Ive had people say to me things like “Well, when I do this, this happens and the computer freezes.”

I go into the room, and – hey presto! = the PC works fine…I definitely think Jack has a point!

“your database isn’t working! I need you to get it to do X”
“it does X.”
“no it doesn’t”
[goes round to office]
“look, click here on ‘do X’, say ‘yes, I am sure’, and it does it’.
“well it wasn’t doing that before…”

…which have led me to believe that PCs and information systems have some sort of ‘sympathy’ with their developers/support people. If the developers/support people are nearby, the PCs or systems are happy and work fine — but if the developers aren’t in the office, the PCs become sad and start to work incorrectly.

Or it could be user error… but as the users assured me that they had carried out exactly the same steps as me, I can only presume that my proximity to the PC has a direct impact on how likely it is to work….