Tetchy Trainee turned off the lights to teach a lecturer • The Register

Who I? Welcome once again to Who, Me?, in which The registry celebrates the work week ahead of us all with readers’ stories of the messes they made and escaped.

This week, meet “Ernie,” who a few years ago found himself in a training class that used large CRT monitors to display notes.

Ernie and his fellow students had to take notes on each slide.

“It seemed like it was too difficult to print handouts or too expensive or something,” he told Who, Me?

The illogicality of the decision not to provide handouts and the ennui that set in when the course stretched into a second week began to crunch.

So is Ernie’s handwriting, which is so—er—unique that he thinks pharmacists and doctors are better able to decipher it than others who spend less time pressing a pen.

As his frustration grew, Ernie – like “Peter” from Who, Me? – decided that a spot of revenge was in order.

“During a coffee break, I managed to be alone in the classroom and turned the screen brightness down,” he confessed.

When the coffee break ended, Ernie and the other students returned to the classroom and didn’t take any notes because his impostors had completely blacked out the monitors.

“Eventually the instructor took care of the problem and we took another, slightly longer coffee break while the instructor and tech support sorted it out,” admitted Ernie.

The instructor understood what was happening and the atmosphere in the room was quite chilly for the rest of the day.

Ernie now regrets his revenge.

“I hadn’t thought of that, though,” he admitted. “Keeping a straight face for the rest of the second week of the course was a test of self-control.”

Have your tech-driven revenge plans recovered? If so, please let us know by emailing Who, Me? ®