When I ran the computer center in the business school at a major Texas univeristy I put up a 4 foot by 6 foot sign that said “Poor planning on your part does not constitue an emergency on our part!”
Got tired of the idiots coming in the labs during the last week of school and asking “Is this the computer Lab? How do I do all of these assignments?”
I also got every stupid question you could imagine:
Student unfolds 5 1/4 in floppy disk and asks if we can get the data off of it...
Student leaves disk in 110 car for 2 days. Disk now looks like a fluffy little pillow. Student cuts open the case and tries to use the disk material by itself and wonders why it wont work.
Student CRAMS floppy disk between two disk drives and wonders where it went...
Student sits in front of computer trying to figure out why it wont work for 15 minutes. Finally comes and asks if computer is broken. I proceed to demonstarte to the student how to turn the monitor on...
I wish I could have used one of these nerf gins on these “students”
I worked with an administrative assistant who wanted the labels on her 5 1/4 floppies “pretty” so she used the typewriter. Only instead of typing the labels first, then putting them on the floppies, she would put the labels on the floppies, then roll the disks into the typewriter and type on them. Then complain her floppies didn’t work. Gee, I wonder why.
She’s also the one who called me in a panic because there “was a red line across the middle of my screen.” Nothing else, just a red line. Swore she hadn’t touched anything or opened any programs or files. It just showed up. Before I walked all the way over to her office, I had her put one of the other AAs on the phone. Turned out she was in WordPerfect with no file open and had accidentally turned on “Reveal Codes.”
And she’s the one who “didn’t want to lose my floppies,” so she got a couple of magnets and stuck them to the filing cabinet by her desk. This was after we’d had the discussion about not mutilating the disks by running them through the typewriter. She didn’t want to put them in a drawer, they “might get damaged.”