It was a quiet Tuesday morning in the IT helpdesk department, the kind of day when you expect mostly routine issues like password resets and printer jams. Then came a ticket that instantly brightened my day, and I’m still not sure whether to laugh or cry.
The ticket subject read: “My computer is broken. Please fix.”
The description was a masterpiece of brevity and bafflement. Here’s the exact wording from the user:
“I tried to fix my PC by restarting my router. Now my computer still won’t work, please help.”
Naturally, I was intrigued. This wasn’t your usual “Forgot my password” ticket or “The printer won’t print” complaint. This was a fresh new breed of tech logic that I hadn’t quite encountered before. I opened the ticket and responded politely, asking for more details about what “won’t work” meant exactly.
The user’s reply was just as cryptic as the original message:
“When I press the power button, nothing happens. The screen stays black. I thought maybe I should restart the router first because the internet was slow.”
My curiosity piqued, I went to the user’s desk. Where to start? I looked at the PC, plugged in and powered off. I tried pressing the power button. No response. Then I looked at the router on the side — it had indeed been unplugged and plugged back in recently, probably during the user’s “fix.”
Trying not to laugh, I explained, “The router controls your internet connection, not whether your PC turns on or off. Restarting it won’t fix the power button.”
The user looked genuinely puzzled, so I gently suggested checking if the power cable was securely plugged in. Lo and behold, it wasn’t. Their “fix” involved unplugging the router, but apparently, they had also accidentally unplugged the PC’s power cord at some point.
After plugging it back in, the PC powered on with nary a glitch. The user looked relieved and said, “Oh! I didn’t know the power cord mattered. Thanks for fixing the internet, I mean, my computer.”
That day, I learned that sometimes the best way to fix your PC is just to forget about the internet altogether and check the basics. And, of course, that some people truly believe the router holds the secret button to resurrect any device.
Tickets like this remind me why I love IT support—a never-ending source of weird, wonderful stories.