New help desk guy is still getting up to speed at supporting hundreds of different applications, so it's no surprise when he gets a little confused, reports a second-level communications-support pilot fish. "On a particularly busy day, I get the following work ticket from him," fish says. "It reads, 'User sent e-mail about VM not working. Am not familiar with that software. Called and left VM to clarify.'"

Oops!

This computer room's cooling system goes kaput, and junior operator pilot fish does everything she can to keep things cool until the repair guys arrive -- dragging in fans from the warehouse, cranking up the office air conditioning and opening all the security doors. Finally, fish calls her boss to say that the temperature seems to be steady at 78 degrees. "How do you know that?" boss asks. Fish: The system console says "temp 78." Boss: "That means temporary storage."

Nice guy

Support pilot fish gets a call from a remote retail site: A PC is plugged in, user says, but it won't power up, and neither will the monitor. One 45-minute drive later, fish is tracing the power cord to the uninterruptible power supply. Turns out the PC is plugged in, but the UPS isn't. "The counter people said they'd heard beeping for the last two hours but didn't think anything of it," sighs fish. "I reached down and plugged the UPS in. To avoid making the counter clerks look stupid, I took the PC apart and cleaned it with compressed air."