When I used to work at Microsoft I had an uncanny knack for making installs not work. Things that just simply worked for other people would die with errors and bluescreens. I started to think I emitted a weird bioelectric field or something. But this only happened at that company, and strangely only when I worked on the premises.
It is a gift! I have the same gift for printers. I enter a room with a printer and the printer decides to spontaneously combust (or at least the software equivalent of this).
Weird aura? Maybe they feel my hate…
That reminds me of a job I had many years ago, where this big printer kept jamming and stopping. Whenever the inhouse support tech showed up it would start working. One time it unjammed and resumed printing when he walked into the computer room. Another time he was out front talking to the manager right after getting there, and we heard it start up. He could never get there when it wasn’t working, to diagnose the problem. So finally he brought in a wallet size high-school photo of himself and taped it to the inside of the printer cover, so his face was looking at the print head. I swear on everything holy, that machine never glitched out again!
I don’t know if it’s been studied, but anecdotally, I’ve known a few such “bug attractors.” As a software engineer, I am blessed that I know people that will turn my work into ashes in a matter of mere seconds - it’s amazing.
If you really do have a knack for making computer software fail, a viable career in QA awaits you.
Ages ago in my help desk days, we had a remote user brick at least 3 laptops and 3 PocketPCs. They were fully dead, would not power on with different batteries/chargers. She used different outlets each time both in her house and at coffee shops. She left the company shortly after and I got promoted out of the role so I never figured out what happened.
When I used to work at Microsoft I had an uncanny knack for making installs not work. Things that just simply worked for other people would die with errors and bluescreens. I started to think I emitted a weird bioelectric field or something. But this only happened at that company, and strangely only when I worked on the premises.
It is a gift! I have the same gift for printers. I enter a room with a printer and the printer decides to spontaneously combust (or at least the software equivalent of this). Weird aura? Maybe they feel my hate…
That reminds me of a job I had many years ago, where this big printer kept jamming and stopping. Whenever the inhouse support tech showed up it would start working. One time it unjammed and resumed printing when he walked into the computer room. Another time he was out front talking to the manager right after getting there, and we heard it start up. He could never get there when it wasn’t working, to diagnose the problem. So finally he brought in a wallet size high-school photo of himself and taped it to the inside of the printer cover, so his face was looking at the print head. I swear on everything holy, that machine never glitched out again!
I don’t know if it’s been studied, but anecdotally, I’ve known a few such “bug attractors.” As a software engineer, I am blessed that I know people that will turn my work into ashes in a matter of mere seconds - it’s amazing.
If you really do have a knack for making computer software fail, a viable career in QA awaits you.
lol, as if anyone pays for QA anymore.
Ages ago in my help desk days, we had a remote user brick at least 3 laptops and 3 PocketPCs. They were fully dead, would not power on with different batteries/chargers. She used different outlets each time both in her house and at coffee shops. She left the company shortly after and I got promoted out of the role so I never figured out what happened.
I’m tellin’ ya. It’s a gift.
Strangely my knack seemed limited to making installs fail. I actually wrote some test automation software, including a language for specifying tests.
Sounds like a superpower to me. You haven’t been around GitHub lately, have you? :)
Nah haven’t worked there since 2005.