Power goes out at a law firm, and the UPS immediately starts beeping as an alert that it is discharging. One woman working nearby finds the beeping annoying, and she turns off her PC in an effort to make it stop. That does nothing about the beep-beep-beep, of course, but she’s been driven to distraction and starts to shut down everything in the law firm. The beeping continues. So she goes to the source and unplugs the UPS.

Yes, reader, you know the result: beep-beep-beep! But she cannot understand how the UPS can continue howling without a source of power. (Ahem! We are well aware that it has had no external source of power for quite some time at this point, but remember, the beeping is truly driving this poor woman around the bend.) “We thought it was possessed!” she exclaims to pilot fish.

Fish, by the way, is the IT consultant this woman calls after hours of the UPS beeping. And he is nothing but professional as he guides her to an end to her suffering — though he does have a bit of trouble stifling his giggles. Everything the woman and her colleagues had done was prolonging their agony. As fish notes, “A battery that size will last quite a while without any load.”

But what fish does is simply ask if the power is back on. Yes, she replies, it came back just after I unplugged the UPS.

That’s another chuckle to swallow, but fish manages, and then closes the ticket: “Just plug the UPS back in,” he tells the client.

Sharky gets charged up when you send me your true tales of IT life at sharky@computerworld.com. You can also subscribe to the Daily Shark Newsletter.