One Monday morning, the IT helpdesk received a call from a user who sounded genuinely concerned and a bit frustrated. “My mouse isn’t working,” they explained. “It’s just stuck to my desk and I can’t move it at all.”
Curious, the technician asked a few questions to troubleshoot remotely—had they tried unplugging it and plugging it back in? Was there any visible damage? After a series of standard checks and a puzzled silence, the user admitted, “Well, I taped it down so it wouldn’t slide off the edge of the desk.”
It turned out the user had taken a strip of tape, wrapped it firmly around the base of their mouse, and secured it to the wood surface, effectively gluing their pointer to one spot. When asked why they’d done this, they explained that the mouse “kept disappearing” behind their monitor and wanted to keep it from moving around.
The technician could hardly contain their laughter but maintained professionalism, gently explaining that while tape might keep the mouse in place, it also stops it from working. After carefully helping the user remove the tape (and reminding them that keeping the mouse on a mousepad would solve the disappearing problem much better), the mouse sprang back to life, cursor gliding freely across the screen.
The user was relieved and promised next time to ask for advice before reaching for the tape. Meanwhile, the IT team was left with a new story to share about creativity meeting the limits of hardware—sometimes literally stuck to the desk.