Friday, October 5, 2007

The most embarrassing moment for a Techie

When it comes to anything related to computers, whether software, networking, Linux, or hacking, people around me think I have it all....today I realised how mistaken they are!!! I spend hours sitting in front of my machines, connected in network, replicating a corporate environment, trying to locate any possible security loopholes and finding methods to harden the network from any type of threat. My trainees look up to me for any technical resolution or career guidance. Yesterday night I was working on my laptop when suddenly the touchpad stopped working. Being a techie, I first checked if there was any problem in any of the services or the conf files. Tried all the possible stuff I could do to find out if there was any misconfiuration but all in vain. I rebooted my lappy to get into Windows XP of Bill Baba. Bill Baba's Windows also did not respond to my finger movements on the touchpad. I thought my lappy's touchpad has gone bad and I was furious. It has been less than a month since I have bought this laptop. I called up the Tech Support immediately and introduced myself as an extremely techsavvy guy and explained my issue with all the hi-fi things that I had tried to resolve this issue. The Tech Support Representative humbly asked me to press Fn+F7. With all my arrogance, ego and years of experience & research, I told him that it was a some manufacturing defect in the laptop and pressing any key would not help (though I had not tried it before). After a long argument, finally the Tech Support Representative convinced me to press the Fn+F7 key and he promised that if it did not work, he would get the laptop replaced. To my embarrassment, IT WORKED!!! How do I tell the guy on the other side that my logic had failed. How do I admit that the mind which could think about corporate security, could not think of pressing two simple keys on the keypad to resolve a simple issue like this. I can confidently say that this was definitely the most embarrassing moment of my life.

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