Sysadmin fixed blustering Blackbeard's PC in seconds • The Register

ON-PREM Blustering Blackbeard's PC was all at sea, sysadmin got him shipshape in seconds

Have you tried turning it on, never mind off and on again?

Simon Sharwood Fri 13 Mar 2026 // 07:30 UTC

ON CALL Arrr! How is it Friday already? The Register can't explain where the week went, but we can deliver a new installment of On Call, the reader-contributed column that shares your stories of tech support SNAFUs.

This week, meet a jolly reader we'll Regomize as "Roger" who thinks he may have broken our record for fastest tech support resolution, which we believe currently stands at 8.5 seconds.

Roger told us that 15 years ago he worked as a sysadmin for a government agency responsible for volunteer emergency marine rescue. His agency provided boats and other necessary kit that volunteers took to sea to sort out boating misadventures or rescue fisherfolk in distress.

"The man who managed this area was someone who could be transported back to a 1700s pirate ship," Roger told On Call. "Big, burly, sunburned skin, sun-bleached hair, even missing a couple of fingers."

"He was also one of those people whose face was always so red he looked like he was going to explode with barely contained rage at any moment, and he had a reputation to match."

One day, this chap blustered into Roger's office, brandishing a laptop. "He stormed up to my desk, leaned over my partition, and began his rant before I could so much as say hello," Roger explained.

The anger was somewhat justified as the piratical manager went out to a rescue incident and found he couldn't connect to Wi-Fi. That meant he couldn't access the agency's apps.

"He screamed about the rubbish laptops and IT systems we had, nothing ever worked, all the usual stuff," Roger wrote.

As he copped this spittle-flecked spray, the rest of his team got busy rearranging pencils or pretending to be on very important phone calls. Even the IT manager, Roger's boss, decided he was better off not intervening.

The user's rant ended with a thundered "Just FIX IT!"

So Roger did. Here's how.

Techie was given strict instructions not to disrupt client. Then he touched one box and the lights went out

Engineer held hostage by client who asked for the wrong fix

Desktop tech sent to prison for an education on strange places to put tattoos

Enforcing piracy policy earned helpdesk worker death threats

"At the time, we were using Toshiba laptops, and his model had a small switch that physically turned the Wi-Fi on or off."

During the user's rant, Roger noticed the switch was in the off position. So when told to FIX IT, he flicked the switch to "On" and declared the job was done.

"The user quickly turned the laptop around and looked at the switch, his face went a very beetroot shade of red and he just walked away."

Roger could never figure out if he was witnessing embarrassment or anger. But his colleagues were unanimous in their judgment: "As soon as he was down the corridor and out of earshot everyone in IT burst out laughing, even the IT manager."

"Elapsed time from him finishing his rant to me fixing the problem: approximately 1.5 seconds," Roger told The Register.

Have you fixed a fault by merely flicking a switch? If so, do something just as simple: click here to send On Call an email so we can share your story on a future Friday.

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