Thursday Morning, 10:00 AM
Chris was sipping his coffee when a panicked call came in from Steve in marketing. Of course, it’s Steve, Chris thought, already bracing himself.
“Chris, my computer keeps rebooting! It’s like it’s possessed or something. I can’t get anything done!” Steve exclaimed, his voice rising with every word.
Chris headed to Steve’s desk, half expecting to find yet another meme-related disaster. Instead, he saw Steve staring at his desktop, which was indeed stuck in a perpetual reboot loop. The moment it reached the login screen, it would restart again.
“Alright, Steve,” Chris said, “did you install or download anything new recently?”
“Uh… well, I might’ve clicked on a link for, uh… some work-related images,” Steve mumbled.
Chris raised an eyebrow. “Work-related images?”
Steve avoided eye contact. “It might’ve been… cat memes.”
Chris sighed and got to work. After a quick inspection, he discovered the culprit: an unauthorized program labeled FREE_MEME_BUNDLE.exe had corrupted a core system file. Classic malware. He rebooted the system in safe mode, ran a few diagnostics, and managed to clean the infection.
“You’re all set, Steve. Just… don’t click on any sketchy links,” Chris warned.
“But it said free memes!” Steve protested.
Chris stared at him, deadpan. “Steve, nothing is ever free.”