What's the funniest user request you've ever had?

Question

Users sometimes come up with the most amusing, weird and wonderful requirements for programmers to design and implement.

Today I read a memo from my boss that we need the "ability to import any excel or access data, irrespective of size, easily and quickly."

From the same memo, we have a requirement to "know if anyone unauthorized accessed the system" - as if a hacker is going to leave his calling card wedged between an index and a foreign key somewhere.

I think my boss has been watching too much "Star Trek"... :)

What's the funniest user request you've ever had?

Answer 1

"We know the server goes down sometimes, but we want it to never go down"

Answer 2

"can you make sure our sales increase by at least 131%? that would put us ahead of last year."

Answer 3

My client demanded that on his website the current white is too normal. And I quote "I want the glossy white of Facebook and Google"

I wonder if this would work:

main.css

body {
    background-color: #ffffff !glossy;
}

Answer 4

"We need the button to be clickable after the checkbox to enable the button clicks is checked."

Answer 5

"The calendars are really difficult to use, since there is a different number of days in each month. Could you please change them to have the same number of days?"

Answer 6

Client: "Are you sure you pushed the last copy edit live?"

Programmer: "Yes it is live and I tested it."

Client: "I just looked and it still shows the old copy text."

Programmer: "Did you try clearing your browser cache?"

Client: "What's that? How do I do that? Can't you just have the site do that for me?"

Answer 7

"I just deleted a client data record. Can you restore it from the Recycle Bin?"

Some people don't understand that when a record is deleted, it's deleted. That's kinda what "deleted" means, especially when they didn't ask for us to build an "un-delete" feature.

Answer 8

One of our programs lets normal people manipulate a fairly complex video distribution system. It visually indicates what's going on on the back end using representative pictures of the video sources -- VCRs, DVD players, etc. These graphics are very detailed; the VCR has a little amber display on it, saying "12:00" in a 7-segment LED font. One user asked us to make it blink. Another asked us to make it show the current time.

bangs head on desk

Answer 9

Client: "I really like my website and Google but I need them both when my laptop doesn't have an internet connection. Can you burn them to a cd so I can use them offline?"

Me: "I can make an offline version of your site but it would have limited functionality. I can't however make Google available offline. It is possible with hardware and a monthly contract to get internet anywhere for a monthly fee with a data card. You'd have to pay around $60/month for it through ATT or Sprint or something like that."

Client: "I'm starting to become disappointed with your capabilities."

Answer 10

The following happened multiple times with the same person ...

Data Entry Operator (at remote site): Can you fix my terminal? It won't turn on.

ME: Last time you called with this problem it was unplugged, can you please check that?

Data Entry Operator: It's plugged in!

So I drive to the remote site and what do I find? An unplugged terminal, of course! I plugged it in, and it worked just fine.

Answer 11

My programming team wrote an intranet which interfaced with a legacy accounting system. Basically, we were writing a pretty ASP.NET front end to protect users from having to interface with the terminal system.

In any case, one of our testers noticed that our login code accepted any password, so long as the first 8 characters were correct. A tester created a user with the password "Password", but the application would validate "Password1", "PasswordMonkey", "PasswordFakeFakeFakehahahah". So, our tester logged this as a defect. Some investigation revealed that the legacy system stored passwords in fixed-width, 8 char field, and it just quietly truncates queries to 8 characters. A quick test indicated that this bug existed in the accounting system as well and simply went unnoticed for 20 years.

We were unable to modify the legacy application as it was maintained by a third-party vendor, so I wrote a quick if (password.Length > 8) { return false; } on our end -- after all, a password more than 8 chars can't possibly be correct. Bug fixed, QA signs off.

So, when our application goes into production, we get an "URGENT!! USER'S CAN'T LOG IN TO THEIR ACCOUNTS!!!"-type message from the president of one of our customers. It turns out that state law or company policy required all passwords to be at least 12 characters long, and none of the users were able to use our product after the fix.

We explained that the accounting system simply doesn't store anything beyond 8 characters, and that everything will be peachy if users just type the first 8 characters. "UNACCEPTABLE!" Ok, then we can put a maxlength on the textbox, limiting the input to just the valid range of characters. "IMBECILES! IT WORKED JUST FINE BEFORE, NOW FIX IT!" Our customer got into a shouting match with the president of my company, threatening the change vendors if we didn't fix application.

So, I "fixed" the application commenting out the sanity check and reintroduced the bug. Its not an unreasonable request to have authentication code in the ASP.NET front-end authenticate the same as the terminal backend, but its really disconcerting to purposefully re-bug an application.

Answer 12

Take a look at this blog called Clients From Hell

There are some really "good" ones on there.

Answer 13

"I want that no one can take a screenshot of this webpage."

Seriously, this was the demand from the customer.

The most perverted thing about this was, however, that I REALLY found a solution (one, that made me hate "Javascript" even more...).

Oh, the solution was monkey - proof.

Answer 14

Project Manager: "We need you to make a list of all unknown risks on this project."