Overheard at the Office #53

$Client complained that her email would show up on one computer but not the other when it came in.  She had Outlook up and running on the two computers, and after sending a couple test emails, I was able to confirm that this was indeed the case.  Anyone care to take a guess?

The email account in question was $Client's personal email via her home cable provider.  Wow! cable is apparently still in the 1990's and if they support IMAP, none of the online documentation indicates this.  So when Outlook on computer 1 checks the mail, it pulls everything off of the server, because that's the default setting for POP.  POP doesn't do push, so the email client will check every 15 minutes, and whichever computer checks first after the message is received will get it.

The fix is a simple checkbox in the account settings to leave a copy of messages on the server.

Overheard at the Office #52

Here's a gem to show that IT professionals aren't immune to an occasional WTF comment. The following conversation is between a coworker and I.  The reason I find it so funny is this guy is very smart and has been in the field for years.  Wi-Fi just isn't his specialty.  He had recently set up a wireless bridge for a Blu-ray player in his house he didn't want to run a cat5 cable to.


coworker: Recommend me a good Wi-Fi to Ethernet adapter.  Netflix is constantly buffering over the bridge.
me: Let's rule everything else out first. Do you know you have a good signal in that spot? Have you tried the player on a wired connection?
coworker: No and no.  Let me see about those.....
me: If it looks like I'm avoiding the original question about a Wi-Fi to Ethernet adapter it's because I am. We in the business call such a device a wireless bridge.......
coworker: *face-palming*


Turns out the Wi-Fi signal was just terrible in that spot.

Overheard at the Office #51

Former boss on the phone with a customer who is not getting something that he's explained poorly a couple times.

FormerBoss: OK lady, why don't you go in the back, grab the smartest MAN you have back there, and put him on the phone.

Needless to say, they weren't a customer much longer.

May I Please Speak to the Man of the House?

So I recently came across this nugget of a post on Slashdot recently.  In a nutshell:

I like to hire women for level one.  They're always so polite.  And pretty! *Giggle*
Then I like to hire a competent tech to sit between them and do the actual thinking.  You know, a man.
And finally, ex-military types are great too.  They're used to the abuse I intend to dish out!

Sadly, I've worked for a few places that operated with some or all of this logic.

Overheard at Best Buy #1

This exchange happened years back before Best Buy started thinking themselves to be a cell phone store.

Sales Drone: How may I help you?
Me:  I'm looking for 1GB of DDR2 RAM.
Sales Drone: *very smugly* Well, DDR2 is pretty new and I doubt your computer can use it.  What brand is it?
Me: I built it myself this weekend, it doesn't have a brand.
Sales Drone: All computers have a brand. It's usually right the front of the case.
Me: Yes, the manufacturer of the case is written on the front. But that doesn't change the fact that I built the system.  And the motherboards manual clearly states it takes DDR2.

This back and forth goes on way longer than necessary until I tell him point blank that if he doesn't want the sale I can walk 2 doors down to CompUSA and I'm sure they'll gladly sell me what I need.

So I get the RAM finally, take it home, and it works perfectly in my new build.  I wonder if their sales people today know more about cell phones than they did about computers back in the day?

Edit: I better make this Overheard at Best Buy #1.  There's no way it can be the only one.