It’s back in the day — the early 386 days, in fact — and pilot fish owns a computer sales and service business. A customer drops off a desktop computer that, at random, doesn’t turn on from time to time. So fish replaces the power supply, and it starts up fine. Then fish powers it down, and now it won’t turn on.

Back to the workbench it goes. Fish disassembles the PC and tests it with all of the parts out of the case. It powers up every time. Fish puts the machine back together, and it still powers up every time.

Of course, you know Sharky well enough to see that the other shoe is about to drop.

Fish takes the machine back to the customer, turns it on — nothing.

Having spent an entire day dealing with one balky machine, fish is feeling very frustrated. So much so that he lifts up the front of the machine about four inches and lets it drop. And, huzzah, the machine powers up. Customer is a little leery, but takes delivery, and as far as fish knows, that PC never balked again.

Says he: “I guess I knocked that pesky little demon right out of there!”

Don’t let the IT demons get to you. Send Sharky your true tale of IT life at sharky@computerworld.com. You can also subscribe to the Daily Shark Newsletter and read some great old tales in the Sharkives.