A little background; I'm a computer science lecturer, so while I'm not officially tech support I seem to do plenty of it regardless.

A story from a few years ago.

It was closing on dissertation hand-in day for our undergraduates. Like higher degree dissertations, we require that our undergraduates have their work professionally bound so supervisors can keep hold of the better examples. It was during a trek across the city that one such student made a fateful error (though far from his first in this story chronologically).

I, of course, wasn't there for this portion of events, but I did manage to gather what happened from those who were present. While crossing the city to get the dissertation bound, waiting to cross the road, one of the students (let's call him "extant copy" for reasons soon to become apparent) took out his phone to fill the 7 seconds between that moment and the lights changing. He was slightly too vigorous in pulling said phone, evacuating some of the other contents of his pocket in the process, most notably the memory stick which contained his dissertation. The way it was described to me, there was a slow motion howl of "nooooooo!" as it bounced onto the road and was immediately crushed by a passing car, although I feel his friends may have editorialised slightly.

What I assume was few minutes later, I was sitting in the office of one of our faculty technicians (FT) discussing the paradoxical quality of the university buffet when EC burst in without knocking.

EC: "Help, I have to get this bound today and... look!"

(He empties his pocket for the second time today, this time onto FT's desk).

(FT and I look at the small pile of shattered plastic, silicon and tarmac in what must've been 30 mangled pieces, quickly make eye contact and mutually raise an eyebrow.)

FT: "So... what happened?"

EC: "A car... well, look, my dissertation! You can fix it, right?"

(FT and I share another glance. Eyebrow height quickly becoming critical.)

FT: "The silicon is damaged... not just damaged, shattered. Nobody can fix this."

EC: "But... but... you can just glue the silicon back together!"

Me: "You're a computing student, I'm hoping that suggestion was rooted in desperation."

(EC starts rocking back and fore on his heels. I get the feeling if he were at home he'd be in the foetal position)

Me: "Okay... so, I assume you have a backup somewhere, even if it's a few days old? Why not see what you can do with it?"

(We, like most universities hammer the notion of backing up work, especially dissertations and theses into students religiously).

EC: (face brightens) "Oh yeah, I do have a backup from last night!"

Me: "Well that's not so bad. Why don't you go get it?"

EC: "It's on the memory stick."

Me: "... This memory stick?"

(EC nods).

FT: "So you decided to back up your volatile storage on the same volatile storage?"

EC: (hotly) "Well it's better than no backup! So, can you just restore that?"

FT: "Why would you think I can retrieve that any easier than the actual document?"

EC: "Well, it IS a BACKUP!"

(At this point I have to restrain myself from going Inigo Montoya on him.)

FT: "Nobody can fix this. Go talk to your supervisor."

EC: "Fine, and I'm going to tell him how unhelpful you were."

He stormed out. FT and I exchanged a final look somewhere equidistant between exasperation, amazement and amusement. EC did not graduate, although did put in several complaints and appeals, none of which were within a mile of being upheld. Based on the ability on display, I'm not sure handing in his dissertation would've made much difference to that outcome regardless.

TLDR; computing student destroys extant copy of dissertation, fundamentally misunderstands the nature of a backup and gets angry when a technician can't and won't glue a memory stick back together.