Some days in IT support you see things that make you question the very nature of reality, and then, once in a blue moon, you get a ticket that’s so bafflingly wrong it borders on genius. Last week, I received a helpdesk submission that perfectly fits into that category. The ticket simply read:
“Coffee maker isn’t brewing correctly. Screen shows ‘Error 404 – Coffee Not Found’. Please fix ASAP. Need caffeine to code.”
At first, I thought it was a joke from one of the developers trying to lighten the mood. But no, this was a serious request from a remote employee who apparently thought our IT team was responsible for their office kitchen appliances. The ticket included a blurry photo of the coffee maker’s tiny digital display flashing the ominous “Error 404,” which, if you’re a computer user, is instantly recognizable as the classic internet “page not found” error—but clearly not standard coffee maker lingo.
I’m convinced this person’s brain made a crossover glitch: combining IT jargon with their desperate morning caffeine needs. The most entertaining part? They asked for a remote fix, hoping we could “reboot the java.” I suspect they expected me to somehow plug into their coffee machine and update its drivers over VPN.
After a few back-and-forth emails politely explaining that coffee makers don’t have “drivers” and that their best bet was probably unplugging the machine and plugging it back in (which they insisted they’d already done), the user confessed they might have submitted the ticket to the wrong department because they were still half asleep.
I never did get to fix their coffee maker, but I did learn an important lesson: never underestimate how creative people can get when caffeine is involved, and always keep a sense of humor handy in IT support. Plus, now I know “Error 404 – Coffee Not Found” is an actual problem somewhere out there, and maybe—I dunno—one day there might be a helpdesk just for coffee machines. Until then, we’ll keep brewing solutions the old-fashioned way: one ticket at a time.