It was a typical Wednesday morning in the IT support department when an unusual ticket popped up. The subject line read: “Monitor isn’t working – it’s shy and won’t turn on.” Intrigued, I opened the ticket to find a message from a user explaining their predicament:
“My monitor has suddenly become shy. It refuses to turn on no matter how many times I press the power button. I’ve even tried talking to it, but it just stays dark. I think it’s too embarrassed or something. Can you please help?”
Obviously, this wasn’t a standard hardware failure description. I called the user to get some clarity, half expecting a prank. The user was sincere—perhaps a little embarrassed themselves at the phrasing, but genuinely convinced their monitor had some emotional issues.
I asked the user to describe exactly what was happening. They said the monitor’s power light wasn’t coming on, and the screen was completely black. They even joked that the monitor was “too shy to face the demands of the workday.”
Deciding to get to the bottom of this “emotional impairment,” I walked the user through a few troubleshooting steps over the phone. After some basic checks—ensuring the power cable was securely plugged in, testing the outlet, and confirming the power strip was switched on—I was ready to escalate the issue.
That’s when the user paused and admitted something: “I saw the monitor cable was loose, but I thought maybe the monitor just needed some space and didn’t want me to poke around.”
I asked the user to plug the power cable back in firmly. Suddenly, the screen flickered, the monitor’s power light blinked on, and the desktop appeared in all its usual glory.
“I guess it’s not shy after all,” the user laughed. “It just needed a little confidence boost — and a better cable connection.”
The ticket closed with a note: “Monitor issue resolved: turned out it was just shy about being unplugged.”
That day reminded me that sometimes, technology users bring a little personality into their problems, turning a routine fix into a story worth sharing — all you need is a little patience and a sense of humor.