adventures in gadget ownership

[zwol]

A helpdesk person used the old "please unplug your gadget and plug it back in again (because then you'll actually check whether it's plugged in instead of just saying it is)" trick on me today.

And it was SPOT ON.

I had forgotten that this particular gadget's power cord was unpluggable at both ends, and the gadget end had worked loose enough to break the electrical connection but not enough to fall off.

So I feel silly, but on the other hand, I don't have to ship the thing to Illinois for repairs, so we'll call that a win.

Comments

[nojay.livejournal.com]

More than one face-to-face help desk has a teddybear on the counter. When a supplicant approaches they are told to describe the problem in detail to the teddybear before they can ask for help from the second-line human on duty. This results in people getting halfway through the explanation, slapping themselves on the forehead, saying "Doh!" and slinking off back to their computers at a rate of 40% during student indoctrination at the beginning of the academic year.

[rose-lemberg.livejournal.com]

Hey zwol, I didn't realize we weren't LJ friends yet... good catch :)