Being a corporate IT person requires basically unlimited patience.

What would you do if you had to drop your entire day to fix an elementary problem? One guy recently shared an insane example of this on Reddit. Here’s what he said.

Sometimes it really does happen.

Urgent ticket that has been escalated via back channels – that is, a personal email from one senior person to the CIO about the unacceptable service in getting their personal printer fixed.

This leads to a series of “get it done now” conversations from CIO to Head of It to the Ops manager.

It’s always emergencies on their parts dictating your day.

Ticket comes to me, because yes as your senior infrastructure & operations technical resource I tend to be the dumping ground for such things.

I resolve them so I can get back to making sure the entire server estate is stable because I’m in the midst of an ongoing major restructure & migration project that could potentially take down everything.

Minor things like that.

No pressure or anything.

Not that I’m venting a little, heavens no.

Perish the thought.

Hrmph.

No, no. Of course not.

Anyway, after much back and forth we agree a date & time (15:00 on a Friday) for me to attend the VIP’s office, at a remote site.

I show up there with everything I think I could possibly need, short of an entire new printer.

I’m told the VIP has already left for the day – in fact, they left at around 9:00 in the morning.

Ain’t that just the way.

Fortunately, one of the office staff is able to find a spare key to their personal office.

I walk in, switch the printer on, and print.

It. Was. Turned. Off.

Whatever this guy is getting paid, it isn’t enough.

The whole time.

The user never turned it on.

That was it.

Sad, but not surprising.

Weeks of calls, meetings, politics, argh…

I will admit took a certain amount of petty satisfaction in stealing a gummy worm from the bowl on their desk on my way out.

And yes – it was delicious.

And this guy is probably raking in six figures a year. Let’s see what the Reddit comments had to say about this.

Unsurprisingly, the comments were filled with sarcasm abound.

And shared instances from their own experience.

One person expressed an unfortunate truth.

Some people took the time to leave behind anecdotes.

And others reveled in parallel stories.

You can’t troubleshoot a bad attitude.

If you liked that story, check out this post about an oblivious CEO who tells a web developer to “act his wage”… and it results in 30% of the workforce being laid off.