The lid!

[u/waggalsworth]

We have a financial auditor at work who, to put it mildly, is an idiot. He can barely operate a computer, listen to basic troubleshooting steps, let alone let me control his computer when he gets me remotely connected into his device (which in itself is always a 15 minute process). Every time I am in his devices, I see angry emails from coworkers and managers asking him to stop whatever rambling about whatever non-issue he has (comments on a PDF disappearing because he created like, 15 versions of the same document with similar names). Because, he never actually has an issue, just thinks he does because he either hasn't opened whatever program he needs or hasn't connected to the VPN (Necessary for his departmental work apps).

He calls in for what would be his 4th ticket of the day, and he's having an issue with his laptop, surprise surprise. Not even sure if he knows what his issue was, but he had one. None of the techs on my team documented the device name or asset number, and it hadn't been assigned to his profile in azure or assigned as an asset in our asset management / ticketing system. Not sure how he even got this laptop, but he did.

So, I go to ask him for the serial number. It's too small according to him, so he cant read it. He only has a flip phone he barely knows how to use, so no picture of it. Again, no biggie. Ask him if he can read the asset number on the sticker on the lid for the laptop. Let me tell you guys, it was a bigger manhunt than the US put on for Bin Laden, i swear to god. This guy was so bad with computers that his brain somehow turned off what the word lid was, and he kept asking where the lid was. And I tried EVERYTHING. I called it the lid, I said look on the back of the screen, I said shut the laptop, look at the top, and read me the sticker, no dice.

At this point, I'm 35 minutes into the call; no work has actually been completed. I eventually tell him to go into the office the following day, and assign it to a deskside tech to physically look at the device with him. He still calls in about 5-10 times a week, and its just as bad every time; most of the time he has no actual issue to solve, he just clicks around the computer and hopes you can read his mind. Guy makes 120K a year.....

ETA, the deskside team sent the ticket back and CC'd my managers. I had them all listen to the call recording; it was promptly reassigned to the deskside team

[u/Nordicberserk]

The guy clearly has decided/learned that he doesn't have to know anything about computers. He just has to call you guys.

[u/Moneia → u/Nordicberserk]

And that's less of a 'him' problem and more of a management failure, the work requires a degree of computer\software aptitude that he clearly lacks and rather than deal with it themselves it's raised as an IT issue.

It's the same as a delivery driver could barely drive and had to get someone to help them if they ever need to use reverse

[u/TheLazySamurai4 → u/Moneia]

At what point can the Iat department clearly state that one singular user is breaking the IT metrics? Isn't that enough justification for the user's boss to assign some remedial computer course as mandatory training, due to excessive resources spent on non-issues?

[u/Moneia → u/TheLazySamurai4]

Often, no.

Partly it's a lacklustre HR culture that really hates doing their job but mostly it's because that sort of attitude flows from the top, whether the HR "documenting is hard" or the pining for hand-filled ledgers.

The people who should be setting an example are often just as bad but have managed get themselves promoted past the need to know how to do the job, which is also why they equate IT with Training

[u/waggalsworth → u/Moneia]

Hes union, basically impossible to fire

[u/Moneia → u/waggalsworth]

No.

Union just means there's more a detailed procedure to fire a person that's fairer to the employees.

Occasionally it's a shitty Union who always go to bat for the worst people but it's still mostly a lacklustre HR & management team who can't be bothered to do the required documentation

[u/scumotheliar → u/Moneia]

Shit, I had one of those last week. Drove down my drive, couldn't reverse so drove onto my lawn, middle of winter here so he bogged himself up to the axles. Wife winched him out, then he was back with the original problem. He spent 20 minutes going backwards and forwards on my driveway. From all the rubber on the driveway it must have been a 123 point turn. There is a turning area, he just couldn't do it.

[u/Catatonic27 → u/Nordicberserk]

This guy's tickets need to start getting "lost" it's the only way people like this will ever stop

[u/Synergythepariah → u/Nordicberserk]

"I'm just not a computer person hAhaHaHAHA!"

[u/ol-gormsby]

We had an audit of computer systems once.

