Techs from the Crypt: I don't understand!

Realistically, I have not been a tech for very long, however I work on four different sites normally and interact with quite a lot of people. In my travels, I have come across some humorous, horrifying, and down right strange scenarios. I will now share them with you as part of an attempt at a running series I am calling "Techs from the Crypt" as homage to a favorite show of mine as a kid, Tales from the Crypt! Get it? Did I really need to explain it?

Moving on, I will make up names where needed, not so much to protect the people involved, but more so because I don't care enough to remember anyone's name. Luckily my time in retail has taught me how to cover up my anti-social nature and severe anger towards the more remedial tasks I'm expected to perform.

As a tech, I often come across a lot of people who say something along the lines of "I don't know," or "I don't understand." I often feel myself rewording what I say many times over to make a point or even get some acknowledgement that there is thought behind the vacant stare and hysterical smile of someone completely distraught because "the Internet is broken," or "I didn't do anything and it's no longer working." I'm sure almost every field you can be in has some variation of this interaction, be it with co-workers or clients. So now I submit to you a story about a lady who even when I think back on it, I find hard to believe she actually did all the things she did.

I work for a school system, so most of the people I help are teachers, those we trust to educate our youths. This particular case was at an elementary school. I received a work order about a teacher, we shall call her Mrs. Lego (part of an inside joke I may mention later), could not log into her Google account. Now when an account is setup on our system, a Google account is created. The problem is that you cannot log on to the account until after you change your password and then it gets synchronized with Google. I was quite confident in dealing with these cases as it was the beginning of the year and a lot of new teachers sent in identical work orders. With that, I marched off to the school to get the new teacher squared away.

So far it all seemed routine, and then I met the teacher. Now, let me be clear, she was and is a very nice lady who has never been intentionally rude to me even when I almost lost my temper. However, I would not say Mrs. Lego is the most receptive of people. After explaining to me her problem, I explained to her that she needed to change her password and showed her how. Now, our passwords have complexity requirements that are more strong than some of the other unconnected systems certain groups of staff need to use, usually due to just software limitations. Mrs. Lego tried to change her password to one she had previously setup on one of these particular systems. After it rejected her twice, I asked her to tell me the password. I then explained to her that because of the complexity requirements, it needs more to it, like a special character, maybe an exclamation mark at the end or something simple to remember like punctuation.

"But I want it to be the same password for everything," stated Mrs. Lego quite adamantly.

"Well, I understand that, but I cannot change these requirements. To access Google through your account, it's required to change your password."

"But I need them to be the same, or else what's the point?"

"To access Google, you NEED to change your password."

"Well, why can't I use this one?"

"Because there are requirements that need to be met."

"I don't think you're understanding me. I have my password for that set. I want them to be the same passwords."

"I get that, but unless you change both passwords, we can't make this one the same."

"No, you don't understand, I want my password-"

"To be the same as the other one, I get what you're saying but I cannot do that for you."

"Oh... well then there is no point in changing my password, how do I go back?"

"To access your Google account you HAVE to change your password."

"But I don't want to unless they can match."

This is the shortened version, as this conversation then continued on for some more time. Finally, my patients were gone. She was convinced I couldn't understand what she wanted so now she wants everything back but wants to access her Google account. I was so fed up, I did the only thing I could within my power. I fired up Google Admin Console and manually entered her default password and reluctantly left that be. However, it does not end there, oh no my friends. You see, she was a new teacher and had questions. Many questions. We have instructional people for such questions, but I was nice enough (dumb enough is more like it) to attempt to help to the best of my ability.

You see, at one point they thought it was a good idea to try to continue the use of old outdated computer by installing Ubuntu on them. As a Linux user, I informed them many times after I started and came across this that Ubuntu os a full featured OS, it is not lightweight or good for repurposing old computers. Mrs. Lego had two and one with Windows still on it. The Ubuntu computer log in automatically and the Windows they are recommended to use a class login. After explaining to her the class login and showing her the Windows computer, we discussed the Ubuntu. I explained to her they really are just there for web browsing, there is no Microsoft office or the like on them.

"So, they're not real computers?"

"No, they are just older computers that the schools are trying to reuse to save money."

"At the school system I come from, they stripped out the guts of old computers and called them Linux machines."

"...uh... yeah... same thing?..."

"Well, can I get real computers instead?"

"... uh... tell you what... put... put in a work order and... I'll see if I can scrap together some parts and get Windows on them..."

"Oh, that would be great, what do I put down?"

So I gave her word for word what to put down and then made a mental note to upgrade the RAM so it could handle Windows and try to get this wonderful woman out of my hair.

Then for a bit, we talked about the tech and differences between school systems. I thought it was over and I had weathered the storm, then while I was mid-sentence, she walked over to the door and said she needed to go pick up the kids... and walked out before I could even respond.

It's at times like those that I wonder how people get there in life, or how they often seem better off than me. Perhaps it's just the chipping away of my soul that makes the other side seem so much better. Mrs. Lego went on to terrorize our instructional techs after I told her to submit a work order for them to come by and walk her through the tech.

You see, when one of them was talking to her, he passed the comment that this stuff is easy, jut plug it together, like Lego...

"But I don't have any Legos."

And that, my friends, is the story of Mrs. Lego and why I don't understand. I hope you enjoyed. I have a few other stories I hope to get down before I forget too much detail and make it hard to put in a decent story form.