When I worked for a small business MSP, my boss had an off hours call about an issue, walked the guy through rebooting their server. He was monitoring the uptime so he saw it go off. Then he told them to turn it back on. The guy said he did, but my boss never saw it come back online. He asked him if it was lit up, the guy said yes. He said “are you sure”, and the guy, annoyed, said “yes! I see lights”. Waited a bit longer and it never came online. He called another person at the business to check, and they too confirmed that it was lit up. So he drove 35 minutes to go to their office, walked in their network closet and hit the power button, and magically it turned on. They were seeing the lights on the router, an entirely different machine sitting on top of the server and thought it was on. The issue was fixed by the reboot alone and my boss drove home very very annoyed.
Related to PEBKAC: In Estonian we have a saying: “the problem is in the cardan between the seat and the steering wheel”
Supposedly a fairly eccentric teacher I had (businessman and ex 90s “connected” guy got bored and wanted to teach middle school shop class to confirm the rumors that kids are indeed getting stupider compared to the “good old days”) once managed to get an employee of his to go to the parts store to ask for said “cardan” for their car after asking him for advice.
turn off monitor
count to 10
turn on monitor
“Nope, didn’t work”
PEBCAK
It’s always a layer 8 issue.
Ooh I need to start using this
I wonder if I can get away with saying this to a client
Yeah, had that. Reboots take longer than 5 seconds.
“Oh you mean reset the hard drive?”
If that is what we must call it to end this conversation, then yes.
When I worked for a small business MSP, my boss had an off hours call about an issue, walked the guy through rebooting their server. He was monitoring the uptime so he saw it go off. Then he told them to turn it back on. The guy said he did, but my boss never saw it come back online. He asked him if it was lit up, the guy said yes. He said “are you sure”, and the guy, annoyed, said “yes! I see lights”. Waited a bit longer and it never came online. He called another person at the business to check, and they too confirmed that it was lit up. So he drove 35 minutes to go to their office, walked in their network closet and hit the power button, and magically it turned on. They were seeing the lights on the router, an entirely different machine sitting on top of the server and thought it was on. The issue was fixed by the reboot alone and my boss drove home very very annoyed.
ID10T
PICNIC
One I didn’t know! I like this one.
Related to PEBKAC: In Estonian we have a saying: “the problem is in the cardan between the seat and the steering wheel”
Supposedly a fairly eccentric teacher I had (businessman and ex 90s “connected” guy got bored and wanted to teach middle school shop class to confirm the rumors that kids are indeed getting stupider compared to the “good old days”) once managed to get an employee of his to go to the parts store to ask for said “cardan” for their car after asking him for advice.