A while ago, we asked our customers to share some of their more oddball experiences as IT professionals with us, and we’ve gotten a lot of amusing – and occasionally amazing – anecdotes from them. They're the most ridiculous and funny IT stories our customers have gathered over the course of their careers.  

They’re all true, too, according to the folks who have submitted them. And they do not disappoint. 

 So we’re presenting the top ten funny IT stories we’ve received to date. To protect the innocent, we won't use last names; instead, we’ll just share the first name and last initial of the IT gal or guy who submitted the story, like how they do it on The Bachelor. Except that even as crazy as they are, our stories are much more reality-based than reality TV. 

Our top 10 funny IT stories (so far!) 

1. A logoff identity dilemma – from Chris T. 

"I once sent a logoff notification to a user who didn't log off when I called her to log off. When I asked why she didn't log off, she said she thought the message wasn't for her." 

2. Was it running MacOS or Windows? – from Sander V. 

"At a previous job at an IT help desk, I got asked to fix a washing machine." 

3. Overdelivering – from Luke I. 

"One of my colleagues was asked to disable a printer in workspace console. He disabled all printers by mistake. He still gets grief over it years later." 

4. This was definitely Windows! – from Heiko V.  

"While being assigned to a job at a really big chip manufacturer, I received a ticket stating 'Application Sunscreen isn't working.' Because no one knew that application, I went to the user who submitted the ticket. When I arrived she explained that the sunscreen of her office window was broken." 

5. At least it wasn’t the washing machine – from Tiziano C. 

"A colleague shut down half of the datacenter because he unplugged the wrong cable." 

6. Gives new meaning to “shadow IT” – from Jason K. 

"We had a user requesting access to Craigslist so they could hire a repo of a car loan. We are a bank. I feel like there is a much less shady way of going about this." 

7. Cutting-edge printer problems – from Brian S. 

"I received a call about a network printer not working. Come to find out, the print tray was full of printed pages. I removed the paper and the printer 'miraculously' started to print. Two days later I got the same call about another printer. There was a mouse stuck in the printer wheels." 

8. Did the professor minor in Miscommunication? – from Robert Q. 

"While working IT support at a community college, the on-call phone rang. The customer, a professor, PhD in economics, stated that thick black smoke was pouring out of their CRT and could I please hurry over. I described to the customer how fire alarms and fire extinguishers function and that they should be employed immediately and in that order. Two minutes later I arrived at the office to find that the customer was instead trying to unplug the monitor from the wall and disconnect it from their PC while grumbling loudly about useless help desk agents." 

9. A not-so-secure location – from Dennis J. 

"We once had a client who took the backup tapes home and stored them in his own vault. He always checked his backup schedule and performed a restore now and then after he did the backup. After they needed to perform a disaster recovery he picked up the tapes from his home. After trying to restore the data he found out that the tapes were not readable because of the magnet (he had) in the vault." 

10. Only following instructions – from Thomas S. 

"When I started with my company, the IT skills were lacking for our users. I wanted to get the IP from them and asked them to type 'ipconfig' and then enter. After a few minutes nothing happened, and I was confused and asked to spell what they’d typed. She responded with 'I-P-C-O-N-F-I-G-E-N-T-E-R' and at this point I knew it was going to be a long day." 

Finding laughter in a challenging role 

It’s a good thing that IT professionals can find the occasion to smile about some of the quirks and quandaries they face, considering the stresses and challenges they’re up against as IT assumes a more critical role in organizations. We’ve got a sneaking suspicion that practically everyone who has worked in IT has one or more funny IT stories like these...or will have new ones to share in the future.