How I became a Ghostbuster

Been a super-lurker until today. I had to share this tale, as it has been my all-time favorite experience in tech work.

This takes place about 3 months into my very first tech job out of college (about 7-8 years ago). I am working for the university tech support office as a part-timer until they open up the full-time position I want (didn't get it, but that's another tale). One day, everything is going nice a smooth, only about 6 emergencies in the morning, nothing big. I go to lunch, and come back to our secretary very deliberately talking someone down from panic, so I stick around in the foyer to see if I can help. Sure enough, she gets off the phone and tells me Professor G needs some immediate assistance. Something about her thesis being deleted by a demon spirit. Yup, demon spirit. This I gotta see.

So off I go, gearing up for giving bad news, hoping it's just a glitch and the temp files are still there. I get up to Prof G's office, shyly knock on the open door and peek in. She's in there at the point of tears frantically scribbling her thoughts on paper, trying to preserve her train of thought before she forgets.

> Me: "Hi, I'm here to check out your computer issue." > Prof G (heavy latino accent, hard to understand): "Eet's possessed! Eet has deleted my whole work! Please, make eet stop!" > Me: "Ok, let's see what we can do."

So I sit and the desk, and look at the monitor. I see some weird refresh thing going on, the monitor is blinking a line across the screen (or so I thought at first glance). So I decide to type something and see what happens. BOOM, there goes the letter, almost faster than you can see, scrolling up the screen to disappear.

*Lighthouse beacon lights up above my head*

I look down, and what do I see? A big, heavy book opened next to the keyboard, one corner ever so surreptitiously laying on the tab key. I *almost* burst out laughing right then. For her sake, I managed to hold it in. Once the tab key is released, it stops tracking the cursor down the screen. I scroll up and find the rest of her thesis safe and sound some 300 pages up above the cursor. I kindly delete all the tabs, and bring her page count back to normal. She promptly hugs me with the biggest hug I've ever gotten aside from my daughter and kisses my cheek.

> Prof G: "You are hero! Thank you, gracias SO much! No more demons!" > Me: "Uhm, you're welcome! So the issue was this book was hitting the tab key here and making it scroll so fast you couldn't tell what was happening. No text was lost, so you are ok there." > Prof G: "Oh! Well, I feel seelly. Thank you so much anyway!"

We part ways, I head back to the ~~firestation~~ Tech Cave and proceed to give everyone the laugh of the year. Two hours later we get another call from her (this time her aide is with her) with the same issue, demons and all, but less panicky. I show her aide what the issue is and she giggles and says she'll take care of it next time.

Every time I think back on that, I still smile. That story has also done me well in every job interview I've had since then. Gotta love them demon ghosts!