Last month, I received one of those IT support tickets that made me blink twice—and then laugh quietly to myself. It was filed at 2:17 AM with the subject line: “Screen Brightness Issue—HELP ASAP!”
Naturally, I assumed someone had left their monitor on full blast while working late. But when I opened the ticket, the message was simply: “My screen is TOO bright and it’s hurting my eyes. Please fix immediately.”
A quick glance at the user’s location showed they were in a different time zone—and it truly was the middle of the night on their end. I debated whether to send a polite “Our business hours are…” reply, but curiosity got the better of me.
I called the user to troubleshoot. When they answered, I expected grogginess or confusion, but instead, the user was wide awake and serious as a heart attack.
“I can’t sleep; the screen is blinding me,” they explained. “It’s like sitting in front of a spotlight.”
I asked if they had tried adjusting the brightness or enabling any night modes on their computer.
“No, I didn’t want to touch anything and make it worse,” came the reply.
I walked them through the steps to decrease brightness and turn on a blue light filter, which they followed dutifully.
“Much better now,” they said, relieved. “You’re a lifesaver.”
I couldn’t help but chuckle. Here was someone who, instead of closing the laptop or turning it off when it was too bright in the middle of the night, went straight to the helpdesk for an emergency.
That ticket is now part of my “Raise a Glass to the Night OWLs” collection—a reminder that sometimes, the simplest fix is just a click away, but it takes a unique kind of dedication to report it at 2 AM.