A tech support column from The Register's weekly "On Call" series recounts a story from a reader nicknamed "Roy," who worked IT support for a company handling tissue donations and organ transplants. Despite the high-stakes nature of the job, one memorable call involved a lab worker unable to log into her workstation, which turned out to be caused by confusion over a keyboard symbol rather than any technical fault.

After standard troubleshooting failed, Roy reset the worker's password, but she still could not log in even after choosing a new one herself. When asked to spell out the password, she referred to the "@" symbol as "Capital Two," leaving Roy baffled until he worked out what she meant; once clarified, she was able to log in successfully.