It’s several years ago during a major virus outbreak — if you know your history of computer viruses, you can narrow it down — and a user at a remote site calls this pilot fish to complain that her computer won’t let her get any work done.

“I asked her if she had called the local technician — who worked for me — and she replied that she had called him numerous times but he had not picked up his phone,” says fish. “I told her I would take care of it.”

Fish calls his tech, who says he has spoken to the user each time she called and explained to her that he’ll help her as soon as he can, but he’s finishing work in another area.

That satisfies fish, who goes back to his own work. And soon he gets a message from his tech, sent from the irate user’s email account, reporting that the tech checked the user’s PC, found a virus and removed it, and updated the PC’s virus definitions. Case closed.

But the next day, fish gets another call from the user — and she’s furious. She demands that fish reprimand the tech for his abusive behavior.

It seems she has checked the “sent” items in her email and saw that the tech had told fish that he had “taken care of that sassy worm.”

But fish has that same email and knows that the wording is a bit different: “Problem with PC was virus, updated virus definitions and took care of Sasser worm.”

Call Sharky sassy if you like, but do send me an email with your true tales of IT life at sharky@computerworld.com. You can also subscribe to the Daily Shark Newsletter.