Pilot fish is working at the help desk of a managed service provider when a call comes in from one very angry user.
"She was complaining about people changing files on her computer and how she had lost weeks of work and everything was our fault and it was better when she was a local admin and did her own IT, and threw in a few threats about the contract and my employment," says fish.
"After being belittled and abused for 10 minutes, I got her to explain that a critical Excel file that she uses daily had lost all its data -- it was empty, but the file still existed.
"I sent her all the backups, shadow copies, snapshots and office temp files that I had to offer. After reviewing them, she told me that too much data had been lost for that file to be usable -- even through the modification dates matched the date when she last updated the file.
"She finally let me connect to her computer to view the problem. As soon as I did, she exclaimed that it was all back and asked me what I did -- much to my confusion, as I'd done nothing.
"Then I noticed that, when opened, the spreadsheet defaulted to the last cell used, which was some five or six pages below any real data. All that was needed was to move the window's slider up so the user could see her data.
"While she thanked me many times, I made up some excuse about how I got it working, so I wouldn't have to inform the user who wants to manage her own IT that I just scrolled up.
"Love those 'power users'..."
Got power users -- or "power users"? Tell Sharky about it. Send me your true tales of IT life at sharky@computerworld.com. You'll score a sharp Shark shirt every time I use one. Add your comments below, and read some great old tales in the Sharkives.
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