The final straw
Before I moved into IT training I used to be a network administrator, and aside from the usual system maintenance and monitoring stuff I acted as a helpdesk for around two hundred users.

One day I received a call from one of the users on the floor above me. “I’m having problems getting pound signs on my keyboard,” he said. My immediate thought was that he probably had his keyboard set to US English, which moves some symbols around, so I said I’d go and have a look for him. On my arrival I asked him to explain the problem. “I’m trying to get pound signs but I keep getting 3s.”

I looked at his keyboard and noticed that the pound sign and the 3 were the same key. “You are pressing shift aren’t you?” I asked. He looked blank. I fired up Word on the PC, held the shift key down with one finger and pressed 3 with the other: £££££££££££££££££££££££££££.

“How did you do that?” he asked. I explained, and he was extremely grateful. Confused, I headed back to my desk, but as I stepped into the stairwell one of the man’s colleagues approached me.

“Do you know what he’s been doing as a workaround? When he’s written letters to customers and needed pound signs he’s been putting an extra space in before the number, printing the letter out, and then he's drawn the pound sign in with a black biro.” The man had been doing this for six months, and do bear in mind that we worked for a major high-street bank.

That was it. I had to leave.
(nasalhair The Twix guy!, Tue 29 Sep 2009, 9:47, 5 replies)

I wonder why ...
... the colleague didn't drop a hint or two.
(haberman is singing in the changes, Tue 29 Sep 2009, 13:20, closed)

You know what really pisses me off about this?
His colleague knew for 6 months that he was having this problem, could have solved it in 15 seconds, and didn't. I'd guess the guy wasn't hired primarily for his IT skills, so how much of an effort would it have been for his colleague to say "Hey Bert, if you press the shift key, you'll get all those symbols". That fucker cost you a callout, and the rest of the business 6 month of crappy looking letters that took longer. I'd have left too, but not because of the numpty, who was a 10 second fix. I'd have left because of the bloke who couldn't be arsed to DO a ten second fix.
(Sammyhaswoefullyneglectedyou, Tue 29 Sep 2009, 14:35, closed)

I know, I know
I guess they just saw it as a "look at the silly man! Look at what he's doing with the letter and the biro!" It was that, combined with the fact that he'd been doing this for six months without asking for help, that convinced me it was time to go.

Hope you liked the story all the same.
(nasalhair The Twix guy!, Tue 29 Sep 2009, 15:16, closed)

If I'm feeling lazy about an obscure symbol - (R) or (C) I just google it and copy/paste to use it. It seems quicker than learning the proper keyboard shortcuts for obscure typography I probably use twice a year.
(Benzyl, Tue 29 Sep 2009, 17:50, closed)

That reminds me...
We once had a receptionist who needed to send something to a customer, and when she asked where she could get our logo from to put it in the letter someone told her to cut & paste it from another letter. Five minutes later they walked past and saw her glueing a logo to the top of her new letter, the chopped-up remains of her template around her.

And before you say it, this is absolutely genuine as I saw it happen myself.
(nasalhair The Twix guy!, Tue 29 Sep 2009, 19:01, closed)