Ask Lemmy

I worked at a global internal helpdesk, my company had offices all over the world.

One day I get in to the office for night shift and the day shift was laughing.

Aparantly a guy in the main office, located on a different continent, called the global helpdesk for help with their computer, can't remember the actual reason, they were rude and dismissive, and while the tech was trying to help them they found games installed of the computer.

This is not allowed, so they told the guy, who said that he had admin access so it was fine.

The tech kept pushing that this was not allowed, but the guy would not accept it and even told us that his team mates also had these games installed on their laptops, so while talking with the guy the tech reached out to the global head of IT on Lync and explained the situation.

The global head of IT was pissed and briefed the head of the local IT team at the main office to collect the computer and completely reinstall it.

The tech was still on the line with the guy, and was told to tell him that the local IT team would help him, and to expect them shortly.

I don't know the exact exchange in the main office, but the next day we got word that the entire team was required to have all of their computers reinstalled, this was a global team across mutiple continents, even some in our own office, who sheepishly came down to us to have us reinstall their computers a day or so later.

The guy who got caught can't have been popular...

I worked for a different company a few years after the above incident, this was smaller, much smaller, but it was a fantastic place to work.

Anyway, I got the task of being the VIP technician for our partners in addition to my normal duties.

This wasn't that bad, it mainly consisted in helping partners with remoting in and giving them higher priority.

Now, at the start of the pandemic, the main VIP wanted to make sure that his dedicated office computer at one of his holiday homes was updated and ready for the summer.

So I had to get up there, I was given a preinstalled desktop computer and had to fly to the town where the holiday home was located.

This was in May 2020, right when the pandemic shock was at it's absolute peak.

The flight was domestic, but what I didn't expect when I got to the airport was how completely empty it was.

In the departure hall that would be packed normally, it was just... empty....

Well, five other passengers was milling around, and maybe two or three staff that I could see.

I get checked in, and walk to the gate, there sre about 8 passengers there, my flight is called and I get down to the transfer bus and the doors close, and... I am alone...

The bus starts heading out across the tarmac and stops at an unmarked plane, a completely white Fokker F50, no branding or anything.

There is a cute stewardess who tells me that I am the only passenger on the flight and that I can just pick any seat.

I do so and we take off, and throughout the flight I can't just stop thinking about how I am the only passenger and how odd it felt.

So I get to the airport, collect my bag and my taxi is waiting for me, and after and hour or so we have arrived, the holiday home is a farm, and the farm hands greet us, I get let into the office and start doing my work.

After hours of setting up every little detail, testing and testing and testing again then documenting everything, I am ready to leave and get driven to a nice hotel, that is completely empty.

I stay the night, and the same taxi that collected me from the airport the day before pick me up again.

We get to the airport and this time there is a 100% increase in the number of passengers on the flight, that's right, we had one more passenger!

The flight back is uneventful, I get back home, remote into the office and upload my notes and debrief my manager.