We told you so
An employee transfers from one division of a company to another and, following the usual procedure, is issued a used MacBook Pro, reports pilot fish on the scene.
"Months into her use, she complained that her computer was acting sluggish and was demanding a new one," fish says. "We examined her laptop and couldn't see any of her mystery problems.
"But we did recommend that she repair her disk permissions and explained how this can help some of her sporadic issues.
"She stormed off yelling that she would call her old IT department at the division she formerly worked for, because the Apple Certified techs here didn't know squat.
"A few days later we ran into her again and politely asked what her old whiz-kid IT guys said. Their advice: 'Repair disk permissions.'
Dipomacy wins
It's a few years ago, and a network engineer pilot fish manages the modem pool that off-site users dial into at her company.
"One afternoon, the company vice-president stopped by my desk, said 'I can't get my email!' and demanded that I follow him back to his office to fix it," fish says.
Fish isn't about to try explaining to a VP that she doesn't deal with email or on-site networking. Instead, she just says "No problem" and follows the VP back to his office.
VP tells fish that he has typed in his password several times, but it just isn't working.
Fish leans over VP's shoulder and looks at the keyboard. Sure enough, the little green light is glowing on the Caps Lock key.
Technical problem solved. But how to fix it without making the VP feel like an idiot?
"Thinking fast, fish said, 'Oh, I do this all the time' and tapped the Caps Lock key. 'Try it now,'" says fish.
"Sceptical, he tried his password again and watched the emails start flooding in.
"I scuttled back to my cube, feeling like a little fish that had just dodged the hook."
Cost-cutting mentality
Pilot fish is the CIO of a small company and has just one full-time IT staffer.
"My one IT person, who does network admin, desktop support and project management, is out for an extended time due to an illness," fish says. "I asked the CFO if I could bring in a temporary IT person until she returns.
"His answer was, 'Could you bring in someone for four hours per day instead of eight?'
"I said, 'Sure. When do you want us to have problems then, in the morning or in the afternoon?".