h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The system of course, silly

I work for a telecomms faults department.

A customer called wanting a gain increase, nothing unusual about that, happens all the time when the Internet is running slow for customers.

Then the customer mentioned that the line was niosy intermitently. I advised that it would be best to find the cause of the noise, as increasing the gain on a noisy line only makes it worse.

Customer said No, she wanted the gain increased.

I told her it might make the noise worse. The customer insisted.

I said that if I increased it and it made it worse it was difficult to reduce it back to normal.

Customer said she had had the fault "diagnosed" and had been told to get the gain increased.

I increased the line knowing full well that it will probably make her line unusable and the Internet won't connect at all.

You have to give the customer what they want.

unused hanky

You lot using the bookmarks - you haven't come across the Captain Kirk bookmark I once left in a library book have you?

I think I did spock that once, but make no bones, wasn't me that nicked it.













I'll get me coat

*leaves a bookmark - bar wrapper...empty*

If you insist on using sweet wrappers as bookmarks, kindly leave a portion of it for me....

Thank you.

The IT helpline makes me think of the recordings of helpdesk calls that you can find. My favorite it the one from the guy who was told to do a restart by unbending a paperclip and putting it in the little hole in the front of his computer (now, thankfully, they have included a restart button in computers...). The helpdesk guy then had to try and explain to this poor boob what a paperclip was.....


How could someone not know what a paperclip is?????????

I will try and find the link for that particular set of sound-files.

Bookmark - using clean length of dental floss

Mrs Gosho used to work on a tech support line - I must try and persuade her to post a few juicy stories

I promise to be a better customer

it's not quite customers, but it's jurors in the uk court service. oh god. and peoples' futures depend on these eedjits(not all of them are eedjits-it just seems that way at times).
today, we had a new intake of jurors(they usually stay for 2 weeks)and i had gone down to the jury lounge to call a panel of jurors and to tell them which court they were assigned to, and to wait there for their usher to collect them. one gentleman came up to me(only a few inches from my nose)and demanded how the hell was he supposed to get to his court, shouldn't i be telling him how to get there. i asked if he was assigned to a trial, and he said of course hewas. i asked him which court. he didn't know. so i asked him when he had started. today. at that point, i hadn't called any 1st week juries. i had to tell him, he wasn't assigned to a trial. he had to sit and wait like everyone else, until he got assigned. to top it all off, i found a juror trying to get into a court. i said can i help you. yes, he said. you assigned me to this court and i want to go in there. no sir, i said. i'm afraid you have to wait in the lounge until your usher comes for you. not that i hadn't said thatknows how many times.
jurors aren't allowed in under their own steam in case they hear counsel or court staff say something that may predjudice them for or against the defendant, and it then wouldn't be a fair trial.

xx

I was on a jury last year. I have to say that they were very dedicated and took seriously the task....

Having said that, here in Canada, we has an famous (read infamous) case of obstruction of justice.

http://www.cbc.ca/stories/2000/10/12/Guess001012
http://www.cbc.ca/stories/2002/07/02/gill020702

Peter Gill, one of six defendants charged in the gangland slaying of two brothers. Gillian Guess was one of the jurors.

Apparently, Guess was one of those women who just can't resist a "bad boy" and she and Gill started playing google eyes in the courtroom. That led to a sexual affair during the trial.

She and her fellow jurors acquitted the defendants.

From the time she was arrested, through her 18 months in jail, until the present, she has never "gotten" the point that having an affair with a defendant (or anyone else in the case) is a really, really, really bad thing.

My big beef with the jury system here is that employers are not obligated to pay people who do jury duty. In sitting through jury selection for two cases, I saw the bulk of the people begging off claiming that they "couldn't afford" or it would be a "hardship" for them to miss work. Most of these people had very good jobs, some of them in the government which DOES pay people to do jury duty.

Even though I was working retail and my boss wouldn't pay my wages, I felt doing jury duty is one of the most important things a Canadian can do. I wasn't about to turn it down unless I had a VERY good reason. Frankly, I was appalled to hear people in the crowd of prospective jurors telling others that they were going to lie in order to get off doing the duty. I guess, though, if they are the type that would lie, I wouldn't want to see them make a life-altering decision for someone, defendant or victim.....

I was glad, however, not to have gotten picked for the first case, because the defendant in a case of sexual assault just happened to be this really annoying little man who frequented Chapters and once followed me around the Rideau Centre trying to get me to go for a coffee with him. He gave me the creeps, for a good reason apparently....

