Workplace Shenanigans - 4/27

I actually had to say this this morning: Look man, I cannot hold your hand through every step of the installation of a Windows media player codec pack and because of that fact I am not to blame because you clicked yes to install the Ask toolbar. My involvement in this story came about because our company has a less than attentive IT organization which is, if not understandable, at least begrudgingly acknowledged because it is located two time zones away on the other side of the country.

Earlier today, someone in my office received some extraneous video tangentially related to his job duties that he was invited to do whatever with that he chose to scrutinize in order to offer comment to a group of people I’m sure will delete his email response almost immediately. The video was a 60MB high definition file lasting one minute and did not play on his machine. His immediate reaction was to install a newer version of Windows media player, of which, I’m fairly certain he already had evidenced by the nearly identical machine on my desk. When that failed his assessment was that it must be that his computer was running Windows XP. He brought the video to me and it did play on my secondary Vista machine.

I converted it to AVI but all the codecs on his machine were inadvertently erased when he “upgraded” media player. I sent him the link to a codec pack that he came to my office no less than five times to ask questions about downloading and installing. I told him once he had the executable running to say yes to installation dialog boxes and then he came to complain to me about installing the inane Ask toolbar which he swears he did on my advice because I said to click yes. I made the statement above yet he persisted till I gave up the point and admitted my crime rather than listen for another second. After two hours of dawdling the video was a success but he forgot that it didn’t have sound when played on my machine and that led to another visit. Sometimes I think people who don’t have computers at home shouldn’t be allowed to touch them anywhere.