Of all the people who work in customer support, people in tech get some of the most unusual requests.

That’s because tech is something that many, many people are not proficient in – and as a result, some quite bizarre things can go wrong when those people initially try to figure things out for themselves.

And the experience of the tech worker in this story was no exception.

Read on to find out what happened – and how it ended in a colleague hating them.

An unusual request for new laptop power cable

I work as a product lead and full-stack developer in a non-profit organisation based in the UK.

The headcount of the entire IT department, including myself, is fifteen people, compared to over 300 employees worldwide.

Sometimes, people ask me about all sorts of IT support requests, which I am more than happy to help with if I have the time.

One sunny afternoon during lunch time, I was approached by a colleague who had just returned from a trip to France. Let’s call her Jane.

Jane asked me if I had a spare power cable her my laptop, saying that she I desperately needed one.

Read on to find out how this worker (who wasn’t in tech support) responded.

I replied: “yeah, you can submit an IT ticket request, and someone will be able to help you with that. Did you lose your power cable?”

Jane replied that no, her cable wasn’t lost, but while she was in France she spent time with her father at his house.

Then, when she realised that the EU plug didn’t match the UK power cable, she asked her dad for help.

Making an assumption, I responded, “Ah, okay. So you forgot to bring it back with you?”

But that wasn’t quite the problem here.

Jane replied, “Well, no. My father loves to tinker with electrical stuff, so he cut the power cable head from my laptop’s power cable and replaced it with the EU head. But now I am back in the UK and I don’t know how to change it back to the UK head.”

I immediately ran to ask one of my colleagues from the IT support team to come and hear this amazing story himself.

My colleague explained to Jane that she would need to file an IT support ticket for a replacement cable, as that specific hardware was now deemed damaged and unusable and the company would need to contact our supplier about this.

He also told her that that counted as destruction of company property – that she could’ve just bought a travel adapter, and the issue wouldn’t have happened in the first place.

Jane, however, did not see the issue at all.

Jane replied, “Hmm, I don’t know what’s the matter with this. My dad is quite good at electrical stuff, so I don’t know what the big deal is about this. But I will submit a ticket for a replacement cable. Thanks.”

To this day, Jane still does not think that she did anything wrong, and we were just making things difficult for her.

I think she still hates me.

It’s absolutely crazy that instead of simply purchasing a travel adapter, this woman actually had her father replace the plug for an EU one.

Not only is that a huge oversight and destruction of company property, it could be dangerous too.

Moreover, the fact that she had the audacity to believe she had done nothing wrong, makes this so much worse.

Let’s see what the Reddit community had to say about this.

This person was totally baffled about the way Jane had handled this whole situation.

While others shared the IT team’s frustration.

However, this Redditor pointed out that for older people raised in the UK, changing the plug isn’t that unusual.

It was a weird thing for her to do for sure, but supplying a new power cable for someone working in a big company shouldn’t be much of an issue.

However, what’s more annoying is the fact that Jane apparently took issue with the colleague she approached about it – who wasn’t even in tech support anyway.

Some people aren’t particularly proficient in tech, and that’s okay – but those people shouldn’t be modifying their computer parts (or having relatives do so on their behalf).

It’s a crazy thing to do.

If you liked that post, check out this post about a woman who tracked down a contractor who tried to vanish without a trace.