I was so relieved not to have to walk past him (less than 2 feet) and tell the judge I was "acquainted with the defendant"....

Mudhooks, I can imagine, it would be so creepy ...and what would the judge think?

Ythika

Well, I thought about saying something like "I can't give my reasons for not wishing to be on this jury panel as it would be predjudicial to the defendant". But one can't, can one?

Unfortunately, I never did find out about the details of the case, or the outcome.

The trial I was on lasted two weeks and we finished out deliberations 15 minutes before we would have had to be sent to a hotel for the night, so I didn't even get that perk.

" I guess, though, if they are the type that would lie, I wouldn't want to see them make a life-altering decision for someone, defendant or victim....."

I have heard that many people lie to get out of jury duty here. Mainly saying they are prejudiced in some respect. I would agree with your statement above, who needs liars making important decisions!

However it has made me wonder if the opposite ever happens. Do people ever purposely lie in order to get jury duty? Especially in highly publisized trials or where people do know each other

The US citizens get paid a small fee for showing up. The workplace has to let you off, but I do not think they have to pay you for that time off.

in the uk, jurors don't have to be paid by their employers when they are on jury duty, but they are reimbursed up to the princely sum of 53.68per day. as a rule the court service does not accept hardship as a reason to be excused from jury duty, and we don't accept letters from jurors' bosses either. the only 3rd party document we will accept is a doctor's certificate saying that the juror is unfit for jury duty.
if an employer says that they will sack an employee for taking time off to do jury duty, we can haul the employer in front of a judge and have them done for contempt of court or interfering in the course of justice. or both. a civil servant has to get her pleasures somewhere.

xx

Here are a few dandy IT help stories...

http://www.techtales.com/ttales0999.html

http://www.cdw.com/webcontent/land/page/stories.asp

http://rinkworks.com/stupid/

http://fp.kcs.ab.ca/humour.htm

http://www.shadowstorm.com/tech_support/

http://www.shadowstorm.com/tech_support/homer3d.gif

Well, by law here, an employer cannot refuse to let you do jury duty, either. People whose business would be adversly affected, who are the only person in their company doing a crucial job, or who are the sole famly provider can ask to be exempt. You don't have to provide proof of this. I think the courts recognise that those people who would beg off under false pretenses likely aren't the best jurors.

It isn't very likely here that someone get onto a jury because they are anxious to take part in a high-profile case. Since people are randomly selected to show up and be picked one of several possible cases, you wouldn't have advanced notice of which cases were in jury selection.

When I got my letter, I showed up and there were perhaps 100 new selectees waiting. After being briefed on what jury duty entails, we all filed into a huge courtroom, along with a number of people who had not been picked from the day before's selection. A prospective juror can come back for a maximum of 3 days and if they are not selected, they are excused and will not have to come again. They can be called again at some other point, but, again, this is random.

Once the jurors are waiting, they bring in the first defendant and state his name and the charge (I can't remember if the victim's name, if there is one is mentioned). Names are pulled at random and one comes forward. One has to face the defendant and then the judge and state whether they are willing to stand for the jury in this case. If they are, the lawyers fro each side get the chance to say yes or no.

Unlike in the US, lawyers to no vet the jurors, which I think is a much fairer way of doing it. No one can claim that the jury was stacked in one side or the other's favour.

If you have a reason for not wishing to be on the case you state it. If it is because you believe that you cannot be a juror at all, the lawyers can decide you can be, or the judge can excuse you. If it is that you know something about the defendant but are willing to reamin in the running for another case, you go back to your seat.

If, at the end of the set of jury selections your name hasn't come up, you come back the next day.

My one observation about cases like the Simpson trial, is that it was unutterably boring. I would trade being in the courtroom for it for a day in traffic or run-of-the-mill criminal cases any day. They are infinitely more interesting.

Anyone who says that cases should be televised so people can see cases for themselves only has to toddle off to their local courthouse and watch any case they wish. Televised cases are merely sensationalising "entertainment".

My mum was on full pay when she was on jury duty - for 3 and a half months. She really enjoyed it, completely different environment to work, it was a complicated fraud case so no gory details or anything, and because it was so complicated some days they would turn up only to be sent home so she would get paid days off or have a day where she only worked 2 hours

I would really like to do jury duty, I'm sure it would be interesting, the hours are better than the ones I work and the courts are near the town centre so nice lunch out every day. My cousin got called up 3 days after her 18th birthday but apart from her and my mum noone else in our family has been called up (even though we would all be quite keen).