Christmas
And another from my history, back when I was a field technician in customer premise telecom (I’m now in remote);
I work in the customer premise equipment telecom industry. The cards that are installed in the phone system have lights on them to indicate an error condition. When the lights are off, everything is fine, when the lights are on, there is a problem.
I went out to a customer site that had experienced a power outage, but after the power outage, they complained that the phone system was broken. I asked them how they knew it was broken. They explained to me in all seriousness that they had tried pulling and reseating the cards in the phone system but couldn’t get the lights to stay on, and this is how they knew it was broken. They asked how to keep the lights on.
I was stunned for a second and then, after having determined that no one on site or on contract had any knowledge about the phone system, responded:
If your phone system looks like a christmas tree, then that means something is wrong. The red light on the cards is like a stop light: Stop. Don’t do anything. Call for support.
I also pulled the IT guy aside and asked him if he would pull cards out of a computer while it was powered up. He responded no. I said “don’t do it to a phone system either.”
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I’m sure he thought he was being helpful. Man… people who know just enough to be dangerous… (pauses, looks in mirror, decides to be quiet).