I recently got hired as a Computer Systems Administration intern at a school district. I generally enjoy my job and am learning quite a bit about the ins and outs of running a large-scale network. However, one week into my job there, and I have already formulated the following question about a number of my coworkers:

How did these people graduate with a degree from college?

Okay, I understand that not everyone is tech-savvy, or competent with computers, and frankly, that means job security for me. However, a somewhat computer literate staff makes the roles of the IT department much, much easier. Ultimately, it's my job to keep the school-operated computers up to date (which is a challenge because of school board funding, or lack thereof) and connected to vital network resources such as file and print servers.

Keyword on MY job.

A typical staff member I work with.My first tale took place last week when a woman who teaches science had the "brilliant" idea of installing video software that would allow her kids to see interactive videos of birds or some such nonsense. That normally would be fine, because my boss or me would install the software in her free period and that would be that, no problem at all. She however insisted she was able to do it herself and decided to install the software on all the machines in the science lab. Again, whatever, not a huge deal I guess, because normally when something goes horribly wrong, we'll just reimage the machines to their previous state. However, to do that, we usually need network access and the ability to type a few simple commands. What she instead installed was a virus infested conglomeration the likes of which I've never seen before in my entire life and it actually rendered keyboards inoperable. By having to completely reinstall Windows on every computer in that lab to simply be able to reimage those machines took approxiamately 6 hours instead of the normal ONE that is usually required in such situations.

Lets just say that she no longer has access to install programs anymore.

Another humorous incident that I may have told a few of you was last Wednesday, when the Spanish teacher decided to install Roseta Stone software so the kids could have access to video clips and language tutorials. I would like to take this oppurtunity to raise a question to my American audience (this website is actually HUGE in Africa):

Q: What country do you live in, and what is the primary language that is spoken in said country?

A: I live in the United States of America, and the majority of its residents speak English.

Yeah, that's what I thought too. So one would assume that when she placed the order for the program, she would order the software package that is written in English WHICH TEACHES Spanish. But no, as you may be guessing right now, she actually ordered software that is based in Spanish and teaches English.

She should actually teach a class about clever and exciting ways to waste money.

I only will be working here for a few months, but I can already tell that this will not be the only volume of IT Adventues. May God have mercy on my soul.