IT Guys: they're not all like Patrick

I just had two strange encounters with two separate IT guys in the space of about 10 minutes.

One came to work on my co-worker's computer. She came to work this morning but left even before I got here, sick. He was here to because "she has an open ticket." He said he'd been calling her all day but she wasn't answering. I said, "Oh, she went home sick today." If someone's not answering their phone, what does he think happened to them? Then he asked me: "Was she here yesterday?" I said No. "Was she here the day before yesterday?" I said, No. Then he said, "Was she here Monday?" I said, "Look, she's not here. Do you know what she needed to have done?" He said, "She just said that her computer is running slow." I said, "Well, I don't know anything about her computer. Can you look at it without her being here, or do you need to come back?" He said, "I don't know what she wants done."

(NOTE TO COMPUTER TECHNICIANS: Usually I don't stick up for this particular co-worker when it comes to problems with her computer because I know that she causes a lot of the trouble herself, what with her sloppy clicking and disorganized files and sheer laziness about learning something new (or remembering something old). However. When someome complains that their machine is running slow, it's not that hard to figure out what they want you to do: THEY WANT YOU TO MAKE IT RUN FASTER.)

Anyway, that conversation ended with me rolling my eyes, and him leaving (possibly not in that order).

Not five minutes later, another IT dude I've never seen before entered my office. He was making a bunch of noise out in the hall, talking to someone. I guess he was looking for me. I didn't hear what they were saying.

He comes in, and says he's looking for a Safety video. I am the Keeper of the Safety Videos. I said, "OK, which one do you want?"

The rest of our conversation was kind of boring (though at one point he was kind of insistent that the date today is the 3rd, but no, the big ass calendar right there on the wall confirms that today is indeed the 2nd); we were just discussing the videos and how long they are, and then, right when he was sitting there, I emailed him the list of all the videos we have and he commented on how fast I can type, etc. Then he got up to leave, and he says to me, "How do I get back to the bottom of the center of the building?"

I said, "What?"

The bottom of the center of the building. Hmm. That must be where we make the donut holes. I mean, what?

My office is on the 2nd floor. There is one hallway - once you get off the elevator, if you go left, you will hit a locked door, which has a sign on it that says "Executive Offices." If you go the other way, you go down a long, not very well lit hallway. There's a door to the stairwell at the end. My office is somewhere between the elevator and the stairwell. Clearly marked with a sign on the door and everything. When it's time to leave, it's fairly simple to find the elevator: you just go back the way you came. He wasn't sitting with me long enough to forget that, was he? Did he sustain a head injury while we were talking? As far as I know, he didn't black out or have a stroke. He appeared sane enough (except for that confusion about the date).

Then I said, "Oh. Open the door. Turn right. Go down the hall and take the elevator to the first floor..." and then he left. Man, I hope he made it downstairs okay.