Even More Tales of Technology Terror: Personal Stories of Tech Disaster
From earthquakes to worldwide email disruption to business processes that won't stay dead, we round up personal tales of IT terror.
School Days, School Daze…
It sounds like a tale from the Dark Ages, but it happened this year! ZaReason CEO Cathy Malmrose was helping upgrade computers at a number of schools. The experience taught her more than she’d ever imagined possible….
At a school district the size of a college campus, I worked my way up the ladder until I finally got to talk to the head honcho in charge of IT for the school. He explained that they just updated "all the school's computers." I asked him what they had updated since I know that most classrooms currently have old, nonfunctional systems. His reply: "We got that new thing, you know with the wires?" His hands were making big gestures, so I ask, "You mean a network?" His reply: "Yeah, that." This guy was in charge of all IT decisions. I screamed silently.
But it didn’t stop there. When I was working with a small, poor inner-city school, the head honcho told me they had three new computers that are "great, but they don't work." I know she won't know the specs off the top of her head so I ask if I can see them. She leads me to a room with three Dell monitors sitting on the floor. "Here they are." I had to desperately find a way to explain that they wouldn’t "work” without a little more hardware.
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