Paper clip Power

During my 6 years in desktop support, I was often asked the following question.

"Why do you IT support guys always have a paper clip with you?"

Now, even among fellow practitioners, the reasons may vary. Interestingly enough, my ex-boss liked to use it to dig his ears.

This is how it's done.

I kid you not. He would unfurl the paper clip and stick the end in his ear to scrape away at his inner ear lining. Now, this practice is not only unsanitary, it's potentially dangerous and I wouldn't recommend it at all.

So why did I carry a paper clip around?

As mentioned earlier, the reasons may vary among IT professionals. Thus, I can only speak for myself. However, I suspect that most carry the paper clip for the same reason.

You see, back in the day, CD and DVD ROM drives on desktops and laptops often got stuck for a multitude of reasons. And one simple hardware override is to use the amazing paper clip.

See the tiny hole in the picture below, just underneath the CD ROM drive?

Stick it in, baby.

Stick the end of your paper clip in till you meet some resistance, then push. This triggers a button which manually ejects your CD ROM drive. Your computer doesn't even have to be turned on!

I may be biased here, but I find it's better to stick paper clips in a CD ROM drives than your ears.

Do stick around,
T___T