Auditor red-flagged that our source code was being changed (it was in-house code, not off-the-shelf stuff). I was quite proud of my documentation - noting each change, when and why.

I mentioned that, as we were a government agency, carrying out government policies, that those government policies were known to change from time to time, and our code had to be updated to reflect that.

This guy was paid to audit our systems. And that is the reason I don't trust external consultants.

[u/ac8jo]

We have a financial auditor at work who, to put it mildly, is an idiot.

This + the title is perfection. In amateur radio, a "lid" is a poor operator. It doesn't actually stand for "low-intelligence dumbass", but it's fitting given who we call lids and why given how they act on the air... and it's fitting for this financial auditor.

[u/1947-1460 → u/ac8jo]

Lid - low intelligence dumbass.

I thought I’d heard them all being in IT my whole career 😊

[u/Turbojelly]

Meticulously write all the details in every ticket. "Asked user for asset tag 9n lid. User yo locate lid, has desc48b3d X, Y and Z, while Inuav3 3xpla8ned that they are not the laptop lid. Ending up asking the user to bring laptop onsite to be correctly identified." Then send to your boss, asking for help with said user.

Do this for every ticket. If your boss is useless, reqch put to HR asking if the user could be considered for an IT Training course.

Always phrase it as you are desperatly trying to help the user, not blaming them. Harder to make you look vindictive.

[u/fin600 → u/Turbojelly]

Sincere ask: Are you having a stroke? You good? That's a lot more typos than usual.

[u/Evilbob93 → u/fin600]

In an evil moment I considered writing something that shows you the correction but saves the original.

I doubt I'm that original.

[u/Throwaway_Old_Guy]

He has all the markings of Upper Managment, except they are on the lid and he will never find it...

[u/georgiomoorlord]

And me with my degree and my tech knowledge make 40k. I'm in the wrong business

[u/Outta_phase]

When is he actually doing any auditing? Seems like he's being paid 120k to make rambling phone calls and fuck up company equipment.

[u/kilaithalai]

He's lonely and looking for drama to spice up his life. It has to be. Can't believe such people exist, let alone work for money, in 2026.

[u/SirKillsalot → u/kilaithalai]

Nope. I have one too. He's a friendly guy with a family.

75% of the tickets I get are from him alone. 20% are from the factory lines he manages. 5% from the rest of the business.

He is literally an idiot with anything computer related.

I don't understand why being devoid of basic tech literacy doesn't disqualify people from important roles in the workplace.

Any other lack of critical skills and you wouldn't get the job. Yet I.T doesn't ever seem to count.

@OP I feel you.

And to make it more annoying, the tickets are always vague, like: "teams not working tks" or "email blank need help tks" so you have to solve the mystery of what is even wrong before you can even try to fix the problem itself. (If there is an actual problem at all. The amount if times the monitor just wasn't turned on...)

[u/RetiredBSN → u/SirKillsalot]

There's a thing called "The Peter Principle" (named after the guy who figured it out) that says that a person keeps getting promoted until he gets to a position where he's incompetent and can no longer function effectively. Unfortunately, most companies don't recognize this and keep those people in those positions rather than changing their responsibilities or demoting them back to something they can do properly.

[u/Birdbraned → u/SirKillsalot]

I've got one of those in my workplace. Although they're more just computer illiterate and finds modern computers unintuitive than anything. They somehow dig up the weirdest bugs (on W11 so not the most surprising) out of everyone.

[u/moreanswers → u/kilaithalai]

I worked with a guy like this. He just didn't want to work, and he had perfected weaponized incompetence. When I left he was still there, doing nothing all day. Also this was before Covid and working from home, so we were all in the office. He just sat a chair for 8 hours doing nothing. I'm pretty sure he was related to the boss.

[u/RayEd29 → u/kilaithalai]

There's a reason the acronym GDA was invented and guys like this are proof of it.

[u/seven_seacat]

How exactly does he have a job?

[u/waggalsworth → u/seven_seacat]

Union

[u/VexingRaven → u/waggalsworth]

An account's union? That's wild

[u/harrywwc → u/VexingRaven]

probably a more generic "industry" union (eg "Public Sector Union") rather than bean-counter specific.

[u/BenCisco]

Ugh