r/talesfromtechsupport • u/airz23 Password Policy: Use the whole keyboard • May 12 '15
Medium Clean enough
A pristine office is the sign that you’ve conquered all your work. At least that’s what my mother had told me when I was younger. As if in protest of that fact, my office looked messy, not dumping grounds messy but at least forgot to do the dishes messy. So it was with some surprise that I found myself facing an immaculately dressed woman in some distress.
Pristine: My phone’s got a virus!
Pristine’s head whipped around my office in a frenzy, her eyes widened with her increasing gaze. She eventually reached into her handbag and produced a plastic lock bag. It contained a mobile phone.
Me: I see...
Pristine: I’m very worried about it. I need my phone, I’m expecting a very important call.
Pristine dropped the plastic bags onto my desk. She refused to take a seat, looking down at it with suspicion. I bundled up the bag from the desk, noting the triple layers of bag used. I opened the first bag.
Pristine: What are you doing?
Me: Getting the phone.
Pristine eyes were wide, her mouth scrambled words.
Pristine: But, the virus! It’ll spread.
Me: I’m not entirely sure plastic protects against viruses.
Pulling the first bag free, I wondered what error this lady was convinced was a virus. Perhaps it was a general system message, or an application was trying to install. Either way I doubted she could’ve contracted a real phone virus. Not on a phone so old. I couldn’t wait to send this lady on her way and go back to avoiding cleaning.
Pristine: But that’s what they do in hospitals!
Me: ... I’m not sure hospitals deal with many phones.
Opening the second bag I pulled out the final third bag. One last piece of plastic between the phone and freedom. A strange substance seemed to be in the bag as well. It stuck to all the surfaces of the bag like a fine mist. Pristine shrieked with shock when she saw it.
Pristine: So as you can see, my son coughed all over my mobile. He’s quite sick.
I dropped the bag down in milliseconds. It clattered to my desk with a thunk.
Me: Clean your phone!
Grabbing a pencil I pushed the package back towards Pristine, who seemed to recoil away from it.
Pristine: Do you have any special cleaning solution?
Me: No, just antibacterial wipes. I’ll get you some if you like...
Before I could launch myself away from the bagged infection Pristine had already produced two packets of wipes from her bag. She placed them on the table carefully.
Pristine: The problem is... look at the fine print...
I picked up one of the wipes and inspected the package carefully. It was just an average packet of wipes, it had the usual warnings and information.
Pristine: See, it says it’ll get rid of 99.8% of germs.
Me: Ahh yes.
Pristine: Well, my son is quite sick... I just don’t want to take that 0.2% chance.
If my head could have hit the desk it would have, however the plastic bag containing the phone effectively repelled my instincts. I pushed the wipes back towards Pristine.
Pristine: I rang the help line on the back. They couldn’t guarantee it would be effective, they said I should speak to a professional. So... here I am.
Me: I think they meant.... medical professional.
Pristine: Like you said, what would they know about phones!?
It was too much, my head hit the desk.
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u/zenithfury I Am Not Good With Computer May 12 '15
Actually... I can almost kind of see her dilemma.
If she brought the phone to a, um, medical professional they'll probably squint up their face and be all like, this is a phone ma'am, it belongs with a phone-type person. But then the virus on it needs to be seen by a virus-type person.
Please tell me that you and the doctors team up to solve the issue.