What began as a forum
for exchanging outrageous tales of user goofiness wound up as “10
classic clueless-user stories” (in both article and download format),
showcasing a few of the more bizarre accounts.

Now I’d like to force-morph the discussion into a look at
the other side of the coin: IT pro foibles and blunders.

In the clueless-user


discussion thread, member peterl@… said, “Wonder

if there ever was a collection of dumb acts *by* IT people when they deal with end

users. Like asking incredibly dumb business questions or making assumptions

that make absolutely no business sense.” And info@… pointed out,

“There are just as many clueless acts by technical

people that cost companies millions. Like the tech who decided to make

“one small change.” A change that sent three thousand people home for

the day. Or in a regional bank where the IT dept didn’t understand or believe

the business priority of a problem which resulted in over ten thousand term

deposits being voided.”

Maybe our mistakes aren’t quite that

colossal–or if we’re lucky, they just wind up as near-misses. Like the time I

installed an Outlook 2003 beta on a production machine to do some testing and

almost caused a catastrophic enterprise-wide Exchange meltdown. KaBOOOM.

Just as users can bumble along in a

way that dumbfounds the IT staff, so can the IT staff stray into their own Clueless

Territory–and we can all learn a little from hearing about those mistakes. They

might even make us feel a little better about ourselves.

Got a good tale to tell on yourself?

Share it here or join


the discussion. Let’s hear your worst.