We have a consult in who seemed technically competent.  He spent all yesterday and today doing something in the command line and I distinctly remember seeing PuTTY, the command line, and WS_FTP.  Turns out he was trying to remote in from his laptop into the computer on his desktop.   Said computer had a keyboard, mouse and monitor already attached.  I was very much relieved that he was paid via one-time fee rather than per hour.