True Story

As an IT professional I'm sometimes on call for emergencies with my applications, some of which populate data early in the morning. One of these has a process that's run by a monkey in another of our other offices every morning at around 6am.
Yesterday we implemented a new procedure to streamline this process and make it easier for everyone involved, hence my early start that I was moaning about. I am NOT a morning person. Anyway, here's what happened today.

6:21 AM : Ring-ring Buzz Ring-ring Buzz (mobile)

wake up!
Me "Uh Hello ?"
Monkey "Richard ?"
Me "Yes"
Monkey "Oh thank goodness"
Me "Hi Monkey what's wrong ?"
Monkey "There's a problem with that new thingy you gave me yesterday"
Me "Uh Ok, what's not working"
Monkey "It's stuck"
Me "Umm, right, isn't it doing anything ? Do you have a blank screen or something ?"
Monkey "No it's stuck I don't know what to do"
Me "Ok, well is there any system error message on your screen or anything ?"
pause
Monkey "It's not doing anything, it just says 'Press any key to continue'"
pause while that sinks in
Me "Ok well have you tried pressing the space bar ?"
Monkey "No should I do that ?"
Me "Yes, try that please"
pause
Monkey "Aaaaaah"
Me "Ok now ?"
Monkey "Yes that's fixed it !"
Me "K Bye"
go back to sleep!

As one might put it
Oh the humanity.

I still find it hard to believe people like this actually get a wage.

I propose a new system. Everyone has a basic salary set at the start of the month and then on every occassion you waste someone else time through acts of stupidity you get docked a minimum of an hours pay and it gets credited to the person whos time you wasted. Sound good ? Thought so.

*** Update ***

This has now been followed by a further conversation about how she will have to update her procedures to tell her that you need to press a key when the computer displays a message saying 'Press any key to continue'

Just shoot me.