renew* OK Jeb, so I checked back in the server room and I routed a little more bandwidth to your PC. We get a new supply of internet around the first of the month so I just need you to take it easy on browsing until the 1st, OK?
Jeb: Sure man, thanks a lot, I appreciate it.
I walk back to my desk, re-read my notes, then get back to work only for my boss -the director – to peak his head around the corner. Keep in mind, I was the one-man IT department, so most of my coworkers weren’t technically inclined. The director however knew enough to be dangerous and would call out my shenanigans without hesitation.
Boss: So… Jeb ran out of internet, huh?
Me: *deadpan* … Yessir… it was the weirdest thing… just routed a little more from the server room
Boss: … You routed “internet” from the server room? Where we apparently warehouse excess “internet?”
Me: … yes?
Boss: fair enough.
To this day I don’t know if he thought it was genuinely funny or if he was just pocketing the incident for the “Perez Hilton” fix later that year, but that’s another story for later. The moral of the story: keep a straight face. In the worst case, you’ll look like a genius for fixing their problem. In the best case, they’ll supply you with a story that will stick with you for the rest of your life.
And a little extra internet.