(Disclaimer: This article is satire and is not meant to be taken seriously. It does not reflect the views of The Spectator or UW-Eau Claire.)

Bryce Parra, a first-year chemistry student, said he was having internet issues last week and sought out help from the Learning and Technology Services help desk.

Upon arriving at the LTS center, Parra was shocked to see no one working there. Curious to see if anyone was in the back, he went behind the LTS front desk in search of an employee to help him.

What he found explained more to him about the state of the internet than any LTS employee could. 

“It was a potato, with wires and storage devices coming out of it,” Parra said. “Behind it, there was a sign saying ‘main server’ and routers plugged into the potato with even more wires going into the walls to what I can only assume is more routers.” 

An LTS employee found Parra crying of laughter on the ground. The employee had trouble getting Parra to his feet.

“It was easily the funniest thing I’ve ever seen in my life, I couldn’t stop laughing,” Parra said. “The employee kept telling me to not tell anyone and asked if there was anything she could do to help me, but she couldn’t do jack s*** for me if the entire campus-wide internet was running off a f***ing potato.”

Parra did manage to take a photo of just the potato server before he left, and the campus response to it has been rather negative.

“At least now I know why my Netflix keeps cutting out, but it cannot be that hard to upgrade their server,” second-year marketing student Maria Bark said. “I mean we spend so much money on our silly sports teams, but can’t spend a little money to get our WiFi up to speed? Ridiculous.” 

Bark is one of many students who has sought help from LTS as well as ResCom, UW-Eau Claire’s support team for the computing and technology infrastructure within Housing & Residence Life.

“It’s almost worth transferring to UW-Stout if UW-Eau Claire continues to use this archaic form of internet,” Bark said.

After the image of the server was posted, former ResCom employee Brad Thompson spoke out about his experiences helping Blugolds with their internet issues.

“It was really tough lying to people and telling them to try certain things to get faster internet when I knew exactly what the main server looked like,” Thompson said. “It got to the point where I would laugh every time people would ask for help and every time I was like ‘if only they knew.’”

Thompson did try to tell those seeking help what the main server actually was, but no one believed him. Once word got out that he was talking about the potato server, Thompson was promptly fired.

LTS and ResCom have declined to comment.

Doyle can be reached at [email protected].